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truth a Editorial comment Digging in the dirt

lmost a year ago, this maga­ 14, it's important that this anger is zine ran a ground-breaking dealt with. A article which looked at the 'Unless victims are encouraged question of a general amnesty for to express their anger in non-violent South Africa's war criminals. ways,' he states, 'it will more than We're doing it again. likely be taken out on those closest Only this time, there's a real to them — such as family mem­ sense of urgency. As we move bers. Alternatively, it will be directed towards a negotiated settlement, toward the self, resulting in tenden­ the amnesty debate takes on cies such as alcoholism, drug increasing importance. abuse and suicide. Why? Because a negotiated set­ 'And unless we create a South tlement isn't enough to ensure Africa which demonstrates to the peace and justice in South Africa. survivors that their trials and tribula­ We need reconciliation and political tions have meaning and have ted to something better, tolerance, to try and heal the wounds of the past. we will create a generation of cynics and misan­ Hundreds, even thousands of South Africans have thropes.' their own skeletons in the cupboard. For years, In this edition of W1P, we look at what is possible. they've run dirty tricks, covert operations and other Among other things, we try to warn of the danger of acts of terror. glossing over the amnesty debate — or trading away The murderers who deprived our country of lead­ an amnesty during political negotiations. ers like Matthew Goniwe, Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge, David Webster and so many others have a lot We also look at the feasibility of an official Truth to answer for. So too do the shady characters who Commission, set up by the negotiating forum to probe orchestrate other political violence — attacks on hos­ the past and investigate specific human rights tels, forays into informal settlements, drive-by shoot­ abuses. ings in white suburbs, grenade attacks on churches ... From our enquiries, there seems to be wide­ the list is almost endless. spread support for a Truth Commission. The challenge The operative word here is anger. Covert opera­ now is to ensure it is taken up within the negotiating tions have driven division into our society, leaving forum — and that the search for the truth is a key part thousands of angry South Africans in their wake. of any negotiated settlement. They've lost parents, children, relatives and friends. And, as Lloyd Vogelman argues in his article on page — ChriS Vick

Work In Progress incorporating New Era EDITOR: Chris Vick No 91 • August/September 1993 ASSISTANT EDITOR: Hein Marais Published by the Southern African Research Service WRITER: Kerry Cullinan (SARS) PRODUCTION: Annette Griessel PO Box 32716, Braamfontein 2017 ADVISORY BOARD: Jacklyn Cock, Jo-Anne Collinge. Head office: 9th floor, Auckland House, cnr Smit & Moeletsi Mbeki, Glenn Moss, Ingrid Obery, Khehla Biccard Streets, Braamfontein, Johannesburg Shubane, Alan Velcich Phone (Oil) 403-1912 Fax (Oil) 403-2534 BUSINESS MANAGER: Hector Mbau Cape Town office: PO Box 13309, Mowbray 7705 SALES & DISTRIBUTION: Kenosi Sengati Phone & fax: (021) 448-3727 CIRCULATION: Lawrence Ntsamai Cover photo: Natasha Pincus Printed by Perskor ©1993 WIP 91 • Contents BRIEFS .2 WHY I'D WORLD BRIEFS 4

ELECTION WATCH 6 LIKE Politics by opinion poll — Bob Mattes TO BE A PERSONALLY SPEAKING .8 Albertina Sisutu KANGAROO Albertina Sisulu speaks COVER STORY: Digging for the truth 10 personally — and admits • Skeletons come out of the cupboard that she longs to have a — Hein Marais warm pouch where her • It's hard to forgive — even harder to children can hide forget — Page 8 dSft ^ — Lloyd Vogelman • When killers walk free — Louise Flanagan DIGGING FOR THE TRUTH • A very South African coup The amnesty — Rocky Williams * debate is far from DOCUMENT 23 dead and buried. Racism & sexism — you can't have WIP gauges sup­ one without the other port for a UN- — ANC supervised Truth GENDER .t 24 Commission to Breathing new I'fe into the abortion probe the sins of debate the past — Liz Walker — PaeelO POLITICS 26 Adventures in the wild. First stop: the World Trade Centre — Hein Marais STATE OF LEFT ALIVE 30 THE STATE A workers" party: Back to the future — Jeremy Cronin Hein Marais tries to make sense of the National Party. And it ain't easy DEBATE 33 — Page 26 Socialism's identity crisis — the Ernesto Laclau debate Middle road or cul de sac — Colin Bundy WILL A WORKERS' INTERNATIONAL 39 PARTY WORK? The Tete offensive — Heather Hilt We can learn a few lessons from Brazil, says Jeremy Cronin. Just a few REVIEWS 41 — Page 30 Collected poems by Dambudzo Marechera — Lisa Combrinck BABYLON BY BUS Mozambicans brave the Tete corridor "hell run' to make LETTERS .43 contact with long-lost relatives. We find out why LEFT BEHIND ...44 — Page 39

WORK IN PROGRESS briefs

LAND Restructuring ried through a series of bills that cater slipped "through the back door", hidden for the privatisation of communal, trust in vaguely titled legislation like the through the and state land. There was no public General Law Second Amendment Act debate nor was there independent evi­ 108 of 1993. back door dence presented to the select commit­ In a statement, the ANC advises tees reviewing them. "the government and future recipients MERE MONTHS BEFORE A POLITICAL SET- Buried in nine pieces of legisla­ of the land that i( does not consider tlement, the governmenl has rammed tion are far-reaching measures that itself bound to honour transactions" through parliament a package of legisla­ form the framework for restructuring under the acts. It warns that "hasty and tion that seems aimed at sabotaging land tenure on the basis of large-scale ill-managed privatisation of existing tra­ democratic solutions to South Africa's privatisation. ditional and informal land rights can land problem. Similar measures were blocked by lead to large-scale dispossession, While eyes were trained on the groups in 1991 when they forced the removals and instability in land rights". multiparty negotiating forum, the gov­ withdrawal of the Rural Development The National Land Committee ernment during two weeks in July hur­ Bill. This time the measures were (NLC), which also objects to the moves, accuses the government of ignoring "the right and complex diversi­ ty of tenure forms existing in South Africa" and of implementing "policy that has been widely criticised and rejected ... months before a democratic No matter how you look at it, election". > we bring it into Focus Findings pre-empted The findings of a major World Bank study on appropriate tenure rights have been pre-empted with this manoeuvre, charges the ANC. Private ownership is the only form of tenure catered for in the acts facilitating the transfer of state, communal and trust land. Several of the acts also serve notice that the government is in no mood yet to relent to a year-long cam­ paign demanding a moratorium on the sale and transfer of state land. The legis­ lation provides mechanisms for trans­ ferring large portions of land to bantus- tan government and other apartheid-era institutions. This badly undermines a future land distribution programme, warns the Focus On Africa. The BBC's magazine on African NLC. "Land, as a physical asset, once news, sport, politics, people and programming. disposed of, is extremely hard to recov­ Unbiased. Informative. Invaluable. er." The legislation includes the Gener­ Aittilabtc on news stands and bookshops or tor local subscriptions contact: al Law Second Amendment Act, the Edusub. PO Box 30720, Brammfontein, 1017, Tel 011 726 5418 Distribution and Transfer of Certain State Land Act and the Provision of Certain Land for Settlement A ct. • — Hein Marais

WORK IN PROGRESS LAND ••••^•^•^•^••M Congress of the (rural) people

RURAL COMMUNITIES HAVE COME UP with a way of getting their issues on the political agenda — invite the key deci­ sion-makers to hear about those issues Firsthand. A rural summit — the first of its kind — is planned for next February, when more than I 000 rural representa­ tives will meet at what has already been dubbed the "Congress of the Rural Peo­ ple". And among those invited to attend, and hear about the problems, are the major players in the multi-parly negoti­ ations. One of the major objectives of the conference is an attempt to unite rural and landless people around comrrjon demands. Organisers hope these can be presented as a Land Charier, which in turn will give impetus to the develop­ ment of a rural social movement. Among those targetted for partici­ pation are farmworker communities, • BACK ON THE MAP: Trying to get rural issues on the political agenda labour tenants, people who were forcibly removed, people in informal tion within communities, and mandated elect two representatives to attend the settlements and landless people from all representatives, conference. Regional meetings are also over the country. "We want this to be a community- planned to prepare delegates. A key aspect of the conference is driven conference." says organiser Jabu The process is being co-ordinated the participation of all rural communi­ Dada. Communities have to hold at bv the National Land Committee and its ties. Because of (his, organisers are least one local meeting to discuss prob­ nine affiliates around the country. • putting a lot of emphasis on consulta- lems, solutions and demands, and to — Land Update

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3 AUGUST 1993 briefs

ANGOLA m^m^^^^^m Gunning for oil ment's war effort will grind to a halt. Unita attacks on Soyo in January, when Most of the oil companies operat­ the Division Speciale Presidentielle ing in the enclave are American. helped capture oil installations and was UNITA IS UMBERING UP FOR WHAT MIGHT Until June. Unila had refrained set loose on a looting spree. become the decisive part of its war from attacking US interests in Angola, Angolan forces complained that against Angolan government forces. but Washington's recognition of the artillery bombardments were launched Increased Unita activity in the elected Angolan government might from Zairean soil when Unita attacked Cabinda enclave — surrounded by change that. Unita then shelled a tanker Soyo again in May. Now there are Zaire and flanked by the Atlantic Ocean operated by Texaco oil company off the reports that six Zairean army battalions — has followed an attack by Unita Soyo coast. It missed — but the mes­ have been deployed on the border of fighters there in early February. Seizure sage was clear. Cabinda. of the Malongo oil installations in Zaire's Mobuto Sese Seko might Cabinda would choke Luanda's eco­ Provincial autonomy feel he can deflect international atten­ nomic lifeline. Luanda is trying to woo FLEC-R's tion from his embattled reign by stoking Several Cabindan separatist fac­ rival, Forcas Armadas do Cabinda the war in neighbouring Angola. But it tions are active in the enclave, among (FLEC-FAC), into a deal that would is uncertain whether he will risk Wash­ them the Frente para Libertacao do give the enclave provincial autonomy ington's wrath by joining in an attack Enclave do Cabinda Renovado (FLEC- plus a 10% share of the oil revenue gen­ on US oil interests in Cabinda. R) which held several talks wilh Unita erated there (more than R3 500 per However, for Savimbi, who needs leader Jonas Savimbi in 1992. head). So far, FLEC-FAC is not biting. a spectacular success almost a year after The bulk of Angola's RIO 900- There are fears also of a possible restarting the civil war, Cabinda beck­ million annual oil revenue comes from joint Unita-Zaire joint offensive in the ons. • Cabinda. And without it, the govern- enclave. Zairean troops participated in — Africa Confidential / SARDC

VENEZUELA ^H^^^^B Another one in the 1980s — the result of foreign Miami, where the rich go to play and debt and the sharp fall in the oil price. shop in the chic boutiques stocked with bites the dust By 1989, when CAP took office for a imported clothing and yuppie toys. second term, it was no longer possible Meanwhile, the real minimum VENEZUELA'S CARLOS ANDRES PEREZ IS to maintain his "populist system of con­ wage in 1991 was just 44% of its 1987 the second Latin American neo-Iiberal ciliation". value. The number of people living president this year to be forced from CAP pledged to protect the poor, below the poverty line leapt from 15% office on charges of corruption. but his economic recipe was straight in 1988 to 41% in 1991. Social spend­ from the I MF cookbook. Government The downfall of CAP (as Perez is ing, already badly cut, will fall another spending was slashed, import duties known) in June saw thousands of 12% this year. demonstrators cheering and setting off lowered and subsidies cut for food, Social discontent has grown fireworks as he tearfully addressed the water, electricity and transportation. steadily, with strikes and protests a reg­ nation. Perez's administration had been That quickly provoked "27-F* — ular feature. Security forces have killed rocked by corruption scandals. February 27, 1989, the first of four days at least 430 people in the last four years. One of South America's longest of bloody riots in which security forces Hundreds of others died in last year's continuous democracies, Venezuela has killed hundreds of people, almost all in been ruled by civilians since 1958. Oil the barrios. coup attempts. wealth made Caracas one of the conti­ The past three years have seen December's election may shatter nent's most sophisticated and modern huge GDP growth — 10,4% in 1991 — Venezuela's two-party system. The cities. drawing praise from the West for the strongest opposition candidates are pop­ During the boom years the poor Venezuelan "miracle". But the benefits ulist Rafael Caldera, and leftist Andre: were placated via the time-honoured of growth have been distributed narrow­ Velasques of Causa Radical. But man; routes of populism and clienlelism. ly, with a few growing rich in the stock voters are fed up with democracy ant Food prices were heavily subsidised, market and through shady financial will sit out the balloting; pollsters are and city slums were modernised. deals. The "miracle" is seen in the 10 already predicting record abstentions. • This system came crashing down daily flights between Caracas and — The Nation

WORK IN PROGRESS ERITREA ^^^^^^^ The morning after

FOUR MONTHS INTO THEIR HARD-WON iNDEpendence, Eritreans are staring in the eye that inevitable question of the Morning After Victory: What now? The challenges that confront Eritreans will require the determination that saw them trounce Ethiopia on the battlefield and the single-mindedness that saw 99,8% of voters opt for inde­ pendence in the April referendum. Entire cities lie in ruins — includ­ ing Massawa port, once hailed as Africa's most beautiful city. Three in four Eritreans depend on food handouts to stay alive. Half a million Eritreans are still in Sudanese refugee camps — 100 000 of their compatriots were killed ing waters and 300 islands as a surefire "They're rejoining society to find that in the war. attraction. patriarchal village traditions have Several tests await the provisional Visitors still return from Eritrea changed little," observes one report. government of the left-inclined Eritrean with stories reminiscent of the early There were no women on the pro­ People's Liberation Front (EPLF). Can days of the Nicaraguan revolution or visional government's slate last year, it deliver the social justice, broad eco­ Thomas Sankara's spunky experiments and it took dogged pressure from nomic equality and land reform it in Burkina Faso. Diplomats talk of women's organisations to get the lead­ espouses while also catering to Western being able to leave cars unlocked, facto­ ership to appoint women to four of the donors demands for economic "real­ ry owners brag that stock never seems 16 cabinet posts. ism", code for tree market policies? to go missing. EPLF secretary-general The EPLF government has repeat­ Last year EPLF leaders sent US Isasias Afewerki works without a salary, while other top rankers share edly promised to dissolve and make Agency for International Development way for a multiparty constitution. So officials packing when USAID tried to cramped living quarters with each other. far, movement has been slight. link an R80-million aid package to a privatisation programme. No easy road The EPLF has muzzled a fledgling human rights group that challenged its That sort of pluck now ieems to But these "Arcadian" images are leading role, while another non-govem- have been tempered. "We want to cre­ unlikely to hold for long. mental organisation had its wings ate an enabling environment for interna­ The transition to democracy will clipped because it had not registered tional investment," former EPLF hard­ prove bumpy. The almost unanimous itself "properly". liner Haile Woldentensai was recently support for independence does not quoted as saying. The World Bank has reflect social or political homogeneity. The government's anxiety is per­ added R460-million to an international There are nine ethnic groups, each with haps not all due to the paranoia generat­ recovery fund, presumably acknowl­ its own language, and two major reli­ ed by power. Having survived three edging the surge of "realism" in the gions (Christianity and Islam). decades of war through tenuous and Eritrean capital, Asmara. On top of this is the formidable shifting alliances, the EPLF has learnt The investment code, though, is task of reintegrating the 100 000 EPLF to watch its back. not totally mercenary. It calls for 51% fighters into civilian life. Many are still Now it finds (one-time ally) Sudan local ownership of strategic ventures in a kind of limbo, working long hours supporting Islamic fundamentalist while mining operations must involve for little or no pay beside better treated groups in Eritrea, Saudia Arabia eyeing the state. Government monopolies are civil servants. this cocky young state suspiciously ruled out. At least 30 000 of those fighters from across the Red Sea and Ethiopia, The government is eyeing tourism are women, whose experiences and sac­ now land-locked by Eritrea, yearning as a healthy foreign exchange earner, rifices on the battlefield armed them for sea access. • touting year-round bathing, good fish- with skills and high expectations. — Hein Marais 5 AUGUST 1993 elections

Politics by opinion poll

More polls = More democracy? BOB MATTES jumps off the bandwagon with this sharp look at the political effects of public opinion polling

ALLS FOR MORE POLLS ARE CX>M- or electoral systems. In sum, polling they ask about Mandela's popularity ing from some ralher divergent holds the promise of "one person, one immediately after a triumphant trip C sources. We've seen the Weekly vote, all the time". abroad (or De Klerk's immediately after Mail's Philip van Niekcrk summon Too good to be true? Exactly. Pub­ a scandal or massacre), or wait awhile? more polls so we can discover the voice lic opinion polling does not neutrally of the South African people. Now the mirror political reality. It is a political Creating public opinion Afrikaner Volksfront's Gen Constand instrument, and pollsters are political Without being devious, pollsters can lit­ Viljoen wants a public opinion poll to actors. Moreover, the widespread erally create public opinion where none test the "will of the Afrikaner voOT on a acceptance of polling has specific politi­ existed before. Merely asking a qucs- homeland* cal consequences that the Left has to be Both proposals succumb to the alert to. seductive notion thai opinion polls The need for caution goes far unproblematically mirror the "will of beyond the issue of the individual the people"* a notion that appeals espe­ integrity of any specific pollster or cially to populist traditions of politics. researcher (as implied by the controver­ As the father of modem opinion polling, sy involving the Human Sciences George Gallup, once claimed: "It is my Research Council in WIP8S and 89), sincere belief that polls constitute the Most crucial is the fact that there is most useful instrument of democracy no single objective way to collect and ever devised/' tally citizens' preferences. Different methods can provide different results. One person, one vote More importantly, we have no way to What are the apparent grounds for such tell which election or poll result is a optimism? First* the mathematical theo­ "true" reflection of opinion and which ry of random sampling upon which is an artefact of the method used. polling is based means all citizens have Regardless of their individual virtue, an equal chance of being interviewed. pollsters have to decide several seem­ So polling promises a sort of "one per­ ingly "technical" questions; their son, one vote*' which, in the case of SA, answers can significantly affect the gives voice to previously suppressed results. And there are usually no flat- majority opinion. Polls also promise to out, "correct" solutions. supplement elections by more frequent­ For instance, should pollsters ques­ ly testing public opinion. They can tion all adults, or only likely voters, amplify the otherwise silent majority by people who have pondered the issue, or directly measuring the popular will — only those most likely to be affected by free of the biases imposed by activists, it? How do they measure knowledge or group leaders and the news media. interest, or the likelihood of voting? Some even argue that polls actual­ Should they ask their questions in per­ ly improve on elections, because they son or over the telephone? Should the do not suffer from the distortions of reg­ interviewer be a woman or a man, black istration, voter apathy, gerrymandering or white, Afrikaans or Xhosa? Should 6 FHQTQ; fl*FS M*YFT WORK IN PROGRESS tion can set people thinking and create a polls, they might obtain different pic­ may take a long time to bear fruit." The debate. The very words used, and the tures of public opinion than if they set conclusion did require some inference alternatives posed, can shape respon­ their bearings solely by the numbers of and interpretation (though no more than dents' opinions. Should the pollster people marching, striking, boycotting or past research I've seen from some pro­ force a choice between mass-action and rioting. gressive social scientists), but the poll negotiations, or offer a third alternative? Imagine this scenario: constitution­ was technically sufficient and would Should they push those without an opin­ al talks hit another pothole, and the pass muster in any introductory social ion on Apia into developing one quick­ ANC-COSATU alliance decide to roll science methods course. ly, or encourage people who don't out mass action one last time. We see know much about VAT to say so? the largest wave of marches, protests The silent majorities Should they help those unfamiliar with and stayaways in our history. The This raises a fundamental question of the debate on federalism by attempting media conclude that the ANC has democratic theory. Whose views carry to describe the respective proposals? indeed won the battle of public opinion more weight: An intense, activist Beyond all this, polling has enor­ and the government has no choice but minority which cares enough about an mous political implications for Ihe Left. to accede to their demands. Then the issue to make a personal sacrifice to Popular opinion is generally expressed SABC reports the results of a presti­ strike, march and boycott; or an apa­ through forms of group action (such as gious survey in which only 33% of thetic, silent majority which only poll­ marches, boycotts and strikes). South black South Africans agree with the sters can hear? African politics is still shaped by the entire range of ANC demands and 35% The political implications arc potential power expressed by member­ actually support the government's posi­ clear. Where polling is non-existent, or ship lists and mass protests, or the real tion. a curiosity, public opinion is a sponta­ power shown by effective consumer Impossible? Consider an HSRC neous, behavioural phenomenon domi­ boycotts and work stoppages. poll last year on strategies for achieving nated by groups and group leaders Polls offer political leaders a new change, conducted just prior to the mass (largely on the left) who exercise their source of information which may rein­ action campaign. In contrast to conven­ initiative of how and when to express force judgments gathered from effective tional wisdom, it found that "the single themselves. Due to their scientific and activist mobilisation — or, more impor­ most popular strategy among blacks is democratic status, poll results may not tantly, they may challenge those judg­ patient talks and negotiations (rather only compete with, but actually over­ ments. To the extent that leaders relv on than mass action), even though these whelm these "older" methods of popu­ lar expression. South African leaders who use polls to judge what is risky or feasible might act quite differently if they set those premises according to strikes and boycotts. This could dimin­ ish significantly the power of organisa­ tions on the left. One can argue that polling, far from empowering the people, actually domesticates popular opinion and makes it a less dangerous and more pre­ dictable political force. We are going to see much more public opinion polling, especially in the run-up to the election. It will help if we remind ourselves that the results of any poll will never truly reflect "the public will" — and they will always be, at least partially, a function of the polling method. This healthy scepticism might prevent the apathetic "silent majorities" created by polls from being used as a Machiavellian weapon against those people (usually numerical minorities) who actually have opinions and act on them. • • Bob Mattes teaches politics at the University of Cape Town. He is researching the political impact of public opinion polling and survey research in the USA and SA. 7 AUGUST 1993 personally What animal best describes you? And what would you love to do, I'm in love wilh a kangaroo. Il reminds but were always to afraid to? me of a mother. She has a pouch lo hide 1 would have liked to be a professional and protect her baby, and when they arc woman ... to educate my brothers and both happy she lets the baby appear sisters, to lend money lo those who from the pouch. wanted an education.

