OLIVER REGINALD TAMBO, leader of the African National Congress in exile for 30 years, died on 23 April 1993. Yet, his legacy lives on. Comrade O. R. left us a significant and enduring heritage: one that enhanced our new constitution, contributed to the inclusive and equitable policies of our democratically elected government, and affirmed the abiding vision of the ANC itself.
The African National Congress has produced leaders of the highest calibre, but Oliver Tambo, thoughtful, wise and warm-hearted, was perhaps the most loved. His simplicity, his nurturing style, and his genuine respect for all people seemed to bring out the best in them. Comrade O. R.’s life was remarkable for the profound influence he had on the ANC during the difficult years of uncertainty, loneliness and homesickness in exile. During his 50 years of political activity in the ANC, Comrade O. R. (as he affectionately came to be known) played a significant role in every key moment in the history of the movement, until his death. Oliver Tambo was a founder member and secretary of the ANC Youth League in 1944, the general secretary of the ANC from 1952, and was elected deputy president of the ANC in 1959. He was formally mandated by the ANC to be the leader of its Mission in Exile in 1960 and formally became the president of the ANC from 1977 until 1990. Then, on his return to South Africa, he was elected as national chairperson, a new position created specially for him, until his death in 1993.
Nkantolo landscape, showing the remains of the Tambo homestead
What shaped the life of Oliver Tambo? What values and life skills enabled him to make such an important and enduring impact on the history of the African National Congress and on our new, democratic South Africa? Two major processes in Comrade O. R.’s early life moulded his style in politics and leadership – his traditional rural roots and the expertise he acquired through education. Each experience was different, yet, O. R. combined them creatively to develop an approach that was able to reach and empower a broad mass of the people, both nationally and internationally.
Nkantolo homestead, Pondoland
One an early summer morning on 27 October 1917, in the small village of Nkantolo, about 20 kilometres from Mbizana Pondoland, a son was born to Mzimeni, son of Thambo, and his third wife, Julia.
Pondoland, known for its green, fertile and available land, had been the last chiefdom in South Africa to remain independent. The annexation of Pondoland had taken place within Oliver Tambo’s parents’ lifetime. It was an act that completed the process of colonial dispossession of South Africa. Oliver Tambo’s father was acutely conscious of that British assault on Pondoland: the naming of his son, ‘Kaizana’, after Britain’s powerful enemy, the Kaizer of Germany during World War One, was making a pointed statement.
The Tambo homestead was unusually large: ‘a big kraal, as distinct from a two-hut home, of which there were many’, remembered O. R. The homestead consisted of the paternal grandparents, their three sons, and their wives and children. Oliver’s father, Mzimeni, who was not a Christian, had four wives (though he married his youngest wife Lena only after his second wife died in labour). ‘It is a tribute to my father that family relationships were harmonious’, recalled O. R. The wives had an excellent relationship, and the 10 children were very close. Mzimeni was comfortably off. He owned at least 50 cattle at one time, several fine horses and an ox-wagon. Those resources led to trading and transport opportunities. Mzimeni was not literate – ‘my father had not seen the inside of a classroom.’ His prosperity was largely due to his own enterprise. Shrewd, creative and quick to seize an opening, Mzimeni sought and gained employment as an assistant salesman at the nearby trading store. That exposure to a more commercial economy taught Mzimeni a number of skills and widened his world.
A herdboy and his father, circa 1939
The Chief’s Great Place, Nkantolo. An ecstatic local community welcome O. R. on his arrival, January 1993
Two women in O. R.’s life, his mother Julia and his father’s third wife, were Christians. They also opened up new horizons. Oliver’s mother was a sociable and energetic person who could read and write. She established her home as the local headquarters of the Full Gospel Church. Tambo recalled occasions when there were large, bustling gatherings of worship in his mother’s hut. Eventually, perhaps because of her influence, Mzimeni converted to Christianity and had all of his dependents baptised.
In that somewhat large and busy homestead, Kaizana had an active, happy and traditional childhood.
From as early as three or four years old, young Kaizana was learning the essential skills of the rural economy and the practical discipline that went along with it. Tambo vividly recalled the duties of the small boys, describing their fairly heavy responsibilities in tending the calves and ensuring that the animals were permitted to suckle only after milking. As the boys grew older and were able to accept more responsibility, they were given the task of herding the cattle.
The trading store of Nkantolo. The village was named after the local post office – ‘die kantoor’ – the only one for miles around
The young Tambo took pride in taking responsibility for more grown-up tasks. He learnt to plough; he mastered the difficult craft of spanning a team of oxen. He taught them to obey commands ‘in such a way that the whole team pulled together’.
Everyone in the family contributed to the homestead economy. Work was practical and rewarding. Unlike labour in industrial society, it was not separated from home or community. Herding, like other productive activities, would be done in groups and would include social interaction and cooperation.
