THE constitution is not cast in stone but it should never be changed
"only to pander to narrow, sectarian interests", said Deputy Chief
Justice Dikgang Moseneke on Friday. In his Ruth First Memorial Lecture delivered at the University of the
Witwatersrand, Justice Moseneke addressed, though not explicitly, many
of the continuing, sometimes heated, debates about the role of the
judiciary in South Africa.
Some in government, including President Jacob Zuma, have questioned
the way courts have set aside decisions and laws of the democratically
elected executive and Parliament. Others have taken a view on the other
end of the spectrum: that any attempt to change the constitution would
be a threat to constitutional democracy.
Justice Moseneke said the constitution was the most recent expression
of the "collective convictions" of the people of South Africa. Debating
whether it was "perfect, or whether it is a sufficiently progressive
bargain" was a necessary, and useful, debate — provided it was
remembered that the constitution had been settled by "the democratic
principle". "The unanimous representatives of the people installed it as our first law," he said. "Of course the people, through their representatives, may change it.
They have indeed done so at least 15 times before. Amending the
constitution is the prerogative of the people who installed it, provided
the requisite majority is present and the formalities of the
Constitution are followed," he added. The constitution "never was, and is not, cast in stone and yet it
should never be changed only to pander to narrow sectarian interests",
he said.
Justice Moseneke said the constitution enjoined all organs of state
to be transparent, accountable and responsive. "These values cannot now
dissipate under the madness of incumbency," he said. This applied equally to the judiciary. "In my personal and judicial
life I may not act unlawfully or inimical to the vision of our people as
encrusted in law and valid policy."
He said he welcomed public debates on the "merits of the reasoning
and outcome of my judgments", adding: "And yet it is singularly
unhelpful to suggest that because one differs with a judgment or outcome
the judge concerned is serving an ulterior goal or political party.
"Judges are accountable to all our people and to no political or
ideological tendency … In some instances, judges get the facts or the
law wrong. That tells us nothing about their judicial probity. Our
democratic system, like most in the world, readily acknowledges judicial
fallibility and arrests that risk by creating a hierarchy of courts
with appellate responsibility."
It was important to "debunk the mystery around judicial function", he
said. The role of the courts was "not proactive, but reactive ... We
don’t choose cases; they choose us."
Thus the role of judges was also limited by the kinds of cases that
came before them and their facts, he said. So while the courts had done a
remarkable job with cases of discrimination, socioeconomic rights and
workers’ rights, there had "sadly" been very few cases coming before the
courts on land restitution or expropriation.
"It may be that the property and restitutionary provisions in section
25 of the constitution on land have been underworked," he said.
At the end of his lecture, the deputy chief justice got a standing
ovation from the packed auditorium at the New Wits Arts Gallery.
Source: Business Day
Showing posts with label Ruth First. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ruth First. Show all posts
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Friday, March 4, 2011
Gaddafi: the despot who would be king
ADEKEYE ADEBAJO: LIBYA - Mar 04 2011 16:57
Events in Libya suggest that the end of the regime of the world's longest-ruling autocrat, Muammar Gaddafi, is near. It is worth tracing the life and times of this eccentric despot.After seizing power in an act of regicide against King Idriss in 1969, Gaddafi initially modelled his rule on that of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, the celebrated champion of pan-Arabism. Overcome by emotion, Gaddafi fainted twice during Nasser's funeral in Cairo in 1970.
As the martyred South African liberation heroine Ruth First noted in an insightful 1974 study titled Libya: The Elusive Revolution, the contradictions of Gaddafi's revolution were many.
He simultaneously pursued a social revolution and a revival of Islamic fundamentalism; 11 young soldiers held power while claiming to represent a mass-based popular revolution; the Libyan leader condemned the corruption of the monarchical ancien régime while cutting lucrative deals with global oil cartels; and Gaddafi's traditional, religious approach led him to live in a Bedouin tent and criticise Western decadence, even as he relied on its technology and companies to finance his domestic revolution and foreign adventures.
Gaddafi's Green Book of 1975 rejected liberal democracy in favour of what he described as direct democracy through "popular committees", though these were accused of terrorising the population. In his early rule the Libyan leader achieved some social progress through his oil wealth and 1,5-million foreigners flocked to his country from Africa and the Middle East.
In the politics of the Maghreb Gaddafi's role was mercurial. Just before his country took over the presidency of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) in 2003, the Libyan leader said: "It's time to put the union in the freezer." A year later Tripoli announced that it was leaving the AMU after the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation offered rapid reaction training to Maghrebi states. Only pleas from Morocco and Tunisia prevented Gaddafi from carrying out his threat.
'Diplomatically isolated'
Gaddafi would prove equally controversial south of the Sahara. He became diplomatically isolated in Africa after his 1980 military intervention in Chad, losing support among his peers for supporting dissident groups against "neocolonial" regimes on the continent.
Gaddafi sent troops to bolster the regime of brutal Ugandan autocrat and fellow Muslim, General Idi Amin, between 1972 and 1979. In the 1980s the self-styled Libyan revolutionary provided military training to the warlords of two of West Africa's most vicious rebel groups in the 1990s: Liberia's Charles Taylor and Sierra Leone's Foday Sankoh. He also reportedly trained and armed Tuareg rebels who triggered a conflict in northern Mali in 1990.
Gaddafi would eventually swap his pan-Arab robes for Pan-African garments in anger at the lack of Arab support for Libya after Western-inspired United Nations economic and travel sanctions were imposed on Tripoli in 1992. By contrast with the muted Arab response, strong black African backing was offered in his hour of need. Indeed, the sanctions on Tripoli were eventually lifted in 1999 with the help of Nelson Mandela, who mediated with Washington and London. Former president Thabo Mbeki famously did not get on with Gaddafi, while Jacob Zuma appears to have attempted to appease him.
Gaddafi sought to become the heir of Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah's pan-African vision. He was the moving force behind the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity into the African Union (AU), hosting several meetings in his home town of Sirte. At the AU summit in Ghana in 2007, Gaddafi championed a "United States of Africa" with an all-African army, a common monetary union, as well as a central bank. But the eccentric "brother leader's" vision was, like Nkrumah's, rejected by most African leaders.
Gaddafi also used his oil wealth to buy influence within the AU by paying the debts of member states. With strong leaders like Mbeki and Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo having left the political stage Gaddafi finally became chair of the AU for the first time in January 2009. This was largely a wasted year, as the Libyan leader continued to pursue his quixotic federalist dreams without the support of African leaders. As AU chair, Gaddafi was also accused of coddling fellow military putschists in Guinea, Mauritania, and Madagascar.
