In a fight back against the massive repression of the State of Emergency, at least four new non-racial organisations were established in March and April. The South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) became the biggest affiliate of the United Democratic Front (UDF) with a membership of over half a million. At the same time protests continued in both urban and rural areas.
The continuing strength of the democratic movement was also reflected in the support generated for a strike by SA Transport Services (SATS) workers, and in a successful two-day work stoppage during the whites-only general election. Another channel of resistance was a continuing rent boycott in townships around the country.
SAYCO, which was launched secretly to prevent police harassment, represents ten regional youth congresses, all organised during the six months prior to the establishment in March of the national structure. The regional congresses in turn represent over a thousand youth organisations in townships, towns and villages throughout the country.
The launch meeting heard reports from the regional affiliates, all of which stressed the severity of state repression, with detentions, killings, attacks by vigilantes and police and army operations taking a heavy toll on democratic organisation.
In a militant mood the delegates pledged to form community defence organisations, to carry out educational work, and to oppose the ban-tustan policy. SAYCO will campaign jointly with the Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU) and with the UDF.
The UDF was further strengthened with the launch in April of the UDF Women's League, which comprises women's organisations affiliated to the UDF from nine regions. In another development, the Release Mandela Campaign was relaunched at a national level and drew up a programme to campaign for the release of all political prisoners and the abolition of unjust and repressive laws.
The six-week SATS strike during March and April was harshly repressed and used as a pretext for action against the Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU).
Sparked off by the unfair dismissal of a worker and demands by the workers for his reinstatement, the dispute spread from the Witwatersrand to other parts of the Transvaal and Orange Free State provinces. Workers demanded that SATS - a state organisation controlling the railways and harbours - abolish racism in employment practices, and that workers be paid for the period on strike. They also demanded that the South African Railway and Harbour Workers' Union (SARHWU), a COSATU affiliate, be recognised.
By the fourth week at least 22,000 workers were on strike at 80 SATS depots. The largest ever strike in the public sector, it was marked by spontaneous community support. Troops were drafted in to guard stations and installations following the firebombing of more than twenty SATS trains. Leading officials of the union were detained and more than 300 railway workers arrested on charges of 'gathering illegally'. They were subsequently released on bail of R50 each.
SATS refused to negotiate directly with SARHWU and set 22 April as a deadline for the end of the strike. The workers defied the ultimatum and more than 16,000 of them were summarily dismissed. On that day police shot dead eight strikers in two incidents. The dismissed workers were reinstated early in June, when SATS agreed to many of the SARHWU demands but failed to concede on the main issue, recognition of the union.
Emergency restrictions on the media masked the nature and extent of rent boycotts nationally, and reports concentrated mostly on the boycott in the Soweto area of Johannesburg.
Between March and May many tenants were evicted from their homes in several Transvaal townships for being in arrears. In a few cases evictions were halted by legal challenges, and in some areas tenants staged protest marches and demonstrations. In May the Soweto council began to cut off electricity and water supplies to households in arrears, and served eviction notices on prominent boycotters, including Winnie MANDELA, Albertina SISULU, Nthato MOTLANA and Ellen KHUZWAYO.
In April thousands of Sowetans observed a three-day stay-at-home to protest at evictions and the State of Emergency. Press reports spoke of a 'massive' response and 'half-empty' Johannesburg streets. There were marches and sporadic clashes with police.
In response to the whites-only general election on 6 May, the UDF, COSATU and the National Education Crisis Committee called for a two-day stay-at-home starting on the 5th. Although focussed on the elections the protest drew impetus from anger at the restrictions on May Day rallies, the shootings of SATS strikers and the evictions of rent boycotters.
The stay-at-home was the largest general strike in South Africa's history, involving an estimated 500,000 industrial workers and 20,000 miners. In the Eastern Cape absentee rates of up to 99 per cent were recorded, while in townships around Durban and Pinetown - where the response to such calls has been patchy in the past - 60 per cent of workers stayed at home. Only in the Western Cape, where conservative unions predominate, was there a poor response to the stay-at-home call.
Tens of thousands of schoolchildren stayed away from classes, with total boycotts reported in Soweto, Tembisa and New Brighton. There were also boycotts at several universities, including the predominantly white English-language campuses, where there were several days of protests and violent conflicts with police in the lead-up to the election.
