Many trials continued to take place in courtrooms around the country as a result of the continuing unrest in black townships. Apart from those charged with murder (see below), the majority faced charges relating to township protests such as public violence, attending illegal gatherings, arson and possessing petrol bombs. A number of people have also appeared in court to face charges of alleged intimidation and subversion arising out of consumer boycotts.
As a result of sporadic reporting the outcome of these trials seldom becomes known. Occasionally they result in fines for the accused but often they end in acquittals or having the charges dropped because of a lack of evidence. Lawyers and community workers have alleged that court procedures are being abused with the intention of harassing and intimidating residents of townships where there have been protests and demonstrations. They believe that hundreds of young people are being arrested and charged but have little chance of coming to trial. Often, unrest-related charges are withdrawn without explanation after the accused have endured months of suffering and inconvenience from repeated delays and court remands.
Frequently adults awaiting trial lose their jobs, and the jobs of those whose children face charges are jeopardised by having to take time off to assist their children in court.
According to statistics released by the DPSC, of the 1,976 people facing the charge of attending an illegal gathering in 1985, 1,757 (89%) were acquitted or had the charges dropped.
A number of people have also been sentenced to long prison terms. For instance, John TSHABALALA (20), was sentenced in the Paarl Regional Court on 20 February to four years for possessing a petrol bomb, two years of which were suspended for five years. A student, Frank SEKGWALE (18), was sentenced in the Johannesburg Magistrates' Court on 25 February to five years' imprisonment, 18 months of which were suspended for five years, for 'conspiring' to set fire to a school.
LABOUR TRIALS
Between November 1985 and February 1986 members of trade unions and workers on strike appeared in several trials. Most centred on increased industrial strife on the mines. The number of trials in the Ciskei bantustan involving charges relating to support for the banned South African Allied Workers Union (SAAWU) underlined the attempts of the authorities there to restrict its influence.
As a result of strikes and consumer boycotts several people have appeared on charges of alleged intimidation: Johannes SEKATI (32) was fined R1000 in the regional court at Potchefstroom in February for allegedly intimidating a policewoman during the consumer boycott at Ikagen; two members of the SA Chemical Workers Union, Aaron NKLUAMBA and Absalom SITHOLE, were jailed for two years on 11 February for allegedly assaulting new workers after they had been dismissed after a strike.
Mines: In the period under review over 190 miners were brought before courts in the Transvaal and the Bophutatswana bantustan on charges of public violence. These arose from clashes between miners and police and mine security officials during disputes at the Vaal Reefs (Stilfontein), Randfontein Estate (Randfontein), the Randfontein Estate Cooke 2 (Westonaria) and Impala Platinum (Bophutatswana) mines. Two policemen were killed in the clashes at Westonaria and a total of 97 miners appeared in court as a result.
SAAWU: In January and February six people in the Ciskei bantustan were charged with offences relating to support for the trade union which was banned in the territory in 1983. Elliot GONIWE was acquitted on 29 January of 'furthering the aims of a banned organization'. He claimed that he wore a windbreaker over the SAAWU T-shirt he was charged with wearing and the Mdantsane magistrate hearing the case concurred that there was not enough evidence to prove that he wore the shirt to further the aims of the union.
Mbonisi SANDI (23) similarly won his appeal against a six month sentence, suspended for three years, for wearing a SAAWU T-shirt. He subsequently argued that, as a visitor normally resident outside the Ciskei bantustan, he was aware of the ban on SAAWU and had therefore not acted with the necessary wrongful intent.
In another case heard on 29 January however, Wilton VANTO (28) was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, six months of which was suspended for three years, for possession of prohibited literature and material supportive of SAAWU. Two cases were still to be heard and charges were withdrawn in another.
Other: Sixty-two employees of the Western Greyhound bus company were found guilty of illegally striking, in the Potchefstroom Magistrates' Court in November 1985; they were sentenced to six months' imprisonment, suspended for five years. As employees of an essential service, transport workers are prohibited from striking.
