The Forgotten People: Political Banishment Under Apartheid 9004247718, 9789004247710

Citation preview

The Forgotten People

African Social Studies Series Editorial Board

Martin R. Doornbos, International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague Preben Kaarsholm, Roskilde University Carola Lentz, University of Mainz John Lonsdale, University of Cambridge

VOLUME 29

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/afss

The Forgotten People Political Banishment under Apartheid

By

Saleem Badat

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013

This book was earlier published in Southern Africa under ISBN 978-1-4314-0479-7 by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2012. Cover illustration: Piet Mokoena at Frenchdale, 1964. Photo by Ernest Cole, Courtesy of the Ernest Cole Family Trust.

ISSN 1568-1203 ISBN 978-90-04-24633-1 (paperback) ISBN 978-90-04-24771-0 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

For Helen Joseph

Contents

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preface

.................................................................................

List of abbreviations

vii x

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xiv

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1 Banishment: an old and common practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Banishment and rural resistance in the early 1950s: GaMatlala and Witzieshoek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Banishment and rural resistance in the late 1950s: Bahurutshe and Sekhukhuneland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Banishment and rural resistance in the late 1950s and early 1960s: Mpondoland, Thembuland and Natal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Urban political opposition and banishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Banishments under the Suppression of Communism Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Life in banishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Responses to banishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2

108 156 194 218 244

CONCLUSION

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278

Appendix 1: Copy of banishment order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 2: Release order from banishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 3: Can Themba, ‘Banned to the bush.’ Drum, August 1956 . Appendix 4: Cosmas Desmond, ‘Vorster’s forgotten people.’ Guardian Weekly, 19 June 1971 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 5: List of people banished . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

308 315 316

Notes

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322

Index

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359

INTRODUCTION

36 72

320 321

Foreword by George Bizos

In 2001, in Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth, Dumisa Ntsebeza and Terry Bell complained that ‘like so much of South Africa’s recent brutal history, we shall probably never know exactly how many people were banished and what happened to all of them.’ The Forgotten People answers many questions about banishment and shines a bright and welcome light on a largely hidden and unknown aspect of our indeed ‘brutal history’. It shows how apartheid’s political opponents from rural areas were condemned to the living hell of banishment: a weapon used to expel rural opponents to distant and often arid and desolate places for unlimited periods. These rural opponents were plucked from their families and communities and cast, in Helen Joseph’s words, ‘into the most abandoned parts of the country, there to live, perhaps to die, to suffer and starve, or to stretch out a survival by poorly paid labour, if and when they could get it.’ They were strangers in strange areas who could not speak the local language, and often had little in common with the locals and even less in common with those under whose surveillance they fell. They ‘had no trial in court. They were neither charged nor told of the nature of their crimes.’ They were provided ‘no opportunity to defend themselves, yet they were deprived of their liberty, of their homes. They were punished within the law, but outside justice.’ Joseph also wrote, ‘there are no words which can really tell how deeply these banished people suffered’. Banishment was a ‘slow torture of the soul, a living death’. The only crime of those banished was to resist apartheid policies and measures that would negatively affect their areas, communities and lives, and to seek a life of dignity and security in the land of their birth. Some 160 people were banished between 1948 and 1986. Thanks to The Forgotten People, we now have insight into the activities and lives of the men and women who were banished and can also view photos of some of these truly forgotten people. As the great South African photographer Ernest

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Cole, whose incredible photographs feature in the book, noted: ‘the number is small; the enormity is that banishment could happen at all’! The camps at Driefontein and Frenchdale in the Northern Cape and other locations which interned the banished – and also became the places of death of 17 of the banished – must be stark reminders of our terrible and shameful past. Yet as The Forgotten People shows so vividly, those banished to alien, often remote locations were not only victims; they were also indomitable, courageous, tenacious and resilient people capable of enduring considerable hardship and of overcoming adversity. Take Kenneth Mosenyi from Bahurustshe, who refused to request release from banishment because ‘it is not for me to go on my knees to ask for a favour’; Maema Matlala in Bushbuckridge, who scorned all efforts by state officials to win him over, determined that ‘when I go home, I shall be accepted by the people’; and Theophilus Tshangela from Mpondoland, who was prepared to be released into nothing less than full freedom. I met one of the banished people, Boas Moiloa from Bahurutshe. He was a dignified, elderly man who, during the troubles after the banishment of the chief, Abraham Moiloa, had come through necessity to be seen as the head of his community. In May 1958, he was banished to the King William’s Town district, a place where his language was not spoken and where he lived alone in a corrugated iron shack. He had no neighbours, no shop nearby, and he had to walk miles to fill his can with water. In April 1961, he was hospitalised and sent to live with his daughter in Randfontein, but still was not allowed to move about freely. He was released from banishment only in November 1963. Good people did not passively accept the injustice of banishment. The Human Rights Welfare Committee and other organisations and people highlighted and condemned banishment, drew attention to South Africa’s shameful ‘Siberias’, and supported the banished and their families. Although the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ruled that banishment constituted ‘severe ill treatment’ and was ‘a gross violation of human rights’, the banished remain largely ignored and forgotten. There is as yet no public acknowledgement of their suffering and their contribution. Nor is there any monument or memorial for them. It must, of course, begin with the naming of those who were banished. At long last The Forgotten People does so. For this, and for the long years of meticulous research and finally the superb telling of the story of banishment under apartheid, we owe a great debt to the author.

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Those who know the author will not be surprised that despite his busy life as the vice-chancellor of a prestigious university he has devoted time and effort to write this book, fulfilling a pledge made three decades ago to Helen Joseph. It is entirely in keeping with his role as a public intellectual passionately concerned with social justice; with moving ‘towards understanding without ever forgetting’, with remembering ‘without constantly rekindling the divisive passions of the past’, with looking down ‘into the darkness of the well of the atrocities of the past … the same time as we haul up the waters of hope for a future of dignity and equality’ (Neville Alexander). The concerns with truth and justice come shining through in the book. Like Ariel Dorfman, it is also my belief ‘that a fragile democracy is strengthened by expressing for all to see the deep dramas and sorrows and hopes that underlie its existence and that it is not by hiding the damage we have inflicted on ourselves that we will avoid its repetition.’ James Baldwin writes that ‘not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced’. In the words of Madiba, ‘we can now deal with our past, establish the truth, which has so long been denied us, and lay the basis for genuine reconciliation. Only the truth can put the past to rest.’

Advocate George Bizos Johannesburg September 2012

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Preface

Thirty years ago, I came across a tantalising brief reference in the Golden City Post of 21 December 1958 to the banishment of African leaders. My curiosity and discovery of Helen Joseph’s epic 11,000-km 1962 journey to visit banished people scattered around the country led me to her home in Fanny Avenue, Norwood. Joseph was thrilled at my interest in banishment, which was then largely a forgotten issue. On a subsequent visit to her, she provided me with documents and papers and extracted a promise to publish on banishment, of whose horrors she had considerable knowledge and experience. This book answers my longstanding questions on banishment and also discharges my pledge to Joseph. I dedicate this book to Helen Joseph, a courageous and indomitable antiapartheid fighter, who did so much to expose banishments and the plight of the banished and also provide them and their families support. A book that has been thirty years in the making and that has had to rely on richly diverse sources means that there are a large number of people to whom I owe debts of gratitude. I owe a great debt to my wife, Shireen, and my two sons, Hussein and Faizal, for their forbearance. They have borne countless days of my being around but not present. I am certain they understand the need for this book. Professor Yusuf Sayed of Sussex University has been a great friend for many years and a consistent fount of wisdom and support. Professor Robert van Niekerk of Rhodes – scholar, intellectual and friend – provided enthusiastic encouragement and inspiration with his wonderful birthday gifts of Ernest Cole’s House of Bondage and Helen Joseph’s Tomorrow’s Sun. Omar Badsha, artist, photographer and friend, provided a bed on visits to Cape Town, advice on photographs and enthusiastic support for the book. Professor Raymond Suttner provided, as usual, an outstanding example, sage advice and encouragement. Thanks also to all the many family, friends and colleagues who over the years have indulged my obsession with banishment.

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Archivists and librarians at various universities and institutions have over many years provided wonderful assistance: Professor Jeff Peires, Velile Victor Gacula, Liz de Wet, Sally Schramm and Louisa Verwey at the Cory Library; Gibson Nombewu, Sue Rionda and Viv Botha at the Rhodes University Library; Jill Otto at the Rhodes Law Library; Michele Pickover, the superbly supportive Curator of Manuscripts at the University of the Witwatersrand William Cullen Library, and her colleagues Zofia Sulej and digital technician Ryan Singh; Digital Innovation South Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal has been a fantastic internet research resource; Andre Mahommed and Geraldine Frieslaar at the Mayibuye Centre, the University of Western Cape (UWC); Ingrid Masondo, Photography Archivist at Mayibuye Centre; Mwelela Cele at Killie Campbell Library in Durban; Lesley Hart and Zweli Vellem at the African Studies Library at the University of Cape Town, and Tamara Dimant at the South African Institute of Race Relations. Verne Harris directed me to Gerrit Wagener, and Wagener and the assistants and photocopiers at the National Archives in Pretoria, colleagues at the Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository and Sipho Rala at the Cape Town Library all facilitated many enjoyable hours in the archives. Michael Coetzee, Deputy Secretary of the Parliament of South Africa, facilitated access to Tom Schumann, Librarian at the Parliament of South Africa, who provided electronic copies of all the banishment orders that were tabled in parliament between the early 1950s and late 1970s. Chimwewe Mitochi scanned various documents and created the first electronic index of banished people from ageing handwritten notes produced in 1983 by Tessa Botha. Julie Sikelwa Nxadi superbly transcribed the interview with Anderson Ganyile conducted by William Beinart and also lent other assistance. Various other colleagues at the Rhodes Media and Journalism School – Alette Schoon, Paddy Donnelly, Brian Garman, Jenny Gordon, Paul Hills – at one or other time provided assistance. Shameez Joubert, a graduate of the School, scanned photos from books and magazines. Tim Huisamen of Rhodes translated Appendix 2 from Afrikaans. The secretary of the Wits History Department photocopied honours theses on GaMatlala, and Kabelo Jonathan at the Special Pensions unit at the National Treasury helped me with enquiries related to banished people and special pensions. I am deeply grateful to Rhodes University scholars Distinguished Professor Paul Maylam and Professor Jeff Peires, and Ms Jaine Roberts, Director of

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Research at Rhodes, for serving as critical readers of the final draft of the book and for their invaluable comments and suggestions. Thanks also to Jaine for her meticulous proofreading of the final draft of the book and providing various kinds of research management support; Professor Peires for advice and information on various issues; Professor Henk van Rinsum of Utrecht University for putting me in touch with Professor Robert Ross of the Leiden University Institute for History, who alerted me to useful texts; Madeleine Fullard and Nicky Rousseau for sharing documents and information related to their time as researchers at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Professor Andrew Manson of the University of North West for providing materials related to Bahurutshe; Dr Lindsay Clowes of UWC for pointing me to Drum magazines at the Cape Town Library; Professor William Beinart of Oxford University for putting me in touch with Anderson Ganyile and kindly permitting me to use his 2008 interview with Ganyile, and Professor Lungisile Ntsebeza of the University of Cape Town for chats on different occasions on Thembuland and Mpondoland. David Mmakgabo Champ Sepuru and Paul Kgobe provided information on GaMatlala. Especial thanks are due to Sepuru for conducting oral interviews as part of a report commissioned by me for the chapter on GaMatlala, and for diligently travelling around GaMatlala to find families of banished people and photographs of the banished. Numerous people in GaMatlala graciously accommodated Sepuru’s questions, and loaned photos of banished people and provided permission for their use in this book. James Zug assisted with certain queries; Gwenda Thomas alerted me to certain holdings at the UCT library. Anderson Ganyile, Amina Cachalia, Michael Gardiner and Phyllis Naidoo readily agreed to be interviewed. Wendy Curson and Advocate George Bizos responded to some queries on banishments. Thanks are also due to: the Ernest Cole Family Trust and in particular Dr Otsile Ntsoane for the kind permission to use Cole’s magnificent photographs on banishment; Gunilla Knape, Research Manager at the Hasselblad Foundation, for providing contact sheets of Cole’s photographs; the Hasselblad Foundation for scanned copies of Cole’s photos; Dr Peter Magubane for the use of his photographs; African Media Online for providing photos from select issues of Drum magazines from the 1950s; Mayibuye Centre for the use of photographs in their archives and for scanning photographs from various editions of New Age; Amina Cachalia for making available photographs that were taken on her 1962 journey with Helen Joseph to visit banished people; Professor Peter Delius for the use of photographs of

xii

banished people from Sekhukhuneland; Dr Mamphela Ramphele for use of photos from her published books; Nazeema Mohamed for facilitating the scanning of these photos, and Professor Narend Baijnath and Lindsey Morton of Unisa Press for helping with certain queries. Gerald Kraak and Atlantic Philanthropy provided generous seed-funding for a TV documentary on banishment. Freedom Park CEO, Fana Jiyane, was most willing to explore ways of raising popular awareness of banishment, and honouring the banished. Freedom Park also co-funded the TV documentary. Coco Cachalia and her colleagues at Grounded Media and documentary director Lisa Keys were pivotal in ensuring that a documentary inspired by the book would see the light of day and also kindly provided still photographs of Anderson Ganyile and Boy Seopa. Rhodes University MA student Ulandi du Plessis was an outstanding research assistant. She read, checked, and cross-checked hundreds of National Archive and other documents and papers, many in Afrikaans, to help to compile the first comprehensive index of banished persons. A woman of great enterprise and versatility, she also produced the maps used in this book. Ulandi, I sought you out not to translate documents but for your intelligence and commitment to scholarship and social justice, and your initiative and capacity for hard work. I could not have asked for more. Thank you; you provided fantastic support and enriched this book in many ways. My sincere thanks to the scholars who served as anonymous external peer reviewers for Jacana Media and Brill, and considered this book to have scholarly merit. Russell Martin of Jacana enthusiastically received the book manuscript, while Christopher Merrett undertook a skilful pruning and editing of the manuscript. It was a pleasure to work with you and all the Jacana professionals. Finally, Rhodes University provided a stimulating intellectual and scholarly environment for reading, research and writing. John Butler-Adam and the Ford Foundation generously provided a fellowship for a sabbatical at University of California: Berkeley, which together with Patricia Powell’s fantastic home in the Berkeley Hills overlooking the San Francisco bay provided the ideal environment for completing this book.

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Abbreviations AAC AFCWU AMU ANC ANCYL BAA BC BCP BPA CM CNC CPC CPSA DC DEIC FCWU FEDSAW HRWC ICU ISA JMC MK NAA NC NP PAC PC RBU SACC SACOD SACP SACTU SAIC SAIRR SANNC SAP SASO SCA SMCA TC TOB TPSA UDF UNISA UP URU WVA

All African Convention African Food and Canning Workers Union African Mineworkers Union African National Congress African National Congress Youth League Bantu Authorities Act Black Consciousness Black Community Programmes Barolong Progressive Association chief magistrate chief native commissioner Coloured People’s Congress Communist Party of South Africa Dependants Conference (of the South African Council of Churches) Dutch East India Company Food and Canning Workers Union Federation of South African Women Human Rights Welfare Committee Industrial and Commercial Workers Union Internal Security Act Joint Management Committee Umkhonto weSizwe Native Administration Act native commissioner National Party Pan Africanist Congress Paramount Chief Reference Book Unit South African Council of Churches South African Congress of Democrats South African Communist Party South African Congress of Trade Unions South African Indian Congress South African Institute of Race Relations South African Native National Congress South African Police South African Students Organisation Suppression of Communism Act Sebataladi Motor Cottage Association Trust Council Transkei Organised Bodies Transkei Public Security Act United Democratic Front University of South Africa United Party Executive Council documents Witzieshoek Vigilance Association

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To hide the horrors of the past in a collective amnesia would leave posterity with a legacy of festering guilt and unrelieved pain. (Mac Maharaj)1

It was impossible to imagine a future. It is now almost as hard to imagine a past. (Tony Morphet)2

If the past has nothing to say to the present, history may go on sleeping undisturbed in the closet where the system keeps its old disguises. (Eduardo Galeano)3

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. (Milan Kundera)4

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but Nothing can be changed until it is faced. (James Baldwin)5

The strategic-political and ultimately moral-historical question is how to move towards understanding without ever forgetting, but to remember without constantly rekindling the divisive passions of the past. Such an approach is the only one which would allow us to look down into the darkness of the well of the atrocities of the past and to speculate on their causes at the same time as we haul up the waters of hope for a future of dignity and equality. (Neville Alexander)6

If it is impossible to understand, we ought to at least know. For what has happened once, can happen again. (Primo Levi)7

It was then and is now more than ever my belief that a fragile democracy is strengthened by expressing for all to see the deep dramas and sorrows and hopes that underlie its existence and that it is not by hiding the damage we have inflicted on ourselves that we will avoid its repetition. (Ariel Dorfman)8

We can now deal with our past, establish the truth which has so long been denied us, and lay the basis for genuine reconciliation. Only the truth can put the past to rest. (Nelson Mandela)9

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The Ernest Cole Family Tr

Introduction A slow torture of the soul, a living death. (Helen Joseph, ‘The unending sentence’)

IT IS 1964. In a remote, desolate and arid rural camp, six people idle away the hours, day after day, month after month, year after year. Paulus Mopeli, a Basotho chief and grandson of Moshoeshoe, is from Witzieshoek in the Free State.1 So are his wife, Treaty Mopeli, and Piet Mokoena. Alex Tikana, Theophilus Tshangela and Anderson Ganyile are all from the Transkei – Tikana from Cala and the other two from Bizana. The six, ranging in age from their thirties to late sixties, are inmates of Frenchdale Trust Farm, a banishment camp 89 kilometres from Mafikeng in present-day North West province. A striking feature of the camp ‘is the quiet. There [are] no children’s voices, no yipping dogs, none of the murmuring sounds of daily living: there [is] not even the faraway background hum of passing cars. Nothing.’ The six people live in huts with dirt floors; there are ‘no lavatories or baths, and no electricity’. Water for drinking and washing has to be fetched from over a kilometre away and food is a constant problem: ‘there never [is] enough’.2 Once a month the six people walk 19 kilometres to a village ‘to receive their grants and to spend them at the one store there’. Each of the group receives R4 a month, ‘three in meal and one in cash which goes to purchase extras … Then they hike home again. It is an ordeal for these aging people, but it is also the big event of their month.’3 The six inmates are almost entirely cut off from other people and society. Visitors are extremely rare and ‘precious letters from home are read over and over again. Letters are saved for years until they yellow and crumble’. Some of the six have ‘lost count of the days. Monday looks like Friday in Frenchdale. Nothing breaks the monotony. Nothing breaks the unvarying routine. There are no youngsters at home on Saturday, no church bells on Sunday, no rush and hurry of shopping days and laundry days during the week. What is Christmas like? Like every other day. Only sunrise and sunset [mark] the days. The passage from light to darkness [is] their calendar.’4

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INTRODUCTION

Each of the six inmates has been expelled from her or his usual place of residence, summarily removed from their community. Each has been dumped over 1,000 kilometres away in an inhospitable camp. Each had dared to criticise or actively oppose the apartheid state. As a result, each has been banished under section 5(1)(b) of the Native Administration Act of 1927. The period of banishment is indefinite. There was no judicial process involved. Those banished ‘had no trial in court. They were neither charged nor told of the nature of their crimes. They were given no opportunity to defend themselves, yet they were deprived of their liberty, of their homes. They were punished within the law, but outside justice.’5 No appeal to a court to challenge the banishment was possible. The ‘brilliance of banishment is that it is indeterminate, a limbo which has none of the legal and procedural trappings of prison, yet effectively removes leaders from circulation and breaks up the cohesiveness and forward momentum of the people they left behind’.6 ERNEST COLE, the intrepid and brilliant photographer, spent a few days among the banished in 1964.7 It was with an acute awareness of the realities of banishment that he wrote that it ‘is the cruellest and most effective weapon that the South African government has yet devised to punish its foes and to intimidate potential opposition’; and that Helen Joseph spoke of ‘that terrible catalogue of human misery, that list of people scattered all over this vast land, lonely and forgotten’.8 The great historian Eric Hobsbawm cautions that ‘political pressures on history … are greater than ever before … More history than ever is today being revised or invented by people who do not want the real past, but only a past that suits their purpose.’9 This is a useful warning about sanitised histories and biographies of the kind that makes one wonder how it was possible that colonialism and apartheid were able to survive so long, if prior to 1994 there were no supporters of apartheid opposing equality, justice, freedom and democracy. It is also a warning against selective recall and amnesia about the past and an invitation to ensure that South African historiography assiduously recovers and cultivates understanding of the past as the only basis upon which a democratic South Africa can build its future. A record of systemic violence and human rights abuse is vital both in the struggle against amnesia about the crimes and injustices of apartheid, and in defending, asserting and promoting the human rights and social justice that democratic South Africa’s Constitution seeks to guarantee. The

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THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

human rights abuses associated with state-sponsored violence and vigilante activities, murder and assassination, political detention and banning, are generally well known, even though memory of them is fading and a new generation appears largely ignorant that they happened. Generally unknown is the apartheid state’s legislated administrative practice of banishment, in terms of which political opponents were plucked from their families and communities and cast, in the words of Helen Joseph, ‘into the most abandoned parts of the country, there to live, perhaps to die, to suffer and starve, or to stretch out a survival by poorly paid labour, if and when they [could] get it’.10 Twenty-eight years ago the eminent historian Bill Freund observed that ‘a whole category of expulsions that is difficult to explore but clearly deserves mention is the use of resettlement as a form of political punishment. The exile of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to the Orange Free State town of Brandfort where she is confined to living is a well-known example.’11 Freund considers banishment as an instance of the general phenomenon of ideologically, economically and politically motivated forced removal that uprooted and relocated three million African people to the bantustans.12 Another way to conceive of banishment is as an important part of the armoury of political control, punishment, reprisal and repression in the service of colonial and apartheid rule. In any event, nothing has changed since Freund made his observation in 1984. No scholarly monograph or article on banishment exists in South Africa. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) regrettably gave scant attention to political banishment: ‘the issue of banishment was raised at the TRC and some evidence was heard’; the TRC acknowledging that banishments were a gross violation of human rights and also holding that the apartheid government was accountable.13 However, ‘no further action was taken’ and in general the stories of the banished ‘were not investigated by the TRC and there were no amnesty applications from those responsible’.14 In part this was a consequence of the restrictive mandate of the TRC, which was limited to the perpetration of gross human rights violations from 1960 to 1994; but only in part, as a number of people, as will be seen, were banished during the 1960s.15 More generally, the neglect of banishment had to do with the ‘inadequate research and investigation capabilities’ of the TRC.16 Given that social memory is a terrain of contestation, the outcome was an unfortunate, if unwitting, engineering of forgetting and a ‘skewing of

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INTRODUCTION

social memory’.17 Still, the obscurity of banishment may not be dissimilar to ‘the amnesias resulting from a construction of Robben Island as the predominant signifier of liberation struggle histories, most notably the lack of attention directed at women’s experiences as anti-apartheid activists ‘bound up with a general marginalisation of women’s role in struggle histories’.18 If ‘the archive becomes the official repository of memory … it is simultaneously a crucial site in the process of forgetting’.19 To the extent that the TRC records become the ‘official repository’ of information on the horrors of apartheid, this has the danger of obscuring practices such as banishment. However, more is at stake. If legitimacy or legitimating relies on the act of forgetting it also, simultaneously, relies on the act of remembering.20 It must be a matter of concern how very few of the banished or their families were awarded reparations or provided with special pensions.21 Ariel Dorfman introduces another interesting thought when he writes: ‘It is members of the new government, often the very people who led the resistance against the dictatorship, who are all too often the ones who preach a selective amnesia, asking their citizens to focus on the future and not on what happened yesterday. Investigating the horror, they say, dragging up old crimes, putting former officials on trial, only diverts attention from the most urgent task at hand, the primary goals of national reconciliation.’22 They fail ‘to realize that this mythic coming together of a fractured nation could not possibly be attained by ignoring the pain of the past’ and they also do ‘not realize that the cost of allowing the former ruler and his followers utter impunity [leads] to the erosion of the rule of law and the mortgaging of our ethical future’.23 From the vantage point of hindsight these are telling insights that could help decipher the ongoing fissures of contemporary South African society and the culture of impunity that has seemingly taken root. Be that as it may, any comprehensive documentation of apartheid tyranny must include banishment, a little known yet extremely pernicious form of reprisal and repression that was directed against African political opponents, particularly from the rural areas of South Africa, during the 1950s and 1960s. The South African national liberation movement and its key organisations and institutions were primarily based in urban areas. The iconic and celebrated figures of the national liberation struggle have tended to be political activists who had cities as their theatres of action and struggle. Narratives on apartheid and the anti-apartheid struggle have similarly

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THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

prioritised the urban drama and theatre. Those who were banished were largely rebellious political figures immersed in contesting and holding at bay the apartheid state in the rural areas. It is not so much that rural militants, and their activities and courageous struggles against oppression, exploitation and injustice, have been by and large forgotten. In large part, they are still to be fully written about and to enter popular consciousness. It is important that in the story of the struggle against apartheid and the creation of democracy, gallant men and women such as Paulus Mopeli, Makwena Matlala, Kenneth Mosenyi, Godfrey Sekhukhune, Anderson Ganyile, Ben Baartman and many others who were banished should also be recognised and honoured. Thirty years ago, in the course of conducting research on the forced mass removal and relocation of black South Africans, my curiosity was strongly aroused by tantalising brief references to banishment. Robert Resha made reference to the banishment of African leaders.24 So did others, without any elaboration, however, on the nature or the scale of banishments. I sought answers to numerous questions: how many people were banished; who was banished and why; for how long were people banished; what were the origins of this repressive measure; why was it utilised given the availability of other repressive measures; from which localities and to which areas were people banished; what were the effects on the communities from which people were banished; what were the responses of communities, and banished individuals themselves, to banishment; what were the life experiences of those who were banished; what were conditions like in banishment? This book is the culmination, 30 years later, of the search for answers to those questions. In enquiring into banishment, it has become clear how much the chronicling of black political resistance in South Africa has suffered from an urban-centrism in its concentration on struggles in the cities and towns, on popular urban leaders and on the ‘formal, organized political movements and their campaigns’ that by their nature ‘tended to represent and to be led by urbanized and educated men and women’. Simultaneously, it has become equally clear how little attention has been given to dynamics in rural areas, especially in the reserves (later bantustans). It is, however, critical that these dynamics ‘be revealed, understood and integrated into a wider analysis of the processes that have formed modern South Africa’.25 The intensely repressive character of the apartheid state is well known. Less well known, however, is its operation in the rural areas, especially

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INTRODUCTION

during the period beginning with the electoral triumph of the National Party (NP) in 1948 and ending soon after the banning in 1960 of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). Since political banishment was a measure that was largely applied against African rural political activists, the book necessarily focuses on social dynamics in the rural areas and reserves in the 1950s. In the process, it hopefully contributes to claiming ‘a larger weight or place for the history of the rural people in South Africa’.26 Between 1948 and the mid-1960s, the urban political opponents of apartheid were largely incapacitated by the state through the serving of banning orders, though in the late 1950s and early 1960s some urban opponents were also banished. In the rural areas and reserves, however, the principal form of administrative repression utilised by the apartheid state was banishment. This attempted to emasculate the activities of rural political figures by removing them to distant areas and isolating them from the popular struggles of the day. The primary aim of this book is to document political banishment under apartheid and, by illuminating a much neglected and largely unknown dimension of apartheid repression, to create an awareness of banishment as part of ‘the struggle of memory against forgetting’.27 In the pursuit of these aims the book also seeks to contribute to a greater awareness of the rural popular struggles of the 1950s and 1960s that constituted the immediate contexts of banishment; to highlight the activities of courageous individuals who were banished for refusing to submit to racial oppression and apartheid tyranny; and to reinsert ‘peasants and migrants as actors and shapers alongside the black proletariat [and] the heroes of the African nationalist struggle’.28 This is part of a process of interrogating ‘whose history gets told … in whose name … and for what purpose’; about ‘histories not told’ but that need to be ‘retold, untold’; and ‘histories forgotten, hidden, invisible, considered unimportant, changed, eradicated’.29 Apart from occasional journalistic pieces in contemporary newspapers, the magazine Drum and journals connected to the liberation movement such as Fighting Talk and New Age, writing on banishment in South Africa is extremely sparse. All of it dates from the early 1960s and is largely penned by people who were connected to the Human Rights Welfare Committee (HRWC), which conducted educational and welfare work around banishment. Four specific articles can be mentioned. In 1960, the HRWC published a brief booklet entitled The Forgotten Men.30 This focused on the

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THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

laws under which banishment occurred and the hardships experienced by banished people. Tribute was paid to banished persons for their courage in opposing apartheid policies. The second article was published in the Race Relations News of April 1961 and it provided statistics on banishment and brief descriptions of some of the banished people.31 A somewhat more detailed overview of banishment was provided by Helen Joseph’s article in Africa South, which strongly challenged various statements uttered in the national parliament by NP leaders in defence of banishment.32 It linked the banishment of individuals to opposition to apartheid policies and also briefly drew attention to the existence of banishment camps. The final article was by Muriel Horrell.33 Writing in Black Sash magazine, Horrell linked the banishment of individuals to resistance to state policies in certain areas of the country. A more extensive account of banishment was penned by anti-apartheid stalwart Helen Joseph in Tomorrow’s Sun, the result of her involvement in the HRWC and of an extraordinary car journey undertaken in May 1962 by her and various anti-apartheid figures, including Joe Morolong, Amina Cachalia, Nan Burger, Mildred Lesea and Mitta Gooieman.34 Departing hours after her banning order expired on 30 April 1962 and covering over 11,000 kilometres, Joseph visited a number of banished people in their farflung places of banishment across South Africa.35 Later, Joseph’s 1986 autobiography, Side by Side, also recounted her 1962 journey to meet banished people.36 She was to pay a dear price for attempting to bring to public awareness the practice of banishment and the plight of the banished. In late 1962, she ‘became the first person to suffer house arrest, to be restricted to her home for 12 hours a day during week days and day and night during weekends and holidays. Even the 12 hours of relative freedom were hedged with restrictions and with the demand that she report − on pain of prison − to the central police station in Johannesburg between noon and 2 pm each week day.’37 The chapters that follow focus on various aspects of political banishment under apartheid. Chapter 1 provides an historical and comparative analysis of banishment, drawing attention to its use during past centuries, in other societies, and by the Dutch East India Company to deal with rebellious Indonesian political notables some of whom were banished to the Cape in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This chapter also focuses on the historical development of the South African laws that provided for banishment, noting that this was a long-standing repressive practice that

xxiv

INTRODUCTION

had its roots in the colony of Natal but came to prominence after 1948 when the NP took power on an apartheid platform. The chapter compares and distinguishes between different kinds of political reprisal and repression, clarifying that political banishment was a distinctive form of bureaucratic expulsion of individuals. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 focus on the banishment of political opponents from rural areas and reserves: GaMatlala and Witzieshoek in the early 1950s; Bahurutshe and Sekhukhuneland during the late 1950s; and Mpondoland, Thembuland and the south coast of Natal during the late 1950s and early 1960s. It locates banishment within popular resistance to state interventions designed to impose greater political and social control over rural people. In chapter 5 attention turns to the banishment of urban-based political opponents of apartheid. There are case studies of Ben Baartman, Elizabeth Mafekeng and Louis Mtshizana. The banishment of political activists under the provisions of the 1950 Suppression of Communism Act (later the Internal Security Act) is considered in chapter 6. Short case studies focus on Frances Baard, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Mamphela Ramphele. Chapter 7 describes life in banishment, the impact on the banished and their families, and conditions in two banishment camps, Frenchdale and Driefontein. Finally, in chapter 8 different responses to banishment on the part of the banished themselves, their communities, political organisations and civil society institutions are analysed. There is also an examination of the activities of the HRWC in which Helen Joseph, Lilian Ngoyi, Amina Cachalia and others were involved. Where possible, statistics, tables, maps and photographs are used to complement description and analysis. The remarkable photographs of Ernest Cole, Peter Magubane, Bob Gosani and others are a potent reminder that behind the statistics are men and women, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, and daughters and sons afflicted with the horrendous experience of banishment under apartheid. Some of Cole’s photographs, whose use has been generously permitted by the Ernest Cole Family Trust, have never been published before. Others are drawn from Cole’s fabulous House of Bondage, which was published in 1967 when he was in exile in the United States and banned in South Africa.38 His book ‘concludes with a series of dark, reflective, melancholic images documenting the plight of African leaders banished by the government to distant camps … As before it presents a depressing view of black political opposition to apartheid, reflecting the reality of the mid1960s, when few believed the situation in South Africa could end other than

xxv

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

badly’. And yet, ‘it is hard not to read the images too as a metaphor for Cole’s own condition, separated from the world that gave his life meaning and contemplating the “frightful nothingness” of exile’.39 Hundreds of articles from newspapers, memoirs, books, journals and magazines, reports of government departments, numerous volumes of the Survey of Race Relations, decades of House of Assembly debates, documents and indexes compiled by the HRWC and other organisations, reports and documents of the TRC, and scores of documents in English and Afrikaans in the National Archives in Pretoria have been drawn upon to write this book. The most significant are recorded in the endnotes. The TRC reported that ‘in its deliberations over what constituted severe ill treatment, the Commission has included … banishment orders. It is thus the finding of the Commission that all those upon whom such orders were imposed suffered a gross violation of human rights, for which the former government and in particular the Ministers of Justice and Law and Order are held accountable.’40 Recognising the injustices of our past entails, on the one hand, knowledge and understanding of the horror and brutality of apartheid in all its myriad and diverse forms: systemic, structural, economic, social, political, psychological, collective and individual. On the other hand, it requires the persistent and assiduous unveiling of little-known pernicious features of our colonial and apartheid past and drawing these to the attention of the wider public. It is indeed the case that ‘to hide the horrors of the past in a collective amnesia would leave posterity with a legacy of festering guilt and unrelieved pain’.41 The Uruguayan journalist and writer Eduardo Galeano, who is ‘obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past … above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia’, has observed that ‘if the past has nothing to say to the present, history may go on sleeping undisturbed in the closet where the system keeps its old disguises’.42 Ariel Dorfman, who like Galeano had to escape military dictatorship in Chile, is insistent that ‘a fragile democracy is strengthened by expressing for all to see the deep dramas and sorrows and hopes that underlie its existence and that it is not by hiding the damage we have inflicted on ourselves that we will avoid its repetition’.43 In our own context, Neville Alexander puts our challenge pithily: ‘the strategic-political and ultimately moral-historical question is how to move towards understanding without ever forgetting, but to remember without constantly rekindling the divisive passions of the past. Such an approach is the only one which would allow

xxvi

INTRODUCTION

us to look down into the darkness of the well of the atrocities of the past and to speculate on their causes at the same time as we haul up the waters of hope for a future of dignity and equality.’44 It is the constitutional imperative of acknowledging ‘the injustices of the past’ that has been the leitmotif for the research and publication of this book on political banishment under apartheid. Simultaneously, in illuminating the extraordinary courage of and sacrifices made by the banished in their refusal to submit to apartheid oppression and the incursions of a state determined to limit their autonomy and freedoms and that of their communities and subject them to greater social and political control, the book also ‘honour[s] those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land’. The realisation of social justice in South Africa requires the cultivation of a prophetic memory: remembrance of the brutal and traumatic past and the sacrifices made to achieve democracy; critique of amnesia about the injustices of the past that threatens to undermine the achievement of our constitutional ideals; consciousness that in the light of past history, South Africa needs fundamental, bold and determined transformation; imagination to conceive of new, creative, just and humane ways of being and acting; and the desire, both individually and collectively, to reshape and remake South Africa.45 Hopefully, this book contributes to the cultivation of a prophetic memory.

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Courtesy of Dr Peter Magubane

1

Banishment: An old and common practice Men in shadows had other plans for me, banishments planned for me, men who were desperate not to fall, desperate to rise, rise to power. (Ariel Dorfman, Heading South, Looking North)

It’s always in the interests of the powers that be for punishment to be excessive, unforgettable. Above all, to act as a warning. (G. Martinez, The Book of Murder)

BANISHMENT HAS LONG EXISTED in human history and continues in some contemporary societies. It ‘has been practiced in a variety of different cultures and societies … and … is one of the oldest known forms of criminal punishment’.1 The Old Testament narrates that Adam and Eve were banished as a form of divine punishment ‘from the Garden of Eden for their disobedience to God’.2 Cain was ‘doomed to be a wanderer, hidden from the presence of God’ for killing his brother Abel.3 Banishment dates back to at least 2285 BC to the code of laws of the Babylon king Hammurabi. It can also be found in ancient India, China under various feudal dynasties prior to 1911, the Roman and Greek worlds and in Jewish communities between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. In early societies banishment would have been a significant and effective instrument of punishment as individuals were strongly dependent on families and clans for protection and survival.4 Outlaws feature prominently in popular culture and in medieval England outlawry was the ‘equivalent of banishment’ and ‘a form of punishment for serious crime’.5 Banishment was a theme to which Shakespeare devoted considerable attention. His recourse to the topics of banishment and exile was a conse-

2

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

quence of their ‘historical reality,’ a ‘common practice in English politics in his own time of religious dissension’ and ‘an equally common theme in classical biography’. Shakespeare’s own concern is reasoned to lie ‘in the great pathos inherent in the condition of banishment and exile, in the wrenching pain of separation that accompanies it, in the loss of ties to the land of one’s birth and to one’s friends and relations, and in the anger, despondency, bitterness, and hatred it often engenders’.6 There are four situations in Shakespeare’s plays that give rise to banishment. One concerns the banished as victims of ‘unjust usurpations’. Another is where the banished are loyal subjects at the receiving end of wrathful sovereigns. A third implicates the banished in one way or another in civil war ‘together with the related phenomena of court intrigues and power struggles’. Finally, there is banishment as a consequence of ‘decisions by legally constituted authorities acting within their rights’. The latter are cases of ‘legitimate (though not always just) exercises of legal authority, either to punish a wrongdoing or to preserve the security of the state’.7 The scramble for Africa led to unsolicited European offers of treaties of protection and free trade. Refusal to accommodate such treaties provided excuses for war and colonial conquest. Treaties were also ‘legal rationalizations for dispossessing African rulers of their land if they refused to conduct commerce on European terms’ while some of the ‘African rulers who refused to submit to the exigencies of British imperialism were arrested or treacherously trapped’ and banished.8 In 1887 King Jaja of Opobo was banished to St Vincent in the West Indies. Jaja was slandered by the British vice-consul in Cameroon, Harry Johnston, as ‘the champion of reactionaries’ and as an opponent of ‘the spread of Christianity and clean living’.9 He was induced by Johnston to ‘board a gunboat, ostensibly to negotiate a peaceful end to hostilities. Once on board, however, Jaja was arrested, taken to Accra and then transported to St Vincent’. He died in 1891 on his way back to Nigeria and was buried in Tenerife.10 King Prempeh I of Asante, ‘members of his immediate family, and several important chiefs were detained by the British at Elmina Castle (in Ghana), then moved to Freetown, Sierra Leone, and finally banished to the Seychelles Islands’ in 1900. He was allowed to return to Kumasi, together with 54 other banished people only in 1924 when old and broken.11 The political vacuum created by the banishment of such leaders was used by the British to implant ‘their own authority’.12 In 1896 opposition was aroused to the imposition of a tax on huts and houses when ‘a protectorate was unilaterally and fraudulently proclaimed

3

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

over the hinterland of the colony of Sierra Leone’. A key figure in this opposition was Bai Bureh, described as ‘the resilient general and military strategist who led the Temne in the war against the British in 1898’.13 Eventually arrested, he was taken to Freetown and then banished on 30 July 1899 to the Gold Coast (Ghana), along with Bai Sherbro (Gbanna Lewis) and ‘the powerful Mende chief Nyagua’.14 Both of Bai Bureh’s comrades died in banishment, but he was permitted to return in 1905 and was reinstated as a chief in 1906.15 At the close of the nineteenth century, ‘the Kingdom of Benin had managed to retain its independence and the Oba exercised a monopoly over trade which the British found irksome. The territory was coveted by an influential group of investors for its rich natural resources such as palm-oil, rubber and ivory.’16 In a brutal military expedition, Benin City was plundered and burnt in 1897 though the Oba of Benin, Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, escaped. He later surrendered and was banished to Calabar, where he died in 1914.17 There are also more recent references to banishment in Africa: the Alafin (king) of Oyo banished and deposed in 1955; an Oba banished for political reasons; and ‘a labour militant, Imoudu, detained in 1943 and banished from Lagos to Auchi for 2 years by the colonial state’.18 Many prominent Russian revolutionaries experienced banishment and exile. After his arrest in December 1895 and time spent in prison, Lenin was on his release ‘banished for three years to the village of Shushenskoe in eastern Siberia’, arriving there in May 1897.19 Leon Trotsky was also banished. After spending almost two years in different prisons being investigated for revolutionary activities at the end of 1899, Trotsky and three associates ‘received their administrative verdict, that is, a verdict without trial’ – banishment to Siberia for four years. He first settled in Ust-Kut, ‘a god-forsaken place with about a hundred peasant huts, dirty and plagued by vermin and mosquitoes’, and then in Verkholensk in the mountainous areas of Lake Baikal. This was the place to which ‘thirty five years earlier Polish insurgents had been deported’. Trotsky escaped from Siberia in 1902. However, following his arrest for playing a leading role in the St Petersburg Soviet during the 1905 revolution, in November 1906 ‘Trotsky and fourteen others were sentenced to deportation to Siberia for life and loss of all civil rights’. He escaped on the way into banishment.20 Stalin spent over 18 months in Caucasian jails until late 1903 without being charged. Then, ‘like most suspects on whom no offence could be pinned’, he was ‘“administratively” condemned to deportation for a term

4

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

of three years. He was to be exiled to the village Nvaya Uda in the Irkutsk province of eastern Siberia. The prisoner could invoke no habeas corpus; no law whatsoever protected him against the arbitrary exercise of power by authority.’ Banished with numerous other activists, he escaped in early 1904. He was arrested again in Baku and banished in 1908 to Solvychegodsk, a ‘little settlement … in the northern part of the Vologda province in European Russia’ for two years. He escaped after four months. Arrested yet again in 1910, an administrative order was imposed obliging him ‘to complete his banishment in Solvychegodsk’. He remained in banishment until June 1911 and was then prohibited from residing in large cities. Arrested for a final time in February 1913 in St Petersburg, he was banished for four years to the northern Siberian province of Turukhansk, which was characterised by harsh weather. He returned to active political life only with the outbreak of the revolution in 1917.21 After the revolution, article 20 of the 1926 Criminal Code of the Soviet Union permitted judges to impose the penalty of banishment.22 During the factional political struggles that followed the death of Lenin and saw Stalin triumphant in the late 1920s, numerous political opponents of the Stalinist regime were banished. The most tragic figure, who had played a pivotal role in the Russian revolution, was Trotsky. Following his expulsion, and that of other ‘oppositionists’, by Stalin from the Bolshevik Party, Trotsky was banished to Alma-Ata in present-day Kazakhstan on 17 January 1928.23 Alongside Trotsky, his secretaries and family members were also banished to various places, as were numerous other opponents of Stalin. Another Russian revolutionary similarly banished was Karl Radek, who had served as an international representative of the Bolshevik Party, was active in the Communist International and had been ‘rector of the Sun Yat-Sen University for Chinese students in Moscow’.24 Radek was banished to the Ural Mountains. Deutscher writes that as ‘the conditions in which they found themselves, though painful and humiliating, were not yet crushingly oppressive, the Oppositionists reverted to a manner of existence which had been familiar to them before the revolution. The job of the political prisoners and exiles was to use the enforced idleness in order to clear their thoughts, learn, and prepare for the day when they would once again have to shoulder the burdens of direct struggle or the responsibilities of government.’25 Communication was forged among the dispersed exile colonies and ‘a secret postal service operated between Alma-Ata and Moscow’. Trotsky continued to be a thorn in Stalin’s flesh through the ‘influence which [he] exercised

5

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

from Alma-Ata and which had so far prevented the Opposition in exile from disintegrating. Stalin was determined to remove this obstacle from his path. But how was he to do it? He still shrank from sending the killer.’26 On 20 January 1929, following a decision of the Politburo, Trotsky was presented with a ‘new order of deportation, this time “from the entire territory of the USSR”’. This order he denounced as ‘criminal in substance and illegal in form’. However, on 10 February 1929 Trotsky saw Russia for the last time as he was forced to board at Odessa, with his wife, Natalya, and son Lyova, a ship that ‘as if to mock him bore Lenin’s patronymic – Ilyich!’27 Trotsky was to reside for four years from March 1930 onwards on the deserted Prinkipo Islands, which ‘had once been a place of exile to which Byzantine Emperors confined their rivals and rebels of royal blood’.28 After spending periods of exile in France and Norway, he was assassinated on 20 August 1940 in Mexico. In 1953, following his release from prison, the Russian novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Alexander Solzhenitsyn ‘was exiled to the barrens of southern Kazakhstan’. In the early 1800s his great-greatgrandfather had also been banished. He had ‘joined in an act of rebellion, and the rebels suffered banishment to the virgin lands of the Caucasus. Such punishments were a traditional way of opening up new territory; like the pioneers moving west across America, the migrants could take what land they wanted.’29 In more recent times, in January 1980 another Russian, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, and his wife, Yelena Bonner, ‘were seized by officers of the Soviet secret service … while walking in a Moscow street … given two hours to pack’ and were banished ‘to Gorky, an industrial city 250 miles east of Moscow and off limits to foreign reporters’.30 The propiska system of curtailment of the movement and residence of Soviet citizens was put to good effect in 1980: ‘one of the last great purges to the 101st kilometer accompanied the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, as the Soviet Union sought to project a positive image of its capital city to the world community. The practice gave rise to the expression, “Taken to the 101st kilometer.”’31 Among a number of relatively recent instances of individual banishment is the case of the Greek composer and left-wing political activist Mikis Theodorakis. When the Regime of the Colonels, a fascist cabal, took power in a coup in 1967, Theodorakis went underground and played a key role in opposition to the military regime. The Colonels banned his music and songs

6

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

under martial law.32 Arrested in August 1967 and held for five months without trial, he was released in January 1968 and kept under permanent surveillance. Then, in August 1968 the security police effectively banished Theodorakis and his family to the tiny mountain village of Zatouna. This choice was vindictive: a colonel had instructed that Theodorakis ‘likes the sea too much. He must be deprived of it. Find a place in the Peloponnese which is farthest from the sea and we’ll put him there’. It was, however, also chosen because it is a natural fortress. Theodorakis wrote, ‘I am living in an iron collar which is choking me … My nerves are at breaking point. My spirit is afflicted.’ Fourteen months of banishment at high altitude, with long periods of snow, rain and fog, under constant guard, reporting twice daily at the police station and, later, being restricted to the home for 22 hours a day, all took a considerable toll on the physical and mental health of Theodorakis, his wife and their children. In late 1969, Theodorakis was transferred to a camp for political detainees at Oropos and eventually permitted to go into exile in 1970.33 Banishment has also been used as a repressive measure against Palestinians in Israel. In June 2010, the Israeli Supreme Court ‘upheld a move by Israeli police ordering three members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, which functions as the Palestinian Authority’s parliament, and a former member of the Palestinian Cabinet to leave the city within a month of the order’.34 The four men, who were East Jerusalem residents and recently released after spending a few years in political detention, were first issued the orders in 2006 on the grounds of their political activity. Their Israeli identity cards had already been confiscated, which meant that they could no longer move about freely. One of the men under threat of banishment noted that ‘we have been living like prisoners in our own homes; we cannot move or leave our homes because without our identification papers, we could be arrested or harassed at any checkpoint or by any policeman on the street’. However, this was relatively tolerable: being told ‘to leave our homes, our families and our city where we have lived all our lives is cruel and inhuman’.35 The court decision paved the way for the banishment of other Palestinian activists from Jerusalem. According to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, ‘in 2008 alone, Israel revoked residency rights of over 4,500 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem for various reasons’, thus effectively banishing them from Israel.36 Following the Aqsa intifada of 2000, 79 Pales-

7

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

tinian prisoners released from Israeli jails were banished to the Gaza Strip, Jordan and European countries.37 In 2010 there were Israeli threats to banish 14 more prisoners. The use of banishment as a mechanism of reprisal against political opponents has not been confined to states. In February 2000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the rebel group the Congolese Rally for Democracy banished the Bishop of Bukavu, Emmanuel Kataliko, ‘to his home town, Butembo, in North Kivu because of his critical attitude towards the authorities, and only allowed him to return to Bukavu in mid-September’.38 There are numerous other historical and comparative instances of banishment and certain generalisations may be made: • The term banishment tends to be used interchangeably with deportation, penal transportation and exile. • Banishment is the expulsion of people from one location to another, which also involves the severing of ties with and dislocation from family and community.39 • Banishment is usually ‘to a non-institutional setting’ and also commonly entails ‘neither institutional control nor support for the banished’. That is to say, banished people generally have ‘the responsibility to care for themselves and … substantially more freedom than an average prisoner’.40 • Banishment is associated with power and authority and is usually deployed by the state (national and local), but also other institutions and, in rare instances, rebel political movements. • Banishment is a practice that has existed for thousands of years and continues to exist today. Various societies across the world at one or other time and for one or other reason have resorted to banishment. • Banishment is punishment for breaches of social custom, for criminal offences, a form of reprisal against and repression of political dissidents and opponents, and a means of political and social control. When deployed as a repressive political weapon, banishment tends to be associated with authoritarian regimes. • Those subject to banishment may be individuals, social groups or communities. • There is a gender dimension to banishment: men rather than women are banished. • Banishment is employed against both citizens and non-citizens. In the case of citizens, it may entail denial of citizenship for varying periods, or even its loss. 8

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

• Banishment may be for a specified period, ranging from a few months or years to many years and even decades, or it may be permanent. • Banishment is associated with diverse, debilitating and often devastating political, social and economic and psychological impacts on individuals and communities. • People are usually banished to places with sparse populations that are culturally and linguistically different, and generally rural, remote, arid and desolate. • The areas to which people are banished are often temporally different, and geographically a considerable distance from their usual places of residence. In some instances they may also be beyond the borders of their country of birth or residence. • Banishment is the outcome of legally sanctioned judicial action as well as extra-judicial administrative decision. • The responses on the part of the banished to banishment range from acquiescence to various kinds of resistance. There is a need for ‘greater clarity and specificity’ about use of the term banishment.41 These are important issues for this study of banishment in apartheid South Africa and will be addressed later. First, however, this chapter turns to the phenomenon of banishment in South Africa.

Banishment in South Africa ‘It must not be imagined for one moment that restrictions on civil liberty began in 1948 or are the monopoly of one political party.’42 On the kramat (shrine) of Sayed Mahmud in Constantia (Cape Town) there is this inscription: ‘On 24 January 1667, the ship the Polsbroek left Batavia and arrived here on 13 May 1668, with three political prisoners in chains … They were rulers … men of wealth and influence … Two were sent to the Company’s forest and one to Robben Island.’43 While the legislative provision for banishment predated apartheid, finding expression first in Natal in 1891 and then in the Native Administration Act (1927), so did the practice of banishment − by 300 years. From the late 1600s, South Africa received people banished from Batavia, Indian Ocean headquarters of the Dutch East India Company (DEIC), and elsewhere. Even before the first European settlement, in 1636 an ex-governor general of Batavia ‘suppressed a mutiny amongst the crew of his fleet’. One 9

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

of the ringleaders was banished to Robben Island, but it is ‘not related how long he managed to stay alive’.44 The use of the Cape as a place of banishment has its origins in the DEIC’s ‘circuit of penal transportation and political exile’ in terms of which ‘the Cape of Good Hope was a significant node in the Company’s network of forced migration in regard to the slave trade, penal transportation, and political exile’.45 For the DEIC, the Cape was an attractive location for banishment by virtue of its geographic position: ‘it combined security, distance and isolation in a unique configuration to the advantage of the Company’ and ‘it was the least likely to be captured through conquest by indigenous or neighbouring polities’. Indeed, the ‘Cape established a reputation as being the most farflung and isolated site for penal transportation and political exile’, with Robben Island a crucial ‘secondary site of banishment and imprisonment’.46 By May 1658, non-indigenous people at the Cape included seven banished persons who were used as forced labour and became part of the free black population on completion of their sentences, if they were not repatriated. Political opponents of the DEIC ‘arrived in a steady trickle from the beginning of the settlement’ and altogether ‘several hundred people were exiled to the Cape during a period of over one hundred and thirty years’.47 Robben Island ‘first gained notoriety as a prison for eastern political exiles’. One of these was Sayed Abduraghman Motura (Tuan Matarah), ‘reputed to have been a very learned and religious man’. Following his death on the island, his ‘grave became a respected shrine’.48 Perhaps the best known of those banished from Java by the DEIC was Sheikh Yusuf. He was born into a noble family in 1626 at Macassar. Following clashes with the Dutch in 1683, a life on the run and injury, he was ‘persuaded to surrender on a promise of pardon in 1684. The Dutch never fulfilled their promise.’49 Considered a ‘scholar of renown in the seventeenth-century Indian Ocean Islamic networks’, Sheikh Yusuf was initially banished to DEIC strongholds in Batavia and then Colombo. During his banishment to the Cape in 1694 he was ‘accompanied not only by (forty nine) members of his family and followers but also by his slaves’50 and ‘was royally welcomed by Governor Simon van der Stel’. He and his retinue ‘were housed on the farm Zandvliet, near the mouth of the Eerste River, in the general area now called Macassar.’ Zandvliet ‘became a sanctuary for fugitive slaves’ and the site of the ‘first cohesive Muslim community’.51 The banishment to the Cape of Asian political notables was not welcomed by local officials and colonists, but the DEIC was nonetheless

10

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

‘forced to house and sustain exiles and their entourages’. Political royalty banished to the Cape ‘often arrived with explicit instructions from Batavia detailing where they should be housed and what monthly allowance they should receive’ and were generally treated with respect.52 Some banished people were sent to rural settlements or farms, but they could also be banished ‘to Robben Island where they were treated little better than slaves’.53 During the late 1700s, the main work on Robben Island was in stone and lime quarries to supply the Cape. There was a gender dimension to banishment: ‘Women were not exiled as political prisoners in their own right’ but ‘alongside their husbands, fathers, and sons, and were particularly vulnerable once their male relatives died’.54 The banishment of political figures to the Cape had interesting consequences. For one, ‘high-ranking exiles, often accompanied by their own subordinates and slaves, disrupted the colonial hierarchy that equated rank and privilege with ethnicity, religion and freedom’. For another, spreading those banished for political reasons around the colony ‘inadvertently provided the circumstances under which Islam at the Cape appears to have been propagated among slaves and the free black population’. The banished Tuan Guru, ‘credited with the establishment of the madrasah tradition at the Cape … had been a prisoner on Robben Island during the 1780s before his release in 1792’.55 He established the Dorp Street Madrasah in 1793 and the first mosque, also in Dorp Street, in 1795.56 Guru became the first chief imam at the Cape.57 The first African person to be banished within the boundaries of South Africa was Autshumao. He had travelled on an English ship to Java in the 1630s, but ‘by 1657 [he] had outlived his usefulness and fallen from grace with the Company. He had been accused of duplicity and was implicated in the murder of a Dutch shepherd boy’.58 In July 1658 Autshumao ‘together with two Khoikhoi companions, Jan Cou and Boubo, was indeed placed on Robben Island’.59 He escaped from the Island on a small boat in November 1659. It has been noted that ‘hostage taking was common practice in many of the [DEIC’s] disputes with indigenous polities over which it had no jurisdiction and was often combined with political exile … At the Cape node, Robben Island was the farthest place of exile utilized for indigenous hostages.’ In 1693, Governor Simon van der Stel banished Dohra, ‘leader of the western Chainouqua clan, to Robben Island for “disloyalty”’ in a display of colonial power and supremacy.60 Within a few years of DEIC

11

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

settlement at the Cape, Robben Island became a favoured destination for the banishment of both local political opponents and convicts and those from DEIC colonies in the East. Given this history, ‘the representation of Robben Island as … an impregnable place of banishment for those who have opposed the status quo’ is a long-standing and understandable motif.61 Banishment to the Cape by the DEIC ended with British conquest in 1795. The British also employed banishment and resorted to mass penal transportation of convicts. After 1806, when the British permanently occupied the Cape, both the Cape and Robben Island in particular would again be ‘used as a prison, housing soldiers under sentences of transportation or banishment, Cape residents on criminal sentences who were considered particularly dangerous and political prisoners from the frontiers of the growing colony’.62 British colonial expansion in the nineteenth century and the resistance this provoked from local African polities saw Robben Island continue to play a role as a place of banishment. Deacon writes that ‘a number of black leaders who took part in the frontier conflicts, those who survived the battlefields but failed to escape capture, were punished with exile on Robben Island’. Its use as a prison ‘helped to establish British authority over the Colony’s black opponents’.63 In some instances Deacon conflates imprisonment, exile and banishment. As Jeff Peires indicates, Hans Trompetter was imprisoned rather than ‘banished to Robben Island after his role in the third frontier war (1799−1803)’.64 On the other hand, David Stuurman was indeed banished. He ‘had also been involved in the third frontier war, [and] was a thorn in the side of the British for some years before his capture in 1819’.65 Also banished was the Xhosa warrior-prophet Makhanda (Nxele), who drowned in 1820 trying to escape from Robben Island. Makhanda had in the Fifth Frontier War of 1818−19 ‘led an unsuccessful attack by combined Gcaleka and Ndlambe forces on Grahamstown’.66 He ‘surrendered on guarantee of “life and treatment as a prisoner of war.”’67 The British considered Makhanda to be ‘similar in nature to Napoleon Bonaparte, who was kept on St Helena’s Island during the same period. There is no evidence to suggest that Makhanda was ever charged, put on trial or sentenced. Everything relating to his imprisonment and daily provisioning required special letters of instruction from the Governor’s office.’68 Peires notes that ‘Nxele was not confined within the prison at Robben Island or subject to prison discipline. He had his own little house in which he lived.’69

12

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

Zulu political leaders in conflict with the colonial Natal government first arrived on Robben Island in 1874. Langalibalele kaMtimkhulu Hlubi, a chief from northwestern Natal, had a ‘growing following, and his influence as a visionary, rain-maker and independent leader, began to threaten the colonists and Shepstone’s “native policy.”’70 In 1873, the Hlubi refused to ‘comply with an order from the Natal colonial authorities relating to the registration of guns’.71 Threatened with arrest, he fled to Basutoland, only to be given up to the Natal authorities.72 A trial followed ‘that was a travesty of justice’ and Langalibalele was ‘banished to Robben Island for life under a special Act of the Cape parliament called the Natal Criminals Act’.73 An appeal was made against conviction and sentence, but it was ruled that the Supreme Chief’s powers were unlimited and ‘banishment was a punishment known to customary law’.74 The Cape parliament, under pressure from Lord Carnarvon, the Secretary of State in Britain, who was of the view ‘that the trial had been irregular’ and the ‘lifelong banishment on Robben Island was too severe’, repealed the Natal Criminals Act.75 In 1875 Langalibalele was moved from Robben Island to Uitvlugt (Pinelands).76 He was permitted to return to Natal in 1877 and died there in 1889. Following the battle of Ulundi, the Zulu king Cetshwayo was captured by the British on 28 August 1879 and banished to Cape Town. Initially, Cetshwayo was held at the Castle. He made various pleas for clemency to Queen Victoria and also travelled to Britain to put his case. Subsequently, he ‘was moved … to Oude Molen, a farm on the Cape Flats’ and permitted to return home from banishment on 10 January 1883 to much reduced territory and died in 1884.77 In 1888 Dinuzulu, the son of the Zulu king Cetshwayo, sought to resist British undermining of the Usuthu. He and two uncles, Ndabuko and Tshingana, were charged with high treason and sentenced in 1889 to imprisonment on St Helena.78 They received a free pardon on 22 January 1895 and after various delays arrived in Eshowe in January 1898 to an already annexed Zululand.79 There is a description of chiefs in Natal ‘arbitrarily deposed by decree of the Supreme Chief [and] removed’. An example is provided of Acting Chief Njengabantu who ‘was removed from his tribe allegedly for insulting the magistrate at the time of the census enumeration’ in 1904. As his ‘version of the story was never examined before a judicial authority’, this is strongly suggestive of banishment.80

13

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

In early 1906, there were disturbances around a refusal to pay poll tax, to hand over assegais and to dispose of African-occupied land to white farmers in the Ixopo–Richmond area of Natal. Martial law was declared. Chief Tilonko was ‘tried by court martial and behind closed doors for sedition and public violence’. He was found guilty, fined a considerable number of cattle, deposed as chief and in 1907 imprisoned on St Helena.81 In the aftermath of the wider 1906 Zulu (Bhambatha) rebellion there were also others: 25 Natal ‘chiefs who had been found guilty of treasonable offences during the rebellion’ were sent to St Helena on 1 June 1907.82 In 1910, Dinuzulu was banished to the Transvaal.83 During 1907, following the poll tax rebellion, he had surrendered himself for trial. A special court was established under Act 8 of 1908 at Greytown Town Hall and in March 1909 ‘Dinuzulu was found guilty on three of the twenty-three counts of high treason … He was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.’ However, following Union in 1910, Dinuzulu was released from jail and banished ‘for the rest of his life from Zululand and Natal’ to a farm near Middelburg (Transvaal). Following his banishment, ‘his home [in Zululand] was ploughed down and destroyed to prove to his still hopeful followers that he would never return’. He died in 1913, according to his companion Mankulumana of a ‘broken heart’.84 According to the minister of native affairs, before 1952 no official records were kept of banishments under the Native Administration Act.85 Numerous individuals, though, were certainly banished between 1927 and 1948. At least 83 people were banished during this period, including 51 from Natal, 27 from Transvaal, four from the Cape and one from the Orange Free State.86 On 6 December 1927, under J.B.M. Hertzog’s signature, Munjedzi Mpafuri from Mpafuri’s location (Louis Trichardt) was banished to the Barberton district.87 This was not Mpafuri’s first banishment order: on 4 November 1927 an order had been issued that banished him ‘anywhere but the Soutpansberg District’.88 Mpafuri failed to obey his second banishment order, was prosecuted under section 5(2) of the Native Administration Act and ‘convicted and sentenced to 7 days’ imprisonment and was thereafter removed to Barberton’. On appeal, the Supreme Court quashed the conviction on the grounds that the ‘order was couched in terms which were too vague by reason of the alternative destination therein designated’. Mpafuri subsequently returned to Mpafuri’s Location. His presence there was deemed ‘highly undesirable in the public interest and dangerous to

14

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

The Ernest Cole Family Trust

peace and good order’ and on 15 August yet another order was issued by Hertzog, banishing Mpafuri to Hammanskraal.89 Murray recounts that ‘on 25 March 1940 the Barolong Progressive Association (BPA) held a public meeting in Thaba Nchu attended by about 500 people and addressed by 3 officials of the BPA’. The BPA was part of the ‘protracted and continuing struggle for a just distribution of land in South Africa’. The officials were charged with holding an illegal meeting and found guilty. The president of the BPA, Kali John Matsheka, described as a ‘charismatic leader’, was banished in 1941 to Pokwani (Middelburg, Eastern Transvaal) for eight years.90 Recourse to banishment escalated after 1948. During the first decade of apartheid, 100 political opponents were banished. After May 1961, when South Africa became a white republic, the power to banish was vested in the state president (in effect the minister of Bantu administration and development) and by this time the number of people on whom banishment orders had been served had risen to 130. Table 1 indicates the scale of banishment between 1948 and 1982.91 All told, 160 people were banished, although there may be others whose banishments are yet to come to light.

The loneliness of banishment: Theophilus Tshangela at Frenchdale in the Northern Cape, 1964.

15

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

Table 1: Banishments between 1948 and 1982 under the Native Administration Act, 1927 Year

Number of orders served in

1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 No date 1986* TOTAL

0 8 1 6 9 20 15 12 11 6 13 9 15 6 6 4 2 4 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 6 0 2 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 -

Number Number Number of orders of orders of served withdrawn/ escapes by suspended during during

0 8 9 15 24 44 59 71 82 88 101 110 125 131 137 141 143 147 147 148 148 149 149 149 149 149 155 155 157 157 157 158 158 159 160 160 160

0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 6 15 3 11 0 17 14 4 3 0 8 8 6 1 5 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 118 118

0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 5 4 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 17 17

*Repeal of the law that permitted banishment.

16

Number of deaths in

Other

Number still banished by

0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 17 17

0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0

0 8 9 15 24 41 53 64 75 80 91 100 104 99 89 88 78 81 64 51 47 44 43 32 24 18 23 18 17 17 17 14 13 12 12 10 0 0

8 8

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

Table 1 shows that • a total of 160 people were banished between 1948 and 1982, after which there appears to have been no further recourse by the state to banishment; • a majority of banishment orders (78% or 125) were issued between 1949 and 1960; • a further 22 (14%) banishments were effected between 1961 and 1965: the vast majority of banishments (147 or 92%) occurred between 1949 and 1965; • the years in which the largest number of banishments took place were 1953 (20), 1954 (15), 1960 (15), 1958 (13), 1955 (12) and 1956 (11). Thus 54% (86) of banishments occurred in just six specific years; • the five-year period 1952 to 1956 witnessed the largest number of all banishments (42% or 67); • the use of banishment began to decline sharply after 1960; • banishment virtually ceased after 1965 and between 1966 and 1973 only two people were banished. Subsequently from 1976 to 1982 only five people were banished; • the last banishment order under the Native Administration Act was issued in 1982. According to the government, on 5 April 1985 three people were subject to banishment orders.92

Table 2: Provinces from which and to which people were banished, 1948−82

Natal Cape Transvaal Orange Free State SWA Total

FROM

TO

Totals

Natal

  

Cape

TVL

OFS

SWA

Totals

28 36 87 8 1 160  

11 4 23 1 0 39

5 24 49 7 0 85

12 8 15 0 0 35

0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 1 1

28 36 87 8 1 160

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THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

Table 3: Districts from which and to which people were banished, 1948−82 Districts

Number Number   from* to**

Natal Alfred Bergville Camperdown Empangeni Entonjaneni Eshowe Greytown Harding Hlabisa Ingwavuma Lower Umfolozi Mahlabatini Mtunzini Msinga Nkandhla Nongoma Nqutu Port Shepstone Ubombo Umlazi Uthunbu Weenen

28 1 4 3 0 0 0 4 1 0 5 0 0 0 1 0 4 3 0 0 1 0 1

39 1 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 2 3 4 3 5 2 6 0 1 6 1 0 1 0

Transvaal Barberton Benoni Eastvaal Groblersdal Johannesburg Letaba Lichtenburg Lydenburg Marico Nelspruit Pietersburg Pilgrim’s Rest Potgietersrus Pretoria Rustenburg Sibasa Vereeniging White River Zoutpansberg

87 1 1 0 3 4 0 2 17 6 0 27 2 1 1 11 1 7 1 2

35 0 0 1 3 0 3 1 0 0 1 9 2 0 0 0 13 0 0 2

Districts

Cape Bizana Cape Town East London Glen Grey Herschel Keiskammahoek King William’s Town Kuruman Lusikisiki Mafikeng Matatiele Mdantsane Mount Ayliff Mount Fletcher Paarl Peddie St Mark’s Tsolo Umtata Victoria East Vryburg Worcester Xhalanga Zwelitsha

36 7 2 3 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 2 0 4 4 1 0 1 3 1

85 0 0 0 0 1 3 11 10 0 11 3 2 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 4 31 0 5 0

Orange Free State Harrismith

8 8

0 0

South West Africa (Namibia)

1

1

Unknown

1 

1

160

160

Total

* Area from which originally banished only. ** Area of final banishment only.

18

Number Number   from* to**

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

Map 1: Areas from which people were banished

People were banished from 30 districts of South Africa. Map 1 shows that of the 160 banished people, 140 (87.5%) were residents of rural areas and reserves or bantustans. Only 20 (12.5%) were banished from urban areas. Furthermore, as table 4 indicates, 89 (56%) of the 160 banished people were from just eight localities. People were banished to 27 districts of South Africa. Map 2 shows that all of those served banishment orders were banished to rural areas and reserves or bantustans. No one was banished to an urban area. The logic of this will become apparent later. Table 5 shows that 68 (43%) of the banished people were restricted to just eight localities. In terms of gender, 151 of the banished were men and just nine were women. Table 4: Localities from which six or more persons were banished Locality

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Number banished

GaMatlala Sekhukhuneland Mabieskraal East Mpondoland Thembuland Witzieshoek Evaton Township Bahurutshe

23 17 11 9 8 8 7 6

19

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

Map 2: Areas to which people were banished

Table 5: Localities to which five or more persons were banished Locality

Number banished

1. Driefontein Native Trust Farm, Vryburg 2. Frenchdale Native Trust Farm, Mafikeng 3. Tabaans Location, Sibasa 4. Kalkspruit Trust Farm, Pietersburg 5. Ewbank Trust Farm, Kuruman 6. Mtunzini, Zululand 7. Delville Trust Farm, Xhalanga 8. Corridor Block, Port Shepstone

26 8 7 6 6* 5 5 5

*Previously banished to Frenchdale Native Trust Farm, Mafikeng.

Banishment can only be explained in the context of a society’s political economy.93 It is necessary to understand ‘the social and historical processes within which legal devices are embedded’.94 Laws such as the Native Administration Act were not purely the products of racism, nor aberrant and irrational political behaviour. They were fundamental to the maintenance and reproduction of colonial and apartheid social orders of racial and class domination, economic exploitation and privilege.95 The macro conditions that shaped popular rural and urban struggles and gave rise to banishment are now outlined. The Natives Land Act (1913) and Native Trust and Land Act (1936) together reserved 87% of South Africa’s land for use by whites. Africans were

20

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

confined to scheduled and released land (the reserves), a meagre 13% of South Africa’s surface area. Subsistence agricultural production in the reserves enabled emerging capitalist industry to employ labour below the cost of its reproduction. At the same time, the state was ‘spared in large measure, the welfare costs of housing, pensions, social facilities and amenities’ for black workers.96 Deteriorating conditions in the reserves had differing impacts on their inhabitants. Members of the traditional ruling class attempted to maintain control over land allocation, cattle, marriage and tribute labour. Some chiefs sought accommodation with the colonial state and a place for themselves in the official hierarchy. But for families with little or no land and stock the choices were either urbanisation or increasing misery. Adverse conditions and class differentiation were important issues in the rural rebellions of the 1950s and early 1960s. Reaction on the part of the state to declining conditions took the form of ‘betterment’ schemes. Stabilisation tackled land erosion and decreasing soil fertility and included ‘cattle culling, fencing-off pastures for rotation and advice on alternative crops and cultivation patterns’. Rehabilitation involved active land reclamation: ‘expensive and time consuming activities such as filling in dongas and re-routing streams’. Some aspects, such as cattle culling, provoked resistance. The betterment schemes were strongly implicated in the rural struggles that gave rise to banishment.97 As a consequence of various economic developments in the 1940s, the state faced a number of challenges. It had to find a solution to the agricultural labour shortage and respond to the call to eliminate labour tenancy. It had to address declining conditions in the reserves: their inability to contribute to industrial cheap labour, the dissolution of social bonds and increasing migration of Africans to urban areas. There was also an urban crisis with increasing resistance by workers that aroused fears among sections of the white electorate.98 The National Party (NP) promise to respond to these challenges, and its call to Afrikaner nationalism, won it the support of diverse constituencies. The NP offered apartheid, ‘a simple, clear cut set of policy proposals derived from a single principle, that of the separation of races’.99 This proposed an end to African land ownership outside the reserves and their rehabilitation as African homelands based on ethnicity. There would be compulsory population registration and a proper system of identification: ‘Natives in the urban areas would be regarded as migratory citizens not entitled to

21

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

political and social rights equal to those of whites … Surplus Natives in the urban areas should be returned to their original habitat in the country areas or reserves.’100 After the 1948 general election, it became evident that apartheid enjoyed wide support among whites. The first important intervention of the apartheid state in the reserves was political. The aim ‘was to resolve the question of “native administration”’ through ‘retribalisation, rather than creating a full-time farming class’.101 Chiefs and headmen were regarded as the extended arm of the apartheid government and given greater administrative powers. Their main function was ‘to contain and discipline the reserve army of African labour’. Tribalism was ‘reinvigorated as a co-optive device’.102 Prior to 1948 ‘the reserves had been administered through a system of direct colonial rule, the authority of white Native Commissioners being tempered only by the largely advisory role of a number of indirectly elected councils’.103 From 1951 the Bantu Authorities Act provided for indirect rule through tribal, regional and territorial authorities comprising mostly traditional and compliant chiefs and headmen upon whom executive and administrative powers were conferred. For Govan Mbeki, one of the reasons to introduce Bantu Authorities was that ‘the need was clearly to devise a system under which the Africans appeared to be managing their own affairs’.104 Hendrik Verwoerd’s ascendancy to the position of minister of native affairs in 1950 ‘gave new impetus’ to ‘a plethora of controls to tighten the apartheid state’s hold on the overcrowded and increasingly poverty-stricken’ reserves’.105 The Bantu Authorities Act made provision to depose traditional chiefs and headmen who refused to collaborate and laid the groundwork for the bantustan system in which collaborationist chiefs became the salaried officials of the apartheid state. In 1959, the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act was passed. Its ‘immediate effect was to abolish the last vestiges of black representation in Parliament’.106 It also unfolded the programme of geographical segregation and consolidation of ethnically structured territorial units. It was to these bantustans that African aspirations and demands for political rights were to be deflected. The mid-1950s had seen a significant shift in rural policy from rehabilitation to stabilisation. The new strategy was designed to place the burden on rural communities themselves.107 Concomitant with stabilisation was the division of the land into grazing, arable and residential areas and the relocation of families into closer settlements. Unpaid forced labour was required on

22

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

betterment projects such as road-making, contour-building, construction of chiefs’ houses, fencing, removal of noxious weeds and dipping-tank repair.108 In 1952 the cynically named Natives (Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents) Act came into force. This made it compulsory for all Africans over the age of 16 to carry a reference book, the so-called dompas, to be produced on demand to an authorised officer. For the first time African women were obliged to possess it. To secure its ideological and political objectives, the NP brought education under tight and centralised state control. Prior to 1953, independent institutions such as the churches had some influence in African education, as did provincial authorities. Verwoerd’s criticism of missionary education was that it prepared Africans ‘not for life within a Bantu community … but for a life outside the community’.109 In 1953, the Bantu Education Act was passed and the state assumed control of all African education. Bantu education was intended to maintain the racial division of labour and white political and economic domination. After 1948 the process of economic decline in and general underdevelopment of the reserves accelerated. Controls on outward movement, relocation of ‘surplus’ people from ‘white’ South Africa, land scarcity and degradation, over-population and declining productivity, all combined to ensure that the reserves were unable to provide for their inhabitants’ subsistence needs. During the 1950s and 1960s the rural areas and reserves were to become arenas for major clashes between a determined apartheid state and impoverished peasants and workers. Specific instances of rural conflict and opposition, their triggers, dynamics and outcomes, and the banishments to which they gave rise are the subject of further chapters.

Other forms of state repression in South Africa Banishment was just one dimension of ‘the wider picture of state repression’ in South Africa’.110 Preserving white minority rule and maintaining apartheid required the deployment of an array of repressive political measures: deportation, endorsement, removal, imprisonment, banning, detention without trial, torture, murder, assassination and banishment. In this section distinctions are made between deportation, endorsement, removal, exile and banishment; and the evolution of laws related to banishment is traced. First, however, other weapons of political punishment, reprisal and control that were routinely employed are described.

23

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

Thousands of people were arrested during the struggle for democracy under a variety of laws and either convicted and imprisoned or released without charge. Until the advent of democracy thousands were imprisoned in jails that became associated with the South African freedom struggle. The most infamous was, of course, Robben Island. In cases where the state failed to secure convictions, or was likely to be unsuccessful in doing so, hundreds were banned. The first banning orders were issued under the Suppression of Communism Act (1950), which defined communism extraordinarily widely, and was also used against people who were not communists at all.111 Some orders amounted to house arrest and no visitors were permitted aside from a lawyer or doctor.112 Banning orders ranged from one to five years, but were applied successively. Between 1951 and 1990, ‘close on two thousand people were subjected to this twilight existence’. In 1962 a category of listed persons was created. They were prohibited from being members or office-bearers of certain political organisations and could not be quoted, practise law or stand for parliament.113 By 1970, 568 people were listed.114 Detention without trial was another widely employed instrument of political repression. Detentions occurred under various laws, including the Terrorism Act (1967) and the Internal Security Act (1976 and 1982). From the early 1960s onwards 78,000 people were detained.115 Seventy-three detainees failed to emerge from detention: they were either murdered by police; or committed suicide as a consequence of torture, assault and deprivation. In 1963, Looksmart Ngudle from Cape Town, aged 41, a trade unionist and one of the early members of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), became the first political detainee to die in detention under police supervision.116 Stephen Bantu Biko, one of South Africa’s outstanding intellectuals and a founder of the Black Consciousness movement during the late 1960s, was the most famous detainee to be murdered in detention. Violence resulting in death was not confined to the secrecy of prison cells. There were also massacres by police of unarmed demonstrators: recall Bulhoek in 1921, Soweto in 1976, Bisho in 1992 and, of course, Sharpeville in 1960. In the 1980s, with the intensification of political resistance a frightening new phenomenon appeared, akin to the disappearances and assassinations of political activists in Latin America and elsewhere. It began with the murder of prominent exiled political activists. In 1981, Joe Nzingo Gqabi, an ANC official, was shot in Harare, Zimbabwe.117 On 19 November 1981,

24

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

attorney and ANC stalwart Griffiths Mxenge was brutally murdered by a hit squad of askaris.118 He was followed by Ruth First (Maputo, 1982); Siphiwo Mtimkhulu and Topsy Madaka (the Cosas Two, 1982); Jeanette Schoon and her daughter, Katryn (Lubango, Angola, 1984); Victoria Mxenge (1985); Sipho Hashe, Champion Galela and Qaqawuli Godolozi (the Pebco Three, 1985);119 Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mhlawuli (the Cradock Four, 1985); and Dulcie September (Paris, 1988). But ‘the death squads were becoming even more brazen’. At Cala, Bathandwa Ndondo was ‘shot eight times, once while he was standing and seven when he was lying on his back’.120 In 1989, political activist David Webster was assassinated outside his home in Johannesburg.121 There were also other punitive measures: the banishment, deportation, endorsement and removal of individuals from certain parts of South Africa to other areas. They shared a feature in common: the state’s administrative expulsion of individuals without judicial process. However, there is, unfortunately, extremely loose use of terminology. Political opponents of colonialism and apartheid were deported both beyond and within the boundaries of South Africa. Cross-border deportation was employed against political activists who were, or deemed to be, foreign nationals, while deportation within the country was used against South African citizens. Deportation of foreigners mainly occurred under the Aliens Act (1937), but notoriously beyond and within the boundaries of South Africa under the Riotous Assemblies Act (1914; amended in 1930 and consolidated as Act 17 in 1956).122 It contained the hostility clause concerning promotion of illfeeling between European inhabitants and other sections of the population.123 The 1930 amendment empowered the minister to order any individual to leave a particular magisterial district within seven days for up to a year. Deportations could also be undertaken in terms of section 29 of the Native Administration Act and also for fostering hostility.124 It provided for an African person to be ‘removed from any place where [an] order prohibits him from being’.125 The Criminal Law Amendment Act (1953) and the Native Laws Further Amendment Act (1957) also provided for deportation. There were other ways to deport political activists. In 1914, during a railway and coal mining strike, Smuts had declared martial law, deporting twelve leaders of the Transvaal Federation of Trades to Britain without trial.126 The 1930 amendment to the Riotous Assemblies Act became widely known as Pirow’s law of oppression after the minister of justice, Oswald Pirow. He defended deportation on the grounds that it was necessitated by the

25

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

existence of a ‘widespread communist conspiracy’. The deportation provision was also designed to stifle the rapid growth of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) and control African worker militancy and resistance. Pirow banned meetings and deported numerous ICU leaders. Clements Kadalie was deported from the Rand in June 1930; and A.W.G. Champion, leader of the ICU in Natal, suffered a similar fate in September 1930.127 Individuals were not necessarily deported to any place in particular: Champion spent time in Cape Town and Johannesburg after being deported from Durban where he had been prohibited. In no case was judicial process involved; nor was there any recourse to the courts, as was made clear in a ruling by the Appellate Division in 1934 in Sachs v. Minister of Justice. This was an ‘expression of total surrender to the legislative will,’ and the judiciary displayed a distinct lack of interest in an inhumane and unjust outcome.128 A second kind of administrative expulsion was endorsement, which occurred under the Urban Areas Act (1923). Various sections of this law provided for the expulsion of Africans from urban areas. Two different processes operated here: being endorsed out of an urban area; and removal. Under section 17 any authorised officer who ‘has reason to believe or suspect that any Native within the urban area … is habitually unemployed, or is by reason of his own default not possessed of the means of honest livelihood, or is leading an idle, dissolute or disorderly life … [may] bring that native before a magistrate, native commissioner or native sub-commissioner who shall require the Native to give a good and satisfactory account of himself.’129 Failure could result in being endorsed out to a rural reserve or a farm colony. Work seekers who failed to obtain employment could be endorsed out and provision was also made for women. This expulsion measure was used in 1931 against the Communist Party branch in Durban, which was at the forefront of the burning of passes: Gana Makabeni was endorsed out ‘to his home in the Transkei’.130 With the passage of the Native (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act (1945), section 17 became the infamous section 29 that permitted ‘a police officer to arrest without warrant in an urban area any African whom he “has reason to believe” is “an idle and undesirable person.”’131 Over the years section 29 was extended and applied more stringently. Commenting in June 1956 on the Natives (Urban Areas) Amendment Bill, the minister of native affairs indicated that it was to deal ‘mainly with agitators’.132 He claimed that various municipalities had recommended that

26

THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

banishment orders should be served on particular individuals and made much of the fact that in Port Elizabeth and East London the opposition United Party held sway. One advantage of section 29 was that a local council ‘did not have to wait for the central government to issue an order of banishment but could carry it out almost immediately’.133 In 1955 the Germiston City Council had petitioned the minister of native affairs to banish certain individuals, but there had been no response. With the 1956 amendment in place, the council endorsed out four ANC leaders from the Natalspruit Location. Phillip Mofokeng, Timothy Rampai, Onius Ngwenya and Christopher Mkwanazi were all members of the Natalspruit Location Advisory Board and Mkwanazi was also chair of the ANC Natalspruit branch. Natalspruit was a site of conflict around transport problems occasioned by forced removal, rent increases and Bantu education and the four had come into conflict with Germiston City Council. They were issued notices in September 1956, informing them that they must leave the Germiston area because they were a disruptive influence in Natalspruit Location.134 In the event none of them was endorsed out. When militant resistance broke out in Cato Manor near Durban in 1959, attempts were made to endorse out nine leaders who were accused of keeping ‘the fires of civil commotion, lawlessness, disorder and disobedience burning’. The Durban City Council, however, eventually voted by 11 votes to 10 not to take such action for fear of unfavourable publicity.135 After the mid-1950s, section 29 was used to endorse out unemployed Africans to the rural reserves in terms of migrant labour policy. According to the minister of Bantu administration and development, 464,726 Africans were endorsed out of the 23 major towns of South Africa during the period 1956−63.136 This was an integral element of the policy of exporting labour deemed superfluous to the needs of the capitalist economy to the reserves (or bantustans); a vitally important mechanism in the reproduction of the capitalist and apartheid social order. Various statutes − the Urban Areas Act (1923), the Native Administration Act, the Native Trust and Land Act (1936), and the Illegal Squatting Act − enforced a third form of expulsion of Africans: mass removal from the areas deemed white South Africa to bantustans. Such removals were characterised by the uprooting of urban and rural ‘squatters’, farm labour tenants, residents of so-called black spots (land owned by African communities within ‘white’ South Africa) and residents of townships in urban and rural towns, and their relocation. Over three million people were dumped

27

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

in the bantustans.137 It has been suggested that forced removals ‘amounted to mass banishments’.138

Legal power to banish in South Africa Banishment as a mechanism of political punishment differed significantly from deportation, endorsement and forced removal. The power to banish had its roots in the Natal Code of Native Law (1891). It was introduced on the rationale that ‘you cannot control savages by civilized law’.139 One of the features of the Code was the role of the governor of Natal as Supreme Chief, who ‘exercised all political power over Africans in Natal’. The Supreme Chief ‘could rule by proclamation and Africans had no recourse to the courts’.140 The institution of Supreme Chief played a ‘putative role in accustoming African subjects to colonial rule,’ and also ‘provided the government with a convenient and flexible instrument of administration’.141 Through Law 44 of 1885 the president of the Transvaal came to possess similar powers to those of the Natal governor-general. Section 37 of the 1891 Code of Native Law provided that the governor, as Supreme Chief, ‘may when deemed in the general public good, remove … any native from any part of the Colony or location to any other part of the Colony or location, upon such terms and conditions as he may decide’.142 Initially, banishment was motivated by stock stealing. However, it was admitted that the banishment provision covered ‘the political ground as well’.143 The Native Administration Act of 1927 ‘was draconian by any standards and basically generalised the Natal Native Code of 1891 to the whole of the Union’, marking ‘a decisive moment in the state’s attempts to reconstitute and embalm tribal authority’.144 Section 24(1) of the Native Administration Act provided the Supreme Chief, the governor-general, with the power to ‘define and extend his own powers without any limits, and without going to Parliament. He may also further restrict the powers of the courts to interfere in any of the Supreme Chief’s acts.’145 This established ‘an immense field of administrative despotism … completely withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the courts’.146 The power conferred by the Code of Native Law on the Supreme Chief to banish Africans was included in the Native Administration Act. Minister of justice Tielman Roos extolled its virtues, stating that ‘detribalised and exempted natives … in many cases are the principal agitators in South Africa today. If you have the power to

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THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

remove them from one place where they do mischief to a place where they do not do mischief, what a useful provision that would be.’147 However, opposition to banishment was widely voiced. Thomas Payn, member of parliament (MP) for Thembuland, stated that it was ‘grossly unfair that anyone should have the power to order a man to leave Cape Town for Durban, and that man should have no appeal’. Another objection, by Deneys Reitz, was that the granting of such absolute power without any checks was tantamount to ‘a suspension of habeas corpus’.148 Z.K. Matthews claimed that banishment ‘was calculated to stifle criticism of government measures’.149 Section 5(1)(b) of the Native Administration Act stipulated that ‘The Governor-General may whenever he deems it expedient in the general public interest, order the removal of any tribe, or portion thereof, or any Native from any place to any other place within the Union upon such conditions as he may determine’. An amendment in 1929 removed any doubt that a person could be banished to any part of South Africa. Substantial extensions to and tightening of banishment provisions were occasioned by various legal challenges experienced between 1927 and 1952. In the 1928 case of Rex v. Mpafuri, the latter’s advocate argued that the banishment order was ‘too vague to be obeyed’, as the place to which Mpafuri was directed was ‘not specified’. The judges ruled that ‘the first essential of removal of a native from any place to any other place is that the place to which such removal is ordered should be definitely specified’. On those grounds the judges ruled that Mpafuri ‘was wrongly convicted’. This ruling is interesting for its criticism of the governor-general and the implicit critique of the powers associated with banishment; one of very few instances in which a court took a critical disposition towards banishment. The judges further commented that it might be ‘despotically issued by the Governor-General … It is a matter which is entirely in his own discretion, and he may exercise his discretion on informal evidence which is placed before him and not on such evidence as is adduced in a Court of law.’150 James Sofasonke Mpanza was one of the first great urban squatter leaders. On 6 February 1946, the governor-general banished him from Orlando to Ixopo (Natal).151 On appeal the court ruled that the Native Administration Act was only applicable to those subject to Native Law. As a consequence, the 1952 amendment extended the powers of the governorgeneral ‘to any exempted African’.152 During the period 1927−52 the courts also upheld the powers of the

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© UWC Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Centre

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

Supreme Chief on various occasions. In 1935, Salatiel Mabi and five others and their families were banished from Mabi’s Location (Rustenburg) to various places.153 They refused to obey their banishment orders, their advocate arguing that they ‘cannot, for instance, simply be dumped in the veld. The Act must be construed reasonably.’ The ruling in this case was remarkable. The judges acknowledged that ‘the facts alleged certainly show possibilities of considerable hardship’, but were of the view that ‘in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we would certainly not assume that that matter had James Sofasonke Mpanza, one of the first great urban squatter leaders, was banished not been taken into consideration; and from Orlando. that, in the exercise of his discretion, [the governor-general] has deemed it expedient to send them to the place where he has sent them’.154 In 1956, the banishment law was tightened further with amendments to close loopholes that had emerged from court challenges. Previously it was not clear what procedure had to be followed to serve a banishment order and in 1956 two successful applications were made for orders to be set aside. The first was in the case of Joseph Hugo Saliwa, banished from Glen Grey (Eastern Cape) to Molietzie’s location (Pietersburg). The judge ruled that he ‘was entitled to be heard before the order and warrant were issued’.155 The judge based his decision on two grounds. One was that the Native Administration Act omitted the Cape Province. The second was ‘that the audi alteram partem rule should be enforced unless Parliament had expressly or by necessary implication enacted that it should not apply, or unless there were “exceptional circumstances” justifying the Court’s not upholding it’.156 The second, short-lived success was also in 1956. Chief Jeremiah Mabe and five other members of the Batlhako community were banished from Mabieskraal (Rustenburg) to the Driefontein camp (Vryburg). The judge set aside the banishment order on the grounds that ‘the applicant had not been given a hearing before the issue of the order’.157 Fresh banishment orders were, however, served on Chief Mabe and his five counsellors, thus nullifying the court victory.

