Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in April 1959

KNOW THE FACTS

Information about South Africa's extra-parliamentary groups Introduction This booklet of basic information about extra-parliamentary political groups currently at work in South Africa comes to you at a time when many members of the Church are confused or misinformed about the nature, aims and structures of such organisations. This confusion is added to by the suppression and/or distortion of facts that occcurs daily in different parts of the country, and by the deliberate 'misinformation' campaigns that take place. Many other groupings exert a 'political' influence in our communities: women's groups, community organisations and trade unions for example. It is our hope that their stories will be the subject of further and similar booklets in the near future. It is our wish, in making this information available to you in this way, that it will help all of us as we engage in ongoing social analysis of our society and the forces at work within it, and in the search for truth which is so vital a part of our Christian tradition. May such a search help us to act with justice, and be part of the building up of a new society in South Africa.

Justice and Reconciliation Commission South African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC)

The information in this booklet was compiled for the SACBC by the Southern African Research Service. African National Congress Although the African National Congress was banned in 1960 it is the largest of the national liberation organisations. Based on an alliance of oppressed people of different classes, it seeks to build a broad non-racial movement of all democrats committed to the overthrow of apartheid. The ANC believes the working class must play a central role in the process of national liberation. The ANC followed a policy of non-violent resistance for 50 years. In 1961 it adopted armed struggle as its principle strategy combined with internal mass organisation and propaganda. It established a military wing called Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation). In Bloemfontein in 1912, African representatives from provincial associations, local vigilance groups, chiefs, and Africans prominent in the community gathered to form the South African Native National Congress. This national federation of African organisations was renamed the African National Congress (ANC) in 1923. The ANC aimed to forge a united African nation, and educate both whites and Africans about African rights and aspirations. A moderate, middle class dominated organisation, its methods were strictly constitutional: petitions, deputations and propaganda campaigns. It endorsed 'passive action' - probably influenced by Gandhi's passive resistance campaigns in the Indian community. John L Dube was the first president-general of the ANC. In the late 1920s, president-general JT Gumede proposed mass action and co-operation with the Communist Party. He was deposed by alarmed conservatives and during the 1930s the ANC became virtually inactive. In the 1940s, under Dr AP Xuma's leadership, the ANC moved towards mass-based liberation politics. In 1943 a new democratic constitution and a comprehensive political programme was adopted. This included the demand for a universal, non-racial franchise. Communist Party members began to enter ANC leadership positions and the ANC also co-operated with other black organisations. Also formed in 1943 was the Congress Youth League (CYL), which became increasingly dominant. In 1949 it assumed ANC leadership with its Programme of Action. Under the banner of 'African Nationalism' the Youth League advocated boycotts, strikes and civil disobedience. The 1950s was a period of intense activity. The 1952 'Defiance Campaign Against Unjust Laws' generated enthusiastic support and the ANC gained about 93 000 members. The ANC was the largest and leading organisation in the Congress Alliance, a co-ordinated group consisting of the ANC, South African Indian Congress, the South African Coloured Peoples Congress and the Congress of Democrats (an organisation of democratic whites), and, after 1955, the South African Congress of Trade Unions. The Congress Alliance organised the Congress of the People in June 1955 where delegates adopted the Freedom Charter as the basic demands of the South African people. The ANC formally adopted the Charter in 1956. Other significant campaigns during the 1950s protested against the introduction of Bantu Education in 1954, and the extension of passes to women. ; In 1958 a minority group calling itself 'Africanist', led by Robert Sobukwe and Potlako Leballo, left the ANC, arguing that the ANC had abandoned genuine African nationalism. They opposed co-operation with non-Africans, particularly whites, and rejected the Freedom Charter. They formed the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in April 1959. The Congress Alliance suffered increasingly harsh state repression in the 1950s. Leaders were banned and banished. In 1956, 156 leaders were charged with treason. After a five-year trial all accused were acquitted. Some ANC leaders, including Nelson Mandela, urged that the ANC prepare a foundation for semi-underground work. In April 1960, a few days after the Sharpeville massacre, the ANC and PAC were declared 'unlawful organisations'. The banning forced the ANC underground. Organisation continued in areas where effective clandestine activity was well established. In other areas the transition was less effective. The banning marked a turning point in ANC strategy and its turn to armed struggle. Umkhonto we Sizwe (nicknamed MK) was formed in 1961 with Mandela as its chief. Many ANC members left the country for military training. In July 1963 ANC and Umkhonto underground operations ended when police captured almost the entire leadership in a raid on the Rivonia headquarters outside Johannesburg. In the subsequent 'Rivonia Trial', Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and five others were sentenced to life imprisonment. For the rest of the 1960s the external mission was the ANC's primary focus and it forged relations with other like-minded African liberation movements: Mozambique's FRELIMO, Angola's MPLA, Guinea Bisseau's PAIGC, Namibia's SWAPO and Zimbabwe's ZAPU. The 1969 ANC consultative conference at Morogoro in Tanzania opened the external mission to all democrats, moving away from exclusive African participation. The theory of 'Colonialism of a Special Type' was adopted as policy. This theory defines South Africa as an 'internal colony' where white colonisers exploit the