Nelson Mandela's comrades Laloo ‘Isu’ Chiba and Ahmed Kathrada tell Janet Smith about their lives as prisoners on Robben Island.
As we prepare to mark Mandela Week from Monday, one of Nelson Mandela’s greatest comrades and a true South African revolutionary hero, 86-year-old Laloo Isu’ Chiba, talked to Janet Smith about his life in a three-part interview. This is the final part. His lifelong friend Ahmed Kathrada, took part in the interviews.
Laloo “Isu” Chiba: Our children were not allowed to visit us while we were in prison on Robben Island. They were only allowed to visit when they turned 16. When I was sentenced, my wife was 39 and my youngest daughter was two. The next time I saw her, she was 16. But I must pay tribute to my wife. She was a country girl from a village in India, ending up in her adopted home in South Africa, and yet she raised three children. She was a married widow as it were. She had the courage to do so. She had to learn sewing to earn a living. She took in handiwork, but my family also supported her and my children. They played an important role, like my brother who was a doctor. He bought a house for her. But she also had to have the guts and the grace to see it through.
Robben Island was a real test.
Ahmed Kathrada: We must talk about the manuscript. To start with, Walter (Sisulu) and I were walking in the courtyard and Madiba’s 60th birthday was approaching, so we thought we should suggest to him that, on his birthday, he should make a political statement which we would smuggle out beforehand. That didn’t happen, but then we thought we should approach him to write his biography and that was a long process.
It was agreed on and the procedure was he would write whatever he could. Madiba’s writing was very symmetrical, neat, but illegible. The idea was that he would write and Walter would add on, but Walter couldn’t read his writing. So I had to read it to him because I could read Madiba’s writing, and then take his (Sisulu’s) comments to Mac (Maharaj).
Chiba: The whole project was given to the communications committee. Kathy (Kathrada) was head and Mac and I were members, because in an institution like prison it’s absolutely essential to keep in contact with other prisoners from whom you are isolated, and with the outside world. You have to find ways. So Kathy ran the whole project and Mac and I then transcribed.
What happens is, we must be honest here, in Madiba’s Long Walk to Freedom, he made a mistake. He said “Isu” transcribed the whole thing. That’s me. But it was Mac who did 80 to 85 percent of the work. I only wrote 15 percent or so.
By that time we were classified as A Group prisoners and we were entitled to purchase certain things... sugar, tea, coffee... and then we sealed the original manuscript in cocoa tins and buried them in the garden after it was transcribed. The arrangement was that as soon as Mac (who was being released) reached the outside world, and a copy of the transcriptions reached Lusaka or London, he would send a message to Kathy. On receiving that message, we were supposed to have dug those things up and destroyed them.
But we were too complacent and we didn’t do that. Then one day the authorities started digging because they wanted to segregate us even more so they wanted to build a wall. When they dug, they found a few containers.
Kathrada: I want to correct you there. I can’t say you’re right or I’m right, but the wall was coming towards the garden, and before it reached the garden, we thought we should retrieve what was buried there, which we did.
We destroyed it because it had been transcribed already. Chiba: I say to you, okay, maybe you are right. But my memory serves me correctly.
Kathrada: They would have taken away Madiba’s studies.
Chiba: I also lost my studies, because of you.
Kathrada: I lost my hair because of you! (Laughing.)
Chiba: And he got me into trouble in the first place! (Also laughing.) Kathy and I, our relationship is such that it’s very rare that we differ on things. We’re on the same page, the same vibe, we more or less agree. This thing about the containers is a rare example of a difference between him and myself. But I defer to him.
Kathrada: I’d have to agree with him, but he’d assault me (laughing again). Let me tell you another story about this chap. In the garden at Robben Island itself, apart from what we buried there, being Indian we had to have chillis. How did we get them? There was an Indian priest who came there and we asked him to bring seeds. He did. Now Isu, being Isu, had to measure the chilli on September 3. It’s 2cm, and he puts a little label on there, and so it went on. Eventually, the chilli matures and then we have to preserve it, so somebody goes to the prison hospital and gets permission for olive oil. I don’t know why they agreed, but we put the chillis in that.
Chiba: So it was all worth it.
Kathrada: But remember the time it was bitterly cold and they told us all to strip naked and stand against the wall? We made it as long as possible, completely naked, until Govan Mbeki collapsed. We panicked and the warders panicked, and because of that, they said “put on your clothes”.
Chiba: In our section, B-section, we had a number of political organisations represented, but it was totally isolated. We were, over the years, about 28 to 30 people in B-section. But we lived. It was okay.
Kathrada: When he talks of isolation, President [Jacob] Zuma and Kgalema Motlanthe... they were there for 10 years, but we never saw them. They never saw us. We had illegal communication with Motlanthe, but with Zuma, no.
This chap [Chiba], his other work was how to pass on secret notes. One was using a tobacco bag. He’ll take two bags, empty one and at the base of the empty one, there’ll be a long message in tiny handwriting on rice paper.
Chiba: You seal the tops and see only one bag. And then there were the shoes.
Kathrada: At the shoe shop, there were ANC chaps, shoemakers, prisoners of course. That’s another thing this chap [Chiba] did. Open the side of the shoe, conceal the message in there, send it for repairs and then our chaps would retrieve the message in the workshop and pass it on. Then there was the tennis ball. We would take a tennis ball, slit it, put a message into it, and then by accident it would go on the other side of the wall. And matchboxes, this was also this chap’s works.
