EXTRACT | Solomon’s sacrifice

On June 16 1976, Soweto erupted. Earlier that year, students at several schools in the township had started protesting against the recent introduction of Afrikaans as a language of instruction in schools, and sporadic boycotts of classes had taken place. On June 13 students from various schools gathered at Orlando’s Donaldson Community Hall and decided to organise a peaceful protest march three days later. They established an action committee, which later became the Soweto Students’ Representative Council.

Thousands of students joined the protest. They wanted to march to the Orlando Stadium, and then on to the department of bantu education, to hand over a list of grievances. By the time they reached Vilakazi Street near the Orlando West Junior Secondary School, their number had grown to 10,000, with some estimates saying there were even more than that. At Vilakazi Street (the only street in the world to have been home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners: Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu), the marchers were met by police, who told them to disperse.

The situation then escalated: the police used teargas, prompting some of the students to hurl stones at them, to which they responded by unleashing dogs. This in turn resulted in more stones being thrown, and the police then started shooting live rounds at the marchers.

As word of the confrontation became known, the situation deteriorated — several buildings were set on fire, and whites working in the township were attacked. Police responded with brute force, often shooting at people without provocation. Reports differ as to the number of deaths on the first day. The official toll is 23 but estimates put the number much higher. Two white people working in Soweto were also killed. The uprising soon spread to townships in other parts of South Africa.

Hiding and exile

A subsequent police crackdown on student leaders and anyone suspected of participating in the uprising forced thousands of young, mainly male black students into hiding and exile.

Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu was one of them.

Although several political bodies claimed to have been behind the uprising, it was most strongly influenced by the Black Consciousness Movement. However, the uprising was more sporadic and scattered than part of a co-ordinated, sustained effort.

As a result, many of those who went into exile were unaffiliated with any political organisation. Upon arriving in neighbouring countries such as Mozambique or Botswana, they were first sent to refugee camps. There, officials from various liberation movements would approach them, and from that point onward they typically came under the protection and guidance of the organisation they aligned with.

Solomon Mahlangu, however, was not one of these. By the time he left South Africa, on October 1 1976, he had already been recruited into the ANC.

Mahlangu was born in Doornkop in the Eastern Transvaal on July 10 1956. His parents separated when he was just five and he then lived with his mother, who worked as a domestic helper. In 1976 he was repeating standard 8 at Mamelodi High School near Pretoria, where he played football for the school team. To finance his education he sold fruit to passengers on trains.

In June 1976 Mamelodi High School closed because of the unrest. It was during this time that he was approached by a slightly older man called Thomas Velaphi Masuku, who told him about the ANC and its radio station, Radio Freedom. Mahlangu started listening to Radio Freedom, and when Masuku suggested they leave the country to join the ANC in exile, he was prepared to do so.

Wrong direction

On October 1 Mahlangu, Masuku and a third man, Stephen Nkosi, boarded an evening train in Pretoria en route to Hectorspruit. From there the Mozambique border is less than 30km away. They took a bus from Hectorspruit, but an hour into the journey Masuku realised that they were going in the wrong direction, and the three got out of the bus in the middle of the veld.

As they were walking down the hill, they came across a group of local people and asked to be taken to Mozambican soldiers. The people accompanied them to the barracks in Ressano Garcia

They managed to hitch a lift on a tractor, which dropped them at a bus stop, from where they travelled to Komatipoort, on the border. They got off the bus at the turning for the border, and walked along the road for a while before climbing up a small hill that took them to the border fence. The South African fence was about 2m high, while the one on the Mozambican side was 3m. They managed to crawl underneath.

As they were walking down the hill, they came across a group of local people and asked to be taken to Mozambican soldiers. The people accompanied them to the barracks in Ressano Garcia. They stayed there for four days until they were driven to Maputo, where they were taken to the ministry of the interior. They told officials at the ministry that they wanted to join the ANC.

Their next port of call was a refugee camp, where they stayed until the end of October. During this time they were contacted by an ANC representative. They were transported to another camp, in Gaza province. The three of them stayed there from November until April 7 1977, when they were fetched, taken to Maputo and placed back in the first camp. There Mahlangu was given an airline ticket in the name of Byron Mafu, and on April 16 he took a flight to Angola.

