A Holding Operation: Surviving the State of Emergency, June 1986 - February 1988
South African History Online
A chapter from The UDF. A history of the United Democratic Front in South Africa, 1983-1991: A Holding Operation: Surviving the State of Emergency,
June 1986 - February 1988
Content:
A Holding Operation: Surviving the State of Emergency,
June 1986 - February 1988
In the early hours of the morning of Thursday 12 June the South African Police carried out raids in townships and suburbs across the country. The next day newspapers estimated that 1200 people had been detained. Although the Minister of Law and Order initially described the raids as 'normal operations', State President P.W. Botha later announced to a joint session of the Tricameral Parliament that he had declared a further State of Emergency, effective from the previous midnight. Botha accused the ANC and UDF, together with other 'radicals and anarchists' of planning large-scale unrest so as to undermine and replace government institutions with alternative structures.
The new Emergency differed from the earlier one in 1985-1986 in terms of the scale and scope of repression. The earlier Emergency had only covered parts of the country; the new Emergency was nationwide. Unprecedented numbers of people were detained. In mid-August the government named over 8500 detainees who had been held for over thirty days. The number in detention at any one time fell slightly thereafter, levelling off at about five thousand. But the total number of people crept up, reaching an estimated 16 000 - 20 000 by the end of the year.
The detainees ranged from national leaders to members of local street committees, from important cadres in the ANC underground to worshippers in two church congregations detained en masse. The UDF and its affiliates were the primary targets of detention. According to one report, fifty national and regional UDF leaders had been detained by August. One difference between this and the previous State of Emergency was the large number of local activists caught up. In Oudtshoorn's Bongolethu township, for example, over one hundred people were detained; in Duncan Village, about three hundred. Another difference was that detainees were held for much longer. Trade unionists were not exempt; especially those with close links to the ANC or to township or elected leaders were known to be in detention. The entire northern Natal COSATU regional executive was detained, as well as every regional organiser and many leading shop stewards. Equipment at trade union offices was confiscated by police, and some offices had to close when all their staff were detained or in hiding. The thousands of activists who escaped police raids were faced with the strain and difficulty of operating underground. Baskin's description of trade union activists applies equally to those of the UDF: they 'developed irregular movements, sometimes changed appearance, avoided places usually frequented, and rarely slept at home'. COSATU's Central Executive Committee met for the first time under the Emergency in the unlikely venue of the Carlton Hotel:
It was a strange gathering. Ordinary COSATU activists kept a careful watch for signs of police activity in the vicinity. Some monitored street corners. Others kept an eye on the hotel lobby. The ... delegates came in unusual attire. Most wore suits and ties and carried briefcases. Some had rapidly grown beards and moustaches or now wore spectacles to help alter their appearance. Yet other delegates arrived wearing overalls. None wore the T-shirts with fighting slogans, which, until a few weeks previously, had been standard unionist garb.
T-shirt displaying UDF slogan.
These were later prohibited in some areas
A few of the most sought-after delegates decided it would be wisest not to come to the meeting at all, and sent others in their place.
Whilst some COSATU leaders were targeted by the state, the trade union movement as a whole was treated mildly by comparison with the UDF. Initial UDF executive meetings were held even more clandestinely than those of COSATU. In time, activists developed whole new ways of working underground. According to one:
a whole new life developed in the underground. People had contact with each other, worked with each other, and they were a whole new society that had no contact with the previous society ... You never went to places like Khotso House, and you never went to any public meetings. There was a whole sort of sub-culture that actually functioned underground, parallel to the remaining things that were open.
Morobe operated underground for more than a year, 'the longest period of underground activity by a high-profile political leader in two decades', as Mufson points out. But living this life and operating underground was not an easy experience. The strain took its toll, sooner or later. Many activists were caught by the police when they were tempted to relax their security. Western Cape REC members Tinto and Malindi avoided detention for more than six months before being detained on brief visits to their own homes: Tinto had returned home to visit his wife and newly born daughter, Malindi to collect his diabetes medicine. The fear of police informers could be debilitating, and was manipulated by the police accordingly through insinuations and misinformation about activists.
The UDF's style of operation was affected not only by the detention and threat detention of its activists, but also by a whole battery of other restrictions. The state sought to control the mechanisms used by the UDF to reach the public. Prior to the Emergency, in April, the government had reimposed a blanket ban on outdoor public meetings and a partial ban on indoor meetings, in terms of the Internal Security Act. From June, the police used Emergency regulations to ban and restrict many meetings and funerals not already covered. Restrictions were also imposed on specific organisations and individuals. Most severely, in the Western Cape the police prohibited the UDF and 118 other named organisations from holding meetings issuing pamphlets or publications, and making press statements. This was successfully, although only temporarily, challenged in court. Night-time curfews were imposed in many areas, especially in the Eastern Cape and northern Orange Free State. Political T-shirts, flags and so on were prohibited in other areas. In October the UDF was declared an affected organisation, and prohibited from receiving foreign funding.
The state also imposed restrictions on the media. Emergency regulations prohibited filming or taking photographs of unrest situations or of the security forces, and the publication of any 'subversive statement', a term defined so widely as to include even criticism of the State of Emergency. Severe penalties were attached to violations of the regulations. 'The immediate effect of these regulations and police orders was to limit severely what could be published. For the UDF, which had come to use the media extensively, both commercial and alternative, these restrictions proved very disruptive.
The severity of repression under the Emergency exceeded what was needed to prevent overt political demonstration. In the short term, it checked disaffection among, the National Party's white supporters. More importantly, the Emergency provided the means for the state to regain the initiative in terms of political change. Even pro-reform state officials supported the use of repression, recognising that 'where once there could be no security without reform, now there can be no reform without; security'.
