South Africa celebrates 23 years of Freedom today! Zapiro's archival Mandela Sunrise cartoon 27 April 1994 published then in Weekly Mail.

No  No No.....Nelson Mandela , the happy pill of South Africa simply kept the lid on ANC corruption and mismanagement ..... when he went Jacob Zuma and his ANC honchos were all ready in full swing mismanaging the country. Time for Change!! DA instead of ANC!
Celebrate!!!! There is nothing to celebrate. Nearly everything is destroyed. That was drawn in 1994 What he draws now is quite different. SA is destroyed finished and klaar. The latest destruction :- Coligny. Property stolen and destroyed from people who had nothing to do with the drama of a child allegedly killed outside of town. I hope everyone affected will close down and move away.

This is where the current problems started. This cartoon illustrates how South Africans thought that Nelson Mandela's existence would save us all and make life perfect. It took him, and thousands of others, 50 years of extreme hardship, suffering and sacrifice to bring about the end of Apartheid. In 1994 his work was over. It was, and is, up to the rest of us to create a free, decent, just society in which everyone 's basic needs are met. After 342 years of discrimination and oppression of one group by another the right to vote was just one tiny step in what should have been a massive, concerted, well-planned, focused and ongoing effort on the part of every citizen. 23 years later we still haven't learned this lesson. Hence the massive poverty, unemployment and crime.

Cameos From Zion: Merrry de La Grey by the Bard of Bat Yam, Poet Lau...

Cameos From Zion: Merrry de La Grey by the Bard of Bat Yam, Poet Lau...: Cats are among life's precious jewels and kinship They are sweet, funny cute, genuine and rare, They are what we call loyalty and fri...

We The Whites Of South Africa Manifesto Hey Ho We Better Keep calm … and shut up!

We the South African voters have spoken in the local government election, and we said many different things. Let’s give votes and cities (in part or whole) to the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA). Let’s give some votes and the municipality where President Jacob Zuma’s homestead of Nkandla is situated to the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

Also, let’s give some votes but no cities to the militant Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and small parcels of votes to many, many others.

We as voters have embraced pluralism and competition. It seems to have come as something of a shock to the leaders of the African National Congress (ANC), for some reason. Perhaps the hefty R1 billion the ANC used for campaigning would be better spent on some decent polling.

We also said, as an electorate, let’s take votes – and cities – away from the ANC. Whether the various parties of the opposition attracted our votes, or the ANC leadership repelled us and our votes through their arrogance and brazen corruption, remains a key research question facing academics and politicians.

For local governments in the country’s wealthiest province of Gauteng, in particular, where delivery has been way above the national average, this is a gloomy question. Where did all that hard work go? Was it simply insufficient for a 21st-century “world-class” set of cities?

Why did national credit downgrading matter so much to everyone, but city upgrading by the same agencies of Johannesburg to AA1 status mattered not a jot?

Bluntly, did the rot from the centre suppurate through to voters who may otherwise have rated the metropole of Johannesburg, its mayor Parks Tau and members of the mayoral committee (MMCs) as working well for us? Did we throw out the Tau with the bathwater, in anger and frustration at his ANC overlords?

This question – of blame, simply put – is likely to be at the heart of post-election ANC manoeuvring. Whether the interests of voters will be taken into account is an open question.
Free and fair and (too) fast

To add hubris to the mess, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) was brazen enough to host an end-of-election event, declaring the entire endeavour free and fair. This, even while the vote for the economic and provincial capital, Johannesburg, remained incomplete and subject to dispute in multiple wards. Really?

The audacity of the IEC was breathtaking. It would be rather like the Brexit vote being declared while still counting the London votes.

Twitterati breathlessly told us that the IEC emerged from the election well, with its reputation regained after its own tango with corruption and maladministration. Apparently our appetite for a clean institution is so large and urgent that we are willing to allow such incidents to occur, relieved that at least most of the vote had been free and fair, and the IEC seemed to smell of roses.

Then the young women of the EFF stood in mute protest as Zuma spoke at the IEC election centre after the polls in Pretoria. They reminded us of the rape charge and trial of the president a decade ago (he was acquitted), asking profound questions about the moral basis of leadership – and did so just metres away from Zuma, while he bumbled through the usual pleasantries of a captain watching his ship sinking while trying to keep the passengers calm.

Zuma’s security detail – presumably gobsmacked that these young women completely outmanoeuvred their assumed tactical astuteness and training and little plastic ear wires and big guns – were rather less presidential in their handling of the young women.

Strong men shoving around young women – the tableaux acted out exactly what the women were protesting. The women are university students, doing what students do best – cocking a snoop at authority in pursuit of their beliefs. Setting a rather presidential example, it may be noted.
Anti-rape protesters being removed as Jacob Zuma spoke in Pretoria.

Since then, the social media landscape has been alight with awkward camera angles, muffled sound and snippets of gossip – did female ANC cabinet ministers really round on one of their own for the lapse in security? Was Zuma heard shouting his anger? Who were the women? Why were they screaming when led away? Did the rest of the EFF contingent know of the protest, as they hastily made for the door, apparently refusing to listen to Zuma?
Snide, rude and arrogant

But perhaps the worst thing to happen is that someone told DA former party leader and Western Cape Premier Helen Zille she could stop hiding and start tweeting again. Life is tough enough for whiteys without her assuming to insert snide, often rude and arrogant tweets into whatever debate she feels needs her special attention.

Universities have been literally aflame for almost a year, but this did not stop Zille from tweeting to a #feesmustfall group that:


If this woke bunch hate being UCT students so much, pls help them out of their misery and withdraw their funding.

Political writer Richard Poplak has already eviscerated the tweet and the twit who wrote it. Just what we need – stupid, snide, entirely lacking in compassion, suggesting a flatlined learning curve. And unassailably white on the scale of snottiness and lack of empathy.

Not that anyone asked, but if they did I’d say to fellow white voters, “Stay Calm – but (not just you Helen Zille) please shut up!” The massive change we have witnessed; the “new narrative” that has welcomed pluralism and jettisoned the much-peddled factoid of 2014’s national election, that we were all heading to doom, death and decay – or, worse, Zimbabwean basket-case status; these things have not been done by white people, though we may have been part of the change.
Elections are not a racial census

We do not bear “the white man’s [sic] burden” of being the gatekeeper of liberal democracy, even though various commentators over the last 22 years have told us that black people vote blindly for ANC governments – that elections are a racial census.

These supposed political scientists argued for years that the black vote – that key item lying at the heart of the struggle for democracy – was actually the biggest threat to democracy, because the “natives” kept electing ANC governments. If anyone wanted a better example of why the academy needs a dramatic post-colonial overhaul, read 22 years of election analysis, and weep quietly.

But now these have been debunked by us voters. The academics trotting out these tropes have been shown to write utter tosh; and one can only hope that we all accept – and all will accept us – as part of a massive social revolution that began in 1990 and is still taking shape, unravelling from the violence and racism and psychological scarring of the past and moving restlessly into an unknown future.

It cannot do so where whites or blacks silence one another – but it also cannot thrive where black or white claim credit for the victories of democracy.

We – all of us, in our resplendent variety as voters – we did this. Whites did it. Blacks did it. Coloureds did it. Indians did it. Gay and straight, LGBTIAQ+ and staunchly religious conservatives and atheists, surfers and tiddly-winks players, we all did it.

So let’s own it as a collective victory against those who sit in power and disregard us as voting fodder. The only winner in the local elections of 2016 is the only winner that matters – you and I, the South African voter.

It’s the people, or #OyVeyJacobZuma Zumarism

Jacob Zuma has been a disastrous and calamitous runaway train on a demolition derby

And so the endgame begins. As expected, President Jacob Zuma has taken the propitious step of reshuffling his cabinet, ousting trusted Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, and thereby demonstrating a shameful disregard for the commonplace notion that government should treat the capital of its taxpayers with respect.

There has been lots of vague speculation over why it would be necessary to dismiss a loyal and respected finance minister, laced with hints and suggestions, so let’s be clear on this topic: the president is dismissing Gordhan because he wants more control over the fiscus and Gordhan stands in his way.