What did you think you would What Is your greatest grow up to be? accomplishment? A teacher. As a child I admired one par­ That's difficult to say. Certainly partici­ pating in putting together the Freedom ticular teacher who concentrated on the Charter. Also, working to secure proper children who needed help. Her dedica­ education for black children, and proper tion and persistence impressed me so housing for all our people. much. But, unfortunately because of the conditions (in this country) I could not If you were given the opportunity be trained as one. to speak at the multi-party talks, what would you say?

Albertina Sisulu's name is synonymous with suffering. A woman of deep dignity and humility, she tells Work In Progress of the pain.and hope of her daily life

TOGETHER IN LOVE: Ever since husband Walter's release, Albertina Sisulu has been at his side 8 WORK IN PROGRESS The transitional period must not take I see women holding the highest posi­ their job to go to school. very long because it will continues to tions. I am already counting (he years feed the violence. The talks should not until we get a woman prime minister. If you could be dictator for a day lake more than three months to get to an Women will be involved in all parts of what would you do? government, even as members of parlia­ interim government, and no longer than I would instruct everyone to be human, ment. nine months for the constituent assem­ because what is happening in our coun­ bly. try today is not human. What Is your worst habit? Where do you see South Africa 10 Feeling lonely at times. It comes quite You have suffered so much. If you years from now? often. Also, sleeplessness has become a could, would you change anything I'm optimistic. 1 think we are headed habit. Perhaps from the strain of work. about the life you have had? toward a democratic, non-sexist, non- racial society. A country where every­ What makes you angry? I would have liked to go further with one will be free. Where people can live Anything that is annoying. Especially my education, but due to certain condi­ where they want, work where they people loitering in the streets doing tions I was not able to. What I can do want, go to school where they want and drugs and causing trouble. now is see to it that my children go as have freedom of speech. far as they want to go. Are you religious? What Is your most painful Very much. I am a Roman Catholic. How have you dealt with all the moment? suffering that you and your family To see the people of this country So who do you confide In? have had to endure over the dying because of violence, mur­ My husband, I trust nobody except him. years? dered for no reason. Also, see­ There were difficult days where I was ing so many homeless people What Is the best way to combat financially embarrassed, no food in the gender Inequality — for women to suffering from unemploy­ house. Determination is one thing that work from outside the system, or ment. really kept me alive and brave. My faith within It? in God, and a belief in what I'm striving What makes you smile? To work within the system and educate for, gave me wonderful strength. Also, When I think of a future, or when I see men. Our duty is to stand up and fight the support from my husband and chil­ my grandchildren. against men, make them accountable for their actions. United as women, we can dren. Who was the greatest do it, we have already started. There Influence In your life? were no women in the committees at What would you die for? My husband and my God. the multi-party talks. We fought and Democracy, freedom ... but most impor­ argued, and now we are there. There are tant, peace in this country. 15 women in the ANC NEC, we got What do you see as there by protesting and staging a walk­ the future of women out. We can break the yolk of oppres­ What Is your last thought before In South Africa? sion from our men. falling asleep? I pray each night that there will be no more deaths and no more bad news. What is the most important lesson What is killing this country is the atti­ a mother can teach her child? tudes of people. We must know that we A growing child needs to be taught dis­ need each other, without unity we will cipline, the difference between right and wrong. Respect for education, and never move forward. We have to stop respect for elder people, regardless of pulling each other by the hair in order to who they are. Children must know the stop the violence. • importance of an education, that it is • Interview by Francine Joss Albertina

W0TO PWJLvtlASCOlSOUTHUGMT) Sisulu 9 AUGUST 1993 cover story

The skeletons come out of the cupboard The amnesty debate goes on trial

Silence has its laws and its by Hein Marais You will find no-one saying: demands ... Silence demands an Because it is just. enonnous police apparatus with an HERE WILL BE AN AMNESTY. REA- A debate that properly occupies army of informers. Silence demands sonable people say ihis wiih the several dimensions (ethical, legal, polit­ that its enemies disappear suddenly T same certilude that enables ihem ical, social, religious) has become com­ and without a trace. Silence prefers to announce: "The sky is blue", or pressed into a political matter. "Justice" that no voice — of complaint or '"Your shoelaces arc undone". features — but as a rhetorical device, protest or indignation — disturbs its There will be an amnesly because not as an ethical or legal concept. calm. And where such a voice is the balance of forces decrees it. Perhaps that is unfair. For there heard, silence strikes with all its Because wobbly democracies cannot has hardly been a debate, nothing that publicly explores an amnesty's impli­ might to restore the status quo ante always afford the luxury of justice. Because the past belongs behind us. not cations, the motives, the stakes. Noth­ — the state of silence. all around us. Because amnesties can ing that risks disorienting the deduc­ — Ryszard Kapuscinski. buy the apathy, even the loyalty, of dan­ tions of the wise with the intuitions of The Soccer War gerous men. millions of ordinary South Africans condemned to Kapuscinski's silence. The politics of justice "We don't have a written policy on this, but our unspoken policy is that there will not be trials." ANC negotia­ tor Mohammed Valli Moosa told WIP recently. Here's the logic of that hushed policy. Ours will be a settlement ham­ mered together with compromises and concessions, a political reconciliation shaped by a balance of forces that denies outright triumph but permits small victories. Government politicians have not yel moved an amnesty high up on their wish list at the negotiations — largely, says Valli, "because they don't see themselves being guilty of (hose crimes of apartheid". But no matter how placid Ihe politicians, security forces tend to become jumpy around this stage of a trans it ion,. They did the dirty work of the old order, and thev're left with ihe SHOW AND TELL: Full disclosure is a vital element of any amnesty skeletons to prove il. 10 WORK IN PROGRESS Would a truth commission The security forces are seen to occupy the crossroads of the transition, work in South Africa? able to cripple the new order through a programme of destabilisation which can Is full disclosure of all serious human rights abuses necessary and might become the pretext for seizing power a Truth Commission such as the one set up In El Salvador help achieve through a coup. Real, threatened or national reconciliation In South Africa? WIP asked political parties, imagined, the coup scenario radically human rights organisations and public figures. This is what they told narrows the horizons of politicians. us. •• Or the veto can be less overt. Because the intelligence apparatus also LET THE TRUTH BE TOLD spies on the politicians, the security • Max Coleman, Human Rights Commission: Full disclosure can ensure forces hoard information which there Is no repetition of such actions and that those Involved are never becomes a kind of insurance policy that again placed in positions of power. It is vital that victims and relatives they, in times of crisis, can "cash in": know what happened, as a form of catharsis. It could be better for an Back us or we'll sink you. International body to take charge of the process. The irony is that our peace process • Nadine Gordimer, author: Full disclosure Is necessary for reconciliation has generated such dependency provided the commission's work includes recommending practical mea­ between the main players that the ANC sures to advance that reconciliation. People must leam to forgive, but can hardly afford to see the government never forget, so that such abuses may never be repeated; a museum, — particularly its vanguard — vapor­ built on the very site where people were interrogated and tortured, ised by a burst of scandals. should be constructed as a permanent reminder of what South Africans The politics of amnesty are the Inflicted on other South Africans. politics of guilt or blackmail. An organ­ • Dene Smuts, Democratic Party MP: Disclosure is desirable for the kind isation committed to human rights, the of change of heart one would like to see accompanying political change. rule of law and the principle of account­ A commission would be preferable if our own enquiries did not produce ability tends to be forced to choose the results. "lesser evil" of amnesty to avert a • Jacko Maree, Director of Information, National Party: We support full greater disaster. disclosure — as long as the truth-telling Is truthful! We would support So far, the ANC has dismissed Truth Commissions' — provided they are not manipulated to slant their President FW de Klerk's self-amnesty, reports, and the integrity of members Is beyond question. stating that only an elected government • Gomolemo Mokae, Azanlan People's Organisation: Full disclosure is a can have the moral legitimacy to grant vital prerequisite to attain Justice, peace and reconciliation ... those an amnesty. But, says Valli, "the closer forces which have not been exposed will continue to endanger a new dis­ we come to a deal, the more the army pensation. We would support [a Truth Commission] process provided It Is and police will demand that an amnesty completely neutral and has International clout ... and not a mere charade be part of the whole package." like the toothless Goldstone Commission.

Sheer fear ... AND LET JUSTICE BE DONE Two assumptions deserve a closer look. • Barney Desai, Pan-Africanist Congress: We would be living in a fool's One is the premise that it is sheer fear of paradise if we believed that telling the truth will end human rights abus­ the security apparatus that imposes the es by the security forces. We would support the establishment of a Com­ amnesty. The reality is more nuanced, mission to Investigate Human flights Abuses, name the violators and put as Latin American experiences suggest: them on trial. New democratic governments grasp the need to keep the security forces on-side LET'S TALK ABOUT IT if the ride looks bumpy. • Sheila Camerer, Deputy Justice Minister: In a sense the government Another is the fear of an army has already established a Truth Commission for SA In the form of the coup. Rocky Williams argues in A Very Goldstone Commission. A general amnesty would be the correct way to South African Coup? (pl9), that this proceed In order to make a new start In the new SA. However, ft Is a bogey does not survive scrutiny. The matter which will have to be negotiated. US-based human rights organisation, Africa Watch, has made a similar WELL, MAYBE ... deduction: "A new SA government will • Suzanne Vos, Inkatha Freedom Party: There should be investigations be under much less threat of military Into crimes and abuses, but it might not be healthy for the peace pro­ intervention than the Latin American cess to dig up everything. There should also be multiparty consensus on countries, since the armed forces do not the type of commission ... it should not be a witchhunt... the liberation organisations should not be left out of such Investigations. have the same tradition of political involvement nor have they been impli­ SILENCE cated to the same extent as the police in WIP harassed and reminded, but received no answers from the ANC the abuse of rights". (despite repeated promises) or the Afrikaner Volksfront. But so "self-evident" are the poli- 11 AUGUST 1993 tics of the amnesty that counter argu­ ments are seen to betray, at best, ideal­ AS THE NEW ism or sentimentality. PRESIDENT OF The "consensus of common sense" EL SM-VWB* is captured in phrasings such as this, from Kader Asmal, writing in the Cape Times last year: "The principle of prose­ cuting those who committed — or con­ tinue to commit — crimes against human rights is inalienable. However, we need to focus clearly on our funda­ mental objective: the creation, mainte­ nance and strengthening of a just and democratic society." The claim that an amnesty might Strengthen democracy is a bit brittle. In South America, serious human rights violations continue partially because the principle of accountability was not established. It is no consolation that the violence now targets "the extreme left El Salvador still struggles and right" (as in Chile), or the defence­ less and forgotten (streetchildren and to heal the wounds Indians in Brazil, "delinquent" youth in Argentina). In Zimbabwe, as Richard Carver has observed, a general amnesty ew countries have experienced repression and violence of the scale "allowed a culture of abuse and impuni­ unleashed In El Salvador during 12 years of civil war. Since 1980 at ty to permeate the security structures". Fleast 75 000 people were killed and one In six forced to flee this tiny Central American country. An amnesty that shields the worst Under an accord brokered in April 1991, the negotiating parties violators of human rights ends up com­ agreed to establish a "truth commission" to: promising basic features of the democ­ • Investigate the worst human rights violations racy it is supposed to fortify, by: • Recommend legal, political and administrative measures aimed at pre­ • Establishing at the outset a dangerous precedent by suspending the rule of law venting a repetition and promoting national reconciliation. The UN secretary-general appointed three eminent international • Flouting the principle of accountabil­ Jurists to the commission, which had to report back to him. The govern­ ity ment and the FMLN opposition bound themselves to implement Its rec­ • Failing to discourage repetitions ommendations. • Undermining reconciliation. Six months of investigations culminated in a report, released In March this year, that lists the plight of 18 000 victims. A 211-page com­ Detour ahead pendium of the most traumatic episodes of the war. It blames the state The Chilean path of "reconciliation, and Its security forces for 95% of the abuses. truth and justice" has been popularised "On the principle that Individuals, even those caught up In the fury of in SA as a route that skirts the pro- and civil war and the orders of superiors, are accountable for their actions," an ti-amnesty disputes. the report names the Institutions and people deemed responsible. Forced by the balance of forces to "If these people stay In power, It will be seen as business as usual," pursue "the politics of agreements", the said truth commission member Thomas Buergenthal, referring to human new Chilean government in 1990 rights violators named In the report. "The way to end Impunity Is to make sidestepped decisive action on past these people pay a price, and they have to be seen to be paying a price." human rights offences. There were to be Because an earlier amnesty (dubbed the "Law on National Reconcilia­ no trials. Abuses would be investigated tion") did not cover cases investigated by the commission, President and the findings publicised ("truth"), Alfredo Christian) Is now pushing for a new amnesty. victims and their families would receive Several pointed recommendations stand out. The commission reparations ("justice"), and the blend of affirmed that "justice demands punishment for the violations of human repentance and forgiveness would yield rights", although It was not willing to entrust that duty to the current "reconciliation". Salvadoran judicial system. Those named, however, should be prevented from holding office for 10 years. The Rettig Commission's report delved into 2 000 state murders and dis­ It also proposed that victims of human rights violations receive mate­ rial compensation from a special fund, which can be financed by direct­ appearances. It recommended thai an ing 1% of all foreign aid Into ft. * official body be set up to promote com­ pensation and aid for the victims, help search for the remains of bodies, and 12 WORK IN PROGRESS South African research newly-lodged cases. players are the province of an (elected) interim Unfortunately. President Patricio government of national unity". Aylwin's appeal that the military apolo­ amenable to an Still, in the scramble for a settle­ gise for its crimes fell on deaf cars. Only independent, ment, the ANC might be tempted to the crimes and their victims were publi­ trade a disguised amnesty for some of cised, not the identities of the perpetra­ legitimate 'truth the government concessions it still tors. The Rettig report was not widely needs. The numbness of such a move is circulated. Human rights groups commission' to obvious. charged it with grossly underestimating advance national Or, the "politics of agreement" the number of killings committed by the might propose trading an amnesty for a Pinochet dictatorship, but their claims reconciliation "truth commission" — the one in return were not investigated further. The judi­ for the other. That, loo, would be a cial system was reformed, but this has swindle. First, it undermines a truth not prevented the detention of 138 polit­ til a commission that will: commission's efforts to prevent future ical prisoners in the past three years, 9 Be agreed to and established by the abuses by recommending appropriate "most of them tortured using the classi­ negotiating forum as an independent measures, such as prosecution. And it cal methods of the Pinochet regime", and impartial body violates the principle, popularised by according to a new report by the Inter­ • Be mandated to investigate serious Chilean activist Jose Zalaquett, that the national Association Against Torture. violations of human rights committed granting of an amnesty must represent In I992i citizens launched a cam­ over a specified period the will of the people. paign to annul the 1978 amnesty law. • Respect international norms of due Arguments for an amnesty come with victims and their supporters stag­ process and have the power to subpoena adorned with many bows — whether ing angry protests that have led to clash­ witnesses De Klerk's A-Ncw-Start sweet talk or es with the police. "The concept of rec­ • Report back to a body widely seen as the Uruguayan attempt to camouflage it onciliation, broadly supported in impartial and legitimate as "a search for peace". theory." notes Americas Watch, "has • Be tasked with disclosing the actions, We're left with this bare fact: an proved profoundly controversial in prac­ their perpetrators, their victims and their amnesty that indemnifies human rights tice." fates, and has to widely publicise this violators is neither moral, just, or — in information cases where it violates international law Raising the stakes + Recommend measures to ensure such — legal. It is justifiable only on the In El Salvador, negotiators decided to abuses are not repeated and the process basis of political expediency or necessi­ have abuses investigated and remedies of national reconciliation is advanced ty- recommended before putting a binding (including reparations and aid to victims If it's an eminently political ques­ amnesty on the bargaining table (the and their survivors). tion, why not debate it as such, scruti­ 1991 Peace Accords implicitly overrode Such an initiative would seem in nise and weigh its attraction against the two "self-amnesties"). The Shockwaves harmony with the position adopted last equally political case for opposing it? from the report by the UN Truth Com­ year by the ANCs NEC. Official policy That debate cannot be waged on a mission report arc still to subside (see is still reflected in an August 1992 state­ vacuum of knowledge, under the box). ment that says an amnesty "is properly silences of this land. It requires, first, Having lost several battles to sup­ full disclosure of exactly what and who press the report and the names of the an amnesty will absolve. A truth com­ guilty, President Alfredo Christiani has mission, furnished with muscle and now gone for broke by demanding legitimacy, can do that and more. another amnesty "because if we really Then we can look one another in want reconciliation we won't be doing the eye and argue an amnesty. any good by wasting time on the past". The question that confronts us, Dc Klerk is the natural heir to such ultimately, is plain. In the writer Eduar- crooked logic. But there is no reason do Galeano's matchless words: "Did the why it should hold sway in SA. absolution of military and paramilitary Judging by W/P's enquiries. South terrorism granted by civilian govern­ African players are amenable to an inde­ ments consolidate democracy? Or did it pendent, legitimate "truth commission" in fact legalise arrogance, encourage that not only probes and gives voice to violence, and identify justice with our past, but recommends measures to vengeance or madness?** prevent repetitions and advance national # This article proceeds from Marais and reconciliation. Monty Narsoo's 'And Justice for All?" in WIP 85. October 1992. Also of note is Africa From the responses (sec pi I), as Watch's "SA: Accounting for the Past"; well as the Ooldstone Commission Lawyers for Human Rights* paper "Account­ experience. Latin American precedents, ability: The Debate in SA". and the El Salvador and suggestions from Americas Watch • PINOCHET: He's out, but his Information Project's reports on that country's Truth Commission. • and Amnesty International, one can dis­ methods are still In 13 AUGUST 1993 cover story

It's hard to forgive — even harder to forget The pain of the past is not going to go away unless we help heal the victims now, says LLOYD VOGELMAN. And, he warns, a blanket amnesty could do more damage than good in the quest for reconciliation

N A COUNTRY WHERE AN AVERAGE OF are common to the vast range of human ence provokes an intense fear of the 55 people are murdered daily, psy­ rights abuses in this country: event re-occurring, and of situations I chological survival in Soulh Africa • For the perpetrator, there is the exer­ which are a reminder of their trauma. requires something of an emotional dis­ tion of power over another human Survivors who had an assumption of tance from reality. And the quest to being. invulnerability ("it won't happen to escape the daily reality of honor often # For Ihe victim, there is a profound me") now have less confidence means that the survivors of human sense of loss — not just material or in their world, and their rights abuses are overlooked. For them, physical loss, but psychological jh s^Jfe faith in humanity is cither the country of their birth is tired of lis­ loss, as self-esteem and dignity are f dramatically diminished tening to their sagas of pain and tor­ impaired. or completely lost. ment. The experience of But the key question in years to Emotional response trauma also has other come is going to be: Will we open our­ The three key emotions which effects symptomatic of selves to their stories of pain and stem from this loss are sadness, stress, such as depression anguish? fear and anger. The sadness stems and anxiety — sleep dis­ Primo Levi, a survivor of the hor­ largely from a sense of mourn­ turbance, sexual rors of Auschwitz, asserts that reconcili­ ing — something has been dysfunc- ation after repressive violence involves taken away, and the three categories of people: the victims, void which results the survivors and the perpetrators. For leaves the individ­ Levi, the dead must be mourned, the ual with a sense of survivors must be cared for and pitied, having been dam­ and the perpetrators must be punished. aged. The terror For those who have survived vio­ of their experi­ lent human rights abuses in South Africa, and the fami­ Political groupings lies of the victims who died, such a must apologise programme should for human penalise the perpe­ trators; compensate rights violations. the victims and their In this way, the families, as well as publicly acknowl­ secrecy of evil Is edge their trauma unlocked and and pain; and assist society can begin them to alleviate the BOW psychological bur­ to come to terms OUR den of victimisation. EAD: No Two features with itself ournlng morrow

WORK IN PROGRESS lion, appelile loss, irritability and impaired concentration. When these are combined with other criteria (in particu­ lar the existence of a recognisable stres­ sor that would evoke symptoms of dis­ tress in almost anyone) it is referred to in psychiatric terms as post-traumatic stress disorder. Whether the individual's feelings of anger or sadness predominate depends upon that person's clinical his­ tory as well as on their own situation. The South African social climate. which fosters an acceptance of violence and which has no tradition of democra­ cy or human rights, increases the likeli­ hood that anger rather than sadness, or a combination of both, will be expressed. Much of this anger stares us in the face every day. Violence has become a form of communication, and for the for­ gotten and marginalised it is a way of reminding us that ihey demand acknowledgement for the pain they have endured.

