By Norm Dixon
JOHANNESBURG — Following a week of mass protests in South African prisons, the Transitional Executive Council agreed on March 22 that all prisoners will be allowed to vote in this country's first democratic elections.
Tragically, severe repression by authorities during the protests contributed to the deaths of 23 prisoners.
Prisoners responded with militancy to the March 17 call of the South African Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights (SAPOHR) to renew the mass action campaign for the right to vote. Authorities at many prisons refused to allow SAPOHR representatives access to prisoners so they could ensure that protests were "peaceful and disciplined", SAPOHR leader Golden Miles Bhudu told Green Left Weekly. The refusal to allow prisoners to continue peaceful forms of protest without harassment led many to more extreme actions.
Two thousand prisoners at Krugersdorp Prison launched a hunger strike, a work stoppage and go-slows on March 17. Warders assaulted them brutally. In response, mattresses and blankets were set alight. Prisoners at St Albans Prison, near Port Elizabeth, set alight 28 cells, according to prison authorities. On March 19, 300 prisoners at Paardeberg Prison, near Cape Town, set eight cells on fire during a protest. Prison authorities claim they found two bodies afterwards.
The mother of an inmate at Leeuwkop informed SAPOHR that on March 20 her son and a large number of others were violently assaulted by warders. Two prisoners had to be transported to Johannesburg General Hospital.
On March 21, 2400 prisoners at Maritzburg Prison knocked down walls and escaped from their cells. Police and troops welded the prison gates shut. Protests also were reported at Pretoria Central, Pollsmoor, Brandvlei, Grootvlei, Modderbee, Durban, Port Shepstone and Barberton prisons.
In the most tragic incident, 21 prisoners died at Queenstown Prison, near East London, on March 21. Authorities claim the prisoners died from suffocation after they set fire to their cells. SAPOHR charges that the deaths resulted from the use of tear gas in the enclosed cells. There have also been reports that senior officers refused to put the fires out. Prison authorities and National Party correctional services minister Adriaan Vlok blamed SAPOHR for the tragedy.
In a statement. the ANC rejected "the suggestion by the correction services officials that the deaths are a result of mass action by prisoners". The ANC said that it was the "brutality displayed by the prison authorities" that "significantly contributed to the deaths and injury to prisoners". The ANC called on the Independent Electoral Commission and the TEC to "urgently re-examine the decision" to deny prisoners the right to vote. The TEC did exactly that the following day.
The ANC, the South African Communist Party and the Pan Africanist Congress have consistently supported the right of prisoners to vote. Opposition from the National Party and the "liberal" Democratic Party twice blocked the right being extended. On March 22, in the wake of a developing countrywide prison uprising, the DP changed its position and delegates from the NP, the South African government and the Ciskei homeland "reserved their position".
Even before the Queenstown deaths, the brutality of prison authorities at Boksburg Prison in Johannesburg convinced Mac Maharaj, a member of the ANC national executive and a senior official of the TEC, that opposition to the right of prisoners to the vote must be overridden.
Golden Miles Bhudu described what happened at Boksburg on March 18. Forty-four black and white inmates took two warders hostage and demanded to see Bhudu and senior representatives of the ANC and PAC.
A delegation composed of Bhudu, Maharaj and Benny Alexander from the PAC entered the prison and held negotiations with the head of the prison. Eventually, the delegation was allowed to speak with the protesting inmates for two hours. The inmates agreed to release the warders — who the delegation was able to speak to and confirm had not been harmed — in return for a guarantee that they would not be punished or victimised for their protest, that prisoners transferred out of the section after previous protests would be returned, and that the IEC and TEC would seriously consider the prisoner franchise.
Having returned to the head of the prison's office to inform him of the agreement, Bhudu recounted, "We heard warders and police running down the corridors of the building, we heard big bangs ...
"The police had raided the cells using stun grenades just minutes after we had left them. We were told that the prison warders were rescued. How could they do this while we were negotiating the release of the warders?"
After Maharaj and Alexander spoke to the commissioner of prisons on the phone, the prison's commanding officer was ordered to allow the delegation to see the prisoners.
Bhudu described what they saw: "It was an overwhelming scene. The 44 inmates were lying in the corridor covered in blood. Faces and skulls had been beaten out of proportion. All inmates had multiple wounds. Stitches were being hurriedly applied to their heads, faces and hands. Most needed very urgent medical attention. Many were semiconscious and traumatised. Some looked like they might not last the night.
"We learned that after the police raid, inmates were made to line up and were beaten viciously with batons. Prisoners were terrorised. Warders told them they were going to die that night, after we were gone."
Bhudu told Green Left Weekly that Maharaj was furious. "He told the commanding officer he was going to take this matter personally to the TEC. He swore he would convince the TEC that it must intervene to allow prisoners to vote."
SAPOHR announced on March 23 that all mass action in prisons had been ended and called for the formation of a multiparty commission of inquiry into the deaths. The organisation demanded that the TEC assume tight control over the prison authorities, who have allowed some prisons to become virtual "volkstaats" run by right-wing white warders.
SAPOHR will continue to campaign for democratic and progressive correctional services, the release of all remaining political prisoners and the establishment of a release and welfare scheme to prepare and reintegrate inmates into society. [SAPOHR is keen to make contact with prisoner and human rights groups in other parts of the world. Write to SAPOHR, PO Box 61715, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2000. Phone 27 11 833 7871. Fax 27 11 833 7887.]