Robert McBride MMS CLS (born 6 July 1963) is a figure who embodies South Africa's painful transition from its violent and racist past to a new beginning.
During the apartheid era, he was a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress (ANC). For his actions against the apartheid regime, he was convicted of terrorism after he carried out a bombing operation against Magoos Bar, a busy Durban night club frequented by apartheid security forces, in an attack that killed three people.
McBride symbolizes South Africa's painful transition from its violent and racist past to a new beginning. He was serving a life sentence for detonating a bomb outside Magoo's Bar in Durban in 1986 that killed three white women and injured more than 20 people.
Memorial to Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC. Source: Wikipedia
At the time of the bombing, the ANC's military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), did not have a policy of attacking civilians. But then-ANC President Oliver Tambo told a 1985 conference of the ANC that it was inevitable that civilians would get caught in the crossfire of the escalating war against apartheid.
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McBride was sentenced to death for murder at the end of a highly publicized trial in 1987. His sentence was commuted to life last year by President Frederik de Klerk.
The government had vigorously resisted freeing McBride but bowed to sustained international and domestic political pressure last week when ANC President Nelson Mandela made it clear that a summit on violence would not be held unless McBride were freed.
McBride renounced violence during his second year in prison in 1988. "I can never expect the families of those who died to forget ... but reconciliation is not about forgetting our pain, it is about forgiveness," he wrote in a memorandum from prison.
McBride emerged from the prison with ANC Deputy President Walter Sisulu. "It is on this understanding that I would like to contribute to a new South Africa. So my whole function in the ANC will be to foster reconciliation," said McBride, a soft-spoken young man of mixed race.
On the eve of his release, McBride was attacked by white prisoners wielding a large pair of scissors and was rescued only by the intervention of black and white prisoners. The prison authorities have not been able to explain how the attack took place.
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"President De Klerk has said that he wishes to release us as a sign of reconciliation," McBride told an enthusiastic reception by ANC supporters after he was released.
But in an answer to a question from a reporter yesterday, he said that he would do the same as he had done in 1986 (detonate the bomb) if the same conditions existed now. "If the situation was the same as in 1985, I would take up arms again," McBride said.
"I can understand the feelings of bitterness [of the victims and their relatives], but you must remember that what took place there was not because we were bloodthirsty. It - and all the other acts - was done on the instructions of the ANC ... to achieve peace and democracy in South Africa.... The most important thing now is reconciliation and to think of the next generation."
Paula Leyden McBride, who works for Lawyers for Human Rights, is the daughter of a former director of the Anglo American Corporation. Since their marriage she has campaigned ceaselessly for his release.
As McBride received a hero's welcome outside Westville prison, another controversial prisoner was also released. Barend Strydom is a right-wing former policemen who shot dead eight black civilians in Pretoria in 1988.
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ANC leaders said that Mr. Strydom's case was not discussed at the summit and his release was a unilateral act by the government. Strydom was initially sentenced to death, but that sentence also was later commuted to life imprisonment.
The trial judge who sentenced Strydom to death eight times said before handing down his decision: "He was worse than a terrorist. He's prepared to shoot people while laughing and looking them in the eye."
"While I have been released from prison, I am not yet free.... We still haven't got our votes; we are still second-class citizens," he said.
Robert McBride details the capturing of crime intelligence agencies
Post-Apartheid Career and Controversies
In February 2014 McBride was appointed as executive director of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate.
McBride was best known for his leadership of the cell that bombed the "Why Not" Restaurant and Magoo's Bar in Durban on 14 June 1986, an attack in which three white women were killed and 69 people injured. He was captured and convicted for the Durban bombing, and sentenced to death, but later reprieved while on death row.
In 1992, he was released after his actions were classified as politically motivated. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa) report stated, "It seems that not many, if any, of the victims in this incident were members of the South African Police. Furthermore, the criticisms directed at the quality of reconnaissance of the "Why Not Bar" might very well be valid.
On 9 March 1998, McBride, then a high-ranking official in the South African Department of Foreign Affairs, was arrested by the Mozambican police in Ressano Garcia on charges of arms trafficking from Mozambique to South Africa, despite an attempt to run for the border. He was about to receive 50 AK-47 rifles and 100 Makarov pistols. He maintained he was investigating arms trafficking while working for the South African National Intelligence Agency (NIA). After a period in detention, all charges were dropped.
