UDF LEADER BANISHED
The chairman of the Border branch of the UDF, Stephen TSHWETE (46), was effectively banished to the Ciskei bantustan in November when he received a notice withdrawing his exemption from visa requirements in terms of the Admission of Persons to the Republic Regulation Act of 1972.
The visa requirement is apparently waived for most residents of 'independent' bantustans. Tshwete is prohibited from leaving the Ciskei, where he lives, to go to any other part of the country, excluding the so-called 'independent' bantustans, unless he can get a visa.
The government has previously used immigration laws in the same way against two other opponents of apartheid: in July 1982 Charles NQAKULA (see CONTRAVENTIONS) and Malusi MPUMLWANA, a theology student, were effectively confined to the Ciskei area.
The Grahamstown Supreme Court responded to an urgent application on Tshwete's behalf for an interdict by reserving judgment indefinitely. Tshwete faced losing his job at a firm of attorneys in King William's Town, outside the Ciskei.
A former ANC prisoner on Robben Island from 1967 until 1979, banned for three years on his release, Tshwete was undaunted by the new restriction. 'I will always voice my opposition wherever I may be confined,' he said. He was elected chairman of the Border branch of the UDF while detained in solitary confinement in the Ciskei bantustan between September 1983 and January 1984.
CONTRAVENTIONS
- A warrant was issued in the East London Magistrate's Court in November for the arrest of Charles NQAKULA, publicity secretary of the UDF's Border branch, after he failed to appear in the court to face charges of entering South Africa illegally.
Nqakula, a journalist and a former acting president of the Media Workers Association of South Africa, was effectively banished to the Ciskei bantustan in July 1982 under immigration legislation similar to that used to restrict Stephen Tshwete (see above).
Nqakula was acquitted on a similar charge earlier last year, when it was found that the State had failed to prove he had received notice withdrawing his exemption from visa requirements. The second trial, which began shortly afterwards on 30 July, was adjourned to 12 December, 'following Nqakula's disappearance. However, he failed to appear on that date also.
- A former organiser of the Grassroots newspaper and community worker in the Western Cape, John ISSEL (36), sentenced to six months' imprisonment for breaking his banning order, was granted R100 bail after appealing against his conviction and sentence. He was sentenced in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court on 22 October to a years imprisonment, with half suspended for two years, for leaving the area to which he is restricted. Issel has lived under banning orders for a total of eight years; his current three-year order is due to expire in July 1986.