The full list of new Cabinet ministers

Who’s in and who’s out. Read the full list here

 BDliveSA

He wants more control because, like all unpopular leaders, he feels he can spend his way into people’s hearts – and particularly the hearts of his chosen recipients, his family, his friends and his supporters in the higher ranks of the party.

But by doing so, he will cause ructions within the party and chaos in the fiscus. Zuma’s legacy so far has been a catalogue of disasters for his own alliance and his own supporters. The once mighty Cosatu that bestrode the workplace in SA for years has now been reduced to essentially a union of state employees, the only group too afraid to disassociate itself from the party in power.

The South African Communist Party, once an influential think-tank within the alliance, is now discarded and demeaned. The ANC Youth League, once a fertile training ground for party cadres, is overshadowed by its breakaway political movement, the Economic Freedom Fighters.

Under his leadership, the ANC, which once commanded the support of more than two-thirds of voters, in the latest local government poll could barely muster a simple majority.
He has been a disastrous and calamitous runaway train on a demolition derby.

Zuma faces down open revolt, guts his Cabinet

Jacob Zuma’s reshuffle shock will have far-reaching consequences, with the rand falling sharply overnight and set to fall further

For the state of government finances, he has been equally a calamity. His own personal gluttony has been reflected in a fiscal position that has slid from serious to parlous. Over his term, state debt has doubled; government has borrowed more than a trillion rand; the level of business confidence is miserable and consequently, the economy has slouched into a gravelly state of bare stasis.

It seems almost inevitable now that SA’s government debt will be downgraded to junk status, but even if it is not, there is simply no conceivable way that Gordan’s successor can possibly regain the same level of trust of foreign lenders.

In response to all these setbacks, Zuma’s response has been to up the ante, trying to discover his inner Robert Mugabe. By adopting this gambit, Zuma has misjudged the country’s people, most of whom are urban dwellers who seek economic stability, not doubtful promises of grand redistribution.

Yet, in the midst of this dark time, there is one redeeming feature. The endgame has begun. Instead of being caught in a quasi-clandestine battle over the future of the party, the battle lines are clear. On one hand, stands Zumarism, with all its promise of corruption, dislocation and disfigurement. On the other, stands anti-Zumarism, with all its promise of pragmatism and a future of mutual respect.

As a result, the choice that stands before ANC members of leadership and parliament is now peculiarly stark. They need to decide on which side of history they stand. And the root question is equally stark: do they stand with the people of South African, or do they stand with Zuma and his faction.

For nobody in the party is the choice more wrenching than Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. If he remains in the cabinet now, his already battered credibility will be lost irretrievably. He will forever be associated with a president who plainly does not even want him to be his successor. What an ignominious end to such an illustrious career.

Still, Zuma may discover that this kind of zero-sum game thinking results in the most hollow of victories.

Helen of Twitter Dethroned H.R.H. Queen of Colonialism

Mandela's key wingman Ahmed Kathrada calls for #OyVeyJacobZuma to step down from the Grave

Former judge takes on Helen Zille's “colonialism” Twitter political correctness head-on

Former judge takes on “colonialism” political correctness head-on

Former Supreme Court Judge Rex van Schalkwyk tackles South Africa’s insidious and debilitating political correctness around colonialism head on, taking us on a global history tour that exposes the shallow current dominant discourse for what it is – errant nonsense. The more frightening prospect is that, in the midst of the official opposition’s turmoil over Western Cape Premier Helen Zille’s tweet about colonialism having conferred benefits on this country, we are establishing a new (and twisted), norm for acceptable free speech. That van Schalkwyk’s voice is almost drowned out in the current media discourse shows just how far we’ve drifted into what is now almost mainstream thinking about what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to expressing your opinion publicly. Adapting to a new Constitutionally-protected and legislatively-equal society is both appropriate and pragmatic. However, what is now evolving is akin to the headmaster, teachers, prefects and classroom bullies colluding to brutally and mercilessly shame and/or silence anyone who differs from them, creating a dysfunctional and fearful behavioural ethic. Some commentators are even claiming (contrary to all of history) that if colonisation, or something similar, had not occurred, the indigenous peoples would have made all the scientific, engineering, medical and other discoveries without outside influence. Pure fantasy, says Van Schalkwyk, who then goes on to show us exactly why. – Chris Bateman



There is something seriously wrong with a society in which it becomes impossible to express an honest opinion. Helen ZIlle’s tweet (never a good idea) contained, essentially, the truth but in the collective hullabaloo that followed, that fact has almost entirely been lost.Former Supreme Court Judge Rex van Schalkwyk

Whatever her critics may say, she never “defended” or “praised” colonialism in any of the opinions that she expressed; she was careful only to have said that colonialism was not all bad. Any disagreement upon this issue (apart from the political inappropriateness of the comment) means, by necessary implication, that colonialism was all bad. Factually, that is demonstrably false.

Apart from the oft-repeated examples of mechanised transport, roads, electricity, water-borne sewerage and the rest, the one colonial manifestation that cannot be escaped is the written, English language. Even an avowed anti-colonialist and sometime hater of all things English (excepting perhaps the game of cricket) like Robert Mugabe, speaks the language with the accent of an Eton graduate.

It is said by some of the Zille critics that all the apparent benefits of the colonial system were initiated for the benefit of the colonisers. Well, of course, that is true; people do things for their own benefit. It is the impulse that has driven creativity throughout the ages. The contention that there was no residual benefit for the victims of colonialism would seek to disprove the most significant force of development and change throughout history. Colonialism or, more accurately, invasions, constitute much of the history of the world, and it all started millennia before the Dutch settlers “colonised” the Cape of Good Hope.

Civilization may have started with the ancient culture of the Babylonians, located in the fertile valley of the Tigris and Euphrates; they were the first to have devolved a written language. This occurred even before the Aryans invaded Europe from the north and spread their influence as far south as North Africa and east into India. Fortunately for the Aryans, their adventures put their illiterate hordes into contact with the people of Babylon from whence came their literacy.Helen Zille’s Twitter storm. More magic available at www.zapiro.com

The ancient written word of Sanskrit, said by some etymologists to have been the first writing, was imported, according to some historians, from the expansionist impulses of the (by now) literate Aryans. The historical accounts vary but need not detain us. The point is simply that migrations, invasions and what has come latterly to be described as colonialism and/or imperialism has occurred throughout history and has invariably imparted, at least, some benefit.

The famed Library at Alexandria, about which many Africans express a glowing pride, was established in the wake of the invasion of North Africa, by Alexander the Great, a Macedonian. The eponymous name of that great institution was derived from the title of the invader.

The Romans introduced the territories that they invaded to a formidable array of skills including engineering, architecture, water reticulation, art and culture and even personal hygiene.

Much the same can be said in the case of South Africa, but if all else is ignored then the English language has conferred great benefits in communication, literacy, literature, culture, science and commerce.


Read also: Stop playing the ANC’s game; get off Zille and do your job – Wilf Nussey

It is true, of course, that if the Dutch colonisers had not arrived, and the English thereafter, as some anti-colonists would wish, that these and perhaps greater benefits may have been derived from some other source. It is uncertain however that any alternative would necessarily have been more benign. The Belgians would almost surely have been worse, if the invasion had occurred during the time of King Leopold.

If the Chinese naval marvel built by the redoubtable Admiral Zheng He in the 15th century AD had not been destroyed upon the command of the isolationist Emperor Hongxi, the peoples of Southern Africa might today be speaking Cantonese.

Some forms of colonialism were undoubtedly far worse than others. If the Dutch settlement at the Cape can be called a colonisation, it was certainly of the more benign kind. The Cape sea route was seen as nothing more than a half-way stop on the long voyage to India, where the real riches were to be found. By comparison the whole of unexplored Southern Africa was seen as no more than a backward and impoverished region with few attractions apart from the strategic one.The real colonisation occurred when the British might took on the two Boer Republics in an imperial war of aggression. Even that tragic event produced a significant dividend in terms of commercial, banking and other related expertise that had previously been absent.