African colonised under a capitalist system in a single country. The theory defines two stages of liberation: a national democratic and then a socialist phase. During the 1970s a conservative group known as the Group of Eight criticised the ANC for replacing nationalism with 'class struggle'. The ANC also came under fire from an ultra-leftist grouping, the Marxist Workers Tendency, for being middle class dominated. The ANC replied that it represented an alliance of class forces in the current phase of struggle; also, as laid out in the Freedom Charter, its commitment was to nationalise monopoly industries, farms, mines and banks. This revealed clearly the kind of system the national liberation movement was working towards. The 1970s saw an upsurge of both ANC guerilla and public activity. The emergence of mass struggles inside South Africa - particularly the development of a strong organised black trade union movement, and the student uprisings in June 1976 - gave impetus to ANC struggles. The early 1980s were characterised by an increasing number of bomb blasts and guerilla attacks (examples are the blast at SAS01, car bombs in Durban and Pretoria), as students who- left after 1976 returned as trained guerilla fighters. Internal opposition organisations re- appropriated symbols like the Freedom Charter, and ANC flags and colours became a common sight at funerals and mass rallies. The ANC's second consultative conference, held in Zambia in June 1985, decided on policy inside and outside South Africa. Described as a 'council of war', its primary focus was internal organisation and strategy. It embraced a strategy of 'peoples war' - a protracted struggle involving all forms of political activity and culminating in the seizure of power. The call to make the country ungovernable is an early phase of this tactic. The ANC also committed itself to strengthening political leadership inside the country. The Nkomati Accord between South Africa and Mozambique meant ANC military bases in Mozambique had to be abandoned and the ANC is trying to reduce its reliance on neighbouring states. Spurred by the current political and economic crises, local groups, particularly business and church representatives, recognise the need to open negotiations with the ANC. The ANC, though willing to 'talk to anyone', is not willing to negotiate with anyone until certain preconditions are met. These are: the total dismantling of apartheid structures; release of all political prisoners; unconditional return of exiles; political freedom inside the country conducive to talks; and the agreement of the 'entire democratic leadership of South Africa' to such talks. The ANC rules out talks with homeland leaders like Gatsha Buthelezi. It also regards the idea of a national convention as a non-starter - the issue at stake being the transfer of power to the people of South Africa. Azapo The seeds of Black Consciousness (BC) ideology go back to the 'Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) breakaway from the ANC in 1958. But the movement really took off after the formation of the South African Students Organisation (SASO) in 1969. The BC movement argued that blacks had to liberate themselves psychologically and shed the slave mentality induced by white liberalism and institutionalised racism. In the aftermath of the 1976 Soweto uprising, 18 black consciousness organisations were banned and most of its leadership detained. The Azanian Peoples Organisation (AZAPO) was formed in 1978. Its office bearers were immediately detained. A year later, in September 1979, a second executive was elected and organisation got off the ground. AZAPO was well supported at the University of the North (Turfloop) and in Soweto. Despite its decision to take BC to the masses the movement has remained restricted to intellectuals. It currently claims 96 branches in Northern and Southern Transvaal, Natal, OFS and the Eastern and Western Cape, and is strongest in the Transvaal and Eastern Cape. In 1978 AZAPO outlined five aims: to establish an education system relevant to the needs of the people; to interpret religion as a liberatory philosophy relevant to black struggle; to expose the exploitative and oppressive apartheid system; to work for black unity and for the just distribution of wealth and power to all. Student organisations, AZASO and COSAS, split from AZAPO in 1982. They said black consciousness had served its purpose and committed themselves to a class rather than race-based analysis and the Freedom Charter. Recognising that the organisation was isolated from mass struggles AZAPO attempted to transcend its middle class intellectual base and establish mass membership. The organisation shifted ideologically to the left, grafting analyses of class and exploitation onto themes of nation and race. AZAPO still wavers: between older adherents who insist on excluding white activists from organisations active in black communities and the need for Africans to reclaim the land; and a socialist tendency. The latter opposes any alliance with middle-class groups and recognises that some blacks may collaborate with white rulers if it is in their class interests. AZAPO's socialists argue that victory over capitalism means the destruction of apartheid, and that trade unions are instruments to bring about the redistribution of power. t AZAPO criticises the UDF: for lacking a socialist commitment; for l1,Mc?rporatin9 'rulin9 class' organisations such as the Black Sash and NUSAS; and for entrenching ethnicism through racially exclusive organisations like the Indian Congresses. The Azanian Students Movement (AZASM) is a student group affiliated to AZAPO. A number of trade unions affiliated to the Azanian Confederation of Trade Unions such as the Blacks* Allied Mining and Construction Workers Union (BAMCWU) are also AZAPO affiliates. Cape Action League The Cape Action League (CAL) grew out of the Disorderly Bills Action Committee set up in Cape Town in 1982. After Charterist groups and independent unions withdrew from the DBAC, it was revived as CAL, which now has 40 affiliates composed of civic, student, youth organisations and workers' discussion clubs. CAL represents a number of political tendencies, including the Unity Movement tradition, and the socialist wing which emerged from black consciousness. CAL supports the basic principles of the Azanian Manifesto and rejects the Freedom Charter and the two stage theory of revolution. It argues that mobilising only against racial discrimination may result in more liberal but strengthened capitalism. While the organisation is reluctant to work with organisations such