Tim Jenkin | |
---|---|
Born | 1948 (age 75–76) |
Alma mater | University of Cape Town |
Occupation(s) | Writer, political and monetary activist |
Employer(s) | Community Exchange System (founder and director) [1] |
Known for | Prison escape |
Political party | African National Congress |
Timothy Peter Jenkin (born 1948) is a South African writer, anti-apartheid activist and former political prisoner. He is best known for his 1979 escape from Pretoria Local Prison (part of the Pretoria Central Prison complex), along with Stephen Lee and Alex Moumbaris.
Jenkin was born in Cape Town and educated at Rondebosch Boys' Prep and Boys' High School, [2] [3] matriculating aged 17. [4] After leaving school, he avoided conscription into the South African Defence Force, and worked at a variety of jobs for two years, with no particular interest in anything except motorcycle racing. He left for the UK in 1970, where, working in a fibreglass factory under poor working conditions and little pay, found the system unjust and developed an interest in sociology. This led him to learning more about the injustice in his own country. [5] He later wrote that he had "grown up a 'normal' complacent white South African" who "unthinkingly accepted the system and for twenty-one years never questioned it." [6]
At the end of 1970 Jenkin enrolled at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and graduated with a Bachelor of Social Science degree at the end of 1973. [7] [8]
Jenkin met Stephen Lee in a sociology class at UCT. They became friends and, in a South African version of Samizdat, Jenkins and Lee sought out literature banned by the ruling National Party. They then photocopied it and swapped it with other students. They both found their sociology course disappointing, as the material reinforced the status quo of apartheid. Through reading material banned by the government, they came to see the "naked reality" of apartheid and the undemocratic behavior of the ruling party, and felt a burning desire to effect positive change, which, Jenkin concluded, was only possible using unconstitutional means under the current regime. During this time they learnt of the activities of the African National Congress (ANC), which was an illegal organisation in South Africa. [9]
In February 1974, Jenkin and Lee left the country to join the ANC in London, with the intention of helping to bring about change in South Africa. Here, Jenkin met his future wife Robin. While awaiting clearance for membership, Jenkin worked as a social worker at a reform school in Swindon. After acceptance by the ANC, he and Lee received training from the ANC in various tactics, in particular how to spread their propaganda leaflets, and how to set up communication and financial structures. [10]
Upon 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. Jenkin worked as a researcher for the Institute for Social Development at the University of the Western Cape, a university for South Africans of mixed racial ancestry, or Coloureds. [11] In March 1976, Lee went 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 via a leaflet bomb (using a new design developed by Jenkin) in Johannesburg, close to the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre on 21 March. They achieved this mission, managing to distribute hundreds of leaflets by means of several leaflet bombs, the text of which is reproduced in Jenkin's memoir. [12]
After the success of their first mission, Jenkin worked on refining the mechanism by adding a triggering system to the leaflet bomb, so that they did not have to be close to it when it went off. He successfully distributed leaflets this way on Cape Town's Grand Parade. Lee worked for the University of the Witwatersrand, while Jenkin ran the "cell" on his own in Cape Town. [13] Jenkin went to London at the request of the ANC in May 1976, while Lee continued to plant leaflet bombs around Johannesburg. In July, four ANC operatives including author Jeremy Cronin were arrested doing similar work in Cape Town and were given prison sentences. [14]
Undeterred, Jenkin continued the work in Cape Town, finding a new premises and regularly changing their printing equipment, and both carried out further leaflet bombings in Johannesburg. There were a few worrying signs that Jenkin was being monitored, but he went to London to see Robin for six weeks and returned without incident. In September, he and Lee 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. Lee moved back to Cape Town in December after enrolling in a master's degree in sociology, and the two continued their undercover work, but unbeknownst to them they were by this time under surveillance by the Security Branch of the South African Police. [15]
At 3am the morning of 2 March 1978, Jenkin and Lee were both arrested, after being seen moving their printing equipment into their own dwelling. They were never told how the security police got onto them, and Jenkin concluded that it must have been the result of meticulous police work and long surveillance. [16] [17] [18] [19]