Programmes of reconciliation The repression that sustained apartheid, and the wider political subjugation and economic privilege that apartheid involved, have spawned hatred and vio­ lent conflict — not only between white and black South Africans, but also with­ in the black community itself. The use of black community members as informers, vigilantes or police acted as a major source of friction. Reducing these levels of suspicion, resentment and violence will require not onlv a move towards a more democratic society but more fundamental pro­ grammes of reconciliation. Such a pro­ gramme would incorporate, at the very least, a few basic components: • The legitimacy of the pardon of offences: International human rights groups and the United Nations appear to support the idea that those who have violently abused the rights of others should be punished. In South Africa too, there is a strong feeling that justice must be seen lo be done. However, in this case the politics of power and nego­ tiation are likely to override principle and justice. The government, to protect itself and (hose in the security establish­ ment, insists on a blanket amnesty. Although the ANC has not accepted this proposal, il has — with the excep- The way we present the history of South lion of a recommendation Ihal the sible and closest to them — such as crimes of ihe past be made public — Africa to our family members. Alternatively, it will increasingly accepted the position of a children will have a be directed toward the self, resulting in blanket pardon on political crime. This tendencies such as alcoholism, drug position of compromise stems largely substantial impact abuse and suicide. from the ANC's desire to move towards on the nature of To counter this, it will be vital to a political settlement as quickly as pos­ establish non-violent channels through sible. future political and which to express anger, such as support The ANC's message to its mem­ social systems groups. These would provide a channel bers and supporters is thus likely to be for the non-violent expression of pain, that a political settlement which creates frustration imd anger as well as the the opportunity for a peaceful SA potential for survivors to gain insight apartheid human rights abuses will be u should lake precedence over principles into their ordeals. distant memory, and in KM) years lime of justice and the desire for retribution. Survivors often need to talk about there will be no living survivor of Despite the expectation that the the experience continually. This can be apartheid rule. The establishment of perpetrators of violent human rights a source of irritation to family members permanent reminders of the aparlheid abuses will be pardoned, this decision and friends who are required to endure legacy, such as monuments, museums, will not be a popular one among those repeated accounts of the events. To public holidays and ceremonies, will who have borne the consequences of facilitate this process, it is also neces­ thus serve lo immortalise the tragic such abuse. If this process is to make sary to provide educational information experiences of the survivors. Hopefully any contribution to the process of rec­ to family members about the impor­ also, ihe devastating effect of an onciliation, it is therefore vital lhal it tance of (his cathartic vocalising. undemocratic system will be imprinted have as much legitimacy as possible. on the public conscience. The way we It is only through verbalising the Since the present government is present the history of South Africa lo experience that the individual can begin nol a democratically-elected one and our children will have a substantial lo integrate the trauma into his or her was largely responsible for such human impact on the nature of future political personality. This acknowledgement of rights abuses, there is little purpose in it and social systems in South Africa. the ordeal, and the acceptance that the pardoning itself. Such a pardon should traumatic experience cannot be # Financial compensation: The most emanate from an elected government, reversed, is vital to any process of psy­ concrete form of reparation is monetary or at very leasl an interim government. chological recovery — and central to compensation. Although financial con­ In any case, there will be little to pre­ the relief of the symptoms associated straints may not permit large-scale pay­ vent an ANC government from over­ with post-traumatic stress disorder. ments, it is still important to provide turning legislation which aims to render financial compensation in other forms the abuses of the past a secret. — such as free or subsidised medical A lengthy process # Penalties: While perpetrators may and psychological treatment, reduced Reconciliation will be a lengthy and escape prosecution and conviction, they interest on loans for education, home complex process. Essentially, we must may still face the consequences of their building and the establishment of new restore the victims' faith in humanity, criminal actions. One possible penally businesses. for ultimately, this is what violence would be to disqualify such people destroys. • The "working through" of victimisa­ from occupying a position in the public Unless we create a South Africa tion: The damage and humiliation suf­ or civil service for a particular length of which demonstrates to the survivors fered in the past not only provokes sad­ time. The evidence of such penalties that their trials and tribulations have a ness, it also induces anger Anger is will satisfy, even in ihe most minimal meaning and have led to something bet­ always expressed, whether overtly or way, the survivors' desire for retribu­ ter, we will create a generation of cyn­ covertly, and it always finds a target, tion. ics and misanthropes. • whether it be an external or an internal • Lloyd Vogelman is • Public acknowledgement: An one. It will be difficult for survivors to director of Wits Uni­ acknowledgement of Ihe injustice and vent their anger on those responsible for versity's Centre for the Study of abuse thai has been suffered is neces­ their victimisation. Unless they arc Violence and Reconciliation sary. The perpetrators must publicly encouraged to express account for their violence, and ihe gov­ their anger in non-vio­ ernment, the ANC and other political lent ways, it will more groupings must apologise for Ihe than likely be taken out human rights violations they have con­ on those who are acces- doned and encouraged. In this way. the secrecy of evil is unlocked and society • DIGGING IN THE can begin to come to terms with itself. DIRT: Unless victims For ihe families of victims and sur­ work through their vivors, such accounting serves as anger, they're likely immediate public recognition of iheir to take It out on pain and trauma. those closest to In 50 years time, ihe years of them PHOTO ODE Of* MENDEL IWA¥1BUYL CtVT»E» 16 WORK IN PROGRESS cover story

When killers walk free Goniwe inquest opens some doors, out shuts others

Eight years and two inquests after Matthew Goniwe's murder, there's a good chance that his Killers will go free. LOUISE FLANAGAN looks at some of the flaws in the process

F MATTHEW GONIWE WAS ALIVE today he would be in line for a I senior position in next year's new government. Bui observers of the inquest into his murder arc left wondering whether his killers will escape through amnesties and a concerted campaign to keep them out of court — and possibly retain their government pensions or even retain their positions under the government Goniwe would have served in. Goniwe and his colleagues — Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkonto and Sicelo Mhlauli — were murdered on June 27, 1985. Evidence at the inquest has given a good indication of who ordered the murders, who carried them out and just how the security apparatus operated then — and possibly still does now with minor changes. Goniwe was murdered at a time when the Eastern Cape was regard­ ed by security forces as "the flash­ point of the revolution". Security police have admitted to moni­ toring him closely — listening to his telephone calls, bug­ ging his house, follow­ ing him around — but denied that they regard­ ed him as a threat, Goniwe's colleagues have told journalists he was involved in the • GONIWE: ANC underground, at a Murdered time when the under­ eight years ground was becoming age more militarily involved ami obviously regarded

17 AUGUST 1993 as a great threat. burg. Security police witnesses have Cops in • Later that same morning there was a admitted destroying hundreds of files routine meeting of the JMCs Joint from that time, including the file on the dock Operations Centre. Both Van der West­ Goniwe. One has admitted that infor­ Fingers are being pointed at huizen and Snyman attended. mation on Goniwe's underground activ­ the following policemen: • At 2:20 that same afternoon the "per­ ities — regarded as a motive for his manent removal" signal was sent, refer­ murder — was in the destroyed files. • Colonel Harold Snyman, who currently operates as a ring to the telephone call earlier in the The police also admitted that doc­ police media spokesman. He day. uments and files on activists were allegedly Interrogated Steve destroyed nationwide, explaining that Biko shortly before his 1977 Army evidence this was because organisations such as death In detention. Snyman The evidence of the signal points to the ANC, PAC and SACP were was promoted less than four Van der Westhuizen, in his capacity as unbanned in 1990. It seems highly like­ months after the Goniwe mur­ JMC chief, as having ordered the mur­ ly that evidence of security force ders. He currently sits on the ders. Further evidence at the inquest, involvement in further dirty tricks and current equivalent of the JMC, some of it provided interestingly by the possibly murders was destroyed at the the Local Co-ordinating Struc­ same time, or even that the mass SADF, has pointed towards the security ture, which fits Into the police as the actual killers. It appears destruction was a deliberate move to National Co-ordinating Mecha­ they could have been tasked, through destroy as much evidence as possible. nism. their superiors in the JMC structures, to • Colonel Eric Winter, ex- carry out the operation — an operation The JMCs Koevoet member and the quite possibly discussed in the Joint Evidence from some of the remaining 1985 chief of the Cradock Operations Centre meeting of that day. documents and securocrats has indicat­ security police. He Is now The focus in the inquest has now ed that the security networks in the based In Port Elizabeth. turned to the police — a move largely region were controlled by the National Security Management Structure • Major Gideon Nleuwoudt, brought about by the SADF lawyers. (NSMS), through its local arm, the Joint an explosives expert based In This happened the day former SADF Management Centre (JMC). It's this Port Elizabeth. At the inquest, colonel Lourens du Plessis — the man structure which was headed by the Offi­ SADF lawyers accused Nleu­ who drafted the signal and who is now cer Commanding the Eastern Province woudt of Involvement In the expected to spill the beans on his one­ Command, then-Brigadier Joffel van December 1989 murders of time colleagues — was expected to der Westhuizen who is now a general four of his colleagues, give evidence. While the detour will and head of Military Intelligence. allegedly because he reared quite possibly point out the men they were about to expose involved in the actual operation, it The controversial military signal police Involvement In the appears to be an attempt to keep the of June 7, 1985 names its sender as Van Goniwe murders. spotlight off those who ordered it der Westhuizen. This signal, sent 20 days before the murders, refers to the • Captain Sakkle van Zyl, It also seems to be a blatant "permanent removal from society" of who served In Koevoet with attempt to keep Du Plessis out of the Goniwe, fellow victim Calata and Goni­ Winter and was with the Port witness-box at all costs to stop him we's relative Mbulelo Goniwe. Elizabeth security police In from exposing any more SADF covert Van der Westhuizen has denied 1985. operations of the time. The limited knowledge of this signal in an affidavit style of Du Plessis's indemnity sup­ to the inquest. The man named in the ports this. Du Plessis was indemnified signal as the recipient. Gen Johannes in relation to the signal message — an Frederik Janse van Rensburg — at the indemnity the state could hardly refuse time seconded to the Secretariat of the given the intense interest the case has State Security Council (SSSC) where generated — but refused indemnity in he was head of the Strategy Department relation to other operations such as — said he recalled the signal but denied Operation Katzen. it was a death order. Du Plessis previously handed in Second in command of the JMC in Katzen documents to the inquest, docu­ 1985 was the chief of the security ments which indicated Van der Westu- police for the Port Elizabeth region. izen's involvement in covert actions. Colonel Harold Snyman. It seems the SADF will do any­ Piecing together the evidence of thing, including sacrificing their less several different witnesses, it emerges powerful partners the police to the that: inquest, in an attempt to divert attention • On June 7, 1985 there was a morning from the military top brass. — Ecna • telephone call between Van der West­ • PERMANENT REMOVAL: Joffel • The inquest reopens later this huizen and General Janse van Rens- van der Westhuizen month. 18 WORK IN PROGRESS cover story

A very South African coup The SADF's way of dealing with negotiations Rightwing big-guns in the SADF are unlikely to confess their sins without a fuss. But just how much fuss can they make? A coup, perhaps? ROCKY WILLIAMS looks at their potential

HE SIGHT OF A VIPER ARMOURED VEHICLE CRASHING THROUGH mi IMH>K\ of Ihc World Trade Centre raised a fear common to most transitional T societies — the prospect of a coup. Almost any transition raises such fears. Hardliners within the State, dissatisfied with their loss of power and the compromises being granted by "softliner" negotiators, repeatedly threaten lo use their military influence lo halt derail or influence the out­ come of negotiations. Negotiators are thus forced to compromise on key Issues to avoid a military counter-reaction. This frequently affects how much can be achieved politically — and the extent to which the slate can be restructured. The same applies with South Africa's transition. Because of concern at the potential for sabotage by ele­ ments within both the security establishment and the bureaucracy, the democratic movement has already made concessions in certain key areas. In addition, certain players in the democratic move­ ment have confused the interventionist rhetoric of the rightwing with their actual physical and mechanical Capacity to mount a coup. While a future government will undoubtedly face resistance from some sections of the armed forces, we should not overstate the forces' abilitv to overturn demo- cratic gains (whether through a classical "coup d'etat" or selective intervention), Developing strategy on the basis of a "worst case" scenario — a coup d'etat for instance — without consider­ ing the range of more likely possibilities, will deprive the democratic movement of much its strategic flexibility both in the transition and in the post-settlement period.

1. Forms of military influence: From constitutional channels to coups Most analyses of the SADF have collapsed its mechanical power — its force levels, its sizeable inventories and its budgetary allocation — into an account of its real or potential power. The SADF is depicted as marching onto the terrain of the state, establishing its HO at the political centre and • VERLOORKOMMANDO: Small private armies could deploying its personnel lo all levels of society. Driven by its play a key role in local-level rebellions 19 AUGUST 1993 relentless corporate designs, Ihe SADF the present SADF would prove capable proceeds to refashion state and society of mounting a coup even if its officer according lo its own military and politi­ corpi: — or dominant factions therein cal objectives. — desired to do so- Its influence over These accounts of military influ­ the political process is less pronounced ence fail lo take account of a host of and less drastic than a coup scenario issues relating to the very real limita­ suggests. tions imposed on the capacity of the armed forces to intervene in and/or 2. To coup or not to coup influence the political process. Military coups are rarely mounted by an A range of factors determine mili­ officer corps in its entirety. Factions tary influence — the political culture of within the armed forces — acting on a particular society, the legitimacy of their own or in collaboration with central politi­ certain political actors — engage in cal inslilu- armed intervention. But the decision to HOW tO keep a lions, the cor- intervene is determined by a host of coup In place P°ratc identity variables — a breakdown in "law and The following conditions of tne armed order", the election of a politically must be mat M a group of forces, the unpopular government, the forging of piitschlsts want to conaotl- institutional strong alliances with influential political date their gain*: capabilities of actors or the notion of the armed forces • The real centre of polttf- lne armed intervening in the name of "national cal power wttfthi a country r—*— ,k»,.u interest". ha.to be located JrtZL forct? *"2 caUed trallaed •"? ** A coup scenario is exireme and a e Party leaden and °n l0 g°vcm> range of limiting factors must be con­ bureaucratic leader* have their social sidered before a coup can be launched to be subordinated and/or composition The factors that can either restrain neutralised and the nature • DOWN AND OUT: The generals would and/or impel the SADF to intervene are e The support and/or relations of varied: ment and exicmal military campaigns, a) Technical and logistical obstacles and the ambiguous loyalties of many slaIe • Trade unions, cMcs and *u Coups do not simply "happen" — they African and coloured troops, it remains grassroots organisation* Inter- require ideological cohesion among the questionable whether either category must bo neutralised vention", for plotters. would be prepared to support — let • Political opposition has instance, is alone defend — the interventionist to be neutralised just one type No coup can be successfully launched without an element of ambitions of certain sectors of the offi­ • Local government struc- 0f military cer corps. turns have to be neih influence surprise. To do so requires the support traUsed or bypassed of ready battalions of loyal troops who And then there is the question of within politics • Kay economic Installa­ can be sworn to secrecy (or isolated the neutralisation of adversaries. In any and is itself tions have to be secured. from society in the months preceding coup attempt, the SADF would have to • Key administrative characterised the coup),. deal with a host of adversarial groups, structures have to be by various It's worth noting at this point that as well as securing key administrative secured forms of coer­ the SA Army's Conventional Forces are and economic structures. cion — vio­ largely reservist in origin and would This is a daunting task in a country lence against the civilian authorities, require at least two months* effective with a resilient civil society and a com­ failure lo protect those authorities from mobilisation time (during which the ele­ plex infrastructure! violence, threats of non-cooperation and ment of surprise could be lost). the intimidation and blackmail of the Firstly, the complexity of the authorities themselves. In addition, there's the question of South African bureaucracy, the strength However, not all forms of military morale and unity. Every coup attempt and depth of civil society, the dispersed influence seek to replace the states* requires the support of the armed and extended nature of the country's organisational forms, management forces' rank and file. In the SADF, the economic infrastructure and the decen­ styles and personnel. Infinitely more bulk of the combat personnel arc either tralisation of tf** national capitals (Pre­ problematic is the subtler forms of white conscripts, African or coloured toria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein) influent wielded by the armed forces permanent force members or Citizc*, would render the organisation of a coup in Jit. jnt societies. Force reservists (white regular army a logistical nightmare. Less visible and less extreme than personnel almost exclusively occupy Furthermore, opposition to a coup the Latin-American scenarios are the non-combat positions — command and would span a range of interests (particu­ forms of military influence wielded by control, administrative and training larly in a country with a reasonably the armed forces within countries of a functions). developed civic culture). Both factors reasonably developed political culture. Given the hig JIS of resistance would strongly militate against the suc­ Indeed, it remains highly unlikely that towards conscription, township deptoy- cess of a coup. 20 WORK IN PROGRESS of covert funds to allied political organ­ isations, and the use of their intelli­ gence to discredit certain popular and community leaders. These elements are most strongly represented within the structures of army intelligence, military intelligence and the special forces divi­ sion (although all three components are being restructured at present). • Rightwing officers, who constitute a surprisingly small faction within the SADF's permanent force (although they are certainly more numerous in its conscript ranks). This has much to do with the image of the SADF as the "military-as-modernisers" and the strong ascriptive ties that have linked it with the National Party in the past. It is important to note that most mainstream rightwing officers do not support inter­ vention of the coup d'etat variety — a result, no doubt, of the strong constitu­ tionalist ethos within such organisa­ tions as the Conservative Party and the Herstigte Nasionale Party. Even Gener­ al Constand Viljoen has emphasised, at the height of rightwing anger, the need h to think they could bank on full support from within the SADF for moderation, negotiation and non­ violent action. There's an additional problem for scenario. putschists: Do the SADF's Permaaent These factions include: Therefore, despite the presence of Force (PF) musierings possess the • The "Constitutionalists" — senior a nascent praetorian faction within the administrative and technical ability — SADF officers who, regardless of their SADF, the bulk of the officer corps as well as the political will — to gov­ political convictions, will obey the gov­ inclines in a constitutionalist direction. ern? The small size of the PF cadre, ernment of the day and desist from Given their key strategic location (the coupled with the extensive skills and intervening in the political process- air force and the conventional forces, personnel required to govern the coun­ Undoubtedly the largest faction within for example), they would render any try, would present an insurmountable the SADF officer corps, these officers coup attempt virtually ineffective from bureaucratic and managerial task, tend to be located in the air force, the the start. b) Divisions in the officer corps navy, the medical services, the non- The SADF is not a homogenous struc­ operational staff divisions (chiefs of Feel safe? Read on... ture and admits to strategic, political, staff finance and personnel for instance) On the basis of the evidence above, a institutional, ideological and pragmatic and the army's conventional forces. coup appears to be a highly improbable differences depending on its muster- prospect in a diverse and institutionally The loyalty of ings, the social origins of its personnel complex country like the air force, for and the different career paths and expe­ South Africa. example, would prove riences of its PF cadre. But to predict central in crushing strategies on the These differences and contradic­ any coup bid — and basis of this is to fail tions will become more pronounced in the loyalty of the pre­ to understand the periods of political transition and could sent air force general precise contours of even lead to factions within the SADF staff appears to be military influence — moving in different political directions largely anti-interven­ and, as a result, to in periods of political crisis. It seems tionist in direction. devise responses that few officers are prepared to jeopardise • The nascent praeto­ are inherently career, pension and gratuity benefits for rian faction within the flawed. the sake of narrow party political goals. SADF's intelligence South Africa is It is, therefore, important to assess the community and its undergoing profound loyalties of the different factions within elite units. Their tac­ political transition the SADF senior officer corps, and the tics include, typically, pj MODERATE RIGHTWINGER? and many of the extent to which these changing loyalties the fielding of "hit Even Constand VHJoen at variables that have could impede and/or facilitate a coup squads", the provision times argues for non-violence restrained the SADF 21 AUGUST 1993 How to keep an eye on the soldiers e Formal mechanisms of control: from exercising a more assertive role in Parliamentary control, budgetary officers: Whilst not summarily dismiss­ the political process are, and will be, oversight, parliamentary proce­ ing such personnel (unless irrefutable subject to revision. In the fluidity and dures, the right to ask questions, evidence exists to the contrary) they instability of such a transition, the Freedom of Information Act etc. could be appointed in non-contentious SADF may find itself exercising its e Structural mechanisms within staff positions or used in training and influence through a number of formal the armed forces: Public audits, non-combatant positions. redefinition of the offensive doc­ and informal mechanisms. trine of the armed forces, disband­ O Introducing effective forms of bud­ Although this may not follow the ing of contentious units, redefini­ getary, parliamentary and legal over­ lines of the classical coup d'etat, it may tion of the military Intelligence sight over the armed forces (see bos). assume "lower" forms of military brief etc This transparency and accountability involvement in the process. Potential e Informal mechanisms: Access to will prevent the armed forces from con­ and knowledge on the arms Indus­ factors which are impelling the SADF, spiring against the civilian and political try. These can Involve a creative authorities. or factions therein, to consider more mixture of measures designed direct involvement in the political pro­ according to the peculiarities of b) Building a post-apartheid defence cess include: the country concerned — Freedom force of Information Act, public audits, # The fact that the armed forces reflect It is vital to build a broad-based hege­ project updates, a healthy relation­ the social divisions, fissures and cleav­ ship with the media etc. mony within a future officer corps ages of South African society. Already We need appropriate mechanisms around the general principles underpin­ sectors of the armed forces (both serv­ of accountability and transparency ning a post-settlement South Africa. ing and retired) are attempting to use In virtually all areas of defence Possible candidates could include: restructuring — defence policy, their military experience and skills to e MK officers who. given their history Institutional restructuring, the favour specific party-political interests ethos of a future defence estab­ of political accountability and subordi­ (the so-called "Committee of Generals" lishment, defence legislation, arms nation to the political executive of the for instance). export policy, and civil military ANC. can be expected (in most cases) relations. • The high level of civil violence with­ to abide by a new constitution. in the country (aided and abetted by a • Democratically-minded officers variety of renegade elements within the involvement in the political process can from the homeland armies who are pre­ security forces) may impel the armed be addressed on two levels. The first pared to uphold and respect the consti­ forces into acting more decisively in involves the institutional restructuring tution. ensuring the maintenance of "law and of the armed forces themselves (impera­ e Constitutionally-oriented officers order" and the preservation of "national tive in light of the changing domestic. from the SADF. interest". Although not tantamount to a regional and international threat scenar­ It is important to stress, however, coup, a "blackmail" position like this ios). The second involves the organisa­ that Ihe organisation of such a hegemo­ could slow down the process of negotia­ tion of a democratic hegemony within ny among democratic and constitution­ tions (this is, however, very much a the armed forces. alist officers should be done in a way "worst case" scenario). a) Limiting the power of the praetori­ that avoids undermining both the pro­ ans Within this scenario, a number of fessionalism and the roles and missions The influence of intervention-inclined options could be considered. These of the armed forces. sectors of the SADF could, potentially, include the selective assassination and But make no mistake — the influ­ be constrained by a number of mea­ "removal" of anti-state activists from ence of such a bloc of officers will play sures. These include: the community, the provision of funds a vital role in limiting the influence of for "sympathetic" pro-state or SADF • Redefining the SADF's roles and more reactionary officers. • organisations, the discrediting of key missions: The army must no longer be • Williams is a member of the Mili­ leaders and local destabilisation — used as an urban counter-insurgency tary Research Group something which is already happening unit. This will reduce its influence in in the rural areas. local government and its tactical intelli­ gence brief (the latter being the source Although this type of influence is of many "third force" activities). The obviously less effective than a coup primary mission of the armed forces, d'etat, it remains difficult to control or particularly during a transition, should anticipate given its "invisibility". A be externally oriented and narrow — coup is highly visible and remains an primarily the preservation of the territo­ easier target against which to organise. rial sovereignty of the country. Covert action remains somewhat less tangible and requires, as a consequence, • Restructuring the SADF's intelli- _; a specific set of measures to address it. gencc structures: Limiting SADF intelligence to an external intelli­ gence brief will prevent it from 3. Creating a democratic involving itself in domestic issues hegemony in the armed (and with it the temptation to pursue it forces own political agenda). The recurring spectre of military e Judiciously reshuffling contentious 22 WORK IN PROGRESS Racism and sexism: You can't have one without the other

Women bore the brunt of the rightwing invasion of the World Trade Centre. Black women, in particular, had to run the gauntlet of khaki-clad men. This statement — by the ANC Commission for the Emancipation of Women — explains why it was women who felt the wrath of the right

