TRC Final Report

Volume 3

Chapter 5

Subsection 7

PAC/Poqo activities

44 The PAC claimed that its 21 March 1960 campaign was only a part of an “unfolding programme of action” which would lead to total independence by 1963. With PAC leaders in prison, the task fell on the regional echelons. The wide media coverage of the anti-pass campaign and the state’s violent response increased the PAC’s image and membership, particularly in the Western Cape.

45 A number of violations during this period can be associated with Poqo’s activities in Langa and Paarl, which included forcible conscription drives and attacks on alleged ‘collaborators’ and ‘dissidents’ within the movement who opposed their activities.

46 Among those killed by Poqo members in 1962 were several people in Paarl suspected of being police informers. Two of these were coloured women accused of keeping members away from the Poqo meetings. Another coloured woman was permanently disabled.

47 Mr Milton Chumani Nozulu Matshiki [CT00267] was one of those killed by Poqo members in October 1962. His widow, Ms Nothemba Glenrose Kabane, stated that her husband had left their house on a Saturday in October 1962 for a local bachelors’ hostel, but did not come back home in the evening.

On Sunday morning a police car came to my house. We went together in an office where they told me that a body without a head had been found in the bushes, so they wanted me to go and identify the body. I refused because I was not a strong person. … They brought the clothes and these were my husband’s clothes which he was wearing when he left the house on Saturday. On Wednesday the detectives came again to tell me that they needed me to identify the head which could belong to my husband. It was my husband’s head.

At that time you could not criticise anything wrong done by Poqo, their activities or methods of struggle. Everyone in the community was not comfortable because one could be attacked for criticising any move by Poqo people.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT PAC OR POQO MILITANTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATHS OF AT LEAST EIGHT PEOPLE IN THE PERIOD UP TO AND INCLUDING 1963. THESE INCLUDED TWO WHITES AND THREE SUSPECTED ‘COLLABORATORS’ IN PAARL AND AT LEAST THREE POLICEMEN IN THE PENINSULA.

POQO ADOPTED AGGRESSIVE CONSCRIPTION METHODS, ALLOWING NO ROOM FOR DISSENSION, RESULTING IN AT TIMES VIOLENT INTOLERANCE TOWARDS NON-SUPPORTERS OF THEIR METHODS AND TOWARDS CRITICISM BY THEIR OWN MEMBERS OR OUTSIDERS.

POQO MILITANTS TARGETED CIVILIANS INDISCRIMINATELY. SUSPECTED ‘COLLABORATORS’ WERE PROBABLY MERELY CRITICAL INDIVIDUALS.

48 On 21 November 1962, Poqo members from Mbekweni, Paarl, met and resolved to attack the white town of Paarl. Over 200 men armed with axes, pangas, sticks, sabres and possibly a few revolvers gathered at about 02h00 and split into two groups, one to attack the prison and the other the police station. The latter group approached the police station and began attacking police patrol vans. Three were shot dead in front of the police station and others were wounded and several arrested. As the rest of the group fled, they met those who had been planning the prison attack and formed a new group which began attacking houses in Loop Street. Two white people, Ms Rencia Vermeulen (17) and Mr Frans Richards (21), were killed. One Paarl resident chased the attackers away from her house with a revolver, shooting one of them. The final death toll was seven, including five Poqo members: Mr Godfrey Yekiso, Mr Madodana Camagu, Mr John Magigo and Mr Ngenisile Siqwebo. Mr Matthews Mayezana Mali [CT00723] was shot by the SAP on 23 November 1962. Mali was shot in the head and chest while marching in front of a group of PAC demonstrators on their way to the Paarl police station to hand over a list of grievances on the day after the disturbances.

49 Several people were tortured and assaulted in custody in the wake of these events.

50 PAC leaders at Langa reported being shocked by the initiative taken by the Paarl branch when it was reported to them, saying they had not had prior knowledge of the actions.²

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE ACTIONS OF POQO SUPPORTERS IN PAARL WERE ESSENTIALLY LOCALLY PLANNED AND EXECUTED. THERE WERE SERIOUS LOCAL GRIEVANCES IN PAARL, RESULTING FROM THE STRONG ENFORCEMENT OF INFLUX CONTROL AS WELL AS THE CORRUPTION OF BANTU ADMINISTRATION BOARD OFFICERS WHICH HEIGHTENED THE POLITICAL ANGER OF LOCAL RESIDENTS. ALTHOUGH NOT OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED BY THE REGIONAL OR NATIONAL PAC LEADERSHIP, THE PAARL ATTACK FELL IN LINE WITH THE PLANNED OVERALL MASS UPRISING FOR 8 MARCH 1963 WHICH SPECIFIED THE TARGETING OF WHITES AND GOVERNMENT AGENTS.

51 Of a total of about seventy-one PAC members executed throughout the country between 1962 and 1967, at least twenty-one came from the western Cape, eighteen from Paarl and three from Langa. These were amongst the first death sentences imposed for political activity in the country during the period of the Commission’s mandate.

52 Mr Gqibile Nicholas Hans [CT00269] was one of those executed from Paarl.

53 Those executed from Langa included Mr Vuyisile Qoba, Mr Gladstone Nqulwana, Mr Thwayi Thwayi and Mr Nontasi Albert Tshweni [CT01338]. They were accused of having murdered Sergeant Moyi in Langa in March 1962. Mr Kwedi Mkhalipi, a member of the local Langa PAC executive, told the Commission that Qoba, although he was a task force leader, was not present at the killing, which was an impromptu ambush.

CONCERNING THE WIDESPREAD EXECUTION OF POQO MEMBERS, THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS FOR POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OFFENCES CONSTITUTE A GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION.

54 A unique set of arrests and trials unfolded in the Karoo region of the western Cape in the second half of the 1960s. Poqo networks were alleged to have conspired to rise up against the white population in several small towns. In Victoria West, twenty-six Africans and coloured people were arrested at the end of April 1968 on charges of having conspired with one another and with sixty-five others to commit sabotage. The state alleged that they were members of Poqo and had, between November 1966 and June 1967, planned to storm the police station, kill the police officers and other whites, and steal weapons and poisons for the town’s drinking water.

55 During November 1968, ten of these men were sentenced to three years each for belonging to Poqo and furthering its aims. Their convictions were set aside on appeal in 1969. Twenty-four who appeared in the Supreme Court on the more serious charges of sabotage and Poqo activities spent as long as seventeen months in prison before being discharged because of insufficient evidence. Mr Justice Theron, who presided over the case, said a police spy known as X54 had been the centre of the whole state case. Under cross-examination, it became apparent that his answers were false. X54 admitted that he had lied during a similar trial in Port Elizabeth. Similar cases occurred in Graaff-Reinet, Laingsburg and Oudtshoorn.

56 The Commission received several statements from those who were implicated and arrested in the Karoo town trials. While only one deponent, Mr William Makulani [CT00578], alleged torture and severe ill treatment by the police while in custody, others complained of lengthy periods of incarceration and court cases based on fictitious charges and disreputable witnesses. The impact of these trials in such small towns was substantial.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THERE WAS LITTLE IF ANY SUBSTANCE TO THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST THE ACCUSED AND THAT THE ABOVE-MENTIONED TRIALS WERE A MANIFESTATION OF RACIST INTOLERANCE AND PARANOIA. AS A RESULT, THOSE DETAINED AND ACCUSED ENDURED UNNECESSARY AND VINDICTIVE HARDSHIP.