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THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

As a consequence of these court successes, the state quickly introduced the Native Administration Amendment Act (1956). This allowed for banishment ‘without prior notice to any person concerned’. A provision made for a banished person to request the reasons for banishment appeared to be a concession, but reasons needed to be given only if in the minister’s opinion they could ‘be disclosed without detriment to the public interest’. Usually this was used as an excuse not to furnish reasons. Finally, section 1 of the Native Administration Act was amended to make the governorgeneral the ‘Supreme Chief of all Natives in the Union’.158 In May 1958, Twalimfene Joyi was banished from the Umtata district to the farm Wesselsvlei (Kuruman). Joyi requested the reasons for the order and the information that had led the governor-general to banish him. The particulars were furnished, but Joyi asked for further detail, to which the minister responded that ‘the order was fully justified [and] he had furnished all the information and particulars which, in his opinion, could be disclosed without detriment to the public interest and that he had duly exercised the discretion vested in him by [the Native Administration Act]’. The court held that it was ‘bound by the Minister’s statement unless it was satisfied that it was false or that it had resulted from a misconception on his part as to the nature of his function … there was no suggestion that the Minister had acted mala fide’. It also stated that the Act ‘imposes upon the Minister the duty of making as full a disclosure as is compatible with the public interest: but from a practical point of view he is virtually the sole judge as to proper and conscientious performance of that duty’.159 The application was dismissed with costs. The final state intervention in the relentless tightening of loopholes related to the law on banishment was the introduction of the Natives (Prohibition of Interdicts) Act (1956). In the past a person served a banishment order would have been able to apply for an interim interdict restraining the Department of Native Affairs from proceeding with the banishment pending a court decision. The new Act permitted the minister to prohibit such applications for interdicts in the case of banishments.160 A person had to obey a banishment order and then from the place of banishment try to arrange an application to the court. In any case, the Supreme Court could not set the banishment order aside and could only try to establish the reasons for the banishment. The 1956 amendments effectively shut off any prospect of access to and relief through the courts. Yet, this did not stop the deputy minister of native affairs stating that people served

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THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

with banishment orders had ‘free access to the courts and the question of being given an opportunity does not arise’.161 This was patently untrue. The only way a banished person could now get to court was by actively defying the banishment order. The discourse of officials of the apartheid government with respect to banishment involved preserving democracy, maintaining peace, order and good government, preventing chaos, and rooting out agitators. The minister of native affairs resorted to the oft-employed theme of otherwise happy and contented ‘natives’ being led astray by agitators (usually white and labelled communist). He disliked banishment, but ‘for the greater part these are people who are being used by the Liberals and Communists and persons of that kind to create chaos in these areas where these people want to cooperate with us’.162 This book will show that the reality was quite different. Helen Joseph, through the activities of the Human Rights Welfare Committee (HRWC), sought to bring banishment to public attention. She wrote that the apartheid government extended and refined the 1927 banishment law to rid itself of troublesome political opponents. Every ‘case of banishment … fell into the same pattern: the man had opposed the introduction of Bantu Authorities, of Bantu education, of passes for African women, or else had refused to cooperate in the culling of cattle or in the enforced fencing of land’.163 Banishment, deportation, endorsement and removal were different kinds of reprisal and punishment and, more generally, political control. Their common features were that opponents of colonialism and apartheid could be prohibited from specified geographical areas and administratively expelled to another part of the country without any judicial process. The dispossession, deprivation and hardship experienced by people uprooted and relocated by deportation, endorsement and removal were often similar to that experienced by the banished. Yung postulates three fundamental features associated with banishment. First, it ‘is the expulsion in fact of a person from a community’. Second, ‘banishment is always to a non-institutional setting … [banished persons] had the responsibility to care for themselves’. Third, ‘banishment is intended to sever ties to a community’.164 This is a useful synthesis and banishments in South Africa share all three features of Yung’s core features. There are, however, additional characteristics and specificities with respect to South African political banishment. It was:

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THE PRACTICE OF BANISHMENT

• political, directed specifically at opponents of the state; • associated with the uprooting of political activists from a particular locale and their expulsion to specifically designated areas, usually completely foreign to them, within national boundaries; • applied only against individuals;165 • the result of an extra-judicial administrative process with no recourse to the courts; • of unspecified time and, in theory, unlimited (only banishments under the Suppression of Communism Act were imposed for a specified period); • applied to de facto South African citizens, even though the apartheid state sought to strip them of citizenship through separate development; and • directed exclusively at African South Africans. Bell and Ntsebeza sum up by characterising banishment as ‘that medieval sanction of casting out into the wilderness’, an important weapon in maintaining apartheid domination and rule.166 The term exile remains to be clarified. In the literature it is used in at least four different senses. It sometimes designates the act of deportation or banishment and is conflated with those terms. It is also used to denote the expulsion from usual areas of residence to other areas within the country. A third usage relates to expulsion to other countries, sometimes voluntary. A final usage is embodied in phrases such as ‘life in exile’, referring to a state of being. The term exile is best employed to refer to the forced or voluntary movement of individuals and groups from their homeland to other countries. In this book, the term exile is not used. Instead, banishment is employed to refer to both the act of expelling opponents of the government to another locale within South Africa and to the state of being in banishment.

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The Ernest Cole Family Trust

2 Banishment and rural resistance in the early 1950s: GaMatlala and Witzieshoek

THE APARTHEID STATE’S interventions in the rural areas of South Africa during the 1950s and early 1960s gave rise to ‘a succession of bitter localised conflicts between peasants and authority’.1 Resistance by rural people to state initiatives detrimental to their lives was nothing new, as the literature on rural and reserve conditions in the first half of the twentieth century indicates.2 The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) had a substantial following in the reserves. The Wellington Movement in Transkei had as one of its key features an ‘attempt to boycott the state institutions [and] to seek actual or imagined Africanist solutions’.3 The literature highlights the existence of anti-dipping movements and the role played by independent church and chieftaincy movements in reserve-based resistance. In the 1950s and early 1960s ‘established social relationships were disrupted’, traditional authority was ‘robbed of what legitimacy it retained’ and ‘the area of conflict between people and government expanded rapidly’.4 These conflicts were not simply isolated responses to specific state initiatives. Instead, the imposition of Bantu Authorities and betterment schemes ‘was clearly indicated in the incidents of rural resistance … typically the two were fused and the local headmen would accept and try to implement a Betterment scheme [only to be] opposed by the majority of “his” tribespeople’.5 Struggles against Bantu education and the extension of passes to women were inter-woven with these issues. Resentment of tax increases also played a role, particularly in Transkei, where direct taxation virtually doubled between 1959 and 1965. A further ‘element in rural discontent was provided by the tightening of influx/efflux controls and the population resettlements of the 1950s and 1960s’.6

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Widespread and militant responses to a variety of inter-connected state policies were most dramatically manifest in struggles in Northern Transvaal and Witzieshoek in the early 1950s; by the opposition in Bahurutshe in 1957 to the extension of pass laws to women; and by the uprisings in Sekhukhuneland (1958), Thembuland (late 1950s), the Natal south coast (1959) and Mpondoland (early 1960s). Popular resistance in the reserves was more ‘widespread and rather bloodier than [that] occurring within the cities’ because ‘the manner in which [it was] dealt with could be considerably more brutal than in the urban context, but also because the conditions of rural existence were even harsher than those that prevailed in the townships’.7 However, rural conditions and disenchantment with the imposition of onerous state policies are insufficient to explain widespread and militant resistance. New streams of consciousness fuelled by more outright dependence on wage labour and a measure of contact with organised resistance in the urban areas also played a part. It was in response to popular resistance in the reserves that the apartheid state resorted to banishment. In this and the following two chapters the key episodes of rural resistance in South Africa that gave rise to political banishment are discussed. The courageous resistance of communities and individuals who, in the words of Govan Mbeki, ‘know what it is to be crushed by the armed force of the white, to be imprisoned without trial, banished to desolate parts of the country, and banned from normal social contact’ is also highlighted.8 The largest number of people (23, including five women) were banished from GaMatlala. However, these were not the first banishments under apartheid. This dubious honour goes to seven men from Mabieskraal. In 1949 they, including Mokate Ramafoku who was first banished in 1935 and was the only person banished both before and after apartheid, were sent to Driefontein (Northern Cape).9 Altogether 11 people were banished from Mabieskraal, but there is no scholarly account of the conditions that gave rise to these banishments. What can be pieced together from banishment orders served in 1935, 1949 and 1955 is that there was both internecine conflict and conflict between sections of the community and the state around various issues. These included an ‘uncooperative attitude’ towards officials, resistance to the Bantu Authorities system, betterment and Bantu education, and ‘continued open flouting by the tribe of the laws of the country and the tribe’s disregard of duly constituted authority’.10

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THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

GaMatlala In the 1950s the Bakone community of GaMatlala, about 40 kilometres west of Pietersburg (now Polokwane), occupied an area of 20 square kilometres made up of Matlala Location, some ‘farms purchased by the community in the 1920s’ and about 13 South African Native Trust farms. It was relatively small, numbering only 25,000 in 1962, and people lived in scattered villages. The key economic activities were farming and rearing of livestock. Society was economically stratified. The chief, headmen and older inhabitants usually had greater access to land and the size of people’s herds (cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, donkeys and chickens) varied. Some fared well, others struggled; some existed on subsistence farming, others worked for the more economically successful; and some were involved in labour migrancy for economic reasons and to earn money to pay poll and dog taxes and levies for the purchase of farms by the community. Until his death in 1945, GaMatlala was headed by a paramount chief, Sekgoari Mokoko Matlala.11 GaMatlala is a fascinating case of strong opposition to betterment, Bantu Authorities, Bantu education and passes for women, and the state’s attempt to impose unpopular, pliant chiefs. There was valiant resistance to the intrusions of the state on the part of some and simultaneous collaboration with the state on the part of others. There were also conflicts between chiefs and commoners, community divisions, changing alliances and shifting allegiances, state and internecine violence, and tragic outcomes that spanned six decades from the 1920s until the late 1970s. In 1919 a local branch of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), precursor of the African National Congress (ANC), was launched in GaMatlala. A Pietersburg district branch of the SANNC already existed and S.M. Makgatho, who became president of the SANNC in 1917 and of the Transvaal Native Congress a year later, was from GaMphahlele, 45 kilometres south-east of Pietersburg. The leadership comprised ‘members of the educated elite’ though ‘its membership cut across economic, educational or religious status’. There was conflict in July 1920 around payment of tax during one of the regular tours by Department of Native Affairs officials to check on tax receipts, collect taxes and dish out fines for being in arrears. The trigger was a Congress member who refused to take off his hat in the presence of a white official. The situation escalated and the department was informed that there would be no further tax payments without representation. Segregation was criticised and votes for all demanded.12

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A white policeman who attempted to arrest a Congress member was assaulted and officials were forced to flee. Retribution was swift: ‘the following day the area was sealed and 112 people were arrested and charged with public violence’. They were defended by a Johannesburg lawyer organised by the Pietersburg district SANNC and all were acquitted on the grounds of official provocation. This encouraged struggles and militancy in other parts of Northern Transvaal. At the annual general meeting of the Pietersburg district SANNC in August 1920, there were calls for an end to hut tax, fines, the ‘ill-treatment of Blacks by Whites’ and the removal of the sub-native commissioner of Pietersburg. There were also plans for a strike, pre-empted by the arrest of a number of people for public violence. In 1927 there was again conflict around taxes. A brutish and corrupt new sub-native commissioner nicknamed Nyelamaepa (one who shits) was assaulted and officials were forced to flee GaMatlala. A Congress member was charged with public violence, but acquitted on grounds of self-defence. In the same year, an anti-pass march from GaMatlala and other areas to Pietersburg resulted in the burning of passes.13 In August 1920, Paramount Chief Matlala was challenged by Congress activists over the purchase of land on the grounds that it was against custom; an early insistence on popular repossession in the face of colonial dispossession. There was also a call to withdraw the funds deposited with the sub-native commissioner’s office for community land purchases. Until then there were community contributions as payment for the purchase of Crown land to alleviate overcrowding. A little later, the paramount chief killed a prominent Congress member, in all likelihood because he was viewed as a subject of doubtful loyalty. Matlala was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but the Department of Native Affairs testified that he was always ‘loyal and ready to assist the government’ and his sentence was eventually reduced to two years with hard labour.14 He returned in 1923 to discover strong Congress influence and a refusal to dip cattle because of the perceived effects and associated costs, plus nonpayment of tributes by migrants and levies for land purchases. An all-out assault by the paramount chief on Congress members followed. The home of a prominent Congress member was burnt down, as was a church building. Some members fled their homes and meetings had to be held clandestinely. The paramount chief warned ‘people to desist from Congress activities since the government had threatened’ to banish opponents. The formal executive of the Congress branch was dissolved in 1928 and essentially went under-

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ground. During the early 1930s problems of overcrowding, overstocking and soil erosion began to appear and there was an attempt in 1933 by the Department of Native Affairs to seize donkeys, blamed for contributing to soil erosion. Congress re-emerged to spearhead opposition to the early betterment measures. Johannes Matlala was chair of the ANC and he and its secretary also served as councillors to Paramount Chief Sekgoari Matlala, reflecting a thawing of the conflict between the paramount chief and Congress.15 Following the passage of the Native Trust and Land Act (1936), 14 farms were acquired for GaMatlala people. In 1939, they were the first to be subject to betterment measures. The central focus was the division of land into separate areas for residence, grazing and arable farming; livestock reduction through auction sales and culling; and staving off further soil erosion.16 Those without land, who tended to be new to the area, were happy to settle for five morgen parcels of land on Trust farms. Others were angry about five morgen and voiced complaints to the chief native commissioner about the meagre allocation, payment requested for access to fenced-off grazing land and the permission required to cut trees in fenced-off areas. Already in 1937, a picket line was formed to prevent the castration and vaccination of cattle, with subsequent clashes leading to the burning of tractors, cars and equipment of agricultural officers. Congress members, including Johannes Matlala, were arrested, although all but one were released for insufficient evidence.17 In 1943, resistance involved the cutting of fences, felling of trees at night and the removal of livestock to relatives in the location. There were also beatings of rangers, local African employees used to enforce rules. Women participated in ‘acts of defiance and sabotage’.18 The native commissioner tried to persuade the paramount chief to accept betterment in the location. Allegedly plied with whisky, the paramount chief agreed. He was strongly criticised for this at a kgoro (governing body comprising members of the ruling lineage) and instructed to revoke the agreement. Using cunning, the paramount chief succeeded, whereupon the Department of Native Affairs tried to persuade residents of the virtues of betterment.19 Paramount Chief Sekgoari Matlala died in October 1945 and, with community approval, Joel Matlala served as regent for the chief-elect Mpao Tlou Matlala, a minor.20 In 1945 there were further attempts by the chief native commissioner to get the community to accept Matlala’s Location as a betterment area, but they were all rejected. In terms of a 1939 proclamation the consent of a community was needed to implement betterment.21

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It has been suggested that opposition to betterment in the location was shaped by observation of its effects on local Trust farms and by accounts of migrant workers in the cities who heard from Eastern Cape migrants of its negative impact. However, the main complaints about the adverse consequences of betterment arose from its implementation. The ‘removal of large tracts of land from cultivation’ left people with reduced holdings; in most cases five morgen, but later even less, which was deemed insufficient for subsistence. There was particular hostility to restrictions on the number of cattle. Weak cattle had to be sold on the spot with no time to fatten them before sale and they were bought up by local white farmers at bargain prices. These farmers were also suspected of cattle theft and viewed as the prime beneficiaries of the destruction of peasant farming. Donkeys and goats were simply confiscated: the appropriation of the former affected ploughing while goats were important for ceremonial reasons connected with ancestors.22 Further, the economic life of villagers was considerably disrupted by ‘the new township-style villages that were introduced. The imposition of a grid layout in place of the traditional circles was entirely alien to African peasants, and represented a form of cultural imperialism.’23 Frustration on the part of the Department of Native Affairs at the lack of willing co-operation led to a change of strategy. In 1945 government declared all released areas and Trust farms betterment areas; then in 1949 Matlala Location was declared a betterment area without consent.24 Between the accession of Joel Matlala as acting chief and declaration of Matlala Location as a betterment area, there were developments that had resulted in political fissures in GaMatlala. Initially, relations between Makwena Matlala, mother of the chief-elect Mpao Tlou Matlala, and Joel Matlala were cordial and there was united rejection of betterment. Then, conflict arose because the latter began to violate community customs related to the collection and distribution of taxes and tribute. He was fined by the kgoro and then ousted after ongoing violations.25 Joel Matlala, however, refused to step down and continued to act as if he were chief, even after Makwena Matlala was appointed acting chieftainess by the kgoro with approval from the Department of Native Affairs in 1948.26 Vacancies on the kgoro were filled by people who were opposed to betterment or linked to the local ANC branch, a political grouping in GaMatlala that came to be known as Ma-Congress.27 Makwena Matlala and the kgoro remained steadfast in their opposition to betterment. However, Joel Matlala and his supporters, said to be largely pro-Trust Council,

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mainly Christians, modernists and those who did not take to having a woman head GaMatlala, began to collude with the Department of Native Affairs.28 This was the origin of the schism between factions known as Ma-TC and Ma-Congress that was to plague GaMatlala for decades. The Department of Native Affairs noted that ‘in the Matlala Location because of the attitude of the Acting Chieftainess … much difficulty was and is still experienced’.29 Clearly, Makwena Matlala’s consultative style of leadership and opposition to state initiatives did not endear her to apartheid officials.30 In 1949, she was deposed by the department on the grounds of ‘various abuses … of her position as Acting Chieftainess, and particularly her refusal to co-operate with the [department] in the reclamation of Matlala’s Makwena Matlala was banished because her presence in GaMatlala was ‘inimical to the peace, location’ and instructed ‘to go back order and good government of the Natives’. to her father’s kraal’.31 Joel Matlala was appointed acting chief.32 In early 1950, the banishment of Makwena Matlala was advocated by the native commissioner, Percy Carmichael Tweedie. There were also complaints that ‘she would not call meetings when requested, and she would sabotage any programme initiated by the government’.33 She was summoned to the Department of Native Affairs office in Pietersburg and told that she was being banished to Hammanskraal, where a house awaited her. The chief native commissioner is reported to have said that ‘you must not put your foot here again’. She was among the first, and certainly the first woman, to be banished by the apartheid state. She refused to accept her banishment order, saying, ‘I, Makwena, will not go and stay in a house that I did not build, a house that I did not labour on … and I will not leave my own house. Above all I do

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not intend to move from my home, as I have never been out of Matlala’s Reserve before.’34 The order of 7 March 1950 that banished her to Temba (Hammanskraal) accused Makwena Matlala of causing ‘dispute and friction’, of refusing to stop her ‘agitation’, of being ‘a cause of internal unrest’, stated that her ‘presence in the area [was] inimical to the peace, order and good government of the Natives’, and concluded that it was ‘in the general public interest’ that she should be banished.35 Makwena Matlala refused to comply with the order and the lawyer representing her persuaded the native commissioner to permit her to go into banishment in due course, warning that forcible removal would in all likelihood be met with fierce opposition. It is also suggested that Makwena Matlala was part of the plot to kill Joel Matlala and that she was advised to go into banishment shortly beforehand to avoid being implicated. She left for Pretoria on 3 October 1950, but refused to stay in Temba and instead lived in Atteridgeville because ‘she wanted to stay close to her supporters, the majority of whom were working for ISCOR in Pretoria-West’.36 On 13 October 1950, a meeting was convened for the installation of Joel Matlala by the chief native commissioner, but before his arrival Joel Matlala was killed by Ma-Congress supporters, with the words uttered ‘you need to smash the head of a snake if you want to ensure that it is dead’.37 Apparently, the chief native commissioner had been informed of a plan to kill Joel Matlala and delayed, waiting for police to accompany him. They arrived shortly afterwards and the arrest of hundreds followed. People hid in caves in the nearby mountains to avoid arrest. Most of those arrested were released without charge, but 127 people were charged with murder and attempted murder: ‘four ringleaders were found guilty and sentenced to death’.38 The death sentences on Frans Seopa, B.K. Matlala, Nelson Moabelo and William Matlala were later commuted and others were sentenced to varying prison terms.39 Women played an active role in the events leading up to the killing and during the court cases afterwards. They taunted the men ‘to give them trousers because they were not men and should wear dresses’ as a way of getting them to take action against Joel Matlala. Women walked to court cases in Pietersburg, 40 kilometres away, some wearing ANC uniform, singing and preparing food.40 The arrests and ‘prosecution of those accused of involvement in the killing … galvanised the people against the Bantu Authorities and led to the dramatic spread of political consciousness’.41

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Nelson Ngakana Moabelo

Frans Kgetoane Seopa

Makwena Matlala was arrested in Pretoria, taken to an office where her clothing was ripped, and then she was assaulted. The next day there were further assaults, with questions like ‘Why don’t you listen to this government’ and injunctions that ‘you must agree with everything the government wants you to do’. She was transported to Pietersburg ‘to face a charge of incitement to violence’ and fined £200, which her supporters paid, believing that she would then come back. The native commissioner, however, indicated she had to return ‘where you came from’.42 She went back into banishment in Pelindaba, where she remained for a year. Then, in 1951 a policeman visited her and said that because she was ‘still communicating with your people in Matlala’s … we are taking you to the police station and tomorrow you will go to King William’s Town.’43 She was banished from 40 Maboya Street, Pelindaba, to Zwelitsha Native Township (King William’s Town),44 ‘given a pot of raw mealie meal’ and taken to a ‘bare and empty house’ in a place where she was not able to speak or understand the local language. No financial or other support was provided by the authorities until 12 days later and she had to depend on help from road workers who happened to be from GaMatlala.45 Later she successfully asked for her son, Mpao, to be allowed to join her.46 At the same time three close supporters, Maema Matlala, Jeremiah Moraka and Phuti Matlala, were also banished.47

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In 1962, Helen Joseph visited Makwena Matlala in King William’s Town. She observed that Matlala was a chieftainess, but because she ‘was a black woman she could be insulted, slapped, stripped. From that humiliation she had gone to her banishment.’ She described Matlala as a ‘heavily built but erect’ woman who ‘bore herself with dignity’ despite her simple clothing and a life of poverty in a ‘scantily furnished … tiny room’.48 Her banishment order was withdrawn on 9 February 1966, although she and her son, the chief-elect, were permitted to return in 1965.49 Internecine conflict between those opposed to state policies and those open to collaboration, various kinds of resistance to state interventions, violence and the like continued throughout the 1950s. The banishment of Makwena Matlala and her close associates reduced opposition, but ‘within a very short space of time, resistance resurfaced again as attempts to introduce Bantu Authorities in the area emerged’.50 After struggling to find an acting chief, an initially reluctant Alfred Matlala was appointed without consultation in November 1952. He enjoyed limited support and conflict continued. After the initial banishments in 1951, there were further banishments: four in 1952, eight in 1953 and seven in 1955.51 In the aftermath and despite opposition, the Matlala Tribal Authority was created in 1955.52 There were ongoing verbal and physical clashes between Ma-TC and Ma-Congress and occasional internecine violence. During the 1950s, conflict around betterment and other issues continued and was extended to ‘the return of the departed leaders’. The comment on Bantu Authorities was: ‘If they want to give us the freedom to govern ourselves, let them take their “Trust” and go’.53 Deputations to the chief urged him to oppose passes for women and mass meetings, in which the local ANC branch was pivotal, were held. In Bochum ‘women stripped naked in front of the pass officers and shouted that they were women and as a result would not carry passes’. Some remained without until the 1980s when old age pensions and other such needs obliged them to apply for reference books.54 A Department of Native Affairs official unsuccessfully seeking to persuade women in December 1959 to accept passes referred to the activities of kwaadstokers (mischief-makers).55 One aspect of betterment was continued confiscation of goats in 1959, resulting in anger towards the chief and Department of Native Affairs. The chief was invited by a delegation to attend a meeting around these confiscations but refused, which was just as well as there were plans to kill him. African rangers in the employ of the Department of Native Affairs were

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attacked and a white agricultural officer and two assistants had to flee, leading to the arrest of 50 villagers. At a meeting between the chief native commissioner and 2,000 residents, most of whom were women, various complaints were levelled against the acting chief.56 In 1962, a part of GaMatlala Location came under betterment planning and rumours began to circulate about the return of banished people. It is reported that, on hearing the news that Makwena Matlala and the other banished were to be permitted to Mpao Tlou Matlala was a young boy when he return, Acting Chief Alfred Matlala accompanied his mother into banishment. sought confirmation from an official and then committed suicide.57 Indeed, some of the banished returned in 1963; and by 1965 almost all had returned, including Makwena Matlala and the chief-elect, Mpao Matlala. Makwena Matlala was restored as acting chieftainess from 1966 to 1968 while Mpao Matlala attended a school for chiefs. Restoration unleashed expectations of a return to greater political autonomy and an end to the injustices of betterment. This proved to be wishful thinking. The two ‘were fairly powerless after their return’, perhaps as a result of their release conditions. Makwena Matlala, for example, was ‘prohibited from speaking at the “kgoro” for a period of about six months’.58 Letters from the government were apparently endorsed without discussion and people wishing to register complaints about rangers and agricultural officers were told by Makwena that there was nothing she could do. They were advised to complain to the police. Divisions also began to emerge in the late 1960s and 1970s among MaCongress: some wanted to confine activity to support for the institution of chieftainship; others to ensure prosecution of the struggle against betterment and other state measures. There was a major thrust by Department of Bantu Administration and Development officials in 1969 to confiscate livestock; and people ploughing as they pleased in continued opposition to betterment were arrested. There was also harassment of Congress-affiliated residents, but no intervention by Chief Mpao Matlala. There also appeared to be new

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alliances and shifting allegiances. B.K. Matlala, imprisoned for his part in the killing of Joel Matlala, appeared to be keen on the chieftainship. After becoming a Department of Bantu Administration and Development official at nearby Chloe Trust farm, and supported by some of the returned banished people, he narrowly won the vote to become acting chief after Mpao Matlala died suspiciously from poisoning in December 1972.59 Despite a succession dispute, including attempts to murder the widow of Mpao Matlala, B.K. Matlala consolidated his grip on power and emerged as the strongman in GaMatlala. This was also the platform for involvement in the politics of the Lebowa bantustan, of which GaMatlala became part. During 1978 there was renewed activity by the Department of Agriculture that gave rise to new conflict with Ma-Congress people, who had ‘always refused to pay taxes, allow their cattle to be dipped or move into demarcated areas’. There was collaboration between B.K. Matlala and the authorities, with police and rangers forcing people to move to planned residential areas. Taxes were imposed and weekly dipping became compulsory. There was violence when all unvaccinated stock was rounded up and impounded, and numerous people associated with Ma-Congress were charged with public violence. The homes of those living outside residential areas were burnt by pro-B.K. Matlala youth, leading to five deaths and many injuries. According to a Lebowa government supporter, the violence stemmed from the resistance of Ma-Congress people to betterment measures. He further commented that ‘this thing is a Congress. It refuses to die. We have been hitting it but it does not die.’60 By 1980, however, Ma-Congress was largely crushed. Between 1950 and 1955, 23 people, including five women, were banished from GaMatlala to various, often inhospitable places in the districts of Sibasa, Bushbuckridge, Empangeni, Mandini, Gingindhlovu and Transkei. In some cases those banished were directly involved in resistance to state policies. In other cases the banishments constituted reprisals against the families of those involved in popular struggles. All the banished were released and permitted to return to GaMatlala between 1963 and 1965, even if their banishment orders were only formally withdrawn later. Maema Matlala, ‘very old, very small, not even five feet tall [and] wizened’, had served in East Africa during the First World War.61 He was connected by blood to the royal family and was the second most senior councillor in the royal house (mošate).62 He was arrested in 1952 for opposing Department of Native Affairs injunctions regarding cattle culling, served a jail sentence of three months and was then allowed to return to GaMatlala. Soon after

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THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

Left: Maema Matlala, who had served in East Africa during World War I, refused to allow his wife to accompany him into banishment: ‘when you go to war you don’t take your wife with you’. Right: Maema Matlala and Klaas Matlala in banishment in Bushbuckridge, 1962, photographed by Helen Joseph.

his return, police ‘arrived and told him that he and his wife and family must all get into the vans, to be taken away’. He responded that ‘when you go to war you don’t take your wife with you’.63 It worked: he alone was banished to Bushbuckridge, where he was given nothing by the authorities except mealies.64 When Alfred Matlala was imposed as a chief, he evicted Maema Matlala’s children from the royal house. Interviewed by Helen Joseph in 1962, his wife said that it was only after five years that she ‘heard from him that he was in Bushbuckridge, but now I don’t hear from him at all’.65 While banished, he received a meagre £2 7s 6d every two months.66 On receiving some money from the Human Rights Welfare Committee (HRWC) he responded: ‘We are more than thankful. Seeing that we are made people again.’ There were attempts by state officials to win over both him and a fellow banished person, Klaas Matlala, but they were not interested. His position was that ‘When I go home, I shall be accepted by the people’.67 His banishment order was revoked on 9 February 1966.68 Maema Matlala’s companion in Bushbuckridge, Klaas Matlala, was arrested in the fields in 1952. He was a Ma-Congress supporter and key member of the kgoro, and had opposed the native commissioner’s decision that the Matlala community should elect another chief. He was warned that

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Left: Maphuti Seopa was banished from GaMatlala with her children for fomenting ‘unrest and dissension’. Right: Anna Moketi Mamolatelo Seopa was banished at the age of 14.

he would be banished if he continued to refuse to co-operate with the Department of Native Affairs, but bravely persisted with his opposition. Klaas Matlala and others were taken to Sandfontein and served with banishment orders. The next day he was given £2 and transported to Bushbuckridge. At first he earned income from building houses; then he found a job as a cleaner that paid £6 per month. His wife, Mathildo, said she learnt that he was in Bushbuckridge after a month, when he wrote. She worked on a farm to earn money to visit him from time to time. Klaas Matlala also received money and clothing from the HRWC. His response to a coat that the HRWC had sent to him was that ‘when I die you must cover my body with it because this coat showed me that I was not forgotten’.69 Like Maema Matlala, his banishment order was also withdrawn on 9 February 1966.70 In terms of banishment orders dated 21 July 1953, five people, Kwena Matlala, Marapo Seopa and Maphuti Seopa and her two children, were banished in October 1953 from GaMatlala for being ‘actively engaged in furthering’ Makwena Matlala’s ‘cause and in fomenting unrest and dissension in the tribe’.71 Maphuti Seopa was the first-born daughter of Chief Sekgoari Matlala, husband of Makwena Matlala. She was married to Frans Kgetoane Seopa, the ntona (headman) of Phetole settlement, who

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was also the brother of Makwena Matlala. The children banished with her were Boy (also known as Lemuel, Tumishi and Tlou) Seopa, aged 18, and Anna Mokete Mamolatelo Seopa, aged 14. Boy Seopa, who is one of only two banished people still alive, recounts that ‘the banishment order was delivered by a policeman known as Seabi who … took my sister and I to Sandfontein Police Station, where we were made to sign banishment orders without any explanation’.72 Maphuti Seopa’s own account is Boy Seopa at his home in GaMatlala today, one that the police arrived at their home of two banished people still alive. with three banishment orders. Hers accused her of ‘furthering the cause’ of Makwena Matlala and of ‘fermenting [sic] unrest and dissension’ and stated that her ‘presence in Matlala’s location [was] inimical to the peace, order and good government’ of the community. For these reasons it was ‘expedient’ for her to ‘forthwith withdraw from your place of residence … to Tabaans Location’.73 They were informed that a truck would transport the family of six and their household goods. No livestock would be permitted. Boy Seopa recalls that his mother, sister Mamolatelo and three younger siblings were ‘loaded into a 5 ton dropside truck together with our luggage and family furniture and ferried to the Commissioner’s office in Pietersburg … where we put up for the night inside the court room. The following day, we were awakened very early … and transported to Davhana without any bath or breakfast.’74 He also remembered his mother ‘receiving £6 from an official at the magistrate office just before the truck could depart on a long journey to the unknown area’ of Makhasa at Davhana (Sibasa). The area was also known as Mugwagwane and the farm to which they were taken was called Nuwevlakte. The Seopa family was unable to speak the language of the locals.75 They were to spend 11 years in banishment. Initially, they were ‘all lumped together into a small rondavel which did not have a door or window [and] served as a bedroom, dining room, kitchen and bathroom at the same

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time’. According to Boy Seopa, we ‘experienced humiliation from the Tsonga-speakers who despised our food and way of dress, loneliness from our family members at home, and lack of money for further education. Above all, our mother … was forced to walk about 10 km to report, just to say “we are present,” at the [Department of Native Affairs] offices every Wednesday’. Life ‘was very tough … poverty was so rife that it can be likened to that of Ethiopia some years back … the family went without food for some days and nights.’ During the first few months, grocery vouchers were provided to obtain purchases of maize meal from shopkeepers 60−80 kilometres away. Then, this arrangement ‘was stopped without any explanation’.76 Maphuti Seopa complained of hunger to an agricultural officer named Van Niekerk, ‘who responded by allocating a ploughing field … to cultivate crops. This did not help because climatic conditions were very different from those at Ga-Matlala [and] we unknowingly cultivated crops that we were used to at Ga-Matlala which proved unsuitable for Davhana. The result was devastating poverty.’ Bags of maize and other food items were begged from local families and one provided the use of a donkey cart ‘to collect donations of bags of maize and other food items from Klein Letaba’. In order to support the family, Boy Seopa attended school only up to Standard 6 and Mamolatelo Seopa abandoned schooling after Standard 2. Boy was ‘employed by the Native Affairs Department on a monthly salary of £1.10 while [his] younger sister was employed as a domestic for a black agricultural demonstrator’.77 Helen Joseph visited the Seopa family in 1962 and described Maphuti Seopa as a woman who ‘bore herself with grace and dignity’. She noted that the Seopa boys had built two additional huts and that the children attended the mission primary school.78 A younger brother of Boy, Justice Makwena Seopa, recalled that through the HRWC Helen Joseph also sent ‘a white man and three black men, to visit my family at Davhana. They disguised as Roman Catholic Church baruti (clergymen) who had brought prayers for my family in order to avoid security forces and government laws.’ The HRWC mailed money for Justice’s tuition and boarding fees at Vendaland Training Institution until he passed Form 3. It also supplied food parcels every two to three months.79 Boy Seopa left Davhana to work in Johannesburg, dissatisfied with his wages at the agricultural offices. He explained to Van Niekerk that he could not ‘cope with a situation wherein whenever I buy a trouser, I find my shirt in

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tatters and whenever I buy a shirt I find my trouser already torn apart’ and said he had no option but leave to seek better employment. In Johannesburg, he earned four times what he received in Davhana. Although his mother was confronted by the native commissioner about his ‘disappearance from the area without permission’, his employment in Johannesburg was condoned after his mother provided the details of his employer and his whereabouts. In any event, he ‘sent money for food and other household necessities through the post office’ and ‘always joined the family at Davhana during the holidays such as Good Friday, Christmas and New Year’.80 Helen Joseph also provided direct support. According to Boy Seopa, Joseph wrote to him and they met at her office. She ‘volunteered to give me money to augment my salary and grocery to take home’. He collected what was usually £5 from ‘[Amina] Cachalia as and when the need arose’. The contact with Joseph resulted in trouble when his employer opened a letter addressed to him and discovered who it was from. A few weeks later he ‘arrested by the police while asleep at my employer’s residence. I was taken to a police chief for questioning with white tsotsi-like policemen wielding sjamboks threatening to lash me should I not tell the truth … I told the police chief that I met Helen Joseph in town and explained my plight to her and she offered to assist me to augment my salary … to meet my needs and those of my mother and siblings.’ He was eventually released, but left his employer.81 The Seopa family was released from banishment in 1964, although their banishment orders were formally withdrawn only in 1966.82 Curiously, Boy Seopa and his siblings have no knowledge of any Marapo Seopa, whose name was cited on the order that banished them to Tabaans Location. Louisa Tlou Seopa, a younger sister of Boy Seopa, speculates that her mother ‘used to include her children who had already passed away whenever she was asked about her children. It is probable that my mother mentioned the name Marapo.’ Kwena Matlala, whose name also appeared on the order that banished the Seopa family, ‘was allocated a rondavel’ three kilometres from the Seopa family in Davhana.83 She learnt that the police were looking for her and, according to her daughter who was born in banishment, ‘went into hiding in the nearby mountains and later escaped to Pretoria’.84 Kwena Matlala, born in 1920, was the first daughter of Chief Sekgoari Matlala and Makwena Matlala. She married Nelson Ngakana Moabelo, the ntona of Madietane village, who was related to the royal family, and after his death she succeeded him as ntona. Kwena Matlala was banished because she ‘strove to protect the institution of bogoši (kingship) at Ga-

52

Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online

GAMATLALA AND WITZIESHOEK

Martinus Boshomane, Moses Moichela and Solomon Thamaga were banished in January 1955 from GaMatlala to northern Natal.

Matlala … She was opposed to any regent who was not destined by tradition to become an acting or permanent kgoši.’ She was also opposed to the ‘government of the Boers and its oppressive laws’. It is not clear how Kwena Matlala ended up in Zwelitsha, the same place to which her mother Makwena Matlala was banished. Her daughter recounts that ‘life was very difficult because of poverty. In addition, the banished were not allowed to visit any other place without authorisation. They were also obliged to report their own visitors’ at the native commissioner’s office. At some point, ‘due to the poverty she experienced while in Zwelitsha’ and to contribute to the upkeep of her mother, sisters and brother, Kwena Matlala moved to Pretoria to look for employment. There she worked as a domestic worker, making biannual

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Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online

Daisy Boshomane and her four children joined their husband and father in banishment.

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visits to the family in Zwelitsha. She was released from banishment in 1963.85 Seven GaMatlala people were banished on 8 February 1955.86 They included Esrom Hlonyane, who was one of those arrested following the killing of Joel Matlala. He served a five-year sentence for his alleged part in the murder. According to him, the problem was that Joel Matlala had accepted state schemes without community support. It was claimed that Hlonyane was one of the leaders who were in opposition to state measures in GaMatlala and had boasted that life in jail was enjoyable, inciting people to turn against the administration. It was also suggested that when the Natives Commission held a meeting on 19 November 1954 in GaMatlala he was among a group that sat under the so-called moordboom tree and conspired to murder a state official. He was banished to Reserve 7B in the Lower Umfolozi district (Natal). Like many other banished people from GaMatlala, his banishment order was withdrawn on 9 February 1966.87 Another of the seven was Martinus Boshomane, who was banished from Malobana settlement near Setumong to Reserve 8 in the Mtunzini district (Natal).88 He professed to be extremely puzzled by his banishment and could not establish the reasons, as he was living in Paulpietersburg during GaMatlala struggles.89 Boshomane was reportedly banished because Alfred Matlala accused him of threatening to kill him.90 Boshomane’s wife, Daisy, who was the sister of Esrom Hlonyane, and four children joined him in banishment. However, the Boshomanes’ twin sons Leburu and Elias fled to Johannesburg; Leburu rejoined the family later but twin brother Elias was never seen again.91 Two cousins also banished on 19 January 1955 were Morris Ranoto and Frans Ramara.92 Ramara was summoned to the police station and did not return. He was put on a train and it was only after a year that his wife heard from him. She lived a life of destitution, begging from fellow community members. Then she received a message from the chief that Ramara had died in banishment. The authorities would, however, not help with burial. Morris Ranoto survived on support from family and friends and ‘became a recluse’ after Frans Ramara’s death. He also died in banishment.93 His wife, Mngabo Ranoto, said that she did not know where he had been banished, until a letter arrived a year later. Then some time after, she was summoned by the native commissioner to the chief’s place and told that her husband was dead and would be buried in Zululand. She insisted that his body be brought back to GaMatlala and Douglas Lukele, an attorney who had worked at the legal firm of Mandela and Tambo, represented the demand of Ma-

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Congress for his reburial in GaMatlala.94 After initial refusal because of cost, the native commissioner consented. Mngabo Ranoto also lived a life of destitution, begging from fellow community members.95 The death in banishment of Morris Ranoto and his pauper’s funeral in late 1962 apparently prompted a delegation to be sent to Johannesburg to demand arms from Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) commanders. It is said that among the first MK cadres were people from stalwart ANC families in GaMatlala.96 Johannes Matlala was arrested with others and ‘driven to Pietersburg like a flock of sheep’. Some of them were charged with murder, but he was acquitMichael Matlala ted. Soon after, he was again arrested and banished for reasons unknown to him to Mount Fletcher (Eastern Cape), where he said he was ‘living [a] lonely life’.97 He was illiterate and so depended on others to write on his behalf. His father was also banished and died in banishment. Like many others, his banishment order was formally withdrawn in February 1966.98 Michael (Mikia) Matlala, like Maema Matlala, took part in the First World War.99 He was banished in June 1953, according to his family, to HaMatonzi near Shingwedzi. However, it is likely that he was at Boltman Native Trust Farm (Sibasa). A family member described the area of banishment as ‘a dense forest with a lot of wild animals’, as it was near the Shingwedzi area of the Kruger National Park. In banishment, Michael Matlala was employed as an agricultural officer. His wife and two young children joined him in banishment in December 1953. Food items were purchased at an Indian-owned shop near Shingwedzi Secondary School and the Matlala children attended local schools. Some family members died in banishment and were buried in HaMatonzi.100 Jacob Matome (Rachabedi) was part of the January 1955 group of seven who were banished from GaMatlala. His banishment order stated that despite the removal of Makwena Matlala and her key advisers, people like Matome were still opposing rule by the Department of Native Affairs. He

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was said to have been another of those who had sat under the moordboom tree, creating a tense atmosphere. It was claimed that Matome and others, armed with rocks and short assegais, had planned to kill an official. Matome was banished to a reserve in Mtunzini (Natal).101 An interview with him indicates that while banished he worked as an assistant to an agricultural officer on (ironically) betterment planning. He claimed that he was ‘very popular among the communities of the Mtunzini area because he used to advise them to extend demarcation pins in the arable areas to more than the size allotted, to cut fences during the night and to leave their cattle at grazing posts during the times of inspection for [Trust Council] branded cattle’. He also alleged that because of these activities there was an attempt by a Department of Native Affairs official to have him kidnapped and murdered.102 There are also claims made about meeting Helen Joseph in 1962, which seem implausible as there is no evidence that she encountered him on her journey. Jeremiah Moraka was a councillor to Makwena Matlala and one of four people banished in March 1951.103 He was sent to Matatiele (Eastern Cape). In 1953 his wife, Maphuti Moraka, was also banished. She had refused to leave but was forced into a police van. She took a three-year-old child into banishment but left older children with an aunt, who struggled valiantly to feed and clothe them. Another child was born in banishment. Maphuti Moraka was badly affected by conditions on the Trust farm and the sheer loneliness. Five years into her banishment, Jeremiah Moraka returned from a visit to a local chief to find that Maphuti had disappeared with their two children. While Chief Cebe and Jeremiah Moraka’s older son joined the search for Maphuti, there was no response from the police or native commissioner to pleas for help.104 Sometime later, one of the sons discovered Maphuti Moraka in a Pietersburg street, mentally ill and unable to explain how she got there or indicate the whereabouts of her two children. Her family returned her to Matatiele and, after she was allowed to return home from banishment, her condition partially improved. However, she never fully recovered and the missing children were never found.105 Jeremiah Moraka lived a life in limbo, saying that he could not ‘ever go home without [his] wife and children’. When Joseph met him on her 1962 journey she reported that ‘he was gaunt and he showed signs of sorrow, but his manner was calm and dignified … he had accustomed himself to being a labourer, and to the enforced stay on the farm. He showed no bitterness.’106 The banishment order was withdrawn in 1966.107

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Perhaps the most heart-rending of the many tragic cases of banishment was that of Sebitji Frans Matlala, who was banished on 28 July 1952 to Wiscombe in the Vryburg district (Northern Cape).108 His wife recounted: My husband was taken away by train from Pietersburg. I do not remember what year that was. I did not ever get a letter from him during all the years afterwards, even until the day in June 1960 when he walked in. I got a shock. He collapsed. Then he struggled to his feet and asked, ‘How are you?’ I asked him how he had come there, and he said he had come by train to Pietersburg and then by bus to Sandfontein. From there he had walked about five miles to my house. He said that he had walked a few yards and stopped, and then he had struggles and walked some more. He said that he was well, but he was not well. He lay in bed for a week, and then he died on Sunday. After that first day he did not ever speak again.109 Four of the 23 GaMatlala banished died in banishment. Two of the four ‘were receiving no government allowance and had no employment. They were old and sickly and it seems they died of starvation.’110 One other died within a month of being allowed to return home. The others had their orders withdrawn by the end of 1966, after banishment lasting between 11 and 16 years. The Matlala community was among the first during the apartheid period to experience the repressive measure of banishment. It was also exceptional for the extensive Sebitji Matlala spent almost eight years in use made of banishment: 23 people were banishment at Driefontein in the Northern banished, including whole families and Cape. He died within a week of being released after an arduous journey home. children. This perhaps had to do with the intensity of their resistance over an extended period and attacks on those collaborating with the state. The banishments were not immediately effective. The banishment of Makwena Matlala in 1950 and seven of her key supporters in 1951 and 1952 did not end resistance, and the killing of Joel Matlala may have inhibited other villagers with a mind to embrace unpopular state

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measures. As a result there was further recourse to banishment, with 15 more alleged agitators banished between 1953 and 1955. In the medium term the banishments were effective. Political opponents were banished for lengthy periods and during this period the state seized the opportunity to proceed with betterment planning. GaMatlala was partly planned in 1962. A planning report for the area stated that ‘the Bantu of the area seem keen to have their area planned and it is expected that they will co-operate in all respects’.111 There was opposition, if more muted in the face of repression. GaMatlala makes clear that while the practice of banishment may have been effective in temporarily silencing opposition, and may have bought the state time to impose unpopular policies, it was unable to eliminate resistance to apartheid policies entirely and suppress the grievances of rural people.

Witzieshoek Witzieshoek in the 1950s was a small reserve of 40,000 hectares. Located in the north-eastern part of the Orange Free State, adjacent to the northern border of Lesotho, it was a tiny fragment of what was once Sotho territory annexed by the Boers in the 1860s. The reserve was ‘granted’ to the greatgrandfather of Paulus Howell Mopeli, a key actor in the Witzieshoek rebellion of 1950−1, by President J.H. Brand in a peace treaty in 1867. In 1875 the Batlhokwa entered Witzieshoek and from that time it was occupied by the Bakwena and Batlhokwa communities.112 In the 1940s, Witzieshoek ‘was regarded as a very important water catchment area’. Agricultural officers were concerned that because of ‘overgrazing on the steep slopes and tilling of lands in the spongy catchment areas’, the ‘water flow in the six major streams had diminished by half and that the whole area’s water catchment capacity was rapidly deteriorating’.113 In terms of the apartheid government’s policy of separate development and the creation of bantustans, Witzieshoek became part of QwaQwa, a bantustan comprising two entirely separate areas that were essentially grossly overcrowded rural slums. QwaQwa came into being ‘after the creation of a Territorial Authority for Basotho BaBorwa (as QwaQwa then was) in 1969, and was meant to be the ethnic “homeland” for South African South Sotho’.114 The population of Witzieshoek increased from 2,000 in 1850 to 5,000 in 1913. Overcrowding became acute and by the mid-1940s half the residents

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possessed no agricultural land.115 Increasing numbers of people became migrant workers on the mines and in the factories of distant towns and cities. By 1950 the population stood at 14,000 and migrant labour was extensive and well-established. Thus, whereas by 1900 the Bakwena had ‘developed an extensive economy … by 1950 [it] was thoroughly crushed, following a pattern of underdevelopment typical of most reserve areas’.116 During the early decades of the twentieth century white farmers around Witzieshoek constantly complained of a labour shortage. They strongly supported the 1913 Natives Land Act with its restriction of Africans to 13% of the land area of South Africa. They opposed any enlargement of the reserve, viewing Witzieshoek as a critical labour pool for their farms. As a result of the forced removal of Africans from white farms and townships in the Orange Free State and their relocation in QwaQwa, the population of the bantustan increased from less than 25,000 in 1970 to over 400,000 in 1982. By the 1980s the population density was over 1,000 persons per square kilometre. While Witzieshoek covered an estimated 40,000 hectares, only 10% was considered cultivable; the rest being suitable for grazing, mountainous, or barren. Some migrants continued to have access to land, but its distribution was unequal. Significant numbers of migrants had cattle bought with wages for consumption, and as a source of security, store of value and medium of exchange. The administration of the reserve was in the hands of the paramount chief and a Reserve Board established in 1907. The board was chaired by the native commissioner and consisted ‘of four elected and two nominated members’.117 They were ‘responsible for the upkeep of roads, bridges, sanitation, schools, local taxation and until 1939, agricultural improvement’.118 In 1939, Betterment Areas Proclamation 31 was applied to Witzieshoek. At meetings with community members ‘plans for the making of contour and diversion banks, fencing of grazing camps, provision of bulls and culling of stock were explained’. Such measures were indeed implemented and seem to have been generally accepted by the Reserve Board, including the traditional leaders and the community. There was minimal opposition. However, ‘with the introduction of the betterment regulations, the Board’s powers were curtailed’ in a number of respects and this ‘must have created a sense of redundancy among the people; their only formal avenue for participation in the betterment scheme had been deeply affected’.119 The Witzieshoek rebellion of 1950−1 was essentially ‘a response to increasing pressure on the arable land of the Reserve, caused by such govern-

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ment action as the 1913 Land Act’.120 There was increasing over-population and consequent economic decline and social deprivation. Inequalities were also highly visible: ‘the wealth of a number of white traders in the territory contrasted sharply with the poverty of the inhabitants – the more so because they were allowed to keep stock, grazing land and agricultural plots’. Rather than addressing the key issue of land shortage, betterment ‘finally destroyed the hope many landless people, people with small patches of land, and people without any land and stock, ever had of one day obtaining these traditional symbols of status and wealth’.121 What precipitated rebellion, however, was the state’s decision to impose limitations on the number of stock and cattle-culling measures. In 1940, the stock-carrying capacity for Witzieshoek was established as 12,500 cattle units (one cow or five small stock). An agreement was concluded in 1942 to cull inferior cattle, although ‘on this occasion Eva Mota, the Regent of the Batlhokwa … refused to have her stock culled and was prosecuted and fined’.122 Another stock count in 1946 found there were over 13,700 cattle units. This time, however, the state’s attempt to enforce culling met vigorous opposition. In 1946 Paulus Howell Mopeli (Mopelinyana) and three other stock owners ‘refused to submit their cattle to culling. They were charged and convicted but on appeal to the Supreme Court, the judgment was set aside … This legal victory boosted the morale of the protesters.’123 Many ‘proceeded to ignore culling orders’.124 As far as cattle owners were concerned, they had conceded the culling of inferior cattle; not culling as a means of limiting stock. This position was made clear by a statement at a meeting of the Reserve Board in January 1947: ‘The tribe has been deceived. It did not accept the limitation of stock.’125 The culling of cattle tended to be conducted haphazardly and the poorer section of the community suffered most. Sometimes oxen, indispensable for farming, were culled. The ban on felling planted trees also provoked resentment and there was a strong sense of grievance about tampering with traditional practices. The chief native commissioner visited Witzieshoek in January 1948 and representatives of the Bakwena and Batlhokwa pressed for a commission of inquiry. The rejection of this request heightened tension. In February 1948, the Witzieshoek community presented, via Chief Charles Mopeli, a petition to the minister of native affairs that called for the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the implementation of betterment measures in Witzieshoek. The response was a terse letter saying that the proclamation

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enforcing betterment ‘would not be repealed and the department was not prepared to depart from its policy in regard to stock limitation’.126 A decision was taken at a pitso (public meeting) of the community in April 1948 to send three persons, Paulus Mopeli, Atwell Mopeli and Albert Mopeli ‘to Cape Town to consult Mr. Basner who at the time represented Africans of the area in the Senate’.127 It was later alleged that Basner told the delegates that ‘protest unaccompanied by action would be futile … and advised them to destroy the grazing camp fences’.128 On the delegation’s return from Cape Town, a pitso was convened for a report-back. Albert and Atwell Mopeli moved a resolution that opposition to cattle culling should be organised and that sabotage should be adopted. Although this was supported by the pitso, it was opposed by the chief, with the result that a rift developed between militants and more cautious elements. Throughout 1948 and early 1949, the Department of Native Affairs refused to appoint a commission of inquiry ‘and continued to pursue an uncompromising policy as regards cattle culling’.129 The under-secretary for native affairs visited Witzieshoek in early 1950 and reaffirmed that betterment measures ‘would continue to be applied, irrespective of the people’s attitude and resistance, and … that the government could make laws whereby a whole community could be punished’.130 Following the court victory, Mopelinyana ‘and his three followers came into open conflict with the officials of the Department’.131 The Leihlo la Sechaba (Guardian of the Nation), created in 1914 as a communication channel between the community and the Reserve Board, now came under the leadership of Mopelinyana. At the same time, a movement known as Lingangele (Stubborn One) was formed by Mopelinyana. Resistance to government officials and those collaborating with the Department of Native Affairs intensified. In the urban areas the Witzieshoek Vigilance Association (WVA, formed in 1940) was revived, supporting the efforts of Lingangele and Leihlo la Sechaba. The WVA had a maximum membership of about 2,000.132 While the larger Bakwena community was especially prominent in the Witzieshoek rebellion, the Batlhokwa were also opposed to betterment. They occupied the higher areas of Witzieshoek and, as they were stock farmers, ‘culling would have hit them particularly hard’. Opposition was broad-based: ‘many of those who appeared on charges of violence and obstruction were middle-aged and even elderly people [and] women played an important supportive role in all confrontations with the authorities’.133

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Chief Paulus Howell Mopeli was banished in 1952 from Witzieshoek. He faced the authorities ‘with obstinate but dauntless and proud dignity’ and died in banishment in September 1971.

Opposition involved passive resistance, active non-cooperation and acts of sabotage. Three plantations were partially burnt between July and September 1949, and over three kilometres of fencing destroyed in November. By the close ‘of 1949 it was clear that culling was a complete failure as a result of active and passive resistance’.134 The community refused to present their stock for counting.135 In February 1950 stock brought for culling were driven off by militants mounted on horses, and on 13 February 1950, 300 horsemen presented a letter to the native commissioner threatening bloodshed if police and state officials interfered with the community’s stock. Nevertheless, further culling was set for 16 February 1950. It met active resistance and the following day 400 armed people assembled outside the office of the Department of Native Affairs to repeat the earlier warning of bloodshed.136 In early 1950, the chief of the Bakwena, Charles Mopeli, denounced Paulus Howell Mopeli as the prime organiser of the resistance in Witzies-

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Treaty Mahlouoe Mopeli was banished in 1954 for being the ringleader of ‘agitators’ in Witzieshoek. Her banishment order was withdrawn only in July 1972.

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hoek. It was claimed that Mopelinyana was working in close co-operation with the Johannesburg-based WVA. The Department of Native Affairs claimed that the chief had requested that Mopelinyana and his close comrades should be banished.137 At this stage no action was taken by the state, but resistance continued throughout 1950. This included harassment of officials, plantation burning, destruction of fences and erosion banks, and starting of veld fires.138 In October 1950, a commission of inquiry was finally established. On the appointed day 1,300 people gathered outside the court. Two objections arose: to the composition of the commission; and to conducting hearings in the court house. It was suggested that open air hearings be conducted and the inquiry was postponed until 27 November 1950. However, on 22 November Proclamation 28 (1950) was issued, prohibiting meetings of more than three people.139 Police reinforcements were sent and Major I.P.S. Terblanche threatened that he would sweep Witzieshoek with fire if there was continued resistance. On the day the commission was due to sit again, a crowd of 600 people, many unaware that the meeting was illegal, assembled at Mopelinyana’s homestead in Namoha village to discuss tactics. The witnesses who were to give evidence left at midday with the lawyers. That afternoon Terblanche and 38 mounted police arrived to ‘subpoena four persons, including Mopelinyana, to testify before the commission of inquiry’.140 He pronounced the meeting illegal and demanded that the gathering disperse. There are differing accounts of what happened next. One account is that ‘a pistol shot was fired from the crowd … the women started the molilietsane (war cry) and … police were attacked from all sides with weapons which were produced from beneath blankets. Two policemen and 14 Blacks were killed.’141 Another account is that when ‘met with abuse and non-cooperation from the crowd, which was seated, Terblanche shot an old man, Segesho Dlamini, who was sitting near the front, and shouted “storm hulle” to his detachment’.142 The gathering resisted with sticks and stones and, when the shooting stopped half an hour later, 13 people were dead and about 80 wounded. The killings were followed by widespread arrests and on 2 December 1950 Verwoerd as minister of native affairs signed a proclamation enabling the detention without trial of 14 people regarded as ringleaders. After a four-month-long preparatory examination of 130 people, 104 were charged with public violence. The trial lasted almost a year, by which time 25 been discharged and six sentenced to one year in prison for holding an unautho-

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rised meeting. The rest were sentenced to prison for terms of between 18 months and five years for public violence. Leave to appeal was refused.143 Eight people were banished from Witzieshoek between 1951 and 1954 as a consequence of their participation in the uprising: Paulus Howell Mopeli, Treaty Mahlouoe Mopeli, Piet Mokoena, Caswell Moloi, Matela Mantsoe, Jim Lithako, Mothebang Mopeli and Maretile Kooae. Mopelinyana first served a prison sentence in Johannesburg and was banished in 1952 to the Middelburg district (TransMatela Mantsoe, a ‘recalcitrant native,’ was vaal). His banishment order described banished to Frenchdale in 1952, and released him as ‘one of the “recalcitrant Natives” in 1959. of Witzieshoek Native Reserve that was detained … after causing disturbances. It is feared by the Chief of Witzieshoek Reserve, Charles Mopeli, “that his presence in the Reserve will lead to dissension and unrest.”’144 Later, he was banished to Bothaspruit Farm in the Groblersdal district (Transvaal).145 In March 1954 he was transferred to the Native Trust Farm Uitkyk 92 (also Groblersdal).146 It was reported that Mopelinyana was not restricted to the farm and it was alleged that he used his freedom of movement to garner support for his ‘anti-state cause’ and that ‘left-leaning’ people came at night to the home he shared with his wife, Treaty Mopeli. It was thought to be in the ‘general public’s interest’ for the couple to be removed from Groblersdal to somewhere rural, where their influence would not have such great effect.147 Consequently, they were transferred to Frenchdale (Mafikeng). Mopelinyana refused to accept any state allowance, arguing that this would be tantamount to ‘compromising with the enemy’ and he suffered great hardship. He remarked to a journalist in 1958: ‘I even doubt the government knows I am here. I am like a dead person.’ In 1965, the couple were again transferred to another site of banishment, Ewbank Farm (Kuruman, Northern Cape). Mopeli, who faced the authorities ‘with obstinate but dauntless and proud dignity’, died in banishment on 21 September 1971.148 Caswell Moloi is described as a leader of the recalcitrant ‘natives’ in the Witzieshoek Native Reserve. He apparently ‘gave a solemn undertaking that

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on his release from jail he would remove himself voluntarily from the Reserve for a period of two years’. He did so at first, but subsequently returned even though conditions were ‘still far from normal’. His presence in Witzieshoek was considered to be ‘inimical to the peace, order and good government of the Natives’.149 He was banished to Frenchdale in 1952 and, on release from banishment in 1959, lived in Harrismith. His banishment order was revoked in 1962.150 Matela Mantsoe was a ‘recalcitrant native’ who served a two-year jail sentence in Bloemfontein. He was banished to Frenchdale in 1952 and released Piet Mokoena was banished from in 1959, while his banishment order was Witzieshoek to Frenchdale in 1954. revoked in 1962.151 Piet Mokoena, a strong supporter of Paulus Howell Mopeli, was alleged to have undermined the authority of the appointed chief. He was banished in 1954 to Frenchdale.152 Helen Joseph met him there in 1962 and recounted that Mokoena’s hut ‘was unexpected in its neatness. It had almost a furnished look about it, with a bed, a table and a chair, and a goatskin on the floor. He had been reading his bible by candlelight while he was waiting for us’. Mokoena had indicated that ‘the banished men who were already there when he arrived had long since been allowed to return to their various homes. But he remained.’153 When banished, he had been given £2, but nothing else afterwards. In 1958, he was offered a meagre monthly stipend ‘at the same time as the Mopelis, but like them he had refused, because he had been given nothing before’. He said that ‘life was very difficult. We had to go to the villages to ask for food and for just a few pennies that we sometimes got for work from them. Sometimes there would be four whole months and no one from the authorities would ever come near us.’154 He had requested permission for his family to live with him but received no answer, giving the lie to the claim of the deputy minister of Bantu administration and development that a banished person’s ‘family is able to join him if they so desire’.155 His wife or a child sometimes visited. He was keen to have family with him as ‘he seemed to have given up all hope of ever going back to

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Witzieshoek’.156 In 1965, together with the Mopelis and other inmates of Frenchdale, he was moved to Ewbank Farm (Kuruman).157 His banishment order was withdrawn only on 18 July 1972.158 Jim Lithako was also banished in 1954, to Zwelitsha Native Reserve (King William’s Town).159 In 1957, he was served a new banishment order because, being free to move around in the district of his banishment, he was alleged to have paid ‘clandestine visits’ to Witzieshoek.160 The new order restricted Lithako’s movement to Zwelitsha. His banishment order was withdrawn on 23 August 1967.161 Other alleged agitators who were banished were Mothebang Mopeli and Maretile Kooae. They were both banished on 8 March 1954 to Reserve 19 in the Nkandhla district (Natal) and Frenchdale respectively.162 The banishment orders of both men were revoked in August 1967.163 It is difficult to allocate precise weight to the effectiveness of banishment in suppressing resistance in Witzieshoek. Brutal police violence, mass arrests, the imprisonment of over 70 people and banishment, all played a part. The repression succeeded in curbing the rebellion, while divisions in the community and the role played by people like Chief Charles Mopeli assisted the state in reasserting control. Witzieshoek ‘was the first to accept “Bantu Authorities.”’164 However, acts of resistance continued, as is attested by banishments in 1954. People from Witzieshoek served long periods in banishment: a couple of orders were withdrawn in 1959, but others were only rescinded in 1967 and 1972. In the case of Witzieshoek there do not appear to have been any longstanding or strong links between organisations resisting betterment and urbanbased political movements. Shortly before the police killings, Mopelinyana and his comrades had met leading members of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), but there was no material support or direct CPSA involvement in the resistance. Edwin Mofutsanyana, a leading CPSA figure, summed up the party’s attitude, describing its people as ‘terribly backward’. Senator Margaret Ballinger sought support of key ANC leaders for the Witzieshoek resistance and the ANC did issue ‘a statement calling for the withdrawal of all armed officers from Witzieshoek and of correction of the real grievances of the people’.165 The ANC, however, although in the process of revitalisation, only became mass-based after the 1952 Defiance Campaign.

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Comparisons The GaMatlala and Witzieshoek struggles are interesting cases of rural resistance to the intrusions of the new apartheid state. In the case of GaMatlala there is a written record that conveys a sense of continuity and discontinuity over a 60-year period of contact and conflict between community and state as well as internal schisms and struggles. In contrast, the literature on Witzieshoek is largely a snapshot of an episode of conflict in the 1940s and early 1950s and it lacks richer detail. In GaMatlala there was the long-standing presence of the ANC, and so the struggle ‘transcended betterment and Bantu Authorities’. Moreover, ‘unlike other areas, the arrests and deportations never broke the back of resistance in the 1950s and as a result Ga-Matlala does not conform to the dominant image of the 1960s as a period of political quiescence’. Indeed, GaMatlala is a good example of continuities in struggle beyond the banning of the ANC in 1960, showing that local and rural struggles could have a longevity that need not depend on urban-based national political movements. Apart from the ANC’s own organisational weaknesses before 1952, it did not appear to show great interest in rural struggles or embedding itself in rural areas. The CPSA had no substantive focus on the rural areas, but it is contended that this did not mean there was no policy regarding land. Instead, CPSA members were encouraged to join the ANC and pursue land questions through it, thus involving themselves in rural struggles between the 1940s and 1960s.166 This argument is not persuasive. While the literature on Witzieshoek does not focus at all on banishment, that on GaMatlala is revealing. First, contact was maintained with banished people and the local ANC raised funds for them and their families: ‘a contribution of twenty cents from each Congress member was collected and sent by post to the deportees. Contributions of food and clothing were also welcome.’167 Second, the return of the banished was continuously demanded. In 1963 some 3,000 people from the GaMatlala community signed a petition addressed to the minister of Bantu administration and development, demanding ‘that their exiled Chieftainess be brought back to head the tribe’. The petition submitted ‘that the deposition and deportation of Makwena Matlala and the others was unjust’ and demanded ‘unconditional release and the re-instatement of Makwena Matlala’.168 It is also noted that as part of a campaign to secure the release of the banished, attorney Douglas Lukele wrote to native commissioners in areas to which GaMatlala people were

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banished to indicate that Ma-Congress would only pay taxes when the banished returned home.169 Third, on the basis of interviews conducted in GaMatlala it is stated that ‘in the 1950s Helen Joseph frequently visited the area and helped in informing the community about developments with regard to the lives of the deportees’ and that she also ‘had a close link with Ma-Congress at GaMatlala, especially through frequent visits on the question of deportees’.170 This is a most interesting claim and while, given her intrepid character, it is not impossible, there are some doubts about its plausibility. Joseph was occupied with the Treason Trial; she was also banned; and there is no evidence in her book or in any records that she had personal and direct contact with GaMatlala prior to her 1962 journey. It may be that in her mid-1960s book, which she wrote under house arrest, she did not wish to reveal such contact. This, however, need not have been a concern when she wrote her mid-1980s autobiography. Finally, GaMatlala provides insights into the conduct of some of those returning from banishment. Makwena Matlala, solid in her opposition to betterment prior to her banishment, was non-committal after her return, perhaps as a consequence of her release conditions. She made it known that she was not permitted to speak at the kgoro for six months.171 The harsh experience of banishment and the constraints of release under strict and extensive conditions could have handicapped significant involvement in ongoing protests and resistance. Moreover, on release a banishment order was not necessarily revoked; only suspended. People were usually permitted to return for a year, with renewals to allow them to continue to remain at home. The banishment order was usually only withdrawn later. Johannes Matlala on his return is reported to have continued his involvement in the ANC, while another person is said to have defected by becoming a ranger.172 Some of the banished on their return entered into alliances with reactionary elements that embraced the bantustan programme and turned violently on their erstwhile Ma-Congress comrades of the 1950s. It may be that among some of those banished the struggle to preserve the institution of chieftainship overrode the wider concerns of other banished people to thwart the apartheid state and its betterment and other interventions.

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3 Banishment and rural resistance in the late 1950s: Bahurutshe and Sekhukhuneland

BY THE LATE 1950s the rebellion in Witzieshoek was largely over, although GaMatlala continued to seethe. Bahurutshe and Sekukhuneland now became the new rural flashpoints. Here, too, there was to be a familiar pattern of conflict between communities, internally differentiated by groups with differing political positions, and the state around the introduction of betterment schemes, Bantu Authorities, Bantu education and the introduction of passes for African women.1 Opposition to the state’s attempt to consolidate its rule and recast social relations in the countryside was to result in popular mobilisation and state reaction, popular and state violence, deaths and arrests, as well as banishment. In 1957−8 the people of Bahurutshe, ‘both men and women, mounted one of the most sustained acts of defiance among rural people to the South African government’s apartheid policy’.2 Sekhukhuneland too, during the late 1950s, became ‘the site of bitter and protracted struggles’ in the context of state efforts to reshape social relations.3

Bahurutshe The north-west part of South Africa, bordering on Botswana, was inhabited by the Hurutshe since at least the end of the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, they were forced to submit to Boer trekkers and pay taxes, provide labour and assist commandos against independent Tswana to the west.4 In 1848 the followers of Chief Moiloa were given 125,587 morgen of land by the trekker leader Andries Potgieter, provided they remained ‘loyal and obedient’.5 In the 1950s, the Hurutshe community lived largely in the Marico district, most members residing in Moiloa Location, though the people themselves called their area Bahurutshe (the place of the Hurutshe). They

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Map 3: Key areas of rural rebellion, 1949-1961

lived in large settlements, with leadership vested in the chief guided by councillors, who came together in a pitso (public meeting). Bahurutshe had a low population density because of a high level of labour migrancy. Men and women migrated to the mines and factories of the Witwatersrand, while women and others who had access to land engaged in subsistence agriculture. Other members of the Hurutshe community lived in the township serving Zeerust (4,000 people) and on two communal farms: Leeuwfontein and Braklaagte, which were labelled by the state ‘black spots’, being situated in areas regarded as the preserve of whites. Others were employed as labourers on white farms in the Marico district. In contrast to other reserves, the economy of Bahurutshe was still relatively healthy in the 1950s. The southern areas were well watered and fertile, although in the north productivity was low because of the poor soil. An average of about 20 acres was possessed by each householder and the cattle count averaged 1.8 units per person. However, the area’s ‘apparent lack of socio-economic distress was attributable more to its relatively easy

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access to the labour market of the Witwatersrand rather than any abundance in natural resources’.6 The Hurutshe were not homogeneous. There was a degree of social stratification, the determinant factors being access to resources, the ability to produce cash crops for the market, education, the nature of employment, and status within the traditional authority structure. This stratification took on additional importance in the context of state intervention in the early and mid-1950s. Kgosi Abram Ramotshere Pogiso Moiloa, a key figure in the Bahurutshe resistance of the 1950s, took office in 1932 at the age of 22. Those of the view that chiefly authority had been eroded under Kgosi Moiloa’s predecessor looked to him ‘to restore the traditional order’. He did so by bringing the Hurutshe community at Braklaagte under his jurisdiction, consolidating the Khuduthamaga (advisory council) by reducing the number of its members and ensuring more rigorous collection of levies from migrants and marriage fees: ‘not all the measures he adopted could have met with general approval’.7 The local native commissioner was not enamoured, and in 1939 asked for him to be disciplined and dismissed, as Dinokana ‘is an important centre and as the chief’s attitude makes proper administrative control impossible’. The chief native commissioner was of the view that dismissal would be ‘both impolitic and unwarranted’ and so displeasure was recorded by ending Kgosi Moiloa’s ‘jurisdiction over the Hurutshe at Braklaagte’, a move that diminished his stature.8 Conflict between the Hurutshe and the apartheid state came into the open in the early 1950s when the minister of Bantu administration, Hendrik Verwoerd, summoned chiefs, including Kgosi Moiloa, to Rustenburg to secure their agreement to the implementation of Bantu Authorities. Moiloa asked about the purpose of the meeting since the Act had already been passed by parliament. His attitude was: ‘Let them destroy us without our signatures.’ The idea of the state exercising control through pliant chiefs was anathema: ‘Here in Lefurutse we do not want a chief who is a sapling … Ja-baas chiefs, who are merely the Native Commissioner’s voice.’9 In 1954, a new native commissioner, Carl Richter, assumed duty in Zeerust, strongly determined to implement Bantu Authorities. Finding that the villages of Leeuwfontein and Braklaagte were black spots, he announced that they ‘would have to be removed’.10 The chief adopted various delaying tactics and put no effort into this distasteful assignment.11 There were conflicts between the chief and certain members of the Moiloa Reserve Board Council, who felt constrained by land tenure arrange-

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ments and sought greater opportunities for capital accumulation, and with the Lutheran Hermannsburg Mission.12 In 1952, some members of the chief’s kgotla had also complained about the Kgosi’s neglect of community affairs. Richter seized on these old complaints and new charges were added, one of which alleged that the chief had said, ‘Who the hell is Verwoerd? He is just a Minister and there will be other Ministers after him. I am not afraid of him and Dinokana will stand forever.’13 But it is also argued that Kgosi Moiloa ‘was exploiting these issues to revive support for the chieftainship, and for his own position which was being threatened’.14 During late 1955, the chief ‘spent several weeks away from the reserve consulting with Hurutshe migrants in Johannesburg [and his] subsequent attitude and actions suggest he liaised closely with several prominent Hurutshe ANC individuals’. This ‘was probably more than just a relationship of convenience’, as Moiloa ‘undoubtedly perceived both the ideological message and an organizational structure which could be harnessed for his struggle to maintain the traditional rural order in Moiloa’s reserve’.15 One of the contacts was Nimrod Nathale Sejake, ‘one of SACTU’s most militant organizers’.16 Another was Kenneth Mosenyi, secretary of the African Furniture, Mattress and Bedding Workers Union and later secretary of the Orlando branch of the African National Congress (ANC).17 He was reported by the authorities as attending meetings in Johannesburg with the chief and of playing a key role in the refusal of residents to relocate from black spots.18 Considered a ‘thorn in the flesh’ of the Department of Native Affairs, Moiloa ‘was placed under investigation, with a view to requesting the department to remove him from the chieftainship and banish him from Zeerust’. A subsequent inquiry conducted by the native commissioner for Pilanesberg found him guilty of 18 charges of misconduct. Subsequently, ‘Richter … accused Abraham of “interfering with the Police, the messenger of the Court, the Postal Officials, the Churches and local farmers.”’ It was also clear that the chief native commissioner and Richter wished to remove the chief and declare Moiloa’s reserve a betterment area.19 Early in 1957, the state’s Reference Book Unit (RBU) began issuing passes to women in the districts surrounding Bahurutshe: ‘implementation started in the Western Transvaal on the advice of ethnologists and commissioners that Setswana-speaking women were the most docile in the land. It was a serious miscalculation.’ In January 1956 in Lichtenburg, African women marching towards town to obtain an explanation for the passes

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were baton-charged by police. The police also fired on anti-pass protesters, killing four men and injuring numerous people. Ruth First, who ‘had been to Lichtenburg to investigate the incident and was convinced that the police action was cold-blooded murder’, involved George Bizos in the case. Bizos, briefed by Shulamith Muller, an attorney whose name appears in connection with the defence of many rural resisters and banished people, got all those arrested for public violence acquitted, the magistrate ruling that ‘the evidence of the police had been contradictory, improbable and unreliable’.20 Already the direct cause of bloodshed, the RBU made its way to the Marico district. On 22 March 1957, the government proclaimed that passes were to be issued to Hurutshe women. A week later, Kgosi Moiloa was summoned by the native commissioner to his office in Zeerust and ‘instructed to command his women to present themselves at the Dinokana kgotla on 1 April to receive their Reference Books’.21 There are various views on the role played by Kgosi Moiloa with respect to the issue of passes. One is that he ‘informed the villagers of the impending arrival of the unit but dissociated himself from the issue of passes’.22 Another is that his response was first to discuss the issue with his councillors and then summon a woman from each ward of the village for further discussion. Thereafter the women ‘in an extraordinary meeting in the kgotla with Chief Abram, took the decision to reject the Reference Books’.23 A third version is that ‘in the course of this meeting [Kgosi Moiloa] decided to reject the reference books and simply ignored the order from Richter’.24 A final rendition is that the Kgosi ‘duly announced that a government unit would arrive and issue pass books to all the women. This was the white man’s law which he as a chief had to obey … “The matter rests between you and the white authorities. Consider well how you intend to act.”’25 On April Fool’s Day 1957, the RBU arrived in Dinokana. Charles Hooper, an Anglican priest in the area, vividly describes the scene: ‘It waited. So did the 4,000 women of the Village. Before long a handful of women came and took their Reference Books … A dozen took books, two-dozen, forty, sixtyfive, seventy-six. Seventy-six: the flow had ceased. That was the end.’ As Dinokana was the royal village, this was a major setback to the native commissioner’s plans. Kgosi Moiloa was ordered to a meeting on 4 April 1957 to be addressed by the chief native commissioner. The kgotla was full, the crowd awaiting the speaker’s arrival. What followed next was extraordinary: Moiloa was deposed and given 14 days to leave the village.26 The Department of Native Affairs claimed that the chief’s deposition and banish-

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ment to Ventersdorp was a consequence of the inquiry that had been conducted the previous year. The conclusion of the Hurutshe community was that the Kgosi was being deposed and banished because of his opposition to Bantu Authorities and the forced relocation of the inhabitants of Leeuwfontein and Braklaagte; and for not compelling women to accept passes. The women of Supingstad, a village in the north of Bahurutshe, described the passes as shackles and stated that ‘We do not want these things. We want no part of them. Not the covers or the pictures or the pages.’ Painfully aware of the thousands of arrests and convictions under influx control offences, the women asserted: ‘Our men, what happens to our men who carry these things. They are fugitives, they go to gaol!’ The acceptance of passes was also seen as an economic threat: ‘You will see they will tax us too. In the men’s book they stick the tax receipt. Without it a man is a criminal. They will stick these things in our books; and then we shall be criminals. We are criminals already.’ Rejection of passes was logical, given day-to-day experiences of the pass laws and the police. In their resistance the women were supported by the men, who pointed out that ‘We know these things: they invite abuse. For us that is one thing; but when our women become targets of the police, the matter is different.’27 The initial stunned disbelief of Dinokana at the banishment of the Kgosi and the manner of his deposition soon gave way to anger. That weekend a group of about 20 women arrived from the Witwatersrand. With them they brought news of the bus boycott in Johannesburg and their experience of boycott as a weapon of resistance. The tactic was adopted and first applied to the white trader who had allowed the RBU to use his shop as a base. The strategy was tremendously successful.28 Then, the local school was boycotted because of the principal’s support for Bantu Authorities and because schoolteachers and teachers’ spouses were prominent among the 76 women who had obtained passes. Only 150 students of a total enrolment of 1,200 attended school. Those boycotting the school were expelled and later the school itself was shut down. On 13 April 1957, the following weekend, two busloads of migrant workers employed on the Witwatersrand, having established a ‘support group known as the baHurutshe Association’, arrived in Dinokana.29 A mass meeting condemned those who had accepted passes and members of the kgotla who had lodged complaints with the native commissioner about the Kgosi’s lack of diligence in undertaking certain duties. The latter were also sentenced to death amid shouts of ‘let the traitors die’.30 However, the

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police intervened and dispersed the meeting. Afterwards, militants in the community began collecting passes and burned them publicly. They also ‘burnt the houses of known or suspected collaborators … In nearby Gopane, kgosi Albert Gopane was forced to flee to Botswana after townsfolk condemned him for his refusal to oppose the taking of passes.’31 Reprisals were soon to follow. A police cordon prevented migrant workers from returning to the Witwatersrand, while police detained 100 workers and brought charges against 25 of them. Five people were eventually sentenced at the end of August 1957 to prison terms of between three and five years for alleged incitement to murder. Anti-state forces burned the homes of government collaborators and those who had accepted passes, including the home of the school principal and the church minister who had recommended that women accept them. This pattern of intense resistance and state reprisal was to continue for some time. The state instituted a series of administrative measures to defeat popular resistance. Besides the closure of the school, the post office was also shut down, disrupting communications between Bahurutshe and the Witwatersrand. Medical services were cut back and Department of Native Affairs officials refused to register marriages. Then the railway bus service between Bahurutshe and Zeerust, 48 kilometres away, was discontinued, and villagers refusing to accept passes began to be excluded from the pension lists, causing great hardship to the old. Further pressure was exerted on those opposed to the state’s measures when the local Department of Native Affairs office refused to accept taxes and issue tax receipts to male workers unless they produced the passes of spouses, daughters or siblings. This meant that these workers were liable for arrest at any moment for failing to possess a tax receipt. In June 1957, a special mobile column based in Pretoria under the command of Sergeant Van Rooyen, and said to have been created to deal specifically with rural resistance, was brought in to exercise its talents in the area. A contemporary account notes that ‘van Rooyen instituted a reign of terror … Striking only in the small hours of the night, he smashed down doors, dragged sleep-dazed African women from their beds to demand their passes … assaulted them, smashed their furniture and belongings, threw them into police vehicles, took them to jail − and failed in the vast majority of cases to obtain any sort of conviction against them.’32 Hooper confirmed this account, saying that men and women came to him constantly ‘with terror or despair in their eyes, fear in their hearts,

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injuries upon their bodies, blood on their clothes and accounts of misfortune on their lips’.33 By October 1957, 474 people had been arrested, although only 37 were actually convicted. Popular resistance was not broken: ‘Let them keep their buses, their marriages and their pensions. We shall see the issue of this matter. We do not want these books.’ Women continued to resist, openly burned passes and loudly sang defiant and aggressive songs; inviting arrest, deriding passes and demanding the return of the Kgosi. Others went to jail singing: ‘Open wide the doors of the prison, Commissioner. The women of Lefurutse are ready to come in.’34 On 11 October 1957, the government suddenly announced the establishment of a one-person commission of inquiry headed by Harry Balk, a judge of the Native Appeal Court. The commission was to investigate the ‘causes of unrest and disturbances in Dinokana and adjoining areas’ and also ‘consider measures to be taken to restore peace, order and good government’.35 The inquiry was a farce: ‘Apart from the extraordinary brevity between the gazetting of the Commission and its sitting, it was unusual in other ways. There was no agenda, there was nobody to lead evidence, and Advocate Bizos was not allowed to cross-examine witnesses.’36 Row after row of officials, police and pro-government chiefs and collaborators testified, blaming the ANC for the disturbances. Community members were prevented from attending the investigation and obstacles were placed in the path of those seeking to present a different picture of events in Bahurutshe. On 4 November, gatherings of more than ten Africans in the Marico district were prohibited. The following day about 2,000 people, either unaware of the proclamation of the previous day or refusing to be deterred by it, began making their way to the commission of inquiry. The procession was stopped at a police roadblock and, without warning, baton-charged by the police. Eight Harvard aircraft flew at tree-top height over groups of other people. Elsewhere, the women of Witkleigat and Motswedi openly burned their passes, resulting in 44 arrests. The inquiry was postponed until 13 November and, when it reconvened, a petition signed by several thousand people was put forward, placing responsibility for the disturbances squarely on the shoulders of the apartheid government. It was stated that normality would only return if an assurance was given that the inhabitants of Leeuwfontein and Braklaagte would not be relocated; there was a halt to the issuing of passes to women; and Kgosi Moiloa was reinstated and the native commissioner replaced. While the

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petition was being presented, people travelling from Gopane, Dinokana and other villages to Zeerust were baton-charged and assaulted by the police. Twenty-four people were injured. Some among the Hurutshe regarded this as a declaration of war.37 The mood was one of open defiance: 233 women from Gopane who volunteered themselves for arrest were told by the police in Zeerust that they should ‘not listen to the talk of the African National Congress men from Johannesburg’, but learn to ‘eat at the same table as your Chief’. The women replied that ‘they themselves were now in fact a congress village … did not even wish to eat in the same village as a chief who wished them to be saddled with passes’.38 The women sang: Behold us joyful The women of Africa In the presence of our baas The great one Who conquers Lefurutse With his knobkerrie And his assegai and his gun.39 Resistance was largely concentrated in Dinokana, but ‘after November it spread to the villages of Braklaagte, Witkleigat, Motswedi and Leeuwfontein, virtually encompassing the entire reserve. Resistance was strongest where the local dikgosi had supported the state, such as Lucas Mangope in Motswedi and Edward Lencoe in Witkleigat’ as well as Mathews Mangope Suping.40 Alfred Gopane, chief of Gopane, had already had to flee to Bechuanaland after incurring the wrath of migrants for his refusal to resist passes. There were numerous clashes between supporters of pro-apartheid chiefs and political opponents.41 Police deployed to the area under Van Rooyen ‘lost patience as one after another of the prosecutions failed and stories of torture during police interrogation made newspaper headlines, and bodyguards were unleashed to terrorise those opposed to Mangope and Suping’.42 They went on the rampage, beating up people and destroying property. Tribal fines provided for by the Natal Code of Native Law, extended to the rest of South Africa, were levied on villagers deemed ‘ANC types’ and tribal punishments were dispensed. In late January 1958, ‘matters reached a bloody climax … when four people were shot dead in Gopane. It seems that investigating policemen were mobbed and during the panic shots were exchanged. Those killed may have been innocent bystanders.’43

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Refugees began to make their way to other parts of South Africa and Bechuanaland, the Rand Daily Mail putting the figure at 4,000. It was reported that ‘as though from a battlefield, women and children are fleeing as refugees from Zeerust. After the last shooting at Gopane, villages emptied and people fled into the bushes. Some found their way to Johannesburg … others made their way to Bechuanaland; still others sleep in the hills.’44 On 28 February 1958, the minister of native affairs acquired the power to prohibit Africans from entering ‘African’ areas, debar formerly exempted persons from entry into the reserves, and prohibit membership, slogans and salutes of the ANC.45 These provisions were subsequently applied to Bahurutshe and in March 1958 the ANC was declared an unlawful organisation in the African-occupied areas of the Marico district. The native commissioner’s recommendation to the commission of inquiry that alleged agitators should be banished was now put into effect. Shulamith Muller briefed Bizos to act in Zeerust and, together with Ismail Mohamed,46 he represented women charged with burning passes and 25 people charged with incitement to murder in connection with the death sentence passed against four collaborators declared traitors. He also defended 233 women from Gopane who were arrested for pass burning, a matter that was eventually dropped. Of the 25, some were discharged, others fined and five given ‘light prison sentences’ after Hooper had ‘tak[en] the stand in mitigation’. Most women charged with burning their passes ‘escaped conviction because the prosecutor was unqualified and inexperienced [and] the police work was sloppy’.47 The documentation relating to Kgosi Moiloa’s banishment set out the view of the state: he had encouraged women to refuse pass books; and created conditions that forced officials to flee and circumstances in which arson and assault took place. In addition, although he left Dinokana ‘to stay with a family member in Ventersdorp … he kept interfering in tribal matters through the use of messengers’. Finally, recourse was made to the view of the commission of inquiry ‘that Moiloa needed to be moved further away … solely as a matter of policy dictated by the Native view that “Once a Chief, always a Chief.”’48 Kgosi Moiloa had returned to Dinokana following the death of his wife in November 1957. To prevent him influencing ‘administrative or other affairs there’, he was banished on 27 February 1958 to Binfield Native Reserve (Victoria East, Cape). However, ‘he crossed into Botswana in late January 1958 and … sought protection for himself and a number of his

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followers from the bamaNgwato paramount Tshekedi Khama at Pilikwe’. He was connected to the ANC in exile and also to a ‘number of recruits from Dinokana who served in the celebrated Luthuli Brigade. These men recall encountering him both in Botswana and in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, in the late 1960s.’49 His banishment order was revoked in 1971.50 On 27 February 1958, banishment orders were also made out for three other key Bahurutshe figures: David Moiloa, Abraham Mogale and Kenneth Mosenyi. David Moiloa, a flamboyant, amusing orator, had been imprisoned in Johannesburg during the 1952 Defiance Campaign. He was the brother of Chief Israel Moiloa, with whom he was strongly at odds. According to his banishment order, he and Kenneth Mosenyi were the chief instigators of the disruptions in Bahurutshe. Israel Moiloa alleged that David Moiloa, a leader and long-standing member of the ANC, incited villagers not to accept reference books and had threatened him with death if he did not join the ANC. Indeed, if it were not for David Moiloa ‘they would all still be living in peace’. David Moiloa admitted to ANC membership, but said he had resigned two years earlier. State officials were, however, adamant that he was still an active member. It was also pointed out that he was a listed communist (communism being defined so widely as to include anyone who opposed apartheid).51 The order banishing him to Eshowe (Natal) was served in Johannesburg. Employed at rare intervals, he received no allowance while in banishment. After receiving a letter from Helen Joseph in 1960, he wrote to her: ‘The government took me away from the Transvaal; since then till now I have never received a letter of this kind. After reading this letter I feel that I am spiritually free. I could see that you remembered us.’ Yet the truth, in Joseph’s view, was that ‘we had not remembered them; we had allowed them to be forgotten for too long already’.52 He was summoned to see a magistrate and told that his wife was critically ill with a stroke at Coronation Hospital. He was given a special seven-day pass to visit her, but got there two hours too late and ‘broke down and wept’.53 On her 1962 journey to seek out and visit the banished, Joseph did not get to see David Moiloa because she was arrested in Nongoma for being illegally in a reserve. His banishment order was only withdrawn in 1971.54 Abraham Mogale had been a clerk in the Moiloa Reserve Local Council until November 1957, when he was dismissed for misconduct involving the copying of confidential documents from the files of the native commissioner of Zeerust. He allegedly sent the documents to a lawyer in Johannesburg

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who represented David Moiloa and Kenneth Mosenyi. He was accused of having a bitter attitude towards the native commissioner because he had been reprimanded for a poor work ethic. Called to give evidence at the 1957 commission of inquiry, he was described as being ‘venomous to a degree I have seldom observed in my many years’ experience as a judicial officer’.55 Bizos’s autobiography refers to a clerk in the native commissioner’s office suspected of passing information to Shulamith Muller that provided evidence of the native commissioner’s lack of ‘respect for legality’ and vindictiveness. This has to be Mogale.56 He was banished to Golela (Ingwavuma, Natal). His wife, who was a teacher in Zeerust, remained there and took care of and educated the children. In response to a letter from Joseph he wrote: After reading it I felt relieved somewhat … Before departing from Zeerust, I was given an allowance of two pounds. I have up to the time of writing, received no assistance whatsoever. I am not in any employment; I am living with friends I made after my arrival here; these friends have allowed me to use their small hut for accommodation; the rest I see to myself … There is no transport facility in this place. Transport is only available as far as Ingwavuma. To Emanyiseni, where I live, is thirty-nine miles. The nearest hospital and doctor is thirty-nine miles from where I am. I do my shopping in Swaziland as there is none here. I have to hire someone to go and do the shopping for me, going over the Umbombo mountains … Life is not worth living.57 His banishment order was withdrawn on 8 December 1964.58 Kenneth Mosenyi was jailed for a month during the uprising in Bahurutshe. He was involved in the ANC prior to his return from Johannesburg in 1953 and connected Kgosi Moiloa to the ANC. Documentation related to his banishment claimed he used this relationship to turn people against the government, persuaded women not to apply for pass books and mobilised residents of the black spots to refuse to move to the reserve. He was banished to Msinga (Natal). When Helen Joseph visited him, he informed her that while in jail he had told himself that ‘Now that I am arrested for doing nothing, I must do something so as not to be arrested for doing nothing again.’ On his release after no charges were laid, he actively participated in the struggle against apartheid policies. Arrested for a second time, he was assaulted by police and then offered money to become an

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informer. He refused. While in banishment, Mosenyi taught himself building and helped people to construct homes. He refused to become bitter or demoralised, saying that he looked upon his banishment ‘as an honour in the struggle of our people’. He rejected the advice of officials to request the minister to release him from banishment: ‘I did not bring myself here. If he feels like it, let the Native Commissioner send me home. It is not for me to go on my knees to ask for a favour.’59 Mosenyi was released from banishment in 1964, though his order was only withdrawn in July 1969.60 In 1969, he returned to Dinokana, where he found that those who were pro-state during the 1957−8 revolt ‘were in the ascendancy’ and that ‘everything [had] just subsided. No one would like to say a word.’61 Interviewed in 1983, he recalled that it was said that listening to the activists would result in hardship: ‘Here is Kenneth. He has lost everything. Trying to follow him, to listen to Congress, we’ll be exactly like him. We’re going to lose everything.’62 Voice of Mosenyi

This is what matters, bravery. This is what counts, courage. Mosenyi has both. Enough and to spare. A Government official says I should write to the Minister in Parliament Asking to be sent home. Me, Mosenyi the militant! Ask? Plead? And lose honour? The Minister put me here. It is not for me To go on my knees and ask For freedom as a favour. No I shall not heed the voice of the tempter Though I be promised a kingdom. Here is my kingdom, here In the heart of Mosenyi.63

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Boas Moiloa is described by Bizos as ‘a dignified, elderly man who, during the troubles after Abram’s expulsion, had come through necessity to be seen as the head of the tribe’.64 His banishment order noted that he was arrested during the events of April 1957 for arson, but had to be released in order to defuse tension. He was accused of membership of the ANC and mobilising funds to defend people arrested during the conflict. It was stated that, when the ANC was declared illegal in the Marico district and Boas Moiloa left the area, there was peace and good co-operation with the state. His return led to renewed dissent.65 In May 1958, he was banished to the King William’s Town district, ‘a place where … his language was not spoken and where he lived alone in a corrugated iron shack. He had no neighbours, no shop nearby … and he had to walk miles to fill his can with water.’66 In April 1961, he was hospitalised and sent to live with his daughter in Randfontein, but still not allowed to move about freely. He was released from banishment on 19 November 1963.67 Those banished for their involvement in the Bahurutshe revolt were not the first banished from this area. In 1956, Paul Ramadiba Mokgatlhe, a senior headman, came into conflict with Chief Lencoe around his accession to the chieftainship, which was rejected by Mokgatlhe and his followers. Mokgatlhe was fined a number of cattle and apparently used force to recover them. He was accused of undertaking rebellious activities and hindering the work of Department of Native Affairs officials to the point where the collection of taxes was compromised. He was banished to Glen Red (112 kilometres from Vryburg) on 8 September 1956.68 Here, he was found by a reporter in 1961, living in a tin shed, with one visitor (his wife) in seven years. He received no funds from the state and lived by mending shoes and other jobs. Illiterate, but ‘astonishingly eloquent’ and ‘even in poor clothes’ bearing the ‘dignity of a Black nobleman’, ‘he resisted what he believed to be grave mistakes made by the new Chief Edward [Lencoe]’. Mokgatlhe indicated that ‘at intervals of years Government officials visit him and say: “When are you going to make your peace with the Government?”’ The last time had been two years previously. His constant response was: ‘I cannot make my peace because I have done no wrong. If the Government admits it is wrong it must take me back to my home, even as it brought me here. If the Government will not do this, I will sit here until I die. The Government can do as it wishes … The Government is not God. I fear only God.’69 He was permitted to return to Marico on a temporary permit in 1961 and, as no disturbance was recorded, his order was withdrawn on 21 September 1963.70

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Opposition to state intervention in Bahurutshe took various forms: boycotts of passes and state facilities, marches and demonstrations, and violence against the persons and property of collaborators. An ANC branch existed in Dinokana in 1953, with a smaller branch at Gopane. ANC stalwart Ruth Mompati mobilised here in support of the August 1956 women’s march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Lilian Ngoyi visited some of the villages and Nelson Mandela and other attorneys connected to the liberation movement had contact with awaiting-trial prisoners. But despite an active role played in the resistance by ANC members or ANClinked people, overall the ANC’s organisational presence in Bahurutshe was weak and, perhaps preoccupied with the Treason Trial, it was unable to harness popular discontent. Mass arrests, reprisals through confiscation of cattle and land, fines, jailings and violence on the part of the police and collaborators took their toll. By February 1958 resistance in Bahurutshe began to ebb, helped by banishment. Pressure on land and economic and social cleavages also played a role in giving rise to and shaping the outcome of the Bahurutshe revolt. There were differences between those seeking to overcome the constraints of land tenure and its hindering of capital accumulation; and those, including many women, experiencing greater hardship as a result of declining productive capacity. The former looked to Bantu Authorities; the latter cleaved to traditional authority, which looked to the ANC. Chieftaincy was a powerful force when rural resources or structures were threatened. Economically better-off people, such as state employees, were the first to accept passes; religious ministers collaborated with the state around Bantu Authorities; and most local chiefs worked hand in glove with state officials. The vacuum created by banishment was seized upon by Lucas Mangope. He accepted the Bantu Authorities system and used them to create a power base to assert control over the whole of Bahurutshe. The chiefs and traditional leaders allied with Kgosi Moiloa were suppressed and marginalised. Mangope presided at a ceremony for the establishment of the Bahurutshe Regional Authority in August 1959 and ‘delighted his critics by imploring the Minister of Bantu Administration to “lead us and we shall crawl.”’71 The role played by social groups who collaborated with state policies in Bahurutshe and elsewhere drew comment from Joe Matthews: they were ‘interested in nothing but business … this growing class is the social basis for many of the reactionary ideas we are beginning to hear … essentially a stooge class very receptive to reactionary propaganda’.72

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Sekhukhuneland Following the conquest of the Pedi kingdom by the British army in 1879, ‘fragments of its former domain were set aside for African occupation’. Despite some addition of land through the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936, ‘the area remained puny in comparison to the land ruled at the height of the kingdom’s power’. Sekhukhuneland ‘became part of the patchwork of reserve areas etched into South African geography through a history of resistance, defeat and the elaboration of a segregationist social order’.73 Located in the eastern side of northern Transvaal, the two magisterial districts of Praktiseer and Sekhukhune constituted Sekhukhuneland as a whole. Mohlaletse, in its heartland, served as the royal village of the Bapedi community. Delius writes that ‘by the 1930s, far-reaching changes had recast the lives of the people of Sekhukhuneland. They were subject to new political hierarchies and were deeply enmeshed in an industrialising economy. The society’s lifeblood was the − sometimes irregular − remittances of migrant workers.’ But the Pedi ‘struggled to limit the intrusion of colonial power and the reach of the market, and crafted continuities between the past and the present and between the countryside and the city’. New challenges were to arise in the late 1930s and ‘the residual autonomy cherished by these societies was menaced once more. The threat came from intensified state intervention fuelled by fear of the imminent “collapse of the reserves” and shaped by both segregationist and conservationist discourses.’ While ‘this evolution in policy and practice (dubbed “the Trust” in popular parlance) was dressed in the finery of the language of “development” by officials [it] was regarded by most people in the Northern Transvaal as a poorly disguised attempt to force them into abject political and economic subordination’.74 During the 1940s and 1950s Sekhukhuneland was a theatre of ‘bitter and protracted’ community struggles against state efforts to reshape social relations. As elsewhere in Northern Transvaal, conflict arose in the early 1940s between residents and the Department of Native Affairs around the issues of cattle-culling, felling of trees and the allocation and use of land, arising from betterment and implementation of the 1936 Native Trust and Land Act. This led to open clashes and arrests.75 One means of re-imposing state control was to serve banishment orders on Matthews Mabitsela Kgotsekgolo Molepo of the Pietersburg municipal location and three indunas. Molepo had been a school principal and

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president of the Transvaal African Teachers Association ‘but had resigned after clashing with the inspectorate’.76 He served as a translator for Hyman Basner, a prominent attorney who campaigned for a Native Representative seat in the Senate in the late 1930s, and came into conflict with the state for ‘investigating allotments on Trust farms’.77 Molepo was said to be a ‘professional agitator’ with ‘no direct interest in the lands purchased by the South African Native Trust’. The indunas, Frans Ngoetyane (Ceres Farm), Jeremiah Chokoe (De Beersloop Farm) and John Lamola (Louisiana Farm), all in the Pietersburg district, were accused of instigating disaffection against betterment measures.78 Molepo was ordered by the governor-general to ‘remove himself from the district of Pietersburg to any district of the Province of the Transvaal, outside the magisterial districts of Pietersburg, Zoutpansberg, Letaba, Lydenburg and Potgietersrust’.79 A Molepo Defence Committee challenged his banishment as ultra vires, but in March 1945 the Appellate Division dismissed his appeal.80 His banishment order was withdrawn in October 1950, as he had observed its conditions.81 Chokoe’s order was revoked at the same time on similar grounds. Lamola apparently died in banishment on 1 April 1959.82 Another who was banished was Thomas Maimela, a leader of the Sebataladi Motor Cottage Association (SMCA). It criticised the Department of Native Affairs for lack of infrastructure and services and sought to promote development and business. It also became critical of traditional leaders. Maimela was ‘arrested, charged with 13 counts of holding illegal meetings, held in a cell for nine days, and tried in the Lydenburg magistrate’s court on 29 May 1944’.83 He was discharged, but banished because he had created ‘a feeling of hostility in the Bapedi Tribe’; opposed chiefs and councillors; and held ‘meetings in the Sekukuniland area … in contravention of the law’.84 He was sent, accompanied by his wife and child, to Klipfontein Farm 410 (Rustenburg, Transvaal).85 Banishment caused considerable economic and social hardship and Basner intervened with the minister of native affairs. In 1946 Maimela was permitted to reside in Witbank Location after giving ‘a written undertaking that he would no longer be involved in the SMCA and promised to keep out of Sekhukhuneland’.86 His banishment order was revoked on 7 September 1967.87 As in other rural reserves, ‘after 1945, the “Trust” became an increasingly intrusive presence in Sekhukhuneland’ and with its betterment plans it ‘seemed determined to penetrate and dominate every nook and cranny of the world of Sekhukhuneland residents’. There was an attempt to impose

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Bantu Authorities and it ‘also aimed to lay the foundations of a political and economic arena which would absorb the energies and aspirations of the African middle classes’. State intervention in the early 1950s entailed significant economic, social and political restructuring and ‘the department was determined to achieve rapid and widespread acceptance of Tribal Authorities and rehabilitation’.88 The Department of Native Affairs searched for a prominent supporter for its policies and chose Paramount Chief Morwamotse Sekhukhune, officially installed on 20 August 1953. But while suggesting private support for state intervention, he refrained from providing any public commitment. In November 1954, Chief Sekhukhune attended a meeting in the Northern Transvaal at which the minister of native affairs urged the chiefs present to accept Bantu Authorities and Bantu education. The paramount chief called a meeting to discuss these and other issues at which there was overwhelming rejection of Bantu Authorities. Despite this opposition, Jane Furse mission school was taken over by the Department of Native Affairs and the three high school classes were abolished. The state proceeded to implement the betterment measures rejected by the community, a journalist noting that ‘considerable resentment was aroused, fanned by the dictatorial manner in which the local N.A.D. agricultural officer is said to have imposed stock restriction, new local taxes and even residential bars to the Bapedi’s traditional polygamy’.89 Opposition continued to be voiced to the relocation of the Bakone community, which had lived alongside the Bapedi, as a prelude to the implementation of Bantu Authorities. State strategy revolved around persistent efforts to get the paramount chief to accept state policies and attempts to co-opt local councillors. By May 1956, only four headmen had been won over and a meeting the following month once again resolved to reject Bantu Authorities. By November 1956 all efforts by the local authorities to win the Bapedi over having failed, the chief information officer of the Department of Native Affairs travelled to Sekhukhuneland to ‘promise the Bapedi a railway bus service, a new secondary school, a clinic, a post office and a telephone if they accepted’ Bantu Authorities.90 The offer was rejected. At a meeting convened in February 1957, councillors accused of collaboration with the state were voted out and opposition figures were appointed to a new inner council (Dihlogo tsa Motse) of the paramount chief, including Arthur Phetedi Thulare, ‘a senior royal’. In March 1957, Piet Koornhof was sent by the secretary for native affairs, Werner Eiselen, to investigate the

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Courtesy of Peter Delius

Chief Morwamotse Sekhukhune was banished in May 1958 with his wife Mankopodi to the Xhalanga district of Transkei.

