“politics and unions can't be separated”

Politics was part of the game because I was a trade unionist. Other activists did not have a similar belief. It all boils down to politics, whether you like it or not. I got involved because I worked in Cape Town and I lived in Paarl. I travelled from Paarl to Cape Town to work every day. Because I worked in the Cape there were a lot of activities – CPC (Coloured People's Congress), SACTU (South African Congress of Trade Unions), FEDSAW – that had been started in Cape Town and wanted to expand. They asked me to set up branches in Paarl and in other places when I went to visit the union braches. Everything you established in Cape Town, you had to establish in Paarl as well. In the beginning the organisations in Paarl were strong but it fizzled out as time went on.

I joined the CPC because the union wanted to take action but it couldn't strike and conduct campaigns because it was registered. Through the CPC we could assist the union a lot, for example if we wanted to conduct a boycott. The CPC and ANC supported the union a lot. If the ANC had a campaign the CPC supported it and vice versa. The feeling was that if there were many organisations supporting one another we would be stronger than just one organisation.

There were always people who said you cannot mix unions with politics and politics with unions. But as time went on people saw that the two cannot be separated. Because, if you're a union member then you're fighting for bread and butter rights but when you're outside you're fighting for your whole life to improve. You must be a member of the community to lend a hand if the problem is poor housing, or high rent which also needs to be addressed. If you only improve your bread and butter on one side and do not build on the other side then it doesn't help because the one side will weaken. Today workers realize that it is also important to belong to a political organization.

The alliance in the 1950s was the start because the organisations were all there but it hadn't really taken root among the people, if we compare with nowadays. The other problem was that people felt that one organization could achieve more than another. It was rather unbalanced and they did not always pull in the same direction. The unions were relatively strong but they didn't always have strong relationships with the CPC and ANC.

With the pass campaign men thought that women are only talking and won't be able to achieve anything with this issue that had been oppressing them for so many years. Pass laws were always a sore point for women workers at union meetings because husbands who had left their passes at home would be arrested and taken directly to prison and the wife would only hear late at night or the next morning that her husband had been locked up.

We always argued at union meetings that passes then were only for Africans but the other races would suffer just as much in the future. We had a local campaign in Paarl involving the CPC and ANC. The branch decided to burn passes. Different people were placed at different points where people were going to burn their passes. My colleague, John Pendlane (president of the AFCWU) and I were at the bus-stop at Huguenot where people gathered to burn their passes. Following this, different delegations went to Pretoria to join the march. Although I didn't participate Elizabeth Mafekeng was our representative.

Rocky and the ‘Riots'

In 1955 there was a conference abroad and the union sent ‘Rocky' [Elizabeth] Mafekeng to represent us. Mafekeng worked closely with someone called Fillies in the branch. Sometimes when he was not there, I would go and help Rocky Mafekeng so the Special Branch often saw Mafekeng and me together. When she came back, the Special Branch always hunted her, but never touched her.

However, in 1959 she was banished out of Paarl. She was the president of our union [A-FCWU] at that stage and the branch secretary. They gave her a deportation order – she was supposed to go to Vryburg. Mafekeng was mother to 11 children, and had a two-month old baby. The distance from the nearest tap to her hut would have been 72 miles, with a baby of two months! We established a committee to see how we could protect her. We called meetings and explained to the workers. We informed all the branches and the workers were very, very disappointed and very cross. We had published a pamphlet about why Mafekeng was deported and this really upset the community. When they saw it, it was the last straw.

The last meeting was a big mass meeting on a Sunday of all the workers in Paarl, all our branches like Wellington and Worcester, the ANC, SACTU and other organisations. The meeting decided that Mafekeng shouldn't go. We had to make arrangements for her to go somewhere else. On Monday at 12 o'clock the police were coming to pick up Mafekeng to take her to the train station to put her onto the train to this Vryburg. The whole night the workers were at Mafekeng's house, waiting to see what's happening.

At 12 o'clock, when the police came to fetch her, Mafekeng was gone because we had organised transport to take Mafekeng to Lesotho. We all were at her house and when they arrived they could not find her so they were very, very angry. The Special Branch came straight to me and wanted to know where Mafekeng was. I said, ‘Listen here, how am I suppose to know?' and he was very, very rude. He talked a little and then he shoved me a little, and then I would shove him a little and said just what I wanted to say. He repeatedly came back and told me, ‘We know that you know where Mafekeng is.' When the police found out that Mafekeng was gone, it was a terrible riot. Police were shooting at the people and the workers were so fed up they broke open the shops, and cars were turned over. Two workers were shot dead and others were wounded and taken to hospital. Two days later we heard that Mafekeng had arrived in Lesotho.