Repression played both symbolic and real roles. Just as the UDF sought to build a broad unity against the government to demonstrate the inevitable failure of anything less than full democratisation, so the state sought to demonstrate the inevitable failure of the UDF-led challenge. At the same time, just as the UDF mobilised resistance around material grievances, so the state sought to weaken resistance through developmental projects shielded by repression under the State of Emergency. The state greatly increased the resources it allocated to township development, and expanded the opportunities for private sector involvement. Townships such as Alexandra in Johannesburg were targeted for selective upgrading. But these developmental initiatives were undertaken behind the repression of resistance. In some cases, whole townships were finally and forcibly removed, such as Langa in Uitenhage. More generally, opposition was silenced. As one journalist reported from Cradock, 'revolutionary graffiti is the only visible link between the militant, tightly organised Karoo community of 1984-1986 and the bruised Lingelihle of today.'
Immediate effect and responses
Although not unexpected, the State of Emergency caught UDF leaders in various degrees of readiness. Acting general secretary Moosa narrowly escaped capture, despite taking some precautions. Together with Suttner and Momoniat, he had spent the previous night in a cheap hotel in Hillbrow rather than at home. Suttner was due to fly to Zimbabwe, ostensibly to attend a law conference but actually to consult the ANC and get advice on what to do - the senior UDF leaders did not have sufficiently good links with the ANC underground to ensure reliable communication. They agreed that Suttner would only go if there had been no raids. But they overslept the next morning, and rushed to the airport without even phoning their homes or looking at the morning headlines. Only after Suttner had walked into the international departures section of the airport did Moosa glance at the newspapers and read that an Emergency was about to be declared. He phoned his lawyer, Krish Naidoo, who told him that all the office buildings used by the UDF and its major affiliates were surrounded by the security forces. Moosa and Momoniat immediately went into hiding. Suttner was, however, stopped and detained.The first concern of those UDF leaders who had evaded detention was to find out who else was on the run, make contact and take stock of the situation. But the UDF head office and Transvaal office were perforce closed, with their entire full-time office staff in detention. Through Krish Naidoo and other links, Moosa was able to make contact with Morobe, who had also avoided detention. This process of restoring contact was, in Moosa's words, 'very ad hoc'. But other activists were able to use prearranged plans. For example, Community Education and Information activists had arranged to meet at a specified day and time at the Johannesburg Zoo.And we met on that day, and we ... set up a way of keeping in touch with each other, and then lay low for about six weeks. We didn't do anything. We just sat in 'solitary confinement' in our various hiding places for six weeks and waited. Because I mean it was bad then ... Eventually Valli [Moosa] got us together, but this was long afterwards, about two months after. And he said that what we needed to do was we needed to find people, to re-establish contact with people, anybody we could find ... We managed to pull together a meeting of about ten or twelve people to try and find out what was happening, to try and find out who was left, to make contact between people who were left.It was some time before middle-ranking activists in the Transvaal regrouped, but a skeleton NEC was able to meet within the first month of the Emergency. In fact, according to Moosa, the NEC could meet without interruption throughout the State of Emergency. Its membership was more fluid and informal than hitherto, however, depending on who was available. The regular members during the first year of the Emergency included Moosa (acting general secretary, except between January and April 1987, when he was detained), acting publicity secretary Morobe, co-presidents Sisulu and Gumede, Frank Chikane, Nair, UDF chairperson Ndlovu, Natal secretary Yunus Mahomed, and other regional and youth representatives.NEC meetings had generally started with regional reports, taking stock of the situation. Under the Emergency, with severe repression and limited news in the media, stocktaking became especially important. The first meeting for which any documentation is available seems to have taken place in the first half of July. Moosa's notes on three of the UDF's regions present a picture of general repression.E.C. [Eastern Cape]: Stone [Sizani] & [Edgar] Ngoyi detained...Street Comms being detained. Seems like state is preparing for a mass trial. Massive SADF presence. Homes of key people petrol-bombed. More than 800 people arrested. Rent boycott launched this month... Natal: a few hundred detained ... Pmb [Pietermaritzburg] was hit very hard - but many released now. Empangeni - unionists detained ... Most of, REC in hiding ... W.Cape: REC is intact and operational ... Good communication and contact with African areas. Peninsula not hit too hard, but bad in outlying areas...
Border activists reported to a subsequent meeting: 'Border: REC members in Ciskei functioning. Unit structures intact. All organisers out. Office closed. 1 or 2 leaflets produced per month ... Little co-ordination with National office. Press coverage very poor. Lucille [Meyer]'s house destroyed...' A full discussion was held at a major meeting, probably in early September:Natal: Many breakdowns below REC level . . . Maritzburg Area Comm. functioning well. REC meets once in two weeks. Detained portfolios are being replaced ... Office is open and manned by President and administrator ... Cape: ... 2 [REC] members inside. Meets fortnightly. On weekly basis 3 different national groups meet. Weekly meeting of 7 regional co-ordinators ... Scaled-down GC [General Council] held recently (of 18 people) ... 4 UDF newsletters distributed at mass level. REC is full-time. Activists moving around quite freely . . . N. Transvaal: REC started meeting 3 weeks after emergency. REC meets either weekly or fortnightly . . . Problem of transport . . . Many affiliates crushed. Gen. secretary non-functional. Office never used. E.Cape: No REC. Reg[ional] co-ord[inating] comm[ittee] consists of existing organisers has been established and met once. Border: . . . REC meets fortnightly. GC to be held soon ...The situation in the Transvaal was generally poor. When civic activists regrouped in August, they found that 'Soweto was actually in a much better position than anywhere else at this point. But the East Rand was badly hit. West Rand was badly hit, the Vaal was badly hit. Whereas in the first emergency they were taking like the top ten, this time they were taking like 200, 300 people at a time.'As these notes and recollections indicate, regional structures were disrupted to different degrees. The situation in Cape Town was clearly easier than in the Eastern Cape. The UDF later acknowledged that state repression of its regional structures had been particularly disruptive:Regional structures play the crucial role of facilitating co-ordination and democratic interaction between local affiliates and the Front at a national level. Our inability to maintain regional structures has impaired the co-ordination and democratic interaction within the Front. This has been one of the main weaknesses of the Front over the past year.Communication between national and regional levels had often been poor, and within regions the zonal or sub-regional structures functioned unevenly. In the Northern Transvaal, according to regional vice-chairman Thabo Makunyane, 'The UDF never was a very strong organisation; what was missing was a link between the structures. And then the structures became static. No new leadership was coming up.' Without a second layer of activists, the UDF could easily fragment into its discrete components.Whilst repression was severe, in most regions many leading activists had escaped detention and could continue to mobilise protests. Apparently underestimating the degree of disruption in the regions, the UDF national leadership initially seems to have planned to continue with the tactics identified before the Emergency. Just days after the Emergency, an estimated 1.5 million workers observed a national stayaway on 16 June to mark Soweto Day - as had been planned previously.