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situation.91 The strategy was to remove close advisers and sideline the paramount chief. On 10 April 1957, Thulare, the new secretary to the paramount chief, and Godfrey Sekhukhune, an outspoken opponent of Bantu Authorities, were banished to Reserve 12 (Hlabisa, Natal) and Reserve 9 (Mtunzini, Natal) respectively.92 They had merely been voicing the sentiments of the majority of their community, but the minister of native affairs claimed that Thulare ‘had usurped the powers of Acting Paramount, had dominated tribal meetings, influenced decisions, and intimidated those who disagreed with his views’. Godfrey Sekhukhune, it was alleged, ‘had been an active supporter of the dissident group’.93 In July 1957, on the understanding that Thulare and Godfrey Sekhukhune would be allowed home from banishment, the Bapedi community accepted Bantu Authorities and a Bapedi Authority was gazetted. The state reneged on the agreement and ‘8 000 members of the tribe donned ceremonial dress and gathered from as far as 20 miles away at Mohlaletse, where they presented a petition bearing 30 000 signatures to N.A.D. officials, demanding the return of their exiled “sons.”’ Another petition signed by 9,000 members of the community working in Johannesburg failed to arrive.94 The petition was ignored. Widespread resistance followed and on 29 November 1957 the Department of Native Affairs was forced to disestablish the Bapedi Tribal Authority. Reprisals were soon to follow. Paramount Chief Sekhukhune was suspended as regent for a month, and Lot Kgagudi Maredi and Kgagudi Marutanyane were banished to Mnxesha Location (King William’s Town) and Gxulu Location (Keiskammahoek, Eastern Cape) respectively.95 At the end of 1957, Sekhukhune was suspended for a further three months and on 7 March 1958 a proclamation was applied to the Bapedi area of Sekhukhuneland. It basically threatened that any form of opposition to ‘the authority of the State … or of any Chief or headman’ would result in ‘a fine of £300 and three years’ imprisonment’.96 Ten days later, the ANC was declared an illegal organisation in Sekhukhuneland. On 21 March 1958, Paramount Chief Sekhukhune and his wife, Mankopodi Sekhukhune, and their children were banished to Delville Trust Farm (Xhalanga, Transkei). The chief was replaced by a retired policeman ‘remote from the main line of succession’.97 The new strategy was to win support among headmen on the promise that they would be made independent chiefs and head their own tribal authorities. The Dihlogo tsa Motse now became the Khuduthamaga (central committee) with the inclusion of younger

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migrants. It ‘was a mainly commoner body which met at Mohlaletse and comprised representatives from all the villages in the area’. It ‘came to command very widespread rural participation and support. And all those who opposed Bantu Authorities became known as Makhuduthamaga while the small minority in favour were known as Marangera.’98 The name Rangers referred to African agricultural officials who served under white Trust officials and symbolised co-option.99 Some years earlier, in 1954, Sebatakgomo had been formed, stimulated by the fear of migrants ‘that chiefs would have little stomach to resist the threats and blandishments of the state’. Indeed, concerns that Paramount Chief Sekhukhune would not hold out against betterment and Bantu Authorities ‘sent regular alarms through the migrant community on the Reef’. The name Sebatakgomo ‘had powerful resonances for men from Sekhukhuneland’ as a call to war.100 Its name was changed to Fetakgomo,101 and it impressed on the paramount chief the need to stand firm in the face of threats from the Department of Native Affairs and co-ordinate resistance to the state. By banishing the paramount chief, ‘officials believed that they had provided a salutary display of their power’. But ‘what they failed to understand at first was that by acting directly against Morwamotse they had delivered the most profound affront imaginable to popular political values. The shock waves of their ham-fisted action reverberated through the villages, compounds and hostels.’ On 13 May 1958, migrant workers and villagers ‘massed at the native commissioner’s office at Schoonoord to demand the return of the paramount’.102 The native commissioner indicated that this would never be permitted. The Bapedi community instituted a school boycott, but as in Bahurutshe, the school in Mohlaletse was closed down and the students debarred from attending any other. Resistance, however, continued to mount and many people refused to pay taxes. As a result ‘heavy police reinforcements took over the Reserve, headed by a special mobile column under Detective Sergeant Jan Hendrik van Rooyen, already notorious for his unbridled terrorism whilst commanding a similar force in Zeerust’.103 So began police raids, assaults, beatings and the flow of blood. On 16 May 1958, three popular leaders, Phaswane Nkadimeng, Stephen Zelwane Nkadimeng and a senior councillor, were arrested. Villagers surrounded the police van in an attempt to prevent it from driving off. Police opened fire, killing two people and injuring others. A wave of retributory violence resulted and for several

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days assaults and arson swept Sekhukhuneland. Collaborators were targeted, and by 18 May, ‘9 men had been killed, many more had been injured and the property of Rangers had been put to the torch’.104 The arrests of ‘tribesmen now facing murder charges began − many of them reportedly “smelt out” by “loyal” headmen’.105 Some 340 people were arrested, 37 being condemned to death, but these sentences were eventually commuted to life. The mobile police column occupied Sekhukhuneland for many months. Fetakgomo, linking urban and rural political opposition, played ‘a pivotal part in the struggles which culminated in the Sekhukhuneland revolt of 1958’. At the heart of its struggle was ‘a determination to hold the market and white state at bay, and a last-ditch defence of land, livestock and chieftainship’. However, while ‘the Sekhukhuneland revolt temporarily halted the advance of “the Trust” … it did not put a stop to fundamental processes of transformation’. The imposition of Bantu Authorities was impeded for a decade, but Fetakgomo was unable to ‘survive the climate of intense political repression in the 1960s’ when the bantustan system set up new dynamics for chiefs and commoners.106 However, until the late 1980s, there were still considerable areas of Sekhukhuneland that did not accept betterment measures.107 The years between 1958 and 1961 represented the peak for Fetakgomo: ‘the state was forced to beat a somewhat undignified retreat in Sekhukhuneland. The Paramount and most of the deportees were returned and attempts to impose both Bantu Authorities and Betterment Schemes were shelved’. The Department of Native Affairs ‘was forced to proceed rather more slowly’. Then ‘the politics of stealth succeeded the politics of confrontation [and] many of those who had joined Fetakgomo at the height of the conflict dropped out and the movement waned’.108 The intensity of resistance in Sekhukhuneland expressed a reaction to ‘the most fundamental threat most migrants felt … to the rural world which played such a central part in their self-definition’. In this context, the Department of Native Affairs and its policies ‘were believed to be leading elements in a pincer movement designed to subvert this world.’109 Cities and towns ‘remained Makgoweng − the place of the whites’ with extensive social controls, a grim life in hostels and threats from tsotsis (criminals). This ‘led many migrants to place still heavier reliance on village and regional networks’ and ‘also ensured that many were doubly determined to defend their remaining rural resources and autonomy’.110

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The Department of Native Affairs ‘realised that they had blundered by deporting Morwamotse and that little progress could be made until he was returned. After officials received private assurances that he would be more co-operative in future, Morwamotse was brought home [on 20] August 1958. His arrival was greeted with great jubilation and seen as a great victory by the majority of his subjects.’111 Then a stalemate developed. Some of the banished were permitted to return home, though the Department of Native Affairs ‘insisted that the banishment of the most intransigent would continue until the paramountcy established a tribal authority’. The paramount chief died in 1965. His wife, Mankopodi Sekhukhune, became regent. In 1968 she agreed to establish a Tribal Authority and was recognised as paramount chief. By 1970 there were 54 chiefs, compared with three in 1955.112 However, the state was unable to enforce its policies fully, for ‘betterment was never accepted in the central Sekhukhune heartland and many of the headmen and indunas who accepted Bantu Authorities and betterment were forced to move away from the area’.113 Between 1957 and 1965, 17 people were banished from Sekhukhuneland. Some of those banished after 1960 included individuals who could not be apprehended earlier. Others had served prison sentences and were banished on their release. As has been seen, Morwamotse and Mankopodi Sekhukhune were both banished on 21 March 1958 to Sifonondile (Xhalanga, Transkei) where the headman was loyal to the collaborating chief K.D. Matanzima.114 Mankopodi Sekhukhune was said to be the ‘real power behind the throne’.115 They were released under permit from banishment on 8 October 1958 until 31 March 1960. The permit was renewed until 31 March 1961 and their banishment orders were eventually withdrawn on 5 July 1961.116 Mogaramedi Godfrey Sekhukhune was one of the most important of the Sekhukhune revolt leaders. He ‘was from the royal family at Mohlaletse and … in the 1940s worked as a male nurse in a mine hospital on the East Rand’. The liberation movement stalwart David Bopape recounts that Godfrey Sekhukhune ‘became a member of the ANC and a very, very, very sensitive student he was’.117 On his return from Johannesburg he served as a link between the Khuduthamaga and Fetakgomo.118 His banishment order, issued on 5 April 1957, noted that his occupation at Jane Furse Hospital brought him into constant contact with the ‘Bantu’ and made him the perfect vehicle for ‘leftist’ movements.119 He was banished on 10 April to Mtunzini (Zululand) and, while there, was employed as an orderly. He was released from banishment on 5 July 1961 and, surprisingly, his order was

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Godfrey Sekhukhune was an outspoken opponent of Bantu Authorities and was banished to Mtunzini, in Natal, in April 1957.

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also withdrawn on this date.120 He was later imprisoned on Robben Island for ANC activities.121 Arthur Phetedi Thulare was banished on the same day as Godfrey Sekhukhune to Reserve 12 (Hlabisa, Natal).122 It was claimed that he was ‘a well-known member of the ANC’ who had moved from Johannesburg to Sekhukhuneland in 1956. He was alleged to have written letters inciting the chief against Bantu Authorities and to have organised a coup among the top advisers of the chief, installing himself as secretary and adviser. Subverting communities through infiltration by ‘leftist’ movements was claimed to be an ANC tactic.123 Like the paramount chief, he was released from banishment on the grounds of good conduct on 8 October 1958 until 31 March 1960, and then until 31 March 1961. His order was also withdrawn on 5 July 1961.124 Another of those banished was Stephen Zelwane Nkadimeng.125 He was one of the founders and key leaders of Fetakgomo. On the last day of a two-and-a-half-year jail sentence for holding an illegal meeting, he was summoned to the office of the prison superintendent and asked to provide the names of those involved in the uprising. He refused, and so, ‘without much further ado, the Assistant Magistrate took out the banishment order and read it to him’.126 He was banished to Gwaluweni in Reserve 16 (Pongola valley area of Ingwavuma, 1,600 kilometres away in northern Zululand). He was not allowed to return home, but was given £2 and a rail warrant and sent on his way. It took three days to travel to Ingwavuma, where he was transported by the native commissioner to a hut in Gwaluweni with blankets, a lamp, pot, mug, knife and fork. He refused a job loading state trucks, taught himself Zulu and established good relations with the local chief. He received rations and 10 shillings in cash and also £1 for his wife and child, who joined him in June 1961. His wife, who had never left Sekhukhuneland before, travelled by train to Golela and then walked for four hours with her luggage and the child on her back, assisted on the way by another woman who knew Nkadimeng’s residence.127 When Helen Joseph and Joe Morolong visited him, a chair was ‘the only piece of furniture in the hut, for there was no table, and not even a bed or mattress’. The question that concerned Nkadimeng most was: ‘Is the government getting stronger, or the people?’ Despite the harsh conditions of banishment, his spirit was still strong and his last words to his visitors were: ‘Nkadimeng is not worried. The struggle of my people goes on and I am satisfied.’128 Nkadimeng’s banishment order was withdrawn only in 1971.

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Voice of Stephen Nkadimeng Except for this! Nkadimeng is not afraid. Nkadimeng is all right. He is beyond hurt but not beyond caring. How are my people? Is the Government weakening, are my people getting stronger? Nkadimeng speaks from afar, from the wilderness, but not from an empty heart. There is much time for thought here, but little does Nkadimeng think about himself. His thoughts are not here, They are with his people. Should you think of me, then think of this: Nkadimeng is not worried. The struggle of my people goes on.129

Lot Kgagudi Maredi was banished on 30 November 1957 to Mnxesha Location (King William’s Town).130 His banishment was justified on the grounds that he continued the activities of Phetedi Thulare and Godfrey Sekhukhune, that he was undermining Department of Native Affairs officials, and ensuring that ‘agitators’ were gaining ground in the location. As the new secretary to the paramount chief, his influence was reported to be widely felt.131 Maredi’s banishment order was served by a police colonel, escorted by several van loads of armed officers. He was released in 1958 on a temporary permit, but re-banished in August 1959 because he was considered dangerous. He was not permitted to go home to see his family or collect his belongings. For resisting his re-banishment he was transported in leg irons from Sekhukhuneland to Pretoria; then, handcuffed, he was driven in a closed police van to King William’s Town. He was given a stable without a bed or blankets on a Trust farm 19 kilometres from town. He had to buy a blanket from the £2 he was given.132 Eventually, he moved to King William’s Town where he worked with carpenters. Even when unemployed, he refused to accept a state allowance. When Helen Joseph visited him in 1962, he lived 1.6 kilometres away from Makwena Matlala from GaMatlala in a ‘round, bare’ hut ‘with a thatched roof’ containing ‘a low wooden bed, a mattress on the floor, and

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Lot Kgagudi Maredi, banished in November 1957 to Mnxesha Location near King William’s Town, was released in 1958 and then re-banished in August 1959 because he was considered dangerous.

one or two upturned boxes’ and ‘two dim wick lights’. Joseph met Maredi’s wife in Sekhukhuneland the same year and described her as being filled with ‘sorrow and loneliness’. She also spoke of two daughters longing for their father.133 Maredi’s banishment order was withdrawn on 20 August 1968.134 The banished ‘who were finally allowed to return home experienced a … sense of betrayal. Many came back heavyhearted, feeling that their struggles and sacrifices had been in vain. Kgagudi Maredi, for example, returned … amidst praises for being a man prepared “to die for the land only to find that they have accepted it, I found that they had accepted it, that is what broke my heart.”’135

Voice of Kgagudi Maredi The men in Pretoria Call me Agitator, Number one Agitator! Yes, I agitate but not for myself. I agitate for freedom, and freedom Is in unity. It is not A thing apart, a selfish whim. Without freedom Most people cannot work for the world − Only for their masters Without freedom Where is tomorrow’s yield, and harvest, Or the thanksgiving? If this is the language of agitation Then Maredi remains What he was in Sekhukhuneland.136

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Another person banished on the same day as Maredi was Kgagudi Marutanyane. He was considered to be a loyal supporter of Maredi’s and likely to succeed him if he was incapacitated. Marutanyane was banished to Gxulu Location (Keiskammahoek, Eastern Cape).137 His banishment order was withdrawn on 28 July 1962.138 Over 70 years old, William Mosehle Sekhukhune’s banishment order described him as a half-brother of Paramount Chief Sekhukhune.139 It was alleged that his status gave him great influence and he used this to undermine the state. He was accused of being a leader of a secret organisation that fomented opposition, and incited murder and arson and violent attacks on the police. When his banishment order was signed, he was in custody awaiting trial for alleged violence. Officials feared that he could be acquitted owing to insufficient evidence. They argued that if he was permitted to remain in Sekhukhuneland more disturbances were sure to follow and that a banishment order should be prepared. William Sekhukhune spent two years in jail and was then immediately banished in 1960 to Hlabisa (Natal). His wife, aged almost 70, found this out only when she enquired why he was not yet home from prison. Because of language difficulties he was able to send just a few letters and informed her that despite his old age he was working in the fields to survive.140 He was told that if he wanted his family to join him, he would have to pay their fare. His banishment order was withdrawn on 25 September 1969.141 In 1962, there were reports on the mysterious disappearance of ‘prominent anti-government men’ after ‘four men were called to the office of the Native Commissioner at Schoonoord’.142 Motodi Ntwampe was allegedly involved in a succession dispute following the death of a sub-chief. His campaign was championed by ‘leftist’ supporters. He was also said to have accused the acting chief of accepting Bantu Authorities without the approval of the community, threatening her with death and causing her flight to the mountains. It was regretted that, although Ntwampe and his supporters had been fined, their ‘covert’ actions meant that there was insufficient evidence against them.143 Such was the context in which banishment was so useful, as the state was freed from the burden of evidence in court. Motodi Ntwampe and three others were banished in late 1961 to various places, Ntwampe to Native Trust Farm East Over (King William’s Town). His view was that, ‘whatever Verwoerd, De Wet Nel and Vorster are doing, they cannot destroy the spirit and bravery of the Bapedi people. They better re-read history and get a clearer picture of what we are. We don’t demand

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our country back; but we want equal rights in the land of our birth.’144 Ntwampe’s senior wife was told that he would only be able to return if she co-operated with the authorities, which she refused. She received support from the Human Rights Welfare Committee for the education of their children.145 Molomo Ntwampe, Ramonkung Mpihleng and Setswiki Matabata were all banished to Native Trust Farm Delville (Xhalanga, Transkei).146 Subsequently, Molomo Ntwampe and Matabata were banished to Pirie Main (King William’s Town) as Delville was to be transferred to the Transkei government.147 Their banishment orders, as well as that of Motodi Ntwampe, were withdrawn in February 1975.148 For similar reasons, Mpihleng was banished to Lenye, Burnshill Location (Keiskammahoek).149 His banishment order was revoked in 1974.150 The brothers Kgwete, Willie and Mack, according to Department of Native Affairs officials, were also embroiled in succession disputes in Sekhukhuneland, with the former claiming the chieftainship when Maukeng Kwete died. There were claims of illegal meetings and threats to kill the chief. Despite fines and imprisonment, it was feared that on their release in late 1962 and 1963 the brothers would harm the chief and so their banishment was requested. Willie Kgwete was banished to F32 (King William’s Town), while Mack Kgwete was banished to Native Trust Farm Hinton Park (Victoria East, Cape).151 The former died in banishment in August 1971.152 The banishment of Mashilo Tseke Nchabeleng, Alfred Mamagale Tebeila, Mamogase Sebei and Kgalabotwane Tseke in 1965 was motivated on the grounds that they were weerbarstiges (rebels) who were opposed to Bantu Authorities and interfering in the ‘smooth running of tribal affairs’.153 Nchabeleng was banished to the Bantu Trust area on Syferkuil Farm (Pietersburg, Transvaal). However, owing to old age he was moved to Goedvertrouwen (Groblersdal) to reside in a home where he could receive medical care. He was apparently too influential among anti-state forces to remain in Sekhukhuneland.154 He died on 28 May 1971.155 Tebeila was banished to Ardath Farm (Kuruman, Northern Cape). Sebei and Tseke were both banished to Bantu Trust Farm Driefontein (Vryburg, Northern Cape). Their banishment orders were withdrawn in 1973.156 In his wonderful account of resistance in Sekhukhuneland, Delius recalls the comment by a teacher that ‘another word that caused fear was St Helena’, with state officials conspiring to have resisters ‘thrown away to St

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Helena’. This could be a fascinating allusion to the fate that befell a number of anti-colonial African leaders from Natal, who were banished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by the British to St Helena. The representation of banishment as being ‘thrown away’, and thus arousing fear, signals that there was proper appreciation of the horror of banishment. The Dihlogo tsa Motse and Sebatakgomo raised funds to mount legal challenges to banishment, with some of the cases being handled by the law firms of Tambo and Mandela and of Shulamith Muller,157 but all legal avenues to challenge banishment were firmly closed in 1956. The fact that people continued to be banished from Sekhukhuneland up to 1965 suggests that skirmishes continued for some years after the peak of resistance in the late 1950s. An interesting feature of later years was the banning and banishment to Sekhukhuneland of political activists released from prison. In 1972, on his release from Robben Island, Peter Nchabeleng was banished to Apel. He had been involved in Sebatakgomo, the ANC and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). A resident of Pretoria, Nchabeleng had not lived in Apel for 25 years. He was banned again in 1978 and, on expiry of his order in 1983, became president of the United Democratic Front in the Northern Transvaal. In April 1986, Nchabeleng was arrested at his home and battered to death by police at Schoonoord police station. Another person released from Robben Island in 1972 was Nelson Diale. He was served a banning/banishment order for four years and sent to Masemola village in Sekhukhuneland. He had been involved in the ANC and Umkhonto weSizwe (MK). Both Diale and Nchabeleng educated and recruited cadres for MK.158 Godfrey Sekhukhune, back from banishment in Natal, ‘became the key contact and recruiter for MK’, using his position as a nurse at Jane Furse Hospital and the hospital’s ambulance to round up recruits.159 During the early 1960s there was also conflict between the state and rural African people elsewhere in the Transvaal. Cosmas Desmond records the removal of people from Maleoskop, between Groblersdal and Middelburg, and their relocation to Tafelkop, 19 kilometres from Groblersdal in 1962. The community had occupied Maleoskop since before 1860, and in 1965, dissatisfied with conditions at Tafelkop, about 100 families attempted to return. Subsequently ‘ten of the leaders and their families were banished from the village. The chief’s son … was banished to a place near Glen Cowie and the others to a place near Nebo.’160 No evidence can be found for this banishment, but Joshua Ramopudu, banished in 1964 from the Groblersdal

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district to Native Trust Farm Driefontein (Vryburg), could be the chief’s son to whom Desmond refers.161 Ramopudu’s banishment was motivated on the grounds that he was the illegitimate son of the previous chief of the Bakopa and thus second in line to the throne. Allegedly he was antagonistic towards the acting chief and aspired to be chief himself. He stopped attending community meetings and assumed leadership of a group that planned to return to Maleoskop. There, they intended to establish themselves as a separate community. It was claimed that moves were afoot to murder the acting chief and those who refused to support the return. Ramopudu’s banishment order was revoked in 1967.162 Another banishment apparently linked to the Tafelkop relocation was that of Jack Monamudi Matsepe. It was noted that Tafelkop had been subject to a considerable amount of unrest, believed to be initiated by ‘leftist elements’. It had already led to the death of Lucas Scott, a ‘Bantu information assistant’ in the Department of Information. Matsepe was suspected of playing a leading role in the unrest and, although he had no traditional position, he was very influential.163 Scott had shot two men and as a consequence a large section of the community had attacked him. Fourteen people, including women, were charged, but were all acquitted.164 Scott apparently ‘played a major part in negotiations with the authorities when it was decided … that the group should be moved’ from Groblersdal to another part of the district. He subsequently failed to allocate land for ploughing, causing many people to miss a harvest, while he allocated land to himself, impounded cattle and ‘assumed the rights of a chief’.165 Matsepe was banished to Qudeni (Nkandhla, Natal). His banishment order was withdrawn in 1967, at the same time as Ramopudu’s.166 In 1956 police killed four people and injured others during a march in Lichtenburg to protest against passes for women. It is clear from the case of Richard Molete that the 1956 police violence did not put an end to resistance. In 1957, Molete came to the notice of the authorities when a pamphlet about ‘burning of pass books, Rooijantjiesfontein, Lichtenburg’ was found on him. He was allegedly distributing them in Johannesburg where he visited Shulamith Muller, a listed communist, and Stephen Segale, an ANC member, and updated them on developments in Lichtenburg. In Rooijantjiesfontein he was accused of holding meetings and advocating pass burning. In August 1957, Molete reportedly gathered passes and burnt them at the chief’s home. Chief Boas Molete was attacked during 1958 and subsequently died. Molete and Darius Segatle were opposed to the appointment

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of Kelly Molete as the new chief and during 1960 he was attacked by Richard Molete.167 Molete was jailed and banished on his release to Mimosa Park, Farm 27 (King William’s Town).168 His banishment order was withdrawn in April 1968.169 Darius Segatle was the principal of a school in Rooijantjiesfontein until the end of 1960, when he was dismissed for purported anti-state activities. He was accused of playing a leading role in meetings agitating for the burning of passes, being a member of the ANC and having said, ‘Being an African, I am a member of all African organisations and I shall always help where I can to let the organisation improve.’ Segatle was banished from the Lichtenburg district to Location 15, Gxulu (Keiskammahoek).170 His banishment order was also revoked in April 1968.171

The case of Matsiketsane Mashile Matsiketsane Mashile’s life story is that of a man who, between the 1950s and 1980s, consistently pressed a claim to Mapulana chieftainship and straddled ethnic, African nationalist, progressive grassroots and Lebowa bantustan politics.172 He hailed from Mapulaneng, an area east of Waterval Boven.173 Soon after his birth in 1927 at Maripeskop in the Eastern Transvaal, Mashile’s family was relocated to the Ludlow area. Growing up in an impoverished family, he had to leave school after Grade 3, at which he cried ‘tears of frustration’.174 He first worked as a domestic in Johannesburg before finding a job in Benoni, joining a trade union linked to SACTU and becoming a shop steward. In 1955, following a strike, he was dismissed. In 1960, he was arrested for ANC activities and jailed for 18 months.175 He returned home to Ludlow in 1957 to find that it had been purchased by the Native Trust.176 Mashile became involved in struggles between rent-paying tenants and Hall and Sons, an agricultural company seeking to ‘increase rent, monopolise the sale of cattle and the use of manure, and force their children to work at the company’s farm in Nelspruit’. In 1957 tenants ‘were given ninety days’ notice to leave the farm or accept labour tenant conditions’. Mashile contacted the ANC, which provided legal assistance in exchange for membership. Holding ANC meetings under the cover of his kgotla, Mashile recalled that ‘when the police came we used to put ANC minutes under the table and take out the books of the tribal court’. However, in 1960 he was arrested and sentenced to two years’ hard labour at Barberton.177

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During his imprisonment, Pulana land, including Mashile’s own, was placed under the jurisdiction of the Mnisi Tribal Authority. On release from prison in October 1961, Mashile agitated for recognition as a chief and voiced opposition to the manner in which tribal authorities had been demarcated. He was supported by a younger brother, Sekgopela Mashile, and allegedly threatened that ‘blood would flow’ if his demands were not accommodated.178 The local native commissioner motivated to banish the brothers and on 27 June 1963 Matsiketsane and Sekgopela Mashile were banished to Native Trust Farm Government Reserve (Glen Grey, Transkei) and Native Trust Farm Binfield Park (Victoria East, Cape) respectively.179 Through bursary assistance provided by Helen Joseph, the brothers passed Grade 10 exams. Matsiketsane Mashile found employment on ‘an experimental farm [but] church, school and work were, however, no substitute for home: the years in exile were extremely painful for both brothers who were chronically homesick’.180 Sekgopela Mashile was allowed to return home in 1974 and his banishment order was withdrawn on 24 February 1975 because he enjoyed ‘the trust of the [chief] and his Cabinet in Lebowa’.181 However, the native commissioner still saw Sekgopela Mashile ‘as a threat to public order [and he] was immediately placed under house arrest. In 1978, while still formally under arrest, he successfully ran for the Lebowa Legislative Assembly.’182 In the late 1960s, an offer was made to Matsiketsane Mashile of a house and a grant of R110 as a ‘goodwill gesture’ if he agreed to relinquish his claim to chieftainship and consented to the relocation of his family from Ludlow to an area in Lebowa. He refused and brought the offer to the notice of his community. They responded that they would help build a home for his family. Though the house was duly built, official consent for its construction was withheld. The magistrate ordered Mashile’s wife to demolish it or face arrest.183 In April 1977 Sekgopela Mashile reported that he found Seneke Mashile and her children under a tree with their goods. The magistrate, with a gang of workers, had personally demolished the house.184 During early 1976, the offer to Mashile was repeated by the Department of Bantu Administration and Development.185 It was made clear that there was no prospect of his family being permitted to remain in Ludlow. This offer was also declined. During 1977, the Transkei minister of justice, George Matanzima, informed Mashile that in exchange for renouncing his chieftainship, he would be freed and provided with Transkei citizenship. Even less attractive than the first overture, this offer was also turned down.

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Repeated attempts to get Mashile’s banishment order lifted proved fruitless. In 1977, the minister stated ‘that the position in regard to Mr Lanios Mashine [sic] has again been investigated, and as the circumstances necessitating the issue of the banning order remain unchanged’ he was ‘not able … to have the order withdrawn’.186 On 10 February 1977, a new order was served on Mashile, banishing him to Luxemburg Farm (Potgietersrus, Northern Transvaal). It was noted that ‘Glen Grey is in the Transkei and the Transkei had just received its independence. It is not desirable that Mashile stays outside of the Republic.’187 However, a dissertation on Mashile contends that in 1978 he illegally ‘returned from the Transkei. After fasting for sixteen days in the mountains (and nearly dying in the process), Mashile went to go and ask the magistrate for permission to stay permanently at Bushbuckridge. He was banished to Bochum, but on appeal was allowed to return to Bushbuckridge and live under house arrest for three months, after which the restrictions were removed.’188 This claim is plausible, as there is nothing in the correspondence with Helen Joseph and Helen Suzman to suggest that he was at Luxemburg Farm. On 24 September 1978, he wrote to Joseph from Acornhoek saying that his brother and ‘a few Mapulana chiefs were trying to press the government to let him stay but one chief and the Minister of the Interior were opposing it’.189 He also said that a petition endorsed by ‘Chief Sehlare, his Council of twelve, and 958 people’ had been presented to the minister of co-operation and development, Piet Koornhof, calling on him to allow him to live at his original home, Ludlow.190 On 26 March 1979, Mashile wrote to Joseph, jubilantly informing her: ‘I am now free!’ He was back in the area from which he had been banished 16 years earlier. He also mentioned that police had disrupted a community meeting of over 450 people which he had organised and which had demanded that he ‘be reinstated in the affairs of the people’.191 On 6 June 1979, he wrote again, saying ‘we are very happy here’. His wife had recently given birth to a baby girl and he intended to travel to Glen Grey and return with his goods. He was, however, ‘anxious for the notice of his release, for which he had been waiting already ten months’.192 This anxiety was well founded. A new banishment order issued on 3 May 1979 and signed by President B.J. Vorster and Koornhof awaited him. On 9 July 1979, the new order (in Afrikaans, a language he could not read or understand) banishing him from Pilgrim’s Rest to ‘plaas Burg 132LS in die distrik Pietersburg, in die Provinsie Transvaal’ was served on him. The

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only reason provided was that it was in the ‘public interest’.193 Helen Suzman wrote to Koornhof saying ‘that after 16 years of banishment … Mashile should be permitted to stay with his family’.194 Koornhof replied that he regretted he could not recommend this, but added that Mashile had ‘given a written undertaking that he will in future refrain from the activities which necessitated his removal if he is allowed to join his family on the farm Acornhoek’ and that as a result a six-month permit had been issued.195 Mashile wrote to Suzman in April 1980 that when he was in banishment in Pietersburg a security policeman had told him ‘to go home and keep silence for six months’, as the native commissioner ‘had written to the authorities in Pretoria to extend [his] permission to remain in house arrest’. Mashile was most anxious about his status and sought Suzman’s help, but did not hold back from urging Suzman to point out to Koornhof that ‘my people are suffering for lack of land as he has given our land to the Shangaan chiefs’.196 Mashile was indomitable and courageous and, when finally freed from banishment, ‘immediately set about rebuilding his chieftainship’. He demonstrated his spiritual prowess in his position as a bishop ‘in the Bantu Apostolic Faith Mission Church and as a faith healer … As an elected Member of Lebowa Parliament, Mashile fought corruption in the Lebowa Government.’197 There were three attempts on his life, a period in political detention in 1986 and charges of terrorism, on which he was tried and acquitted. And, yet, he was also clearly a paradoxical character: ‘on the one hand, his claim to leadership was based on his resistance to a racially oppressive state. On the other hand, his claim to leadership was based on his authority as an [unrecognised] Pulana chief struggling for his chieftainship and for sectarian Pulana nationalist objectives.’198 He was both ‘Pulana nationalist’ and ‘African nationalist … He found Apartheid repugnant as both a Pulana and a black South African. But Pulana nationalism was not entirely compatible with African nationalism, and, in the last instance, Matsiketsane was married to his claim to the chieftainship.’199

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4 Banishment and rural resistance in the late 1950s and early 1960s: Mpondoland, Thembuland and Natal

THE FOCUS NOW SHIFTS to the Eastern Cape, especially Mpondoland and Thembuland in Transkei; and to the south coast of Natal, where in the 1950s and early 1960s there were also outbreaks of rural revolt, protest and banishment. Apartheid, it has been noted, ‘involved both an attempt at reconstructing the rural economy and the radical reworking of the structures and daily practices of rule’. There were relentless incursions of the state into the politics of daily life, and for rural people ‘not only were they living in a world of police, agricultural officials, passes, labour bureaus, relocation and the courts, but the great majority were stuck in lives of dire poverty, hardship and outright misery, the indignities of landlessness, economic insecurity, malnutrition, premature death’.1 On top of all this there was drought between 1945 and the mid-1950s. The Bantu Authorities system created a bureaucratic hierarchy of tribal, district, regional and territorial authorities and conferred vast powers on ‘traditional’ chiefs. It was accepted by the Transkei General Council in 1955 and formally introduced in 1956.2 Bantu Authorities ‘forced chiefs to choose between serving their communities and becoming salaried officials and collaborators of the apartheid state’.3 Chiefs ‘found themselves caught between two perils: not cooperating with the state – with the inevitable result of the loss of office and income – and collaboration, which brought substantial material rewards but also the prospect of popular resentment. Most chose the latter.’4 Govan Mbeki described Bantu Authorities thus: ‘though the whip has remained in the hand of the White government, it has been the Chiefs, the new jockeys riding the reserve horse, who have applied the spurs. The Chiefs are now well in the saddle.’5 For African migrant workers, rural workers and peasants and their families, Bantu Authorities imposed a number of additional disabilities and

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burdens. In the political sphere, Bantu Authorities ‘reduced the weight of the elected element at every level and greatly cut back the popular participation enjoyed at the district council level. No public meetings of more than ten people could be held legally without the permission of a Bantu commissioner.’ There were additional financial burdens in the form of ‘new fees, and taxes: the direct taxation paid by household heads almost doubled between 1955 and 1960’. At the administrative level, the ‘proliferation of bureaucratic posts was marked by a sharp rise in graft and corruption, with minor chiefs demanding cash payments before allowing commoners access to courts [and] licensing offices’. Finally, and ‘crucially, the powers allotted to the new authorities meant that chiefs became more visibly and directly the symbols of social control. Greater power meant diminished legitimacy. Chiefs were no longer perceived as intermediaries between the state and their followers, but unambiguously as the instruments of the South African state.’6 Tension between chiefs co-opted by Bantu Authorities and communities was further increased by the role that the former came to play in relation to the betterment policy, which had been introduced in the 1930s but enjoyed little success. After 1945, there was a significant shift in the application of betterment, with a move away from reclamation. Instead, the state sought to undertake the ‘afforestation of the Reserves, erection of fencing and soil conservation, stock limitation and preservation of water supplies’.7 From the late 1930s, betterment had drawn ‘angry responses from rural residents … The people of the Transkei, where the implementation of the scheme was piloted, rejected the scheme.’ In many parts of the Eastern Cape the policy of betterment, entailing forced labour, loss of land, destruction of kraals and the culling of cattle, gave rise to local opposition committees. I.B. Tabata, leader of the All African Convention (AAC), noted that rural people ‘saw the scheme as a new Nongqause which would render vast numbers of the people a prey to the vultures of labour, without land, without cattle, without rights of any kind’. A report on the Ciskei at the 1948 NonEuropean Unity Movement conference noted that ‘the people are kicking against this Rehabilitation Scheme. But in the fight they find their own headmen and chiefs and the Bhungas [district councils] ranged against them, as well as the Government officials.’8 The Transkei Organised Bodies (TOB) was a key vehicle through which opposition was expressed. Govan Mbeki was the secretary of the TOB between 1943 and 1948. It had no policy on land initially, but was obliged to address this in 1946 following resistance to betterment. Mbeki complained

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about the lack of an ANC focus on rural issues and struggles in the 1930s and 1940s, and by 1948 the TOB was more closely linked to the AAC, and especially Tabata, than the African National Congress (ANC). Still, by the eve of the Mpondo revolt in 1960 AAC dominance was displaced by the greater influence of the ANC.9 In Mount Ayliff there was resistance to betterment from the time it was introduced in 1946 and clashes with officials of the Department of Native Affairs and the police.10 Tabata was arrested for incitement against betterment in Mount Ayliff.11 Here, a body called the Kongo was established. It ‘became an alternative site of political imagining’ and ‘began to elaborate a structure of authority … that stood in opposition to the chief and, ultimately, to the apartheid state itself’.12 It was also a vehicle for opposition to stock culling, economic restructuring and imposition of traditional rulers. The Kongo met in the hills and agitated for the replacement of the chief for accepting betterment. It also affiliated to the AAC and sent representatives to its 1948 conference.13 Most affected by betterment were peasant migrants, the semi-proletarianised workers who owned cattle and had access to arable and grazing land, rather than the more thoroughly proletarianised landless migrant workers. Peasant migrants considered betterment policy ‘to be another cattle killing episode modernised. The scheme is designed to impoverish, to suppress the economic and social growth of the African in the native reserves. It is a means of preserving white superiority.’14 Inevitably, the struggle against betterment became increasingly linked to resistance to Bantu Authorities. Indeed, ‘the establishment of Tribal Authorities in terms of the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951, with chiefs as the extended arm of the apartheid regime, deepened and geographically extended resistance to the Betterment Scheme’.15 Thus ‘by the middle of the 1950s many areas of the Transkei and Ciskei teetered on the edge of rebellion. At the top of the list of grievances was tribal authorities.’16 Well before the Thembuland and Mpondoland upheavals of the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were skirmishes in various parts of the Eastern Cape. In the mid-1940s, for example, the Makoba’s Council emerged in Makoba’s Location to resist relocation from a so-called black spot in the Mount Currie district to various Trust farms in Matatiele and to express strong opposition to the regulations in the new Trust lands.17 Makoba’s Location was settled by the Ntlangweni-Amazizi section of the Mfengu

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community as a ‘reward for services rendered to the Government in the Basuto War of 1880’. The location was included as a scheduled area in terms of the 1913 Natives Land Act, but ‘was the only Native Location in a wholly European district’. There were numerous meetings in 1945 ‘between the Magistrate and the Makoba Natives’, but the Makoba Location residents ‘were not prepared to agree voluntarily to remove to the new area’. An order under section 5(1)(b) of the Native Administration Act was issued for the banishment of the community of ‘350 people and their dependants’ on 31 October 1945.18 Makoba’s Council was described as ‘a powerful and dangerous group of tribesmen’. Alois Mate was considered to be ‘the brains of the Council although he shrewdly refrained from openly associating himself with the movement’. The magistrate of Matatiele complained that he was ‘the writer of insubordinate letters to this office’ and various other offices, including the secretary of the Department of Native Affairs and the minister.19 Several requests were made for his banishment, but none were granted, for lack of evidence. Mate informed the authorities in May 1946 of their intention in October to ‘erect our kraals in the old Makoba Location … you may again send your constables and kill us once more.’20 In 1947, some members of the community returned to their old Mount Currie location and began building. When the police tried to arrest them for trespass, they resisted: two were killed and one injured.21 Mate wrote in 1950, ‘Is our blood of no spiritual feeling to the Government … there is no government for the orphans and the poor, because he shuts his ear not to hear, his eyes to see, his mouth not to speak to our complaints and requests.’22 In 1951, a stock count at New Makoba’s Location was ordered, but called off to prevent bloodshed. This resistance led to charges of unlawful assembly in terms of an 1886 law, but the summonses ‘were ignored by the people on whom they were served’. A detachment of police was confronted with firearms and one person was killed and another injured.23 Mate was banished on 15 August 1951 from Matatiele to Nkandhla (Natal). Other members of Makoba’s Council ‘were warned by the Magistrate of Matatiele that any further trouble from them … might result in their deportation as well’. Mate’s banishment was reported as having ‘had a most salubrious effect on the Makoba Tribe and their attitude towards the administration. There have been no disturbances of any significance since his

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departure, since which date the Tribesmen have slowly but surely fallen in with the Department’s policy and the conditions imposed on them.’24 Resistance, however, continued into the 1950s. Mate’s banishment order was only withdrawn in April 1964.25 Also banished in 1951 was Ntlabati Jojo. He had been deposed as headman in the late 1920s, but in the 1940s was a key Kongo member and was considered the effective chief of a few locations. He is said to have led resistance to state measures, and surrendered ‘with twenty-one others. All but one were tried and convicted that same day.’26 The Department of Native Affairs accused Jojo of displacing his older brother Gawulibaso Kaiser Jojo as chief after sections of the community opposed rehabilitation measures introduced in 1949.27 Ntlabati Jojo was banished from Mount Ayliff to Nqutu (Natal). His banishment order was withdrawn in 1961.28 There was also conflict around and resistance to the Trust near Alice in 1950, where officials were told ‘if you put that Tractor to work here you will not see the day out, we will kill you … Take your machines and fuck off.’ Such conflict went back to 1939 and continued into the 1950s.29 In nearby King William’s Town, Nikisi Feni and Mabaso Siqila were said to be the leaders of ‘recalcitrant Natives’ in Xengxe Location. The document motivating their banishment reported that an ‘attitude of passive hostility in some cases, and active antagonism in others, to all rehabilitation schemes and administrative measures’ had been observed to be prevalent. There were complaints that the authority of appointed chiefs and headmen was being undermined and it was increasingly difficult to govern these areas. In Xengxe location, Feni and Siqila were accused of being associated with ‘threats of violence and acts of open defiance’ and it was requested that they be banished to avoid open revolt. They were both banished on 14 May 1952 to Mafikeng (Northern Cape).30 Siqila was permitted to return to Xengxe Location in March 1956 and his banishment order was revoked in 1962.31 At Lady Frere, Joseph Hugo Saliwa had been dismissed from the Department of Native Affairs in 1947 for unsatisfactory conduct and had run a trading store since then. He was accused of being ‘prominent at meetings held for administrative purposes at which he assumed the role of protector of the so-called down-trodden Natives’. He ‘gradually acquired a following and fostered opposition to measures introduced for the rehabilitation of the reserves’. Saliwa was reportedly ‘instrumental in forming a body called the Glen Grey People’s Committee which [was] opposed to the duly constituted District Council [and incited] the Natives to dispense with

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Headmen, Location Boards and the District Council and to form local committees answerable only to him and his People’s Committee’. The goal of the Glen Grey People’s Committee was said to be self-government: ‘to oppose all laws which the Natives find irksome and to administer the district as the People’s Committee thinks fit’. At the same time, money was ‘collected with the object of creating a fund for the defence of Natives who may be prosecuted for offences committed in the furtherance of the campaign against duly constituted authority’. Saliwa’s banishment in 1953 was said to be a unanimous request of the District Council and he was banished from Ngcuka Location to Pietersburg (Northern Transvaal).32 At Peddie, too, there was open resistance to the Department of Native Affairs. Alfred Msutu was appointed chief of Tyefu Location in January 1905, suspended four times between 1920 and 1933, and ‘between 1933 and 1952, his stance of non-cooperation with the authorities led to repeated suspensions’. His supporters were accused of inciting the ‘peace-loving Natives’ in the location to disregard all administrative operations of the Department of Native Affairs in the area. It was argued that, given Msutu’s influence and support, simply deposing him would be insufficient: he had to be banished. In December 1953, an order was issued that banished him to Riverside Natives Trust Farm in King William’s Town.33 Msutu, however, went into hiding. During this time, he reportedly took an active part in anti-state activities and it was alleged that meetings of the ANC were regularly held in his kraal. It was said that the inhabitants of the location were divided between the orde-liewendes (peace-loving) and the ANC-led weerbarstiges (troublemakers); the latter being involved in the boycott of schools, churches, state institutions and white people in general. The 1953 banishment order was served only on 11 January 1957. In the meantime a successful legal challenge had been mounted that made a banishment order invalid unless the subject had the opportunity to make representations. As Msutu was not given this opportunity, a new order had to be issued in February 1957 and no opportunity for representation was now needed.34 Msutu’s whereabouts after his banishment are unknown and it was reported in parliament in 1963 that he had absconded.35

Mpondoland East Mpondoland, the centre of the Mpondoland revolt, comprised the districts of Mount Ayliff, Bizana, Tabankulu, Flagstaff and Lusikisiki, with

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a population of over 250,000 in 1960. It was intended to become one of the nine regional authorities of the Transkei through implementation of the Bantu Authorities Act. By 1960 little progress had been made. The Mpondo revolt ‘must be understood as the complex conjunction of both local problems and major social dislocation’.36 The latter refers to the inability of the reserve to provide for the subsistence needs of its inhabitants due to pressure on land; the former has to do with the lack of legitimacy of Paramount Chief Botha Sigcau, corruption and internal class differentiation. Large numbers of people in Mpondoland were opposed to betterment and Bantu Authorities from the very start and numerous attempts over the years leading up to the 1960 revolt to get communities to accept it were rebuffed. The Mpondo argued ‘that the cure to poverty was not reduction of stock or fencing, but allocation of more land’. However, ‘administrators … always prefer the people they rule to be concentrated, for then control … is easier’.37 At a meeting at Lusikisiki in 1953, betterment and Bantu Authorities were rejected in the presence of the paramount chief. Mbeki wrote that ‘one man by the name of Mngqingo (Pikani) turned his backside to Botha Sigcau, a sign of non-confidence; the people supported him and booed the chief and the officials’.38 Actually, it was not Pikani but Mnyungula Maqutu, ‘who danced towards Sigcau and showed him his bare buttocks while driving a spear into the ground’. This was the ‘gravest insult that could be inflicted to persons in authority and a definite declaration of war’.39 Soon after, ‘a large contingent of police entered the area, and Mngqingo took a large peasant army with him to the thick forests. When the government appeared to give up the affair, however, Mngqingo emerged and disbanded his impi. He was eventually arrested’ and banished.40 Opposition to Bantu Authorities continued to be voiced in 1957 when people objected to its provisions at meetings held by chiefs, but many were remiss in transmitting their people’s opposition to the magistrates. In September 1957, ‘thousands at Bizana rejected Rehabilitation, Bantu Education and Bantu Authorities’.41 Mbeki wrote that ‘they demanded that Botha Sigcau should publicly declare whether he was the head of the Pondo tribe or the boot-licker of Verwoerd … and the meeting went out of control, ending in disorder and the widespread cry “Umasiziphathe uya Kusebenza sifile”, or “Bantu Authorities will operate over our dead bodies.”’42 A deputation was also sent to the magistrate, only to be informed ‘that their grievances would be transferred to Pretoria … and a year later, another deputation interviewed the new magistrate at Bizana who told them that

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he had no record of their earlier representations. The complaints were repeated but once again no reply was received from official quarters.’43 In Lusikisiki an Anti-Bantu Authorities Committee was formed and a memorandum was submitted to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development which set out the community’s opposition to a number of issues. There was a rejection of the unpopular and pro-state Paramount Chief Botha Sigcau, who was regarded as a usurper to the throne that should have passed to Nelson Sigcau. In Lambasi, for example, ‘by 1957, just after the introduction of Bantu Authorities, people began making public declarations of resistance’. There was anger at increased taxation under Bantu Authorities. By 1959, the average Transkeian household paid taxes of more than £4 10s per annum. There was also concern about the new Bantu Education levy and bribery and corruption within the Bantu Authorities bureaucracy. Betterment measures were also attacked, as was the prohibition on meetings of more than ten people unless prior permission had been obtained from the local Bantu commissioner. The lack of response to these and other demands resulted in frustration and anger, and ‘matters came to a head and turned violent during a meeting of the Isikelo tribal authority in March 1960 … at the Great Place of Chief Mhlabuvelile’.44 Here, councillors who failed to explain at an inkundla (community assembly) the merits of Bantu Authorities were physically assaulted and key opponents of Bantu Authorities were arrested by police.45 The arrests incensed the Mpondo community in Bizana, and hut burnings and protests against chiefs and headmen began. The home of one of Botha Sigcau’s key advisers, Saul Mabude, was burnt.46 Attempts were also made to burn down the Dutch Reformed Mission church for accepting Bantu Authorities, warnings were given to traders to get out and some shops were burnt. This was the beginning of the Mpondo revolt: ‘on the very day the [tribal] authority was due to begin functioning – the aim was precisely to make the system unworkable.’47 From March 1960 onwards, these initial responses were consolidated into disciplined organisation with regular meetings held to discuss strategy and day-to-day tactics. Leaders included Solomon Madikizela, Theophilus Tshangela, Hargreaves Mbodla, S. Mpini, N. Ntshangase and Anderson Ganyile, ‘still a young man but acutely politically aware’.48 By May 1960 ‘virtually each location in Bizana was holding regular political meetings in defiance of both chiefs and police and dispatching representatives to neigh-

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bouring locations. The outcome was a hierarchical and relatively centralised district organization, which rapidly spread into Lusikisiki and Flagstaff.’49 Meetings were held at places on four mountains and the movement thus took on the name Intaba (the mountain) and Ikongo, or Kongo, and the committees came to be known as Hill or Mountain committees.50 The bulk of their activity was directed against traditional power-holders who sought to impose Bantu Authorities on the people despite popular opposition. However, as the Hill grew, it also began to assume the functions of the chiefs’ courts, call public meetings and co-ordinate attacks on government collaborators: ‘resentment of the Chief or headmen concerned would be aired at a number of meetings. The man would be called upon to denounce publicly the Bantu Authorities system. This failing, he would be sent a message: “The horsemen are coming.” This … offered final opportunity of flight. Thereafter his kraal was razed. Where the chief remained at his kraal when it was raided, he was invariably murdered.’51 Altogether 22 people deemed state collaborators (chiefs, headmen, bodyguards and five police informers) were killed and 37 kraals destroyed in the Bizana district. State retaliation was not long in coming and resulted in the Ngquza Hill massacre in the Lusikisiki district. Regular meetings were held at Ngquza Hill. Police had been watching, but had not interfered. On 6 June 1960, when about 400 people were gathered at a meeting of the Hill, two Harvard aircraft and a helicopter flew overhead, dropping tear gas canisters into the crowd and landing armed police. The tear gas bombs started a veld fire, ‘and as the gathering scattered in confusion the police opened fire with the same abandon as had been witnessed at Sharpeville and Langa’.52 An eyewitness recounted that ‘the spot was in flames. Over 200 well-armed police combed the bush, shooting everyone they came across. Those who tried to surrender were shot without mercy. The women who made war cries were thrashed, kicked and assaulted in the huts. The arrested were taken to the charge office.’53 A contemporary report records that the people attending the meeting had been told by its organisers ‘not to bring even their ordinary fighting sticks − though no Pondo likes to move without one’. The same report added that ‘No eye-witness we spoke to knew of any resistance offered to the police. They all said that they had thrown up their hands and shouted: “We are not fighting.” But the police opened fire, and they continued to fire until there was nobody left to shoot.’54 Less than ten weeks after the massacre at Sharpeville, 11 people were killed, some shot in the back, and

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many seriously wounded. The magistrate’s findings at the Ngquza Hill inquest later found that ‘the firing of stengun bullets was unjustified and excessive, even reckless’.55 Yet, no one was charged or held responsible. Following the massacre, a commission of inquiry was established. It began hearing evidence from June 1960 onwards. The most frequent and greatest complaints were about the Bantu Authorities system, the massacre at Ngquza Hill, the lowering of education standards as a result of Bantu education, and non-representation of black people in parliament. Theophilus Tshangela attacked the restriction on freedom of movement by passes. There was also a demand for ‘relief from increased taxes’ and the ‘removal of Paramount Chief Botha Sigcau’.56 The report of the commission, announced at a public meeting of 15,000 near Bizana on 11 October 1960, ‘contained a number of admissions of errors made in the creation of Bantu Authorities, but few concessions on other important complaints’.57 J.A. van Heerden, who headed the commission, summed up: ‘it is clear that the people of Bizana were the victims of the insidious propaganda of the African National Congress and associated organisations.’58 The commission also found that £20,000 worth of damage had been caused by hut burnings. Not surprisingly, there was widespread dissatisfaction with the findings and on 25 October 1960 they were formally rejected at a public meeting of 6,000 people.59 Even while the commission was hearing evidence, a passive resistance campaign had begun. People refused to co-operate with census enumerators and a school was boycotted.60 The commission’s findings reintensified the resistance of the Mpondo community, who now decided to stop paying taxes. It is argued that ‘the shootings at Ngquza Hill swept away the residue of paternalism still persisting in local social and political relations … The final loss of the basic trust occurred in two phases: first in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, and then in reaction to the government’s report.’ However, ‘the loss was actually a gain: Amampondo gained pride in their ability to defy fiats from above.’61 Towards the end of 1960, five top leaders of the Mpondoland National Committee were imprisoned for attending an illegal meeting. This led to a boycott of white traders in Bizana, bar one, for supporting apartheid policies.62 One person explained, ‘We boycott the traders because they helped the Government in trying to break us. When we boycott them we are boycotting the Government.’63 The summary arrest and banishment of Anderson Ganyile brought a new dimension to the state’s attempt to suppress popular resistance in East Mpondoland. Soon afterwards, troops

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moved into Mpondoland and on 30 November 1960 a state of emergency was declared. Hundreds of people were arrested, reports of brutal conduct on the part of police were reported, and a curtain of silence was drawn around Mpondoland. New Age reported that ‘a large contingent of armed police and soldiers seal off an area, usually soon after midnight. Each hut is raided by two armed men who take away everything that remotely resembles a weapon. In some areas, even hoes are confiscated.’64 The state of emergency added fuel to the fire of revolt, and violence and hut burnings now began to extend over the whole of Mpondoland. At a meeting in Flagstaff, Chief Botha Sigcau’s brother, Chief Vukayibambe Sigcau, and police killed someone. In turn the brother and his headman were attacked and killed, followed by killings of other headmen and collaborators. In the resulting court case, seven men were sentenced to death and executed in March 1962. In the case of the killing of another headman, 29 people were arrested, six were sentenced to death and executed in July 1962, and others received lengthy terms of imprisonment.65 The Mpondoland revolt was possibly the most widespread, highly structured and well-organised of the rural rebellions in South Africa in the 1950s and early 1960s. Privation alone was not sufficient for insurrection: the cause of the revolt also lay ‘in a change in the consciousness of the villagers’. While those involved may not have possessed a national political perspective or a programme, ‘they did have an acute awareness of their immediate interests’ and rejected apartheid intervention.66 In any case, a broader political consciousness was by no means entirely absent: Ganyile declared that ‘Pondoland will be satisfied with nothing short of sending representatives to Parliament’.67 There was ‘also some evidence that political activists from Natal’s urban centres effected links with the Hill Committees and helped formulate a programme of action, and that their political affiliation was with the ANC’.68 It is suggested that in Mpondoland a ‘combination of court action and banishments sounded the death knell of opposition’.69 Between 1959 and 1962, eight people were banished from various districts of Mpondoland. They included some of those who constituted the leadership of the Hill Committee and prominent traditional leaders opposed to Bantu Authorities. The Departmental Committee of Enquiry into Unrest in Eastern Mpondoland had fingered 20 people as ringleaders of resistance, 14 from Bizana and six from Lusikisiki. They included Mhlabuvelile Hlamandana and

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Majojo Hlamandana; Mtetunzima Ganyile and Anderson Ganyile; Theophilus Tshangela, Hargreaves Mbodla, Solomon Madikizela and William Mpini Madola. The minister of native affairs, De Wet Nel, insisted that ‘the measures taken under the Native Administration Act have been promulgated at the request of the Native leaders themselves’; going on to note that ‘communist agitators from outside the Transkei are doing all they can to wreck the positive political development of the Bantu Authorities’.70 Yet, as can be seen from this comment addressed by a Department of Native Affairs official to Nelson Sigcau, the threat of banishment and its use were not new: ‘You have traded on the fact that the government does not wish to punish its children, and notwithstanding my warning to you, you have continued to make trouble in this district … the Government will not hesitate to banish you from this district … I would just like to impress upon your child mind that if you continue as you are doing, you and your principal followers will be banished from here.’71 Anderson Ganyile was a remarkable person whose interest in politics was aroused by the Congress movement’s 1952 Defiance Campaign. He is described as not a ‘typical rural’ person and as ‘reasonably well educated and fluent in English’. By 1960 he had joined the ANC and was ‘in frequent touch with the rebels, and … closely aware of their concerns’, playing ‘a role in linking the ANC to the rebels’. Ganyile was born to a relatively wealthy Christian family in Amanikwe Location, Bizana, in 1935. He attended St John’s School (Umtata) and then Lovedale before proceeding to Fort Hare. He joined the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) branch in Umtata in 1954.72 While ‘a hard working student and very well behaved’ at Lovedale, he came into conflict with the school’s superintendent because of his political views and involvement. He stood for the ‘three S’s: Service, Sacrifice and Suffering’, which he said were essential to bring about a South Africa based on the Freedom Charter.73 He was especially interested in organising people to participate in political struggle. While at Lovedale he had come to the notice of the security police and been interrogated. He proceeded to the University of Fort Hare in 1959, but was expelled in 1960 for ANCYL activities.74 His attitude was that ‘even if I do not complete my studies I will remain a human being’ and he constantly reminded fellow students that academic achievement should not keep them ‘aloof from the struggles of the people’. When asked what plans he was making to complete his higher education, Ganyile responded that ‘he was not thinking about that now, and that his whole mind was devoted

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Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online

Anderson Ganyile, after his escape into exile in Basutoland.

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to the struggle the Pondos were waging’. He noted that ‘you cannot fight for People. You must be with them.’75 Ganyile was detained between March and June 1960 during the national state of emergency, and then became involved in the Mpondo revolt, mobilising legal assistance for those arrested and serving as secretary to the Hill leadership.76 The area from which he hailed had a chief who was opposed to apartheid. Chief Mbalwa was detained under the emergency regulations for allegedly harbouring agitators and for refusing to divulge information ‘vital to the Anderson Ganyile today at his home in interest of Pondoland’. He refused during Bizana in the Eastern Cape. interrogation to answer any questions about the Ganyile family, saying ‘they can jail me if they like. They have already done so.’77 Ganyile distributed ANC newsletters in Bizana and also sold the New Age. For Ganyile the Mpondo revolt was ‘essentially political, and reactive … about state imposition and rural response’. He saw his own role as seizing ‘the opportunity … there was no standing back, we had to lead with the organisation, with the movement, put in political ideas and political demands … We did not want that Pondoland should fight its own battle. We had to bring in national demands.’78 As a result of the severe repression, Ganyile was advised by the Eastern Cape leadership to go into hiding. However, he felt that the peasants ‘would interpret my hiding as leaving them in the lurch. More so that the cream of the Pondo leadership was at the time in incarceration; they had been jailed. I felt that with those few remaining, we should try to regroup and continue.’79 Ganyile was arrested in Bizana on 7 November 1960.80 He was served with an order dated 17 October 1960 that banished him from Amanikwe Location to Frenchdale Farm (Mafikeng). Documentation related to his banishment noted that he was detained during the state of emergency, and claimed that he was a full-time organiser for the ANC and worked with the lawyer Rowley Arenstein, who was prohibited from attending meetings of a certain nature as well as leaving Durban. Ganyile was also said to be soliciting money: it seemed that he was taking up many of the responsibilities of the resistance movement. Significantly, no evidence of criminal activity could be found.81

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In an interview conducted subsequently in a hut at Qachas Nek on the Basutoland border, he recounted: I was taken to the Native Commissioner’s office in Bizana. He informed me that there was a Ministerial Order for me to be removed to Frenchdale. I asked whether I could inform my attorneys, but permission was refused. I asked whether I could see my ageing mother to wish her good-bye, but the authorities said ‘No.’ Instead they asked whether I was prepared to go to Frenchdale voluntarily. When I refused, the head of the Special Branch from Kokstad produced a warrant and arrested me. I spent only a few minutes after this in Bizana and was taken to Kokstad.82 Handcuffed from the time of his arrest, and having been held at Kokstad security police offices, late in the evening he was ‘handed over to two policemen to take me to Park Station, Johannesburg. We travelled the whole night, and the following morning on our arrival at Pietermaritzburg, I got a chance to talk to somebody just by chance. I then sent him to Ruth First who was also my contact, informing her that she should meet me at Park Station when the train pulls off … for Mafikeng.’83 Arriving at Johannesburg’s Park Station, he persuaded his police escort that he would not escape and to take him by taxi to a nearby location, as they only departed for Mafikeng in the afternoon. They remained there ‘for the whole day until the time came for them to take me to Park Station. There we found Ruth First and Joe Gqabi, who were both journalists, who then managed to take my photo. Then we left,’ though not before being interviewed by New Age.84 He declared that ‘the barbarous deportation measure … will not change my character. My only crime is that I have allied myself with my people.’85 His mother heard of his banishment through his cousin, Ingleton, who would later be abducted with Ganyile from Lesotho by South African police. In Mafikeng he was passed on to Department of Native Affairs officials, ‘who then loaded me into a van to Frenchdale concentration camp where I found a number of other deportees’.86 Ganyile described his arrival at the remote and barren Frenchdale farm: I could have cried when I was taken to Frenchdale. I was shown a sty and this was supposed to be my new home. It was an unswept and unkempt hut with dirty walls. When I saw my new home I was overcome with revulsion. It was horrible. I could not understand how 122

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some of the exiles could have lived up to 10 years at the place. There were no blankets, no furniture, no food, nothing. I was shown this dirty hut, which appeared to mock at me each time I entered it. Other deportees helped me with food and took me in as one of the family of forgotten men in South Africa.87 He noted ‘there is nothing whatever to do at Frenchdale. All the people can do is sit in their huts and rot.’88 After seven days he decided to ‘escape from my prison’.89 There were no guards and Chief Mopeli, already at Frenchdale for six years, had made acquaintance with a coloured man who was running [a] business in the same area; a distance on your way to Mafikeng. It so happened that he was a member of the Coloured People’s Organisation. So chief Mopeli told me that he was going to Mafikeng one day, being accompanied by his induna. Our means of transport that day was a … tractor with a trailer. On the way we had a break down, fortunately Chief Mopeli contacted this coloured man and he helped us for a place to sleep for the night. The following morning we went and reached Mafikeng … I had already made up my mind that I was not going back to my detention spot.90 On the train journey to Mafikeng, Ganyile had befriended a Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) supporter who had instructed me as to how to find him. So while Chief Mopeli was busy … I pretended as if I was going for the toilet. That was the last time I saw Chief Mopeli. I then managed to locate the PAC friend’s place, because he was a tailor. He was not in, but I waited for him until he came back and told him that I was going back to Pondoland. Because in this world somebody must know, you can’t just act alone, somebody must know your intentions, you take that risk. He arranged for my departure; we would take an evening train back to Braamfontein, he bought the ticket for me, everything … And we arrived in Braamfontein in the early morning.91 In Soweto he was spotted by a Lusikisiki-born Non-European Unity Movement supporter who knew he was banished and escorted him to the safety of his home. He then linked up with Joe Gqabi and other prominent ANC figures, who arranged for him to travel to Durban. Here, he ‘was taken to a certain liberal’s place’. This person then took him to Mpondoland.92 123

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In Mpondoland, Ganyile and others tried ‘to put together broken pieces of people we thought we could use to take over the leadership’ and sought ‘to instil confidence in the minds of the people that nothing was impossible’. He remained in Mpondoland for some months and then for security reasons returned to Durban, where he lived with ANC stalwart Leonard Mdingi in a Musgrave Road cottage for a few months. He was then passed on to the leader of the Liberal Party, Peter Brown, who transferred him to another Liberal Party member and school principal in Howick. From here he was driven to Johannesburg to Monty Berman, a Liberal Party member who was to help found the National Committee of Liberation (later the African Resistance Movement). The following morning Helen Joseph arrived: ‘we had met before. Then it was arranged that I should be airlifted to Lesotho, Maseru, by Monty Berman … We airlifted from a private airstrip, disguising as if I was being taken to hospital … I was handed over to Dr Letele [and] came in contact with Joe Matthews … It was arranged and agreed upon that I should go to Qacha’s Nek so as to have access into the Transkei from there … I was taken to Qacha’s Nek.’93 Here, he met Jackson Nkosiyane, the secretary to Paramount Chief Sabata Dalindyebo, who was banished to Soekmekaar and also escaped into exile. The ANC was keen that ‘the Mpondo revolt should be politically intensified. It was a question of strategy and tactics … how best we can infiltrate and have a nucleus in Mpondoland.’ At this stage there was no reference to an armed struggle and the launching of MK, even though armed struggle ‘was in the mouths of the Mpondo people, they wanted arms, they wanted arms. Anybody or any group that would give them arms to fight was acceptable to them.’ Ganyile engaged in ‘secret leafleting’ of pamphlets ‘in Xhosa … titled “Inceba Iphelile” [Mercy Has Come to an End]’, which promoted ‘violence against supporters of the apartheid regime’. The ‘method used was to get the names and address of as many people as possible. Produce the leaflet and you then send about ten leaflets to this somebody and you ask that somebody to read and … give this to others, distribute to others.’ At Qachas Nek he was visited by ANC leaders such as Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba and by ‘selected’ visitors from Mpondoland.94 Ganyile was kidnapped in August 1961 by members of the South African Police and returned at gunpoint to jail in Transkei. Later, Ganyile lived in Lesotho and Botswana but ‘did not cope well personally with exile’.95 He returned to Bizana after 1976, seeking to penetrate Transkei bantustan ‘government structures [which] was difficult’. He taught at a school in 1978

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and was then employed by ‘the Daily Dispatch … to manage the street sellers of the paper’ in Umtata. In 1983 he took up a post with the Department of Justice as an interpreter and was posted to Port St Johns.96 He lived ‘in a large, modern homestead about 5 km from Bizana town in Amanikwe’.97 As far as is known he is, in 2012, at the age of 76, one of only two persons still living who were banished under the Native Administration Act. Mtetunzima Ganyile was described in the motivation for his banishment as one of the leaders of the Mpondoland revolt and a strong supporter of the ANC. It was claimed that he planned and spoke at illegal meetings and constantly attempted to recruit people. At the time that his banishment order was issued in October 1960, he had already been sentenced to 21 months in prison for arson, but had appealed. He was banished on release from jail in 1962 from Amanikwe Location to Frenchdale Trust Farm.98 He escaped into exile in Botswana.99 Banishment orders for three of the top Hill and revolt leaders, Theophilus Tshangela, Hargreaves Nkosana Mbodla, and Solomon Madikizela had been signed on 17 October 1960, but were only served in May 1962 as all three had in the interim each been sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. An important influence on Tshangela was Leonard Mdingi, who recorded that Tshangela ‘was a relatively wealthy livestock owner … He was also an unlikely rebel leader. Tshangela served as a councillor for the Amadiba chief, Gangatha Baleni, on the district council, and as a dipping foreman. But he moved away from the chief when the government put pressure on them to restrict settlement and to consider rehabilitation.’ Mdingi recounted that ‘I went to see him at his house … We talked a lot. Brought copies of New Age … He was very interested and we discussed and he kept every copy. I will say that we had a great influence on Tshangela.’ He was of the view that Tshangela ‘did not like the idea of being hated by the people’.100 Tshangela was banished from Amadiba Location to Frenchdale Trust Farm.101 He recalled that having received information that he was on a death list, he moved his wife and six children to a safe house and then observed his home being burnt down. [He] harnessed a horse and rode to the police station to report the arson. You know what? I was locked up … I was accused of being the leader of the group opposed to the Trust Lands. The day after my arrest I was driven by the police to a meeting to talk to angry tribesmen. The meeting probably convinced the police I was the people’s pillow. I was jailed under the emergency regulations and

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The Ernest Cole Family Trust

Sechaba, October/December 1974

Theophilus Tshangela, a leader of the Mpondo revolt, was banished to Frenchdale, where he died.

served six months at Pietermaritzburg and 18 at Bizana. After serving these sentences I was brought here (to Frenchdale).102 Tshangela’s banishment order described him as a well-off and influential ‘Native’ who was strongly opposed to the chief as well as the Department of Native Affairs. Credible information indicated that he had organised attacks on the chief’s kraal and was not afraid of using force or arson to further his aims. He was found guilty of holding and speaking at illegal meetings, sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, and was out on bail awaiting the outcome of his appeal.103 In 1965, along with a number of other banished people from Frenchdale, Tshangela was issued with a new order that banished him to Ewbank Farm (Kuruman, Northern Cape).104 The reason provided was that Frenchdale was needed for ‘Bantus’ to be relocated from the ‘black spots’ of Doornbult and Vergenoeg in the Mafikeng district. It is not clear whether Tshangela actually left Frenchdale: it was suggested that in 1974, ‘the lonely man of Frenchdale’ was the last banished person at the camp.105 His banishment order was withdrawn in July 1972, but he refused to return home until certain pre-conditions (rail fare for him and the cattle and horses he had managed to rear, a new home and complete freedom from all restrictions)

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were met.106 An unrepentant Tshangela was never to see Bizana again. He died at Frenchdale, his desolate place of banishment. Mbodla and Madikizela were both banished from Bizana to Native Trust Farm Driefontein (Vryburg, Northern Cape). Documentation related to their banishment claimed that the findings of the Commission of Enquiry in East Mpondoland were acceptable to the majority of people and it was only the leaders of the resistance who were not satisfied and began their incitement again.107 Mbodla was described as an evangelist in the Methodist Church and as particularly influential and articulate: he organised and spoke at meetings where the call was made for the Transkei to become a republic. Madikizela was also a Methodist Church evangelist, who it was alleged had taken up the leading role in the resistance movement in Bizana and served as its mouthpiece. He was also accused of mobilising people in neighbouring districts. Beinart notes that ‘Solomon Madikizela established himself as the leader of proceedings at Ndhlovu hill. He was in some respects an unlikely rebel leader, a Methodist evangelist who also ran a small rural butchery.’ According to Ganyile, despite only four years of formal education ‘Madikizela became the leader of the whole movement because of his eloquence and outspokenness and fearlessness. Solomon was a man of outstanding leadership in the church and was respected in local affairs.’108 When their banishment orders were issued, Mbodla and Madikizela had been found guilty of holding illegal meetings and sentenced to 15 months in jail, and were out on bail awaiting the outcome of their appeals. Their banishment orders were withdrawn on 4 July 1972.109 The Durban-based political activist and lawyer Rowley Arenstein noted that the top leaders of the Mpondo revolt might have been ‘all peasants with no education’, but they possessed ‘great organizational ability. The whole area was organized and they knew how to handle things.’ Arenstein also recalled that there were meetings with the ANC leadership, and the Mpondo leaders sought money for legal defence and arms. Given the links that appeared to exist between the key Mpondo revolt leaders, ANC activists and the ANC, Beinart notes that they are not dissimilar to those that Delius has written about in Sekhukhuneland. He concludes that in ‘analysing the historical character of the ANC’, the ‘relationship between rural and national movements’ remains a ‘significant question’.110 Described in 1962 as ‘tall, slender, young’, Chief Mhlabuvelile Hlamandana (Faku) refused to co-operate with the state and supported the Hill Committee.111 He was accused by state officials of being lax in his duties,

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disrupting the smooth functioning of the Isikelo Tribal Authority and facilitating illegal activities including arson and public violence in Bizana. Despite his position, he also seemed to be against Bantu Authorities. It was claimed that his mother was a particularly strong influence on him. Indeed, she was ‘for all practical purposes the ruler of the tribe’.112 Accused of promoting the boycott of white traders, Hlamandana was arrested and spent a month in jail before being released without charge. It was only four months after banishment orders had been issued on 27 November 1960 that police served them on him and his mother, Majojo Ka Tandabantu Hlamandana. They were transported from Isikelo Location into banishment at Luckau Farm (Nebo, Groblersdal, Northern Transvaal).113 Hlamandana’s wife accompanied him ‘voluntarily’ into banishment. The dwelling allocated to Chief Faku ‘was a great barn … lofty, gracious − and empty’.114 He was given £2 and some mealie meal. One child was born and died in banishment. The rest of the family remained in Mpondoland. He was occasionally employed as a daily labourer but was mainly unemployed, during which time he was given £1 per month and meagre rations. Their banishment orders were withdrawn on 3 November 1967.115 However, Chief Hlamandana and his mother had been permitted to return after a few years ‘after promising to remain loyal to the Government’ and Paramount Chief Botha Sigcau. In September 1963, at ‘a unique function in the Isikelo Location’, Chief Hlamandana was ‘formally reinstated as a chief’ by Paramount Chief Sigcau. The key speaker at the installation was the chief Bantu affairs commissioner for the Transkei, Victor Leibbrandt, who warned that evil people behind the 1960 Mpondoland revolt were ‘still trying to cause disruption in the Transkei and overthrow the Government’. Leibbrandt counselled Chief Hlamandana that people had advised him badly and were still trying to ‘sow the seeds of evil in your heart’ and also warned him that if he did not keep his promises of loyalty he would ‘be deported from Pondoland for good’.116 In Eastern Mpondoland in 1952, Mngqingo Pikani was the very first to be banished, from Lusikisiki to Quluqu Location (Engcobo). According to the documentation related to his banishment, ‘a recalcitrant group of Natives’ led by Pikani had opposed an inquiry into the destruction of forests and illegal occupation of land in the Mtambalala and Lower Ntafufu locations in Lusikisiki: indeed, they had broken up a meeting to explain the reasons for the inquiry and organised to murder the officials undertaking it. Criminal proceedings were instituted against Pikani but he failed to

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appear for trial. The community sheltered the accused and threatened to resist any attempt to apprehend them. Police were sent to arrest Pikani and bloodshed was avoided ‘solely on account of the restraint exercised by the Police’.117 Even though Pikani was apprehended, turmoil continued in the locations: order would not be restored, it was argued, unless he was banished. In 1953, Pikani was banished again to Kirsten Farm (Sibasa, Northern Transvaal) for allegedly inciting the murder of people assisting Department of Native Affairs officials with the land inquiry in Mtambalala and Ntafufu locations.118 He was released from banishment on 8 September 1959 for 12 months and his banishment order was eventually withdrawn on 22 September 1962.119 Most of those banished were to spend long periods in banishment. By the early 1960s the police reign of terror, banishment and the role played by collaborationist traditional leaders effectively ended the Mpondoland revolt. The revolt kindled acts of militancy in people elsewhere as well as memories of defiance and resistance in new generations of Mpondo. In the late 1950s, when ‘Ganyile reported to the ANC in Lakhani Chambers in Durban about the unfolding resistance in Pondoland’, this inspired some local militants to burn sugar-cane fields in solidarity, requiring Walter Sisulu of the ANC to be sent down to put an end to this action.120 There are also accounts of various workers in Natal who were influenced by the Mpondoland rebellion and the story of a union leader from Mpondoland whose political awareness was ignited by the Mpondo revolt.121

Thembuland Thembuland comprised Xhalanga (Cala), Engcobo, Glen Grey (Lady Frere), Umtata, Cofimvaba (St Mark’s), Mqanduli and Xhora (Elliotdale) districts. Here, the ascendancy and role of Kaiser Matanzima, installed on the basis of a dubious claim as paramount chief of Emigrant Thembuland, and the parallel displacement and reduction of the authority of Paramount Chief Sabata Dalindyebo, were significant issues in the Thembuland upheavals of the late 1950s and early 1960s.122 Matanzima was keen to head the Transkei Territorial Authorities created under the Bantu Authorities Act (1951). However, he was ‘not born in the lineage of the paramount chief of abaThembu. The position of paramount chief of abaThembu belonged to Sabata Dalindyebo and his descendants. In order to create space for a Paramount Chieftaincy for Matanzima, Thembu-

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land was divided.’ Xhalanga, Cofimvaba and Lady Frere districts became Emigrant Thembuland (later Western Thembuland) and Matanzima was duly installed as paramount chief in June 1958. Chiefs, whether genuine or created by the apartheid government, ‘did not all relate in the same way to the apartheid system’. While Matanzima ‘shamelessly collaborated with the apartheid regime’, Sabata Dalindyebo was a ‘reluctant participant in the apartheid game’.123 As a result, there were varied responses to Bantu Authorities and betterment in Thembuland. Whereas, ‘in May 1961 over 1 000 Tembu chiefs condemned the rehabilitation scheme (the “Native Trust”)’ at a meeting organised by Paramount Chief Dalindyebo, in Western Thembuland the betterment scheme was generally accepted.124 Still, here too there was opposition and clashes: pro-government chiefs and headmen were killed, a census building was destroyed, fencing was opposed through legal appeals, and taxes were withheld. The activities in the early 1950s of the Glen Grey People’s Committee, which led to the banishment in 1953 of Saliwa, have already been noted. In January 1961, 100 people were arrested in Glen Grey for the non-payment of poll tax for 1960. Late in 1962, three attempts were made on Matanzima’s life by cells of Poqo (the armed wing of the PAC) members, all of which failed. The ‘pattern of events … closely paralleled those in Pondoland, with a similar nexus of grievances and tactics’. However, while in Mpondoland resistance achieved mass dimensions and was relatively well organised, that in Thembuland remained ‘sporadic and disjointed’.125 The implementation of Bantu Authorities in Thembuland, the creation of Western Thembuland, and the installation of Kaiser Matanzima as its paramount chief were all strongly opposed by sections of the Thembu community. Paramount Chief Dalindyebo sent a deputation to Pretoria to notify the Department of Native Affairs of their position, but it was threatened that continued opposition would lead to the government deposing Dalindyebo and withdrawing educational and other services.126 This was not the first threat. The chief magistrate, strongly partial to Matanzima, had written to Paramount Chief Dalindyebo on 1 November 1957, saying that ‘you would do better to interview me if you have anything to say rather than sign impertinent letters composed and written by your secretary. If I receive any further letters from you criticizing my actions, I shall have to cancel your appointment as regent.’ As Govan Mbeki wryly noted, ‘the chiefs could be powerful in the Transkei – when they obeyed government commands’.127 The threats were ignored and displays of disaffection continued.

