(ACO), previously named the Alexandra Action Committee (AAC). They were Mzwanele MAYEKISO, Sipho KUBHEKA, Richard MDAKANE and Paul TSHABALALA. A week later, the vice-president of ACO, Rosemary THOBEJANE and her son Sidney were also detained. All were held under the emergency regulations.
Mayekiso, Mdakane and Tshabalala were principal defendants in the treason trial of Moses Mayekiso and others and were acquitted in June 1989. Kubheka is general secretary of the Print and Paper Allied Workers' Union and has been previously detained and banned.
All four men immediately went on hunger strike — they suspended it after two weeks, following discussions about their release, which took place on 18 December.
Five detainees held under the Internal Security Act in Diepkloof Prison in Soweto for up to five months embarked on a hunger strike on 13 January, demanding that they be charged or released. They were transferred to Grootvlei in Bloemfontein on 16 January.
Peter MOKABA was detained on 27 January in Seshego, near Pietersburg, just within the Lebowa bantustan, after addressing the launch of Seshego township civic organisation. In 1989 Mokaba described how the Pietersburg security police had tortured and tried to kill him. He was released in May after charges were withdrawn. He had been held for 14 months. Rapu Molekane, the SAYCO general secretary, told a news conference that Mokaba was 'the target of a vendetta by South African police from Pietersburg.'
During January attention was focused on police violence against detainees with reports that four people had died while being arrested or held in custody.
The police announced in January that they had shot and killed one person and wounded another when arresting them under the Internal Security Act on the weekend of 13-14 January in Pietersburg. According to police the two had been sought in connection with the shooting of a police constable on the 12 January. Although no investigations had been completed, police alleged the two men were ANC guerrillas who had recently entered the country. They claimed they had found two Makarov pistols, several AKM rifles and four hand grenade detonators in their homes in Pietersburg.
In Khutsong, Carletonville, a 16-year-old high school student, Mbyuiselo PHIRI, died in Welverdiend Police Station while being interrogated about alleged arson. Youths detained with him described being questioned about the burning of a policeman's house and being assaulted by police. His death was reported on 18 January. Phiri's mother told a reporter that she did not recognise her son's body when first asked to identify him: 'His face was swollen and he had blood on his mouth'. The police said that they would hold an investigation and post-mortem 'to determine the cause of his death'.
On 24 January Khutsong residents gathered for a protest march over his death and 'police brutality in the townships'. Police opened fire, killing at least two people and wounding many others. They arrested 13 on charges of public violence. The next day a stayaway was called, and thousands of residents remained in the township. Police fired birdshot and teargas into yards and homes in the Sonderwater squatter settlement in Khutsong as well as at youths on the streets. By the end of January it seemed that forty detainees were being held and another 50 people, mostly youths, had been charged.
Another death occurred on 29 January in Natal. According to police Michael ZUNGU, a member of SAYCO, had tried to evade arrest and was then 'flung' into the back of a van, where he died. The report continued that, 'the possibility ... of suffocation due to strangulation with a shoe-lace' was under investigation.
The death of another detainee was followed by a government announcement that there would be a judicial commission of inquiry into his death. Clayton Sizwe SITHOLE aged 20, was detained with four others on 26 January in Soweto under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act. On 30 January Sithole was 'found hanging from a shower pipe' in John Vorster police station. Soweto police statements to the press indicated that the men were detained on suspicion of murder, including that of two policemen. They were also found to be in possession of AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades. One police statement denied that they had established any evidence of links with the ANC, but said that they were investigating the possibility that the men were 'politically linked to the organisation'.