Even the gangsters supported the community and the union. There were two gangster factions - the Elephants under Solly van Zyl and the Apaches under Jack Kaizer. Before the Mafekeng incident they were not involved in the trade union, but Jack and Solly knew me very well and they were very supportive during the Mafekeng affair, because they knew what she had done for the community. The Mafekeng affair really touched them and that is how they got involved in the protest. Solly was detained for public violence during the riot.

After the riot, there was a court case with a lot of people involved. We couldn't fit in the court; there were too many people, so they hired a hall. Sam Kahn and Albie Sachs and two advocates were our lawyers. Four of the people in the community gave evidence against us to say that workers were throwing stones. The two Vos brothers led evidence against us. During the case the one brother talked himself into a corner, and was charged and found guilty of perjury, with the result that the other people only received warnings.

What do you mean the British government can have Mrs Mafekeng? This is a fine time to become humanitarian. (Contact, 28 November 1959)

Mafekeng left only with the baby. Her mother and her husband stayed behind with the other ten children. Oscar, me and other comrades were elected to a committee to look after Mafekeng's children, for anything they need and whenever there were problems at school. The children couldn't get into school so we tried to go to the schools and speak to the teachers or principals to allow them to get in. The organisations then assisted with the children's education. One daughter went away and later became an engineer and the other two stayed behind.

While Mafekeng was in exile, her husband and mother passed away. She wanted to come back to attend the funerals, but the risks were too great and she had to stay in Lesotho. We remained in touch with each other and if the children went there for the holidays, they first came to me so that we could discuss the problems.

In 1991 Mafekeng came back to Paarl. The union then decided to build a house for her but it took them a year to ask her what type of house she preferred and where it should be built. Ray and I had to intervene for them to get that house and had to speak to Mandla (FAWU General Secretary) and the previous General Secretary.

Support to Comrades

While I worked for the union, I was the Western Cape secretary of SACTU and belonged to the CPC and FEDSAW. Being a CPC member we were always attending ANC meetings even if you're not a member. When Joe Morolong, a union officer for the Commercial and Distributive Workers Union in Cape Town, wanted to go out of the country I helped hide him and took him to Wellington station to catch the train.

In February 1963, ANC comrades asked me to do something for four comrades that were arrested by the police. I was told that Archie Sibeko, Chris Hani and two others did not actually commit a crime but were caught with duplicating ink and blank sheets of paper in the car, and they made up a story that they were on their way to print pamphlets. They were off on bail and decided that they must skip. Archie Sibeko had been an organiser for the FCWU and was an NEC member for SACTU. He was also a member of the ANC Executive and was very involved in the writing of the Freedom Charter. Chris Hani was very young - he was only 20 years old when he went into exile – and did voluntary work at SACTU's office because SACTU didn't have an organiser. He assisted with organising in the office although he was not actually involved in the unions.

We were not yet members of the ANC, because in those days the ANC was only for Africans, but w e were made responsible for Archie and we went to fetch him during the night. I was the one that had to see to his safety. We were working with Oscar Mpetha, who expected us to do ANC work because if you were a member of something, everybody must help. He always said, ‘When there's a strike, all hands on deck'. I hid Archie at our vice-president, Johnny Mentoor's house. Johnny did not leave him at home during the day, because his wife and sons were not supposed to know that Archie was on the run. If he stayed at home, they would become suspicious.

Archie Sibeko working on the stove at Johnny's factory

In the morning, Johnny would take Archie with him to the factory until the day when the other comrades made arrangements for them to go away. Archie worked on the ‘stove' and made the fire so that they would think he was one of the workers. I also hid Archie in the Drakenstein mountains, near to the factory where our president worked. The place where I hid him was only five minutes walk from the nearest police station. The funniest part, I had to take them out of hiding, take them something like a disguise, because it was organized that they go to some place. The day that they left, I went to get them from their secret places. I took Archie to Wellington station where he got on the train. The four of them left, and we later received feedback that they made it safely out of the country.