SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ
Operation Vula by its very name, was an extremely secret operation.  The National Executive in mandating the President to conduct the operation gave him an open mandate and indicated that he would file reports only in the way he saw fit without endangering the lives and identities of any of the senior members of the movement who would be operating in South Africa.  So we operated under those terms.  People who were selected at the highest levels had to have very clear legends, legends not just within the ANC but legends capable of misleading the South African Intelligence system as to our whereabouts.  The screening had to be thorough.  It was not just the technical training that was involved.  There was involved competence, experience and capacity to interchange between the roles of political work and military work.
	So, the screen process that went on before I left Zambia was that I had a personal hand in the screening and after I left Zambia in our communications, we would exchange views with the President as to our requirements of personnel and we would indicate our own preferences based on our knowledge of cadres.  Lusaka would, in the meantime, also recommend cadres to us and request our views as to whether we would be prepared to have such a person join our structures within the country.