If an example is sought of pernicious exploitation it is found in the brutal abuse of the people of Vietnam, whose land was occupied, first by the Chinese, for 1000 years, then by the Mongols, then by the French and finally, by the Japanese. But that was not all. The Americans chose that beleaguered land to fight their war of containment against Communist expansion, with a brutality unrivalled in warfare until that time.

Some of the bedraggled survivors chose a refuge by way of a seaborne migration in what has come to be known as the phenomenon of the “boat people”. Those who survived the treacherous voyage, as well as the hostile immigration officials of California, set up their survivalist enterprises in what was sometimes an antagonistic environment. The offspring of these indomitable people are today out-performing their privileged American counterparts at the Ivy League Universities of their adoptive land. And Vietnam is now approaching a First World status similar to that of many of its Asian counterparts.

Collectively, their success lies in the fact that they have left the past behind.

The anti-colonist obsession that has overtaken our dialogue will do nothing to advance the cause of progress. Judging by the reaction of the anti Zille shills it will, however, have the effect of stilling the voice of dissention. What is then to become of the sacred right of the freedom of expression, if even thought processes are now to be controlled?

We have already reached the stage where the accusation of racialism is cast about so indiscriminately that it has become meaningless to any thoughtful observer. However it has had the effect that individuals have become so apprehensive of the prospect of this unjustified slur that they have begun to censor, not only their speech, but even their own thoughts. Indeed I had wondered about the wisdom of putting these ideas in writing.

In a collective quest to be politically correct, is South Africa in danger of becoming a nation of dissemblers? Is this perchance because the thought police have taken control?
Rex van Schalkwyk is a former judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa and is the Chairman of the Free Market Foundation’s Rule of Law Board of Advisers.

Catch a Fire is a 2006 biographical thriller film about activists against apartheid in South Africa. The film was directed by Phillip Noyce, from a screenplay written by Shawn Slovo. Slovo's father, Joe Slovo, and mother Ruth First, leaders of the South African Communist Party and activists in the Anti-Apartheid Movement,

Catch A Fire
US theatrical release poster
Directed by	Phillip Noyce
Produced by	Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Anthony Minghella Robyn Slovo
Written by	Shawn Slovo
Starring	Derek Luke Tim Robbins Bonnie Henna
Music by	Philip Miller
Cinematography	Ron Fortunato Garry Phillips
Edited by	Jill Bilcock
Production companies	StudioCanal Working Title Films Mirage Enterprises
Distributed by	Focus Features (US) Universal Pictures International (UK)
Release date	27 October 2006 (US) 23 March 2007 (UK)
Running time	101 min[1]
Country	United Kingdom United States France South Africa
Language	English
Budget	$14 million
Box office	$5,724,236

Catch a Fire is a 2006 biographical thriller film about activists against apartheid in South Africa. The film was directed by Phillip Noyce, from a screenplay written by Shawn Slovo. Slovo's father, Joe Slovo, and mother Ruth First, leaders of the South African Communist Party and activists in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, appear as characters in the film, while her sister, Robyn Slovo, is one of the film's producers and also plays their mother Ruth First. Catch a Fire was shot on location in South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique.

Plot
The film begins in "Northern Coalfields, South Africa, 1980". It revolves around Patrick Chamusso, a young, apolitical man (played by Derek Luke) who is accused of carrying out an attack against the government, and an Afrikaner police officer, Nic Vos, played by Tim Robbins. Vos is in charge of locating the perpetrators of a recent bomb attack against the Secunda CTL synthetic fuel refinery, which is the largest coal liquefaction plant in the world.

Patrick is unwillingly swept into Vos's investigation due to his inability to provide a satisfactory explanation for his whereabouts at the time of the bombing (he was actually having an affair with a woman not his wife). Eventually Patrick, his wife, Precious, (played by Bonnie Henna), and his family are tortured and savagely abused by Vos and Vos's subordinates. Desperate, Patrick says that he is willing to confess to a crime he did not commit to protect his family from torture. At last, Vos finally concludes that Patrick is innocent, and orders his release.

Fuelled by the anger at the injustices he and his family suffered, Patrick joins Umkhonto we Sizwe, the guerrilla military wing of the African National Congress and becomes exactly what Vos had initially accused him of being. This decision was an act of revenge against the government for killing his friend and tormenting not only himself but his wife as well. He attempts to execute a plan to attack Secunda, the oil refinery he used to work for, by first bombing its adjacent water supply facilities, and 15 minutes later triggering the main explosion within the refinery itself. This would allow the refinery's workforce to flee between the two explosions, and not be harmed. Also, the damage of the first bomb would reduce the possibility of successfully extinguishing the fire caused by the second, main explosion. Patrick succeeds in the first part, but the second bomb is discovered by Vos and deactivated.

Patrick is arrested and sentenced to 24 years in prison, after his wife goes to Vos and tells him where Patrick is, because she fell for a simple trick in which Vos left photographs of Patrick talking to a female member of the ANC. Through her unjust jealousy she sells him out. He is released early due to the abolition of apartheid.

Precious, who has remarried, is waiting for him and apologizes, and Patrick forgives her and he says he is sorry as well. Some time later, he has been trying to adjust to normal life but the pain he felt wouldn't leave him. One day, he sees Vos sitting out near a small body of water opposite to the side he and friends are on. He creeps over and through some brush sees that it is indeed Vos, and though a part of him wants to break Vos' neck, he decides that it is not worth it, and the real Patrick Chamusso is shown explaining that he told himself then and there that only through forgiveness would he truly be free. He left Vos alone, and went on to remarry and take in over 80 orphaned children in South Africa to provide a home for kids who lost their families during the anti-apartheid struggle.

Cast

• Derek Luke as Patrick Chamusso
• Tim Robbins as Nic Vos
• Bonnie Henna as Precious Chamusso[2]
• Mncedisi Shabangu as Zeko September
• Tumisho Masha as Obadi
• Sithembiso Khumalo as Sixpence
• Terry Pheto as Miriam
• Marius Weyers as the Field Commander
• Michele Burgers as Anna Vos
• Mpho Lovinga as Johnny Piliso
• Malcolm Purkey as Joe Slovo
• Robyn Slovo as Ruth First
• Patrick Chamusso as himself
• Sibusiso Mhlongo as a Photographer

Critical reception
The film received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 75% out of 141 professional critics gave the film a positive review, with a rating average of 6.6/10 and the critical consensus being: "No stranger to the political thriller, director Phillip Noyce tackles apartheid and terrorism with experienced gusto, while Derek Luke and Tim Robbins hand in nuanced performances."[3]

Fortress Zuma coming under attack by forces led by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan

After yesterday’s outrageous blunder I’m trying to work out if SA President Jacob Zuma has now completely lost it. Or whether he is so compromised he just has to jerk whenever his strings are pulled by the crony capitalist Guptas.

Zuma’s instruction that his Finance Minister abort planned presentations to investors in London and New York surpasses base stupidity. Pravin Gordhan has worked tirelessly to court the foreign capital every developing country must attract to grow. These roadshows are critical to maintaining SA’s investment grade rating – without which its cost of borrowing will increase, punishing, especially, the poor.

Being ordered to return home on an apparent whim from Pretoria not only humiliates Gordhan – it needlessly irritates those whose cash injections can make the difference between a flourishing or floundering economy. It is no coincidence the Guptas are publicly demanding Gordhan appear in court tomorrow to defend himself against their absurd assertions.

Rian Malan nailed it in a brilliant piece on Biznews yesterday. He reckons SA’s constitution “has come to mark the great divide in our society. On the one side we have forces raged behind Gordhan. On the other, Zuma and his primitive accumulationists.” If Zuma wins, Malan concludes, “SA will follow Idi Amin and Mugabe into the abyss.” This is going to be quite a week.

Nelson Mandela and the Jews of South Africa

In the early 1940s, at a time when it was virtually impossible for a South African of color to secure a professional apprenticeship, the Jewish law firm Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman gave a young black man a job as a clerk.