as Black Sash and NUSAS because of their liberal and capitalist origins, it is willing to work with individuals from such a background. CAL's common principle is its full commitment to the leadership of the working class and the idea that only a socialist solution will create radical change in South Africa. CAL's affiliates see themselves as activists involved in mass struggle, not intellectuals, since ideas must be tested in daily struggles. Although it has no union affiliates, it claims a good relationship with them. CAL consists of a co-ordinating committee which convenes regular and special general meetings. Decisions are taken through consensus rather than voting. Indian Congresses South African Indian Congress In 1894 Mahatma Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress which practised his credo of passive resistance. In 1920 the Indian Congresses in Natal merged to form the South African Indian Congress (SAIC). The organisation was dominated by moderate, . middle class, elements which sought better conditions for themselves within the existing system. The 'Pegging Act' of 1943 prevented Indians in Durban from buying land, and the 'Ghetto Act' of 1946 demarcated areas where Indians were absolutely prevented from owning land. These Acts were viewed as part of the growing oppression of all Indians. In 1944 young radical leaders like Dr Yusuf Dadoo and Dr GM Naicker denounced chairman AI Kajee for negotiating with Prime Minister Smuts to suspend the 'Pegging Act'. They formed an Anti-Segregation Council to press for adult suffrage on a common roll, and eventually became the dominant faction in the SAIC. SAIC organised several passive resistance campaigns and in 1946, a strike by Indian workers and traders. It also sought an alliance with other nationally oppressed groups, at first allying itself to the Non- European Unity Movement but later turning to the ANC. A pact signed by Xuma (ANC), Dadoo and Naicker in 1947 formalised joint action by the two organisations. The SAIC took a leading role in the Defiance Campaign in 1952, and joined other opposition groups, to form the Congress Alliance in 1953. Like other organisations, many of its leaders were jailed or exiled, and its activities stifled in the early 1960s, but SAIC was never banned. The SAIC was effectively dormant until the early 1970s when activities were revived under the banner of the Natal Indian Congress. Natal Indian Congress and Transvaal Indian Congress In 1971 the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) was revived. During the 1970s and early 1980s its leadership was constantly harassed by the state. The NIC initiated a campaign opposing the government's creation of the puppet South African Indian Council (SAIC). Anti-SAIC committees were set up throughout Natal and the Transvaal. The aim of the Anti-SAIC movement was to 'unite all people interested in a democratic South Africa' and it drew on the Freedom Charter to illustrate a future South Africa. ______affiliated ,t0 ttle United Democratic Front at its inception in 1983. While participating in Durban's local community struggles around issues such as rent and transport, NIC actively campaigned against the August 1984 Indian and coloured tri-cameral elections and called on all candidates to withdraw. It claimed that candidates bribed, threatened and promised employment to potential voters. During the campaign many activists were severely harassed by security police. On the eve of the elections 35 leading members of the NIC, TIC and the UDF were detained. In September 1984 five executive NIC members and another UDF executive member, Archie Gumede, took refuge in the Durban British consulate to avoid detention. Three were detained when they left the consulate after a protracted sit-in. Five of the consulate six, Mewa Ramgobin, MJ Naidoo, George Sewpersadh, Paul David and Gumede were among UDF leaders charged with high treason. Dr Essop Jassat and Cassim Saloojee of TIC are also among the accused. The Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) was revived in May 1983 and also affiliated to the United Democratic Front. The TIC stands for a 'non- racial democratic South Africa free of all forms of exploitation'.It was centrally involved in organising against the August 1984 elections. TIC also actively organised around community issues in Indian group areas in the Transvaal. As with the NIC, many TIC leaders have experienced severe harassment, and some have been detained since the state of emergency was declared. Inkatha Inkatha Ya Ka Zulu (Unity of the Zulu's) was founded in the 1920s by King Solomon Dinizulu to generate mass support for the Zulu monarchy. The organisation lapsed in the 1930s and was revived by KwaZulu Chief Minister, Mangosutho Buthelezi in 1975 and renamed Inkatha Yenkululeko yeSizwe (Unity and Freedom of the Nation). Unlike many other homeland leaders in the early 1970s Buthelezi opposed homeland independence. He argued that without an existing power base, blacks had to use the system to fight the system, while opposing apartheid and demanding universal franchise in a unitary state Buthelezi's decision to establish Inka,tha as a political 'base was partly the result of criticism from the BFack Consciousness Movement. From the outset Inkatha was closely linked to KwaZulu government structures. Under the Inkatha constitution the president of the organisation must also be chief minister of KwaZulu. In the 1978 KwaZulu Legislative Assembly elections Inkatha won all the seats. Inkatha studies were incorporated into the school curriculum, Inkatha propaganda circulated through official government channels and local branches functioned as economic development agencies. With the support of local chiefs and school teachers, the organisation grew rapidly, claiming 30 000 members in 1976, 300 000 in 1980 and 984 000 by June 1984. Its membership is mainly Zulu, based in KwaZulu, with some pockets of support in the Transvaal, particularly Soweto, among migrant workers. It is difficult to establish how much of the support is genuine since there have been allegations of dismissal from the civil service or black-listing by labour bureaus if people refuse Inkatha membership. Inkatha has set up youth and women's sections. In May 1982 the National Sugar Refining and Allied Workers Employees Union with 25 000 members affiliated to Inkatha. Inkatha's objectives are: to liberate Africans from white cultural domination; to abolish racial discrimination, neo-colonialism and imperialism; to advance the rights of the Zulus to self-determination and national independence; to help bring about a national