Since the decision taken in January this year to form a United Democratic Front (UDF), the emergence of a national legal organisation to coordinate legal opposition to apartheid has proceeded rapidly. In what was very widely recognised as one of the most significant developments for many years, the UDF was given its national launch in Cape Town in August.
Aiming to encourage and support legal forms of popular resistance to every aspect of apartheid, and oriented towards the goal of non-racial democracy within a unitary state, the UDF declared as its immediate priorities the building of the organisation at grassroots level and mobilising opposition to the regime's constitutional plans.
Other developments during this year have confirmed that the section of the black community which supports participation in the political structures of apartheid, is a small and diminishing minority.
The decision to form the UDF was taken in January. Between then and August, when the national launching took place, regional UDF organisations were set up in the Cape, Transvaal and Natal with branches in several towns and cities. The national rally was preceded by a very large scale distribution of a UDF newsletter throughout the country: in the Western Cape alone 80,000 copies were distributed.
The size of the national rally (estimated at between ten and twelve thousand people) and the breadth of support from all kinds of organisations led commentators from many sectors of the press to describe the event as a development of major significance.
The 400 organisations said to be supporting the foundation of the UDF were drawn from every part of the country and every sector of resistance. They included religious, community, civic, sporting, youth, women's and cultural organisations. Newspaper estimates of the number of people represented through such organisations were between one and one and a half million.
The degree of support for the UDF, and the open manifestation of that support, are of particular significance in the light of the intense repression of recent years in the form of the detentions, political trials and bannings reported in successive issues of FOCUS.
The Declaration of the UDF adopted at the launching conference expresses a total rejection of apartheid and economic and all other forms of exploitation.
The UDF appears to have brought together on a more lasting basis many of those forces which linked up on an ad hoc basis in campaigns such as the Anti-Republic Day celebration campaign and the Anti-SAIC election campaign.
Within the context of its broad goals the UDF said that the immediate principal focus of its activities would be to mobilise against the regime's constitutional proposals in the period leading up to the white referendum on the issue, on 2 November, and the elections to Community Councils and to the 29 new African local councils later in November. There is to be 'a house to house campaign to mobilise and educate the masses against the government's constitutional proposals. It will be interspersed with localised rallies and church services to be held towards the end of October. The culmination of this phase will be huge regional rallies throughout the country to highlight opposition to the new Constitutional Act and the Black Local Authorities Act'.
Besides the UDF a second major, though less extensive, national grouping of forces opposed to the regime emerged during the year. In June about 800 people met near Pretoria at a meeting convened by the National Forum Committee (NFC). The meeting adopted a document, the Azanian Manifesto, also expressing total rejection of apartheid.
While there was some overlap between the organisations attending the inaugural meetings of the UDF and NFC, and while there is a concerted effort towards unity of all forces, there are certain differences and tensions between the organisations. These have so far primarily been expressed in terms of differences over the participation of whites and their role in the liberation struggle.
However although there are differences, there is common ground on one major issue – the total rejection of all political structures created by the apartheid regime. This has meant that organisations which participate in the official structures have remained outside either grouping. This includes Inkatha, the Coloured Labour Party and the Indian Reform Party.
A further indication of the extent to which the apartheid political structures are rejected was the low participation in elections to the Coloured Management Committees (local government). Only eight per cent of voters registered and few of that eight per cent actually voted: in Athlone in the Western Cape the poll was only 1.4 per cent, while the highest poll in the area was 11.8 per cent.
The long-term response of the regime to these developments was still unclear by September. A number of individuals associated with the UDF had been detained. People distributing UDF leaflets were arrested on a number of occasions. On the eve of the Cape Town Rally police siezed 40,000 copies of the UDF Newsletter, although they returned them after threat of legal action.
More generally, during the period described above, several meetings were banned or restricted in other ways.
