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South African General Timeline 1976

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January 1976, a group of people with Mosima Sexwale are taken by two cars a Fiat and a Soviet-origin vehicle to Dar es Salaam Airport where they flew in a large plane to Moscow.

February, Siphiwe Nyanda tells his parents about his plan to leave the country.

February, Jacob Zuma came back from Swaziland to visit Samson Lukhele in Mahlabatini in Natal. Zuma tells Lukhele that he has people he would like to be transported by Lukhele and the people are in Durban.

February, Stanley Nkosi and Kgalema Montlante are transported with masks on in a car near Manzini in Swaziland to Tim Maseko’s  house who is the principal of St Christopher’s school.

February, Jacob Zuma  went  back to Mahlabathini and tells Samson Lukhele  that everything he needs has been granted  including the transportation of the people will also be provided by Mr Mdluli.

 10 March, South African cabinet Jimmy Kruger, Owen Horwood, Connie Mulder, Marais Steyn, Andries Treurnicht, Piet Koornhof, Punt Janson, Hilgard Muller and Hennie Smit receive copies of pamphlets titled ‘The African National Congress says to Vorster and his racist regime’, which claims that South Africa and its Western allies were caught out trying to recolonise Africa.

18 March, Joseph Mdluli accompanies his relative, Jabulani Mdluli and two other boys, Sibongiseni Vilakazi and Sipho Makhubo by bus to Durban.

18 March, Jabulani Mdluli, Sibongiseni Vilakazi, Sipho Makhubo,Sipho Chiliza, Bheki Miya, Bafana Khuxwayo and Sifiso Mapanza are transferred by a white Land Rover to a single-storey house opposite Methodist church located high on a hill at the end of a twisting end road, in an area called Fairview.

19 March, Samson Lukhele is arrested by the South African Police.

20 March, Security policemen arrive at Joseph Mdluli’s house in Lamontville and tell his wife that her husband died in police custody.

21 March, The ANC commemorates the 16th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre.

21 March,Timothy Peter Jenkin a South African writer and political prisoner known as Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee are on the observation deck at the top floor of the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg.

25 March, Major Jacobus de Swardt accompanies Samson Lukhele to the crossing point on the Pongola-Piet Retief road where the deliveries on 11 and 18 March took place.

22 April, Stanley Nkosi is arrested by the South African Police.

1 July, Elias Masinga, a South African Student Movement Regional Committee member who was present during the 16  June protests, is arrested when he was about to cross  the border of Mozambique.

5 July, L.M Mpotokwane, the permanent secretary in Botswana president Seretse Khama’s office receives a letter from the country’s security Branch chief.

24 July, John Nkadimeng leaves the country for Swaziland.

9 September, Empraim Mfalapitsa is met by two ANC officials, known as Isaac Makopo and Keith Mokoape in Gaborone prison.

1 October, Solomon Mahlangu arrives at the Pretoria station and find his friend Stephen Nkosi waiting for him.

October,Thomas Masuku another friend of Solomon Mahlangu arrives at the Pretoria station.

17 October, Selaelo Ramusi and Naledi Tsiki have been accommodated at an isolation plot on Manzini’s eastern outskirt near to Mozambique.

19 October, Selaelo Ramusi and Naledi Tshaka arrive at Kaapmuiden where they meet with Simon Mohlanyaneng, Alios Manci and a driver called ‘Mandla’, who conveys them back to the border area in the green Passat.

October, Selaelo Ramusi amd Naledi Tsiki ask Moses Mabhida to be allowed to enter South Africa on a permanent basis.

26 November, Twenty five cadre including Ephraim Mfalapitsa,Roderick Dhlamini, Abel Maake and Isaac Maroe board an East African Airways flight to Angola.

November, Ian Deway Rwaxa transport Elias Masinga, Murphy Morobe and Billy Masetha from Soweto to the Nerston border post.

30 December, Ian Deway Rwaxa was last seen lying in the backseat of a police vehicle with bloodstained clothes and swollen face. The vehicle was driven by a Lieutenant Coetzee in the direction of Krugersdorp.

References

Thula Simpson: Umkhonto We Sizwe The ANC’s Armed Struggle (Cape Town: Penguin Random House, 2016) p.199-219

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