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In Xhalanga there had been no traditional authority for over seven decades and sections of the community were not keen on its revival. Matanzima, however, was determined ‘to re-impose chieftainship’ and establish his hold.128 He set about imposing sub-chiefs and headmen in different locations such as Emnxe, where headmen were usually elected. At a meeting in Cala on 3 October 1957, the chief magistrate warned that if opponents of Bantu Authorities ‘persisted in their uncooperative attitude toward the administration, and maintained the bad spirit that had developed in this District, stronger measures, such as deportations, might have to be considered’. The chief magistrate also said that ‘he had a big stick ready for those who resisted Government laws’, but that people who were being misled would not be affected. Only ‘those people who rejected the Government and preached the Government was no good’.129 In early 1958, a one-person commission consisting of C.B. Young, undersecretary for native affairs, was established to investigate tensions in Thembuland. As part of a strategy to undermine Chief Dalindyebo, on 30 May 1958 four members of the deputation that had travelled to Pretoria, Jackson Nkosiyane (secretary to Paramount Chief Dalindyebo), Twalimfene Joyi, Bangilizwe Joyi and McGregor Mgolombane, were banished on the grounds that they did not have the welfare of the people at heart. The chief magistrate considered Nkosiyane to have too much influence over Dalindyebo and referred to him as one of the ‘dissolute sycophants who frequent his Great Place’. At a meeting of the Thembu in Umtata on 11 June 1958, Young announced the banishment of Nkosiyane and the others and the appointment of Kaiser Matanzima as chief of the Cofimvaba and Xhalanga districts.130 On 12 August 1958, activists opposed to Bantu Authorities disrupted a meeting convened by Matanzima. They were reported to have said: ‘we do not want a chief here, voertsek, take him away, the shit of a chief, the anus of a chief; we Xalanga people will kill this Kaiser Matanzima here at Cala’. Those who were public in their opposition to Matanzima’s chieftainship or Bantu Authorities were arrested and prosecuted under section 2(9) of the Native Administration Act, which made it an offence to obstruct ‘any officer, chief or headman … in the lawful execution of his duties or disobeying any lawful order of or wilfully insulting such officer, chief or headman … or wilfully obstructing the proceedings of any meeting lawfully convened by such officer, chief or headman in connection with his duty’. This still did not stop one of those arrested from testifying that ‘I never saw any chief since I was born. What sort of creature is he? I was annoyed when

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it was announced that Matanzima was my chief because I don’t want him.’ Another of those arrested stated that ‘I am against chieftainship. Yes, I said I did not want a chief, I did not whisper: I shouted.’131 The confluence of interests, as well as differences of opinion, on the parts of magistrate, chief magistrate, security police, chief and local collaborators regarding banishment, and in identifying activists for banishment, is well illustrated in Thembuland. In a letter to the secretary of native affairs dated 14 August 1958, the chief magistrate claimed that Paramount Chief Dalindyebo and Matanzima had provided him with the names of people who should be urgently banished. Matanzima was keen on banishing four people: Abel Ntwana, Silumko Ntame, Edward Sineke Tyaliti and Tyutyu Michael Nyovane. In correspondence with the magistrate in Cala, Matanzima stated that ‘the presence of four men in [Xhalanga] District is detrimental to the administration and development in that area. Their presence there is of no public interest and a danger, as they are against the Chiefs, the Government, and are anti-White.’ He added that he had reliable information that there was a plan to assassinate ‘leading personalities in our administration on the Mau Mau lines’. He appealed for ‘support of the Government otherwise our lives are at stake’. In the same breath, however, he stated that ‘personally I have not got much to fear because I have complete control of the situation in the District of St Mark’s and if these four men … are removed from Cala to a place outside Transkei I shall be able to handle the remainder of their followers’.132 The magistrate clamoured for the banishment of the four ‘leading agitators’: ‘Already there is an indication that at least one influential man … who has been strongly against Stabilisation, may have changed his attitude following the four deportations from Umtata.’133 The acting secretary of the Department of Native Affairs, however, sought the use of other avenues and laws such as section 2(9) of the Native Administration Act to deal with opposition. The chief magistrate called on the security police to lay charges, but lamented that the laws were ineffectual because of the difficulty of securing sufficient evidence. The chief magistrate favoured banishment, but paradoxically sought for this to be ‘just’: however, not so just as the holding of an open inquiry at which attorneys could be present and witnesses would have to be revealed. Such an approach was also rejected by Matanzima and the security police.134 It was only in December 1958 that the secretary of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development came to accept that ‘sufficient evidence

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is available to make a recommendation to the Governor-General for the removal of the persons concerned’. In any event, the chief magistrate had an innovative proposition for the visiting under-secretary of Bantu administration and development in April 1959: that ‘Chief Matanzima should have the power to eject the agitators on the spot and without delay’.135 As will be seen, such a power was provided by Proclamation 400 of 1960 and was wielded by Matanzima against many of his political opponents. Of the four identified for possible banishment, Tyaliti was highlighted by the chief magistrate in a letter to the secretary of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development on 1 August 1959.136 The others were considered to ‘have been quiescent for some time, but E.S. Tyaliti is still active’.137 On 12 October 1959, an order was signed by the governor-general banishing Tyaliti from Manzimahle Location to Tabaans Location (Sibasa, Northern Transvaal).138 He left Xhalanga on 28 October 1959.139 The documentation that motivated Tyaliti’s banishment noted that he was an active supporter of both the ANC and the AAC and also played a leading role in the Cala African Parents’ Association, an AAC affiliate. It was claimed that through this association he exercised a negative influence on parents and schoolchildren. Tyaliti and his co-conspirators were charged with employing ‘insulting and condescending attitudes’ towards Department of Bantu Administration and Development employees at official meetings. Several of these meetings were allegedly broken up by them. The Tyaliti group also ignored the orders of the chief and continually threatened ‘peaceloving natives’ with death or burned down their houses. Finally, it was stated that the chief requested the removal of this andersdenkende groep (differently minded group).140 On other occasions, too, there was agitation for banishment. In a letter of 29 February 1959 to the chief magistrate, the local magistrate, Marsberg, proposed that another four opponents of betterment and headmen appointed in the wake of the establishment of the tribal authority, Jonas Ntungwa, Swelindawo Vena, Mabanga Mboyiya and Ben Tyeku, should be banished from Emnxe Location, Cala.141 In a letter dated 19 August 1959 to the chief magistrate, Marsberg claimed that Emnxe was ‘the hub of all the subversion in this District’ and the situation here was ‘cause for anxiety’.142 Tyeku and Abel Ntwana, for whom a banishment order was issued on 15 September 1960, fled Emnxe for Basutoland.143 Ntwana was accused of being behind the unrest, and the suspicion was expressed that ‘peace-loving natives’ would be attacked, their huts burnt down and headmen killed.144

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Violence erupted in Cala in July and August 1960, with hut burning in Emnxe in anger at the unilateral imposition of state policies and attempts to appoint pliant pro-Matanzima headmen. Alex Tikana had been an accused in the 1958 court case over insults hurled at chieftainship and Matanzima. He was strongly opposed to Bantu Authorities and collaborators, and described as ‘bold, confrontational and militant’.145 There was speculation that he was involved in the hut burnings of Matanzima loyalists and collaborators, but there was no evidence. Despite this, there was a frenetic recommendation by the magistrate that ‘Alex Tikana should be deported immediately … Up to a short while ago, the indications were that Abel Ntwana was the chief agitator here, but now that Abel Ntwana has fled to Basutoland, Alex Tikana has taken his place.’ The magistrate also favoured allowing information ‘to leak out’ about impending banishment. This, he hoped, would cause ‘agitators’ to flee, as had happened with Ntwana and Tyeku.146 Affidavits and supposed evidence were collected from state and Matanzima loyalists to justify banishment. One headman stated that Tikana was ‘a fluent speaker’ and that he could ‘easily convince the people not to accept the scheme … I am certain that should he be deported the spirit of the antiBantu Authorities group will be broken.’147 Tikana was also considered ‘the brains behind the recent burnings’.148 State documents concerning Tikana’s banishment noted that with the removal of Tyaliti, Tikana ‘emerged as the leader of a group known as the “Congress.”’ It was alleged that Tikana and his comrades used intimidation and arson to garner support from ‘peaceloving natives’ and that as a consequence the people were afraid to support the Department of Bantu Administration and Development’s measures. It was held that Tikana’s banishment would erode Congress influence in Cala.149 An order was signed by, among others, H.F. Verwoerd, C.R. Swart and M.D.C. de Wet Nel on 15 September 1960 that banished Tikana to Frenchdale Trust Farm (Northern Cape). The decision was communicated to the chief magistrate on 19 September and Tikana left Cala on 28 September. He was, according to the magistrate, ‘defiant, insolent and nonrepentant’, proclaiming that ‘he would never accept the headman or a chief’.150 He also allegedly told a crowd ‘to see to it that, should the Police ever set foot in Emnxe Location, they should be killed’ and to have warned the magistrate to advise the headman of Emnxe Location that ‘under no circumstances should he ever set foot at Tikana’s kraal during his absence’.151

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Hut burnings, the murder of a state opponent, Willie Manzana (whose head was cut off), and the enforced exile of opponents of Bantu Authorities, all ‘dealt a severe and crippling blow’ to opposition in Emnxe.152 It is suggested that ‘if the murder of Manzana broke the back of resistance’, banishment ‘delivered the final blow to the struggles in Xhalanga’.153 The really ‘mortal blow for years to come’ was Proclamation 400.154 It was a ‘draconian measure that provided, amongst other things, for the banning of meetings and banishment of individuals. More significantly … it gave wide-ranging powers to chiefs.’ It made it an offence ‘to treat a chief with contempt. Above all, chiefs were given powers of banishment [and] a State of Emergency could also be declared.’ 155 Proclamation 400 was duly put into effect on 30 November 1960. Regulation 12(1)(a) of the special regulations for the administration of the Transkei permitted a chief authorised by the minister to ‘order any African to move, with his household and property, from one place to another within the chief’s area of jurisdiction’.156 It was confirmed in parliament on 27 January 1961 that four paramount chiefs had powers to banish people.157 Banished persons had 30 days to appeal to the native commissioner and, if there was no appeal, or it failed, the chief could under regulation 12(1)(c) use force to implement the banishment and also, under regulation 12(1)(b), demolish the dwellings of the banished.158 Finally, ‘no interdict … for the stay of any order given under the regulations’ could be issued.159 Matanzima made rapid and extensive use of Proclamation 400 and also began arming his supporters. On 13 January 1961, Eugenia Ntwana, her husband (Abel, already in Basutoland), her household, livestock and movable property were banished to Keilands location (St Mark’s) to ‘remain there for an unspecified period’.160 Huts and dwellings occupied or owned by the Ntwanas were demolished in September 1962 in full view of shocked residents. Eugenia Ntwana was simultaneously convicted and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for contempt of court relating to failure to pay a fine imposed on her. As a result of the imprisonment, another banishment order was issued on 20 February 1961. She escaped into exile in Basutoland and then Bechuanaland. Abel Ntwana’s sister-in-law, Asnath Ntwana, was also banished, as were ‘landholders and owners of stock in Upper Ndwana’.161 The principal actors behind the resistance in Xhalanga were ‘ordinary, landholding, stock-owning people’ and resistance was largely driven by local interests: the ANC and the AAC ‘played a marginal role’. By 1963 opposition in Xhalanga was largely silenced, ‘one instance of the apartheid

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government’s “cleanup” operations in the aftermath of … Sharpeville’ and the banning of the ANC and PAC.162 Banishments in terms of the Native Administration Act from Thembuland in 1958 and 1959 were initially ineffective in silencing opposition to Bantu Authorities and betterment, and opposition was suppressed by also using other repressive measures, including Proclamation 400. Someone from Xhalanga noted that ‘people feared’ banishment; another said ‘that was a punishment those days’.163 Jackson Nkosiyane, Twalimfene Joyi, Bangilizwe Joyi and McGregor Mgolombane were all banished on 30 May 1958, their banishment orders signed two weeks earlier.164 Nkosiyane was banished to Voorspoed Farm (Soutpansberg, Northern Transvaal). The document that encouraged the governor-general to banish him makes interesting reading. It was noted that there were many difficulties in establishing Bantu Authorities in Thembuland and that a commission of inquiry had found that Nkosiyane was fuelling Paramount Chief Dalindyebo’s ‘misconception of his position and powers’. It was alleged that he was ‘intensely ambitious and wields an extraordinary influence over the young Chief’. The inquiry had also found that ‘Sabata himself is a weak personality and easily led’, that he was generally ‘pleasant and co-operative’ and that ‘with good councillors he could develop into quite a satisfactory chief’. However, he was being misled by ‘Nkosiyane and his clique’. They should be banished so that they could no longer influence the paramount chief. Concern was expressed about Nkosiyane as ‘money sent to him … had been returned, the envelope being marked “address unknown.”’165 This was probably because he had escaped into exile and was in contact with Anderson Ganyile in the Qachas Nek area of Lesotho. Nkosiyane’s banishment order was revoked in November 1963 on the grounds that ‘the reasons which gave rise to [the order] no longer exist’.166 Bangilizwe Joyi, a sub-chief of 700 homesteads near Umtata, was banished to Native Trust Farm Joubertstroom (Soutpansberg). He was alleged by the state to be a member of the AAC, ‘bitterly anti-white’ and also a proponent of the ‘principles of the ANC’. He was ‘against all progressive measures undertaken by the Government for the welfare of the people’ and instigated cutting of fences, holding of meetings where money was collected ‘to fight the system’, opposition to the issue of reference books and killing councillors who supported Bantu Authorities. He was also devious: ‘he rarely appears in public but exercises great influence over Nkosiyane behind the scenes’.167 In banishment, Joyi received no income.

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He found employment, earning ‘only £4 10s a month at Louis Trichardt, and out of that he had to pay for his food and clothing. It was impossible for him to support his family’.168 He escaped from the Louis Trichardt district into exile in Lesotho in December 1960. His banishment order was withdrawn on 25 November 1963.169 Twalimfene Joyi was a sub-chief and a cousin of Bangilizwe Joyi. He was reported to have openly told the under-secretary for native affairs that he was opposed to betterment. He was also alleged to have said that ‘all those who accepted Bantu Authorities and other schemes brought by the Government should be killed’. He was banished to Magagapere (also known as Wesselsvlei, Kuruman, Northern Cape) where he was joined by his wife and three children.170 Joyi worked as a farm labourer and complained that he had to live ‘in a small rat-infested room’ and was ‘practically starving as he received an allowance of £2 a month only and had to support a wife and three children’.171 In October 1960, Nkosiyane and the Joyis unsuccessfully applied to court for an order demanding that the minister of Bantu administration and development provide specific reasons for their banishment in 1958 or for them to be set aside.172 Twalimfene Joyi escaped with his wife and family into exile in Lesotho in February 1961. His banishment order was withdrawn in November 1963 and he returned to South Africa. In 1969, he was convicted under the Terrorism Act and spent five years on Robben Island. On his release he was banned for two years. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) noted that ‘Joyi, Twalimfene (48), an ANC supporter, was shot dead by a named member of the Transkei Police in March 1976 in Flagstaff, Transkei, allegedly because of his opposition to Transkei’s independence and the Matanzima government’.173 McGregor Mgolombane was banished to the same place as Twalimfene Joyi. He was said to be ‘intimately associated’ with Nkosiyane and the Joyis and to travel and write much ‘in his efforts to oppose stabilization … he frequently travels to Cape Town and other big centres where he is suspected of making contact with subversive elements’.174 He escaped into exile in Lesotho in December 1960. Re-arrested on a visit to Transkei in August 1961, he served a month’s prison sentence and was returned to Wesselsvlei. He claimed that his banishment order was illegal, as it stated ‘Ngolombane’. He was released from banishment on 25 November 1963.175 Edward Tyaliti, as was seen, was banished in October 1959. He left behind two children and a wife, who took on the responsibility of caring for the children and homestead, ‘selling a sheep when the crops failed and

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the family was desperate for food’. He escaped into exile in Lesotho, coming into contact with the Joyis, Nkosiyane and Anderson Ganyile. Longing to see his family, he risked arrest, imprisonment and re-banishment by visiting them clandestinely for a few hours.176 He did not accept the state’s offer of a conditional release, saying this would be ‘selling his brothers’, and died in exile in 1974. Alex Tikana, banished in 1960 to Frenchdale, was banished again to Ewbank Farm (Kuruman) in 1965.177 His banishment order was withdrawn in 1973 on the grounds that the reasons for his banishment no longer existed.178 Opposition to apartheid policies and resultant banishments were not confined to Mpondoland and Thembuland. A number of people were also banished from the Tsolo district of Transkei. Here and in Qumbu in the late 1950s, the Makhuluspan (Big Team) movement arose as a popular response to ‘the increasing incidence of stock theft’ in the face of the failure of authorities to deal with it.179 Alleged thieves were assaulted and fined and had their homesteads burnt. Later, the Makhuluspan became ‘more directly political’.180 It ‘began to threaten chiefs and headmen whom it regarded as collaborating too closely with the Government’.181 Magade Madapu, William Tyabashe and Vincent Mbamama Hlamandana were issued banishment orders on 16 June 1960 and were all banished to Native Trust Farm Driefontein (Vryburg).182 The document that urged their banishment noted that since 1957 there had been occasions of arson and violence in several locations in the Tsolo district and that this culminated in the burning of 193 huts, one death and several injuries between 30 April and 3 May 1960. It recorded that the ‘Makulu Team’ opposed the Department of Bantu Administration and Development and its rehabilitation measures, propagated the removal of all white magistrates and all chiefs, and called for the appointment of Albert Luthuli to reign over South Africa. It claimed that the ‘Makulu Team’ used terror and fear and had great influence on the local population.183 The Makhuluspan crumbled in 1962 through the arrest of members, banishment and the state of emergency.184 Compared with other banished people, Madapu, Tyabashe, and Hlamandana spent relatively short periods in banishment. Madapu’s order was withdrawn in June 1962, though he could have been released from banishment earlier, as it was noted that he ‘had been allowed to return to Tsolo and nothing negative had resulted’.185 Tyabashe’s and Hlamandana’s orders were withdrawn in September 1962 owing to good conduct.186

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During the 1960s Proclamation 400 was used to banish numerous people from Thembuland and Mpondoland. In a confidential letter dated 16 November 1959, an official recorded: ‘In compliance with your instructions I forward a list of persons whom the Paramount Chief considers should be deported’. Nine persons from five locations in Lusikisiki were identified.187 Drum magazine reported on Chief Mbungwa of Emgetsheni village banishing ten families from the neighbouring Amangutyana village to Libode, an area 320 kilometres away with which they had no connection. They were provided no land to till, had to survive on R4 grants and were not allowed to leave without the permission of the local commissioner.188 New Age reported on the banishment for opposition to Bantu Authorities of 70-yearold Makeloyi Mantshula and his 38-strong family, also from Amangutyana. According to Mantshula, on 3 July 1962 ‘a party of police arrived at my kraal in about nine vehicles, trucks and vans. The party consisted of white and black police.’ All his household goods and family members were loaded onto vehicles and relocated to Pumlo location (Lusikisiki). There were protests by the Durban branch of the South African Congress of Democrats, which described the banishments as barbaric and feudalistic.189 In 1962, it was reported in parliament that Kaiser Matanzima had served banishment orders on five people; Botha Sigcau on five men and their families; and that Chief Gangata had also made recourse to banishment.190 Gangata banished a step-brother, Gambushe Baleni, from Amadiba location (Bizana) to Tabankulu and burnt his kraal. Baleni was a strong opponent of Bantu Authorities and named as a ringleader in Bizana.191 The TRC drew attention to the case of Zetule Siqa. In 1960, the police burnt down the houses of Siqa and his father in Bizana under the orders of Chief Makhosonko Marhelane Sigcau. Both Siqa and his father were involved in Ikongo activities. They were banished to Tabankulu for nine months.192 The exact number of people banished, and the dynamics related to banishment, under Proclamation 400 need closer investigation. It appears that by 1966, 34 banishment orders had been issued; in early 1968, 17 persons were still subject to banishment; 17 more orders were served in June 1967; and 23 orders were still in force in 1972. Banishment orders were in force for periods of up to 10 years.193 In 1977, Proclamation 400 was succeeded by the Transkei Public Security Act. In March 1978, Chief Anderson Dalagubhe Joyi was banished from Mputi Location (near Umtata) to Mtingwevu Location (Cofimvaba). He was a member of the Transkei National Assembly, representing Paramount Chief

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Dalindyebo. At the same time Chief Mbeki Marhelane Bangilizwe Joyi was also banished. Followers of the two chiefs were also banished to various areas of Transkei: ‘in 1980, their homes were demolished, apparently on government orders. They were able to return home only after the military coup of 1987’.194 They were all opponents of Matanzima. Under Matanzima, banishments continued into the 1980s. In 1984 Prince Madikizela, an attorney and relative of Matanzima, was banished under the Public Security Act to the Mbongweni administrative area of Bizana.195 Madikizela also referred to other cases of banishment: of the Joyi brothers and of a woman who had been running a shebeen in Umtata. He added that he knew ‘of former Robben Island prisoners who have returned home to be served with these orders’.196 The Transkei Assembly ‘unanimously adopted an urgent motion on 15 June [1984] approving the banishment of 14 people from their home areas to other districts of Transkei. Chief George Matanzima claimed that the affected people had been responsible for a “lot of trouble” in Umtata.’197 Then, in October 1985, six people were detained following the murder of a student leader, Batandwa Ndondo. Ndondo was shot dead while held by security police in Cala. The six had been key actors in protests related to Ndondo’s killing. They included Dumisa Ntsebeza, the attorney representing the Ndondo family and later prominent in the TRC; his brother Lungisile Ntsebeza (currently a University of Cape Town academic); Victor NgaJeka; Godfrey Silinga, Zingisa Mkabile and Monde Mvimbi. 198 The six were thereafter served orders ‘banishing them to various remote rural areas on the grounds that their presence “in Umtata or any other place in the district of Umtata” was not judged to be “in the general public interest.”’199 The Ntsebeza brothers sought to mount a legal challenge against their banishment and, armed with a camera, they travelled out to the rural area beyond Tsomo, some 100 km … south of Umtata, to see and report at firsthand the conditions to which they had been banished. Even although they had been expecting something quite rustic, the reality came as a shock. In the first place, it was impossible to reach the two dilapidated mud huts by vehicle. They lay more than 2 km beyond the end of a rutted, boulder-strewn track which itself led off 5 km of gravel road. It brought home, for the first time, a realisation of what banishment must have meant for all of those who had suffered it in the past. And

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this, at least, was still within an area where they spoke the language. Their families, too, were aware of where they had been sent. The horror that confronted them, they realised, was banishment under better conditions than those usually suffered by victims of such punishment.200 The orders banishing the brothers were contested in the Transkei Supreme Court. The application to postpone the banishment orders until 1986 was granted, the judge, Mr Justice Van Reenen, ordering ‘that the execution of the orders be stayed pending the outcome of the applications’. Lungisile Ntsebeza said in an affidavit that he had ‘no doubt that the banishment order [was] to eliminate [him] as a witness in the Batandwa Ndondo murder’.201 Dumisa Ntsebeza’s application stated: the banishment order was malicious and invalid since it sought to punish and humiliate him. The effect of the banishment would be to reduce him ‘to the status of a subsistence peasant in the rural areas with no means of earning any livelihood.’ He included photographs, describing the huts, which he and Lungisile had been allocated as ‘residences.’ He noted that ‘both places have neither running water nor toilet facilities. They have large gaps in the roofing, in the walls and have gaps in the doorways. Both places are extremely damp and the door joints are rotting.’ He added, almost as an afterthought, that neither had electricity nor lightning conductors.202 The Transkei authorities contended that the Ntsebezas were a threat to the security of the state. Matanzima argued that ‘the two huts in the Mhlahlane area and the area itself, were highly appropriate. The Mhlahlane area is, in a Transkeian context, the home of the Ntsebeza clan … even if they themselves had not grown up in that area.’ There the Ntsebezas could exist ‘without undue harm to the general public interest’. More bizarrely, the views on the conditions of the huts allocated to the Ntsebezas reflected ‘a white or a European point of view’.203 The banishment orders were withdrawn in a face-saving deal. Yet, in early March 1987 a ‘security police major … thrust another banishment order into Dumisa Ntsebeza’s hands’. It was dated 26 February and signed by Kaiser Matanzima’s successor as president, Tutor Ndamase, and George Matanzima as prime minister. Once again, it ordered the lawyer to move to the Mhlahlane district (Tsomo). The new accommodation earmarked for the Ntsebezas ‘was in an even worse state. It was part of abandoned school premises and had never been lived in.’ In a further application to the Supreme

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Court, Ntsebeza stated that ‘there is no furniture of whatsoever nature, no cooking utensils, no firewood or lighting paraphernalia; no electricity, no running water … the place is, with respect, a wilderness’. With the Ntsebezas refusing to live in the allocated residence, the matter was set aside by a court in June 1987, without them spending any time in banishment.204

Natal Late 1959 saw large areas of the rural Natal south coast in open protest against oppressive apartheid burdens and interventions. A key feature of this resistance was the central role of women. The first stirrings were in Durban and involved the women of Cato Manor (Umkhumbane). In an area that already comprised about 6,000 shacks and 50,000 people in 1950, by the late 1950s 100,000 Africans, Indians and Coloureds lived in slum conditions in the shanty-town.205 Considerable numbers lived below the breadline, and malnutrition and kwashiorkor were widespread. In June 1958 the Durban municipality indicated its intention of reserving, under the 1950 Group Areas Act, Umkhumbane for whites, and of relocating tens of thousands of Africans to Umlazi and KwaMashu and Indians to Phoenix and Chatsworth. The move to these areas, much further away from jobs and the city centre, would inflict additional hardship through dearer transport costs. Not all would, however, qualify to be relocated to Umlazi and KwaMashu. Those who did not meet the Urban Areas Act rules would be endorsed out to the reserves.206 Thus, ‘many African women faced expulsion from Durban if the removals went ahead, and were in a combustible mood’.207 During late 1958 and early 1959 there were court interdicts, mass meetings, marches and strong protests against the demolition of homes and removals. In April–May 1959, Bantu Administration and Development officials ‘began to step up the clearance programme. While many people were at work, they broke down shanties. Families came home … to find the only home and shelter they had lying in mess and rubble on the ground.’ Police acting at the behest of the municipality overturned beer containers and spilled beer produced by women brewers. Municipalities in Natal financed certain social services to African communities through municipal monopolies on beer brewing and beerhall sales. It was a case, as women saw it, of beerhalls ‘taking their men and their desperately needed money from them. No other community in the country has to pay for its schools and crèches by

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the men’s drunkenness.’208 The beer monopoly of the Durban City Corporation was long a source of resentment among African women, who earned income from the domestic brewing of traditional beer (utshwala) to supplement the meagre income of their husbands.209 Interference with women brewers created an additional source of protest in Umkhumbane. Receiving no adequate response from the Durban City Council to their grievances, the women warned that ‘they would picket the beerhalls and so prevent their men from using them’.210 On 17 June 1959, ‘75 women had stormed the [Cato Manor] Beer Hall and driven out African men at drink’. The following day, protesting women gathered at Umkhumbane beerhall, ‘their numbers mounting to thousands and demanded to see the Director of the Durban [Department of Bantu Administration and Development who] invited five women to state their grievances’. Dissatisfied with the outcome of the meeting, the women were warned by the police to disperse and go home. Refusing to do so, they were baton-charged by the police: ‘stones were thrown, and shots fired, conventional gambits which we have come to recognize in South Africa as precursors to destruction of property and loss of life.’ Then ‘the men became involved, lawless elements took advantage of the situation, and by nightfall buildings were fired in Cato Manor and the adjoining Chesterville location. The main target was the property of the Corporation, administrative centres, community halls, trading centres, vehicles … Four people were killed.’211 In chapter 1, the phenomenon of endorsement out of urban areas of political activists was noted. In July 1959, the Durban City Council was requested to endorse out nine people ‘considered to be detrimental to the maintenance of law and order’, the decision being defeated by a single vote.212 Had the nine been endorsed out, there was a list of a further 20 activists also earmarked for endorsement out of Durban.213 Significantly, there was an acknowledgement that one legitimate source of grievance in Durban was the paltry wages paid to workers. As the director of the Durban Department of Bantu Administration and Development noted, ‘only here and there did the real, naked reason break to the surface – money or rather lack of it’.214 The riots resulted in some improvement in wages. Durban and surrounding rural reserves on the Natal south coast were closely connected through labour migrancy. The labour needs of Durban and various towns were provided in part by the rural reserves. At the same time, men and women endorsed out of Durban and other towns were cast out into the rural reserves, spreading ‘resentment and political consciousness

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into the more remote areas’.215 News of the Cato Manor and wider Durban riots would have reached rural communities and it is likely that women were inspired to give vent to their own grievances and problems. Rural women in 1959 were afflicted by six immediate problems. First, there was pressure on land because of the state policy of eliminating black spots and forcibly relocating the occupants within the already overcrowded reserves. Second, betterment schemes severely threatened the already limited access to land enjoyed by families. Associated with betterment was the attempt to control livestock numbers and to enforce cattle dipping, which was ‘unpopular because it was believed to make cattle more susceptible to illness’. Adding ‘insult to injury, local women were obliged to fill and maintain the dipping tanks: a tiring, and in the eyes of the majority, an utterly irrational duty’.216 A fourth grievance was the issuing of reference books to women in Natal in 1959: ‘Women saw the links between the books and influx control, which shuts off the town to them and penned them in the Reserves. There were reports of women stoning the reference book units or simply refusing to take the books.’ A fifth problem was the increase in tax levied on rural people in 1959. Women were especially embittered by this: ‘We do not get enough food. Our husbands pay more than £2 in taxes. The employers do not pay them anything. Our husbands are stuck at home. If husbands come home from Durban because of the sickness, they cannot go back to Durban. Because of these things we are dying.’217 Finally, some women strongly resented local traditional leaders collaborating with state officials to implement unpopular policies. The spark of rural rebellion was lit in Harding on the south coast of Natal. On 21 July 1959 the local agricultural officer summoned a meeting with the Maci community to discuss betterment, which would have resulted in the loss of homes and resettlement.218 Because of a rumour that the meeting was going to be broken up by a band of armed men, it was postponed to a later date. Later that day a group of 30 women pushed over a wood and iron hut belonging to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development and set fire to a drum of oil. The arrest and conviction of the women on 11 August drew men into the conflict. The men of the Maci community demanded the release of the women and, when this was refused, ‘they started cane and veld fires all over the area, and then blocked the Harding to Port Shepstone railway line when it was rumored that the women would be transferred to Port Shepstone by train’.219 Thirty kilometres away, ‘large numbers of African women, some armed

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with shields and spears, gathered to voice their grievances. Saracen armoured cars were sent to control them; and one of the newspapers carried a picture of an African woman, armed with a stick, threatening one of the armoured cars.’ By August 1959, thousands of rural women were protesting and demonstrating before magistrates, native commissioners and agricultural extension officers against a variety of burdens. By late August, ‘more than 10 000 women had been involved in the disturbances, and 624 Africans, mainly women, had been sentenced to a total of 168 years’ imprisonment and/or fines totalling £7,130’. In October 1959, a peaceful demonstration of women outside the office of the native commissioner in Ixopo was surrounded by armed police and, when the women refused to disperse, ‘three hundred and sixty-six were arrested, convicted and sentenced, each to a fine of £35 or four months’ imprisonment’.220 The main focus of rural arson and violence was dipping tanks, 75% of which were destroyed. The chairperson of an advisory board that dealt with the authorities on issues in African areas commented that ‘The African women of Natal have demonstrated that the sufferings endured by many families cannot be described in constitutional words. It is the voice of oppressed people who have no other means of voicing their grievances before the governments of the land. I do not blame them. I lay the blame at the multiplicity of the laws and their regulations which are harshly administered by men who do not show sympathy. Men in urban and rural areas suffer and feel the same.’221 The skirmishes in Durban and parts of rural Natal politicised women and assisted in expanding the base of the ANC. Considerable numbers of rural people, including women, attended a Freedom Day rally on 27 June 1959 at Curries Fountain in Durban, and on 6 September 1959 an ANC-inspired Natal Peoples Conference was represented by delegates from at least 50 rural locations. While one response of the apartheid state to the rural disturbances in Natal was large-scale arrests and imprisonment, another was the banishment of rural leaders. As a consequence of the resistance, Chief James Maci was banished on 12 October 1959 from the Maci Tribal Area, Harding, to Native Trust Farm Kalkspruit (Pietersburg). In 1962 he was at the Trust Farm Chloe, near GaMatlala.222 The document motivating his banishment noted that in June 1959 a meeting was held to explain rehabilitation measures to the community, but the meeting was broken up by the actions of a few women. They were arrested and, not long after, a protest was organised to call for their freedom. The protest moved through Harding,

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burning the veld and blocking roads. The white population of the town armed themselves and bloodshed was only avoided through the firm action of the police. There was no evidence that Chief Maci was behind these events: it was simply asserted that this was obvious and people were afraid to give evidence against him. It was admitted that similar resistance was widespread in Natal, but that events in Harding were directly related to Chief Maci. It was therefore in the interest of the common good to banish him from the area. Chief James Maci was banished in October 1959 from the Harding district of Natal to a Separated from four wives and 13 Native Trust Farm near Pietersburg. children, some of whom could not be kept on at school, Maci worked as a labourer for £4 a month and his health became extremely poor in banishment. At Trust Farm Chloe, he was with Chief Miya, who had been banished from the Bergville district of Natal. His banishment order was only withdrawn on 10 February 1971.223 Another Natal south coast person who was banished was Cijimpi Mnyandu. Mnyandu was a trade union leader and ANC member who worked in Durban. When Helen Joseph and her companions met him in 1962, he recounted that he had been part of a community delegation to express grievances related to cattle dipping. The community had submitted grievances on numerous occasions, but the native commissioner remained intransigent. In early November 1959, Mnyandu was notified that he should see the native commissioner in Umbumbulu. He went to meet him with other members of a community delegation but was the only one permitted entry. He was simply told: ‘This is the paper, and you are banished to Sibasa.’224 He was given £2 and the banishment order. The official reasons provided for his banishment were that from September 1957 Mnyandu had been spokesperson for those who were against the filling of dipping tanks by women; that he had formed an organisation called Makhanya Hlanganani and urged that cattle not be allowed to drink from dipping tanks, as it was suspected that they contained chemical substances that were causing disease; and that he continually disrupted meetings and

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incited violence against Department of Bantu Administration and Development officials. He travelled with his belongings from Makhanya Tribal Area to Johannesburg, Louis Trichardt and then on to Kirsten Farm (Sibasa, Northern Transvaal).225 Mnyandu was actually taken to New Union Mines Halt on the Mozambique border where he worked as a ‘boss boy’ for an agricultural officer at a rate of R10.17 per month. Here, he helped locals undertake a strike. This was confirmed by his second banishment order, which said that soon Cijimpi Mnyandu, a trade union leader and ANC member who lived and worked in Durban, was after his arrival he employed an antagbanished in late 1959 to the Northern Transvaal. onistic attitude towards authority and incited his fellow labourers to oppose working for a slave wage.226 He allegedly also told his fellow workers that he was part of ‘some or other “Congress,”’ which would soon bring an end to exploitation. He was accused of attending secret meetings at night where he told the local Shangaan community that the whites were planning to place their community under a bhaVenda leader. It was claimed that his behaviour led to another banished person, Michael Matlala, requesting to be moved elsewhere. Since Kirsten Farm was far from the native commissioner’s office in Sibasa, it was requested that Mnyandu should be banished to an area where his activities could be monitored.227 As a result he was moved to Rembander Farm (Sibasa). Here, he was employed as farm labourer for £5 a month. He could move around the village but was not allowed to leave or go to Louis Trichardt, the nearest town, without permission. He refused to pay poll tax; and, asked to pay rent for his hut, he also refused, saying, ‘I am in jail, and you don’t pay rent in jail.’ His only question when Joseph visited him in 1962 was: ‘When are we going to get our freedom.’228 He did not live to see this, dying of pneumonia at the Tshelethsini Hospital in 1964.229 Govan Mbeki wrote that ‘the Bantustan octopus stretched its tentacles in other directions too. In Zululand the government seemed to be meeting with less organized opposition as it thrust the main Chief − Cyprian Dinuzulu − forward to give the impression that the glory and splendour that once

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characterized the Zulu was being restored.’230 There was, however, conflict in Thokazi Location (Nongoma) around Bantu Authorities, betterment and the role played by Paramount Chief Cyprian Dinuzulu. He was initially reluctant to take a stand on Bantu Authorities and requested three indunas to speak on the matter. After they spoke, the community rejected it.231 There was also opposition to betterment-related resettlement. Initially, opposition to relocation was total, but ‘the government retaliated by denying them the right to plough their arable allotments, as though to say: If you do not do as we tell you, we shall see to it that you do not eat.’232 Dinuzulu then accepted betterment and the community was obliged to move to a new area. However, ‘so intense was the resistance in Zululand that King Cyprian, who had accepted the system, had to flee to Swaziland when peasants from the Thokazi district of Nongoma threatened to kill him’.233 To begin with, ‘24 families yielded to government pressure and moved to the allotted area. To show its appreciation, or deliberately to set one group against another, the government then allotted arable plots to the conformists and allowed them to till.’234 The resultant anger of the rest of the community led to the cutting of fences, burning of huts, violence and killing. Twenty-nine people were tried for murder and 14 convicted and sentenced to varying periods of imprisonment. During the trial an employee of the tribal authority acknowledged that the community in Thokazi had unanimously rejected Bantu Authorities since early 1958. He reported that ‘we divided the Thokazi area into smaller units, called blocks, and issued people of each block with residential sites and arable land permits’. Those without new sites were not allowed to cultivate their fields, causing great hardship.235 The judge in this case remarked that ‘it was clear that there was deep resentment against Bantu Authorities and that the administration had been aware of this but had imposed the scheme in spite of opposition. In passing sentence, he regarded this resentment as an extenuating circumstance.’236 Arising from this conflict, banishment orders were issued on 11 December 1959 for the cousins Nelson Zulu and Phikinkani Zulu.237 Documentation related to their banishment orders described them as being against betterment; convening regular meetings at which they conspired to act against these measures and encouraged other people to do so; and having no regard for the chief’s orders. Their activites and attitudes also put the chief’s authority in question. Nelson Zulu was accused of regularly attending meetings in Durban and Johannesburg and of being inspired by vyandiggesinde (hostile) whites. However, the cousins were nowhere to be

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found and could not be served their banishment orders. New orders then had to be prepared and it was noted that since it was possible that they might employ this tactic again, the new orders were such that lengthy court processes could be avoided.238 The Zulus were banished from the Usutu Area (Nongoma) to Native Trust Farm Driefontein (Vryburg). Nelson Zulu spent 12 years at Driefontein, leaving behind in Nongoma three wives and nine children. In 1967, he was banished to Logabati, Gensea Bantu Reserve (Kuruman) reportedly for attacking a fellow banished man with a knife.239 He was released from banishment in January 1971 for a year, which was then extended to a second year. With severe restrictions placed on him, his banishment order was withdrawn on 13 October 1972.240 Phikinkani Zulu was in banishment for 14 years, released only in November 1973.241 Gibson Magwaza was also banished from the Nongoma district for coming into conflict with Chief Cyprian Dinuzulu and the state. A document on his banishment noted that Magwaza was a senior induna who was very influential and in 1957 played an important role in opposing the implementation of state policies. He was charged with disregarding an instruction from the native commissioner and fined R30 (or six weeks in prison). Referring to confidential information, it was alleged that Magwaza was the organiser of protests that occurred in Thokazi in November 1960 in which 24 huts were burnt down and two people were killed. As in the case of Nelson Zulu, it was suggested there were agitators in the background: he was said to visit Johannesburg and Durban on a regular basis and to meet certain lawyers, including Rowley Arenstein. It was also observed that Magwaza’s house was on the national road between Nongoma and Vryheid and it was easy for him to meet leftists.242 Magwaza was banished from Nongoma district to Native Trust Farm Kalkspruit (Pietersburg). His banishment order was revoked in 1966.243 Especially interesting in the light of the role that Mangosuthu Buthelezi came to play in bantustan and national politics was the banishment of Mceleli Buthelezi in 1959, also from Nongoma district. For reasons of birth and status, ‘it was not automatic that [Mangosuthu] should become the chief of the Buthelezis’, with strong claims to the position being held by his older brother Mceleli. Indeed, the latter contested Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s appointment as chief in the courts, but to no avail. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, desperate to become chief, accommodated the apartheid state, initially working in the Department of Native Affairs and later pledging his support

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for Bantu Authorities and promising to get the community to accept it. Support for Bantu Authorities and for Paramount Chief Cyprian Dinuzulu was the price of state support for his quest to become chief of the Buthelezis. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, like Mangope in Bophuthatswana, subsequently ‘rose steadily within the political structures’ of Bantu Authorities. Contrast this with Chief Albert Luthuli, president of the ANC, who ‘was summoned’ by the secretary for native affairs, Werner Eiselen, ‘and given an ultimatum either to stop his political activities or be deposed from his chieftainship … Luthuli took a principled stand and chose to be deposed rather than become a servant of the apartheid government.’244 The dispute over chieftainship and Mceleli Buthelezi’s campaign against Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s confirmation as chief created a ‘serious rift’ in the Buthelezi community.245 Documentation on Mceleli Buthelezi states that his banishment was requested by Mangosuthu Buthelezi.246 It notes that Mceleli Buthelezi had many followers, had petitioned since 1958 for the removal of Mangosuthu Buthelezi as the chief, and observes that Mceleli Buthelezi’s popularity was so strong that he could not only make a bid for chief, but he was also capable of discrediting Mangosuthu Buthelezi because the people were generally suspicious about state measures that could benefit them. The court ruled that ‘it had no authority in the matter of the chieftainship of the Buthelezi’ community.247 The Department of Native Affairs favoured Mangosuthu Buthelezi, considering him a learned and progressive man, and also a supporter of state policy. Mceleli Buthelezi was blamed for causing divisions in the community and it was said that information had been obtained that armed conflict was possible: he had to be banished if greater dissent and bloodshed were to be avoided.248 An order was issued for Mceleli Buthelezi on 1 October 1959, banishing him to Boltman Farm (Sibasa, Northern Transvaal). The order was, however, not served on him as there was an application from him to the High Court requesting appointment as chief. It was subsequently observed that certain people on Boltman Farm were fostering dissidence and it was therefore not an appropriate banishment location for someone of Mceleli Buthelezi’s character.249 In the meantime Mceleli Buthelezi disappeared, only being found in November 1960 in Durban, from where he was banished to the Sibasa district. It was stated that Mangosuthu Buthelezi went ‘so far as to assist the South African police with information when they were trying to execute a warrant of arrest on Mceleli, as well as to complain to the police about their seeming inefficiency in their attempts to apprehend him’.250

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During August 1960, Mceleli Buthelezi’s lawyer requested information pertaining to his banishment and this was granted to the extent that it did not compromise the ‘public good’. He later appealed against his banishment and was allowed to travel to Durban for the court case. Mceleli Buthelezi continued to argue that Mangosuthu Buthelezi was not the legal claimant to the chieftainship. The second banishment order strongly motivated that his presence in Durban was a threat ‘to the peace, order and good governance of the natives of Durban’ and that there should be no entertaining of the idea of repealing his banishment order.251 A final document relating to a second petition in August 1963 for the withdrawal of Mceleli Buthelezi’s banishment order received the response that officials were still of the opinion that his return would result in bloodshed. His banishment order was only revoked in 1975.252 The rural resistance of the late 1950s in Natal was not entirely new, having been preceded by various episodes of conflict related to state policies and interventions in the early 1950s. In early 1951, Walter Sisulu travelled to Nqutu to meet local communities about the state’s imposition of rehabilitation schemes. He ‘spoke about the ANC Programme of Action and encouraged the people to mobilise in order to resist the government’s rehabilitation schemes. He was later told that his speech had made a lasting impression and that an ANC branch was established at Nqutu.’253 Two people, Isaac Molife and Monica Molife, were banished in August 1953 from Nqutu to Delville Trust Farm (Xhalanga, Transkei). Their banishment orders were only withdrawn in 1962.254 Between 1953 and 1957, there was also conflict around Bantu Authorities and various other issues in the Bergville area. As a result four people were banished. One of them was Chief Vuna Miya, who was first deposed in 1949 after being chief for seven years and then banished in September 1954 to Native Trust Farm Chloe (Pietersburg).255 Chief Miya linked his banishment to his protests against the encroachments beyond the Tugela River onto his community’s land by white farmers and the Natal Parks Board.256 Prior to his banishment he spent three days in jail. Trust Farm Chloe served as a Department of Native Affairs agricultural experimental farm. Described as a ‘tall, thin, dignified’ man, Chief Miya lived in a two-roomed house on the farm. Initially, before the two-roomed house was built, ‘he had to live in a hut which was so broken that the rain came in and made everything wet’. Despite poor health and emaciation (during his banishment he was hospitalised six times), Chief Miya worked under tight supervision in the fields and earned about

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£5 per month. He had to cope with a very antagonistic African agricultural demonstrator at the Trust farm, and both he and Chief Maci ‘were subjected to constant surveillance and humiliation, and were in fact … treated as prisoners’. He reported that ‘we are having a dreadful life. We are not allowed to leave this place. We can’t go home whatever happens.’257 With two wives and four children, Chief Miya’s family in Bergville lived in great poverty. When his mother and one of his daughters died, he was refused permission to go home for their funerals. According to him, his ‘ordeal ended in 1966 when I was removed from Chloe, but was restricted to Bergville. I was not provided with any assistance by the commissioner. I had no means of earning a living as I was not even allowed to work. From 1973, however, they allowed me to move around and thus could do piece jobs and fend for myself.’258 Following the death of ‘the usurper’ who replaced him as chief in 1975, he appealed to Mangosuthu Buthelezi and King Goodwill Zwelithini to be restored to his chieftainship, but with no success. His banishment order was only withdrawn after 18 years, on 18 January 1972. Banished along with Chief Miya was his induna, Thompson Dhlamini: ‘Handcuffed together, the two men were taken to Bergville, the nearest town, where they had remained in the police cells for three days before they were put on a train for the Transvaal.’259 Dhlamini was banished to Frenchdale Trust Farm (Mafikeng).260 One of his four wives joined him in Frenchdale. He was released to Pinetown between September 1959 until December 1960 and then until 12 December 1961. He died in May 1965. Others banished in April 1957 from the Bergville district were Mxosha Mdhluli and Mhlupeki Hlongwane, who lived in Ngoba Location. Mdhluli was banished to Duiwelskloof (Letaba, Northern Tranvaal); Hlongwane to Mutaledrif (Sibasa). Their banishment orders were a consequence of developments related to the killing of five policemen during a dagga raid in February 1956, with 22 of those responsible apprehended and sentenced to death.261 When Mdhluli was visited in 1962 by Helen Joseph, he was living in a ‘dark and squalid … broken-down shack’ with ‘broken wooden frames for beds’. According to Mdhluli, ‘it happened on April 12, 1957 that the police called me from my hut and I was taken to the Native Commissioner’s office at Bergville. They took Hlongwane with me, the son of my chief. The first thing they said was: “You are being banished to Duiwels-kloof, Mdhluli. You are not wanted, you and Hlongwane; you are not good.”’262

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He requested the reason for his banishment, but was given none. He recalled: It ended there at the office, and we were taken to the sergeant’s quarters, where we were treated like criminals. Our fingerprints were taken, we were examined for identification marks like criminals. We were handcuffed and taken to the cells and brought the next morning to a train. At Pietersburg I parted from Hlongwane and I did not ever see him again. A government official in the place where Hlongwane was taken sent me a message long afterward to say that he was dead.263 Mdhluli stated that he was not involved in politics, but suspected that he was banished because he provided assistance to the families of men who received death sentences for killing policemen during a dagga raid.264 He worked from early morning to sunset in the fields to earn a small monthly wage. He was released from banishment in November 1965. Hlongwane died in banishment on 15 February 1961 at Sibasa Hospital. On hearing of his death Mdhluli grieved, ‘it is not Mhlupeki that died, but me, because what they have done to him they will do to me.’265

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5 Urban political opposition and banishment He was lonely in his death – a sad repeat of his life in isolation [banishment], before he went into exile. (E. Masilela, Number 43 Trelawney Park Kwa Magogo, referring to Ben Baartman)

ON 22 AUGUST 2002, a motion was tabled in the National Assembly in Cape Town on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC). It noted ‘with sadness the untimely death’ of Ben Baartman who ‘was a former combatant of uMkhonto weSizwe, an ANC stalwart and a communist to the end’. It stated further that the ANC ‘dips its banner’ in honour of a man who dedicated his life ‘to the freedom of the people of South Africa’.1 In 1959 Baartman had been banished from Worcester, 120 kilometres from Cape Town, to the Mngomezulu area of Ingwavuma 1,600 kilometres away near the border with Swaziland.2 Conflict during the 1950s was not restricted to the rural areas. In the urban areas too, there was widespread, broad-based and intense resistance to apartheid. A central demand was the extension of political and citizenship rights to all. The 1946 African Mineworkers Union (AMU) strike, and especially the violent response of the state, represented a turning point that ushered in a new phase of resistance. A key feature was the growing alliance between the black middle and working classes. The intensification of pass controls after the Second World War and the increasing subjection of middle-class Africans to influx control facilitated this alliance. The leadership of the ANC began to be drawn to a greater extent from the workers’ movement and this, together with the militancy of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) formed in 1944 by Anton Lembede, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and others, propelled the movement in the direction of mass-based and militant forms of struggle.

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With the prodding of the Youth Leaguers, in 1949 the ANC adopted the Programme of Action, which rejected ‘segregation, apartheid, trusteeship and white leadership’ and committed the ANC to strike action, civil disobedience, boycotts and other forms of militant resistance.3 The 1950s witnessed the implementation of these tactics and the decade became a period ‘of large-scale, open and violent conflict between the state and the popular masses in South Africa’.4 A nation-wide strike was called on 1 May 1950 to protest against the Suppression of Communism Act, which effectively outlawed the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). The strike, uneven in its success, resulted in workers being killed and wounded at Newclare, near Johannesburg. In response, the ANC declared 26 June Freedom Day. These protests culminated in the Defiance Campaign of 1952, the most extensive non-violent resistance so far seen in South Africa. Organised by the ANC and the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the Defiance Campaign called on volunteers to engage in disciplined protest action against a range of discriminatory and repressive laws, six unjust laws being specifically targeted. One of them was the Stock Limitation Act, which especially affected inhabitants in the rural reserves, and this was an attempt to draw rural communities into the campaign and link rural and urban resistance. None of the unjust laws was repealed, but the Defiance Campaign succeeded in mobilising and politicising thousands of people. The national membership of the ANC swelled to 100,000. Beyond this, the campaign also laid a firm basis for future inter-racial co-operation and joint action. The passage of the Bantu Education Act in 1953 led to renewed resistance, especially in the Eastern Cape and on the Witwatersrand. School boycotts were coupled with attempts to set up alternative schools, which were quickly crushed by state action. Later in the same year, a proposal was put forward at an ANC national conference for a campaign aimed at drawing up a Charter of Freedom. This proposal led to the Congress of the People campaign in which thousands of volunteers dispersed across the length and breadth of South Africa to collect the demands of workers, peasants, students and other social groups to gauge the kind of future South Africa they cherished. The campaign gave birth to the Congress Alliance, composed of the ANC, SAIC, the Coloured People’s Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU, formed in March 1955). The campaign culminated in the historic Congress of the People held in Kliptown on 25−26 June 1955. The

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Freedom Charter, a revolutionary national-democratic document that called for a non-racial and democratic South Africa, was adopted there. The mid-1950s witnessed myriad struggles around a range of issues. In 1954, the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) was formed and a year later a large anti-pass demonstration was held in Pretoria. On 9 August 1956, 20,000 women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria demanding an end to the extension of passes to women. Those actions were followed by a national one-day work stoppage, which put forward a demand for a minimum wage. Its success was largely confined to the Eastern Cape and the Witwatersrand. Resistance continued into the late 1950s: a national consumer boycott of potatoes in protest against the appalling employment conditions of farmworkers won widespread support. It was against this backdrop that the anti-pass protests reached a climax in 1960. In support of the call by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) for nation-wide demonstrations against the pass laws on 21 March 1960, demonstrators gathered at a police station in Sharpeville to hand over their passes and offer themselves for arrest. They were fired upon by police and 69 people were killed and 186 wounded. The massacre led to country-wide protests and burning of passes and a state of emergency was imposed. The response of the state to the militant resistance of the 1950s was invariably characterised by strong repression, the persecution, harassment and intimidation of organisations and activists, and violence. While repression was extensive, its specific elements were modified in relation to changing conditions. In 1950 the Communist Party was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act in an attempt to emasculate the involvement of communists in the national liberation and worker movements. Three years later, in direct response to the Defiance Campaign, the Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed in an attempt to criminalise all non-violent political protest. The Bantu Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act also came into effect in 1953. Already prohibited by law from engaging in strike action, African workers were, under this new legislation, now faced with heavier penalties and criminal prosecution for going on strike. The intention of the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1956, according to a National Party spokesperson, was to ‘bleed African unions to death’.5 The Act continued the practice of denying African workers the right to participate in collective bargaining agreements with employers and was a deliberate attempt to stifle the development of SACTU, which was committed to linking the struggle against economic exploitation with resistance to political tyranny.

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During 1956 the Riotous Assemblies Act was also amended to deal with mass demonstrations and protests against apartheid. In the same year, 156 key political activists were arrested on charges of treason. Although the charges were eventually thrown out of court, the Treason Trial lasted over four years and seriously debilitated the liberation organisations. Concomitant with the battery of repressive laws was the use of naked violence, as witnessed during the May Day strike of 1950, the anti-pass demonstrations of 1960 and rural rebellions in Witzieshoek, Sekhukhuneland and elsewhere. As noted, the response of the state to the anti-pass demonstrations of 1960 was to declare a state of emergency. In April 1960, the ANC and PAC were banned under the Unlawful Organisations Act. During the emergency, over 11,000 people were detained, hundreds imprisoned and scores beaten and tortured. Hundreds of activists were forced to flee into exile. For the ANC and PAC the Sharpeville massacre and subsequent state violence brought to a close solely non-violent resistance to apartheid. Preparations began to prosecute an armed struggle and in 1961 Umkhonto weSizwe and Poqo (Xhosa for ‘pure’ or ‘alone’) were established as the armed wings of the ANC and PAC respectively. Events following the Sharpeville massacre ‘caused investor panic and a general capital flight large enough to turn the 1960 305 million rand trade surplus into a foreign exchange crisis which brought the state to the brink of bankruptcy’.6 The investor panic was, however, short-lived. Savage state repression, state authoritarianism and the decline in internal political resistance enabled new conditions for capitalist growth and accumulation. Between 1963 and 1972 there was a sustained economic boom, the South African economy experienced a rate of expansion second only to that of Japan, and the rate of return on invested capital once again became among the highest in the world. This economic growth was accompanied by increasing economic inequalities. For white South Africans the 1960s was generally a time of political calm, rising living standards, prosperity and a share in the sustained economic boom of that period. Blacks for whom the opportunity to accumulate wealth, power and privilege through the bantustan programme proved irresistible shared in this bounty. For most blacks the aftermath of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre was a period of intensified exploitation, extended and tightened social controls, demoralisation, fear, and enforced and sullen acquiescence. In urban areas state repression largely took the form of mass arrests, imprisonment, harassment and bannings. However, from the mid-1950s,

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the Native Administration Act was also used to deal with some urban African political opponents. All told, 20 urban political activists were banished under the Act. The militants and activists affected were invariably involved in community struggles around basic subsistence issues; in popular organisations, political movements and trade union activities; or in a combination of these, as shown by the cases of Ben Baartman and Elizabeth Mafekeng.7 The very first banished, in 1954, were Alcott Skei Gwentshe and Joel Lengisi from East London.8 Gwentshe Alcott Skei Gwentshe, an ANC Youth League played a key role in the establishment leader from East London, was banished to the Eastern Transvaal at the request of the East of an ANCYL branch in East London London municipality in 1949, and ‘in organizing East London for the stay-at-home of June 26, 1950, and the 1952 Defiance Campaign’.9 Gwentshe was ‘powerful and charismatic … orphaned as a result of the Bulhoek massacre’.10 His ability to mobilise people helped to make East London one of the most powerful centres of protest during the Defiance Campaign. The documentation related to his banishment noted that Gwentshe had attended ANC meetings since 1948. He was active in various towns in the Eastern Cape and clearly under the careful watch of the security police. At a Queenstown meeting he was reported to have said that ‘I appeal to the African as individuals, teachers, preachers, policemen, and the C.I.D. to prepare for the struggle in the near future. I also appeal to those present to defy the laws, i.e. Pass Laws, and if arrested not to pay their fines.’11 Gwentshe became the chairperson of the ANC in East London and also the president of the Cape ANCYL.12 He was a versatile man, also the ‘leader of the Hot Shots musical band’.13 In 1952, Gwentshe secured permission for a prayer meeting to express opposition to the banning of meetings and the restrictions, under the Suppression of Communism Act and Riotous Assemblies Act, of over 50 leaders from the Eastern Cape. The meeting on 9 November 1952 would be held in the aftermath of riots in Port Elizabeth and Kimberley. The police

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decided that it was not of a religious nature and ordered the gathering of 1,500 people to disperse. A scenario familiar to many other parts of South Africa unfolded. The crowd was reluctant to disperse and ‘the police charged with bayonets. Stones were thrown. The police opened fire with sten guns, revolvers and rifles. Dozens of people fell, and several shots penetrated the flimsy walls of nearby shacks and houses and sub-economic houses, wounding the occupants.’ In the resulting rioting nine people were killed, including two whites; 30 people, including police, Robert Resha, an ANC militant from Sophiatown, were injured; and numerous churches, was banished in May 1955. other buildings and buses were burnt. There were the inevitable arrests, court cases (in which Joe Slovo, later an ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP) stalwart, was involved) and convictions, with two hangings. There were also pass raids on locations, leading to the endorsement out of East London of hundreds of women and youth to the rural reserves.14 Gwentshe was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act from attending meetings for six months. He was subsequently found guilty of violating his banning order on 26 March 1953 and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment. In February 1954, at a Liberal Party meeting he was alleged to have said that disenfranchised people wanted their ‘own people in the Volksraad, they do not want representatives’. The urging for Gwentshe’s banishment came from the East London municipality. He was banished from Duncan Village to Maviljan Farm at Pilgrim’s Rest (Eastern Transvaal).15 Subsequently, in April 1955, he was banished to Native Trust Farm Frenchdale (Mafikeng, Northern Cape). His new banishment order noted that upon arrival in Pilgrim’s Rest he declined the job offered to him and it was suspected that he received money from the ANC. It was alleged that he was being visited by ANC members in secret and that there were plans afoot for him to abscond. As his residence in an urban area made it difficult to monitor his movements, it was proposed that he be banished to a locale where it would be easier to keep a watch on him.16

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In 1956, he was arrested in Mafikeng for disobeying the order of the governor-general to remain at Frenchdale, but released on bail of £25.17 He was alleged to have left the farm and to be living in Mafikeng location. Represented by Joe Slovo, he was found not guilty of contravening his banishment order. The native commissioner, Van Rensburg, told the court that he had pointed out two huts at Frenchdale for Gwentshe’s accommodation. Van Rensburg acknowledged to Slovo that Gwentshe had stated three days later ‘that the huts were not fit for human habitation’. He was then permitted to stay at a labour depot in Mafikeng for a few days though this was also not suitable. Van Rensburg also acknowledged that he may have said to Gwentshe he should find accommodation anywhere. Other banished people testified that in the cold and rain the huts given to Gwentshe were not habitable and also that banished people had ‘no work, nothing to eat and were starving’.18 Another banishment order was served on Gwentshe in May 1957 to restrict him to Frenchdale. This arose from the native commissioner’s problem that Gwentshe was continually in the town of Mafikeng and was unable to be charged successfully. The official complained that Gwentshe frequently met ANC members and that his acquittals encouraged them.19 In August 1956, Can Themba’s exposé of Frenchdale ‘concentration camp’ focused on Gwentshe and his flamboyant character.20 Gwentshe was released from banishment in 1960 to Tsomo, his home town, in Transkei. His banishment order was withdrawn on 5 August 1964: the document in Afrikaans bore the signatures of President C.R. Swart, Prime Minister H.F. Verwoerd and the minister of Bantu administration and development, M.D.C. de Wet Nel. It was noted that although there had been accusations of misconduct, no evidence could be found, and the police commissioner did not object to his return.21 He died in the late 1960s.22 Another person banished from East London was Joel Mabi Lengisi. Born in the Sitholeni Location, Engcobo, in 1920, Lengisi was also an East London ANCYL leader and in October 1952 was banned with Gwentshe under the Suppression of Communism Act.23 On 6 July 1954, Lengisi was ‘ordered forthwith to withdraw from his place of residence in the district of East London … to the farm Schoemansdal No. 13 in the district of Barberton in the Province of Transvaal, there to reside at a place to be shown to you by the native commissioner of Barberton’. In 1955 Lengisi challenged his banishment in court on the grounds that the governor-general could only banish a person from ‘an area occupied by a tribe’, and as he

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lived in East London his banishment order was null and void.24 His appeal was unsuccessful and following the court case he was banished.25 Lengisi’s banishment order described him as a farmworker and the ANCYL secretary. He was reported as speaking at meetings in the Eastern Cape and displaying a negative attitude towards the government, urging ‘natives’ to join the ANCYL. Obviously under the watch of the security police, he is reported at one meeting, perhaps called to mobilise people for the Defiance Campaign, as saying: ‘I am calling upon all Africans to listen as we want the yoke off our shoulders and the time has come for us to fill the gaols. This meeting is being held for the recruiting of volunteers.’ He was charged under the Suppression of Communism Act on 26 March 1953 and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment, suspended for three years. Despite not being permitted to attend any meetings he was reported as seen speaking to two ANC members at an ANC conference in April 1953, and regularly present at the ANC offices in East London. Curiously, the statement about wanting direct representation in parliament attributed to Gwenshe and made at a Liberal Party meeting was also attributed to Lengisi.26 In 1955, Lengisi was banished again from Schoemansdal Farm 13 to Native Trust Farm Driefontein, Square B (Vryburg).27 It was alleged that he was secretly meeting ANC members, continuing his anti-state campaign, and meddling in the administrative affairs of the area. He was also said to be a bad influence on the personnel of the Shongwe Mission Hospital. In much the same terms as the banishment of Gwentshe to Frenchdale, it was said that his presence in an urban area made it hard to monitor his movements and that it was best if he were located elsewhere.28 He was permitted in 1957 to return to his home in Transkei.29 His banishment order was revoked in June 1960 on the grounds that the reasons for his banishment no longer applied.30 Elias Monare, from ‘Dube Street 1935, Wattville Natives Town, Benoni’ in the Transvaal, was banished in 1955 at the age of 31 to ‘Glen Red [Glen Road]’, Vryburg.31 According to the documentation related to his banishment, Monare was suspected of instigating arson and robbery, but charges were dropped due to lack of witnesses. He had started the Wattville Helping Hand Association in 1954 and served as its president. At its meetings Monare was accused of encouraging opposition to municipal rent increases, urging people to boycott municipal services including buses and beerhalls, and threatening those who did not abide by his calls. At meetings of the ANCYL, he was heard promoting opposition to the Bantu Education

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Act, having founded an association called Leihlo la Motse (Eye of the City). On 20 March 1955 he warned teachers and schoolchildren to stay away from schools, otherwise they would be burnt down. On 12 April 1955 he went to several schools in Benoni and prevented children from entering or leaving. It was alleged that he wielded influence over local petty criminals and with them threatened teachers, employees of the local advisory committee and other ‘law-abiding Natives’. It was stated that the call for Monare’s banishment and that of other alleged agitators had emanated from the Benoni local authorities and ‘certain peace-loving and law-abiding Natives’ from the Witwatersrand area. Following his banishment, Monare was not prohibited from moving around the Vryburg district. After settling in the Vryburg location, he was accused of ‘misusing his freedom’ by agitating against the state and gaining a following. On 13 August 1956 he disappeared and it was believed that he was trying to escape to the Gold Coast (Ghana). Two months later, he was arrested on the grounds that he was not allowed to leave the Vryburg area without the approval of the secretary for native affairs. A new banishment order was imposed which restricted his freedom of movement and confined him to the farm Glen Red [Glen Road].32 Monare’s banishment order was withdrawn only in December 1967, though in the meantime he had fled into exile in Basutoland.33 The urban area from which most political activists were banished was Evaton, 40 kilometres south of Johannesburg. Here, in 1956, there was an extended period of intense opposition to a bus fare increase. The renowned author Ezekiel Mphahlele documented the dynamics of the Evaton bus boycott.34 Many residents objected to the Italian-owned bus company’s attempt to raise fares in mid-1955, citing numerous problems with the service. The Evaton People’s Transport Council, led by Vusumzi Make as chairperson and Joseph Molefi as secretary, was established to fight the increase. As the boycott was implemented under the rallying cry of Azikwelwa (Don’t ride them), an anti-boycott force emerged, with the result that boycotters and anti-boycotters were ‘at war with each other, killing, assaulting each other, and burning down houses, making their township a hive of unrest and bitter civil strife … The Government and the bus company [watched], doing little or nothing about it.’ The bus company hired six men to protect the buses, but they and the police colluded with the Russians, ‘a gang of rough blanketed men which originated in Newclare in 1948’ to attack the boycotters. Indeed, ‘a man called Ralekeke Rantuba,

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a self-styled chief of the Evaton Basotho … led a number of his people against the boycotters. He was seen at every scene of trouble.’ The situation was likened to that of Newclare a few years previously: ‘the police always disarmed the victims of the “Russian” menace while the thugs retained their weapons.’35 The struggle against the bus fare increase was a great success and an agreement was reached to reverse it. Even then, many people refused to use the buses, incensed at the role played by the bus company in the township. However, the resistance in Evaton did not lead to the establishment of strong Vusi Make, an ANC member who had been popular grassroots structures. In late involved in the Evaton bus boycott of 1956, was 1956, when the boycott was still strong, banished to the Northern Transvaal. banishment orders were issued for Make, Molefi and four others.36 Make was described as a ringleader and ANC member who was ‘violently opposed to the government’. He was reported to have ‘taken a leading part in the boycotting of schools and was one of the leaders primarily responsible for the bus boycott’. It was claimed that in a context of ‘brutal assaults, arson, deliberate lawlessness, and murder’ in Evaton Township, prosecutions on major charges kept failing because witnesses were murdered or disappeared for fear of their lives. The official concern was that the various measures to deal with lawlessness would fail if the ringleaders were not banished.37 Make, who was born in Boksburg in 1931, was banished to Malonga Flats near Mutale Drift (Sibasa, Northern Transvaal).38 He had joined the ANCYL while still in secondary school.39 Arrested for public violence and murder related to the bus boycott, he was simultaneously arrested for treason in December 1956 and was the youngest accused in the Treason Trial.40 Cleared of all charges at the end of 1957, ‘immediately, on 20 January 1958, he was summoned’ to the native commissioner’s office in Evaton and banished.41 Make was then aged 27. He escaped into exile, joined the PAC and became its leader in 1978. He served the PAC in various parts of Africa and was an academic for a period. He died in 2006.

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Joseph Sallie Poonyane Molefi, born in 1930 at Winburg, in the Orange Free State, attended St Peter’s School in Johannesburg and matriculated in 1948. Medical studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in the early 1950s followed, but were jettisoned for political activism and ‘to become a full-time political organiser at the time of the 1952 Defiance Campaign’.42 His banishment order, dated 1 November 1956, banished him to the ward of Chief Mgoqozi, Reserve 19, Nkandhla (Northern Natal). Apart from being secretary of the Evaton People’s Transport Council, he Joseph Sallie Poonyane Molefi, secretary of the was also the secretary of the ANCYL. Evaton People’s Transport Council and secretary of the ANC Youth League, was banished to It was alleged that the bus boycott northern Natal. ‘actually started after he had convened various public meetings addressed by well-known Communists from Johannesburg’.43 Like Make, he was arrested and charged with treason in 1956; unlike Make, he sat through the entire trial and was acquitted only in early 1961.44 During the Treason Trial the PAC was formed and Molefi was the only one among the final defendants who joined it.45 After fleeing to Lesotho in late 1961 to avoid another trial, Molefi ‘joined the PAC executive committee in exile [and] later became a press correspondent, covering Lesotho for several South African newspapers’.46 Joseph ‘Anti-Pass’ Khumalo was the chairperson of the Evaton branch of the ANC. He was described in documentation related to his banishment as a ringleader who was a ‘known agitator against the Government’. This was supposedly ‘borne out by the fact that he was responsible for the procession’ of Evaton women to the native commissioner’s office ‘to protest against the issue of reference books’. He was credited with playing ‘a leading role in a similar procession to the Union Buildings on the 9th August 1956’. He was banished from Evaton to Bendstore in the Tsama Block (Duiwelskloof, Letaba, Northern Transvaal).47 He was brought back by police from banishment for the Treason Trial, but was one of those against whom charges were withdrawn at the end of 1957.48 He was again banished to Bendstore, but ‘in October 1958 he applied for and was granted permission

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to travel for treatment in Johannesburg at Baragwanath Hospital’.49 He was arrested on 19 May 1959 while still under treatment for being in Evaton without permission, released on bail, appeared in court and was ordered by the native commissioner to ‘be removed to Duiwelskloof under escort’.50 He then escaped into exile in Lesotho. His banishment order was withdrawn on 16 August 1967.51 Smash Moweng was described as yet another ringleader who was 35 years old and ‘a fighter suspected of being responsible for many assaults and … a supporter of the boycott movement’.52 He was said to be unemployed and ‘exercises such a tremendous influence over the local Natives that it is well-nigh impossible to obtain evidence against him’. He was banished to the ward of Chief Madoda, Reserve 5, Empangeni (Natal north coast). His banishment order was withdrawn on 16 August 1967.53 Saul Simon Nhlapo was reported as ‘the man most feared by the inhabitants of the Township … The assaults, arson and murders actually started from the time he took an active part in the management of the boycott, and although he remains in the background, he is in charge of the gangs responsible for assaults, arson and murder and is the most shrewd of ringleaders.’ Nhlapo was banished to Nsigazi Reserve (Nelspruit, Eastern Transvaal).54 He appealed against his banishment in January 1959, stating that his wife was unable to keep open their shop, the profits of which were used to support orphans. He also alleged that Moweng had turned himself in and had given up his compatriots, but had not mentioned his name. Finally, he argued that he had no idea why the state considered he had anything to do with the boycotts.55 His legal representatives contended that the initial findings were based upon suspicions and asked for these to be reinvestigated, as Nhlapo emphatically denied ‘having taken part in any activities which are inimical to the peace, order and good government of the natives residing in your district’. A re-investigation found that Nhlapo might not have always been openly in the foreground of the boycott, but he was a committee member who opposed the increase in bus fares. It reiterated that he was the ‘most feared by the inhabitants of the Evaton Native Township’; and that he was ‘the principal “executioner” and leader of the gangs who terrorised the inhabitants through assault and “cold-blooded murder.”’ The re-investigation concluded that there was ‘little doubt that the return of Nhlapo to Evaton will result in a recurrence of unrest and possibly bloodshed’. It was recommended that the banishment order not be withdrawn.56

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Earlier it was noted that Ralekeke Rantuba had been the kingpin of the anti-boycott movement. Interestingly, he was also banished, to the ward of Chief Magamege, Reserve 10, Mtunzini (Natal).57 His banishment order noted that he was the ‘self-appointed leader of the Basuto section residents on Evaton Small Farms and the leader of the so-called “Russians” whose activities have caused much terror in the Evaton area’. He was subsequently deported to his birthplace, Basutoland, in 1959 and his order withdrawn on 14 December 1961, as there was ‘no more reason for his banishment’.58 The Bus Boycott Six were not the first to be banished from Evaton. In November 1954, Paul Moremoholo Machobane Kuena had been banished to Native Trust Farm Frenchdale. Kuena was an interesting character. He seems to have been a jack of all trades who caused great annoyance to the authorities in Vereeniging. He was alleged to be a conman who sold himself as a tailor and sign-writer, an ‘educationalist who founds and directs his own schools’, an advocate and ‘a churchman who is both leader and priest of his own church’. There were also complaints that he ‘utilises printed documents and letterheads the wording of which are calculated to mislead and deceive ignorant persons, particularly Natives, into regarding him as an influential authoritative person, while, in fact, he has neither legal nor academic right to the use of such designations and descriptions’. He was also accused of issuing illegal passes, ‘worthless documents to unsuspecting Natives’, and also ‘illegal permits to reside in these locations to prohibited Basuto immigrants and other unwanted Natives’. In his capacity as an ‘advocate’ he also instituted ‘groundless and fantastic civil actions against certain individuals and bodies’.59 Through all this activity Kuena was said to be ‘interfering in the proper administration of the municipal locations’. The nub of the charge, perhaps, was that he persuaded people that the way they were being treated by the authorities was unjust and unreasonable and that, left to ‘his practice of deception and intrigue’, his actions might lead to bloodshed.60 In 1961, there was a bombastic letter from Kuena’s private secretary to the director of the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). Kuena, it seems, was in Lesotho. The letter claimed that Kuena’s family had joined him in banishment at Frenchdale in 1955 and were still there ‘without means of living’. He required £200 to ‘rescue’ his ‘perishing dependants’ and move them to Basutoland.61 Kuena’s banishment order was revoked, without reasons being provided, in November 1960.62

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Drum, December 1959

New Age, 15 November 1962

Left: Ralekeke Rantuba. Middle: Gilbert Hani (father of Chris Hani). Right: Jacob Mpemba. The latter two were banished from Cape Town to the Transkei in 1962 but escaped into exile.

Gilbert Hani and Jacob Mpemba, prominent ANC leaders and strong opponents of Kaiser Matanzima and the bantustan policy, were banished from Langa in Cape Town in October 1962.63 Gilbert Hani, a ‘slight, bespectacled man’, was the father of the well-known ANC, SACP and MK leader Chris Hani, who was slain in 1993 by right-wing militants. As a recent ‘Fort Hare graduate in classical and legal studies’, Chris Hani joined his father in Cape Town in 1962, when he took up articles in a legal firm. Gilbert Hani had eight years of formal missionary schooling and became a migrant labourer in Cape Town to provide Chris Hani with a decent education. He ‘earned a scant 16 shillings per week as a migrant construction worker and, later, as a hawker plying an illegal trade, but this meant that he had to live far away, in a hostel in Langa, Cape Town’, at 79 Special Quarters, Langa. This address is known from the application form that Chris Hani filled in to gain admission to the University of Fort Hare.64 Gilbert Hani was chairperson of the Langa Residents’ Association and spent over two weeks in detention and solitary confinement, accused of killing a policeman.65 He was hated by the Matanzimas because of his opposition to bantustans. His banishment was motivated on the grounds that he was a member of the ANC and since 1959 had acted as a speaker for it at meetings. At these meetings, it was said, there was agitation against pass books for women, the cost of rent, laws affecting African people, and denunciation of Matanzima’s betrayal, betterment and Bantu Authorities. Hani was reported as saying that ‘you all know that our Chief Matanzima is going to be Prime Minister. You must protest against that. If some of us

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fall by the wayside, you must not be discouraged. The white people do not want us to be united.’66 Exceptionally, Hani was banished to Lower Sabalele (St Mark’s, Transkei), the area from which he originally hailed. Documentation on Mpemba’s banishment stated that he was a listed communist who said that ‘there is nothing done by the Government except evils’ and that ‘an African cannot walk on the pavement in Johannesburg. If the Government succeeds in oppressing us it will not succeed in oppressing our children. There is no difference between my wife and Verwoerd’s wife.’ Mpemba was banished to Location 31, Qamata Basin (St Mark’s).67 Interestingly, it was indicated that Matanzima had requested that Hani and Mpemba be moved to St Mark’s, where he could keep an eye on them. They did not turn up at the train station to proceed to Transkei, while friends gathered in the presence of security police to sing freedom songs and say farewell. Instead, they had gone into exile in Basutoland, where they sought asylum.68 There, Gilbert Hani lived with Elizabeth Mafekeng in Mafeteng and ran a small shop. When Chris Hani also went into exile, Gilbert Hani was instrumental in introducing his son to important political contacts. Legend has it that Gilbert Hani took great delight in ridiculing and tormenting Matanzima about his lack of intelligence during phone calls; and that Matanzima would in fury threaten to find him and beat him up. In the early 1990s, Gilbert Hani lived in a small homestead in Sabalele (Cofimvaba, Transkei). His last sight of Chris Hani was a few weeks before his son’s assassination.69 Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe and Potlako Leballo were prominent PAC leaders at the heart of events leading up to the protests against passes in Sharpeville and the massacre there on 21 March 1960. Sobukwe was born in December 1924 at Graaff-Reinet. His schooling was undertaken there and then at Healdtown, where he was recognised as a gifted student. He attended the University of Fort Hare, where he participated in the founding of the ANCYL in 1948. In 1949, he became president of the Student Representative Council. He was recognised for his oratory and asked to deliver a speech at a function for graduating students. The speech embodied ‘much of what was to be Sobukwe’s later political philosophy: the rejection of any trace of white paternalism; the stress on black self-regard and on an African continental approach to the world; the emphasis on service, and with it, sacrifice; the rejection of colonialism and the reaching out to socialism’.70 He graduated in 1949, in the words of Z.K. Matthews as ‘a student of outstanding ability’. In the same year he was elected national secretary of

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Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, the leader of the Pan Africanist Congress. Though he had been arrested and was awaiting trial, a banishment order was prepared in case of his acquittal.

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the ANCYL, at the time when its Programme of Action was adopted. He went on to teach at a secondary school in Standerton and became secretary of an ANC branch there. In 1955, Sobukwe was appointed to the post of Language Assistant in the Department of Bantu Languages at the University of the Witwatersrand, but resigned on 21 March 1960. He was part of a group of Africanists who expressed discomfort with and opposition to working with non-African organisations, especially those with a communist ideology, and who were also alienated by the Freedom Charter. Instead, they saw the 1949 ANCYL Programme of Action as their platform. The Africanist grouping was defeated at the 1958 Transvaal ANC conference and proceeded in April 1959 to form the PAC, with Sobukwe as president. On 18 March 1960, Sobukwe indicated at a press conference that on 21 March the PAC would begin a campaign to end pass laws. PAC volunteers would not carry passes and would go to police stations to offer themselves for arrest. The approach would be one of ‘no bail, no defence, no fine’. The anti-pass action was the start of a campaign to achieve freedom and independence by 1963.71 The events of the early afternoon of 21 March 1960 are well known. In what came to be known as the Sharpeville massacre, police opened fire on a generally peaceful crowd, resulting in the death of 69 people and injuries to 186: 70% of the casualties were shot in the back. Sobukwe was arrested, taken to Marshall Square police station and then to the Fort in Johannesburg, today the site of the Constitutional Court.72 An order was issued on 25 March 1960 for the banishment of Sobukwe from Mafolo Bantu Town, Johannesburg to Native Trust Farm Driefontein (Vryburg).73 The banishment document noted that Sobukwe and Leballo had both been arrested and were awaiting trial, ‘but it is necessary to have a banishment order in hand just in case they are released’. The documentation also asserted that the bloodshed at Sharpeville was inspired by Sobukwe and Leballo and that protest was not merely about pass laws, but black rule. Several quotes from the manifesto and constitution of the PAC were cited as well as a letter, allegedly written by Sobukwe to the commissioner of the South African Police. The letter notified the commissioner that the PAC would ‘be starting a sustained, disciplined, non-violent campaign against the pass laws on Monday, 21st March, 1960’. Sobukwe requested that the police refrain from violence as they ‘regard themselves as champions of white supremacy and not as law officers’. He made it clear that ‘the usual mumbling by a police officer of an order requiring the people to disperse within three

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minutes and almost immediately ordering a baton charge, deceives nobody and shows the police up as sadistic bullies’. He indicated that the PAC would not ‘run helter-skelter’ because of racist and browbeating conduct.74 Sobukwe never spent time in banishment, as he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for incitement.75 However, after serving his jail sentence he was not freed. Instead, under a clause in the General Laws Amendment Act of 1963, which came to be referred to as the Sobukwe Clause, he was restricted on Robben Island until 30 June 1964. There were annual renewals of the clause by parliament until 1968 and he was released from Robben Island only in 1969, mainly because his solitary confinement had begun to have an adverse psychological effect on him. In May 1969, he was served a five-year order under the Suppression of Communism Act that banished him to Galeshewe (Kimberley): ‘He would not be in jail but there was clear intention to maintain invisible barriers for his isolation.’ The local language was Tswana, which he did not speak.76 He was also under house arrest, indoors between 6 pm and 6 am, and no visitors were allowed except family members. Sobukwe was offered a clerk’s post in the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, but refused it and so had to make do with an allowance of R100 per month. The South African Council of Churches stepped in to provide a grant for furniture and an additional contribution to supplement his state allowance. In 1970, he enrolled for a law degree with the University of South Africa and completed it in early 1975. He was admitted as an attorney and opened his own practice in late 1975. In 1970, he was denied a passport to take up a fellowship at an American university and also denied an exit permit to leave South Africa, his intended way of enabling his family to enjoy a normal life. Sobukwe was sought out for advice by the activists of the Black Consciousness Movement, which under the leadership of Steve Biko, Barney Pityana and others began to take root in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He met Biko clandestinely in May 1975 when he was permitted to travel to Umtata, where his mother had died, and to GraaffReinet to bury her.77 He died at the age of 52 in February 1978 from cancer. Kitchener Eneah Solomon Potlako Leballo’s banishment order was issued on 25 March 1960. It banished him from Dube Bantu Town, Johannesburg, to Reserve 14, Ubombo (Natal). It was noted that Leballo was the national secretary of the PAC and a member of the Basutoland African Congress; and that since 1952 he had been well known to the police for his political activities in leftist campaigns against the state.78 Leballo, however, was found guilty of incitment and jailed.79 A new banishment order was

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Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online

Kitchener Eneah Solomon Potlako Leballo, a leading figure in the Pan Africanist Congress, was banished on 25 March 1960 from Dube Bantu Town, Johannesburg, to Natal.

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prepared, to be served on him upon his release from prison on 3 May 1962. This again banished him to Ubombo.80 Leballo escaped from banishment and fled to Basutoland and then to London.81 His banishment order was revoked on 7 September 1962; it was noted that ‘Leballo went back to Basutoland where he was born. The Basutoland authorities accepted him.’82 • • • The remainder of this chapter comprises case studies of three political activists banished from urban areas: Ben Baartman, Elizabeth Mafekeng and Louis Mtshizana.83 The lengthiest is that on Baartman because there is a fascinating short autobiography to draw on; and also because he is one of those barely known, and little acknowledged, yet remarkable heroes of the South African freedom struggle.

Ben Baartman Kopi Ben Baartman was chairperson of the Worcester (Cape) branch of the ANC. Thirty-five years of age in 1959 and married with four children aged between 19 months and 12 years, he had lived in Zweletemba township for 18 years.84 He was employed as a dyeing operator at the Hex River Textile Mills for £2 3s per week and his wife worked at the Langeberg Ko-operasie canning factory.85 Baartman was born in the Eastern Cape town of Molteno on 1 March 1924, the son of a farmworker.86 One of seven children, he noted that for ‘black children whose parents worked on the farm, there was no chance of schooling. There were schools in towns such as Molteno, but farms might be 15, 20 or even 50 miles away from such centres. It was simply assumed that when children grew up, they would work on the farms as their parents had done before them.’ After moves to farms in Kroonstad and near East London, the opportunity arose to live with relatives and attend school in East London. Schooling continued in Molteno when the family returned there, but at the age of 15 Baartman left school to support the family. He recalled that by this time ‘I knew enough about the system to know that I didn’t like it and already by the time I left school I was fed up with things. I could see that our fathers were being exploited and oppressed. I could see the people travelling up and down the roads looking for work and unable to find it – whole families, mothers, fathers, children and livestock, travelling until the livestock were

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Ben Baartman pictured in 1960 at his wife’s grave: he was permitted to return to Worcester for a short period to make arrangements for the care of his children after his wife died.

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gone and the families homeless. I could see that it was a painful thing.’ Contracts on the mines around Johannesburg followed, as did keen interest in the messages of the African Mineworkers Union (AMU). Baartman immediately joined the union, but discovered that not all his fellow mineworkers took the same interest. On a visit to Molteno in 1945 he got into trouble for asking too many ‘rude and silly questions’ at an Advisory Board community meeting and was beaten with a sjambok by the police. The following year he participated in the great 1946 AMU strike. He noted: ‘We agreed with the demands being put forward by the union leadership Ben Baartman on leaving Worcester in the Cape for banishment in Mngomezulu, northern Natal. because they reflected our grievances: better conditions; better wages; better food; the abolition of the compound system − people must be allowed to bring their families with them to work; the abolition of the system of beating people underground by the baas boys and the foremen. In the Springs mine, owned by the Anglo American Corporation, the strike was suppressed before it could even begin. But elsewhere the workers carried on.’ Baartman was fired and, after a spell in Molteno, headed for Worcester, where there were ‘home boys’ from Molteno. Through their help he acquired a pass by bribing a white clerk and obtained a job at a new tyre retreading company, where he worked for six years. A particular home boy, Joseph Mposa, who was also a member of the ANC, got Baartman involved in the Vigilant Association and in 1947 he also joined the ANC. In 1953, keen to be involved in organising the textile workers in Worcester, he resigned his job at the tyre factory, found a job at a textile mill and joined the Textile Workers Industrial Union. In 1956, he became actively involved in a strike at the French-owned Hex River Textile Mills, in which the central demand was £1 a day and various benefits. Despite mass arrests, the strike was a great victory.