HE HEAVILY ARMED MEN ASSAULTED AND TERRORISED among the negotiators at ihe World Trade Centre no doubt women as Ihey entered the World Trade Centre. challenged sexist and racist stereotypes. And the fearful white T Women were slapped in the face, pulled by their hair, thugs reacted by attacking women and stealing their bags. pushed around, spat al and verbally abused as they made their The inclusion of a small number of while women among way through the mob. Ihe rightwing militarists illustrates their co-option into a male Black women delegates became the targets for the most style of behaviour and dress. These women will find that their foul and humiliating racisl verbal abuse. All this happened uniforms will not protect them from domestic and public vio­ within full view of Ihe police and a number of Ihe rightwing lence. They should learn a lesson from our history: black peo­ leaders, who did nothing to assist Ihe women. ple who allowed themselves to be coopted were not rewarded Women journalists were exposed to the same behaviour by being treated as equals — they remain second class citi­ from individuals in Ihe Afrikaner Volksfront. Apart from zens. open hostility and rude treatment, women journalists were The behaviour of Ihe rightwing terrorists illustrates once sexually harassed, intimidated and Ihrealened. again the conneclions between racism and sexism. In South Africa Ihis was institutionalised through laws that confined Who's weak? African women to the rural slums of bantustans, to remain as Cowardly and fearful men reinforce their egos and trivialisc the breeders of the future labour force and the minders of and denigrate women — particularly in times of war. They children, the old, Ihe sick and the handicapped. portray their own wives, mothers, sisters and daughters as the "weaker sex" who need to be "protected and defended" — Sexists while simultaneously attacking and abusing other women to The National Party, the SADF and Ihe SAP have the same demonstrate that their enemies are "not man enough to defend undemocratic, racist and sexist traditions as the Afrikaner them". The rape of thousands of Muslim women in Bosnia, Volksfront and the AWB, as is manifested by their failure to and the Mozambican women kepi as sex-slaves by Renamo, prevent the attack, prolect the negotiators or speedily bring are recent illustrations of this. the leaders before the courts. The institutions investigating the violence in our country In the short term the incident illustrates the urgent need have not paid sufficient attention to its impact on women. for join! control of ihe security forces. In the longer term it This is an omission that Ihe Technical Committee on Vio­ illustrates the fundamental importance of ensuring that our lence, the National Peace Accord and the Goldstone Commis­ new constitution provides a framework which will prohibit sion need to address as a matter of urgency. both the racist and sexist behaviour which these white men The presence of women (especially black women) displayed. •

23 AUGUST 1993 gender

Breathing new life into the abortion debate

Pro-choice? Pro-life? The abortion debate is a complex one, and part of a much broader discussion about patriarchy and the emancipation of women, argues LIZ WALKER

NE ASSUMPTION MADE ABOUT nurses did not identify with their cited religious beliefs as their central South African women is that patients' problem of unwanted pregnan­ opposition to abortion. O they are generally in favour of cies as women: in other words, being a By the same token, they did not abortion. Researcher Anne Hilton woman was not a basis for empathy, "object to the procedure" — nor did recently took this assumption further by solace or support. they argue that the rights of the foetus arguing that "(abortion) is a woman's As one nurse put it: "A woman assume greater significance than those issue and it is the women of this country who wants an abortion would come here of the mothers. who should have the final say". This and expect to be helped because I am a Their main objection, in fact, was "say" would presumably result in a vic­ woman as well. But they are wrong. that an unplanned pregnancy or abortion tory for the pro-choice lobby. They are disappointed that I don't help was seen to be the act of an irresponsi­ There are two problems with these them. What they arc doing is wrong. It ble woman and a highly irresponsible assumptions: an arrogance on the part of is like murder." mother. white feministsjn assuming the con­ Another told me: "My work is to When a woman has an abortion, sciousness of African women, and a help the woman who wants a child, not many of them said, she is terminating failure to take into account the ambiva­ the woman who wants an abortion". more than her pregnancy — she is ter­ lence (and even hostility) which many minating her womanhood. African women display towards abor­ Hostility In their eyes, these women have tion. The nurses expressed a deep anger and rejected who and what they are as I recently conducted a study hostility towards all women — irrespec­ women. They are denying and extin­ among African nurses in Soweto and tive of their class or social standing — guishing their own strength, and indeed found that the large majority unambigu­ who have abortions, what lies at the core of their identity as ously and unequivocally reject abortion • '*A/iv woman can want an abortion* It women. on all levels. Seventy percent of them can happen to any woman, even mar­ In short, abortion epitomises an expressed overwhelmingly negative ried women sometimes." irresponsible and reprehensible woman, responses to abortion. • "/ think abortion happens to all whose pregnancy is symbolic of her • "Abortion is about killing people. women. Sometimes, even if they are lack of control, irresponsibility and self- rich, the pregnancy is still unplanned They are being kilted by their own kind. negation. How can this woman and unwanted, ll can Interestingly, in their discourse on kill her child?" and does happen abortion, men emerged blameless. Men • " Women won't About the regardless of the per­ were in no way expected to assume care if they are son 's money." responsibility for unplanned and allowed to have abor­ research Their negative unwanted pregnancies. tions, ihey will just do Liz Walker, who teaches responses were not, as it all the time." in the sociology Hilton suggests, Some new assumptions • "/ really don't think "because of religion department at Wits The findings of this research suggest women should be able University, interviewed and moral objections". In fact, church affilia­ that: to have abortions. nurses at three Soweto Why should they be tions and religious • It is incorrect to assume that all allowed to have them ? clinics over a period of convictions did not women would support a liberalised Why can 7 they just go six months. A total of significantly affect abortion policy because abortion is nec­ to family planning? " 35 intensive interviews their responses: only essarily a "woman's issue". Not all women have an innate feminist con­ Moreover, the were conducted. 11% of the nurses sciousness simply because they are 24 WORK IN PROGRESS What the major women. Nor do all women have >i ct«* •; stems" and further, "that piayors say mon consciousness. Rather, :' jn play a very constructive research suggests thai wcmer * (debate), if it takes the lead". about abortion lesponse to ihc issue m 3bor::i. uranium mine, not your cult tals can exclude ihe provision of abortion from their range of ser­ vices. (From IFP policy document, The Status of Women) • AZAPO: We are 'pro-choice'. But we are worried that this may lead to abortion being viewed as a form of contraception. Our women's secre­ tariate is grappling with measures to prevent this. (Azapo publicity secre­ tary Dr Gomolemo Mokae) W • CONSERVATIVE PARTY: We most strongly oppose the legalisation of abor­ WATCH YOUR BACK: South Africa needs Its own brand of feminism tion on request. (CP health spokesper­ son Dr WJ Snyman) This demand is, however, ultered some­ experiences of patriarchy, interventions • NATIONAL PARTY: The question of what glibly, as it assumes that women which aim at women's emancipation abortion must be handled delicately. are both willing and empowered to can relate to the day to day experiences Changes to existing legislation can only challenge patriarchy. The debate around of the many groups of women in South be made after extensive consultation abortion needs to be recast to take into Africa. This will allow for the develop­ with all Interested parties. (NP policy account the resilience and complexity ment of a South African feminism document) of both the practices and consciousness which is neither the property or privi­ • ANC: The 1992 ANC Policy Confer­ surrounding patriarchy. While the prac­ lege of white articulate woman activists ence failed to reach agreement, but we and academics. tice of abortion may signify one crucial are in the process of arriving at a policy. The ultimate challenge of a Most ANC members feel men and way through which women are able to woman's liberation movement is the women must have the choice. It is claim a degree of control over their own incorporation of concerned men in the increasingly being talked about as an fertility, abortion itself may not directly struggle for gender equality. Indeed, issue on which we need to take a firm constitute a challenge to patriarchy and such a challenge needs to incorporate stand. (Baleka Hgositsile, national exec­ male authority. men rather than be directed at them. • utive committee member) I agree with Anne Hilton's recom­ • 777/s article is in response to Anne • PAN-AFRICANIST CONGRESS: We mendation that "abortion should be Hitton's call in WIP84 for greater dis­ have no policy on abortion, but there are made available, together with pre- and cussion within the ANC on the ques­ discussion papers. It's a very sensitive tion of abortion. post-abortion counselling and appropri- issue. (Patricia de Lille, national execu­ tive committee member) 25 — Research by Botlhale Nong AUGUST 1993 current affairs

Adventures in the wild First stop: The World Trade Centre Is the National Party's *'new realism' at the negotiating table for real? Do the Nats know where their negotiators are? Is that a deal we see around the next corner? How many Nats does it take to change a system? Questions, questions, questions. HEIN MARAIS takes a deep breath, and dives in ...

PACK OF MEN AGREE TO DRIVE A LOAD OF UNSTABLE nilro-glycerine through the South American jungle, each chased by their own ghosts and spurred by fearsome ambition. Together they're a mix of fellowship and desperation. They cross swollen rivers, rickety bridges and crumbling moun­ tain passes. They double-cross each other at every other turn. All the while, the cargo shakes and rattles, on the verge of-lurning into a fireball. The plot belongs to Wages of Fear, Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1946 movie classic. The film belongs wherever the negotiators go, as a kind of permanent installation: as soon as the smell of deadlock rises, delegates are marched to the screening room, made to sit down and watch. They can call it the Reality Chamber. With the draft interim constitution out, there is a lot of talk about "reality setting in", "a sense of urgency" spurring the negotiators towards a settlement. From here on, it's down­ hill. The trick now is to keep Inkatha, the KwaZulu gov­ ernment and the Conservative Party (CP) on board. But it's not going to be easy. Ahead lies the roughest part of the peace process, dotted with deadlocks, disorder and deferred conflicts. Bearing down on it is a troop of dare­ devils — Inkatha, the CP —that drive on the wild side to make a point. There's an ANC that's made more concessions than most observers and supporters thought it could survive. And there's a factious and frazzled NP — determined to clinch a deal to ensure that much of the old order becomes part of the new, but uncertain what it should look like. The concession that set things rolling in late June was the govern­ • HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU WANT? ANC negotiators have already ment's apparent abandonment of its bent over backwards 26 WORK IN PROGRESS How do we deal demand for cnircnchcd power-sharing with these IFP will tie down the ANC in government. (PS for short). guys? The sales pitch Roclf Meyer and co. are From across the negotiating table. laying on NP supporters is that these The National Party's current says an ANC insider* the Nats appeared features do what power-sharing was bewilderment crystalises In the mean! lo do. Bui it's not al all clear lo drop permanent PS as early as tensions around Inkatha. March. Then President Dc Klerk punted whether even his own caucus buys that Inkatha loyalists' in the NP hook, line and sinker i( back onto the table in his Financial caucus are driven by several Times interview in June. For a couple of Impulses: Ideological affinities Third question. The ANC submit­ days Nat officials were talking out of with the IFP. hopes of reviving ted to five vtas' PS until 1999 because w both sides of their mouths. Then the NP a Christian-Democratic negotiators Tippexed out all references it knows it cannot govern SA alone — alliance, distrust of the 'new not with a civil service hogged by ner­ to PS in their submissions al the World realism* at the top end of the Trade Centre* And Dc Klerk announced vous and hostile whites; an army that ANC-NP partnership — and, for was devolcd lo crushing the organisa­ from Austria that, no. five years of PS Natal MPs especially, sheer are just dandy, thank you. tion it will now have to serve; a police careerlsm. force caught somewhere between "pri­ So have they reallv rolled this These confusions are now vate army" and public service. boulder out of the way? percolating upwards, as the NP But what if, as Centre for Policy An answer actually doesn't take us ponders whether to buckle to Studies director Sieve Friedman asks. far. but it begs a scl of more fundamen­ IFP brinkmanship (and twist the Nals could persuasively argue in six tal questions that cast more light on the the ANC's arm Into years' lime lhat the conditions which road ahead* Like... accommodating more of Its proposed the sunset clause had not real­ • Who are "they"? demands) or bid it good ly changed? *Thc civil service and - • Has the NP found other tools to do riddance. the shooters are still itchy, but ? the job of permanent PS? • Docs an official retreat mean that PS ends in 1999? ANC's, does not necessarily deliver First, "they" are a motley bunch; what it wants. Form is not content* The united by convenience and a foggy ANC, for example, has its elected con­ common purpose, divided by anxiety, stituent assembly. Yet that body's hands habit and ambition. There are talking arc being tied already as the multiparty heads and wagging tails — the relation­ forum lays down the principles it will ships between them are not altogether have lo heed* clear We return to this later That there is still a peace process The second question. Permanent to write about is due largely to the PS was a means lo an end. The major ANC's flexibility at the bargaining thrust of the Nal reform programme has table* which stems both from the pre­ not been to keep white racists happy (it long ago ceded that responsibility to the vailing balance of forces and from its white Right), but to keep or revamp SA belief that there is no other route around as a place where "good business" can disaster. be done and its fruits enjoyed. The Nats, however, have feigned a lot of compromises — submitting to Some Nats hoped for a settlement changes in form and process, but stay­ that would strap the ANC and its allies in snugly as junior partners in a new ing either unwilling or unable to trade order. They rested their hopes on the fairly when the hat is passed around. swollen whimsy and exaggerated sense (Doom talk? Take a closer look at some of ability that decades of authoritarian of the bills whisked through in the most rule tends to produce. recent sitting of Parliament,) Here's pari Others understood this was impos­ of what they've wheedled out of the sible. An ANC government's ability to ANC so far this year: push beyond the barriers of "managed e No majority rule or full democracy change" had to be limited by a variety until 1999, with a fair chance that it can of mechanisms. Permanent PS was an be postponed further. important short-cut to achieving this. O Agreement on a system thai is not ANC negotiators seem pretty quite federalism, but very close. bullish and proud nowadays, confident e Allowing an unelected negotiating they've stepped clear of that trap. "Our forum to set constitutional principles scenario for the transition has become that bind the elected constituent assem­ the accepted scenario," says top nego­ bly when it draws up a new constitu­ tiator Mohammed Valli Moosa. tion. • HOME, JAMES: But who'i But a scenario that looks like the These are some of the straps that taking who for a ride? 27 AUGUST 1993 Into the big they trust us — keeping i on-board can make lite a lot easier"? Or there's a less Machiavellian white yonder route. No m what Nat chcerlep'"rs say, they know they won't win the iir democratic election. ~*ut . n of influx control were all preced­ pretended negotiations ed by media campaigns to market were a going-oul-c- the moves," says the Centre for Poli­ business sale. d. cy Studies1 Steve Friedman. "But they? we're not seeing that today:" The Nats seem to be hoping the Hooked on each 1994 election will reunite the cau other • as and a blockbuster campaign will At the symbolic level, repair voters' support levels. Valli ANC-NP relations Hnks they can pull It off: "They look like a son of gen­ have a long history of hoodwinking tlemanly duel. A bit of tne elc orate ... the ordinary white cut and thrust, a lot of person wfl go with them." smiles and hand­ But a range of other contradictions kick In at this point. "If ycu I shakes. plan to srr^e power for the foreseeable future you don't do every- But the relationship Is ambivalent thfaig possible to weaken your partner — which Is what the Nats are — a-, two Is. First, these are two doing to the ANC," says Friedman. The NP's problem is that, to have foes locked into a mutual dependency. enough weight In a power-sharing government, K must win at least The one cannot rule without the other, 26% of the vote. Which means It has to compete feverishly w*th the now or in the foreseeable future; each ANC for Mack votes. needs the other, to do the deal. Second­ On top >f that, it has to solve this puzzle: how does it land the ly, the current rough consensus has little white vote (oy placating vhrte fears, downplaying the changes, mas- cunency beyond a handful of ANC and aging prejudices) and poach enough black votes (which requires NP top rankers. This problem is particu­ dazzling promises of change)? larly acute within the NP — which brings us back to thai question. "Who is "Part of what makes negotiated transitions work," says Fried­ this they' that is finessing the deal?" man, "is that the two main players are supposed to reinforce each other... But here we've got this bizarre situation where Mandela Is Let's assume the Nat avant-garde (Dawie de Villiers. Roelf Meyer, Leon basically saying (in public!) 'We're worried about the NP, what can Wcssels and their patron. Dc Klerk) we do to help them?'. His problem Is that there's nothing on earth he have done a deal with the ANC leader­ can do." m ship, a give-and-take shuffle to prevent - Hem Marais matters from turning too unpleasant. There's not a lot of detail, but they've

28 WORK IN PROGRESS pencilled in a basic outline. Both parties are relatively happy, no-one's ecstatic. The hole in this plot is the fact that the deal is done by the avant-garde of the two parties. And they're separated from their constituencies either by party culture or by the dynamics of negotia­ tions. The ANC has sold to its members some stupendous compromises already — from the suspension of armed strug­ gle to the postponement of majority rule to the end of the century. No matter how conciliatory or spooked its negotia­ tors might now be made to feel, there's not a lot more they can concede. Constituency problem But it's the NP that is stricken with the biggest "constituency problem". Says Friedman: "The biggest danger to the transition right now is the political weakness of the NP," he says (see box). Even within the Nat caucus, "new- agers" like Meyer will not walk off with the most-popular-guy-in-class prize. Breathing down their necks are sur­ vivors from the Krokkedil's reign, ideo­ logues with careers on the line, incom­ petents addicted to power and the "feood life, securocrats nervous about human rights probes, and other, even nastier, specimens. Much of the NP's predicament is compressed into — and read from — the rise of dissent within the caucus. Typically, the lines of tension are said to separate hawks (Hemus Kriel, Kobie Coetzee, Danie Schutte et al) from doves (Roelf Meyer, Dawie de Villiers, • DRINKS ARE ON ME: The Nats are working on how to win (black) Leon Wessels). friends It's a deceptive metaphor, because other birds are rattling the cage, too. leaders used to butt heads at the bar­ boozers on a binge, the security forces Some set on feathering their nests, some gaining table and make it look like a still surrender u> the habit of senseless with their heads in the sand, some with piece of courtly theatre? Only, in the crackdowns (hat produce inflamed pas­ the jitters, and a flock that whistles back of their minds was this awesome sions rather than prosecutions. Town­ every tune within earshot awareness of MAD — Mutual Assured ships are war zones, or worse. The Nats are a pretty disparate Destruction, the thousands of nuclear In this atmosphere, our transition bunch — united in their belief that a warheads they had aimed at each other. rattles and lurches into unchartered settlement has to be reached, but divid­ Like bargaining at the edge of Hell. parts. ed by notions of exactly what that set­ MAD proponents say it focused minds, We see, amidst all (he hands tlement should look like and how it can discouraged brinkmanship and recom­ snatching at the steering wheel, the be achieved. mended compromises. Nats, still squabbling over where In the past the party managed to they're heading, bickering about how to deal with factions, Friedman points out, Threats of civil war gel there. "by electing strong leaders who decide We have our own version, only it's real­ We see De Klerk and his avant which one they're going to go with". In ly mad. And while some minds are garde routinely turn to the camera, De Klerk, the Nats chose a conciliator, focused, others are flapping in the wind. looking calm as ice cubes on a hotplate, good at balancing acts, but poor at lay­ Ulundi's threats of civil war are not idle announcing: "Not to worry! Every­ ing down the line. ones. The far-right is stoking itself up thing's under control!" Remember how US and Soviet for its bout of orgasmic terror. Like We hold nur breath. • 29 AUGUST 1993 Back to the future? A Brazilian Workers'Party in SA?