In a society where everyone knew almost everyone else, group pressure was a strong form of discipline. The Amapondo, like many polities in southern Africa, had a consensus approach to decision-making. Between headmen and the community, as well as between chiefs and the people, there was a balance of power. In his autobiography, former President Mandela recalled how, ‘at a council meeting, or imbizo, everyone was heard: chief and subject, warrior and medicine man, shopkeeper and farmer, landowner and labourer … It was democracy in its purest form.’
After thorough discussion, the chief and his advisers would get the feel of the meeting. Opponents of the plan were encouraged to speak out. Chiefs relied on their councillors to prevent them from acting contrary to popular will. That very sound practice of never straying too far away from their constituencies was to play a profoundly important role in the ANC style of leadership of both Tambo and Mandela.
By the time little Kaizana was old enough to herd, a cash economy had already begun to infiltrate the area. Regularly, young men from Kantolo would take the 25-kilometre trip to Mbizana, where there was a recruiting station for the coal mines in KwaZulu-Natal and the gold mines in Gauteng, in order to earn money for taxes. All of Oliver’s older brothers became wage labourers, both the traditionalists, such as Willy and Zakele, and the younger Christians such as Wilson and Alan. The migrant labour system was indeed an integral part of the homestead economy and became even more important when Mzimeni’s fortunes began to decline in the late 1920s.
Migrant labour also brought risk and adversity. The health of Wilson, Oliver’s older brother, was ruined when he contracted TB in the compounds of the sugar plantations in KZN and had to return home, permanently unfit for strenuous work. In about 1929, the Tambo family suffered a major tragedy: Oliver’s uncle and his older brother Zakele were killed in an underground fire in the Dannhauser Coal Mine. Aside from the heartbreak and personal anguish, the deaths of two healthy and productive members of the homestead were a severe economic blow and further hastened the decline of Oliver’s father’s prosperity. The tragic loss remained deeply imprinted in Oliver Tambo’s mind. Ultimately, Oliver was to devote his life to overturning the system of racial capitalism and cheap Black migrant labour that colonialism spawned.
Until the end of his life, O. R. remained deeply attached to his traditional culture. But thanks to the shrewd insight of his father, he also learned, with distinctions, the skills of the colonisers.
Although Mzimeni Tambo was a traditionalist, he also saw the value of Western education. Working in the trading store for many years, he had been impressed by two aspects of the white trader: that his learning enabled him to run an independent business and keep its books, and that his relative wealth gave him power and status. As Comrade O. R. observed:
People went to him to buy. He had a car, horses – he was a reference point to the community – and he had servants. In general, he was a chief in his own right. He certainly was something above the level of ordinary people. It was exactly this difference of levels that my father was targeting, in insisting that his children should go to school. — LULI CALLINICOS, OLIVER TAMBO: BEYOND THE ENGELI MOUNTAINS
On his first day, young Kaizana was asked to come to school with a new ‘English’ name. After his mother and father discussed it at length that evening, the little boy took his new name to his teacher. It was, he said, to be ‘Oliver’. The school teacher turned out to be very strict and would beat the children for the slightest offences. Oliver began to dread school and would find any excuse not to take the long 10-mile walk there. Mzimeni was so determined that his children should persevere that he moved them several times to other schools. As he grew older, Oliver began to want to leave home.
My age group, some of them, had left their homes, crossed the Umtamvuna and went to Natal to work – some in the plantations. And some were coming back, big stout chaps already. They were young men, and I was still going to this school. So I began to think in terms of leaving, escaping to go and work there as a garden boy or even in the sugar plantations. I would work there and bring back money to my parents – that’s what everyone else was doing. — LULI CALLINICOS, OLIVER TAMBO: BEYOND THE ENGELI MOUNTAINS
One day, when Oliver was about 11 years old, he met a lad who was in the debating society of another school. He and his friends were deeply impressed with the ease with which that youngster spoke English. That experience changed Oliver’s attitude to education. He had discovered in himself a love of discussion and debate, and English seemed to be the key to skills, independence and the power of knowledge.
Oliver Tambo visits his old classroom at the Holy Cross mission station, Flagstaff
Not long afterwards, Oliver was given the opportunity, through a family friend, to enrol at the missionary school at Flagstaff, called Holy Cross. By that time, Oliver’s father did not have money to pay the fees. But Oliver was so anxious to stay, that the school itself managed to find two kind English sisters who sent the sum of 10 pounds a year for his schooling. Oliver’s older brother, working as a migrant in faraway KwaZulu-Natal, also sent an additional amount from his hard-earned wages to make up the shortfall in the fees.
From then onwards, Oliver never looked back. Really motivated to learn now, he starred in class. After five years at Holy Cross, his teachers found him a place in the well-known Black school of St Peter’s in Johannesburg. Many years later, Comrade O. R. linked the kind deed of the English ladies to the international support ‘for those engaged in the struggle for liberation from oppression and the apartheid system in particular’ in the years to come.