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In due course, Baartman was ‘elected as regional branch chairman of the ANC’ and also became ‘a committee member of SACTU’. In 1957 or 1958, Nelson Mandela visited and urged local members to prepare for a time when the ANC was banned and needed to function underground. He briefed them on the M-Plan (Mandela Plan) and urged them ‘to adopt and implement it’. The M-Plan involved organising ‘people into small groups of ten, each with its own leader’ so as to embed the ANC deeply within the community. Thereafter, Baartman ‘was actively involved in building the cell system that Mandela had proposed … The cell structure made it possible to organise big meetings or other activities at very short notice.’ Baartman was coming to be considered extremely dangerous by the state and the local sergeant in charge of the Special Branch in Worcester recommended that he should be banished. On 4 June 1959, while he was at work, the district commandant of Worcester and a constable arrived to serve him with an order banishing him to Mngomezulu, Ingwavuma (Zululand), 1,600 kilometres away. He was given just ten hours to say goodbye to his family, wind up his affairs and leave Worcester. Supplied with a rail warrant and a little money for the journey, he left on the night of 4 June, arrived in Durban to an enthusiastic reception by local ANC supporters on 7 June, and from there proceeded to Mngomezulu. Baartman recalled his banishment as follows: It was not served by the small chaps, but by the district police commissioner of Worcester and another senior policeman … I saw a policeman come in and then the foreman came over from the office and told me that some people wanted to see me outside. The two senior officers were sitting in a car outside, one in the front and one in the back, and they opened the door for me to get in the back as well. These senior chaps pretend to be with you. They don’t harass or rush you like the other police. The district commissioner greeted me nicely: ‘Are you Ben Baartman? Look, we have been instructed to serve you with this letter, a nice letter for you, this document’ … The banishment order was signed by the President, Swart, and … De Wet Nel. He also recollected that preparations were made to send him into banishment: When they had handed over the document to me, they told me I had to be at the district commissioner’s office at 2 o’clock that same day,

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when I would be given further instructions about my journey. ‘There are two or three trains leaving Cape Town for East London and Durban before midnight, which go past Worcester,’ they said. ‘We suggest that you must catch one of these trains today. From one minute past midnight you will be in our hands, and we will give you an escort straight to Ingwavuma. You better rush, see your friends and say goodbye to them, so that before 12 o’clock you’ll be out of Worcester.’ Baartman was not entirely surprised by his banishment. His concern turned to his wife and their four children, having planned for his brother to take care of them. His wife was involved in the ANC Women’s League and provided him with great support. Baartman was given £3 for his journey and a rail warrant and also offered rail warrants for his family. But as he noted, ‘how can you take your family to a strange place, where you have no relatives or friends … Ingwavuma was new, it was the first time I had looked at it on a map, right up in northern Zululand on the borders of Mozambique and Swaziland.’ Some activists counselled that he should immediately go into exile, as Elizabeth Mafekeng had done. He differed with them, saying, ‘Comrades, forget about this … I want to go to Ingwavuma. I want the people to accompany me to the station. I will say goodbye to them and tell them that the struggle continues.’ He felt that it was his ‘duty to continue the struggle in banishment’; that he ‘could set up a branch’ of the ANC. He also ‘did not want the people of Worcester to get the idea that as soon as things got tough the leaders ran away. I wanted them to come with me to the station as a victory parade rather than a defeat. There were thousands of people, and the demonstration would also show that black people were prepared to defy the nine o’clock curfew on being in the centre of town.’ And then he was on his way to Natal, Golela, and Ingwavuma. The journey took about 2½ days. The leaders had already notified the people along the way, so that in De Aar I met a crowd of people who had come to say hello and goodbye, and in Bloemfontein the same. I arrived in Durban in the morning as the train was late, and heard that thousands of people had come to the station the night before to greet me. Two men met me off the train with my luggage, and took me to the ANC and

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SACTU offices in Durban to wait for my connection to Golela the next day. When I left Durban station there was again a farewell meeting, with hundreds of people. ‘Work as hard as you can,’ I told them. ‘You are the leaders and you are going to fetch us from exile and jail by destroying apartheid.’ On arrival at Golela on 9 July 1959, Baartman was met by a Department of Bantu Administration and Development official and a clerk. They had ‘to cross Swaziland to get to Ingwavuma at the top of the Umbombo mountain’, a three-hour trip. He was informed that there were four local communities in Ingwavuma, consisting of the Mngomezulus, Matenywas, Nyawos and Tembes. He was advised ‘that a hut had been built for [him] in the Mngomezulu area’. On arrival at Ingwavuma, he met the Bantu commissioner, a Mr Wilson. Baartman recounts that ‘he was very polite, explaining that he was in charge of the district, that accommodation had been prepared for me and that I could come and see him any time without an appointment if I had a complaint’. He stayed overnight with the departmental official and was taken to his hut the next morning. It was a round hut about five miles away, thatched, with a reed door and no window. The foundations had not been made properly, there was grass inside and water was running past the door. The walls were also made of reeds which you could part to see what was going on outside. Now it was clear why the commissioner had not allowed me to come here late at night. There was no furniture inside, not even a teaspoon. The hut was far away from the people of the area. I could see their kraals far away, and the people themselves going up and down the road. I could see that something had made them afraid of me. They weren’t coming over to greet me but were passing with their heads down. He discovered through a man called Shongwe whom he befriended that the locals were giving him a wide berth because they had been told that he was a ‘dangerous murderer’. The white builder of Baartman’s hut had told people that if Baartman was killed no charges would be levelled against the perpetrators. He explained his presence in Ingwavuma to Shongwe and was told that one of the local chiefs was strongly opposed to Bantu Authorities and refused to co-operate with state officials. Shongwe introduced Baartman to the chief and other locals and also helped make his hut more

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habitable. In time Baartman acquired ‘a paraffin stove and frying pans’. Food was purchased at a store in the village and Baartman said that he ‘never had any problem feeding myself during my banishment because of the support I received from the people’. He ‘did not have to worry about how I was going to live, even though all that the regime provided was the £3 given to me’ in Worcester. He also received financial support from the ANC and SACTU. Soon, he began getting the youth to read newspapers and established an underground ANC structure. Sometime in early 1960 Baartman angrily confronted the Bantu commissioner about the absence of any financial support. The commissioner acknowledged that he was at fault in not providing Baartman employment and promised him work. He indicated that a person banished in the area of the Tembe community received a monthly allowance of £3. He was put to work at £7 10s a month on the roads and elsewhere in the village under the white man who had built his hut. He noted: ‘Barely three weeks passed before I clashed with the white foreman over his treatment of the workers. As a trade unionist I was concerned that the workers should be organised into a union branch to receive their proper benefits, overalls and so forth, and this led straight to the dispute. I demanded the wages due to me up to that day, and that was the end of that. I didn’t go to work again but just lived among the people.’ In early 1960, Baartman received a telegram saying that his wife had died. Following representation to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development by Oscar Mpetha of the Western Cape ANC, he was given permission to return home for two weeks to arrange for the future of his four minor children.87 However, it took nearly a week for Baartman to receive this permission and he was given only a rail warrant, without any provisions for his long journey. Were it not for the assistance of his comrades in Durban who provided him with an air ticket, Baartman would have had one day of his fortnight’s remission to settle his affairs. He commented: All the flights that day were booked up, but fortunately a conference of the Race Relations Institute had been taking place in Durban and one white woman delegate who had been planning to return to Cape Town gave up her seat on the plane to me. I was the only black on the plane until Joe Matthews joined the flight in Port Elizabeth. When I arrived in Cape Town, Wolfie Kodesh was there, standing by with

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a car to take me to Worcester. The funeral had already taken place two days before … We found ourselves surrounded by reporters and photographers, asking questions about my banishment and my way of life in Ingwavuma. I told them everything, about my hut and so forth, before we set off for Worcester. According to a newspaper report, ‘he had lost a lot of weight and his thin, intelligent face was haggard as he stared at the small crowd watching him, tense and embarrassed. Suddenly he raised his thumb in the African National Congress (now banned) salute and the crowd smiled with relief.’88 Baartman’s comrades had suggested an ANC funeral: ‘I told them to forget it. The leaders of the ANC have also advised against it. Now is not the time for such things. A demonstration would only be followed by more hardship and suppression. The Nationalists’ time will come. And I, for one, am prepared to wait for that time.’89 This was a sober analysis of the situation in which Baartman found himself, but it also reveals something of his discipline and commitment to the liberation struggle as a whole. A meeting attended by 500 people was held in his honour in Worcester’s Freedom Square on 24 January 1960.90 In an interview given to the Argus on his arrival back in the Cape, Baartman had said: ‘I get no financial assistance from the government and were it not for friends who supply me with food parcels, I would starve to death.’ Asked whether he intended to take his children back with him to Ingwavuma, he responded: ‘No! It is a terrible place − a living hell. I could not provide for them there as there is no work for me and I cannot support myself, let alone my children.’91 These statements led to an angry outburst from De Wet Nel, minister of Bantu administration and development, who responded that ‘he might well have considered a reprieve for this man, but after reading the report … after all we had done for him … [he] would certainly return to his place of banishment’.92 Nel claimed that it was as ‘clear as daylight’ that if Baartman were allowed to remain in Worcester, he would continue his Congress activities. He lamented the fact that Baartman ‘has shown no sign whatever that he is willing to co-operate with us’ and went on to say that he had done ‘everything possible to help this man, and this is what I get for it’.93 Presenting himself as sympathetic, Nel stated that Baartman had received £6 a month from the government as a Trust labourer but resigned two weeks later and after that ‘just walked about’. The facts were rather different from those that Nel would have had

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people believe: the reactionary white official to whom Baartman reported for work vowed to ‘break [his] kaffir spirit’.94 He worked from sunrise to sunset for £5 5s a week, but the official was so intent on provoking and humiliating him that he eventually preferred to live on the grace of the locals or starve. Both an appeal to rescind Baartman’s banishment order to enable him to take care of his children and a request for a two-week extension to remain in Worcester were turned down: ‘De Wet Nel’s retort was that I was still a hardliner, and that all he was prepared to give was a few days extra in Worcester beyond the expiry of my temporary permit.’ Baartman left his children in the care of his brother and returned to banishment on 3 February 1960. Before leaving, he paid a visit to the family of Elizabeth Mafekeng, who had been banished in late 1959.95 Back in Ingwavuma, his complaints in the media about his treatment paid dividends. A new hut was built for him: They built a very nice round hut, with a big glass window, a proper door, walls plastered with cement and thatched with reeds and grass. I had two houses now, and I was all right. I started to keep chickens, and a puppy dog which I called Verwoerd. Political awareness was improving a lot in the area, and I was pleased with the results of my activities among the people … By this time I was no longer thinking of returning to Worcester or of getting involved again in trade union activity. My thought now was to join Umkhonto weSizwe in exile. Learning that there were good prospects of getting political asylum in Swaziland and that it was also a staging post for transport to MK camps in Tanzania, Baartman made plans to go into exile. The immediate trigger for his escape was discovering that his friendliness with the locals had led to an application by the security police and the Department of Bantu Administration and Development that he be banished elsewhere. In late 1961, he fled to Swaziland to add to the large community of South Africans in political exile. Here, after initially living in a room over a restaurant in Manzini, he obtained accommodation from the Rev. Charles Hooper (deported from Bahurutshe) on his mission and lived there until 1963−4. He began to work with an ANC refugee doctor, Margaret Chenne, remarried and had his children join him, as well as nieces and nephews when his brother was imprisoned on Robben Island. Baartman’s home in Swaziland ‘became an important meeting point for the ANC high command … His role was to

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house and find passage for operatives, either going for training or returning.’ In 1984, after the signing of the Nkomati Accord between South Africa and Mozambique, Baartman was arrested along with other ANC operatives by Swazi police, held in prison and then a refugee camp, and deported to Zambia.96 Baartman’s reflections on political organisation and the rural areas are interesting: If I returned to Worcester and Hex River today, I believe that I would feel at home and able to organise where needed. I would go out into the rural areas, where I feel I could easily make a contribution … It’s now very easy to organise the people, to tell them to ‘Bring the wood, because the pot is boiling. We are going to all eat together now.’ We made a mistake in the past by concentrating so much on the urban areas. We neglected the rural areas, and I feel that my experience in Ingwavuma means that I have something to contribute in this respect … In Ingwavuma I simply built on the support for the ANC that was already there, for the people were opposed to the bantu laws and the bantustan policy, and to government attempts to impose its own choice of chief upon them. Baartman died in 2002 at his home town of Worcester. Notwithstanding the recognition given to him in parliament on his death and the ANC ‘dipping its banner’, there is some ‘concealed unhappiness and bitterness towards the ANC. The family feels that the ANC deserted them at a time when they needed it most.’ Baartman’s daughter, Mary Nxumalo, alleged that ‘not one of those they had always considered close friends and confidants of Ntate Baartman offered their condolences, let alone came to the funeral’. Former president Thabo Mbeki had been present at Mary’s wedding in Swaziland in 1975. According to her, Baartman ‘was lonely in his death’, a sad ‘repeat of his life in isolation [in banishment], before he went into exile’.97

Elizabeth Mafekeng Elizabeth Mafekeng was born into a working-class family in 1918 in Tarkastad in the Eastern Cape and brought up in Aliwal North. She moved to Paarl in 1927 and left school at the age of 15 to support the family. Her first job was at a canning factory ‘where she cleaned basins of apricots,

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Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online

The trade unionist and political leader Elizabeth Mafekeng was served an order in 1959 banishing her from Paarl to the Northern Cape.

peas, figs and peaches for 75 cents a week’.98 She married a fellow factory worker in 1941 and, up to the time of her banishment in late 1959, had 11 children and lived in a cottage in Barbarossa Street, Paarl. She joined the trade union in 1941, became a shop steward and then served, between 1954 and 1959, ‘as president of the African Food and Canning Workers Union (AFCWU) and branch secretary in Paarl’.99 Mafekeng was known as Rocky among the workers in Paarl. A striking woman with an ‘expressive, strong, humorous, beautiful’ face, she always began ‘her speeches with a song or two, singing in a clear, rich and wellorganised voice’. Her speeches were ‘fiery, militant and witty’.100 In order ‘to connect the workers’ struggle for liberation and their struggle for better working conditions, she joined the Paarl branch of the ANC and, in 1957, she became vice-president of the ANC Women’s League. She also served on the regional committee of SACTU and was ‘one of the founder members of the FEDSAW’.101 According to Blumberg: Two policemen and Mr Johannes Le Roux, the Paarl Native Commissioner, made a call on Mrs Elizabeth Mafekeng in the middle of the

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morning of October 27th. They presented her with a piece of paper banishing her … to a distant and desolate spot of dust called Southey, about 700 miles away. The document signed by Mr De Wet Nel, Minister for Bantu Administration, was issued under the Native Administration Act and said that it was ‘injurious for the peace, order and good administration of Natives in the district of Paarl’ if Mrs Mafekeng remained there. She was given five days (later extended to twelve) to say goodbye to her family, make arrangements for their care, and wind up her work … There was, of course, no trial, no public hearing and no possibility of appeal.102 Mafekeng was shocked at the banishment order, saying that ‘it came so unexpectedly … it is the worst thing the government could have done’.103 A call was made through the attorney Sam Kahn for reasons to be provided for the serving of the banishment order, but this elicited no response from the state. All that was revealed was that Mafekeng would be granted £2 a month and would be provided with a hut on a Trust farm in Southey, about 65 kilometres south-west of Vryburg (Northern Cape). The nearest stores and neighbours were five kilometres away. No provision was made for health care or employment, though it was suggested by the native commissioner in Vryburg that Mafekeng ‘could work as … a domestic servant’ for white engineers living nearby. Still, Mafekeng was not totally despondent. ‘It is a hard knock,’ she admitted. ‘But my spirit is not broken. For every leader they suppress there will be ten others.’104 In a farewell message delivered on 8 November 1959, Mafekeng said, ‘I think everybody is upset today in this country. But I personally am not upset about my going, because I think that we mothers feel what the pass laws and other oppressive laws mean to us. We mothers are the people who gave birth to children and we are the people who suffer most from the laws of the Nationalist Government. We must stand together and unite to fight for freedom.’105 On Monday, 9 November, the day on which the police were meant to fetch Mafekeng and escort her into banishment, 3,000 people gathered outside her cottage in Barbarossa Street. The crowd displayed ‘Save Mafekeng’ posters and sang anti-pass and freedom songs. Mafekeng was not at home and, as the day wore on, questions began to be raised as to her whereabouts. The police could provide no answers and that evening riots erupted in Paarl. Blumberg wrote: ‘It was too dark to say exactly what

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happened. But suddenly there were the police, screams, batons, bullets, stones hurtling into windows. “Kill Verwoerd! Kill De Wet Nel! Kill the police!” was heard above the tumult. For about three hours the police were in open battle with the enraged demonstrators; cars were overturned, Van Zyl’s shop smashed, stones were hurled at white passersby.’106 Heavily armed police reinforcements were rushed to Paarl, but were only able to exert control some time after midnight, by which time ten people had been wounded, one of whom died later. There were renewed demonstrations the following night, but the larger reinforcements and Saracen armoured cars from Cape Town ensured that the protest was beaten into submission. As usual, the state blamed agitators for the violence. Oscar Mpetha, Cape president of the ANC, stated that blame ‘must be laid squarely on the government, because it was the banishment of Mrs Mafekeng that was the spark which set the tinder ablaze’.107 Mpetha added that ‘contrary to the assertions of Government spokesmen, these riots are not caused by agitators. They are symptomatic of a deep-lying sense of grievance and frustration among the masses of people caused by the intransigent and inhuman policies of the Nationalist Government.’108 Official reasons for the banishment of Mafekeng were given only three months later. It was revealed that the request for her banishment had come from the Paarl Town Council, which claimed that she was responsible for inciting people to resort to violence. Opportunistically, the state pointed out that the demonstrations of 10−11 November proved the correctness of their actions; and that had Mafekeng not been banished, the violence would have been even greater and more widespread. A further reason for the banishment centred on Mafekeng’s attendance at an international food workers conference in Bulgaria in 1955, and her trip to China. The minister argued that when she left South Africa, she had said that she wanted to go abroad to take up nursing. But she had gone behind the Iron Curtain and nowhere near a hospital. He had a record of the type of speeches that she had subsequently made. She had spoken of being in Communist China and Moscow and had praised what had been done in the former. She said that in China the people had achieved their freedom not by constitutional means, but with blood, and had urged her listeners to obtain their freedom with blood, guns, knives and stones.109 According to the chief information officer of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, on her arrival back in Johannesburg, she had given the Afrika thumbs-up salute of the ANC and had told reporters that ‘I was so happy I forgot I was black’.110

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The real reasons for the banishment of Elizabeth Mafekeng were very different. Besides holding important positions within the liberation organisations and being ‘an indefatigable trade union organizer’, Mafekeng commanded enormous respect and support, and was a thorn in the flesh of the apartheid state.111 In 1952, she had taken part in the nationwide Defiance Campaign against unjust and oppressive laws and had been imprisoned for her participation. In 1956 she had been one of 20,000 women who had marched to Pretoria to protest against the extension of passes to women. Still, participation in these two campaigns does not explain why the regime waited three years before it banished her. The immediate reasons for her banishment were rather to be found in the activities in which she was engaged on the eve of banishment. On 2 October 1959, Mafekeng was arrested for ‘leading an anti-pass demonstration in Paarl, [but] the charge came to nothing in court’.112 More important, Mafekeng’s union was the most militant in the country and nine union officials prior to her had been immobilised by the state. A few weeks before she received her banishment order, she and Liz Abrahams, the acting general secretary of the AFCWU, had gone ‘out to Port Elizabeth to assist workers in organising the campaign against proposed wage cuts by Langeberg Ko-operasie management’.113 It was these activities that explain Mafekeng’s banishment. The acting town clerk of Paarl confirmed that the request for Mafekeng’s banishment had come from the local town council, saying that it did not have anything to do with her overseas travel.114 SACTU, of which the AFCWU was an affiliate, explained that ‘From the workers of Paarl, whose parents and grandparents built the canneries into one of the largest industries of its kind in the world, the truth cannot be hidden. The workers know that it is the great farming interests who back Verwoerd who demanded Mrs Mafekeng’s banishment.’ However, neither clear analysis nor protests and demonstrations were able to secure a repeal of Mafekeng’s banishment order.115 Rather than being banished to Southey and to ‘a future of nothingness’, Mafekeng fled in a car driven by comrades to Lesotho with her two-month-old baby, Uhuru, and sought refuge at a Roman Catholic Mission at Makhaleng.116 Given the loss of income for the family (Mafekeng earned £5 a week), a trust fund was established by the AFCWU, with three fellow workers as trustees.117 She was granted asylum and lived in a two-roomed house with her nine children in the small village of Mafeteng. Helen Joseph writes of her visit

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to Mafekeng in mid-1962: ‘I was shocked at the change in Elizabeth. The woman I had known had been handsome and lively. Now she was careworn and anxious; her new life was a hard one [and she] had been reduced to real privation … She had become embittered by the unending poverty and anxiety, feeling that she was forgotten now by the workers whose battles she had fought for so many years.’118 Mafekeng pleaded with Joseph: ‘Tell them Helen, tell them! You have seen how I suffer here.’119 While in exile, Mafekeng’s husband and mother both died, but she was unable to attend their funerals. With political liberalisation and the unbanning of liberation movements in 1990, she returned to Paarl and the union built her a home in Mbekweni township.120 Following ill health, she died on 28 May 2009 at the age of 90.121

Louis Mtshizana Louis Leo Mtshizana, an attorney, former Robben Island prisoner and executive member of the opposition Ciskei National Party, was served with a banishment order in October 1974 by the manager of Mdantsane township near East London. The order, signed by the state president and the minister of Bantu administration and development, required him to move to Herschel on the Lesotho border. Two days later, he was arrested and summarily banished. A court application was made asking for 30 days for Mtshizana to wind up his affairs, but this was refused. Justice Kannemeyer, sitting in the Grahamstown Supreme Court, ruled that there was no reason why Mtshizana should be given more time than anyone else.122 The banishment drew strong protests from the King William’s Town Presbytery, representing churches in about twenty Border towns, and from the Transkei congregation of the Presbyterian Church. A mass meeting unanimously passed a resolution deploring his banishment and stated that ‘if he has done anything wrong he should be tried in a court of law’. Chief Minister Lennox Sebe, who ruled over the Ciskei bantustan in the 1980s and at whose request Mtshizana was banished, responded by saying that ‘His banning does not call for any argument’.123 He was, of course, perfectly correct on this point. That was the way the banishment law operated. • • • During the 1950s a succession of struggles and campaigns in the urban areas took place against apartheid policies, low wages, a lack of housing and

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increased transport costs. Increasingly, resistance was initiated and organised by the Congress movement and its local branches. Beyond attempts to criminalise political protest, a huge and lengthy treason trial, the use of naked force and the banning of prominent political leaders, banishment became a further weapon in the arsenal of repressive measures used against urban political opponents of the state. The banishment of activists like Gwentshe, Make and, later, Baartman and Mafekeng raises the issue of the role of leaders in relation to organisational structures. In the rural areas leaders, including traditional leaders, played critical roles in political mobilisation and resistance, especially where there was an absence of strong organisations at the onset, or during the course, of resistance. In such situations, and in the absence also of strong and durable links with other rural struggles and the largely urban national liberation organisations, the banishment of rural leaders created a gap that dampened popular struggles. The leadership vacuum was also exploited by collaborationist elements. In the urban areas, leadership was no less important in initiating, directing and co-ordinating popular struggles and linking these with wider regional and national campaigns. This leadership was, however, often exercised within a dense organisational milieu of national liberation organisations, trade unions, civic bodies, youth, student and teacher formations, and the like. Communication between local organisations was also easier. In this situation, the banishment of key leaders was likely to be less effective in stifling resistance than in the rural areas. While the banishment of ANC leaders from Evaton may have instilled fear in other activists, it did not entirely succeed in crushing resistance in the area, as shown by the struggles there in 1960 triggered by the anti-pass laws demonstrations. Similarly, while the banishment of a powerful organiser like Mafekeng was a tremendous blow to the AFCWU and temporarily debilitated the union, it did not destroy either it or other organisations in which Mafekeng was active. The greater strength of urban-based organisations, the denser organisational networks within which they operated and their often close links and overlapping membership helped to ensure that the effects of banishment were less severe. During the 1950s there was neither widespread banishment of urban political activists, nor the banishment of prominent national political leaders, such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo. Even after the banning of the ANC and PAC in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the declaration of the state of emergency and the crushing of popular

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resistance, there was no extensive recourse to banishment as a tactic for dispersing and silencing urban political opponents of the state. After 1960, only four banishment orders were issued on political activists: on Hani and Mpemba from the Cape Peninsula and on Sobukwe and Leballo from Orlando. Like many other urban figures, three of them fled into exile where they linked up with the banned liberation movements. Thus, while banishments curtailed the political activity of urban political opponents of apartheid within South Africa, they did not effectively terminate the political involvement of many of these figures. In time, individuals who were banished, like Hani, Leballo, Make and others, came to occupy prominent positions within the ANC and PAC in exile. Banishment was not a key measure in dealing with urban political opposition. One reason could be that banning was considered an effective enough means to restrict the activities of urban political leaders. Many national leaders were, indeed, incapacitated by banning orders. Another reason could be that prominent leaders like Mandela had widespread national support and also enjoyed international visibility. State thinking may have been that their banishment could unleash mass protest and resistance and also bring further opprobrium on the apartheid government internationally. As will be seen later, as attractive a weapon as banishment might be, there were other important strategic considerations for not banishing urban political activists in large numbers.

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6 Banishments under the Suppression of Communism Act Well, Dr Ramphele, goodbye, you bitch! (M. Ramphele, Mamphela Ramphele: A Life)

BY THE MID-1960s, naked coercion and various authoritarian measures helped the apartheid state regain firm political control over the urban and rural areas of South Africa. The banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and the immobilisation of other political, youth and women’s organisations through the detention, imprisonment and banning of officials and activists created a political vacuum. The military and security apparatus of the state was strengthened and restructured. Under the minister of justice, B.J. Vorster, the Suppression of Communism Act was amended on various occasions to deal with opposition more effectively; and in 1967 the notorious Terrorism Act was promulgated. As a result of the reign of terror, popular opposition in both urban and rural areas subsided and lapsed into sullen, albeit temporary, acquiescence. The need for the state to use the banishment provision of the Native Administration Act decreased greatly. Only 13 people were banished under the Act after 1965, six of them in 1974, and the last recourse to this law was in 1982. After the late 1960s, the overtly political repressive functions of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development diminished: repressive action against political opponents was concentrated in the state apparatuses concerned with justice and law and order and serviced by police, security police and the intelligence services. In any event, the minister of justice (later, the minister of law and order) also enjoyed the power to banish individuals. In terms of section 10(1) of the Suppression of Communism Act, and section 19(1) of the Internal Security Act (1982), the minister could ‘prohibit any person’ considered to be involved ‘in activities which endanger or are calculated to endanger the

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security of the State or the maintenance of law and order’ from leaving a specific ‘place or area’ during a defined period. Whenever such a banning order restricted a person to an area with which she or he had no association of any kind − that is to say, effectively expelled a person from the area in which they lived to another, unfamiliar area − such an order was not dissimilar to banishment. The only difference between such a banning/ banishment order under the Suppression of Communism Act or Internal Security Act and banishment under the Native Administration Act was that the former was time-bound. In terms of section 19(3) of the Internal Security Act, the minister was empowered to extend the period of banning/banishment through the simple mechanism of a signed notice.1 Non-compliance with an order made a person liable to arrest ‘without warrant by any police officer’ and detention in custody pending banishment.2 Section 25(1) provided for ‘a written statement by the minister setting forth the reasons’ for the banning/ banishment; the proviso being that the minister needed only to provide such information as could be ‘disclosed without detriment to the public interest’.3 Usually little or no information was provided. It was observed that ‘it is often said that the power is exercised bona fide and with restraint [by the Minister]. It may be, but the truth of that assertion, like the Minister’s discretion, can never be tested in the searching scrutiny of the courts.’ The Suppression of Communism Act made a ‘semblance of deference to the principle of audi alteram partem … while abating no whit from the naked power of arbitrary banishment. Where the subject’s home, employment, business or profession so depend on one officer of the government, the mordant disease of arbitrary rule has surely bitten deep into the liberties of the subject.’4 Initially, banning/banishment under the Suppression of Communism Act was used, immediately on their release, to restrict certain political prisoners. On his release in 1967 from Robben Island, Zephaniah Mothopeng, a former executive member of the PAC, was served an order that banished and restricted him to Witzieshoek. Frances Baard, secretary of the Port Elizabeth branch of the Food and Canning Workers Union (FCWU) and described as ‘’n groot agitator’, was to suffer a similar fate.5 After serving a five-year jail sentence under the Suppression of Communism Act, she was released in 1969 and, instead of being allowed to return to Port Elizabeth, was served with an order that banished and restricted her to Mabopane (Pretoria). The banning/banishment of ex-political prisoners continued into the 1970s. Elias Tsimo is another example. He was sentenced to 10 years’

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imprisonment on Robben Island for ANC activities. A few days before his release, he was transferred to Leeukop Prison, and then taken to Harrismith, where he was served with a banning/banishment order restricting him to Witzieshoek.6 Prior to his imprisonment he had lived in Soweto. In January 1976, Angela Pringle, director of the South African Council of Churches’ Dependants Conference, claimed that released political prisoners were being banished to the bantustans. She stated that ‘this is common Government strategy in dealing with prisoners coming off Robben Island. They are transported from prison to what the Government considers a suitable place, usually a [bantustan], although they may have never been there.’ This was, as Pringle observed, ‘an iniquitous state of affairs involving people who have served long years in prison and who do not know their rights in law. Unless a prisoner is issued with a restriction order, there is no law which says he has to stay where the police dump him after release.’7 In 1978, Amnesty International reported that ‘it has become regular practice to send political prisoners to specified “resettlement areas” when they are released from prison, regardless of where they lived before’. It was indicated that ex-political prisoners ‘have been sent to either Ilinge or Dimbaza in the eastern Cape. There, they have no opportunity of obtaining paid employment and have no chance of starting a new life. They are kept under surveillance and constantly harassed by the police.’8 Before release from Robben Island in April 1976, the wife of ANC member Andrew Masondo was intimidated and harassed. There were visits from officials of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development and security police to pressure her to move from Johannesburg to Umlazi (Durban): she was told that Masondo would be banished there, although both of them had been born and lived in Johannesburg. The head of the security police confirmed that political prisoners were ‘not necessarily sent back to the cities where they lived before their imprisonment’. On release they were ‘sent back to their real homes’; meaning, in terms of separate development, the bantustan which the state deemed was the home of the political prisoner.9 A newspaper report in December 1975 claimed that 364 people were banished from various places to areas like Dimbaza, Sada, Ilinge and Mdantsane in the Ciskei bantustan. Examples were provided of Daniel Witbooi, aged 72, who spent over seven years on Robben Island and was banished to Dimbaza; and James Koya, who was banished from Port Elizabeth to Dimbaza after six years on the Island, at the age of 64.10 Dimbaza, 20

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kilometres from King William’s Town, became infamous during this period as one of the many Eastern Cape dumping grounds for thousands of African people who were considered superfluous to the needs of the apartheid economy and labour market. As a state official indicated, ‘we are housing redundant people [in Dimbaza]. These people could not render productive service in an urban area.’11 First drawn to public attention by Cosmas Desmond’s book The Discarded People, Dimbaza gained further notoriety for the apartheid government as a result of a 1974 documentary Last Grave at Dimbaza, which depicted the large number of deaths and graves of children, victims of the apartheid policies of forced removal and relocation, separate development and a system of entrenched and massive inequalities.12 Dumped in the bare veld, the children and their parents had ‘lived in tents and wooden huts with zinc roofs and earthen floors. Later arrivals had boxes made from asbestos and cement; these, too, had neither floors nor ceilings and were so hot in summer and cold and damp in winter that the very young and old perished in them.’13 The administrative banning/banishment of released political prisoners under the Suppression of Communism Act and Internal Security Act was, as in the case of Robert Sobukwe, the extension of political reprisal beyond the original jail sentence. Banishment to places such as Sada, Ilinge, Dimbaza and Witzieshoek was punishment of a special kind. For the state, there were good reasons not to permit certain, perhaps recalcitrant and influential, political prisoners to return to their former areas of residence, especially if these were in the cities and towns. The late 1960s witnessed the start of the revival of political organisation and resistance to apartheid in the form of the Black Consciousness (BC) movement. If well-known, seasoned and unbroken political activists were to return to urban areas where BC formations were taking root, there were fertile conditions for exposing and reconnecting a new generation of political activists to the histories and ideas of the ANC and PAC. The bantustans, with their strongmen and dictators, presented the ideal places for containing recently released political prisoners and preventing them from contaminating the new urban activists with their knowledge, ideas and experience of political struggle. The new generation of activists was not to be spared either. Early in 1977, the state began deploying the banning/banishment provision of the Internal Security Act against a number of BC political activists. In April 1977, Mamphela Ramphele, medical superintendent of the Black Community Programme’s Zanempilo clinic near King William’s Town, was served with

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a banning/banishment order restricting her to Tzaneen (Northern Transvaal).14 A month later, on 16 May 1977, Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who was active in the Black Parents’ Association, formed during the 1976 Soweto uprising, and the Black Women’s Federation, was visited at 6 am by four carloads of police. Acting on the instructions of the minister of justice, Jimmy Kruger, they removed her with her belongings and furniture to a township near Brandfort (Orange Free State). She was restricted to Brandfort township until December 1981.15 These state actions led an attorney to comment that Ramphele’s and Madikizela-Mandela’s banishments had implications for other political activists restricted under the Internal Security Act and could signal the beginning of a ‘new and enterprising trend’ to spread political opponents of the apartheid state thinly over the country. ‘It means that nobody who is banned or house-arrested can assume he will be restricted to his own home or area. On the contrary he may be banned to a strange district at the outset or he may have his restriction order changed later − as happened to Mrs Mandela.’16 The banishment of Madikizela-Mandela to Brandfort provoked strong protests. Speakers at a meeting of 200 people in Durban lashed out at the policies of the apartheid state and attacked the ruthless treatment meted out to her.17 Despite protests, in late 1981 she was served with a new banning/ banishment order and restricted to Brandfort for another five years. Between May 1977 and 1979, at least seven more people, BC activists, ex-political prisoners and a trade unionist, were served with banning/ banishment orders. Phindile Mfethi, a former trade unionist and secretary of the Industrial Aid Society, was detained in 1976 for over a year. On his release in May 1977, he was served with a banning order which restricted him to Katlehong (Germiston). In mid-1978, while still banned, he was banished to Butterworth (Transkei).18 Thembani Phantsi was detained under section 6 of the Terrorism Act in October 1975. After spending 513 days in solitary confinement, and serving three months’ imprisonment for contempt of court after refusing to become a state witness in a political trial, he was served with a banning order on his release in July 1977. The order banished him from King William’s Town to Graaff-Reinet, over 300 kilometres away.19 There was also the case of Delase Chiliza, detained for eight months under section 6 of the Terrorism Act, then for ‘another year under the preventive detention provisions’ of the Internal Security Act, and then banned in March 1979. Instead of being permitted to live with his wife and children at Mtwalume (Natal south coast), he was confined under partial house

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arrest ‘to his father’s home in Umlazi’. An application for him to live with his family was rejected.20 Nelson Diale, Petrus Nchabeleng and Michael Ngubeni were all banished for five years in April 1978 after being acquitted together with eight others on various political charges.21 Diale and Nchabeleng both served eight years on Robben Island and were banned immediately on their release in 1972. Detained in early 1977, charged and acquitted, they were banned and banished to the Northern Transvaal. Nchabeleng continued with activities linked to the ANC and Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), became a leader of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and was murdered by police in 1986 while in detention.22 Michael Ngubeni was also detained in early 1977. Prior to this, he had served a 12-year prison sentence on Robben Island and was then immediately banned in 1976 for two years. After being acquitted with Diale and Nchabeleng, he was banished in September 1978 from his home in Rustenburg to Upington, 700 kilometres away in the Northern Cape.23 Nkutsoeu Petrus Motsau, also a former Robben Island political prisoner, was banned in 1979, immediately after completing a five-year prison sentence. He was banished for five years to Phuthaditjhaba in QwaQwa although his home was in Sharpeville.24 In July 1980, it was reported that Motsau was engaged in a struggle with the authorities over his refusal to pay rent for a house that, as he put it, he had not chosen to live in. These cases exemplify the variety of circumstances in which recourse was made by the state to the banning/banishment provision of the Internal Security Act: continuing reprisal against recently released political prisoners; punishment of those whom the state failed to convict in political trials; detainees whom the state was not able to charge; banned political figures who were difficult to control; and the new generation of BC activists who were the catalysts of the revival of internal political opposition to apartheid. All were dealt with by recourse to administrative power, which required no trial in a court of law. Nor was there any accommodation of the principle of audi alteram partem. They were usually banished to unfamiliar, remote and harsh environments at substantial distances from their families, friends and communities. The cases are also indicative of the defensive posture of the state in the face of the resurgence of political mobilisation, organisation and resistance in the late 1970s. The intensification of this resistance in the early and mid-1980s and the failure to convict political opponents engaged in open, mass and non-violent resistance led to further banishments between 1982 and 1984. Abel Dube

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was held for 30 months under a preventive detention order. On 28 October 1984, he was told ‘that he would be allowed to return to his family home in Soweto when his preventive detention order expired on 31 October 1984’. Instead, he ‘was served with a banning order from the Minister of Law and Order dated 24 October restricting him to the magisterial district of Messina for three years. He was transported immediately to Messina where he was given a clerical job in a mine and a place to live.’ It was noted that his ‘family [was] likely to have considerable difficulty in visiting him’.25 Some political activists were stripped of their South African citizenship, then declared prohibited immigrants and citizens of the Ciskei bantustan. Charles Nqakula, a media worker trade unionist, was declared a prohibited immigrant and deported to Ciskei in July 1982. In effect this meant that he was deemed a Ciskeian national and required a visa to enter South Africa and a temporary residence permit to remain there. Nqakula had been banned in July 1981 and ‘restricted … to King William’s Town in “white” South Africa and the neighbouring township in Ciskei where he lived’, but the order was lifted in May 1982, possibly in view of impending deportation. At the time of his deportation, he was employed at an education agency in King William’s Town and had to resign. In 1983 he was detained without trial by Ciskei security forces and then arrested by South African security police and prosecuted for illegally entering South Africa. Acquitted on a technicality after numerous appearances, he was again arrested on the same charge in 1984. Malusi Mpumlwana, a BC veteran, was also declared a prohibited immigrant, though in his case he was ‘granted a visa to continue his theological studies’ in South Africa.26 Steve Tshwete, an ex-Robben Island political prisoner and leading member of the UDF in the Border region, was also declared a prohibited immigrant in November 1984, a time of massive political resistance during which many UDF leaders were held in detention. He was ‘regarded as a national of the Ciskei “homeland” by the South African authorities, [and] his exemption from entering “white” South Africa without a visa and from requiring a temporary residence permit to reside there were both withdrawn by the Minister of Home Affairs’.27 The declaration of prominent political activists as nationals of independent bantustans and their deportation represented a new assault on anti-apartheid organisations. It was also a potentially serious development, as thousands of African political activists could be summarily declared nationals of one or other independent bantustan and deported forthwith.

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A ‘key aim of … banishment was to prevent the growth and sustenance of anti-apartheid organizations, ideas and information’.28 However, during the 1950s, Hendrik Verwoerd was concerned about banishing ‘agitators over a whole series of Native areas to become potential sources of agitation there’.29 His successors, perhaps confident of the strength of the state’s repressive apparatus, apparently did not consider that the banishment and dispersal of ex-Robben Islanders and political activists to remote rural areas could prove counter-productive and create new centres of agitation and political mobilisation and organisation. Eric Molobi had, indeed, suggested ‘that in banishing activists and ex-political prisoners to remote parts of rural South Africa, the apartheid regime created different political centers all over the country’.30 This was certainly so in the cases of Nchabeleng and Diale, but how true it was more generally requires greater research by scholars.31 Three prominent female South African political leaders, Frances Baard, Mamphela Ramphele and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, were all banished between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s.

Frances Baard In contrast to Ramphele, a medical doctor, and Madikizela-Mandela, professionally trained as a social worker, Frances Baard was a factory worker turned trade unionist. She was born in 1901 in Beaconsfield near Kimberley, attended Lutheran and Methodist schools and Perseverance Training School. After a short stint of teaching, she was employed as a domestic worker. In 1939, she moved to Port Elizabeth and found employment as a worker at a fruit canning factory, Jones Langeberg.32 According to Baard, the work was tough and dangerous: ‘We started work at six o’clock in the morning. We finished at nine o’clock at night. After work we went home to cook and clean. Some of us had little children. When we got home, they were always asleep.’33 At this time women earned less than men for the same work.34 In 1948, Baard came into contact with the legendary Ray Alexander of the Food and Canning Workers Union (FCWU). Motivated by a desire to improve the conditions of canning workers, she assisted Alexander in organising them into a trade union and subsequently Baard became an organiser for the FCWU. The poor living conditions in the townships of Port Elizabeth and the hardship experienced by residents angered Baard. Regarding as indivisible the economic struggles of workers and the political struggle for

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citizenship, Baard also became involved in political struggles by joining the ANC, its Women’s League and later the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW).35 Her trade union was an important affiliate of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and she served on its national executive. On 9 August 1956, when 20,000 women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria in protest against passes, she was one of 12 leaders chosen to deliver a petition to Prime Minister J.G. Strijdom. In late 1956 she was a defendant in the Treason Trial. In 1962 Baard was banned. A year later, she was arrested for ANC activities and, after a year in solitary confinement, she was charged and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. After serving her sentence at Kroonstad, Nylstroom and Barberton prisons, she was released in 1969 and banned for two years. In terms of her order she was not permitted to return to her home in Port Elizabeth, but banished to Boekenhout near Mabopane (Pretoria). As she wrote: they were looking for a place to send me because they had decided altogether now that I am not going back to Port Elizabeth because they thought I was a trouble maker, and I would be less trouble in a place which I don’t know and the people don’t know me. So they asked me where I was born and what nationality I was. At first they were going to send me to Qua-Qua, because some people are saying I am Sotho. I told them I am not Sotho, and they ask me what nationality am I? I said, ‘I’m a Tswana, I’m Tswana-speaking.’ So they told me, ‘you are going to stay in Pretoria; you’ve got to find a place here in Pretoria.’36 She was taken to ‘a two-roomed house, very dirty and there was nothing in the house … a shack’. She was left overnight with nothing but the clothes she wore. The next day she was taken to a house that was a ‘little better’ and given a bed and bedding, a table and chair and ‘a big bag of mealie meal, and … salt and dripping … I said, “Hawu! How am I going to cook these things?” So they gave me a pot, a small three-legged pot.’ Baard made contact with Helen Joseph, who secured her assistance from the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and provided some furniture.37 She knew no one in Mabopane and was treated with suspicion by the residents: ‘people were also afraid because they saw me coming with police … So they thought hell, this woman is perhaps coming to … pimp [inform] or something.’ Baard said it took some time for the residents to understand

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why she had been brought to Mabopane. During her banishment, she obtained work at the Rosslyn industrial area. Her weekly wages amounted to R4.25. At some point she was told that she could not continue working until she obtained a pass. She noted that ‘I still didn’t have a pass at that time and they told me, “Well, you must take it.” I said, “Well I didn’t want it, and I don’t want it.”’ She was arrested and before a magistrate indicated that she would prefer to go to jail rather than accept a pass. She was given a two-week suspended sentence and told that during this period she had to decide on a pass. She recalled saying, ‘“Well, for two weeks I can go to jail.” I was sounding so brave but I was not meaning it. It was because they made me fed up. I don’t want to go back to jail! But I don’t want this pass either.’ Eventually she reluctantly accepted a pass saying, ‘well, if you force with that thing [pass], you are forcing me as it were. And I will take that thing and I protest.’38 Two years after her banning/banishment order expired, she travelled to Port Elizabeth to look for her children. She discovered that they were dispersed, having found shelter with other families, and that a son was in jail because of the pass laws. She also heard that following her conviction, her children were evicted from their home and all the furniture and goods had been taken away in a truck by the location superintendent. During her stay in Port Elizabeth she was followed by the security police ‘the whole time’. When she went to see them, they wanted ‘to know what meetings did I address, who did I see, what houses did I go into, and whom. So many questions at one time that I couldn’t even answer one. Hoo! When I answer I say, “Well, I am sorry, I didn’t have a diary with me to say on such and such a day.”’39 Fearing harassment from the security police she decided against living in Port Elizabeth. She noted that ‘when I went to P.E. … the special branch there they told me that you are not going to stay here [I] didn’t want to go back since I know what kind of people are there … They wouldn’t give me a rest at all.’ Despite imprisonment, banishment and a life of considerable hardship during the 1980s, Baard’s political views remained unchanged. She continued to stress the principle of the unity of the oppressed: ‘I don’t care what organisation they join in but so long as they can come together. That’s the most important thing, they must unite.’ She believed that the ANC commanded great ‘support amongst oppressed South Africans. I know it’s a banned organisation but in terms of the people … there’s a lot of support, yes. I mean it’s not getting weaker, it’s becoming stronger.’40 In 1983, Baard

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was elected a patron of the UDF. Honoured with opening its national launch rally at Mitchell’s Plain near Cape Town, she called on all oppressed people to force the apartheid state to make way for a people’s government in South Africa. Baard died in 1997.

Mamphela Ramphele Mamphela Aletta Ramphele was born to primary school teachers in December 1947 in the Bochum district (Northern Transvaal). She grew up at Kranspoort Mission Station in the Soutpansberg area, 50 kilometres from Louis Trichardt, where her father was a school principal. She began school there, moved in 1962 to Bethesda Normal College near Pietersburg and then completed her secondary schooling at Setotolwane High School in 1964.41 Having missed the date to apply to the University of Natal Medical School, she proceeded to the University of the North in 1967 and then to Natal in 1968, where she graduated as a medical doctor. Politics were discussed by her parents in hushed tones in the Ramphele home. An uncle was involved in the ANC and the Communist Party and had been detained. Her older sister ‘was expelled from high school in her final matriculation year because she participated in a demonstration against the celebrations of South Africa’s becoming a Republic in 1961’. The family had to navigate round a local Dutch Reformed Church dominee who ‘was a bully, a racist, a chauvinist of the worst kind’ and ‘ruled his congregation at Kranspoort Mission Station like a farmer presiding over his property’.42 At Medical School, Ramphele became involved in nascent BC politics. She was the chair of the local branch of the South African Students Organisation (SASO), which gave birth to the doctrine of BC, and also took part in the activities of the Black Community Programmes (BCP). On graduation there were stints at hospitals in Durban and Port Elizabeth and then at Mount Coke Mission Hospital near King William’s Town. She was then requested to set up a comprehensive health project at Zinyoka near King William’s Town, which opened in January 1975 as the Zanempilo Community Health Centre. Between 1975 and 1977 Ramphele served as Zanempilo’s medical superintendent. When Steve Biko was banned, she had also to take over the directorship of BCP.43 In addition, she was an executive member of the Eastern Cape branch of the Black People’s Convention. She was detained on 6 August 1976 during the Soweto Uprising and held until 28 December under section 10, the preventive detention clause

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Mamphela Ramphele was banished in April 1977 from King William’s Town to Lenyenye township (near Tzaneen) in the Northern Transvaal.

of the Terrorism Act. She had been on her way to the funeral of Mapetla Mohapi, a BC leader who was banished to King William’s Town in 1975 for five years. He was tortured and killed by the security police while detained under section 6 of the Terrorism Act. Ramphele represented the Mohapi family at his inquest.44 In April 1977, she was seized by the security police. ‘Well, Dr Ramphele, goodbye, you bitch!’ was the parting shot of a King William’s Town security policeman, Captain Schoeman, after he informed her that she was being banished to Naphuno (Northern Transvaal).45 The banishment was ‘part of a deliberate plan to break up our group which was involved in all sorts of community projects in and around Kingwilliamstown’. This breaking up began in 1976 with the detention of various BC activists including Biko and the murder in detention of Mohapi. They had all been involved at different levels in community projects. Biko was the undoubted leader of this grouping, symbolising ‘strength and commitment’.46 Not dressed or prepared for a long journey, she was, however, not permitted to return home to fetch any belongings but summarily put into a car and driven by Warrant Officer Hattingh and another policeman and his wife into banishment. During the 1,200-kilometre journey she spent a night in a police cell in Zastron in the Orange Free State. She observed that ‘there is something

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frightening about being in non-space – unknown and amongst people with whom one has no real contact. I experienced the frightening emptiness of it all during the two days whilst being transported to my place of banishment.’47 She arrived the following night at Tzaneen and refused to spend another night in a cell and without a bath, demanding to be taken to her place of banishment. The local security police escorted her to Meetse-a-Bophelo Hospital,48 where she discovered she was being handed over to a woman who had been at school with her at Bethesda Normal College. Meetse-a-Bophelo (Water of Life), Ramphele observed, was an ‘ironical name for a person in my circumstances and … also for the locals, who had been forcibly removed from the fertile Makgoba’s Kloof area and brought to this arid land’.49 She made her way next day to the nearby Sacred Heart Mission in Ofcolaco near Trichardtsdal, from where she was able to phone Biko to let him know where she was. The Sacred Heart Mission offered Ramphele accommodation with two sisters at Tickeyline, from where she travelled back and forth to the mission to make calls to family and friends. A few days later, her clothes and some money were delivered by a colleague from King William’s Town and a close comrade, Thenjiwe Mthintso, brought her a VW Beetle. Raymond Tucker, an attorney from Johannesburg, arrived and discovered that changes made by Schoeman to her order rendered it invalid and that she was free to go anywhere. She left for Johannesburg to see Father Aelred Stubbs, who was later to edit a collection of Biko’s writings. They travelled to King William’s Town together, Ramphele defiantly returning to Zanempilo.50 The security police in King William’s Town were not aware that she was back and only learnt this from a Daily Dispatch article. Another banning/banishment order was served, but she was adamant that she would go back only to Lenyenye township near Tzaneen: this was to be her home for the next seven years. When Ramphele arrived in Lenyenye she was pregnant, carrying Biko’s child. On 12 September 1977, following severe torture at the hands of the security police, Biko died in detention. The last time she had seen him was in June 1977, when she had to travel to King William’s Town to give evidence for the defence in a trial that involved him. It was while in hospital with complications related to her pregnancy that she heard from Mthintso about his murder in detention.51 When she learnt of this, it led to ‘physical and spiritual collapse … at that time I really hit rock bottom.’52 This was an extremely difficult period in her life, especially as she was not able to attend Biko’s funeral and lay him to rest. ‘It was not’, she observed, ‘just

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the end of the vibrant life of a gifted person with a sense of destiny, but it was the death of a dream. The dream which was killed had both personal and national dimensions.’53 Five weeks later, on 19 October 1977, BC organisations were also all banned and silenced. After recovering from the shock of Biko’s murder and following the birth of her child in 1978, Ramphele began to practise medicine again. With the help of the BCP she established a health project in the local Roman Catholic church: ‘it was the only skill I had. As a medical person, you have skills that are always needed.’54 Her mother joined her and then a brother, and social relationships were forged. The health project was a useful entry point into the community. When she arrived in Lenyenye township, home to about 4,000 people, most of them were afraid to visit her for fear of attracting the attention of the security police. It was the women with sick children who soon broke the isolation: ‘They were not going to be scared of getting help for their children,’ said Ramphele.55 According to Ramphele, the inhabitants of Lenyenye could not be regarded as a community in the traditional sense. Like many other areas in the 1960s and early 1970s, Lenyenye comprised a conglomeration of people forcibly uprooted and relocated by the apartheid state from various parts of the Northern Transvaal. Its inhabitants lived under conditions of social dislocation and extreme poverty. She had to deal ‘with people who don’t even believe they are human beings, let alone equal human beings’.56 Men migrated to work, leaving women to act as heads of families. Most of Ramphele’s patients were women, children and old or disabled men. In October 1978, Ramphele’s banning/banishment order was amended to restrict her totally to Lenyenye township. This effectively prevented her from serving two medical outposts she had established, since they now fell outside the area to which she was restricted. Permission to travel to Johannesburg, to attend a course at the University of the Witwatersrand on diseases prevalent in her area, was refused on numerous occasions. After the birth of Hlumelo, Ramphele was able to move to a larger and better home. She also initiated a larger project with support from the Roman Catholic Church and European aid organisations. The popularity of primary health care and other services eventually led to the construction of the Ithuseng (Help Ourselves) Community Health Centre. Desmond Tutu contributed by raising funds and opened Ithuseng in September 1981.57 Drawing on the experience of previous BC projects, she began to practise innovative social medicine that also served surrounding areas. The period

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in banishment was also spent attempting to foster economic and social development in Lenyenye through a brick-making project, a vegetable co-operative and a literacy programme. Care groups encouraged mothers to grow fruit and vegetables, assisted them with the building of stoves and educated them in hygiene. A crèche for over 100 children was also started. All the projects attempted to ‘encourage the spirit of self-reliance’, a core principle of BC community development initiatives. Two themes Ramphele outside Ithuseng (Help Ourselves) especially influenced Ramphele’s Community Health Centre, opened by Desmond Tutu in September 1981. work. The first was the concept of grassroots organisation: ‘The only effective change is at grassroots level. Help people help themselves − help them overcome poverty, ignorance and powerlessness.’58 The second was the need for action: ‘I cannot be passive in the face of so great and obvious a need to act.’59 The stress on grassroots organisation and participation paid handsome dividends. Although residents were threatened that contact with Ramphele would lead to trouble, in time many began to get involved as full-time organisers and many of Ramphele’s previous responsibilities were taken over by residents themselves, facilitating community leadership. Ramphele contends that the hardships experienced by the women of Lenyenye, coupled with her own personal hardships, enabled her to relate to them more easily. The people’s ability to survive under difficult conditions and their resilience ‘spurred me on’. Moreover, the doctor–patient relationship was also important in assessing the needs of Lenyenye and defining the projects necessary for its development.60 While in Lenyenye, she completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree through the University of South Africa and also studied part-time for diplomas in tropical hygiene and public health at the University of the Witwatersrand. This gave her opportunities to attend classes four times a year in Johannesburg for a week at a time.61 In the months after Biko’s death Ramphele ‘endured the worst summer of my life in 1977/78 … The emotional distress was matched by the harsh

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physical conditions of my new home. Temperatures hovered around 40 degrees centigrade on most days, relieved only by occasional violent thunderstorms … There was no garden to take refuge in, or trees to shade one from the relentless heat … I thought that I would lose my sanity at some point. Captain Schoeman had clearly chosen the worst place for me, as part of his extended torture.’62 In this context, ‘putting down roots in Lenyenye was a matter of survival. So Lenyenye became home in every respect. There were three taproots: work, social relationships and intimacy.’ The first centred on her primary health care work; the second on her friendship with Father Duane from the Catholic Mission and her family and friends. There was also marriage in 1982 to a pharmacy lecturer from the University of the North with whom she had a son in 1983. She learnt from the work of Viktor Frankl that in adversity the only choice was ‘to turn personal tragedy into triumph’. Ramphele’s banning/banishment order was lifted in July 1983. She stayed on at Lenyenye in order to find a replacement, only departing in August 1984 to join her husband in Port Elizabeth. She walked away from a ‘beautiful house, thriving project [referred to as Mamphela’s Clinic] and … love and popularity. But it was time to move on.’63

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Nomzamo Winnie Zanyiwe Madikizela-Mandela was a prominent political opponent of the apartheid state and also the wife of ANC leader Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for over 27 years between 1962 and 1990.64 She was born on 26 September 1934 at Bizana. Ironically, given this book’s theme of banishment and the role played in this regard by Bantu Authorities, her father, Columbus Madikizela, was one of those who embraced it for reasons of ‘commercial pragmatism’ and became a Transkei cabinet member. As a consequence there was estrangement between daughter and father. During the Mpondoland revolt, Columbus Madikizela’s home was attacked and burnt down.65 His daughter Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was between 1958 and 1976 almost continuously restricted under banning orders, in detention, or serving prison sentences for breaking her banning order. Prominent in the Black Women’s Federation and the Black Parents’ Association at the time of the Soweto Uprising in June 1976, she was detained in August 1976, released in December 1976 without charge, and immediately served with a five-year banning order restricting her to Soweto.

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Courtesy of Dr Peter Magubane

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Top: Winnie Mandela was banished from Soweto in May 1977 to Brandfort in the Free State, a place of which she had never heard before. Above: With her daughter Zindzi in Brandfort in 1977.

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In the early hours of 16 May 1977, while daughter Zindzi slept, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s home was raided by police and she was taken to Protea police station. After a futile attempt to question her in a cell, she was informed by Colonel Visser that she was being banished to Brandfort, a place 380 kilometres from Johannesburg, which she had never heard of.66 As was noted, ‘she had been neither accused nor convicted of a crime, but as in the case of detention without trial, would have no legal recourse against the order’.67 The banning/banishment order restricted her to Brandfort and to her house at night for twelve hours. Brandfort was situated on the platteland in the heart of Afrikanerdom and Verwoerd had grown up there as a young boy.68 The location occupied by Africans adjoining Brandfort had no name, but was known by the locals as Phathakahle. Its inhabitants spoke primarily Sotho, Tswana and Afrikaans, languages that Madikizela-Mandela was unable to speak.69 She was to ‘be alone in a place that was as alien as a foreign country, which, of course, was just what the government intended’.70 MadikizelaMandela commented, ‘When they send me into exile, it’s not me as an individual they are sending. They think that with me they can also ban the political ideas. But that is a historic impossibility. They will never succeed in doing that. I am of no importance to them as an individual. What I stand for is what they want to banish. I couldn’t think of a greater honour.’71 Accompanied by ‘heavily armed men’, Madikizela-Mandela and her 16year-old daughter Zindzi were taken in military trucks to Brandfort and handed over to security police, who took them to a place that was being used by builders as a rubbish dump.72 House 802, in which she was deposited, was a tiny three-room dwelling with no electricity or bathroom and an outside pit latrine toilet, sandwiched between the houses of two supposedly retired security policemen. The furniture from the Soweto home could not fit into the house and was transported to the police station.73 Some of their possessions were thrown on the earth-covered floor. Madikizela-Mandela recounted, ‘we were just dumped between these four walls. It was bitterly cold. We cuddled up on one mattress, to get some sleep.’74 As news spread of her banishment, friends and associates rallied to bring her food and other necessities, including a battery-operated television set, gas heaters, books and the like. A coal stove and other necessities were provided, even though she had to trudge to the police station, where her refrigerator was stored, for her refrigerated belongings. Communication with the outside world was through a ‘telephone box at the local post office

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at prearranged times’.75 There were occasional visits by her doctor, Joe Veriava, to treat high blood pressure and ailments that were stress-related. Visitors were hounded and some served jail sentences for minor offences related to the terms of her banning order. The aim was to discourage visitors and keep Madikizela-Mandela in isolation. Difficulties with life in banishment and harassment by Gert Prinsloo, a policeman who kept watch with great zeal on her, her visitors and new friends from Brandfort, led to Zindzi developing severe depression and she was sent to live with Helen Joseph. The departure of Zindzi and fewer visits by friends created great loneliness. The ‘Security Police had … warned local inhabitants that Winnie was a dangerous criminal’, so the locals were guarded and aloof.76 In a letter to Mary Benson in May 1979, MadikizelaMandela wrote: ‘Being with Zindzi in the past two years sort of cushioned the impact of the pain; now she is gone to prepare for exams and is with Helen. It is the first time that I truly feel what my little Siberia is all about. The empty long days drag on, one like the other, no matter how hard I try to study. The solitude is deadly, the grey matchbox shacks so desolate simply stare at you lifeless as the occupants, who form a chain of human frustration as they pass next to my window.’77 In a different vein she observed ‘how grim that must sound, yet there’s something so purifying about exile, each minute is a reminder that blackness alone is a commitment in our sick society; it is so strengthening too’. Visits to Nelson Mandela, travel to Johannesburg for medical appointments and to Pretoria for UNISA classes were ‘rare opportunities to leave Brandfort’.78 In the same letter to Benson she wrote: I was due to start work on 1 March 1979 for a Dr Chris Hattingh in Welkom, who was a great sympathizer and a fanatical admirer of Nelson’s. He was one of them, the Afrikaners. He maintained us financially for a few months … Hattingh told me that he was being trailed by a car with four men since he had been visiting us. On 1 March … six kilometres from me, at 8 p.m., his car mysteriously overturned and he died on the spot … They killed him and have got away with it – like the Steve Bikos, but this one is worse as the world will never know.79 The reference to Biko was, of course, about his death in September 1977. Madikizela-Mandela’s comment on Biko was that ‘you felt your blood rise as you stood up, and felt proud being black, and that is what Steve did to

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me’.80 One biographer wrote that the security police were greatly mistaken if they thought that the ‘drab and dusty rural hamlet’ of Brandfort would destroy Winnie. They simply did not understand ‘the depth of Winnie’s courage, her strength of character and will, her determination and extraordinary tenacity … that she would confront every obstacle they put in her way … After assessing the situation, Winnie decided she would have to make the best of her dilemma, redirect her bitterness into action, and turn the blow the authorities had dealt her into a challenge.’81 And so she ‘descended on Brandfort like a thundering tidal wave, assaulting racial prejudice, narrow-mindedness, intolerance, bigotry and injustice with her usual unhesitating boldness’.82 Another biographer noted: ‘as the years of banishment passed, the impression left on Winnie became indelible. She strove to remain uncowed by her isolation and was determined to keep the struggle going − even if the venue had changed … If friends who visited her were amazed by her resilience and calm in the face of her exile, those who lived around her witnessed an ongoing active defiance, a refusal to surrender, to relinquish control of her life.’83 She expressed her defiance by using the white entrance to the police station and patronising shops and facilities that were reserved for whites, seeing it as a way of confronting the ‘caustic small-town racism’ and raising the consciousness of local black people.84 According to Madikizela-Mandela, the local supermarket ‘in those days … had a side entrance that led to a hatch in the wall and blacks went there and waited quietly until they were served’. Unaware of this practice, Madikizela-Mandela says she and her daughter went in by the front entrance as people would do everywhere else: ‘A crowd gathered outside to see what would happen. We got served … Now there is no side entrance and no hatch, and everyone walks through the same way.’85 Thus, she began the process of encouraging the impoverished local African community to challenge the petty racist practices that existed in Brandfort. Madikizela-Mandela discovered that Phathakahle ‘was a sad, desolate place … with a depth of impoverishment and hopelessness … she had never seen before’.86 Here, her eyes were opened to the scale and depth of unemployment, hunger and poverty.87 There ‘were 725 houses in the township, all similar to hers, and the total population was 5,000 … there was a high rate of infant mortality as a result of malnutrition, and a disturbing level of alcohol abuse’.88 She set about learning Sotho and Tswana and initially befriended children, sharing with them fruit and sweets. Slowly, greetings were exchanged and she was gradually accepted.

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Like Ramphele, though on a smaller scale, Madikizela-Mandela began grassroots work among the poverty-stricken residents. Her ‘banishment accentuated her iconic status and encouraged a flow of donations, which she used to establish a crèche, and various training projects in the bleak township’. Trained as a medical social worker, she visited the homes of residents to assess their needs. A weekly clinic was organised at her home and medicines provided for the poor. Abubaker Asvat, a doctor active in the BC movement, began making visits to the township and provided medical attention and medicines to township residents, using his caravan as a clinic; he also left supplies for Madikizela-Mandela to dispense.89 Food was obtained through Operation Hunger, and a soup kitchen and child care programme was started. Given the lack of day care for working mothers, she started a crèche at a venue belonging to the Methodist Church; she also promoted vegetable growing and gardens in the drab landscape of the township.90 Madikizela-Mandela joined the local YWCA and helped establish a sewing club, called Lift Up Your Home, using the Methodist church hall.91 With sewing machines donated by a Quaker group, school uniforms were produced. A great problem, however, was the lack of suitable premises for the various initiatives and activities. Despite police harassment, death threats and other kinds of intimidation, Madikizela-Mandela continued with her activities among the residents of the location. The white inhabitants of Brandfort were keen to have her removed, fearful of her impact on the local black people. In December 1981, two days before her banning order was due to expire, she was served with another five-year banning/banishment order. In July 1983, when restrictions were lifted on scores of people, including Ramphele, Madikizela-Mandela was served with a new five-year banning order that continued her banishment in Brandfort. She was also placed under house arrest on weekday evenings and at weekends and was obliged to report weekly to the police station. In Brandfort, Madikizela-Mandela made use of the legal services of Piet de Waal, a university friend and fellow tennis player of Kobie Coetsee, who became minister of justice in 1980.92 She also befriended De Waal’s wife, Adele de Waal, who was extremely hospitable and opened her home to Madikizela-Mandela. For this, the De Waals were ostracised by local whites. Contact with Madikizela-Mandela changed Piet de Waal’s views. In a letter of July 1979 to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Nelson Mandela wrote of De Waal that it was ‘courageous’ of him ‘in such a small and isolated community

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to attend to our affairs … His association with the family marks him out and his wife as a family of deep conviction and strength of character.’93 It has been suggested that De Waal requested his friend Coetsee ‘to lift Winnie’s bans and to consider releasing [Nelson] Mandela, and Coetsee later acknowledged that it was De Waal’s representations on behalf of the Mandelas that set the process of real change in motion’.94 While Madikizela-Mandela tried to make ‘the best of a dire situation’, her life in Brandfort ‘was austere and devoid of real support. The gifts and donations, visits from her friends and sympathisers, even Zindzi’s presence, could never compensate for the loss of her life in Soweto, where she had been rooted and happy. She hid her pain behind a bright smile and willingness to serve others, but the emptiness accosted her at night.’ She experienced ‘little Siberia’ when Zindzi was away: life ‘was reduced to deadly solitude and long empty days that dragged on, one much like another. But no one was allowed to see her soul-destroying loneliness, and to the outside world she showed nothing but stiff upper lip, her bright smile and courageous defiance.’95 In August 1985, while Madikizela-Mandela was in Johannesburg, the Brandfort home was petrol-bombed, causing extensive damage. She lived in Soweto while the house was repaired and was told by security police in November 1985 that the house was ready and that she must return to Brandfort. However, she never again lived in Brandfort and, during her four months in Johannesburg, she attended and addressed a political funeral, a memorial service and other events. In effect, she unbanished and unbanned herself. On 21 December 1985, her banning order was amended. She was no longer banished to Brandfort and could attend social events. There was a twist in the new banning order: she could reside anywhere except the magisterial districts of Johannesburg and Roodepoort. Thus began a new battle with the state, which was eventually settled only when she was permitted to stay in Soweto. • • • The examples of Ramphele and Madikizela-Mandela demonstrate how the adversity of banishment was transformed into positive attempts to develop social solidarity and improve the lives of oppressed and impoverished rural communities through self-help projects and schemes. Of course, the invaluable resources of knowledge, professional expertise and skills possessed by

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Ramphele and Madikizela-Mandela facilitated their community development efforts, as did their ability to use extensive networks to mobilise financial and other resources. Still, they are good examples of an indomitable refusal to be immobilised and demoralised by the apartheid state, despite banishment to obscure and impoverished rural areas. In the case of Madikizela-Mandela, her banishment appears to have taken a particular personal toll on her. It is possible that the marked decline in banishment under the Internal Security Act during the 1980s was related to the success of Ramphele and Madikizela-Mandela in uncompromisingly continuing to organise oppressed communities despite the repression and tribulations of banishment. However, it could also have had to do with the spread of political resistance across the length and breadth of South Africa, including small rural towns and the bantustans. In the late 1970s, the apartheid state could safely banish political activists to Upington, Graaff-Reinet and other such towns, but by the mid-1980s these towns had themselves become sites of political mobilisation, organisation and resistance, led by the UDF and other formations. Few, if any, areas could be regarded any longer as safe havens for banished political activists. It was perhaps also for this reason that between 1982 and 1985 the apartheid state declared some political activists nationals of the nominally independent Ciskei bantustan and prohibited immigrants in South Africa, and deported them to Ciskei.

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7 Life in banishment Life is not worth living. (Abraham Mogale)

I am living in a land of thorns and sand only. (Elias Monare)

It is not Mhlupeki that died, but me, because what they have done to him they will do to me. (Mxosha Mdhluli)

THE MIDDLE PASAGE IS an old maritime phrase ‘dating to the heyday of the Atlantic slave trade’.1 Conditions on ships and land were often demeaning, gruesome, brutal and traumatic, resulting in pain, injury, melancholy, illness and death.2 In the seventeenth century the journey transporting people from Batavia into banishment at the Cape took about 78 days.3 In this context ‘the Middle Passage … was and is a metaphor for the suffering of … peoples born of … severed ties, of longing for a lost homeland, of a forced exile … It is a living and wrenching aspect of the history of the peoples of the … diaspora, an inescapable part of their present, impossible to erase or exorcise.’4 Adding to the trauma for some communities was ‘a high awareness of locality’. Their ‘place had spiritual and protective powers … Banishment would mean, in a sense, the end of the world … and an uncertain fate in an uncertain, new world.’5 However, the Middle Passage was ‘simultaneously a signifier of a people’s capacity to survive and to refuse to be vanquished’.6 Ralph Ellison has observed that ‘any people who could endure all of that brutalization and keep together, who could undergo such dismemberment, resuscitate itself, and endure until it could take the initiative in achieving its own freedom is obviously more than the sum of its brutalization’.7 The idea of

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Frenchdale Native Trust Farm, west of Mafeking in the Northern Cape; place of banishment for 14 people during the 1950s and 1960s.

the Middle Passage usefully encourages consideration not only of life in banishment, but also journeys into and out of or back from banishment; and to view those banished to alien, often remote and desolate locations not only as victims, which they were, but also as indomitable, courageous, tenacious and resilient people capable of enduring considerable hardship and of overcoming adversity. The notion of social death has been developed to comprehend in part the slave condition. It could also help better understand the condition of banishment. A slave was a person who ‘no longer belonged to a community’, ‘had no social existence outside of his master’ and was considered a ‘socially dead person’. Social death signified, on the one hand, the slave ‘as the permanent enemy on the inside’, someone ‘who did not and could not belong because he was the product of a hostile, alien culture … an intruder … a stranger in a strange land’. On the other hand, social death signified ‘an insider who had fallen, one who ceased to belong and had been expelled from normal participation in the community because of a failure to meet certain minimal legal or socioeconomic norms of behavior’. In both cases, the ‘ultimate cultural outcome’ was the ‘the loss of natality as well as honor and power’, which in turn resulted in ‘institutionalized marginality, the liminal state of social death’.8

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The banished were not always severed from previous generations forever, but they were for often lengthy periods no longer able to live among family and friends and in communities. They were ‘summarily removed, without any warning, taken away in what clothes they could stand up, with what they could carry in their hands, for a bitter and lonely life in a far corner of the land among unknown people’. Previous and often deep inter-personal and communal social bonds were fractured, sometimes permanently. They were stripped of personal authority and power, some having been notable traditional leaders and councillors to such leaders. Those banished ‘lost everything; their homes, their families, their liberties … They did not know when, or whether, they would ever go home again.’9 There was a common experience among the banished of isolation, drudgery, privation, dislocation, alienation and estrangement in their places of banishment. They were simultaneously outsiders and insiders. Denied citizenship and political rights, they were excluded from law and policy making, which occurred over their heads and behind their backs and which was the prerogative of a white electorate. Banished to remote and foreign habitats they were strangers in strange areas who could not speak the local language, and often had little in common with the locals and even less in common with those under whose surveillance they fell. At the same time, the banished did not stand completely outside the state, nor was their situation one of total exclusion. Instead, it was one of subordinate inclusion, but an inclusion that nonetheless permitted the state to enact their very banishment. The banished continued to maintain ties to the areas from which they were banished. However, the political changes that were wrought on the back of banishment and the crushing of political resistance meant that the families of the banished experienced marginalisation. The condition of the banished was indeed a kind of social death.10 In banishment and on their return, they had to forge new bonds and develop robust strategies for adaptation, agency and survival. Imprisonment on Robben Island was a preferable alternative to banishment in a distant, desolate, foreign area. Prisoners on the Island constituted a community that intermingled and debated political issues. There was easier access to the basic necessities of food, shelter and medical care; greater opportunity for further education; and, unless sentenced to life imprisonment, there was a defined period of incarceration. Helen Joseph contrasted her own house arrest with banishment: ‘For her pains … because she had written and sent abroad the stories of the banished, published in Britain as

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Piet Mokoena at Frenchdale, 1964.

Tomorrow’s Sun, she … became the first person to suffer house arrest, to be restricted to her home for 12 hours a day during week days and day and night during weekends and holidays.’ Yet, ‘at least the “house arrestees” lived within their own homes, albeit on some strange, legally created margin of society, There was even, occasionally, interaction of sorts: usually clandestine, sometimes dangerous and frequently nerve-racking. But even this, Helen Joseph often reminded herself, was more than the other banished could hope for.’11 Trotsky’s 1899 journey into banishment took many months.12 In 1928, when banished by Stalin to Alma-Ata, this was undertaken in great secrecy to avoid demonstrations. The journey took eight days and involved travel by train, ‘bus, lorry, sleigh and on foot, across ice-covered and wind-swept mountain and through deep snow-drifts’.13 In South Africa, the journeys into banishment were perhaps somewhat less dramatic, but no less traumatic. To begin with, there was planning and communication that, depending on the geographical location and circumstances, involved some or all of the following: the native commissioner, chief native commissioner, magistrate, chief magistrate, security police, collaborationist chiefs and traditional authorities. Ultimately, a motivation was made to the secretary for native affairs

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or Bantu administration and development and via this office to the minister for banishment, generally on the grounds that the person’s presence was ‘inimical to the peace, order and good government’ of the community. For these reasons it was ‘expedient’ for the person to ‘forthwith withdraw from his or her place of residence’ to a specific, usually distant, desolate and foreign place. Before 1961, banishment orders were usually signed by the minister, the prime minister and the governor-general. After 1961, and the declaration of South Africa as a republic, orders were signed by the minister, prime minister and state president. Banishment documentation generally comprised a motivation for banishment, a banishment order and an order that authorised the police to arrest and escort into banishment any person who refused to obey a banishment order. The process was entirely administrative and, of course, unknown to the person before the banishment order was served. The passage into banishment was frequently abrupt and made without notification of family. It was mostly into the unknown, undertaken by rail and road, and involving distances of many hundreds of kilometres (sometimes well over 1,000). Mxosha Mdhluli recounted his banishment and that of Mhlupeki Hlongwane: ‘It happened on April 12, 1957 that the police called me from my hut and I was taken to the Native Commissioner’s office at Bergville. They took Hlongwane with me, the son of my chief. The first thing they said was: “You are being banished to Duiwelskloof, Mdhluli. You are not wanted, you and Hlongwane; you are not good.”’ Despite asking for the reason for his banishment, he was given none; and so ‘it ended there at the office, and we were taken to the sergeant’s quarters, where we were treated like criminals. Our fingerprints were taken, we were examined for identification marks like criminals. We were handcuffed and taken to the cells and brought the next morning to a train.’14 Chief Vuna Miya and his induna Thompson Dhlamini were banished after being ‘handcuffed together’, held in jail at Bergville for three days, and then ‘put on a train for the Transvaal’. Kgagudi Maredi was transported into banishment in leg irons from Sekhukhuneland to Pretoria. Then, handcuffed as well, he was driven in a closed police van to King William’s Town.15 Abraham Mogale recalled that ‘I was served with a banishment order … and kept in custody … I was railed … under an escort of 2 constables. Before my departure I was given £2.’16 Ben Baartman’s passage from Worcester to Mngomezulu was a 1,600-kilometre journey that took two and a half days.

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Mtetunzima Ganyile was banished in 1962 from Bizana to Frenchdale.

In some cases people journeyed into banishment not from their homes but immediately after their release from prison and without the knowledge of their families. Stephen Nkadimeng from Sekhukhuneland first served a 30-month prison sentence; then on the last day of his imprisonment, he was requested to provide the names of comrades involved in the Sekhukhuneland uprising. Refusing to do so, he was not permitted to return home, but was given £2 and sent on his way, banished to Golela, over 1,600 kilometres away. Helen Joseph wrote: ‘And so this man went, having served his sentence in gaol, having refused to become an informer, not having seen his family, nor his first born son, born while he was in gaol. He went alone on that journey, travelling through the night on the train and found his way up the mountains to Ingwavuma … to a little thatched hut … standing by itself on a lonely mountain ridge.’17 William Mosehle Sekhukhune was another who, on his release from prison in 1960, was immediately banished to Zululand. His wife only found this out from the authorities when she enquired why he was not yet home from prison.18 Anderson Ganyile was detained in Bizana and advised of his banishment to Frenchdale (Northern Cape). He was not permitted to inform his attorneys or say farewell to his mother, but was arrested and transported to Kokstad.19

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That same afternoon he was taken by rail to Mafikeng via Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg. He commented: ‘I could have cried when I was taken to Frenchdale. I was shown a sty and this was supposed to be my new home. It was an unswept and unkempt hut with dirty walls. When I saw my new home I was overcome with revulsion.’20 Ganyile’s journey out of banishment took the form of escape and exile: travel to Mafikeng, then to Johannesburg, months in Mpondoland and Durban, back to Johannesburg and an air flight into exile in Maseru. The journeys out of banishment of Jackson Nkosiyane, Ben Baartman and a number of others were also into exile. So too was Jojo Titus’s journey, though his was a particularly poignant and tragic case. After serving six years on Robben Island, he was banished to Transkei in 1972: The next ten years were spent in a hermit-like existence in a remote rural area of western Transkei, hearing only fragments of news from the world beyond. But, by 1982 he had heard enough to convince him that the battle he had been fighting all those years before, was still going on. He decided to escape. He walked to the Lesotho border and crossed at night. He kept walking across the mountains until he reached the Lesotho capital of Maseru on 8 December 1982. Having been given directions, he made his way to an ANC house. For the first time in 16 years, he was free and among friends. Little more than 24 hours later, Jojo Titus and his new-found friends were dead, mowed down in a cross-border raid by apartheid special forces. That night in 1982, 42 men, women and children died in Maseru.21 Jojo Titus ‘endured the horror of banishment, and the years of desolation only to die in a burst of gunfire on his first full day of freedom among friends’.22 Another kind of escape was involved in the sad case of Maphuti Moraka. She was banished a year after her husband Jeremiah Moraka, and sent to join him in Transkei. Maphuti Moraka was badly affected by the loneliness and harsh conditions of banishment and after five years disappeared (see chapter 2).23 We have already noted the appalling and heart-rending case of Sebitji Matlala, who was permitted to return home to GaMatlala after seven years in banishment at Driefontein (Northern Cape). Despite being gravely ill, he had been forced to use a train and bus and walk five miles to get home, only to collapse soon after and die within a week.’24 While in banishment, Sebitji Matlala suffered paralysis on one side of his body and was physically handicapped. Reportedly ‘too ill to move

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Fetching water at Frenchdale camp.

about’ or ‘helpless to live alone, he had been looked after by the family of an African government employee on the farm’.25 Yet, as Helen Joseph noted, ‘that man had been put out of the camp to struggle home alone, only to die when he got there. We can only assume that the authorities did not want to have him die in the camp … It had taken him nearly all day to walk the five miles from the bus to his home … he had walked a few steps at a time and then sat down to rest.’26 What must Sebitji Matlala ‘have suffered as he dragged himself home? … The miracle is that he reached home alive – that he did not die at the roadside, a discarded human being.’ With Joseph, we must also ask ‘what sort of inhumanity sent that dying [man] five hundred miles alone’? Indeed, Sebitji Matlala’s journey out of banishment has to be ‘one of the most grievous sins to be laid at any government’s door’.27 In a few cases, including that of Robert Sobukwe, the issue of banishment orders was a precaution in case the state was not successful in securing convictions and jail sentences. As already indicated, Sobukwe was imprisoned for incitement, detained on Robben Island after his prison sentence had ended and then served a banning/banishment order. In a few cases, although banishment orders were served, there were no journeys into banishment, only passages directly into exile. In 1959 Elizabeth Mafekeng did not proceed into banishment at Southey (Northern Cape), but was helped to escape to Lesotho. Similarly, Gilbert Hani and Jacob Mpemba, who were banished from Cape Town to St Mark’s in 1962, did not turn up at the train station, but fled to Basutoland and sought asylum there.28 The passage home from banishment as and when it was sanctioned by the state was neither into a free society nor without conditions. Release

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from banishment was on the basis of ‘parole … subject to good behaviour … and the relaxation of the provisions of the order was effected by permit’. People were allowed ‘to return to their own area but on condition that they do not resort again to the methods they used previously’.29 The permits themselves were ‘subject to withdrawal without prior notice and without reason being assigned. Except in the case of an indefinite suspension, further conditions [were] stipulated with due regard to the circumstances applicable, such as that the Bantu concerned may not interfere in tribal matters or take part in certain activities.’30 In some cases conditions included ‘promising not to take part in political activities; recanting … political beliefs, and renunciation of chieftainship’.31 Banishment orders were only fully withdrawn after a period of compliance with the conditions of release. In a few cases there were re-banishments. Kgagudi Maredi was released from banishment, only to be banished again soon afterwards. Mokate Ramafoku of the Batlhako community from Mabieskraal (Pilanesberg) was first banished in 1935.32 He was banished again in 1949 to Thaba Nchu.33 His order was revoked in 1952, but he suffered a third banishment in December 1955, this time to Driefontein. In fact, following a successful court application, a fourth order was issued for his banishment, again to Driefontein.34 For 17 banished people, there was no journey back home: they died in banishment. The story of Theophilus Tshangela is perhaps the most poignant. In 1974, he was the last person at Frenchdale, although his banishment order had been withdrawn on 11 July 1972. He, however, refused to return home until certain basic pre-conditions, including complete freedom from all restrictions, were met by the minister. As he commented: ‘I want to be free.’35 Tshangela never left Frenchdale, and died there. Frans Ramara’s wife in GaMatlala received a message from the chief that Ramara had died in banishment. The authorities would not help with burial. After Ramara’s death, his cousin Morris Ranoto ‘became a recluse’ until he too died in banishment.36 Informed by the native commissioner that he would be buried in Zululand, she waged a legal struggle to ensure that Ranoto’s body was brought back for burial in GaMatlala and the costs were borne by the Department of Native Affairs.37 Mokate Ramafoku also died in banishment at Driefontein. Cosmas Desmond wrote: ‘The records of the Vryburg General Hospital show that one George Mokate Ramafoku, aged 60 years, was admitted on December 11, 1970 and that on December 18, 1970, he died of cancer of the stomach. They include no mention of a long life-or-death struggle by the doctors, or

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Drum, December 1959

New Age, 15 October 1959

Morris Ranoto.

Mokate Ramafoku.

of the administration of pain-killing drugs. For Mr Ramafoku had been left literally to rot to the point of death in an isolated banishment camp at Driefontein.’38 Afflicted with stomach cancer he had lain in the camp at Driefontein ‘in pain, wasting away, for several months before he was removed to hospital, already a dying man. For him there had been no doctor, no medication and no painkillers to ease his agony during those last months. That he did not die on his dumping ground was due to the efforts of his fellow banished who called the police when appeals for the district surgeon brought no result. Ramafoku’s end is a terrible testimony to the deliberate callousness and cruelty of the banishment system.’39 This was despite the assurance of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development that ‘banished people received free medical treatment and were protected from undue hardship’. Yet ‘it is impossible to imagine the hardship endured by Mr. Ramafoku as he lay … in a bare round hut, in barren desert hundreds of miles from one’s family … dying of cancer’. Ultimately, ‘Ramafoku was the victim of cold-blooded callousness. He was left to die in pain … an act of violence.’40 Helen Joseph claimed that ‘at least two of the men who died in exile were receiving no government allowance and had no employment. They were old and sickly and it seems clear that they died of starvation.’ On hearing of the death of Mhlupeki Hlongwane at Sibasa Hospital in 1961, another banished person lamented: ‘It is not Mhlupeki that died, but me, because what they have done to him they will do to me.’41 The banished were dispersed to various rural and remote parts of South Africa. Between 1948 and the end of banishment in the early 1980s, although

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people were banished to 27 districts, a handful of them had large concentrations of banished people. Fifty-two people (32%) were banished to the Vryburg (31), Kuruman (10) and Mafikeng (11) districts of the Northern Cape; 22 (14%) to the Sibasa (13) and Pietersburg (9) districts of the Northern Transvaal; 11 to the King William’s Town district of the Eastern Cape; and 12 to the Nkandhla (6) and Port Shepstone (6) districts of Natal. More specifically, 26 people were banished to Driefontein Native Trust Farm (Vryburg); 14 to Frenchdale Native Trust Farm (Mafikeng); seven to Tabaans Location (Sibasa); six to Kalkspruit Trust Farm (Pietersburg); and five to Delville Trust Farm (Xhalanga, Eastern Cape). Frenchdale banishment camp was located in ‘barren dry country, miles and miles of flat scrub country, grey with dust, where nothing grows except thorn trees’.42 John Cope, an MP who visited Frenchdale in 1956, noted that the remote, desolate and arid rural banishment camp was a 2,585morgen Native Trust farm.43 The Trust land was known as the Railway Block and after 1945 it was decided to develop it ‘as a ranching settlement’ for Africans. To this end, ‘boreholes were sunk and rondavels built to house the administrative staff’, but later it was decided to use it to house the banished.44 The Rand Daily Mail disclosed that in Frenchdale, 12 bleak, round huts on a fenced-off part of the farm, about two square city blocks in size, are the homes of six banished people. There are no trees in this semi-desert scrubland, with knee high weeds instead of grass, and the nearest water is three-quarter of a mile from the camp. The nearest shop is 12 miles away … The huts have no lavatories, no baths or basins and no lights … If there is an emergency sickness, there are 12 miles to be walked before a telephone call can be put through for a district surgeon.45 The writer Can Themba and photographer Bob Gosani exposed the existence of Frenchdale in Drum magazine in August 1956. The ‘concentration camp’, as Frenchdale was described, had ‘no barbed-wire fences, no armed sentries, no forced labour’. The huts were in an area ‘300 yards long by 150 yards wide’ and ‘fenced in with smooth wire’.46 Three years later, Drum noted that in summer the banished at Frenchdale ‘sweat and shrivel under the blazing sun … In winter they shiver as they pull their tattered clothing tighter around their bellies.’ It described the banished and their families ‘in the wide open spaces where even grass refuses to grow green … as parched and withered-looking as the wild and barren land around

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Family asleep at Frenchdale camp.

them’.47 Lilian Ngoyi recounted that the banished had to sit ‘close to the walls of their huts to catch a few inches of shade from the overhanging roof. For Frenchdale is treeless and the baking sun beats down mercilessly.’ Winter at Frenchdale was cold: ‘sometimes on this barren land there was snow, with icy winds to chill the blood and freeze the body in those comfortless stone huts. Hyenas prowl around the huts at night, and snakes infest the ground by day.’48 The cold at Frenchdale was of a kind that could freeze to death young chicks.49 The late Ernest Cole, one of South Africa’s most outstanding photographers, and certainly an intrepid one, braved a journey to Frenchdale in 1964. He was not the first to make the long trip from Johannesburg to Frenchdale: Ngoyi had undertaken the trip, possibly in 1961, and so had Helen Joseph, Joe Morolong and Mitta Gooieman in the dark of night in 1962. Ruth First, on assignment for New Age, may have visited in 1956. Cole, unlike others, spent five nights and days with the banished, and has bequeathed us by far the most extensive and certainly the most vivid description of life in banishment at Frenchdale in the form of both text and photographs.50 The striking feature of Frenchdale, wrote Cole, was ‘the quiet. There [are] no children’s voices, no yipping dogs, none of the murmuring sounds of daily living: there [is] not even the faraway background hum of passing cars. Nothing.’51 The ‘nearest inhabitants are about half a mile away … and the nearest town 60 miles off. There is no school, no post office, no medical

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facilities, no opportunity for work.’52 The nearest bus stop was 19 kilometres away in Pitsani. The banished ‘may leave the camp freely and travel into Mafeking − if they walk the distance to the bus − but they must live in the camp’.53 The abodes of the banished were huts with dirt floors: there were ‘no lavatories or baths, and no electricity’. The banished were provided with ‘no furniture’ and ‘forced to sleep on the bare ground, unless they can obtain their own beds’.54 Water for drinking and washing had to be fetched from over a kilometre away and food was a constant problem: ‘never enough’. The monthly state grant of R3 worth of food and R1 in cash meant that the banished had to undertake a trek of 19 kilometres to the village of Pitsani: ‘Then they hike home again. It is an ordeal for these ageing people, but it is also the big event of their month.’55 The banished were almost entirely cut off from other people and society. Visitors were extremely rare. ‘Precious letters from home are read over and over again. Letters are saved for years until they yellow and crumble.’56 The banished lost ‘count of the days. Monday looks like Friday in Frenchdale. Nothing breaks the monotony. Nothing breaks the unvarying routine. There are no youngsters at home on Saturday, no church bells on Sunday, no rush and hurry of shopping days and laundry days during the week. What is Christmas like? Like every other day. Only sunrise and sunset [mark] the days. The passage from light to darkness [is] their calendar.’57 Cole wrote of his time at Frenchdale that ‘I got to know something of their feeling of emptiness’. While for him ‘the frightful nothingness of Frenchdale was about to end’, for the banished ‘an infinity of unremarkable days stretched ahead’. They would continue ‘drowning in dullness, the once-keen intellects … rehash[ing] old grievances, engag[ing] in old arguments’.58 Driefontein was on the edge of the Kalahari Desert and about 172 kilometres from Vryburg.59 The native commissioner of Vryburg wrote to the chief native commissioner of the Western Areas, based in Potchefstroom, on 9 April 1949 that a Mr Ewbank had offered the farm Driefontein (lot 9, block B) for sale, as it was ‘an island in the centre of Trust and Reserve ground’.60 The agricultural officer in Vryburg reported that Driefontein was 2,061 morgen in extent and that ‘there are no natives residing there at present’. The government supported the purchase of the land and it was transferred to the Trust on 18 April 1950. Summers at Driefontein were very hot and winters bitterly cold. A Sunday Times reporter described it in 1961 as ‘twelve stone huts’ among ‘thorn bush’ with ‘never a blade of grass or a thorn tree for shade’.61 There

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was a surrounding fence and free access was allowed by an open gate. Another visitor told New Age that ‘conditions at Driefontein are appalling. There are no facilities at all … The men are suffering untold miseries away from their families. It seems as if their very souls are being shrivelled up by the fierce sun beating down on the limestone ground surrounding their huts.’ In Driefontein block B were Vincent Mbamama Hlamandana (74) and William Tyabashe (68) from Tsolo, Chief Jeremiah Mabe and the Zulu brothers. The five men were ‘in rags of cast-off clothing, wearing broken shoes, dilapidated headgear … they look like men marooned on a desert island.’62 Tyabashe and Hlamandana shared a hut: they ‘enjoy the luxury of lying on cardboard boxes flattened out – previously they lay on the floor’. As there were no jobs for the banished, they ‘were given a government allowance of two pounds a month to fend off starvation’. The hardship of the banished included ‘how the food they buy is never sufficient to last for a month, how there are always empty days, never enough’. But the greatest frustration was having ‘nothing to do but wait’.63 More often than not, the banished were ‘dumped on a government trust farm, given a stone hut, totally empty of any piece of furniture or means to cook food, and left there alone. Ironically, these trust farms were farms purchased in past years from white farmers, to make up the total of the share of the land for the Africans. These farms had, however, not yet all been released for the occupation of the African people, and mostly they were still wild and uncultivated stretches of arid land, far away from any town or even African village.’64 Contemporary accounts of those who reported on banishment or undertook visits to the banished commented on ‘destitution and suffering … living in penury … destitute, neglected, almost starving [and enduring] boredom, frustration, and loneliness’.65 Ngoyi in the early 1960s ‘brought back disturbing stories of loneliness and despair, of men cut off from their families, stranded in places where they did not speak the language of those around them, sitting day after day with nothing to do just waiting, waiting to go home’.66 Nkosiyane ‘frequently goes without food, his clothes are reduced to rags, and though he is unwell he cannot afford to consult a doctor’.67 However, ‘perhaps the worst aspect [of banishment] was the indefiniteness … There was no term to this hell of desolation’. It is this context of which Joseph spoke: ‘that terrible catalogue of human misery, that list of people scattered all over this vast land, lonely and forgotten.’68 The MP John Cope reported that banished people at Frenchdale were

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given two huts and offered menial and poorly paid employment such as the repair of roads and fences and clearing of bush.69 A few of the banished made ‘a fair living, but others, previously people of status in their communities, [were] reduced to dire poverty’.70 It is not clear whether it was compulsory to work. One account stated that ‘sometimes a banished man might be sent to a farm where there was some agricultural development, and then he would be compelled to work in the fields for a few pounds a month. Yet these banished men had all been farmers in their own right in the reserves; they had owned cattle, they had once been people of substance.’71 According to Cope, at Frenchdale there was no compulsion to work.72 However, initially there was also no state allowance, so banished people either had to work or starve if they were not supported by any of the locals or their own families, and later by the Human Rights Welfare Committee (HRWC). It seems that only in the late 1950s were banished people provided with a monthly allowance of £2. The Manchester Guardian Weekly reported that one banished person ‘was given a rat-infested room in which to live, where his bed for two years was a sheet of corrugated iron supported on two boxes’.73 In 1956, Elias Monare reported that ‘I am placed here in Glen Red, near Vryburg, without food but only with water. I am placed in a tin house with no windows and only one big door, a house that is very cold in winter and very hot in summer. I receive no grant from the Government that I may live. I am living in a land of thorns and sand only.’74 Mxosha Mdhluli, banished to Bendstore Trust Farm (Northern Transvaal), lived in a ‘dark and squalid … broken-down shack [with] broken wooden frames for beds’. In the case of Chief Vuna Miya, before a two-roomed house was built ‘he had to live in a hut which was so broken that the rain came in and made everything wet’. Kgagudi Maredi’s abode was a ‘round, bare hut with a thatched roof’, with ‘a low wooden bed, a mattress on the floor, and one or two upturned boxes and two dim wick lights’.75 Initially, he was dumped in a stable without any bed or blankets on a Trust farm 12 miles from King William’s Town. Makwena Matlala was taken to a ‘bare and empty house’ in a place where she was not able to speak or understand the local language. No financial or other support was provided by the authorities until 12 days later and she had to depend on help from road workers who happened to be from GaMatlala.76 Ben Baartman’s account of his experience of banishment was that ‘you are taken to an empty town and nobody seems

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to care for you. You are neither given food nor any sort of job through which you can support yourself. In other words you are like a person who has been buried alive.’77 Those banished in late 1961 from Sekhukhuneland were no better off. Joseph noted: two of them huddle in dilapidated huts in the Xalanga district of the northern Transkei, where the frost lies deep in the morning and the icy wind blows through the broken doors of the huts. Day after day they sit, these men, for they have not been given any work and the endless days drag past. They do not speak the Xhosa of the Transkei, only the Sepedi of the northern Transvaal. Their rations remind us of the gaols … These men are at the very beginning of their banishment and the monotonous hopeless years stretch ahead.78 Shortly after her 11,000-kilometre journey to visit 33 banished people, Joseph recorded that ‘our anger has been aroused by what we have seen and heard’ and that ‘sometimes the plight of these people, the stories of what they have endured, was almost too unbearable to behold, to hear. There are no words which can really tell how deeply these banished people have suffered.’ She described banishment as ‘slow torture of the soul, a living death’.79 In the light of various accounts of the deprivation experienced, state assurances that the banished suffered no undue hardship were perverse. In 1960, the minister of Bantu administration and development was asked in the House of Assembly ‘whether any removed persons have been in receipt of a subsistence allowance, if so, (a) how many, (b) from what sources of revenue are such allowances made.’ The reply given was that ‘each Bantu is paid an amount of £2 prior to his departure. Suitable employment is found for him at his new place of residence. If employment is not available an allowance is paid, the amount being determined by the circumstances of each case.’80 Accounts by the banished were, however, strongly at odds with the minister’s statement. Neither at Frenchdale nor at Driefontein were any of those banished in employment. Moreover, they received their allowances only after long delays and then only every two months. Piet Mokoena, banished to Frenchdale in 1954, had been given the usual ‘initial two pounds, but nothing more. He was offered a monthly allowance in 1958 at the same time as the Mopelis, but like them he had refused, because he had been given nothing before.’81 In this context, Mokoena noted that ‘life was very difficult. We had to go to the villages to ask for food and for just a few pennies that we

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sometimes got for work from them. Sometimes there would be four whole months and no one from the authorities would ever come near us.’82 Abraham Mogale, banished in 1958, indicated in the early 1960s that apart from being given an initial £2, ‘I have since … received no assistance whatsoever. I am not in employment. I am living with friends I made after my arrival here … The only assistance I get is from my wife. My wife has to support and maintain myself, my 3 minor sons and my old and sickly widowed mother-in-law.’83 So far as the 23 people banished in the early 1950s from the Matlala Reserve were concerned, by 1961 only a few of them were in employment and none had received any state assistance. As will be seen, it was the HRWC established in 1959, comprising Helen Joseph, Lilian Ngoyi, Amina Cachalia and others, that mobilised local and overseas funds, supported many of the banished and also sent funds to their families for food and the education of their children. The banished were allowed ‘freedom of movement … within specified areas’.84 Chief Vuna Miya, who was banished to Farm Chloe (Northern Transvaal) and lived there with another banished man, Chief Maci, lamented that ‘we are having a dreadful life. We are not allowed to leave this place. We can’t go home whatever happens.’ They had to cope with a very antagonistic agricultural demonstrator at the Trust farm, and both he and Chief Maci ‘were subjected to constant surveillance and humiliation, and were in fact … treated as prisoners’.85 In the case of Ralekeke Rantuba, the atmosphere was such that ‘I don’t trust anyone. I’m watched most of the time. Even when I go for a walk I am followed.’86 Those banished at Frenchdale could freely travel to Pitsani, but the police at Pitsani had to be notified before any visit could be undertaken to Mafikeng.87 Sometimes the distances separating the banished from towns or villages were considerable. Abraham Mogale, banished from Zeerust to northern Zululand, wrote that ‘I have been banished to a remote area. I am thirty-nine miles from the nearest town and any transport … The nearest telephone in case of emergency is over the mountain. Life here is not worth living.’88 The case of Douglas Ramokgopa illustrates various aspects of banishment: the issue of freedom of movement while in banishment and, in this instance, the sheer intransigence of the Department of Native Affairs; communication between local and national authorities regarding a banished person; movement out of banishment and the conditions imposed in this regard. Ramokgopa was banished in 1958 from Ramagoep Location (Soutpansberg) to Mont Plaisire Farm (Matatiele, Transkei) for allegedly interfering

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Mtetunzima Ganyile and Piet Mokoena conversing at Frenchdale camp.

in community affairs and acting as the connection between leftist groups operating in Johannesburg and the Batlokwa community of the location.89 Having arrived at Mont Plaisire Farm in March 1958, in August 1958 the native commissioner for Matatiele, S.J. Parsons, requested on behalf of Ramokgopa that he be allowed to visit his niece in Mount Fletcher. His niece was a respectable person and Ramokgopa had not caused any trouble since his arrival: ‘to the contrary, the temporary agricultural officer reports very favourably on his work and general behaviour’. On 12 March 1959, Parsons wrote to the chief magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, requesting a reply to the letter of August 1958. He also mentioned that Ramokgopa’s niece was ill and he was keen to visit her. In May 1959 there was a further letter to remind the chief magistrate that he had still to reply to the previous two letters and that a phone call had also been made in April 1959 concerning Ramokgopa’s desire to visit his niece.90 On 20 August 1959, the secretary for Bantu administration and development replied to say that Ramokgopa would not be allowed to visit his niece: ‘it would not at this stage be advisable to recommend that the removal order against Ramokgopa be suspended.’ Two days later, Parsons informed Ramokgopa that his request had been refused. On 2 November 1959, Parsons again wrote to indicate that Ramokgopa ‘respectfully requested … sympathetic reconsideration’. He also clarified that Ramokgopa was not

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requesting the suspension of his removal order; he merely wanted to visit his niece every once in a while. Perhaps to show where he stood on this matter, Parsons added that he was pleased with Ramokgopa’s behaviour and that ‘he has not given the slightest cause for suspicion that he is in any way inclined against authority’. He also expressed his amazement that Ramokgopa had, despite his disappointment, not illegally left for Mount Fletcher. He assured the national authorities that on his visit to his niece, Ramokgopa would be accompanied by N. Lehana, ‘who is a loyal and responsible member of staff’. Finally, as an aside Parsons noted that Ramokgopa’s confinement to casual work meant that he ‘can barely subsist on his earnings’. On 11 December 1959, Parsons sent a reminder note regarding the request of 2 November.91 Two months elapsed before the secretary replied, again refusing Ramokgopa’s request. He stated that ‘while I have no reason to doubt his exemplary behaviour at Matatiele, this cannot be said of his behaviour in his home district, which led to his removal and which determined the conditions imposed by the Governor General, and I am not prepared to grant standing approval for a deviation from those conditions’. On 28 March 1960, the chief magistrate of the Transkeian Territories closed the matter, informing the commissioner in Matatiele that ‘no good purpose will be served if the Secretary is now asked to reconsider his decision’. In May 1963, Ramokgopa made a written request to be permitted to return to his home. He promised to ‘solemnly undertake to be loyal and obedient to the Chief’; not to ‘interfere in any way with the Tribal Administration’; to ‘give full support to the Chief and his Tribal Authority in all their lawful undertakings’; and also not to ‘attend any unauthorised or illegal meetings in the District’. Simultaneously, there was a letter from the magistrate in Matatiele strongly recommending the release from banishment of Ramokgopa due to his old age: he was then 79. It was noted that Ramokgopa had been in banishment for over six years; displayed good behaviour; lived alone on a Trust farm with a little garden; and was employed by the Bantu Trust, earning approximately R11 per month. On 10 July 1963, the secretary for Bantu administration and development, J.J. Klopper, signed a letter that permitted Ramokgopa to return to Soutpansberg under the following conditions: that he travelled by public transport at the cost of the state and via the shortest route on a third-class ticket; that immediately on arrival home he checked in with the native commissioner in Soekmekaar; and that he did not involve himself in community matters.92 On 30 August

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Mpondoland revolt leader Theophilus Tshangela at Frenchdale.

