Pietermaritzburg Treason Trial
Each of the 16 was arrested in Natal or the Transvaal between August 1984 and February 1985 during the period of heightened state repression that followed UDF-led boycotts of the 1984 general election and new Tricameral Parliament.
In a 587-page indictment finally delivered in April 1985, the state alleged that the accused had, through ostensibly non-violent political acts, sought to further "a revolutionary alliance" whose aim was to incite a revolt and overthrow the government.
At that time, the African National Congress (ANC) had been banned by the apartheid government since 1960, and the Black Consciousness movement had been severely repressed in the aftermath of the Soweto uprising.
[3][2] The demonstrations turned into or coincided with an unprecedented period of confrontation and revolt in the country's townships and rural areas, for which the state held the UDF largely responsible.
Moreover, while the Pietermaritzburg trial was ongoing, President P. W. Botha initiated a series of states of emergency, which gave authorities extraordinary powers to detain and interrogate activists and otherwise to circumscribe political activity.
[2][8] Five of the defendants in the trial were arrested in extraordinary circumstances: on the pavement outside the British consulate in Durban, where they had taken refuge for several weeks in what became a significant diplomatic incident.
[5] David had evaded arrested in the August crackdown, while the five others – alongside Kader Hassim, chairman of the African Peoples' Democratic Union of Southern Africa, and Sam Kikine, general secretary of SAAWU – had been released from detention on 7 September.
In retaliation, on 24 September, South Africa revoked a former promise to extradite the Coventry Four, who were wanted in Britain on arms smuggling charges.
[17] Priscilla Jana was instructing attorney, and also on the defence team were Victoria Mxenge, until she was assassinated in August 1985,[6][7] and Yunus Mohamed, until he was arrested during the trial for his own political activities.
Exercising powers granted to him by the Internal Security Act, the Attorney General ordered the court to deny bail to the defendants.
The order was struck down on appeal and Judge Milne said that he had reached an agreement with the state that bail should not be challenged further; he also criticised the relevant provisions of the Internal Security Act as "old fashioned" and called for their repeal.
[19][17] [T]he National Executive Committee of the Front reached the following conclusions: From the above it can be clearly seen that the Nationalists are not earnest when they profess commitment to a peaceful and negotiated resolution to South Africa's problems.
[17][22] The substantive trial began on 21 October in the Supreme Court, and all of the accused pled not guilty to the charge of high treason and incitement to overthrow the government in terms of Section 54 of the Internal Security Act.
[5][23] Observers widely expected a lengthy show trial, lasting over a year and involving testimony from over one hundred state's witnesses.
''[19] In the assessment of reporter Allister Sparks, the prosecution's case was brought to "crisis point" in early December 1985 by Mohamed's cross-examination of the state's star witness, Isaak D. de Vries, who was a doctoral student and lecturer in politics at Rand Afrikaans University.
[24] After Mahomed accused him of being "a theoretician who has no factual background and no expertise to make statements or assessments", de Vries, with prompting from Judge Milne, conceded that his claims could not be regarded as conclusive.
[24][25] On 9 December,[5] the trial resumed after the adjournment and Natal Attorney General Michael Imber announced that the state would withdraw the charges against 12 of the defendants and seek only to prosecute the four SAAWU leaders: Kikine, Njikelana, Ngocobo, and Gqweta.
[19] The UDF released a statement which condemned the trial as "an attempt to criminalize and immobilize the opponents of apartheid"[25] and promised that the freed defendants would "continue the struggle for peaceful change in South Africa".
[20][26] A crowd gathered outside the courthouse to celebrate the release of the defendants, and SAAWU's Thozi Gqweta told the press that he felt "like I've been a political deepfreeze for two years" and that he and the others remained committed to "continue the work".
[22] Indeed, on some accounts, it was public protest against UDF leaders' prolonged detention without trial that led the government to replace their preventative orders with substantive criminal charges.
[11][14] But the decision to proceed with trial was also criticised, leading to the accusation that the apartheid government was "using the courts as an extension of its detention system, bringing poorly based charges against legitimate political opponents simply to put them out of action".
[25] On 12 March 1985, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 560, which, in the course of raising broader concerns about the apartheid regime's suppression of dissidents, specifically called for the release of the Pietermaritzburg defendants.
[27] South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha said that the support of Western countries for the resolution was "regrettable",[28] and the government continued to insist that the trial was not political but the result of the defendants' criminal activities.
[3][30] Moreover, some observers suspected that the failure of the Pietermaritzburg prosecution – and the international outcry it had provoked – inspired the state to adjust its strategy in the Delmas trial.
[3][30] With most defendants in detention from late 1984 and charges initially lodged in June 1985, State v Baleka and 21 others was heard from January 1986 until December 1988 in what became the longest political trial of the apartheid era.