Many advocates of an independent workers' party gaze fondly towards Brazil's PT. To look and learn is fine, writes JEREMY CRONIN, but closer inspection advises against a local copy of the Brazilian model

NE OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS OF social theory, Vico, believed O that history proceeds in ascend­ ing circles — a bit like the "SpiralPlan" an insurance company is trying to flog on TV nowadays. I'm not sure about Vico. I*m less sure about the Spiralplan. But the politi­ cal debate on the left in South Africa certainly resembles Vico's history. We keep coming round to familiar themes, over and over ... and I'm not sure that we are always ascending. We tackled the "workerism/pop- ulism" debate in 1984; the "two caps" one in 1990; "civil society" in 1992. And now we've seen the "independent workers* party" debate resurrected at the National Union of Metalworkers' (Numsa) July congress. In fact, all these debates are in their respective ways part of the same issue. I have listened to many Numsa comrades, and 1 have heard several dif­ ferent versions of what this workers* party is meant lo be. It is good that the debate has resurfaced. But what we absolutely cannot do is confine it to the I level of allegiances to logos or manoeu­ • RED FLAGS IN THE SUNSET: A workers' party belongs Inside the vres in congresses. We must take it for- majority project, not outside 30 WORK IN PROGRESS Inside ward theoretically and practically. Our popular and Left movements Part of the reason why this debate suffered major reverses in the 1960s. and out remains unresolved is the fact thai we Just one year after the Rivonia trial have not adequately theorised what it is here, the military in 1964 seized power hen Brazilian president Ferdinand we have been doing since the mid- in Brazil. During the rest of the decade WCollor was booted from office late 1970s. Practice overtook theory, as it our societies suffered severe repression last year his successor, Itamar Franco, deckled to take the route of compromise. should. The trouble with that, however, under the tightening grip of authoritari­ He began cobbling together a new is that practice keeps colliding into an regimes. government by pulling figures from unresolved matters. It keeps bumping across the political spectrum on board. into its own false self-consciousness. New unionism At least one ministry was offered to the The difficulty with understanding In the late 1960s and early 1970s, partly Workers' Party (PT), sparking heated debate within the party. what il is we are doing, is that our mod­ encouraged by low wages and "'political Since 1990 the PT has experienced els — of socialism, political parties and stability" in our two countries, a global an Internal 'crisis of hegemony' due to Its national liberation movements, trade capitalist system (in the process of advance Into governing Institutions and unionism, of governing — are all only major restructuring) began making con­ the crisis of the international socialist partly helpful. They all require major siderable industrial investments. There movement. The presence of organised factions within the PT has seen the renovation. And, crucially, they need to was a significant expansion in Brazil. debate being waged openly around rela­ be reconnected and interrelated. SA and in a handful of other semi- tively 'packaged' positions. Three major organisational tradi­ peripherals (among them South Korea Franco's offer, and disagreement tions are at work within the broad left in and Taiwan) of auto plants, chemical over tactics for the 1994 presidential our country. The eldest are the national and textile industries, and the like. This elections, sparked a new wave of debate between what can be stripped down to liberation and the communist/socialist semi-peripheral industrialisation was four basic positions In the PT leadership. traditions. The third tradition, arguably, the seedbed for a (relatively) new trade- • On the right are supporters of partici­ can be dated to 1968 (or 1973 Dur­ unionism in both pation in government with ban/1976 Soweto on the South African Brazil and SA. the aim of defending and calendar). More broadly, advancing their policies with minimal nation­ 'from Inside'. Street-fighting years al political space, the • In the centre, the 'Inde­ pendents' urge the PT not During these years, first mainly in the popular movement in to enter government but North, then rapidly worldwide, (here both countries re- rather to work with It In erupted relatively new (some would say emerged in the 1970s various fields, pushing Its not-so-new) social movements — stu­ from the grassroots own proposals and oppos­ dents, anti-war, anti-racist, environmen­ in the shape of social ing measures it disagrees with. There would be a talist, new trade unionism, feminist, lib­ movements. The 'constructive' relationship eration theology, civic, human rights, struggles began between the PT and gov­ black power, and many more. around issues like ernment, with the PT help­ The relationship between these sewage collection or ing preserve 'govern- social movements and traditional Left shop-floor protective abllrty. political parties and liberation move­ clothing. The trade • On the left there Is also 'constructive' opposition ments has been complex, often tense, unions were the most powerful, but a to government. This tendency argues and always deeply marked by specific host of other formations emerged, prin- against participating in a government national situations. cipally but not exclusively on the urban that contains so many conservatives, Which brings me to Brazil. terrain — civics, women, youth, stu- whose policy is confused and which Is When the idea of an independent dents, black consciousness (yes. there is not firmly opposed to neo-llberallsm. If the PT does enter government it should workers's party was floated in SA in the a BCM in Brazil), religious, human be as part of a coalition with a pro­ first half of the 1980s, at least some of rights, and many more. This was bot~ gramme of social change. It worries the advocates were thinking along the tom-up mobilisation, principally from about •governability and doesn't advo­ lines of the Brazilian Workers' Party the shopfloor and squatter camp. cate the Franco government's defeat, which it fears will only aid the most con­ (the PT). (They were also mindful of In the early 1980s, the apartheid servative forces. the now disintegrating Solidarity in regime and Brazil's military regime • On the far left one finds firm opposition Poland — but therein lies another both began responding to mounting to the government, which is viewed as story.) popular pressure with a combination of both bourgeois and conservative. This Indeed, the parallels between ongoing repression and partial reforms. current Is not concerned with 'governable recent South African and Brazilian his­ In SA we saw the tricameral parliament Ky\ tory are compelling. Both of our coun­ and black local authorities. In Brazil, Naturally, there are views which all tries are semi-peripheral societies in the around the same time, the military con­ the tendencies in the PT share. Even those who defend participation In the great divide that has replaced the old ceded indirect presidential elections. Cold War division - North and South, government pose this as a form of con­ These similarities underline why it frontation that Is aimed at bringing the first and third worlds. We are both is important that we, as South Africans, weight of the social movement to bear. socio-politically in the South, but rela­ should study and learn what we can At the same time, the divergences tively industrialised. from Brazil. But we should also be alert around the party's strategic vision run deep. • 31 — International Viewpolnt/WIP AUGUST 1993 lo the differences- organisational work. But this relative The emerging social movements advantage quickly becomes a major in the iwo countries found themselves disadvantage in the post-independence on somewhat different political terrains. struggle for fundamental national In Brazil, the traditional left parties* democratic transformation* fairly or unfairly, were discredited by In Latin America, popular strug­ their awkward participation in a flawed gles against neo-colonial regimes have political system. In SA, the often dis­ generally had a much harder task to tant ANC and SACP saw their popular­ build a majority political project ity and legitimacy grow apace with the Because of the indigenous colo­ blossoming of social movements. nial and the third world but industri­ In Brazil, the social movements, alised character of our society, we have led by the metalworkers" union, forged had the best (and the worst) of both themselves into a new (and novel) continents. political party — the PT. The PT still Like the PT in Brazil (and many bears the pluralistic marks of its social other liberation movements in Latin movement roots. It enfolds several dif­ America — notably in El Salvador and ferent organised political platforms, and The late '60s saw the Nicaragua) we face the challenge of insists that individual membership (a eruption of relatively combining popular social movements bit like membership in the UDF) can new social movements and political formations in some kind of only come via active participation in pluralistic unity, a unity of "multi- one of the social movements. — students, anti-war, festos". Those organisational arrange­ anti racist, The main challenge in Brazil is to ments have given the PT vitality and environmentalist, new transform a democratic project into a breadth. But sometimes they have also trade unionism, majority politics. In our case the chal­ restricted its political effectiveness. lenge is to ensure that the majority There have been changes in and ongo­ feminist, civic, black political project remains democratic. ing internal debates around its organisa­ power, and many more That means at least two things: tional character Its strength has charac­ # We must understand that the power­ teristically been al the local, municipal minorities in Brazil, and throughout ful social movements that we built in level This has pros and cons, One dan­ Latin America. But here, as in the rest the 1970s and 1980s were not mere ger, as Ruth Correa Leite Cardoso of prc-independence Africa, there is substitutes (the B-team) for an absent writes of this bottom-up politics, is that: national oppression of the majority, and ANC/SACP "Mass mobilisations and meetings arc it is this oppression that has been most • These autonomous social move­ most effective when they put pressure tangible and immediate. ments must not abandon the majority on those responsible for distributing political project — they are integral to already existing services „. Within the Populism replaces work it In other words, a party of the work­ rules defined by [another party's) gov­ In one respect. African liberation ers belongs inside, not outside or along­ ernment policies, small communities movements in the phases before and side, the majority political project. fight among themselves over the avail­ immediately after independence have We can certainly learn from the able resources/* had it easy. Anti-colonial, even anti- Brazilian PT, but it would be misguided Micro and macro-politics need white mobilisation, is fairly simple to to mimic it To do so would be to repeat each other Which brings us to the most foster. Establishing a majority move­ history, not in the manner theorised by significant difference between Brazil ment has been more or less a straight­ Vico, but in the style Marx warned and SA. It is, of course, the national forward task — populism (in many against — the second time round as factor. There are oppressed national guises) easily replaces hard sectoral and farce, •

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32 WORK IN PROGRESS debate The story so far...

Is there still a path towards socialism In South Africa? Shortly after the death of Chris Hani, Work In Progress matched Argentinian theorist ERNESTO LACLAU with a room full of South African socialists to discuss this question. The Socialism's first part of that debate appeared In W/P90. In ft, Laclau laid bare his belief that the struggle for socialism Is on a road to identity crisis nowhere If we Insist on map­ ping it with classical Marxist theory. More low-downs on high hopes: He raised eyebrows by Insisting that democracy Is not simply an element of social­ The Laclau Debate ism. It's the other way around: socialism is actually a 'moment* In the much larger Part 2 programme of democratic revo­ lution. Then he accused classical Marxism of leading socialists STEVE FRIEDMAN Into the wilderness. It bungled Centre for Policy Studies the theory about the structural I can understand that new social move­ laws of capitalism and pro­ ments might give successful lead to a duced a faulty set of strategic broader democratisation of society, bul principles. The concept of there doesn't seem to be any particular class, he argued, no longer reason why they should lead to a differ­ takes us anywhere. ent social system, to a different way of In fact, social classes are ordering the economy. splitting up, fragmenting Into other units and identities. And It seems many of Ihe demands of It is around these identities Ihe new social movements are that people tend to mobilise absorbable into ihe present social struc­ and struggle. For Laclau, the ture — Bill Clinlon campaigns for Ihe only path towards socialism rights of homosexuals in Ihe US Army, lies along radicalising and but lhal docsn'l make him a socialist. expanding these different sets And if you question Ihe notion of class of democratic demands in soci­ and you talk about transfer of power — ety. transfer of power to whom? Who are But does that mean class ihese popular classes? Who is engaging becomes redundant? What in popular struggles if you're dealing about the blockages that hold with such social heierogeneity? up fundamental change — the concentrations of power in the economy, for example? How BILL GIBSON are they democratised? And Institute for Social what prevents these separate I and Economic Research social movements from strug­ i Do you see the possible vindication of gling only for their own, 'self­ classical Marxist predictions in ihe ish' goals? Is socialism just a social marginalisation thai we've talked kinder, gentler capitalism? • WHO AM l: aboul? I can think of an excellent exam­ WIP is proud to publish ple: Sendero Luminoso in Peru. That this edited transcript of the Worker, unionist seems to be the kind of thing SA needs conclusion of the discussion.• or human being? 33 AUGUST 1993 lo avoid — where the predictions of transforming some of the state appara­ classical Marxism come about in a tuses in order to have a restructuring of highly marginalised black population democracy. We see civil society emerg­ that, even after the transition to a demo­ ing. cratic government, stays marginalised. But what we can't see and can't answer is (he problem that classical STEVE GELB Marxism answered very simply: the Institute for Social and question of economic and class control over the economy. That's the critical Economic Research question we have to be able to deal Ernesto points to three characteristics of with, socialism (as it may come to exist in the present era) which are, to some extent, being realised in SA, ADRIENNE BIRD They are: National Union of • The general expansion of democratic Metalworkers of SA demands I sec SA as being at a point of rupture, • The proliferation of negotiating pro­ of trying to restructure all the institu­ cesses in order to direct the market, tions in ways that enhance democratisa- essentially, and in the form of the vari­ tion, and structuring the negotiating ous negotiating forums forums in ways that give voice to as • The idea of socialism as a hegemonic many constituencies as possible. project which one can also argue is in The aim is to put in place a new some ways part of the nationalist pro- set of institutions, a more democratic ject. arrangement which sets the stage for the next phase of accumulation, which But Karl von Holdt's point about SO MANY FORUMS, SO LITTLE TIME: the power of would empower different groups in capital and the society to fight in their own interests In all these and in alliance with others for a deepen­ private sector KATE PHIUP forums, the within the con* ing of democracy. And this puts them in text of these a stronger position to fight the next National Union of Mineworkers Left has put forums raises phase. I agree with Khchla. In a range of serious ques­ If those institutions that constitute forums, the Left and Ihe democratic a lot of tions about a new "regime of accumulation" can be forces are gelling wiped out. emphasis on achieving some moved in a democratic direction, then Is the problem our notion lhat il is sort of post- that will address the question of block­ possible to shift the balance forces in process, but national ist ages. If we can empower them in new these forums? Or does it come down to very little hegemonic pro- ways, where the democratic forces are how the democratic forces are organis­ ject. stronger, then we can unblock the ing themselves lo operate in Ihem? thought Into Within blockages. We relied on mass action to create content these negotiat­ those forums, to make il unacceptable ing forums KHEHLA SHUBANE for decisions lo be made unilaterally on there is a large Centre for Policy Studies many issues. potential for a contradiction: between a That's a major victory. But. unfor­ hegemonic project on the one hand I'm worried about the mention of these negotiating forums as arenas of victory tunately, the democratic forces have (trade union movement, women's been unable to take those opportunities movement, rural people, youth and so for (he Left. I participate in two of them and I know two others quite well. And and translate them inlo a struggle over on) and, on the other hand, the process the content of the issues. The Left has of negotiation between various interest my feeling is that the Left is losing in put a lot of emphasis on process, but groups in the society in order to steer (hem. very little energy and effort inlo Ihe the market or economic development. It is relying on the Right for its How is that contradiction resolved? hard information — on business and content of the programmes being moti­ various established interests. Take the vated in those forums. National Housing Forum: Ihe Urban That brings us back to a practical MIKE MORRIS Foundation is doing very well, precisely and programmatic challenge: are we Centre for Social and because they know what questions lo able lo use (hose forums in the way they Development Studies pose. The Left doesn't feature at that were conceived? At the moment we're We see in SA the restructuring of the level. It scares me that that people are not, I don't think this means the forums state. In terms of forums like the mentioning some of these forums as as constituted are an incorrect strategy National Manpower Commission, we something great for the Left, something — it's whether we are organised to lake see the possibility of extending and that advances the struggle for socialism. advantage of them. 34 WORK IN PROGRESS • Limiting the effects of a market economy on society through social con­ trol • Increasing the democratic character of this social control, with the balance Of forces changing continuously. At this stage of the 20lh century, socialism is nothing more than that. We will never arrive al a Society that is radical from top to bottom. What we'll have is this constant displacement of forces. If it reaches power, to what extent will an ANC government have real power? The battle has started before it becomes the government and it will continue bevond it. Because in all respects such a government's room for manoeuvre will be larger than it is today. But it will not be total On Friedman's points. Social movements, as far as thev arc issuc-ori- ented, are not going to bring about a change in ihc system. But they are going to bring about other types of changes — for instance, feminism real­ Enoch Godongwana tries to get his point across at the NEF report-back In July ly transformed the kinds of relations between the sexes in Britain (and other countries) over the last 20 years. But if ERNESTO LACLAU incompatible with a democratic soci­ the aim is to bring about a more radical On ihe question about socialism and ety), then what remains of socialism? transformation, and we start with these economic control- Karl (von Hold!) says That is why I propose to redefine separate social movements or agents, it is clear thai victories over a variety of socialism. It is the bringing together of a then we have to try and create a conver­ fronts in Ihe next few months will not variety of already relatively autonomous gence between these forces. bring socialism. The obvious question struggles, with some kind of social Sometimes this is achieved. The then is: What is socialism? Because organisation which enables the best 1980s' campaigns for nuclear disarma­ unless we have a clear concept of advancement of these respective ment brought together forces which socialism we cannot say whether we demands al a particular moment. That is were not directly related with that issue. have it or not. why I speak about a Gramscian concep­ But their own objectives came to form a tion of "war of position'*: socialism is Let's start with the classical con­ whole of which the issue of nuclear dis­ nothing more than this process. cept of socialism. All the ethical claims armament was a part. The miners' strike which were linked with the notion of OK, let's suppose that Nelson in the mid-1980s (in Britain) created a socialism* and the whole ensemble of Mandela is president of SA next year. similar kind of collective galvanisation. struggles around which these ethical This will involve changes in the balance This is how we can create an his­ claims were organised* were supposed of forces. And many democratic torical bloc which can achieve increas­ to be ensured by the public ownership demands traditionally linked with ing union between different issues — of the means of production. socialism will be fulfilled. But does this some kind of popular pole can be con­ Now. if today we don't think that mean the elimination of capitalist rela­ structed that makes changes in the bal­ public ownership will ensure all these tions of production in SA? Obviously ance of forces possible. Even violent socialist and ethical aims, then there is not. They will try to create the best pos­ revolutionary processes proceed in this every reason in the world for the strug­ sible conditions to attract foreign way: they are simply the condensation, gles around these ethical claims to investors, We may sec some kind of at a particular moment of rupture, of organise themselves as relatively inde­ improvement in several areas, to make many separate demands which operate pendent struggles — and not to depend capitalism less savage. together. on this ("central") question of public Now, will we one day arrive at a So, there is a first moment when ownership. situation in which capitalism will be the struggle is dispersed, and this is nec­ Secondly, if we know that total totally eliminated, where the market essary for autonomy. And there is a sec­ state ownership of the means of produc­ economy will be done away with? I ond moment, when out of these dis­ tion leads to disastrous results (as it does don't think this is desirable or likely. persed struggles is created some kind of — not because it was applied wrongly This is why I think socialism as a popular pole that enables them to politi­ in Eastern Europe, but because it is process means: cally act together. 35 AUGUST 1993 The rapid Bui ihcrc is no essential unily marginalisation of lions — between elements in the demo­ between Ihese different demands. They cratic movement, but also relations with can go their separate ways and even ally black people can those forces that now occupy the cen­ themselves with reactionary forces. His­ create a 'no-man's tres of power. tory offers us no guarantees. Which is 9 Having won the battle of setting why there has to be a political struggle land ... people can up Ihese forums, these spaces and possi­ to avoid this happening. bilities, how do we engage in them in Now, if Ihe question is Ihe transfer disperse in ways ways thai actually take our struggle for of power, then, obviously. Ihcrc can be which have transformation further — in ways that no transfer of power because there is a don'l demobilise Ihe Left completely? complete dispersion of power. nothing to do with That's a major question. Not only There are transfers of power which socialism or because we face concrete problems as involve some kind of popular rupture. organisations. Historically there is no when suddenly a set of forces can force democracy other society in which participation in a qualitatively deeper transfer. This is these types of insiiiutions has opened probably what we'll see if the ANC the way for further, radical transforma- succeeds in its struggle. Such a transfer tion. I may be wrong, bui in most cases of power is politically much more radi­ KARL VON HOLDT these institutions lead lo ihe demobilis­ cal, but it is never total. Editor of SA Labour Bulletin ing of a Left project and the incorpora­ tion of the popular movement — and to There used to be a Jacobean dream Ernesto's comments about the dispersal the stabilisation of society on Ihe whole where a revolution remakes society of struggles and the problem of finding and a kind of end to the process of from the bottom up. Processes are never a unifying point or pole are very inter­ transformation. We need to look very like thai. Even revolutionary power esting. carefully at this. which has conquered power by violence Historically we managed to com­ finds civil society structured in ways bine those two things. We had a range that require (he struggle to continue of different struggles (and a theory to MIKE MORRIS later. back it up), different organisations in The nub of whal Ernesto was saying is The comment about Sendero different sites of struggle, unified in the that ihe problem of classical socialism Luminoso detects what tan happen struggle against apartheid, and unified is thai it's a stage, a stage after capital­ when there is a process of radical organisationally in the UDF and then in ism- Which means you have a pro­ marginalisation. That is a process in the MDM. What's happened since L99G gramme which is related to a particular which people do not occupy a clear post is a fragmentation, wilh struggles dis­ siagc. He offers an alternative position, in society and consequently live in a sit­ persing rather than unifying. which says socialism is not a stage. It's uation where they lack — but desper­ That dispersion does have some a series of struggles around the exten­ ately need — a clear-cut social identity. positive effects. In each sector, organi­ sion of demands for equality and When a radical ideology enters sations can go back to particular con­ democracy. such a field of experience, something cerns and build on them, without If you apply that to SA, then we that describes the world in a coherent spreading their energies to the central have a fundamental problem. We way for these people — that gives them struggle against apartheid. approach this problem wilh legacies some sense of identity — people can be But it's had another effect: a range thai are bound up wilh classical and taken in by that ideology. Often this is of local or specific struggles have split very statist conceptions of socialism, not because of Ihe content of the ideolo­ off from others. And that's one of the cloaked in rhetoric that have nothing gy, but because of the kind of new iden­ big problems when we talk about the particularly to do with equality and tity that it provides. spread of negotiaiing forums — there's democracy. There are strategies and I have seen many such cases in a ridiculous number of them. And we concepts from Ihe 1980s which are nol Latin America. In some places, people don't have a coherent programme or appropriate to the kinds of issues thai have become Senderistas, but in others strategy with which lo approach thai sit­ Karl, Steve (Gelb) and Adrienne (Bird) they become some kind of religious uation or the question of governmental have been posing here. Therefore, the group or sect. Or they resort to banditry. power. (The latter is beginning to strategies are no longer only conceptu­ But the process through which their emerge wilh the Reconstruction Accord, ally inappropriate, they're often also identities are created is exactly Ihe same but it remains a cenlral problem.) practically inappropriate. And lastly we in all ihese cases. On Kate Philips' point about the inherit the cullure of coercion, of a tack I imagine lhal the process of rapid negotiaiing forums: it doesn't seem pos­ of democracy in our popular movement. marginalisation of blacks in SA can cre­ sible to say that the forums themselves These are all really serious prob­ ate a "no-man's land" in which people are a blockage, thai we shouldn't be in lems if want to rethink socialism — not can drift elsewhere. There is no guaran­ them. But ihese forums (and I include as a set of stages but as a process of rad- tee that they are going to be pro-ANC parliament in this) have new effects ical redistribulion of weallh (that is all the time; they can disperse in ways which we haven't planned for and equality) and of power (that is democra­ which have nothing to do with social­ thought about properly. They raise new cy). We have to starl finding the ism or even democracy. problems, and they also raise new rela- answers lo ihcm. •

36 WORK IN PROGRESS debate

Middle road or cul de sac?

Last time around ('Beware the Shining Path!', WIP 90), COLIN BUNDY took it on the chin for contending {'Theory of a Special Type', WIP 89) that the SA Communist Party still has not risen to the challenges that confront it. Now he bounces back. Seconds out! Round Three ...

