COMMUNITY PROTESTS
The State of Emergency has failed to halt action by township residents and commuters resisting increases in rents and transport fares. Communities threatened with forced removal have also continued to resist.
- Rents In the wake of the police shooting in August last year of 24 people resisting the eviction of residents not paying rents, rent boycotts have spread to new areas.(See FOCUS 67, p.3 on the Soweto events). In August boycotts were taking place in 38 townships and involved some 300,000 households. By the beginning of September 1986 49 townships were affected (22 in the Transvaal, 19 in the Eastern Cape, five in the Orange Free State and one each in the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Natal). At the end of September they had spread to 54 townships involving 650,000 households, with most of the newly affected areas in the Orange Free State. The boycotts were costing the state R40 million per month in lost revenue. Thirty-two community councils and three town councils had suffered total financial collapse. Townships in the Vaal, the East Rand and other parts of the country have boycotted rents since mid 1984.(WM 15.8.86; 5.9.86; Star 26.9.86; Work In Progress 44 p.16; FOCUS 67 p.3)
In November six people were shot dead in Orlando West in Soweto when residents clashed with council police who tried to cut off the electricity of people not paying rent. Eviction orders were served on boycotters in several other townships, but the likelihood of widespread resistance has discouraged the regime from mass evictions. A government proposal to draft legislation which would force employers to deduct rents from the salaries of employees was withdrawn after objections by employer federations. In Tumahole near Parys 35 rent-boycotting families moved back into their homes after the Supreme Court ruled invalid their evictions by the Orange-Vaal Development Board. The Court ruled that all rent increases since 1979 were technically illegal, because they had not been officially promulgated in the Government Gazette.(Star 30.10.86; S 31.10.86; WM 7.11.86)
- Transport During 1986 there were several struggles around transport. Most were in response to increased fares.
At Ekangala and Soshanguve near Pretoria there were sporadic boycotts. Buses were stoned in March and November following fare increases. In November, commuters in Soweto boycotted PUTCO buses when fares were increased by 17 per cent. Passenger levels fell by 60 per cent and buses came under sustained attack. On one day alone 25 buses were put out of action by stone throwing and petrol bombing. Two ticket sales offices were the targets of limpnet mine attacks. Police responded with a clampdown on alternative forms of transport, pulling 'overcrowded' mini-buses off the roads. In one incident, uniformed white men travelling in an empty PUTCO bus randomly opened fire on a group of youths playing by the roadside in Pimville. Bongani KHESWA (11) was killed. Evidence strongly suggests that they were either members of the SAP or attached to municipal police units.(City Press 2.3.86; Star 1.11.86; 23.11.86; T 4.11.86; BBC 11.11.86; SASPU National, Nov/Dec, 1986)
Some boycotts were linked to issues other than fares. In May residents of Duduza on the East Rand boycotted buses for three months to protest at the detention of leaders of the Duduza Civic Association. The boycott was linked to a consumer boycott launched at the same time.
The most sustained boycott took place in Kagiso (Krugersdorp) where Greyhound Buslines was forced to close down their operation after a seven month boycott. Commuters demanded that the company allow their vehicles to be used to transport mourners to funerals, that it stop opposing the granting of licences to black owned taxi-lines, that the elderly be allowed free transport to collect their pensions and that troops and vigilantes no longer be permitted to use the buses. Although the bus company eventually acceded to these demands, commuters refused to use buses until leaders of the local civic association were released from detention. In July there was a boycott of Greyhound Buslines in Jouberton (Potchefstroom) around similar demands.(Star 27.5.86; S 7.4.86; City Press 13.7.86)
- Removals In spite of government statements in February 1985 that there would be no further forced removals, several communities faced resettlement at the end of 1986. In October the township of Oukasie near Brits was deproclaimed, turning local tenants into illegal squatters overnight. The 15,000-strong community faced removal to Lethlabile on the border of the Bophuthatswana bantustan. White residents of Brits have pressed for the demolition of the township for several years. Residents of Oukasie fear they will be incorporated into the bantustan. Resistance to the move, including work stoppages and stayaways, has been fierce. It has been co-ordinated by the Brits Action Committee which includes representatives of the local civic and women's organisations and trade unionists. Soon after the current State of Emergency was imposed several members of the committee were detained.(WM 24.10.86; TRAC Newsletter, No.11, July 1986)
In July, most of the township of Langa near Uitenhage was demolished and 40,000 residents resettled in Kwanobuhle nearby.
Fifteen thousand people living on the farms of Bloedfontein and Geweerfontein near Bronkhorstspruit are resisting the impending incorporation of the area into the Bophuthatswana bantustan. Communities at Lawaaikamp near George (Western Cape), Tshikota near Louis Trichardt and Rooiogrand (Bophuthatswana) are also threatened with removal.(CP 27.7.86; New Nation 28.8.86; Star 17.9.86; G 11.11.86)
In another development related to removals, the Rev. Daniel RAMEHLAPE, chairman of the Parents Crisis Committee at Vleifontein in the Venda bantustan, was served with an order giving him 24 hours to leave the bantustan on his release from detention in September. The Parents Crisis Committee had attempted, unsuccessfully, to prevent the incorporation of Vleifontein into the bantustan in April. Ramehlape, who was detained in May, spent most of his detention period in hospital after contracting pneumonia while in 'custody'.(Amnesty International 2.10.86; FOCUS 67 p.4)