As his four-decade autocratic reign appears to be coming to an ignominious end, Gaddafi, the self-proclaimed "King of Kings", seems to be drifting into delusional madness.
Having toppled a monarch to promote social justice, he recently compared his 41-year rule with that of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, wondering why similar protests were not being raised about her long reign.
Coming from a lower social class, Gaddafi had always aspired to greatness and coveted King Idriss's crown. A social climber and arriviste, he donned ill-fitting borrowed royal robes to which his birth did not entitle him. As the fin de régime approaches, the Libyan despot appears to be a poor parody of the very system that he toppled.
Dr Adekeye Adebajo is executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution, Cape Town, and author of The Curse of Berlin: Africa After the Cold War
Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Cosatu supports Media Tribunal
Cosatu supported the ANC's proposal to set up a Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT) to regulate the media, City Press newspaper reported today. The newspaper reported that the labour federation wanted a different approach to the tribunal to what the ANC suggested, though. It said there was a "censorship" risk attached to the tribunal as well as the proposed protection of information bill. It warned that the tribunal could become a "censorship" tool as editors could decide to hold back stories about ministers for fear of being "hauled before a MAT that is biased towards government's view".
In a paper for discussion at the federation's central executive meeting which starts tomorrow Cosatu apparently envisaged that the tribunal should include representatives of the print media, the state, and organised civil society, the newspaper said. The discussion paper apparently suggested that state representatives should recuse themselves when the tribunal deals with matters involving government officials or institutions.
At the Ruth First Memorial Lecture on Aug 17, Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary general of Cosatu, criticised the protection of information bill. "If Ruth First were alive, she would ask where all the democrats had gone to after reading about the proposed protection of information bill, which would make a mockery of her work as a journalist".
Source: Business Day
In a paper for discussion at the federation's central executive meeting which starts tomorrow Cosatu apparently envisaged that the tribunal should include representatives of the print media, the state, and organised civil society, the newspaper said. The discussion paper apparently suggested that state representatives should recuse themselves when the tribunal deals with matters involving government officials or institutions.
At the Ruth First Memorial Lecture on Aug 17, Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary general of Cosatu, criticised the protection of information bill. "If Ruth First were alive, she would ask where all the democrats had gone to after reading about the proposed protection of information bill, which would make a mockery of her work as a journalist".
Source: Business Day
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Vavi questions Protection of Information Bill
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi criticised the proposed Protection of Information Bill during the Ruth First memorial lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) on Tuesday. If Ruth First were alive, she would read the proposed Bill and ask where all the democrats had gone, he said, adding that it made a mockery of her work as a journalist.
First was an investigative journalist between 1947 and 1982, and was at the heart of the liberation movement in Southern Africa, participating in key moments of the struggle against apartheid, including helping to draft the Freedom Charter. She would be shocked if she came back and saw the deterioration in the country's economy, education system and health system, and the vast disparity between social classes, said Vavi, asking: "Was it worth her struggle?"
In 1956, First was one of 156 people arrested for high treason and spent 177 days in solitary confinement. She died in 1982 when a parcel bomb, sent to her by apartheid agents, exploded in her office at a university in Maputo. Vavi ended his speech saying: "Let the 28th anniversary of Ruth First's death reignite our passion for economic justice, our hatred for inequality and our impatience with reformism. The working class will not wait forever."
Meanwhile, a University of Cape Town academic has offered to hand over a year of his salary to the chief state law adviser if the Protection of Information Bill passes scrutiny by the Constitutional Court. Constitutional law expert Professor Pierre de Vos proposed the wager during a Harold Wolpe Trust seminar at the university on Thursday evening. He said the court would find that the controversial Bill, which seeks to set new rules for classifying information as secret, was simply too broad. "Even if you can say that the purpose for the Bill is an important one, which I think is arguable, they will say there are far less restrictive and limiting manners to achieve the same purpose, and for that reason it is not reasonable and justifiable in an open, democratic society," De Vos said. "If the Bill is found in its present form to be constitutional, I will give one month or one year of my salary to the person who drafted this Bill, or maybe the chief state law adviser -- on the condition that he will give one month or one year of his salary to me if the Constitutional Court finds otherwise."
Source: Mail & Guardian
First was an investigative journalist between 1947 and 1982, and was at the heart of the liberation movement in Southern Africa, participating in key moments of the struggle against apartheid, including helping to draft the Freedom Charter. She would be shocked if she came back and saw the deterioration in the country's economy, education system and health system, and the vast disparity between social classes, said Vavi, asking: "Was it worth her struggle?"
In 1956, First was one of 156 people arrested for high treason and spent 177 days in solitary confinement. She died in 1982 when a parcel bomb, sent to her by apartheid agents, exploded in her office at a university in Maputo. Vavi ended his speech saying: "Let the 28th anniversary of Ruth First's death reignite our passion for economic justice, our hatred for inequality and our impatience with reformism. The working class will not wait forever."
Meanwhile, a University of Cape Town academic has offered to hand over a year of his salary to the chief state law adviser if the Protection of Information Bill passes scrutiny by the Constitutional Court. Constitutional law expert Professor Pierre de Vos proposed the wager during a Harold Wolpe Trust seminar at the university on Thursday evening. He said the court would find that the controversial Bill, which seeks to set new rules for classifying information as secret, was simply too broad. "Even if you can say that the purpose for the Bill is an important one, which I think is arguable, they will say there are far less restrictive and limiting manners to achieve the same purpose, and for that reason it is not reasonable and justifiable in an open, democratic society," De Vos said. "If the Bill is found in its present form to be constitutional, I will give one month or one year of my salary to the person who drafted this Bill, or maybe the chief state law adviser -- on the condition that he will give one month or one year of his salary to me if the Constitutional Court finds otherwise."
Source: Mail & Guardian
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Remember Ruth First: journalist, academic and political activist assassinated by the apartheid state
Ruth First broke one of the most important taboos in revolutionary politics — the fact that an activist who is detained and placed in solitary confinement can break down. She recorded her detention in 1963 as a part of the crackdown that led to the Rivonia Trial in the book 117 Days. Her description of the relationship of a detainee to their bed is a classic account that is almost universal for people in solitary confinement.
For the first fifty-six days of my detention in solitary I changed from a mainly vertical to a mainly horizontal creature. A black iron bedstead became my world. It was too cold to sit, so I lay extended on the bed, trying to measure the hours, the days and the weeks, yet pretending to myself I was not. …Ruth First suffered, broke down and rebuilt her spirit and activism. On 17 August 1982 during a brief spell at the University of Western Cape, Jonathan de Vries led a protest against her murder by the apartheid state. Her daughters Gillian and Shawn, her late husband Joe Slovo experienced their greatest loss and the liebration movement lost a leader. Ruth First will always be remembered for her courage, tenacity, humour, rigorous activist intellect while her assassins Craig Williamson and his henchman Roger Raven will be remembered as cowardly murderers who took her life and the lives of many of her comrades.
