SAVAGE SENTENCES IN DR, ALEXANDER CASE
Dr. Neville Alexander and ten other nonwhite South Africans, including four women, were convicted April 15 in the Cape Supreme Court of "sabotage" and sentenced to prison.
Ten-year sentences were given to Dr. Alexander, a doctor of philosophy and high school teacher, one of the most brilliant graduatcos who ever went through Cape Town University and who later gained renown as a scholar at Ttibingen University in West Germany; Don John William Davis, a mnister; Marcus Solomons, a school teacher; Fliza— beth van dor - Heyden, a school teacher; and Fikele Charles Bam, an African law student at Cape Town University.
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Seven-year seritences were > given to Lionel Basil Davis, a. -olerk, and Gordon Frederick Hendriks.
Five~year sentences were given to Ian Lesite van der Heyden, a. high~school teacher, Dulcie Evon September, a teacher, Dorothy Hazel Alexander, a sister of Dr. Alexander and a high-school teacher, and Doris van der Heyden, a librarian. The three van der Heydens are _ brother and sisters. .
The trial began last November 4, after the defendants had been held under the infamous 90-day detention law, They suffered isola- ' tion and even torture until they were dragged into court.
The substance of the prosecution case was that they had organized the National Liberation Front, also known as the Yu Chi Chan Club whose objectives were alleged to have been the furtherance of violence and revolution, In addition to studying standard Marxist classics, the group was charged with having studied books and articles about guerrilla warfare, According to the prosecution this proved a "conspiracy" to commit unlawful and willful acts, which, if they had actually been committed, would have endangered the safety of the public and law and order,
The real "crime" of the defendants, of course, was their oppo~ sition to the apartheid policy of the Verwoerd government.
In pronouncing sentence, Judge HA. van Heerden said there was evidence of discussions on the elimination of the Herrenvolk and, plans to introduce the techniques of "armed insurrection into the liberation struggles,"
"By means of a combination of political agitation and guerrilla warfare, supplemented by widespread sabotage, strikes and demonstrations, "the judge said, "they aimed at the overthrow of the Government,
He described all the defendants as "intellectuals."
Reuters declared that this was “the second major sabotage trial to be held in South Africa since last September. The other trial of Nelson Mandela, a former leader of the banned African National Congress, and eight others, is to be resumed in Pretoria next week,"
The trial was at least equally as important as the Mandela oase, but the defendants in the Alexander case lacked the resources, both financially and organizationally which has enabled the defendants in the Mandela case to draw international attention, including that of the United Nations, to their defense efforts,
The defendants in the Alexander case had to depend on financial help from friends abroad, most of which came from students in West Germany who also made extraordinary efforts to gain international
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publicity, but with little success outside of West Germany.
Under the fascist-like laws of South Africa, the defendants in political trials like these are further handicapped by the fact that they are not released on bail. - The government holds them in prison as if they were already convicted and they are thus unable to help organize a defense that goes beyond the narrow limits of what is permitted in the courtroom by the vicious South African legislation,
Legally, the defendants can now appeal the savage sentences ~~ if the judge grants them permission -- but- the costs of an appeal appear to be completely beyond the means of the victims,.and their few devoted friends abroad. In South Africa, of course, an active defense by sympathizers or persons merely interested in democratic rights is extremely difficult since this would open them to charges of "sabotage," too, re
As in other countries under totalitarian rule, where liberation has been won only at the cost of the most heroic self-sacrifice, it appears. that South Africats freedom fighters and future heads of a revolutionary government must suffer the agony of years in prison.
FLN