UDF shirt remembers the events of June 16, 1976
The NEC discussed rent boycotts, which had been called for at a special UDF conference in Cape Town two weeks before the Emergency, and decided that planned national meetings for women's organisations and the sports sector should go ahead. Even some of the confusions, which characterised the pre-Emergency period were reported at NEC meetings. For example, people in some areas were apparently confused about street committees. 'We need to write papers' - guides - noted Moosa.
The UDF did promote one new campaign, although it was not related to the Emergency as such. In early June the government had tried to rush security legislation through parliament that would provide for draconian powers without having to impose a State of Emergency. In a rare moment of defiance, MPs in the Indian House of Delegates and the coloured House of Representatives had held up the legislation, but the government had then bypassed them, imposing the State of Emergency. The UDF drew up plans to lobby the MPs to resign.
The first activity directly related to the Emergency was undertaken by COSATU. The trade unions called for a Day of Action on 14 July. It is not clear what UDF involvement there was in this. The key action was a stayaway, which was very poorly supported. Overall, Baskin considers, 'the Day of Action was a failure. The UDF, for its part, seems to have limited its immediate response to setting up meetings with a range of groupings to prepare for some unspecified future action. Besides meeting with UDF affiliates and allies (COSATU, the National Education Crisis Committee and the churches), the UDF leaders controversially met with business leaders. In mid-August, Morobe and others met with key business leaders Tony Bloom (Premier Milling), Julian Ogilvie Thompson (Anglo American), Basil Hersov (Anglo-Vaal) and Zach de Beer (Anglo American and PFP member of parliament).Morobe, the UDF's acting national publicity secretary, repeatedly dismissed the effects of repression in statements to the press. On the UDF's third anniversary in August, Morobe stated:The UDF has not only survived the most severe repression but has grown into a powerful mass movement. The democratic movement has not been crushed. While widespread detentions have hit some areas hard, many activists foresaw the Emergency and took the necessary precautions. They have been able to avoid detention and remain active, if covertly. Our organisations are stronger and deeper than before and are thus better able to replace activists detained, killed or forced into exile ... We are still intact and able to hold meetings at national level. But the UDF power basis is at the local level, where there is more intimate contact with the community ... So far they have failed to enforce the quiescence they desire ... Students are becoming angrier by the day and the effects of that anger are being carried over to the rest of the community.
Morobe did concede, however, that the 'days of Mitchell's Plain are over', meaning that the days of mass public rallies were past. Whilst Morobe was right to emphasise that state repression had failed to suppress political organisation and action completely, he was disingenuous in suggesting that it had made no difference. The UDF had in fact been severely disrupted. It soon became clear to UDF leaders that they could not simply hold to their existing strategies and tactics, formulated prior to the Emergency. As Moosa later put it, the UDF would only be able to run a 'holding operation' during 1986 - 7.
The campaign for national united action
After establishing new forms of clandestine co-ordination and communication, and recognising the need for an innovative approach, the UDF called for a Campaign for National United Action. The campaign was jointly taken up by the UDF and COSATU, together with the NECC, the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC). Its primary aims were to oppose the Emergency publicly, to revive the momentum of national resistance, and to broaden the scope of resistance by forging a close working alliance with COSATU. The campaign, including a 'Christmas against the Emergency', was essentially symbolic, and the primary audience was local-level activists.
The campaign seems to have been conceived within the UDF leadership. Moosa later wrote: 'An analysis of the situation ... led the Front to conclude that its very survival and indeed the survival of its affiliates on the ground, rested in the unity of all democratic forces. It was this realisation that led the Front to launch the Campaign for National United Action.' The aims of the campaign, according to a workshop report circulated among UDF regions and affiliates, were:
1. To fight back against the repressive conditions imposed by the state of emergency; to open up space to organise further, in order for the progressive movement to take the political initiative.
2. To engage in joint action between various sectors of our people, locally, regionally and nationally.
3. To build organs of people's power in the townships, factories, schools, universities, etc.
4. To deepen the political consciousness of both the masses and our activists.
The report added: 'The main emphasis of the campaign is to strengthen the unity of the progressive movement.' Seven broad national demands were suggested. These included an end to the State of Emergency, the unbanning of the ANC, no eviction of rent defaulters, and a set of worker-related demands. But the precise demands were unimportant. An article in the UDF's owns UDF Update neglected even to mention them. The purpose was not to achieve demands but to 'galvanise all democratic forces in the country'.
The campaign hinged upon the alliance with COSATU, with the UDF looking for 'structured contact' between the UDF and COSATU at the regional and local levels. COSATU hesitated before agreeing to participate in the campaign, telling the UDF that the 'July 14 setback makes it difficult to take any quick decision'. COSATU agreed, however, 'that there should be united action against [the] emergency' and that it was 'important to strengthen and formalise links and contacts between UDF and COSATU at a local level'. UDF-COSATU meetings were soon held in some of the regions, starting with the Natal Midlands and Northern Transvaal, although the alliance did not develop smoothly everywhere. The UDF Border region repeatedly complained to the NEC about the bitter divisions within COSATU in the Eastern Cape and Border. In the Western Cape UDF leaders were worried about what they called 'workerist domination' within COSATU.