…the bed was my privacy, my retreat, and could be my secret life. On the bed I felt in control of the cell. I did not need to survey it. I could ignore it, and concentrate on making myself comfortable. I would sleep, as long as I liked, without fear of interruption. I would think, without diversion. I would wait to see what happened from the comfort of my bed.
Source: Writing Rights: Zackie Achmat
Friday, June 2, 2000
Amnesty granted to Craig Williams and Roger Raven - Ruth First's killers
Close relatives of murdered anti-apartheid activists Ruth First and Jeanette and Katryn Schoon have expressed outrage at the granting of amnesty to the assassins, apartheid spy Craig Williamson and his subordinate Roger Raven.Williamson, a former security police major, and Raven also received amnesty yesterday for conspiring to kill Joe Slovo, First's husband and then leader of the African National Congress military wing, uMkhonto weSizwe. They were also granted amnesty for transporting improvised explosive devices, interception of mail and possession of explosives.
George Bizos, the Slovo family's lawyer, said yesterday night that, although he respected the ruling by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's amnesty committee, he was saddened by the decision. "It was an unexpected decision. I am saddened by it. I think that, in the case of Ruth First and the Schoon mother and child, their murders were completely unnecessary in the way they chose to kill them by way of letter bombs."
Sherry McLean, widow of Marius Schoon, whom she married after the bombing murder of his first wife Jeanette and their daughter Katryn on June 28, 1984 in Lubango, Angola, said Williamson would never be forgiven for the killings. McLean said her husband, who died last year after testifying in the amnesty application, had made it clear Williamson would never be forgiven. "On a human level it's a difficult task to deal with when Williamson was responsible for the murders of a wife, a mother and daughter and sister," she said. ANC general secretary Kgalema Motlanthe said it was regrettable that the TRC had deemed it fit to grant amnesty to Williamson and Raven.
The amnesty committee said it was satisfied Williamson had told the truth and the killings were politically motivated. "I have not seen the whole (TRC) report, but we have to accept the committee has satisfied itself with that requirement," Motlanthe said. His sentiments were echoed by former environment and tourism minister Pallo Jordan, who was with First when she was killed in Maputo in 1982. However, he said: "We have to live with its (the TRC's) findings."
At the time of their deaths, Jeanette Schoon and First were lecturing at universities in Luanda and Maputo. They were active ANC supporters. The actions were meant to destabilise, demoralise and disadvantage the ANC, the applicants said. Ex-spies Willem Schoon (no relation) and John McPherson were also granted amnesty for the attempted murder of Marius Schoon and Joe Slovo in 1982 and 1984, and for the Lusaka bombing.
Source: Daily Dispatch
Thursday, June 1, 2000
Ruth First: Williamson given amnesty
Former apartheid spies Craig Williamson and Roger Raven have received amnesty for the 1982 murder of African National Congress activist Ruth First in Maputo. They also received amnesty for conspiring to kill Joe Slovo, First's husband and then leader of the ANC military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's amnesty committee granted them amnesty at a hearing in Pretoria on Thursday, TRC spokesman Phila Ngqumba said. Williamson and Raven also received amnesty for the murder of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon at Lubango in Angola on June 28, 1984. Williamson was a major in the security police and Raven was his subordinate. The two men got permission from the then minister of police, through their superior Brigadier Piet Goosen, to launch cross-border attacks that included the bombing of the ANC's London headquarters, they said in their submissions to the TRC. They were also granted amnesty for transporting improvised explosive devices, interception of mail and possession of explosives. Both these applications were opposed by the Slovo and Schoon families.
Jeannette Schoon and Ruth First were at the time of their deaths lecturing at universities in Luanda and Maputo. They were active ANC supporters. The actions were meant to destabilise, demoralise and disadvantage the ANC, the applicants said.
Ex-spies Willem Schoon (no relation) and John McPherson were also granted amnesty for their roles in the attempted murder of Marius Schoon and Joe Slovo in 1982 and 1984, and for the Lusaka bombing. The bomb was built into a briefcase and placed at the gates of the ANC offices in Lusaka by police agents. It exploded and caused minimal damage - no deaths or injuries were reported. The intention had been that the bomb should be left at Slovo's office.
Two other security police operatives, Kobus Klopper and Johann Tait, were also granted amnesty for killing four alleged arms smugglers at Komatipoort. The smugglers were carrying weapons intended for the military wings of ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress.
Another security police operative, Michael Bellingan, was refused amnesty for murdering his wife Janine on September 20, 1991, and for the theft of cheques intended for the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa). As part of normal security police operations at the time, the mail of certain organisations, including Numsa, was intercepted. In the course of these operations during 1988 and 1989 a number of cheques drawn in favour of Numsa were intercepted. Bellingan told the committee he had discovered that his wife was not happy with his work as a security policeman and she was about to leak confidential information to the ANC. He said he decided to kill her because she was a security risk. The committee, in refusing Bellingan amnesty, said it was not satisfied that he had made full disclosure or that the murder constituted an act associated with a political objective.
Source: IoL
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's amnesty committee granted them amnesty at a hearing in Pretoria on Thursday, TRC spokesman Phila Ngqumba said. Williamson and Raven also received amnesty for the murder of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon at Lubango in Angola on June 28, 1984. Williamson was a major in the security police and Raven was his subordinate. The two men got permission from the then minister of police, through their superior Brigadier Piet Goosen, to launch cross-border attacks that included the bombing of the ANC's London headquarters, they said in their submissions to the TRC. They were also granted amnesty for transporting improvised explosive devices, interception of mail and possession of explosives. Both these applications were opposed by the Slovo and Schoon families.
Jeannette Schoon and Ruth First were at the time of their deaths lecturing at universities in Luanda and Maputo. They were active ANC supporters. The actions were meant to destabilise, demoralise and disadvantage the ANC, the applicants said.
Ex-spies Willem Schoon (no relation) and John McPherson were also granted amnesty for their roles in the attempted murder of Marius Schoon and Joe Slovo in 1982 and 1984, and for the Lusaka bombing. The bomb was built into a briefcase and placed at the gates of the ANC offices in Lusaka by police agents. It exploded and caused minimal damage - no deaths or injuries were reported. The intention had been that the bomb should be left at Slovo's office.
Two other security police operatives, Kobus Klopper and Johann Tait, were also granted amnesty for killing four alleged arms smugglers at Komatipoort. The smugglers were carrying weapons intended for the military wings of ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress.
