S. Africa Trial Becomes Political Forum : Treason Defendants Attack Apartheid and Minority White Rule

Almost silenced by South Africa’s yearlong state of emergency, the United Democratic Front coalition of anti-apartheid groups is turning the treason trial of several of its top leaders into a political forum in which it can attack the country’s minority white government with impunity.

Popo Molefe, the UDF’s general secretary, testifying this week in his own defense, denounced the government’s efforts at step-by-step reforms as simply attempts to prolong white rule in South Africa and thus as more frustration for the country’s voteless black majority.

The civil unrest of the past three years was the inevitable result of apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial separation and minority white rule, Molefe argued, and it probably will increase, rather than subside, until blacks have the right to vote, to take part fully in the country’s government and thus to shape the future for themselves and the nation.

Molefe, 35, not only defended the UDF, now under attack as the “internal wing” of the outlawed African National Congress, but he warned the government that, by closing other avenues of protest, it left blacks no option but increasingly radical anti-apartheid activism.

The prosecution is attempting to prove that the UDF conspired with the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, which is also outlawed, to overthrow the government. On trial are Molefe and three other UDF officials and 15 community activists from the Vaal River region south of Johannesburg where serious violence first flared three years ago.

As the general secretary of the United Democratic Front, Molefe used to address political rallies regularly around the country, but his testimony here this week was the first time he has been heard since his arrest more than two years ago.

Testifying over five days, Molefe answered both the charges against him and the other defendants in the lengthy treason trial. But he also took the opportunity to explain the origins of the UDF in black protests against the 1983 constitution, the UDF’s undiminished commitment to nonviolence and its vision of a democracy based on the principle of one-person, one-vote where race would not count.

“We believe, and it is the view of many, that the only constitution able to meet the needs of all in this country and to . . . resolve some of the current hostility is a constitution based on universal franchise, where all could participate equally,” Molefe said. “We saw the (government’s) proposals as an unacceptable substitute for a meaningful voice in the land of our birth.”

Most of the UDF’s top leaders are in jail, on trial or simply detained without charge. The organization itself has been unable under the state of emergency declared in June, 1986, to hold political rallies, to organize anti-government protests or to publish pamphlets and newspapers. And South African newspapers are prohibited under the emergency regulations from printing statements that the government deems to be “subversive.”

But statements in court are largely exempt from these restrictions, and the UDF leaders resolved to expand their testimony from simple denial of the charges into a daily attack on South Africa’s whole political system.

Molefe explained how the UDF, a coalition of 700 anti-apartheid groups with more than 3 million members, was formed four years ago to oppose the new constitution that brought Indians and mixed-race Coloreds into Parliament but continued to exclude the country’s black majority from national politics.

“The new constitution was formulated by the National Party government . . . and they wanted to maintain the domination that existed,” Molefe said, speaking as much about current reform efforts as about the 1983 constitution. “The majority of people were not consulted and were not asked what sort of constitution they wanted. We were never asked what we thought would be best for South Africa. . . . “

The United Democratic Front supports proposals for a national convention to work out a new political system for the country, Molefe said, while insisting that everyone, including leaders of the African National Congress, political prisoners and exiles, be permitted to participate as a start on a democratic future.

Beyond this and its commitment to nonviolent change, the United Democratic Front has no hard-and-fast ideological position, Molefe said. Although it shares many goals with the African National Congress, they are separate organizations, and the UDF is resolved to work within the law.