convention to draw up a programme for power sharing and progression to majority rule. Inkatha describes itself as a liberation organisation and from its inception adopted ANC songs, slogans and colours. Until 1980 it had a cordial relationship with the ANC's exiled leadership. This soon soured as Inkatha consolidated its links with the homeland system, advocated foreign investment, condemned guerilla violence, and played an important role in suppressing school unrest in Durban and Ngoye in 1980. Inkatha maintains that white political supremacy will not be destroyed by armed confrontation. Instead, Inkatha's leadership aims to create a vast, disciplined organisation. This will be used as a bargaining tool to extract concessions for the redistribution of power and resources from the white rulers . Buthelezi accepted recommendations of the 1982 Buthelezi Commission for a 'consociational democracy' or a federal system of homelands and white South Africa. He encourages a free enterprise economic policy and the initiation of economic development through partnerships between white companies, the KwaZulu Development Corporation and selected Zulu businessmen. Inkatha has created a public image of itself as a force for realism and pragmatic compromise. After relations with the ANC soured, it sought formal contact with white political organisations. In 1983 the Inkatha Youth Brigade established a joint committee with the Afrikaanse Studentebond (ASB) and now sends representatives to ASB functions. It has also established a strong working relationship with the Progressive Federal Party, as shown in their joint anti-constitutional campaign of 1983 and joint initiation of the National Convention Alliance in late 1985. Youth Brigade established a joint committee with the Afrikaanse Studentebond (ASB) and now sends representatives to ASB functions. It has also established a strong working relationship with the Progressive Federal Party, as shown in their joint anti-constitutional campaign of 1983 and joint initiation of the National Convention Alliance in late 1985. Inkatha members have regularly participated in various community council elections. But in November 1983 it decided black participation in township local government justified the exclusion of blacks from national government. However the organisation faces heavy criticism, particularly for its involvement in the bantustan system and for what is seen as militant Zulu chauvinism. Despite its adherence to non-violence and Buthelezi's frequent requests for Inkatha, the ANC, PAC, UDF, NF and AZAP0 to work together fighting apartheid, Inkatha supporters have often violently and sometimes fatally assaulted political opponents, especially those associated with UDF. National Forum At the December 1982 AZAPO conference a call was made for a united front against the constitutional proposals and the Koornhof Bills. A National Forum Committee was established to co-ordinate a broad grouping of organisations with differing ideological viewpoints. National Forum (NF) supporters say the idea for a united front was hijacked by Charterist organisations who then formed the United Democratic Front. Representatives of many NF organisations met in Hammanskraal in June 1983 to study and approve the 'Manifesto of the Azanian People' which was adopted in July 1984. The Manifesto defined the struggle as one against racial capitalism1 and emphasised the need for 'principled unity'. Key principles were opposition to racism, sexism, imperialism, collaboration with the oppressors, and alliances with ruling-class parties. The NF also rejected calls for a national convention as a strategy which entrenched power in the hands of capitalists and their puppets. The Azanian Manifesto affirmed the primacy of working class organisation and called for the establishment of a democratic, anti­ racist worker republic of Azania, where the interests of workers would be paramount through worker control of the means of production distribution and exchange. The NF was not defined as a structured national movement due to differences in ideology, organisational strategy and class position of its constituent members. It has served mainly as a forum for debate However it claimed some credit for the success of the boycott of the coloured and Indian tricameral parliament elections. National Forum's 1985 slogan - 'Away with collaborators' - focused on institutions forming part of state strategy to win over the black middle class. NF aimed to make such institutions unworkable. NF representatives also sat on a consumer boycott committee in Johannesburg along with UDF and FOSATU delegates. Forum affiliates fall into two broad categories: Black Consciousness groupings, the most significant being the Azanian Peoples Organisation (AZAPO); and a more radical Western Cape tendency, of which the Cape Action League is the most significant. Pan Africanist Congress The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) was formed by a group calling itself 'Africanist', after a split in the ANC in 1958. The Africanists understood South Africa to be a colonial country where the basic contradiction was racial and could only be resolved through racial conflict. Also, Africans naturally embraced ethnic nationalism which only had to be encouraged for 'the masses to rise' in revolution. So for the PAC, organisational questions were unimportant. They believed the ANC's 1949 Programme of Action upheld ethnic nationalism and that white influence had undermined this policy. Congress Alliance 'multiracialism' only perpetuated Africans' psychological subservience and dependency on whites. In 1958 Africanist leaders Josias Madzunya and Potlako Leballo were expelled from the ANC for campaigning against the ANC's work stayaway. When the Africanists were prevented from participating in provincial ANC elections, they withdrew to form their own organisation which would be a 'custodian of ANC policy as formulated in 1912'. In April 1959 the Pan Africanist Congress was formed with Robert Sobukwe as president. His presidential address outlined the basic principles of the new movement: the PAC stood for government by Africans for Africans and committed itself to forging the bonds of African nationhood on a Pan African basis; because whites benefitted materially from the status quo they could not participate in the struggle. The PAC avoided ANC strongholds: it never had a following in Natal; Transvaal support remained in original Africanist strongholds in Orlando and Alexandra; and a strong following developed in Vereeniging and the Western Cape. Both the PAC and the ANC turned to