It was among the first encounters in what would become a lifelong relationship between Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s bustling liberal Jewish community, impacting the statesman’s life at several defining moments — from his arrival in Johannesburg from the rural Transkei region as a young man to his years of struggle, imprisonment and ascension to the presidency.


Mandela, who died Thursday at 95, wrote of the early job in his autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” and acknowledged the disproportionate role that Jews played in the struggle against apartheid. Lazer Sidelsky, one of the firm’s partners, treated him with “enormous kindness” and was among the first whites to treat him with respect.
“I have found Jews to be more broad-minded than most whites on issues of race and politics, perhaps because they themselves have historically been victims of prejudice,” Mandela wrote. When Nelson Mandela visited Israel in 1997 he specifically asked to meet , Lazer Sidelsky’s son, Rabbi Sodelsky. and Stephen Drus ( Stephen Darori after he Hebrewaized his surname ) the nephew of Professor Ethel Drus both of whom had immigrated to Israel in the 80′s . Rabbi Sidelsky for ideological Zionist reasons and Stephen Drus , ” I was the last of my family in South Africa and after been detained without trial repeatedly and hassled by the South African Security Police , I simply folded , gave up and joined the Struggle to Release Mandela, in the South African Diaspora”. Professor Ethel Drus, was a renown UCT Educated Historian, who won three Alexander Prizes for History awarded by the Royal Society of Historians ( the equivalent of the Fields Prize in Mathematics) . Professor Drus Chaired the Committee of Twelve who drafted the Freedom Charter , the Central African National Congress Document of commitment. The committee of Twelve consisted of Three Blacks ( Mandela, Tambo and Mathews ) and Nine Jewish Academics and Civil Rights Lawyers that included Ethel Drus, Ruth First, Abie Sachs, Joe Slovo ( Ruth’s First’s Husband) , the Bernsteins, Helen Joseph, and Helen Suzman). They agreed to disagree on the question of Nationalization and the Redistribution of Land that Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela felt appropriate for inclusion then but agreed to reevaluate their position in the future and after he became the first Black President, Nelson Mandela chose not to make either central to the philosophy he followed. Mandela here top Harry Oppenheimer ( born Jewish ) advice an rather than antagonize all the Whites and Indians pursued an affirmative action program while Harry Oppenheimer and other Jewish Business Leaders accelerated the transition of Blacks into Big Business in south Africa by adding them to the Board of directors of JSE companies and even giving them management control of major JSE Groups like JCI – Johannesburg Consolidated Investment. Stephen Drus was active in the Progress Federal Party that became the Progressive Federal Party in Parliament and the Official Opposition. It is the Democratic Alliance today . Stephen Drus served as both Chairman of the Progressive and then Progressive Federal Party Youth Organisation in both the Western Cape and then Nationally. He was a founder and treasurer of first the short lived Mass Democratic Movement ( banned) and then the United Democratic Front and was the financial connection between the UDF and major South African businessmen that included Harry Oppenheimer, Mendel Kaplan, Donald Gordon, Sol Kerzner , Susman of Woolworths, Ackerman of Ackermans , Mauberberger and many other leading Jewish businessman in Cape Town in particular. Professor Ethel Drus then Emeritus Professor of History at Southampton University in the United Kington who was an authority of South African banned organisations and the legislation that did so, instructed her nephew Stephen Drus to insist that no leadership was elected to the United Democratic Front. And so it was .Without leadership, the union of over 400 Anti Apartheid Organisations ( both large and small) that all called for the Release of Mandela , technically did not exists and could therefore not ne banned. And so it was. the UDF led the campaign thereafter for the Release of Mandela and then evolved into the grassroots organisation of the African National Congress after Nelson Mandela was released from the Victor Vester Prison on February 11th, 1990 at 2.30 pm.


The Democratic Alliance, the liberal opposition in the new South African Democracy Parliament was led by Tony Leon for thirteen years and currently by Helen Zille who has Jewish Grandfathers.


South Africa’s Jews remembered Mandela, the country’s first democratically elected president, as a close friend, one with deep ties to prominent community figures and a partner in the decades-long effort to end apartheid.


“I was extremely privileged to lead the community during his presidency,” said Mervyn Smith, who was chairman and later president of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the community’s representative body. “We met with him on many occasions and the talk was direct and open.”


For Mandela, who rose to prominence as a leading opponent of the discriminatory racial regime known as apartheid, Jews were vital allies. Jewish lawyers represented him in multiple trials, and Jewish activists and political figures played leading roles in the fight.


But Mandela’s ties to prominent South African Jews were personal as well as political. The former president’s second marriage, to Winnie Madikizela in 1958, took place at the home of Ray Harmel, a Jewish anti-apartheid activist. Harmel made Winnie’s wedding dress at Mandela’s request, according to David Saks’ history “Jewish Memories of Mandela.”


When Mandela married again, in 1998, he invited Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris to offer a private blessing on the nuptials that were scheduled to take place on Shabbat.
“After a warm exchange of greetings, Rabbi Cyril spoke quietly to them and blessed them,” Cyril’s wife, Ann, wrote later. “They stood through the blessing holding hands and with eyes closed. One could almost imagine the huppah.”






Nelson Mandela salutes the crowd at the Green and Sea Point Hebrew Congregation in Cape Town on a visit shortly after being elected South Africa’s president in 1994. Joining Mandela, from left, are Rabbi Jack Steinhorn; Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, Alon Liel; Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris; and Mervyn Smith, chairman of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. (SA Rochlin Archives, SAJBD)



Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 in the village of Mvezo, in the southeastern part of the country. As a young lawyer he was active in the African National Congress, which was beginning to challenge laws it considered unjust and discriminatory.


In the 1950s, Mandela was tried for treason. He was acquitted with the help of a defense team led by Israel Maisels. Several years later, when he was accused of attempting to overthrow the apartheid regime during the Rivonia Trial, Mandela was defended by several Jewish lawyers. On the flip side , Percy Yutar was the Senior Prosecutor of Mandela and other Rivonia Defendants .He later wrote in his biography that it was the most distasteful thing he had to do in his life. The Rivonia Far, where Nelson Mandela was hidden was owned by Arthur Goldreich .All the Rivonia Whites arrested with Mandela were the practicing Jews

• Denis Goldberg, a Cape Town engineer and leader of the Congress of Democrats. 
• Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein, architect and member of the South African Communist Party
• Bob Hepple
• Arthur Goldreich
• Harold Wolpe, prominent attorney and activist 
• James “Jimmy” Kantor, brother-in-law of Harold Wolpe. 

The defence line-up for the majority of the accused was:

• Vernon Berrangé (advocate) 
• George Bizos (advocate) 
• Arthur Chaskalson (advocate) 
• Bram Fischer (advocate, lead counsel) 
• Harold Hanson (advocate) 
• Joel Joffe (attorney) 

Chaskalson, Fischer, Hanson and Joffe were Jews. Bizos was a partner in a Jewish Law Firm and a family in Greece fought with Jewish Partisans in the Second World War. Three of his grandchildren have married into the Jewish Faith. Berrange was a founder of the South African communist Party with Bram Fischer who he met as a law student at the University of Cape Town.


Mandela was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in 1964. He served most of his sentence on Robben Island, a former leper colony off the coast of Cape Town. The legendary, feisty Jewish parliamentarian Helen Suzman visited him there. Another prison visitor was the journalist Benjamin Pogrund, who worked frequently with Mandela in the 1960s.


In a 1986 visit at Pollsmoor Prison, Pogrund informed Mandela that his son would shortly be celebrating his bar mitzvah. Afterward, the boy received a personal note from the future president.


“From a man serving a life sentence — and at that stage with no idea when he might be released — it was a kind and thoughtful action for a youngster he had not even met,” Pogrund said, according to Saks.