Teachers and class of St Peter’s, 1936. Oliver Tambo is seated in the front row, second from the right
They were total strangers to us as we were to them. They intervened tirelessly to save the careers of two unknown youngsters who, but for their intervention, might have had to say goodbye to Holy Cross and goodbye to education as well as goodbye to a future of possible usefulness to humanity … They had stretched a couple of hands across the lands and oceans to the south of the continent of Africa to give aid and support to two unknown children. Two unknown African children. — LULI CALLINICOS, OLIVER TAMBO: BEYOND THE ENGELI MOUNTAINS
Oliver finished his schooling at St Peter’s in Johannesburg, a school that exposed him for the first time to boys from other provinces who spoke other African languages and also to fast-talking city youngsters. For the first time, in the streets of Johannesburg, he came into contact with race prejudice and segregation, but city life was to be his future. Within a year, first his mother and then his father passed away – at the age of 16, he was orphaned.
Oliver Tambo, Bachelor of Science, Fort Hare, 1941
His parents did not live to delight in their son gaining top marks in matric. In those days, all scholars in the Transvaal, Black and white, wrote the same examination. The Black press reported Oliver’s achievement with great pride: that the excellent scholar was from the Transkei, and that the Eastern Cape assembly of traditional leaders, the Bhunga, had granted Oliver a bursary of £30 a year to study at Fort Hare University.
Oliver decided to study science. There was an imbalance, he decided, in the Black professions: there were many more BA candidates than science students. Ideally, he had wanted to study medicine, but at the time, Black students were not accepted. Three years later, Oliver Tambo graduated with a BSc. degree in physics and maths. The following year, he enrolled for a diploma in higher education.
Oliver Tambo had a calm and quiet disposition, but he made an impact on his lecturers and fellow students. He was deeply religious, yet he was also an intellectual. His future friend, partner and comrade, Nelson Mandela, recalled his first impressions of Oliver:
I became a member of the Students Christian Association and taught bible classes on Sundays in neighbouring villages. One of my comrades on those expeditions was a serious young science scholar whom I had met on the soccer field. He came from Pondoland, in the Transkei, and his name was Oliver Tambo. From the start, I saw that Oliver’s intelligence was diamond-edged: he was a keen debater and did not accept the platitudes that so many of us automatically subscribed to. Oliver lived in Beda Hall, the Anglican hostel, and though I did not have much contact with him at Fort Hare, it was easy to see that he was destined for great things. — NELSON MANDELA, LONG WALK TO FREEDOM
Anton Lembede
Nelson Mandela
A. P. Mda
Oliver was elected chairperson of the Students’ Representative Council of his Anglican residence, Beda Hall. But before his last year at Fort Hare was through, he was expelled for organising a student protest on a point of principle. He then left the university and went home to Nkantolo, planning to look for a job – any job, for he had the younger members of the homestead to support. However, the news of his expulsion had reached his old school, St Peter’s, and they immediately offered him a post as a math’s master.
Walter Sisulu
Once again, Oliver was in Johannesburg; and once again, he was in the news among the Black community. In downtown Johannesburg, near Diagonal Street, was an estate agent called Walter Sisulu with an office that attracted the young Black elite – the teachers, lawyers, journalists and intellectuals who loved a good discussion on politics and life. Sisulu was keen to meet Tambo, and in due course, friends brought the brilliant scholar around. Tambo at once took to the slightly older man, who had not had much formal higher education but was seasoned in the hard knocks of city life and had acquired a wealth of wisdom and political insights. Sisulu was interested in marshalling the abilities of the young people who came to his office in the service of their community. At Sisulu’s office, Tambo met other like-minded young men: Anton Lembede, A. P. Mda, Jordan Ngubane, as well as a fellow student he remembered from Fort Hare: Nelson Mandela.
Those young men, including Walter Sisulu, began to visit regularly the Sophiatown home of Dr Xuma, the medical doctor who was also the president of the African National Congress. They were particularly attracted to the ANC because the organisation aimed to unite all of the Black nations of South Africa, regardless of language or ethnicity. The weakness of the ANC, they decided, was that it did not reach out to ordinary people. Its members tended to consist of chiefs, professionals and elites like themselves.
Oliver Tambo teaching physics at the St Peter’s laboratory, around 1946
Nevertheless, they agreed that the ANC was an organisation with a long tradition and an honourable nationalist vision that they felt they could work with. In 1943, the group decided on a plan of action to revive Congress. Meeting regularly at the Bantu Men’s Social Centre, they worked on a resolution to present to the next annual congress.
In 1944, the ANC Congress in Batho, Bloemfontein formally created the ANC Youth League and the Women’s League. Anton Lembede was elected chairman, Oliver Tambo secretary, and Walter Sisulu treasurer of the new organisation. Their vision of Africanism was broad and sweeping.
AFRICA’S CAUSE MUST TRIUMPH, declared the Youth League manifesto. We believe that the national liberation of Africans will be achieved by Africans themselves … We believe in the unity of all Africans from the Mediterranean Sea in the North to the Indian and Atlantic Oceans in the South … and that Africans must speak with one voice. — LULI CALLINICOS, OLIVER TAMBO: BEYOND THE ENGELI MOUNTAINS
Oliver Tambo as an articled clerk in his chambers
Chief Albert Luthuli, president of the ANC, with his general secretary, Oliver Tambo, at the ANC’s annual congress, Batho, Bloemfontein, 1951
The Youth League undertook to provide a three-year programme to mobilise the ordinary Black people of South Africa.
