OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 2.00pm.
THE Pan Africanist Congress is to dissolve its military wing, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army.
SABC television reported on Saturday that the party decided at a pre-election congress in Johannesburg on Saturday that the Apla, which suspended its armed struggle in 1994, will be formally dissolved next year. It will hold its final parade in March.
The PAC claims Apla has about 20000 members.
The PAC, which split from the African National Congress in 1959, formed Apla in 1961.
The army received training and assistance from China and several African countries, including Egypt, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, and initially targeted whites, policemen and suspected collaborators.
It shot to prominence in 1990, after the ANC’s MK abandoned the armed struggle. During the Truth and Reconciliation Committee hearings it emerged that Apla members were responsible for the attacks on St James Church in Cape Town and the Highgate Hotel in East London in the Eastern Cape among others.
Apla began integrating into the new South African National Defence Force in 1994. The ANC’s military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe and five other military forces also joined the new army. — AFP