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Guided tours with a site guide: R 110.00 per person
Self-guided tours: R 60.00 per person
Valid:
“It was also apartheid South Africa that went on trial: the farm, the escape from prison and subsequent trials became a catalyst for internationalising the struggle, which eventually assisted in bringing down the apartheid state and laying the foundations for contemporary South Africa.”
( Liliesleaf Trust)
Liliesleaf aims to bring the events that took place in Rivonia 45 years ago into South Africa’s current socio-political context by allowing the original infrastructures to recreate the living and working environment at the time of the raid. The restoration process was a collaborative effort between archaeological findings, oral recollections and archival and historical research to document the history of the liberation struggle for current and future generations.
The Learning Centre comprises the following:
 Resource Centre
The Resource Centre will sustain the tradition of intellectual discourse that took place at Liliesleaf through its collection of historical documents and literature. It will provide academics, scholars, the public, and local and international visitors access to historical material, records and critical theoretical writings and analyses of the Liberation Struggle.
Museum
The Museum consists of Manor House, the Thatched Cottage, the Outhouse Buildings and the Water Tank Coal Bunker. The Museum will offer a snapshot of South Africa’s recent history, which will be disseminated in an interactive and experiential manner.
Liberation Path
Connecting the Resource Centre with the Liberation Centre is Liberation Path. Lining Liberation Path will be authentic struggle posters.
Liliesleaf and the Rivonia Trial
Commemorating a strategic point in South African history
Liliesleaf was the site responsible for breaking the resounding political silence of the 1960s and represents a beacon on the landscape of national and international memory. A farm of 28-acres, Liliesleaf had been purchased in 1961 by the South African Communist Party as a meeting place for the Politburo. Liliesleaf, 12 miles from the Johannesburg city centre, was purchased because it was in a secluded and isolated area of Rivonia at that time.
 The Sharpeville Massacre
The system of institutionalised racial discrimination continued to intensify and, in 1960 South Africa was in the grip of an overwhelmingly oppressive apartheid regime. On 21 March 1960, a peaceful protest against apartheid laws resulted in the Security Police killing 67 unarmed demonstrators and injuring over 180; many of those killed and injured were women and children. Uproar amongst the oppressed was immediate and the following week saw demonstrations, protest marches, strikes and riots around the country. The Communist Party (in 1950) and the African National Congress (in 1960) had been banned and were forced to go underground. The events of Sharpeville were seminal within themselves as they forced the ANC to move away from passive resistance to armed struggle. The purchase of Liliesleaf coincided with the ANC’s shift to armed struggle.
“In the face of violence, many strugglers for freedom have had to meet violence with violence. How can it be otherwise in South Africa?” (Walter Sisulu: 1963, Freedom Radio Broadcast)
It was on 11 July 1963 that members of the Security Police raided the farm after an anonymous tip-off that Walter Sisulu was in hiding at Liliesleaf. The leadership that assembled had done so with the intention that this would be their last gathering at Liliesleaf and that after discussion about Operation Mayibuye, ironically translated as ‘The Return’, they would relocate. The consequences of the raid were disastrous to the internal struggle and the liberation movement. The raid on Liliesleaf led to the arrest of a number of key leaders of the High Command, stalling the momentum of the liberation struggle in the process. The arrests and subsequent trial however, catapulted South Africa’s prevailing socio-political conditions into the international spotlight.
“They are sentenced to be shut away for long years in the brutal and degrading prisons of South Africa. With them will be interred this country’s hopes for racial co-operation. They will leave a vacuum in leadership that may only be filled by bitter hate and racial strife” (Chief Albert Luthuli)
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Nelson Mandela
Found guilty on all counts, sentenced to life imprisonment |
Arthur Goldreich
Escaped from Marshall Square with Harold Wolpe through Swaziland and Botswana. |
Ahmed Kathrada
Found guilty on one charge of conspiracy. Sentenced to life imprisonment. |
Andrew Mlangeni
Found guilty on all counts, sentenced to life imprisonment. |
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Denis Goldberg
Found guilty on all counts, sentenced to life imprisonment. |
Elias Motsoaledi
Found guilty on all counts, sentenced to life imprisonment |
Govan Mbeki
Found guilty on all counts, sentenced to life imprisonment. |
Harold Wolpe
Escaped from Marshall Square before going to trial. Went into exile in the United Kingdom |
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James Kantor
Arrested after the escape of Harold Wolpe, but later discharged from the case. |
Lionel Bernstein
Found not guilty, rearrested, released on bail, later to flee the country. |
Raymond Mhlaba
Found guilty on all counts, sentenced to life imprisonment. |
Walter Sisulu
Found guilty on all charges, sentenced to life imprisonment. |
Liliesleaf Enquiry Form
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