Mandela was released after 27 years, in February 1990. Four years later he was elected president. Among his appointees was Arthur Chaskalson, a member of his defense team during the Rivonia Trial, as the first president of the new Constitutional Court; he later became chief justice. Abie Sachs who lost an eye and a arm in the parcel bomb that killed Ruth First in her Lorenzo Marques office was also appoint to this Court as a Justice.


Mandela’s deep ties to the Jewish community continued during his political career. On the first Shabbat after his election, he visited the Marais Road Synagogue in Sea Point.
“Almost his first celebration was with the Jewish community,” Smith told JTA.


In 1994, at the opening of an exhibition on Anne Frank, Mandela recounted how a handwritten version of her diary had inspired him and fellow prisoners on Robben Island.


On Israel, Mandela’s relationship with the Jewish community was not free of controversy. His African National Congress cultivated close ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization and Mandela warmly embraced its leader, Yasser Arafat. Qaddafi of Libya gave Mandela and the ANC , $100 million in 1991 and in giving lip service to that donation, Mandela’s relationship with the State of Israel was vacillated in ambivalence . Confronted with Jewish protests, Mandela was dismissive, insisting that his relations with other countries would be determined by their attitudes toward the liberation movement.


“If the truth alienates the powerful Jewish community in South Africa, that’s too bad,” Mandela was reported to have said, according to Gideon Shimoni, author of “Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa.”


Shimoni also recounts a 1990 encounter at the University of the Witwatersrand with a Jewish student.


“Your enemies are not my enemies,” Mandela said.


According to Saks, Mandela stressed his respect for Israel’s right to exist even as he defended his relationships with Palestinian leaders. It was perhaps illustrative of his policy of inclusivity that Mandela accepted an honorary doctorate from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 1997 when many in his party remained opposed to any ties with Israel.


On a visit to Israel in 1999, Mandela invited Harris to join him.


“He made us proud to be South Africans,” Smith said. “His presence at any communal occasion was electrifying. The Jewish


After serving as the first President of South Africa , Nelson Mandela retired Qunu , his ancestral home in the Transkei that had during his Presidency been redeveloped for the Nelson Mandela Foundation by Louis Karol Architects , a leading Jewish firm of Architects in Cape Town.


Nelson Mandela . The Giant of Moral Tolerance . Avery Great Man,died on Thurday , 5th December 2013. Rest In Peace Utata Madiba.

International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF)) and its fight against Apartheid

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Canon L John Collins founder of the International Defence and Aid Fund

The International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) was established by Canon L John Collins of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1956. Its mission was to work towards a peaceful solution to the problem of apartheid through raising and distributing funding to victims of apartheid laws, especially political prisoners and their families. It was in the trials of anti-apartheid activists that the fund’s most significant contribution was made. IDAF paid for the legal defence of hundreds of people accused of trying to bring down apartheid and also supported their families even after some of them were imprisoned. IDAF developed a substantial research facility that made information about apartheid readily accessible for the international public, especially for organisations working to dismantle the system of apartheid such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid.

What became the IDAF in 1956 in fact had precursors, in groups that began funding political prisoners in 1952 during the Defiance Campaign. Collins was in South Africa during this period, and met with Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and other leaders.

Despite its close links to the African National Congress (ANC), the Fund from the beginning stuck to its principles: non-partisanship; non-interference with the liberation movements; non-campaigning; and a commitment to non-racialism. Furthermore, it set goals for itself credible leadership; United Nations (UN) accreditation; a regional approach and securing access to lawyers.

The Treason Trial

When 156 leaders of the ANC and allied organisations were arrested on 5 December 1956, Canon Collins received a request for help from the Bishop of Johannesburg, Ambrose Reeves. Collins, who headed the organisation called Christian Action, assured Reeves that he would raise money for the forthcoming trial. Reeves set up a Treason Trial Fund inside South Africa to raise money and established a committee to administer the process. Members of various communities and various organisations also organised funding, food, legal help and other modes of support for the detainees. According to Mary Benson, ‘Liberals, Christians and socialists came together in organising the Treason Trial Defence Fund.’

The accused in the 1956 Treason Trial outside the court. Photographer: Peter Magubane. Source: Africa Media Online

The 156 accused were put on trial, and Collins insisted that only the best and most progressive lawyers were to be brought into the defence team: Adv Vernon Barrange, attorney Michael Partington, advocate I.A Maisels (QC), Bram Fischer (QC), Sydney Kentridge and Charlie Nicholas. Following the preparatory examination, which lasted until January 1958, charges were dropped against 65 of the accused – the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence for the case against these accused.  

As the trial dragged on, it became clear to Reeves that the episode was merely the first of many trials that would follow, and he asked Collins to organise a more permanent structure to defend political prisoners. Collins responded by establishing the British Defence and Aid Fund, under the umbrella of Christian Action.

When new Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd  deposed a chief in 1959 in Sekhukhuneland in the Eastern Transvaal, and installed his own puppet, an uprising ensued, and police moved in to suppress the disturbance. Hundreds were arrested and put on trial,  David Soggot a lawyer funded by IDAF defended the accused.

A short while later, on 21 March 1960, the Sharpeville Massacre took place when the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) organised a protest against apartheid laws, and Defence & Aid supported the families of many of the victims of the tragedy. Lawyers were also despatched to defend those put on trial as a result of the state crackdown following the uprising. Collins set up a commission of inquiry into the killings and put Sydney Kentridge in charge of the process.

After the Treason Trial

The Treason Trial ended on 29 March 1961, a year after Sharpeville. The accused were found not guilty and discharged. While IDAF had backed the winning side, Collins and his colleagues knew that more trials and tribulations were in the offing, and they began to internationalise the fund. They held a jazz concert – starring Johnny Dankworth and Humphrey Littleton, with jazz great Lionel Hampton featuring as a special guest star – to raise funds and draw attention to the struggle against apartheid. They began to get aid from church organisations in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Sweden, among others.

IDAF appointed an observer, Gerald Gardiner, to monitor and report on the Treason Trial, anticipating that a legal heavyweight was needed to draw attention to the legal atrocities taking place in South Africa. An eminent Labour barrister, Gardiner drew attention to the plight of political prisoners in South Africa.

With the banning of the ANC and PAC and the subsequent state of emergency, in which more than 10,000 people were detained, the IDAF had its work cut out for it and began organising aid for the many in need of it.

With the passing of the Sabotage Act in 1962, hundreds of anti apartheid activists were arrested and charged, and some 5,000 were imprisoned during this period. The IDAF stretched the resources of the fund and financed the defence of many of these detainees, as well as supporting their families. In late 1963 hundreds of members of the armed wing of the PAC, Poqo, were held in prison after the state refused to grant them bail, but IDAF lawyers managed to secure bail conditions for many of them.

In late 1964, after a 21-month trial, IDAF lawyers were able to get 39 of 44 of the accused in the Cape TownGoodwood case freed. In the Eastern Cape, IDAF’s legal fees amounted to a massive £12,500 for the year, especially since many activists were charged twice for the same offence. In one example, in a Graaff-Reinet court, Winnard Mati was sentenced to 30 months in prison for being a member of the ANC. A few months before his release, Mati and three others were brought to a court in Humansdorp and charged with ’soliciting subscriptions’ and ‘allowing his home to be used for meetings’. He was sentenced to 54 months on Robben Island. On appeal in the Supreme Court, his sentence was reduced to three years, and he was released a month later, having already served the three-year term. IDAF took up a string of such cases, and got the sentences of 158 men reduced, keeping them out of prison for a total of 258 years.

Rivonia, the IDAF’s second major challenge

On 11 July 1963, seven men were arrested at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, north of Johannesburg. Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Andrew Mlangeni, Elias Motsoaledi, Raymond Mhlaba, Dennis Goldberg and Rusty Bernstein were arrested and accused of conspiring to violently overthrow the state. Nelson Mandela, already serving a sentence on a lesser charge, was included among the accused and brought from Robben Island to face trial.

Arthur Chaskalson was part of the Rivonia Trial defence team of lawyers paid by IDAF.

