Harsher repressive legislation, increased military spending and an extension of military conscription were announced by the South African Government during February and March 1982. They were the latest of several indications that the regime anticipates even more serious challenges to its rule than it has already experienced (see also THREATS TO PRESS).
The government announced in February that it had accepted the main recommendation of a commission which had reviewed South Africa's security legislation (the Rabie Commission).
The implementation of the recommendations will have the effect of considerably tightening the already harsh security laws, and of extending their scope. Organisations concerned with the welfare of detainees and banned people rejected as totally inadequate the Commission's proposals regarding the review of bans and detentions and those regarding visits to detainees as a safeguard against torture. The principal changes recommended in the scope of the laws are clearly aimed at dealing with both armed actions of the liberation movement and mass action.
- Existing security legislation (comprising 12 laws) will be replaced by a smaller number of new laws with newly defined offences of Terrorism, Subversion and Sabotage. Terrorism would be defined as aiming to overthrow the state or to bring about constitutional change by violent means. Subversion would cover the same aims, but does not necessarily involve violence. Sabotage is defined as the destruction or damage of strategic buildings or installations.
- Assistance to anyone committing Terrorism, Subversion or Sabotage is defined as an offence, and this includes failure to report to the police any suspicion that someone else is committing any of these offences.
- A new law, probably to be called the Intimidation Act, would increase existing powers to act against people who the regime alleges 'intimidate' others to act against it or to resist apartheid. Such a law would add to the measures used against those taking part in or organising strikes, boycotts and demonstrations.
- Demonstrations in or near courts would be banned, and restrictions would be placed on attendance at funerals.
The government accepted the Commission's proposals regarding banning and detention without trial. The Commission recommended that they be continued. It said that interrogation of detainees was the most important source of information about 'subversive' activities, and also an important source of evidence for trials. It also recommended the continuation of 'preventive detention'.
As a result of the government's acceptance of the Rabie Commission's proposals, control over the administration of security legislation has been shifted from the Department of Justice to the Department of Police, which has been renamed the Department of Law and Order.
Apart from recommending the kinds of changes described above, the Rabie Commission also contained remarks on what were seen as threats to 'internal security', Inconclusive and often inconsistent, the remarks nevertheless give an indication of the directions in which it is likely that the new measures will be applied. Several aspects were of concern to the Commission: encouragement of civil disobedience by the churches; encouragement of a spirit of resistance by journalists and newspaper with a black readership and by legal organisations like COSAS and AZAPO; the expression of support for, or the giving of assistance to, illegal organisations, in particular the ANC; the intensification of armed struggle by the ANC and a possibility of armed action by the PAC.
At the same time as initiating a tightening of security legislation, the government announced a further increase in military spending and an extension of conscription.
Although the budget introduced in March was generally restrictive, there was an 8.1 per cent increase in defence spending, which has grown ten-fold over the past decade.
Much of the military budget will be absorbed by large-scale armaments manufacture to equip a greatly expanded military force.
The expansion of the regime's military forces, to almost double their present size, would result from the implementation of measures proposed in a bill introduced in Parliament on 24 March, according to the Minister of Defence. The bill also contains measures for strengthening the commando system, consisting of part-time volunteers.