Another security police operative, Michael Bellingan, was refused amnesty for murdering his wife Janine on September 20, 1991, and for the theft of cheques intended for the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa). As part of normal security police operations at the time, the mail of certain organisations, including Numsa, was intercepted. In the course of these operations during 1988 and 1989 a number of cheques drawn in favour of Numsa were intercepted. Bellingan told the committee he had discovered that his wife was not happy with his work as a security policeman and she was about to leak confidential information to the ANC. He said he decided to kill her because she was a security risk. The committee, in refusing Bellingan amnesty, said it was not satisfied that he had made full disclosure or that the murder constituted an act associated with a political objective.
Source: IoL
Sunday, November 19, 1989
A SOUTH AFRICAN TALKS OF HIT TEAM
A former South African security police captain says he commanded an assassination team created to track down and eliminate opponents of the Government. The former officer, Capt. Dirk Johannes Coetzee, who quit the police in 1986 and left South Africa last week, made the statement in an interview in Mauritius with a reporter for Vrye Weekblad, an Afrikaans-language weekly newspaper. The paper published the story in its current issue.
On Friday, Maj. Gen. Herman Stadler of the South African police said Mr. Coetzee's ''unfounded, untested and wild'' allegations would be investigated by T. P. McNally, the Attorney General of the Orange Free State, and Lieut. Gen. Alwyn Conradie, head of the police criminal investigation division.The police said Mr. Coetzee had made his accusations in a foreign country where they could not be verified. It also said he had been dishonorably discharged in 1986 for criminal misconduct. Vrye Weekblad said Mr. Coetzee, who is 44 years old, had left the force ''for health reasons after a departmental inquiry.'' Corroboration by Doomed Killer
A few weeks ago, Butana Nofomela, a convicted murderer awaiting hanging in Pretoria, asserted that he served as a member of the hit squad and named Captain Coetzee as his operational commander. His execution was stayed so his assertions could be investigated. Mr. Coetzee confirmed that Mr. Nofomela had served under him. ''I was the commander of the assassination squad of South African police,'' the newspaper quoted Mr. Coetzee as saying. ''My men and I killed and eliminated opponents of the Government.'' He said he was guilty of, or an accomplice to several murders.
Mr. Coetzee said the security police operation had five squads, including his, and had carried out attacks in Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Britain, as well as inside South Africa. ''We operated in civilian dress and were armed with the strangest weaponry and explosive devices,'' the newspaper quoted him as saying. ''We operated underground and were not recognizable as policemen.''
Some opponents of apartheid have insisted that the police were behind the killing of a number of Pretoria's adversaries, among them members of the outlawed African National Congress living in exile. The police have consistently denied the existence of any such ''hit squads,'' and General Stadler reiterated this denial on Friday.
Mr. Coetzee asserted that the operation was run from Vlakplaas, a restricted police training base near Pretoria, using former guerrillas from the African National Congress, nicknamed ''askaris,'' who had been recruited to fight their old comrades. Not for That Purpose The police confirmed on Friday that Mr. Coetzee had been stationed at Vlakplaas, but said that he had ''irresponsibly'' misidentified the base's purpose. ''The base was not open to the public because it houses former A.N.C. members, who are now proud South African policemen and citizens,'' the police statement said. ''They provide the force with valuable intelligence and also play a cardinal role in the identification of A.N.C. terrorists infiltrating South Africa,'' ''Their lives are constantly in jeopardy, and the base provided a safe haven for them,'' the statement said.
The former South African Police Commissioner, Gen. Johan Coetzee, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation today that the askaris were used to identify guerrillas trying to infiltrate through border posts with forged documents and were not involved in assassinations. General Coetzee, who is not related to Mr. Coetzee, said there were no ''hit squads.'' ''The police are there to maintain law and order,'' he added, ''and just the thought of such a squad would defeat all that the police stand for.''
The victims of his team, Mr. Coetzee said, included Griffiths Mxenge, a Durban lawyer stabbed to death in 1981. ''Yes, we killed Mxenge,'' the former officer was quoted as saying. He said the four killers each were paid 1,000 rand, now about $380. ''They assured me it looked like a robbery,'' he said. Guerrilla Targeted
On another assignment, Mr. Coetzee said, he was issued a Scorpion machine pistol concealed in a briefcase and ordered to kill Marius Schoon, an A.N.C. member living in Botswana. The mission was called off when other plans were made, he said. A letter bomb killed Mr. Schoon's wife, Jeanette, and young daughter in Angola in 1984.
Vrye Weekblad quoted Mr. Coetzee as relating other cases, in which he said captured guerrillas were drugged and shot with pistols fitted with silencers. Mr. Coetzee said his unit broke into the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Mbabane, Swaziland, and stole ''whatever we could find.'' One of the official envelopes they took, he said, was later used to mail the letter bomb that killed Ruth First in Maputo, Mozambique, in August 1982. She was the wife of Joe Slovo, who heads the South African Communist Party in exile.
Mr. Coetzee, who said he headed an assassination squad until 1982, told Vrye Weekblad: ''I decided to confess to cleanse my conscience. I think with contempt of the things that I did.''
Source: New York Times
On Friday, Maj. Gen. Herman Stadler of the South African police said Mr. Coetzee's ''unfounded, untested and wild'' allegations would be investigated by T. P. McNally, the Attorney General of the Orange Free State, and Lieut. Gen. Alwyn Conradie, head of the police criminal investigation division.The police said Mr. Coetzee had made his accusations in a foreign country where they could not be verified. It also said he had been dishonorably discharged in 1986 for criminal misconduct. Vrye Weekblad said Mr. Coetzee, who is 44 years old, had left the force ''for health reasons after a departmental inquiry.'' Corroboration by Doomed Killer
A few weeks ago, Butana Nofomela, a convicted murderer awaiting hanging in Pretoria, asserted that he served as a member of the hit squad and named Captain Coetzee as his operational commander. His execution was stayed so his assertions could be investigated. Mr. Coetzee confirmed that Mr. Nofomela had served under him. ''I was the commander of the assassination squad of South African police,'' the newspaper quoted Mr. Coetzee as saying. ''My men and I killed and eliminated opponents of the Government.'' He said he was guilty of, or an accomplice to several murders.
Mr. Coetzee said the security police operation had five squads, including his, and had carried out attacks in Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Britain, as well as inside South Africa. ''We operated in civilian dress and were armed with the strangest weaponry and explosive devices,'' the newspaper quoted him as saying. ''We operated underground and were not recognizable as policemen.''
Some opponents of apartheid have insisted that the police were behind the killing of a number of Pretoria's adversaries, among them members of the outlawed African National Congress living in exile. The police have consistently denied the existence of any such ''hit squads,'' and General Stadler reiterated this denial on Friday.