The prosecution, in what became known as theRivonia Trial, was led by the deputy attorney general of the Transvaal, Percy Yutar, a high-powered choice. The defence was led by Bram Fischer, with a team including George Bizos, Vernon Barrange andArthur Chaskalson. The lawyers agreed to work for 20 percent of their normal fees, and IDAF covered the rest of the costs for the defence and support the families of the accused.

The case revolved around Operation Mayibuye, a draft plan for the organisation of a national uprising and guerrilla warfare, the defence arguing that the plan had been discussed but not adopted, the state arguing that it had indeed been adopted. It was during this trial that Mandela made his famous defence of the ANC’s policies.

During questioning, a rabid Yutar failed to prove his case, especially regarding the waging of guerrilla warfare, but he tried to use the trial proceedings as an intelligence gathering exercise for the benefit of the security forces. In one instance he tried to extract agreement that IDAF was supporting saboteurs and sabotage, revealing the government’s attitude towards the fund. The eight were all found guilty of conspiracy to commit treason and sentenced to life imprisonment.

But other trials were also underway, including: the ‘Little Rivonia trial’, in which Wilton Mkwayi, SR ‘Mac’ Maharaj and others were accused; the trials of Billy Nair and Harry Gwala in Pietermaritzburg; the African Resistance Movement trials in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the trial of Hugh Lewin, Eddie Daniels and Tony Trew, among others.

International outreach, UN partnership

While most of the early 1960s trials were indirectly funded by Canon Collins in the UK, the requests for funding were relayed via local South African branches of the organisation. The fund anticipated that it would be banned in South Africa, and established branches in Sweden, Norway, Australia and Switzerland. Representatives of the various branches met in London on 24 June 1964 and launched the international umbrella organisation, soon after named the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF). With the help of ES Reddy, the principal secretary of the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid, Collins secured funding from many countries, as well as other sources. In December 1963, Reddy managed to get a resolution passed in the UN General Assembly pledging to provide humanitarian assistance to South Africa’s political prisoners.

As a result of these efforts, in January 1965 Sweden donated $200,000 to be shared between the World Council of Churches and IDAF. Reddy invited Collins to address the Special Committee Against Apartheid in June 1965, and by November further pledges from 10 governments amounted to $95,000. Reddy set up the UN Trust Fund in 1966, using most of the money to support IDAF.

Banned in South Africa: security and dirty tricks

On 18 March 1966, after 10 years of working to support the liberation movements inside the country, the South African chapter of Defence and Aid was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act, and it became an offence for anyone to receive funds – for any reason – from the organisation.

The international fund based in the UK now began to reorganise itself, including its method of getting money to activists or their families. It defined its various activities and created three programmes into which all its activities fell: Programme 1 would focus on political trials and secure funding for legal defence; Programme 2 would take care of the needs of the families of political prisoners; and Programme 3 would constitute the research and publications departments of the fund.

Additionally, the fund became a UK-based organisation, and with the help of exiled South African lawyer Neville Rubin, established several bodies to effect these money transfers:

1.      The Freedom From Fear International Charitable Foundation.

2.      The Freedom From Hunger International Charitable Foundation.

3.      The Freedom From Hardship International Trust.

Phyllis Altman, an activist who belonged to the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), arrived in London in 1966 and became the general secretary of projects under Programme 1.

The new arrangements involved a circuitous method of getting the money to those who needed it: first, secret meetings would be held between Canon Collins, Phyllis Altman and Neville Rubin; then the law firm Birkbeck Montagu’s was contacted. Since they had previously acted for IDAF, they in turn contacted another firm not associated with the fund, which would forward the money to another law firm in South Arica, which would pass on money to legal defence teams or to families of political prisoners.

Phyllis Altman would scan the South African newspapers and gather information from the ANC and PAC to identify recipients who were put on trial, a function later taken on by IDAF’s Research and Information Department on a full-time basis.

As general secretary of the UK-based IDAF, and one of Altman’s first tasks was to beef up security, since the files of the fund would leave activists and supporters vulnerable to prosecution and arrest if they fell into the hands of South African security forces.

The fund devised elaborate methods to disguise its operations, since staffers were certain that their phones had been bugged, and they avoided naming people in telephone conversations, creating codenames and pseudonyms to prevent detection. They also used nondescript venues to conduct operations and store information, avoiding the use of their offices at 104 Newgate Street in London. Cannon Collins’ home at 2 Amen Court, next to St Paul’s Cathedral, was used as a safe venue, since it was heavily protected by the Cathedral’s security staff.

Later, when IDAF was based at Canon Collins House at 64 Essex Road, security was arranged in such a manner that it became more rigorous as one moved higher up in the building: the research departments on the first two floors were secured, but the upper levels – where secret operations were based – enjoyed even more rigorous security.

IDAF lawyers, assassinations

These measures were especially important after South Africa developed a ‘dirty tricks’ department which used letter bombs and other devices to disrupt anti-apartheid activity. In one instance, IDAF conduits Phyllis Naidoo and Father John Osmers were severely injured by a letter bomb sent to them in Lesotho in 1979.

Dulcie September, a member of the ANC, worked for IDAF.

The next year, in 1980, the Publications Department at 104 Newgate Street was burgled, and a new security system was installed. But more serious violations were to follow. Dulcie September, a member of IDAF and later an ANC representative, was shot and killed in Paris in March 1988.

The IDAF was heavily reliant on volunteers, but after one student was seen walking in Harare (then Salisbury, Rhodesia), after he had informed the staff that he was on holiday in Europe (even sending the IDAF postcards from his ‘holiday route’), the fund further tightened up security.

Lawyers representing political prisoners inside South Africa, who were funded by IDAF, were also targeted. Griffiths Mxenge, who had been defending a series of political prisoners in the Eastern Cape, was brutally killed and dismembered on 19 November 1981. The police claimed that he had been killed by the ANC, a charge vehemently denied by his wife, Victoria Mxenge. The ANC issued a statement from Lusaka denying involvement in his death, and praised his contribution to the struggle.

Victoria Mxenge, who had qualified as a lawyer in the same year, took over her husband’s practice and continued to defend activists, and was part of the defence team in the 1984 treason trial. She, too, was murdered by apartheid agents  – in front of her children – on 1 August 1985, just days after delivering a speech at a funeral for the Cradock Four (Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto, Sicelo Mhlauli, and Matthew Goniwe).

The Craig Williamson Episode

While brutal tactics failed to stop the fund from continuing with its activities, one devastating episode threatened to plunge IDAF into a crisis when Craig Williamson, a South African spy, infiltrated the organisation.

Craig Williamson the apartheid spy who infiltrated IDAF. Goodman Gallery

Craig Williamson was groomed by the South African security agencies to infiltrate anti-apartheid organisations in the 1970s. Williamson joined NUSAS and became a super-efficient student activist, so much so that he raised suspicion among some anti-apartheid activists, such as Cedric de Beer.

Williamson ‘went into exile’ during the 1976 Soweto unrest, crossing the border into Botswana. He made contact with the International University Exchange Fund (IUEF), based in the Swiss capital Geneva.

The IUEF received money from Sweden to disburse to students escaping from oppressive regimes throughout the world, and was run by Lars-Gunnar Erikson, a figure regarded with suspicion by many who thought Erikson was a CIA agent.

Erikson adopted the ‘exiled’ Williamson and made him a key player in the IUEF, appointing him deputy director, a post that gave him control of a huge fund. Williamson approached the ANC to help them fund students from South Africa, and he ingratiated himself into ANC circles.

Williamson then approached IDAF, with a string of testimonials indicating that he was part of the liberation struggle. The IDAF, facing a deluge as more and more political trials – related to the Soweto unrest, the rise and fall of Black Consciousness and the persecution of emerging trade union activists – was in need of more funding and support. Williamson presented himself and the IUEF as the saviour in a time of need.

Despite suspicions – Phyllis Altman in particular was instinctively convinced that Williamson was a spy – Williamson managed to secure a meeting with Canon Collins. Williamson and Erikson set up Foundation for the Relief and Education of Exiles (FREE), which would ostensibly help IDAF with funding. Erikson and Collins were appointed co-chairs of FREE.

