BALEKA AND OTHERS DELMAS TREASON TRIAL
The trial of Patrick BALEKA and others was concluded in the Pretoria Supreme Court on 8 December when four defendants were sentenced for treason and another was imprisoned for 'terrorism'. Of the original 22 defendants who pleaded to the charges in January 1986, eleven were acquitted in the course of the trial, while six others were convicted of 'terrorism' and given wholly suspended sentences.
The trial stemmed mainly from events in the Vaal Triangle in late 1984 when a proposed rent increase provoked massive protests. Since then, the regime had sought a court ruling that these and other protests nationwide were part of a co-ordinated UDF-ANC strategy rather than a response to local and even national grievances. The state's case fell into two parts – to show a treasonable conspiracy between the ANC and the UDF, aimed at the overthrow of the government, and secondly to prove that the UDF and its affiliate, the Vaal Civic Association, had organised the uprisings which began in the Vaal townships of Sebokeng and Sharpeville on 3 September 1984. The state's intent was shown by the choice of murder as one of the alternate charges to the main charge of treason. This related to the deaths of four councillors and one other person in the Vaal protests.
Fourteen of the nineteen accused gave evidence in their own defence – some giving details of their own participation in the Vaal protests, while Lekota and Molefe in particular, expounded on the development and policies of the UDF, each taking the witness stand for a month. Molefe refuted the suggestion that the UDF was formed solely in response to a call from the national executive of the ANC in January 1983 to 'organise all democratic forces into one front for national liberation'. He traced the origin of the UDF from much earlier calls for a broad front. Both outlined the UDF's commitment to non-violence. In his judgment Justice van Dijkhorst acknowledged that the UDF's campaign against the tri-cameral parliament was non-violent but described this as a tactic adopted to avoid alienating potential supporters amongst the Indian and Coloured voters.
This misuse of the South African judicial system for political purposes is deplorable. Several of these defendants are highly regarded spokespersons for peaceful black opposition...
Response by United States' State Department to the Delmas Trial convictions
The state had sought to prove a conspiracy between not only the UDF and the ANC but also AZAPO. In the end, those convicted of treason were either UDF leaders or, in the case of Thomas MANTHATA, a fieldworker with the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and a member of the Soweto Civic Association, someone who was said to identify with the UDF's aims. Manthata was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. His conviction derived from his role as a speaker at a meeting held in response to the impending rent rise. State witnesses alleged that speakers at this meeting, on 26 August at Small Farms in Evaton, had called for the murder of councillors responsible for implementing the rise.
Terror LEKOTA, the UDF's publicity secretary, Popo MOLEFE, its general secretary, and Moss CHIKANE, former Transvaal secretary, were convicted on the basis of van Dijkhorst's judgment that a dominant core of the UDF functioned as an internal wing of the ANC and formulated and executed policies aimed at mobilising the masses to make South Africa ungovernable. Lekota, who has already served a six-year term on Robben Island, received a 12-year sentence while Molefe and Chikane received 10 years' each. Criticism of the convictions focussed on the fact that no specific treasonable acts had been named.
Controversy also surrounded the treatment of the other seven, mainly members of the Vaal Civic Association, who were convicted of organising the protest: Serame Jacob HLAN-YANE, Gcinumuzi Petrus MALINDI, Hlabeng Sam MATLOLE, Sekwati John MOKOENA, David MPHUTHI, Naphthali NKOPANE and Tebello Ephraim RAMAKGULA.
Malindi, a former COSAS activist who was shot in the head at the time of his arrest at a funeral in September 1984, was given a five-year custodial sentence. He had a previous conviction for stoning buses in 1981, a fact the judge took into account. The others had their sentences wholly suspended but on such strict conditions that they amounted to virtual banning orders. As well as the usual conditions that they should not be convicted of certain offences the men were forbidden, for two years, from giving interviews or public statements; from attending any gathering of more than 20 people except for bona fide church services and sports meetings; from participating in or serving on the executive of any political or youth organisation, and from participating in or organising any public protest.
The following defendants were acquitted: Amos MALINDI, Lazarus MORE and Simon VILAKAZI at the end of the prosecution's case in November 1986; and Patrick BALEKA, Oupa HLOMUKA, Petrus MOKOENA, Rev. Jeff MOSELANE, Simon NKOLI, Thabiso RATSOMO, Jerry TLHOPANE and Bavumile VILAKAZI in November 1988.
