Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN: I want to describe as briefly as possible the terrible period of conflict which has come to be known as the Midlands War, which in effect raged from 1987 until relatively recently.  1987 is usually considered as the year of the start of this war.  I will simply highlight what I see as key points in the development of this war and conflict.
At the beginning of 1987 there was increasing tension, recruiting drives, meetings, gatherings, conflict.  There was, as a sideshow in terms of the fatalities as a whole, clashes between the UDF and AZAPO, which led to cruel murders on both sides.  It was a time of aggressive political intolerance.  In October - September/October there was an Inkatha recruiting drive in Vulindlela, the final date, the 4th of October, was proclaimed as the time by which everybody had to join.  This drive was met with resistance and led to the start of the war.
Initially the battle was fought in Edendale and Ashdown.  It led to 59 dead in September.  By January the toll had risen in that month to 161.  Horrible murders, often of non-combatants and the innocent, were committed on both sides.  Peace talks foundered because, particularly, of the restriction and detention of key UDF negotiators and the heavy escalation of the fighting.
By the end of December the UDF controlled Edendale.  There was still heavy fighting in Vulindlela.  There were huge numbers of detentions of UDF youth.  There were many allegations that certain Inkatha leaders were allowed to engage in acts of violence with impunity, among them particularly David Ntombela at KwaNgane, the late Chief Shayabantu Zondi of Mnada, and Sixiso Zuma of Harewood.  Attempts to force police action against them by interdicts were hampered by the assassination of key applicants and witnesses.  Most of these alleged killers have still not been brought to trial.
In 1988 the violence continued in Vulindlela.  There were massive inputs of police reinforcements, particularly of the so-called "kits konstabels," rapidly trained instant constables armed with pump action shotguns and dressed in blue overalls.  This created new controversy because many of them appeared to be aligned in some way to Inkatha, and to have records of engagement in previous acts of violence.
In February the Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok, officially blessed the assault against the UDF.  He said police would face the future with moderates and fight against radical groups.  "Radicals who are trying to destroy South Africa will not be tolerated.  We will fight them.  We have put a foothold in that direction, and we will eventually win the Pietermaritzburg area."  Political murders then continued, perhaps at a lower rate, an average of 44 a month to the end of the year.
I need to say some something briefly about detention and the role of General Buchner in police action during this period.  During 1987 it became clear that although the majority of the dead were UDF members killed by Inkatha vigilantes it was only UDF supporters who were being detained.  This seemed illogical if the State forces were really intent on stopping the violence and taking action against all sides.  A consistent pattern in death tolls from 1987 to 1989 was for UDF casualties to far exceed the Inkatha ones.  The ratio which I have come to after rigorous examination of innumerable statements and accounts of the murders was about seven to three, seven UDF dead for every three Inkatha dead, and this was so in every year up until 1990.  Inkatha's own claims as to their casualties do not greatly differ from these figures, yet in 1987 734 anti-Inkatha people, mainly UDF, were detained, but not a single Inkatha member or supporter was detained.  In 1988 460 anti-Inkatha people were detained, whereas only 21 Inkatha people were so detained, and most of them very briefly.
Analysing these figures, and looking at what happened in the rest of South Africa, it becomes clear that police detention through the emergency, brutal as it may have been, and however many assaults it led to in detention, did have the effect of reducing the death toll in the streets.  In the rest of South Africa there was a rapid decline of the death toll occasioned by the upsurge of resistance to apartheid in 1985 and 1986.  It was only in this region that the death toll continued to sour in spit of harsh emergency regulations, and the only conclusion one can come to is that it was police - partially police inaction and partisanship that led to this escalation of the death toll.
Regrettably all peace initiatives failed for various reasons, often due to police harassment of the UDF negotiators.  By mid-1988 one had come to some kind of stalemate, but the death toll continued with out 50-60 people being killed a month.  Apparent police breakthrough in September 1988 was foiled because participants refused to testify before the Complaints Adjudication Board.
Finally, at the end of 1988, one had the infamous Trust Feeds massacre, which is a useful case study of the complex interaction between Security Forces, the Joint Management Centres which had been set up to control dissent and manage society.  Trust Feeds is a small community, a rural community near 'Maritzburg.  In late 1988 there was an attempt by the local Inkatha and police to control UDF mobilisation in that township.  11 people were massacred by the police in early December.  This occurred a few days after Inkatha and police collusion in attempts to drive the UDF out of the area.  The local Inkatha chairman, Jerome Gabela, the New Hanover Police Station commander, Brian Mitchell had earlier solicited the help of the Riot Police captain in Pietermaritzburg, D M Terblanche to eliminate the UDF in Trust Feeds.  Terblanche deployed a number of "kits konstabels" in the Trust Feed area, and on the 3rd of December four "kits konstabels," together with Mitchell, attacked a house - in all probability not the one they had intended, they made a mistake - and murdered a group of mourners at a funeral vigil.  Some South African and KwaZulu Police officials appear to have been party to the cover-up of this murder.  Subsequently in 1991 and '92 the conspiracy between a number of policemen and regional and local Inkatha leaders to kill UDF supporters in the area was proven in court, and Mitchell and the "kits konstabels" convicted of murder.

INTERPRETER: In 1987 and 1988 the continuing violence between UDF and Inkatha continued.  People were even forced to join a particular political organisation, and in September 1987 Inkatha went to Vulindlela, where they put a law that everybody should join Inkatha.  That's what culminated to what we call the Midlands War, that is the war that took place in the Midlands.  People died from both sides.  Unfortunately attempts to bring peace were futile because many people were siding with the UDF, were supporting UDF, and they were detained by the police, and whenever peace was being initiated there was nobody who stood for peace.  The Government continued with trying to segregate black people.  In 1988 many police were deployed in black areas where they called them "kits konstabels."  They did their job in the manner that they were trained.  Minister Adriaan Vlok, who was the Minister of Police at that time, he actually praised the police for the commendable job that they had done.  He even said, "We shall conquer Pietermaritzburg."  This went on throughout 1988 and '89, which culminated to the Trust Feeds massacre, where 11 people were killed.  The investigations were suppressed by the police at that time, and in 1992 it's only then that there were testimony that brought to the fore as to what had happened, who actually committed these acts, what did they want, who had sent them.