Tension and divisions within Ciskei bantustan structures have exposed both the instability of the bantustan and the involvement of police, army and political figures in atrocities. Opposition has manifested itself in a number of ways, in particular in resistance by communities to incorporation into the bantustan.
Resistance to incorporation On 12 August the South African regime introduced the Borders of Particular States Extension Amendment Act which, among other things, incorporated three villages in Peelton into the Ciskei. Residents of Nkqonkqweni, Thambo and Kwarini in East Peelton, who had been resisting incorporation into the Ciskei bantustan since 1981, had formed the Peelton Residents Association (PRA) in May to co-ordinate their opposition to the move. They collected 2,000 signatures in a petition to the Minister of Education and Development expressing their wish not to be incorporated.
The passage of the legislation was followed by a concerted campaign of terror and violence by the bantustan police and army. In August, following the detention of 26 people, residents obtained a court interdict restraining police from assaulting, harassing or forcibly removing them from the area. In November they filed an application with the Ciskei Supreme Court in which they sought to deny the bantustan authority control over the area. In the application they reported that on 27 August they were assaulted by police using sjamboks and that police arbitrarily detained and interrogated members of the community.
On 26 October police launched a house-to-house search of the villages and arrested 53 people for not paying taxes. Some were sentenced to 30-day terms of imprisonment or fined R80. In January this year bantustan police and soldiers assaulted eight residents in their homes. According to statements made to a lawyer, soldiers forced two women, Nomthandazo BEJE (25) and Thandiwe MBAWULE (21), to strip naked and do physical exercises while they beamed the headlights of an army truck on them.
Similar methods were used by the bantustan authorities to quell resistance by a community which was forcibly removed from Blue Rock squatter settlement in 1983 to Potsdam in the Ciskei bantustan. In 1987 about 2,000 residents fled from the bantustan to Fort Jackson where they erected shacks by the roadside. They were forced back to Potsdam where they were harassed by police and vigilantes. In September, the Ciskei Supreme Court turned down an application for an order restraining vigilantes from assaulting residents, because the first applicant failed to attend the hearing. The hearing was followed by renewed attacks. In January, police surrounded the meeting hall in Potsdam, detained all the men attending a meeting and told the women to disperse.
State violence Evidence in the case of William Matsheketwa, the Zwelitsha representative in the bantustan assembly, and 56 other people, exposed links between the bantustan authorities and vigilante activities. A group known as 'Amafanankosi', led by Matsheketwa and reporting to a committee of four chaired by Ray Mali, at one time a member of the bantustan 'cabinet', operated from 1985. The vigilant group, which operated from a farm owned by the bantustan authority, was using its transport and was also receiving money from the bantustan ruling party. Another member of the bantustan assembly, Nomakhosazana Gonya, testified that she was informed that the bantustan leader, Lennox Sebe, had instructed Matsheketwa to establish the group, which carried out a reign of terror in Zwelitsha.
Opponents of the bantustan system continued to be targets of police violence, and attempted assassinations and attacks on their properties. In August last year, soldiers were reported to have randomly sjambokked people. In the Ciskei Supreme Court three bantustan policemen were accused of killing Wiseman MANYEWA on 31 July by shooting him and assaulting him with a blunt instrument in a house in Mdantsane. Ryan Buyisile MAPISA, Secretary of the UDF-affiliated African Culture and Community Development Association, was dragged and assaulted in front of his family by seven men who claimed to be policemen. Inquiries into his whereabouts were answered by denials by the bantustan police that they ever held him, until he was released two weeks later.
Mntonga: killed in detention Divisions within the bantustan police exposed their violence and methods of treatment of political detainees in a case arising out of the death of Eric Mxolisi Mntonga (35). Five bantustan policemen were charged with the murder of Mntonga, who was the regional co-ordinator of the Institute for Democratic Alternatives for South Africa (IDASA).
There were attempts to conceal the nature of his death, but it emerged during the trial that Mntonga, former branch secretary of the South African Allied Workers Union (SAAWU) as well as a prominent member of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Mdantsane Committee of Ten which co-ordinated the bus boycott of 1983, died in detention on 24 July 1987. He died of head injuries and had 25 other injuries as well as wounds in the chest inflicted after his death.
His body was found the following day lying next to his car alongside the road near Tamara village. An inquest into his death which was held without the knowledge of his next of kin concluded that his death was caused by unknown people.
In September 1988 the Director of IDASA, Alex Boraine, wrote a letter to the bantustan leader after receiving information from within the bantustan police force identifying a number of policemen involved in the killing of Mntonga. Six policemen were arrested and charged with his murder. They included the head of the bantustan Security Branch, Phakamile Mountain Ngcanga, and the second-in-command of the Elite Unit, Zandisile Ngwanya.
Evidence against the policemen revealed that Mntonga was detained on 24 July at Mdantsane police station where he was subjected to gruesome torture during interrogation by 15 policemen.
State evidence alleged that when the policemen realised that Mntonga was dead they locked the body in an office and made plans to dispose of it. In the evening the body was stabbed in the chest to give the impression that Mntonga had been attacked. His body and car were later taken to a quiet road near Tamara where they were dumped. A number of those accused had previously been mentioned in the torture of other political detainees in the bantustan.
In passing its verdict, the Ciskei Supreme Court found that Mntonga died in Mdantsane Police Station after 'he was subjected for some considerable time to harsh and vicious assault'. All six policemen were found guilty of murdering him and sentenced to a total of 31 years imprisonment. The defence lawyers, however, continued to allege that there was a cover-up to protect other policemen.
