Vusi Pikoli Constitutional Court Oral History Project 26th January 2012 Int This is an interview with Advocate Vusi Pikoli, and it’s the 26th of January, 2012. Advocate Pikoli, thank you so much for agreeing to participate in the Constitutional Court Oral History Project, we really appreciate it. VP Thank you, Roxsana, and I think this is quite exciting and very challenging in terms of recording our own history. Int I wondered if you could start at the very beginning, if you could talk about early childhood memories, what it was like for you to grow up in South Africa under apartheid, what were some of the challenges, and where you think your sense of social justice really came into play? VP Well, suppose like any other black boy growing up in a black township…actually I was born in Port Elizabeth, 1958. Well, growing up as a young black boy in South Africa, I started being conscious of the bigger problems we had then, when I was still doing standard four, when our standard four teacher, Mr Thube, told us about the friend that he had who was white and he’d invited them to go to the house, but they couldn’t sleep overnight. Do you understand why? He explained to us, told us about the Group Areas Act. That you were not supposed to be there after certain hours and all that, and then I started internalising all those things. But the biggest influence has been the arrest, prosecution and conviction of my uncle. He was the last born in my mother’s family. Uncle Zolisa Sipoyo, who was arrested in 1963 and sentenced to twenty years on Robben Island. I was still a child then. I would hear my mother and her sisters and brothers talking about Zolisa (Sipoyo), Zolisa (Sipoyo). I said, how come I’ve never seen this Zolisa (Sipoyo). And then I was told that actually he’s on Robben Island. What’s that? Then they explained to me. He was a member of APLA, the military wing of the PAC then. It was the time when they wanted to go and kill Kaiser Mtanzima, who has just accepted the self-governing territorial status for the Transkei Bantustan. And he was therefore regarded as a sell-out, as a traitor, he’d sold us out. And therefore had to be eliminated physically. So my uncle got involved, he was just fresh from school and my grandparents had bought equipment for him to use in his trade. And he used those equipment to actually assist APLA, and to design weapons that were going to be used. At the time my grandparents were in Cape Town, so that’s where he was. So they took a train from Cape Town, going to the Transkei. And apparently word had got out, somebody had betrayed them. When they got to Queenstown train station the police were already there on the platform. So there was a little bit of a fight, and my uncle had my grandfather’s revolver at the time, so he used it, and I think he got the heaviest sentence for them all. He got twenty years. So from then on my appetite for politics was wetted. And I felt like there 1 was this injustice in this country and that one cannot just sit on the sides. One had to actively participate. Ja, and then ’75, but I must say that from ’73 when we started having the student uprisings and boycotts at Fort Hare, remember the time we had this sweeping tide of the revolution in southern Africa. MPLA was fighting in Angola, and FNLA and UNITA were fighting against Portuguese colonisers. Next door to us in Mozambique you had the Frelimo and the Frelimo rallies. Up north we had Zimbabwe, people fighting in Rhodesia against the Ian Smith regime. That time I was doing form three, in ’73, so those Frelimo rallies, and the subsequent independence of Mozambique, Angola. Int So you would have been about fifteen? VP Ja. And then of course in terms of my real active participation, like most of the young black people of the time, really started around ’76. That time I was doing my first year law studies at the University of Fort Hare, you know, when Soweto broke out. And then of course the students who participated there. I recall the president of the SRC, who was against us taking any form of action at the time. He said, you claim to be the replicas of the rioting masses in Soweto and yet you enjoy the luxuries and comforts of Fort Hare! For us as young students fresh from high school, we are amazed at those guys speaking big English and all those things. But anyway, that motivated us to really get involved. Int Did you study law at Fort Hare? VP Yes, I did. Int And what made you decide to do law? Did you think at that time during apartheid, that law could in fact be used as an instrument of social justice? VP Ja, well, you know, the people who influenced me to study law, it was inaudible, who’s a prominent lawyer in PE. The late former acting judge, Patrick Maqubela. Former Judge President Somyalo. Those were the township lawyers who were actively involved. So I used to have discussions with them. I used to mix with people who are older than me. Even at school in my class, I was the youngest at school, in every class that I went to. So I always liked interacting with people who are older than me. And therefore I would sit with them, then we’d talk and discuss lots of things, politics and all that. And then I found that law it could be used. Whilst it’s used as an instrument of oppression you can also use it as an instrument of liberation. So that was my early childhood and growing up. 2 Int Did you get a sense though, were there any examples for you as a young person studying law, that in fact the law could in fact be used as an instrument of social justice, at that point? VP Well, for me the issue that…look for instance, most legislation in South Africa at the time, you know, apartheid was legislated, and I felt that it also needed legal brains to cause the demise of apartheid. Looking for instance at the Group Areas Act, Mixed Marriages Act, the Land Acts, and all that. If law could be an instrument of oppression, therefore I think we can turn it around and make it an instrument of liberation, you see. Take for instance, a knife, an ordinary knife, it’s not necessarily on its own a dangerous instrument. We use a knife for eating and doing those things. But depending on its use, then you can define what you can do. Int I wondered, Mr Pikoli …Vusi, I’ll call you if you don’t mind… VP Sure, I like that. Int I wondered whether you could tell me about where you think your political activism really came to the fore and how you actually then went into exile? VP Ja, as I said, 1976 we didn’t write that year…1976. We were expelled. It was for involvement. Tried to burn down the university. We were on the road in 1977. Every year from 1976 until I left campus we were fighting. And somehow, by the time I left I was doing my fourth and final year of BProc. But in 1977 you remember it was when Steve Biko died in detention. As a student board we demanded that we wanted to hold a memorial service for him at the sports ground at Fort Hare. And De Wet who was director then at the time, refused us. And we said, well, we’ll defy you. So we had our memorial service but then police came in numbers in their vans and almost all of the male students who were there were arrested. We were distributed to various prisons around Alice. I was taken to Fort Glamorgan in East London. Others were in King William’s Town. Others in Fort Beaufort. We were scattered all over the Eastern Cape, as it was then, the border area basically. So again, you know, they always say that prison can be a school, can be a bad school, it can be a good school. So we turned it into a good school of politics. When we were there we discussed further strategies, how to go about it. And then… Int Were you released? VP We forced the university administration to provide us with buses to go to the funeral of Steve Biko, and they did, without paying. So we saw that as a victory. And of course we want to push the boundaries all the time. So you will recall that, you know, I think for me the decisive year was 1979, you see? If 3 you recall, the ANC, the January 8th Statement of the ANC 1979, of course we’d be having access to radio freedom, you know. It was the Year of the Spear, and this was commemorating that great battle, the battle of Isandlwana, of 1879. So it was the hundredth anniversary. So the ANC, you know, then used its underground structures in South Africa to mobilise for support. You know that? And of course students with their energy and enthusiasm are always receptive to militant ideas in a way of changing life generally.