Jean Middleton
Sechaba, 2 February 1984
The meeting of 10 October 1984, where the Transvaal stay-away of the 5th and 6th of November was first discussed, marked a new stage in intense political activity and bitter resistance. It was convened by the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), which called on student, community and worker's organisations to get together to discuss civic and labour problems and the educational crisis; so though it was called by the students it was not intended to plan student action alone. The trade unions joined in and took a significant part, but the stay away, when it took place, was not a trade union action alone.
The organising committee was later described by the Solidarity News Service, based in Botswana as: " the greatest unity of democratic and anti-apartheid forces in South Africa in recent years." And its chairman, Thami Mali of FOSATU said of the action that it was: "the first time in South African history that trade unions and militant organisations have acted in such dramatic concert."
After the first meeting, the delegates went back to their communities to access their strength there.
During the course of that year, Black residential areas in South Africa had become battlefields. The township of Sebokeng had, according to press reports, been left in ruins in September, after protest against an increase in rents and subsequent police repression.
Then, on the 23 October 1984, 7000 troops and police moved into Sebokeng, the township was sealed off, and people were arrested on an average of one a minute, during a house-to-house search for (according to the official statements of the apartheid regime) "revolutionary and criminal elements".
Three hundred (300) people were charged as a result of this raid, but all except six people were charged as a result of this raid, but all except six of these with petty offenses. There was an outcry over the use of the army for police duties, and the Progressive Federal Party called for the army to be withdrawn from the townships; police spokesmen claimed that the army was used outside the townships to cordon them off while the police went in.
Operation Palmiet - the final straw
The police gave the name Operation Palmiet to this brutal and threatening piece of work in Sebokeng, and 'official sources' hinted to the press that there might be more such raids on other townships. Operation Palmiet was probably an important factor when, at the second meeting, a decision was taken to call a stay away.
The second meeting took place on 27 October. At it - constituting the Transvaal Regional Stay-away Committee - were representatives of 37 community and trade union organisations, formed and strengthened in protest campaigns over the past months; among them the Release Mandela Committee, the Federation of Transvaal Women, the Vaal Civic Association, the East Rand People's Organisation, the Federation of South African Unions (FOSATU), the Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA), the Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (CCAWUSA), the United Mining and Metal Workers Union (UMMWUSA), the General and Allied Workers Union (GAWU) and the General Workers Union (GWU). The UDF as a collective organisation was not involved, though a number of its affiliates took part, and it later issued a statement in support of the stay away.
In the previous two months there had been three stay aways in the Transvaal, all of them locally based: one in the towns of the Vaal Triangle, one in Soweto and one in KwaThema near Springs. This time, the call went out to all areas in the Transvaal, and the political scope of the protest was wide, so that demands which had grown up in specific campaigns over the year came together in what was to become a massive protest.
The demands were:
There was a recommendation for people to stay indoors; shops and businesses were asked to close. Health workers were exempt from the call.
Between 27 October and 5 November there was an intensive organising campaign, with pamphlets and leaflets. Counter-leaflets, opposing the stay away were also distributed, and these were popularly attributed to the police (one of them said, "Why don't these people spend the money they are spending on pamphlets on something worthy, like food and clothing for the poor?")
In an attempt to diffuse the situation, the Minister of Law and Order, Louis Le Grange, claimed that the "unrest" was dying out, and that it was "calming progressively"; and at the beginning of November the police reported that it was "waning" on the East Rand and in the Eastern Cape. These statements, however, were not borne out by events, for throughout the country tension remained high and repression continued.
Some attempt had been made to placate the students. Strict guidelines on the use of corporal punishment had been issued, schools had been given permission to elect SRCs, the age limit - much resented - had been abolished. There was still no suggestion that the quality of black education should be improved, and no talk of extra money being allocated to it, so these changes were clearly cosmetic, and the students were not deceived. Le Grange suggested that the "unrest" might die once the schools closed, implying that the students had been entirely responsible for it. He was proved wrong.
