REPORTS VICTIMIZATIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA
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[The following report, dated September 18, was received from the "Head Office in Exile" of the "All-African Convention" and the "Unity Movement of South Africa."
LIt will be noted that the report ends with an appeal for financial assistance, The address is the Unity Movement of South Africa, P.0.Box 1850, Lusaka, Zambia, Africa. |
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The persecution of the opponents of the apartheid regime has become part of the South African way of life. Always there is fresh and horrible evidence of this fact. Indeed the world has come to expect everyday to hear of new inroads upon human liberty in that land. In this regard the South African fascist regime is very consistent and its behaviour is predictable almost to.the finest detail. Thus in the last few days we have seen further onslaughts upon human rights in South Africa, where it is the policy of the government to trample these underfoot, This is done with the collaboration and connivance of the ruling class as a whole. For, indeed, the history of South Africa for the past three hundred years of white domination has been a catalogue of crimes: against humanity. Verwoerd has created no new mythology but has intensified the rigours of an oppressive system, His regime employs every means to demonstrate to the population beyond any shadow of doubt that this policy of the dictatorship
of the minority over the majority is sacrosanct and beyond criticism.
As a result of the intolerable persecution of the opponents of the Broederbond dictatorship, hundreds of members and officials of the All-African Convention and the Unity Movement of South Africa and of the affiliated organisations to these bodies have been subjected to bannings, house arrests, detention and imprisonment. This is done in order to decapitate the organisations and demoralise the broad mass of the membership.
P. Gcabashe
Barly this year, we reported that P. Geabashe, a stalwart of the Unity Movement and an elderly man of sixty had suffered victimisation and cruel persecution. On the eve of his pension, Gcabashe gave up his teaching job to become a full-time organiser of the Unity Movement and a member of the Head Unity Committee. He organised the people against removal from Northern Natal to Monalo. He himself refused to move even when others gave up resistance under pressure. The police never gave him rest. But he continued to organise the peasants in particular and brought them into the African People's Democratic Union of Southern Africa [APDUSA], an affiliate of the Unity Movement,
During December, 1964, the political police whisked him away from his home. Urgent appeals by his wife, herself Chairman of the Kingsly Branch of APDUSA, Natal, received no reply. Ina letter which he secretly transmitted, Gcabashe revealed that he had been kidnapped by the Gestapo and lodged in a Bizana (Pondoland) jail under the emergency Proclamation 400, which, since 1960, has dispensed with the rule of law in the Transkei, He had been subjected by the police to all sorts of pressures -- from brute force to cajol-~ ery, inducements and promises of release should he agree to betray his colleagues. Gcabashe refused and treated the approach with contempt. As a result, after a long period of detention, he has been charged, prosecuted and jailed in terms of the tyrannical Proclama= tion 400. His family is now bereft of any form of support.
Sihlali and Mtshizana
L.L.Sihlali and L.L.Mtshizana, former President of the Unity Movement and former Chairman of the East London Branch of the Society of Young Africa [SOYA] respectively, have now been removed from the North End Jail, Port Elizabeth, to Robben Island. Both men were charged and found guilty of attempting to flee the country in addi-~ tion to various charges of violation of the terms of banning orders issued against them, .
Mtshizana was placed under a five-year banning order in July, 1963, and confined to the magisterial district of East London. He was banned from attending meetings and gatherings. Sihlali was . served with a similar banning order in March, 1964; in addition he:
was placed under house arrest, denied the right to receive visitors in his own house; prohibited from attending meetings and gatherings of. any kind and confined to the magisterial district of Queenstown,
S. Nyamela
S. Nyamela, former Chairman of the Cape Town Branch of APDUSA, was recently served with three banning orders prohibiting him from attending meetings and gatherings for a period of five years, confining him to Kanye Location, Engcobo and compelling him to report regularly to the police. We reported earlier that Nyamela had been deported from Cape Town, where he worked and lived with his family. He was then sent to Engcobo, Transkei, a few miles from the notorious Chief Matanzima's home. He was thus uprooted from his place of employment, together with his family. Nyamela is also President of the Society of Young Africa, an organisation of youth affiliated to the All-African Convention.
S. Ngcukuva
S. Ngcukuva, one of the most active organisers of APDUSA in the Transkei, has been banned and confined to the magisterial district of Umtata for a period of five years. Towards the end of last year, Ngcukuva was detained under the 90-day law, then charged with holding unlawful meetings in the Transkei and convicted. Part of the sentence was suspended. -As-a result. of these harassments, Ngcukuva has not been able to complete his studies at the University College of Fort Hare. While a student there, he was arrested and detained for questioning under the 90-day law. He was later charged with incitement, but after about five months of detention, the charge | against him was withdrawn.
2, K. Mzimba
In August we reported that Z.K.Mzimba, former General Secretary of the Cape African Teachers! Association (which is affiliated with the All-African Convention) had been in. jail for a long time, | His home had been invaded and raided by the political police several times. After furious interrogation by the police, he appeared in court on September 9 on a charge of being found in possession of banned literature, a charge that carries very heavy penalties in South Africa, including imprisonment.
Moloyi
One of the most influential leaders amongst the peasants in Zululand, Natal Province, is Moloyi, popularly known as "the one-eyed eagle." A most powerful speaker and orator, he enthralled his audience at the conferences of the All-African Convention and the Unity Movement, He organised and fought against the introduction of the rehabilitation scheme (land and cattle robbery by the government) in his area, For this he incurred the displeasure of officialdom., In
April this year he was arrested and has been in deténtion since that time. Reports from home say that various trumped-up charges are being laid against him, some of them dating back to 1960, that is, the time of the Pondoland peasant revolt.
Pondoland
‘A number of peasant leaders, members of the Unity Movement, have been arrested recently in Pondoland and charges of murder dating back to 1960 are being preferred against some of them, Others have to report to quisling Chief Botha Sigcau twice a week. Botha Sigcau is Paramount Chief of Eastern Pondoland, who, against the wishes of the people upon whom he has been foisted, supports the Transkei self-rule fraud. He is one of the strongest supporters of Kaiser Matanzima, the Tshombe of South Africa,
PAC Men Win Appea al
We are glad to report that six members of the Pan Africanist Congress, T. Letlaka and five others, who were charged with conspire ing to overthrow the South African Government by revolution, using Basutoland as their base, have been acquitted on appeal. In allowing their appeal the presiding judge said that no sufficient evidence had been adduced by the Crown to show that they had in fact participated in the activities alleged. All that had been shown was that they had been involved in training for’ guerrilla warfare. This did not justi-~ fy a conviction in terms of the law that applies. (It is an offence to organise or engage in "subversive" activities against a neighbouring state from any of the British protectorates abutting South Africa. ) The PAC men were defended by W.M.Tsotsi, Vice-President of the Unity Movement, who is now in exile in Basutoland.
. Appeal:
In face of these new attacks upon our people and in view of the plight of the families affected, we have to appeal to our publicspirited friends and sympathetic organisations to make generous donations towards the legal defence of those victims of the Verwoerd regime, who, because of their resolution to end tyranny in that country, have to appear in South African courts, Their families are likewise in need of help. We are thankful for what has been done before in this regard but our problems are growing from day to day.
RISE IN NUMBER OF STRIKES IN