Operation Vula

rdf:langString Operation Vula

rdf:langString right

rdf:langString A substantial and tested leadership was developing within the country. The time had arrived where the conditions had been created for the leadership of our movement, who had been driven into exile, to begin relocating itself within the country despite the formidable power of the apartheid state. The time had arrived that while relocating itself that leadership had to merge with the forces and leadership that had been developing within the country… Vula and other similar projects did not in any way constitute the pursuance of a double agenda, nor did they constitute actions inconsistent with our search for a negotiated resolution. [If] anything, they strengthened negotiations rather than undermined them.

rdf:langString – Nelson Mandela on Operation Vula in June 1991

rdf:langString Operation Vula (also known as Operation Vulindlela, Xhosa for Open the Road) was a secret domestic programme of the African National Congress (ANC) during the final years of apartheid in South Africa. Initiated in 1986 at the ANC headquarters in Lusaka and launched in South Africa in 1988, its operatives infiltrated weapons and banned ANC leaders into the country, in order to establish an underground network linking domestic activist structures with the ANC in exile. It was responsible for facilitating the only direct line of communication between ANC headquarters and Nelson Mandela, who at the time was imprisoned and was discussing a negotiated settlement with the government on the ANC's behalf. The operation was disbanded in 1990, after its existence had been publicly revealed and eight of its leaders charged under the Internal Security Act with terrorism and plotting an armed insurrection. Operation Vula was approved by the ANC National Executive Committee but thereafter proceeded on a strictly need-to-know basis, with many ANC members unaware of its existence and many ANC leaders unaware of the details of its activities. It was commanded by Mac Maharaj and Siphiwe Nyanda, whom ANC President Oliver Tambo congratulated in 1988 on not only "the immense potential of the Vula concept but also its tremendous yield in terms of what has been achieved within a short period of time." Commentators have admired the sophistication of the operation, and historian Stephen Ellis calls it "the most effective and impressive project ever mounted by the ANC." However, Ellis also notes that Vula arrived "too late to have a major effect on the strategic balance" in the negotiations to end apartheid.