A new life's journey steered by a guiding light

Struggle veterans Laloo ‘Isu’ Chiba and Ahmed Kathrada at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in Lanasia.951 Photo: Matthews Baloyi 14/07/2016

Struggle veterans Laloo ‘Isu’ Chiba and Ahmed Kathrada at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in Lanasia.951 Photo: Matthews Baloyi 14/07/2016

Published Jul 15, 2016

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As we prepare to mark Mandela Week, one of Nelson Mandela’s greatest comrades and a true South African revolutionary hero, 86-year-old Laloo Isu’ Chiba, talks to Janet Smith about his life. His lifelong friend Ahmed Kathrada sat in on the interview.

 

Laloo “Isu” Chiba: My paternal grandfather arrived in South Africa in 1895. At that stage, India was a colony and my grandfather was a British citizen. His youngest son was my father, born in 1909.

At the age of 10, my dad made an application to relocate to South Africa, and he came by ship in 1919, first stopping in Lourenço Marques and finally landing up in Joburg, where he stayed.

My origins are that we lived in Fordsburg, in Mint Road, and at a later stage, we had another residence in Crown Road, where I went to primary school. I went to high school at what used to be Helpmekaar. There was a great demand from Indian parents for further education. Of course, I failed because I was a bit of a good-time guy.

What we used to do was go to nightclubs, and there used to be pool rooms in town. After I failed matric hopelessly, my father was very disappointed, and his reason was that, in my family, I was the first person to reach matric. It was a passport to a secure job. But I had an interest in nightlife and girls, and wonderful parties. I thought that was the good life.

Of course I didn’t go back to school. I started work, and we used to go to dance halls, and that’s where I got involved with ruffians. Among the people I met was a well-known gangster by the name of Sharif Khan.

As far as I was concerned, I had these big shots around me. For me, it was an exaggerated sense of self-importance to be seen with people of that nature.

My father was very disappointed. He said I must complete my education. My uncle came down from Durban, and they decided the best way was to isolate me from the bad company I was keeping, and to send me off to the land of my forefathers. My mother, my two elder brothers and my sister were there. So off I went to India, and I stayed there for 18 months.

I boarded the ship in Durban, and altogether, it was a 21-day ocean trip. I was in deck class. We literally just slept out in the open. What I used to do was watch the night sky, the millions of stars, without realising that, about a dozen years down the line, I would be watching the stars again, but from a little window in my cell on Robben Island.

My folks were interested in me settling down and they made arrangements. My wife was from the village where my mother was born, and my mother-in-law and grandmother came from the same village, so they knew each other. My wife’s family was fairly well off as far as villagers are concerned. When I saw her, I felt this was the person I was going to spend my life with. What I saw in India was a total shock for me: the poverty, the hardships were really a wake-up call. I said to myself: I come from a comfortable country, a friendly country. This place is unfriendly and unfamiliar to me, coupled with the conditions.

It was totally segregated. There was no interaction except for work. But it was a tradition in India to feed the agricultural labourers, and, rebel that I was at that stage, I used to join them for lunch. It was unheard of. The workers also felt a bit uncomfortable but they got used to it after a little while, whereas my folks and the villagers were not happy that I was mingling with the untouchables, the harijans, the children of God. People preferred to call themselves the dalits, the oppressed.

I got involved with my brother in farming, and then I came back to South Africa, but without my wife at first. What happened then was that I was spending a lot of time with the Vassen family in Fordsburg, and a lot of political people used to also go there. Reggie Vandeyar, Paul Joseph, Abdullah Jassat, and of course Kathy (Ahmed Kathrada) was a regular visitor.

I was very impressed with what he had been doing. At that stage, I was not politically involved. But when Kathy was arrested in 1956, I thought: here’s a friend of mine, he has made continuous sacrifices. What I am doing? Nothing. And that was the beginning of my switch under his guidance.

I joined the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and became involved in the congress movement.

Ahmed Kathrada: I was in a standard above him at school, and I remembered him as a schoolboy. Short trousers. That was my first memory, but thereafter, we forgot about each other, and I met him again in the 1950s at our friends, the Vassen brothers - Tommy and Bobby. Both teachers.

 Chiba: By 1953, the Communist Party had re-emerged after being outlawed, clandestinely. Kathy was serving on the district committee of the party. He was one of the people who was charged together with Madiba, Walter Sisulu and so on after the Defiance Campaign. They got a suspended sentence, but in 1956 he was again arrested with 156 people and stood trial in the Treason Trial.

Reggie Vandeyar had been watching me without me being aware of it, to determine whether I was suitable to join the SACP, and then Kathy came to me one day and said: “Look man, we’ve been observing you. What do you think of communism? Would you like to join?” And I said: “For me, it would be only an honour and privilege to be part and parcel of the communist movement.”

By 1960 there had been a second major turning point, the Sharpeville massacre. And of course, then came the banning of organisations, and that was when I joined the SACP.

The Defiance Campaign’s aim was to defy six unjust laws, and that campaign was run by the ANC and the South African Indian Congress, but the South African Coloured People’s Organisation had also played a very important role because, at that time, coloured people had the right to vote, but the government was determined to strip them of their voting rights.

In the meantime, there was also the Congress of Democrats, the progressive whites, and a very important person, Jack Hodgson. So now you had four different organisations, collectively called the Congress Alliance. In addition, there were adjuncts: the Federation of South African Women and the South African Congress of Trade Unions, which drew in the working class.

