The Eastern Cape continued to be the scene of widespread protests against the apartheid system. It was reported in Focus 48 that a bus boycott against a fares increase was launched in the East London area in July. It was met with severe repression by the authorities in the Ciskei bantustan.
The bus boycott continued into September and protests spread to the schools and Fort Hare University. The bantustan authorities launched a massive wave of repression against the protesters. Hundreds were arrested and charged with a variety of offences from arson and public violence to breaking emergency regulations and tax evasion. Many others, including trade union leaders, were held in detention. People were forcibly ejected from taxis and cars. They were forbidden access to trains and forced onto buses. Armed police and soldiers harrassed, intimidated and even killed commuters. Restrictions were imposed on meetings including the funerals of those killed in the protests. The South African Allied Workers Union (SAAWU), whose members had been blamed for organising the boycott, was declared a banned organisation within the Ciskei.
The true scale of the operation is unknown. Reliable reports at the end of September indicated that the bantustan forces were holding so many people in custody that prisons were full and people had been herded into the national stadium where they were being tortured. A pamphlet issued by the United Democratic Front quoted eye-witness reports of 90 people having been killed by police and several hundred injured.
The bus boycott was launched on 18 July in the Mdantsane township near East London. Mdantsane is one of the segregated townships set up within bantustan boundaries to accommodate workers from nearby industrial complexes. Many of Mdantsane's residents, now estimated to number 250,000, were evicted from older black townships on the outskirts of East London when Mdantsane was established. Most of these face long and expensive daily journeys to East London for work. The residents of Duncan Village, East London, who have resisted removal to Mdantsane came out in solidarity with the Mdantsane boycotters.
Bus transport between Mdantsane and East London is run by a branch of the Ciskei Transport Corporation (CTC).
POLICE VIOLENCE: Police violence against the boycotters was immediate. A group of commuters and a taxi driver brought injunctions against the police and their agents to prevent further assault. Hintsa SIWISA, the lawyer acting for boycotters was later detained himself.
On 3 August a state of emergency was declared. Its main provision was a curfew between the hours of 10.30pm. and 4am. No more than four people could meet together in a house. Penalties of R2,000 or two years imprisonment were imposed.
Police violence escalated. On 4 August police opened fire on commuters to prevent them boarding trains and killed at least five, possibly many more. Others were injured and it was reported that those in hospital would not be released until investigations were completed.
Over the following weekend two more people were killed. One was a 16 year old boy, Sisa FAKU, allegedly shot dead during an arson attack on a rent office in Mdantsane. Some days later his sister was detained.
Restrictions were placed on the funerals of those shot dead. They were to be held on a weekday, last no longer than an hour and involve no more than 100 guests. A memorial meeting for the victims was banned.
In a series of mass trials hundreds of people faced charges of breaking the curfew. Most early cases failed through contradictory or unreliable police evidence. Between 8–11 August newspapers reported 349 acquittals and only 20 convictions.
In an effort to break the boycott the entire local leadership of SAAWU was detained. Other union organisers were held including Transport and Allied Workers Union (TAWU) officials attempting to organise the bus drivers. Eight members of the Committee of Ten, set up to organise the boycott, were also detained.
On 4 August the protests spread to the schools. The entire student body of Wongalethu High School came out in support of their parents. The authorities closed the school and the boycotts spread. Pupils from Nkwenkwezi and Wongalethu schools were amongst those detained. During August nine schools suffered arson attacks. By September the boycott was effective in 10 Mdantsane schools and had spread to Duncan Village where a young woman was killed when police broke up a solidarity meeting.
Support for the boycott remained strong. A thousand Mdantsane residents attended a Women's Day meeting in Duncan Village in August and pledged to continue the protest.
The CTC capitulated after a month and reduced the increase by 50 per cent, ostensibly because of a cut in the fuel price. However, the boycott continued in protest at the violence which had been used against the boycotters. In September the CTC announced the retrenchment of over 300 workers. Losses were estimated at R2 million.
Support for the Ciskei protesters came from the ANC's armed wing who carried out two bomb attacks on so-called consulates of the bantustan government in Pretoria and Johannesburg during September.
At the beginning of September the Ciskei authorities carried their repression of SAAWU even further by banning the union. This followed an offer by SAAWU president Thozamile GOWETA to help negotiate an end to the boycott. Gqweta, SAAWU's only East London official not in detention, spoke from a secret address where he was in hiding. Support was pledged by 11 trade union and trade union federations representing 250,000 workers who planned joint action to prevent the ban taking effect. On 29 October the Corporation for Economic Development which owns 50 per cent of the CTC met with SAAWU officials in Durban to discuss the ending of the boycott.
In spite of announcements by the bantustan authorities that most detainees had been released by mid-September this conflicted with reports of hundreds still in custody and held in concentration camp conditions in the national stadium.