They were taken to Caledon Square Police Station, the head office of the Security Branch in Cape Town, where they were separated, interrogated and put into cells, without being informed of the charges or their rights. This was legal under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act, which allowed detention without trial for up to 60 days, and was extendable. Lee made an escape attempt and nearly succeeded. [20] After a spell in the notorious John Vorster Square in Johannesburg, they were returned to Cape Town and after four weeks, allowed to see family, and held at Pollsmoor Prison as they awaited trial. After Lee's father brought him a copy of the book Papillon, the book inspired them to seriously consider the prospect of escape and they concentrated on rigorous observations of the world around them. [21]
Along with Lee, Jenkin was charged with "producing and distributing 18 different pamphlets on behalf of banned organisations" including the South African Communist Party, the ANC and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, from 1975 to 1978, and urging people to join the liberation movement. The trial in the Cape Town Supreme Court went from 6 to 15 June 1978. Upon legal advice, both pleaded guilty to all charges. They were both found guilty on one charge, with Jenkin receiving a 12-year sentence and Lee eight. [22]
After their incarceration, Jenkin, Lee and several other inmates began plotting an escape, which would involve copies of several prison keys that Jenkin made from wood and pieces of wire. [23] Jenkin had smuggled some money into prison. The initial plan was that eight of the political prisoners would escape, leaving behind two who were nearing the end of their sentences. One of the intending escapees, Denis Goldberg, communicated with comrades in the ANC through coded letters sent to Baruch Hirson in London. Hirson then communicated with Joe Slovo in Mozambique and a date for the escape was set and an escape vehicle arranged. [24]
As the plan evolved it became clear that for the escape to be successful it would have to be restricted to three people, who would have to hide in a small closet at one point. The escape preparations brought some differences of opinion amongst the political prisoners, but they remained comrades and all contributed in some way to the escape effort. The fact that they were all in prison for their political activities and beliefs united them, and "as members of a revolutionary organisation they were disciplined and shared in their suffering collectively". [2] Goldberg and the others decided to withdraw from the escape, with Goldberg continuing to be involved in the preparations. [24]
In December 1979, [7] Jenkin, Lee and fellow inmate Alex Moumbaris [25] [17] broke out of Pretoria Central Prison using handmade keys to ten of the doors leading out of the prison, after several hair-raising moments when encountering unforeseen obstacles. [7] Goldberg distracted the warden while the three made their escape. [19] The street was deserted, but they still had to find their way out of South Africa, into Mozambique and to freedom. This had involved a great deal of planning but there were still many challenges in the execution, travelling via Angola, Zambia and Tanzania finally to London. [7]
Jenkin and Lee appeared at a press conference in Lusaka with Oliver Tambo on 2 January 1980 to tell their stories, [26] before moving to London, where Jenkin worked as a research officer for the International Defence and Aid Fund. [8] He and Lee went on a speaking tour in Sweden in the early 1980s. [27]
When living in Camden, still with the ANC, Jenkin devised a system for encrypted communication for the ANC to communicate with their agents. Messages were typed into a computer, encrypted and saved to audio cassette, then sent from a public callbox to an answering machine. The system was never cracked and helped the ANC coordinate in the run up to Nelson Mandela's release from prison. [18]
Jenkin returned to South Africa in 1991 to manage the ANC's communications network. He worked for the ANC Elections Briefing Unit from 1994 (the year of the first fully democratic elections in South Africa), before being appointed head of their Electronic Information Unit in Cape Town later that year. In 1997, he became a director of Unwembi Communications (Pty) Ltd. [7]
Around the turn of the millennium Jenkin co-founded the Community Exchange System, an internet-based moneyless exchange for local communities, comparable to LETS, writing the entirety of its software. [28] A decade later Jenkin also created Clearing Central, a 2nd tier exchange for moneyless exchange between groups. In 2015 he went on a national tour in Australia organised by Karel Boele speaking about his escape and community currencies. [29]
In 2017, he was invited by Toool Netherlands to give a talk about the lockpicking part of his escape.