Mr. Coetzee asserted that the operation was run from Vlakplaas, a restricted police training base near Pretoria, using former guerrillas from the African National Congress, nicknamed ''askaris,'' who had been recruited to fight their old comrades. Not for That Purpose The police confirmed on Friday that Mr. Coetzee had been stationed at Vlakplaas, but said that he had ''irresponsibly'' misidentified the base's purpose. ''The base was not open to the public because it houses former A.N.C. members, who are now proud South African policemen and citizens,'' the police statement said. ''They provide the force with valuable intelligence and also play a cardinal role in the identification of A.N.C. terrorists infiltrating South Africa,'' ''Their lives are constantly in jeopardy, and the base provided a safe haven for them,'' the statement said.
The former South African Police Commissioner, Gen. Johan Coetzee, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation today that the askaris were used to identify guerrillas trying to infiltrate through border posts with forged documents and were not involved in assassinations. General Coetzee, who is not related to Mr. Coetzee, said there were no ''hit squads.'' ''The police are there to maintain law and order,'' he added, ''and just the thought of such a squad would defeat all that the police stand for.''
The victims of his team, Mr. Coetzee said, included Griffiths Mxenge, a Durban lawyer stabbed to death in 1981. ''Yes, we killed Mxenge,'' the former officer was quoted as saying. He said the four killers each were paid 1,000 rand, now about $380. ''They assured me it looked like a robbery,'' he said. Guerrilla Targeted
On another assignment, Mr. Coetzee said, he was issued a Scorpion machine pistol concealed in a briefcase and ordered to kill Marius Schoon, an A.N.C. member living in Botswana. The mission was called off when other plans were made, he said. A letter bomb killed Mr. Schoon's wife, Jeanette, and young daughter in Angola in 1984.
Vrye Weekblad quoted Mr. Coetzee as relating other cases, in which he said captured guerrillas were drugged and shot with pistols fitted with silencers. Mr. Coetzee said his unit broke into the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Mbabane, Swaziland, and stole ''whatever we could find.'' One of the official envelopes they took, he said, was later used to mail the letter bomb that killed Ruth First in Maputo, Mozambique, in August 1982. She was the wife of Joe Slovo, who heads the South African Communist Party in exile.
Mr. Coetzee, who said he headed an assassination squad until 1982, told Vrye Weekblad: ''I decided to confess to cleanse my conscience. I think with contempt of the things that I did.''
Source: New York Times
Friday, April 8, 1988
White Foe of Pretoria Injured by a Car Bomb in Mozambique
A prominent intellectual in the outlawed African National Congress was seriously wounded early today by a car bomb outside his home in Mozambique. The wounded man, Albie L. Sachs, a 52-year-old legal scholar and author, was among the first whites to join the Congress in its fight against the Pretoria Government, and was a key figure in the group's recent efforts to draft constitutional guidelines for a South Africa without racial barriers.
A report from the official Mozambican press agency said the explosion occurred as Mr. Sachs tried to unlock the door of his car in central Maputo, the capital. The force of the blast reportedly shattered every window in the block and damaged the nearby Portuguese Embassy.
Mr. Sachs, who was conscious, was rushed to a hospital, where his shattered right arm was amputated, according to Congress officials. They said he was expected to live. Ideologue for the Congress Spokesmen for the guerrilla group and for the Mozambican press agency blamed South Africa for the attack, which occurred a week after the assassination of the Congress's chief Paris representative, Dulcie September.
The South African Foreign Minister, Roelof F. Botha, denied that his Government had any connection to either attack, and hinted that the attack on Mr. Sachs was the result of internal disputes in the guerrilla group.
Mr. Sachs, who went to Mozambique after the Marxist revolution that overthrew the Portuguese colonialists in 1976, has never been a full-time Congress official but has played an important role in its revolutionary thinking. As a university professor and an employee of the Mozambique Ministry of Justice, Mr. Sachs was one of the few Congress officials allowed to remain in Maputo after a 1984 agreement with South Africa in which Mozambique promised to expel Congress members.
The attack on Mr. Sachs bore strong similarities to a bombing in Maputo in 1982, when Ruth First, a leading anti-apartheid campaigner and Congress member, was killed by a parcel bomb in her office at Eduardo Mondlane University. Like Mr. Sachs, Miss First was an early foe of apartheid and a member of the outlawed South African Communist Party. Mr. Sachs has since left the Communist Party.
A witness to today's bombing, Jacinto Sitoe, said Mr. Sachs left his apartment dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and appeared to be on the way to the beach. Today was a public holiday in Mozambique. Mr. Sitoe said the blast left a hole 12 inches deep and 35 inches wide in the tarred road.
Born in Cape Town, Mr. Sachs is the son of a prominent Communist trade-union organizer, E. S. (Solly) Sachs. Albie Sachs was one of 20 whites to join the Congress movement's nationwide defiance campaign in 1952. He was briefly arrested for entering the black entrance of a post office, but the charges were dropped. Held in Solitary In the 1950's he defended anti-apartheid campaigners in political trials, gaining a reputation as an able lawyer. He also defended his former wife, Stefanie Kemp, a member of the African Resistance Movement. In 1963, Mr. Sachs was one of the first held under South Africa's law allowing detention without trial, and was kept in solitary confinement for 168 days. After his release, he wrote an autobiography, ''The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs,'' part of which was adapted as a play. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and was recently on British television. It was staged in New York in 1979 at the Manhattan Theater Club. Shortly after his release, he left South Africa for Britain, where he lectured on law for more than 10 years at Southampton University. Assailed Pretoria Justice System
Mr. Sachs joined the African National Congress in 1969, when its ranks were first opened to whites. Tom Lodge, a political scientist at Witwatersrand University and an expert on the Congress, said Mr. Sachs's 1973 book on the South African legal system, ''Justice in South Africa,'' was the ''first powerfully argued critique of the South African system of justice.'' Since 1977, when he emigrated to Mozambique, Mr. Sachs has worked at Eduardo Mondlane University and has recently been employed by the Mozambican Justice Ministry to devise a legal system for a post-revolutionary socialist Mozambique. A prominent member of the Congress's commission on constitutional change, Mr. Sachs was also the author of a study, ''Towards a Reconstruction of South Africa,'' that served as the Congress's blueprint on constitutional change. It was published in 1985. U.S. EDUCATORS EXPRESS SHOCK
In New York yesterday, deans of the Columbia and Harvard Law Schools issued a statement expressing shock at the attack on Mr. Sachs, who had lectured widely in the United States. The statement praised his ''idealism, his courage and his unyielding struggle against apartheid,'' which they said had ''inspired thousands of American law students.'' It was signed by Barbara A. Black and Jack Greenberg, the dean and vice dean of the Columbia Law School, and by James Vorenberg, the dean of the Harvard Law School.