Behind the friendly overtures Williamson and Erikson wanted to take over the IDAF, and Phyllis Altman intuited their ‘friendly takeover’. But it was only after Horst Kleinschmidt found out from NUSAS leader Cedric de Beer that Williamson was an agent, that action could be taken.

De Beer, during Williamson’s NUSAS days, was suspicious, and followed him for 24 hours. He saw Williamson going into the Hillbrow police station twice in this period, and found other aspects that pointed to the truth. De Beer conveyed his evidence to Kleinschmidt who informed the ANC, but not everyone was convinced by Kleinschmidt’s allegations. At a meeting with the ANC, Kleinschmidt was asked to recuse himself because Williamson was uncomfortable in his presence, and Erikson threatened Kleinschmidt, telling him that if he persisted with his allegations he would not get a scholarship and life would become very difficult for him in other ways as well.

Despite these revelations, Williamson and Erikson alleged that IDAF was funding trials already paid for by the IUEF, implying that IDAF was involved in some form of corruption. In fact, the IUEF sent funds to some of the IDAF beneficiaries to make their charges stick. The Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) became suspicious, and held meetings with IUEF and IDAF to clarify the situation, presented by Williamson as ‘rivalry’ between the two organisations. Williamson implied that IDAF would not open its financial records to scrutiny, and the Danes were to some extent convinced by this charge.

IDAF found that Williamson had spread this rumour as fact, and UK Labour government minister Judith Hart turned down IDAF’s request for funds on the grounds that IUEF was the more experienced and better organised agency and was more deserving of government support.

Eventually, Williamson’s fellow spy, Arthur McGiven, revealed apartheid’s covert activities in a story published in the Observer. A little later, Erikson admitted to all the charges, and the game was up.

When the IUEF accounts came under scrutiny, shocking abuse came to light, money having been spent on casino outings, secret camps inside South Africa (headed by Williamson), and even a ‘donation’ to Judith Hart, who was out of a job after Labour lost the election in 1979. The IUEF did not survive the episode, and shut up shop by 1981.

The Post-Collins period

Cannon Collins died on New Year’s Eve, 31 December 1982. His funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral was attended by many, including Oliver Tambo, who considered himself Collins his ‘eldest son’. Canon Collins was buried at a crypt at St Paul’s.

At his memorial, held a few weeks later, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston delivered a sermon after travelling to London from Mauritius. Huddleston became the new director of IDAF, which was now presided over by the International Council of Trustees.

Phyllis Altman directed the organisation, which moved to new premises at Canon Collins House, 64 Essex Road in Islington, London. With the reorganised IDAF firmly established, Altman retired, and was succeeded by Horst Kleinschmidt, who ran the fund until it was dissolved following the fall of apartheid. Maud Henry became the financial officer. This version of IDAF became a tighter organisation, more responsive and effective in the final push against apartheid.

Hostility from the PAC

While the IDAF had particularly strong links with the ANC from the period of the Rivonia and Treason trials, the IDAF held fast to its principle of non-partisanship, and provided funding for political prisoners from various organisations, including the PAC. But the two organisations had a stormy relationship.

The PAC’s Africanist stance was at odds with the IDAF’s non-racial policy, and its willingness to use violence in its struggle against apartheid was especially difficult for the fund to accept – in 1963 the PAC’s armed wing, Poqo, mounted several attacks: against white holiday makers at Bashee Bridge, as well as against chiefs the Africanists saw as collaborators. The PAC’s anti-communism was also not in line with the fund’s more open relation to all the forces opposed to apartheid.

Despite these differences, the IDAF continued to provide funds for the legal costs of PAC activists on trial, but it did not donate funds to the PAC for political work. The PAC accused the IDAF of not helping the organisation, in pamphlets and through other indirect means. In 1965, PAC treasurer-general AB Ngcobo repeated the complaint with the UN’s Special Committee Against Apartheid. In the investigation that followed, it was found that more PAC members were being funded by the IDAF than any other organisation. When the PAC complained that the IDAF was not providing funds to help the family of PAC leader Robert Sobukwe, it emerged that the PAC’s London office had never made a request for funds.

In the early 1980s, Ngila Michael Muendane, a former PAC representative in London, circulated a pamphlet alleging that IDAF director Horst Kleinschmidt was, like Craig Williamson, a South African spy – on the basis that the two were at Wits University at the same time. Muendane also alleged that lawyers fighting cases in South Africa were not being paid adequately, despite the fact that he knew that many PAC activists and their families were being supported by the fund.

The worst example of PAC hostility came when the organisation convinced Joyce Mokhesi, the sister of Francis Mokhesi, one of the Sharpeville Six, to address the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid on the occasion of the UN Day of Political Prisoners. Joyce Mokhesi claimed that the IDAF was not supporting the six, and that it should be investigated. The charge was a complete fabrication, as IDAF had in fact been providing funding for the six as well as their families.

It fell to Horst Kleinschmidt to fly to New York to present evidence to the committee of IDAF’s support for the Sharpeville Six, as well as for Zeph Mothopeng and his family. Despite this presentation, the PAC continued to level the charges when it got Julia Ramashamola – the mother of Theresa Ramashamola, also one of the Sharpeville Six – to repeat the charges in Europe. The IDAF took Julia Ramashamola to their offices and showed her documents – including letter of thanks from Julia herself – that proved that the IDAF had indeed been funding the six, including their families, and Julia herself.

Programme 3: Info against apartheid

The IDAF’s research programme was begun by Alex Hepple and his wife Girlie, who started compiling press clippings in the early 1960s. When they received funding from Sweden they were able to take on additional researchers and full-time staff, and developed a comprehensive research, information and publications unit.

A publication by IDAF

From 1973 onwards, the unit began focussing on prisons in South Africa, keeping track of detainees, and publicising issues such as torture. It began a partnership with the Anti-Apartheid Movement in an ongoing campaign, Southern Africa – The Imprisoned Society (SATIS). The unit also passed on its research to ES Reddy and his Special Committee Against Apartheid, which asked the IDAF to produce a survey of political imprisonment in South Africa to mark the UN’s Day of Solidarity with South African Political Prisoners on 11 October 1978. The result was Prisoners of Apartheid, a comprehensive list of all known political prisoners in South Africa, with brief biographies of each of the prisoners.

The Hepples also produced The South African Information Service Manual, a regular publication, together with more occasional pamphlets. When the Hepples retired in the early 1970s, Alan Brooks took over their functions, and he created a more efficient system for distributing the unit’s material, renaming the unit the Research, Information and Publications unit (RIP).  Hugh Lewin, a former political prisoner in South Africa, took over the distribution and design functions, and commissioned a series of photographers to brighten up the publications. The photographers, beginning with John Seymour, made secret trips to South Africa to capture scenes reflecting the realities of apartheid. Seymour was followed by Tony McGrath, who captured more images to add to the IDAF’s growing library of images. Later, Barry Feinberg added audio-visual material, including a documentary he made, called The Anvil and the Hammer, which won prizes at film festivals in London and Leipzig.

Brooks also produced Focus on Political Repression in South Africa, a bi-monthly journal, as well as a series of Fact Papers on various topics, such as workers’ issues and the politics of Rhodesia. When Tony Trew, another former political prisoner, took over from Brooks, they began to produce year-end compilations of documents produced during the year. Contributors to these publications included Albie Sachs, Ruth First, Tim Jenkin, Mary Benson and Hilda Bernstein, among others. Brooks also brought in people such as Mike Terry (who later became the AAM’s secretary), Margaret Ling, Barbara Konig, Jan Marsh, and Bruno da Ponte.

