Increasingly drastic repressive measures have been used by the South African authorities against the sustained and widespread upsurge of resistance to apartheid.
Protests in the schools and universities, strikes by workers and demonstrations of political opposition and resistance have all been met with measures ranging from physical violence by the police, including the killing of unarmed demonstrators, to arrests and detentions, the prevention and disruption of meetings, and pressure on heads of educational institutions. Increased restrictions on the press in June put the actions of the police even further from sight than usual. Despite all this the Prime Minister said at the end of June that only a small part of the state's powers had been used and that its full power would be used 'if necessary'.
With the start of the schools boycott the police detained numbers of leading figures. Shortly afterwards the Minister of Police drew attention to the fact that all outdoor gatherings were banned in terms of the Riotous Assemblies Act by an order in March renewing the ban that has been in force since 1976. He explicitly addressed his statement to heads of Coloured and Indian educational institutions and to all students and pupils.
By this time the police had already shown their determination to stop meetings or demonstrations. In the first days of the boycott they stopped a protest march of 6,000 pupils near Cape Town, using the "sneeze machine" to spray the marchers with an irritant powder. In the following weeks attacks on meetings with baton-charges and teargas and the sneeze-machine became routine, often with many injuries resulting and sometimes with mass arrests on charges of Riotous Assembly. Both marches and rallies outside school grounds were attacked as well as meetings and demonstrations inside the grounds of schools and universities and on occasion inside buildings.
Many were arrested in these attacks. Some were charged with illegal gathering as in the case of 700 arrested at Westbury High School in Newlands near Johannesburg. In other cases pupils were released without being charged as in the case of 130 pupils arrested in Grahamstown on a march to the police station to demand the release of fellow pupils and 275 pupils arrested on a similar march to Uitenhage.
Pressure on principals came from police and from the Minister of Coloured and Indian Affairs, Marais Steyn, who threatened to close all schools in the early stages of the boycott. Later ultimatums were issued by the Secretary for Coloured Relations, warning that all students not back in normal classes the following week would be expelled and, acting on a circular from the Department of Indian Education requesting the suspension of all pupils absent after 2 June, principals in Natal suspended over 10,000 students. However reports of training colleges were reported to have defied a request to expel boycotting students.
Black universities experienced similar measures, with police attacks on meetings or marches at Turfloop, Fort Hare and University of the Western Cape and with police escorting students off the campus at the University of Westville, Durban. No meetings were allowed on the University of Western Cape campus without the principal's approval and all mass meetings were banned at Fort Hare, followed by an indefinite closure of the university, while the University of Westville was closed for 14 days.
Workers on strike too were subjected to repressive measures, with detentions and arrests of workers' representatives, union organisers and strikers and with prevention or disruption of meetings.
Detention or arrest of union organisers and workers' representatives occurred at the Frame Group factories in Pinetown and in the Western Cape meat industry dispute. Strikers were arrested at Rely Precision Mouldings after a police baton attack, and batons and teargas were used against 4500 striking mineworkers at Stilfontein gold mine. In Cape Town 42 contract meat workers were arrested under the same laws after coming out on strike and police dispersed a meeting of 500 Frame Group workers. Union report-back meetings were also banned.
By the end of May at least 300 people had been detained. The first wave of detentions took place at the end of April; on 7 May the Minister of Police confirmed that 20 people were being held. As the protests gathered strength, there was a further wave of detentions towards the end of May. For the first time during the current demonstrations people have been detained under the Internal Security Act, designed to isolate potential 'agitators'.
As the upsurge spread the police methods grew tougher. It appears that the first shootings, resulting in the death of a demonstrator, took place in Bloemfontein on 21 May. Two more people were shot dead soon after at Elsie's River outside Cape Town, and a 22-year-old man was killed by a detective in Ravensmead during stoning incidents.
As 16 June approached there was a further wave of arrests. A total of 2743 people were taken into custody, many in Soweto, and a further 164 summoned to appear in court. At the same time all meetings of over 10 persons were prohibited until the end of June, thus preventing the commemoration of SA Freedom Day, 26 June, as well as the anniversary of the 1976 shootings. Troops were reported ready to enforce the ban.
At this point police excluded foreign journalists from what they termed 'trouble spots'. Later local pressmen were allowed into such areas under police escort. The police began to use the army term 'operational area' for the districts from which they were excluding the press; when 7000 Uitenhage workers were on strike the whole area was declared 'operational' in what the Cape Times called a 'police bid to blackout strike area'. Later the restrictions on the press were lifted, but the Minister of Police warned they would be reintroduced 'if necessary'.
Throughout this period, the police have made threats of ever-tougher action. At the end of May the Minister stated that the police had explicit instructions to crackdown on meetings which challenged the state's authority. In June the Prime Minister gave "a final warning to those underestimating the government's determination to maintain law and order".
At one point the Commissioner of Police stated that his men had orders to 'shoot to kill'; this was subsequently withdrawn by the Minister, who described it as an unfortunate choice of words.
Nevertheless the police did kill a large number of people. Police figures stated that 30 had been killed although another figure of 20 was also given. Unofficial estimates based largely on information from hospitals put the figure higher, at 42 dead.
On 23 June the Prime Minister issued a statement saying that South Africa had so far used "only a small proportion of its strength" and that it would "bring the full might of the state to bear, if necessary, and people would get hurt on a hitherto unprecedented scale".