Source: New York Times
A report from the official Mozambican press agency said the explosion occurred as Mr. Sachs tried to unlock the door of his car in central Maputo, the capital. The force of the blast reportedly shattered every window in the block and damaged the nearby Portuguese Embassy.
Mr. Sachs, who was conscious, was rushed to a hospital, where his shattered right arm was amputated, according to Congress officials. They said he was expected to live. Ideologue for the Congress Spokesmen for the guerrilla group and for the Mozambican press agency blamed South Africa for the attack, which occurred a week after the assassination of the Congress's chief Paris representative, Dulcie September.
The South African Foreign Minister, Roelof F. Botha, denied that his Government had any connection to either attack, and hinted that the attack on Mr. Sachs was the result of internal disputes in the guerrilla group.
Mr. Sachs, who went to Mozambique after the Marxist revolution that overthrew the Portuguese colonialists in 1976, has never been a full-time Congress official but has played an important role in its revolutionary thinking. As a university professor and an employee of the Mozambique Ministry of Justice, Mr. Sachs was one of the few Congress officials allowed to remain in Maputo after a 1984 agreement with South Africa in which Mozambique promised to expel Congress members.
The attack on Mr. Sachs bore strong similarities to a bombing in Maputo in 1982, when Ruth First, a leading anti-apartheid campaigner and Congress member, was killed by a parcel bomb in her office at Eduardo Mondlane University. Like Mr. Sachs, Miss First was an early foe of apartheid and a member of the outlawed South African Communist Party. Mr. Sachs has since left the Communist Party.
A witness to today's bombing, Jacinto Sitoe, said Mr. Sachs left his apartment dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and appeared to be on the way to the beach. Today was a public holiday in Mozambique. Mr. Sitoe said the blast left a hole 12 inches deep and 35 inches wide in the tarred road.
Born in Cape Town, Mr. Sachs is the son of a prominent Communist trade-union organizer, E. S. (Solly) Sachs. Albie Sachs was one of 20 whites to join the Congress movement's nationwide defiance campaign in 1952. He was briefly arrested for entering the black entrance of a post office, but the charges were dropped. Held in Solitary In the 1950's he defended anti-apartheid campaigners in political trials, gaining a reputation as an able lawyer. He also defended his former wife, Stefanie Kemp, a member of the African Resistance Movement. In 1963, Mr. Sachs was one of the first held under South Africa's law allowing detention without trial, and was kept in solitary confinement for 168 days. After his release, he wrote an autobiography, ''The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs,'' part of which was adapted as a play. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and was recently on British television. It was staged in New York in 1979 at the Manhattan Theater Club. Shortly after his release, he left South Africa for Britain, where he lectured on law for more than 10 years at Southampton University. Assailed Pretoria Justice System
Mr. Sachs joined the African National Congress in 1969, when its ranks were first opened to whites. Tom Lodge, a political scientist at Witwatersrand University and an expert on the Congress, said Mr. Sachs's 1973 book on the South African legal system, ''Justice in South Africa,'' was the ''first powerfully argued critique of the South African system of justice.'' Since 1977, when he emigrated to Mozambique, Mr. Sachs has worked at Eduardo Mondlane University and has recently been employed by the Mozambican Justice Ministry to devise a legal system for a post-revolutionary socialist Mozambique. A prominent member of the Congress's commission on constitutional change, Mr. Sachs was also the author of a study, ''Towards a Reconstruction of South Africa,'' that served as the Congress's blueprint on constitutional change. It was published in 1985. U.S. EDUCATORS EXPRESS SHOCK
In New York yesterday, deans of the Columbia and Harvard Law Schools issued a statement expressing shock at the attack on Mr. Sachs, who had lectured widely in the United States. The statement praised his ''idealism, his courage and his unyielding struggle against apartheid,'' which they said had ''inspired thousands of American law students.'' It was signed by Barbara A. Black and Jack Greenberg, the dean and vice dean of the Columbia Law School, and by James Vorenberg, the dean of the Harvard Law School.
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, August 18, 1982
Apartheid Opponent Killed in Mozambique
One of South Africa's most prominent opponents of apartheid, Ruth First, was killed today in Mozambique when a parcel bomb exploded in her office in Maputo.
The official Mozambique press agency quoted a security official as saying the attack resembled others that have taken place in Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia, ''which were proved to be the work of the South African secret services.''
Miss First was a leading member of South Africa's banned African National Congress and was married to Joe Slovo, generally regarded as the group's leading ideologist. Miss First had lived in exile in Mozambique.
Source: New York Times
The official Mozambique press agency quoted a security official as saying the attack resembled others that have taken place in Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia, ''which were proved to be the work of the South African secret services.''
Miss First was a leading member of South Africa's banned African National Congress and was married to Joe Slovo, generally regarded as the group's leading ideologist. Miss First had lived in exile in Mozambique.
Source: New York Times
Tuesday, August 17, 1982
Ruth First Obituary
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| Ruth First & Walter Sisulu at the Congress of the People |
Ruth First was born in Johannesburg in 1925 and was the daughter of Jewish left-wing parents who had emigrated to South Africa from Lithuania. She joined the South African Communist Party while a student at Witwatersrand University and became the editor of a series of left-wing newspapers and magazines successively banned by the government. In 1956, she and her husband Joe Slovo were among the defendants in the mass treason trial which ended in the acquittal of all the accused. In the early sixties, she was banned from journalism and was arrested in 1963: the time spent in solitary confinement was the subject of her book 117 Days. She left South Africa on her release and settled in London with her husband and three daughters.
It was soon after that I came to know her, and the following brief remarks are about her as the person I knew: others who are better qualified will in due course write about her work.
One of the most remarkable things about Ruth First was her ability to combine two very different attitudes. On the one hand, she was totally and irrevocably committed to the cause she had adopted as a student. Her whole personality conveyed an impression of quiet resolve; and it was clear that, whoever else came to be daunted by the hardness and steepness of the road, she would not: for her, the straggle against oppression in South Africa would in one way or another remain her paramount concern in exile as it had been when she was there. On the other hand, her commitment was allied to a sharply critical view of the shortcomings of the left. She was deeply marked by the reflux from Stalinism; and she would get very angry at much that was said and done in the name of socialism and Marxism in many parts of the world. Nor was she sparing in her criticism of the new regimes in Africa, as witness for instance her analysis of many such regimes in The Barrel of A Gun. But this made no difference to her commitment. She was the least ‘utopian’ of revolutionaries: but she was not in the least ‘disillusioned’; and she never gave the slightest hint of a doubt about the justice of her cause or about the urgent need to strive for its advancement. She deplored the shortcomings, stupidities and crimes of her own side. But this never dimmed her sense that there was a struggle to be fought against the monstrous tyranny that is South Africa. From her earliest days in political struggle, she had had an exceptionally sharp sense of the concrete meaning of exploitation of black labour, and this remained a special interest of hers. She had in her early days in journalism helped to expose farm labour conditions in South Africa; and her last work in Mozambique was concerned with migrant miners from there into South Africa. Beyond all disappointments and setbacks, it was this sense of the reality of oppression which moved her.
