rivoniaunmasked

1 VITAL INFORMATION
THE epidemic was assuming alarming proportions. These were no isolated outbreaks, that much
was certain. The plague would strike in one spot to-day, to-morrow in a place many miles distant.
Nevertheless the Security men who had been battling for the past eighteen months to check the
scourge, knew that these outbreaks all proceeded from a central source; and not until this source had
been uncovered could effective counter measures be instituted.
The name of the plague was Sabotage.
As often as not, the perpetrators remained unknown. An occasional one was caught, brought to
trial, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. But the men who had to fight the epidemic knew that
these few were only small fry, mere tools, whose capture would make little difference to the spread of
the scourge. While the leaders remained at large, the spate of subversive activity would continue.
The leaders lurked safely in their hiding places, which might be anywhere, anywhere at all, in this
vast country. They were safe enough, these leaders, invulnerable because anonymous; for not even
their followers, whose function was to carry out orders, knew their identity. How could they? The roots
of the underground movement burrowed deep; they spread far and in many directions. The ordinary
members did not even know their immediate superiors, the men of the Regional Command. They had
no means of recognising the members of other groups operating elsewhere. The organisation was
perfect, operating on the cell system, in complete darkness and secrecy. The members received their
orders and carried them out unquestioningly.
But if the leaders of the underground movement were subtle and cunning, the Police Force,
composed of non-White as well as White members, was no less so. The cream of this Force is the
Security Branch, a picked body of men, keen-sighted and sharp of hearing, whose eyes and ears are
everywhere.
Many pieces of the giant jig-saw puzzle were still missing; but from the few pieces the police had
managed to collect, little bits of the picture were emerging. Only little bits– but enough to give them
some idea of what the composite picture looked like. The Security Branch began to form some shrewd
suspicions as to the identity of the mysterious leaders, the men behind this spate of sabotage.
Yet another handful of jig-saw pieces came to light when a number of Bantus were apprehended
during an attempt to cross the border illegally into Bechuanaland. Several of them made statements to
the police in which they admitted that the African National Congress (banned in 1960, after the
Sharpeville incident), had arranged to send them abroad for military training.
Early in 1963 a pamphlet appeared in the letter boxes of many White persons. Issued by the
African National Congress, it read:
LISTEN, WHITE MAN!
Five Whites were murdered in the Transkei, another hacked to
death at Langa... Sabotage erupts every other week throughout
the country, now here, now there. The Whites are turning vicious
and panicky... At this rate, within a year or two South Africa
will be embroiled in the second, bloodier, more furious,
Algerian war.
SABOTAGE AND MURDERS MULTIPLIED LAST YEAR. SABOTAGE AND MURDER
WILL NOT CEASE.
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