Military training 

He spent the next few weeks in two camps in Angola, receiving political and military training, before being flown back to Mozambique, where he spent another two weeks or so. He was visited by an officer of the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, who was known as Gebhuza, the nom de guerre of Siphiwe Nyanda (who would later become chief of the South African National Defence Force). Gebhuza told Mahlangu that he was being sent back into South Africa on a mission. He was given R100 and told that he could buy clothes in Swaziland en route.

Gebhuza drove Mahlangu and two companions to a town close to the Mozambican border with Swaziland. They spent two days there, and then crossed the border into Swaziland. They were taken to Manzini, where they spent the night. The next morning they went shopping, and Mahlangu bought a watch and some clothing.

On June 10 they were taken to a town near the border with South Africa. They slept in the car, and entered South Africa the next morning on foot. They crossed over the border fence at about 9am and were met by a man in a light-blue VW station wagon. He drove them through the Eastern Transvaal to Middelburg. Mahlangu had earlier told the ANC that he had relatives there and could stay there for a short while.

Intelligence appraisal

George Mahlangu (not related to Solomon) was a member of the three-man cell to which Solomon belonged. In an interview with Channel Africa, he said that their mission had been to conduct reconnaissance and do an intelligence appraisal. They also wanted to conscientise people about MK.

They had arms, explosives and banned literature about the ANC, and decided to leave these in Katlehong before making their way to Soweto. After hiding most of their possessions they went to Johannesburg, from where they planned to take a taxi to Soweto.

As they were sitting in the taxi, they were confronted by a black policeman in civilian clothes, who demanded to see what they had with them. As they still carried some weapons, they decided to try to escape. George Mahlangu said that they had not intended to become involved in a skirmish but had tried to run away.

“Our plan was that we should split up and then reassemble later. Unfortunately, in that instance, they [Solomon Mahlangu and the third member of the group, Mondy Motloung] found themselves going into the same direction and ending up being cornered.” The two were followed by the policeman, while George Mahlangu managed to avoid arrest by running in another direction.

After a chase, during which several shots were fired and Solomon Mahlangu received a bullet wound in his ankle, the two of them found themselves near the John Orr’s department store in central Johannesburg. Motloung entered an office, and shot and killed two office workers who were having a break there. They then attempted to escape, but both were apprehended — Solomon by a passer-by, and Motloung by colleagues of the two who had been killed.

Both Solomon Mahlangu and Mondy Motloung were charged with two counts of murder and several of terrorism. Motloung, however, had been so severely beaten up during his arrest that he was not fit to stand trial. In his judgment justice Theron said that Motloung had been hit over the head repeatedly with a curtain rod by one of the men who had been in the office with the murdered men. The man had managed to wrest the firearm away from Motloung. “He hit him with this firearm on his head several times and struck him down on the ground, kept striking him every time he moved,” the judge said. It is likely that Motloung sustained brain damage as a result.

Although the court accepted that Solomon Mahlangu had not shot and killed the two, he was found guilty under the common purpose principle and sentenced to death. His appeal was turned down, and he was hanged on April 6 1979.

'It's over'

His lawyer, Priscilla Jana, recalled in her book Fighting for Mandela that she saw Mahlangu shortly before he was executed: “Solomon walked in. I saw him — strong, composed and resigned. He held both my hands and looked into my eyes. ‘It’s over,’ he said. I had come to admire this young man’s courage … I lost my composure. I broke down … It was Solomon who comforted me. When our time was up, Solomon asked me to take a message to South Africans and to everyone who was fighting for freedom. He said: ‘Tell my people that I love them. They must continue the fight. My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom.’”

Solomon Mahlangu was the first of the post-1976 generation of MK fighters to be executed, and the skirmish with the police in the centre of Johannesburg was one of MK’s first military actions in South Africa in the 1970s.

As the first South African activist to be executed in more than a decade, Mahlangu’s name was kept alive by the anti-apartheid movement. The ANC training school in Tanzania was named the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College, and Mahlangu’s name and story was used by the organisation to keep the struggle against apartheid in the media. This stands in stark contrast to previous ANC cadres who were by and large forgotten.

• This is an edited extract from Death in Pretoria: Untold Stories of Political Activists Executed During Apartheid by Peter Auf der Heyde published by Penguin Random House.