STANELY MANONG ALSO KNOWN AS MBANGAZWE NKULULEKO - AUTHOR OF “IF WE MUST DIE”

The book If We Must Die reads like a short history of the ANC military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe in Angola and Botswana during the period January 1977 - June 1985. The author, Comrade Stanley Manong (also known as – aka – Mbangazwe Nkululeko), was born in Victoria West and grew to be an Cape Province (today’s Western and Eastern Cape provinces) ANC underground activists through force of circumstances; the same circumstances that eventually forced him to leave the country in 1976.Mbangazwe trained in four of the first MK camps in Angola: Engineering, Benguela, Novo Catengue and Funda. After deployment at the frontline state of Botswana as MK Chief of Operations, he was recalled back to Angola where he stayed in Iran and Quibaxe Camps. The book details his political-military training, functions and the operations he oversaw in Botswana as the Chief of Operations. The book’s title chapter, If We Must Die, includes the first known shootout confrontation between an MK contingent under the command of Barney Molokoane and the South African police inside the country at the village of Moshaneng in the Western Transvaal – today’s Northwest Province. On his return to Angola he witnessed the simmering of disgruntlement that finally led to the 1983 rebellion of MK combatants in the Eastern Front (MK’s military campaigns against UNITA in eastern provinces of Angola) and the Viana and Pango Mutinies early in 1984. In 1985 he attended the ANC Kabwe Conference, the first since the 1969 Morogoro Conference.