underground insurgency and armed struggle after they were banned in 1960. Poqo, the PAC military wing was set up in the Western Cape. Poqo activities during 1962-3 included: the assassination of suspected informers and policemen in the Western Cape and of Transkeian chiefs and their supporters; preparations for a general uprising in 1963 - this failed when the police arrested most of the conspirators. In 1962 the PAC established exile headquarters in Maseru under the acting-president, Leballo. Although by mid-1963 internal organisation was effectively crushed, Poqo groups remained active inside the country until the late 1960s. The PAC virtually collapsed in exile as a result of bureaucratic chaos and authoritarian leadership. From the start activities centred around antagonism to the ANC and 'African nationalism1 remained a vague concept. Leadership intrigues and rank-and-file guerilla rebellions occurred frequently. The PAC first set up links with Angola's FNLA, but later established relations with rebel guerillas in UNITA. It also dealt with C0REM0, an organisation in opposition to FRELIMO, in Mozambique. It recieved limited funds from China, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the CIA. At a leadership conference in September 1967 in Tanzania the PAC decided to set up headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia to re-establish links I with the internal struggle. After a failed attempt to infiltrate South Africa through Mozambique, Leballo's opponents tried to expel him from the PAC. The Zambian I government closed the PAC office and banned PAC activity and the OAU resolved to deny the PAC further funds until it put its internal affairs in order. The OAU restored recognition to the PAC in 1969. The same year the PAC re-named its military wing the Azanian Peoples' Liberation Army (APLA). Robert Sobukwe's death in 1978 sparked conflict over leadership succession. Leballo eventually assumed presidency while APLA leader, Templeton Ntantala, was expelled. Ntantala then founded the Azanian Peoples Revolutionary Party (APRP). In May 1979 Leballo resigned under pressure and was replaced by a three-man presidential council consisting of David Sibeko, Vusumzi Make and Elias Ntloedibe. Sibeko, considered a Leballo supporter, was assassinated by APLA. In January 1981 John Pokela, just released from Robben Island, was elected chairman. He brought the APRP back into the PAC fold and attempted to revive the PAC. Pokela died in June 1985 and was succeeded by Johnson Mhlambo. PAC activity within South Africa seems limited. An attempt to re­ establish the organisation internally was smashed by security police, and resulted in numerous detentions and a Terrorism Act trial in 1979. Senior PAC member.Zeph Mothopeng was jailed for 15 years in the trial, as were 16 other PAC members. Since then, occasional political trials have seen alleged PAC members and supporters charged. A few of those accused were alleged to have undergone military training, but both political and military activity remains at a very low level. South African Communist Party The Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) was formed in July 1921. Its first programme defined its immediate goal as the overthrow of the capitalist system with the white working class in the vanguard. As nationalist movements were intrinsically 'bourgeois' or middle class, racism and national oppression could only be solved under the dictatorship of the proletariat/working class. By 1928 Communist Party membership was mainly African. Following shifts in the Communist International the party adopted a new position outlined in the Native Republic Programme. This recognised that a solution to the national question would lay the foundation for the socialist revolution. Hence the most important revolutionary forces were the black peasantry, allied to and led by the black working class vanguard. The CPSA decided to work with nationalist revolutionary movements, unions and peasant organisations. But it virtually collapsed during the 1930s. When it was revived the following decade, it concentrated on uniting different groups in a front against fascism. The party co-operated with the ANC on specific issues. CPSA representatives were elected to municipal councils and to parliament as Native Representatives and many members were in the forefront of the emerging African union movement. In the 1950s the party consolidated its alliance with the ANC as a multi-class organisation of the oppressed people. In 1962 it outlined a new programme and adopted an internal colonialist analysis. This argued that imperialism and colonialism existed together in South Africa in the interests of all whites and monopoly capital. The Communist Party believed its task was to engage in a two-stage struggle: first national democratic liberation to end national oppression suffered by all blacks, then a socialist revolution. The national democratic demands were defined in the Freedom Charter, which though not socialist, answered the immediate needs of blacks and could lay the foundation for a socialist future. To ensure that socialism emerged, the black working class, under the guidance of the party, had to be the leading revolutionary force. The CPSA was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 and the Central Executive Committee decided to disband it in June of that year. In 1953 it was renamed the South African Communist Party (SACP) and, though it worked underground, many of its members still remained active in the ANC and the unions. After the banning of the ANC in April 1960, the two organisations decided to form a military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, and embark on a new strategy of armed struggle. Leading members of the ANC and the SACP were arrested in mid-1963 and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Internal underground organisation was smashed. Political leadership shifted outside South Africa and gradually organisational structures were redeveloped. It is difficult to determine the current strength and activities of the SACP, but it still sees itself in a vanguard role, strengthening the ANC as a major mass organisational force and ensuring the working class plays a leading role in the national struggle. Joe Slovo, a senior SACP member, sits'on the ANC's central committee. Student Groups Congress of South African Students The Congress of South African Students (COSAS), which organised African school students, was banned in August 1985. Its main aim was to fight for 'compulsory, free and democratic education in a democratic society'. In its short six-year