Special Hearings — Political Party — 1998-05-06

POPO MOLEFE: : The UDF's origin can be traced to various attempts to redress the political and social economic grievances of the majority in apartheid South Africa.  The UDF drew on historical precedence of mass popular organisation sponsored by various liberation movements amongst whom the ANC was the most prominent.  Following the banning of the liberation organisations the apartheid government continued to disregard the legitimate aspirations of the people.
     During the nineteen seventies there was renewed resistance by the Durban dock workers and the student uprising in Soweto.  These dramatic events were followed by a political lull in the nineteen eighties, renewed mass struggles were embarked upon.  There is no doubt that UDF activists were inspired by the popular struggles of the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies.  
     The leadership of the UDF had amongst them persons for whom the congress alliance campaigns were a living memory and those who were the next generation of ANC members and supporters.  The UDF sought to popularise the freedom charter as it reflected the popular political and social economic aspirations of the majority of the people.  The UDF adopted the vision of a non racial, non sexist unified democracy in which the aspirations of ordinary working people could be met.  
     The mission of the UDF was to galvanise mass popular aspirations towards the creation of a participated democracy and the bringing about of the decent living conditions by forcing political change through mass struggle.  In view of the UDF's vision and mission the leadership and activists of the UDF set themselves the task of creating and bringing together under the same umbrella, local and regional organisations that would articulate the grievances and aspirations of people drawn from the various sectors of the South African society.  The UDF was launched with support of some six hundred organisations in 1983.  The objective was to translate these grievances and aspirations into campaigns which would mobilise on an ever growing number of people through various alliances into active opposition to apartheid institutions.  
     The storage of the UDF was thus to win the confidence of the majority of South Africans especially the oppressed and to draw them into mass action so as to force political change by depriving the rulers of apartheid South Africa of all the legitimacy and support they needed to maintain their power.  In view of its strategy the UDF created national and regional structures through which the activities of local affiliated organisations could be co-ordinated.  The UDF activists were required in terms of the UDF's working principals to account to the general membership through these regional and national structures.   
     It was envisaged that the initiative for creating and pursuing campaigns would be bottom up and accountability would be exercised along the same lines.  It was not possible to sign up as an individual member of the UDF because as a matter of policy membership was restricted to organisations in line with the strategy of mass organisation and action.  The principal decision making powers were vested in the primary local organisations on which the UDF was built.  Policy decision was made by the national and regional annual general conferences which also elected the national and regional executive committees.  Operational and day to day decisions were made by the executive organs which were accountable to national and regional general councils respectively.  The UDF also had a national working committee which facilitated decisions of general councils between the national conferences, supervised the work of the executive committees and monitored adherence to the UDF's general working principals.  
     The UDF also recognised and supported joined action with organisations outside its self on the basis of tactical alliances.  Membership of an affiliate of the UDF was not a requirement engaging in joined action or an alliance.  However the UDF insisted on joined campaigns between persons affiliated to accountable organisation structures.  In some instances these campaign allies consisted of formally constituted organisations and in others there were a variety of ad hoc action committees.  
     Now in view of the above the UDF relied on persons being members of its affiliated allies for insuring control and accountability with respect to individuals and groups participating in its activities.  As is well known the ANC was a prominent but band ally of the UDF.  In the latter part of its life the UDF consulted and agreed on campaigns with the then band ANC while maintaining distinct organisational structure and accountability, I may say also maintaining autonomy.  The UDF was formed and operated in a context of an illegitimate and a repressive political regime.  The apartheid rulers responded to the UDF through a combination of repression, disinformation and selective social economic reforms.  
     Now the prime objective of the selective reform was to remove the so called spoiled sports in order to limit and emasculate the political appeal of the UDF.  The regime social economic reform strategy entailed an attempt in giving credit to unrepresentative community councils of black local authorities in the various urban and rural centres.  These reforms included so called improvements in social amenities and other living conditions.  The common tactics associated with the social reforms were intended to prop up collaborationist leaders and followers.  Social economic reform was supported by attempts by the regime to stamp out genuine opposition through detention, imprisonment, banishment, burning and murder.  The state created an extensive network of informers and other clandestine collaborators some of whom were deployed as agent provocateurs and dispensers of political disinformation.
     The regime had a campaign to murder or provoke the murder of activists these actions were systematically disguised by blaming such murders on political rivals within the same organisations or from another organisation.  Agent provocateurs were deployed to spread false rumours amongst angry and embittered young activists that their comrades were informers.  It was expected that these young activists who had recently experienced acts of brutality at the hands of the state security forces would then be provoked into revenge attacks on other former comrades.  These acts of brutality and disinformation campaigns by the security forces created a climate of mistrust and intolerance for suspected informers and collaborators especially amongst youthful activists. 
