Raid on Liliesfarm in Rivonia

Liliesleaf Farm was the haven for those ANC leaders designing Operation Mayibuye, the plan to overthrow of the South African government. So secret was it that only Nelson Mandela and a handful of his colleagues in the armed wing of the ANC knew of it. The security police raid and subsequent arrests of Walter Sisulu and other prominent ANC figures in the underground leaders was facilitated apparently by an inside source who was never identified. This led to the widely publicized “Rivonia Trial” in Pretoria, and ultimately life imprisonment on Robben Island for Nelson Mandela (captured just prior to the raid) and his fellow conspirators.

For further information and images of the farmhouse and the ANC cadres arrested there, go to:

http://www.liliesleaf.com/frametemplate.asp?page=history