history, it mobilised and politicised hundreds of thousands of African students against the unjust education system and the apartheid state. As a result, COSAS was subject to intense state harassment almost from its inception. In 1979 its entire national executive was detained. In November 1980, Ephraim Mogale, the first COSAS president, was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for furthering the aims of the ANC. During 1985 many COSAS leaders were detained and many others forced into hiding when the state of emergency was declared. Like its predecessor, the South African Students Movement (SASM), COSAS emerged from a Black Consciousness tradition. However, after the 1980 student struggles against Bantu Education, COSAS abandoned Black Consciousness and declared its support for the Freedom Charter as a programme for a democratic society. Its new approach, reflected in the 1982 theme 'Student Worker Action', was to support workers' struggles. Together with the Azanian Students Organisation (AZASO), the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) and the National Education Union of South Africa (NEUSA), COSAS drew up an 'Education Charter'. In 1983 African students once again boycotted inferior education. School boycotts which eventually spread to hundreds of large and small towns throughout South Africa. Student demands included: the right to democratically elected SRCs; an end to corporal punishment, sexual harassment of schoolgirls and the use of unqualified teachers. COSAS also demanded the scrapping of the age limit which it believed aimed to exclude activists from schools. The age limit was eventually suspended but students said their central demands had not been met. School boycotts began soon after schools re-opened in 1984, and spread from the Eastern Cape all over the country. The authorities blamed 'intimidators', and numerous schools were closed and student leaders detained. Clashes with the police left many students injured or dead. In September 1984 the Azanian Students Movement (AZASM), a student organisation allied to the black consciousness-oriented AZAPO, urged students to return to school to consolidate organisation. In October, the government proposed to institute SRCs in secondary schools and lift the age limit. Both AZASM and COSAS rejected the government's SRC proposals arguing that students were not involved in drawing them up. COSAS initiated a worker stayaway in the Transvaal in November 1984. The Transvaal Regional Stayaway Committee included representatives from COSAS, trade unions, community and political organisations. The demands were extended from those concerned with schooling to include demands for the removal of the police and army from townships; scrapping rent, bus fare and service charge increases; release of detainees; withdrawal of GST; and resignation of community councillors. In December 1984 COSAS announced that the schools boycott would continue into 1985 and until their demands were met. Hundreds of thousands of school students boycotted classes during 1985. In the context of the widespread unrest and police and army violence in the townships, students adopted the slogan 'Freedom now - education later'. Possibly as a result of COSAS' prominence in township resistance during 1985, COSAS was as yet the only organisation to be banned after the declaration of the state of emergency in July 1985. National organisation appears to have collapsed, but local groups continue, even if in an erratic and depleted fashion. Both COSAS and A2AS0 were banned in the Transkei in October 1984. Azanian Students Organisation In 1979, students from Fort Hare, Ngoye, Natal, Turfloop and Durban-Westville universities, and Mapumulo Seminary and Natal University Medical School met to form the Azanian Students Organisation (AZASO). Initially an offshoot of the Black Consciousness-oriented AZAPO,’ AZASO moved away from this ideology in 1981 saying 1BC has served its purpose, we must move on'. AZASO participated in the Anti-Republic Day campaign in 1981 together with numerous other student and political organisations. AZASO sees capitalism, not racialism, as the main cause of black oppression, but believes that an exclusively black organisation is necessary for tactical reasons. The preamble to the AZASO constitution states that as members of the oppressed community, AZASO is committed to a non-racial and democratic society. In adopting a non-racial strategy, it recognises the role of white democrats in the struggle for change. Together with COSAS, AZASO called for a two-week protest during the August 1984 coloured and Indian elections. Most pupils and students boycotted for the two days of the elections. AZASO now has 52 affiliated universities, technikons and colleges. At their 1985 congress, AZASO identified its priorities for the year as the campaign for democratic SRCs; building organisational structures; the Education Charter; improved women's participation in AZASO; a campaign against racist lecturers and a campaign against the hanging of Benjamin Moloise who was found guilty of assassinating a security policeman. The state of emergency affected AZASO's programmes, particularly the campaign to draw up an Education Charter. National Union of South African Students At its formation in 1924 NUSAS' stated aims were to bring students together, to advance their common interests and to provide a forum to examine and resolve their differences. The organisation was exclusively white and only in 1933 was the question of black membership raised. The issue provoked the disaffiliation of the Afrikaans universities except for Stellenbosch which finally withdrew in 1936. NUSAS was characterised mainly by liberal rhetoric until after World War II, when it admitted Fort Hare. NUSAS opposed the 1954 introduction of Bantu Education and the 1959 Extension of University Education Act which confined black students to 'tribal collages'. Throughout the 1950s, when black affiliates resigned because of NUSAS's 'narrow' concerns, the organisation was divided between left and moderate elements. The liberal/conservatives, who wanted to restrict activities to 'student concerns as such', won out. This was reflected in the 1960s NUSAS policy 'to draw recruits into the struggle against white supremacy from groups that the left was unable to reach'. Black centres like Fort Hare which re-affiliated in 1957, pressured NUSAS to enter wider politics. From 1964, NUSAS was subject to intermittent state harassment, bannings and restrictions on its leadership, as it adopted more radical positions. Agents from the security police and Bureau