Vusi MNGOMEZULU (27) of Tembisa was sentenced on 16 May by the Johannesburg Regional Court to three years imprisonment. He was convicted of having undergone military training with the ANC, and was described in press reports as a 'deputy chief of staff'. When he was arrested in 1988, he was in possession of a Makarov pistol.
In October last year, during his trial, Mngomezulu told of being interrogated for 54 hours by security police in Germiston, and of being tortured during the interrogation.
A journalist who joined the ANC in 1988 was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on 9 April this year for alleged bomb attacks on police and military installations in Durban between January and April last year.
Mohammed Rafiq ROHAN (36), news editor of Post Natal, a newspaper aimed at the Indian community in Natal, was arrested after a car chase on 7 April, the night of an explosion at the SAP headquarters in Durban. Three people were injured in the explosion and extensive damage to property caused.
Rohan was held for three weeks under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act before appearing in the Durban Magistrates Court. His trial began in the Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court on 1 February this year and ended with him being convicted of sabotage, causing an explosion and being illegally in possession of arms and ammunition.
Giving evidence in mitigation he said that his 'encounters with racism' began at an early age. Later as a reporter in Cape Town he had witnessed the 'Trojan Horse' incident in which police concealed in a truck had shot and killed children throwing stones at the truck. After this incident he 'was convinced then, that, at all cost, this government had to go'. He explained that in the planning of operations and in the choice of targets 'every attempt had been made to ensure that there were no civilian casualties'.
Two young men from Soweto were given sentences in May for their part in the ANC's armed struggle. Pule SEBIDI (29) and Dumisane NKABINDE (28) were sentenced to four years and one year imprisonment respectively. They were charged under the Internal Security Act with receiving military training from the ANC; infiltrating the country from Swaziland during 1988; establishing an arms cache in Katlehong on the East Rand; and taking part in an attack on 15 October 1988 on the Thokoza Council barracks near Katlehong.
Evidence in mitigation revealed that they became politicised while at school together in Soweto in 1977. At the University of Zululand they had set up the first branch of the Azanian Students' Organisation (AZASO) (now called the South African National Students Congress (SANSCO)). They left the country in 1984 after the police raided the university campus and attacked students protesting against a planned visit by Gatsha Buthelezi, the Kwazulu bantustan leader.
At the end of February, Sebidi and Nkabinde took part in a successful hunger strike by 23 members of Umkhonto we Sizwe held at Johannesburg prison. The protest was over moves by the authorities to transfer some of them away from other political prisoners. The decision, reversed as a result of the prisoners' action, was interpreted as being related to the ANC's demand for the release of all political prisoners in order to create a climate for negotiations.
An alleged ANC combatant was acquitted after the prosecution was instructed to close its case against him by the Attorney-General for the Eastern Cape. Petros VANTYU (28) was alleged to have left the country in October 1985 to undergo military training with Umkhonto we Sizwe. He first appeared in the East London Regional Court in January 1989 and had been on bail of R5,000 since November last year.
No reason for the Attorney-General's action was reported in the press. There was in particular no indication whether it was related either to the court having earlier ruled as inadmissible a statement which Vantyu made to the police while in detention, or to a request which the defence had made that the state drop its case in view of the unbanning of the ANC. Vantyu was acquitted on 29.3.90.
The use of the courts in the repression of popular resistance to apartheid continued after the unbanning of political organisations. While some of the trials arose out of protests last year, others were in response to actions by workers and school students since February.
The trial of five members of the Paper Printing Wood and Allied Workers Union (PPWAWU) resumed in the Rand Supreme Court on 4 February to hear evidence in mitigation. Elias PHASA (40), David MOLEBALA (25), Bongani MAZIBUKO (34), Michael Thabiso MACHEPHA (25) and Jerry RANTEKOA pleaded guilty to various charges including murder, culpable homicide and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. A sixth man, Sydney DLAMINI was to be tried at a separate hearing.
The accused were amongst a group of 31 PPWAWU members who first appeared in court in March 1989 on charges arising out of the killings of six non-strikers in June 1988. Most had been detained under emergency regulations in July and August of that year. They were involved in a strike at all branches of Afcol, the largest furniture manufacturer in South Africa. The accused described in court the tension during the month-long strike which management tried to break with the use of non-union labour. Strikers described in affidavits how they were harassed and assaulted by Afcol management and the police.
