After the signing of the Nkomati Accord in March 1984, officials of the apartheid regime declared that the ANC had been dealt a 'body blow' and that the number of armed actions carried out by Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC, would decline. Contrary to the prediction, 1985 has seen a rapid escalation in the number of armed attacks.
The most significant feature of resistance over the past year has been a certain degree of merging between guerilla activity and forms of popular struggle, both apparently having entered a new phase.
Public statements by the ANC have presaged and reflected this change. The ANC declared 1985 to be the 'Year of the Cadre', and called for a strengthening of its underground structures to build up a popular armed force and to transform the armed actions it had been carrying out into a popular insurrection. This was to be achieved by rooting Umkhonto we Sizwe among the people and 'actively drawing the masses into the prosecution of a people's war'. Regularly in statements and radio broadcasts the ANC has called on 'fighting youth' to find ways of organising themselves into small units and to find ways of obtaining arms so that townships and other areas can be turned into 'no-go' areas.
The National Consultative Conference of the ANC, held in Zambia in June, confirmed that the organisation planned a substantial and immediate escalation of the armed struggle. The lack of forward bases in neighbouring states was not regarded as an obstacle. The conference also announced that in the light of township killings by the police and attacks on its personnel in frontline states, it would be difficult to distinguish between 'hard' and 'soft' targets. People who actively supported apartheid would in future become targets of attack.
The ANC's call for a 'people's war' appears to have had practical effect in the increase in the number of actions involving the use of military equipment in township protests. Hand grenades are being used to supplement petrol bombs in attacks on government buildings and the homes of township administrators and police. Grenades have been used with such regularity that it is no longer possible to document their use from press reports. The spread of the use of petrol bombs was reflected in the promulgation of regulations under the State of Emergency forbidding the siphoning and storage of petrol.
Guns have also been used with increasing frequency. Police have reported that shots have been fired at them on numerous occasions. Shots have also been fired at the houses of people considered to be collaborators. A number of military assault rifles are reported to have been stolen from troops patrolling black townships in the Eastern Cape and at least two youths have been imprisoned for such thefts.
Not only has there been an increase in the use of home-made and military weapons in the townships, but by June there had been more guerilla attacks throughout the country than the 44 recorded incidents in 1984. By the end of September 93 incidents had been recorded by the Institute of Strategic Studies of the University of Pretoria, 37 more than for the whole of 1983, the previous record year.
Guerilla attacks have also had a wider geographic spread than in previous years, taking place in all four provinces. Two new features have been the occurrence of major armed attacks in the bantustan areas and the use of land mines to disrupt the movement of military and police vehicles.
On 26 June co-ordinated attacks on key installations in Umtata, in the Transkei bantustan, disrupted services in the area for several days. The Zwelitsha Magistrates' Court in the Ciskei, the scene of many political trials in the area, was blasted by limpet mines on 2 August. Two days earlier police had been involved in a shootout with guerillas at a roadblock near Mount Ruth. One member of the Security Branch was killed and, allegedly, two of the guerillas.
At the end of November a number of vehicles including a police vehicle and an SADF troop carrier were blown up by landmines in the Northern Transvaal. Four police were injured in the blasts. The Minister of Foreign Affairs claimed that the mine attacks had been carried out by guerillas operating from Zimbabwe and threatened to carry out 'hot-pursuit' raids if the Zimbabwe government did not put a stop to the raids.
Attacks on economic installations and government buildings have continued, as in previous years. On 28 November guerillas fired a number of 122-mm rockets at the Sasol oil-from-coal refinery at Secunda. Police claimed that all the rockets missed their targets. The refinery was successfully attacked by ANC guerillas in 1980.
There have also been regular attacks on companies involved in disputes with unions and in mass dismissals of their workers. The timing of such attacks indicate that they can be mounted in quick response to events and that bases are well established inside the country.
A breakdown of the figures of armed incidents in the first nine months of 1985 provided by the Institute of Strategic Studies reveals the following: Two railway lines eight government and public buildings, six power installations, one fuel depot, 17 business properties, three private properties, three military buildings, three police stations and three water pipelines. Included in the Institute's figures were also 48 attacks on and/or killings of police, state witnesses and civilians most of which were not attributable to any organisation. The Minister of Law and Order announced in September that arms caches had been discovered in many parts of the country.
As the occupation of the townships by the police and army continued, growing support for armed resistance among the black population was evident. In spite of the dangers of doing so, 36 per cent of a sample of black respondents in a survey in September said that they supported armed struggle against the regime.
