By Adam Hanieh and Norm Dixon
ADELAIDE — Offices of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) have been raided and leading members arrested. Green Left Weekly spoke with Pumla Thoboti, an executive member of the Australasian branch of the Pan Africanist Student Organisation, and Naomi Nibon, a member of the PAC's directorate of publicity and information.
The PAC has a long history in the anti-apartheid struggle; it originated from a breakaway group from the African National Congress. It considers the principal form of struggle to be armed struggle and wants to bring into being a state ruled democratically by the African people.
On the morning of May 25 members of the South African Defence Force burst into the homes of top PAC leaders. At 2 a.m. the houses of PAC President Clarence Makwetu and deputy president Johnson Mlambo were raided and everyone in the house arrested. Both leaders were not at home at the time. PAC general secretary Benny Alexander's home was also raided an hour later. Alexander was arrested by heavily armed SADF forces but managed to escape with the help of a neighbour.
Police arrested around 60% of the PAC national executive as well as most regional and branch leaderships. Most of the PAC's delegation to the multiparty negotiations, which were due to continue that same day, were seized or are wanted. The head of the PAC's negotiating team and former chief representative to Australia, Maxwell Nemadzivhanani, was among those detained.
All PAC records were seized, as well as computers in the head office and all regional offices. In the wake of the arrests, the PAC withdrew from the negotiations scheduled that day.
Pumla Thoboti's husband, PAC director for publicity and information Waters Thoboti, was one of those arrested. Despite claims from the minister of police that the arrests were not politically motivated, Nibon said that they were aimed at damaging the PAC and were nothing new. She gave the example of Bloemfontein, where 19 school children were arrested in March and tortured.
Nibon spoke of frequent visits from the AWB (a right-wing paramilitary organisation) to PAC offices where members were harassed and given death threats. These visits occurred with the complicity of the regime.
Thoboti and Nibon told Green Left Weekly that no real reasons were given for the arrests, nor information about the length of time and where detainees are being held.
They said the PAC chief representative in Australia, Neville Legg, had written to Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans describing the actions of the regime as an attempt to disrupt the negotiations. He n government to ask the South African regime to release all PAC members; drop all charges against PAC members arrested; return all documents, files, and equipment seized in the raids; and compensate the PAC for the destruction of its offices.
ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa condemned the arrests and demanded that the government immediately sack minister for law and order Hernus Kriel. Ramaphosa said the arrests were part of a plan to sabotage the next week's expected announcement of a constituent assembly election date. The arrests come at the same time as an upsurge in violence in townships by Inkatha thugs. Many witnesses to this violence report that police have aided the perpetrators.
At the instigation of the ANC delegation, the multiparty negotiations suspended the scheduled meeting and instead discussed the arrests. The forum passed a resolution condemning the arrests.
The PAC and the South African government held an emergency meeting on May 27. Following the meeting, the PAC agreed to discuss its commitment to armed action and its position on violence at its national executive meeting on May 29 and give a "clear, unambiguous" report at a meeting of the government and PAC on June 1.
The South African government agreed to release three senior PAC leaders, including Waters Thoboti. Several other executive members, including Nemadzivhanani, will remain in custody until a report is presented at the June 1 meeting. The police agreed to return immediately "material seized, not required for further investigation or prosecution".