The unit produced a series of publications, including:

The Sun Will Rise, Statements from the Dock, by Mary Benson;

South Africa: The Imprisoned Society, by Allen Cook;

Nelson Mandela: The Struggle is my Life, by Mary Benson;

The Struggle for a Birthright, a history of the ANC by Mary Benson;

The Whirlwind Before the Storm, by Alan Brooks and Jeremy Brickhill;

Escape from Pretoria, by Tim Jenkin

Portugal’s Wars in Africa, by Ruth First (1971)

The Last to Leave: Portuguese Colonialism in Africa, by Bruno da Ponte (1974)

1980s: Resistance Intensifies, and legal bills mount

The decade beginning in 1980 saw resistance to apartheid become generalised throughout the country, with ever more individuals and organisations chipping away at the edifice of apartheid. The campaigns against the Tripartite Parliament, the burgeoning of the trade union movement, revolts against government appointed councillors and the protests that began in the Vaal Triangle pushed resistance to a level that could not be contained by the state’s security forces. With increased resistance came increased state repression, and more and more people were detained, put on trial, or killed.

In this phase, the IDAF had to ensure funding for more and more people on trial, as well as for the families of those detained. According to Al Cook, ‘In 1979, IDAF had defended a total of 297 people in 57 trials. In 1980 the Fund defended 2092 people in 130 trials. By the mid-1980s IDAF was getting 2,000 requests to fund trial defences annually.’

With the cost of trials rising from £1-million in the early 1980s to £5-million in the mid-80s, IDAF had to try to lower the costs of defence. The lawyer the IDAF tasked with distributing funding to defence lawyers in South Africa, Bill Frankel of the London law firm Birkbeck Montague’s, travelled to South Africa to convince defence lawyers to accept lower fees for trials.

Towards this end, Horst Kleinschmidt began to use smaller law firms, including black law firms, to represent detainees. One of the most prominent of these was run by Priscilla Jana, who represented countless political prisoners, among them Solomon Mahlangu. Others included Dumisa Ntsebenza, Linda Zama, Azhar Cachalia, Shan Chetty, Pius Langa, and Victoria and Griffiths Mxenge. White firms included Haysom,Cheadle and Thompson, and Raymond Tucker, but there were also many mixed firms, such as Smith, Tabata and Van Heerden.

Kleinschmidt initiated a more offensive approach to fighting apartheid, and the IDAF funded a hearing on behalf of the miners who died in the Kinross mining disaster.  The IDAF also supported Wendy Orr, a district surgeon who mounted an injunction against the Port Elizabeth security forces when she uncovered evidence of torture in the course of her duties. The lawyers got the state to compensate 82 plaintiffs.

IDAF went further and defended Ivan Toms in 1988 when he refused to serve in the SA Defence Force, which was mounting illegal campaigns in Namibia, Angola, and in South African townships. IDAF roped in legal authority Professor John Dugard to defend Toms, thus boosting the profile of the End Conscription Campaign.

With resistance mounting, and public anger directed towards apartheid functionaries, many collaborators were killed in mob violence. The state began using the doctrine of common purpose to prosecute people en bloc, finding even innocent bystanders guilty of crimes committed by groups of people.

The Sharpeville Six were prosecuted under this doctrine, as were Solomon Mahlangu and the Upington 14 (originally the Upington 25, before charges against 11 were dropped). IDAF was involved in all of these, including the last major trial, the Delmas trial.

The Delmas Trial

The Delmas trial, in which the indictment alone ran to 386 pages, took place from 1985 to 1989, taking a long time to reach its conclusion. The length of the trial meant that legal costs were high, lawyers having to pore over thousands of documents. Arthur Chaskalson and George Bizos were part of the defence legal team.

The Accused in the Delmas Treason Trial. Photographer: Gisele Wulfsohn. Permission: AfricaMediaOnline

The state, according to historian Gail Gerhart, wanted to ‘suppress the United Democratic Front’ (UDF), charging the 19 accused with murder and treason. Writing in the New York Times, Gerhart said: ‘State prosecutors, besides trying to attribute the violence of the revolt to the United Democratic Front, hoped to prove that the front was actually the internal wing of the revolutionary African National Congress and the South African Communist Party (SACP). Establishing the existence of links between them and the Front could have enabled the state to criminalise virtually any protest activity, no matter how non-violent, carried out under the UDF banner. Thus the stakes were high, both for the Front and for the individual defendants, all of who faced charges carrying a possible death sentence.’

Although UDF leaders Popo Molefe and Patrick ‘Terror’ Lekota were found guilty and sentenced to 10 and 12 years respectively, the judgement was rescinded on appeal, and all the defendants were freed on 15 December 1989 after spending four years and six months in jail.

The End of Apartheid and IDAF

With the end of the Delmas trial, just seven weeks before the unbanning of the liberation organisations and the release of Nelson Mandela and his fellow Rivonia trialists, the era of apartheid came to a close, and the IDAF found itself having to undergo a fundamental review of its reason for existing.

At its 1990 Annual Conference, held in Ottawa, Canada, the fund decided, after three days of deliberations, to bring the organisation to a close. At its final conference in London in May 1991, the IDAF reviewed its history, celebrated its history and achievements, and formally handed over its resources to organisations based in South Africa. Programme 1 was taken over by the new South African Legal Defence Fund (SALDEF), which would pursue trials still taking place ahead of the establishment of a democratic dispensation.

The work of Programme 2 was taken over by the Dependants’ Conference of the South African Council of Churches and the Association of Ex Political Prisoners (AEPP). Programme 3 was bequeathed to the Mayibuye Centre, an archive at the University of the Western Cape and by the newly formed Human Rights Commission.

The IDAF was formally dissolved at this final conference.

Conclusion: The Invisible Hand of the People’s Fund

Despite being one of the largest NGOs in the UK by the mid-1980s, the International Defence and Aid Fund played an invaluable role in sustaining the forces of resistance in the struggle to abolish apartheid. However, since its work was by its nature clandestine, few traces can be found of its extensive and far-reaching operations. But the fact that political prisoners were defended by lawyers and sometimes saved from the gallows, or that their sentences were reduced, and that their families were prevented from sinking into poverty, meant that this invisible agency was surreptitiously guiding these victims of apartheid to a fate easier to endure. Because the IDAF had to conceal its hand lest it be detected and halted in its tracks, the organisation has not been adequately represented in histories of the anti-apartheid struggle.

But the testimonies of lawyers of countless activists will bear witness to the fact that the struggle was funded by a beneficent organisation silently doing its work in London and elsewhere. They provided funding for the defence of the Treason Trialists, for the Rivonia Trialists, before doing the same for thousands of detainees, and funded the inquests into the deaths of Ahmed Timol, Steve Biko and Neil Agget.

Not only did they help detainees and their families, but they created a formidable library of the realities of apartheid that served to inform the policies of agencies such as the United Nations and the Anti-Apartheid Movement which steered history towards the demise of one of the most evil systems that took hold in the 20^thcentury.

Oliver Tambo, in a letter to the UN Trust Fund for South Africa, written soon after the South African Defence and Aid Fund was banned, spelled out the essential support the fund was providing:

‘In the many years of persecution which our people have known, the Defence and Aid Fund has been a pillar of strength for them, not only because it openly and boldly proclaimed its opposition to apartheid and missed no opportunity in exposing its evils, using the testimony of the victims themselves. It continued to do this despite the sustained campaign of vile and vicious smearing and slander, initiated by the South African government and intended to alienate the support the Fund enjoyed from governments, influential bodies and leading personalities. The aim of the [smear] campaign was to deprive the victims of apartheid of one of the most effective channels of international support, while repressive measures were being intensified to break the morale and spirit of resistance of our people. With the international campaign against the Defence and Aid Fund failing to yield the desired results, the South African government banned South African Defence and Aid Fund, and used this fact to step up its attack on the International Defence and Aid Fund, claiming falsely that this fund is illegal…. We have been heartened to by the decision of the International Defence and Aid Fund to continue, as it is continuing to channel funds for the legal defence and aid for our persecuted people, despite the ban on the South African Defence and Aid Fund.’

References

• Al Cook, ‘The International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, or IDAF’; chapter 3 of volume 3, part 1, of The Road to Democracy in South Africa; published by the South African Democracy and Education Trust and Unisa Press, 2008.
• Herbstein, D, (2004), White Lies: Canon John Collins and the Secret War Against Apartheid, (Cape Town)