Edward MANXIWA, an organiser for the Municipal and General Workers Union of SA (MAGWUSA), was arrested in February while recruiting workers at a municipal compound and charged with trespass. The case highlights the difficulty of organising workers in the services sector because they are housed in sealed-off compounds.
Charges of trespass against 165 employees at the Murray and Roberts steel plant in Cape Town, were withdrawn in February following a test case in which Tandisizwe NGUNA (20) was acquitted. The workers were dismissed and arrested after striking against high rents and conditions at their hostel. An Athlone magistrate found that Nguna could not be convicted of trespass, since 'he had believed he was employed by Murray and Roberts and had thus not had the necessary intention to trespass'. Employers have frequently used the threat of trespass to evict striking workers from company accommodation.
MURDER TRIALS
In January and February, following the death sentences passed last December on six Sharpeville residents convicted of killing a community councillor, nine new murder trials began, involving people accused of attacks on police and local officials.
The 134 defendants in these new trials, who were from the Transvaal, the Eastern Cape, Natal and the KwaZulu bantustan, were accused of killing a total of five policemen, a community councillor and a member of a bantustan 'legislative assembly'.
The largest group of newly accused people, 97 gold miners employed by Randfontein Estates in the Transvaal, were remanded in custody when they appeared in three groups before a Westonaria magistrate. They were accused of killing two white policemen during clashes on 21 January in which seven miners also died.
At Randburg on 17 February the magistrate adjourned the case against 22 residents of Alexandra, near Johannesburg, to 6 March. They were accused of killing a police sergeant.
Bail was denied to Viwe MTSHISELWA (19) in the Queenstown Magistrates' Court on 28 January because, in addition to other considerations, he was said to be a prominent figure in local unrest. He was charged with killing a policeman last November at Mlungisi.
Bail was also refused to Philip KHUMALO (41) who appeared in the Ntzuzuma Magistrates' Court accused of killing Francis Dlamini, a member of the KwaZulu bantustan 'legislative assembly', whose home was petrol-bombed on 28 October.
In the most publicised of the new trials, the State opened its case in the Pretoria Supreme Court against nine men and a woman from Sebokeng who were said to have killed Siza Motjeane, a community councillor, and one of his employees on 3 September 1984.
In a tenth new murder-related trial which began on 17 February in the Alliwal North Magistrates' Court, the Reverend Wilson MATHANSI (37) was charged inter alia with inciting people to kill four others, including three policemen.
In cases begun in 1985, charges were withdrawn against five men accused in the Cape Town Magistrates' Court of killing a policeman at Maitland on 17 January 1985 and against five men charged in the Zwelitsha Magistrates' Court with the murder of a member of a Ciskei bantustan military unit at the funeral of the lawyer Victoria Mxenge last August. Five residents of Sebokeng said to have killed a community councillor named Chakane during the Vaal Triangle unrest on 3 September 1984 were acquitted. Two of them, however, Johannes RADEBE (21) and Oupa MOLEFE (30), were convicted of assault with intent to do grevious bodily harm and were due to be sentenced on 21 February.
In the Grahamstown Supreme Court the hearing of the case against ten people, including four minors, charged with killing a community councillor named Kinikini and five others (including his four sons) on 23 March 1985 continued. Evidence was heard of the Kinikini family's involvement in the persecution of people in Uitenhage's townships by a vigilante group called 'the peacemakers'. There was also evidence concerning the kidnapping of local children by the Kinikinis, who kept them in a mortuary at the family's business premises, a funeral parlour; of the firing of shots by one of Kinikini's sons into a crowd of demonstrators; and of township residents celebrating the death of the Kinikinis by dancing in the streets.
Meanwhile, outside the courtroom Kinikini's wife asked in February for the 'forgiveness' of the UDF for the attacks she made on the ANC and others during a visit to London last May, which was organised by a group called 'Victims Against Terrorism'. She said that she had tried to get her husband to resign as all the other councillors in the area had done, but he had refused.
