Word: umkhonto
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...many hats. A lawyer by training, he became in 1985 the first white to serve on the executive committee of the ANC, whose dedication to the abolition of apartheid has made the organization illegal in South Africa. Slovo is also chief of staff in the ANC's military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), a position that puts him in the cockpit of the ANC's campaign of terrorism...
...wealth instead of merely redistributing existing assets. While refusing to promise that South Africa's whites would be granted special "minority rights" protection under a black majority, Tambo avoided the harsh rhetoric that marked his speeches in 1986, which the A.N.C. had proclaimed the year of its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation...
Ironically, this newly gained stature comes at a time of deepening militancy on the A.N.C.'s part that would ordinarily discourage feelers from the West. Last January the A.N.C.'s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, in Xhosa), called for a full-scale "people's war" against the white rulers of South Africa. Having confined its guerrilla strikes in the past mainly to government buildings and military installations, the A.N.C. warned that now "civilians will get caught in the cross fire...
...During one such protest at Sharpeville near Johannesburg in 1960, police opened fire on the demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding more than 100. The A.N.C. and the rival Pan Africanist Congress (P.A.C.), which organized the protest, were banned and went underground. The A.N.C.'s militant wing, known as Umkhonto We Sizwe (Zulu for Spear of the Nation) began to undertake increasingly bold acts of sabotage...