I became involved in the campaigns, and one of the most important was the 1959 potato boycott, which was a massive boycott against the restrictions on the movement of African people. People were sentenced to hard labour on the potato farms in Bethal and so on, and they worked under horrifying conditions. Many were killed and buried under the potato farms, so the movement took the decision to boycott potatoes, so that even ordinary fish and chip shops sold fish but not chips.

When I think about all these things, my political development, it reminds me of something I learnt in primary school - the poem Sea Fever (by John Masefield). “I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky. And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.” Kathy was one of the stars to steer me by through my journey in life, and more important than that was my own wife. She was also a star who guided me through my life, who reshaped my life. We had three children. The eldest daughter was born in 1956.

But I was a late bloomer. I entered the political arena only when I was 25, 26, whereas some comrades started when they were 16, 18. I didn’t discuss it with my wife, but she knew I was involved with the TIC. My family knew about the legal political activity.

At that stage, I was helping my dad in his tailoring workshop, but afterwards, I started working in a dairy, first as a clerk, then a foreman. I was there seven days a week for nine years, until I was arrested in 1963. 

Kathrada: He also supplied orange juice, so every morning, I used to find orange juice outside my flat. We lived about a kilometre apart. He was in Fordsburg and I was about two blocks from the library, so about a mile or so. There were trams painted silver that went just to Sophiatown, and Indians and coloureds could get into those trams. There were about six seats for them, but not for Africans. There were organised boycotts about that at a later stage.

I still have a replica of the board at my flat that says “Non-Europeans and dogs not allowed”. Those were outside all public institutions, hotels, libraries and so forth. I saw a library, and a proper restaurant and hotel, not in my country, but only when I went to Europe for the first time. Even lifts had those boards: Europeans only. The goods lift was for non-Europeans.

 Chiba: By end of 1961, there had been another major turning point. 

Kathrada: The armed Struggle came about after a nationwide strike which was crushed by the army and police. When Mandela appeared on TV (abroad) in an interview, he more or less said all avenues of non-violent struggle have now closed to us. We have to turn another chapter. But the first indication that he already had the armed Struggle in mind was when Walter Sisulu went to China, and he said to Walter: “Please study how the Chinese conducted their Long Walk.”

 Chiba: By that stage, the party had already started its own sabotage cells. They had already felt that something more should be done. And as Kathy says, Mandela had indicated to Brian Woodlake, the journalist who had a secret interview with him, that there was no alternative but to seek other methods. Madiba was already underground.

 Kathrada: There was a unit in charge of where Madiba was staying. A special venue was identified and Woodlake would see him there. When I see all this equipment (Kathrada smilingly indicates to The Star’s video team), I think about Woodlake, who came with one camera and no lights. I had to drive him, and my sense of direction was not that strong, so I lost my way, even though I went there earlier. So I went this way and that, and when we arrived, Woodlake said: “Mr Mandela, before we start on the interview, I want to congratulate you on your security!” (much laughter).

The house was in Cyrildene, and the man who organised it was also a Cyril. He found a house that had never been used by us before, because we had to use places known by very few people.

 Chiba: There was a small committee when Madiba was underground. Kathy was part of that. But as far as the armed activity went, some party cells had already become part of this, and it was structured so that four people at a time would engage in sabotage activity. Wolfie Kodesh called Vandeyer and myself, and we carried out small acts. In the beginning, it was just cutting telephone wires, that kind of thing. Nothing to write home about. But by mid-1961 it was decided that there should be another organisation, and that was MK (Umkhonto weSizwe).

 Kathrada: The repression was not as severe as it would get later. It was relatively less difficult to meet one another, unless you were under banning orders, especially because a banned person could not meet another banned person. But political activities had to be done underground. So that’s when there were secret hideouts, and meetings took place under very strict security.

 Chiba: On December 16 we went into action. In my case, there was already a unit under the leadership of Wolfie. Then there was Paul Joseph, Reggie and myself. We were told to launch sabotage on that particular day, and we decided on three targets, symbols of apartheid. We selected the European entrance of the post office in Fordsburg; the Bantu Commissioner’s Court in town, which was sentencing African people for minor violations; and third was the pass office in Bezuidenhout Street. On the 16th we blasted all three, and all were highly successful.

We made the bombs ourselves at my place. Wolfie was known to my family because he used to collect dry-cleaning from us, and Reggie and Paul used to come there for TIC work. We ground components in coffee grinders and then mixed them in bottles with capsules with sulphuric acid. That would work with a timing device. When it came into contact with the mixture: Boom!

 Kathrada: Now he’s teaching people how to make bombs!

 Chiba: One of the most important jobs was to ensure that when the bombs were placed, there would be no harm to human beings, so those things were done at night. We operated under rules. The first was that there cannot be any loss of life. Secondly you don’t carry arms. Thirdly, you must not return to an act of sabotage. If our lives were in danger, it had to be abandoned.

On the 16th, things took place early in the evening when MK came out with its manifesto. I think that was an act of irresponsibility. Now you’re already advertising that something’s going to take place. I thought it wasn’t a good move.

But we had everything. We just had to insert the detonating capsule, which we did in the first instance at the white entrance of the post office, then at the entrance of the court and the third one, we broke a window and inserted the bomb on a ledge.

The bombs went off by 11pm, and the next day, the news was only about the sabotage.

*The interview took place at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in Lenasia. Part two will be carried in Saturday Star and part three in The Sunday Independent on Sunday.

The Star

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