ETER HUDSON AND STEPHEN detail Hudson and Louw's caricature of Opponent 0. Louw deal sternly with what my position. But it is worth noting their Presumably this distortion of my P ihey dub an "ultra-left" critic of method. argument was based on a misreading the SACP. The cartoon of the insurrectionist rather than on malice. If so, my original This loony lefty (they huff) guided by millenarian logic is labori­ piece was more cryptic than intended. believes local and international condi­ ously drawn, with such devices as: "the Accordingly, I would like very briefly tions favour a revolutionary anti-capi­ gist of Bundy's argument would appear", "one may talist strategy in SA — or considers • SPOT THE surely be excused for them irrelevant. He operates (they puff) DIFFERENCE: The believing that his argu­ in the realm of fantasy, heedless of "the difference ment", his silence "could hard rock of real history", and ignores between the reasonably be inter­ complex social realities. He anticipates Party programme preted to suggest" and * an imminent "mass-based insurrection and the rest of (re insurrection) "which the alliance? Oh, from below" which will in-and-of-itself is the only possible way about this big ... smash the state and usher in self-sus­ in which Bundy's paper taining socialism (they blow the house can be read". Result: Hud­ down). son and Louw 1, Straw But does this lumpen Leninism correspond to anything I actually wrote? My piece began by commending and emphasising Richard Levins' warn­ ing that the current context is profound­ ly hostile to the Left; thai there is no prospect of quick victory; that the chal­ lenge of coming to terms with defeat and of finding new forms of struggle is "an agenda of years and decades". How different is this from Hudson and Louw's view that the South African Left must "prepare itself for a very long haul" with no guarantees of success? Nor did my article anticipate or champion insurrectionary optimism. Indeed, its longer version — condensed to meet WlP's format — explicitly criti­ cises and rejects the naive belief that the road to insurrection is paved by militant intentions. It would be tedious to review in PHOTO; WILLI**" MMUM 37 AUGUST 1993 Does the to restate my main points; and also to sciousness. Ideas of worker control and respond to some aspects of the interest­ SACP even ownership were "deeply ing and important SACP strategy docu­ entrenched in the labour movement", ment written recently by Jeremy still value and an overwhelming majority favoured Cronin. Marxism for Its nationalisation of major industries. The nub of my critique of the The challenge confronting the party's record in recent years is that it insistence that SACP (or a workers' party like that has failed, within the politics of called for by Numsa) is how to link the alliance, to develop an independent an oppressive struggles of unionised, semi-skilled position. Such a position would support industrial workers with those of the struggle for national liberation and, social order unskilled, rural, and informal sector simultaneously, press against its limita­ workers and the unemployed. tions and pitfalls. can be Cronin proposes to forge this link A party describing itself as "the transformed? through the "reconstruction pad". He most respected and most coherent distinguishes this approach from "a tra­ socialist political party in the country" ditional tri-partite, social contract" (my italics) must sustain and develop a entered into by unions, capital and the way, or in ways favoured by the radical critique of South African capitalism. state. It will be more socially inclusive, right — or in ways that run counter to Such a critique becomes more, not drawing in also "many other MDM for­ less, important in the context of a nego­ the distribution of power and wealth in a bourgeois social and political order. mations (women, rural, youth, educa­ tiated transition premised upon a dera- tional, religious, cultural, etc.)". The They took exception to my short­ cialised capitalism. This seems very pact also would be characterised by "a close to Cronin's call for an indepen­ hand reminder "that a socialist transi­ whole range of institutions of participa­ dent party identity that will "avoid try­ tion means the replacement of rule by ing to do everything the ANC does, one class by that of another". I am unre­ tory and direct democracy". only with a slightly more left inflec­ pentant. Socialist politics is about con­ tion". And it is entirely compatible with testing the ways in which one class Corporatism his reference to a "real and ongoing exploits and dominates another. This This sounds uncomfortably like the struggle" within the alliance "over the does not mean that the dominant class is emergent corporatism of 'structural class bias and character of the ANC a monolithic entity. And it certainly reform', criticised by Harris, "only with does not mean that the dominated a slightly more left inflection". Moreover: it will also be necessary class(es) is/are an undifferentiated bloc. Hudson and Louw point out that to contest the class bias and character of the corporatist tripartism welcomed on It does mean that an unavoidable Cronin's position seems overly opti­ some sides as a viable route to social­ starting point for socialist politics is to mistic about the extent to which popular ism. My scepticism about the prospects analyse and understand the concrete, demands for redistribution can be met of "structural" or "radical" reformism is specific and historic class composition when combined with the demands for not a stubborn hostility to reforms. It is and identity in a society. To that end, employment and economic growth. a concern that, by the very criteria one can only welcome Cronin's The party position also raises the which are proposed to qualify reforms thoughtful discussion of the restructur­ question I posed in WIP 89. Does as "structural", the envisaged forms of ing of the South African working class Cronin believe that a milder, better corporatism neither implicate further in the past 20 years, and his warning of behaved (or more coastrained) capitalist reforms nor leave a residue of empow­ how difficult it is to reach the order can secure a decent future for the erment. "marginalised 70% of the working majority of South Africans? Will a class". reconstruction pact hold out long term Deepening democracy Yet Cronin's analysis of the work­ prospects that the aspirations of exploit­ Instead, as Laurence Harris noted ("One ing class would have been strengthened ed and oppressed people can be met? step forward". WIP 89), "the agendas by closer attention to the labour move­ And does the SACP still value pursued in tripartite bodies are basically ment's record of combativity, its objec­ Marxism — both for its ability to lay those of rational capitalism". They tive and subjective tendency to an anti- bare dynamic social realities, and for its implicate a more secure accumulation capitalist stance, and its distinctive insistence that an oppressive social of capital; the residue they leave is that political culture. Over the past 20 years order can be transformed? of state/business/big union rapproche­ a central change in this society has been Marxists face enormous problems ment. the ability of organised black workers to at the close of the 20th century — not win substantial gains. Hudson and Louw argue it is cru­ least that they must rethink quite radi­ cial "that the struggle against capitalism cally much that was assumed. be understood as a struggle for democ­ Link the struggles But their refusal to believe that racy". Of course: but central to such a The 1991 survey of attitudes among capitalism is the final destination of his­ call must be the prior recognition that Cosatu shopstewards (Beyond the Fac­ tory remains a vital intellectual and democracy can be deepened in different tory Floor, ed. S Pityana and M Orkin) political resource for those who demand directions. It might be deepened along conveys how the militancy of trade a future geared to the needs of people classic liberal lines, or in a libertarian union struggles has translated into con- rather than to the needs of capital. •

~4 WORK IN PROGRESS Internationa

The Tete offensive

You no longer need a bulletproof vest to cross through Mozambique. But, as HEATHER HILL found when she travelled 'home' with domestic worker Rives Mafuta, the road to Tete is * isff I All I still one hell of a journey

N THE UAI> ()|.D DAYS IT WAS CALLED the "gun run" or the "hell run" and Iits name was synonymous with ter­ ror. For nearly 10 years, the Tete corri­ dor was a 262-kilometre-long ambush alley used by transport trucks, military vehicles and the occasional crazy back­ packer. A strategic transportation route linking Malawi to Zimbabwe and the sea. the corridor was shut off to the nor­ mal world for most of Mozambique's 16-year civil war.

And for the three years before the ceasefire was signed in Rome last Octo­ ber, the highway resembled a Mad Max movie in overdrive. Convoys up to 20 kilometres in length, brokered by provincial strongmen, made a daily nerve-wracking run through the fearful countryside — shattering its silence with the continual blare of horns. But because of the nature of the war in Mozambique — low-budget and regionalised — Ihe ceasefire ended Renamo ambushes along the Tele corri­ dor almost overnight. The local political godfathers put out Ihe word and the • BABYLON BY BUS: Rives Mafuta manages a smile as he prepares for bandils who haunted the highway melt­ ed into the bush, where they now get the trip to Tete food and some cash from newly pro­ increased dramatically on the Tete cor­ dor every day between Harare and ductive shaimas (rural farming plots). ridor since January, and in the steady Blantyre — a post-war phenomenon as To the surprise of many, peace has flow of vehicles one can see a return to astonishing (and welcome) to Southern taken hold in this province of the poor­ the patterns of movement that existed Africans as the return of the beach est counlrv on earth. The 7(H) Botswana before the proxy cold war began shortly weekend in Beira. soldiers guarding the Tete corridor after independence. Thus it was that an aging Zimbab­ since April 12. pari of the 7 OOO-mem- One example is the regular passen­ wean ••houseboy" could envisage a trip ber UN peacekeeping force in Mozam­ ger service launched by iwo Harare bus to find the sister in Mozambique he had bique, are almost window-dressing in companies earlier this year. Between not seen in 30 years. Rives Mafuta, a the new political order. them, Tauya Coach Services and domestic worker in Harare's northern As a result, commercial traffic has Shamwariya Kanaka ply the Tete corri­ suburbs, set out to retrace the journey he

AUGUST 1993 The separation made in 1963 along with thousands of telephone records (hand written in an Mozambican and Malawian men who of three decades ancient ledger book) contain no Jose left their homes to work in the then dissolved, just Cherene. Neither the hotel proprietor Rhodesia. nor the shopkeepers have heard of him, Mafuta, who reckons he is in his as the banditry although Mafuta says senor Cherene is 60s, started his quest with the flimsiest had faded with a shopowner in Tete. of documentation. Like most Africans, After several depressing hours of he has no passport and had to struggle handshakes and blank looks, we go to for months with the intractable Mozam­ the stroke Radio Mozambique to put paid bul­ bican bureaucracy until he was granted of a pen letins on the air. For Zim$18, the an "emergency travel document." announcer agrees to read out five hourly To find Filiosa, his sole remaining requests for Mafuta's family to find him relative, he has a couple of worn at the Hotel Kassuendc. envelopes inscribed with his brother-in- law's postal address: Jose for convoys that took over the road By now it seems truly hopeless, Samuanibuino Cherene, Caixa Postale when Zimbabwean soldiers withdrew but we hadn't counted on the power of 52, Tele. down to the Beira corridor in December the electronic media — as well as pure 1990. chance. Alberto Samuanibuino Infancy It was an open secret that the con­ Cherene, one of Filiosa's seven children In April, he boarded a ramshackle bus voy fees were split with the guys in the and the only one living in Tete, hap­ which contained a dozen other passen­ bush, one of the more dramatic illustra­ pened to be listening to the radio and, gers, most of them bound for Malawi. tions of how faint the line between Fre- like a needle jumping out of a haystack, Although Harare and Blantyre are less limo and Renamo had become. popped up at the Hotel Kassuendc to than 400 kilometres apart, civilian trav­ After paying Zim$20 a head for a claim his uncle. el via the Tete corridor is still in its place in the jeep, we were scon rolling infancy — as we were soon to discover. along a well-maintained highway that Red fighting Our bus broke down halfway to threaded beneath power lines from the It was a small miracle: during the war, Mozambique and resisted every effort Cahora Bassa hydro-electric dam. The Jose and Filiosa and Jose's second wife, to restart it. The long-distance travellers power lines were built over the 1970s to like every family in Mozambique, had were shunted to a local bus which went service South Africa; in the early 1980s, no further than the Nyamapanda border Renamo blew up every pylon south of shifted from place to place to flee the post. From there, we were on our own Chimoio. Up here, the lines are intact, fighting. Currently they are living 18 and at 4 pm, when cross-country traffic one of the reasons Tete was rarely with­ kilometres outside Tete in a rural com­ thins out, the prospect is most disheart­ out power during the war while Beira pound of huts and kraals. The grocery ening. The fact that Mafuta's "emergen­ and Maputo had frequent blackouts. Jose Cherene owns is also outside Tete. cy travel document" had been snatched In any case, the streets of Tete from him because it was deemed have lost their names. The shifting invalid for the return, enhanced our Hammer blow sands of war have covered over most of sense of doom. Mozambique is a rough Now we are in Tete and darkness has the tracks. and uncertain fallen. Mafuta wants to sleep in the rail­ country to be way station wait­ But when, two days later, Filiosa ing room but dis­ made it into town from her shamva, the stranded in. covers that the mysterious power of the African family Our deus ex station shut down was vindicated. Brother and sister greet­ machina was an 15 years ago. A ed by formally shaking hands, and the army jeep, identi­ hotel is the only air was loud with hand-clapping and cal to those used resort although cries of joy. The separation of three by the Botswana he fears the decades dissolved, just as the banditry financial strain troops guarding along the Tete corridor faded with the the Tete corridor. on his Zim$200 stroke of a pen. There is, it seems, a The vehicle, driv­ budget for the chance for ordinary Africans to resume en by a wild-eyed trip. an ordinary life. Mozambican in The next tropical patterned morning, the dif­ Postscript: Rives Mafuta made it shirt and blue ficulty of finding back over the border despite his lack of jeans, was doing Filiosa falls like a documents when a truck driver — service as a pirate hammer blow. transport truckers being the new kings taxi. It was the The post office of the road — eased him past immigra­ sort of semi-offi­ yields no physi­ tion officials. He now plans to apply for cial arrangement cal address to a passport so he can go back to Mozam­ similar to the bique and bring his sister for a visit to • FOUND: Rives' sister. match the box Zimbabwe. • 'military'* escorts Filiosa Cherene number and the 40 WORK IN PROGRESS The skeleton in the cupboard

Cemetery of Mind: Collected OWNSHIP LIFE, THE WAR OF most eloquently, the search for a coher­ Poems by Dambudzo liberation and the effects of ent approach to the "chaos" of history. T independence form the back­ With extraordinary insight, he pene­ Marechera, compiled and drop to much of Zimbabwean literature. trates the boundaries of his country, and edited by Flora Veit-Wild, This literature has been largely an even the continent, in an effort to Baobab Books, Harare, attempt to express individual life stories address the whole world. and struggles — and. in so doing, to $11.50, 1992. Marechera saw poetry as "the art engage in a dialogue with history. The of making invisibility visible". This Reviewed by LISA writing of Dambudzo Marechera related to the way he saw literature as a COMBRINCK follows this pattern. whole: "From early in my life", he once But his is a dis­ wrote in an essay, "I have viewed litera­ tinct voice. He ture as a unique universe that has no manages to internal divisions. I do not pigeon-hole capture it by race or language or nation. It is an most suc­ ideal cosmos — existing with this crude cinctly. one. I had a rather grim upbringing in the ghetto and have ever since tried to deny the painful reality of concrete his­ tory. If, as it is said, we all have some­ thing to hide, then my whole life has been an attempt to make myself the skeleton in my own cupboard."

Looting the truth This process of rendering the invisible visible meant he had to search for the truths — and even the fantasies — hid­ den beneath reality. His poetry does this by stripping away the disguises and poses of society, aiming "to loot the truths for so long packaged in lies". A distinctive feature of Mare- chera's poetry is the constant probing and interrogation of identities. For him there are no absolute identities; they are disguises. There are poems where he clearly writes from the perspective of a male in society, who finds himself "stut­ tering, trembling, ejaculating at the edge of a ruthless dream". On other occa­ sions, he articulates a female identity and describes "the dark region of the mind / Foetus-sheltered / By the womb's poetic skin..."

41 AUGUST 1993 In a poem entitled **! Am the cise. In a poem about the Lancaster Rape", Marechera reveals the psycho­ House settlement, he announces: "All logical make-up of an oppressed black that's left to resign / Is this whirlwind Who is male, brutalised to the extent that he role / This radioactive image / Of takes revenge by enforcing sexual mas­ African mutants in transition." Dambudzo tery over the body of a white woman. In Elsewhere even the landscape, the Marechera? this way, he shows not only that the trees in Harare, seem to "wearily wave supposedly innocent victim of a system away / The fly-ridden promises issuing Dambudzo Marechera was has in fact turned the tables and become out of the public Lavatory". born in Rusape's Vengere the torturer, but he also parodies white township 41 years ago. fears about the sexual prowess of the Mangled workers As a young boy he and his black man who has the "white body He describes the trappings of the new writhing underneath / All the centuries Zimbabwean society: "The fast expen­ friends would scratch in nearby of my wayward fear". sive imported cars / leave in their wake rubbish dumps looking for mangled workers / Deranged peasants comics, toys and books. These Love poems and crazed radical intellectuals". In a were the first books he Marechera does not always associate poem entitled "There's a Dissident in claimed to have read avidly, sexuality with such violence. In a series the Election Soup", Marechera even books which had been by dis­ of love poems entitled "Amelia Son­ compares the souring of desire in an carded by whites in the nearby nets", he pursues love into a relation­ intimate relationship between two town. ship and discovers that "to become one lovers with the uneasy balance of power In 1972 he enrolled for a with another is simultaneously to lose in a shaky political alliance. The multi­ degree in English at the Univer­ and acquire one's identity". Yet even plicity of possible meanings turns his sity of Rhodesia. A year later there exists a tension between spiritual poems into rich texts that keep yielding he was expelled because of love and physical lust. By writing about further discoveries. his involvement in student poli­ love Marechera hoped to confront the Despite all his explorations of tics. He left the country and kind of attitudes he grew up with in the political identity, the poet himself still received a scholarship to New townships — where men were taught remains proudly individualistic and that the display of love was an act of College, Oxford. There, too, he even anarchic when he writes: "1 am weakness and that male sexuality was defied the 'rules of academic against everything / Against war & dependent on conquering "passive" life', and was forced to leave in those against war." In another essay, he women. early 1976. makes this self-indulgent statement: "I In poems exploring political iden­ . Until 1982 he lived the life do not like this century. 1 do not like tity, Marechera shows that even here of a vagrant and squatter in any other century, past or future. I do nothing is fixed. One finds the poet in Oxford and London. not like to live under the backside of a the act of changing from one position to In 1978, Marechera's first medieval god or a nuclear bomb, which the other: "I shift my weight from the amounts to the same thing." book, The House of Hunger, right foot to / The left's radical compas­ was published and earned him sion; from faith to / Cynical resignation; The Guardian Fiction Prize. Honest writers from furious debate on atheism to / His second book, Black Above all, Marechera believed that the drunken gibberish." Sunlight, published in 1980, task of the writer in a changing society He was an outspoken critic of was deemed obscene and party politics, believing that a serious was to be honest, true to him- or herself and never hypocritical. Young South — blasphemous in Zimbabwe, writer should be free to criticise the ills where it was banned. In 1982 of society. "Writers are usually recruit­ and other — Africans who read he returned home to Harare ed into a revolutionary movement Marechera will probably, like their and spent the next five years before that revolution gains whatever Zimbabwean counterparts (some of pursuing his writing until his it's seeking," he wrote in one essay. whom regard him as a cult figure), "Once it has achieved that, writers are embrace his works as those of a militant death in 1987. simply discarded either as a nuisance or young lion who bravely criticised the It was Marechera's prose as totally irrelevant". government in the post-uhuru period. that was acclaimed during his And he argued against "the idea But, as a deeper reading of his lifetime [Mindblast was pub­ that a writer should always be positive", work will show, Marechera's impor­ lished in 1984 and, posthu­ an expectation that's "always being tance lies also in his constant question­ mously, The Black Insider, a crammed down one's throat". "A writer ing and undermining of absolute, fixed novel, in 1990). His poetry is part of society; a writer notices what notions of identity — in a world which only recently began receiving is going on around him, sees the pover­ has done its utmost to divide people critical attention — thanks ty every day. How can you whitewash along such lines. • largely to the scrupulous col­ poverty?" • Lisa Combrinck is assistant editor lecting and editing of his In post-independent Zimbabwe, of the Southern African Review of poems by Hora Veit-Wild. • Marechera found a great deal to criti­ Books. __ 42 WORK IN PROGRESS Desecrating Hani's rate exposition of the theory of insurrec­ memory tion as it applies to SA conditions. In the document, the SACP saw the path Moeleisi Mbeki's ankle in WIP89 to power as lying in the building and (Death of a socialist) raises interesting accumulation of political and military issues. The essence of his piece is an forces on the side of the revolution to attempt to pay tribute to the memory of progressively engender a general crisis Chris Hani and this is to be welcomed. of the apartheid system — until a par­ There are, however, some incorrect and ticular moment is reached where the disturbing features in the article. regime becomes unable to govern and is Mbeki writes about an old and a dislodged. Of course the political situa­ new Chris, the "old" Chris who was the tion has changed since then and negoti­ military commander and the "new" ations, in combination with the political Chris who was the socialist thinker. actions of our people, has become the This obsession with the dichotomy of main site of struggle. Chris's life in the old and the new is So much for general points. Per­ reaching ludicrous proportions. haps the most distasteful feature of the Chris did not suddenly become a article is when Mbeki asserts that Chris socialist thinker when he was elected Hani "was especially critical of while general secretary at the SACP's eighth intellectuals in the trade union move­ congress in 1991. ment for what he said was their lack of While Chris was serving in the understanding of the class character of High Command of MK, first as political the ANC." This statement is a gross commissar and later as chief of staff, he misrepresentation of Chris's political was a member of the SACP Central outlook and practice. It is a desecration Committee and the Political Bureau. of his memory. As a Marxist in exile he would Those who knew Chris well, who bring his unique analysis of the political had lived, fought, laughed and wept processes unfolding in SA to feed into with him while in exile and in the the military strategy of the High Com­ underground, know that he was an mand. The notion presented by Mbeki exceptionally generous person. He — that Chris' work in the military and always welcomed constructive contri­ in the party were mutually exclusive — butions to the struggle from whatever is devoid of truth. quarter — black or white, intellectual or Furthermore, Mbeki points out that non-intellectual. as soon as Chris was elected SACP gen­ One can't help feeling that eral secretary he went about the country Moeletsi Mbeki is invoking the prestige to raise support for the party. The of the late Chris Hani to fight some impression created by the writer is that personal grudge. it was only after the party congress that — Skenjana Roji, Johannesbufg Chris began to visit the various regions of our country. Nothing could be further Enlightening from the truth. In the very first days of I was pleased to receive my first copy his arrival from exile Chris never rested. of WIP. It is the most stimulating maga­ He toured the country drumming up zine I have ever read. I wish to thank support for the alliance. • GENEROUS: Chris Hani the person who so thoughtfully directed Another area in which Mbeki dis­ welcomed contributions - from a copy to me for my enlightenment. plays ignorance of our policies is on the anyone — Mike Moses, Geluksdal question of armed struggle. He writes that at the Kabwe conference of 1985, In one of the paragraphs of the Alfred Nzo (then secretary-genera I of article Mbeki indicates that the Move­ Tell us how you feel. the ANC) conceptualised the armed ment had failed to study conventional Write to struggle as armed propaganda. This, of wars between countries and the rela­ course, is incorrect. Kabwe confirmed tionship between insurrection and polit­ Work In Progress. that armed propaganda was just a stage ical protest. He is not clear on the ques­ PO Box 32716, in what was generally known as a peo­ tion of conventional wars. On the Bmamfontein 2017. ple's war. We might not have defeated second issue of insurrection, again the enemy militarily but the role of the Mbeki betrays his unfamiliarily with the Preference will be armed struggle in combination with material of the alliance. In the last chap­ given to letters under other pillars of the struggle should ter of the Path to Power, the 1989 pro­ 300 words. never be underestimated. gramme of the SACP, there is an elabo- 43 AUGUST 1993 A LIVELY TERROR u'Welli , like the minister of education at the lime, Like every Soulh African, Gary Player knows just what il uhmmm ..." Mentally. Freaky shuffles through the fiipcards. will lake to make ours a swell land — again, Gary? Unlike names pop up, but they're not the right ones... most, he gets to bore more than the local pub's regulars with "You mean. MC Botha," offers Bishop, staring disap­ his reverie. provingly at the pen Freaky is tapping spiritedly against the Which goes like this, according to Business Day, quot­ desk. His moustache twitches again. "He's dead." he helps. ing Player recently: "If only wc could find a Churchill, we He's beginning to enjoy this. could have a country which would be an example to the rest Freaky loosens the knot on his power-tie, its cascade of of the world on how black and whites can live in harmonv." bold colours accenting the warm glow rising in his cheeks. Now, we hate to drag history into this— it being a thing "Of course. Or the deputy..." of the past, and us looking forward an' all. But... "Andries Treurnicht." snaps Bishop, measuring the In the summer of 1920, as the British Army bombarded pause perfectly before saying: "He's dead, too." rebelling Iraqi tribespeople with poison gas shells, Winston Freaky's pen is tapping tremello when he checks il and Churchill commiserated thus: "I do not understand this starts doodling. squeamishness about the use of gas, I am strongly in favour "Freek," his prey wounded. Bishop backs off. "You of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes ... gasses can know, the Soweto rebellion is an important thing for a lot of be used which would cause great inconvenience and would South Africans..." "So's Bloed Rivier," Freaky whips back, spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious perma­ spitefully. nent effects on most of those affected." "And. Freek." says Bishop, as he moves in for the coup Now, Gary, you were saying... ? de grace, "they're all dead." (Epilogue. Bishop lost in extra time. Tony Leon became the MORE THINGS YOU WONT SEE ON token whitey on the programme, making Rajbansi sound like AGENDA... an introvert as he prattled unstoppably. Time ran out before mainly because the cameras weren't running when this con­ he could announce the Malaysian soccer results and share versation took place in mid-June. his fool-proof pancake recipes.) "Tis the eve of the anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, and Agenda, with John Bishop hosting, has invited a circle of FLIGHTS OF FANCY people with first-hand experience of the rebellion to remi­ These are distressing times. The government unbans Karl nisce on-air. Marx's Wages. Prices and Profits on the same day Cyril But hairs rise on the neck of TV I current affairs chief­ Rymaphosa shares the Man-of-lhe-Year award with Roelf tain Freaky Robinson when he is alerted to the monochrome Meyer, courtesy of Engen. Benetton's offers Fidel Castro a complexions of the guests. job as art teacher in Italy. Before the pro­ And SAA names its newest Boeing 747 Vulindlcla. Il gramme starts. Bishop means "to unveil new is summoned to explain things", "symbol of this departure from strength" and journalistic principles. "pathfinder". It was "What." enquires also, of course, the full Freaky, failing to halt name of the SA Com­ the supercilious smirk munist Party's Opera­ that settles on his face, tion Vula, that faint "about balance? You echo of insurrectionary know, is this not a bit... bygones uncovered in biased?" 1990. Bishop feels his Was a time when moustache twitch once, people dreamt of see­ reflexively, and asks. ing Mac Maharaj or "What do you mean?' Joe Slovo in the cock­ "I mean — can't pit. Nowadays it looks we have someone from like we'll have to settle for Ronnie Kasrils the other side on, too?" SEPARATED AT BIRTH? says Frcakly, or words serving complimentary to that effect. Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney cocktails in the busi­ CCB handyman Staal Burger ness class section. • "Like who?" 44 WORK IN PROGRESS econstruct A Work in Progress supplement Issue no.12 AUGUST 1993 Humanise the hostels