In the meantime, Tambo was making an enduring impact on his students at St Peter’s. Dozens of them remembered his distinctive, interactive and encouraging style of teaching, using methods that were well ahead of their time. Tambo inspired many to take up teaching, too. After hours, he introduced the concepts of the Youth League to his senior students. Some of them went on to join the movement and became prominent comrades. Among them were Andrew Mlangeni, Henry Makgothi, Duma Nokwe, Joe Matthews, Vella Pillay, Lucas Mangope and several others.
In 1948, the National Party was voted into power by the white electorate, and they immediately set about extending and introducing a host of racially discriminating laws. The existing pass laws were tightened up to control labour and the movement of Black people. Those laws needed to be challenged and resisted. Oliver Tambo decided to study law by correspondence, through Unisa, while continuing his teaching. After serving his articles, he qualified, and in 1952, joined Nelson Mandela to start an immensely successful firm of attorneys dedicated to assisting Black people against the oppressive apartheid legislation.
Chief Albert Luthuli was elected President of the ANC in 1953. The previous year, the Defiance Campaign, which defied ‘Six Unjust Laws’, had been successful in mobilising thousands of people. It also resulted in a spate of banning orders for its leaders. After Walter Sisulu was banned, Oliver Tambo became national secretary. During the remainder of the decade, he and Chief Luthuli, highly respected for his refusal to be ‘bought off’ as a chief by the apartheid regime, worked together on the ANC’s programme of mass campaigns. Tambo was deeply influenced by Luthuli’s simplicity and integrity.
‘The ANC is the parliament of the people,’ Luthuli declared. In 1955, the Congress of the People presented to the nation the Freedom Charter, which reflected the grassroots demands of a democratic South Africa. Oliver Tambo was a member of the National Action Committee who had drafted the clauses based on the popular vision. The following year, he, Luthuli, Mandela, Sisulu and 152 others were arrested for high treason; but after the preliminary hearings, O. R. and Chief Luthuli were acquitted. In the meantime, with the bulk of the ANC leadership still on trial, Tambo and Luthuli had to continue to lead the struggle. During that period, O. R. also updated the ANC constitution, presenting a more detailed, enlightened and inclusive vision based on the ANC’s formal acceptance of the Freedom Charter.
There were some Africanists within the ANC, though, who had a problem with that broader all-encompassing definition of the nation. They especially could not accept the Charter’s first clause: ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it.’ They were also unhappy with the formation of the ANC Alliance, which consisted of the South African Indian Congress, the South African Coloured People’s Organisation, the tiny white Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions. They felt that the ‘non-African’ organisations might easily come to dominate the ANC.
Eventually, after a noisy confrontation at a regional meeting in 1959, chaired by Oliver Tambo, they broke away and formed the Pan Africanist Congress.
The wedding of Oliver Tambo and Adelaide Tsukudu, December 1956. The Reverend Weyi, the bridegroom’s uncle, is standing next to the bride. Lilian Ngoyi can be seen in the back row, far right. The couple settled in Wattville (now in Ekurhuleni)
In December 1956, Oliver married Adelaide Tsukulu (pronounced ‘Tsukudu’), a Youth League activist and qualified nurse who worked at Baragwaneth Hospital (now renamed Baragwaneth-Chris Hani Hospital). The bridegroom had just been released on bail, charged with high treason.
In 1949, after O. R. left St Peter’s, he had gone to live with his aunt, Agnes Weyi (born Tambo), and uncle, the Reverend Weyi, in Wattville, Benoni. After the marriage, the Reverend managed to secure a house nearby for the couple at 2883 Maseko Street. It was a standard four-roomed township house with no inside doors, ceilings, bathroom, running water or electricity. It could never be theirs to own, but Oliver and Adelaide made improvements to the house over the next four years. During that time, two lovely babies were born to them. Despite the extreme modesty of their first home, the couple had many happy memories of Wattville.
Oliver Tambo was destined to see very little of his family once he went into exile. Adelaide Tambo became the breadwinner, working double shifts as a matron in a London hospital to provide for their children, Thembi, Dali and Tselane. She also made her home a place of refuge for ANC members arriving in the UK.
Oliver Tambo is met by the general secretary and executive secretary of the Danish Social Democratic Party, 1963
There is a danger that, in celebrating the lives of men, we do not properly acknowledge the central role of the women who maintained the households, raised the families and enabled their husbands to play a leading role in the movement. The ANC owes a great debt to them.
The photograph above shows Oliver Tambo in Denmark in 1963. Historic events had taken place during those last couple of years. On 21 March 1960, police fired on a crowd of people who gathered outside the Sharpeville police station to protest against passes. Sixty-nine people died on that day. The event unleashed a storm of protest both at home and abroad. Panicking, the apartheid government banned the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress and declared a state of emergency, jailing thousands of activists. Chief Luthuli, mandated by the ANC’s executive, then instructed Tambo to leave the country to set up a mission in exile in order to gather international support for the liberation movement.
