The State of Emergency imposed in the Eastern Cape and the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vaal (PWV) area in July last year, was extended to eight districts in the Western Cape on 26 October following two months of intense resistance in the region. Outside the Western Cape resistance continued in several areas and further restrictions were applied, including a clamp-down on media coverage of unrest. Casualties continued to rise. By November, 834 people had died since the current wave of resistance began in September 1984, most of them killed as the result of police action.
Unrest spread from other parts of the country to Cape Town at the end of August, following police prohibition of a march to Pollsmoor Prison organised to express support for imprisoned ANC leader Nelson Mandela, and in protest at the detention of Allan Boesak who initiated the call for the march. Further protests occurred in the context of a boycott of schools and their subsequent closure by the authorities. With the extension of the State of Emergency, the wide restrictive powers afforded the police and military under emergency regulations elsewhere were applied in the Western Cape as well.
On the day before the emergency was extended, 85 activists were detained, including most of the Western Cape UDF executive and student and community leaders. The extension of the emergency affected a further eight districts including metropolitan Cape Town, the outlying areas of Bellville, Goodwood, Wynberg, Kuils River and Simonstown, as well as Paarl and Worcester in the Boland region. Following this extension the State of Emergency applied in 64 of the country's 380 magisterial districts, (including 26 in the Transkei bantustan) and affected over a third of the population.
In terms of the emergency regulations the authorities imposed extensive restrictions, similar in content to those applied in other parts of the country, on Coloured and African schools, aimed at ending the boycott. In addition to other restrictions, in several areas pupils were confined to classrooms during school hours and barred from being in the streets except en route to school.
Gatherings of 102 organisations in Cape Town, affiliates of the UDF, community, student, youth and pupil organisations, were also prohibited in terms of the regulations. Meetings of civic organisations in the Boland region were similarly prohibited in a separate set of restrictions. Further special restrictions were issued in respect of the townships of Paarl and Worcester. Non-residents of Mbekweni and Zwelethemba were barred from entering without prior permission. Restrictions on the possession of petrol, ostensibly to prevent the making of petrol bombs, were also introduced in these areas.
The emergency regulations reinforced restrictions under the Internal Security Act already in force in the Cape Town area. During August and September police made frequent use of Section 50 of the Act to detain people for periods of 14 days. Meetings of the Detainees Parents Support Committee, UDF and Athlone Students Action Committee were banned on various dates between 8 and 19 October and a ban had been imposed on all meetings in the Goodwood Magisterial District between 7 and 8 October. Restrictions (including bans on gatherings outside halls where meetings were held, use of loudspeakers and the display of banners, and stipulations on orderly conduct) were imposed on meetings of the DPSC, the UDF, South African Institute of Race Relations, a rally addressed by Bishop Tutu and funerals in the same period. An attempt by the Coloured Minister of Education and Culture to curb activity in schools in the form of a ban on meetings of students and teacher associations, including SRCs, was successfully challenged in the courts.
From the limited coverage available since the restrictions on the media were introduced, it appears the emergency regulations have been ruthlessly enforced. On 27 October police and troops surrounded and searched the Heathfield High and Glendale Secondary Schools. The entire student body (510 in all) was arrested in the second week of November at the Zeekevlei Senior Secondary School in Lotus River in a similar operation. In November pupils were forced to write end of year examinations in classes guarded by armed police.
Residents of Zwelethemba (Worcester) claimed in the same period that policemen drafted into the township from other areas of the country lay in wait for them at roadsides, indiscriminately attacking and beating passers-by. Eight people were killed in the township in the three weeks after the emergency was extended.
The ban on meetings had been rigidly enforced. An appeal in the Cape Town Supreme Court to have a ban on a meeting of the Atlantis Residents Association set aside was dismissed on 10 November. The annual general meeting of the Civil Rights League was permitted to go ahead on 19 November but subject to the condition that the Emergency and detentions were not discussed. Troops were used to prevent a meeting taking place in Cape Town in protest at the police killing in the Transkei of a worker from the Cape Town-based Health Care Trust.
A large number of people were detained under the emergency regulations in the Western Cape. Two additional courts were created at the Wynberg Magistrates' Court to deal with the increased number of arrests.
Prior to its extension to the Western Cape the State of Emergency was lifted in six magisterial districts on 24 October. According to the State President P W Botha 'law and order had been re-established' in these areas. Five of these districts - Humansdorp, Hankey, Steytlerville, and Alexandria in the Eastern Cape and Balfour in the Transvaal - are small towns or rural areas where there had been no unrest or only sporadic, isolated incidents. The sixth was Westonaria, a mining area which had been placed under restrictions because unrest was expected during the miners' strike in September. A total of 236,800 people live in the areas where the emergency restrictions have been lifted. On 3 December restrictions were lifted in a further eight districts: Adelaide, Bathhurst, Bedford, Delmas, Heidelberg (Tvl), Jansenville, Pearston and Sasolburg. All were the sites of resistance earlier in 1985.
In the meantime further repressive measures were imposed in other parts of the country. Severe restrictions were imposed on coverage by foreign correspondents and local media of resistance and repression in the areas affected by the emergency. The indemnity covering actions by police and troops in the areas under Emergency rule, was extended on 1 November to all other magisterial districts of the country in terms of Regulation 11 of the Public Safety Act.
Police used particularly brutal methods to crush resistance in Cape Town before emergency rule was extended there, notably an ambush of demonstrators stoning vehicles in Athlone on 17 October by police concealed in boxes on the back of a truck. A similar incident took place on Landsdowne Road near the Crossroads squatter camp on 24 October in which one person was killed. Elsewhere in the country the number of people killed by the police continued to rise. On average almost four people have died every day since the Emergency was imposed. In late November police opened fire on residents of Mamelodi protesting against rent increases. At least 13 people died. Mamelodi does not fall within the areas affected by the Emergency. In Queenstown 14 people died in the course of police action in mid-November.
Severe restrictions on the number of mourners, status of speakers and content of speeches at funerals were imposed in a number of areas, including the Transkei and Ciskei bantustans, although restrictions imposed on funerals in King William's Town were successfully challenged in the courts.
At the same time other developments indicate that the state is increasing its repressive capacity for the future. The South African Police are to be increased by 11,000, bringing the total strength of the force to 56,000 by 1987. A further 40,000 will be enlisted by 1995. An amount of R24,6 million was recently allocated to assist Black Local Authorities (BLA) to establish their own municipal police forces. The BLAs, imposed on African townships outside the bantustans, have been targets of attack in the last 18 months. Five thousand municipal policemen will be trained in the first six months of 1986.
