Archibald Gumede

Date: 9 December, 1985

The state withdrew charges against Archibald Gumede, Mawalal Ramgobin, Chanderdeo Sewpershadh, MJ Naidoo, Essop Eassack Jassat, Dundubela Aubrey Mokoena, Archibald Jacob Gumede and Ephraim Curtis Nkondo on 9 December 1985.

On 12 August 1984 the South African police arrested various leading members of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and individuals from other organizations of opposing the Tricameral Parliament. Amongst those that were arrested were Ramgobin, Sewpershadh, MJ Naidoo, Jassat, Mokoena, Gumede and Nkondo. They were initially detained under section 50 of the Internal Security Act. After a court application challenging their detention, they were released but new detention orders were issued by the Minister of Law and Order. The new detention orders were challenged again in court this time without success. Later, the Minister of Law and Order withdrew the preventive detention orders, but charged the arrested with treason.

Gumede and others, including Ramgobin and Sewpershad, sought refuge in the British consulate in Durban. In an attempt to secure British intervention, Dr H Coovadia and Z Yacoob, representing the UDF and the Natal Indian Congress (NIC), travelled to the United Kingdom. The British government refused to intervene. While Gumede and others were at the embassy they were visited by Dr. Beyers Naude on 27 September 1984 and by a British Labour Party Member of Parliament, Donald Anderson, in October.

When Ramgobin, Sewpershad and MJ Naidoo voluntarily left the consulate on 6 October, they were immediately arrested, even though the Natal Attorney-General had withdrawn their detention orders. On 13 December, after a 90-day sit-in, Gumede, Paul David (a member of the Release Mandela Campaign Committee), and Billy Nair left the consulate. Gumede and David were immediately arrested and subsequently charged with high treason. A bail application on behalf of the eight accused (Gumede, Mokoena, Nkondo, Ramgobin, Jassat, David, Naidoo, and Sewpershad) was refused.

When the trial came to court in Pietermaritzburg it eventually included 16 accused. In April 1985 they were granted bail and the official trial began in August. On 9 December 1985 the charges against 12 of the accused, including Gumede, were withdrawn following the collapse of evidence by Isaak de Vries. De Vries was a senior lecturer at the Rand Afrikaans University and a key expert witness for the state having given evidence at 19 previous trials. Charges against the remaining four accused, office-bearers of the South African Allied Workers' Union were withdrawn on 23 June 1986.

References

• Meche Okwesili, (2004), Good over Evil, Canada pp.147-148
• SAHO, Archibald Gumede, from South African History Online (SAHO), [online] Available at www.sahistory.org.za [Accessed 24 November 2010]
• Richard L. Abel (1995), Politics by other means: law in the struggle against apartheid, 1980-1994, London  p.271.