Mandela, illegally out of South Africa, meets his comrade and partner, Oliver Tambo, in Addis Ababa, 1962
Once they met O. R., the Scandinavian countries proved to be among the most supportive (along with the Netherlands) of the Western countries. But it was not always plain sailing for the ANC. During the early period of the mission in exile, O. R. had to deal with many different countries with conflicting ideologies and policies. The governments of most Western countries were unhappy with the ANC’s willingness to work with the SACP and also its turn to armed struggle in 1962.
In Africa, the movement’s non-racial policy was seen as a drawback by many newly independent countries who had fought against white colonialism. It was thanks to O. R.’s obviously genuine commitment, his insight, understanding and his ability to articulate the ANC vision that negative images of the ANC were eventually dispelled.
Oliver Tambo arrives in Dar es Salaam, 1960. In the background is Frene Ginwala. Thanks to Julius ‘Mwalimu’ Nyerere, first President of Tanzania, O. R. was granted asylum
In the early years of exile, Oliver Tambo was a leading figure of the United Front, which was responsible for the exit of South Africa from the Commonwealth. Seen here in 1961 are O. R., Namibian resistance leader Fanuel Kozanguizi, Dr Dadoo, Trevor Huddleston and Nana Mahomo of the PAC
Comrade O. R. with students at the ANC’s Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College at Mazimbu, Tanzania, named in honour of the young cadre, 1976 MK ‘intake’ who returned to South Africa only to be apprehended and executed in 1977
Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres in training for the Luthuli Detachment’s first military battle against the combined forces of Vorster and Smith in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), 1967. After the arrest of Nelson Mandela and Wilton Mkwayi, O. R. became Supreme Commander of MK
In 1962, O. R. and Mandela were delighted to meet again. Mandela left South Africa illegally to help O. R. and the mission to raise support for the movement and explain the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the movement’s armed wing, to international supporters. Mandela then returned home to continue his struggle inside South Africa, underground.
Tambo, in the meantime, was campaigning ceaselessly for international sanctions against the apartheid regime. The ANC’s staunchest supporter was Father Trevor Huddleston, Oliver’s old friend from his St Peter’s days. Dr Dadoo, leader of the SACP, was also particularly responsive to that powerful economic weapon. The campaign grew to include the boycott of South African sports, arts, academic and all cultural interaction, as well as South African export products.
After the arrest of the bulk of the ANC leadership, including Mandela, the ANC was severely weakened internally. When Wilton Mkwayi was arrested and imprisoned, the position of supreme commander of MK was passed to O. R. in exile. The ANC set up its headquarters in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. That country’s head of state, Julius ‘Mwalimu’ Nyerere, generously donated land for MK’s use as well as any other programmes necessary for the ANC.
President Oliver Tambo mourns the massacre of 42 comrades and Basotho civilians at Maseru, Lesotho after a military attack by the apartheid regime, 1982
It was at Morogoro, Tanzania that the ANC was able to hold its first conference outside of South Africa, in 1969. That conference was sanctioned by the leadership on Robben Island and was O. R.’s constructive response to criticism by cadres who were impatient to return home to wage the armed struggle inside.
One of the leading protesters was Chris Hani, who had been jailed for two years in Botswana following the ambitious military campaign to invade South Africa via the hostile territory of Rhodesia through Wankie. ‘I blew my top,’ Chris Hani remembered. While much of the leadership was furious with Hani’s outburst and wanted to discipline him severely, it was O. R. who was able to overlook the provocation and listen to the points Hani was making. The outcome of the Morogoro Conference was a significant step forward. The Conference agreed that in future, political interest would take precedence over the military, and a Revolutionary Council (RC) would be formed to give direction. The non-racial composition of the RC, though, proved to be a problem for a small, Africanist group of middle-level membership. After many discussions with O. R., they were unable to come to terms with the inclusion of ‘non-Africans’ in the structures. Eventually, the Group of Eight, as they were called, broke away.
It was to the credit of O. R., and the general esteem with which he was held, that the split was contained and did not spread further. Tambo was, as so many exiles have confirmed, the ‘glue’ that held the movement together during the most difficult and frustrating years in exile.
Back home, people were continuing to be subjected to apartheid policies, but they were beginning to fight back. The trade unions were revived and then the schoolchildren held a massive protest in Soweto. The tragedy of 16 June 1976, with the shooting of the schoolchildren and its aftermath, impacted strongly on the ANC. Many hundreds of schoolchildren fled South Africa and made their way to the liberation movements in exile, particularly to the ANC in Dar es Salaam – they had heard of MK and wanted to fight the apartheid system. Tambo immediately began to raise funds from the international community to give those children shelter and education. As a successful and dedicated teacher himself, O. R. was most concerned that those young exiles should first complete their schooling before joining the military struggle. With the help of comrades, O. R. initiated the Luthuli Foundation, which allocated bursaries to serious students, placing them in friendly countries around the world.
