Thozamile BOTHA who fled South Africa in May 1980 after being put under a banning order, spoke in New York at a Meeting in Solidarity with South African Political Prisoners organised by the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid on 10 October.
Thozamile Botha was detained after the Ford strike ended in January 1980 and was banned on his release from detention, as were other leading members of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation. He drew on this experience in his speech to the meeting.
He began by emphasising the restrictions suffered by banned people:
I should like to bring to the attention of this gathering the fact that there are two types of political prisoners in South Africa: there are formal political prisoners and informal political prisoners. The formal political prisoners are those who are directly arrested, directly detained for indefinite periods, charged and sentenced to long-term imprisonment - some indeed to perpetual detention, never to be seen again. Others are banned and banished; prisoners in that category are allowed the privilege of staying with their families but are incomunicado as far as the outside world is concerned.
A banned person becomes a leper in terms of South African security laws; he has no right to work, he has no right to education, and he is even denied the right to communicate with his own parents, brothers and sisters. His wife and children also become prisoners. They cannot receive friends at their dwelling-place.
He described his own arrest and interrogation:
When they arrested me on 10 January this year they handcuffed me and tightened the handcuffs. When I complained in the car on our way to the police station they said the keys were left behind with another man. At the police station one man took the key out of his pocket, tried to unlock the handcuffs and broke the key. Both my wrists were swollen. They took a hammer and tried to break the handcuffs, but in vain. Later, after about two hours, they took me to the fire brigade station to have the handcuffs cut.
They took me from that police station to Jeffreys Bay, about 90 kilometers from Port Elizabeth. They took all my clothes, including my underpants, and I was given two blankets and a mat. For days no one came except the police at the police station, to give me porridge full of worms.
A week later I was taken to Sanlam, (security police headquarters in Port Elizabeth), for interrogation. They kept me at Sanlam for five days and nights without sleep. My feet got swollen. I asked them to take me to a doctor, which they did, but the doctor said I was shamming and boasted that he would be the first to give evidence at my post mortem if I died, because he knew that there would not be a scratch on me.
Although Thozamile Botha cited many cases of repression and torture, he stressed also the fact that the struggle for freedom continued and was intensifying. In doing so he expressed appreciation to all those organisations which had participated in the successful campaign to save the life of James Mange. He noted that as the struggle intensified there would be similar cases, citing those now on trial in Pretoria as possible cases.
Zubeida MAYET, a former journalist, appeared in the Johannesburg Regional Court on 22 October 1980 charged with contravening her banning orders. She was alleged to have attended a meeting at the Jiswa centre in Lenasia on 19 October.
She was banned for five years in 1978. She is restricted to the Johannesburg area and may not attend any gatherings.
The meeting she is said to have attended was one of several held throughout the country on 19 October to commemorate the banning in 1977 of 18 organisations and their publications.
Dr. Beyers NAUDE, the former director of the banned Christian Institute, has been refused an application for a passport. He wanted to attend the centenary celebrations of the Free University of Amsterdam which awarded him an honorary doctorate in theology in 1972.
Dr Naude spoke at a meeting held at a church on 19 October 1980 to commemorate the banning of 18 organisations in 1977. To observe his banning order he remained apart from the congregation after he had given the sermon and spoke to visitors one at a time.
David RUSSELL, the banned priest, was married on 25 October 1980. The marriage was on a Sunday because in terms of his banning orders he may not take part in a public church service on any other day.
After the marriage the couple had to apply to the Minister of Justice to move from David Russell's parents' home, to which he is confined from 6pm to 6am on weekdays and all day on Sundays.
A number of meetings have recently been banned or disrupted by police, even though the general ban on all "political" meetings of more than 10 people lapsed at the end of August 1980.
In Port Elizabeth, one of the areas most affected by the school boycott, local authorities banned all meetings planned for the weekend of 12 September, to mark the third anniversary of Steve Biko's death in police custody. An application for the ban was reported to have come after security police seized a number of suitcases containing pamphlets of the banned ANC in the New Brighton Township.
Some weeks later a ban was placed on two meetings at which the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches was to have spoken, on 26 October. The meetings, arranged by the Port Elizabeth Parents Committee and the pupils' committees, were to have been for a report-back on Bishop Tutu's meeting with the Minister of Education and Training. The police liaison officer confirmed that the meeting was banned "in the light of the unrest situation in the townships".
In Soweto batons and teargas were used by the police on a crowd of 3,000 people on 15 October, the day Dr Koornhof, the Minister of Cooperation and Development visited Soweto. He was given the 'freedom of the City' by the Chairman of the Soweto Community Council.
The crowd had gathered to protest against this decision of the Council, and also against rent increases of 75%. One journalist described Soweto on that day as a beleaguered city with camouflaged riot police and alsatian dogs forming a cordon around the Community Council offices.
The demonstration coincided with an attack by saboteurs on the railway line from Soweto to Johannesburg. The protests were part of the build up to the third anniversary, on 19 October, of the banning of 18 organisations in 1977.
At least two of the meetings held on 19 October were disrupted by police in Soweto and Lenasia. In Soweto, police were said to have baton-charged from the rear of a church hall, forcing open a locked door. 18 people subsequently appeared in Protea Magistrates Court, charged with entering the church without permission. Two other people appeared in Kliptown Magistrate's Court after being arrested at a commemoration meeting at Lenasia, where Zubeida MAYET was also arrested.
All public meetings were banned in Lebowa for the weekend on which the commemorative services were to be held.