An Historic Action
The response to the stay away call was tremendous, and the action an historic one. Radio Freedom, the voice of the ANC, broadcasting on 9 November 1984 called it a: "resounding success... a victory scored in the face of a massive police and army presence in the townships."
FOSATU and the UDF claimed a stay away rate of between 65% to 95% in different areas. About ten days later, the Association of Chambers of Commerce estimated that the response to the call had been between 75% to 100% in the main industrial areas of the Witwatersrand. The stoppage in Atteridgeville - a centre of protest since the beginning of the year -was said to be almost total. The huge parastatals, SASOL and ISCOR, stopped working. Solidarity News Service estimated that over half a million workers took part. Estimates of the number of students who stayed at home ranged from 250 000 to 400 000.
Observers later made comparisons with the great stay aways of the fifties. It is worth recalling that in the days of the Congress Alliance, SACTU and the other Congresses worked hand in hand, so that then, as today, organisation at the factory gates complemented and reinforced organisation in the communities.
The police moved in with Caspir armoured vehicles, and by Tuesday the army had been deployed on the East Rand, while residents set up road blocks of rocks, burned-out buses, burning tyres, old cars and dust bins. The Chemical Workers Industrial Union (CWIU) claimed that at SASOL two Hippo personnel carriers filled with police had driven into a union meeting of about 6 000 workers during a union meeting on Tuesday morning. The Sowetan of 8 November 1984 reported seven dead in Tembisa, six in Ratanda, four in Kathlehong, six in Ratanda, one in Duduza, and one in Alexandra.
At this time, the people also showed their anger against the local community councillors, those detested symbols of the apartheid regime, and two councillors homes in Tembisa were set alight. In an article in the Sunday Times of 18 November 1984, Allister Sparks reported that by that time seven community councillors were dead, and others had resigned or had fled, so that only four out of 22 councillors were still functioning.
Sackings at SASOL
Most employers seem to have treated the two days as leave - paid or unpaid -but there was some victimisation, and both CCAWUSA and the Food and Beverage Workers Union threatened legal action on behalf of those members who had been sacked. By far the worst victimisation was that at SASOL II and III, branches of the parastatal, where, on the Tuesday morning, the entire morning shift (the bulk of the workforce) was dismissed, and the rest of the workers given an ultimatum to return to work during the course of the day, while police in armoured vehicles surrounded makeshift pay points. In all, 6000 SASOL workers were sacked, and for some, at least, who were interviewed by the press, it was their first job after a long period of unemployment. The general secretary of the CWIU said that the union had informed the SASOL workers that they were exempt from the call to strike, but they had nevertheless insisted on observing it.
He spoke of the "pent-up anger and frustration" of the black SASOL workers, and said that to them the plant meant "danger, arduous working conditions, barracks-like hostels, racial oppression, rumours of men killed in accidents during the night and whisked away, and generally a very oppressive environment."
The action SASOL took against the workers seriously disrupted production at the plant. 1000 new workers were employed almost at once, but that was only a sixth of the number of workers needed; and untrained as the new workers were (it took eight months to train a SASOL worker) it was clear that it must have been an ineffective work force. The CWIU claimed that security functions at the plant had been taken over by the police so that security staff could be freed to take part in production, but the management denied this. At all events, before two weeks passed, the management had invited the sacked workers to re-apply for their jobs, saying that such applications would be sympathetically considered if the workers could satisfy the company that they were 'victims of intimidation.'
Power in our hands
In an interview with the Financial Mail of 16 November 1984, Thami Mali said of the stay away: "It has...shown that we have power in our hands. It showed that we can bring the machinery of the country to a standstill."
Spokesmen of the regime had been making threatening statements around this time. Louis Le Grange had issued a warning to political activists not to cry if they got hurt. The Minister of Home Affairs, FW De Klerk, had said the government would not allow 'destabilising actions' in any area, and told an employers union meeting in Cape Town: "South Africa cannot afford to allow its labour and economic spheres to become a political battlefield... strong action will be taken against instigators, arsonists and radicals... order shall be maintained."
