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 state regain firm political control over the urban and rural areas of . 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, impris- onment 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 Adminis- tration 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 Depart- ment 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

194 BANISHMENTS UNDER THE SUPPRESSION OF COMMUNISM ACT 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 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 (). 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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