STUDENTS * Twenty-nine youths, mostly pupils from the four schools in Daveyton on the East Rand, where boycotts were launched in August, appeared in the Benoni Regional Court on charges of public violence and robbery on 3 September. Of the 29, all aged between 13 and 23 years, eleven were charged with public violence and 18 with public violence and robbery. Their case was due to resume the following day.
In August Daveyton was the scene of violent incidents when police used teargas to disperse protesters demanding recognition of student representative councils, abolition of the age-limit regulation and an end to corporal punishment (RDM 14.8.84; S 4.9.84).
- Five of ten students from Fort Hare University in the Ciskei bantustan charged with public violence were found not guilty in the Mdantsane Regional Court on 6 July. The charges related to an incident at the university campus in June 1983 when about 400 policemen attempted to disperse students who were marching and singing freedom songs outside the grounds. The evidence against the five, Gladwell MABIZELA, Wandile ZAMO, Jack MAKHAPA, Moses MUNYE and Banele KUNENE, was rejected as unreliable. The trial of the remaining students, Joseph MASUTHA, Gladwell MTHEMBU, Michael Zide, Mkhuseli GAUSHE and Edward RAPOO was due to resume on 13 September (DD 7.7.84).
- In another trial of 22 Fort Hare students, 19 were found guilty of public violence in the Zweitshsa Regional Court on 16 July, and were each sentenced to a R200 fine (or 100 days' imprisonment) with a further 200 days suspended for three years. The students were alleged to have caused damage to property and compelled other students to join them in a protest at the university in September 1983. The three other students were acquitted due to lack of evidence (DD 17.7.84; FOCUS 52 p. 9).
- Seventeen pupils from Atteridgeville, near Pretoria, appeared in the Pretoria Regional Court on 28 June charged with public violence and damage to property. Ten of the students were alleged to have refused to attend classes on or about 13 or 14 March, sung freedom songs, assaulted other students and intimidated students from going into their classes. Their case was postponed until early September and they were released on bail. The other seven students were alleged to have held an illegal meeting on 13 February with the intention of disturbing the peace and to have damaged the house of the former principal of the D.H. Peta High School. Their trial was postponed until 11 and 12 September and all were warned to appear.
Students boycotted schools in the townships around Pretoria in solidarity with pupils refused readmission to Saulsville secondary school earlier this year. In the unrest that followed, a student was killed by a police vehicle (S 29.6.84; see FOCUS 53 p. 7).
WORKERS * In a trial which aroused the concern of trade unionists both within South Africa and abroad over the rights of workers to hold meetings, the general secretary of the Food and Beverage Workers' Union, 'Skakes' SIKHAKANE, was found guilty on 21 August of holding an illegal gathering. Sikhakane was detained in February along with 26 other workers after he arrived to address a meeting of workers outside a factory in Potchefstroom in an attempt to settle a dispute. The gathering was found to contravene the ban on outdoor gatherings imposed during the June 1976 uprisings and renewed annually since then.
During the trial three prominent labour relations specialists gave evidence and a telephone was sent to the government by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions calling for the release of Sikhakane and the withdrawal of charges against him. Sentencing was postponed until 10 September. Bail was extended throughout the trial. Sikhakane was to appeal against his conviction in the Supreme Court (RDM 22.8.84; FOCUS 52 p. 9).
- One of about 500 strikers at a chrome mine in the North Eastern Transvaal was charged under the Intimidation Act in July. The strikers were demanding recognition for the Black Allied Mining and Construction Workers' Union. The action followed other strikes by mineworkers in previous weeks over wages and conditions, during which a number of miners were charged with violence or intimidation (RDM 3.7.84; see FOCUS 54 p. 9).
ANTI-ELECTION PROTESTS In the weeks preceding the Coloured and Indian elections to the new segregated parliament a number of people participating in election boycott campaigns and protests were arrested. Following the election to the Coloured chamber of parliament police confirmed the arrest of 152 people, many of whom were due to face various charges.
- Eleven UDF members appeared in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court on 17 August in a series of separate trials. Six were alleged to have assembled with a common intent to disrupt a public meeting of the People's Congress Party, one of the parties contending the Coloured election, and to have assaulted three people. In a second case seven UDF members, including the Mitchell's Plain regional secretary of the UDF, Shahida ISSEL, were charged under the Internal Security Act with attending an illegal gathering. Six members were charged, in another case, with attending an illegal gathering on 6 July at Mitchell's Plain, Cape Town. A further two members were charged with maliciously damaging property. All four cases were adjourned until 6 September (CT 18.8.84).
