Detentions of ANC members and other anti-apartheid activists under the Internal Security Act continued in the period following the issuing of the Pretoria Minute on 6 August.
ANC members have also been detained under Bophuthatswana bantustan emergency regulations and in the Witwatersrand and Vaal areas people were detained under regulations promulgated under the Public Safety Act.
In spite of the government's pledge to review security legislation and its application, an estimated 126 people were being held under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act at the beginning of October.
In addition, following the declaration of 19 magisterial districts in the Transvaal as Unrest Areas under the Public Safety Act, approximately 190 people had been detained there by the end of September. The regulations, promulgated under Section 5a of the Public Safety Act (PSA), were gazetted on 24 August. Regulation 3(i) states that any member of a security force can detain any person who is, in their opinion, a threat to public order. Few details were available on those detained under the PSA but it was reported that 35 were held in connection with rent protests in Ennerdale near Johannesburg on 11 September, 16 of them being later released and 19 charged. A group of 11 teenagers from Soweto was held in Diepkloof for 12 days from 7 September, and at the end of September eight members of the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) were reported as being held for allegedly breaching the unrest regulations. By this time all the other detainees had been released.
Some of the Internal Security Act detainees are alleged by security police to have been involved with Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Accusations of assault and torture have emerged in press reports and in court applications by lawyers and relatives for preventative interdicts.
Some of the ANC members held since July allegedly in connection with the armed struggle have also been tortured or ill-treated. In August the ANC launched a campaign to demand the release of National Executive Committee member Mac MAHARAJ, Billy NAIR and all other Internal Security Act detainees.
On 12 September, Nair suffered a heart attack and was released into St Aidan's Hospital in Durban. On the same day Maharaj was admitted to the same hospital under armed guard, suffering from severe cervical spondyolysis, a disease of the neck bones. This is believed to have originated as a result of police torture during the 1960s and to have been re-activated during his detention. He has since laid a charge of assault against the police.
Another ANC member, Pravin GORDHAN, was detained on 12 July. After receiving an anonymous letter threatening that he would be assaulted by police, his wife Vanitha Raju, sought an interdict to restrain them, though this was later withdrawn. Raymond LALLA, another Durban detainee, was also reportedly tortured.
In spite of the ANC's suspension of the armed struggle, which was announced on 6 August, security police continued to detain people they suspected of being members of MK or of having assisted such people.
Two members of the ANC detained in late June, Isaac DITSHEGO and Johannes MAKITLA, appeared in court on two occasions after their wives applied to the Pretoria Supreme Court for their release on grounds which included concern over police assault on Ditshego. The application was first heard on 14 August, postponed to 22 August and then dismissed. Justice Priess, presiding, emphasised that the intention of Section 29 was to obtain information from detainees, and that Ditshego was offered adequate protection from further assault by the Inspector of Detainees.
Ditshego and Makitla, although still not charged by October, were alleged by the police to be members of an MK unit in the Northern Transvaal known as the Nchabaleng Unit. In a court affidavit security police linked their activities to those of Kenny Sello RAMALEKANA (referred to as Ramaloxane in Focus 90) and alleged that the unit, including Ramalekana and another detained cadre known as PHAGO, had received its instructions from MK Chief of Staff Chris Hani before infiltrating South Africa earlier this year.
Also in the Northern Transvaal, on 18 July security police re-detained Cassel MATHALE, allegedly for 'guiding ANC terrorists'. He was detained in 1987 for two years under the emergency regulations, restricted until January 1990, and detained again for four weeks during March and April this year.
Also detained for 'harbouring guerrillas', JB SIBANYONI, a lawyer from Kwandebele, was still in detention by October. Piet MATHEBE, also listed in Focus 90, was accused by police of receiving 'military terrorist training abroad'. Mathebe is also from Kwandebele and was president of the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) branch in Moutse. Sello MATHEBE, also from Moutse, was being represented by Sibanyoni at the time of their detention.
Seven members of the ANC, five of whom police alleged to be 'trained guerrillas', were detained during two incidents on the night of 18 August. Five members were detained in Soweto, of whom two were later released. The remaining three, alleged to have been in possession of arms, were held under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act. The other incident took place in Johannesburg, where two men were detained during a confrontation with Security Police at a hotel in Hillbrow. One of them, an ANC bodyguard, Ralph PETERSON, was shot by police and detained. Three others reportedly escaped and police alleged they left weapons inside a car.
Bophuthatswana bantustan: Since February 1990, when the ANC was unbanned, the leader of the Bophuthatswana bantustan, Lucas Mangope, has maintained that the ANC would never be allowed to operate within its boundaries as it was a 'foreign political organisation'. By July a proposed meeting between the ANC and Mangope had still not occurred, with the bantustan leader refusing to take the steps identified by the ANC as necessary. These included the lifting of the State of Emergency in the bantustan, the release of detainees and political prisoners and the unbanning of political organisations.
On 6 August, after the launch of an ANC branch in Modderspruit, seven ANC members were detained and held at Ga-Rankuwa police station under the emergency regulations.
Ten more ANC members, including seven on the executive committee of the ANC branch in Mabopane were detained on 26 August, following its launch. They were reported released during the first week of September. Other ANC branches opened at Klipgat, Ga-Rankuwa, Eersterus and Mafikeng in the week following the opening of the Mabopane branch. In terms of the bantustan's Internal Security Act, meetings of more than 20 people are illegal unless permission has been granted, but an ANC official said that this would not deter the movement.
Trade unionists were also subjected to attack in the bantustan. A dispute with the OK Bazaars Ga-Rankuwa Store by members of the South African Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACAWU), during the first week of July, resulted in the reported detention of 75 workers. Sixty-eight of the workers were later charged then had the charges withdrawn; the remaining seven were due to appear in court in August.
In the Odi region of the bantustan, near Pretoria, four trade unionists were detained by bantustan police at the Vametco Mineral plant, where a strike had started at the beginning of September. All four staged a hunger strike at the Odi maximum prison in Ga-Rankuwa. A few days later two shop stewards were also detained. At the beginning of October, four of them remained in custody.