The Campaign for National United Action was finally launched by the UDF, together with COSATU, the NECC, SACBC and SACC, at a press conference in October. The press conference introduced a new trio effaces representing the democratic movement: Morobe, Mufamadi and Molobi, from the UDF, COSATU and NECC respectively. All three were from the political grouping that came together in Soweto in the early 1980s; all three were closely linked to the ANC, with Morobe and Molobi having spent time on Robben Island. Mufamadi was a UDF REG member as well as COSATU official. Molobi had never held formal office in the UDF, but was very close to the UDF leadership. Personal ties helped cement organisational alliances. All three were African, reflecting a continuing commitment to African leadership.
The UDF later described the campaign as creating the basis for this alliance through 'unity in action at a national, regional and local level'. The campaign represented 'a phenomenal alliance of democratic forces'. The national leaders repeatedly emphasised the importance of action and unity at the local level: 'The programme for the campaign must be built on the ground in order to make National Unity a reality. But no guidance was initially provided as to what the content of the campaign should be. In other words, the campaign was formulated so as to embrace any actions, according them a national significance, but did not suggest any particular focus.
It was perhaps the lack of a specific focus that led the UDF and its allies to call for a 'Christmas against the Emergency' as part of the Campaign for National United Action. The UDF, COSATU, NECC and SACC called on people to observe a set of essentially symbolic practices for ten days, from 16 to 26 December. The overall theme was 'to rededicate ourselves to the struggle for national liberation'. People should partake in two two-hour candle vigils, read a Unity Pledge in churches, avoid drunkenness, and so on. The UDF and allies asked that major sports fixtures and music festivals be suspended, called on people not to shop in town, and appealed to shebeens to close, at least at night. A 'special appeal' was made to 'young militants to exercise maximum possible discipline'; activists must 'ensure that the campaign is explained to the people well before December 16'. The UDF later claimed that the Christmas campaign had been 'highly successful mainly in the Transvaal and Eastern Cape'. One success was that 'For the first time the structures of the UDF, COSATU, NECC and SACC engaged in united action at a local level.'
The message that resistance had not been crushed either in practice or in spirit was central to the overall campaign. This was the upbeat message that the UDF repeatedly sought to convey through the media. For example, the 'Comment' in UDF Update in November stated:
As 1986 draws to an end the UDF and the democratic movement can look back with pride at the massive blows struck against the apartheid regime. No longer is the prospect of victory ... a distant dream. Today we can say with confidence that the day of our liberation is in sight ... Despite all its efforts, the regime's attempts to reverse the tide of history has been a dismal failure.
In strategic terms, the campaign represented a return to the UDF's strategy of the early 1980s. The UDF and its new allies were in practice less concerned with directly challenging the state, as perhaps in the pre-Emergency period of people's power, but rather sought to demonstrate that the democratic movement remained strong and united, thereby asserting the impossibility of the state resisting fundamental change. The UDF was surely correct to view the significance of the campaign more in the fact that it took place at all, thereby registering continued defiance, than in the numbers of people actually involved. But the campaign nonetheless suffered from two important weaknesses. Firstly, the UDF was largely constrained by the limits of the media. Its own media production was disrupted by the Emergency. The first post-Emergency issues of UDF Update and the UDF-aligned SASPU National were dated November and November/December respectively. Only Grassroots, in Cape Town, appeared regularly. Besides UDF Update and the theoretical journal Isizwe, no national publications were produced in 1986-7, 'due to difficulties in communication, printing and distribution'. UDF leaders warned against relying on national propaganda: 'while national propaganda has an important role to play, the most crucial form of propaganda is that which is published at a local level... It is only with locally based and decentralised production and distribution of propaganda that we would be able to counter the apartheid propaganda strategy.'
In practice, regions and affiliates seem to have been able to do little in the first six months of the Emergency. The UDF was therefore forced to make use of the commercial press, including the very sympathetic New Nation. Morobe fed a constant stream of statements to the media. But in most regions the UDF struggled even to secure coverage in the commercial media. At an NEC meeting in September 1986, propaganda was reported to be 'very weak' in Natal, Border and the Northern Transvaal. Only in the Western Cape were REC members said to have 'close connections with certain journalists'. These comments were echoed later in the year, with only the Western Cape region apparently producing pamphlets, although its media on National United Action was said to be 'very poor'.
Use of the media was further limited by state regulations. The restrictions on the media imposed in June were streamlined and further tightened in December. The definition of 'subversive statements' was widened to include not only statements promoting protest or organisation but also those merely reporting on these. The publication of blank spaces or of text obscured by thick black lines was prohibited so as to conceal the extent of censorship. As if these were not enough, still more regulations were gazetted to plug any remaining gaps. Three newspapers - the Weekly Mail, Sowetan and City Press - were prevented from publishing statements concerning specifically the Campaign for National United Action. In January 1987 the New Nation was similarly restricted.
The second, and more important, weakness of the campaign was the lack of any clear programme of action. A range of protests did continue at the local level, despite (or, in some cases, fuelled by) repression under the Emergency. But these were barely integrated into any national strategy. This is not to say that there were no discussions of strategy. For example, strategy was discussed at an NEC meeting in September, where a general approach of both intensifying and broadening resistance was mapped out. Intensification involved rent boycotts, campaigns against apartheid structures - in practice, sending letters to MPs in the House of Delegates - and planned campaigns around the Sharpeville Six, who were political prisoners on death row for their part in killings in the Vaal Triangle in 1984. Broadening involved building alliances, especially with COSATU, and (controversially) forging a closer relationship with big business. But this hardly amounted to a programme of action. It was more of a list of what was known to be happening, a report-back, than an integrated strategy. Under the circumstances, little more was possible. And most of what was reported was not protest, but rather story after story of repression, smear campaigns, and so on.