- In another case three UDF supporters charged with contravening the Intimidation Act were released on R100 bail when they appeared in the Wynberg Regional Court on 9 August. A fourth accused, a 15-year-old girl, was released into the custody of her mother. The trial was to continue in camera, because one of the accused was a juvenile (CT 10.8.84).
- More than fifty people, including a number of students from the Medical University of South Africa (MEDUNSA) were due to appear in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court on 20 September on charges of disturbing the peace. Forty-two had been arrested distributing anti-election pamphlets in Eersterus, near Pretoria, on the weekend preceding the Coloured election. A regional executive member of the UDF, Ismail Mohammed, said that UDF campaigners in Eersterus had been harassed and assaulted by members of parties participating in the elections, and that police refused to give details of how many people had been arrested (RDM 21.8.84; S 28.8.84).
- Eighteen students from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, were acquitted while demonstrating against the new constitution and charged under Section 46(3) of the Internal Security Act with attending an illegal gathering. An alternative charge was brought under a Cape Provincial Ordinance which prohibits, among other things, the displaying of placards without prior consent. The eighteen, who included the president of the University's Student Representative Council, Alan WILLIAMS, appeared in the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court on 23 August and were not asked to plead. The case was postponed to 19 September. The students had taken part in an all-night vigil, with placards calling on people not to vote in the elections. Six others arrested in similar circumstances on 21 August paid R20 admission of guilt fines (DD 23/24.8.84; CT 25.8.84).
- In the Coloured township of Westenburg, outside Pietersburg in the northern Transvaal, three members of the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) were arrested on 1 August by security police while allegedly putting up anti-election posters without municipal authority. The three, Windsor MARABA (27), Saki MALULEKA (23) and Rachi RASETHABA (27), appeared in the Pietersburg Magistrate's Court on 31 August. The case was postponed until 12 September (RDM 3.8.84; S 3.9.84).
CENSORSHIP TRIALS Trials related to the possession of literature expressing opposition to the regime continued to take place during recent months.
- Gerald DAU (28), a member of the South African Allied Workers Union (SAAWU) charged with furthering the aims of the ANC and possessing banned literature, was found guilty in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court on 30 July of possessing literature by the ANC. He was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment suspended for five years. Dau was detained in July 1983 after a diary published by the ANC was found at his home in Atteridgeville. Another SAAWU member, Gabriel MOKOKA, detained and charged with DAU, was acquitted in May of being a member of the ANC, possessing ANC publications and furthering the aims of the ANC (S 31.7.84; FOCUS 52 p. 9, 54 p. 6).
- A trade union organiser and former Robben Island prisoner, Sipho RADEBE (28), was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on 26 July for possessing two publications by the PAC. Redebe was arrested at a police road block in Soweto in November last year, and the publication for leave to appeal against the sentence. Radebe is an organiser with the Council of Unions of South Africa. He was convicted of sabotage in 1976 and spent six years in prison (CT 27.7.84).
- A member of the Azanian People's Organisation, Mncedisi Frans MBILINI, of Queenstown, was acquitted in the East London Regional Court on 11 July of possessing and distributing banned literature. Mbilini had had copies of a National Forum publication which was banned for distribution in January. The court found that there was no evidence that Mbilini was keeping the publications for further distribution after the ban was imposed (DD 12.7.84).
- Gilbert Mogari KGOMO (27), from Soweto, pleaded not guilty in the Johannesburg Regional Court on 18 July to a charge of possessing two banned publications: 'Strategy and Tactics of the African National Congress' and 'Black Opposition — the Politics of Power'. The trial was postponed to 17 September (RDM 19.7.84).
- Zoleka Brenda BADELA (20) appeared in the East London Regional Court on 17 August charged with possessing banned literature. A member of the security police said he found a document entitled 'Nelson Mandela, the People's Leader' when searching Badela's luggage while she was on a bus in Queenstown. Badela pleaded not guilty and the trial was postponed until 28 September (DD 18.7.84, 18.8.84).