The UDF had in its ranks people of different ages and various levels of political maturity which influenced the manner in which they were able to handle political diversity and relate to suspected informers.  
     The lack of political maturity was reflected in fear and intolerance of political differences and persisted despite concerted efforts by the UDF to remedy the situation through political education.  The militaristic culture especially amongst the youth merit the militarization of the South African state and society.  This phenomenon provided fertile grounds for forced recruitment into organisations and campaigns initiated by the UDF and for the attitude amongst activists that, if you are not with us you are against us.  
     The dominant political image in the mid to late nineteen eighties was that of entails contest between people's power and apartheid power.  In this context many activists interpreted statements by the UDF and its allies making reference to breaking down apartheid to mean that this should be done by means of violence.  The UDF was confronted with growing anger and impatience on the ground, its leaders expressed their support for the use of force in self defence against agents of apartheid state.  This was particularly the case where physical attacks were carried out against leaders and activists and where violent attempts were made to disrupt UDF meetings, in this context the UDF faced the dilemma of seeking to conduct a peaceful struggle under conditions which gave more credibility to violent confrontation on one hand and where on the other the UDF lacked the capacity to exercise the kind of control which is peculiar to command groups or military organisations.  
     It was against this political economic and social context that the UDF initiated and implemented a number of campaigns which were the pillars of the UDF strategy of mass action.  
     The submission sets out in greater detail the key UDF campaigns, the context, circumstances within which the campaigns were conducted and the implication for violation of human rights.  The mass campaign served to articulate aspirations and further the objectives of the UDF, raise political awareness and to build organisation and cohesion between affiliates.  These campaigns were widely supported and through these campaigns it extended its influence and it was known to be the broadest coalition of anti apartheid forces in South Africa.  Some of the most well known campaigns were the tricamarel elections campaign which was supported by millions of people who boycotted the elections and signed a partition rejecting tricamarel system which was known as the one million signature campaign.  The call to whites campaign to redress the fears of white South Africans that they would be dominated by blacks, education crises campaign, campaign around whites only referendum and the conference for a democratic future to mention but a few.  
     The campaign against the black local authorities launched in 1985 was particularly significant as it provided the impetus for the declaration of the 1985 state of emergency.  The black local authorities where fiercely opposed by local constituencies as there were propped up by means of force and through selective allocation of resources and social amenities.  The scheme was unworkable as it plays a financial burden for services on residents and it gave rise to internal physical clashes between unpopular councillors and the UDF and local constituencies.  Straight brutality and the systematic detention and banning of UDF and other leaders created the space for uncontrolled acts of violence by angry mobs of especially young people in various areas.  The restrictions imposed on the UDF under the state of emergency hampered the UDF in its ability to moderate, prevent or curtail the activities of angry activists and supporters during this period.  It is in this context that various gross human rights violations were committed against some components of the mass action campaigns and supporters of the state.  The activities of the UDF and its allies described above while making invaluable contribution to the democratisation of the South African society had many regrettable, unintended consequences.  
     These unintended consequences could in some instances fall within the definition of gross violations of human rights such as assaults loss of life and causing extreme fear amongst perceived and real opponents of the struggle for freedom and democracy.  In dealing with these painful events the leadership of the UDF does not intend to indulge in debates about whether or not the UDF activities were a direct or indirect cause of such gross human rights violation.  Each case of gross human rights violation would have to be evaluated on its merit.  This submission attempts to provide a brief overview of the context and circumstances in which gross human rights violations may have occurred.  We do so in the hope that this will help to make it possible or easier to understand the sad events against their complex background.  This will hopefully make the motives of the perpetrators understandable and will also encourage them to fully disclose their role and their understanding of that role at the time when they played it.  
 In our apportion in blame we believe that the government is in prohibiting democratic activities must bear the primary responsibility for the violence which ensued during this time.  After all the right to peaceful protest is an unalienable universally recognised human rights but we do accept a measure of moral responsibility for the fact that marches, mass actions were embarked upon when there was always a danger, whatever precautions we may have taken civilians may be injured during such protest, we feel however that we would have abdicated a greater moral responsibility if we sat back and simply acquiesced in our own oppression.  
     In conclusion we wish to express the UDF's deep regret for any gross violation of human rights which were erroneously committed in its name and its sometimes justifiable failure to prevent or remedy them.  
     Lastly we hope that the positive contributions of the UDF and its supporters will not be forgotten but will be drawn upon to strengthen the process of reconciliation with full disclosure of the truth about our painful past.