Conflict in the Witwatersrand and Johannesburg areas, which the police were accused of fuelling, left an estimated 800 dead between late July and the end of September. The ANC, which said that a 'hidden hand' lay behind the spread of the violence, accused the government of failing to restrain the police and condemned the introduction of local emergency measures.
The agreement reached between the ANC and the government in Pretoria on 6 August took place against a backdrop of continuing violence, which was beginning to spread in areas near Johannesburg but was still concentrated in Natal.
In the Transvaal, vigilantes owing allegiance to the Kwazulu bantustan attacked non-Inkatha residents of hostels in Sebokeng, in the Vaal Triangle, in late July. The police failed to stop them, despite advance warning from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). In the first weeks of August armed Inkatha groups, sometimes accompanied by police, terrorised residents of Soweto and Kagiso, to the west of Johannesburg.
Hostel residents and squatters in the East Rand townships of Thokoza, Katlehong and Vosloorus were attacked on 12 August. The focus of the violence then moved further east to Kwathema, Daveyton and Tembisa. In ten days more than 500 people were killed.
Attacks on commuter trains and stations began on 16 August in Soweto. Twenty-six people were killed and more than 130 injured when a gang moved systematically through a Johannesburg train on 13 September, assaulting passengers. The attack was evidently carefully planned, involving two groups of men in a synchronised operation.
Inkatha attacks were concentrated on the East Rand and Vaal townships during September: the pattern was usually of armed groups emerging from migrant-worker hostels and attacking township residents or squatter communities.
ANC officials said that many aspects of the violence bore the hallmarks of military organisation and that whites had been seen apparently directing some of the attacks. Bogus ANC pamphlets had been distributed calling for the killing of Inkatha members. White men in balaclavas had been seen acting as snipers during an attack in Sebokeng and were in a minibus which had toured Johannesburg and surrounding areas, indiscriminately shooting at pedestrians. Whites were also present during one of the railway killings.
Police and army actions: Senior church leaders handed over a memorandum to the government at the end of August detailing incidents of police failure to act against Inkatha groups and evidence of police collaboration with Inkatha. They cited cases of police transporting such groups in armoured vehicles to enable them to carry out attacks.
On many occasions police used teargas or shotguns to disperse non-Inkatha residents, and there was evidence of direct police support for the vigilantes. For example, in Thokoza on 14 August police in armoured vehicles followed an armed group of 1,000 Inkatha supporters and made no attempt to intervene as they attacked a hostel, killing many residents. By 17 August, with the death toll at 156, the police had made no known arrests. A police spokesman claimed that it was impossible to disarm the Inkatha groups massing in hostels because of insufficient forces.
South African Defence Force (SADF) units backing the police were reinforced with combat-experienced units on 25 August. The soldiers cordoned off parts of townships and in some cases disarmed residents and hostel-dwellers. Eleven people were killed by soldiers who fired into a large crowd outside the Sebokeng hostel on 4 September. Eyewitnesses said that troops opened fire although the crowd was peaceful.
Emergency measures: On 24 August the Minister of Law and Order declared 19 magisterial districts in and around Johannesburg to be Unrest Areas in terms of a 1986 amendment to the Public Safety Act. This was formulated as an alternative to the declaration of a State of Emergency by the State President after protests followed the one imposed between July 1985 and March 1986. Before the amendment became law in June 1986 another State of Emergency had been imposed. Twenty-seven black residential areas were specifically mentioned in the declaration, which is valid for three months. Regulations virtually identical to those of the State of Emergency in Natal were enacted on the same day.
The regulations gave extensive emergency powers to police, soldiers and other government officials of whatever rank, including powers to: Disperse gatherings by force; Detain and interrogate; Enter premises, search and seize property without warrant. The Commissioner of Police or a Regional Commissioner may also issue specific orders restricting the movement of people and prohibiting or restricting gatherings.
Soldiers and police were indemnified against prosecution for their actions and a fine of R20,000 or ten years' imprisonment could be imposed on anyone breaking the regulations.
Further restrictive measures were introduced on 25 September with the declaration of a 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew in Thokoza, Katlehong, Vosloorus and Soweto. Contravention would lead to 12-hour detention and a sentence of up to six months' imprisonment or a R1,000 fine. The curfew was lifted by 12 October.
Iron fist: The new measures were accompanied by 'Operation Iron Fist' — a police and military operation involving roadblocks, the cordoning off of hostels and some squatter camps with razor wire and the use of police armoured vehicles equipped with light machine guns. It was also announced that people illegally possessing arms would be given immunity from prosecution if they handed them over to the police before 1 October, and that rewards of up to R10 000 would be offered for information leading to the discovery of arms caches. The offer was later extended to 31 October.
The measures were strongly condemned by the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and other organisations.
At a meeting at the end of September to consider the violence, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC drew up plans for a national campaign to achieve greater accountability on the part of the police and 'other Security Services'.
The NEC also called for the 'visible disbandment of the various state murder squads'. ANC officials believed that some of these units were acting as a 'hidden hand' fomenting the violence in a deliberate attempt to weaken the ANC and derail the process towards negotiations.
Evidence emerged of military training given to Inkatha by the SADF's Special Forces, which co-ordinated the training of UNITA and the MNR (Renamo) in destabilising Angola and Mozambique. Ex-members of the SADF revealed that up to 1,000 Inkatha members had undergone seven-month military training courses at a secret SADF base in north-eastern Namibia in 1986 and 1987. There were also widespread reports of MNR links with Inkatha and several East Rand residents said that MNR members supplied the vigilantes with automatic rifles. Nelson Mandela warned that the devastation wreaked by the MNR in Mozambique was in danger of being extended to South Africa.
