In September, he and Jenkin hung a 10-metre-long banner with the words "ANC LIVES" from a high building in the centre of Cape Town, along with a timed device which distributed hundreds of leaflets over the crowds below. In June 1977 Lee distributed several caches of leaflets at a right-wing sociology conference in Johannesburg. It is because of the propaganda effect.". In Jenkin's words, "The actual message on the leaflets, important as it was, was not as important as the fact the ANC had done it. In December 1976, Lee went to Cape Town and both he and Jenkin planted leaflet bombs in the city and suburbs. Not long after the Soweto uprising, Lee planted a number of leaflet bombs around Johannesburg. After achieving this mission, Lee worked for the University of the Witwatersrand, while Jenkin ran the " cell" on his own in Cape Town. In March 1976 Lee decided to go to Johannesburg to look for work, and the ANC coincidentally sent them both on their first mission, to disperse leaflets urging support for the ANC and unity in the liberation struggle via a leaflet bomb in Johannesburg, close to the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre. Īfter their return to Cape Town in July 1975, Lee and Jenkin bought a typewriter, duplicator and stationery to print and post pamphlets and leased first a garage and then a tiny apartment. During this time Lee worked as a bus conductor and joined the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU). At the end of 1974, the ANC informed him they had been approved and, after receiving some months of training with them, could return to South Africa to do something for the movement. While the ANC were checking their credentials, Lee went and worked as a carpenter in the Netherlands and taught English in Spain. Upon arrival in London in April 1974, they applied to join the ANC. The only way they could work for this banned organisation was to move to the UK and make contact with the organisation there, so both set off in February 1974 by ship via Barcelona, spending a few weeks in the Netherlands en route. Coming to the conclusion they could not effect any real change within the constitutional framework, which banned all effective and truly democratic opposition, they decided the ideals of the African National Congress (ANC) were worth fighting for. Īs they started realising the full extent of the unfair system of apartheid, they were fired with a desire to work towards change. They both found their sociology course disappointing, as the material reinforced the status quo of the apartheid system. They soon became friends and both of them sought out the literature banned by the apartheid government, devouring, photocopying it and swapping it with other students. After developing an interest in Marxism and involving himself in left-leaning student politics at the University of Cape Town and subsequently switching courses from business science to sociology in 1971, he met Jenkin in a sociology class. 1951) is a South African former political prisoner best known for his 1979 escape from Pretoria Local Prison (part of the Pretoria Central Prison complex) with friend and fellow activist Tim Jenkin and a third inmate, Alex Moumbaris.īiography Early life and activism
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