of State Security infiltrated the organisation, and a notorious spy, Craig Williamson, became an executive member of NUSAS in 1974. Critical of NUSAS' 'white liberalism', most black centres withdrew from NUSAS in 1969 to form the South African Students Organisation (SASO). This forced white students to examine their role in political struggle. In 1971/2 students set up Wages Commissions to research and assist black worker organisations. The wave of strikes in Durban in 1973 opened the way for white student involvement in organising workers. State harassment intensified in the early 1970s and many student leaders were banned. NUSAS was declared 'an affected organisation' and its overseas funding cut off. In 1976 several leaders were charged with furthering the aims of the ANC, and acquitted. After a period of collapse, NUSAS was resuscitated in the late 1970s. It focused on education and the role of whites and white students in the struggle for change. NUSAS strongly supported various forms of democratic struggle, and by the early 1980s was co-operating with AZASO and COSAS on joint campaigns to democratise education. Themes for the 1980s have included: 'Students for a Democratic Future', 'Educating for Change' and 'Student Action for Peace'. NUSAS has also actively supported campaigns organised by the United Democratic Front, to which it is affiliated. United Democratic Front The United Democratic Front's (UDF) formation has its origins in the upturn of political activity in the mid-1970s. In the wake of the 1977 state clampdown on national black consciousness organisations, activists turned to local subsistence issues. Rent, housing, transport and civic organisations sprang up. Some unions such as the South African Allied Workers Union began to link industrial struggles with community issues and draw on community support. In Durban and Johannesburg the Anti-SAIC Committees organised successful boycotts of the South African Indian Council elections. At a Transvaal Anti-SAIC conference in January 1983 delegates proposed the creation of a national movement made up of the local community and union organisations- to protest the constitutional proposals for Indians and coloureds and the 'Koornhof Bills'. After a series of regional launches, the UDF was launched nationally on 20 August 1983 at Mitchells Plain in Cape Town. Community, youth, student, political, religious, sporting, women's and traders' organisations affiliated to the Front. By the end of 1984 the UDF had set up regional committees in the Southern Transvaal, Western Cape, Southern Cape (Oudtshoorn, George, Beaufort West), the Karoo, the Northern Cape (Vryberg, Kimberley, Bloemhof) and had affiliates in the 0FS and Northern Transvaal, Natal and the Eastern Cape . Nationally there were more than 600 affiliated organisations. Each region had a General Council and Executive Committee made up of delegates from affiliates. These delegates debated and defined policy. The National Executive co-ordinated regional decisions and established a national position on pertinent issues. In the homelands UDF affiliates were severely harassed. The UDF was banned in the Transkei and two affiliates, COSAS and AZASO, were banned in the Transkei and KwaZulu. The UDF stands for the realisation of a non-racial democratic and unitary South Africa and to this end is committed to opposing the government's reform package where this conflicts with democratic principles, and to act as a co-ordinating body for its affiliates. The Front argues that the political struggle is national democratic in character, though the working class should assume a leading role. Most affiliates support the Freedom Charter and some see it as an indication of advanced political consciousness. The UDF is committed to non-violent change, and despite state attempts to link the UDF with the ANC, the UDF has denied such links. For the UDF the end of apartheid is the precondition for peace. Three months after the Front was launched, it organised a boycott of elections for black local authorities which it saw as puppet bodies. The average percentage poll was 15%; and in some Western Cape constituencies it was only 0,04%. The boycott of the coloured management committee elections was similarly successful. The boycott of the coloured and Indian elections for the tricameral parliament resulted in a national percentage poll of 17%. The UDF's 1984 Million Signature Campaign included demands such as the release of political prisoners, the dismantling of apartheid, and a free unitary education system. This campaign was not entirely successful. Less than half-a-million signatures were collected. The UDF said many signature forms were seized by police and many campaigners harassed. But the campaign was seen as an important educational tool for activists. In a bid to popularise and publicise itself in 1984 and 1985 the UDF organised political rallies and pop concerts. The theme for 1985, 'From mobilisation to organisation: from protest to challenge' reflected the radicalised political climate and the mass nation-wide unrest. In July the government declared a state of emergency. Nationally and regionally the emergency affected 50 of the 80 UDF executive members and a similar level of severe repression occurred at lower levels of the organisation. Two UDF executive members, Matthew Goniwe and Victoria Mxenge, were assassinated. State strategy was geared to crushing the UDF by removing leaders and intimidating supporters, rather than banning it and incurring international disapproval. This strategy has severely affected organisation. Though new local leaders emerged in riot-torn areas to continue the student boycotts and enforce the consumer boycotts and stayaways, much of the unrest is spontaneous and uncontrolled. When the UDF was formed several organisations, particularly trade unions, criticised it for being top-heavy and undemocratic. Objections centred around the UDF's stress on the unity of all oppressed classes, and that worker organisations did not have a more significant role in the Front. Some unions were reluctant to compromise their independence and membership unity, but decided that they would co-operate with the UDF in its campaigns. Relations between the UDF and these unions improved in 1984 and 1985. In the campaign against the tricameral parliament and in the November 1984 stayaway the Federation of South African Trade Unions, General Workers Union, Food and Canning Workers Union, Cape Town Municipal Workers Union and UDF affiliates worked together. In the 1985 consumer boycott they again co-operated in spite of differences. Relations between