Exile's End: Assassination by Car Bomb - The Death of Vernon Nkadimeng

By Chris Kanyane

In the heart of the struggle for liberation in South Africa, amidst the simmering tensions of apartheid South Africa, a brutal act shattered the fragile peace of neighboring Botswana. Vernon Nkadimeng, an exiled South African anti-apartheid activist, found his life cut tragically short by a car bomb – a calculated assassination orchestrated by forces determined to silence dissent

• Language: English
• Publisher: South Africa National Library Online
• Release date: Apr 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224131105

Chris Kanyane

The author first met Barack Obama close and personal in the majestic Kenya; both chatted and enjoyed lunched together. He is a global researcher and member of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. He is also the president and cofounder of the global Moving Forward!

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Chris Kanyane

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Website: ChrisKanyane.com

OSTRICH LEADERSHIP RESEARCH

DE WILDT, PRETORIA

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

Copyright © Chris Kanyane, 2024

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Exile's End: Assassination by Car Bomb - The Death of Vernon Nkadimeng

CHAPTER 1

TRUE LOVE BONDED BY PURPOSE

The story of Vernon Nkadimeng deserves the world’s attention because it ripples marked an important epoch in the history of the world.

Robert F. Kennedy once said: Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Author James W. Foley also remarked:

Drop a pebble in the water: Just a splash and it is gone. But there's half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on and on. Spreading, spreading from the center, flowing on out to the sea.

And there is no way of telling where the end is going to be.

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Drop a pebble in the water: in a minute you forget,

But there's little waves a-flowing, and there's ripples circling yet,

And those little waves a-flowing to a great big wave have grown;

You've disturbed a mighty river just by dropping in a stone.

Vernon Nkadimeng and Kgomotso Mogase were young lovers in their twenties. They were much in love and eventually got married.

They were South Africans from Soweto living in Botswana.

Vernon was dashing handsome tall fellow while Kgomotso Mogase was diminutive and very attractive.

Both their personalities fit together like a hand fit on a glove. They have one mission and one purpose that has bonded and connected them solidly.

They were involved in actual combat against the enemy.

Behind the love, the beauty, the handsomeness and the bubbles of youth, deep within their heart was buried a mission much larger. They were living purpose driven lives. They had a commitment for a purpose. In fact it is that purpose that brought them together as love birds. It was that purpose that saw them feeing their homes in Soweto in South Africa in 1978, and settling in Gaborone, Botswana.

They have fled South Africa because of apartheid during the Soweto June, 16 uprisings of 1976.

Their marriage was solid and engraved on the struggle rock of the struggle against apartheid.

They were trained guerilla fighters, Umkhonto we Sizwe MK operatives.

Vernon was a highly successful guerrilla fighter schooled in classic Maoist approaches to warfare, including baiting his enemies with multiple military fronts, some of which attacked and some of which consciously retreated. From a military intelligence strategy standpoint, Vernon can be considered as one of the most effective MK guerrilla leaders within South Africa’s liberation. He also impressed many with his intellectual qualities. He was an extremely sharp communicator with impressive listening skills.

He fought hot battles in 1980s against Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA movement. 

The period between 1975 and 1976 was characterised not only by the withdrawal of the Portuguese, but also by the arrival of Cuban forces and the South African invasion into Luanda.  Additionally, this period saw the defeat of the FNLA and the rise of UNITA as challengers to the MPLA’s self-established rule.

This was a three-way struggle for power within Angola.

This civil war soon became enmeshed in global politics as the rival superpowers and their proxies rushed to sponsor their chosen factions.

During the 1980s, UNITA was supplied with US$80-million in arms, military training and logistics by the South African government, while the South African Air Force contributed regular drops of arms, ammunition, medicine and food to UNITA troops.

By the late 1980's Cuba had 50,000 soldiers there and the apartheid South African Defense Forces were actively fighting on the other side with Mr. Savimbi.

Jonas Savimbi, who was killed 2002 by Angolan government soldiers, spent more than 35 years in the African bushes battling for personal power and personal glory.

Unhappy with any situation in which he is not Angola's president, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi has chosen war over peace.

This was a shame for an educated man like Jonas Savimbi. Jonal Savimbi attended prestigious secondary schools and then went further to study medicine at the University of Lisbon in Portugal and then obtained a doctorate – a PhD degree in political science at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1965.

There is no person within Africa who has caused so much mayhem, so much trouble, so much pain, so much suffering, and so much bloodshed like Jonas Savimbi.

In the end the armed forces of Apartheid South Africa and the US-backed mercenaries of Jonas Savimbi were defeated by the combined force of the Cuban military, the Angolan army, and the military units of the liberation movements of South Africa and Namibia. This led directly to the independence of Namibia and then to the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa itself.

Vernon Nkadimeng as an Umkhonto we Sizwe MK soldier fought in these wars at the senior level position of Battalion Commissar.

The position of Battalion Commissar with the Communism nomenclature resembles that of a Major.

The Battalion Commissar is really the chief executive officer of a battalion. He is responsible for the general moral of the battalion, its health and substance.  The role involves motivating the soldiers and keeping them focused on the plans of attack or withdrawal. He exercised political oversight over military commanders and enlisted men and simultaneously conducted political and educational work.

Typically a battalion consists of 300 to 800 soldiers. It is detached from the major group and it wholly independent organisation for battle. For the word battalion simply means battle.  A battalion is comprised of several sub-units called companies of about 100 people. In essence, a battalion therefore, will have about 8 sub-groups headed by a captain.

The manual of guerilla warfare written by the Brazilian guerilla fighter Carlos Marighella states the qualities of the guerilla fighter as follows:

The urban guerrilla is characterized by his bravery and his decisive nature. He must be a good tactician, and a good marksman. The urban guerrilla must be a person of great cleverness to compensate for the fact that he is not sufficiently strong in weapons, ammunition and