Umkhonto we Sizwe : Ask Biography

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Umkhonto we Sizwe (or MK), translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961. It was subsequently classified as a terrorist organization by the South African government and the United States, and banned.

For a time it was headquartered in Rivonia, a suburb of Johannesburg. On 11 July 1963, 19 ANC and MK leaders, including Arthur Goldreich and Walter Sisulu, were arrested at Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia ( ). The farm was privately owned by Arthur Goldreich and bought with SACP and ANC funds, as individuals who were not deemed "White" were unable to own such a property under the Group Areas Act. This was followed by the Rivonia Trial, in which ten leaders of the ANC were tried for 221 acts of sabotage designed to "foment violent revolution". Wilton Mkwayi, chief of MK at the time, escaped during trial.

The MK carried out numerous bombings of civilian, military, industrial and infrastructural sites. The tactics were initially geared solely towards sabotage, but eventually expanded to include urban guerrilla warfare. Notable among these were the 8 January 1982 attack on the Koeberg nuclear power plant near Cape Town, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the formation of the ANC, the Church Street bombing on 20 May 1983, killing 19, and the 14 June 1986 car-bombing of Magoo's Bar in Durban, in which 3 people were killed and 73 injured. The total number of people killed or injured in the 30 years of MK's campaigns is not known exactly. MK alone was not a military threat to the apartheid state, but the ANC leadership saw MK as the armed component of a strategy of "people's war" that was primarily geared towards mobilizing mass political support.

MK suspended operations on 1 August 1990 in preparation for the dismantling of apartheid, and was finally integrated into the South African National Defence Force by 1994.