The End Conscription Campaign (ECC) was prohibited on 22 August from 'carrying out or performing any activity or act'. It became the nineteenth anti-apartheid organisation to be restricted in terms of emergency regulations first introduced in February. This action followed several public challenges to compulsory conscription and a period of sustained repression against the organisation.
In July David BRUCE (25), a University of the Witwatersrand law graduate, was convicted in the Johannesburg Regional Court of contravening the Defence Act by refusing to serve in the SADF on the grounds that it maintained a 'racist system'. He was sentenced to six years' imprisonment, the maximum sentence under the Act. His lawyers gave notice of intention to appeal against the sentence which he is serving in Diepkloof Prison.
In an earlier trial in March, another conscientious objector, Ivan TOMS, was sentenced to 21 months for refusing to report for military service. He is serving his sentence in Pollsmoor Prison.
In August 1987 23 Cape Town conscripts publicly refused to serve in the SADF because of its role in defending apartheid. On 3 August this year 143 men liable for service, including many from the first group, refused to serve. They made this public at press conferences arranged secretly in four centres. Some had done initial periods of service. An edition of the Weekly Mail which published statements by some of them was seized under emergency regulations.
Justifying the restrictions, the Minister of Law and Order said that the ECC's national conference in February had decided to have closer links with the United Democratic Front which was in turn 'an ANC tool for a revolutionary onslaught against South Africa'. He said the ANC had expressed support for the ECC and those refusing to do national service.
A week later a restriction order was served on an ECC executive member, Gary CULLEN. It prohibited him from speaking to the press, addressing gatherings and writing or publishing papers or articles.
Revelations about the involvement of the SADF in covert campaigns to discredit the ECC arose during an ECC court application for an order restraining the SADF from harassing it. In an affidavit opposing the ECC's application the Chief of the Air Force and former Chief of Staff of Operations, Lt-Gen. van Loggerenberg, admitted that the Communications Operations Division at Western Province Command had undertaken the campaign as 'legitimate countermeasures'. He argued that the court had no jurisdiction over the matter as the SADF was on a war footing. It was 'essential for the SADF to have a force of properly motivated soldiers with good morale'. The ECC's actions posed a 'real danger' to troop morale and motivation. In early September the hearing was still continuing.
