Faced for several months with mounting resistance on a number of fronts the apartheid regime has responded with continued and increasing repression.
During August and September, at the height of a campaign demonstrating popular rejection of the new segregated parliament, with the black education system in turmoil and with the regime's control under challenge in several major townships, there were more detentions, further restrictions on political activity and extensive use of armed force.
The Minister of Law and Order said the measures were taken to ensure that 'a revolutionary climate is not fostered'.
The protracted struggle in schools, colleges and universities over apartheid education is described elsewhere in this issue, as are the struggles in the townships over rents and the new local authorities. The widespread nature of these struggles was significant, as was the extent to which they came to involve a direct rejection of, and challenge to, the segregated, political and administrative structures of apartheid. These aspects of the protests were in part due to the national campaign against the new constitution and against the elections to the Coloured and Indian chambers of parliament in August. The climate of militancy was heightened by a sustained wave of strikes, including a miners strike in September.
The openly political character of the protests and the degree to which different issues were linked together in struggle, reflected a further development of a process extending over several years. An early stage was visible in the 1980 education boycott. Further stages were marked by successive campaigns in 1981 against political initiatives of the regime and by the establishment of the United Democratic Front in 1983 (see FOCUS 49 p.5).
The extremely low level of participation in the election has been widely accepted as destroying any claims by the regime to legitimacy of its new parliament, which has nevertheless been established.
The local authorities in African townships, set up after an election in November 1983 with even lower polls, came under direct and widespread attack during the demonstrations of September. At least four councillors died and many more had thier houses and shops destroyed.
Almost every area of the country was affected during August and September by protests. Boycotts and other forms of action in educational institutions occurred in places as far apart as the northern Transvaal, Cape Town, East London, Bloemfontein, Durban and several of the bantustans.
The anti-constitution campaign, led primarily by the UDF and its affiliates, was not only well supported in the urban areas, but was extended into several rural areas hitherto largely isolated from the main centres of political activity. Regional structures of the UDF were set up in the Northern Cape and Orange Free State, while a 'Rural Peoples Rally' in the Northern Transvaal attracted several thousand people, many travelling long distances from bantustan areas to attent (SASPU National, September 1984).
The strength of the opposition to the regime was underlined by its inability to deal with the situation except by the use of force:
- Deployment of Police Police action against activists in the election boycott campaign, and physical attacks on demonstrators on polling day, are described elsewhere in the issue, as are attacks on pupils and students during August.
As the resistance to rent increases in the townships gathered force, large numbers of police were mobilised. Police frequently used rubber bullets and at times live ammunition to break up demonstrations or gatherings. After two weeks an estimated eighty people had been killed, mainly as a result of police action, including seven miners (GN 4/10.10.84).
- Detention without Trial Even by the beginning of August the level of detentions was higher than the previous year. On the eve of the elections a large number of leaders and activists in the boycott campaign were detained.
- Bannings of Meetings In September, on the eve of the anniversary of the death in detention of Steve Biko, all political meetings were banned in 26 magisterial districts. This supplemented the ban on all outdoor meetings, in force since 1976 (RDM 12.9.84).
In spite of government actions, the protests continued. The ban on meetings was defied on several occasions, in particular for funerals of those killed by police. More arrests followed, including the arrest of 598 at a funeral in Sebokeng, 58 of them under the age of 16 (RDM 29.9.84).