On 21 December 2006, after a Christmas party McBride was involved in a single car collision near Centurion. According to witnesses, McBride was under the influence of alcohol. Ekurhuleni metro police quickly arrived even though the scene was more than 40 km out of their jurisdiction.
According to witnesses the Ekurhuleni metro police assaulted witnesses and threatened to shoot anyone who telephoned the South African Police Service (SAPS). McBride was quickly removed from the scene by the Ekurhuleni metro police.
Three of the Ekurhuleni metro police involved in removing McBride from the accident scene, Patrick Johnston, Stanley Segathevan and Ithumeleng Koko initially supported McBride, but subsequently gave "damning statements" to the South African Police.
Thereafter, it was reported that on 4 July 2007 McBride and a number of cars of Ekurhuleni metro police detained and intimidated Patrick Johnston at a petrol station, on the pretext that he was driving a car with tinted windows which is against South African traffic law. Segathevan joined Johnston, and members of the Boksburg SAPS Task Force arrived at the scene.
Johnston and Segathevan were arrested by the Ekurhuleni metro police, but Henk Strydom, Boksburg's senior public prosecutor, declined to prosecute due to "insufficient evidence and a case totally without merit", and Johnston and Segathevan obtained a court interdict to protect them from McBride and the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department, as they claimed McBride had made death threats against them, which McBride denied.
McBride was charged with drunken driving, fraud and defeating the ends of justice following the car accident. In his defence he produced a medical certificate stating that he was suffering from hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar).
Suspension and Legal Battles
In March 2015 he was suspended from this position by the Minister of Police.
In July 2021, McBride was suspended from his position as head of the foreign branch of the State Security Agency.
The SAA would not reveal if his dismissal was related to a failed SSA operation earlier in 2021, where four South African spies were caught and left stranded in Maputo, Mozambique.
McBride v Minister of Police and Another is a 2016 decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which concerns the independence of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID). In a unanimous decision written by Ronnie Bosielo, the court confirmed that certain legislative provisions were unconstitutional insofar as they permitted the Minister of Police unilaterally to suspend, discipline, or remove IPID's Executive Director, thereby making the directorate vulnerable to political influence.
In March 2014, Robert McBride was appointed as the executive director of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), a statutory body established to investigate alleged misconduct by members of the South African Police Service. However, he was placed on precautionary suspension in March 2015 in connection with a controversial IPID investigation into the alleged unlawful rendition of four Zimbabweans by senior members of the Hawks.
His suspension was effectuated by the Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, in terms of section 6 of the IPID Act, 2011. McBride approached the High Court of South Africa with a challenge to the constitutionality of the provisions that had been used to institute the suspension and disciplinary inquiry. On that basis, he sought to have the Minister's decisions set aside.
On 4 December 2015 in the Pretoria High Court, Judge Fayeeza Kathree-Setiloane delivered judgment in favour of McBride. Relying heavily on the Constitutional Court's decisions on the independence of the Hawks in Glenister v President and Helen Suzman v President; Glenister v President, she agreed that IPID's independence required that the Executive Director â and his security of tenure in office â should be "sufficiently insulated from undue political interference".
She therefore held that "it is imperative... Thus the High Court declared that provisions of the IPID Act, along with other enabling provisions elsewhere, were unconstitutional and unlawful "to the extent that they purport to authorise the Minister of Police to suspend, take any disciplinary steps pursuant to suspension, or to remove from office the Executive Director". Minister Nhleko's decisions to suspend McBride and pursue disciplinary charges against him were also set aside.
On 6 September 2016, Acting Justice Ronnie Bosielo delivered judgment on behalf of a unanimous court. He confirmed the High Court's finding of constitutional invalidity and affirmed its reasoning, agreeing that the relevant provisions undermined IPID's constitutionally guaranteed independence.
Robert McBride. Source: Twitter
Early Life and Influences
McBride was born in Addington Hospital to Derrick McBride and grew up in Wentworth, a racially segregated suburb about 11 km from Durban, where his parents were schoolteachers. He attended Fairvale High School in Wentworth and participated in extramural activities like rugby, karate, boxing, chess, hockey and soccer. He developed political views at an early age due to influence of his father.
He was particularly influenced by two books: A.J. Venter's Coloured: A Profile of 2 Million South Africans, which describes the efforts of coloured political activists such as James April, Don Mattera, Jakes Gerwel, Basil February, and his uncle, Rev.
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