1963, Ramokgopa gave his written commitment to comply with the terms of his release. Instructed also to tender a written apology to the chief, he did this and indeed requested the forgiveness of the community. He returned to Soutpansberg in September 1963.93 Inasmuch as there was an administrative process resulting in the issue of a banishment order, Ramokgopa’s case illustrates that there was also a process related to the release of people from banishment and the eventual revocation of orders. It was stated that banishment orders were ‘reviewed periodically and from time to time Bantus affected have been allowed to return home on parole or to settle at places of their own choice subject to good behaviour. In each instance, the relaxation of the provisions of the order was effected by permit.’94 Moreover, ‘all permits are subject to withdrawal without prior notice and without reason being assigned. Except in the case of an indefinite suspension, further conditions are stipulated with due regard to the circumstances applicable, such as that the Bantu concerned may not interfere in tribal matters or take part in certain activities.’95 The minister of Bantu administration and development, De Wet Nel, pronounced in parliament in 1962 that ‘we have allowed most of these people to return to their own area but on condition that they do not resort again to the methods they used previously’.96 Frequently, however, as has been noted, people were

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banished less for their methods than for their open opposition to state policies. No doubt the travails of banishment took their toll on some of the banished and they made compromises in order to secure their release. Makwena Matlala seemed to be a shadow of herself after her release from banishment and became marginal to ongoing struggles in GaMatlala. However, De Wet Nel would have been deluding himself when he gloated that ‘there are numbers of people who were sent away and who came back. They realised their own folly and to-day we are getting the greatest possible co-operation from them. They were not forced; they came to us of their own volition and said to us, “We are sorry we did these things; we were misled by certain Whites into making fools of ourselves and we now want to co-operate.”’97 Helen Joseph argued that although state officials ‘denied that the banished were prisoners’ and indeed that ‘there were no prison walls, no guards’, the reality was that ‘the banished men were [at Frenchdale] and no other place. Arrest and jail would follow if they left without permission.’98 In support of her view, she gave the examples of Twalimfene Joyi, who ‘was fined £3 or 4 days for leaving the farm Wesselsvlei without permission or escort’ and McGregor Mgolombane, who ‘faced a charge because he left the farm one Saturday morning to go to the [native commissioner] to order food, because his supplies were exhausted … he cannot leave the farm freely to purchase his own supplies. On the way to the [native commissioner] he enquired the time and found he was too late to reach the office before 1 p.m. He turned back, but having been seen on the road, was arrested after he had returned to the area of the trust farm.’99 On this basis Joseph asks, ‘Not “an atmosphere of a prison?” No warders? But he faced a charge of leaving the farm − even to seek food. And he is imprisoned in utter isolation, away from his family, his friends, his home.’ In seeking to show that the banished were prisoners, Joseph was in danger of obfuscating very real differences between imprisonment and banishment. On the one hand the answer lay in what a wife of one of the banished had written: ‘What sort of prisoner are you? Prisoners go to gaol and they come home again but you don’t come home.’100 On the other hand, a key feature of banishment, as opposed to a prison, was precisely its noninstitutional character. Still, the response of the secretary for Bantu administration and development that ‘while a native may be ordered to withdraw to a particular place … which he may not leave without my permission … there is no authority whatsoever for detaining him at that place and any

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physical action designed to prevent him from leaving would be unlawful as he is not a prisoner’ is bizarre.101 For some of the banished, illiteracy and the inability to find someone who could write on their behalf in their spoken or first language were a severe constraint on communication, especially when families were kept in the dark as to the whereabouts of a banished person. The simple act of a letter reaching one banished man was so cherished by him that he was led to exclaim ‘We are made people again!’102 According to the MP John Cope, banished people were able to have their wives and families join them and stated that in 1956 four of the six banished at Frenchdale had their wives with them.103 Those in banishment who sought this arrangement were usually given permission, though this was more of a privilege and concession than a right. Thus, while Piet Mokoena requested permission for his family to join him, he received no answer. Instead, his wife or a child visited only occasionally. However, ‘the places to which banished men are sent are not fit for families’.104 Some families did join the banished family member and also visited on occasion. Chief Miya’s wife followed him into banishment in Pietersburg, moved to Johannesburg for the birth of their child and then rejoined him. David Moiloa’s wife, a domestic servant, also lived with him for a while, only to have to return home to place their child in school. Daisy Boshomane remained at home until her husband asked her to join him. She did, but the hardships of banishment in Zululand became too much for her and she returned home. But these were by far the exception rather than the norm. There were significant impediments to families living in banishment. Lack of funds for transport between home and banishment was one and sufficient income to live on as a family was another. The state allowance was meagre, income from employment barely sufficient for the banished person, let alone a family, job opportunities were absent or inadequate, often there were no schools for children or medical facilities, and there was the isolation and desolation of places of banishment.105 As Drum put it, ‘lack of food, water, medical attention and other basic amenities turn life into a bare and sinister existence’. Ralekeke Rantuba’s wife and children joined him in banishment in Zululand, but she ‘absconded after a short while. She found the conditions too tough and somehow I don’t blame her.’106 For Maema Matlala, the wizened man who had served with the South African forces during the First World War in East Africa and was banished to Bushbuckridge (Eastern Transvaal), there was a simple reason:

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Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online

Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online

Left: Esrom Hlonyane ‘ran a lucrative herbalist business’ before being banished from GaMatlala. His wife was ‘reduced to begging in the streets to keep her children alive’ and decided to join him in banishment. Right: Moses Moichela was banished from GaMatlala in 1955 to the Lower Umfolozi district.

‘he was a soldier and soldiers did not take their wives to war with them and that was why he left her behind when he was banished.’107 The principal consideration, however, was that the families of the banished had ‘to cling to their land in the tribal area. They dared not leave permanently to be with their husbands’, as the loss of land and stock would have left the family utterly destitute.108 Families of people who had been banished from urban areas risked losing their residential rights if they sought to join a family member in banishment.109 The impact on the families whom the banished had to leave behind was severe. The absence of a man from a rural household meant the loss of labour that saw ‘to the herds and the flocks, the plowing and the reaping’. A letter sent to Joseph alerted her to the fact that the children of the banished in GaMatlala were ‘seriously suffering under starvation and short of clothing; the same applies to the wives. They can’t manage paying school fees for their children.’110 Esrom Hlonyane ‘ran a lucrative herbalist business’ before being banished from GaMatlala, and ‘his wife, who before was comfortably off, was reduced to begging in the streets to keep her children alive’ and decided to join him in banishment.111 Moses Moichela was banished from GaMatlala in 1955. By 1959, Moichela ‘lost his wife to another man. Blow No. 2 came when he heard that his son, aged 24, had died and that his daughter had forcibly been married to a widower.’ He was not permitted to travel home to ‘bury his son’. ‘These things would never have happened’, he said, ‘if I were not in banishment … the Government has broken up my home. I have very little to live for now.’112

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A banished father wrote that ‘the case of my children is a very pathetic one indeed because I hear that they have been scattered all over the country like a bird’s chickens … This is the heaviest blow that the deportation has meant to me.’ A teenage daughter expressed her anguish by asking, ‘Tell me in the name of God who was it who banished my father and sentenced me to a living hell.’113 When a banished man had many wives, the senior one had to take on his responsibilities. Mamoshiane Ntwampe, the senior wife of Motodi Ntwampe, not only provided him with strong support in his stand against apartheid policies but became head of the family and took on the responsibility of also helping care for other wives and their children.114 The consideration of holding onto a rural home and plot did not always apply. There were occasions when traditional authorities that were supporters of state policies and in conflict with those that were banished seized their land, or did not permit them to plough or deprived them of their abode. It was noted that ‘in a few cases the wives have been victimized by their husband’s political opponents [and] great hardship is frequently experienced … by the families of these men.’115 Moreover, ‘the children of these people grew up without education because there was no money for school fees or books. When the families were not even allowed to plough, they lived on … charity … And even when some of the banished men were allowed to return home they found ruin and destitution and had to start again − with nothing.’116 Some relief was provided after 1959 by the HRWC, which made available money, school fees, food parcels, clothing and reading materials to the banished and their families. Speaking about his exile, and the passing of his grandmother, Ariel Dorfman writes: ‘I learned that banishment does not take from you only the living but takes their death from you as well.’ Frans Ramara’s wife had both his remaining years and his death taken from her. She was to live a life of destitution, begging from fellow community members.117 Morris Ranoto’s wife was at least able to bury him after she demanded that his body be brought back to GaMatlala. Some of those who were banished struggled tremendously with the hardships associated with life in banishment. As already noted, Maphuti Moraka was so badly affected by conditions in banishment that she simply disappeared. Morris Ranoto became ‘known by the locals in Zululand as “The Madman” – a psychologically ill recluse who was not keen to meet anyone and hid in a shack kilometres from the road’. Esrom Hlonyane’s wife, ‘bitter and beaten by years of semi-starvation and poverty … became

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mentally and physically sick’.118 In the case of Elizabeth Mafekeng, who avoided banishment and escaped to Lesotho, Helen Joseph, visiting her in 1962, ‘was shocked at the change’.119 It is clear that banishment had all but destroyed Mafekeng (see chapter 5). Others bore their banishment stoically and remained optimistic about their contribution to political change and its prospects. Perhaps this was akin to what Dorfman talks about: ‘my own exile would teach me that we spend a good part of our lives believing things will get better because there is no way we can imagine them, wish to imagine them, getting worse.’120 Kenneth Mosenyi looked on his ‘banishment as an honor in the struggle of our people’.121 He learned to build and constructed houses and huts for locals in villages of the Tugela Valley reserve and also built a home for himself. Cijimpi Mnyandu was also one who did not let his banishment deter him in his fight for justice. Working as a ‘boss boy’ on the Mozambique border, he helped locals undertake a strike for not being paid to erect fencing. Likewise, Nkadimeng’s principal concern during his banishment in Zululand was this: ‘is the government getting stronger, or the people?’ In Mngomezulu, Baartman kept active by raising the political consciousness of the locals and working out how to join MK in exile. In Bushbuckridge, the gallant First World War veteran Maema Matlala resisted all efforts by Department of Bantu Administration and Development officials to win him over. He was determined that ‘when I go home, I shall be accepted by the people’.122

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8 Responses to banishment I recall when we saw them – completely hungry, lonely – some of them did not know why they were there. It was a sad, sad, very sad state of affairs for them. They were forgotten, forgotten people. (Amina Cachalia)

COLONIAL AND APARTHEID REPRESSION was seldom passively accepted. It provoked political mobilisation, organisation and resistance. Banishment spawned various responses from the families and supporters of the banished, their communities, anti-apartheid political movements, civil society formations and the banished themselves. Banishment was challenged through the courts, petitions were addressed to the government by banished persons, members of opposition political parties voiced criticism in parliament, and civil society organisations made representations to the government. There was also popular resistance that took the form of protest meetings, demonstrations, boycotts, petitions and statements of protest. Banished people escaped into exile prior to banishment, or after they were banished; and there were also social welfare initiatives to support banished people and their families, such as that undertaken by the Human Rights Welfare Committee (HRWC). Prior to 1956 there were instances when banishment orders in whole or in part were contested in the law courts: between 1928 and 1960 there were at least eleven different challenges.1 Only three were successful. By mid1956, all the existing legal loopholes to challenge banishment were shut through legislative amendments. Before we look at specific legal challenges, the apartheid legal apparatus requires comment. It was integral to the maintenance of political domination and economic and social privilege along the lines of social class, race and gender. Myriad laws were enacted to safeguard the racist, capitalist and patriarchal social order. An arsenal of laws suppressed

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protest and opposition through severe limitations on freedom of association and expression, intimidation, punishment and emasculation of individuals and organisations that expressed opposition to apartheid. Specific measures included detention without trial, banning, deportation, endorsement and banishment. Draconian powers were conferred on the Supreme Chief, government ministers and state officials. The judiciary was subordinated to parliament and the executive, and generally subordinated itself to them. It was neither independent, nor a custodian of civil liberties or bulwark against human rights abuse. John Kane-Berman has commented that ‘countries ruled by law contrast sharply with those where punishment can be meted out by Ministers, officials or policemen, without going through the courts. This is the fundamental distinction between a free society and a police state.’2 Thus, prior to 1994 South African courts largely accommodated and enforced repressive laws that emanated from a racially exclusive legislature and executive. Where the courts upheld the pleas of those subject to apartheid repression, this resulted from creative exploitation of legal loopholes by defence teams rather than any strong social justice and human rights commitment on the part of the judiciary. Courageous judgments upholding human rights, dignity and liberty were few and far between. There were significant obstacles and limits to securing justice through the courts in apartheid South Africa. One of the first court challenges involved Salatiel Mabi and five others. In 1935 they had been served orders banishing them from Mabi’s Location (Rustenburg) to various other places. The six refused to comply with their orders and were charged under section 5(2) of the Native Administration Act, which imposed penalties for the contravention of banishment orders.3 In explaining his clients’ refusal to proceed into banishment, counsel for the six argued that they were of the view that the Act was being construed entirely unreasonably. The appellants were being banished without any compensation and to areas where there was neither accommodation nor water. Counsel argued that the six could not be banished to any place whatsoever, or simply dumped in the veld. The counter-argument for the Crown was straightforward: the removal order was lawful and unreasonableness could not invalidate it. The court agreed with the Crown’s argument. Judge Fisher acknowledged that the banishments involved ‘possibilities of considerable hardship’.4 The Native Administration Act, however, conferred ‘almost unlimited discretion,

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and the court is not entitled to interfere with such an order solely on the grounds of unreasonableness or hardship’.5 In response to counsel’s arguments related to civilised law, such as a presumption against taking away rights without compensation and generally upholding the individual’s rights, Fisher’s retort was that ‘the court was always very astute to uphold these matters but we are not entitled on that account solely to override the unequivocally expressed intention of the Legislature that the GovernorGeneral should act in this manner’.6 The judge also indicated that the court was certain that in the exercise of the discretion conferred upon the governor-general by section 5(i)(b), he had ‘taken into consideration the very important matter of the general public interest’ and that ‘in the exercise of his discretion, he has deemed it expedient to send [Mabi and the others] to the place where he sent them’. Furthermore, if the legislature committed an injustice against the appellants and inflicted upon them great hardship, that was the legislature’s problem and the court could do nothing about it. For all these reasons the court ruled that the appeal had to be dismissed, since ultimately there was nothing to indicate that the discretion allowed to the governor-general was exercised with ‘a lack of bona fides’.7 This case exemplified not only the judiciary’s refusal to uphold justice, but its collusion with injustice, and paved the way for the state to banish its political opponents to barren and inhospitable parts of South Africa. Another court challenge, heard in the Cape Provincial Court, was that of Joel Lengisi. Lengisi had been ordered in 1954 to leave East London for the farm Schoemansdal (Barberton).8 The application for the banishment order to be declared null and void revolved around a particular phrase of section 5(i)(b), which read that the governor-general might order any African person to ‘withdraw from any place’. Counsel for Lengisi contended that this phrase was, upon a true construction, ‘restricted to ordering withdrawal from a place situate within an area occupied by a tribe’. Lengisi had been born in the Sitholeni Location in the Engcobo district (Transkei) but had for some time prior to his banishment resided in Duncan Village Location, which fell within the urban area of East London. It was argued that since the place of residence from which the applicant was being banished was ‘not occupied by a tribe, the order made by the GovernorGeneral on 6th July, 1954 was, consequently, null and void’.9 The application for Lengisi’s banishment order to be set aside was dismissed, the court ultimately ruling that ‘the power vested in the Governor-

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General under section 5(1)(b) of Act 38 of 1927 to order an individual Native to “withdraw from any place” is not restricted to ordering withdrawal from a place situate within an area occupied by the tribe’.10 The significance of the ruling was that banishment orders could be applied throughout the length and breadth of South Africa and not just within areas designated as African reserves. A court case involving Twalimfene Joyi from Thembuland usefully illustrates the immense power concentrated in the hands of government officials, in this instance the minister of Bantu administration and development. Joyi was banished in May 1958 to Wesselsvlei (Kuruman) because his presence in Umtata was allegedly ‘inimical to the peace, order and good government of the Natives residing in the district’.11 In January 1959, Joyi’s attorney requested the minister to furnish him with reasons for Joyi’s banishment and also a statement of the information that induced the governor-general to banish him. On 22 April 1959 a reply was received: The Minister is of the opinion that all the information which induced the Governor-General to issue the order cannot be disclosed to you without detriment to the public interest. The information which, in the Minister’s opinion, can be disclosed without detriment to the public interest is as follows: 1. You actively supported persons engaged in resistance against the peaceful administration of the Natives in the Umtata area. 2. You openly stated that you were against stabilisation of the land. 3. You threatened with violence persons who were in favour of the adoption of the system of Bantu Authorities in the Transkeian Territories and soil rehabilitation measures.12 As this reply comprised broad and vague allegations, it led to a further request for more definite and specific particulars. The minister’s reply was brief: he had already furnished all the information he was prepared to disclose in terms of section 5(1). As a result, Joyi instituted proceedings against the minister for an order forcing the latter to provide the particulars requested; or failing that, for an order withdrawing his banishment. In an affidavit he stated that ‘he did not at any time so conduct himself as to render his presence in the Umtata district or elsewhere inimical to the peace, order and good government of natives residing therein and that no reasonable and truthful person, with knowledge of the facts, could bona fide think that any conduct of his could have such effect’.13 He went on to describe his

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activities prior to the banishment, saying that ‘I did speak at meetings, which were summoned by the responsible Government officers, against cattle culling, fencing and contour ploughing, since I was briefed to do this by the people at Mputi and this was the view of nearly all the people concerned, but this was a bona fide expression of views when we were officially consulted in these matters and our views asked for’.14 Joyi concluded that he wanted to petition the government to withdraw his banishment order, but in order to do so he needed to be furnished with the particular and specific allegations that had been made against him. The minister’s response, in the form of an affidavit, was once again brief. It stated that, according to the information at his disposal and that of the governor-general, the issue of the banishment order was fully justified. Furthermore, all the information and particulars that could be disclosed without detriment to the public interest had already been furnished and no further details could be provided. The minister’s statement was accepted by the judge, who ruled that even though he could not think of a possible reason why the disclosure of certain information would be detrimental to the public interest, this did not necessarily mean that a proper reason did not exist. He added that this demonstrated ‘to what extent the court is bound by a Minister’s statement in matters of the present kind’.15 Furthermore, although the Native Administration Act did impose upon the minister the duty to make as full a disclosure as was compatible with the public interest, from a practical point of view the minister was virtually the sole judge as to the proper performance of that duty. The court therefore concluded that Joyi had failed to establish that he was entitled to the information asked for and dismissed the application with costs. The effect of this ruling was that the minister was not obliged to provide any reasons for the banishment of individuals. All that was needed was the lodging of an affidavit that declared it was not in the public interest to disclose the reasons. It is clear that awesome powers were conferred upon government officials. The first successful court application occurred in 1946 when James Mpanza challenged his banishment order on the ground that such orders could be applied only against African persons falling under Native Law. Mpanza claimed, on good grounds, that he was exempted from the ‘operation of Native Law’ and that the Native Administration Act did not apply to him.16 This argument was upheld by the court and Mpanza’s banishment order was set aside. The victory was of limited significance, as

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few banished people could apply on similar grounds. In any event, the loophole was sealed in 1952. A court victory of much greater significance was that achieved in the Appellate Division in 1956 in the case brought by Joseph Hugo Saliwa against the minister of native affairs. Saliwa was banished in August 1953 from Glen Grey to the Pietersburg district for allegedly ‘conducting or actively assisting in a campaign of antagonism and defiance towards administrative measures in the district of Glen Grey’. He was arrested in December 1953 and removed under escort to Pietersburg. From there, Saliwa made an application to the Transvaal Provincial Division for an order declaring his banishment null and void on the grounds that he was neither ‘acquainted with any prejudicial allegations or accusations made against him nor was he given any opportunity of submitting any defence to the allegations’.17 The minister admitted in a replying affidavit that Saliwa was not afforded the opportunity to make representations to the governor-general, but added that under the Native Administration Act there was no need. He also stated that Saliwa’s presence in Glen Grey was detrimental to the ‘peace, order and good government’ of Africans living there. This was denied by Saliwa in a responding affidavit. The court dismissed his application and he remained in banishment. Saliwa’s case was then taken to the Appellate Division. Here, counsel for Saliwa argued that the maxim of audi alteram partem, in so far as such a principle implied a hearing before an order of banishment, was not excluded by implication in section 5(1)(b), as argued by the minister.18 In an important judgment, the chief justice ruled that if a person was ‘served with an order under subsection (1)(b) without being given an opportunity to be heard before the issue of the order it would be cold comfort for him to be told that after the order has been in operation for twelve months that order may be cancelled by a resolution passed by each House of Parliament. In the meantime he may have suffered irreparable damage. In my opinion there is nothing in the second proviso to sub-section (1)(b) from which it can be implied that the maxim audi alteram partem is not applicable.’19 This ruling was quickly seized upon to get the banishment order of Batlhako community leader Chief Mabe set aside. Mabe was banished from Mabieskraal to Driefontein in January 1956. On 5 June 1956, Acting Judge Boshoff set aside his banishment on the grounds that ‘the principle audi alteram partem had not been observed in that the applicant had not been given a hearing before the issue of the order’.20 This second victory was extremely short-lived. Even before Boshoff had set aside Mabe’s banishment order, the

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government had already taken steps to seal the loophole that had been so ably exploited by Saliwa’s defence counsel. By means of section 3 of Act 42 of 1956, the government amended section 5(1)(b) so that it now stated that a person could be banished ‘without prior notice to any person concerned’. On 7 June, only two days after his order had been set aside, Chief Mabe was served with a new banishment order. The 1956 amendments brought to an end all possible legal opposition to banishment in South Africa. Legal challenges to various aspects of banishment and matters related to the banished continued. In Sekhukhuneland, banishments were challenged by the law firms of Tambo and Mandela and of Shulamith Muller; the latter also featured prominently in other cases concerning banished people and in numerous cases of legal support for rural resisters.21 Joe Slovo represented Alcott Gwentshe when he was arrested in 1956 for disobeying the governorgeneral’s order to confine himself to Frenchdale banishment camp and refrain from living in Mafikeng location. Released on bail of £25, he was found not guilty of contravening his banishment order.22 Beyond legal challenges to banishments, there were also individual actions and collective popular responses that took various forms. In parliament, criticism of banishment was expressed by members of the opposition. At the birth of the Native Administration Act, Thomas Payn, the MP for Thembuland, had argued that the banishment provision was ‘grossly unfair’ and Deneys Reitz objected that the conferral of such absolute power without any checks was tantamount to ‘a suspension of habeas corpus’.23 In June 1961, the MP John Cope described banishment as ‘one of the most cruel instruments of administration that can be found anywhere’.24 Some opposition MPs regularly asked questions in parliament on various aspects of banishment, the questions often being supplied by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). In March 1960, the SAIRR research officer requested Cope to ask the minister of Bantu administration and development whether ‘banished persons are informed of their rights, such as to request information regarding reasons for the banishment order; to have their families with them if they wished; to obtain a free rail warrant for visits by close relatives; and to apply for an allowance’.25 In April 1960, the MP Walter Stanford was asked by the SAIRR to pose a number of questions to clarify certain issues and also trace banished people whose names were not on the list provided in parliament the previous year.26 There was a similar request the following year to Cope.27

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Helen Suzman frequently raised questions of her own volition as well as at the request of Helen Joseph and the SAIRR. The occasions when parliamentary questions were asked about banishment could become heated. On 10 May 1962, Suzman vigorously tackled the minister, challenging his previous utterances on banishment and calling on him ‘to explain every one of these banishing orders … and to give details’. She was especially interested in the circumstances surrounding cases where people were ‘kept in banishment for seven years and more without ever having been brought before a court of law’. In fiery interchanges, Suzman suggested to National Party MP G.L.H. van Niekerk that he should view the film Trial at Nuremberg, only to be reminded by him, when she described conditions in banishment, that ‘we have gone through it ourselves in your internment camps’. The minister of Bantu administration and development weighed in to claim that the banished, such as those from GaMatlala, were ‘people who are being used by the liberals, the communists and persons of that kind to create chaos in these areas where these people want to co-operate with us’. He took offence at Suzman for holding it ‘against me when I take steps, for humanitarian reasons, to preserve the peace’. He alleged that Suzman was against peace and that her questioning was at the behest of groups such as the Black Sash and the SAIRR. He also hit out at certain attorneys, who he said made a living from promoting agitation and ‘chaos’: he had ‘a certain Mr Muller’ in mind (in all probability a reference to Shulamith Muller, a woman). The NP MP Blaar Coetzee felt compelled not to ‘allow to pass unchallenged’ Suzman’s contention that ‘a system of punishment without trial is a system that is used only in totalitarian countries, and nowhere else in the world’. Coetzee sought to remind Suzman that ‘banishments take place in Rhodesia; these banishments already took place under Gen. Smuts; these banishments take place in Kenya and in Algeria; these banishments take place in Britain – without trial, Makarios was taken by the neck and sent to the Seychelles Islands’.28 Indeed, ‘the only way to maintain democracy is to have this system of banishment without trial because these are not ordinary offences. They are attempts to overthrow the state by unconstitutional means, and this is the only way one can act against people who want to overthrow the Government unconstitutionally. In such a case one cannot uphold the process of law and one has to suspend the process of law … as is done in a state of crisis in any country of the world.’29 A year later, Suzman again came under attack for making reference to burning injustices,

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‘the fact that people have been sitting in the wilderness for 10 and 12 years without trial – people who have been banished because they objected to tribal authorities, for instance’. She was unrepentant, saying that this was ‘a burning injustice and I will continue to say so’.30 Representations to the government on the part of civil society in the form of submissions, calls and delegations were another response to banishment. In 1957, the executive committee of the SAIRR made a submission to the secretary for native affairs regarding various aspects of banishment.31 The submission appears to have been prompted by an informative report with recommendations produced by a SAIRR field officer, W.B. Ngakane.32 He argued that through their banishment, the banished had ‘already been adequately punished and that any additional hardship to which they are subjected is unnecessary and without justification … Therefore, an amelioration [of their] conditions should be sought.’ Among the recommendations were suggestions that ‘all cases should be reviewed annually as a matter of routine and a report tabled in parliament’; banished people ‘should be given time … to collect their personal effects and to give instructions regarding the care of their affairs’; banished people ‘should be assured of a reasonable standard of living’; and a special officer should meet banished people ‘regularly to discuss their personal problems with them’. It was hoped that the recommendations would receive ‘sympathetic consideration’.33 The minister’s reply on 2 December 1957 largely evaded the recommendations. He responded that a banishment order was ‘tabled in both Houses of Parliament in accordance with the Act’; a banished person was ‘not a prisoner’ and could ‘communicate with whomsoever he pleases and to receive visits’; rail warrants were ‘provided to close relatives who are unable to bear the costs of visits’; and as the native commissioner was in close contact with banished people, no special officer was necessary.34 An amendment to the Native Administration Act in 1952 required ‘the Minister to table, in both Houses of Parliament, copies of all orders continuing beyond twelve months’.35 Indeed, such orders were tabled.36 Yet, beyond providing a measure of public revelation about banishments, the post-1948 political set-up meant that this requirement failed to provide any safeguards for banished people. It would have taken resolutions of both the Senate and Assembly to overturn a banishment order and, given the dominance of the NP, this could not have happened. Moreover, ‘the major opposition, the United Party (UP), haunted as it is by fears of liberalism, is unlikely ever to offer a motion

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deprecating the banishment of a voteless African’.37 So far as the close contact of the native commissioner with the banished was concerned, this did not prevent Mokate Ramafoku from wasting away in Driefontein and dying from cancer without any medical assistance. When the Republic was declared in 1961, the SAIRR urged the government to declare an amnesty for banished people.38 John Cope compared banishment to ‘Russia’s habit of banishing people to Siberia’ and also appealed to the government on ‘humanitarian and Christian grounds’ to abolish banishment. However, he prevaricated on the principle of banishment: his own party had made recourse to banishment prior to 1948, justifying it on the grounds that it was ‘exercised only in extreme cases where the continued presence of the Native concerned was considered to be a danger to the public peace or subversive of constituted authority. The practice was, wherever possible, to send the offender to another tribal area and to place him under the supervision of a strong Chief.’39 In 1961, the SAIRR produced a document arguing that ‘the procedure under which persons have been and can be banished … is open to too much abuse to be accepted as just’ and motivated that ‘to ensure against past errors of judgement there is a need for an impartial judicial review of all existing cases of banishment’. It proposed that a person earmarked for banishment ‘should be entitled to a hearing in a court of law’ before a banishment order should be issued; or alternatively, that there should be ‘a regular and frequent judicial review’.40 Perhaps picking up on the SAIRR call, in January 1962 Suzman called for a judicial commission to investigate the situations of those in banishment, while The Star newspaper called for the inspection of places of banishment by the Red Cross or a representative parliamentary committee.41 Suzman’s call evoked the response from the minister of Bantu administration and development that ‘I do not like making use of this Act, but there are certain cases where I have no alternative but to do so’.42 On the fifth anniversary of the Republic in 1966, the Black Sash urged amnesty for banished people.43 There were also church delegations, as in November 1959 when the Christian Council conveyed to the minister ‘the deep concern of the Christian community over certain features of the banishment orders’: how they were served, the fact ‘that reasons for the order were not disclosed, and that no appeal was possible to the courts’; the ‘totally inadequate’ stipends provided to the banished; and difficulties experienced by families in visiting the

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banished.44 The minister indicated that he had a ‘responsibility to the Bantu’; there were adequate opportunities to ask for reasons for banishment; and ministers of religion would be given permission to visit banished persons.45 On a number of occasions, petitions were used to contest banishment. In 1952, Ntlabati Jojo, who was banished from Mount Ayliff to the Nqutu district, petitioned the government against his banishment, but this was rejected.46 Alois Mate, banished in 1951 to Nkandhla, also petitioned on numerous occasions to be permitted to return to Matatiele. He was unsuccessful, mainly because of the opposition of Department of Native Affairs officials in Matatiele, who feared the consequences of his return.47 It was considered that Mate’s banishment had done ‘more to break the resistance of the Makoba people and instil in them respect’ for the department’s ‘policy and wishes, and restore them to a law-abiding state of mind, than all other factors put together’. It was feared that Mate, ‘who is an impressive looking man of forceful and dominant character’, could ‘once again indulge in subversive activity and agitation’. Furthermore, ‘he would return as a martyr and a hero’ and ‘any other potential trouble maker would also feel that the most he could stand to lose would be no more than three years’ banishment. The idea of permanent banishment on the other hand is greatly feared by all natives.’48 On a subsequent occasion it was held by the native commissioner in Matatiele that rehabilitation in a location adjacent to Mate’s home was at ‘its most critical stage’ and there was a danger that Mate could ‘rally the dissatisfied elements’.49 Mate also petitioned to be permitted to live under Chief Faku in the Bizana district for reasons of poor health. The magistrate at Bizana, however, expressed his firm opposition to Mate’s residence in Chief Faku’s area ‘because I have just managed to put the headman and his people in order, and there is still smoke smouldering’.50 Simon Nhlapo, banished from Evaton in 1956, petitioned the government in 1959 to have his banishment set aside. An investigation recommended that the banishment order not be withdrawn on the grounds that his return to Evaton would ‘result in a recurrence of unrest and possibly bloodshed’.51 Mceleli Buthelezi, who was embroiled in a succesion dispute with Mangosuthu Buthelezi, was yet another who petitioned to be allowed to return home. He was permitted to travel to Durban to take part in a court case contesting Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s chietainship, but his banishment order was not revoked. It was argued that his presence was a

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threat ‘to the peace, order and good governance of the Natives of Durban’ and that his return would result in bloodshed.52 An example of a collective petition was that drafted by the Sekhukhune community in 1957 to demand the return from banishment of Arthur Phetedi Thulare and Godfrey Sekhukhune. The petition was signed by 30,000 people and presented to Department of Native Affairs officials by an 8,000-strong delegation. Despite the backing of the majority of the Sekhukhune community, the petition was ignored. There was widespread popular resistance, crushed only through a special mobile police column sealing off the Sekhukhune reserve and terrorising the inhabitants into sullen submission. In GaMatlala, 3,000 people signed a petition addressed to the minister of Bantu administration and development, demanding the return of their banished chieftainess. The petition submitted that the banishment of ‘Makwena Matlala and the others was unjust’ and stated that ‘we demand their unconditional release and the re-instatement of Makwena Matlala as Chieftainess’.53 Statements of protest issued by political organisations, trade unions, religious institutions and individuals were another form of individual and collective response to banishment. Such statements generally expressed abhorrence of the practice of banishment, condemned the banishment of particular individuals, and demanded the revocation of banishment orders. For example, the banishment of Elizabeth Mafekeng gave rise to widespread statements of protest. The African National Congress (ANC), South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and a host of other organisations and individuals issued strongly worded statements that condemned Mafekeng’s banishment and demanded the immediate withdrawal of her banishment order. A joint statement issued by the Western Cape regional structures of the ANC, SACTU, the South African Congress of Democrats (SACOD) and the Coloured People’s Congress protested that Mafekeng had been condemned to banishment without being charged with any specific crime. The statement added that ‘her crime is that as president of the African Fruit and Canning Workers Union, and vice-chairman of the African National Congress Women’s League, she has fought for the right of African women to move freely in the land of their birth. The Congress movement calls for all people to voice their protests. To remain silent is to share in the guilt of the Nationalist Government.’54 SACTU, which nationally represented over 100,000 workers, 12,000 of them in the canning industry, also issued a statement of protest: ‘Nothing

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can be further from the truth than the statement by the Minister of Bantu Administration [De Wet Nel] banishing her from Paarl. The South African Congress of Trade Unions denies that her presence could be injurious to the “peace, order and good administration” of the people of the Paarl district. If ever a woman strove for peace, good order and good administration it was Mrs Mafekeng. The S.A. Congress believes that this incredibly callous action of the Minister cannot go unchallenged by workers and mothers who have a conscience.’55 Other statements of protest were released by the Port Elizabeth regional branches of the ANC and Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW), the Joint Congresses in Natal, SACOD, the Teachers’ League of South Africa, the Liberal Party, Black Sash, Civil Rights League, National Council of Women, the Women’s Association of the Presbyterian Church, British General Council of the Trade Union Congress, and the African Food and Canning Workers Union (AFCWU), of which Mafekeng was president.56 Finally, there were statements of protest from individuals, usually through letters to newspaper editors. Ronald Segal, a well-known antiapartheid activist, editor of the journal Africa South and author, wrote: ‘Nowhere have I found it prescribed that a wife should be forcibly divorced from her husband or children abandoned by their mother in order to ensure the survival of our Western civilization. The truth is that a society which can part Mrs Mafekeng from her family forever without even the formality of a trial belongs neither to Christianity nor the West, but is a travesty of both.’ He added that ‘if Mrs Mafekeng has been convicted by the signature of an executive official, her punishment is a persecution, and the society which condones it is sunk in the barbarism of arbitrary rule’. He concluded that ‘no one will escape … Our security with that of our family hangs precariously from the thin edge of Government indulgence.’57 Ironically, Segal was banned a few days later. Awareness-raising activities were another response. They took the form of addresses about banishment at public meetings and at forums of the Black Sash and the SAIRR, and the publication of different kinds of media. Of course, there was not always a strict boundary between awarenessraising and mobilisation in opposition to banishment. Jean Sinclair, a founder member and the first president of the Black Sash between 1955 and 1975, spoke on numerous occasions and on various platforms on banishment.58 The Black Sash, SAIRR and HRWC sought opportunities to publicise banishment in the print media and also released their own publications.

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Mass protest meetings were another form of popular opposition to banishment. On 1 November 1959, nearly 1,000 people gathered in the Good Hope Hall in Huguenot (Paarl) to protest against Elizabeth Mafekeng’s banishment. Mafekeng herself spoke at the meeting, which lasted three hours and which was punctuated by shouts of ‘Afrika’. The meeting concluded with a resolution condemning Mafekeng’s banishment and called on the government to withdraw her banishment order and repeal all oppressive laws.59 A second meeting, held on the Grand Parade, was attended by about 700 people. The Cape Times reported that ‘several of the Natives were dressed in the khaki uniform of the African National Congress Volunteer Army and many of the Native women wore the colours of the Congress movement. Security Branch men were present, several taking notes, and uniformed police stood on the outskirts of the crowd.’ The meeting adopted a resolution protesting against the ‘tyrannical banishment’ of Mafekeng and calling for the release of all ‘political exiles and deportees’.60 A third meeting, actually a gathering to protest against the pass laws but which also touched on Mafekeng’s banishment, was held in the Banqueting Hall. Annie Silinga, president of the Western Cape ANC Women’s League, told the meeting of 100 people that they should not cry over Mafekeng, but should carry on the struggle for freedom: ‘We should stand up united, men and women, because if we do not fight injustice now our children will curse our graves.’61 During her trip in 1962 around the country, Helen Joseph addressed two gatherings in Port Elizabeth as well as a meeting in Pietermaritzburg on the subject of banished people. On her return to Johannesburg, she addressed a small FEDSAW meeting and a group of University of Witwatersrand students in October 1962.62 In May 1977, a mass meeting was held to protest against the banishment of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela from Soweto to Brandfort. The gathering of 200 deplored her ‘ruthless’ banishment. Speaker after speaker lashed out at the authoritarianism of the apartheid state and called on the government to lift the restriction placed on her.63 A further expression of opposition to banishment was demonstrations. These took two forms. One, which usually involved organisations like the Black Sash, consisted of dignified poster and placard demonstrations in prominent public places. In November 1959, the Black Sash staged a placard demonstration against the banishment of Elizabeth Mafekeng. On this occasion, ‘Black Sash women from Somerset-West, Elgin, Stellenbosch, Durbanville, and Cape Town joined their colleagues in Paarl. They made two stands during the lunch-hour rush − one at the corner of the two main

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streets in the town, and a second outside the Magistrate’s Court.’64 The women held placards in English and Afrikaans that read: ‘Another family separated by force’; ‘It is for this reason that the world condemns us’; ‘Injustice makes martyrs’; and ‘Is banishment just without trial?’ Firecrackers thrown at them by a member of the public made little impact on the women and they firmly stood their ground. In April 1966, the Black Sash organised a poster demonstration involving about 25 people in front of the University of the Witwatersrand to protest against punishment without trial, including banishment. The posters depicted figures of banished people in different districts of South Africa.65 There were also demonstrations of a mass and militant nature. In Paarl, on the day that Mafekeng was to be banished under police escort to Southey, a crowd of 3,000 gathered outside her house carrying ‘Save Mafekeng’ posters and singing anti-pass and freedom songs. As a result of a misunderstanding the demonstration led to a riot that left one dead and nine wounded.66 Mafekeng’s banishment was also the occasion that witnessed the boycott of goods as a means to express opposition to banishment: trade unions in Melbourne, Australia, blacklisted goods imported from Paarl. Extra-legal resistance to banishment involved banished persons escaping into exile before removal to their place of banishment, or escaping into exile after being banished. This was extra-legal since it contravened certain provisions of section 5(1)(b) of the Native Administration Act. Between 1948 and the mid-1980s, 17 people violated their banishment orders by escaping into exile in neighbouring countries. Those who escaped into exile before banishment included Gilbert Hani and Jacob Mpemba (both to Botswana in November 1962); Gibson Magwasa (to Swaziland in 1961); and Mafekeng who clandestinely left her home in Paarl and fled to Lesotho with her young child.67 The majority of banished people escaped into exile after being banished. They included Ben Baartman (Swaziland, 1961); Twalimfene Joyi (Lesotho, 1961); Chief Jeremiah Mabe (Botswana, 1961); and Joseph Khumalo, Jackson Nkosiyane, Edward Tyaliti and Elias Monare (all Lesotho). Anderson Ganyile’s escape into exile was to result in a dramatic court case.68 Banished to Frenchdale, within a week of his arrival he escaped and took refuge in the Qachas Nek district of Lesotho, an offence punishable under section 5(2)(a) of the Native Administration Act. Significantly, he did not escape to Botswana, only a short distance away, but undertook a longer and more perilous journey to Lesotho, possibly to establish contact with Mpondoland and explore ways of continuing resistance there. In Lesotho

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he was ‘granted a Residence Permit in terms of the Basutoland Entry and Residence Proclamation of 1958, presumably on the grounds that the reasons for his detention at Frenchdale had been political; thus there were no charges against him on which the South African government could ask for his extradition under the Fugitive Offenders Act of 1881, which still applies to British colonies and former colonies’.69 On 26 August 1961, members of the South African Police kidnapped Ganyile in Lesotho and returned him at gunpoint to Transkei, where he was held in jail.70 According to him, ‘attackers entered the hut and after a violent struggle I and my companions were overcome and handcuffed. There were six people in the attacking party and I recognized five of them as members of the South Africa police.’ It is likely that the kidnapping was related to his close proximity to Transkei and the Bizana district from which he hailed, and a fear that Qachas Nek would become a place of refuge for political exiles and an ANC base for operations within Transkei. Also in Qachas Nek were Jackson Nkosiyane and a cousin of Ganyile, Ingleton Ganyile, who had taken over from him selling New Age.71 Indeed, it was intended that he should provide a logistical link and support for rural activists in Eastern Cape.72 Ganyile smuggled a note to his mother from his jail cell in Kokstad. His uncle, Siliwa Ganyile, applied in December 1961, with the assistance of Rowley Arenstein, to the Eastern Cape Division of the Supreme Court for a court order against a number of respondents, including the minister of justice and the jailer at Kokstad.73 The application requested them to ‘produce the body of … Anderson Kumane Ganyile to this Honourable Court on a date and time to be fixed by this Honourable Court’; that the respondents should ‘show cause before this Honourable Court why … Ganyile should not forthwith be released from custody and returned by them, alternatively be permitted to return to Basutoland, and that they be interdicted from in any way interfering with, obstructing or preventing his said return’.74 A ruling was also requested as to why the respondents ‘should not furnish information … whether … Ganyile is under arrest; on what charge he is arrested; where he is being detained; and why he is being detained’. Finally, the court application requested that the respondents also be asked ‘to show cause why … Ganyile should not be allowed access to legal representation’.75 In applying for the order, Siliwa Ganyile stated that his nephew had been ‘illegally seized by servants of the Government of the Republic of South Africa while resident in Basutoland, and then illegally and forcibly removed

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from Basutoland and then detained in a gaol in the Transkei’. The petition added that the only information concerning the whereabouts of Anderson Ganyile was a note to the effect: ‘Kidnapped in Basutoland on 26.8.61 at 10.30 p.m. by six policemen from the Union. We were three to one, are now in K.D. and we appeal to friends. We know and can identify our kidnappers. Yours Powers.’76 Two affidavits accompanied the petition. The first, by one Naicker of Durban, stated that Ganyile was well known to him, that Ganyile’s nickname was Powers, and that the handwriting could be positively identified as being that of Ganyile. The other petition supported the allegation that Ganyile had been forcibly abducted from Lesotho. The application was heard on 13 and 18 October 1961 before Justice Wynne in the Supreme Court in Grahamstown and judgment was reserved. The matter was kept alive in the media and elsewhere by friends and supporters. In Cape Town there was a placard protest. Pressure was put on the Basutoland authorities to demand Ganyile’s release and return, as he had been kidnapped on Basutoland soil. In the United Kingdom questions were asked in the British parliament about the arrest of Ganyile on British soil. The British government ‘requested an explanation from the South African Government. The International Commission of Jurists and Justice appointed an observer, Mr. Peter Charles, Q.C. from Rhodesia’ who enquired into the whereabouts of Ingleton Ganyile and Mohlouoa Mtseko, who had been kidnapped with Ganyile.77 On 11 December 1961, Justice Wynne rejected the application. The judgment was appealed against and on 15 December a ‘full bench of three judges … unanimously granted the appeal’ and called on the state to ‘justify Ganyile’s detention “in this court on 18 January 1962.”’78 Judge-President De Villiers ruled that ‘the court should be astute to find a means of exercising its function and jurisdiction in the protection of a citizen from a potential inroad on his liberty’ and argued that the issue of a rule calling upon the respondents to provide the information requested on pain of an order for costs and for the release of Ganyile could cause them no prejudice or hardship. De Villiers added that it was fine if the respondent’s detention of Ganyile was lawful and if they could justify it. But for him as a judge to refuse a rule ‘could enable hardship and injustice to Ganyile’.79 The judge-president also said that Wynne’s almost two-month ‘delay in announcing his decision was to be regretted’.80 Consequently, the appeal was allowed and an order was granted on the following terms:

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That a rule nisi do issue calling upon the first respondent to show cause, if any, in this Court on the 18th January, 1962, why … Anderson Kumane Ganyile should not forthwith be released from custody and returned by the respondents … and also to show cause why the said … Ganyile’s legal representatives should not be allowed access to him; and also to show cause why … the first respondent should not be ordered to pay the costs of these proceedings and why the costs of this appeal should not be part of such costs.81 Ganyile appeared in court, which was closed to the public, on 22 December 1961. His case was remanded until 5 January 1962 and he was freed on bail. The police indicated that he was detained under Proclamation 400 on 26 August 1960, which provided for indefinite detention. They also stated that the proclamation was not an emergency regulation with a time limit but ‘part of ordinary law, issued under an old statute, the Transkei Annexation Act of 1877, which delegated large powers to law enforcement officers to be used only in the Transkei’.82 On 17 January 1962, following a Cabinet meeting an announcement was made ‘that all charges against Anderson Ganyile would be withdrawn since it had been established that he and his companions had been arrested within the borders of Basutoland’. It was argued that ‘the policemen responsible had acted in good faith, having crossed the border unwittingly during the night, in mist, while searching for a man accused of murder’.83 The British ambassador was advised by the South African minister of foreign affairs of the South African government’s regret at the violation of British territory. However, no disciplinary action was taken against the policemen involved.84 By 21 January 1962, Ganyile was back in Basutoland and stated that he would sue the South African government for R20,000.85 The government came in for criticism for its handling of the matter by its own newspaper, Die Volksblad. The newspaper chastised ‘the tardiness with which it was determined exactly what had happened’ and bemoaned the fact that the Ganyile saga had given ‘South Africa’s enemies a stick with which to beat her for months’.86 Beyond escape into exile, the responses of the banished themselves ranged from bewildered acquiescence (especially when a person was not entirely clear why she or he was banished), resigned acceptance, petitions and court challenges to government in a bid to be freed from banishment, to spirited and unyielding lack of co-operation and resistance, as in the cases of Maema Matlala, Stephen Nkadimeng, Theophilus Tshangela and Kenneth 261

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Mosenyi. There were also instances, understandably, of compromise to avoid the harsh, debilitating, unforgiving conditions. So far as media coverage of banishment was concerned, from time to time the daily and weekly commercial newspapers and magazines carried news stories and feature articles on various aspects of banishment. In general, coverage was sporadic. Drum magazine, however, carried seminal feature articles with photographs on banishment in 1956 and 1959.87 More consistent coverage was to be found in newspapers, like New Age and Fighting Talk, that were linked to the national liberation movements. In this regard it has been noted: banishment, another insidious tool of the apartheid regime, became a hot-button issue. The newspaper [New Age] had long worried about banishment camps – makeshift huts in remote, uninhabited regions of the country where Pretoria dumped opponents. In 1956 Ruth First travelled to the Frenchdale detention camp in the Northern Cape, where she interviewed a banished ANC man. In 1959 New Age ran a five-photograph spread on banishment camps and covered the roller-coaster story of Elizabeth Mafekeng, an ANC leader who, threatened with banishment, fled to Basutoland. In 1961 New Age spearheaded a pursuit for twenty banished men who could not be found; some had been missing for as long as eight years.88 There was a New Age series in 1962 by Helen Joseph in which she wrote that ‘the banished sit there in the desert sun and the dry hot wind waiting for death or release, whichever comes first’.89 Joseph also penned a number of other articles.90 As she noted on her return from her 1962 journey to visit banished people around the country, ‘I wrote several articles on the banished people for newspapers and journals. I gave interviews to the press and tried to get as much publicity for the banished as I could.’91 Anderson Ganyile’s banishment and subsequent escape into exile, kidnapping by police and eventual release from prison attracted extensive coverage. He used to sell New Age in Bizana and was in fact arrested and banished in ‘November 1960, while selling copies of [the paper] outside Bizana’s magistrate court’.92 He also ‘kept closely in touch with New Age’ and assisted its reporters and photographers. On Ganyile’s banishment, Joe Gqabi, who was later to be assassinated in Zimbabwe, ‘followed Ganyile on the Mafeking-bound prison train and, at a whistle-stop in Krugersdorp, managed to interview him’.93

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Following the Drum feature on banishment in August 1956, the London weekly Reynolds’s News carried a front-page story on banishment under the headline ‘Strijdom’s secret Siberia’.94 There were also references in the South African media to Siberia and concentration camps, which aroused much consternation on the part of the apartheid government. It was observed that the matter of concentration camps was ‘a point on which the Minister [Verwoerd] was especially sensitive even before the Drum row blew up overseas’.95 Also to be noted is the response of community members to banishment. In Transkei, people feared banishment and were counselled against challenging Matanzima’s decisions on the grounds ‘do you know so and so … have been deported.’96 In Sekhukhuneland, a teacher noted that ‘another word that caused fear was St Helena [deportation]’. The magistrate of Matatiele noted that ‘the idea of permanent banishment on the other hand is greatly feared by all natives’. Since the period of banishment was in principle unlimited, it could well take on a semblance of permanence.97 All forms of popular opposition were generally short-lived and unsuccessful in preventing banishment. They were, however, not altogether futile or fruitless. They helped to highlight the phenomenon of banishment and its injustice. They were important mechanisms for expressing opposition and exerting pressure on the state, and prevented passive acceptance of apartheid repression. Nevertheless, only in Sekhukhuneland was mass resistance able to secure the release of some individuals from banishment. Given the determination of the apartheid state in the 1950s and 1960s to restructure various aspects of relations between the dominant and dominated classes, and its powerful position following the crushing of political opposition in the early 1960s, it is unlikely that any opposition to banishment would have been successful. Still, in these circumstances petitions, protest meetings, demonstrations and the like were important in highlighting the unjust practice of banishment and expressions of opposition to it. One organisation, above all, played a seminal role in making known the reality of banishment and the plight of the banished, and providing relief for banished people and their families. The HRWC was established in 1959 with a single aim: ‘to alleviate hardship suffered by the people banished … and their families’. It sought to ‘raise funds, collect clothing and buy food’ and provide ‘allowances and parcels to the banished and their families’.98 Its structure was simple: it comprised a chairperson, secretary and at least two further members and the committee undertook to meet at least annually and otherwise as needed.

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Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online

Helen Joseph drew attention to the plight of the banished through the Human Rights Welfare Committee

During the Treason Trial, Helen Joseph received a letter from the acting secretary-general of the ANC, Duma Nokwe, appointing her to serve on a ‘welfare committee to deal with the problem of political exiles’. It seems that the ANC was concerned about the increasing use of banishment against ‘African opponents of government policy’ and ‘one or two prominent Congress leaders’.99 Joseph suggests that ‘for a while, because nearly all of the men and women who were banished had come from remote rural areas, tribal reserves, their disappearance did not become generally known’. This is not strictly true. From time to time there were newspaper reports on banishment and there was a prominent four-page feature in Drum in 1956.100 In reality, the ANC was at the tail end of a process of political reprisal that had begun in 1949 and reached a peak in the mid-1950s.

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Lilian Ngoyi was the first chairperson of the Human Rights Welfare Committee.

Joseph discovered that no such committee existed and set about establishing it together with Lilian Ngoyi. At its founding and first meeting on 24 August 1959, with Ngoyi in the chair and Naomi Wallis as secretary, the HRWC resolved to ‘establish and maintain contact with banished African men and women through periodic visits; send food parcels and clothes parcels to them as often as possible; see that newspapers, magazines, books are sent to them; assist wherever possible with cash allowances; and obtain information about their families and assist with money, clothes and food whenever possible’.101 It was also agreed to set up similar committees in other areas and in due course they were established in Cape Town, Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Kimberley.102 The resolution essentially captured the text of a brief document, almost certainly prepared by Joseph,

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which argued that the banished ‘and their families should be our consciences’ and that ‘we can and must help’. This document proposed that the HRWC should also assist ‘those accused who are appearing in mass trials, such as the Zeerust and Sekhukhuneland trials, as the condition of the accused is pitiful [and] many of the families are in dire distress’.103 To begin with, the HRWC ‘had no idea of how many [banished] there were, who they were, nor, most important of all, where they were – except for those cases already publicized and one or two others we knew of personally’.104 In response to a question asked by an opposition MP on 10 April 1959, the deputy minister of Bantu administration and development furnished in parliament a list of 79 banished people and the areas from and to which they were banished.105 Using this information and known cases of banishment, Ngoyi and others went first to Frenchdale and then to Driefontein.106 The minutes of HRWC meetings and other documents provide a flavour of the issues dealt with as well as its activities. Banishments were monitored and developments with respect to those in banishment, such as release, suspension and withdrawal of orders, were noted and discussed. There was communication with those in banishment and with their families around various issues and contact was made with those newly banished. For example, in March 1967 a letter was sent to Mashilo Tseke Nchabeleng to inform him about the HRWC, and indicate that funds were already being sent monthly to his wife, Tsia Tseke, and that, following a reply to the HRWC letter, a monthly allowance of R6 would also be provided. Concern was also expressed at his presence in hospital: ‘is this because you are sick? If so, what kind of sickness do you have? How long have you been in hospital and when do you think you will leave?’107 Douglas Ramokgopa was agitated when he received an order indicating that he could remain in his home area until May 1969. He had to be comforted by the HRWC that it was normal practice to receive such a letter and that in all likelihood he would receive further such orders until his banishment order was finally withdrawn.108 Various issues can be gleaned from the exchanges over 18 months between the HRWC and Stephen Nkadimeng. In late 1967, Nkadimeng wrote to the HRWC, saying that he had been released on 29 November 1967 to go home and thanked the HRWC for its help over the years. In a letter to Nkadimeng on 4 June 1968, the HRWC indicated that it would need to stop payments, as support was provided for only six months after a banished person returned home. In August 1968, the HRWC requested

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Nkadimeng to send them a copy of what he indicated was another banishment order and in December 1968 the HRWC expressed regret that he would have to return to banishment. Nor could it find a vacation job for his nephew, John Nkadimeng, who later became a prominent political activist. On 29 May 1969, the HRWC expressed pleasure that his appeal had been successful and that he could go home again. It also enclosed a donation of R17.109 In other correspondence, banished people expressed their gratitude to the HRWC for its support. Thus, William Sekhukhune’s letter thanked the HRWC for sending him tea, coffee, sweets, jam, tinned meat, condensed milk, candles, matches, writing paper, envelopes, vests and other goods. It took great effort on the part of the HRWC to visit William Sekhukhune in banishment and he was finally tracked down in 1961 by Father Timothy Stanton in Zululand, where his conditions were described as horrifying.110 Similarly, in August 1967, Ramokgopa wrote to the HRWC from Matatiele to thank them for sending him various goods, including a blanket, jacket, vest, shirt, under-trousers and scarf.111 A letter from Mxosha Mdhluli to the HRWC on 1 November 1967, using a local school in Bergville as his address, reported that ‘I have settled down happily. Nobody has called me rubbish. My reputation, however, has been defamed without justification. I was helped by the Committee to maintain my dignity by their grant of R4 which enabled me to buy a tractor and to build a six-roomed house.’112 There was also communication with the banished to inform them of their rights. Thus, in a March 1961 letter Joseph informed banished people that ‘[you] can ask for the reasons you were banished, and you must be given an answer’; ‘were entitled to an allowance (usually it is only £2 per month)’; could ask for families to join them and ‘the government must pay the expenses of bringing your family to you’. If their families were ‘struggling to maintain themselves, a request should be made to the government for a maintenance grant for them’; members of families were ‘entitled to get free train tickets … to visit’ them occasionally; they should have been provided £2 immediately prior to their banishment and were ‘entitled to free medical attention from the District Surgeon’; and they should if necessary complain about their treatment. Joseph reminded the banished that ‘you have not earned your banishment by committing any crime and being sentenced by a Court. You are not a criminal nor a convict; you have certain rights, limited as they are.’ She also reminded them that the HRWC had already written to them to get their authority to ask for reasons through

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questions in parliament, but that the banished could also write to the minister of Bantu administration and development. A suggestion was made regarding the formulation of the letter. Banished people were also advised that there was no harm in writing to the minister to request the withdrawal of their banishment orders.113 The HRWC strove to obtain media publicity on banishment. Helen Joseph was, of course, a major publicist for the plight of the banished, but the HRWC also produced publications on banishment in its own name.114 Appeals were made to fraternal organisations and also to the government. Following the unsuccessful attempt by the state at the Treason Trial to convict its opponents, a letter to the HRWC from a banished person urged it to ensure that the cases of the banished were brought before the courts.115 The HRWC lobbied the government that ‘an unanswerable case exists for the introduction of adequate judicial safeguards for the protection of persons banished by executive order’, for example ‘the institution of a regular and frequent judicial review such as has been established in Southern Rhodesia’. This kind of judicial review was seen as ‘a more useful corrective to possible mistakes and errors of judgement or of prejudice or vindictiveness’ on the part of officials.116 In 1964, when it was heard that the banished at Frenchdale were to be sent to another location, Ewbank Farm (Kuruman), and had ‘been ordered to dispose of their livestock collected over the 8 or 9 years they have been in banishment’, an appeal was made to the deputy minister of Bantu administration and development and press publicity was mobilised.117 The HRWC and Joseph were in contact with opposition MPs such as Helen Suzman, encouraging them to ask questions in parliament about the banished and various aspects of banishment. In one 1966 letter to Suzman, Joseph provided her with a list of the banished and an update on recent banishments, drew her attention to specific people in banishment for lengthy periods and suggested that ‘it is vital that the Minister be pressed for the name of the farms’ to which people were banished.118 There was exchange of information and co-operation with the SAIRR, which also undertook work on banishment. There was also liaison with the Black Sash. Jean Sinclair spoke on various platforms about banishment and some Sash branches provided support in the collection of food and clothing. HRWC structures in different cities worked relatively independently of one another. The one in Johannesburg played a strong steering and coordinating role, but this was largely through the person of Joseph rather

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than the HRWC.119 A key participant and later chair of the HRWC noted: ‘I never engaged in contact with any other branches of the HRWC. That was Helen’s prerogative through channels of her own.’120 Joseph got Phyllis Naidoo to establish a committee in Durban in January 1961 and corresponded regularly with her.121 Others involved in the Durban HRWC in 1961 included Kesaveloo Goonam, Theo Kloppenberg, Eleanor Kasrils and Poomoney Moodley. Meetings were held at Naidoo’s flat and at Goonam’s surgery, with necessary precautions, given the repressive conditions.122 The enterprising Naidoo served as the secretary of the HRWC and communicated with a range of political, civil society and welfare organisations to raise awareness of banishment and secure material and financial support for the banished.123 The Natal region of the Red Cross Society indicated that ‘assistance to deportees and their families [did] not fall within [its] scope’.124 The Natal Indian Congress, however, ‘welcomed the establishment’ of the Durban HRWC and urged all its branches, in response to the HRWC’s indication that it needed R40 per month for banished people, ‘to … give maximum financial and other aid’.125 Food, clothing, blankets and money were collected from businesses, religious institutions and individuals and distributed to the banished and their families who were from or in Natal. In February 1961, £18 was dispensed to banished people in Natal and £8 to support families.126 Occasional visits were organised and undertaken to banished people, with names and contact details usually provided by Joseph. Naidoo recalled a visit to Godfrey Sekhukhune, who was banished to Mandini, on the north bank of the Tugela River, and who worked in a Sappi clinic. The wife of the doctor who ran the clinic indicated that the magistrate in the area was a thoughtful man and, on hearing that Sekhukhune was a nurse, had referred him to the clinic.127 Letters from Joseph to Naidoo congratulated her on ‘the wonderful start in Durban: your report is most inspiring and you are really going the right way about it’. Joseph liked the fact that Naidoo was tapping into organisations for support and considered this to have more ‘political significance’ than the Johannesburg approach of going to ‘sympathisers for donations’ and obtaining ‘conscience money’. Naidoo was requested to identify doctors who could provide free treatment to the banished, as some of them had to spend their meagre allowances paying doctors for medical treatment. Reference was made to Cijimpi Mnyandu having to work for a doctor to pay off his debt for treatment. Naidoo was cautioned not to fall foul of the

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Welfare Organisations Act in fundraising and to reconsider applying for a welfare number in case this was refused and jeopardised fundraising.128 There was exchange of information on contact with banished people and their families, fundraising efforts and financial issues. On occasion, Naidoo was sent photographs of some of the banished to pass on to their families and asked to facilitate support for family members passing through Durban on their way to visit banished people elsewhere in Natal. Communication between Joseph and Naidoo also reveals certain political rivalry and tensions in the HRWC. In one letter Joseph asked Naidoo to be careful about handing over communication and contact with the banished to a certain person and HRWC structures in another area ‘as here we have to be vigilant, or else the Liberals who are on the Committee, but don’t do any work, are only too willing to make contact with the deportees and take all the credit, and push their organisation amongst the deportees’.129 In another letter Joseph expressed concern ‘about them functioning completely independently and causing discrepancies’. She complained that liberals liked to adopt families of banished people but ‘then when they don’t get acknowledgement … just drop the family, but don’t let us know. Also be warned that they will take all the credit for the Libs, that is really their main motivation as a group.’ She asked Naidoo to ‘be firm with them [liberals]’, but remarked that she nonetheless would ‘be very tactful and encouraging’.130 One person spared criticism was Dot Cleminshaw: ‘she is the only Liberal that I have come across who is prepared to really work. She is on the Cape Town Welfare Committee and has done an enormous amount.’131 The seemingly mutual dislike and suspicion that existed between some Liberal Party members such as Ernest Wentzel and Joseph is apparent from an account provided by Wentzel, who was taken along to a HRWC meeting by his future wife, Jill Wentzel. Ernest Wentzel claimed that Joseph was the real driving and dominant force even though Ngoyi was chairperson. Indeed, he went as far as stating that Ngoyi was ‘ostentatiously a stooge’ of Joseph. It is clear that Wentzel was scornful of the ‘low budget and small personnel of the HRWC’ and was of the opinion that the Liberal Party and its branches could do a better job of looking after the banished. In fact, he proposed this should be the case, alleging that Joseph and others appreciated his suggestion and considered it ‘a good idea’.132 Of course, when the Liberals requested documentation and lists of banished people and their families from Joseph and the HRWC so that ‘they could get on with the

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job’, there was no response. Wentzel accounts for this on the grounds that Joseph considered the HRWC to have a dual function. ‘There is no doubt that she was concerned for the welfare of the banished people, and was prepared to do everything in her power to secure their welfare by way of food, money and clothing, but I have no doubt that she also regarded the work of this committee as political influence and political contact with the banished people, and she was not prepared to allow Liberals or anybody who was not part of the congress movement to have political influence and political contact.’133 As the HRWC had been initiated by the Congress movement, it was perhaps presumptuous of Wentzel to have thought that Joseph would simply hand over the work of the HRWC to him and the Liberal Party. At the same time, Michael Gardiner notes that Joseph ‘was a martinet and tended to dominate the committees with which she was associated’. However, Ngoyi ‘obviously had her strengths which Joseph did not have and was content to let her have her way on matters such as these’.134 Financial support provided by the HRWC was sourced both locally and internationally. Local funds were raised through book, cake and jumble sales, with anti-apartheid people making their homes available for such activities. Special efforts were made to ensure that the banished received parcels at Christmas and consideration was given to the most effective and economical ways of getting parcels to banished persons. An HRWC member recalled that ‘We had a great deal of help from the Indian merchants. I used to walk up and down Market Street to collect money. They always gave money … We sent food parcels at Xmas time – mealie meal, beans, sugar, candles and the like. In between we also tried to send money to them.’135 Another member noted: parcels were usually sent twice per year before winter and in early December. These parcels consisted of large cardboard boxes which were well-sealed, wrapped and addressed by young men from Fordsburg and Lenasia and taken away to be posted. My home was sometimes used as the parcelling venue. On one occasion, I had to collect a returned parcel from the main Johannesburg Post Office as the parcel had a bold DECEASED stamped across it. This was almost certainly one that had been intended for Mr Ramafoku who had died of stomach cancer’.136

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Individual members of the HRWC also pledged and provided support: Amina Cachalia, for example, contributed R15 per month.137 There were donations from the Anglican Community of the Resurrection (of which Father Timothy Stanton was a member). Books were collected for distribution to families of the banished with schoolchildren. Internationally, there was financial support from a variety of sources. Individuals from Australia, England, Denmark, Sweden and Norway provided assistance generally or to specific banished people. The International Defence and Aid Fund, based in Britain, provided R200 per month in 1963 and this was distributed, on the basis of the number of banished people and families supported, between the HRWC structures in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. Approaches for support were made to Oxfam and the American Committee on Africa and it was noted that a ‘fourth and final instalment of R4000’ made by Oxfam was received in 1963. Oxfam support was to continue until the closure of the HRWC in 1979. Amnesty International groups in Australia, Ireland, Norway, Germany, Sweden and England, and the Society of Friends in London and Somerset adopted and supported individuals.138 It was reported in 1963 that a group in Brighton had adopted the people banished at Frenchdale and ‘had already sent the first monthly donation of R20’.139 In 1962, between R4 and R6 was provided monthly to banished people and the same amounts to their families. The Johannesburg HRWC supported 23 banished people and 15 families to the sum of R152; the Cape Town HRWC assisted six people and the same number of families at a cost of R54; and the Durban HRWC spent R56 on nine banished people and three families.140 By 1969, the allowances provided to the banished were R8 per month and R5 per month for families, increases being made possible by the Episcopal Churchmen for South Africa, based in New York, and continued support from Oxfam. At this point, support was provided to 17 banished people, 22 families and one student.141 In general, support included the six months following release from banishment. Members of the HRWC were mostly not prominent political activists. Molly Fischer, the wife of Bram Fischer, ‘used to help a great deal’. At different times Naomi Wallis, Theresa Graham, Monty Berman, Leslie Baudet and Farid Adams were involved.142 Nonetheless, its work was affected by repression. Both Joseph’s and Ngoyi’s participation were constrained by banning orders. In early 1963, the chair and secretary had to step down because they were prohibited under a new measure from participating in

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Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online

Amina Cachalia, of the Human Rights Welfare Committee, pictured here with Robert Resha and Nelson Mandela (in the background).

any organisation that criticised the government. Amina Cachalia, a liberation movement stalwart from an early age, became secretary until she too was banned. The following year, a number of officials had to resign after they were restricted. Michael Gardiner joined ‘in 1964/5 in response to a request … for someone to assist Helen Joseph with her work for the banished’ and later served as the chair of the HRWC for over a decade.143

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Cachalia accompanied Joseph and Joe Morolong in May 1962 on the first part of an epic journey to visit banished people scattered around the country. She recalled that Joseph’s ‘banning order had just finished and we were going to leave the next morning at the crack of dawn. We had a list of people – over 40 maybe – in the Eastern Transvaal, Northern Transvaal and elsewhere and she wanted to find them all. We had been in touch with these people and knew more or less where they were. We wanted to find out what their conditions were.’ An African, Indian and white person travelling together as friends, comrades and equals in 1962, especially in rural areas, were bound to attract attention and also presented various difficulties as hotels and eating and ablution facilities were all segregated. Cachalia noted that they ‘stayed with Indian families in many places, like the Essa family in Pietersburg. They were most kind and helpful. We went to look for the banished people and would come back and be treated most warmly.’ Cachalia made notes during the visits to banished people while Morolong undertook translation. Only a few photographs were taken during the trip as cameras were relatively rare. ‘I recall when we saw them – completely hungry, lonely – some of them did not know why they were there. It was a sad, sad, very sad state of affairs for them. They were forgotten, forgotten people.’ She flew back to Durban and another woman proceeded with Joseph and Morolong to the Eastern and Western Cape. She concluded, wistfully, ‘quite a journey that was’.144 Perhaps because of the strong possibility of restrictions on key officials and members, the work of the HRWC was meticulously documented. One document, complemented by another, most likely handover instructions from one official to another, clearly and rigorously sets out the handling of funds, allowances to the banished, and communication. Thus ‘some allowances go out every month, some every second month. Some are sent out from the H.R. Welfare Committee … Allowances go out in registered envelopes together with a receipt (in either Sesutho or Zulu) and a stamped addressed envelope. A list of names and addresses must be made out on the forms provided, for the Post Office. Moneys sent out must then be entered in the Cash Book and ticks made in the receipt register. When receipts arrive, these ticks are crossed through and receipts stored in a special envelope – one for each month.’145 It was also noted that ‘if a donation arrives from the Episcopal Churchmen for S. Africa in New York, treat it as an earmarked donation and divide it equally between M. Mopeli, T. Mopeli, A. Tikane, T. Tshangela, N. Zulu

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(if still banished), P. Zulu, M. Ramafoku, H. Mbodla … Send it off with next allowances as “extra from friends overseas for this month only.”’146 Gardiner confirms the routine and disciplined manner of working, noting that ‘I drew money from a particular bank, using cheques signed by another and myself, filled registered envelopes with cash, a personal receipt and a stamped & addressed envelope and sent them all by registered post. We kept a strict register of all financial transactions and a meticulous list of receipts received as no further funds were sent until a receipt had arrived.’ He also commented that ‘it is an ironic accolade to the Post Office that every registered letter sent over a period of 20 years reached its destination in some of the most remote and desolate places in South Africa’.147 At play here was more than diligent administration, but also scrupulous accounting for funds. For fear that overseas funding could be prohibited, it was agreed ‘that further efforts should be made to increase the funds raised locally’. To stave off action against it, it was also resolved in January 1963 that in future the HRWC ‘would restrict its work entirely to welfare, i.e. the raising of funds, clothing and food for the relief of the banished, and despatching of allowances and parcels to the banished and their families’.148 Gardiner has indicated that Joseph was very ‘determined to protect [the HRWC] from being closed down prematurely’ and sought to ensure that it ‘was never used as a conduit or screen for other activities. Support for the banished was especially important for her as it was for them.’149 Certainly, Joseph was not very keen on supporting political refugees through the HRWC, even those who were banished and had escaped to Lesotho, fearing there could be repercussions and also long-term dependency.150 The 1963 resolution was reaffirmed in February 1966 and again in October 1969, with the addition on the former occasion that the HRWC would now ‘confine its contact with Amnesty International solely to the receiving and distribution of funds, and would carry on no other correspondence than the straightforward acknowledgement of money received’.151 During 1966, attention had also to be given to sources of fundraising in the light of new legislation intended to regulate the activities of welfare organisations. It was observed that ‘it may be necessary in future to receive donations only from outside South Africa, or from members of the Committee’.152 Indeed, by 1969 it had been resolved that the welfare work of the HRWC would be confined to ‘the receiving and distribution of funds from overseas and from Committee members only’, providing ‘monthly

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allowances to the banished and their families’, the ‘periodic distribution of food and clothing parcels’ and financial support ‘for the education of the children of banished people’. A HRWC meeting in June 1970 confirmed its mandate, ‘resolved to thank Oxfam for its continued support and help’ and discussed ‘winter parcels’ for the banished.153 Then there was a hiatus of six years before the next committee meeting. In March 1976, the HRWC ‘condoned its failure to meet during the six years in terms of the constitution, due to the very rapidly reducing amount of the work required as banished people were rapidly returning home, and the constant expectation of imminent winding up of the committee’s work’. It was noted that ‘Oxfam still supplied the committee with finance for the bulk of its needs, but some non-Oxfam contributions were still received from friends overseas, and from Committee members’.154 It was hoped that widows of six banished men who were receiving allowances could be provided with a lump sum by Oxfam. The hope was also expressed that the HRWC could dissolve and that the Dependants Conference of the South African Council of Churches could take over the support of those still banished and any new cases of banishment. Two years later, the HRWC was still in existence. Meeting in September 1978, the committee again condoned its failure to meet during the previous year. New legislation to regulate fundraising meant that the HRWC had to dissolve and it was agreed that the committee would meet in January 1979 for formal dissolution. Mashile’s wife and six other families would be provided with final allowances, with lump sum payments of R24.155 Letters were sent to the remaining banished, telling them ‘the sad news’ that the HRWC ‘is closing down’. It was explained that ‘the Government has now passed a new law … which unfortunately makes it illegal for us … to raise any more money for you, either in SA or overseas’.156 The final meeting was held on 10 December 1979. It was chaired by Michael Gardiner and Joseph attended by invitation. It was minuted that ‘H. Joseph had sorted and filed all documents’ and agreed that certain boxes of documents ‘should be given to Wits University Archives’ while other boxes should be the subject of discussion ‘with an archivist as to their historical value’. Thanks were expressed to ‘Oxfam for almost twenty years of generous assistance’ and to all the officials and committee members ‘for maintaining the work of the Committee for 20 years’. The HRWC was then dissolved.157

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In 1986 Joseph concluded: ‘The Humans Rights Welfare Committee fulfilled its promise. It helped with money, food and clothes … We exposed the horrors of the system, the agony of the banished. Whether by this we stayed the hand of the government, I do not know, but should like to think so. This I do know, that Frenchdale and Driefontein now stand empty. Men no longer sit there in the desert sun and the dry hot wind waiting for death or release, whichever comes first.’158

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Conclusion The number is small; the enormity is that banishment could happen at all. (E. Cole with T. Flaherty, The House of Bondage)

IN 2001, IN A BOOK appropriately entitled Unfinished Business, Terry Bell and Dumisa Ntsebeza bemoaned the fact that ‘like so much of South Africa’s recent brutal history, we shall probably never know exactly how many people were banished and what happened to all of them’.1 Helen Joseph, that indomitable anti-apartheid fighter, did much in the 1960s to bring to public attention the existence of South Africa’s Siberias and the plight of the banished. The South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) kept records on a number of banished people in the form of press clippings, and also communicated with some of them. The Human Rights Welfare Committee (HRWC), a 1959 initiative of the African National Congress (ANC) spearheaded by Joseph and Lilian Ngoyi, mobilised local and international support to assist the banished and their families materially. Drawing on their documents and complementing them with others in the South African National Archives and the secondary literature, this book illuminates a much ignored and largely unknown feature of the country’s recent brutal history. It is probably true that exactly how many people were banished and what happened to all of them will never be known. But this book has answered many questions about banishment and considerably more is now known than before. At least 160 people were banished between 1948 and 1982 and there may have been more. Altogether, 101 people were banished within the first 10 years of apartheid alone, 125 (78%) by 1960 and the vast majority (147 or 92%) by 1965. People were principally banished from rural areas (140 or 88%) and 78 (56%) people were banished from just seven rural localities: Mabieskraal, Witzieshoek and GaMatlala in the early 1950s, Bahurutshe and Sekhukhuneland in the late 1950s, and Thembuland and Mpondoland in the late 1950s and early 1960s, where there was intense popular resistance to the imposition of apartheid measures. The period 1952 to 1956

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witnessed the largest number and proportion of banishments (66 or 41.5%), as anti-apartheid fighters were banished from rural flashpoints. It is also known that 20 (12.5%) people were banished from urban areas for their participation in popular community and anti-apartheid struggles. Finally, a measure of life has been breathed into the numbers through accounts of banishment, activities and lives. These accounts, constructed from diverse documentary sources – official state documents, newspaper articles, diaries, written accounts by observers and the like – have the shortcomings of such sources. Often archival documents ‘tend to paint a picture that corresponds with prevailing hegemonies. The voices of those in power tend to be articulated in these sources, while those of the weak or “subaltern” are stifled … The story that emerges tends to be relatively onesided. [They] are often more revealing of the preconceptions of their authors than of the events they purport to describe.’2 Even the names of those who were banished are sometimes in contention. Referring in his masterly work to its key character, Kas Maine, Charles van Onselen writes that ‘the man’s name was Ramabonela Maine. But depending on when and where you met him in a life that spanned ninety-one years, he was – without ever wishing to deceive – also Kasianyane Maine, Philip Maine, Kas Deeu, Kas Teeu, Kas Teu or just Old Kas.’3 This is the same for many of the banished: their names vary or are often spelt differently in documents. This book demonstrates that after 1948 the little-known repressive measure of banishment was seized upon by the apartheid state to intimidate, effect reprisals against and punish its African political opponents. Yet the weapon of banishment was not created by the Afrikaner nationalists who came to power on an apartheid platform in 1948. The law that permitted banishment had its roots in the colonial period in Natal, presided over by the British, and was consolidated and enshrined in 1927 during the period of Union. Those who were banished ‘had no trial in court. They were neither charged nor told of the nature of their crimes. They were given no opportunity to defend themselves, yet they were deprived of their liberty, of their homes. They were punished within the law, but outside justice.’4 For the state it was ‘a most efficient piece of legislation. It did away with the time-consuming necessity of judicial procedures and allowed the authorities to decide on the appropriate place to which to send each individual’, and do it quickly.5 On the one hand the banished were individuals ‘who broke no laws and who possessed no hidden information, but whose very presence presented

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a problem. Often these were community leaders or elected chiefs in the rural areas who did not accept without question government edicts; leaders who were perceived as insubordinate – “cheeky” − by one or other authority figure.’ On the other hand they ‘were those who carefully couched the language of resistance and carried out their practice of opposition in ways which were effective, but which remained within the law’. If, during the closing years of apartheid rule, key political opponents of apartheid ‘were often singled out for assassination, sometimes to have their bodies burned while their killers swilled beer and roasted meat alongside the makeshift funeral’, in the early decades such opponents from rural areas were condemned to the living hell of banishment in desolate places.6 Many of those banished from rural areas were traditional leaders of various rank (chiefs, headmen) and their councillors; or they were militants, either members of or connected to the largely urban-based political organisations and urban associations that catered for migrants from different rural areas, such as the Witzieshoek Vigilance Association, the Bahurutshe Association and Sebatakgomo. All were key players in the efforts of communities to resist and deflect the apartheid state’s attempts to refashion social relations in the rural areas and reserves. Those banished from urban areas were active in the national liberation movements or community bodies. In a few instances banishment orders were served on urban residents less for their involvement in urban struggles than for their role in rural resistance. Opponents of the state were banished when it could not effect prosecutions and prison sentences through the courts, or when officials were not confident about securing guilty verdicts and imprisonment. In some cases, as when political opponents were banished immediately upon their release from prison, banishments effectively extended the punishment of political opponents. Not every banishment appears to have arisen from conflict between communities and the state. In a few cases they seem to have been occasioned by intense internecine disputes and conflict around succession to chieftainship. A few interesting charlatans and rogues were among the banished. They were overwhelmingly men; only ten women were banished. At the heart of the rural rebellions were mainly traditional leaders and their supporters. They were closely linked to traditional authority and decisionmaking structures and in some instances – GaMatlala, Bahurutshe, Sekhukhuneland − also used these bodies to direct popular resistance. Women were certainly highly visible and active in various rural revolts, but they tended to be excluded from traditional authority structures. Native

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commissioners, police and their informers kept a close watch on the proceedings of traditional authority structures and those within them who were implacably opposed to state policy and intervention. These figures, predominantly men, would have been highly visible to the state; women, on the other hand, less so. However, they were not so invisible as to escape retribution completely in the form of arrest and also banishment. The highly patriarchal nature of apartheid society and especially rural society would also have directed greater attention to men as perceived agitators and threats to the established social order. While banishment orders were mainly imposed on individuals, in a few cases, as in GaMatlala, whole families, including children, were banished. The act of banishment was a fairly public spectacle, serving two purposes. On the one hand it was ‘an “example” of what may happen to transgressors’. On the other hand it was an exhibition of the state’s coercive power and ability to discipline and punish those who would not bend to its authority.7 Those singled out for banishment were relocated across the length and breadth of South Africa, in mainly desolate, far-flung rural locations, including two inhospitable banishment camps at Driefontien and Frenchdale in the Northern Cape, which over a two-decade period were gulags to 26 and 14 people respectively. Others were located on Native Trust farms under the watchful eyes of state officials and on locations headed by African traditional leaders friendly to the apartheid state. Banishment was a horrendous punishment, a kind of social death. A few of the banished developed psychological problems. Others developed health problems, dying in banishment, and some deaths could have been avoided had care been provided. A comment with respect to forced removals is also pertinent to banishment: ‘It is impossible to say whether the physical degradation or the mental torture of living in such a place is the more terrible.’8 Banishment orders remained in force for an average of nine years: 69% (110) of the banished served more than five years; 11 were banished for more than 15 years; three for more than 20 years; and eight for between 15 and 20 years. Only 11 people were in banishment for two years or less. Some of those subject to banishment orders escaped into exile prior to entering banishment. Some of the banished were never to return to their home areas and communities, dying lonely deaths. The length of time spent in banishment varied: the determinants appear to have been the prevailing political conditions in the areas from which they were banished; their status and role prior to banishment; and their political disposition, including a

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willingness to co-operate with state policies and pledge non-involvement in community and political matters. Popular traditional leaders such as Chief Mopeli from Witzieshoek and Theophilus Tshangela from Mpondoland, who were uncompromising in their opposition to apartheid policies, spent long periods in banishment and, indeed, died there. On 22 August 2002 the passing of Ben Baartman, the ANC leader who was banished from Worcester to Ingwavuma, was observed in the National Assembly in Cape Town.9 In the main, however, the banished heroes and heroines of militant popular resistance in rural areas were to become ‘the forgotten people, the “living dead” of an authoritarian system: wrenched away from family and friends, to await in penury either death or an official change of mind’.10 Banishment was designed to break the spirit of resistance of political opponents: in Ingwavuma, a white official vowed to ‘break Baartman’s kaffir spirit’.11 Sadly, the banished were also largely ignored by the post-1994 democratic government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and would remain the forgotten people of South Africa. Only 14 of those banished feature in volume 7 of the TRC report, which records the names of all those whose human rights were violated under apartheid.12 There were to be no reparations, nor were there to be special pensions for them or their families. Banishment was deployed principally against rural opponents of the apartheid state. If political conflict and popular resistance during the 1950s and early 1960s were restricted entirely to the rural areas, the overwhelming concentration of rural people among the banished can be understood. However, during this period there was also militant mass resistance in the urban areas. Why, then, was banishment deployed mainly in rural areas and used little in the urban areas? Here, one can only speculate. Notwithstanding James Mpanza’s legal victory in the mid-1940s, urban African residents were clearly subject to the provisions of the Native Administration Act. Indeed, a 1952 amendment made it clear that all Africans fell under its scope and 20 urban residents were banished. Throughout the 1950s urban political leaders were restricted by banning orders under the Suppression of Communism Act. It may be that the state was satisfied with the efficacy of banning and it was not necessary to make extensive recourse to the banishment of urban African leaders. Perhaps the political make-up of the cities made the state wary of using banishment. Here, unlike the rural reserves, there was a dense network of anti-apartheid organisations encompassing various constituencies such as workers, youth and women. Active

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political opponents of apartheid would have run into the thousands, large numbers of people would have had to be banished and it is possible that the state did not possess the security machinery to execute banishments on such a large scale. It may also be that the state was not keen to spread known ‘agitators’ around the country. Still, urban leaders were banished. So how were choices made by state officials? Some insight was provided by the minister of Bantu administration in 1956, when he noted in parliament that various municipalities, including Port Elizabeth, East London, Germiston, Benoni, Pretoria and Brakpan, had recommended that banishment orders should be served on 25 individuals.13 The minister indicated that in East London he had acted against two people, ANC Youth League officials Joel Lengisi and Alcott Gwentshe, banished in 1954, but otherwise ‘he had refused to take action … for certain good reasons.’14 The logic of the minister’s inaction is interesting and revealing. First, he distinguished between banishments of political opponents from the reserves and rural areas ‘where the Native community itself asks for the removal of the person who makes trouble amongst them’ and the question of dealing with urban-based agitators.15 Second, banishment was a measure that had ‘already been applied for a long time in regard to the reserves’. Moreover, it was ‘reasonably easy to apply because, if it concerns a Native who sins against the community in the tribal area, he need only be removed from that community and sent to another tribal area, where he will have no influence. Therefore, it is a simple way of removal and one which results in no further repercussions.’16 It was also ‘immediately … effective, because in the new tribal area he would have no influence and no standing’. Since banishment was from one rural area to another it ‘was not a very harsh measure’.17 By contrast ‘when the agitator type is removed from a city, he becomes a source of trouble in any place where he is sent to, because he is a universal type of agitator. Wherever he might be sent, he commences the same type of agitation. In this sense, therefore, the mere removal of such a person is not the obvious solution to one’s problem.’18 Third, ‘Natives who are agitators in an urban area’ would be banished to ‘quite different conditions’, as opposed to the banishment of ‘tribal Natives from one rural area to another rural area’. The final reason why the minister did not usually make recourse to the banishment of urban political opponents was that if he acceded to the requests of municipalities ‘either I must spread these agitators over a whole series of Native areas to become

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potential sources of agitation there, or else I would have to remove them all to a certain place or farm. If I were … to send them all to one particular farm, or to two or three farms, their confinement there would necessarily have to assume the character of a concentration camp or prison. I was not prepared to … have these … consequences.’19 Significantly, in noting that the urban ‘universal type of agitator’ was likely to continue with agitation, the minister added that they ‘in fact did so’. He might well have had the example of Alcott Gwentshe from East London in mind (see chapter 5).20 Following articles in overseas and local newspapers in 1956 on secret Siberias for banished people, there was sensitivity on the part of government to the charge of running concentration camps. It was also noted in the previous chapter that the matter of concentration camps was something about which Hendrik Verwoerd was especially sensitive.21 This prickliness could have been connected to the Afrikaners’ own experience of concentration camps during the South African (Anglo-Boer) War. The reference to Siberias would also have been galling for a state that promoted itself internationally as a bulwark against communism. In any event the minister stated that ‘local authorities should deal with their own difficulties rather than transfer the onus to the State. They were the bodies which gave permission for the entry of Africans to their areas, and should be empowered to order the removal of persons who had abused the privilege of entry.’22 Interestingly, however, the minister cautioned that ‘in the exercise of this power, they would have to take public opinion into account’. Five years later, in response to criticism by an opposition member of parliament that banishment was ‘one of the most cruel instruments of administration that can be found anywhere’, the minister was at pains to provide ‘the assurance that with few exceptions I shall not send a Bantu from his own area in future if I do not receive an almost unanimous request from the council of the area concerned and from the Bantu of such areas. In addition, I instruct my officials to establish whether this is really a case where a person should be removed.’23 In essence, state strategy had little to do with any great concern for urban activists not being accustomed to rural conditions and much more with the danger of dispersing them around the country to become catalysts for political mobilisation and organisation elsewhere. Recall that some of those from the cities had to be relocated because of continuing agitation in their areas of banishment and that Baartman began to undertake political work among local people, using his banishment to arrange to join the ANC in

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exile.24 In any event, the minister had the option of banishing urban people under section 29bis of the Urban Areas Act or, ‘where a person … has still not learned his lesson, then it may be necessary to enforce Section 5’ of the same Act. In considering section 29 to be less severe, the minister inadvertently acknowledged the severity of banishment by noting that an urban person’s ‘liberty would be far more restricted under … Section 5’.25 In contrast to the urban areas, there were fewer political activists schooled in the art of political mobilisation and organisation in the rural areas. In these circumstances, and without adequate evidence to charge and imprison activists, the banishment of key individuals was an effective means of smothering popular resistance and paving the way for the imposition of state policies.26 In terms of the Native Administration Act, the power to banish was vested essentially in the hands of the minister of native affairs (later, Bantu administration and development). During the 1950s the South African security apparatus was not as developed as it would become later, so it was the native commissioners and their officials, especially those embracing the apartheid programme, who constituted the front line of political control and kept a hawkish eye on political activity within rural reserve communities. They were well placed to identify perceived agitators and it was, indeed, they rather than the police who recommended and executed banishment orders. Traditional leaders and collaborationist elements, with an eye to the windfalls of Bantu Authorities, sometimes also lent a hand in identifying troublemakers for banishment, and even lobbied for it. Officials were invested in various ways in the implementation of state policies. They were the bearers of modern land use and farming strategies underpinned by new scientific methods as opposed to the traditional methods of rural people. They were also the agents of modernity who arrogantly knew ‘what’s best for the Bantu’. There could be no question of state policies and measures having a negative impact on rural people. In attempting to account for resistance, state officials made recourse to the hackneyed notions of outside ‘blanke agitators’,27 ‘outside subversive influence’, incitement by ‘Communistic influence’ and the like.28 Or as J.A. van Heerden, who headed the commission of inquiry into the Mpondoland massacre, put it: ‘it is clear that the people of Bizana were the victims of the insidious propaganda of the African National Congress and associated organisations’.29 This answers only in part the question why the particular device of banishment was used, especially in rural areas. The apartheid state had recourse to other repressive measures: the deportation provisions of the

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Riotous Assemblies Act, the banning provisions of the Suppression of Communism Act and, in the case of urban political opponents, endorsement out of cities. However, if the aim was to remove key opponents from their local communities and also impose severe punishment for anti-state opposition, deportation and banning were less compelling than banishment. A deportation order would have expelled a person from a particular locality for a one-year period, renewable annually, without restricting him or her to any other specific area. The punishment was less severe and keeping track of the person would have been difficult. A banning order would have imposed restrictions on the movement and activities of an individual, but would not have involved physical removal from the immediate community. The possibility of continued political involvement in clandestine activities would have remained. In the case of an urban-based activist, endorsement would have removed an individual from a specific urban locale, but not prevented them from moving to other urban areas. Banishment had the advantages of physically removing people from their communities, isolating them for indefinite periods in alien areas and punishing them severely. How effective was banishment in practice? The banishment of leading political organisers and intellectuals would have been a setback to a community’s capacity to sustain resistance. However, factors such as the extent of political organisation, the depth of political consciousness, the unity of the community, its access to resources and the strength of collaborationist elements would also have had a bearing on the capacity for resistance. The effectiveness of banishment varied from situation to situation. In some areas, such as Witzieshoek, the banishment of key opponents of state policies seemed to diminish the level of resistance significantly. In other areas, such as Sekhukhuneland and Mpondoland, the organisation and unity of communities and their determination to oppose state policies meant that banishments did not immediately succeed in dampening resistance. In Sekhukhuneland the ‘revolt temporarily halted the advance of “the Trust” but it did not put a stop to fundamental processes of transformation’.30 While a significant weapon in the armoury of the apartheid state, banishment was not the only repressive measure used to deal with rural resistance. The vengeful occupation of reserve areas by special mobile police detachments which unleashed a reign of terror on residents; mass arrests; imprisonment of protesters; withdrawal of essential services; deposing of popular traditional leaders; and violent incitement on the part of state collaborators, all featured prominently in the state’s attempt to quell rebellion and ensure compliance

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with its policies. In most cases it was banishment in concert with other forms of repression that smothered discontent and pacified opposition. Special mention must be made of mass trials, which under National Party rule became ‘almost a commonplace’. They included, apart from the well-known Treason Trial of the late 1950s, ‘the year-long ordeal’ in 1950−1 of 104 people in Witzieshoek, the 1957 trial of 140 people in Zeerust, the 1958 trial of 44 men ‘who opposed the carrying of passes by their women in their home district of Zeerust’, and the murder charges against 257 people in Sekhukhuneland. Four aspects stand out in mass trials: great hardship caused to those accused, who often struggled to raise bail money; difficulties experienced by lawyers in defending large numbers; eventual discharge of most of the accused; and ‘the incompetence of the criminal and political police’s preliminary investigations’. However, also of significance was ‘the consistent inclusion of rank-and-file, humble people amongst those arrested and tried’, which was based on the state’s understanding ‘of the intimidating effect on ordinary people of mass trials’.31 For, if merely listening to a denunciation of the Government can lead one man to an ordeal which may last two or more years, his neighbour may become chary of listening to any further denunciations, let alone of making them himself. For if he too were to be tried, what if he were acquitted in the end? Would that repair his life or undo his children’s past hunger? Would that compensate him for his loss of earnings, his unploughed fields, for his wife’s harassment? What those acquitted … gained from their ordeal, is the knowledge that opposition to Verwoerd’s decree is paid for in suffering. This, then, is the power of mass trials over ordinary men and women.32 Banishment, or the threat of banishment, had some effect in intimidating ordinary men and women opposed to state policies. In Sekhukhuneland, the despised African Rangers, who were in the employ of the state, were reportedly ‘always heard saying of the resisters, “this year they will go forever”. Then it was often heard that so and so was picked up and sent to St Helena.’33 The chief magistrate in Cala was not shy to flaunt the ‘big stick’ which he had ‘ready for those who resisted Government laws’, making it clear at a meeting in 1957 that if opponents of Bantu Authorities ‘persisted in their uncooperative attitude toward the administration, and maintained the bad spirit that had developed in this District, stronger measures, such as deportations, might have to be considered’. A Cala resident observed that

