Ronnie Kasrils

2. Ronnie Kasrils

3. EarlyLife

4. Political Life Sharpville massacre angers Kasrils and he decides that he has had enough of the apartheid government. He joins the ANC. Became secretary of the Congress of Democrats in Natal. Founding member of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Became commander of National Region Command Underwent military training and was sent to London to work there. Appointed as Chief of MK Intelligence Worked underground for the ANC for operation Vula Attempted to enter Bisho with unarmed marchers and 28 people were killed by the Ciskei Defence Force Became Deputy Minister of Defence Minister of Water Affairs and Foresty Minister of Intelligence Services After the forced resignation of former president Mbeki, Kasrils handed in his resignation.

5. Writing His most noted works are his two books, Armed and Dangerous and The Unlikely Secret Agent which won the Alan Paton award for creative non-fiction in 2011. He has also written poetry and noted pieces on water development and preservation and the Palestine/Israeli conflict. He started off as a script writer before becoming a politician. He says that the life he lead was far more interested than any script he could have thought of.

6. Armed and Dangerous. First book is an autobiographical account of his life as an ANC activist and his involvement in the banned military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Due to high demand, the book has been published three times. Eight chapters were added in 2004 detailing his role in a democratic South Africa. The history of Umkhonto we Sizwe is in Kasril’s life and Armed and Dangerous takes the reader into the underground workings of the military wing. It starts with in early 1990 when Karils boards an International flight to Johannesburg after living in exile for 27 years.

7. Armed and Dangerous “At the end of 1989, I boarded an international flight, at a busy Mediaterranean airport-destination Johannesburg. After 27 years in exile, over half my life, I was homeward bound”

8. Armed and Dangerous “I had seen barefoot street kids begging outside on the cold winter evenings dispersed with sjamboks by laughing policemen. White people, standing in the queues would look the other way…they sometimes hurled beer cans at their black counterparts.” “On one occasion, while I was still a Yeovilleboykie, I had watched impotently as a group of white thugs beat a black man senselessly in the city centre while other whites hurried by.” “In the days following the Sharpville massacre my mood turned impatient. One intense argument followed another: with family, friends and colleagues. Outside my immediate circle, few whites showed any sensitivity- the general view being ‘we should machine gun the lot of them.’ ”

9. The Unlikely Secret Agent About his wife, Eleanor who was also part of the ANC during the 60s. It details her capture by the Special Branch who question her about her then boyfriend Kasrils not knowing that she played a central role in many sabotage operations. She pretends to be mad and is admitted to an asylum where she plans her escape.

10. The Unlikely Secret Agent He originally planned to write the book with Eleanor but she passed away suddenly in 2009. He wrote the book based on what he remembered about the stories she told him and the letters she sent. Kasrils takes the reader on the same journey that Eleanor ran through; from the safety of the bookshop at which she works to the fear of prison, craziness of the mental institution and racy lifestyle of a “terrorist” on the run.

11. The Unlikely Secret Agent “He grabbed her hair and banged her head on the table. Eleanor screamed for help. The sweat was streaming down his face, which had turned scarlet again. It was all he could do to stop himself from beating her with fists as he shook her by the neck until she blacked out” (pg.13) “She had been living with Ronnie in a small, single bedroom cottage on the Florida Road, which ran up to the Berea parents’ elegant home where her daughter, Brigid, was safe for the time.” (pg.31) “The door suddenly opened a little. Her heart leapt for joy as she recognised Ronnie. He was startled however, at the sight of a frail looking boy, with dark hair wearing grey trousers and a school jacket. They hugged and embraced and laughed for sheer joy. ‘Oh my dear’, he cried, ‘You’re free and safe’.” (pg.122) “It was clear that he had been tortured to death-one of a growing number of such victims, who the Special Branch explained had died because they had ‘slipped on soap’, ‘jumped to their deaths’ or ‘hanged themselves in their cells.’” (pg.163-164)

13. 2012 He married AminaFrense, the managing editor of SABC news in February of this year. He is still vocal about various topics from the Israeli-Palestine conflict to water development and preservation. He is also still an avid writer although he has retired from politics.