In 1987 his book, Escape from Pretoria, was published in London. [7] A new edition was published in Johannesburg and London as Inside Out : Escape from Pretoria Prison in 2003. [2] In 1995, Jenkin wrote a 6-part article series called Talking to Vula: The Story of the Secret Underground Communications Network of Operation Vula. [32] [33] In 2013, the story of the prison escape was dramatised in the 7th episode of the 2nd season of Breakout , a television series made by National Geographic TV channel dramatising real-life prison escapes. The video features excerpts from interviews with Jenkin, Lee, Moumbaris and Goldberg filmed in 2012, in between re-enacted scenes of the prison escape. [19]
In 2014 a documentary film called The Vula Connection, about Jenkin and his part in the creation of an ingenious secret communication system that enabled Vula operatives to penetrate South Africa's borders in secret, ultimately smuggling messages to the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, was made by Marion Edmunds. [34] [35]
In May 2017, it was announced that production would start on a film of Jenkin's book, produced by David Barron and starring Daniel Radcliffe as Jenkin and Ian Hart as Goldberg. [36] [37] Filming of Escape from Pretoria began in Adelaide, South Australia, in March and April 2019, with Daniel Webber joining the cast as Lee. [38] [39] Jenkin spent some time in Adelaide, advising Radcliffe on accent and other aspects of the film, as well as playing as an extra, playing a prisoner next to Radcliffe in the visiting room. The film was released on 6 March 2020, first in the UK and USA and then in the rest of the world. He also participated in a local parkrun, a hobby which he said stemmed back from his days of running to keep fit in prison. [40]
Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo was a South African anti-apartheid politician and activist who served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991.
Abraham Louis Fischer was a South African Communist lawyer of Afrikaner descent with partial Anglo-African ancestry from his paternal grandmother, notable for anti-apartheid activism and for the legal defence of anti-apartheid figures, including Nelson Mandela, at the Rivonia Trial. Following the trial, he was himself put on trial accused of furthering communism. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and diagnosed with cancer while in prison. The South African Prisons Act was extended to include his brother's house in Bloemfontein where he died two months later.
Alfred Baphethuxolo Nzo was a South African politician. He served as the longest-standing secretary-general of the African National Congress. He occupied this position (ANC) between 1969 and 1991. He was also the South African minister of foreign affairs from 1994 to 1999. He was also the first black health inspector in the country. The Alfred Nzo Award is now awarded to deserving health practitioners in South Africa.
Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada OMSG, sometimes known by the nickname "Kathy", was a South African politician and anti-apartheid activist.
Jeremy Patrick Cronin is a South African writer, author, and noted poet. A longtime activist in politics, Cronin is a member of the South African Communist Party and a former member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress. He served as the South African Deputy Minister of Public Works from 2012 until his retirement in 2019.
Ronald Kasrils is a South African politician, former guerrilla and military commander. He served in a number of ministerial posts, including the as Minister for Intelligence Services from 2004 to 2008. He was a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1987 to 2007 as well as a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP) from December 1986 to 2007.
Denis Theodore Goldberg was a South African social campaigner who was active in the struggle against apartheid. He was accused No. 3 in the Rivonia Trial, alongside the better-known Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, where he was also the youngest of the defendants. He was imprisoned for 22 years, along with other key members of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. After his release in 1985 he continued to campaign against apartheid from his base in London with his family, until the apartheid system was fully abolished with the 1994 election. He returned to South Africa in 2002 and founded the non-profit Denis Goldberg Legacy Foundation Trust in 2015. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in July 2017, and died in Cape Town on 29 April 2020.