In 1982, the apartheid regime targeted ANC houses in Maseru where 42 men, women and children were killed, including 12 Basotho civilians. The bombing was part of a widespread, murderous destabilisation campaign against neighbouring countries who lent support to the ANC. Particularly threatening to South Africa was the sustenance the ANC received from socialist countries, including Cuba. The South African Defence Force (SADF) embarked on a series of invasions into Angola with the encouragement of the USA. It aimed to drive out Cuban troops who had responded to the elected Angolan government’s call for assistance as well as to smash the MK camps. A series of bombing attacks and pitched battles occurred. At Cuito Cuanavale, MK helped to defeat the SADF. That was an enormous psychological victory for MK. But from then onwards, the struggle began to escalate.
In response to the penetration of selected cadres into South Africa, the SADF unleashed a series of raids on neighbouring countries. Those included the bombing of civilian as well as MK targets in Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho. Despite the very real threat to his life, O. R. unexpectedly appeared in Maseru, Lesotho – so dangerously close to South Africa’s borders – to attend the funeral and to grieve along with the families and comrades of those who were massacred.
The almost unbearable strain began to affect the movement. The apartheid government sent an ultimatum to the neighbouring countries: expel the ANC or more raids would follow. The ANC was obliged to withdraw from some countries. It was becoming clear that the liberation movement had been infiltrated by informers and askaris. Suspects were questioned and a number found guilty. In some camps, frustration and uncertainty introduced a climate of suspicion, even paranoia. Eventually, the mistreatment of dissidents came to the attention of O. R., and he appointed a committee of investigation, and finally the abuses were curtailed. The committee was also instructed to formulate a code of conduct for MK and the ANC. A Bill of Rights followed to prevent that appalling relapse into inhumanity from ever happening again.
Oliver Tambo with his ANC delegation – including chief ANC representative for the Scandinavian countries, Lindiwe Mabuza (middle right), and Thabo Mbeki (far right) – visits a mine in Sweden
Tambo was always very conscious of human rights. He was foremost among those who advocated rights for women in the movement and asked the ANC Women’s League to help liberate men who still harboured attitudes of inequality of the sexes. Today’s constitution is an acknowledgement of O. R.’s highlighting gender sensitivity in the ANC nearly 15 years before democracy in South Africa. Perhaps one of his most well-known speeches is remembered for its gentle humour in his challenge to ANC women to take pride in their insights and skills, and to men to appreciate the women and share the load in struggle and life together:
Women in the ANC should stop behaving as if there was no place for them above the level of certain categories of involvement. They have a duty to liberate us men from antique concepts and attitudes about the place and role of women in society and the development and direction of our revolutionary struggle. In fear of being a failure, Comrade Lindiwe Mabuza cried … when she learnt she had been appointed ANC Chief Representative to the Scandinavian countries. But, looking at the record, could any man have done better? — O. R. TAMBO’S SPEECH TO THE WOMEN’S SECTION OF THE ANC, LUANDA, ANGOLA, 1981.
An ANC delegation – Henry Makghoti, Alfred Nzo, Thomas Nkobi and Oliver Tambo – hosted by the Netherlands government at The Hague, 1977. Europe’s most liberal and democratic governments gave ready support to the ANC
Oliver Tambo was always supremely aware of the value of spelling out clearly the policy of the movement, both to conscientise its members as well as to provide clear guidelines to its representatives in difficult situations. The ANC formally subscribed to the Geneva protocols. It also again revised and updated its constitution. In the preparations for the changes, O. R. made extensive contributions to the guidelines for the Commission on the Constitution. In the ANC’s Bill of Rights, O. R. was also instrumental in foregrounding children’s rights and firmly declared a principled tolerance of sexual orientation.
Oliver Tambo, accompanied by Thabo Mbeki, meeting with Gorbachev, leader of the USSR, in 1986. During the early years, the socialist bloc were the only countries willing to support the ANC’s armed struggle. Their solidarity alienated many Western countries from the ANC, however
Looking ahead, O. R. made a firm policy statement on the necessity for a multi-party democracy after liberation in which there would be freedom of speech, of assembly, of association, of language and religion. That was an alternative to the one-party state model adopted by many independent African countries.
As mass resistance to so-called apartheid ‘reforms’ inside South Africa escalated in the 1980s, O. R. broadcast regularly on Radio Freedom. He called for a people’s war against apartheid. The democratic labour movement, civic organisations, the National Education Crisis Committee, women’s and youth groups and other anti-apartheid organisations banded together to form the United Democratic Front. Tambo urged them to make the apartheid system ungovernable. State violence rapidly increased in order to suppress popular resistance to apartheid ‘reforms’. For example, the apartheid government introduced a ‘tricameral parliament’ that consisted of whites, Coloureds and Indians only; it also introduced new dummy local councils in the townships. Assassinations, tortures, deaths in detention, troops in the townships, and weekly funerals were met with mounting anger.
