Lybon Mabasa, 24, a teacher at Meadowlands High School and an eye witness of the Soweto children's demonstration on 16 June, was cross-examined about the disturbances until the defence successfully objected that it was irrelevant.
Strini Moodley, 29, one of the accused, who said that the aspirations of the black organisations were to have a united voice and to negotiate with the government from a position of power. Former editor of the SASO newsletter and SASO publications director, Moodley was banned in 1973 and expelled from the Indian University in Durban for attending a drinking party. He had been arrested on 11 October and detained in solitary confinement for 113 days. On its 119th day of court proceedings the trial was adjourned yet again, to 2 August.
Absalom Zithulele Cindi, 26, former BPC secretary-general, also accused, was questioned about BPC opposition to forced removals and to participation in government-created bodies like the Bantustans and Urban Bantu Councils. Disputing the contention that the BPC had contact only with foreign-based organisations hostile to SA, he submitted as evidence a letter from President Senghor of Senegal declining an invitation to speak to the BPC in 1973, and a letter written to Chief Kapuuo. Mr. Ntsu Mokheleh, former leader of the Basutoland Congress Party, had also been invited to the BPC's first congress, but was unable to attend. While he personally agreed that foreign investors should get out of the country, this was not BPC policy; BPC merely pointed out to foreign investors that they were involved in an exploitative system. BPC aimed at an equitable economic system based on black communalism, he said.
Ted Gurr, professor of political science at North-Western University and a consultant to the US State Department, criticised the approach of a prosecution expert witness Mr. S.J. van der Merwe as unacademic and unscientific. In his own examination of the documents he had found that neither SASO nor BPC followed any established theory of revolution; revolutionary groups used sabotage and terrorism to achieve their aims, but protest groups had more limited aims and used methods such as rallies. Cross-examined as to his motives for appearing, he said defence counsel had asked the International Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights for expert testimony; they were paying his costs but not a fee.
Saths Cooper, who was ill in early 1975 fell ill again in August with blood poisoning. Initially the prison authorities refused to allow his lawyers to see him but relented once the matter was raised in court.
RABKINS AND CRONIN
Dr David Rabkin, his wife Susan, and Mr. Jeremy Cronin appeared briefly in the Cape Town Magistrates Court on 13 August. Although not formally charged, they are expected to face charges later in August under the Terrorism Act, reportedly in connection with the distribution of illegal leaflets in Soweto and other African townships. Mrs. Rabkin, the mother of a two-year-old child, was granted bail of £13,000 on condition that she reports twice daily to the police and surrenders her passport. Mr. Cronin and David Rabkin were refused bail.
The arrest of the Rabkins aroused much concern, especially in Britain where David was well known at Leeds University and Susan's father is a leading paediatrician. Friends of the family maintained a picket for several days outside the SA embassy in London, and the British government brought pressure to bear for consular access to be permitted. After initial resistance a consular official was allowed to see the Rabkins, and Rand Daily Mail journalist Patrick Weech, who is also British, on 6 August. Mrs. Suzman MP was also involved in the matter; her offer to take Mrs. Rabkin into her home in lieu of police custody was declined by the Minister of Justice.
VINCENT SELANTO
Vincent Vuyisile Selanto, 24, pleaded not guilty to a charge of perjury in the Johannesburg Magistrates Court. The charge arises out of alleged discrepancies between a statement made by Selanto to the Security Police in March 1975 while in detention under the Terrorism Act and his testimony in the trial of Eric Molobi. Selanto described how he had been assaulted by the police and had his head pushed into the water in a toilet, whereupon he promised to speak the truth. Kept in solitary confinement for nearly 9 months, he experienced dizzy spells and vomited blood. Later he took an overdose of sleeping tablets. When he appeared in the Supreme Court, he said, he was not in a good state of mind.
NDUKWANA and FOUR OTHERS
The trial under the Terrorism Act of Sotomela Ndukwana (19) and four other young Africans at Grahamstown, Eastern Cape continued. The five, who pleaded not guilty, are alleged to have planned or attempted to leave SA to undergo military training. State witnesses included:
Wilberforce Sinxo, 20, who was at school with the accused in 1975, said that Ndukwana told a meeting that the South African Students Movement (SASM), of which he was president, stood for equality and majority rule, and that this could not be achieved by speeches and negotiations, but only by armed struggle. When he, Sinxo, had told the meeting that students wanting equality should work for it through the homeland governments it had not been well received. Sinxo revealed that he had been in detention since 2 January.
Sinxo, like several other SASM members arrested in January, was apparently expelled from Healdtown after a strike there by high school students. (Other SASM members were similarly expelled, from the Thembalabantu High School at Zwelitsha (Ciskei) and the Nathaniel Nyaluza School at Grahamstown). He then attended another school but was forced to leave after Security Police warned the principal against harbouring ex-Healdtown students.
Abraham Marawu, a clerk with the Xhosa Development Corporation in East London, and a former political prisoner jailed for alleged ANC activities, said that several of the accused and other Healdtown pupils frequently visited him and sought help in leaving the country for military training. Cross-examined by Mr. B.M. Kies, for the defence, he denied that he was an expert on political struggles elsewhere in Africa and that young people had come to him for lectures.
Monwabisi Yako of East London, apparently an accomplice witness, had received two letters from a friend in Botswana, who advised Yako to join him, using a safe route to Botswana via Mafeking. The writer advised Yako to ask for political asylum and said he was waiting for his group to number 50 before flying with it via Uganda and other countries to Peking or Russia.
MOSS AND FOUR OTHERS
The trial of 5 young whites connected with NUSAS resumed in July after a 10-week break. Glen Moss, Charles Nupen, Eddie Webster, Cedric de Beer and Karel Tip have pleaded not guilty to charges under the Suppression of Communism Act and Unlawful Organisations Act. The state's case is broadly that by promoting a campaign for the release of political prisoners, and through various speeches and writings the accused furthered the aims of the SA Communist Party or the African National Congress. State witnesses included:
J.H. Reyneke, a former student at Natal University who became a police informer and infiltrated the SRC Wages Commission.
Sgt. I. Sharp of the Johannesburg Security Police, whose fulltime job is monitoring Radio Tanzania and Radio Zambia. He claimed that he recognized the voice of Mr. Alfred Nzo, ANC Secretary-General, in a broadcast made in January 1974, and remembered Nzo from meetings in Commissioner Street in the early 1960s.
Prof. Andrew Murray, former head of the Philosophy Department, UCT, who was given 5 documents by the Security Police from NUSAS seminar in 1973 to see whether they disclosed any extreme left-wing views. He similarities between the documents and the Freedom Charter, and said that by implication they were promoting black domination. He conceded that the laws of the land had the effect of promoting white economic dominance over blacks.
Lt. Derek Brune, who for 2 years was an SRA member at Witwatersrand University and worked for the Security Police both before and during his 4-year period as a student. He said that a small clique of radicals led by Moss dominated the SRC and frightened off more conservative candidates. Brune had reported on events to the police, and recorded speeches by Helen Joseph and others during the 'Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners' in 1974.
The state closed its case on 2 August after handing in several documents including copies of "The African Communist." After a week's adjournment the defence applied for the discharge of Mr. E. Webster, a lecturer, on the grounds that he was not connected with NUSAS or any alleged conspiracy. All he had done was to present a scholarly paper to a NUSAS seminar on "Black Consciousness and The White Left." The application was refused. Initial witnesses for the defence were Laurine Platsky, former SRC president at the University of Cape Town, and Brian Hackland, former chairman of the Natal University (Pmb.) Wages Commission, a sub-committee of the SRC.
