Despite the lifting of the State of Emergency in three of South Africa's four provinces, police, backed by soldiers, have continued to forcefully break up political meetings and demonstrations using teargas, rubber bullets, shotguns and rifles. This state violence has inhibited free political activity and thus runs contrary to the creation of a climate for negotiations as outlined in the Harare Declaration. The issue was raised forcefully by the ANC delegation at its meeting with the government on 6 August.
The police were left with wide powers when the emergency was partially lifted on 8 June and President De Klerk simultaneously announced that the government would implement an 'immense plan of action' to 'effect a large-scale expansion of existing security forces'. The police and other repressive structures would be strengthened and the South African Defence Force (SADF) more widely used in supporting the police.
Press reports for the months leading up to July indicate almost daily operations by police using violence to break up demonstrations and rallies. Commonly, police would declare a gathering illegal in terms of the Internal Security Act and then open fire or use teargas after people failed to disperse when told to do so. In many cases this would lead to a spiral of violence. There were also incidents of unprovoked police attacks on peaceful gatherings or demonstrations without warning.
Targets of police attacks included squatters resisting the demolition of homes; students protesting over educational grievances or staging class boycotts; residents organising consumer boycotts; people demonstrating against local authorities or bantustan structures; and protest marches over several issues, including police violence itself.
In an attack on squatters resisting the demolition of homes in Tokoza, near Albertson, on 11 July, police killed two people and injured about 30 others. An earlier attempt to demolish homes in the same area resulted in six people being injured when police used teargas, shotguns and rubber bullets.
Several rallies to commemorate the 1976 Soweto uprising were disrupted on 16 June by police using violent methods. At least two youths were killed by police in Galeshewe during May, while in Kroonstad, police hiding in the back of a commercial truck shot dead two youths in what appeared to be deliberate police provocation, similar to the 'Trojan Horse' incident in Athlone, Cape Town, during 1985.
In some areas tensions were exacerbated by right-wing white vigilantes, patrolling streets and attacking residents. Police did not act against them. Eight people were killed and about 40 injured by police gunfire in Thabong, outside Welkom, during anti-vigilante protests in May.
Many of the right-wing vigilante formations are commanded by ex-policemen — the commander of over 100 local 'Commandos' run by the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging is a police colonel who resigned from the force last year. The police have made no effort to disarm the Commandos. Since May, right-wing groups have carried out a series of bombing attacks, some directed at black civilians.
SADF soldiers were also involved in suppressing political resistance, usually in large-scale combined operations with the police. Many of these were carried out in Natal and under the nationwide 'Operation Watchdog', a 'crime-prevention' operation carried out between April and June.
Police and army actions are being co-ordinated through a secret state structure, the National Co-Ordinating Mechanism (NCM). Government documents which were leaked to the press in July revealed that this is a slightly modified version of the National Management System, a military-controlled hierarchy of committees which was supposedly disbanded last year.
The police disclosed in June that the Security Branch was continuing operations as usual and there could be no question of cuts in staff, despite the legalisation of the ANC.
A secret unit of the SADF known as the Civil Co-Operation Bureau (CCB), which was exposed last year as being responsible for the assassination of anti-apartheid activists, was only abolished after strong protest at the end of July. Investigations by the government-appointed Harms Commission into its actions, and similar activities by the Security Branch, had by July shed light on only a few of the more than 150 projects it was responsible for.