Registering continued defiance was of undoubted importance, providing encouragement to activists whose spirits flagged, and maintaining some pressure on the state, but it hardly amounted to a persuasive strategy for achieving political change. Uncertain as to how to proceed, internal leaders sought further guidance from the ANC in exile. Since January the ANC had been regarded as the font of all strategic wisdom. Suttner was detained en route to the ANC in June; in July the NEC discussed a 'trip abroad' - with Moosa scribbling a note, 'also suggest to COSATU'. The full range of contacts with the ANC thereafter remains unclear, the only confirmed visitors being youth leaders Deacon Mathe and Peter Mokaba, who consulted with the ANC in Harare, but there clearly were extensive contacts, especially during 1987.
The ANC's position can probably be determined from a document entitled '1987: What Is to Be Done?', allegedly drafted by the ANC's National Executive Committee and Political-Military Council in October 1986, but of unproven authenticity. The document called on the democratic movement to avoid simply defensive actions. It identified a need, as apparently had already been mooted, for 'a very broad summit meeting of democratic and anti-apartheid leaders', as well as campaigns in the white population, in the bantustans, and over political prisoners.
The ANC document also identified a series of 'major problems' within the democratic movement inside the country. The frankness of this acknowledgement suggests that the document is authentic.
a. Sharp divisions and conflict within the leadership of the UDF
b. The failure of the UDF to work out a programme of action and a set of strategic and tactical objectives
c. The emergence of contradictions between the national leadership of the UDF on the one hand and regional and local collectives on the other
d. In some cases, the weakness of the UDF's affiliates and the failure of the Front to attend to this question
e. Divisions within COSATU ...
f. [Concerning failures within the churches]
g. The inability to ensure concerted joint actions over time among all the social forces that constitute the democratic movement
h. The failure of ANC people within the democratic movement to solve organisational and political questions relating to the combination of legal and illegal work
i. The sporadic nature of contact between ourselves and the leadership of the democratic movement.
Indeed, repression under the Emergency served to reopen many of the divisions, which had come to the fore during 1984-5. The strategic framework of people's power had provided a way of drawing together under the UDF's umbrella the different strands of the Charterist movement. But the strategic framework fell apart in the face of mass detentions and the extraordinary difficulty of holding large meetings, the rival strands of the Charterist movement began to send separate delegations to the ANC, and used different lines of communication. Over the next few years tensions were to increase steadily.
In response, the ANC advocated unity, as it always had, but did so in conjunction with a strategic vision which was itself unconvincing and hence a source of disunity. Barrell writes: 'operationally, the ANC was stuck in a profound strategic hiatus, if not crisis. Across the gamut of its operational activities, it showed no sign of a breakthrough, although conditions were more favourable than at any time since the resort to armed struggle in 1961.' The ANC had failed to infiltrate large numbers of military cadres into South Africa, had only a limited tactical influence on internal protesters and, above all, had made no significant progress in building integrated political-military command structures inside the country. ANC strategy was simply to repeat its past efforts.
Several years later, Moosa told journalist Patti Waldmeir that by 1987 he had become unhappy with the ANC's 'romantic approach to revolution'. 'Whenever I met with ANC leaders,' he told Waldmeir, 'the question I asked over and over was, How exactly are we going to take over?' Moosa recalled voicing his unhappiness at a meeting with the ANC held near London:
We said, we've done everything, and we can do a bit more of everything, but there is a stalemate. We were saying, something else now needs to happen. The Boers are killing us, and it's not conceivable that we are going to be able to overrun Pretoria ... We were attacked by the [ANC] leadership for even suggesting that there could be a stalemate. We were given a lecture on insurrection and sent back to prepare for it. And of course, that's what we did.
But the UDF leadership, and the COSATU leadership too, were not committed insurrectionists. They were willing to work towards unity, and were certainly willing to support a wide range of defiance and protest action, but they were wary of the insurrectionism advocated by some sections of the Charterist movement. The ANC, however, was slow to recognise that the promise of people's power had dissipated.
One tactic, which burgeoned in mid-1986, was the rent boycott. At a conference just prior to the State of Emergency, UDF regions and affiliates had agreed to promote rent boycotts across the country. In this they were inspired by the success of the rent boycott in the Vaal Triangle, which by November 1986 had caused local government in the area to run up a deficit of R46 million, growing by R2 million each month. In June a boycott began in Soweto. The state's attempts to suppress the boycotts through force merely served to strengthen them. Boycotts also began in the Border region. By February 1987 rent arrears in townships across the country had reached R178 million.
'Unban the ANC'
In the second half of 1986 the UDF's public activities had been largely symbolic, concerned more with marshalling the UDF's supporters than with challenging the state. At the beginning of January, probably spurred on by the ANC itself, the UDF once again seized the initiative. On 8 January 1987, on the 75th anniversary of the ANC's birth, whole page advertisements calling for its unbanning appeared in sixteen newspapers. The action, which the UDF saw as part of its Campaign for National United Action, may have involved very few people, but it had a powerful effect, encouraging the UDF's supporters and exposing divisions within the 'ruling bloc'.
The unbanning of the ANC and other organisations had been a goal of the UDF since its formation. Action on the demand had been discussed at the January 1986 meeting with the ANC in Stockholm, and formed part of the Programme of Action adopted at the NWC Conference in May 1986. In June 1986, just before the imposition of the Emergency, the UDF, supported by COSATU, NAFCOC, SACC and the Black Sash, had demanded publicly that the ANC be unbanned, and linked this demand to the planned protests on 16 June and 26 June. Unbanning the ANC was also one of the seven demands in the Campaign for National United Action.
The advertisements constituted a symbolic protest, but were nonetheless very powerful. Apart from the sixteen newspapers they appeared in, three more papers were prevented from publishing the advertisement by security police, and several others refused to publish them. Moosa later wrote:
The advertisement made a tremendous impact both at a mass level inside the country and internationally. In the face of a plethora of media restrictions and the declaration of the UDF as an affected organisation, the advertisement served to boost the morale of UDF supporters and demoralise those in government and other supporters of the regime who assumed that the State of Emergency had succeeded in silencing the Front. In this sense, it was a psychological victory.