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people ‘feared’ banishment.34 Indeed, one observer of events in Thembuland stated that ‘resistance declined when Matanzima armed his supporters and was given powers to deport people, emphasizing: “People feared deportation.”’35 The conditions associated with banishment made it a terrifying punishment. Accompanied in some instances by loss of land, the confiscation of livestock and the victimisation of family members by Department of Native Affairs officials and collaborators, the intimidatory value of banishment was greatly enhanced. The suffering on twin fronts forced some of the banished to accede to various restrictions in order to secure release. Others bore the harshness of banishment with great courage, refusing to collaborate or enter into compromises with the state. In the Tugela Valley, Kenneth Mosenyi looked on his ‘banishment as an honor in the struggle of our people’. He steadfastly refused to request release from banishment, saying, ‘I did not bring myself here. If he feels like it, let the Native Commissioner send me home. It is not for me to go on my knees to ask for a favour.’ Maema Matlala in Bushbuckridge resisted all efforts by state officials to win him over, determined that ‘when I go home, I shall be accepted by the people’.36 Theophilus Tshangela never left Frenchdale and died in banishment, refusing to return home until certain basic pre-conditions, including complete freedom from all restrictions, were met by the minister. As he stated, ‘I want to be free.’37 During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were limits to the Dutch East India Company’s political and social control through banishment. The banished sometimes escaped. They could also use banishment for their own ends. The Company’s places of banishment ‘intersected with indigenous Indian Ocean networks of religion, culture and communication the Company could not control’. Indeed, its inability to ‘completely restrict [the] ability [of the banished] to communicate with and promulgate alternative networks of authority’ was seen, for example, in the transmission of Islam to the Cape.38 Similarly, in apartheid South Africa political and social control through banishment was never complete. The banished could and did escape into exile: 11% (17) did so. Some, like Elizabeth Mafekeng, Gilbert Hani and Jacob Mpemba, fled into exile soon after they were served banishment orders. Others, including Ben Baartman, Anderson Ganyile and Jackson Nkosiyane, made the journey into exile from their places of banishment. Interestingly, a considerably greater proportion of people banished from urban areas crossed the borders into exile, compared with people from rural

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areas. Many of those banished from urban areas were members of the national liberation movements and were able to link up with them after they were banished and began to operate in exile. The banished did not always adjust easily to conditions in exile. Mafekeng tragically broke under the pressure of new circumstances. Others coped and even rose to important positions within the exiled liberation movements. Baartman made efforts in Ingwavuma to politicise and organise local people, and Gwentshe and others tried to continue their political involvement as best they could. There is, however, no evidence that banishment was used in the way that Trotsky and his other banished comrades did: to prepare for further direct struggle or government responsibility, maintain ‘self-discipline and self-respect’, and forge communication between different banishment areas.39 There were differences of viewpoint on the part of various state officials – the magistrate, native commissioner and the secretary for native affairs – regarding appropriate measures to deal with perceived agitators and the burden of proof necessary to issue banishment orders. Ntsebeza concluded that the state response ‘clearly showed that the apartheid regime in the late 1950s was still hesitant to use arbitrary force’ and wanted ‘to avoid tainting the name of the government for deporting people without an inquiry’. He also argued that the subsequent banishment of Edward Tyaliti ‘without any inquiry marked an important shift in terms of strategy on the part of the apartheid regime. Hitherto there had been attempts by the Chief Magistrate, and later the Secretary for Native Affairs, to create a semblance of justice.’ He suggested that this was seen in the request for ‘explicit evidence’ and ‘in the attempt to conduct an inquiry to test whatever evidence was provided’.40 These are doubtful contentions. Caution must be exercised in generalising from the specific instance of Tyaliti about an important shift of strategy. If in this case there was an attempt to secure evidence, there is little overall indication of scrupulous inquiries being conducted with respect to other banishments that preceded that of Tyaliti. It is also significant that, despite grave accusations, the security police had indicated in Tyaliti’s case that they were uncertain whether they could secure sufficient evidence for a successful conviction.41 The audi alteram partem principle did not operate in the case of banishment. There was thus continuity with the previous practice of banishment rather than any major change in strategy. Still, if banishments were reprisals and punishments meted out to opponents of the state, they were far from arbitrary, and opponents to be banished were

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carefully identified and selected, as was Tyaliti. What may have been at play in 1958 was possibly a heightened sensitivity on the part of national officials following media exposés of banishments and banishment camps, and references to South Africa’s Siberias. Following a Drum feature on banishment in August 1956, the London weekly Reynolds’s News carried a front-page story on banishments under the headline ‘Strijdom’s secret Siberia.’42 Banishments declined after the mid-1960s following the crushing of mass political opposition. After the Sharpeville and Mpondoland massacres of 1960, the government declared states of emergency, banned the ANC and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), detained over 11,000 people under emergency regulations, imprisoned numerous political leaders and forced into exile thousands of activists. South African society was increasingly militarised and new laws such as the Terrorism Act (1967) and the Internal Security Act (1976) outlawed and criminalised all forms of opposition and protest. These laws made provision for detention without trial, banning and the banning/banishment of political activists to deal with political opponents of the state. Dugard has suggested that banishment under the Native Administration Act was little used in the late 1970s, ‘as the same effect [could] be achieved by confining a person under the Internal Security Act to a strange and distant magisterial area’.43 Already in 1968 it was noted that ‘in recent years the government has not made extensive use of its powers of banishment, but is in effect achieving much the same results by serving banning orders on numbers of African ex-political prisoners, in terms of which they are confined to tribal areas, usually for periods of two years’.44 In any event, the weapon of banishment was not completely discarded. Banishment orders were served on two people in 1974; on two more in 1976; and on a further two in 1978. Moreover, political notables like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Mamphela Ramphele and a number of ex-political prisoners remained in banishment under the Internal Security Act. Banishment also continued to be employed in the bantustans. In 1984 Prince Madikizela was banished by Kaiser Matanzima from Umtata to the Bizana district, and the following year the Ntsebeza brothers (Dumisa and Lungisile) and their comrades were served banishment orders signed by Matanzima. From the mid-1970s onwards, bantustan leaders requested the South African authorities to banish political opponents. The narrative in this book has deliberately been restricted to the post-1948 apartheid period. It has, however, been shown that there were certainly banishments before then. Superficial investigations indicate that at least 83

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people, in all likelihood more, were banished between 1927 and 1948, and 30 people before 1927. Nothing is known about the reasons for and dynamics related to banishment prior to the passage of the Native Administration Act in 1927; and little about cases of banishment between 1927 and 1948. The banishments during these periods deserve study and could usefully highlight continuities and discontinuities with banishment after 1948. A great sadness, indeed tragedy, is that (barring Anderson Ganyile and Boy Seopa) all the banished have died and with them have gone memories and lived experiences of banishment and important narratives of their roles in rural rebellion and other popular struggles. In the absence of extensive and rich oral histories of the banished and of rural rebellions, what can be presented here is only a small part of the wider narrative on banishment in South Africa. It is clear that there are individuals who richly deserve greater attention and could be the subjects of exciting biographies: the uncompromising Theophilus Tshangela from Mpondoland; the indomitable Mopelis (Paulus and Treaty) from Witzieshoek; the organic intellectual and leader of the Mpondo revolt, Solomon Madikizela; the courageous militants from Sekhukhuneland, Stephen Nkadimeng and Godfrey Sekhukhune; and the enigmatic Paul Kuena from Evaton, to mention just a few. This study has provided the opportunity to revisit the wider context of the rural issues and struggles that gave rise to banishments. The 1950s and early 1960s bore witness to a state determined to restructure social institutions and relations in the rural areas and reserves. State policies and measures, ‘betterment’ schemes, Bantu Authorities, Bantu education and the extension of passes to women, provoked widespread popular resistance on the part of communities. This, in turn, unleashed brutal state violence and repression, including banishments. While the terms ‘community’/’communities’ have been used in preference to ‘tribe/s,’ it is not intended to suggest that rural communities are homogenous populations. In all the instances of rural resistance rural inhabitants were attracted and repelled by state measures depending on their economic and social locations. Those who were landless considered that the new trust farms and betterment schemes could improve their economic positions. Bantu Authorities afforded economic and political windfalls to those open to collaborating with the state. Bantu education, if pernicious, introduced state education as opposed to missionary education and held out the prospects of more teaching posts. African teachers and civil servants found themselves in difficult positions. The banished included a principal, teachers

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and a Native Affairs Department clerk who leaked information to lawyers George Bizos and Shulamith Muller related to arrests in Bahurutshe.45 Chiefs and headmen had to straddle maintaining popular legitimacy and undertaking onerous duties required of them as salaried state officials.46 They had to ‘bring to the notice of their people all new laws, orders, instructions, and requirements of the Government communicated to them by the Native Commissioner…,’ and to ‘promptly report…meetings for unlawful or undesirable purposes.’47 Critically, they were not to ‘become members or take any part in the affairs of any political association or any association whose objects are deemed by the Minister to be subversive or prejudicial to constituted Government or good order.’ For undertaking their duties on behalf of the state the chiefs and headmen were to ‘be paid such allowances…as may from time to time be approved by or on behalf of the minister.’48 Traditional leaders, then, whether genuinely appointed by communities or imposed by the state, were strongly implicated in political and social control and facilitating state interventions. Some lent themselves to collaboration with the state; others tried to navigate the minefields of state pressure and popular expectations, and yet others courageously opposed the state and were deposed and/or banished. In this context there were necessarily also struggles around the institution of traditional leadership. Beinart has observed, with reference to Sekhukhuneland, Mpondoland and rural Natal in the late 1950s, that here ‘support was mobilized in favour of popular claimants to the chieftaincy against those seen to collaborate with the government. Though some rural people were renouncing chieftaincy, most still saw the institution as having the potential to represent them and stave off unwanted interventions. Disputes often focused on the legitimacy of particular incumbents.’49 As we have seen, on occasions banishments were the consequence of such disputes. The issues of community cleavages, the place of traditional authority, and the wider political economy are beautifully captured by Delius, and what he narrates with respect to Sekhukhuenland can be extended to other rural areas. Communities, he writes, were ‘in the grip of deepseated processes of change and were shot through with divisions and tensions...;’ the rural reserves were seen by many who lived there as a place of refuge. It was a sanctuary from swaggering white officials and employers, from brutal policemen and the burden of passes, from wage labour and rents, from dangerous women, delinquent youth and the rampant crimi292

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nality which infested urban society. The limited degree of freedom which this represented was closely tied to retaining access to land and livestock, to preserving the remaining autonomy of the chiefdoms, and to ensuring that the power of white officialdom remained as confined as possible. Native Commissioners were humoured as long as they did not attempt to tamper with the inner workings of the chiefdoms…50 Some commentators have claimed that rural revolts were ‘parochial,’and ‘local and particularist rather than nationalist, and that ‘rural struggles remained local affairs even if they addressed national issues.’51 Bundy says that ‘they were small-scale, sporadic and dispersed incidents of social action; they were frequently limited in their resources and organisation and could be contained or crushed with relative ease by the state.’52 Ntsebeza, however, contends that ‘these struggles were not as spontaneous and/or parochial as some scholars’ suggest; they were also not sporadic, but sustained over many years and responded to differing state measures and interventions.53 He argues that ‘the struggles may not have been organised on a national scale, around movements with constitutions, membership and resources, something that could have ensured that the various struggles were coordinated. But this does not mean that the struggles were “parochial.”’54 He notes that Bundy himself has recognised that these struggles were not ‘waged by “pure” peasant movements: there was a significant interplay between rural grievances shaping local resistance and the efforts of political organisations centred elsewhere to articulate, link and broaden these struggles.’55 Ntsebeza contends that rural struggles were also infused by the experiences of struggles in mines, factories schools, colleges and universities of migrant workers, former migrant workers and students.56 In so far as whether rural struggles they were sporadic or sustained, it is important to both distinguish between but also grasp the relationship between the visible and latent aspects of struggles. In a latent phase ‘the potential for resistance or opposition is sewn into the very fabric of daily life. It is located in the molecular experience of the individuals or groups… Within this context, resistance is not expressed in collective forms of conflictual mobilisations. Specific circumstances are necessary for opposition and therefore of mobilising and making visible this latent potential.’57 Phases of latency, far from being periods of inaction, are thus crucial in creating and developing the capacities for mobilisation and struggle. They deserve analysis as much as phases of visible mobilisation 293

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do. Rural struggles also occurred, of course, ‘within the framework of possibilities and constraints presented them by the institutions’ of apartheid society.58 Ultimately, ‘what was won must be judged by what was possible.’59 The ‘relevant question to ask is whether, on balance’, the rural rebellions ‘made gains or lost ground’; whether they in some ways ‘advanced the interests’ of oppressed social classes and groups or ‘set back those interests.’60 For the moment it appears that the rural rebellions were neither organized by political parties, nor were they part of well-articulated urban and rural struggles or any national programmes of action. They were also not characterised by well-defined ideologies. They were primarily local movements constituted by certain social groups and strata that sought to hold the state at bay, minimize its further incursions into daily rural life, and thwart the attempts by other social groups to collaborate with state policies and measures. They were led by traditional leaders and ‘organic’ intellectuals who may or may not have had experiences of urban political organization and struggle and contact with political organisations and trade unions. Yet, although the movements were mostly composed of local rural people and were not political parties with explicit ideologies, they were political in the sense that they contested social relations in the countryside. Politics can be defined as ‘struggles within a specific arena aimed at specific sets of relations,’ and is not reducible to ‘to state politics.’61 In these terms, we can speak of ‘rural politics’ as the struggles of rural people that occur within a particular institutional setting, and are shaped by this setting. However, while this definition of politics is useful, it is ‘too restrictive;’ while a rural institutional setting will affect ‘the form and orientate the content of the struggles which occur’ it does not mean that the objectives of rural struggle will necessarily be confined to social relations in the rural sphere.62 The concerns of rural people and their organisations may extend beyond local and immediate issues to social issues and relations more widely in the national economic and political sphere. This means that the form and content of rural struggles may be influenced not only by conditions in rural areas (such as land shortage,) but also by conditions in the wider political sphere (such as the absence of human and citizenship rights). The rural landless and small peasants shared with urban black workers economic impoverishment and with all blacks racial oppression and the denial of political rights and. Even if the concerns of those engaged in rural rebellion were ‘parochial’ and ‘local and particularist rather than nation-

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alist,’ and even if there was no confluence between rural and urban, local and national, there is nothing to suggest that rural rebellions were either retrogressive, or compromised the interests of other oppressed social groups, or in any way set back the struggle for freedom and democracy. Political doctrine was secondary to the opposition that the rural activists sought to mobilise, both at the level of consciousness and action, against attempts to modernise and consolidate white minority rule. What is critical is not the political discourses of the rebellions but what they made possible and sought to achieve and the extent to which they eroded the foundations of apartheid domination, even if they were ultimately, unable to wring any concessions from the state, sustain any victories and were defeated. It is not necessary to decide on the political character of a movement ‘by reference to its organisation and doctrines, or the empirical characteristics of its leaders, in the first place. Far more decisive are the necessary implications of its objective political situation and practice; in short, the form of the political terrain and how it was bound to move on that terrain.’63 Products of political taunts and economic and social circumstances, sections of the rural populace were goaded into action and rebellions. The brutal response of the apartheid state to popular rural resistance exacted a terrible price on whole communities and especially those groups and individuals opposed to its intrusions. In the face of state violence it is not surprising that few, if any, rural demands were won, especially for any length of time. As with previous episodes of rural resistance, during the 1950s and early 1960s ‘the execution of state policy was diluted or delayed; the thrust of intervention was deflected rather than defeated.’64 Thus in Sekhukhuneland the ‘revolt of 1958 helped to keep Bantu Authorities at bay for a decade, but from the 1960s the majority of chiefs – old and new – were drawn ever-deeper into the bantustan system.’65 There were similar processes and outcomes in GaMatlala, Bahurusthe, Mpondoland and Thembuland. Despite this, and even if in some instances rural resistance may have been ‘attempts to preserve a social order that was under threat of destruction,’ aspired ‘not to change power but to reject it,’ and that some of the demands articulated were ‘traditionalist,’ there were positive gains.66 Rural resistance ‘constantly threw up intellectuals - individuals capable of expressing the economic, social and political interest of a social group, and with ideas about effective social and political organisations.’67 These ‘organic’ intellectuals explained the policies and structures through which

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rural people were oppressed and exploited and projected alternative visions and possibilities. The Bahurutshe struggles are a remarkable example of how even the most subordinated individuals offered in simple but telling terms critiques of the oppressive structures that dominated them.68 The intellectuals sometimes also provided individual or institutional bridges to the largely urban-based national liberation movements. Kenneth Mosenyi and Nimrod Sejake in Bahurutshe, Godfrey Sekhukhune in Sekhukhuneland, and Anderson Ganyile in Mpondoland are examples. The struggles waged mobilised and politicised thousands of peasants, migrants, teachers and students and other social strata and provided them with a rich experience of political struggle. These experiences were carried by individuals into worker and other organisations in subsequent decades.69 The Mpondo ‘rebels linked up with Congress in Durban and were driven to a position where they began to ask for arms. There seemed again to be the potential for an anti-colonial struggle linking nationalists and peasants, town and countryside.’70 The Sekhukhuneland revolt gave rise a debate on armed struggle, and ‘the ‘members of Sebatakgomo proved to be a rich source of recruits for military training and action’ when the ANC adopted armed struggle in 1961.71 So too did those who were tempered in struggle in Bahurutshe. Here, ‘there was an alternative legacy in regard to the “Zeerust Revolt”. Many of the early recruits to MK, and into the political and intelligence structures of the ANC in exile, came from this region.’72 Chief Moiloa who was banished but escaped into exile in Botswana was considered to ‘have been the catalyst for the many men who went into exile from this region.’73 The linkages were not only rural-urban. The rural struggles in different areas were not completely insulated from one another. The success of struggles in GaMatlala in 1920 encouraged militancy and struggles in other parts of the Northern Transvaal. There were joint actions between areas around calls for an end to hut tax, fines, the ‘ill-treatment of Blacks by Whites’ and the removal of the Sub-Native Commissioner of Pietersburg. There were also plans for a strike, pre-empted by the arrest and charging of a number of people for public violence.74 Opposition to dipping in Bizana, which was a long standing practice, was influenced by the struggles on the Natal south coast in 1959 where women destroyed dipping tanks on the grounds that the chemicals were not good for cattle.75 Militants in Natal were inspired, by the Mpondo revolt, to burn sugar cane fields.76 However, there is no evidence of organisational connections between movements and

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struggles in the different rural areas. It is written with respect to rural struggle between 1937 and 1951 that they were not able to achieve much and tended to be defeated, and that ‘their struggle proved to be tragic. Their courage and resourcefulness cannot be doubted….But the liberation movement did not, or could not, learn from these men and women.’77 Apparently the attorney Hyman Basner, through his campaigning for a ‘Native Representative’ seat in the Senate in the late 1930s, became aware of conditions in the rural areas and ‘urged that the CPSA organise the rural population,’ but there ‘was little enthusiasm for work in the Reserves.’78 There is also ‘little evidence of a concerted or coherent ANC response to local struggles.’79 If there was no learning, during the early 1950s there was certainly much self-criticism within the Congress movement of deficiencies regarding the rural areas. Reportedly, elements of the ANC leadership warned that the movement was neglecting the rural areas. In 1954, the National Executive Committee (NEC) reported there was ‘a danger of the African National Congress becoming an urban based and urban orientated organisation’; in 1955, the NEC lamented ‘the great gap in our organisation on the farm and in the reserves’ and asserted that ‘the question of organising the peasants must be tackled with resolve and energy.’80 The weaknesses in the rural area were also recognised by the South African Communist Party. Moses Kotane wrote in 1954: ‘As yet the democratic movement has barely begun the task of arousing and mobilising the tremendous potential forces of progress among the landless millions in the countryside...The peasants are crying out for land, freedom and a better life. It is the duty of the national liberation movement...to help them organize themselves.’81 Moses Mabhida reflected on the 1959 rural Natal women’s protests that ‘unfortunately, we didn’t realise the extent of the organisation of the people which was at that time very high.’82 In this context, Hirson’s argument that a liberation movement was needed that took the countryside and the organisation and struggles of rural people seriously is not surprising.83 It is not that there were no connections between the urban and rural areas. There were connections between the ANC and rural activists and bodies in Witzieshoek, Bahurutshe, Sekhukhuneland, Thembuland and Mpondoland, the All African Convention was active in the latter two areas,

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and in GaMatlala there was an ANC branch from early as 1919. What kind of linkages existed and the nature of these – how weak or strong, how loose or tight, how structured or unstructured, how intermittent or sustained - is little known. It is evident that the observation made for Sekhukhuneland that ‘the history of Sebatakgomo challenges that scholarship which has suggested that national movements remained remote from struggles in the reserves’ – is to differing degrees also pertinent to other rural rebellions.84 Beinart concludes that in Mpondoland there were also rebel-ANC links and suggests that in ‘analysing the historical character of the ANC’ the ‘relationship between rural and national movements’ remains a ‘significant question.85 What seems important is even if ‘ANC-linked individuals featured prominently in most of the rural rebellions,’ whether the ANC or other national movements were able to or keen to ‘transform personal ties with resistance in the reserves into organisational ties.’86 Delius has observed that while the rural struggles of the 1950s are usually treated under the rubric of rural or peasant resistance… the centrality of migrant labour to the South African political economy has always undermined simple divisions between town and countryside. A closer examination shows that in virtually every instance urban-based migrant organizations played vital roles… Groups like the Zoutpansberg Cultural Association, the Bahurutshe Association or the Witzieshoek Vigilance Association step almost entirely unheralded onto the stage.87 Migrants in many instances played an important role in connecting rural revolts to urban and national political movements and introducing tactics of struggle from urban political campaigns. They navigated life in cities and towns by joining various kinds of cultural, economic and political associations, and drew on the resources of a variety of institutions and organisations. They also experienced struggles in the mines and factories. Some ‘on returning to the country…spread awareness of the political organisations they had known in the towns’ and drew on resources they had encountered in towns to help them confront problems.88 It has therefore possible that ‘migrants and their organizations provide(d) a partly unseen but effective bridge between the ANC, the Communist Party of South Africa and rural politics.’89 The restrictive political conditions in rural areas would have also necessitated that ‘links to wider movements’ in the 1950s were made in an urban rather than a rural context’.90 Ntsebeza argues that rural struggles

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were also infused by the experiences of the struggles of students in schools, colleges and universities.91 Still, in Sekhukhuneland ‘the success of Sebatakgomo in developing a substantial following was both a consequence and cause of political strategies and styles which were not determined by agendas of national movements.’92 In any case, during the late 1950s the ANC was preoccupied with mass arrests that resulted in the treason trial, bannings and imprisonment, as well by the internecine divisions that gave birth to the PAC in early 1959. During the early 1960s it had to regroup after its banning in 1960 and re-constitute itself underground, as a military force and in exile.93 The problem was not so much that of ‘mobilising’ the rural communities and helping them to ‘organise themselves,’ as much as a failure on the part of key liberation organizations to construct robust and resilient links with rural formations, support and extend rural struggles, mobilization and organization, and interlace them with urban campaigns and national issues. Overall, ‘despite the realities of resistance and unrest in the countryside, the nationally organised movements failed to lead (or follow) them.’94 Govan Mbeki observes that the Mpondo ‘movement succeeded by example in accomplishing what discussion had failed to do in a generation convincing the leadership of the importance of the peasants in the reserves to the entire national struggle.’95 Mbeki was convinced that ‘a proper blending of the peasant and worker struggles…coupled with skillful timing of joint action’ was a matter that had to ‘engage the serious thinking of the leadership.’96 Yet, it was only in 1960 that the leadership of the Congress movement came to appreciate the real potential of rural resistance.97 In general, the ‘the ANC failed to take advantage of the opportunities they had to establish institutional links between resistance in the towns and in the countryside,’ and also ‘failed to establish a meaningful presence in the South African countryside…’98 These observations may need to be tempered. A largely urban political leadership more at home with the urban arena of struggle could have found great difficulties traversing the theatre of rural politics. The state would also have strongly resisted the establishment of strong links between rural and urban organization and struggle. To the extent that rural movements were ‘parochial in their aims and suspicious of outsiders,’ ‘possessed their own internal logic’ and were not ‘merely…a laggard variant of African nationalism,’ this would have posed particular challenges for the largely urbanbased national political movements.99 For Atwell Mopeli, the Witzieshoek

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resistance was to protest against actions that ‘would bring poverty to the reserve and make it indeed a reservoir of labour for the farms and gold mines.’100 Mpondo leader Solomon Madikizela’s key goals were ‘legitimate chieftaincy, a measure of local independence and control over rural resources.’101 In Sekhukhuneland, ‘a determination to hold the market and white state at bay, and a last-ditch defence of land, livestock and chieftainship, lay at the core of the 1950 struggle.’102 Thus, while a citycountryside alliance was not impossible, and the 1952 Defiance Campaign included key rural demands amongst its overall demands, perhaps ‘urban and rural activists were sometimes fighting for slightly different outcomes.’103 In this context, the lack of effective linkages between local rural and national political movements could well have ‘stemmed from both sides of the equation,’ materially (affecting) the possibility of a united oppositional or national movement in South Africa’ during the 1950s and early 1960s.104 Contentions on the character of rural struggles in general, as opposed to specific rural struggles, in South Africa need to be modest and provisional. There is a dearth of scholarship of the kind that has been undertaken in Thembuland, Sekhukhuneland and Mpondoland, though even here the focus is on struggles during particular periods rather than over extended periods. The narratives are illuminating but the danger is that important issues and continuities could be obscured. There is a great need to extend research to the 1920-1950 period, and to rural struggles in Lichtenburg, Mabieskraal, Peddie, King Williams Town, Thaba ‘Nchu, Harding, Nqutu and elsewhere in the 1950s – all areas from which people were banished. The more extensive documentation of rural struggles is necessary for conclusions on their general character – their duration and scale; the extent of spontaneity and organization; the targets of their criticism, protest and opposition; their key ideas and ideological and political orientation and the determinants of these; their goals, strategies and tactics, and sites of struggle; their articulation with other rural struggles, with urban struggles and national movements; the resources they were able to mobilise and draw upon; their internal transformations during their duration; the key people/social groups that elaborated the ideas and practices of rural struggles, and the extent to which they served as laboratories of cultural innovation - new forms of behaviour, social relationships, customs and so forth. In comparison with the urban areas and urban movements, the implementation of apartheid policies in rural South Africa and the responses to

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them, and the history, sociology, politics, economics and geography of rural areas and issues is inadequately documented. The marginalization of the rural areas and rural issues and struggles in South Africa continues in ‘contemporary political discourse.’105 It is hoped that this book will stimulate further research on rural struggles and the South African countryside more generally. In 1986, the law that permitted the banishment of African South Africans was repealed. This occurred during a period when the apartheid state was mired in profound crisis, an organic crisis, because of the existence of ‘incurable structural contradictions of an ideological, political and economic nature’.106 Tom Lodge, writing in 1983, concluded his analysis of political developments following the 1976 Soweto Uprising by saying that ‘it should be evident that a qualitative transformation has taken place in African political life. The complex combination of social forces present in black resistance has succeeded in igniting a conflagration which no amount of repression or incorporation will succeed in extinguishing.’107 Certainly, a qualitative transformation did occur in opposition politics. By the 1980s, ‘the period of recuperation required before people returned to political struggles … shortened’. Moreover, ‘despite the massive scale of state repression … oppositional activities generated and maintained a momentum entirely at variance with the pattern exhibited during earlier periods of intense conflict’.108 Indeed, for much of the 1980s stressful economic and social conditions, unpopular state initiatives and diverse forms and levels of increasingly combative and confident popular organisation combined to produce, as an almost permanent feature of the political terrain, myriad struggles of varying form, content, duration, geographical and institutional location and spread, and the involvement of differing constituencies. State repression in the form of detention, banning, restrictions on individuals and organisations, assassination, declarations of partial and total states of emergency and naked violence was unable to dampen resistance for any extended period or to destroy the mass base of the democratic movement. Political opposition during the 1980s was not confined to urban centres but extended, significantly, into rural towns and the bantustans. Particularly oppressive conditions in rural areas failed to prevent the development and spread of mass organisations and the radicalisation of communities, and throughout the mid-1980s remarkably strong and resilient organisations emerged in rural areas in all provinces. The formation of organisations in the bantustans and opposition to bantustan independence drew their regimes

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into the wider political conflict. Activation of popular grievances led to mass mobilisation and organisation. There were increasingly effective links and co-ordinated and concerted action between local-level student, teacher, civic, youth, women’s, religious and other organisations and trade unions. There were rent strikes, consumer boycotts, stayaways and other forms of action, and organs of popular power were established where local state bodies collapsed in the face of popular opposition. Interlocking action and an ‘insurrectionary process of catalysing, interacting and reinforcing forms of resistance emerged fully in the Transvaal during September–October 1984, and set a pattern which was to be repeated over and over again across South Africa in the subsequent twenty-two months’.109 An organic crisis is normally resolved either through social revolution from below or ‘formative action’ on the part of the ruling class.110 Formative action to preserve the hegemony of the ruling class entails significant economic, political and ideological restructuring, rather than merely defensive initiatives. The apartheid state did undertake restructuring, which had important implications for the form and content of opposition politics, but it was less than fundamental in nature. The post-Soweto period was not only characterised by state reforms. An important plank of the state’s post-1976 total strategy was also the repression of forces threatening white supremacy. Consequently, during this period there was increased centralisation and militarisation of the state, and a significant shift in power from the legislature to the executive, with tremendous power and authority located in the hands of the state president. Executive power was embodied in numerous cabinet committees, the State Security Council, and the National Security Management System with its regional Joint Management Committees (JMCs) and local level mini-JMCs. It was in this context of repressive reformism that section 5(1)(b) of the Native Administration Act, which had provided for the banishment of African South Africans for almost six decades, was repealed by section 1 of the Abolition of Influx Control Act (1986). However, there could still be recourse to the banishment of South Africans under the Internal Security Act and, as has been noted, banishment continued to be used in the bantustans. The Native Administration Act was repealed in its entirety by the Abolition of Restrictions on Free Political Activity Act (1993).111 The Internal Security Act was repealed in 2005 by the Protection of Constitutional Democracy Against Terrorist Activities Act.112

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Banishment was deemed by the TRC to be ‘a gross violation of human rights’. It was the finding of the commission that ‘all those upon whom such orders were imposed suffered a gross violation of human rights, for which the former government [is] held accountable’.113 Such a finding was welcomed. Yet, regrettably, the TRC was extremely tardy in giving due attention to banishment and tracing and recognising all those who were banished and whose human rights were violated. To the extent that the TRC records take on the status of the official repository of information on the horrors of apartheid, it has among its other omissions the risk of obscuring practices such as banishment. In this way, contributing to an amnesia about banishment is not dissimilar to ‘the amnesias resulting from a construction of Robben Island as the predominant signifier of liberation struggle histories, most notably the lack of attention directed at women’s experiences as anti-apartheid activists’, which ‘is bound up with a general marginalisation of women’s role in struggle histories’.114 In the case of the banished, their marginalisation is simultaneously the continuing banishment of rural actors from struggle narratives and perpetuation of urban people in the popular consciousness as the only or principal leaders and heroes of the national liberation struggle. In linking political banishment to rural resistance during the 1950s and 1960s, this book will hopefully help to reinsert courageous rural communities and leaders as ‘actors and shapers’ who contributed to the creation of democracy in South Africa.115 Unlike the Islanders, there is no monument or memorial for the banished. They remain banished from consciousness, a condition urgently in need of attention. In setting out a vision for a democratic South Africa, the Freedom Charter, adopted at the Congress of the People in Kliptown in 1955, addressed practices such as banishment. Clause five of the Freedom Charter, entitled ‘All shall be equal before the law’, stated that No one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without fair trial No one shall be condemned by the order of any Government official All laws which discriminate on the grounds of race, colour or belief shall be repealed. This expressed the commitment of the Congress Alliance to abolish banishment, eliminating the exercise of administrative power without recourse to the courts; and, since only African South Africans were subject to banishment, ending discrimination in law and justice along the lines of

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supposed race. The commitment of Chief Albert Luthuli, who was himself restricted, to the abolition of banishment is well reflected in the paraphrased exchange with Helen Joseph during a brief clandestine meeting on the Natal north coast in 1962: Joseph: When freedom comes to South Africa there are a few people I would like to see banished. Luthuli: No, Helen. Anything but banishment. We cannot do such things. Joseph: Just one or two. Luthuli: Not even one.116 Racial oligarchy and brutal repression of black subjects’ demands for citizenship rights finally gave way in 1994 to a democracy in which, for the first time, all South Africans were accorded full citizenship rights. Critical to this development were the imagination, creativity and courage that South Africans displayed to rid themselves of tyranny and fashion a new democracy. They forged a Constitution and Bill of Rights which held out the great promise of far-reaching political, economic and social rights that did not exist for all, or at all, prior to 1994. The 1996 Constitution institutionalises the protection of citizens from the practice of banishment by asserting the rule of law. The Bill of Rights specifically acknowledges the right ‘not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause’; and not to be ‘treated or punished in a cruel [and] inhuman way’, as was the case with banishment.117 Banishment was an administrative action for which no reasons needed to be provided. Contrast the practice under apartheid with the 1996 Constitution’s statements on just administrative action: the Constitution stipulates that ‘everyone has the right to administrative action that is lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair’ and that ‘everyone whose rights have been adversely affected by administrative action has the right to be given written reasons’. It also provides ‘for the review of administrative action by a court or, where appropriate, an independent and impartial tribunal’. Since most, and after 1956 all, of those who were banished were denied access to the courts and an opportunity to face their accusers, the Constitution’s guarantee of access to courts and of ‘a fair public hearing before a court’ is also relevant. Among many other rights, an accused person has ‘a right to a fair trial’, including ‘to be informed of the charge with sufficient detail to answer it’ and ‘to a public trial before an ordinary court’.118

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CONCLUSION

The preamble to the Constitution proclaims that We, the people of South Africa, Recognise the injustices of our past Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land.119 Under colonialism and apartheid a great injustice was perpetrated against those who were banished, principally because in the face of tyranny they sought dignity, justice and freedom in South Africa. It is a constitutional imperative to recognise the injustice suffered by those who were banished and to acknowledge and honour them for their contribution to freedom and democracy in South Africa. Let us accord the last words to Helen Joseph, who did so much to highlight banishment and support the banished people and their families; ‘the forgotten people’ and ‘the living dead’, as she called them. She poignantly points out that ‘they were punished within the law, but outside justice’.120 A Holocaust survivor reminds us that ‘if it is impossible to understand, we ought to at least know. For what has happened once, can happen again.’121

305

306

Appendices

APPENDIX

1: Copy of banishment order

308–314

APPENDIX

2: Release order from banishment

315

APPENDIX

3: Can Themba, ‘Banned to the bush’, Drum, August 1956

316–319

APPENDIX

4: Cosmas Desmond, ‘Vorster’s forgotten people’, Guardian Weekly, 19 June 1971

320

5: List of banished people

321

APPENDIX

307

APPENDIX 1

308

APPENDIX 1

309

APPENDIX 1

310

APPENDIX 1

311

APPENDIX 1

312

APPENDIX 1

313

APPENDIX 1

314

APPENDIX 2

315

APPENDIX 3

316

APPENDIX 3

317

APPENDIX 3

318

APPENDIX 3

319

APPENDIX 4

320

APPENDIX 5

A full and detailed list of people banished under apartheid is available on the South African History Online website at www.sahistory.org.za. Below is a sample entry for Maema Matlala.

Place of banishment

Date

Name

Original residence

7 March 1951

Maema Matlala

Matlala's Bushbuckridge, Pilgrim’s Rest Location, District, Pietersburg Transvaal District, Transvaal

Details

Maema Matlala, a ‘very old, very small, not even five feet tall … wizened’ man, had served in East Africa during the First World War. He was connected by blood to the royal family and was the second most senior councillor in the royal house (mošate). He was arrested in 1952, served a jail sentence of three months, and was then allowed to return to GaMatlala. He was not arrested in relation to the killing of Joel Matlala but for opposing Native Affairs Department injunctions regarding cattle culling and other aspects of betterment. Soon after his return, ‘four uniformed policemen and three detectives had arrived and told him that he and his wife and family must all get into the vans, to be taken away;’ he responded that ‘when you go to war you don’t take your wife with you.’ It worked! He alone was then banished to Bushbuckridge, with nothing, and he was also given nothing by the authorities except mealies for food. When Alfred Matlala was imposed as a chief, he evicted Maema Matlala’s children from the royal house and their abodes were destroyed. Interviewed by Helen Joseph in 1962, his partner said that it was only after five years that she ‘heard from him that he was in Bushbuckridge, but now I don’t hear from him at all.’ While banished, he received a meagre £2 7s 6d every two months. On receiving some money from the HRWC, he responded: ‘We are more than thankful. Seeing that we are made people again.’ There were attempts by state officials to win both him and a fellow banished person, Klaas Matlala, over but they were not interested. His position was that ‘When I go home, I shall be accepted by the people.’ His banishment order was revoked on 9 February 1966.

321

Notes Introductory epigraphs 1 Cited in T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth (Observatory: RedWorks, 2001), p. 288. 2 T. Morphet, ‘Words first’. Scrutiny 2 11(2), p. 89. 3 E. Galeano, The Book of Embraces (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992), p. 123. 4 M. Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (New York: HarperCollins, 1985), p. 5. 5 Cited in T. Bell and B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 288. 6 N. Alexander, An Ordinary Country: Issues in the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2002), p. 35. 7 P. Levi, If This Is a Man (London: Vintage Books, 1996), p. 396. 8 Cited in S. Marais, ‘The precision of violence/the approximation of language: Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden (unpublished mimeo, 2010). 9 Nelson Mandela on the occasion of enacting the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, cited in G. Bizos, No One to Blame: In Pursuit of Justice in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1998), p. 1. Introduction 1 E. Cole with T. Flaherty, The House of Bondage (New York: Ridge Press, 1967), p. 178. 2 Ibid., p. 177. 3 Ibid., p. 178. 4 Ibid., p. 179. 5 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun: A Smuggled Journal from South Africa (New York: John Day, 1967), pp. 123−4. 6 E. Cole with T. Flaherty, The House of Bondage, p. 177. 7 G. Knape (ed.), Ernest Cole: Photographer (Göttingen: Steidl, 2010). 8 E. Cole with T. Flaherty, The House of Bondage, p. 176; H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p.120. 9 E. Hobsbawm in Times Higher Education Supplement 12 July 2002, pp. 18−19. 10 H. Joseph, ‘The living dead’. Africa South 5(4) July−September 1961, p. 17. 11 B. Freund, ‘Forced resettlement and the political economy of South Africa’ Review of African Political Economy 29 (July 1984), p. 52. 12 T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth (Observatory: RedWorks, 2001) also draws a parallel with the forced removal of individuals such as banishment and the forced mass removals of communities during the 1960s and 1970s. 13 T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 151. 14 Ibid. 15 V. Harris, Archives and Justice: A South African Perspective (PP: P, 2007), p. 291. The TRC has also been criticised on other grounds. Alexander writes that ‘the fundamental flaw in the conceptualisation of the TRC as a mechanism for “dealing with the past” lies in the fact that the question of moral debt … is blurred by … individualizing it, that is, removing it from its systemic embedment.’ Moreover, ‘the lives of farm labourers, of those men, women and children who are forced to people the vast rural slums, the stories of the legions of domestic workers, of migrant workers generally and of those who toil in the mines two to three kilometres underground, all these stories, which constitute the form and content of the system of racial capitalism remained outside the purview of the TRC’. Further, ‘the greatest weakness of the TRC Report lies in the fact that it did not analyse or investigate the system of apartheid with all its institutional linkages. Instead, the object of its inquiry was restricted to the pangamen of the system’. (N. Alexander, An Ordinary Country: Issues in the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2002), pp. 122, 125, 134). 16 Ibid., p. 293. 17 Ibid., pp. 289, 293. 18 B. Schmahmann, ‘History after apartheid: visual culture and public memory in a democratic South Africa’ [book review]. De Arte 71(2005), p. 68. 19 C. Bundy ‘The beast of the past: History and the TRC.’ Paper delivered at the After TRC: Reconciliation in the New Millennium Conference. Cape Town, University of Cape Town, 10–12 August 1999. Unpublished mimeo, p. 7, cited in N. Alexander, An Ordinary Country, p. 133.

322

NOTES

20 Lewis Gordon at the Race and Higher Education Roundtable, Rhodes University, 12 July 2011. 21 In terms of the Special Pensions Act (1996). 22 A. Dorfman, Exorcising Terror: The Incredible Unending Trial of General Augusto Pinochet (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002), p. 198. 23 Ibid. 24 R. Resha, ‘Is the ANC dominated by Communists? No!’ Golden City Post 21 December 1958. 25 W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa: Politics and Popular Movements in the Transkei and Eastern Cape, 1890−1930 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), p. 2. 26 Ibid., p. 4. 27 M. Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1985), p. 5. 28 W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa, p. 4. 29 B.K. Marshall, Teaching the Postmodern: Fiction and Theory (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 4. 30 Human Rights Welfare Committe, The Forgotten Men (Johannesburg: HRWC, 1960). 31 L. Reyburn, ‘Banishment without trial’. Race Relations News April 1961. 32 H. Joseph, ‘The living dead’. 33 M. Horrell, ‘The forgotten people’. Black Sash March−April 1963. 34 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 133. 35 The journey was all told 13,600 kilometres long. Excluding the section that did not involve looking for banished people, the journeys to the banished totalled 11,200 kilometres (H. Joseph, ‘The unending sentence: Africans in exile in South Africa’. Amnesty 3 (1962)). 36 H. Joseph, Side by Side (London: Zed Books, 1986). 37 T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 152. 38 E. Cole with T. Flaherty, The House of Bondage. 39 D. Newbury, Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2009), p. 204. 40 TRC, Report vol. 2 (Cape Town: TRC, 1998), p. 169. 41 Mac Maharaj quoted in T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 288. 42 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano, accessed 7 December 2011; E. Galeano, The Book of Embraces (London: W.W. Norton, 1992), p. 123. 43 S. Marais, The precision of violence/the approximation of language: Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden (Unpublished mimeo, 2010). 44 N. Alexander, An Ordinary Country, pp. 117−18. 45 H.J. Kaye, Why Do Ruling Classes Fear History and Other Questions (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1996). 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Banishment: An old and common practice T.D. Miethe and Lu Hong, Punishment: A Comparative Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 30−1. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575693_2/punishment.html, accessed 24 October 2009. Encyclopaedia Judaica at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0003_0_ 01976.html, accessed 25 July 2010. W.G. Snider, ‘Banishment: the history of its use and a proposal for its abolition under the First Amendment’. New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement 24 (Summer 1998), p. 459. S.L. Lesher, ‘What was an outlaw’ at http://www.slesher.com/outlaw.html, accessed 23 July 2010. R.F. Gorman, ‘Revenge and reconciliation: Shakespearean models of exile and banishment’. International Journal of Refugee Law 2(2) 1990, p. 213. Ibid., pp. 214, 216, 217−18, 220. B.I. Obichere, ‘African critics of Victorian imperialism: an analysis’. Journal of African Studies 4 (1977), p. 3. ‘King Ja ja of Opobo dead’, New York Times 9 August 1891. T. Falola and M.M. Heaton, A History of Nigeria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. xxvi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prempeh_I, accessed 16 October 2011. N.C. Crawford, Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, Decolonization and Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 216. A. Abraham, ‘Bai Bureh, the British, and the Hut Tax War’. International Journal of African Historical Studies 7(1) 1974, pp. 99, 102. http://www.sierra-leone.org/Heroes/heroes5.html, accessed 9 October 2010; http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Bai_Bureh, accessed 9 October 2010. A. Abraham, ‘Bai Bureh, the British, and the Hut Tax War’, p. 106.

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16 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovonramwen, accessed 9 October 2010. 17 B.T. Hoffman (ed.), Art and Cultural Heritage: Law, Policy and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 18 R.L. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2004), p. 235; O. Vaughan, Nigerian Chiefs: Traditional Power in Modern Politics, 1890s−1990s (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2000), p. 114; A. Oyebade, The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2003), p. 113. 19 D. Shub, Lenin: A Biography (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), p. 49. 20 I. Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879–1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), pp. 40, 43−4, 169. 21 I. Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), pp. 68, 113, 118, 121, 133. 22 J.N. Hazard, ‘Trends in the Soviet treatment of crime’. American Sociological Review 5(4) 1940, p. 569. 23 I. Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 1921−1929 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp. 391, 393. 24 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0017_0_16322.html, accessed 6 February 2010. 25 I. Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed, pp. 402−3. 26 Ibid., pp. 402, 457. 27 Ibid., pp. 469, 471. 28 I. Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929−1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 1, 8. 29 D.M. Thomas, Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in his Life (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1998), at http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/t/thomas-solz.html, accessed 6 February 2010 30 http://www.yale.edu/annals/sakharov/sakharov_english_txt/e191.txt, accessed 6 February 2010. 31 R.C. Yung, ‘Banishment by a thousand laws: residency restrictions on sex offenders’. Washington University Law Review 85(1) 2007, p. 102. 32 M. Theodorakis, Journals of Resistance (London: Hart-Davis MacGibbon, 1973), p. 26. 33 Ibid., pp. 29−30, 209, 214, 216, 262−3, 300. 34 ‘Israel: Palestinians fear Israeli court ruling may set new grounds for banishment’. Los Angeles Times 21 June 2010. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 ‘Farwana: Israel banished 79 captives from West Bank since 2000’. Sabr 20 January 2010 at http://palestinianprisoners.blogspot.com/2010/01/farwana-israel-banished-79-captives.html, accessed 25 July 2010. 38 Human Rights Watch, Eastern Congo: Activists Severely Beaten: Conditions Deteriorate Following Robinson’s Visit, October 11 2000 at http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2000/10/11/eastern-congo-activists-severelybeaten, accessed 18 April 2010. 39 R.C. Yung, ‘Banishment by a thousand laws’, p. 134. 40 Ibid. 41 T.D. Miethe and Lu Hong, Punishment, pp. 50, 52. 42 E.H. Brookes and J.B. Macaulay, Civil Liberty in South Africa (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 9. 43 Cape Mazaar Society, Guide to the Kramats of the Western Cape (Cape Town: Cape Mazaar Society, 2010), p. 26. 44 A.J. Böeseken, ‘The arrival of Van Riebeeck at the Cape’ in Five Hundred Years: A History of South Africa edited by C.F.H. Muller (Pretoria: Human and Rousseau Academica, 1969), p. 16. 45 K. Ward, Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 124, 285. 46 Ibid., pp. 124, 125, 190. 47 Ibid., pp. 145, 148, 149, 191, 194. 48 Cape Mazaar Society, Guide to the Kramats of the Western Cape, pp. 14, 15. 49 Ibid., p. 18. 50 K. Ward, Networks of Empire, pp. 1, 3, 5, 25. For a brief biography of Sheikh Yusuf see pp. 200−9. 51 Cape Mazaar Society, Guide to the Kramats of the Western Cape, p. 18. Sheikh Yusuf died at the Cape in May 1699. There is a kramat in his honour near Macassar. 52 Ibid., pp. 65, 191, 259. 53 Ibid., p. 155. See also R. Elphick and R. Shell, ‘Intergroup relations: Khoikhoi, settlers, slaves and free blacks, 1652−1795’ in Shaping of South African Society, 1652−1840 edited by R. Elphick and H. Giliomee (Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman, 1989), p. 216. 54 K. Ward, Networks of Empire, p. 211. 55 Ibid., pp. 191, 231.

324

NOTES

56 Cape Mazaar Society, Guide to the Kramats of the Western Cape, p. 40. 57 N. Penn, ‘Robben Island, 1488−1805’ in The Island: A History of Robben Island, 1488−1990 edited by H. Deacon (Cape Town: Mayibuye Books and David Philip, 1996), p. 31. Penn says that Guru was released in 1793. 58 K. Ward, Networks of Empire, pp. 2, 140. 59 Jan van Riebeeck cited in N. Penn, ‘Robben Island, 1488−1805’, pp. 15, 17. Penn uses the spelling Autshumato. 60 K. Ward, Networks of Empire, pp. 139, 164. 61 H. Deacon (ed.), The Island: A History of Robben Island, 1488-1990 (Cape Town: Mayibuye Books and David Philip, 1996), p. 5. 62 H. Deacon (ed.), The Island, p. 2. 63 H. Deacon, ‘The British prison on Robben Island, 1800−1896’ in The Island: A History of Robben Island, 14881990 edited by H. Deacon (Cape Town: Mayibuye Books and David Philip, 1996), p. 35. 64 Ibid., p. 42; J. Peires, ‘Banishments: an analysis’, personal communication, 2010. 65 H. Deacon, ‘The British prison on Robben Island, 1800−1896’, p. 42. 66 Ibid. 67 J. Peires, ‘Prisoners of war at Cape’, personal communication, 2010. 68 J. Wells, Rebellion and Uproar: Makhanda and the Great Escape from Robben Island, 1820 (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2007), p. 12. 69 J. Peires, ‘Prisoners of war at Cape’. See also J. Wells, Rebellion and Uproar. 70 H. Deacon, ‘The British prison on Robben Island, 1800−1896’, p. 54. 71 J. Guy, The Maphumulo Uprising: War, Law and Ritual in the Zulu Rebellion (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2005), p. 223; J. Dugard, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 209; H. Deacon, ‘The British prison on Robben Island, 1800−1896’, p. 54. 72 J. Dugard, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order, p. 209. 73 D. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation: Native Policy in Colonial Natal, 1845−1910 (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 139; H. Deacon, ‘The British prison on Robben Island, 1800−1896’, p. 54. See also H. Hughes, ‘Rise of scorching sun’. Sunday Times 18 December 2011. 74 D. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, p. 142. 75 H. Deacon, ‘The British prison on Robben Island, 1800−1896’, p. 54; M.C. van Zyl, ‘Natal, 1845−1902’ in Five Hundred Years edited by C.F.J. Muller (Pretoria: Human and Rousseau Academica, 1969), p. 191. 76 H. Deacon, ‘The British prison on Robben Island, 1800−1896’, p. 55. 77 J. Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom: The Civil War in Zululand, 1979−1884 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982), pp. 125, 167. 78 S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906−8 Disturbances in Natal (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 94; M. Meredith, Diamonds, Gold and War: The Making of South Africa (Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball, 2007), p. 501. 79 S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, pp. 101, 104. 80 Ibid., p. 146. 81 Ibid., pp. 106, 196, 250. 82 J. Guy, The Maphumulo Uprising, p. 209. 83 J. Dugard, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order, p. 210; C.F.J. Muller (ed.), Five Hundred Years (Pretoria: Human and Rousseau Academica, 1969), pp. 228−33; E. Roux in Time Longer Than Rope (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964) states that Dinuzulu was banished to the Transvaal in 1911. 84 S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, pp. 293, 353. 85 E.S. Sachs, The Anatomy of Apartheid (London: Collet’s, 1965), p. 296. 86 Executive Council (URU) decisions, various volumes, National Archives, Pretoria. 87 URU 954, minute 9, 6 December 1927; Rex v. Mpafuri. South African Law Reports (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1928. 88 URU 947, minute 3541, 4 November 1927. 89 URU 998, minute 246, 15 August 1928. 90 C. Murray, ‘The Barolong Progressive Association: local politics and the struggle for land in eastern Orange Free State, 1928−1940’. Africa Perspective 1(7−8) 1989, pp. 57−8, 68; URU 1932, minute 281, 7 February 1941. 91 Constructed on the basis of Index of Persons Banished under the Native Administration Act of 1927 appendix 2. 92 R. Omond, The Apartheid Handbook (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), p. 168. 93 B. Magubane, The Political Economy of Race and Class (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), p. 10. 94 D. Foster with D. Davis and D. Sandler, Detention and Torture in South Africa: Psychological, Legal and Historical Studies (Cape Town: David Philip, 1987), p. 11.

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95 D. Kaplan, ‘Towards a Marxist analysis of South Africa’. Socialist Review 1979, pp. 117−37. 96 M. Legassick, ‘Gold, agriculture and secondary industry in South Africa, 1885−1970: from periphery to submetropole as forced labour system’ in The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa edited by R. Palmer and N. Parsons (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 182. 97 A. Hirsch, Bantustan Industrialisation with Specific Reference to the Ciskei: 1973−1981 (University of Cape Town, Masters thesis, 1984), p. 74. 98 D. Hindson, Pass Offices and Labour Bureaux: An Analysis of the Development of a National System of Pass Controls in South Africa, 1923−1980 (University of Sussex, PhD thesis, 1981), pp. 156−7. 99 Ibid., p. 167. 100 Die Burger 29 March 1948 (emphasis in original), cited by D. O’Meara, Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism 1934−1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 237. 101 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’ in The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (1960-1970) (Cape Town: Zebra, 2004), p. 177. 102 L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (Burn, burn): resistance against tribal authorities in Xhalanga, 1960–1963’ Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research Working Paper 40(2003), p. 3. 103 R. Southall, South Africa’s Transkei: The Political Economy of an ‘Independent Bantustan’ (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), p. 45. 104 G. Mbeki, South Africa: The Peasants Revolt (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), p. 37. 105 S. Zondi, ‘Peasant struggles in the 1950s: gaMatala and Zeerust’ in The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (1960−1970) (Cape Town: Zebra, 2004), p. 147. 106 R. Southall, South Africa’s Transkei, p. 46. 107 Debates of the House of Assembly 91, col. 530, 1 May 1956. 108 G. Mbeki, South Africa, pp. 98−9. 109 H. Verwoerd, Minister of Native Education, quoted in Documents in South African Education edited by B. Rose and R. Tunmer (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1975), p. 264. 110 D. Foster with D. Davis and D. Sandler, Detention and Torture in South Africa, p. 4. 111 Later the Internal Security Act (1976). 112 M. Fullard, ‘State repression in the 1960s’ in The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (1960−1970) (Cape Town: Zebra, 2004), p. 351. 113 M. Fullard, ‘Banning of person’. Unpublished, undated mimeo, pp. 1, 7. 114 M. Fullard, ‘State repression in the 1960s’, p. 351. 115 http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/online%20books/crime-humanity/ detention%20weapon .htm, accessed 7 August 2010. Over 21,000 were detained under security legislation and well over 52,000 under states of emergency. 116 Buried by the security police in a pauper’s grave in Pretoria, his remains were identified only in 2007. 117 South African History Online, ‘Biography’ at http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/gqabi-j.htm, accessed 7 August 2010. 118 Askaris were liberation movement fighters captured by South African security forces who became mercenaries in the service of the apartheid regime. 119 They had been interrogated and then murdered by the security police. Their bodies were burnt and thrown into the Fish River. 120 T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth (Observatory: RedWorks, 2001), p. 145. 121 A decade later, Ferdi Barnard of the Civil Co-operation Bureau, a covert unit of the South African Defence Force, was sentenced to life imprisonment for his murder. 122 D. Foster with D. Davis and D. Sandler, Detention and Torture in South Africa, p. 12. 123 J. Dugard, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order, p. 137; E. Roux, Time Longer than Rope, p. 228. 124 Native Administration Act (1927), section 29(1). 125 Ibid., section 29(4). 126 E.S. Sachs, The Anatomy of Apartheid, p. 246. 127 H. Bradford, The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa in the South African Countryside, 1924−1930 (University of the Witwatersrand, PhD thesis, 1985), p. 361; P. Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress, 1912−1952 (London: Hurst, 1970), p. 221; E. Roux, Time Longer than Rope, p. 192; M. Lacey, Working for Boroko: The Origins of a Coercive Labour System in South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1981), p. 247.

326

NOTES

128 J. Dugard, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order, pp. 327, 328. 129 D. Hindson, Pass Offices and Labour Bureaux, p. 72. 130 J. Simons and R. Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850−1950 (London: International Defence and Aid Fund, 1983), p. 436. 131 J. Dugard, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order, p. 77. 132 Debates of the House of Assembly 92, 8 June 1956, col. 7350. 133 R.E. Pretorius, ‘Banishment: Germiston’s answer to opposition in Natalspruit Location, 1955−1957’ University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop: The Making of Class 1987, p. 3. 134 Ibid., pp. 5, 6, 8. Advising the Germiston City Council was J.B. Vorster, later Prime Minister, and representing the ANC four were attorneys Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. 135 Cape Times 4 July and 7 July 1959. 136 B. Bunting, The Rise of the South African Reich at http://www.anc.org.za/books/reich9.html, accessed 14 August 2010. 137 M.S. Badat, The Political Economy of Forced Removals and Relocation: The Case of Natal, 1948−1980 (University of Natal, Honours thesis, 1980). 138 T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 53. 139 E. Roux, Time Longer Than Rope, p. 47. 140 M. Lacey, Working for Boroko, pp. 97, 248. 141 D. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, p. 82. 142 Code of Native Law no. 19 Natal Government Gazette 49 (11 August 1891), p. 1180. 143 Natal Legislative Assembly Debates 33 (29 April−30 June 1903), pp. 153, 154 (emphasis added). 144 D. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, pp. 81, 100. 145 E.H. Brookes and J.B. Macaulay, Civil Liberty in South Africa, p. 156. 146 S. Dubow, Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa, 1919−1936 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), p. 117; E.H. Brookes and J.B. Macaulay, Civil Liberty in South Africa, p. 156. 147 Cited in D. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, pp. 90−1. 148 Debates of the House of Assembly 9, 15 June 1927, col. 5142. 149 Cited in D. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, p. 99. 150 Rex v. Mpafuri. South African Law Reports (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1928. 151 Rex Respondent v. Mpanza Appellant. South African Law Reports (Appellate Division) 1946. 152 D. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, p. 94. 153 URU 1503, minute 985, 8 May 1935. 154 Rex v. Mabi and Others. South African Law Reports (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1935. 155 Saliwa v. Minister of Native Affairs. South African Law Reports (Appellate Division) 1956. 156 D. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, p. 95. 157 URU 3531, minute 1200, 6 June 1956. 158 Native Administration Amendment Act (1956). 159 Joyi v. Minister of Bantu Administration and Development. South African Law Reports (Cape Provincial Division), 1961; URU 3794, minute 1008, 14 May 1958. 160 Survey of Race Relations 1955−6, p. 72. 161 Debates of the House of Assembly 100, 10 April 1959, col. 3368. 162 Debates of the House of Assembly 3, 10 May 1962, col. 5386. 163 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun: A Smuggled Journal from South Africa (New York: John Day, 1966), pp. 121, 123. 164 R.C. Yung, ‘Banishment by a thousand laws’, p. 134. 165 There, are however, at least two known instances of section 5(1)(b) of the Native Administration Act being used against communities: the forced removal and relocations in 1957 of the over 400-strong ba-Nareng community from Mamathola Location (Muckle Glen farm, Wolkberge area) to Metz and Enable farms (Letaba, Northern Transvaal); and in 1945 of a community from Makoba’s Location (Mount Currie) to the Matatiele district (Eastern Cape) (J. Starfield, ‘For future reference: the Mamathola removal of 1958 and the making of apartheid’. University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop: Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid 1990). 166 T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 52.

327

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

2 1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Banishment and rural resistance in the early 1950s: GaMatlala and Witzieshoek T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), p. 261. H. Bradford, The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa in the South African Countryside, 1924−1930 (University of the Witwatersrand, PhD thesis, 1985); H. Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924−1930 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); W. Beinart, The Political Economy of Pondoland, 1860−1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); C. Bundy, ‘Land and liberation: the South African national liberation movements and the agrarian question, 1920s−1960s’. Review of African Political Economy 28 (1984). W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa: Politics and Popular Movements in the Transkei and Eastern Cape, 1890−1930 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), p. 24. T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, p. 261. C. Bundy, The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry (London: Heinemann, 1979), p. 228. T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, p. 266. Ibid., p. 261. G. Mbeki, South Africa: The Peasants Revolt (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), p. 11. URU 1503, minute 985, 30 April 1935; URU 2671, minute 2827, 9 September 1949; Rex v. Mabi and Others. South African Law Reports (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1935 (Executive Council decisions, National Archives). Mabe v. Minister for Native Affairs. South African Law Reports (Transvaal Provincial Division) 3(1957); Mabe v. Minister for Native Affairs. South African Law Reports (Transvaal Provincial Division) 2(1958). M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area: A Case Study of Ga-Matlala, 1940−1980 (BA Hons dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 1992), pp. 1, 11, 12, 14, 15. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980 (BA Hons dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 1992), pp. 18, 22−4. Ibid., pp. 25, 26, 28, 38, 44−5, 46. Ibid., pp. 30, 33, 38, 39. Ibid., pp. 40, 41−2, 48, 49−53, 54. M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, pp. 10, 16; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 55. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, pp. 58−9. M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, pp. 20, 21. Ibid., p. 76. Both Joseph and Zondi give truncated accounts of proceedings which are lacking in important nuances: H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun: A Smuggled Journal from South Africa (New York: John Day, 1967), p. 126; S. Zondi, ‘Peasant struggles in the 1950s: gaMatlala and Zeerust’ in The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (1960−1970) (Cape Town: Zebra, 2004), p. 150. M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, pp. 35, 36; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 76. M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 31. Ibid., pp. 15, 32, 47, 48−9. S. Zondi, ‘Peasant struggles in the 1950s’, p. 152. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 61; M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 32. Government Notice 92 (Government Gazette 3296, 28 January 1944) amended Proclamation 31 (Government Gazette 2610, 24 February 1939); then Proclamation 116 (Government Gazette 4162, 13 May 1949) declared Matlala Location a betterment area. M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, pp. 36, 37. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, pp. 80, 82; M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 38. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 84. M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 38; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 82. Report of the Department of Native Affairs 1949−50 (UG 61/1951), p. 45. S. Zondi, ‘Peasant struggles in the 1950s’, p. 155. M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, pp. 40, 41. This was provided for by the Native Administration Act of 1927. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 88.

328

NOTES

34 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 205. 35 Ibid., pp. 88−9, citing URU 2728, minute 828, 7 March 1950. 36 D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, pp. 89, 90, 91. An altogether different account is provided in H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 206. Here it is said that the day after the banishment order was served on Makwena Matlala she was warned by a police emissary of the native commissioner that she must leave immediately for Hammanskraal or she would be forcibly banished. Thereafter an agricultural officer and rangers came in lorries to take her into banishment. She, however, fled with two counsellors ‘to the hills. There they hid for two days and then made their way to Pretoria’. With no plans they went to Pelindaba township where they found refuge with a widow whose parents were from GaMatlala. She reported to the native commissioner in Pretoria, requesting his help but her pleas fell upon deaf ears. 37 D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, pp. 93−4. 38 Report of the Department of Native Affairs 1950−51 (UG 130/1953), p. 14. 39 M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 51; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 95. 40 M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, pp. 51, 53. 41 S. Zondi, ‘Peasant struggles in the 1950s’, p. 155. 42 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 206. 43 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 206−7. 44 URU 2845, minute 529, 7 March 1951. Her name is spelt Mokoena Matlala. 45 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 207. 46 No banishment order could be found. In the order withdrawing the banishment (URU 4769, minute 1846, 1 October 1964) there is reference to a minute 1391. 47 URU 2845, minute 529, 7 March 1951. 48 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 208, 209. 49 URU 5052, minute 2249, 9 February 1966. Her name is spelt Mokoena Matlala. 50 M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 54. 51 M.P. Kgobe and D.M.C. Sepuru both make reference to the banishment of Ngakana Nelson Moabelo and Makwena Moabelo and their return from banishment in October 1963. No banishment orders could be found for them. In D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 97 it is stated that those who were imprisoned were afterwards banished, but again banishment orders could not be found to verify these claims. S. Zondi, relying on interviews, states that over 50 key supporters of Makwena were banished across South Africa, but the available evidence does not support his claim. 52 M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 68. 53 Ibid., p. 63. 54 Ibid., p. 72; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 108. It is claimed that 500 women from GaMatlala attended the 1956 march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria. 55 M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, pp. 72, 74. 56 Ibid., pp. 75, 77. 57 D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 118; M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 88. 58 M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, pp. 80, 90. 59 Ibid., pp. 89, 92−4. 60 J. Yawitch, Betterment: The Myth of Homeland Agriculture (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1981), p. 76. 61 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 170. 62 Personal communication between D.M.C. Sepuru, as part of a report commissioned by the author, and Phuti Philemon ‘Pasopa’ Matlala at Sediba se Phale Section, gaNong, GaMatlala, 28 December 2011. 63 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p.171. 64 His banishment order is dated 7 March 1951 (URU 2845, minute 529, 7 March 1951). 65 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 141. 66 Human Rights Welfare Committee, The Banished People (1962), Schedule A, p. 21. 67 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 127, 172. 68 URU 5052, minute 224, 9 February 1966.

329

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

92 93 94 95 96

97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 127, 139, 172. URU 5052, minute 224, 9 February 1966. URU 3115, minute 1642, 21 July 1953. Interview by D.M.C. Sepuru with Boy Lemuel Tumishi Tlou Seopa, Justice Makwena Seopa and Louisa Tlou Seopa at Phetole, GaMatlala, 4 February 2012. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 155; URU 3115, minute 1642, 21 July 1953. Interview by D.M.C. Sepuru with Boy Lemuel Tumishi Tlou Seopa, Justice Makwena Seopa and Louisa Tlou Seopa at Phetole, GaMatlala, 4 February 2012. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 130. Interview by D.M.C. Sepuru with Boy Lemuel Tumishi Tlou Seopa, Justice Makwena Seopa and Louisa Tlou Seopa at Phetole, GaMatlala, 4 February 2012. Ibid. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 130, 154. Interview by D.M.C. Sepuru with Boy Lemuel Tumishi Tlou Seopa, Justice Makwena Seopa and Louisa Tlou Seopa at Phetole, GaMatlala, 4 February 2012. Ibid. Ibid. Human Rights Welfare Committee, The Banished People, p. 5; URU 5052, minute 224, 9 February 1966. Interview by D.M.C. Sepuru with Boy Lemuel Tumishi Tlou Seopa, Justice Makwena Seopa and Louisa Tlou Seopa at Phetole, GaMatlala, 4 February 2012. Interview by D.M.C. Sepuru with Phuti Salome Mokgopo at Mahwelereng, 20 January 2012. Interview by D.M.C. Sepuru with Phuti Salome Mokgopo at Mahwelereng, 20 January 2012. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 130. URU 339, minute 41, 8 February 1955; URU 5052, minute 224, 9 February 1966. URU 339, minute 41, 8 February 1955. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 131. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 107; M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 68. Personal communication between D.M.C. Sepuru (as part of a report commissioned by the author) and Daisy Boshomane, Esther Phuti Abia Boshomane and Mmaphuti Simon Boshomane at gaRamalapa, GaMatlala, 26 December 2011. URU 339, minute 41, 8 February 1955. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 132, 142. G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom (Houghton: Random House, 2007), p. 130; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 119. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 140−1, 142. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, pp. 116−17, 119. Later, Lukele, appearing in court, refused to sit at a separate table to that of the white officials. He sued the magistrate, but was arrested and deported because he had been born in Swaziland (G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom, p. 137). H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 128. No banishment order could be found for him. There is reference to a minute 1391 in his withdrawal order (URU 5052, minute 224, 9 February 1966). Personal communication between D.M.C. Sepuru (as part of a report commissioned by the author) and Maphuti Ermela Teffo (born Matlala) at Kalkspruit, GaMaraba, 29 December 2011. Michael Matlala’s banishment order is not available, but his order of revocation is (URU 5052, minute 224, 9 February 1966). See also URU 4562, minute 1465, 21 August 1963. URU 3339, minute 41, 19 January 1955. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, pp. 114, 115. URU 2845, minute 529, 7 March 1951; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 204. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 128, 129, 140. Personal communication between D.M.C. Sepuru (as part of a report commissioned by the author) and Rufus Phuti Moraka at Mampulo, GaMatlala, 27 December 2011. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 129, 211.

330

NOTES

107 URU 5052, minute 224, 9 February 1966. 108 His banishment order and Joseph refer to Sebitji as Sibija Matlala. Personal communication between D.M.C. Sepuru (as part of a report commissioned by the author) and Josephina Mmanyatji Matlala at Setumong, GaMatlala, 26 December 2011. 109 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 138. 110 Ibid., p. 21. 111 J. Yawitch, Betterment, p. 74. 112 D.A. Kotze, ‘The Witzieshoek revolt, 1940−1950’. African Studies 41(1) 1982, p. 127. 113 Ibid. 114 J. Sharp, ‘Transition and problems of survival: relocation in QwaQwa’. Unpublished paper, no date. 115 D.A. Kotze, ‘The Witzieshoek revolt, 1940−1950’, p. 128. 116 S. Moroney, ‘1950 Witzieshoek rebellion: the political mobilization of a peasant group’. Africa Perspective 3 (February 1976), pp. 2−3. 117 D.A. Kotze, ‘The Witzieshoek revolt, 1940−1950’, p. 128. 118 T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, p. 269. 119 D.A. Kotze, ‘The Witzieshoek revolt, 1940−1950’, p. 128. 120 S. Moroney, ‘1950 Witzieshoek rebellion’, p. 5 121 D.A. Kotze, ‘The Witzieshoek revolt, 1940−1950’, p. 130. 122 Ibid., p. 133. 123 S. Moroney, ‘1950 Witzieshoek rebellion, p. 6. 124 D.A. Kotze, ‘The Witzieshoek revolt, 1940−1950’, p. 131. 125 Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Disturbances in the Witzieshoek Native Reserve 1951 (UG 26/1951), p. 4. 126 Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Disturbances in the Witzieshoek Native Reserve 1951 (UG 26/1951), p. 5. 127 S. Moroney, ‘1950 Witzieshoek rebellion’, p. 8. 128 T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, p. 270. 129 S. Moroney, ‘1950 Witzieshoek rebellion’, p. 8. 130 Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Disturbances in the Witzieshoek Native Reserve 1951, p. 7. 131 S. Moroney, ‘1950 Witzieshoek rebellion’, p. 6. 132 D.A. Kotze, ‘The Witzieshoek revolt, 1940−1950’, p. 136. 133 Ibid., p. 133. 134 Ibid., p. 131. 135 Report of the Department of Native Affairs 1948−9 (UG 51/1950), p. 40. 136 S. Moroney, ‘1950 Witzieshoek rebellion’, p. 7. 137 The Department of Native Affairs reported that ‘the Mopeli tribe … has … put forward a request for the removal of Paulus Mopeli, one of the chief instigators of the disturbances’ (Report of the Department of Native Affairs 1951−2 UG 37/1955), p. 13). 138 S. Moroney, ‘1950 Witzieshoek rebellion’, p. 9. 139 Ibid., p. 10. 140 D.A. Kotze, ‘The Witzieshoek revolt, 1940−1950’, p. 140. 141 Ibid. 142 S. Moroney, ‘1950 Witzieshoek rebellion’, p. 10. 143 J. Fairbairn, ‘Mass trials’. Africa South 3(3) April−June 1959, p. 14. 144 URU 2992, minute 1735, 28 July 1952. 145 URU 2996, minute 1932, 13 August 1952. 146 URU 3209, minute 596, 8 March 1954. 147 URU 3708, minute 1971, 29 August 1957. 148 Survey of Race Relations 1972, p. 75; Debates of the House of Assembly 43, 27 March 1973, col. 535. 149 URU 2964, minute 723, 27 March 1952. 150 URU 4380, minute 961, 18 June 1962. 151 URU 2883, minute 1510, 13 June 1951; URU 2964, minute 724, 27 March 1952; URU 4380, minute 960, 18 June 1962. 152 URU 3071, minute 391, 19 February 1953. 153 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 219.

331

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 3 1

2

3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

Ibid. Debates of the House of Assembly 100, 10 April 1959, col. 3368. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 219. URU 4875, minute 494, 24 March 1965. Debates of the House of Assembly 43, 27 March 1973, col. 534. URU 3209, minute 596, 8 March 1954. URU 3719, minute 2243, 2 October 1957. URU 5341, minute 1405, 23 August 1967. URU 3209, minute 596, 8 March 1954. URU 5341, minute 1406, 22 August 1967; URU 5341, minute 1408, 22 August 1967. D.A. Kotze, ‘The Witzieshoek revolt, 1940−1950’, p. 139. B. Hirson, ‘Rural revolt in South Africa: 1937−1951’, Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries 8 (1977), pp. 124, 129, fn. 12, 134. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 7. M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 79; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 100. ‘3,000 tribesman petition B.A.D. Minister: “We want our Chieftainess returned from exile”’. Spark 14 February 1963. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 110. M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, pp. 79−80; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 108. D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980, p. 120 Ibid., p. 110; M.P. Kgobe, Resistance to Betterment in the Pietersburg Area, p. 80. Banishment and rural resistance in the late 1950s: Bahurutshe and Sekhukhuneland A. Manson and J. Drummond, ‘The transformation of Moiloa’s Reserve in the western Transvaal: politics, production and resistance in a rural setting, 1919–1986’. University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop: Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid, 6−10 February 1990, p.1. A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964: patterns of diffusion and support for Congress in a rural setting’. South African Historical Journal (forthcoming, 2012), p. 14. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle: Reconstruction and Resistance in the Northern Transvaal (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1996), p. 2. A. Manson, ‘The Hurutshe resistance in the Zeerust district of the western Transvaal, 1954−1959’. Africa Perspective 22(1983), pp. 62−79; A. Manson and J. Drummond, ‘The transformation of Moiloa’s Reserve in the western Transvaal’, pp. 1−2. A. Manson and J. Drummond, ‘The transformation of Moiloa’s Reserve in the western Transvaal’, p. 1. T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), p. 274. A. Manson and J. Drummond, ‘The transformation of Moiloa’s Reserve in the western Transvaal’, p. 1. Ibid., p. 9. C. Hooper, Brief Authority (Cape Town: David Philip, 1989), p. 103. J. Fairbairn, ‘Zeerust: a profile of resistance’. Africa South 2(3) April−June 1958, pp. 30−1. S. Zondi, ‘Peasant struggles in the 1950s: gaMatala and Zeerust’ in The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (1960−1970) (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004), p. 166. A. Manson and J. Drummond, ‘The transformation of Moiloa’s Reserve in the western Transvaal’, p. 9. J. Fairbairn, ‘Zeerust’, p. 31. A. Manson and J. Drummond, ‘The transformation of Moiloa’s Reserve in the western Transvaal’, pp. 10−11. Ibid., p. 11. URU 3507, minute 584, 5 September 1956 (Executive Council decisions, National Archives); K. Luckhardt and B. Wall, Organise or Starve: The History of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1980), pp. 181, 406. A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, p. 18. URU 3768, minute 361, 27 February 1958. A. Manson and J. Drummond, ‘The transformation of Moiloa’s Reserve in the western Transvaal’, p. 10.

332

NOTES

20 G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom (Houghton: Random House, 2007), pp. 101, 102, 105. Shulamith Muller, with her husband (a trade unionist and CPSA member) and 2 sons ‘fled to Swaziland in May 1962 after repeated bannings and harassment by the Special Branch prevented her from practising or earning a living as an attorney. She was a CPSA member, an official of the National Union of Distributive Workers, and a member of the Congress of Democrats and the Civil Rights League. She was also an attorney in the 1956 Treason Trial. She died in July 1978 in Swaziland’. http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/shulamith-muller, accessed 12 December 2011. 21 C. Hooper, Brief Authority, p. 152. 22 T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, p. 275. 23 A. Manson, ‘The Hurutshe resistance in the Zeerust district of the western Transvaal, 1954−1959’, p. 66. 24 A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, p. 15. 25 G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom, pp. 108−9. 26 C. Hooper, Brief Authority, pp. 153, 154. 27 Ibid., pp. 132, 133, 142. 28 Ibid., p. 156. 29 A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, p. 15. 30 C. Hooper, Brief Authority, p. 163. 31 A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, p. 16. 32 J. Fairbairn, ‘Zeerust’, p. 33. 33 C. Hooper, Brief Authority, pp. 21−2. 34 Ibid., pp. 205, 219. 35 Ibid., p. 273. 36 A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, p. 16. 37 C. Hooper, Brief Authority, p. 244. 38 Ibid., p. 260. 39 Ibid., p. 264. 40 A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, p. 16. 41 A. Manson, ‘The Hurutshe resistance in the Zeerust district of the Western Transvaal, 1954−1959’, pp. 67−9 provides more detail. 42 S. Zondi, ‘Peasant struggles in the 1950s’, p. 168. 43 A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, p. 17. 44 Ibid., p. 169, citing New Age March 1958. 45 Proclamation 67, Government Gazette 6032, 17 March 1958. 46 Later the first chief justice of democratic South Africa’s Constitutional Court. 47 G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom, pp. 106, 112, 113, 114. 48 URU 3768, minute 360, 27 February 1958. 49 A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, pp. 18, 22. 50 URU 6094, minute 1736, 1971. Today, in acknowledgment of his contributions to the struggle for democracy, a local municipality with Zeerust as the seat bears the name Ramotshere Moiloa. 51 URU 3768, minute 361, 27 February 1958. 52 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun: A Smuggled Journal from South Africa (New York: John Day, 1967), p. 119. 53 ‘An exile’s tragedy’. New Age 9 March 1961, p. 3. 54 URU 6094, minute 1738, 1971. 55 URU 3768, minute 361, 27 February 1958. 56 G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom, p. 106. 57 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 120. 58 URU 4824, minute 2339, 8 December 1964. 59 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 190, 191.

333

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

60 Debates of the House of Assembly 15, 4 June 1965, cols 7172−3. 61 A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, p. 24; Interview with Kenneth Mosenyi, 1983 (SAIRR Oral History Archive), p. 9. 62 Ibid. 63 E. Denman, ‘The banished’. Africa Today 10(5) May 1963, pp. 9−11. 64 G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom, p. 109. 65 URU 3796, minute 1115, 26 May 1958. 66 G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom, p. 110. 67 URU 4599, minute 2035, 19 November 1963. 68 URU 3566, minute 1921, 8 September 1956. 69 ‘The banished’. Sunday Times 23 April 1961. 70 URU 4581, minute 1644, 21 September 1963. 71 T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, p. 278; A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964’, p. 18. In 1961, a territorial authority was established for the Bophuthatswana bantustan. It was declared a self-governing state in 1972 and five years later granted independence with Lucas Mangope’s son (also Lucas) as prime minister. 72 A. Manson, ‘The Hurutshe resistance in the Zeerust district of the western Transvaal, 1954−1959’, p. 76. 73 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 2. 74 Ibid., p. 216. 75 Ibid., pp. 2, 58. 76 B. Hirson, Yours for the Union: Class and Community Struggles in South Africa, 1930−1947 (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1989), p. 130; P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 60. 77 B. Hirson, Yours for the Union, pp. 124, 130. 78 URU 2160, minute 1021, 3 April 1944. 79 Rex Respondent v. Molepo Appellant. South African Law Reports (Appellate Division) 1945, p. 498. 80 Ibid., p. 498; B. Hirson, Yours for the Union, p. 130. 81 URU 2804, minute 3019, 17 October 1950. 82 BAO 10/345, 108/5, part 2, p. 14 (National Archives). No record of revocation of banishment order or of death could be found for Frans Ngoetyane. 83 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 67. 84 URU 2214, minute 443, 13 February 1945. Delius claims that Maimela was banished in December of 1944 (P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 69). 85 URU 2214, minute 443, 13 February 1945. 86 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 67. 87 URU 5356, minute 1512, 7 September 1967. 88 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, pp. 70, 72, 78, 79. 89 J. Fairbairn, ‘The Sekhukhuneland terror’. Africa South 3(1) October−December 1958, p. 17. 90 Ibid., p. 18. 91 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, pp. 117−18. 92 URU 3647, minute 710, 5 April 1957; P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 117. 93 Survey of Race Relations 1957−58, p. 73. 94 J. Fairbairn, ‘The Sekhukhuneland terror’, p. 18; The Rand Daily Mail put the figure of those who marched at 15,000 (‘Send back our “sons,” say tribe’. Rand Daily Mail 22 July 1957). 95 URU 3739, minute 2701, 28 November 1957. 96 J. Fairbairn, ‘The Sekhukhuneland terror’, p. 19. 97 The banishment orders are, however, dated 14 May 1958 (URU 3770, minute 476, 14 May 1958); P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 123. 98 P. Delius, ‘Sebatakgomo: migrant organisation, the ANC and the Sekhukhuniland revolt’. Journal of Southern African Studies 15(4) 1989, pp. 610, 611. 99 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, pp. 119−20. 100 P. Delius, ‘Sebatakgomo’, pp. 605, 607. 101 P. Delius, ‘The tortoise and the spear: popular political culture and violence in the Sekhukhuneland revolt of 1958’. University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop: Democracy, Popular Precedents, Practice, Culture, Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand, 13−15 July, pp. 11−12. Fetakgomo was derived from the political maxim Feta kgomo osware rootho (leave the cattle and take the people), closely associated with the Maroteng paramountcy and also of more immediate relevance.

334

NOTES

102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130

131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148

P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, pp. 123, 124. J. Fairbairn, ‘The Sekhukhuneland terror’, p. 20. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 126. J. Fairbairn, ‘The Sekhukhuneland terror’, p. 21. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 217, 219, 221, 224. J. Yawitch, Betterment: The Myth of Homeland Agriculture (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1981), p. 55. P. Delius, ‘Sebatakgomo’, p. 614. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 92. Delius, ‘Sebatakgomo’, pp. 603−4; P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, pp. 92, 93. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 139. Ibid., pp. 139, 141. J. Yawitch, Betterment, p. 23. L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised: Chiefs and the Politics of the Land in South Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 215. URU 3770, minute 476, 14 May 1958. URU 4201, minute 1205, 5 July 1961; Survey of Race Relations 1957−1958, p. 74; Survey of Race Relations 1958−1959, p. 126. P. Delius, ‘Sebatakgomo’, p. 602. Ibid., pp. 602, 607. URU 3647, minute 710, 5 April 1957. URU 4201, minute 1206, 5 July 1961. Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Report Vol. 7, p. 772; Survey of Race Relations 1956−1957, p. 74. URU 3647, minute 710, 5 April 1957. Ibid. URU 4201, minute 1207, 5 July 1961; Survey of Race Relations 1956−1957, p. 74; Survey of Race Relations 1957−1958, p. 73. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 178. New Age, 12 July 1962; URU 3647, minute 710, 5 April 1957. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 177−8, 179, 180. Ibid., p. 178. E. Denman, ‘The banished’, pp. 9−11. The TRC mistakenly states that he was an ANC supporter who was arrested and banished from his home and placed under house arrest in Grahamstown until 1966 (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Report vol. 7, p. 326). URU 3739, minute 2701, 28 November 1957. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 197. Ibid., pp. 166, 197. URU 5546, minute 1470, 20 August 1968; Survey of Race Relations 1957−1958, p. 74. During the early 1990s, Maredi served as the chairperson of the Mohlaletse branch of the ANC. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 141. E. Denman, ‘The banished’, pp. 9−11. URU 3739, minute 2701, 28 November 1957. URU 4206, minute 1337, 28 July 1962. URU 3948, minute 2064, 18 November 1959. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 165. Debates of the House of Assembly 30, 8 September 1970, col 3602. ‘Have they been kidnapped?’ New Age 15 February 1962, p. 1. URU 4270, minute 2146, 8 November 1961. ‘3 leaders exiled 1000 miles from home’. New Age 1 March 1962, p. 5. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 167. Molomo Ntwampe disappeared before his order could be served (BAO 10/345 108/8, National Archives); URU 4270, minute 2146, 8 November 1961. URU 4919, minute 1216, 8 July 1965. URU 6569, minute 226, 24 February 1975.

335

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174

175 176 177 178 179 180

181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195

URU 4919, minute 1216, 8 July 1965. URU 6431, minute 184, 1974. URU 4444, minute 1947, 2 November 1962. BAO 10/345 N108/5 part 4, p. 195 (National Archives). URU 4913, minute 1064, 16 June 1965. URU 5065, minute 268, 12 February 1966. BAO 10/345 N108/5 part 4, p. 195 (National Archives). URU 6424, minutes 1727 and 1728; Survey of Race Relations 1965, p. 52. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, pp. 118, 120, 130, 132. Ibid., pp. 175, 176, 204. P. Delius, ‘The tortoise and the spear, p. 25. C. Desmond, The Discarded People: An Account of African Resettlement in South Africa (Harmondsworh: Penguin, 1971), pp. 144−5. URU 4718, minute 1136, 29 June 1964. URU 5356, minute 1511, 1967. URU 4630, minute 149, 25 January 1964. ‘Tribesmen cleared of murder after areas move’. Cape Times 15 August 1963. URU 4630, minute 149, 25 January 1964. URU 5356, minute 1510, 1967. URU 4288, minute 53, 24 January 1962. Ibid.; Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 20. Debates of the House of Assembly 30, 8 September 1970, col. 3601. URU 4288, minute 53, 24 January 1962. Debates of the House of Assembly 30, 8 September 1970, col. 3601. Unless otherwise specified, Mashile is a reference to Matsiketsane Mashile. Correspondence between L.N. Mashile and Helen Suzman, 22 February 1977. E. Ritchken, Leadership and Conflict in Bushbuckridge: Struggles to Define Moral Economies within the Context of Rapidly Transforming Political Economies (1978−1990) (University of the Witwatersrand, PhD thesis, 1995), p. 287. Correspondence between L.N. Mashile and Helen Suzman, 22 February 1977. E. Ritchken, Leadership and Conflict in Bushbuckridge, pp. 287−8. Ibid., p. 288. Ibid., p. 289. URU 4535, minute 1076, 27 June 1963. E. Ritchken, ‘African nationalism, ethnic nationalism and the chieftainship: the case of Matsiketsane Mashile’. University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop: Democracy, Popular Precedents, Practice Culture, 13−15 July 1994, pp. 6−7. URU 6569, minute 227, 24 February 1975. E. Ritchken, Leadership and Conflict in Bushbuckridge, p. 290. Correspondence between L.N. Mashile and Helen Joseph, 22 February 1977. Cited in correspondence between Helen Joseph and Helen Suzman, 21 April 1977. Correspondence between the Department of Bantu Administration and Development and L.N. Mashile, early 1976. Correspondence between the minister of Bantu Administration and Development and Helen Suzman MP regarding L.N. Mashile, 5 May 1977. URU 6912, minute 172, 10 February 1977. E. Ritchken, Leadership and Conflict in Bushbuckridge, pp. 287−8, 290. Correspondence between L.N. Mashile and Helen Joseph, 24 September 1978. Correspondence between L.N. Mashile and Helen Joseph, 15 December 1978. Correspondence between L.N. Mashile and Helen Joseph, 26 March 1979. Correspondence between L.N. Mashile and Helen Joseph, 6 June 1979. URU 7535, minute 582, 3 May 1979. Correspondence between Helen Suzman and Minister of Co-operation and Development Piet Koornhof regarding L.N. Mashile, 16 July 1979. Correspondence between Minister of Co-operation and Development Piet Koornhof and Helen Suzman regarding L.N. Mashile, 27 September 1979.

336

NOTES

196 197 198 199

Correspondence between L.N. Mashile and Helen Suzman, 21 April 1980. E. Ritchken, ‘African nationalism, ethnic nationalism and the chieftainship’, pp. 1−2. E. Ritchken, Leadership and Conflict in Bushbuckridge, pp. 388−9, 433−4. E. Ritchken, ‘African nationalism, ethnic nationalism and the chieftainship’, p. 20.

4 1

Banishment and rural resistance in the late 1950s and early 1960s: Mpondoland, Thembuland and Natal C. Crais, The Politics of Evil: Magic, State Power, and the Political Imagination in South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 147−8, 164. Proclamation 180 Government Gazette Extraordinary 5736, 31 August 1956. S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’ in The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (1960−1970) (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004), p. 179. C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, p. 153. G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), p. 109. W. Beinart and C. Bundy, ‘State intervention and rural resistance: the Transkei 1900−1965’ in M. Klein (ed.), Peasants in Africa: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (London: Sage, 1980), pp. 305−6. Ibid., p. 125. L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn): resistance against tribal authorities in Xhalanga, 1960−1963‘. Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research Working Paper 40 (2003), p. 3. L. Ntsebeza, ‘Resistance in the countryside: the Mpondo revolts contextualized’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza (eds), Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 25, 26, 36. C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, pp. 182−3. A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza (eds), Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 70; L. Ntsebeza, ‘Resistance in the countryside’, p. 26. C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, p. 182. B. Hirson, ‘Rural revolt in South Africa: 1937−1951’ in The Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries 8 (1977), pp. 125−6. Ibid., p. 126. L. Ntsebeza, ‘Resistance in the countryside’, p. 29. C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, p. 163. Ibid., pp. 160−1; 1MAT 6/1/203 N1/16/5/2, Alois Mate, 1952−1963: letter from the magistrate at Matatiele to the chief magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, 18 May 1954 (Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository). URU 2279, minute 2767, 31 October 1945 (Executive Council decisions, National Archives). 1MAT 6/1/203 N1/16/5/2, Alois Mate, 1952−1963: letter from the magistrate at Matatiele to the chief magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, 18 May 1954. Reference is made to minute 2182, 15 August 1951 in the withdrawal order URU 4661, minute 608, 8 April 1964 (Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository). C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, p. 161. Minute 2182, 15 August 1951, withdrawal order URU 4661, minute 608, 8 April 1964. C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, p. 161. 1MAT 6/1/203 N1/16/5/2, Alois Mate, 1952−1963: letter from the magistrate at Matatiele to the chief magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, 18 May 1954. Ibid. URU 4661, minute 608, April 1964. C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, pp. 183−6. URU 2934, minute 3367, 13 December 1951. A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’ states (p. 70) that ‘the local Chief, Ntlabati Jojo, was banished from his home for life’ (not quite, as his banishment order was revoked on 2 August 1961); URU 4207, minute 1384 2 August 1961. C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, p. 162. URU 2974, minute 1140, 14 May 1952. URU 4304, minute 293, 21 February 1962. No revocation order could be found for Feni. URU 3125, minute 2097, 31 August 1953. URU 3162, minute 3041, 8 December 1953. URU 3620, minute 265, 15 February 1957. That loophole was effectively shut by 1956. Debates of the House of Assembly 5, 29 January 1963, cols 381−2. J. Pieterse, ‘Reading and writing the Mpondo revolts’ in T. Kepe and T. Ntsebeza (eds), Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 53−4.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

337

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

37 J.A. Copelyn, The Mpondo Revolt (Honours thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1974), p. 12. 38 URU 3025, minute 2440, 2 October 1952; G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 118. 39 R. Kayser, ‘Land and liberty!: the Non-European Unity Movement and the land question, 1933−1976’ (University of Cape Town, Masters thesis, 2003), p. 97, cited in J. Pieterse, ‘Traditionalists, traitors and sellouts: The roles and motives of “amaqaba,”“abangcatshi,” and “abathengisi” in the Pondoland revolt of 1960 to 1961’ (University of Pretoria, Masters thesis, 2007) p. 69, footnote 282. 40 G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 118. 41 A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’, p. 74. 42 G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 119. 43 B. Turok, The Pondo Revolt (Johannesburg: Congress of Democrats, 1961), p. 9. 44 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 185. 45 B. Turok, The Pondo Revolt, p. 9. 46 D. Wylie, ‘The shock of the new: Ngquza Hill 1960’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza, Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 192. 47 A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’, p. 75. 48 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 185. 49 J.A. Copelyn, The Mpondo Revolt, p. 36. 50 A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’, p. 76. 51 J.A. Copelyn, The Mpondo Revolt, p. 46. 52 B. Turok, The Pondo Revolt, p. 10. 53 J.A. Copelyn, The Mpondo Revolt, pp. 69−70. 54 Ibid., p. 10. 55 B. Turok, The Pondo Revolt, p. 1. 56 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 187. 57 J.A. Copelyn, The Mpondo Revolt, p. 56; A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’, p. 79. 58 D. Wylie, ‘The shock of the new’, p. 201. 59 A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’, p. 79. 60 J.A. Copelyn, The Mpondo Revolt, p. 56 61 D. Wylie, ‘The shock of the new’, pp. 196−7, 205. 62 A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’, p. 79. 63 B. Turok, The Pondo Revolt, p. 12. 64 Ibid., p. 13. 65 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 187. 66 J.A. Copelyn, The Mpondo Revolt, p. 25. 67 Anderson Ganyile quoted in New Age 17 November 1960. 68 W. Beinart and C. Bundy, ‘State intervention and rural resistance’, p. 309. 69 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 199. 70 ‘The Earth shakes in Pondoland’. Drum January 1961, p. 24. 71 V.M. Mnaba, The Role of the Church Towards the Pondo Revolt in South Africa from 1960–1963 (Master of Theology thesis, University of South Africa, 2009), p. 73. 72 W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza, Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 92, 96. 73 S. Makana, ‘Khumani Ganyile: Pondo exile’. Fighting Talk 14(7) December 1960, p. 17. 74 W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’, p. 96; G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis (eds), From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882-1964: Volume 4, Political Profiles, 1882−1964 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1972), p. 31; T.J. Stapleton, Faku: Rulership and Colonialism in the Mpondo Kingdom (c.1780−1867) (Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2001), p. 138. 75 S. Makana, ‘Khumani Ganyile: Pondo exile’. Fighting Talk 14(7) December 1960, p. 17. 76 A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’, p. 77; ‘The return to exile’. Drum April 1962, p. 71. 77 ‘Pondoland: in the shadows’. Drum February 1962, p. 13. 78 W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’, pp. 92, 109. 79 Interview with Anderson Ganyile by W. Beinart, T. Gibbs and L. Mdingi at Amanikwe, Bizana, 3 April 2008. 80 Ganyile states that he was arrested on 11 November 1960 (Interview with Anderson Ganyile by W. Beinart, T. Gibbs and L. Mdingi). 81 URU 4104, minute 2644, 17 October 1960.