O. R. discusses a photograph at a United Nations exhibition on apartheid to UN representative E. S. Reddy. Looking on are Joel Netshitenze and Thabo Mbeki. Tambo’s unwavering campaign directed at United Nations member countries eventually led to the formal declaration of apartheid as ‘a crime against humanity’
O. R. with delegates at a conference of the Organisation of African Unity, 1980s. As the ANC’s reputation grew, its president, O. R. Tambo, was increasingly treated as a head of state by the OAU
Oliver Tambo unveils a statue of Nelson Mandela, erected by the Greater London Council, 1985. Actively encouraged by O. R., Mandela became a world-wide symbol of the political prisoners on Robben Island and their resistance to apartheid
At the ANC conference held in Kabwe in 1985, a sober assessment of the ‘structural violence of apartheid’ led to a decision to step up the armed struggle. Oliver Tambo continued to maintain the moral high ground, emphasising that civilian loss of life was still to be avoided. But henceforth, military personnel and military officials would no longer be excluded in sabotage attempts. Nevertheless, O. R. did not attempt to deny or ‘sanitise’ mistakes. A car bomb aimed at a military target that killed four civilians distressed him and he condemned the error as ‘inexcusably careless’. He pointed out, though, that the violence of apartheid was the cause of those incursions in the first place.
In 1985, following P. W. Botha’s offer to release Nelson Mandela provided he renounced violence, Zindzi Mandela read her father’s response at Jabulani Stadium in Soweto in which he affirmed his unconditional solidarity with Oliver Tambo
At the Children’s Conference held in Harare in 1987 to gather evidence on the widespread imprisonment of children, O. R. denounced the grisly method of necklacing. On behalf of the ANC leadership, he called on guerrillas to set an example by avoiding civilian casualties.
The economic weapon continued to be a major campaign, and O. R.’s years of patient diplomacy and warm relations with anti-apartheid movements in Western Europe and North America began to pay off. Sanctions and divestment campaigns among students, the churches, the African-American community, the trade unions and other progressive organisations in civil society were widely publicised, putting pressure on conservative governments to act against apartheid. Fundraising campaigns and concerts reached a wide range of the public. Almost reluctantly, the conservative Reagan and Thatcher governments in the USA and the UK began to seek audience with the ANC leadership – they could no longer ignore the powerful popular support that the ANC enjoyed in South Africa, or indeed the international symbol that the movement had become, against the scourge of racism that existed throughout the world.
The president of the ANC, 1987, showing signs of strain as the struggle began to escalate on all fronts. In August 1989, Comrade O. R. suffered a severe stroke
Similarly at home, more and more groups of people – Afrikaner intellectuals, various professionals, white trade unionists, sporting representatives and delegations from a variety of organisations – began to make the pilgrimage to the ANC’s headquarters in Lusaka.
During the turbulent 1980s, the war on many fronts also included the issue raised by O. R. early in 1985: talks with the enemy. He had outlined the necessary conditions to enable negotiations to take place: first, he said, a clear mandate would be necessary from the ANC inside the country; second, the agenda would need to begin with talks on the dismantling of the apartheid system itself. At about that time, Mandela was turning over in his mind the prospect of talks. But he also firmly and publicly rejected P. W. Botha’s offer, made in Parliament, to release Mandela provided he renounced violence. Lest there be doubts about his intentions, Madiba (Mandela’s clan name) wrote a speech that his daughter Zindzi read out to an excited public gathering at Jabulani Stadium in Orlando, Soweto:
I am a member of the African National Congress. I have always been a member of the African National Congress, and I will remain a member of the African National Congress until the day I die. Oliver Tambo is more than a brother to me. He is my greatest friend and comrade for nearly fifty years. If there is one amongst you who cherishes my freedom, Oliver Tambo cherishes it more, and I know that he would give his life to set me free.
Back home at last, a joyous reunion for Tambo and Mandela
Echoing his comrade Oliver Tambo’s sentiments, he went on:
Let [Botha] renounce violence. Let him say that he will dismantle apartheid. Let him unban the people’s organisation, the African National Congress. Let him free all who have been imprisoned, banished or exiled for their opposition to apartheid. Let him guarantee free political activity so that people may decide who will govern them. — NELSON MANDELA, LONG WALK TO FREEDOM.
Once the possibility of negotiations became more likely, it fell on the ANC in exile to present the ANC’s strategy for negotiations to its members and the world. Under Tambo’s guidance, a team prepared the Harare Declaration to be presented to the African State. The schedule was gruelling. As always, O. R. worked late into the night finalising the document, which required careful explanation. In the previous few years, his health had been visibly taxing him. In 1982, he had suffered a mild stroke and his medical advisers pleaded with him to ease up on his work. Instead, he pledged to the movement that he would continue to work ceaselessly for freedom until the day he died. On 9 August 1989, as the delegation returned from its intensive presentations of the Harare Declaration, O. R. collapsed. He was rushed by plane, arranged by President Kenneth Kaunda, from Lusaka to London. He had suffered a severe stroke.
While O. R. lay in hospital, events occurred in quick succession. Within a few months, the ANC was unbanned and Mandela and other leading political prisoners were released. As soon as he could, Mandela journeyed to Sweden, where O. R. was recuperating, to meet his old friend after nearly 30 years of separation.
