It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras. What considerations, during these years of intensified armed activity, did the ANC give to questions of morality and codes of military conduct? Civilian casualties are frequent and notorious consequences of irregular forms of military combat. There were instances in which the ANC's own policies in this regard were contradicted or ignored: these are dealt with later in this submission.
At the same time, the historical record is clear. The ANC has never permitted random attacks on civilian targets. Unlike many other liberation movements as well as resistance movements in the Second World War, the ANC scrupulously sought to ensure that civilians were not targeted.
In its first sabotage campaign, in the early s, the High Command of MK sought to ensure that attacks on government installations would not lead to loss of life. When MK units were first sent into action they were under strict instructions not to jeopardise the lives of civilians and did not carry arms. Subsequently, when armed guards were encountered at possible targets, regional committees were instructed to arm units but cadres were ordered to shoot only in self-defence.
Once MK camps had been established, part of the training of every MK combatant was political and included the insistence that the enemy should not be defined simply in racial terms. When the ANC became a signatory to the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war in it was the first liberation movement in the world to take this step.
Adherence to the terms of the Convention confirmed the movement's commitment to avoid attacks on civilians and the "humanitarian conduct" of war. A resolution was adopted which acknowledged that there would be unavoidable civilian casualties as warfare escalated. The previous restraint in order to avoid such casualties, it was felt at Kabwe, should no longer be allowed to undermine the campaign to intensify the armed struggle against the regime.