The trial of Abraham MALATJIE (40) and Daniel SEKELE (39), members of the Transport and Allied Workers Union, continued in the Pietersburg Regional Court in February. Charges of instigating and participating in an unlawful strike arose from work stoppages at Lebowa Transport depots between June and July 1987, in support of demands for a wage increase and the reinstatement of nine colleagues. All charges against a third man, Rhodes MAKAMU, were withdrawn in April 1989. All three spent eight months in detention before their first court appearance in May 1988. Judgment was due to be given on 21 March, but there have been no further press reports.
Industrial action at two workplaces led to over 100 people being charged with trespassing. Eighteen members of the South African Chemical Workers Union appeared in the Bellville Magistrates Court on 28 February on charges of trespassing following an illegal strike in support of a wage claim. Union organisers said that workers had defied a court order prohibiting them from entering the workplace. In March, 97 members of the National Union of Metal Workers appeared in the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court facing similar charges following a sit-in to support a R1.50-an-hour wage increase.
In April, 180 Transkei postal workers who went on strike last year were convicted in the Umtata Regional Court on three charges relating to holding an illegal gathering. The strike arose from the harassment of union officials. Sentence was due to be passed on 30 May.
Similar charges were laid against 92 Beacon Bay municipal workers who appeared in the East London Regional Court in April. The municipal council obtained a Supreme Court interdict which resulted in the eviction of employees from its premises and restrained them from re-entering. The accused were warned by the magistrate not to involve themselves in any illegal gatherings and were ordered to re-appear in court in June.
Other workers facing charges relating to illegal gatherings include 29 members of the Municipal State Farm and Allied Workers Union who appeared in the Vereeniging Magistrates Court in April, following pickets of Rand Water Board sites in Johannesburg and Vereeniging in a demand for the reinstatement of 370 workers dismissed after a strike. In May, 23 members of the Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union were arrested and charged under the Gatherings and Demonstrations Act after demonstrating outside a Cape Town hotel against the dismissal of 27 hotel staff in March.
In February, charges of trespassing were laid against two youths from a school in the Western Cape. The charges were brought by the youths' headmaster when they returned to school — they were among 50 students expelled in October after a class boycott related to the defiance campaign.
Sixteen pupils from Bohlokong in the Orange Free State faced charges of public violence in March arising out of a month-long class boycott. The students' grievances included the refusal of the authorities to re-admit students who had failed matric or were politically active, the retrenchment of teachers and the use of unqualified teachers.
The arrest of youths following a boycott of the KwaZamukohle Secondary School in the Eastern Transvaal in March led to five hours of police violence against residents of Arnot, a mining village near Witbank. According to mineworkers, about 700 people gathered following the arrest of the youths. A police car was overturned and set alight. The police then fired birdshot and stun grenades and set dogs on residents, injuring several people. The police also carried out an extensive search of homes.
Forty-two pupils in Ikageng, Potchefstroom, were reported to have been arrested on public violence charges at the end of April. The arrests followed demands by pupils for school fees to be refunded. According to a fieldworker for the Detainee Support Committee police 'stormed' a local primary school and arrested pupils.
- It was reported in Focus 87 that Danisile NOKYATYWA (33) had received a custodial sentence in the Wynberg Regional Court after being convicted of 'terrorism'. According to the Human Rights Commission he received a nine-year prison term in December.
- Six Cape Youth Congress members were jailed for two and a half years in the Wynberg Regional Court on 28 March after being found guilty of public violence. Mzwandile XESHA, Vusumzi FUTSHANA, Paulos MOKOENA, Simon SENELI, Thembinkosi MBANJWA and Ntsikelelo KHAMBI were found to have damaged shacks and a car during conflict at the KTC squatter camp in January 1988.
- The Repression Monitoring Group reported in April that Jonathan GANGALIZA from Paarl was sentenced in a court in the Western Cape to 15 months imprisonment for public violence on 19 April. No details of the incident were reported.