Chiba: That was Mac! Don’t give everything to me!
Kathrada: But you were the main criminal, man! (Laughing.)
Chiba: You take two matchboxes, cut out the end part, put a message in, seal it again. Then you just throw it to where you want it to go, or you go to the hospital and give it to someone there.
Kathrada: And the invisible ink with milk. Somehow someone got hold of Lisol and you could write with that, and all the other side had to do was put a hot iron onto it to read it. But it’s not as if we did this all the time. That was now and then. The main thing was the tobacco bag.
Another method was using our comrades in the kitchen. They used to scoop out the bread, put the message in and cover it with solid fat.
I got caught. There was this young chap who arrived... a prisoner. Very nervous. I thought I’d set him at ease, so I wrote him a letter, but I got caught and I got six months’ solitary confinement for that.
(Chiba came out of prison on Robben Island in December 1982, after 18 years inside. He joined the UDF shortly afterwards and was again arrested and detained from 1983 to 1989. He later became an ANC MP.)
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Chiba: What had happened was that the first State of Emergency was lifted in March 1986. Then, for three months, there was what they called the twilight period between emergencies. In that time, I volunteered to work in the offices of the Transvaal Indian Congress in Fordsburg. When it became clear they were going to declare another emergency, we activists were told to go into hiding. We did. I found a safe place with a friend, BJ Sooka, and I stayed there for a little while, and then found another house in Jeppestown and I stayed there for a while. Among those who met on a fairly regular basis underground were Valli Moosa, Ismail Momoniat, Raymond Suttner, Amos Masondo, Frank Chikane and myself.
Then one day, we were discussing an issue that involved Raymond Suttner. We had received a message from Lusaka that a rep needed to go to Harare. So the six of us decided Raymond must go. Valli dropped him off at the airport, and then, bang (snaps his fingers), at the airport, he’s arrested by the Special Branch and they kept him for over a year. He never forgave us for that!
In 1990, the ANC was unbanned, and the party felt that Madiba should go and thank those countries that had supported the freedom struggle in our country. At the same time, it must also be a fund-raising issue because the ANC would require money for the transition period.
So I go overseas. Who was instrumental? Kathy. On two occasions, we go to the US. Who was instrumental? Kathy. He suggested to Madiba that I should be part of the delegation. Others were Tom Nkobi, Barbara Masekela, Randera, who was his doctor, and they needed two protocol officers and two typists. First, we went to Harare, then Kenya and met [Daniel] arap Moi, and from there to India where we got a hell of a bloody welcome. In Calcutta, the streets were lined six deep. Millions of people greeted Madiba.
In New Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi, on behalf of the Indian National Congress, donated $8 million. That was our first donation. Then the (Indian) government itself set aside a sum of money to pay for the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg. That was Shell House. Another $5 million from Suharto (in Indonesia). From Malaysia, we got another $5 million.
Our plane was accompanied by two Australian Air Force planes into Sydney. This is 1990 still, the same year Madiba was released. And they raised R20 million and about 25 000 people got together at the Sydney Opera House.
From there, we went to Japan but they have a policy that they will not support political prisoners, so we didn’t get anything there. Madiba then wanted to go to London to report to OR [Tambo], so we went and that’s where I met my brother and Ismail Meer.
And then, while we were in London, Madiba shot off to France to see the French president, and then we came home.
One thing about spending time with Madiba, I just want to relate one little anecdote. It shows how Madiba’s thinking was. I went to prison as a very angry young man. I was angry because the security forces of the regime had tortured, assassinated, harassed our people, and I was very bitter about it.
Now when I was arrested, there was a person who was also arrested with me and Paul Joseph, Mac, Ameen Cajee. That was Babla Salojee. They killed Babla on September 9, 1964.
(Babla, a 32-year-old attorney’s clerk, was active in the Transvaal Indian Congress and ANC. He was detained on July 6, 1964 and on September 9 allegedly fell 20m to his death from a 7th floor office of the security police headquarters at the Gray’s Building in central Joburg. Babla was the fourth person to die in detention.)
We were arrested on the same day, and it leaves you with a bitter, angry feeling, so when I was sentenced and landed up on Robben Island, I expressed my views that if ever I’d be able to see my 18 years through and I live long enough and come out alive, I’d seek some of these people (the enemies) out.
I mentioned that to Kathy and he reported it to Madiba.
Kathrada: I said, this chap’s already planning what he’s going to do.
Chiba: Madiba calls me one day and we sit and talk, and he says, you know, our struggle is a long struggle. We don’t know whether we’ll see freedom or not, but ours is a noble cause, a just cause, and if we do see freedom, it’ll be hard work, a lot of sacrifices will have to be made. And even if we don’t see freedom in our lifetimes, we can take comfort in the knowledge that our children and our grandchildren will see freedom in their lifetimes - and that will be a comfort.
But should we live that long, and we come out of prison, what should we do? What is our historic mission? It is to reshape and rebuild this country.
That’s our mission. And then he goes on to say that you can’t reshape and rebuild a country on your bitterness, your anger and your feelings of revenge.
He tells me that. I said, I’ll think about it. He then says the only way to do it is to forgive, and reconcile a divided nation. And you can’t do that on feelings of bitterness and anger. We will never forget what they did to us, but we’ll have to forgive and reconcile, and that became his philosophy. I never forgot that. That was 1965, 1966.
* This is an edited version of a five-hour-long interview conducted with Laloo “Isu” Chiba and Ahmed Kathrada at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in Lenasia.
Sunday Independent