Prisons in South Africa are run by the Department of Correctional Services. The department is divided into six administrative regions, each with its own regional commissioner, and subdivided into multiple areas, each headed by an area commissioner. According to the ministry, there are approximately 34,000 employees of the department running 240 prisons. In those prisons are nearly 156,000 inmates as of August 2013. The prisons include minimum, medium, maximum and super-maximum security facilities. They may be entirely dedicated to a specific group of prisoners, such as women or children, or be divided into separate sections for each group. Since 2024, the Minister of Correctional Services has been Pieter Groenewald.
Steve Vukhile Tshwete was a South African politician and activist with the African National Congress. Involved in Umkhonto we Sizwe, Tshwete was imprisoned by the apartheid authorities on Robben Island from February 1964 to 1978. Tshwete resumed activities with the ANC and become a regional coordinator for the new United Democratic Front. He later lived in exile in Zambia with the ANC. After the first free elections in South Africa in 1994, he became the new government's first Sports Minister and later was Minister of Safety and Security.
Breakout is a Canadian television series that aired on the National Geographic Channel throughout the world. It dramatizes real life prison breakouts. The series premiered on March 28, 2010, and aired its last episode on March 23, 2013. It was listed as a Canada/UK co-production.
Pretoria Central Prison, renamed Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area by former President Jacob Zuma on 13 April 2013 and sometimes referred to as Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Services is a large prison in central Pretoria, within the City of Tshwane in South Africa. It is operated by the South African Department of Correctional Services.
Baruch Hirson was a South African political activist, academic, author, and historian, who was jailed for nine years in apartheid-era South Africa before moving to England in 1973. He was co-founder of the critical journal Searchlight South Africa, and in 1991, a critic of what he referred to as Stalinist methods used by the African National Congress (ANC).
Raymond Suttner is a South African activist, academic, journalist and public figure.
Annie Silinga (1910-1984) was a South African anti-pass laws and anti-apartheid political activist. She is known for her role as the Cape Town African National Congress Women's League President, a leader in the 1956 anti-pass Women's March to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa and the only African woman in the 1956 treason trial in South Africa.
Parmananthan "Prema" Naidoo is a member of the African National Congress and former Chief Whip of Council and of the majority party in the Johannesburg Metro.
Escape from Pretoria is a 2020 Australian prison film co-written and directed by Francis Annan, based on the real-life prison escape by three political prisoners in South Africa in 1979, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Daniel Webber. It is based on the 2003 book Inside Out: Escape from Pretoria Prison by Tim Jenkin, one of the escapees.
Stephen Bernard Lee is a South African former political prisoner best known for his 1979 escape from Pretoria Local Prison with friend and fellow activist Tim Jenkin and a third inmate, Alex Moumbaris.
Alexandre Moumbaris is a political activist and former political prisoner. He was born in Egypt to Greek parents, grew up in Australia, lived and worked in the UK, was imprisoned in South Africa and now lives in France. He is known for his political activism against the apartheid régime in South Africa in the 1970s, and his subsequent incarceration in, and 1979 escape from, Pretoria Local Prison with Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee. He returned to France after his escape.
Operation Vula was a secret domestic programme of the African National Congress (ANC) during the final years of apartheid in South Africa. Initiated in 1986 at the ANC headquarters in Lusaka and launched in South Africa in 1988, its operatives infiltrated weapons and banned ANC leaders into the country, in order to establish an underground network linking domestic activist structures with the ANC in exile. It was responsible for facilitating the only direct line of communication between ANC headquarters and Nelson Mandela, who at the time was imprisoned and was discussing a negotiated settlement with the government on the ANC's behalf. The operation was disbanded in 1990, after its existence had been publicly revealed and eight of its leaders charged under the Internal Security Act with terrorism and plotting an armed insurrection.
David Rabkin was a South African anti-apartheid activist known for publishing subversive pamphlets. He served seven years of a ten-year sentence for his anti-apartheid activities. After his accidental death during military training in Angola, he received a hero's burial in Luanda.