Though we had been apart for all the years that I was in prison, Oliver was never far from my thoughts. In many ways, even though we were separated, I kept up a lifelong conversation with him in my head.
Their reunion was joyous.
Comrade O. R., home again at his sister’s house in Kantolo, gazing upon the Engeli mountains, January 1993
When we met, we were like two young boys in the veld who drew strength from our love for each other. — NELSON MANDELA, LONG WALK TO FREEDOM.
In December 1990, Tambo returned home. Speaking haltingly at the first Congress inside South Africa since the banning of the ANC 30 years earlier, he reported on the mission that he had been mandated to undertake. He was able to deliver the ANC, united and successful. Many years had passed, entailing much pain, sacrifice and the loss of many lives, but the movement’s major principles remained intact. At the Congress, Mandela was elected president of the ANC with Oliver Tambo as national chairman, a position created especially for him.
In his remaining three years back home, O. R. delighted in spending time at his sister’s homestead in Nkantolo, gazing at the mountains. Years earlier, in exile, he had longed to see that faraway, ever-present landscape of his childhood again. The mountain range, he said, had a special significance for him.
Looking out from my home, the site of it commanded a wide view of the terrain as it swept from the vicinity of my home and stretched away as far the eye could see – the panorama bordered on a high range of mountains that were faced looking out from home. The Engeli Mountains were a huge wall that rolls in the distance to mark the end of very broken landscape, landscape of great variety, and looking back now, I would say of great beauty … But the nagging question was, what lay beyond the Engeli Mountains? Just exactly what was there? How far would one be able to walk over the mountains to Egoli, Johannesburg? What sort of world would it be? What did it conceal from my view?
I saw two worlds. The one in the vicinity of my home. This was my world. I understood it from my mother’s rondavel … I was part of this world. There was obviously another one beyond the Engeli Mountains. — LULI CALLINICOS, OLIVER TAMBO: BEYOND THE ENGELI MOUNTAINS.
In the early hours of 23 April 1993, Oliver Tambo suffered a massive, fatal stroke. His death came a mere two weeks after the murder of one of his most talented apprentices, Chris Hani. The shock of the assassination, as well as the very real threat of national mayhem narrowly averted, may well have hastened his demise.
Oliver Tambo was accorded a state funeral. Scores of friends and heads of state from the international community – East, West and non-aligned – journeyed to bid him farewell with great respect and deep affection. Oliver Tambo, after many years of toil and conscientious care, had led his people, like Moses, to the top of the mountain range. He did not live to see the other side.
Precisely a year after his death, the South African nation went to the polls in the first-ever democratic election. The African National Congress won an overwhelming victory. The people of South Africa had cast their vote of confidence in the ANC and the legacy that its leaders had imprinted on its vision. That was the moment for which Oliver Tambo willingly gave his life.
Tambo gets his wings: workers replace signs to the airport now known as O. R. Tambo International
The ‘Madiba magic’, followed by two decades of riveting opportunities, disputes and challenges to democratic government have tended to overshadow the role of Oliver Tambo who played such a crucial part in freeing South Africa from the grip of apartheid. Without him and his close collaborator, Nelson Mandela, the revolution might well eventually have gone ahead, but it probably would have suffered a full-on civil war scarring generations with destruction. Instead, South Africa’s slower transition has seen a restoration of dignity and at least some day-to-day improvements for many people, yet not enough redistribution of wealth, education, health and housing to touch the lives of millions. Surprisingly few, rather than the many, have benefited from the ANC’s relatively peaceful transition. Remarkably, Tambo, as he acquired more knowledge of the decades of freedom from colonialism, observed time and again the many contradictions that could present themselves to the parties in power. Indeed, 17 years before democracy, O. R. had insightfully warned his movement to listen and learn:
Comrades, you might think it is very difficult to wage a liberation struggle. Wait until you are in power. By then, you will realise that it is actually more difficult to keep the power than to wage a liberation war (cited by Minister Jeff Radebe, Tambo’s speech in Luanda, Angola, 1977).
Working closely with his comrades in exile, at home and on Robben Island, O. R. employed the time-honoured style of consensus and collective decision-making after listening carefully to all opinions. During the over 50 years of dedicated service to his people, Tambo became the interpreter of the revolution: its teacher, its moral compass and its mediator. Oliver Tambo’s ideas live on in our constitution, which is admired around the world for its democratic and cooperative values and its vision for a just, inclusive and equitable society.
At a time when we are taking stock and preparing for the challenges of the next democratic phase of our history, it is essential to reflect on the heritage that Oliver Tambo – revolutionary thinker, humanist, strategist and mentor – has bequeathed to South Africa. Above all, O. R. continues to be the exemplar of consistent integrity … and arising from that essential quality of leadership, one of South Africa’s most trusted leaders to have stood the test of time.
It is our responsibility to break down barriers of division and create a country where there will be neither whites nor blacks, just South Africans, free and united in diversity.
OLIVER TAMBO, 1990
