The demand for the repeal of all security legislation has yet to be seriously addressed by the regime. This issue of Focus documents how such laws not only remain on the statute books but have been used to detain and prosecute, or legitimise the shooting of, apartheid's opponents. In the Groote Schuur Minute the regime undertook to review existing security legislation. The Pretoria Minute reaffirmed previous government statements, both in Parliament and to the UN team, that 'in order to ensure free political activity' the Internal Security Act would be amended during the next parliamentary session in 1991 and its application reviewed. 'Immediate consideration' would be given to repealing provisions which 'refer to communism' and powers to ban the publication of statements or writings of individuals or to require that newspapers pay a deposit in order to be registered.
In spite of government pretence that security powers are necessary for the control of the right wing, the powers are used almost exclusively against opponents of apartheid. Ministers even justified right wing vigilante patrols on the grounds of there being inadequate police to carry out regular law enforcement. Evidence from Welkom and other centres of right wing violence belies this description of their purpose. The ANC has made it clear that for constitutional talks to get underway the regime must address the violence of its own forces, both legal and extra-legal, as well as the right wing. After the 6 August talks one member of the ANC team described President De Klerk's most urgent task as possibly to 'tame and control his police force'.
