At the beginning of 1986 emergency regulations promulgated by the regime in July 1985 still applied in 30 magisterial districts, having been lifted in eight of the 38 districts where it formerly applied. However, by January 1986 the regime had used powers under various 'security laws' to impose emergency-like conditions on the whole country, including areas not directly under the emergency regulations.
Resistance to apartheid and to the emergency continued in most parts of the country, increasingly taking the form of consumer and school boycotts. In response, sweeping new powers were granted to army personnel operating in areas of unrest and bans on the holding of meetings by a wide range of organisations were imposed. The number of deaths and detentions as a result of police and army actions continued to rise.
Wide-ranging powers have been extended to SADF personnel, allowing them to search and seize articles and in some cases detain people and disperse crowds in any unrest situation. The regulations give to soldiers powers previously held only by police in emergency areas.
The regulations were promulgated in mid-December in terms of the Defence Act. While the SAP and SADF already have broad powers in areas under the State of Emergency, the new measures extend the powers of the SADF in any part of the country where they are suppressing unrest, engaged in counter-insurgency activity or maintaining law and order.
Provision for the implementation of the regulations has existed at least since 1984 when the Defence Act was amended, but this is the first time that regulations have been issued to give effect to the legislation.
In situations where the SADF is involved in containing disorder its personnel now have the authority to search buildings and cars and guard roadblocks without police assistance and arrest people when and where previously only the police could do so. In terms of the Internal Security Act, SADF members of or above the rank of warrant-officer, may prevent a prohibited gathering, disperse an unlawful gathering, and order the detention of any person for 48 hours – a period which can be extended.
On 31 December gatherings by 74 organisa-tors in 30 magisterial districts were banned for six months in terms of the Internal Security Act. Twenty one of these areas are in the Eastern Cape, seven in the Orange Free State and two in the Transvaal. Only a third of the districts are included in the existing emergency areas. Meetings of 64 organisations were already banned in all 30 districts from June 1985.
Organisations affected include the UDF, AZAPO, the Release Mandela Committee and the Detainees Parents Support Committee.
Not only meetings but many different forms of activity and association have been banned or restricted. In particular, severe restrictions have been imposed on funerals of victims of township unrest and commemorative services under both the emergency regulations and the Internal Security Act.
In December a carol service and the annual congresses of the National Union of South African Students and the South African Students Press Union were banned in the Cape. A 48 hour ban on gatherings in the municipal areas of Soweto, Diepmeadow, Dobsonville, Eldorado Park, Lenasia, and Noordgesig was imposed under the emergency regulations on 13 January. The ban was imposed after AZAPO had planned to hold a meeting in Soweto.
Deaths and detentions arising out of the township unrest continued unabated. Most of these deaths resulted from police and military actions in the townships but a number of prominent leaders of political and community organisations have been murdered by vigilantes and anonymous 'death squads'.
From September 1984, when the current wave of unrest started, until the end of 1985 1,045 people were killed. The total number killed during 1985 was 879 – an average of 2.41 people per day. Between 21 July 1985 when the emergency started and 2 January a total of 7,478 people were detained under emergency regulations, of whom 7,084 had been released. By 10 January 354 people were still being detained in terms of the emergency regulations.
The Institute of Race Relations calculated that the rate of killing had doubled since the State of Emergency was imposed. The Institute noted that there had been a decline in the daily fatality rate in the Port Elizabeth/Uitenhage area and on the East Rand after the emergency was declared there on 21 July 1985 but that the rate in the Western Cape increased substantially after the emergency came into effect there on 26 October.
On 11 January Ampie MAYISA, the leader of the Leandra Community Action Committee, which is an affiliate of the UDF, was assassinated by a group of youths believed by residents to be sympathetic to Inkatha, a day before he was to meet the US Secretary of State, Chester Crocker. His house and that of another community leader were firebombed and completely destroyed.
At a national educational conference at the University of the Witwatersrand on 29 and 30 December 1985, representatives from 161 organisations unanimously resolved to give the authorities until the end of March to meet a series of educational and political demands.
The demands called on the regime to open all schools on 28 January in order to allow time for the conference representatives to communicate the decision to return to classes, re-schedule examination dates to a time agreed upon by students, parents and teachers, lift the State of Emergency in all areas, unban COSAS, reinstate all dismissed teachers, release all detained students, and allow Student Representative Councils to be established. It was also resolved that schools should ensure that corporal punishment and sexual harassment of female students are stopped.
The conference further decided, amongst other things, that there should be a total boycott of school fees and payments for school books, that parents should boycott all statutory school bodies and instead work with teachers in setting up progressive parent-teacher associations. If the demands were not met by the time a second conference was called in March, a nationally coordinated boycott would be the likely response.
The regime rejected the request to delay the opening of schools to 28 January although it said that students who enrolled 10 days after schools reopened would still be admitted. The SPCC responded that the decision to reopen on schedule 'might give impetus to the alleged campaign of making this a year of no school'.
When schools officially reopened on 8 January most African secondary schools in the East Rand, Pretoria, Soweto, Eastern and Western Cape were deserted while at primary schools there was partial attendance. Attendants in other parts of the country varied: in Durban between 30 and 60 per cent of pupils reported for classes while in the Orange Free State and the Northern Cape attendance was reported to be high.
The regime has attempted to break the boycotts by preventing meetings to discuss the education crisis. On 10 and 13 January police fired teargas to break up meetings in Leandra banned under the Public Safety Act and called by the People's Education Committee in response to the SPCC's conference. Similar meetings were banned in at least four other areas.
Boycotts of white businesses, which had been in force during December, were suspended in all regions of the country except Uitenhage at the beginning of January as various regional committees attempted to form a national boycott committee.
Various regional boycott committees threatened to reimpose the boycotts on 1 February if certain conditions were not met. The demands included the release of boycott leaders and other detainees, the withdrawal of the armed forces from the townships, and the lifting of the State of Emergency. A number of committees also included various local demands.
The boycott in Uitenhage was resumed on 1 January because of the 'hardline' attitude of the authorities in the area. In the West Rand townships of Kagiso and Munsieville the boycott was extended indefinitely because grievances and demands had not been met. A bus boycott was also launched because, it was claimed, the bus company had allowed its buses to be used by the police to carry vigilantes around the township.