Ruth First was above all a political activist, who became a writer and scholar by force of circumstances and because she had a remarkable talent for social and political analysis. She prized intellectual work but found academic life in Britain lacking in engagement and seriousness; and she looked at her own involvement in academic life with wry amusement, and with a sense that she did not really belong. She was intellectually very tough, direct, precise, unsentimental, impatient with rhetoric and pretentiousness. She had strong opinions, definite perspectives. This might have made her rigid and narrow; but it did not. She remained an intensely questioning person, with a great appetite for learning, with a free mind, an open ear, and a great sense of the ridiculous. When she first came to London, she was very shy about presenting her work to university seminars, and had to be persuaded, rather absurdly, that she was more than competent to do so. She became more confident as time went on, but she remained self-critical, and dismissive about her own achievements and successes. She was very self-demanding, and unassuming. The idea that she could ever become a symbol and an inspiration would have sent her into fits of embarrassed laughter. But her life and her death have made her so. When South Africa has had its revolution, hers will be one of the names in the roll of martyrs which new generations will honour; and she will remain a strong presence in the minds of those who knew her.
Source: Ralph Milliband Socialist Register (1982)
Ruth First (1925-1982)
Journalist, academic and political activist, she was the daughter of Jewish immigrants Julius and Matilda First. Julius, a furniture manufacturer, was born in Latvia and came to South Africa in 1906. He and his wife were founder members of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA, South African Communist Party in 1953). Ruth and her brother, Ronald, grew up in a household in which intense political debate between people of all races and classes was always present.
After matriculating from Jeppe High School for Girls, First attended the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, from 1942 to 1946, obtaining a B. A. (Social Studies) with firsts in sociology, anthropology, economic history and native administration. Her fellow students included Nelson Mandela, Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambican freedom fighter and the first leader of FRELIMO), Joe Slovo, J. N. Singh (executive member of both the Natal and South African Indian Congress), and Ismail Meer (a Former secretary-general of South African Indian Congress). First helped found the Federation of Progressive Students and served as secretary to the Young Communist League, the Progressive Youth Council and, for a short while, the Johannesburg branch of the CPSA.
In 1947 First worked, briefly, for the Johannesburg City Council, but left because she could not agree with the actions of the council. She then became Johannesburg editor of the left-wing weekly newspaper, The Guardian. As a journalist she specialised in expose reporting and her incisive articles about slave-like conditions on Bethal potato farms, the women’s anti-pass campaign, migrant labour, bus boycotts and slum conditions remain among the finest pieces of social and labour journalism of the 1950s.
Having grown up in a political aware home, First’s political involvement never abated. Apart from the activities already mentioned, she did support work for the 1946 mineworkers’ strike, the Indian Passive Resistance campaign and protests surrounding the outlawing of communism in 1950. First was a Marxist with a wide internationalist perspective. She travelled to China, the USSR and countries in Africa, experiences that she documented and analysed. She was central to debates within the Johannesburg Discussion Club, which led to the formation of the underground SACP (of which First was a member) and to closer links between the SACP and the African National Congress (ANC).
In 1949 First married Joe Slovo, a lawyer and labour organiser and, like her, a communist. Throughout the 1950s their home in Roosevelt Park was an important center for multiracial political gatherings. They had three daughters: Shawn (who was to script a film about her mother called A world apart), Gillian (who based her novel, Ties of blood, on her family) and Robyn. House searches and the banning and arrest of their parents by the police constantly unsettled their childhood.
Despite her public profile and wide contacts, First remained a private person. She had a brilliant intellect and did not suffer fools gladly. Her sharp criticism and her impatience with bluster earned her enemies and she was often feared in political debate. But she was not dogmatic. Her willingness to take up a position she considered to be just was not always welcomed within the ANC or SACP. Her shyness, her anxieties, her vulnerable abundance of generosity and love were unsuspected by those who only knew her as confident and commanding in a public context. With friends she was warm and sensitive. She loved good clothes (particularly Italian shoes) and was an excellent cook. However, contradictions between her politics and her role as a mother caused strains in her family, which are evident in the later works of her daughters.
In 1953 First helped found the Congress of Democrats, the white wing of the Congress Alliance, and she took over as editor of Fighting Talk, a journal supporting the alliance. She was on the drafting committee of the Freedom Charter, but was unable to attend the Congress of the People at Kliptown in 1955 because of her banning order. In 1956 both First and her husband Joe Slovo, were arrested and charged with treason. The trial lasted four years after which all 156 accused were acquitted.
First considered herself to be primarily a labour reporter, and during the 1950s she was producing up to fifteen stories a week. Despite this high work rate, her writing remained vivid, accurate and often controversial. Her investigative journalism was the basis of her longer pamphlets and, later, her books. The transition to more complex writing came easily.
During the state of emergency following the Sharpeville shootings of March 1960 First fled to Swaziland with her children, returning after the emergency was lifted six months later to continue as Johannesburg editor of New Age (successor to The Guardian). In the following two tears she wrote South West Africa, a book, which remains the most incisive history of early Namibia. During this time she helped to organise the first broadcasts of Radio Freedom from a mobile transmitter in Johannesburg. In 1963 First was detained following arrests of members of the underground ANC, the SACP and Umkhonto we Sizwe in Rivonia. In the trial, which followed, political leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki were sentenced to life imprisonment. However, First was not among the accused. She was detained in solitary confinement under the notorious 90-day clause, during which she attempted suicide. Her father fled South Africa and soon after her release First also left with her children to join her husband, who had already fled the country, in Britain.
The family settled in North London and First threw herself into anti apartheid politics, holding talks, seminars and public discussions in support of the ANC and SACP. Her book 117 days, an account of her arrest and interrogation in 1963, was made into a film with First acting as herself.
During the 1960s First researched and edited Mandela’s No easy walk to freedom (1967), Mbeki’s The Peasant’s Revolt (1967) and Oginda Odinga’s Not yet Uhuru (for ehich she was deported to Kenya). With Ronald Segal she edited South West Africa: travesty of trust (1967). From 1973 First lectured for six years at Durham University, England, on the sociology of underdevelopment.