The impact of the action was reflected in the rapidity of the state's response. The Commissioner of Police issued a prohibition under Emergency regulations on advertising or reports in the media, which promoted the image of a banned organisation. Although the prohibition was ruled invalid in the Supreme Court later in the month, the government immediately amended the regulations to permit this kind of prohibition. The advertisements clearly irked P.W. Botha especially. In February he alleged that the advertisements had been paid for by First National Bank (FNB), and appointed a compliant judge to run a commission of inquiry. It turned out that the advertisements, costing about R150 000, had been paid for by an Indian businessman, in part through a loan made available by FNB on the direct instructions of its chief executive, Chris Ball. The 'Ball affair' served to reveal the disaffection among the English-speaking business elite with the government, as well as the government's paranoia.
The government soon responded to the UDF's call for the unbanning of the ANC. P.W. Botha announced In January, on the day after the 'Unban the ANC' advertisements had been published, that elections would be held for the House of Assembly, the House elected by white voters only. At the end of January the date was set for 6 May. The central theme in the elections was the threat posed by the ANC. The elections posed two dilemmas for the UDF and its allies. Firstly, as in the 1983 referendum, the UDF had to advise its white supporters and sympathisers on their response. Secondly, it sought activities, which would demonstrate the power of the UDF and the ANC as well as popular dissatisfaction with the whites-only elections. The UDF's capacity to respond was, however, impaired by the detention of Moosa from January to April.
In advising white voters, the UDF was typically evasive. Whilst it could not approve of participation in the elections, it did not explicitly call for a boycott. 'White UDF supporters and democrats' should instead strive to 'bring meaning to the politics of non-racialism'. In general, the UDF sought to refocus attention on the broader context, describing the elections as a 'farce' because 'the minority of South Africans will elect a Parliament that will attempt to determine the future of the majority of South Africans'. In the event, the elections returned a greatly strengthened National Party on the basis of a right-wing shift in the white electorate. The PFP was ousted by the Conservative Party as the official opposition.
Protest against the elections as a whole was undertaken in conjunction with COSATU. The UDF and COSATU called for a two-day stayaway on 5 and 6 May 1987. The stayaway was supported by over one million workers on both days. Support was strongest among African workers in the Eastern Cape, and weakest among coloured and Indian workers in other regions. The two-day stayaway was later described as 'the biggest action of its kind in the history of our struggle'. 'A mood of optimism swept across the country', showing 'that the masses were far from defeated' and attesting to the 'new capacity gained through the Campaign for National United Action...'
In fact, the alliance between the UDF and COSATU was not without difficulties. Within COSATU, some trade unions argued for a more cautious approach, in part for fear that the state would unleash the kind of repression on the trade unions that it had already dealt the UDF and its affiliates. UDF leaders also complained that COSATU had twice failed to turn up to meetings with them: 'This has resulted in the inability to organise and decide on issues.'
Soon after the election the UDF identified various weaknesses in the Campaign for National United Action:
While unity is being forged at a national level, it is not being built adequately at the regional and local levels. This campaign will be ineffective unless we are able to reap its benefits at a local level. It is also an observable fact that not all regions and affiliates are participating evenly in the campaign. The campaign must take on a truly national character - its potency lies in its ability to mobilise all sections of the people into united action.
The Campaign had involved only three episodes: the Christmas against the Emergency, the January advertisements, and the May stayaway. These had an overly national and even international focus. There was no Programme of Action showing how local structures and activities fitted into the national campaign. And in most areas organisation at regional and local levels was in a very parlous state.
The development of sectoral and regional organisation
Perhaps the most striking development of early 1987 was the formation of the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO). In May the UDF referred to SAYCO as an 'inspiration, not only to the hundreds of youth congresses around the country, but the Front as a whole'. The formation of SAYCO was the outstanding success in the UDF's general development of the different sectors. The UDF had begun to emphasise this in 1985, following the lead of several RECs which had restructured themselves around the representation of the different sectors in order to facilitate co-ordination and accountability. The Programme of Action adopted at the UDF's NWC Conference in May 1986 had called for the formation of national organisations in the women's, youth and civic sectors. The Emergency increased the urgency of forming such national structures - but at the same time made it still more difficult to do so.
Building national co-ordination in the youth sector had long been held up by divisions within youth organisations, personal, ideological and tactical. In July 1986 a national interim co-ordinating committee was elected at an underground consultative conference in Cape Town. Peter Mokaba, former Robben Islander and publicity secretary of the Northern Transvaal UDF, was elected as interim national education officer with a brief to solve the bitter divisions, which persisted in some regions. Together with Deacon Mathe, Mokaba consulted with the ANC in Harare. The ANC's backing seems to have facilitated progress. A planning workshop was held at Broederstroom west of Pretoria in October.
Finally, in March 1987, delegates from youth organisations around the country met at the University of the Western Cape to launch SAYCO. SAYCO adopted a federal structure, with ten regional youth congresses comprising 1200 affiliates, over half a million signed-up members and a support base of two million. SAYCO thus claimed to be the biggest youth grouping of its kind in South African history. SAYCO made its commitment to Charterism and militancy quite clear. It adopted the slogan 'Freedom or Death: Victory is Certain', and its colours combined those of the ANC and COSATU. Mokaba was elected president.
Charterist women's organisations had a similarly difficult history, particularly in the Western Cape and Border regions. By May 1986 several regional organisations had been formed, and stalwarts of the former Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) had formed a national working committee to work towards the re-launch of the organisation. FEDSAW had been formed in 1954 as a federal structure for women organised within the various racial components of the Congress Alliance, such as the ANC's Women's League. Although never banned, FEDSAW effectively lapsed around 1963. Reviving FEDSAW was a clear and open commitment to Charterism. In the Programme of Action adopted by the UDF's NWC in May 1986, the UDF stated that it was 'committed to the revival of the Federation of South African Women' during 1986. 'Women's organisations should be formed where none exist and should affiliate to regional structures, which need to be built and strengthened to pave the way for a strong national structure.' UDF regional structures were urged to assist: 'the task of organising women should not be seen as the task of women alone'.
