Voices from the underground: eighteen llife stories from umkhonto we sizwe's ashley kriel detachment

In 1987, the apartheid minister of law and order boasted that the security forces had crushed Umkhonto we Sizwe in the Western Cape. He could not have been more wrong. The Ashley Kriel Detachment, named after one of their slain comrades, conducted over thirty operations between late 1987 and early 1990, playing a crucial role in the defeat of an unjust system. In Voices from the Underground, eighteen members of the AKD give accounts of their involvement in the armed struggle. The book traces their varying journeys into MK, via student activism, trade unions, religious organisations and UDF politics. It details their training in Angola, Botswana, Tanzania, Cuba and South Africa, and their experiences of detention and interrogation. Members recall the stresses of couriering arms and explosives across police roadblocks, hiding in safe houses and evading capture. They talk about the operations they executed, the measures they took to avoid civilian casualties, and their responses to security breaches and the deaths of comrades in the line of duty. Above all, this is a book about people, showing the effects of apartheid on their lives, their reasons for joining the armed struggle, the challenges of surviving in the underground while raising children, and their experiences of returning to civilian life or, in some cases, integrating into the SANDF. Voices from the Underground gives a human face to ordinary people who took up arms to fight a violent state for the freedom of all South Africans. In 1987, the apartheid minister of law and order boasted that the security forces had crushed Umkhonto we Sizwe in the Western Cape. He could not have been more wrong. The Ashley Kriel Detachment, named after one of their slain comrades, conducted over thirty operations between late 1987 and early 1990, playing a crucial role in the defeat of an unjust system. In Voices from the Underground, eighteen members of the AKD give accounts of their involvement in the armed struggle. The book traces their varying journeys into MK, via student activism, trade unions, religious organizations and UDF politics. It details their training in Angola, Botswana, Tanzania, Cuba and South Africa, and their experiences of detention and interrogation. Members recall the stresses of couriering arms and explosives across police roadblocks, hiding in safe houses and evading capture. They talk about the operations they executed, the measures they took to avoid civilian casualties, and their responses to security breaches and the deaths of comrades in the line of duty. Above all, this is a book about people, showing the effects of apartheid on their lives, their reasons for joining the armed struggle, the challenges of surviving in the underground while raising children, and their experiences of returning to civilian life or, in some cases, integrating into the SANDF. Voices from the Underground gives a human face to ordinary people who took up arms to fight a violent state for the freedom of all South Africans. Voices from the Underground takes the reader inside the ANC's military underground in the mid- to late 1980s, during the height of the apartheid regime's violent crackdown on political activism. In this book, eighteen members of Umkhonto we Sizwe's Ashley Kriel Detachment, which operated primarily in the Western Cape, tell their stories for the first time. From smuggling arms across the Botswana border to setting off a limpet mine inside the Castle of Good Hope, participants in the armed struggle speak about the operations they carried out, the tactics they employed, the victories they achieved and the hardships they endured, including the deaths of comrades at the hands of the police and the immense burden of living a double life. This collection of memoirs sets out the various journeys undertaken by each member of the detachment on the road to becoming a soldier of the revolution, and reveals the reasons why these ordinary people took the extraordinary step of dedicating their lives to fighting for freedom no matter the cost.