By Norm Dixon
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa's prisoners again must embark on a campaign of mass action to win their right to vote, Golden Miles Bhudu of the South African Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights (SAPOHR) told Green Left Weekly. The Transitional Executive Council voted four weeks ago to allow prisoners the vote, but President F.W. de Klerk is refusing to implement the decision by signing a proclamation to that effect.
SAPOHR on April 19 gave De Klerk a deadline of 2pm on April 21 to sign the proclamation or face another round of mass action in prisons.
De Klerk has rebuffed approaches from both the TEC and the Independent Electoral Commission on several occasions. Meanwhile, the NP has been running a series of crude, racist election advertisements featuring a picture of a young, white "rape victim". Should the rapist be given the right to vote? it asks.
The "liberal" Democratic Party has also launched a scare campaign opposing prisoners' rights and calling for more cops who should be "better armed". ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa has accused the NP of cynically using the prisoners' franchise issue for political advantage.
Prisoners have "no other alternative but to resume mass action. We are under pressure from our members because nothing has changed", Bhudu said. "It is our responsibility, as an independent organisation, to apply pressure on de Klerk. It is only de Klerk and his party, by signing the proclamation, who can meet the demands of all prisoners to vote."
The mass action will be peaceful and consist of hunger strikes, work stoppages and go-slows, Bhudu promised. "We have called again for international monitors to be allowed into prisons to ensure that the authorities do not launch severe acts of violence and repression as they did during the prisoners' last series of protests."
The violence of the authorities provoked the deaths of 23 prisoners in March. "It is not the prisoners that are involved in violence. The violence is orchestrated and perpetrated by the prison warders ... We have made it clear that our action will be peaceful."
With just days before the election, mass action was the prisoners' only weapon against de Klerk, Bhudu said.
Cyril Ramaphosa on April 21 backed SAPOHR's demands. Speaking at a press conference here, he reported that later that day he would be part of a joint TEC/IEC delegation that would meet de Klerk and ask him to sign the proclamation. Ramaphosa said that should any injuries occur or lives be lost in the course of the prisoners' mass action campaign "the blood of those prisoners will be personally on his hands".
SAPOHR asks all supporters of prisoners' rights and of human rights to urgently send faxes demanding that the South African government implement the TEC decision to extend the right to vote to all prisoners. Faxes should be sent to the South African embassy in Canberra on (06) 273 3543. Please fax copies to SAPOHR on 0015 27 11 833 7887.