On November 8 came the arrest of leaders of six organisations that had been involved. On 12 November, The Citizen newspaper, in its usual role as mouthpiece of the regime, reported that the police were "working around the clock" to establish who had been 'responsible' for the action. Before another week was up, the number of those arrested had risen to 20; all-leading members of organisations that had openly endorsed the stay away.
Reports of resistance and repression continued - a raid on Tembisa in the middle of November, which the police described as an 'anti crime swoop', a boy of eight injured with a stray bullet, a baby almost killed by tear gas, more than 20 people injured by police birdshot in Port Alfred, a man killed in Graaff-Reinett, thousands arrested in rent raids in Sebokeng and so on.
The regime and big business disagree The regime had not been able to conceal its dismay at the arrival of the new stage of struggle. South African employers organisations and their spokesmen of big business also showed their perturbation, for what they call 'industrial peace' as a safeguard for their super profits. There was some disagreement though, over what methods should be used to preserve the situation in which black workers were exploited to produce these profits. The Association of Chambers of Commerce, the Federated Chamber of Industries and the Afrikaanse Handels Instituut all condemned the detentions of leaders of the stay away as harmful to 'harmonious and productive' labour relations.
While Pretoria seemed likely to adopt a tactic of harassing the trade unions, others were recommending strategies for capturing them. The Centre for Investigation of Revolutionary Activities at the Rand Afrikaanse Universiteit held a conference at the beginning of October 1984, entitled "South African trade unions: Revolution or Peace?' The labour advisor to the Anglo-American Corporation told this conference that trade unions could act as powerful agents for reform. Professor Nic Wiehan, director of the School of Business at UNISA, said that South African trade unions had become 'politicised' in 'socialism and communism'. He went on to say: "It is thus necessary that we politicise our own trade unions in the anti-socialist and anti-communist ideologies."
English language press comments
It is interesting to look at some of the editorial comment in the South African English press about that time. The Citizen of 9 November 1984, predictably, defended the policies and actions of the regime: "the radicals...pose a challenge to the government, which will force it to respond with drastic action to prevent the situation from getting out of hand...It cannot allow the economy of the country to be disrupted."
Other papers took a different line. The Cape Argus of 14 November called for an investigation into the causes of the unrest. The Sunday Times of 11 November went further: "the times...demand from government bold moves to redress genuine black grievances." The Sunday Tribune of the same date was most forthright of all. It said: "The answer is simple: Blacks want a meaningful say in the future of the country. White decisions imposed on Blacks still continue, but should have stopped years ago when even the densest of politician realised the homelands policy was a disaster."
In spite of all these calls upon it, the answer the regime made to the situation was to intensify repression, and to do this it recklessly spent money it did not have, gambling all it can borrow on a desperate throw. Gold prices fell, drought once again caused a failure of the maize crop and the motor industry was in recession. South Africa (according to a report in the Rand Daily Mail of 19 November 1984) was heavily in both long-term and short-term debt overseas and found it more and more difficult to raise foreign loans, because of "a combination of a deteriorating economy and recurring reports of unrest in the black townships."
There was another possibility that was closer than ever before: that of having power in South Africa pass into the hands of the people themselves. Thirty years ago, the Freedom Charter first proclaimed that: "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people."
We quote again Thami Mali: "We cannot go back now. Our duty is to step up resistance and create an ungovernable situation." When asked the day before he was arrested, 'What will you call for?' he replied: "The minimum demands of the people are contained in the Freedom Charter. Of course, the people will have to come forward and lay these out. But even if such a call is made, it cannot be to the Transvaal Regional Stay away Committee. There are leaders of the people of South Africa and there are leaders of the workers of this country...The leaders of the people have been jailed for life: Nelson Mandela and others, and there are leaders of the people in exile. Those are the people the government should talk to, not us."
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