UDF and Inkatha arje ridden with friction. The UDF sees Inkatha as a divisive organisation fostering an ethnic and tribal identity. UDF supporters have frequently been attacked by Inkatha impis and the two organisations bitterly deride each other in the media and on public platforms. In 1985 16 UDF leaders were accused of high treason. After a two month trial 12 were acquitted. The state attempted to prove that the way the UDF and three of its affiliates?operated was part of a revolutionary conspiracy. Under cross-examination the State's key witness proved to be misinformed. The State's case collapsed thus vindicating the legality of the UDF and its activities. Unity Movement Non-European Unify Movement The Non-European Unity Movement was formed during mass worker struggles in December 1943 when several African leaders, unhappy with the 'more moderate' position of the ANC, decided to build an alliance of all nationally-oppressed groups. Backed by Trotskyist ideologues, they hoped to provide an alternative mass movement to the ANC dominated one which they considered overly influenced by the (Stalinist) Communist Party of SA. NEUM was an alliance of the All-African Convention (AAC) and the Anti- Coloured Affairs Department (Anti-CAD). The AAC was established in 1935 to oppose a new Land Act and the disenfranchisement of Cape Africans. It originally incorporated representatives from provincial ANC branches, and the Communist Party. Anti-CAD, a federal organisation of coloured groups, believed white workers must eventually recognise their real allies - the black working class. The South African Indian Congress initially aligned itself with the NEUM but in 1944 it withdrew and allied itself with the ANC in order to 'strengthen existing liberatory organisations'. A Draft Declaration of Unity outlined the NEUM's aim as the 'liquidation of the National Oppression of the Non-Europeans in South Africa', and maintained that 'as long as a section of the people are enslaved there can be no democracy, and without democracy there can be no justice'. The document also contained a 'Ten Point Programme' which called for equal franchise rights; free and equal education; freedom of speech, the press, meetings and association; civil liberties and personal security; a redivision of the land; and revision of criminal, tax and labour legislation. Although based on a federal structure, the NEUM insisted on 'principled unity' on the basis of the Ten Point Programme. Its strategy centred on the notion of 'non-collaboration', or the boycott of all racist institutions. The Unity Movement's base remained in the Western Cape. In the 1940s and 1950s most support was from the Cape African Teachers Association and the mainly coloured Teachers' League of South Africa. The NEUM constantly attacked the ANC and dismissed its mass- campaigns as 'spectacular stunts'. After exhaustive meetings, unity discussions between the ANC and the AAC broke down in 1949 when the ANC rejected federalism as an organising principle, although it agreed with the Ten Point programme and non-collaboration. At stake was which organisation was to be the voice of the African nation. The NEUM did not organise or participate in mass political organisation and confined itself largely to 'ideological work'. As the ANC massed strength in the early 1950s the NEUM became an increasingly peripheral political organisation. African People’s Democratic Union of South Africa In the mid-1950s the NEUM split. One faction supported the African-led AAC and the other the coloured-led Anti-CAD. AAC leader IB Tabata formed an individual membership organisation, the African Peoples Democratic Union of South Africa (APDUSA) which affiliated to NEUM in January 1961. APDUSA criticised the 'two-stage' theory of revolution, and advocated 'ongoing, uninterrupted revolution', based on Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. APDUSA claimed to be the only South African political movement to stress the 'crucial role' of the peasantry in the struggle for democratic rights. The NEUM failed to capitalise on the political vacuum following the banning of the ANC and PAC in April 1960. Many of APDUSA's central leadership who left South Africa petitioned the Organisation of African Unity for recognition as a liberation movement, without success. Some leaders were imprisoned on Robben Island. APDUSA was revived in 1983 and became more active in 1984 when it called for a boycott of the Indian and coloured elections. An APDUSA leader said the organisation still rejected the Freedom Charter because of clauses endorsing national and minorities rights and protection. APDUSA is not affiliated to the UDF or the National Forum. New Unity Movement The Unity Movement remained a small Western Cape-based pressure group and maintained its 'boycott' position throughout the upsurge of popular struggles in the 1970s. The New Unity Movement (NUM) was formed in April 1985 in Cape Town by 40 organisations. After extensive debate over whether to adopt a federal or unitary structure NUM decided to compromise and accept a federal structure (where affiliate organisations have policy autonomy) with unitary features. Thus both an organisation and a branch of an organisation can affiliate. APDUSA is the largest NUM affiliate APDUSA. Others are the Western Cape Federation of Civics, the Teachers League of South Africa and the South Peninsula Education Fellowship. The main branches are in Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown with smaller branches scattered round the country. NUM revamped the NEUM Ten Point Programme. Its aim is 'to build a single, undivided, non-racial and independent South Africa in which the interests of the workers and rural poor shall be paramount'. The rural poor, which includes both peasants and farm workers, fall under working class leadership. NUM sees the conflict between those with political rights and those without as an extension of the conflict between capital and labour. Trade unions are seen as an integral part of the national liberation movement. NUM is anti-imperialist, stressing its opposition to the exploitation of the third-world by industrialised countries. Through APDUSA, the New Unity Movement was involved in the Cape student uprisings and in Natal in the BTR Sarmcol dispute. Several members of NUM have been harassed or detained during the state of emergency. This pamphlet is published by: Commission for Justice and Reconciliation Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference PO Box 941, Pretoria, 0001

Collection Number: AG1977

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