Before the imposition of the State of Emergency it had been proposed that FEDSAW be re-launched on 9 August - Women's Day, and the thirtieth anniversary of the famous FEDSAW march on Pretoria. But disruption ruled out an August re-launch. A two-day national conference was planned for early 1987, to develop a common understanding of the nature of the women's movement as well as to establish a national co-ordinating structure. Eventually, in April 1987 a national structure was formed. This was not FEDSAW but a UDF Women's Congress, which set 'itself the task of uniting the broadest range of democratic women under the umbrella of the Federation of South African Women'.
Attempts to form a national co-ordinating body for civics had gone on even longer than initiatives on either youth or women, but it would not be until 1992 that a national structure was finally formed. During 1986-7 attempts continued, but in vain. Building co-ordination among the civics was especially difficult because of the peculiarly ambiguous character of the sector. Civics claimed to be more than just activist groupings, and should not, it was therefore believed, be formed 'from above'. Rather, they needed to be formed on the basis of strong local, or at least regional, structures. Unfortunately, the State of Emergency hit civics especially hard. Local structures were devastated and regional structures largely incapacitated. In the Transvaal co-ordination was undertaken through the Community Education and Information project, which formulated a three-phase strategy:
Our first phase was to make contact and get information. The second phase was to do training work with what was, by and large, a completely new layer or second generation of civic leadership. And the third phase was to reconvene a civic conference in the Transvaal, and re-elect a new civic leadership for the Transvaal which could co-ordinate.
A regional conference was held clandestinely in Lydenburg in 1987. But an interim regional co-ordinating committee was not elected until about April 1988. Most other regions seem to have been even less organised, and plans for a national meeting were repeatedly postponed.
The unambiguous success story in national organisation building was, of course, COSATU. The unions that joined together to form COSATU had included several affiliates of the UDF, which in some regions had been seen as a sector, with a labour representative on the REC. But the strongest unions in COSATU had never been UDF affiliates, and had a history of antipathy and even hostility to the UDF. COSATU itself was committed to political action at local and national levels, but its relationship with the UDF remained undefined during 1986 and the first half of 1987. Whilst COSATU was a success, and was in some respects stronger than the UDF during this period, there were regions where the UDF became involved in helping develop COSATU organisation. This was especially the case in the Eastern Cape and Border regions, where COSATU experienced severe difficulties in unifying. COSATU's Eastern Cape regional structure was not launched until February 1987, well over a year after COSATU had been formed. As late as November 1987, the Border UDF region reported to the NEC that there were 'two COSATU structures in existence', and requested that the NEC ask COSATU's national leaders to intervene.
The educational sector was a major cause of concern for the UDF leadership during 1986-7. Huge numbers of students stayed out of school in the second half of 1986. The challenge to the UDF's affiliates was how to organise for students to return to school under conditions which the organisations and the students could agree on as being acceptable. This would have been a difficult task in a free climate. Under the Emergency it was all but impossible, with most of the leadership of the National Education Crisis Committee in detention and with constant provocation of students by the security forces. Early in the Emergency the UDF's national leadership met with the remnants of the Crisis Committee to discuss the education crisis. A national education conference was proposed, 'to create space' and 'draw in everybody'. But the Emergency left little space for such a conference, and it soon became clear that the NECC was in such disarray that it could do little itself. Student organisation had also been weakened by state repression. In May 1987 the UDF noted: 'While regional structures exist, regional and national co-ordination has broken down and organisation at the level of the local student congresses is weak.'
There were also important developments in some of the non-metropolitan regions. Nine UDF regions were represented at the NWC in May 1987, including, besides the six formally constituted regions, the Orange Free State, the Northern Cape and the Eastern Transvaal. The Northern Cape had been hit hard by detentions, setting back progress towards a formal regional launch. Co-ordination had always proved more difficult in the Orange Free State. The region was divided between the north, focused on the townships of Welkom, Kroonstad and Parys, and the south, focused on Bloemfontein. A regional committee was eventually elected in April 1986 but apparently excluded activists from the southern Free State. Ironically, repression strengthened linkages within, but not between, the two sub-regions, as activists from different townships were thrown together either in detention or in internal exile in Johannesburg. In July 1987 an umbrella Free State Youth Congress was launched - at a conference in Durban, because of the difficulties of meeting in the Free State itself. The Eastern Transvaal grouping seems to have comprised primarily civic activists organised through the Community Education and Information project. A Far Northern Transvaal Co-ordinating Committee was also formed in 1987 to cover Venda, the townships around Louis Trichardt and Messina, and the northern parts of Gazankulu.
One area where organisation developed was in the Northern Transvaal. In August the Northern Transvaal People's Congress (NOTPECO) was formally launched at a secret meeting. NOTPECO defined itself as a 'political umbrella organisation' for migrant workers, both at home in the villages of the Northern Transvaal and in the industrial hostels of the Reef and parts of the Eastern Transvaal. A key figure in the initiative was C.W. (Wilfried) Monama, who was employed by the UDF as a regional organiser as well as serving as acting chairperson of NOTPECO. Monama was a veteran of the ANC and the Sebatakgomo movement in the 1950s. Under Monama's direction, NOTPECO adopted a position strongly opposed to chiefs, advocating instead elected village councils. UDF leaders were reported to be critical of Monama, accusing him of 'hijacking' NOTPECO, turning it into a personal fiefdom and, worst of all, dabbling in ethnic politics. Perhaps in response to NOTPECO, other UDF and ANC activists initiated the formation of a Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (CONTRALESA) in September 1987. CONTRALESA was initially based among chiefs in KwaNdebele and Moutse who were opposed to KwaNdebele 'independence', and to the bantustan system in general. But they were not, of course, opposed to the chieftainship. The differences between NOTPECO and CONTRALESA reflected a difficulty, which the UDF and ANC were to face again and again: what position to adopt on chieftainship whilst opposing the bantustan system.
