User:Katangais/sandbox/MK

In the early years of its armed resistance campaign, the African National Congress and its armed wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), used whatever arms and war materiel it could lay its hands on. ANC members in exile became adept at building home-made explosives, including time bombs, from materials the movement could acquire from commercial sources. According to Nelson Mandela, as early as 1953 the ANC began sending delegations abroad to petition sympathetic governments for military aid. From the early 1960s, the ANC became more influenced by the South African Communist Party (SACP), which enjoyed close political ties to the Soviet Union. Following the SACP and ANC's formation of MK in 1961, SACP members such as Arthur Goldreich made several tours of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact member states to solicit military aid. Beginning in 1963, the Soviet Union became the largest contributor of war materiel and arms to MK. It supplied an estimated 36 million rubles' worth of military equipment to MK from 1963 to 1990, including pistols, rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and ammunition. By 1982 an estimated 90% of MK's equipment was of Soviet origin. MK used these weapons during its economic sabotage activities inside South Africa, as well as in semi-conventional military operations in Angola and elsewhere.

MK cadres were frequently sent to the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent East Germany, to receive military training on these weapons abroad. However, the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Cuba also sent military instructors to help train MK cadres in friendly African nations where the ANC operated in exile, such as Angola, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia. MK stored most of its equipment in large arms depots located in neighbouring states around South Africa, and operated various smuggling routes to bring this materiel to its domestic insurgent cells. The materiel was smuggled across the border in small quantities and then mostly cached in major urban centers where the ANC had a large and active political following.

Although the MK was never able to achieve parity in conventional weapons with the South African security forces, by the early 1990s it had stockpiled enough small arms inside the country to mount a determined guerrilla campaign indefinitely. The small arms most commonly carried by MK insurgents included TT-33 and Makarov pistols, Škorpion vz. 61 submachine guns, and Kalashnikov-pattern assault rifles. MK also amassed one of southern Africa's largest stockpiles of land mines held by a non-state entity, consisting of over 19,000 anti-tank mines, 13,000 anti-personnel mines, and 5,000 limpet mines.

After the end of apartheid, MK surrendered oversight of its depots and equipment to the newly constituted South African National Defence Force (SANDF).