In the 1970s she published The barrel of a gun: the politics of coups d’etat in Africa (1970), followed by Libya: the elusive revolution (1974), The Mozambican miner: a study in the export of labour (1977), and, with others, The South African connection: Western investment in apartheid (1972). It was during this time that she read contemporary feminist ideas, work which she wrote with Anne Scott (1980). Many of these works were landmarks in Marxist academic debate.
In 1977 First was appointed professor and research director of the Centre for African Studies at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique. She began work on the lives of migrant labourers, particularly those who worked on the South African gold mines. The results of this study were published as Black gold: the Mozambican miner (1983).
Following a UNESCO conference at the center in 1982, First was killed by a letter bomb widely believed to have originated from military sources within South Africa. Until her death she remained a ‘listed’ communist and could not be quoted in South Africa. Her close friend, Ronald Segal, described her death as “the final act of censorship”. Presidents, members of parliament and ambassadors from 34 countries, attended her funeral in Maputo.
Source: South African History Online
After matriculating from Jeppe High School for Girls, First attended the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, from 1942 to 1946, obtaining a B. A. (Social Studies) with firsts in sociology, anthropology, economic history and native administration. Her fellow students included Nelson Mandela, Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambican freedom fighter and the first leader of FRELIMO), Joe Slovo, J. N. Singh (executive member of both the Natal and South African Indian Congress), and Ismail Meer (a Former secretary-general of South African Indian Congress). First helped found the Federation of Progressive Students and served as secretary to the Young Communist League, the Progressive Youth Council and, for a short while, the Johannesburg branch of the CPSA.
In 1947 First worked, briefly, for the Johannesburg City Council, but left because she could not agree with the actions of the council. She then became Johannesburg editor of the left-wing weekly newspaper, The Guardian. As a journalist she specialised in expose reporting and her incisive articles about slave-like conditions on Bethal potato farms, the women’s anti-pass campaign, migrant labour, bus boycotts and slum conditions remain among the finest pieces of social and labour journalism of the 1950s.
Having grown up in a political aware home, First’s political involvement never abated. Apart from the activities already mentioned, she did support work for the 1946 mineworkers’ strike, the Indian Passive Resistance campaign and protests surrounding the outlawing of communism in 1950. First was a Marxist with a wide internationalist perspective. She travelled to China, the USSR and countries in Africa, experiences that she documented and analysed. She was central to debates within the Johannesburg Discussion Club, which led to the formation of the underground SACP (of which First was a member) and to closer links between the SACP and the African National Congress (ANC).
In 1949 First married Joe Slovo, a lawyer and labour organiser and, like her, a communist. Throughout the 1950s their home in Roosevelt Park was an important center for multiracial political gatherings. They had three daughters: Shawn (who was to script a film about her mother called A world apart), Gillian (who based her novel, Ties of blood, on her family) and Robyn. House searches and the banning and arrest of their parents by the police constantly unsettled their childhood.
Despite her public profile and wide contacts, First remained a private person. She had a brilliant intellect and did not suffer fools gladly. Her sharp criticism and her impatience with bluster earned her enemies and she was often feared in political debate. But she was not dogmatic. Her willingness to take up a position she considered to be just was not always welcomed within the ANC or SACP. Her shyness, her anxieties, her vulnerable abundance of generosity and love were unsuspected by those who only knew her as confident and commanding in a public context. With friends she was warm and sensitive. She loved good clothes (particularly Italian shoes) and was an excellent cook. However, contradictions between her politics and her role as a mother caused strains in her family, which are evident in the later works of her daughters.
In 1953 First helped found the Congress of Democrats, the white wing of the Congress Alliance, and she took over as editor of Fighting Talk, a journal supporting the alliance. She was on the drafting committee of the Freedom Charter, but was unable to attend the Congress of the People at Kliptown in 1955 because of her banning order. In 1956 both First and her husband Joe Slovo, were arrested and charged with treason. The trial lasted four years after which all 156 accused were acquitted.
First considered herself to be primarily a labour reporter, and during the 1950s she was producing up to fifteen stories a week. Despite this high work rate, her writing remained vivid, accurate and often controversial. Her investigative journalism was the basis of her longer pamphlets and, later, her books. The transition to more complex writing came easily.
During the state of emergency following the Sharpeville shootings of March 1960 First fled to Swaziland with her children, returning after the emergency was lifted six months later to continue as Johannesburg editor of New Age (successor to The Guardian). In the following two tears she wrote South West Africa, a book, which remains the most incisive history of early Namibia. During this time she helped to organise the first broadcasts of Radio Freedom from a mobile transmitter in Johannesburg. In 1963 First was detained following arrests of members of the underground ANC, the SACP and Umkhonto we Sizwe in Rivonia. In the trial, which followed, political leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki were sentenced to life imprisonment. However, First was not among the accused. She was detained in solitary confinement under the notorious 90-day clause, during which she attempted suicide. Her father fled South Africa and soon after her release First also left with her children to join her husband, who had already fled the country, in Britain.
The family settled in North London and First threw herself into anti apartheid politics, holding talks, seminars and public discussions in support of the ANC and SACP. Her book 117 days, an account of her arrest and interrogation in 1963, was made into a film with First acting as herself.
During the 1960s First researched and edited Mandela’s No easy walk to freedom (1967), Mbeki’s The Peasant’s Revolt (1967) and Oginda Odinga’s Not yet Uhuru (for ehich she was deported to Kenya). With Ronald Segal she edited South West Africa: travesty of trust (1967). From 1973 First lectured for six years at Durham University, England, on the sociology of underdevelopment.
In the 1970s she published The barrel of a gun: the politics of coups d’etat in Africa (1970), followed by Libya: the elusive revolution (1974), The Mozambican miner: a study in the export of labour (1977), and, with others, The South African connection: Western investment in apartheid (1972). It was during this time that she read contemporary feminist ideas, work which she wrote with Anne Scott (1980). Many of these works were landmarks in Marxist academic debate.
In 1977 First was appointed professor and research director of the Centre for African Studies at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique. She began work on the lives of migrant labourers, particularly those who worked on the South African gold mines. The results of this study were published as Black gold: the Mozambican miner (1983).
Following a UNESCO conference at the center in 1982, First was killed by a letter bomb widely believed to have originated from military sources within South Africa. Until her death she remained a ‘listed’ communist and could not be quoted in South Africa. Her close friend, Ronald Segal, described her death as “the final act of censorship”. Presidents, members of parliament and ambassadors from 34 countries, attended her funeral in Maputo.
Source: South African History Online
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