Umkhonto weSizwe, meaning ‘spear of the nation’, was founded in 1961 and is commonly known by the abbreviation MK. Nelson Mandela was its first commander-in-chief. It became the military wing of the ANC. On the eve of the 1994 elections MK was disbanded and its soldiers incorporated into the newly formed South African National Defence Force (SANDF) with soldiers from the apartheid South African Defence Force, Bantustan defence forces, IFP’s self-protection units and Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA), the military wing of the PAC.