Defiant actions against the emergency regulations and other apartheid laws during the first half of 1989 helped consolidate organised opposition to apartheid. Support for defiance came from the annual conference in June of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), and from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).
COSATU, which has played an important role in consumer and bus boycotts, called for a stayaway in September to protest at elections to the apartheid tri-cameral parliament. This was in breach of restrictions which prohibit COSATU from engaging in political activities. The SACC conference passed a resolution committing the churches to non-violent action to bring about the end of apartheid and to support those challenging restriction orders and detention without trial.
There was widespread resistance in the bantustans, especially against removals. In townships, besides bus and consumer boycotts described below, rent boycotts continued. Residents in some areas like Soweto, Duncan Village and Port Elizabeth have not paid rents for four years.
On 12 June, more than 10,000 youths marched against the State of Emergency in the Eastern Transvaal. There were also signs of the start of a national campaign against the restriction of people under the emergency.
In June the Border Crisis Committee launched a 'Stop the Restrictions' campaign involving several community organisations. They sent a petition with 3,500 signatures to the Minister of Law and Order demanding the lifting of restrictions on individuals. Relatives of restricted people in Queenstown sent the minister a memorandum outlining the effects of restrictions, complaining of late night police raids, and expressing fears for their relatives' safety. Some people challenged their restrictions in the courts and further challenges were planned. Others defied their orders on various occasions.
Attempts to increase bus fares sparked boycotts in various areas including three bantustans. At a May Day Rally organised jointly by COSATU and the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU) in Duncan Village, East London, 5,000 commuters decided to boycott Ciskei Transport Corporation (CTC) buses after a 25 per cent fare increase. CTC workers supported their action with a sit-in. Similar action a month before by 41,000 commuters in Ladysmith and Newcastle cost a local company R60,000 in the first two weeks — the boycott was suspended eight weeks later, with the two sides agreeing to meet.
In March Bophuthatswana bantustan police sjambokked Hammanskraal residents who were boycotting buses in protest at the termination of train services between that town and Pretoria. Church bodies criticised the actions of the bantustan police. In July in Duduza on the East Rand, a two week long bus boycott organised by the Duduza Civic Association (DCA) only ended when the authorities suspended fare increases. This followed unsuccessful attempts by police to discourage car owners from giving lifts to commuters in an effort to break the boycott.
The local election victory by the Conservative Party in Boksburg and Carletonville last year and the re-introduction of petty-apartheid laws resulted in a boycott of white shops and defiance of such laws.
The boycott in Boksburg, which is illegal in terms of the emergency regulations, was called in December last year after attacks on black residents using public parks and other amenities which had been reserved by the council for whites. Within months 65 per cent of local traders had lost over 50 per cent of their business and commercial development projects were abandoned. Even measures such as cutting off water supplies to the local township by the council failed to break the boycott, and in July it was still on.
In Carletonville the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Khutsong Action Committee (KAC), consisting of 27 community organisations, called in February for a consumer boycott of white-owned shops and organised defiance actions such as sit-ins in parks and other amenities reserved for whites. About 25 people were arrested on charges of intimidation as police attempted to break the boycott. The local Chamber of Commerce said that the boycott caused over 12 million rands loss.
Elsewhere, too, there were defiance campaigns against segregation. Beach front segregation was challenged in a number of towns and cities. In Johannesburg a campaign called 'Towards an Open City', in defiance of segregation of amenities, was launched by Actstop (which campaigns against the Group Areas Act), the Five Freedoms Forum and the Institute for Democratic Alternatives for South Africa (IDASA).
