UNLOCKING OF WALVIS BAY (WINDHOEK)

OR Tambo’s leadership and negotiation skills assisted during the stalemate in South Africa and Namibia’s negotiations, wherein apartheid SA wanted Walvis Bay as part of South Africa. OR Tambo’s witty leadership helped former President Nujoma to win the negotiations on Walvis Bay.

The Freedom Fighter – Wankie Campaign

At the same time, MK and Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) began to work together with the aim of infiltrating Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In 1968 OR Tambo accompanied the MK group on a number of occasions when they went on reconnaissance expeditions along the Zambezi River, sleeping in the open with the group. OR Tambo named the group the Luthuli Detachment, in honour of Chief Luthuli who was killed in a tragic railway accident in July 1967 in Groutville, Natal (now KwaZuluNatal). The Wankie Campaign was the first significant military campaign for the liberation movement.

Operation Vula

In 1987 Tambo appointed a highpowered commission of legal people to draw up a Constitution to reflect the kind of country the organisation wanted for the future. OR Tambo had consistently advocated support for a multiparty democracy and an entrenched Bill of Rights. Also in 1987 OR Tambo, together with others, conceived and headed a top-secret covert mission by MK known as Operation Vula. OR Tambo chose the operatives to infiltrate into the country to work underground, establishing networks and arms caches.