💣 The Sabotage Act, 1962
Sabotage became a crime that carried at least five years in prison and could be punished by death. The Act also let the minister put opponents under house arrest.
Resisting Apartheid, 1955-78 » Spear of the Nation and Mandela's Imprisonment
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 1, Depth study 8, Key topic 3
- Why the ANC gave up on peaceful protest alone and set up Spear of the Nation in 1961
- How Vorster hit back with security laws and detention without trial
- How Nelson Mandela was arrested and then jailed for life at the Rivonia Trial (1963-64)
- How effective resistance to apartheid was in the 1960s
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Unlock This CourseFrom protest to sabotage, 1961
Remember, after Sharpeville the ANC was banned, so every peaceful and legal way of protesting had been closed. The ANC tried once more. Nelson Mandela, now working underground, called a three-day stay-at-home for the end of May 1961. The government answered with mass arrests and put the army and police on the streets. Mandela called the protest off on its second day.
For Mandela this was the turning point. He argued that fifty years of non-violence had brought Africans only harsher laws, and that if the ANC did nothing, angry young people would turn to violence without any leadership or control. In mid-1961 he and others from the ANC and the banned Communist Party set up a separate armed organisation, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which means Spear of the Nation. Mandela was its first commander.
MK's leaders looked at four kinds of violence: sabotage, guerrilla war (small hidden groups of fighters making surprise attacks), terrorism and open revolution. They chose sabotage, because it did not mean killing people and so offered the best hope of peace between the races later on. Targets were things, not people: electricity pylons, pass offices and other government buildings. The aim was to frighten away foreign investors and push white voters to think again.
On 16 December 1961 the first bombs went off at government buildings in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban. Leaflets announced that 'The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight.' Over the next eighteen months MK carried out about 200 acts of sabotage. Only days before the first bombs, Chief Albert Luthuli, the ANC's president, had been in Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The change in the nature of resistance could not have been clearer.
The PAC also turned to violence. Its armed group, Poqo, was willing to attack people, including white civilians. It was broken by mass arrests in 1963.
Key terms:
- Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK): 'Spear of the Nation', the armed organisation set up by ANC leaders in 1961
- Sabotage: damaging buildings, power lines or equipment on purpose to weaken a government
- Detention without trial: holding a person in a cell without charging them or taking them to court
- Rivonia Trial: the trial of MK's leaders in 1963-64, which ended in life sentences
Vorster's security laws
In 1961 Verwoerd made B.J. Vorster his Minister of Justice. Vorster's job was to crush the armed struggle, and he gave the police powers that did not depend on winning a case in court.
🔒 The 90-day law, 1963
The police could hold anyone they suspected of a political crime for 90 days without charge and without a lawyer. When the 90 days ended, the person could be detained again straight away.
Detention grew harsher through the decade. In 1965 the limit became 180 days, and the Terrorism Act of 1967 allowed detention with no time limit at all. Detainees were kept alone and questioned for hours. Many said they were tortured, and some died in police custody. Fear of detention, and information forced out of detainees, let the police break up MK's secret groups one by one.
Mandela's arrest and the Rivonia Trial
In January 1962 Mandela slipped out of South Africa. He visited African countries to ask for support and received some military training. Soon after he came home he was caught. On 5 August 1962 police stopped his car near Howick in Natal, where he was disguised as a chauffeur. He had been on the run for seventeen months. In November 1962 he was given five years in prison for encouraging workers to strike and for leaving the country without a passport.
Worse followed. On 11 July 1963 police raided Liliesleaf Farm at Rivonia, on the edge of Johannesburg, which was MK's secret headquarters. They arrested Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada and others, and seized papers that included Operation Mayibuye, a draft plan for guerrilla war.
The Rivonia Trial opened in Pretoria in October 1963. Mandela was brought from prison to stand trial with the others. They were charged with sabotage and with planning a violent revolution, and they expected to hang. Mandela did not deny sabotage. Instead, on 20 April 1964, he used the dock to explain to the world why the ANC had taken up arms. He ended by saying that a democratic and free society was 'an ideal for which I am prepared to die'.
In June 1964 eight of the accused, including Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki and Kathrada, were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela and six of the others were sent to Robben Island, a prison island off Cape Town. Denis Goldberg, the one white man found guilty, was held in Pretoria.
How effective was resistance in the 1960s?
📉 Mostly a failure
Sabotage did not shake the government. By 1964 MK inside South Africa had been smashed and its leaders were in prison or in exile. Oliver Tambo had to rebuild the ANC from abroad. The economy grew quickly, foreign investment returned, and in the 1966 election the National Party won its biggest majority so far. For the rest of the decade there was little open resistance.
🌍 But not defeated
The ANC survived in exile and kept MK alive in camps abroad. The trial was reported around the world. In October 1963 the United Nations General Assembly voted by 106 to 1 for South Africa to free its political prisoners. Mandela's speech made him the best known symbol of the struggle, and the government had avoided making him a martyr only by sparing his life.
So in the 1960s enforcement beat resistance. The state looked stronger in 1969 than it had in 1960. Yet apartheid now rested openly on police power, and the anger had not gone away. You will see how a new generation took up the fight in the lesson Steve Biko, Black Consciousness and Soweto, 1976.
Common mistakes
Don't say MK set out to kill people in the 1960s. It chose sabotage against buildings and power lines. Don't mix up Mandela's two trials: in 1962 he got five years for encouraging a strike and leaving the country without a passport, and at Rivonia in 1964 he got life for sabotage. And don't confuse the Rivonia Trial with the earlier Treason Trials, where everyone was found not guilty.
Exam-style question
Explain two effects of the setting up of Spear of the Nation (1961) on resistance to apartheid in South Africa. [8 marks]
Model answer
One effect was that the government gave itself much harsher powers to crush resistance. Spear of the Nation began its sabotage campaign on 16 December 1961 and carried out about 200 attacks on targets such as pylons and government buildings. In response Vorster, the Minister of Justice, passed the Sabotage Act of 1962, which made sabotage punishable by death, and the 90-day law of 1963, which let the police hold suspects without charge or a lawyer. This meant that anyone linked to resistance could be locked up and questioned without a trial, so the police were able to break up secret groups and resistance became far more dangerous.
A second effect was that the ANC lost its most important leaders inside South Africa. Because the leaders were now running an armed organisation, they could be charged with sabotage, a crime that carried the death penalty. After the police raid on Liliesleaf Farm at Rivonia in July 1963, Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki and five others were found guilty at the Rivonia Trial and given life sentences in June 1964. As a result MK inside the country collapsed, the ANC had to be rebuilt in exile under Oliver Tambo, and there was little open resistance for the rest of the 1960s.
What lifts this to the top level: two separate effects, each backed by precise facts (dates, laws, names) and each with a clear explanation of how the move to armed struggle led to that effect.
Exam tip
One effect alone cannot score more than half marks, so always give two, each in its own paragraph. This question asks about effects on resistance, so don't spend time on why Spear of the Nation was set up. Start each paragraph with the effect, then use phrases such as 'this meant that' and 'as a result' to link it back to the sabotage campaign. For more on this question type, see the Exam Skills lesson Paper 1 Question (b): Explain Two Effects.