Potlako Leballo - Pan Africanist Congress

Pan Africanist Congress

After the anti-pass campaign and the Sharpeville massacre when PAC supporters were shot by police in 1960, Leballo was sentenced to prison for incitement, and on his release in 1962 was exiled to Basutoland (now Lesotho), where he helped re-establish the PAC. His leadership included the formation of the extremist Poqo military wing of the PAC, later to become the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). The 1962 – 1964 Poqo uprising failed partly because the shipment to the Transkei coast of arms from Ghana and Egypt vanished, reportedly sold by corrupt PAC officials, but mostly because of Leballo's expulsion from Basutoland (his own country) following South African pressure. Leballo set up PAC headquarters in Ghana and Tanzania. He was responsible for a major ideological shift towards Maoism but until 1976 was unable to get majority backing from external refugees, many of whom lost their zeal for militant activities while still demanding a major role in party affairs. A successful demagogue in the rural areas and townships, Leballo was not suited in exile to the diplomatic circuit. The majority of the so called "reformist-diplomat" section of the external PAC repeatedly challenged the PAC leadership but were then themselves challenged by the arrival in exile in 1974 of 178 troops of the refugee Basutoland Congress Party who trained as PAC Azanian People's Liberation Army guerrillas in Libya and then by 500 Soweto and Cape students who joined the Basotho in Libya.