remains in the country. The task of the local movement is tonhelp direct the outside attack—and also to make it seem tonbe a local revolution and not a foreign aggression [Italicsnmine].”nFischer had good reason not to count on wide popularndefiance within South Africa, for until 1976, there had notnbeen much of it. In fact, the SACP and the ANC turned tonviolence to compel adherence to “mass” demonstrationsnafter the “complete” failure of a stay-at-home campaignnheld May 29-31, 1961, when South Africa became anrepublic. This was the testimony given at Mandela’s trial inn1963-1964 by one of the first members of the ANC’snterrorist wing: “The leaders concluded that the mainnmistake lay in telling the people not to use violence innpicketing in order to intimidate those who were inclined tongo to work.”nLater in 1961, the SACP imposed terrorism on the ANCnwithout its consent or even knowledge, as Hlapane testified:n”The military arm of the ANC, also known as Umkhontonwe Sizwe, was the brainchild of the SACP, and after thendecision to create it had been taken, Joe Slovo and J.B.nMarks were sent by the Central Committee of the SACP tonMoscow to organize arms and ammunition and to raisenfunds for Umkhonto we Sizwe.”nHlapane also made it clear that in the 50’s the SACPncontrolled the ANC: “During the period that I served in thenANC and the SACP, no major decisions could be taken bynthe ANC without the concurrence and approval of thenCentral Committee of the SACP. Most major developmentsnwere in fact initiated by the Central Committee.” Asnan example of the SACP’s manipulation, not only of thenANC, but of other front groups, Hlapane gave the FreedomnCharter, still the programmatic document of the ANC. ThenFreedom Charter had been drafted by the SACP withoutnthe knowledge of the about three thousand delegates whonapproved it without discussion in 1955.nThe ease with which SACP manipulated other organizationsnalso astonished a young South African student whoninfiltrated the SACP in the early 60’s: “During the monthsnthat followed [in 1963] I really did experience at first handnhow easily secret Communist Party members on frontncommittees can run non-Communist bodies by good tacticalnmaneuvering on a committee — with the non-Communistsnnever guessing that they are in fact Red puppets.” Henalso explained SACP dependence on fronts: “The mainntactic of Communist organizations, wherever they are sadlynoutnumbered, is to form a ‘wide front’ — a front comprisingnall the left-wing liberal elements they can persuade to worknwith them.”nIn recent years the ANC and the SACP have manipulatednvast fronts, not only to create the appearance of annimminent revolution abroad, but to destroy men andnorganizations that wanted change but not the overthrow ofnthe government. For instance, the United DemocraticnFront, recently identified by a South African court as annANC front, made “No” to reform its defining characteristic,nfor it opened itself to all, blacks and whites, except thosenwilling to work within the system. Buthelezi’s rule of thumbnfor identifying ANC fronts within South Africa is supportnfor divestment. ANC and SACP fronts have played a crucialnrole abroad, especially in Great Britain through the Anti-nApartheid Movement, with well-documented connectionsnwith the SACP and the British CP, and in the United Statesnthrough TransAfrica and many other organizations. Theneffectiveness of the ANC’s manipulation of its fronts in thenUnited States showed in the Comprehensive Anti-ApartheidnAct, passed over President Reagan’s veto on October 2,n1986: almost all the provisions of the CAA Act had beennmade in the ANC’s “Appeal to the World Community,”nissued at a conference openly called a “Council of War” innLusaka, Zambia, from June 15 to 23, 1985.nWe welcome revolutions becausenthe fear of war is so strong in us thatnwe cannot distinguish just wars fromnunjust (except in Afghanistan). We takenrevolutions for change, but they arenactually our word for conquest that willnnot call itself by its proper name.nIn contrast to Hlapane, other witnesses had known a timenwhen there was defiance in South Africa and also SouthnWest Africa, the defiance the ANC and the SACP frontsnseek to exploit and crush. Here people had rebelled on theirnown, on nobody’s instructions. After the upheavals innSoweto and elsewhere in South Africa in 1976, people hadnwandered out of South West Africa and South Africa tonBotswana and Angola. Abroad they had been forced ornenticed into SWPO and the ANC, often with promises ofntraining and education. Before they knew it, they werencaught in terrorist training camps in Zambia or Angola ornTanzania, and some of them were shipped to the SovietnUnion or Cuba or East Germany — not the education theynexpected. At first impressed by Marxism-Leninism, theynbegan to see through its rigidity, especially when they werenkept from worship or forbidden friendships or forced tonbreak with their girlfriends. Their defiance made thendifference between murder and the fight for change plain tonthem. They were not about to be turned into killers, andnthey knew they were being used.nThese people were the first to know the struggle betweennviolence against change and change that has gripped SouthnAfrica since 1984: escape from ANC or SWPO campsnmeant risking death. So did criticism. Kave, the mostneloquent of them, and the one who suffered most, summednup this struggle in a sentence that one day may tell thenhistory of the West: “Now I believe that people arenblackmailed to be Communists.” By blackmail she meantnnot only the attempts to force her generation to turnnCommunist, but also the internationalization of the strugglenagainst South Africa that 20 years before Fischer had callednthe “attack from the outside.” “The worst thing that I couldnnot reconcile with was working with other known terroristnorganizations. They may be fighting maybe for a just causenin their countries, but I do not have the facts about thenhistory of those countries.” How many people anywherenknow enough to know the difference between what theynknow and do not know? nnnJUNE 1989/21n