338

NOTES

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

121

122 123 124 125 126

127 128

‘The return to exile’, p. 71; Interview with Anderson Ganyile by W. Beinart, T. Gibbs and L. Mdingi. Ibid. Ibid. ‘S.A. police kidnap Pondo leaders in Basutoland’. New Age 21 September 1961. Interview with Anderson Ganyile by W. Beinart, T. Gibbs and L. Mdingi. Ibid.; ‘The return to exile’, p. 71. J. Butler, ‘South Africa and the High Commission Territories: the Ganyile case, 1961’ in G. Carter (ed.), Politics in Africa: 7 Cases (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1966), p. 253. ‘The return to exile’, p. 71; Interview with Anderson Ganyile by W. Beinart, T. Gibbs and L. Mdingi. In the Drum article Ganyile said that he left after 3 days. Interview with Anderson Ganyile by W. Beinart, T. Gibbs and L. Mdingi. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’, p. 96. Interview with Anderson Ganyile by W. Beinart, T. Gibbs and L. Mdingi. W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’, p. 96. URU 4104, minute 2644, 17 October 1960. Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 20. W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’, p. 107. URU 4104, minute 2644, 17 October 1960. ‘The lonely man of Frenchdale: Theophilus Tshangela’. Sechaba 8 (10−12) October−December 1974, p. 39. URU 4104, minute 2644, 17 October 1960. URU 4875, minute 494, 24 March 1965. ‘The lonely man of Frenchdale: Theophilus Tshangela’, p. 38. URU 6195, minute 902, 4 July 1972. URU 4104, minute 2644, 17 October 1960. W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’, p. 104. URU 6195, minute 900, 4 July 1972; Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 20. W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’, pp. 109−10, 112. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun: A Smuggled Journal from South Africa (New York: John Day, 1967), p. 168. URU 4067, minute 1627, 6 July 1960. Ibid.; Sunday Times 27 November 1960; J.A. Copelyn, The Mpondo Revolt, p. 49. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 168. URU 5399, minute 1900, 3 November 1967. ‘Reinstated Pondo chief warned of “evil people”’. The Argus 14 September 1963. URU 3025, minute 2420, 2 October 1952. URU 3086, minute 920, 27 April 1953. URU 4417, minute 1656, 22 September 1962; Survey of Race Relations 1961, p. 48. A. Sitas, ‘The moving black forest of Africa: the Mpondo rebellion, migrancy and black worker consciousness in KwaZulu-Natal’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza, Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 184. Ibid.; T. Dunbar Moodie with Hoyce Phundulu, ‘Hoyce Phundulu, the Mpondo revolt, and the rise of the National Union of Mineworkers’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza, Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011). S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 188. L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn)’, pp. 5, 7. T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1983), p. 226. W. Beinart and C. Bundy, ‘State intervention and rural resistance’, p. 307. M. Horrell, Action, Reaction, and Counteraction: A Brief Review of Non-White Opposition to the Apartheid Policy, Counter-Measures by the Government, and the Eruption of New Waves of Unrest (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1963), p. 24. G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 64. L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn)’, p. 11.

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129 L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised: Chiefs and the Politics of the Land in South Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 163. 130 Ibid., pp. 156−7. 131 Ibid., pp. 162, 163. 132 Ibid., pp. 164, 165. 133 Ibid., p. 165. 134 Ibid., pp. 166−71. 135 Ibid., pp. 167, 170. In late 1958, there was a change name from the Department of Native Affairs to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. 136 Ntwana was banished but went into exile in Basutoland in June 1960; L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, p. 172; L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn)’, p. 15. 137 L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, p. 165. 138 URU 3951, minute 2253, 12 October 1959. 139 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 196; L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, p. 171. 140 URU 3951, minute 2253, 12 October 1959. 141 L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn)’, p. 14. 142 L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, p. 184. 143 URU 4097, minute 2344, 15 September 1960; S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 192; L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, pp. 178−9. 144 URU 4097, minute 2344, 15 September 1960. 145 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, pp. 192, 196. 146 L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, p. 185. 147 Ibid., pp. 185−6. 148 L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn)’, p. 21. 149 URU 4097, minute 2345, 15 September 1960. 150 L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, p. 186. 151 L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn)’, p. 21. 152 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, pp. 197−8; L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, p. 187. 153 S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 199. 154 Ibid., p. 200; Survey of Race Relations 1961, p. 43. 155 L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn)’, p. 25. 156 Survey of Race Relations 1961, p. 43; G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 154. 157 Survey of Race Relations 1961, p. 47. 158 G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 154. 159 ‘Transkei emergency regulations’ (South African Institute of Race Relations Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 160 ‘Transkei couple, with 6 children banished’. New Age 2 February 1961, pp. 1, 8. 161 Survey of Race Relations 1961, pp. 191, 192. 162 L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn)’, pp. 33, 38. 163 L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, pp. 184, 192; L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, tshisa (burn, burn)’, p. 27. 164 URU 3794, minute 1008, 14 May 1958. 165 Survey of Race Relations 1957−1958, p. 61. 166 URU 4608, minute 2069, 25 November 1963. 167 URU 3794, minute 1008, 14 May 1958. 168 Survey of Race Relations 1959−1960, p. 47. 169 URU 4608, minute 2069, 25 November 1963. 170 URU 3794, minute 1008, 14 May 1958. 171 Survey of Race Relations 1957−1958, p. 61. 172 Survey of Race Relations 1959−1960, p. 47. 173 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Report vol. 7, p. 174; International Defence and Aid Fund, Southern Africa Information Service 4(1) January−June 1974, p. 555. 174 URU 3794, minute 1008, 14 May 1958.

340

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175 URU 4608, minute 2069, 25 November 1963; Survey of Race Relations 1957−1958, p. 63; S. Matoti and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Rural resistance in Mpondoland and Thembuland, 1960−1963’, p. 191. 176 ‘Tyaliti is dead’. Sechaba 8(10−12) October-December 1974, p. 37. 177 URU 4875, minute 494, 6 March 1963. 178 URU 6323, minute 317, 5 March 1973. 179 W.D. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus: The Development of Transkei Local Government (Cape Town: David Philip, 1975), p. 105; A. Drew, ‘Govan Mbeki’s The Peasants’ Revolt’, pp. 73−4. 180 W.D. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus, p. 107. 181 Ibid., p. 106; C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, pp. 170, 175. 182 URU 4063, minute 1462, 16 June 1960; Survey of Race Relations 1961, p. 48. 183 URU 4063, minute 1462, 16 June 1960. 184 C. Crais, The Politics of Evil, p. 175. 185 URU 4380, minute 962, 18 June 1962. 186 URU 4063, minute 1534, 7 September 1962. 187 V.M. Mnaba, The Role of the Church Towards the Pondo Revolt in South Africa from 1960–1963, pp. 99−100. 188 ‘Pondoland: in the shadows’. Drum February 1962, p. 13. 189 ‘Renewed tension in Pondoland’. New Age 12 July 1962, p. 1; ‘Pondo deportations continue’. New Age 9 August 1962, p. 3. 190 Debates of the House of Assembly 3, 4 May 1962, col 4956; Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 14. 191 ‘Pondoland chiefs on the rampage’. New Age 19 July 1962, pp. 1−2; V.M. Mnaba, The Role of the Church Towards the Pondo Revolt in South Africa from 1960–1963, p. 77. 192 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Report vol. 2, p. 165. 193 Survey of Race Relations 1966, p. 66; Survey of Race Relations 1968, p. 46; Survey of Race Relations 1971, p. 68; Survey of Race Relations 1972, p. 76. It should be noted that there are major inconsistencies in the reporting in different volumes of Survey of Race Relations. 194 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Report vol. 3, p. 69. 195 Survey of Race Relations 1984, p. 548. 196 Probe February 1985, p.18. 197 Survey of Race Relations 1984, p. 548. 198 Survey of Race Relations 1985, p. 294. 199 T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth (Observatory: Redworks, 2001), p. 156. 200 Ibid., p. 155−6. 201 Cape Times 30 November 1985. 202 T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 156. 203 Ibid. 204 Ibid., pp. 158, 160. 205 C. Walker et al. (eds), Land, Memory, Reconstruction, and Justice: Perspectives on Land Claims in South Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010), p. 258. 206 M. Blumberg, ‘Durban explodes’. Africa South 4(1) October−December 1959, pp. 11, 12. 207 B. Magubane et al., ‘The turn to armed struggle’ in The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (19601970) (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004), p. 104. 208 M. Blumberg, ‘Durban explodes’, pp. 12, 13. 209 B. Magubane et al., ‘The turn to armed struggle’, pp. 104−5. 210 M. Blumberg, ‘Durban explodes’, p. 13. 211 L. Kuper, ‘Rights and riots in Natal’. Africa South 4(2) 1960, p. 21. 212 http://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv03275/05lv03336/06lv03344/ 07lv03347.htm, accessed on 21 April 2011. 213 M. Blumberg, ‘Durban explodes’, p. 15. 214 L. Kuper, ‘Rights and riots in Natal’, p. 23. 215 Ibid., p. 25. 216 T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, p. 149. 217 C. Walker, Women and Resistance in South Africa (London: Onyx, 1982), p. 232. 218 L. Kuper, ‘Rights and riots in Natal’, p. 23.

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219 J. Yawitch, ‘Natal 1959: the women’s protests’. Development Studies Group Conference on the History of Opposition in Southern Africa (Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand, 27−30 January 1978), p. 214. 220 L. Kuper, ‘Rights and riots in Natal’, pp. 21−2. 221 Ibid., p. 24. 222 URU 3951, minute 2255, 12 October 1959; H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 144. Maci’s order stated that he was banished to Native Trust Farm Kalkspruit 812 (Pietersburg). In 1962 Joseph reported him as being at Trust Farm Chloe. 223 URU 5951, minute 201, 10 February 1971. 224 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 159; Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Report 7, p. 467. 225 URU 3951, minute 2254, 12 October 1959. 226 URU 4173, minute 633, 7 April 1963. 227 Ibid. 228 URU 4173, minute 633, 7 April 1963; H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 160. 229 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Report 2, p. 166. 230 G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 115. 231 ‘27 on murder charge: Zulus fight Govt’s betterment scheme’. New Age 2 February 1961. 232 G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 116. 233 Mzala [Jabulani Nxumalo], Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda (London: Zed, 1988), p. 5. 234 G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 116. 235 ‘27 on murder charge’. 236 G. Mbeki, The Peasants’ Revolt, p. 116. 237 URU 3977, minute 2863, 11 December 1959. 238 URU 3982, minute 178, 27 January 1960. 239 URU 5413, minute 2211, 8 December 1967. 240 URU 6258, minute 1468, 13 October 1972. 241 URU 6423, minute 1695, 1973; H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 221−2. 242 URU 4188, minute 945, 23 May 1961. 243 URU 5218, minute 2228, 29 November 1966. The surnames of the other lawyers were Sikakane and Korzen. 244 Mzala, Gatsha Buthelezi, pp. 5, 6, 70, 72. 245 Ibid., p. 72. 246 URU 3950, minute 2168, 1 October 1959. 247 Mzala, Gatsha Buthelezi, p. 74. 248 URU 3950, minute 2168, 1 October 1959. 249 URU 3998, minute 416, 18 February 1960. 250 Mzala, Gatsha Buthelezi, p. 6. 251 URU 4162, minute 474, 18 February 1960. 252 Debates of the House of Assembly 62, 30 April 1976, col. 928. 253 E. Sisulu, Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In Our Lifetime (Cape Town: David Philip, 2002), p. 140. 254 The reference to their banishment (minute 1906, 18 August 1953) is provided by their withdrawal order (URU 4409, minute 1536, 7 September 1962). 255 URU 3276, minute 61, 18 August 1954. 256 ‘Chief fights for his lost tribe’. Voice 8 April 1979; ‘Banishments, 1956-1976’ (South African Institute of Race Relations Papers, AD 1912–23). 257 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 124, 143, 144, 145. 258 ‘Chief fights for his lost tribe’. 259 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 145. 260 URU 3276, minute 2114, 18 August 1954. 261 URU 3647, minute 727, 11 April 1957. 262 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 148. 263 Ibid., p. 149. 264 Survey of Race Relations 1956−1957, p. 74; H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 150. 265 H. Joseph, ‘The living dead’. Africa South 5(4) July–September 1961, p. 17.

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5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

Urban political opposition and banishment Proceedings of the National Assembly, 21 August 2002 at http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache: McS3XT7po5gJ:beta.parliament.gov.za, accessed 28 April 2011. URU 3895, minute 620, 7 April 1959 (Executive Council decisions, National Archives). J. Simons and R. Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850−1950 (London: International Defence and Aid Fund, 1973), p. 602. D. Innes, ‘Monopoly capitalism in South Africa’. South African Review 1(1983), p. 194. R.F. Matajo, ‘Obstacles on the road to trade union unity’ (Unpublished, no date). R.A. Deremark and H.P. Lehman, ‘The political economy of repression and reform in South Africa’. Africa Today 3rd quarter 1982, p. 21. See the case study on Mafekeng later in this chapter. URU 3255, minute 1619, 6 July 1954; URU 3255, minute 1618, 6 July 1954 respectively. http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/gwentshe-as.htm, accessed 21 April 2011. A. Mager and G. Minkley, ‘Reaping the whirlwind: the East London riots of 1952’ in University of Witwatersrand History Workshop: Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid (1990), p. 4. URU 3255, minute 1619, 6 July 1954. G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis (eds), From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882−1964: Volume 4 Political Profiles (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977), p. 36. A. Mager and G. Minkley, ‘Reaping the whirlwind’, p. 4. Ibid., pp. 1, 2. URU 3255, minute 1619, 6 July 1954. URU 3368, minute 866, 12 April 1955. ‘Gwentshe arrested’. New Age 1 March 1956, p. 1. ‘Gwentshe acquitted’. New Age 22 March 1956, p. 1. URU 3659, minute 995, 15 May 1957. C. Themba, ‘Banned to the bush’. Drum August 1956. URU 4726, minute 1433, 5 August 1964. G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis (eds), From Protest to Challenge, Volume 4, p. 36. Ibid., p. 57; A. Mager and G. Minkley, ‘Reaping the whirlwind’, p. 8. Lengisi v. Minister of Native Affairs. South African Law Reports (Cape Provincial Division) 1956. URU 3255, minute 1618, 6 July 1954. Ibid. URU 3461, minute 2746, 18 November 1955; ‘Lengisi deported again’. New Age 19 January 1956, p. 4. URU 3461, minute 2746, 18 November 1955. G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis (eds), From Protest to Challenge, Volume 4, p. 57. URU 4063, minute 1460, 17 June 1960. URU 3368, minute 865, 25 April 1955. URU 3579, minute 2367, 1 November 1956. URU 5413, minute 2199, 7 December 1967. E. Mphahlele, ‘The Evaton Riots’. Africa South 1(1) 1957. Ibid., pp. 56, 57, 58, 61. ‘Evaton leaders deported’. New Age 8 November 1956, p. 4. URU 3579, minute 2366, 1 November 1956. Ibid.; G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis (eds), From Protest to Challenge, Volume 4, p. 68. P. Naidoo, 156 Hands That Built South Africa (Durban: the Author, 2005), p. 91. G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis (eds), From Protest to Challenge, Volume 4, p. 68; http://www.sahistory.org.za/ pages/people/bios/make-v.htm, accessed 21 April 2011. http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/make-v.htm, accessed 21 April 2011. G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis (eds), From Protest to Challenge, Volume 4, p. 68. URU 3579, minute 2366, 1 November 1956. P. Naidoo, 156 Hands That Built South Africa, p. 419. G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis (eds), From Protest to Challenge, Volume 4, p. 68; P. Naidoo, 156 Hands That Built South Africa, p. 420. http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/molefi,j.htm, accessed 21 April 2011. URU 3579, minute 2366, 1 November 1956.

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48 P. Naidoo, 156 Hands That Built South Africa, p. 78. 49 http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/kumalo,j.htm, accessed 21 April 2011; ‘Persecution of Kumalo’. New Age 18 June 1959, p. 5. 50 Ibid. 51 Debates of the House of Assembly 23, 9 April 1968, col. 3641. 52 URU 3579, minute 2366, 1 November 1956. 53 BAO 10/345 108/5, pp. 240−2 (National Archives). 54 URU 3579, minute 2366, 1 November 1956. 55 URU 3881, minute 212, 30 January 1959. 56 Ibid. 57 URU 3759, minute 2366, 1 November 1956. 58 URU 4285, minute 2398, 14 December 1961. 59 URU 3314, minute 2944, 11 November 1954. 60 Ibid. 61 Correspondence from the private secretary to Morena Kuena to the director of the SAIRR, Quintin Whyte, 10 July 1961 (SAIRR papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 62 URU 4121, minute 2842, 14 November 1960. 63 URU 4433, minute 1861, 23 October 1962. 64 J. Smith and B. Tromp, Hani: A Life Too Short (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2009), pp. 4, 5, 30, 33, 41. 65 Ibid., p. 41. 66 URU 4433, minute 1861, 23 October 1962. 67 Ibid. 68 ‘Hani and Mpemba flee to Basutoland’. New Age 22 November 1962, p. 8; Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 20. 69 J. Smith and B. Tromp, Hani, pp. 4, 129, 130. 70 B. Pogrund, How Can Man Die Better: The Life of Robert Sobukwe (Cape Town: Jonathan Ball, 2006), pp. 5, 8−9, 14, 17−29, 33. 71 Ibid., pp. 44, 46, 49, 50, 55, 61, 87, 95, 121−2, 149. 72 Ibid., pp. 134, 136. 73 URU 4021, minute 758, 25 March 1960. 74 Ibid. 75 Survey of Race Relations 1964, pp. 56, 57. 76 B. Pogrund, How Can Man Die Better, pp. 184−5, 305. 77 Ibid., pp. 307, 312, 340, 335, 343, 350−1, 368. 78 URU 4021, minute 758, 25 March 1960. 79 Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 20. 80 URU 4335, minute 659, 27 April 1962. 81 Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 20. 82 URU 4409, minute 1535, 7 September 1962. 83 There are different spellings of the surname. Mafekeng is used in this book. 84 Cape Times 5 June 1959. 85 Argus 5 June 1959. 86 M. Ling (ed.), Autobiography of Ben Baartman (1988): http://www.anc.org.za/books/bbaartman.html, accessed 22 April 2011. The rest of the case study draws extensively on this autobiography and all quotes, unless otherwise indicated, are from this source. 87 Argus 14 January 1960. 88 Manchester Guardian Weekly 31 August 1961. 89 Drum March 1960. 90 ‘Hero’s welcome for Ben Baartman’. New Age 4 February 1960, p. 5. 91 Argus 18 January 1960. 92 Manchester Guardian Weekly 31 August 1961. 93 Argus 20 January 1960. 94 Drum March 1960. 95 ‘Hero’s welcome for Ben Baartman’. New Age 4 February 1960, p. 5. 96 E. Masilela, Number 43 Trelawney Park Kwa Magogo: Untold Stories of Ordinary People Caught Up in the Struggle against Apartheid (Cape Town: David Philip, 2007), p. 190. The Nkomati Accord committed Mozam-

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97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14

bique to end support for MK and South Africa to end support for the Renamo terrorist group. See G.M. Gerhart and C.L. Glaser, From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882−1990. Volume 6: Challenge and Victory, 1980−1990 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), p. 132. E. Masilela, Number 43 Trelawney Park Kwa Magogo, pp. 188−9. http://www.fawu.org.za/index.php?include=veterans/mafikeng.html, accessed 6 March 2010. Ibid. M. Blumberg, ‘The Mafekeng affair’. Africa South 4(3) April−June 1960, p. 40. http://www.fawu.org.za/index.php?include=veterans/mafikeng.html, accessed 6 March 2010. M. Blumberg, ‘The Mafekeng affair’, p. 39. Argus 29 October 1959. M. Blumberg, ‘The Mafekeng affair’, p. 41. Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., p. 43. Argus 12 November 1959. M. Blumberg, ‘The Mafekeng affair’, pp. 44−5. Cape Times 23 January 1960. M. Blumberg, ‘The Mafekeng affair’, p. 45; New Age 8 December 1955. H. Bernstein, For Their Triumph and for Their Tears: Women in Apartheid South Africa (London: International Defence and Aid Fund, 1975), p. 61. M. Blumberg, ‘The Mafekeng affair’, p. 41. K. Luckhardt and B. Wall, Organise or Starve: The History of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1980), p. 321. ‘Paarl council gives lie to de Wet Nel’. New Age 28 January 1960, pp. 1−2. K. Luckhardt and B. Wall, Organise or Starve, p. 321. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun: A Smuggled Journal from South Africa (New York: John Day, 1967), p. 195. ‘Mafekeng fund formed’. New Age 10 December 1959, p. 3. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 196. Ibid. http://www.fawu.org.za/index.php?include=veterans/mafikeng.html, accessed 6 March 2010. Food & Allied Workers Union, News release 1 June 2009. Rand Daily Mail 18 October 1974; 30 October 1974. Ibid. Banishments under the Suppression of Communism Act M. Ramphele, Mamphela Ramphele: A Life (Cape Town: David Philip, 1995), p. 120. Sections 19(4) and 10(3) of the SCA. M. Ramphele, Mamphela Ramphele, p. 120. Section 10(1)(b) of the SCA read ‘disclosed without detriment to public policy’. E.H. Brookes and J.B. Macaulay, Civil Liberty in South Africa (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 62. K. Luckhardt and B. Wall, Organise or Starve: The History of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1980), p. 322. Rand Daily Mail 22 March 1974. ‘Into exile – men from Robben Island “banished”’. Sunday Tribune 25 January 1976. F. Buntman, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 75. ‘Into exile – men from Robben Island “banished”’. ‘How the banished spend festive season’. The Star 24 December 1975. J. Pilger, ‘A revolution betrayed’ Electronic Mail & Guardian 24 April 1998 at http://www.hartford-hwp.com/ archives/37a/042.html, accessed 17 December 2011. C. Desmond, The Discarded People: An Account of African Resettlement in South Africa (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971); Last Grave at Dimbaza (Icarus Films, 2006) at http://icarusfilms.com/new2006/dimb.html, accessed 17 December 2011. J. Pilger, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/37a/042.html, accessed 17 December 2011. Amnesty International, Programme of Action for Banned People in South Africa: Appeals to be Made During May 1980 (AFR 53/13/79), p. 2.

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15 Rand Daily Mail 17 May 1977; Amnesty International, Programme of Action for Banned People in South Africa: Appeals to be Made During May 1980, p. 2. 16 Sunday Express 29 May 1977. 17 Rand Daily Mail 24 May 1977. 18 Amnesty International, Programme of Action for Banned People in South Africa: Appeals to be Made During May 1980, p. 1. 19 Amnesty International, Programme of Action for Banned People in South Africa: Appeals to be Made During April 1980 (AFR 53/13/79), p. 2. 20 Amnesty International, Programme of Action for Banned People in South Africa: Appeals to be Made During March 1980 (AFR 53/13/79), p. 1. 21 Amnesty International, Programme of Action for Banned People in South Africa: Appeals to be Made During May 1980 (AFR 53/13/79), p. 1. 22 F. Buntman, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid, p. 154. 23 Amnesty International, Programme of Action for Banned People in South Africa: Appeals to be Made During September 1980 (AFR 53/13/79), p. 1. 24 Amnesty International, Programme of Action for Banned People in South Africa: Appeals to be Made During April 1980 (AFR 53/13/79), p. 1. 25 Amnesty International, Programme of Action for Banned People in South Africa, 1985 (AFR 53/12/85), pp. 1, 3. 26 Ibid., p. 4. 27 Ibid. 28 F. Buntman, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid, p. 75. 29 Debates of the House of Assembly 92, 11 June 1956, col. 7392. 30 F. Buntman, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid, p. 152. Thanks to Jeff Peires for alerting me to this text and Molobi’s view. 31 Ibid., footnote 23. 32 P. Naidoo, 156 Hands That Built South Africa (Durban: the Author, 2005), p. 36. 33 Learn and Teach 1 (1983), pp. 10−13. 34 P. Naidoo, 156 Hands That Built South Africa, p. 36. 35 http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/baard-f.htm, accessed 23 April 2011. 36 F. Baard and B. Schreiner, My Spirit Is Not Banned at http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/ onlinebooks/baard/part3-banishment.htm, accessed 23 April 2011. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 M. Ramphele, Mamphela Ramphele, pp. 1, 43, 46; M. Ramphele, Across Boundaries: The Journey of a South African Woman Leader: A Memoir (New York: Feminist Press, 1999), pp. 1, 6, 35, 50. 42 Ibid., pp. 28, 29−30. 43 Ibid., pp. 79, 85, 95, 103. 44 Ibid., p. 111. 45 M. Ramphele, Mamphela Ramphele, p. 120. 46 L. Wilson, ‘Out of despair: Ithuseng’. Video interview, 1984. 47 M. Ramphele, Mamphela Ramphele, p. 123. 48 M. Ramphele, Across Boundaries, pp. 120−1. 49 M. Ramphele, Mamphela Ramphele, p. 121. 50 Ibid., pp. 123, 126. 51 Ibid., p. 134. 52 L. Wilson, ‘Out of despair’. 53 M. Ramphele, Mamphela Ramphele, pp. 134, 146. She made a secret visit by car to Biko’s grave in King William’s Town in 1979 with an Australian diplomat. 54 Ibid., p. 123; American Association for the Advancement of Science, Clearinghouse on Science and Human Rights Report, October 1984; L. Wilson, ‘Out of despair’. 55 American Association for the Advancement of Science, Clearinghouse on Science and Human Rights Report. 56 L. Wilson, ‘Out of despair’. 57 M. Ramphele, Across Boundaries, pp. 138, 141.

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58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 7 1 2

3 4

L. Wilson, ‘Out of despair’. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Clearinghouse on Science and Human Rights Report. L. Wilson, ‘Out of despair’. M. Ramphele, Mamphela Ramphele, p. 147. Ibid., p. 137. Ibid., pp. 122, 142, 150, 151−2. There are numerous books and articles on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, including W. Mandela with A. Benjamin and M. Benson (eds), Winnie Mandela: Part of My Soul Went with Him (New York: W.W. Norton, 1985); N. Harrison, Winnie Mandela: Mother of a Nation (London: Gollancz, 1985); E. Gilbey, The Lady: The Life and Times of Winnie Mandela (London: Vintage, 1994); A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela: A Life (Cape Town: Zebra, 2003). E. Gilbey, The Lady, p. 4, 53, 56. W. Mandela with A. Benjamin and M. Benson (eds), Winnie Mandela, p. 24. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, p. 183. http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/people.php?id=129, accessed 23 April 2011. W. Mandela with A. Benjamin and M. Benson (eds), Winnie Mandela, pp. 9, 15. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, p. 185. W. Mandela with A. Benjamin and M. Benson (eds), Winnie Mandela, p. 23. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, p. 184. E. Gilbey, The Lady, p. 114. W. Mandela with A. Benjamin and M. Benson (eds), Winnie Mandela, p. 25. E. Gilbey, The Lady, p. 116. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, pp. 114, 121−3, 192. W. Mandela with A. Benjamin and M. Benson (eds), Winnie Mandela, p. 44. Ibid., pp. 45, 116, 136. Ibid., p. 45. Ibid., p. 193. Ibid., pp. 185, 187, 188. Ibid., p. 187. E. Gilbey, The Lady, p. 127. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, pp. 185, 187; W. Mandela with A. Benjamin and M. Benson (eds), Winnie Mandela, p. 27. F. Meer, ‘Winnie Mandela in Brandfort’. Index on Censorship 13(1) 1984, p. 47. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, p. 188. W. Mandela with A. Benjamin and M. Benson (eds), Winnie Mandela, p. 33. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, p. 188. T. Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 129, 149. E. Gilbey, The Lady, p. 129. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, p. 201. T. Lodge, Mandela, p. 149. W. Mandela with A. Benjamin and M. Benson (eds), Winnie Mandela, pp. 41−2. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, p. 204; T. Lodge, Mandela, p. 149. A.M. Du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela, pp. 194, 201. Life in banishment E. Christopher, C. Pybus and M. Rediker (eds), Many Middle Passages: Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), p. 1. For the narrative of a particular, Black, convict, John Martin, who was sentenced in London to seven years’ penal transportation and shipped from Portsmouth to New South Wales and the conditions related to this journey, see C. Pybus, ‘Bound for Botany Bay: John Martin’s voyage to Australia’ in E. Christopher, C. Pybus and M. Rediker (eds), Many Middle Passages. See chapter 1. N. Penn, ‘The voyage out: Peter Kolb and the VOC voyages to the Cape’ in E. Christopher, C. Pybus and M. Rediker (eds), Many Middle Passages, p. 73. E.A. Alpers, ‘The other Middle Passage: the African slave trade in the Indian Ocean’ in E. Christopher, C. Pybus and M. Rediker (eds), Many Middle Passages, p. 20.

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5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

S.L. Lesher, ‘Legal History’ at http://www.slesher.com/banishment.html, accessed 10 June 2010. E.A. Alpers, ‘The other Middle Passage’, p. 20. E. Christopher, C. Pybus and M. Rediker (eds), Many Middle Passages, p. 3. O. Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 38−46. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun: A Smuggled Journal from South Africa (New York: John Day, 1967), pp. 121, 124. O. Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, pp. 38−46. T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth (Observatory: RedWorks, 2001), p. 152. I. Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879 –1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 43. I. Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 1921−1929 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 396. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 148, 149. Ibid., pp. 145, 197. E.S. Sachs, The Anatomy of Apartheid (London: Collet’s, 1965), p. 297. H. Joseph, ‘Stephen Nkadimeng’. Unpublished, undated mimeo, pp. 1, 3. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 165. Drum April 1962, p. 71. Ibid. T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 152. Ibid., pp. 152−3. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 128−9. H. Joseph, Side by Side (London: Zed Books, 1986), p. 109. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 139. H. Joseph, Side by Side, p. 109. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 139. ‘Hani and Mpemba flee to Basutoland’. New Age 22 November 1962, p. 8. Debates of the House of Assembly 104, 15 March 1960, cols 3380−1; 3, 10 May 1962, col. 5386. Debates of the House of Assembly 106, 31 January 1961, col. 428. See also H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 120−1; M. Horrell, ‘The forgotten people’. Sash March−April 1963, p. 73. ‘Liberal Party survey reveals all the facts: 93 exiled without trial’. Contact 3(3) 6 February 1960, p. 4. URU 1503, minute 985, 8 May 1935 (Executive Council decisions, National Archives). URU 2671, minute 2827, 9 September 1949. URU 3531, minute 1200, 6 June 1956. Sechaba 8 (10−12) October−December 1974, pp. 38, 39. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 132. G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom (Houghton: Random House, 2007), p. 130; D.M.C. Sepuru, Succession Disputes, MaCongress and Rural Resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919−1980 (BA Hons dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 1992), p. 119; H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 140−1. C. Desmond, ‘Vorster’s forgotten people’. Guardian Weekly 19 June 1971. H. Joseph, Side by Side, p. 114. C. Desmond, ‘Vorster’s forgotten people’. H. Joseph, ‘The living dead’. Africa South 5(4) July−September 1961, pp. 17, 21. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 217−18. Rand Daily Mail 27 July 1956; Survey of Race Relations 1955−1956, p. 68. Newspaper article by John Cope MP (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956–1976). Rand Daily Mail 6 June 1964. C. Themba, ‘Banned to the bush’. Drum August 1956, p. 22. Drum December 1959, p. 25. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 218. E. Cole with T. Flaherty, The House of Bondage (New York: Ridge Press, 1967), p. 178. Ibid., pp. 176−91. Ibid., p. 177. Human Rights Welfare Committee, The Forgotten Men (Johannesburg: HRWC, 1960), p. 8. H. Joseph, ‘The living dead’, p. 24. ‘Information concerning deportees, February 1961’ (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976).

348

NOTES

55 56 57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

E. Cole with T. Flaherty, The House of Bondage, pp. 177, 178. Ibid., p. 179. Ibid. Ibid. Two Black Sash members describe Driefontein as 54 miles from Vryburg in ‘Report on investigation into conditions in which political exiles are living in Vryburg–Kuruman area: trips undertaken by Mrs Green and Mrs Fisher, 17−19 November 1959’ (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956-1976). Secretary of Native Affairs (NTS), 3119, 1637/305: Driefontein, Vryburg District file 55/2/36/4 (National Archives). ‘The banished’. Sunday Times 23 April 1961. ‘His child died, but police never told him’. New Age 15 March 1962. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 119. Ibid., p. 121. Ibid., p. 118; M. Horrell, Action, Reaction, and Counteraction: A Brief Review of Non-White Opposition to the Apartheid Policy, Counter-Measures by the Government, and the Eruption of New Waves of Unrest (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1963), p. 66. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 119. Drum December 1959, p. 23. H. Joseph, Side by Side, pp. 106, 120. Rand Daily Mail 27 July 1956; Survey of Race Relations 1955−1956, p. 68. M. Horrell, Action, Reaction, and Counteraction, p. 66. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 121. Rand Daily Mail 27 July 1956; Survey of Race Relations 1955−1956, p. 68. Manchester Guardian Weekly 31 August 1961; Survey of Race Relations 1957−1958, p. 61. New Age 11 September 1958. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 145, 148, 197. Ibid., p. 207. H. Joseph, ‘The living dead’, p. 25. H. Joseph, ‘The unending sentence: Africans in exile in South Africa’. Amnesty 3(1962), p.16. Ibid. Debates of the House of Assembly 106, 31 January 1960, col. 429. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 219. Ibid. E.S. Sachs, The Anatomy of Apartheid, p. 297. M. Horrell, Action, Reaction, and Counteraction, p. 72. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 124, 143, 144. Drum December 1959, p. 23. Rand Daily Mail 27 July 1956. H. Joseph, ‘The living dead’, p. 25. URU 3770, minute 477, 14 May 1958. Departments of Co-operation and Development, 1973−1985 (SON), Douglas Ramokgopa file N.1/16/5-3, opened 22 March 1958 and closed 31 October 1963 (National Archives). Ibid. Ibid. URU 5700, minute 1164, 30 July 1969. Debates of the House of Assembly 104, 15 March 1960, cols 3380−1. Debates of the House of Assembly 106, 31 January 1961, col. 428. Debates of the House of Assembly 3, 10 May 1962, col. 5386. Debates of the House of Assembly 3, 10 May 1962, col. 5387. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 218. H. Joseph, ‘The living dead’, pp. 24−5. ‘The forgotten men’. Fighting Talk 16(6) July 1962, p. 4; H. Joseph, ‘The unending sentence’, p. 16. Correspondence from the Secretary for Bantu Administration and Development to the National Adviser on African Affairs to the National Council of Women, 11 January 1960 (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976).

349

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 8 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

H. Joseph, Side by Side, p. 106. Rand Daily Mail 27 July 1956. Cape Times 13 October 1966. Survey of Race Relations 1961, p. 94. Drum December 1959, pp. 22, 25. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 170; H. Joseph, Side by Side, p. 110. H. Joseph, Side by Side, p. 106. ‘Rural women cannot afford to risk losing their plots of land, nor can urban women risk jeopardizing their urban rights’ (Survey of Race Relations 1967, p. 44). H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 125, 166. Drum December 1959, pp. 24−5. Drum December 1959, p. 24. E.S. Sachs, The Anatomy of Apartheid, p. 300. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 166. M. Horrell, Action, Reaction, and Counteraction, pp. 66, 67. H. Joseph, Side by Side, p. 107. A. Dorfman, Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey (London: Penguin, 1998), pp. 19, 142. Drum December 1959, p. 25. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 196. A. Dorfman, Heading South, Looking North, p. 19. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 191. Ibid., pp. 161, 172, 180. Responses to banishment See South African Law Reports: Rex v. Mpafuri (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1928; Bekwa v. Rex (Natal Provincial Division) 1931; Rex v. Mabi and Others (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1935; Rex Respondent v. Molepo Appellant (Appellate Division) 1945); Rex Respondent v. Mpanza Appellant (Appellate Division) 1946; Kuena v. Minister of Native Affairs (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1955; Lengisi v. Minister of Native Affairs and Another (Cape Provincial Division) 1956; Saliwa v. Minister of Native Affairs (Appellate Division) 1956; Mabe v. Minister for Native Affairs (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1957; Mabe v. Minister for Native Affairs (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1958; Joyi v. Minister of Bantu Administration and Development (Cape Provincial Division) 1961. Rand Daily Mail 7 September 1972. Rex v. Mabi and Others. South African Law Reports (Transvaal Provincial Division) 1935, pp. 408−12. M. Lacey, Working for Boroko: The Origins of a Coercive Labour System in South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1981), p. 101. Rex v. Mabi and Others, p. 408. D. Welsh, ‘The state president’s powers under the Bantu Administration Act’. Acta Juridica 81 (1968), p. 94. Rex v. Mabi and Others, p. 412. Lengisi v. Minister of Native Affairs and Another. South African Law Reports (Cape Provincial Division) 1956, p. 786. Lengisi v. Minister of Native Affairs and Another, p. 788. Ibid., pp. 786, 789. Joyi v. Minister of Bantu Administration. South African Law Reports (Cape Provincial Division) 1961, p. 211. Ibid., pp. 211−12. Ibid. Ibid., p. 212. Ibid., p. 217. Rex Respondent v. Mpanza Appellant. South African Law Reports (Appellate Division) 1946, pp. 788−9. Saliwa v. Minister of Native Affairs, South African Law Reports (Appellate Division) 1956, p. 313. Ibid. Ibid., p. 318. Mabe v. Minister of Native Affairs. South African Law Reports (Transvaal) 1957, p. 295. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle: Reconstruction and Resistance in the Northern Transvaal (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1996), p. 132. ‘Gwentshe arrested’. New Age 1 March 1956, p. 1. Debates of the House of Assembly 9, 15 June 1927, col. 5142.

350

NOTES

24 Debates of the House of Assembly 1, 14 June 1961, col. 8021; Survey of Race Relations 1961, p. 95. 25 Correspondence from Muriel Horrell to J.P. Cope, 28 March 1960 (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 26 Correspondence from Quintin Whyte to Walter Stanford, 20 April 1960 (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 27 Correspondence from Lawrence Reyburn to J.P. Cope, 15 February 1961 (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 28 Debates of the House of Assembly 3, 10 May 1962, cols 5346, 5347, 5348, 5374, 5375, 5388. 29 Ibid., col. 5375. 30 ‘Mrs Suzman replies as more Nats. attack’. Cape Times 30 May 1963. 31 Correspondence from Quintin Whyte to the secretary for native affairs, 4 October 1957 (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 32 W.B. Ngakane, ‘Deportation of Africans’ R.R. 105/57, June 1957 (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 33 Correspondence from Quintin Whyte to the secretary for native affairs, 4 October 1957 (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 34 Correspondence from the secretary for native affairs to Quintin Whyte, 2 December 1957 (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 35 A. Hepple, ‘Banishment as a weapon of administration’. The Forum 5(7) October 1956, p. 10. 36 House of Assembly Index to the Manuscript Annexures and Printed Papers of the House of Assembly Including Select Committee Reports and Bills and also to Principal Motions and Resolutions and Commission Reports: 1910−1961; House of Assembly Index to the Manuscript Annexures and Printed Papers of the House of Assembly Including Select Committee Reports and Bills and also to Principal Motions and Resolutions and Commission Reports, Part II: 1962−1971; House of Assembly Index to the Manuscript Annexures and Printed Papers of the House of Assembly Including Select Committee Reports and Bills and also to Principal Motions and Resolutions and Commission Reports, Part III: 1972−1980. 37 A. Hepple, ‘Banishment as a weapon of administration’, p. 10. 38 Survey of Race Relations 1961, p. 95. 39 Correspondence from D.L. Smit to Quintin Whyte, 29 July 1957 (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). Smit was secretary for native affairs until 1945. 40 ‘Banishments, 26 October 1961’, pp. 1, 2, 3 (SAIRR papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). 41 Debates of the House of Assembly 2, 26 January 1962, col. 221; Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 20. 42 Debates of the House of Assembly 3, 10 May 1962, col. 5388; Survey of Race Relations 1962, p.20. 43 Survey of Race Relations 1966, p. 36. 44 Survey of Race Relations, 1959−1960, p. 37. 45 South African Outlook 90(1066) 1 February 1960. 46 URU 2964, minute 725, 1952 (Executive Council decisions, National Archives). 47 Correspondence between the magistrate, Matatiele and the chief magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, 18 May 1954 (N.2/11/3/1-1); Correspondence between the native commissioner, Matatiele and the chief magistrate, Umtata, 8 December 1955 (N.1/16/5) both 1MAT 6/1/203 N1/16/5/2: Alois Mate, 1952−1963 (Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository). 48 Correspondence between the magistrate, Matatiele and the chief magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, 18 May 1954 (N.2/11/3/1-1) 1MAT 6/1/203 N1/16/5/2: Alois Mate, 1952−1963 (Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository). 49 Correspondence between the native commissioner, Matatiele and the chief magistrate, Umtata, 8 December 1955 (N.1/16/5) 1MAT 6/1/203 N1/16/5/2: Alois Mate, 1952−1963 (Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository). 50 Correspondence between the native commissioner, Nkandhla and the chief native commissioner, Natal, 3 April 1952 (N.1/16/5/6); Correspondence between the magistrate, Bizana and the acting magistrate, Matatiele, 17 May 1952 (N.1/16/5) 1MAT 6/1/203 N1/16/5/2: Alois Mate, 1952−1963 (Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository). 51 URU 3881, minute 212, 1959. 52 URU 4162, minute 474, 1959. 53 ‘3,000 tribesmen petition B.A.D. Minister: “We want our Chietainess returned from exile”’. Spark 14 February 1963. 54 ‘Banishing order protests’ no date.

351

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

55 ‘Trade union protest’. The Argus no date. 56 Argus 31 October, 6 November, 19 November 1959; Cape Times 30 October, 31 October, 6 November 1959; Graphic 6 November 1959. 57 Argus 21 November 1959. 58 ‘The banished, the banned, and the endorsed out’. (Jean Sinclair Correspondence AD 1457/A4.1.2: Undated speeches etc (1−16), Correspondence held at University of the Witwatersrand Library). 59 Cape Times 2 November 1959. 60 Cape Times 9 November 1959. 61 Cape Times 16 November 1959. 62 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun: A Smuggled Journal from South Africa (New York, John Day, 1967), pp. 199, 201, 215, 227, 234. 63 Rand Daily Mail 24 May 1977. 64 Argus 2 November 1959. 65 Rand Daily Mail 21 April 1966; Survey of Race Relations 1966, p. 36. 66 See the case study on Mafekeng in chapter 5. 67 Sunday Times 18 November 1962; Argus 14 November 1959. 68 Ganyile v. Minister of Justice and Others. South African Law Reports (Cape Provincial Division) 1962, pp. 647−54. 69 J. Butler, ‘South Africa and the High Commission Territories: the Ganyile case, 1961’ in G. Carter (ed.), Politics in Africa: 7 Cases (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1966), p. 253. 70 Ganyile v. Minister of Justice and Others, p. 648. 71 J. Butler, ‘South Africa and the High Commission Territories’, pp. 246, 254, 255. 72 W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza (eds), Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 96. 73 Survey of Race Relations 1962, pp. 17−18; Ganyile v. Minister of Justice and Others, p. 649. 74 Ibid., p. 648. 75 Ibid., pp. 648, 650. 76 Ibid., p. 649. 77 Survey of Race Relations 1962, pp. 17−18. 78 J. Butler, ‘South Africa and the High Commission Territories’, pp. 260−7. 70 Ganyile v. Minister of Justice and Others, pp. 647, 654. 80 Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 18. 81 Ganyile v. Minister of Justice and Others, p. 654. 82 J. Butler, ‘South Africa and the High Commission Territories’, pp. 256, 271−2. 83 Survey of Race Relations 1962, p. 18. 84 ‘Ganyile to be freed to-morrow: Louw’s apology to Maud’. Cape Times 18 January 1962. 85 J. Butler, ‘South Africa and the High Commission Territories’, pp. 275−6. 86 ‘Ganyile affair angers Nat. newspaper’. Cape Times 19 January 1962. 87 C. Themba, ‘Banned to the bush: at Frenchdale, Mafeking, the government has a concentration camp for its political offenders’. Drum August 1956; ‘Banished’. Drum December 1959. 88 J. Zug, The Guardian: The History of South Africa’s Extraordinary Anti-Apartheid Newspaper (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2007), p. 202 (referring to New Age 2 August 1956, 15 October 1959, 2 February 1961 and 9 February 1961). 89 J. Zug, The Guardian, p. 203; New Age 12 July 1962. 90 H. Joseph, ‘The living dead’. Africa South 5(4) July−September 1961. 91 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 224. 92 J. Zug, The Guardian, p. 206; J. Butler, ‘South Africa and the High Commission Territories’, p. 251. 93 J. Zug, The Guardian, p. 206; New Age 17 November 1960. 94 A. Hepple, ‘Banishment as a weapon of administration’, p. 9. 95 Pertinax, ‘The banishment bill debate’. The Forum 5(7) October 1956, p. 12. 96 L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised: Chiefs and the Politics of the Land in South Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 192, 212. 97 Correspondence between the magistrate, Matatiele and the chief magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, 18 May 1954 (N.2/11/3/1-1) 1MAT 6/1/203 N1/16/5/2: Alois Mate, 1952−1963 (Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository).

352

NOTES

98 HRWC, ‘Constitution of the Human Rights Welfare Committee’ (Helen Joseph Papers A1985, B1 Constitution held at University of the Witwatersrand Library). 99 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 117, 118. 100 C. Themba, ‘Banned to the bush’, pp. 22−5. 101 HRWC, ‘Extract from the minutes of the first meeting of the Human Rights Welfare Committee held on 24th August 1959’ (Helen Joseph Papers A1985, B2 Minutes of meetings). 102 ‘Banishment of Africans’ (SAIRR Papers, AD 1912−23: Banishments, 1956−1976). Unless otherwise specified all references to the HRWC are to the one based in Johannesburg. In a letter to Phyllis Naidoo dated 7 February 1961, secretary of the Durban HRWC, Joseph mentions that a Reverend Bush was initiating a HRWC in Kimberley (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:47/24 held at University of the Witwatersrand Library). 103 HRWC, ‘Notes from the Human Rights Welfare Committee concerning the need to form a welfare committee’ (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:47/25). 104 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 118. 105 Debates of the House of Assembly 100, 10 April 1959, cols 3366−9. 106 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 119. 107 HRWC, Correspondence with Mashilo Tseke Nchabeleng, 17 March 1967 (Helen Joseph Papers A1985/B 6.1.4: Correspondence with Banished and Families – Northern Transvaal). 108 HRWC, Correspondence between E.F. Braatvedt and Douglas Ramokgopa, 16 August 1968 (Helen Joseph Papers A1985/B 6.1.4: Correspondence with Banished and Families – Northern Transvaal). 109 HRWC, Correspondence with Stephen Nkadimeng (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985/B 6.1.4: Correspondence with Banished and Families – Northern Transvaal). 110 His banishment order, which was prepared in 1959 before he was jailed, indicated Tabaans Location as his place of banishment. He was actually banished to Hlabisa, Zululand, on his release from prison. Letter from Helen Joseph to Phyllis Naidoo, 15 July 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A 1454/2 GH1:47/18). 111 HRWC, Correspondence from Douglas Ramokgopa and William Sekhukhune (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985/B 6.1.4: Correspondence with Banished and Families – Northern Transvaal). 112 HRWC, Correspondence from Mxosha Mdhluli (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985/B 6.1.4: Correspondence with Banished and Families – Northern Transvaal). 113 HRWC, Letter from Helen Joseph to banished people, March 1961(Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A 1454/2 GH1:47/9). Emphasis in original, pp. 1, 2. 114 HRWC, ‘The forgotten men’, 1960; ‘Pamphlet on “exiles” banished by Nat. Government’. Cape Times 11 February 1961; ‘The banished men.’ Sunday Times 12 November 1961. 115 HRWC, Extract of letter from one of the banished to the Human Rights Welfare Committee, 25 April 1961 (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 116 HRWC, Minutes 10 May 1961 (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 117 HRWC, Minutes 12 March 1964 (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 118 Correspondence from Helen Joseph to Helen Suzman, 14 January 1966 (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985/B 6.3: Correspondence with Helen Suzman). 119 Letter from Helen Joseph to Miss Fleming, 16 May 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:47/13). 120 Interviews by email with Michael Gardiner, Johannesburg, 10 and 13 January 2012. 121 Minutes of the HRWC meeting, Durban, 7 January 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A 1454/2 GH1:30/1). 122 Interview by email with Phyllis Naidoo, Durban, 12 January 2012. 123 Correspondence during February 1961 between the secretary of the HRWC (Durban) and various organisations (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:44/1−A1454/2 GH1:44/9). 124 Letter from the regional secretary, Red Cross Society, Natal region to the secretary, Human Rights Welfare Committee, Durban 17 February 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:44/8). 125 Communication from the general-secretary, Natal Indian Congress to all branch secretaries, Durban, 13 February 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:44/6). 126 HRWC (Durban), Financial statement, February 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:20/1).

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THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

127 Telephonic communication with Wendy Curson, Durban, 16 January 2012. 128 Letter from Helen Joseph to Phyllis Naidoo, 21 February 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:47/5). 129 Ibid. See also Letter from Helen Joseph to Phyllis Naidoo, 24 June 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:47/16). 130 Letter from Helen Joseph to Phyllis Naidoo, 14 May 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A1454/2 GH1:47/12). 131 Letter from Helen Joseph to Phyllis Naidoo, 29 December 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A 1454/2 GH1:47/24). 132 Ernest Wentzel Papers, AB, A1931 (University of the Witwatersrand Library). 133 Ibid. 134 Interviews by email with Michael Gardiner, Johannesburg, 10 and 13 January 2012. 135 Interview with Amina Cachalia, Johannesburg, 29 July 2010. 136 Interviews by email with Michael Gardiner, Johannesburg, 10 and 13 January 2012. 137 HRWC, Minutes 12 March 1964 (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 138 HRWC, Sources of money (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985/B4). 139 HRWC, Minutes of a meeting of the Human Rights Welfare Committee held at Johannesburg at 8 p.m. on 28th January 1963 (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 140 HRWC, ‘Deportees and families receiving assistance from the committees, June 1962’ (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A 1454/2 GH1:89/4). 141 HRWC, Minutes of Human Rights Welfare Committee held in Johannesburg on 31st October, 1969, at 6 p.m. (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 142 Interview with Amina Cachalia, Johannesburg, 29 July 2010. 143 Interviews by email with Michael Gardiner, Johannesburg, 10 and 13 January 2012. 144 Interview with Amina Cachalia, Johannesburg, 29 July 2010. 145 HRWC ‘Outline of main duties’ and ‘Instructions and outlines re main duties’ 1970 (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B3). 146 Ibid. 147 Interviews by email with Michael Gardiner, Johannesburg, 10 and 13 January 2012. 148 HRWC, Minutes of a meeting of the Human Rights Welfare Committee held at Johannesburg at 8 p.m. on 28th January 1963 (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 149 Interviews by email with Michael Gardiner, Johannesburg, 10 and 13 January 2012. 150 Letter from Helen Joseph to Phyllis Naidoo, 15 July 1961 (Carter-Karis Human Rights Welfare Committee Catalogue, A 1454/2 GH1:47/18). 151 HRWC, Minutes of a meeting of the Human Rights Welfare Committee held at Johannesburg, 22nd February, 1966, at 8 p.m. (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 152 Ibid. 153 HRWC, Minutes of Human Rights Welfare Committee held in Johannesburg on June 5th at 5.30 p.m. (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 154 HRWC, Minutes of the meeting held on March 11th at 5.45 p.m. (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 155 HRWC, Minutes of the meeting held on September 28th at 5.45 p.m. (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 156 HRWC, Letter dated September 1978 (Helen Joseph Papers A1985/B 9: Closing of committee). 157 HRWC, Minutes of the meeting held on 10th December 1979 (Helen Joseph Papers, A1985, B2: Minutes of meetings). 158 H. Joseph, Side by Side: The Autobiography of Helen Joseph (London: Zed, 1986), p. 115. Conclusion 1 T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth (Observatory: RedWorks, 2001), p. 151. 2 J. Pieterse, ‘Reading and writing the Mpondo revolts’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza (eds), Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 44−5. 3 C. van Onselen, The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South Africa Sharecropper, 1894−1985 (Cape Town: David Philip, 1996), p. 3.

354

NOTES

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26

27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37

H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun: A Smuggled Journal from South Africa (New York: John Day, 1967), pp. 123−4; emphasis added. T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 150. Ibid. J.P. Coy, Strangers and Misfits: Banishment, Social Control, and Authority in Early Modern Germany (Leiden: Brill, 2008), p. 135. C. Desmond, The Discarded People: An Account of African Resettlement in South Africa (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), p. 1. Proceedings of the National Assembly, 21 August 2002 at http://docs.google.com, accessed 28 April 2011. T. Bell with B.H. Ntsebeza, Unfinished Business, p. 151. Drum March 1960. Baartman, Gwentshe, Joyi, Madikizela, Maredi, Mbodla, Mnyandu, Mpemba, Nkosiyane, Ntwana, Sobukwe, Tshangela, Godfrey Sekhukhune and Tshikalange. Survey of Race Relations 1955−1956, p. 75. Debates of the House of Assembly, 11 June 1956, col. 7393; Debates of the House of Assembly VOL, 8 June 1956, col. 7350. Debates of the House of Assembly, 8 June 1956, col. 7356 Ibid., col. 7356 Debates of the House of Assembly, 11 June 1956, col. 7392. Debates of the House of Assembly, 8 June 1956, col. 7356. Debates of the House of Assembly, 11 June 1956, col. 7392. Ibid. Pertinax, ‘The banishment bill debate’. The Forum 5(7) October 1956, p. 12. Survey of Race Relations 1955−1956, p. 75. Survey of Race Relations 1961, p. 95; Debates of the House of Assembly, 14 June 1961, cols 8021and 8062. Zondi claims that that when ‘Tlou Matlala’ returned to GaMatlala from banishment, his ‘experience of the strong ANC presence in Umtata had so affected him that on his return he worked hard at setting up committees in the villages. In 1956 he became a key member of a Central Committee set up to coordinate resistance in GaMatlala’. There is no evidence of a Tlou Matlala being banished to Umtata, although Tlou Matlala, the son of Makwena Matlala, was banished to King William’s Town (S. Zondi, ‘Peasant struggles in the 1950s: GaMatlala and Zeerust’ in The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (1960−1970) (Cape Town: Zebra, 2004), p. 156. Debates of the House of Assembly, 8 June 1956, col. 7395. The State Information Office’s explanation for banishment was that it was carried out for ‘offences against community discipline – offences which for technical reasons cannot be levelled in the courts’ (A. Hepple, ‘Banishment as a weapon of administration’. The Forum 5(7) October 1956, p. 9). J. Pieterse, ‘Reading and writing the Mpondo revolts’, p. 26 citing minister of Bantu administration and development De Wet Nel. J. Pieterse, ‘Reading and writing the Mpondo revolts’, p. 45 citing in both instances the assistant chief native commissioner for Eastern Pondoland, R.H. Midgley. D. Wylie, ‘The shock of the new: Ngquza Hill 1960’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza (eds), Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 201. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle: Reconstruction and Resistance in the Northern Transvaal (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1996), p. 219. J. Fairbairn, ‘Mass trials’. Africa South 3(3) April–June 1959, pp. 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18. Ibid., pp. 17, 18. P. Delius, ‘The tortoise and the spear: popular political culture and violence in the Sekhukhuneland revolt of 1958’. University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop: Democracy, Popular Precedents, Practice, Culture (Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, 13−15 July 1994), p. 16. L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised: Chiefs and the Politics of Land in South Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 163, 184, 192, 212. L. Ntsebeza, ‘Tshisa, Tshisa (burn, burn): resistance against tribal authorities in Xhalanga, 1960−1963’. Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research Working Paper 40(2003), p. 27. H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 172, 191. Sechaba 8 (10−12) October−December 1974, p. 39.

355

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49 50

51

52

53

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68

H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 179. I. Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 1921−1929 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp. 402−3. L. Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised, pp. 170, 171. Ibid., p. 171. A. Hepple, ‘Banishment as a weapon of administration’, p. 9. J. Dugard, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 140. Survey of Race Relations 1968, p. 46. G. Bizos, Odyssey to Freedom (Houghton: Random House, 2007), p. 116. The Government Gazette Extraordinary of 21 December 1928 set out a long list of duties and responsibilities. Cited in M. Hunter, Reaction to Conquest: Effects of Contact with Europeans on the Pondo of South Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), pp. 421-2. Ibid., pp. 421-2. Ibid., pp. 421-2. W. Beinart, Twentieth Century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 164. P. Delius, ‘The tortoise and the spear: popular political culture and violence in the Sekhukhuneland revolt of 1958’. University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop: Democracy, Popular Precedents, Practice, Culture (Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, 13−15 July 1994), pp. 6-7. T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), cited by L. Ntsebeza, ‘Resistance in the Countryside: The Mpondo Revolts Contextualized’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza (eds), Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 39; W. Beinart, ‘The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leonard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza, Rural Resistance in South Africa, p. 112; M. Chaskalson, ‘Rural resistance in the 1940s and 1950s’. Africa Perspective: Agrarian Struggles in South Africa, 1, 5& 6 (1987), p. 56. C. Bundy, (1987) ‘Land and liberation: Popular rural protest and the national liberation movements in South Africa, 1920-1960,’ in S. Marks, and S. Trapido, (eds) The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa (London: Longman Group, 1987), p. 255. L. Ntsebeza, ‘Resistance in the countryside: The Mpondo revolts contextualized’, p. 39; see also D.M.C. Sepuru (1992) ‘Succession disputes, macongress and rural resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919-1980’, (BA Hons dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 1992), p. 2. Ibid, p. 39. C. Bundy, (1987) ‘Land and liberation: Popular rural protest and the national liberation movements in South Africa, 1920-1960,’ p. 255. L. Ntsebeza, ‘Resistance in the countryside: The Mpondo revolts contextualized’, p. 39. A. Melucci, Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), pp. 70-1. J. Keane and P. Mier, ‘Preface,’ in A. Melucci, Nomads of the Present, p. 4, emphasis in original. F.F. Piven and R.A. Cloward, Poor Peoples Movements: Why they Succeed, How they Fail (New York: Vintage, 1979), p. xiii. Ibid., p. xiii. M. Burawoy, The Politics of Production: Factory Regimes under Capitalism and Socialism (London: Verso, 1985), pp. 253-4. H. Wolpe, Race, Class and the Apartheid State (London: UNESCO/James Currey, 1988), p. 55. S.C. Nolutshungu Changing South Africa: Political considerations (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), p.199. W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa: Politics and Popular Movements in the Transkei and Eastern Cape, 1890−1930 (London: Sage, 1987), p. 32. P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle: Reconstruction and Resistance in the Northern Transvaal (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1996), p. 224. M. Chaskalson, ‘Rural resistance in the 1940s and 1950s’, p. 51; C. Coquery-Vidrovitch ‘Peasant unrest in black Africa’, paper for Past and Present Society Conference, Oxford, 1982; cited by W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa, p. 35. W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa, p. 32. See G. Mbeki, South Africa: The Peasants Revolt (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1964), section on Pondoland.

356

NOTES

69 See A. Sitas, ‘The moving black forest of Africa: The Mpondo rebellion, migrancy and Black worker consciousness in Kwazulu Natal,’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza, Rural Resistance in South Africa, and T. Dunbar Moodie (with Hoyce Phundulu) ‘Hoyce Phundulu the Mpondo revolt, and the rise of the National Union of Mineworkers’ in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza Rural Resistance in South Africa. 70 W. Beinart, Twentieth Century South Africa, p. 165. 71 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 218. 72 A. Manson and B. Mbenga, ‘The African National Congress in the western Transvaal/northern Cape platteland, c. 1910−1964: patterns of diffusion and support for Congress in a rural setting’. South African Historical Journal (forthcoming, 2012), p. 24. 73 Ibid., p. 24. 74 D.M.C. Sepuru (1992) ‘Succession disputes, macongress and rural resistance at Ga-Matlala, 1919-1980’, pp. 28, 37 75 W. Beinart, Twentieth Century South Africa, p. 100. 76 A. Sitas, ‘The Moving Black Forest of Africa: The Mpondo Rebellion, Migrancy and Black Worker Consciousness in Kwazulu Natal, p. 184. 77 B. Hirson, ‘Rural revolt in South Africa: 1937−1951’ Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries 8 (1977), p. 128. 78 B. Hirson, Yours for the Union: Class and Community Struggles in South Africa, 1930-1947, (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1989), p. 124. 79 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 84. 80 C. Bundy, ‘Land and liberation: The South African national liberation movements and the agrarian question, 1920’s-1960’s’, Review of African Political Economy, 28 (1984), p. 26. 81 Moses Kotane , cited by C. Bundy ‘Land and liberation’, p. 27. 82 Moses Mabhida cited by K. Luckhardt and B. Wall (1980), Organise or Starve: The History of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1980), pp. 305-6. 83 B. Hirson, ‘Rural revolt in South Africa: 1937−1951’, p. 128. 84 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 217. 85 W. Beinart, Twentieth Century South Africa, p. 112. 86 M. Chaskalson, ‘Rural Resistance in the 1940s and 1950s’, p. 56, emphasis added. 87 P. Delius, Sebatakgomo: Migrant organisation, the ANC and the Sekhukhuniland Revolt. Journal of Southern African Studies, 15, 4 (1989), p. 581. 88 B. Hirson, Yours for the Union, p. 123. 89 P. Delius, Sebatakgomo: Migrant organisation, the ANC and the Sekhukhuniland Revolt, p. 582. 90 Ibid., p. 600. 91 L. Ntsebeza, ‘Resistance in the Countryside: The Mpondo Revolts Contextualized’, p. 39. 92 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 217, emphasis added. 93 Colin Bundy contends that the rural resistance of the late 1950s drew greater attention from the liberation movements but that it may have been that ‘the incidence and intensity of rural resistance made it impossible’ for them not to respond. This is disputable on various grounds; C. Bundy, ‘Land and liberation, p. 26. 94 C. Bundy, ‘Land and liberation, p. 29. 95 G. Mbeki, South Africa: The Peasants Revolt, p. 130. 96 Ibid., p. 131. 97 Ibid., p. 130. 98 M. Chaskalson, ‘Rural resistance in the 1940s and 1950s’, pp. 55-6, 57. 99 W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa, p. 43. 100 T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, p. 273. 101 W. Beinart, Twentieth Century South Africa, pp. 165, 112. 102 P. Delius, The Lion Amongst the Cattle, p. 221. 103 W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa, p. 39. 104 Ibid, pp. 39-40. 105 T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza, ‘Introduction’, in T. Kepe and L. Ntsebeza, Rural Resistance in South Africa, p. 4 106 J. Saul and S. Gelb, The Crisis in South Africa (London: Zed Books, 2nd ed., 1986), pp. 11, 57. 107 T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), p. 356. 108 A.W. Stadler, The Political Economy of Modern South Africa (London: Croom Helm, 1987), p. 1.

357

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

109 R.M. Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975−1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 195. 110 J. Saul and S. Gelb, The Crisis in South Africa, p. 211. 111 TRC, Report vol. 1 (Cape Town: TRC, 1998), p. 451. 112 AfriMAP and Open Society Foundation for South Africa, South Africa: Justice Sector and the Rule of Law (Newlands: Open Society Foundation for South Africa, 2005), p. 11. 113 TRC, Report vol. 2, p. 169. 114 B. Schmahmann, ‘History after apartheid: visual culture and public memory in a democratic South Africa’ [book review]. De Arte 71(2005), p. 68. 115 W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa: Politics and Popular Movements in the Transkei and Eastern Cape, 1890−1930 (London: Sage, 1987), p. 4. 116 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, p. 188. 117 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) at http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996. 118 Ibid. 119 Ibid. 120 H. Joseph, Tomorrow’s Sun, pp. 123−4. 121 P. Levi, If This Is a Man: The Truce (London: Vintage Books, 1996), p. 396.

358

Index

Bahurutshe Association 77, 280, 298 Bahurutshe Regional Authority 86 A Abolition of Influx Control Act Baleni, Gambushe 139 Baleni, Leonard 125 (1986) 302 Balk, Harry 79 Abolition of Restrictions on Ballinger, Senator Margaret 68 Free Political Activity Act Bantu Authorities Act (1951) 22, (1993) 302 110, 114, 129, 291, 295 Abrahams, Liz 188 Bantu Education Act (1953) 23, Adams, Farid 272 157, 163 African Food and Canning Workers Union (AFCWU) 185, Bantu Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act (1953) 158 188, 190, 255, 256 Barberton 14, 162, 246 African Mineworkers Union Barolong Progressive Associ(AMU) 156, 177 ation (BPA) 15 African National Congress Basner, Hyman 88, 297 (ANC) 24, 25, 27, 38, 41, 43, 45, 56, 68, 69, 70, 75, 79, 80– Basutoland 120, 122, 133–5, 168, 175, 225, 259, 260, 261, 6, 94, 96, 101, 103, 110, 113, 262 117, 119, 121, 123–7, 129, 133, 135, 136, 145, 146, 150, Basutoland African Congress 173 151, 156, 157, 159, 160–3, Bauder, Leslie 272 165, 166, 169, 172, 177–9, Bechuanaland 80, 81, 135 181–5, 187, 190, 191, 194, Bell, Terry 278 196, 199, 202–4, 209, 224, 257, 259, 262, 264, 278, 282, Berman, Monty 124, 272 Betterment 31, 60, 110 284, 285, 290, 296–9 African Resistance Movement Biko, Stephen Bantu 24, 173, 204–8, 212 124 Bizana 113–19, 121, 122, 124, Alexander, Ray 201 125, 140, 223, 254, 262, 285, Aliens Act (1937) 25 290 All African Convention (AAC) 109, 110, 133, 135, 136, 297 Bizos, George 76, 79, 81, 83, 85, 292 Amnesty International 196 ANC Women’s League 179, 185, Black Community Programmes (BCP) 204, 207 202, 255, 257 Black Consciousness (BC) 197– ANC Youth League (ANCYL) 9, 200, 204, 205, 208, 214 119, 156, 160, 162, 163, 165, Black Consciousness 166, 170, 172, 283 Movement 24, 173 Arenstein, Rowley 121, 127, Black Parents’ Association 198, 149, 259 209 Asvat, Abubaker 214 Black People’s Convention 204 Black Sash 253, 256–8, 268 B Black Women’s Federation 198, Baard, Frances 195, 201, 202, 209 203 Baartman, Ben 156, 160, 175–7, Bopape, David 94 Bophuthatswana 150 178–84, 190, 222, 224, 232, Boshoff, Acting Judge 249 258, 282, 284, 288, 1289 Boshomane, Daisy 54, 55, 239 Bahurutshe 19, 37, 72, 73, 78, Boshomane, Elias 55 79, 86, 278, 280, 295–7

359

Boshomane, Leburu 55 Boshomane, Martinus 53, 55 Botswana 78, 81, 82, 124, 125, 258 Brand, J.H. 59 Brandfort 198, 210–15 Brown, Peter 124 Bushbuckridge 47–9, 105, 239, 288 Buthelezi, Mangosuthu 150–2, 254 Buthelezi, Mceleli 149–51, 254 C Cachalia, Amina 234, 273, 274 Cala 25, 129, 131–4, 140, 287 Cato Manor 27, 142–4 Champion, A.W.G. 26 Charles, Peter 260 Chenne, Margaret 183 Chiliza, Delase 198 Chokoe, Jeremiah 88 Ciskei 109, 110, 189, 196, 200, 216 Civil Rights League 256 Cleminshaw, Dot 270 Coetsee, Kobie 214, 215 Coetzee, Blaar 251 Cole, Ernest 229, 230 Coloured People’s Congress (CPC) 123, 157 Communist Party 26, 68, 69, 156, 158, 297–8 Congress Alliance 157, 294, 303 Congress of the People 157, 294 Cope, John 228, 231, 232, 239, 250, 253 Cradock Four 25 Criminal Law Amendment Act (1953) 25 D Dalindyebo, Sabata 124, 129– 32, 136, 140 De Villiers, Judge-President 260 De Waal, Piet 214, 215 De Wet Nel, M.D.C. 99, 119, 134, 162, 182, 186, 187, 237, 238, 256 Defiance Campaign 68, 119, 157, 158, 160, 163, 166, 188, 300 Desmond, Cosmas 101, 197, 226

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

Dhlamini, Thompson 152, 222 Diale, Nelson 101, 199, 201 Dinuzulu, Chief Cyprian 147, 148, 150 Dorfman, Ariel 2, 241, 242 Driefontein 30, 37, 38, 224, 226–8, 230, 231, 233, 249, 253, 266, 277, 281 Dube, Abel 199 Duiwelskloof 166, 167, 222 Dutch East India Company (DEIC) 9–11 E East London 27, 160–3, 175, 179, 189, 246, 283, 284 Eiselen, Werner 89, 150

Ganyile, Mtetunzima 119, 125 Ganyile, Siliwa 259 Gardiner, Michael 271, 273, 275, 276 General Laws Amendment Act (1963) 173 Glen Grey 30, 104, 105, 112, 113, 129, 130, 249 Godolozi, Qaqawuli 25 Goniwe, Matthew 25 Gooieman, Mitta 229 Goonam, Kesaveloo 269 Gosani, Bob 228 Gqabi, Joe Nzinga 24, 122, 123, 262 Graham, Theresa 272 Groblersdal 66, 100–2, 128 Group Areas Act (1950) 142 Gwentshe, Alcott Skei 160–3, 190, 250, 283, 284

International Defence and Aid Fund, The 272 J Jojo, Gawulibaso Kaiser 112 Jojo, Ntlabati 112, 254 Joseph, Helen 32, 45, 48, 52, 52, 57, 67, 70, 82, 83, 96–8, 104, 105, 124, 146, 147, 152, 188, 189, 212, 220–3, 225, 227, 229, 233, 234, 238, 242, 257, 262, 264, 265, 267–77, 296, 304, 305 Joyi, Anderson Dalagubhe 139 Joyi, Bangilizwe 131, 136, 137, 138 Joyi, Twalimfene 31, 131, 136, 138, 238, 247, 248, 258

K Kadalie, Clements 26 Kane-Berman, John 245 H Kannemeyer, Justice 189 Hammanskraal 15, 42, 43 Kasrils, Eleanor 269 Hani, Chris 169, 170, 191 Keiskammahoek 91, 100, 103 Hani, Gilbert 169, 170, 225, 258, Kgwete, Mack 100 288 Kgwete, Willie 100 Hashe, Sipho 25 Khuduthamago 74, 91 Hertzog, J.B.M. 14 Khumalo, Joseph 166, 258 Hlamandana (Faku), Chief King William’s Town 44, 45, 68, Mhlabuvelile 127, 128 85, 91, 97, 99, 100, 103, 112, Hlamanda, Majojo Ka Tanda 113, 189, 197, 198, 200, 204, bantu 119, 128 206, 228, 232, 291, 300 Hlamandana, Vincent Kloppenberg, Theo 269 Mbamama 138, 231 Kodesh, Wolfie 181 Hlongwane, Mhlupeki 152, 153, Kongo 110, 112, 116 222, 227 Kooae, Maretile 66, 68 Hlonyane, Esrom 55, 240, 241 Koornhof, Piet 89, 105, 106 Hooper, Rev. Charles 76, 183 Kotane, Moses 297 Human Rights Welfare Committee (HRWC) 32, 48, 49, 51, Koya, James 196 100, 232, 234, 241, 244, 256, Kruger, Jimmy 198 Kuena, Paul Moremoholo G 263–78 Machobane 168, 291 Galela, Champion 25 Kuruman 20, 31, 66, 68, 100, GaMatlala 19, 36–40, 42, 44, 46, I 126, 137, 138, 149, 228, 247 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, Illegal Squatting Act 27 69, 76, 97, 145, 224, 226, 232, Industrial Aid Society 198 L 238, 240, 241, 251, 255, 278, Industrial and Commercial Lady Frere 112, 129, 130 280, 281, 295–296, 298 Workers Union (ICU) 26, 36 Lamola, John 88 Gangata, Chief 139 Industrial Conciliation Act Le Roux, Johannes 185 Ganyile, Anderson 115, 117–24, (1956) 158 Leballo, Kitchener Eneah Solo127, 129, 136, 138, 223, 224, Internal Security Act (1976, mon Potlako 170, 172–5, 191 235, 258–62, 288, 291, 296 1982) 24, 194, 195, 197–9, Leibbrandt, Victor 128 Ganyile, Ingleton 260 216, 190, 193, 290, 302 F Faku, Chief 254 Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) 158, 185, 256, 257 Feni, Nikisi 112 Fetakgomo 92, 93, 96 First, Ruth 25, 122, 229, 262 Fischer, Bram 272 Fischer, Molly 272 Fisher, Judge 245, 246 Flagstaff 113, 116, 118 Food and Canning Workers Union (FCWU) 195, 201 Freedom Charter 119, 158, 172, 94, 303 Frenchdale 15, 66–8, 121–3, 125–7, 134, 138, 161–3, 168, 219, 221, 223, 226, 228, 229, 231–4, 237–9, 250, 258, 262, 266, 268, 277, 281, 288

360

INDEX

Leihlo la Sechaba 62 Lembede, Anton 156 Lencoe, Edward 80, 85 Lengisi, Joel Mabi 160, 162, 163, 246, 283 Lesotho 124, 136, 137, 167, 188, 189, 224, 242, 258, 275 Letele, Dr 124 Liberal Party 124, 161, 256, 270, 271 Lichtenburg 75, 76, 102, 103, 300 Lithako, Jim 66, 68 Louis Trichardt 14, 137, 147 Lukele, Douglas 55, 69 Lusikisiki 113–16, 118, 128, 139 Luthuli, Albert 138, 150, 304 M Mabe, Jeremiah 30, 231, 249, 250, 258 Mabhida, Moses, 297 Mabi, Salatiel 30, 245, 246 Mabieskraal 30, 37, 226, 278, 291, 300 Mabude, Saul 115 Maci, James 145, 146, 152, 234 Ma-Congress 42–5, 47, 48, 70 Madaka, Topsy 25 Madapu, Magade 138 Madikizela, Columbus 209 Madikizela, Prince 140, 290 Madikizela, Solomon 115, 125, 127, 291, 300 Madikizela-Mandela, Winnie 198, 209, 210–16, 257, 290 Madola, William Mpini 119 Mafekeng, Elizabeth 160, 170, 175, 179, 184–90, 225, 242, 255–8, 262, 288 Mafikeng 20, 66, 112, 121, 122, 123, 126, 152, 212, 224, 228, 250, 262 Magwasa, Gibson 149, 258 Maimela, Thomas 88 Makabeni, Gana 25 Make, Vusumzi 164, 165, 190, 191 Makgatho, S.M. 38 Makhuluspan 138 Mandela, Nelson 86, 156, 178, 190, 191, 209, 212, 214, 215, 250, 273

Mangope, Lucas 80, 86, 150 Mantshula, Makeloyi 139 Mantsoe, Matela 66 Manzana, Willie 135 Maqutu, Mnyungula 114 Maredi, Lot Kgagudi 91, 97, 98, 222, 226, 232 Marutanyane, Kgagudi 91, 99 Mashile, Matsiketsane 103–6 Mashile, Sekgopela 104 Mashile, Seneke 104 Masondo, Andrew 196 Matabata, Setswiki 100 Matanzima, George 104, 140, 141 Matanzima, Kaiser 94, 129, 130–5, 139, 140, 141, 169, 263, 288, 290 Matatiele, 57, 110, 111, 234, 235, 236, 254, 263, 267 Mater, Alois 111, 112, 254 Matlala, Alfred 45, 48, 55 Matlala, B. K. 43, 47 Matlala, Joel 40, 41, 43, 47, 55, 58 Matlala, Johannes 40, 56, 70 Matlala, Klaas 48, 49 Matlala, Kwena 49, 52, 53 Matlala, Maema 44, 47, 48, 49, 56, 239, 242, 261, 288 Matlala, Makwena 41–6, 49, 50, 53, 56–8, 69, 70, 97, 232, 255 Matlala, Michael 56, 147 Matlala, Mpao Tlou 40, 41, 44, 46, 47 Matlala, Sebitji Frans 58, 224, 225 Matlala, Sekgoari Mokoko 38, 39, 40, 49, 52 Matlala, William 43 Matome, Jacob 56, 57 Matsepe, Jack Monamudi 102 Matsheka, Kali John 15 Matthews, Joe 124, 181 Matthews, Z. K. 29 Mbalwa, Chief 121 Mbeki, Govan 22, 37, 108, 109, 114, 124, 130, 147, 299 Mbeki, Thabo 184 Mbodla, Hargreaves Nkosana 115, 125, 127, 275 Mboyiya, Mabanga 133

361

Mbungwa, Chief 139 Mdhluli Mxosha, 152, 153, 218, 222, 232, 267 Mdingi, Leonard 124, 125 Mfethi, Phindile 198 Mgolombane, McGregor 131, 136, 238 Mgoqozi, Chief 166 Mhlaba, Raymond 124 Mhlawuli, Sicelo 25 Middelburg 14, 15, 66, 101 Miya, Chief Vuna 146, 151, 152, 222, 232, 234, 239 Mkabile, Zingisa 140 Mkhonto, Sparrow 25 Mkwanazi, Christopher 27 Mnyandu, Cijimpi 146, 147, 242, 269 Moabelo, Nelson Ngakana 43, 47, 52 Mofokeng, Philip 27 Mofutsanyana, Edwin 68 Mogale, Abraham 82, 83, 85, 218, 234 Mohamed, Ismail 81 Mohapi, Mapetla, 205 Mohlouoa, Mtseko 260 Moichela, Moses 53, 240 Moiloa, Abram Ramotshere Pogiso 74–7, 79, 81, 86, 296 Moiloa, Boas 85 Moioa, David 82, 83, 239 Moiloa, Israel 82 Mokgatlhe, Paul Ramadiba 85 Mokoena, Piet 66, 67, 221, 233, 235, 239 Molefi, Joseph Sallie Poonyane 166 Molepo, Matthews Mabitsela Kgotsekgolo 87, 88 Molete, Boas 102 Molete, Richard 102, 103 Molife, Isaac 151 Molife, Monica 151 Molobi, Eric 201 Moloi, Caswell 66 Mompati, Ruth 86 Monare, Elias 163, 164, 258, 218, 232 Moodley, Poomoney 269 Mopeli, Albert 62, 274 Mopeli, Atwell 62, 299

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

Natal Indian Congress 269 Natal People’s Congress 145 National Committee of Liberation 124 National Council of Women 256 National Party (NP) 21, 23, 158, 251, 252 Native Administration Act (1927) 9, 14, 17, 25, 27–31, 119, 125, 132, 160, 194, 195, 245, 247, 248, 249, 250, 252, 258, 282, 285, 291, 302 Native Administration Amendment Act (1956) 31 Native Laws Further Amendment Act (1957) 25 Native Trust and Land Act (1936) 20, 27, 40, 87 Native (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act (1945) 26 Natives (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents) Act (1952) 23 Natives Land Act (1913) 20, 60, 61, 111 Natives (Prohibition of Interdicts) Act (1956) 31 Natives (Urban Areas) Amendment Bill (1956) 26 Nchabeleng, Mashilo Tseke 100, 266 Nchabeleng, Peter 101 Nchabeleng, Petrus 199, 201 Ndamase, Tudor 141 Ndondo, Batandwa 25, 140, 141 NgaJeka, Victor 140 Ngakane, W. B. 252 Ngoetyane, Frans 88 Ngoyi, Lilian 86, 229, 231, 234, 265, 266, 270, 272, 278 Ngquza Hill 116, 117 Ngubeni, Michael 199 Ngudle, Looksmart 24 N Ngwenya, Onius 27 Naidoo, Phyllis 269, 270 Nhlapo, Saul Simon 167, 254 Natal 13, 14, 17, 29, 57, 82, 83, Nkadimeng, John 267 111, 112, 118, 129, 142–6, 151, Nkadimeng, Phaswane 92 167, 168, 173, 198, 270, 279, Nkadimeng, Stephen Zelwane 292, 296 92, 96, 97, 291, 223, 242, 261, Natal Code of Native Law 266, 267, 291 (1891) 28, 80, 108 Nkosiyane, Jackson 124, 131, Natal Criminals Act 13 136–8, 224, 231, 258, 288 Mopeli, Charles 61, 63, 68, 123, 282 Mopeli, Mothebang 66, 68, 233, 274 Mopeli, Paulus Howell 59, 61, 62, 63, 66, 67, 291 Mopeli, Treaty Mahlouoe 64, 66, 291 Moraka, Jeremiah 44, 57, 224 Moraka, Maphuti 57, 224 Morolong, Joe 96, 229, 274 Mosenyi, Kenneth 75, 82, 83, 84, 242, 262, 288, 286 Mothopeng, Zephaniah 195 Motsau, Nkutsoeu Petrus 199 Mount Ayliff 110, 112, 113, 254 Mount Currie 111 Mount Fletcher 56, 235, 236 Moweng, Smash Mpanza, James Sofasonke 29, 30, 248, 282 Mpemba, Jacob 169, 170, 191, 225, 258 Mpetha, Oscar 181, 187 Mphahlele, Ezekiel 164 Mpihleng, Ramonkung 100 Mpini, S. 115 Mpondoland 19, 37, 108, 110, 113, 117, 118, 123, 124, 125, 128–30, 138, 139, 209, 224, 258, 278, 282, 285, 286, 290, 291, 292, 296–8, 300 Mpumlwana, Malusi 200 Msutu, Alfred 113 Mtimkhulu, Siphiwo 25 Mtshizana, Louis Loe 175, 189 Muller, Shulamith 83, 101, 102, 250, 251, 292 Mvimbi, Monde 140 Mxenge, Griffiths 25 Mxenge, Victoria 25

362

Nokwe, Duma 264 Non-European Unity Movement 109, 123 Nqakula, Charles 200 Ntame, Silumko 132 Ntsebeza, Dumisa 140, 141, 142, 278, 289, 290 Ntsebeza, Lungisile 140, 141, 290 Ntshangase, N. 115 Ntwampe, Molomo 100 Ntwampe, Motodi 99, 100, 241 Ntwana, Abel 132–5, 135 Ntwana, Asnath 135 Ntwana, Eugenia 135 Nxumalo, Mary 184 Nyovane, Tyutyu Michael 132 Nyungwa, Jonas 135 P Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) 123, 130, 136, 158, 159, 165, 166, 170–3, 190, 191, 194, 195, 290 Payn, Thomas 29, 250 Pebco Three 25 Pietersburg 20, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 50, 56, 58, 87, 88, 100, 105, 106, 113, 145, 149, 151, 153, 228, 239, 249, 274, 296 Pikani, Mngqingo, 114, 128, 129 Pirow, Oswald 25, 26 Pityana, Barney 173 Poqo 130 Port Elizabeth 27, 188, 195, 201, 202, 257, 283 Potgieter, Andries 72 Pringle, Angela 196 Proclamation 28 (1950) 65 Proclamation 400 (1960) 133, 135, 139, 261 Programme of Action 157, 172 Promotion of Bantu SelfGovernment Act (1959) 22 Protection of Constitutional Democracy Against Terrorist Activities Act (2005) 302 Public Security Act 140 Q Qachas Nek 124, 136 QwaQwa 59, 60, 199, 202

INDEX

Sekhukhuneland 37, 72, 87, 88, 91, 93, 94, 96–101, 127, 159, 222, 223, 233, 263, 266, 278, 280, 286, 287, 291, 292, 296–9, 300 Seopa, Anna Moketi Mamolatelo 49, 50, 51 Seopa, Boy 50, 51, 52, 291 Seopa, Frans Kgetoane 43, 44, 49 Seopa, Maphuti 49, 50, 51 September, Dulcie 25 Sharpeville 24, 36, 116, 158, 159, 172, 190, 199, 290 Sibasa 20, 47, 50, 56, 133, 147, 150, 152, 153, 165, 227, 228 Sigcau, Botha 114, 115, 117, 118, 128, 139 Sigcau, Nelson 115, 119 Sigcau, Vukayibambe 118 Silinga, Annie 257 Silinga, Godfrey 140 Sinclair, Jean 256, 268 Siqa, Zetule 139 Siqila Mabaso 112 Sisulu, Walter 129, 156, 190 Slovo, Joe 161, 162, 250 Smuts, Jan 25, 251 Sobukwe, Robert Mangaliso 170, 171, 172, 173, 191, 197, S 225 Saliwa, Joseph Hugo 30, 112, South African Communist Party 130, 249 (SACP) 161, 169 Schoon, Jeanette 25 South African Congress of Schoon, Katryn 25 Democrats (SACOD) 157, Scott, Lucas 102 255, 256 Sebatakgomo 280, 298–9 South African Congress of Sebataladi Motor Cottage Trade Unions (SACTU) 75, Association (SMCA) 88 101, 103, 157, 158, 178, 180, Sebei, Mamogase 100 181, 185, 202, 255, 256 Segal, Ronald 256 South African Council of Segale, Darius 102, 103 Churches (SACC) 173, 202, Segale, Stephen 102 276 Sejake, Nimrod Nathale 75, 296 Sekhukhune, Mankopodi 91, 94 South African Indian Congress (SAIC) 157 Sekhukhune, Mogaramedi South African Institute of Race Godfrey 91, 94, 96, 97, 101, Relations (SAIRR) 168, 181, 255, 269, 291, 296 250–3, 256, 268, 278 Sekhukhune, Morwamotse 89, South African Students Organi190, 91, 94, 99 sation (SASO) 204 Sekhukhune, William Mosehle Soutpansberg 136, 204, 236, 237 99, 223, 267 R Ramafoku, Mokate 37, 226, 227, 253, 275 Ramara, Frans 55, 226, 241 Ramokgopa, Douglas 234–7, 266, 267 Ramopudu, Joshua 101, 102 Rampai, Timothy 27 Ramphele, Aletta Mamphela 194, 198, 201, 204–9, 214, 215, 216, 290 Ranoto, Mngabo 55, 56 Ranoto, Morris 55, 56, 226, 227, 241 Rantuba, Ralekeke 164, 168, 169, 239 Red Cross Society 253, 269 Reitz, Deneys 29, 250 Resha, Robert 161, 273 Richter, Carl 74, 75 Riotous Assemblies Act (1924, 1930) 25, 159, 160, 286 Robben Island 9–13, 24, 96, 101, 140, 173, 183, 189, 195, 196, 199, 200, 201, 220, 224, 225, 293 Roos, Tielman 28 Rustenburg 30, 88, 245

363

Soweto 24, 123, 204, 209, 215, 257, 301, 302 St Helena Island 12, 13, 14, 100, 101, 263, 287 Stanford, Walter 250 Stanton, Father Timothy 267, 272 State of Emergency 135, 190 Stock Limitation Act 157 Strijdom, J.G. 202, 263, 290 Stuurman, David 12 Suping, Mathews Mangope 80 Suppression of Communism Act (1950) 24, 157, 158, 160– 3, 173, 194, 195, 197, 282, 186 Suzman, Helen 105, 106, 251, 252, 253, 268 Swart, C.R. 134, 162 Swaziland 148, 156, 179, 180, 183, 184, 258 T Tabata, I.B. 109, 110 Tambo, Oliver 156, 190, 250 Teachers’ League of South Africa 256 Tebeila, Alfred Mamagale 100 Terrorism Act (1967) 24, 194, 198, 205, 290 Textile Workers Industrial Union 177 Thamaga, Solomon 53 Themba, Can 162, 228 Thembuland 19, 29, 37, 108, 110, 129, 130, 132, 136, 138, 139, 250, 278, 295, 297, 300 Thulare, Arthur Phetedi 89, 91, 96, 97, 255 Tikana, Alex 134, 138, 274 Tikana, Ben 133, 134 Titus, Jojo 224 Transkei 36, 47, 91, 100, 104, 105, 108, 109, 110, 114, 119, 124, 128, 132, 135, 137, 138, 140, 141, 151, 162, 163, 170, 234, 246, 259, 263 Transkei Annexation Act (1877) 261 Transkei Organised Bodies(TOB) 109, 110 Transkei Public Security Act (1977) 139

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE

Transkei Supreme Court 141 Transvaal Federation of Trades 25 Treason Trial 70, 86, 159, 165, 166, 190, 202, 264, 268 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) 139, 140, 282, 303 Tseke, Kgalabotwane 100 Tseke, Tsia 266 Tshangela, Theophilus 115, 117, 119, 125, 126, 127, 226, 237, 261, 274, 282, 288, 291 Tshwete, Steve 200 Tsimo, Elias 195 Tutu, Desmond 207 Tweedie, Percy Carmichael 42 Tyabashe, William 138, 231 Tyaliti, Edward 137, 258 Tyaliti, Sineke 132, 133, 289, 290 Tyeku, Ben 133, 134 U Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) 24, 56, 101, 124, 156, 169, 183, 199, 296 Umtata 31, 119, 124, 131, 139, 140, 173, 247, 290 United Democratic Front 101, 199, 200 United Party (UP) 252 Unlawful Organisations Act 159 Urban Areas Act (1923) 26, 27, 283

W Wallis, Naomi 265, 272 Webster, David 25 Welfare Organisations Act 270 Wentzel, Ernest 270, 271 Witbooi, Daniel 196 Witzieshoek 19, 36, 37, 59, 60–2, 64–9, 159, 195, 197, 278, 282, 286, 287, 297, 299 Witzieshoek Vigilance Association (WVA) 62, 65, 280 Women’s Association of the Presbyterian Church 256 Y Young, C.B. 131 Z Zeerust 73–5, 78, 80, 81, 83, 92, 266, 287, 296 Zoutpansberg Cultural Association, 298 Zulu, Nelson 148, 149, 231, 274 Zulu, Phikinkani 148, 149, 231, 274 Zululand 13, 14, 20, 55, 94, 96, 147, 148, 178, 179, 223, 239, 241, 242, 267 Zwelithini, King Goodwill 152

V Van Heerden, J.A. 117, 285 Van Niekerk, G.L.H. 251 Van Reenen, Justice 141 Van Rooyen, Sergeant Jan Hendrik 92 Vena, Swelindawo 133 Verwoerd, Hendrik F. 22, 23, 74, 99, 114, 134, 162, 170, 187, 188, 201, 211, 263, 284 Victoria East 81, 100, 104 Vorster, B.J. 99, 105, 194 Vryburg 20, 30, 58, 85, 100, 102, 127, 138, 149, 163, 164, 172, 186, 228, 230, 232

364