Thirteen years ago tomorrow, the students of Soweto launched the country’s youth into the frontline of anti-apartheid opposition. Less than 12 months later, up to 1 000 students had been killed and hundreds more had fled into exile. Among the key leaders of the uprising were the three men who succeeded one another, in quick succession, as presidents of the Soweto Students’ Representative Council (SSRC). The first two left the country. The third was detained, tortured, and later jailed. The first was Tsietsi Mashinini, 32, whose star flared so brightly and briefly.
Today he is almost forgotten, a discredited playboy, believed to be living in exile. The second was Khotso Seathlolo, 32, now on Robben Island, serving a 10-year sentence for activities on behalf of a now-dormant, would-be guerrilla group. The third was Dan Sechaba Montsitsi, 31, now a key UDF youth lead¬er living under a severe Emergency restriction order, having been released from detention after a prolonged hunger strike. Six weeks after Hector Petersen was gunned down by police, high [school students launched the Soweto Students’ Representative Council, which was to guide the fledgling movement for much of the uprising’s duration.
A charismatic 19-year-old matriculant, Tsietsi Mashinini, was elected its first president. A school prefect at Morris Isaacson High and an executive member of the South African Students’ Movement, (Sasm) he became known as the ”lieutenant-general” among his comrades when he displayed his leadership abilities during the second Soweto march. For 22 days he became the chief voice of the rebellion, and in its heady early days was carried shoul¬der-high by students through the streets of Soweto.
Soon he became the most wanted man in the country. Police appealed for him to give himself up, and when that failed put a R500 price on his head. In his three weeks underground, he would occasionally emerge from hiding to give interviews to the foreign media. But with scores of his colleagues being killed or detained, Soweto’s ”Scarlet Pimpernel”, as he was known, decided to leave. ”My staying behind means I’m of¬fering one more target for the system,” he said in an interview at the time. ”My going out has a lot of advan¬tages, the major one being that I could come back again and work with the people.” Like many at the time, he thought the process would be short and sharp, and that he would be back as key political leader within a few years. ”If South Africa doesn’t change within the course of this year and next year and one other year, it means South Africa will have riots as its daily meal,” said the man described by the Rand Daily Mail at the time as a ”baby-faced but brilliantly articulate schoolboy”.
On August 23 he left his hiding place in Alexandra and crossed the border to Botswana, and from there to London and later Amsterdam. The international media, hungry for a symbol of the rebellion, adopted Mashinini as its principal representative. After a brief flirtation with the ANC he balked at its discipline, and linked up with the Trotskyist Workers’ Revolutionary Party, which spirited him through a ”school for revolution” in Derbyshire. In 1977 he returned to Botswana, where he worked for an American Trotskyist group. On a visit to the United States he vowed to return to South Africa to take up arms, but the international interest faded as the rebellion was quashed.
Mashinini’s persistent attacks on the ANC led to his ousting from the anti- apartheid circuit in Britain. He moved between Lagos, Gaborone and Lusaka, where he was involved with talks with Drake Koka to set up an alternative movement to the ANC and PAC. This became the Black Consciousness Movement of South Africa (and later of Azania). He settled in Monrovia in 1978 and the following year married Liberian beauty queen Wilma Campbell. His image declined further when he granted an extensive interview to the Info-Department-funded Pace maga¬zine. He was quoted as naming him¬self as the ”man who would lead blacks to freedom”, and that his wife would be at his side to ”free the women”. As a result of his behaviour, the Youth Revolutionary Council, which claimed the mantle of the SSRC, officially ousted Mashinini as its leader.
In 1982 Mashinini visited Zimbabwe in an attempt to make a comeback into exile politics, but faded soon afterwards. His mother, Virginia Mashinini, said she had no idea where he was living. ”I’ve had no contact with him for many many years,” she said. In September 1976 19-year-old Seathlolo took over from Mashinini as SSRC president and remained at the helm for four months. The first major action under his presidency was a demonstration against a visit to Johannesburg by Henry Kissinger. He also helped spearhead a number of campaigns, including the Black Christmas protest of December 1976. On January 7 1977 he was shot by police during a car chase at night, and was wounded in the left arm. Soon afterwards, he fled to Botswana, and later took over the SA Youth Revolutionary Council (SAYRCO) leadership, travelling around the world on its behalf.
In late 1981 he returned on a SAYRCO military mission to South Africa, but was captured at the home of a girlfriend, former Soweto beauty queen Masabata Loate. In March 1982 he was sentenced in the VanderbijlPark Magistrate’s Court to an effective 10 years impri¬sonment. Loate was sentenced to an effective five years. Seathlolo is currently imprisoned on Robben Island. Dan Montsitsi took over the SSRC reins in January 1977 and held them until his detention five months later. By that time he had already spent over five years as an activist, having joined Sasm as a 13-year-old in 1972. By 1977 the elation of the early days of the revolt had given way to hard times. Students were divided over whether to sit for exams or boycott in support of their martyred and exiled comrades. The SSRC ensured unity with a ceremonial burning of Bantu Education textbooks. Later they organised a successful march on the Urban Bantu Council offices, which led to the resignation of its members and a reduction in rents.
In June that year Montsitsi and his vice-president, Murphy Morobe, were detained and held by police as, awaiting-trial prisoners for nearly two years. Montsitsi said he had been tortured and successfully sued the minister of law and order for the assaults suf¬fered during this period. ”The security police thought we had been working for the ANC,” he said in an interview three years ago. ”They couldn’t conceive of students planning and executing a demonstration – to them it had to be orchestrated by communists from outside.†I
n May 1979 Montsi was sentenced to an effective four years’ imprisonment on Robben Island for se¬dition. After his release in May 1983, he played a central role in the building of the Soweto Youth Congress. In 1985 he was elected to the UDF Transvaal executive and served as its youth organiser. He also played a central role in the Soweto Civic Association and in the launch of the South African Youth Congress in March 1987. He was detained under the Emergency regulations on January 15 and was released after 16 months, following his participation in the hunger strike. He is currently living in Soweto under a stringent restriction order.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
