Banishment orders apply normally only to African persons in Bantustan areas and differ from bans in being without term and generally obliging the person affected to move from his home area. They may be proclaimed under the Native Administration Act of 1927 or under Bantustan regulations.
Recent reported cases include that of Mrs Beauty Lolwane ordered to leave the Ciskei in April under Regulation 5(i) of Proclamation R252 of 1977. In July Mrs Lolwane was reported to be still defying the order.
Another case is that of attorney Louis Leo MTSHIZANA banished from Mdantsane to Sterkspruit, now part of the Transkei, in 1974. Mtshizana was due to appear for two clients charged with insulting a chief following the expulsion of two Ciskei 'Cabinet Ministers' from a meeting in Peddie in July 1977, but was warned that he would be arrested if he entered the Ciskei. No reply was received to a permit application and Mtshizana withdrew from the case.
A third Ciskei case is that of Sizwe Horatius DLULANE (32) a prison warder from Mdantsane, East London who was threatened by security police in July 1978. He fled to Umtata, where he was arrested and returned to Mdantsane. After being held for a week under Proclamation R252 he was served with an order banishing him from the Ciskei. Described as a 'Transkei citizen', Dlulane asked how he could commute from Umtata to his job at Fort Glamorgan prison and was told he had been dismissed.
Other cases of banishment include that of Pindile Mfethi, banned in 1977 and 'deported' from Germiston to the Transkei. This is thought to be the first case of its kind but as the Bantustan 'independence' programme continues it is a form of administrative punishment likely to be used more and more against Africans.
Another banned person who has been summarily removed to a remote place is Michael NGUBENI, one of those acquitted in the Pretoria Twelve case earlier this year, who was removed to Upington in the north-western Cape on 1 September. Ngubeni, from Johannesburg, served 12 years on Robben Island for sabotage and on his release in 1976 was banned to Rustenburg in the Northern Transvaal. He was on trial with 11 others from June 1977 to April 1978 when he appeared to be suffering from mental disturbance. On his acquittal he was returned to Rustenburg; on two occasions the security police prevented him from going to Johannesburg where his wife still lives, to consult a psychiatrist. Shortly afterwards he was visited at 3.30 a.m and taken to Upington. His wife was given no address at which to contact him and said the police actions "had been a deliberate attempt to prevent him from receiving the medical treatment he requires". His removal would appear to be a form of banishment.
