LESS ONS IN THE STRUGGLE FOR EREEDOM IN SOUTH AFRICA
LUSAKA, Zambia -- There is. as: 1 yet no complete statement for : the period from 1960 (the Sharpeville riots) up to present by Minister of Justice Balthazar Vorster on the exact number of riots, sabotage cases, bannings, house arrests, ordinary arrests, and arrests under the notorious 90-day solitary confinement law. One day the press announces 404, The next day, the figure jumps to 1,000. This, of course, does not take into account the average daily jail population of 67, d00 charged with violating the racial laws.
It is clear that there is much to hide from the world. People are furthermore enjoined under threat of reprisal to keep silent about their arrest and subsequent release. .
Among the political opponents of this savage racist system, the arrest and trial of Abram Fischer has become the occasion for a certain stocktaking on the matter of tactics. What is especially in- -volved is the efficacy of the course sponsored by the banned Communist party. From an analysis of the evidence brought out in court, certain common factors come bo. Light: ; .
(a). The alleged bombings and dynamitings were directed at. comparatively minor objectives like railway tool sheds, railway tracks leading to African townships, telephone booths, electric poles, - etc., with but two exceptions.: 7
(2) The leadership in the "sabotage" cases was composed of white middle-class intellectuals at the universities of Cape Town and Wits, lecturers and senior students from the COD [Congress of - Democrats]: and NUSAS [National Union of South African Students], in the name of the ARM [African Resistance Movement ] .
(3) The composition of these groups was such that part of the leadership held under the. 90<day. Detention Act broke down, repudiated their political affiliations and betrayed their former comrades,.
A different pattern was observable in the Poqo incidents at - Queenstown and Qamata in the Eastern Cape and Transkei in.1962, These involved peasants and peasant migrant workers and were spontaneous outbreaks chiefly directed at liquidating Kaiser Matanzima, Chief Minister of.Verwoerd's Bantustan, who launched a series of vicious attacks on the peasantry for resisting rehabilitation, fenoing and taxation in his area,
The savage sentences passed last November on ‘Sedick Abrahans, a 24-year-old Cape Town graduate (he was given 12 years) and his two students: (each got five years), for attempting to sabotage a post box, involved’ a more “recent spontaneous outburst of youthful elements din a charged atmosphere. : =. ol
In a police state like South Afeioa, the funetion of "agent
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provocateurs, spies and informers is to provide the necessary link between oppressor and opressed where-there are no bridges to span the growing gap between them, Capitalizing on the frustrations and re-. sentments of the oppressed people who can find no outlet in ordinary democratic: procedures, the chief task of the police agent is to draw out the militants and so behead them, Their function is to incite them, to urge the people to demand action from their leaders, any | action, and loudly mouth these opinions in public places, in buses and trains, and in this way..the wave is carried on to:the most unpoliticised and anarchical layers, who readily take this up.
Contrary to the expectations aroused by the propaganda in the liberal world press and by ANC [african National Congress] elements in Britain and elsewhere (each for their own reasons) that sabotage. would. spark a mass uprising, a mood of noticeable caution and wariness on the part of the masses soon became evident.
The bomb incidents first excited them and drew their sympathy. Later they grasped the fact that the decision for waging sabotage did not lie with them and that they were not.consulted., Such decisions were made by white liberal elements whom they distrusted. These whites, they felt, were going to involve: “them in a Lah not of their own choosing. ‘
: “They recalled past experiences; ‘the failures of various stunts launehed by the ANC leadership, in which they were.not consulted -the many one-day strikes, the untold number of pass burnings, the hundred=and=-one demonstrations in some of the towns and their aftermath: no ‘release from the weight of the heavy racial laws but still greater police intimidation and. new raids on. a people already living under conditions beyond human endurance and patience... Thus they gradually divorced themselves from emotionalism, demagogy and false promises. Indeed things went so far that the bomb incident at the Johannesburg station in which Harris was found: guilty, was dismissed as "A white,. bombing the whites in a white section of the station,"
On the peasantry in the country and on “migrant. labour, the sabotage had even less effect. They dismissed it as "Ukudlala Ungcaka" (a boy's game). The waves that. flowed from the. towns for taking action, any action, were dispersed . dong before they reached the villages. 7
These events and the evidence: that has now come to lignt ‘prove to the hilt the correctness of the. analysis made in the Memorandum . presented to the Committee of Nine in November 1963 [see World ‘Outlook October 16 and 30] in which it was pointed out that two separate struggles are going on at present, the first being the national liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples .in.which the African peasantry in the "Reserves" is involved; the second being the conflict between the representatives of imperialism in South Africa. and the Boer or Afrikaner fascist wing, where the objective is to remove Verwoerd and to replace him ‘by someone more acceptable to imperialism.
The sabotage incidents were attempts made by liberal elements to involve the people in their liberal struggle and to close the door: to their real liberation. - Thus the Apdusa [african: People's Democratic Union: of Southern Africa] policy that the nation must decide the kind of action. to be followed and that individual acts of terrorism have no place ina nation struggling for freedom, became widely acceptable. The Apdusa: holds that sabotage has a. time and place -- it is a weapon to be | employed in a‘military war where it fits strategic needs, but in other situations it recoils on a defenceless people,
The first chapter is closed. The people learned one major lesson; that the whole nation must act, but must act together in full understanding of the issues at stake and with their accord,
nous DISMISSED"
anaré Frossard, the well-known columnist of the Paris daily Figaro sometimes manages to voice some bitter truths despite his usual cynicism. Here, for instance, is what he said in his column of December 15 under the title "Case