'Building the front'
On 29-30 May 1987 about two hundred delegates from all nine UDF regions met in Durban for a National Working Committee conference. The conference was held in great secrecy - even changing venues in mid-conference. It provided the first opportunity for a full-scale assessment of the UDF's performance during the Emergency, and of the path forward. What became clear was that many UDF structures had transformed themselves to cope with Emergency conditions, and that this transformation needed to be recognised and directed. The conference came up with a new political approach.
The national leadership presented a 28-page secretarial report to the conference, comprising the longest-ever national assessment of the UDF. It began with an optimistic analysis of the political context. Notwithstanding the state's strategy combining repression, limited development and bogus constitutional reform, the strategic initiative was deemed to have remained in the hands of the democratic movement. Invoking the slogan adopted by the UDF in 1985, the report boldly claimed that 'Over the past two years the struggle has indeed moved from Protest to Challenge. Apartheid rule is being challenged on every front.' Such bold claims were perhaps intended to revive flagging spirits. Moreover, the UDF claimed to have 'become the vehicle which embodies the political aspirations of the broad masses. Every sector of our movement looks towards the Front for political expression and leadership.' As the ANC itself had acknowledged, this was far from the case. The report also put a positive spin on the UDF's campaigns over the past year.
The report provided a more accurate survey of the UDF's own structures. At the national level, the NEC had been hard hit by repression. Two NEC members were still on trial, eight were in detention, one had gone into exile, and two others 'had been withdrawn by their regions'. Only five remained, requiring that new members be nominated by the regions or co-opted. The regions had also been hit hard; only two (the Western Cape and Border) had been able to hold AGMs. Zonal and area structures existed in most regions but functioned very unevenly. Communication was often poor between the national leadership and the regions, and between regional leaders and sub-regional structures.
In terms of sectors, the UDF's youth affiliates had adapted most easily to the Emergency, and had succeeded in launching SAYCO. The Women's Congress had also been formed. The situation was very different among school students: 'regional and national co-ordination has broken down and organisation at the level of the local student congresses is weak'. The National Education Crisis Committee and its regional structures, teachers' organisation and the civics were weak. COSATU had 'grown in leaps and bounds'. But organisational growth on the sports and cultural fronts, in white areas, and in coloured and Indian areas was poor. Indeed, in coloured and Indian areas there had been 'a general backward slide over the past two years'.
The conference adopted a long Programme of Action around the theme of the conference, 'Defend, Consolidate and Advance'. The Programme opened with a call to 'discuss, explain and popularise the Freedom Charter'. This call was based on a recognition that the UDF had changed significantly over the previous two years, during the period of people's power and then under the Emergency: 'The UDF has since its inception moved from the position of opposing only the President's Council proposals [for the Tricameral Parliament] of 1983 and the Koornhof Bills to addressing a broad range of political issues. The Front now needs to adopt a comprehensive political programme.' UDF structures should discuss the Freedom Charter, 'with a view to the UDF itself adopting' it. A second major development had been the alliance with COSATU.
More and more, the rank and file members of COSATU and the affiliates of the Front have united in action around common issues and campaigns... Our task now is to consolidate and strengthen this unity at every level. In particular we need to work towards a more structured relationship with the trade union movement. The united front needs to be built at a local level. Zonal and area structures of the UDF must be transformed into united front structures, in which all sectors are represented, especially workers, youth, women, students and civics.
'Build the united front!', proclaimed the Programme of Action. As part of this, the different sectors - women, civics, students and the National Education Crisis Committee, and cultural workers - needed to be strengthened. At the same time, the democratic movement needed to be broadened. The Programme of Action called for intensified efforts in organising among white, coloured and Indian South Africans, and throughout the bantustans. It also called for a 'national conference of all Anti-Apartheid forces', as well as appealing to white people to 'stay and contribute' to the democratic movement.
Overall, the thrust of the Programme of Action was in calling for organisation to be strengthened and broadened. The only discussion of specific campaigns concerned a National Anti-Death Squads Campaign and a continuation of the Campaign for National United Action. The latter should include two weeks of action in June against the anticipated re-imposition of the State of Emergency. There was no explicit call for a stayaway because, Morobe suggested, the UDF had sensed that in some areas support for a stayaway was still low after the massive stayaway on 5 and 6 May. Although the Programme of Action called for action over ending the Emergency, the UDF leadership anticipated that the Emergency would only be lifted 'if we abandon the struggle for freedom'. 'The days of relatively ample legal space are gone for ever.'
Two weeks after the NWC, Morobe was interviewed by the Weekly Mail. Morobe argued that the state was trying to force the UDF to turn to violence.
I think our task remains to engage apartheid legally and in an open way. To the extent that there is space for us to do that, I think the UDF will continue to do that. It is a matter of crucial strategy for us that we continue exploring those avenues that are open to us even at the legal level. Our strength as the UDF lies on the basis that we conduct our struggles non-violently.
Morobe insisted that 'our strength and support base has actually broadened over the past twelve months' but at the same time described the Emergency as a period of 'tactical retreat' for the UDF. 'It is going to be a long and hard struggle.
In mid-June the Emergency was re-imposed, as expected. Despite the NWC's call, it seems that protest was muted. Several important UDF leaders were released from detention, including Mafolo. New and broader restrictions were imposed on the media, in order 'to curb the present flood of revolutionary propaganda'. The government appointed publications censors, with extensive powers of seizing media and even closing media down.
The two major decisions taken at the NWC concerned the adoption of a comprehensive political programme, exemplified by the Freedom Charter, and the establishment of mechanisms for t