FEW YEARS AGO, MOST ACTI- vists spoke with compassion A about the terrible conditions endured by hostel residents. Today — mainly as a result of violent clashes between township and hostel residents — much of that com­ passion has gone. Many community activists, especially in the PWV, are demanding ihat hostels are demol­ ished. Those making such demands have no alternative accommodation lined up for the hostel residents who will be displaced. However, given that our country faces a massive shortage of housing, n is unlikely that all hostels will sim­ ply be destroyed. An ANC study (See Pg 4) shows that, with proper planning, it is possi­ ble to integrate townships and hostels. In addition, the study shows that, by making single-storey hostels into dou­ ble- or triple-storey they would be transformed into family and single units without displacing a single hos­ tel resident. But little is happening on the ground to improve hostels country­ A QUIET MOMENT: Privacy and space are luxuries for hostel residents wide. This lack of progress can, in part, be blamed on the fact that hos­ the hostel's behalf, and development the NHF. Hopefully, these parties will tels have become areas of political is often stifled by politicking. be able to agree on a plan to make the contest. Various hostels are being However, Ihe National Housing hostels fit for humans. claimed by political parties — usually Forum's (NHF) draft agreement with Once conditions are improved the ANC or Inkatha. Once a hostel is the government on joint coordination and hostel residents are integrated into identified with a party, hostel resi­ of funds for upgrading hostels is a surrounding communities, hostels will dents are often disempowered. The good sign. All major parties with no longer be easy recruiting grounds party demands the right to speak on members in hostels are represented on for warlords. HI

FOCUS ON HOSTELS CONTRIBUTIONS • R&confttrttct wa*t initi^t- 1 1 ed by the Urban Sector NHF- | TPA'S 1 PWV's 1 Network to raise Issues government 1 Thokoza 1 peace 1 related to urban devel­ opment. Contributions breakthrough 1 disaster 1 brokers 1 should be sent to: Kerry Culllnan 2 J 5 | 14 | PO Box 32716 ^^^^^HHM Braamfontein20l7 National agreement must be translated locally

The National Housing Forum and government recently agreed to joint control over hostel upgrading initiatives. But reaching such agreement was a bumpy ridef explains DAN SMIT and VIDHU VEDALANKAR

HE OUTBREAK OF IIOSTCL RELAT- replaced by a more serious, develop- ly agreed policy framework for hostel ed violence in early 1991 cata­ mentally oriented debate. A national initiatives needed to be formulated, T pulted hostels from relative discussion forum on hostels was con­ which could be used as a basis for obscurity to Ihc centre stage of the vened in August 1991. The initiative making funding decisions. South African political scene. came from the Independent Develop­ Represented at the meeting were At first, the violence drew carica­ ment Trust (IDT) and the Develop­ members of the government (central tured responses from actors across the ment Bank of SA (DBSA), who had and provincial departments of hous­ political spectrum* Some elements been inundated with funding proposals ing, black local authorities), extra-par­ within the tripartite alliance called for for hostels upgrading initiatives. liamentary groups (ANC\ Inkatha, the demolition of the hostels, while Azapo, PAC), civic groups (Sanco and Inkatha argued strongly for their reten­ Policy framework hostel dwellers* associations), unions tion at all costs. Given the controversy surrounding (Cosatu and Nactu), the private sector As tensions eased, polemics were hostels, these agencies felt that a wide­ (Saccola, chamber of mines, CBM,

• SLOW PROGRESS: The NHF has to ensure the agreement means better conditions for all hostel residents, like these men from Apple Farm, Southern Cape

RECONSTRUCT 2 Anglo American, AHI, Bifsa, IHSA), Short term tal development strategy. development agencies (DBSA. IDT, guidelines By the end of 1992 almost no Kagiso Trust) and others. progress had been made on the The meeting acknowledged the ground. This, together with the fact seriousness of the hostels problem, but The NHF's short term guide­ that the ANC and the influential noted that it had to be addressed with­ lines for hostels Include the Transvaal Hostels Association - reput­ in the context of a broader national following: ed to be sympathetic to Inkatha, development and housing strategy. • Hostels Initiatives must be although the association denies any In the interim, the meeting agreed negotiated at two levels: by party political affiliation - were calling on the need to formulate short term those directly affected by the for the NHF to take charge of the guidelines for hostel initiatives. (See Initiative (eg hostel dwellers, national hostels initiative, provided a block). The meeting also appointed a hostel owners and surround­ basis for a new round of negotiations working committee to formulate pro­ ing communities) and by between government and the NHF. posals for the possible establishment regional structures with an of a broadly based and representative Interest In hostels (eg politi­ Agreement reached housing forum. This saw the begin­ cal organisations, civics, Squarely on the agenda was joint con­ ning of a process which led to the for­ trade unions, business, local trol of the hostels initiative. A detailed mal constitution of the National governments, employers etc). agreement was drawn up, incorporat­ Housing Forum (NHF). • Initiatives should recog­ ing a much more fundamental and Government was initially part of nise that single people and developmental approach to the hostels the discussions, but withdrew prior to families need accommoda­ initiative. The agreement envisages the NHF's launch, arguing that il was tion. joint **de facto" control of the initiative against "interim government by between government and the NHF at stealth". However, it indicated that it • Provision Is made for peo­ national and regional levels. wanted to be part of the NHF's hostels ple displaced by the develop­ Reaching the agreement was not working group. This was rejected by ment. easy. One problem has been to get the the NHF. • The government should diverse actors within the NHF to agree provide housing assistance to on its content and to get mandates State initiative those In hostels at the same from their constituencies. To the credit Shortly afterwards, the government level as others In an equally of the NHF, these extremely difficult announced a R325.6-million hostel disadvantaged position. problems have largely been resolved upgrading initiative. As far as policy • Appropriate Institutional recently. was concerned, government argued mechanisms get set up to Another problem has been the that it accepted the NHF's short term implement projects and inability of NHF partners to resolve guidelines and would proceed accord­ ensure broad participation. differences on the ground, particularly ingly. • A moratorium Is placed on as tensions mount around national While the government committed hostel demolition, unless constitutional negotiations. The col­ itself to abiding by the short term sanctioned by all parties. lapse of the important Wits-Vaal guidelines, a nationwide monitoring Forum provides a good example of exercise conducted last year by such difficulties. Seneque, Smit & Associates for the The NHF was concerned, not DBSA revealed that compliance was, In the meantime, progress on the only with the lack of compliance, but at best, patchy. In a number of ground has remained slow. Whether also argued that the short term guide­ instances, government initiatives the NHF will have a major influence lines were not meant to be a substitute appeared to wholly ignore the guide­ on the trajectory of events in the hos­ lines. for a hostels policy. tels will depend critically on the ability Moreover, concern was of its members to translate agreements The government initiative in expressed about the tendency to treat reached at national level into agree­ Natal was the one exception. Here, a hostels initiatives as "physical mainte­ ments among factions in the hostels substantially inclusive process was nance" exercises in many parts of the and between hostel residents and sur­ adopted from the outset and Natal's rounding communities. regional hostels forum is one of the country. most successful of its kind in the The NHF argued that any gains The challenge is a daunting one, country - even though progress has derived from physical rehabilitation but there is a strong sense within the been painfully slow. would soon be eroded if key social NHF that real progress may be on Everywhere else, concern was relations, which gave rise to problems, hand. expressed about the lack of compli­ were not addressed (eg administration • Smit is professor of architecture ance with the guidelines and unneces­ problems, bed allocation procedures, at the University of Natal and a sary politicisation of the hostels long term development vision etc). In partner with Seneque, Smit & initiative arising from government's the short term, the NHF argued that Maughan-Brown (SS&MB). insistence on using black local author­ the hostels initiative needed to be Vedalankar is a town planner, also ities as initiators. informed by a much more fundamen­ based with SS&MB. •

RECONSTRUCT 3 Redevelopment, ANC style

ou are the ANC's represen­ The ANC's national coordinator on regional and local policy, tative on the National Hous­ BILLY COBBETT, speaks to KERRY CULLINAN about his Y ing Forum (NHF). What led organisation's view of redeveloping hostels to recent NHF-govemment agree­ ment on joint control over state money allocated to improving hos­ very good case for a PWV structure. These structures will be set up as tels? soon as possible, starting with the Last year's budget set aside R326-mil- national structure, which will have to lion for hostel initiatives. But central flesh out the rules and procedures laid government and the provinces have out in the agreement. spent very little because they don't have a developmental policy, they The idea is that decisions about have no policy framework and they what should happen to a hostel should clearly have their own interpretation be taken as low down as possible, but about what constitutes consultation. not so low that no one else is consult­ ed. In our submissions to the Gold- stone Commission [in September What are the ANC's priorities as 1992], the ANC identified two priori­ regards hostel upgrading? ties that need to be addressed if hostel For us, upgrading is not the only conditions are to be improved. First, option. The priority is to deal with the • BILLY COBBETT the black local authorities (BLAs) developmental and social questions should not be the implementing agents has to be discussed in each hostel. associated with hostels. of upgrading. Secondly, the funds set Ideally, an initiative around any aside for improving hostels must be In the short term, the basic living hostel should happen both within the put under multi-party control. conditions in hostels must be restored hostel and in the surrounding commu­ where they don't exist — where toi­ nity. Hostels are a reflection of over­ This agreement now makes pro­ lets aren't working, water is intermit­ crowding etc, just like their vision for multi-party control over the tent, there is no electricity etc. surrounding communities. We should funds. The agreement only deals with This should be done on an emer­ be resolving the two simultaneously. the public sector. But there arc hun­ gency basis so it does not preempt Hostels shouldn't be given special dreds of private hostels whose devel­ long term developmental options. treatment; either specially good or opment requires attention. Socially, the priority must be to specially bad. Any solution has to remove hostels from physical and address the overall housing crisis. How will the agreement work? party political contestation. There is a We also mustn't forget that the There will be an 18-person Nalional general assumption about the political whole hostel crisis stems from the Hostels Coordinating Committee, affiliations of hostel residents. This is migrant labour system. This is a struc­ comprising of nine people nominated wholly incorrect. Hostel residents are tural feature of the South African from government and nine from the aligned to a variety of political organi­ economy, which needs to be dealt NHF. sations. We would like to move away with economically. Mirror images of this committee from the situation where hostels are will be set up in the four provinces. used as sites of physical and social How are the hostel dwellers Sub-provincial structures can also be confrontation. Involved in the NHF? created if necessary. For example, Rather, the aim should be to inte­ The NHF is a national structure. There most of the country's hostels are in grate hostel residents into surrounding isn't a national organisation of hostel the PWV [27 state-owned hostels with communities. Whether this happens in dwellers so, in a sense, their interests some 77 000 beds] and there may be a the physical form of a hostel is what have been represented by political parlies, trade unions, the civics etc. In preparation for Its 1992 submissions to the Goldstone Commis­ But the national structure is only sion, the ANC commissioned an architect to design possible scenar­ meant to provide the national structure ios for redeveloping hostels. within which different interests can be The architect developed three possible scenarios, based on con­ represented. At a regional and local verting single-storey hostels. The plans showed that, by coverting level, structures representing hostel dwellers as hostel dwellers, not on a some hostels and township houses Into double- and triple-storey and party political basis, do exist. These developing the land within hostel complexes, not a single hostel resi­ organisations would obviously be key dent needed to be displaced by redevelopment. players. •

RECONSTRUCT 4 . a L m MILITARY BARRACKS: The TPA's upgrade failed to address basic needs

their earnings home to their families, generally living in rural KwaZulu, No success The average income in M1 is R739 a month, and on average each man without hostel sends R319 to his family. Consultation The way in which the TPA consulted residents hostel residents probably accounts for why so few of those interviewed said they were happy with the upgrade. OR THE UPGRADING OF ANY HOS- By Kerry Cullinan The TPA simply presented hostel tel to be successful, the active participation of hostel residents most pressing problem, the lack of leaders with a document outlining F three options and told them to choose themselves is essential. This is clearly bedroom privacy, was ignored by the shown in an assessment of the recent upgrade. There are still 16 people per one. All three options had controver­ upgrading of Thokoza's Ml (Madala) room, no doors, no storage place and sial elements, such as the security hostel, conducted by the Transvaal little security. There is also a shortage fence. None addressed the hostel resi­ Provincial Administration (TPA). of bathrooms, no sinks in the kitchens dents' most pressing need: to decrease Although the TPA spent over and, after electricity points were the number of beds per room. Thus R3,S-million on upgrading the 2 000- installed, coal stoves used for cooking residents had no opportunity to actual­ bed hostel, very few residents arc sat­ were removed — but nothing was put ly contribute to planning the upgrade. isfied with the results. in their place. In addition, the document was According to Social Surveys, "Many of [the hostel residents'] fairly complicated and written in which was commissioned by the requirements were not properly English. This effectively excluded National Housing Forum (NHF) to addressed in the actual upgrade, with 56% of the hostel residents, who arc assess the upgrade, only 1,4% of peo­ more attention being given instead to illiterate. ple interviewed felt the process met elements that residents considered to their needs. The assessment involved be of lesser importance, such as roof­ Conclusion ing, or which they actively did not 169 interviews with hostel residents. While both Social Surveys and the want, such as security fencing," notes The TPA's upgrade concentrated NHF have avoided interpreting the the assessment. on: results of the assessment, it is abun­ • improving storm water drainage; "Furthermore, a considerable part dantly clear that the TPA's approach of the upgrade budget went to general • installing central boilers to heat wfls top-down and completely inade­ cleaning and maintenance which water; quate. • replacing corrugated iron roofs with should more properly have been seen as an ongoing essential service rather However, a coherent national asbestos; than part of a major upgrade." approach to improving the quality of • installing electricity points in rooms hostel residents' conditions has yet to A serious spin-off of the upgrade and kitchens; for hostel residents is that they face a be developed. This is one of the many • improving toilets and showers; 230% rent increase from R15 to R52 a urgent tasks facing the NHF in the • cleaning the hostel and removing month. No hostel residents were pre­ next few months. A key step in this rubbish; pared to pay this, although 66% said direction is an agreement being nego­ • replacing broken windows; they were prepared to pay more than tiated by the NHF with the department • fencing off the hostel. R15. of national housing to jointly oversee In contrast, hostel residents listed The rent hike is a serious blow to the way in which the state's national the upgrading of bedrooms, bath­ hostel residents, who earn very low upgrading programme is run and rooms and kitchens as priorities. The wages and send a large proportion of funded. •

RECONSTRUCT 5 The National Union of Mineworkers is playing a leading role in converting NUM tackles single-sex hostels into family units. But it isn't an easy task, as KERRY CULLINAN living conditions reports

NE OF THE MAJOR CHALLENGES facing the National Union of O Mineworkers' housing depart­ ment is how to improve conditions in hostels, with the aim of converting them to single and family units. Hostel conditions have always been a source of bitterness for mineworkers. In the past, many min­ ers were allocated to hostels according to their ethnic group. This encouraged conflict and often led to violence. In the aftermath of the 1987 min­ ers' strike, the NUM charged that mine owners were using the hostels as prisons. Visitors, including wives and NUM officials, were prevented from entering the hostels. There were regu­ lar raids by mine security and the police. Certain mining companies now appear more amenable to improving conditions in their hostels. The NUM is also tackling the problem more sys­ tematically. Two NUM housing workshops have been held this year to look at strategies and gauge progress. The second of these workshops, held in July, was attended by 22 delegates from 11 regions. At Doornfontein mine hostel, Carltonville. home is a single bed The delegates reported on progress made in both democratising At Rand Mines, also in Witbank, vert one of the large Vaal Reefs hos­ and upgrading hostels. While some the NUM has succeeded in getting tels to family units. However, branch NUM branches reported that retrench­ management's in-principlc agreement office bearers pointed out that 45 000 ments and rival unions had taken up to convert the hostels to family units workers were employed at the three most of their energy, there were a few |See block). A hostel committee has Vaal Reefs mines. Transforming all areas where progress had been made. been elected to drive the conversion. the hostels into family units might Iscor's Grootcgeluk mine in mean that some people will be mis­ Family units Rustenburg is setting up a hostel placed. The Witbank region had made sub­ board of elected block representatives The Northern Cape region is in stantial progress in improving certain and two officials from the hostel the process of establishing hostel hostels. At Amcoal mine in Kriel, administration. In addition, at a structures. However, in Kimberley, some hostels were already being con­ branch meeting in June, workers Westonaria and Sccunda, no progress verted into family units. These arc reviewed a constitution drawn up by had been made as the union has been expected to be finished by September. Iscor. Branch members proposed a preoccupied with other issues. However, the union had not yet number of changes to management's A problem identified by a num­ established hostel committees in all document to ensure workers would be ber of branches was that management hostels to oversee the upgrading; drawn into decision-making. had taken to moving other workers those who want to occupy the family Klcrksdorp region has won into the hostels, particularly contrac­ units simply apply to management. agreement from management to con­ tors employed to do certain jobs on

RECONSTRUCT 6 Single sex hostels are 'immoral'

key concern at the National Union of Mineworkers' (NUM) housing conference A was how the campaign for the conversion of hostels to family units should be conducted. A delegate from Rand Mines In Witbank, reported that mineworkers had enlisted the help of their girlfriends In the campaign. A number of women had moved into the hostels to show that the work­ ers were no longer prepared to live In male-only barracks. Mine management had initially reacted harshly, calling the police who arrested a number of the women. Mineworkers then embarked on a protest march. After the march, management agreed In principle to convert the hostels to family units. The delegate stressed, however, that the cam­ paign had not been taken up under the NUM's ban­ ner. Some other delegates disagreed with this approach, saying that mineworkers alone should be Involved In the campaign for family units. Two delegates felt the NUM should not be seen to be encouraging women in hostels when hostels were not yet converted to accommodate them. The presence of women In the already overcrowd­ ed hostels could led to tensions, said one mineworker. "We must first negotiate the right to family and dingle units with management. Then workers can bring their families or girlfriends Into proper accommodation." All delegates agreed that all workers wanted the hostels to be converted. Into either single or family units. As one delegate summed up: "It is immoral • EXCLUDED: Mine hostels make to keep a whole lot of men crowded together In no provision for women the hostels." the mines. In Phalaborwa, even should be run. most delegates opted While the NUM does participate Koevoet members had been moved for joint worker/management control in the National Housing Forum into one hostel. over hostels. However, a number of (NHF). the NHF is concerned largely Management argued that these delegates were uneasy with the idea of with the upgrading and conversion of workers brought in extra money, participative management as they felt state-owned hostels. which helped to pay for mineworkers* the union would have lo become Employers represented by the SA food. However, it also meant it was involved in firing workers hired to Co-ordinating Committee on Labour work in the hostels. difficult for any upgrading to take Affairs (Saccoia) attend NHF meet­ place as the hostels were full. ings, but have so far refused to NUM housing coordinator Henry Representation endorse the NHF's short-term princi­ Chawane stressed that the branches "These people could become union ples on immediate measures to deal should not be deterred by the contrac­ members, and when they are fired the with the housing crisis. The NUM — tors. However, he said the union had NUM has played a part in firing them, along with other Cosatu unions — is to take into account workers who but the NUM also has to represent would be displaced by conversion. them." a delegate pointed out. now faced with the challenge of per­ "We need to look at what other The union is presently looking suading employers to put their weight accommodation should be in place to into hostel constitutions in order to behind the NHF's initiatives. house these workers," said Chawane. draw up a standard document that all However, Cosatu has yet to take When discussing how hostels branches get adopted. this up vigorously with employers. • RECONSTRUCT OHLAKENG IS A FAIRLY Transforming small township adjacent lo M Randfontein on the West Rand. A hostel complex was first built in 1948. Since then, the complex has a hostel - one grown to 243 units containing 3,892 beds. Originally administered by the step at a time local authority, different sections of the complex arc now owned and con­ trolled by private developers and vari­ In Mohlakeng, hostel residents are tackling the ous companies. transformation of their living space methodically, The local authority sold off 105 reports RICK DE SATGE units to a private developer' in a deal whose legitimacy is fiercely contest­ ed. This part of the hostel is in disre­ of these conditions. Its original brief organising to ensure its return to state pair. Toilets no longer work, water is was to: ownership and subsequent transfor­ inadequate and a recent independent • challenge tariff increases imposed mation to social housing. environmental health report highlight­ by the black local authority (111 AI in The MHDA is making every ed serious health problems. (Overall. 1987; effort to bring as many interest groups 66% of the hostel units lack any form • contest the proposed privatisation as possible, both within the hostel and of ablutions.) of the hostel; from the township, into planning the Women and children have also • improve relations between the hostel's transformation. It sees con' moved into this section. Open rooms township and the hostel; sensus among hostel and township residents and their maximum partici' designed for 16 men are often inhabit­ • campaign for better living condi­ ed by over 25 people with men, their tions. pation as the keys to unlocking the partners and sometimes their children The complex situation in the pri­ obstacles to meaningful transforma- occupying spaces intended for an indi­ vately owned section makes it tion. vidual. There are no facilities for extremely difficult to organise there. women. Rape, assault and child abuse This section is home to illegal Understanding the interests are common problems. migrants, a rapidly expanding shebeen The "MHDA's starting point has been Certain units in the privately sector and criminals. to develop a detailed hostel profile owned section have been sold off to Despite these constraints, the through workshops within the hostel, individuals at prices ranging from MHDA has developed a clear mission interviews with residents and in-depth R16 000 to R20 000 each. Again, the to represent all hostel dwellers, research into social organisation with­ legality of these sales is in doubt. improve living conditions, transform in the privately owned section. The company owned section the hostel into a decent living environ­ Ten broad interest groups have remains more tightly controlled single ment, integrate it into the broader emerged from this process: sex accommodation with better, but community and contribute to solving • Workers who want their families to still hugely inadequate, living condi­ problems facing other hostel dwellers stay with them. tions. nationally. • Workers who want their families to The Mohlakeng Hostel Dwellers The MHDA strongly opposes the stay in the rural areas but be able to Association (MHDA) developed out privatisation of the hostel and is visit them.

fencing of hostels. Such calls have only made Men without real solutions harder to And. Undoubtedly, there are differences between hostel and township residents. But these tensions shadows emerge even when the two groups share political affiliation.