MASEKO AND OTHERS
On 16 January, the Pretoria Supreme Court sentenced Acton Mandla MASEKO (37) and Ebrahim Ismael EBRAHIM (51) to lengthy prison terms of 23 and 20 years respectively after convicting them of treason. The third defendant, Simon DLADLA (39), received a 12-year sentence for 'terrorism'.
Media interest in the trial, which commenced in August 1987, focussed on Ebrahim, a former ANC political prisoner, who was kidnapped from Swaziland in December 1986. Ebrahim joined at least two other prisoners who have stood trial after being abducted. In 1977 Joseph Nduli and Cleopas Ndhlovu were sentenced to 18 and 15 years respectively after being kidnapped from Swaziland.
Maseko and Dladla were alleged to have carried out a series of landmine attacks in the eastern Transvaal between April and June 1986 which Ebrahim was said to have directed from his alleged position in the ANC's political and military structure in Swaziland. Ebrahim's defence denied he was involved in the ANC's military command structure saying that after leaving South Africa in 1981 he had played a purely political role. Between 1964 and 1979 Ebrahim served a 15-year term on Robben Island for acts of sabotage.
Both Maseko and Dladla led evidence to challenge the admissibility of statements taken from them in detention: they were partially suffocated and tortured by electric shocks to the genitals. Dladla also suffered a perforated ear drum. Dladla's statement was ruled admissible, though Maseko's was not. Very little other reported evidence concerned Dladla.
Most of the evidence against Ebrahim came from unidentified state witnesses who described themselves as former ANC members. Photocopies of documents allegedly made by a police spy in the ANC's headquarters in Lusaka were also submitted as evidence. Helena Pass-toors, who was sentenced to 10 years for treason in 1986, was subpoenaed as a witness but not called. Tapes of a conversation recorded between her and Ebrahim at a hotel in Durban in 1985 were, however, tendered as evidence.
Two other potential state witnesses were Arthur MSIMANGO and Adam MALATJIE who were picked up along with Dladla and Maseko at a roadblock near Pretoria in June 1986. Although detained under Section 31 of the Internal Security Act in order to testify for the state they were not called and defence attempts to get access to them were rejected by the court.
Another state witness who failed to appear was Shirish SONI, a former detainee who suffered permanent psychiatric damage during his detention in 1985 and who was apparently excused on medical grounds.
The defence refuted the state's evidence of the ANC's structures by means of evidence taken on commission in London from six leading ANC members: John Nkademing, Vusi Khumalo, Jacob Zuma, Ronnie Kasrils, Tozi Memela and Johannes Mkhwanazi. They undermined the state's case in a number of material aspects and also outlined the ANC's strategy for armed struggle with its emphasis on the avoidance of civilian casualties whenever possible.
Also giving evidence for the defence was Vusumuzi SINDANE, a convicted prisoner whose trial in the Ermelo Regional Court in May 1987 had apparently received no press coverage. Shackled in leg irons, Sindane, who was shot while allegedly attempting to smuggle arms from Swaziland into South Africa, is now serving a 17-year prison term. He testified on behalf of Maseko.
A fourth accused, Vusumuzi Vivian NENE (33) who appeared with the other three in August 1987, was later tried separately in the Pretoria Regional Court. He pleaded guilty to three counts of 'terrorism'.
On 21 November Maseko, Ebrahim and Dladla were also convicted in Pretoria, where the trial had moved after earlier hearings in Piet Retief and Bethal. None of the accused gave evidence but Ebrahim and Maseko made statements about their background and motivation to Mark Orkin of the Community Agency for Social Enquiry, who then submitted them as part of his evidence in mitigation. Justice Daniels ruled that there was doubt over Dladla's nationality, whether South African or Swazi, so he was acquitted of treason and convicted on the alternate charge of 'terrorism' for his role as a courier. Justice Daniels said Maseko had narrowly avoided a death sentence because no-one was killed in the landmine explosions he allegedly carried out. He found that it 'did not make much difference' whether Ebrahim 'belonged to the ANC's political organ or military wing... because their aims were the same, to overthrow the South African government violently.' He conceded there was no evidence he had masterminded the landmine attacks.
