Police have declined to name those who will be restricted. But the Weekly Mail has established the following 12 people have already received banning orders:
Albertina Sisulu, 68, a UDF co-president, is the matriarch of a family which has been ac the forefront of resistance – and at the receiving end of repression – for half a century. She was an active participant in the Defiance Campaign against unjust laws and the introduction of passes to women in the1950s. In 1963 she became oneof the first women detained under the Sabotage Act's 90 days detention clause. From 1964 to 1981 she was restricted detained and placed under house arrest. She was banned from 1982 to 1983. In February 1984 Sisulu was found guilty of furthering the aims of the African National Congress and sentenced to four years' imprisonment Last year the sentence and conviction were set aside by the Bloemfontein Appeal Court. Wife of jailed ANC leader Walter Sisulu and mother of detained New Nation editor Zwelakhe Sisulu, Sisulu was the only woman among 16 UDF leaders in the 1984/1985 Pietermaritzburg treason trial, which collapsed due to lack of evidence.
Archibald Jacob Gumede, another UDF president turns 74 next week. Gumede, who trained as a medical aide before completing his legal studies, was assistant secretary of the ANC's Natal region from 1951 to 1960. Gumede attended the Congress of the People in Kliptown, was arrested and charged in the 1956 Treason Trial, but was freed after the preparatory examina6on. He was also an accusedin the 1984/5 Pietermaritzburg treason trial. This is not Gumede's first banning order, and he has been decanted several times in the past, including a spell during the 1960 State of Emergency, After he was detained in August 1984 he was one of the UDF leaders who "sat in" at the British Consulate to protest against detention without trial.
A S Chetty, 58, is, the chairman of the UDF's Natal Midlands branch, a vice-president of the Natal Indian Congress and secretary of the Indian Child Welfare Society. He was detained for 98 days in 1960 and was banned and placed under house arrest from 1973 to 1978. In 1980 he' spent three months in Modderbee prison where he had a heart attack. From 1980 to 1983 he was again placed under house arrest. In 1986 he spent three months in Emergency detention.
Simon Gqubule, 60 – a former president of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa – is the principal of John Wesley College of the Federal Theological Seminary, outside Pietermaritzburg. He trained as a teacher before joining the Methodist ministry. His colleague, Stanley Mogoba who takes over as president of the Methodist Church later this year said as far as he knew Gqubule had never been detained or banned. He said the, banning came as a great shock to his colleagues.
Joe Marks, 52 vice president of the UDF in the Western Cape is a fish and vegetable hawker. One of his seven children has also been banned. He joined the Coloured People's Congress in 1957 and subsequently becameinvolved in community organisations, serving as vice-chairman of the Cape Areas Housing Action Committee (Cahac) in 1980-1981. Cabac affiliated to the UDF in 1983. Marks' son, Joseph "Joey" Marks, 25, is secretary of the Western Cape UPF. A second-year social work student at the University of the Western Cape Marks, was an active member of the since-banned Congress of South African Students. He was also a member Of the Committee of 81 which co-ordinated the school boycotts of 1980. He is an active member of the Cape Youth Congress.
Willie Hofmeyer, 33, is an executive member of the Western Cape UDF. He was banned for five years in 1976 while active in the National Union of South African Students' Wages Commission at the University of Cape Town. On the expiry of his banning order he returned to the university and worked in the field of industrial health. He was detained under Emergency regulations for two weeks soon after he was elected to the regional executive of the UDF in May last year.
Dr Rashid Saloojee of Lenasia was elected vice-president of the UDF in the Transvaal in May 1983. He was first detained on August 20, 1984, on the eve of elections for members of theHouse of Delegates and held for four months. Saloojee was detained again in 1986. He has a medical practice in Lenasia.
Jabu Ngwenya, treasurer of the Release Mandela Campaign, was Transvaal co-ordinator of the consumer boycott of white businesses in 1985. He has been detained several times.
Also restricted were Derek Jackson, Reggie Oliphant and Mbulelo Grootboom, all workers on Oudtshoom's community newspaper Saamstaan. Grootboom 28, was served with his banning order on his release from Emergency detention in George Prison last Friday. He had been held there since September. An executive member of the Bhongolethu and youth organisations, Grootboom spent a year in detention after the state of emergency was declared in 1986. Oliphant 38, headed the Saamstaan project in 1986. Jackson. 28, the newspaper's organizer served on the UDF local executive from 1984 to 1986. He was detained in 1985 and 1986.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