0 MANY PEOPLE, HOSTELS HAVE BECOME SYMBOLS OF These differences developed out of apartheid policies. Hostels developed out of the migrant violence. Hostels residents are defined by labour system. Working people were divided Into where they live and not who they are. They T those with rights to stay In the city and those who are reduced to men without shadows. migrated from rural areas on Job contracts and were Politicians have drawn sectarian lines around forced to live In hostels. hostels and attempted to reduce the complexity of Social divisions developed between urban peo­ hostel problems to crudely competitive positions. ple and those who with a rural base. These rela­ This haft led to calls for the Immediate demolition tions have often been antagonistic, stemming from

RECONSTRUCT 8 no longer have homes in the rural From plans to action areas. Currently, the MHDA is concentrating on block by block discussions. How­ Guiding principles ever, there is a danger that there is too The MHDA has developed a set of much talk and not enough action. This principles to guide the process of has meant that the MHDA has had to bringing different interests together. develop short term and longer term These include: strategies. • Peace and security through negotia­ The short term strategy involves tions: Any planned development must pressing for emergency repairs. Cur­ be negotiated with all interested par­ rently a forum is planned which will ties. bring together hostel residents, town­ • Community control: Hostel ship formations, the owner, the local dwellers must control the upgrading authorities and the Transvaal Provin­ the hostels. cial Administration (TPA). • Accommodation for all: I he forum will address immedi­ - The upgrading must guarantee accommodation for all hostel resi­ ate issues as well as a longer term pro­ dents, including the unemployed, cess to transform the hostels within either within the upgraded hostel or at the context of a Mohlakeng develop­ • MAN'S WORLD: Women living in alternative sites. ment plan. hostels are vulnerable to rape and Preliminary estimates show that abuse - Acommodation and services must be affordable and decent. the transformation of the hostels to a • Single migrants who want bachelor - There must be different types of mix of family and single accommoda­ accommodation. accommodation, including family and tion would mean that 50% of the cur­ rent residents would have to move to • Low paid workers who cannot single units. afford the increased charges which - Hostel residents must have the alternative accommodation. would result from upgrading. choice to buy or rent improved accom­ A carefully negotiated process modation. • Unemployed people who are stay­ must thus be developed to identify - Alternative land and housing should ing free in the hostel due to a collapse those who will stay and who will be provided for people wishing to in the administration. move. This will have to be done in leave the hostel. • Illegal migrants who are renting tandem with township planning to • The needs of women and children: beds from workers who have moved avoid conflict. The issues of illegal - Any development must take into into informal settlements. immigrants and privatisation will also account (he needs of women and chil­ need to be tackled. • Business people, like taxi and dren and ensure their safety and well- sn0 spaza P owners and self employed being. Clearly, there is no shortcut to mechanics, barbers and tailors. resolving hostel problems. The only • Community facilities: • Women and children already living - Hostel residents must have adequate viable solution is a local process con­ in the hostels. facilities such as schools and recre­ trolled by people themselves, support­ • People who have bought units from ational facilities. ed by national level negotiations with the private developer. - Business people should have proper respect to resource allocation and • Old people or retired migrants who facilities. enabling policy and legislation. •

fierce competition over access to the city. • Hostels must be depoliticised. Urban dwellers frequently demean migrant • The diversity of interests among hostel residents workers as " am ao vera I Is" - men who do the shit must be recognised. work, are uneducated and unsophisticated. Hostel life Is hard and alienating. To survive, • Urban dwellers need to critically assess their rural migrants tend to cluster together In 'home attitudes to migrant workers. boy* networks. A classic 'us and them* scenario • Local development forums need to be convened develops which, once overlaid by manipulative poli­ to engage hostels and surrounding communities In tics, can become the conduit for violence. developing short and medium term responses to In some hostels, problems have been compli­ problems. cated by Illegal Immigrants who want to remain Invisible. Attempts to upgrade and transform hos­ • Policy options addressing the future of hostels tels and informal settlements run contrary to their must be linked to broader issues of rural and interests. regional reconstruction, and address the Issue of How do we deal with these Issues? illegal immigrants In a constructive way.

RECONSTRUCT Decision-making on both struc­ tures is through consensus. The NPA, Representative body although occupying the chair, acts pri­ marily as a facilitator. The steering committee was ini­ guides upgrading tially an open forum. Over a short period of time, il grew significantly. This made consensus difficult to HE NATAL HOSTELS INITIATIVE Hostels in Natal get achieve. After agreement in the com­ (NHI) was initiated by the gov­ organised, reports a Special mittee, this structure was reduced to ernment, operating through the T accommodate only two representa­ Natal Provincial Administration Correspondent involved in tives of the interest groups. Represen­ (NPA). The initiative currently the process tation at meetings is from the NPA, involves 19 hostels and is focused on IFP, ANC, civics, Ningizimu Town those administered by the NPA. As initiator of the upgrading pro­ Committee, PAC and SAHDA. The The programme began in the sec­ gramme, the NPA chaired the meeting Durban city council and project man­ ond half of 199.1, when meetings were of interest groups. It was an open agers also attend. Other parties can held between NPA officials and two meeting, attended by participants request representation by motivating private sector organisations intended from across the political spectrum as to the committee. to provide project management ser­ well as hostel representatives. Discus­ vices to the larger and more complex sion focused on the local interpreta­ The working groups are con­ upgrading projects in the Durban area, tion of the national guidelines. These cerned mainly with the details of rede­ namely Thokoza, Dalton Road. were accepted as the point of refer­ velopment. They are therefore made Jacobs, Umlazi Glebe and SJ Smith ence by participants. up primarily of hostel residents who (Wema). The upgrading efforts in the Various sub-committees were are appointed after elections within remaining hostels are being managed formed, one of which focused on the hostel, or following nominations directly by the NPA or, in one case, structures needed to steer the upgrad­ ratified by hostel residents. through a local authority. ing process. Arising from these early meet­ A two-tier structure emerged — Progress and problems ings and the reservations expressed by a regional steering committee, to pro­ Progress has been variable, ranging project managers, the NPA decided to vide an overseeing and policy-deter­ from redevelopment* already under­ convene a meeting of "interest mining role, and hostel-specific way to almost complete inertia. The groups". working groups which would make degree of political contest around a decisions regarding the upgrading of particular hostel is a key factor deter­ Evolution of structures specific hostels. The manner in which mining progress. In the case of the In terms of the national guidelines for the working groups have come into Durban hostels, three have made sig­ | hostel upgrading initiatives, it was being has varied, depending on the nificant progress with implementation I essential that decision-making be hostel concerned and its context. In scheduled for later this year. One of inclusive. The definition of "inclu- essence, however, communication has these has sufficient funding to com­ I sive" is variable, however, given the been through mass meetings, smaller plete the upgrade. In the case of the g differing locations of hostels. It also group meetings, individual contact other two, funding for significant ini­ § depends on group representation with­ and written information directed to tial endeavours is in place. in in each hostel. hostel residents. In line with the variable rate of progress, problems have also varied. The long term funding and adminis­ trative future of hostels are probably common issues that require attention. Direct access to residents, beyond that afforded by the working groups, is also problematic. From a broader perspective, the hostels in inner city locations stand as reminders of the need to house people in a dignified manner, where normali­ sation of living circumstances is also an imperative. Overcrowding and the demand for space need serious atten­ tion. The current initiative is not likely to be able to address these bigger GETTING TOGETHER: Natal organisations are addressing hostel conditions social and financial issues. •

RECONSTRUCT 10 • Sanco's Welcome Zenzile addresses a Western Cape Hostel Dwellers' Association meeting Umzamo realises dreams

MZAMO DEVELOPMENT PROJECT by Wtllem du Toit (saving, tiling and block-making, (UDP) has become the vehicle sewing etc). U through which the dreams and 29 demonstration units being built in The programmes arc linked with aspirations of the Western Cape hostel the three areas. Another 300 units are a resource centre based in Gugulethu. community aze being realised. to be upgraded per area. Although still in its infancy, the man­ The UDP is the culmination of a Much of Umzamo's work has agement of this project is a high prior­ number of hostel organisations, start­ been devoted to building the founda­ ity to Umzamo, as community ing with the Western Cape Mens' tions for sustainable development. facilities are vital to the viability of Hostel Association, which was formed This has involved: the housing upgrade. in 1985. It then changed its name to • involving community structures in Umzamo has been able to the Western Cape Hostel Dwellers planning the pilot projects; mobilise technical support and exper­ Association in mid-1986. In May the • integrating local planning and tech­ tise from a wide range of experts. This following year, the Hostel Dwellers' nical decisions; has meant the pilot projects have been Trust was formed. The main purpose able to make rapid progress. • establishing an information flow on of the trust was to create a Section 21 housing policy and shelter provision. There is a rising need to address company that could implement hostel the position of private hostels in the development. Sustainabllrty area. A number of owners of private In 1990, the Western Cape Hos­ hostels have approached Umzamo to Project committees in Langa, Nyanga tels Housing Development Company assist them with upgrading. Umzamo and Gugulethu are driving the was formed. Last year, a board of has enlisted the help of a consultant to upgrade, and provide the most crucial directors was elected and changed the put together a feasibility study. link in attaining sustainability. While Trust's name to Umzamo. the committees have built residents' Umzamo believes that planning The UDP defines itself as a hous­ confidence and self-reliance, execu­ and decision-making is at the heart of ing and social development organisa­ tive members feel there is much its development approach. Without tion. Its main aims are to: capacity-building to be done before these, sustainable development is not • improve living conditions in hostels the residents can participate meaning­ achievable. Constant monitoring and through the provision of family fully. evaluating day-to-day activities of the accommodation; projects allows the project to adapt The project committees have set according to community needs. At • facilitate the transfer of skills and up sub-committees to run a communi­ present, this monitoring is done by an job creation; ty programme to address a range of outside body, UPRU. However, this • provide appropriate facilities aimed social and health needs. The main will become a vital management pro­ at empowering hostel residents and focus is on ensuring a viable social cess once Umzamo's capacity is integrating them into the broader com­ development programme consisting increased. munity. of: Umzamo aims to establish viable The UDP's activities centre • child-care facilities; around pilot upgrading projects in models for future development which • feeding and nutrition programmes; Langa, Gugulethu and Nyanga where it can share with other communities. • health programmes; old hostels are being converted into With the support Umzamo is receiv­ family housing. • community awareness and parent ing, the project has a dream that these A tripartite "Hostels to Homes" motivation; development models could work and agreement between the UDP, Cape • training and organisational devel­ pave the way for community self- Provincial Administration (CPA) and opment; reliance and self-sufficiency. • Ikapa Town Council has resulted in • income generating programmes • Du Toit works for Umzamo

RECONSTRUCT 11 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

The Children of Soweto Action Centre (COSAC) Drama Academy is a project being run in the needy township of Soweto. It is a project serving the congested township through which many young people of our deprived community can find their cultural worth. Without assistance by donors from sympathetic countries this valuable initiative will be lost to the community.

The African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, after assessing the project, and the services which it provides to our people, hereby requests that the project should be rendered any such assistance - material, financial, or any other - which will be deemed necessary to ensure its continuation.

Yours in the struggle for democracy

NELSON R. MANDELA PRESIDENT African National Congress Johannesburg 2 December 1992

RECONSTRUCT 12 "1m a ChMcfite ghetto arcl Jam 501091> dance*

'VWy name is Lerato. Lerato Xaba. I am 8 years old and I am a pupil of the Children ofSoweto Drama Academy. I have many interests - singing, laughing, acting, but I love dancing most of all I dance all the time, everywhere. I dance to school in my mothers little kitchen, and I dance as I play. Even as I sleep, I dance. Some day, I am going to dance on stage.

CO$fl£ EDUCATIONAL AND ARTISTIC TRUST

You can help make Lerato V dream come true by Individuals and business can send donations to: donating generously to the Children ofSoweto Tlfe Secretary Drama Academy in Newtown- Lerato and COSAC Trust. many other children receive lessons in drama, Reg, No. 91/05831/08 singing, dance, etc. in temporary quarters in the Box 107 Newtown 2113 Market Tlfeatre area, Tel: 838-2642/3/4 F*x 833-1408

Trttstees: Adv Jules Browde S. C, Dr N Motlanfl. Mr SS Morewa* Mr M Nxunutlo. Mr CS Rachilo. Mr H Hachler. Mr W Mokoape. Miss Barbara Masekela, Mrs Fieke Ainslie, Mrs S Lebthe, Mrs J Kanyago. Mrs L Xaba. Mrs J Mavimbela, Mn VG Gcabashe* Mr L Maiseht. Mr Peter Finchant. Secretary: Miss Pearl J Smith

RECONSTRUCT 13 hand-delivered by a brave but scared Jacob Dlomo. Since then, 29 hostels have been drawn into the peace process. Hostels that still have to be persuaded to join ihe peace initiative include (hose in the Vaal and some East Rand hostels. Reverend Mvume Dandala, who is facilitating the process, says the ini­ tiative has already achieved a great deal. **Since the start of the initiative, we have not had any inter-hostel con­ flict — whereas a year ago conflicts were very sharp." says Dandala. "The no-go areas have been eliminated. People are visiting one another freely in the hostels and drinking beer together." For Dandala, the HPI's strength lies in the fact that the initiative came from the hostel residents themselves, rather than being brokered by out­ siders. "The level of commitment to peace from the hostel residents is extremely high. They meet and take decisions as residents. I am simply the facilitator, an outsider almost."

Labelling avoided Party politics is kept out of the pro­ cess as much as possible: "We try to • PEACEMAKERS: The ANC's German Mlatsheni and avoid characterising hostels as Inkatha Inkatha's Jacob Dlomo or ANC supporting, because we don't want a situation where residents can't take decisions, but have to refer deci­ sions to political parties," says Dan­ dala. Hostel residents "All parties may try to keep their principals [political leaders] informed, but this is different from saying hostel residents can't take decisions." make peace The greatest problem the HPI has had to face is building trust. "It is not A unique peace pact has been negotiated between easy for people to trust one another after all the pain," says Dandala. And residents of 29 PWV hostels. And it works because sometimes people's hopes have been hostel residents negotiated agreements themselves, raised too high, which meant partici­ reports KERRY CULLMAN pants were disappointed when their expectations were not met. OSTEL! THE VERY WORD tiative (HP1) which may lead to better The HPI recently arranged an strikes terror into the hearts relations between themselves and inter-hostel soccer tournament as part of many township residents township residents. of building better relations between all in the Reef. Communities The initiative started late last year residents. Plans are also afoot to Hlike Tcmbisa, Thokoza and Katlehong when a peace letter was sent from implement general developmental have held stayaways and protest Jeppe hostel to Selby hostel, both in programmes, but the HPI has deliber­ marches calling for hostels on their Johannesburg. The Zulu-dominated ately avoided entering the debate doorsteps to be closed. Jeppe hostel and (he predominantly about hostel upgrading and the fenc­ But PWV hostel-dwellers them­ Xhosa Selby hostel had been at war ing of hostels. selves have started a Hostel Peace Ini­ for almost a year before the letter was "The principals have already

RECONSTRUCT 14 Bringing banking taken a position on these things. We would simply plead with them to ensure that hostel residents are to the people engaged in decision-making," says Dandala. By Kerry Culllnan However, he adds that the terri­ ble conditions under which hostel res­ LL V o the majority of people, formal banks are seen to idents live have made the hostels I be denying them opportunities. A bank must be an "fertile ground for conflict". I entity that enables a person, not negates him," He warns, however, that the most says Dr Ellen Khuzwayo, who Is the chairperson of the com­ important lesson he has learnt from munity banking trust. being involved in the HPl is that peo­ ple affected by decisions have to be The trust alms to change this by "taking banking as close involved in shaping those decisions. to clients as possible", explains trust chief executive Bob Tucker. '"This means the location of branches, the services White elephants the bank offers, the language it speaks and managerial deci­ sions" must be community-based. "Politicians can take decisions to upgrade the hostels, but if people at At present, the trust Is conducting detailed Investigations the grassroots are not proactively Into where branches of community banks are needed, what engaged in joining hands and working Interest rates should be charged on loans and whether com­ together, monies set aside [for upgrad­ munity banks are financially viable. If the outcome of the ing] will simply be white elephants." Investigations Is favourable, the foundations of a community Now that fairly strong founda­ bank could be laid by September. tions have been laid for peace "International studies have shown that community banks between different hostels, the HPl is are only effective In low Income communities if a very close moving on to its next — and more dif­ relationship Is established with the community. Only then can ficult — challenge: building peace trust develop and can the credit-worthiness of people be between the hostel-dwellers and resi­ assessed," says Tucker. dents living in informal settlements and townships near the hostels. Meet­ While the community bank alms to develop low income ings between various communities communities, It will be a commercial enterprise. "It has to and the HPl have already begun. • operate profitably. The bank must take savings from the com­ munity It serves. World experience has shown that [low income communities] have vastly more savings potential than previously realised," says Tucker. He stresses however, that a commu­ nity bank will not try to replace stokvels and burial societies. Rather, the commu­ nity bank sees Itself as somewhere between formal banks and Informal sav­ ing schemes, like stokvels. "Our communities have survived on relationships. There are no contracts with stokvels, but there is hardly a scan­ dal. The community bank will open the door to more growth," adds Kuzwayo. Aside from Kuzwayo, the trust brings together a wide range of prominent Indi­ viduals countrywide. Significantly, half the trustees are women. As trustee Lil­ lian Baqwa points out, "the mobilisation of savings tends to be done by the women". •

• ELLEN KHUZWAYO

RECONSTRUCT 15 Union-community clash avoided

GROUNDBREAKING RECENT By Kerry Cullinan agreement between Sanco, A Cosatu and the civil engineer­ ment system would have to be care­ ing industry has averted conflict fully monitored. In addition, warned between the labour movement and Naidoo, the agreement "should not be unemployed communities. seen as a precedent in any other indus­ So said Cosatu's Alec Erwin at try". the launch of the framework agree­ "We would have massive prob­ lems with task-based payment in gen­ ment for labour intensive public • MOSES MAYEKISO works projects. The agreement is eral industry, but the situation is aimed at stimulating job creation and different with job creation schemes," Graham Power, who chairs a breathing new life into the recession- said Erwin. committee made up of the five battered construction industry. Sanco president Moses Mayekiso employer bodies party to the agree­ A key clement of the agreement said this was the first time that Cosatu ment, said at present about 10% of is that workers employed in such and Sanco had come together to bro­ construction costs went to labour. schemes will be paid for the tasks they ker such an agreement, and that coop­ "This could easily be pushed up to 35 do, not the time they take to do so. eration between the two organisations to 40%," said Power. Erwin said Cosatu's decision to was essential "to develop (he country Employment in the construction concede to the task-based system of and kickstart the economy". industry has fallen from 135 000 eight payment meant potential tensions The National Economic Forum years ago to 55 000 today, said Power. between communities desperate for (NEF) has been asked to assist in "The civil engineering industry is best employment and Cosatu, which want­ implementing the agreement by fund­ suited as the tcstbench for the wider ed to maintain the wage and working ing pilot projects. A five-person use of labour intensive production standards of its members, had been accreditation panel, including two methods ... because we can take a per­ averted. people forwarded by the manpower son With little or no formal schooling But Cosatu general secretary Jay department, will identify labour inten­ and, with a limited amount of school­ Naidoo said this concession had cost sive projects. These projects would ing, we can help him/her to become a the federation "considerable strain and then be exempted from certain regula­ productive wage-earner with long- trauma". He said the task-based pay- tions, such as wage determinations. term earning potential." he added. • Rural network launched NETWORK OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN THE CAPE By Portia Maurice A was launched at Saren in the Boland on July 5. Projects from about 30 towns and villages in regions like cooperatives, advice offices and preschools - battle to make the Karoo, Namaqualand, Southern Cape, West Coast and ends meet in an antagonistic funding environment and with Overberg joined hands to form (he Plattelandse Ontwikkelings few skills. Ploeg hopes to empower such projects through pro­ Netwerk vir Eeenheid van Gemeenskapsprojekte (Ploeg). The viding support and training, as well as lobbying to influence policy on rural development. first initiative of its kind, Ploeg aims to strengthen the voice of neglected communities in the rural areas, so often ignored "The network will be open to all sectors in the areas because of urban bias. where we work - workers, women, youth, the disabled, the aged and people from all language and religious groups (hat Apartheid local authorities, which control access to water share our developmental aims," says Ploeg in its mission state­ and land, are the biggest bottleneck to rural development, ment. Ploeg members told Reconstruct. "We will strive to work with existing organisations in our "They're not consistent in their approach to upgrading local areas as well as national bodies." communities and prioritising needs. They say they'll provide a Ploeg's chairperson, Dominee George Cloete, adds: rugby field, even while there's no running water in people's "There is an urgent need for a voice from people in the rural homes," says Ben van Stadcn of the Southern African Labour areas. We don't want people on the outside to decide things for and Development Research Unit (Saldru), which facilitated the us." • unity process. • Cloete can *>e contacted at: Posbus 6. Saron 6812, Many community projects - such as literacy projects. telephone (0236) 400772 and fax 400771.

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