The Delmas Treason Trial was heard in the Supreme Court of South Africa from 16 October 1985 to 18 November 1988. In one of the lengthiest political trials in South African history, the apartheid state pursued treason charges against 22 activists for their alleged role in instigating the 1984 Vaal uprising in the Vaal Triangle. The trial led to the conviction of Moses Chikane, Mosiuoa Lekota, Popo Molefe, and Tom Manthata on treason charges, and seven others were convicted of terrorism.
Formally State v Baleka and Others, the trial is nicknamed for the town of Delmas in the Eastern Transvaal, though it was concluded in Pretoria. It is commonly viewed as part of an attempt by the apartheid state to criminalise and suppress the United Democratic Front (UDF) and broader anti-apartheid movement. Most of the accused were members of the Vaal Civic Association, a UDF affiliate which had been involved in organising the protests that triggered the 1984 uprising. Three – Chikane, Lekota, and Molefe – were high-ranking UDF officials. Most were arrested in late 1984, indicted in June 1985, and released on bail by July 1987, though the three UDF leaders were refused bail throughout the trial.
Over the course of three years, the state presented its argument that the UDF had been established at the instigation of the outlawed African National Congress (ANC) and had henceforth become the ANC's co-conspirator in seeking to overthrow the state. The defendants were accused of having, through various non-violent political acts, sought to further the ANC's revolutionary aims, including by deliberately provoking revolt in the Vaal Triangle. Represented by Arthur Chaskalson and George Bizos, the defendants also denied alternative charges of common-purpose murder, terrorism, and other violations of the Internal Security Act.
Three of the accused were acquitted when the prosecution concluded its argument in November 1986, and a further eight were acquitted when Judge Kees van Dijkhorst handed down his verdict in November 1988. The remaining 11 were convicted and were sentenced on 8 December 1988. The three UDF leaders and one other were convicted of treason and sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment, while seven others were convicted of terrorism, for which two served prison sentences.
The verdict was overturned on appeal in State v Malindi and Others, handed down in the Supreme Court Appellate Division in Bloemfontein on 15 December 1989. The appeal succeeded on the narrow procedural ground that the trial judge had improperly removed an assessor from the case on the basis of his political sympathies. The 11 convicts were released six weeks before the ANC and other political organisations were unbanned to facilitate the progress of negotiations to end apartheid.
Background
Vaal Uprising: September 1984
The Delmas Treason Trial was rooted most directly in events in September 1984 in the Vaal Triangle, an industrial area in the Southern Transvaal which included Boipatong, Sebokeng, Sharpeville, and other black townships. The events in question later were the opening salvo in the Vaal uprising, which constituted a period of unprecedented revolt by the townships' black residents against the South African government's system of apartheid.
In the early 1980s, the government of P. W. Botha had undertaken a package of political reforms, known as the Koornhof Bills, which established a Tricameral Parliament, purporting to provide political representation for Coloured and Indian South Africans, alongside Black local authorities, purporting to provide political representation for urban Black communities. At the national level, much of the political opposition to these reforms was led by the United Democratic Front (UDF), a network of civic and political organisations opposed to apartheid. In Vaal specifically, the group leading the opposition movement was the Vaal Civic Association, which was affiliated to the UDF but ideologically diverse. On 3 September 1984, shortly after the 1984 general election, the association organised demonstrations against black local authorities, who had recently imposed rent increases. The protests turned violent, leading, among other things, to the killing of black councillors and residents and to a prolonged period of civil unrest in the area.
Most of the defendants in the Delmas trial were arrested in the weeks after 3 September, as the unrest continued. Although the defendants were primarily activists in Vaal, their arrest was part of a wider-scale national crackdown on anti-apartheid groups, particularly the UDF and its affiliates; the same wave of arrests led also to the Pietermaritzburg Treason Trial and a handful of other political trials. The crackdown continued throughout the three-year trial, with the apartheid government instituting a series of states of emergency which restricted the activities of the UDF and other opposition groups.
Indictment: June 1985 The 22 defendants were finally indicted in June 1985 on charges arising from events during the Vaal uprising; they appeared in court less than 24 hours later. The main charge against them was high treason, with alternative charges of terrorism, subversion, and furthering the aims of illegal organisations, all statutory offences under the Internal Security Act of 1982. They were also charged with five counts of murder in respect of the deaths of five black councillors in Vaal. The charges carried the death penalty.
After the indictment was filed, the Transvaal attorney general, using powers granted to him by the Internal Security Act, ordered the court to deny bail to all the accused; although the defence appealed the order, it was upheld. For much of the trial, the defendants were held at Modderbee Prison.
Defendants The Delmas defendants had diverse ideological backgrounds, but the vast majority were residents of black townships in the Vaal Triangle and members of the Vaal Civic Association, an affiliate of the UDF. In particular, three of the accused were high-ranking officials in the UDF: Mosiuoa Lekota (national publicity secretary), Moss Chikane (former Transvaal regional secretary), and Popo Molefe (national general secretary). However, another three of the accused were members or sympathisers of the Azanian People's Organisation, which generally had a strained relationship with the UDF and its allies. All of the accused were men.
The following is a list of all 22 defendants in the trial.
Patrick Mabuya Baleka Oupa John Hlomuka Tebogo Geoffrey Moselane Mohapi Lazarus More Gcinumuzi Petrus Malindi Morake Petrus Mokoena Tsietsi David Mphuthi Naphtali Mbuti Nkopane Tebello Ephraim Ramakgula Bavumile Herbert Vilakazi Sekwati John Mokoena Mkhambi Amos Malindi Simon Tseko Nkoli Pelamotse Jerry Tlhopane Serame Jacob Hlanyane Thomas Madikwe Manthata Hlabeng Sam Matlole Maxala Simon Vilakazi Popo Simon Molefe Mosiuoa Patrick Lekota Moses Mabokela Chikane Thabiso Andrew Ratsomo
Trial: 1985–1988
The trial began on 16 October 1985 in the small town of Delmas in the Eastern Transvaal; from January 1986, it was heard at the Palace of Justice in downtown Pretoria, the seat of the Supreme Court Transvaal Division. The ultimate verdict was handed down in the same courtroom where Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. Presiding was Judge Kees van Dijkhorst, assisted on factual questions by two assessors, Willem Joubert and W. F. Kruger. The prosecution was led by P. B. Jacobs, P. Fick and W. Hanekom. Counsel for the defence were led by Arthur Chaskalson and also included George Bizos, Karel Tip, Gilbert Marcus, Zak Yacoob, and Ismail Mahomed.
The state expected the trial to last no longer than six months, but it became one of the longest political trials in South African history, partly because the large number of defendants. It was conducted over 37 months, with 437 days in the courtroom and court transcripts running to 27,194 pages; 278 witnesses were called and 1,556 documents were admitted as evidence. During that time, one of the youngest defendants, Lazarus More, was married in the same courtroom. Also during the trial, one of the defendants, Simon Nkoli, famously came out as gay, first to his co-accused and then publicly; his prison letters, primarily concerning his announcement and the reaction it received, were later published.
Arguments
Prosecution The prosecution alleged that all 22 defendants were participants in a grand conspiracy against the apartheid state. At the most abstract level, it was alleged that the UDF had been formed as a vehicle for carrying out the purposes of the African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party (SACP), anti-apartheid organisations which had been banned in South Africa since 1960 and operated in exile from headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia. According to the prosecution, the UDF had been founded in August 1983 at the direct instigation of ANC president Oliver Tambo, who the state said had called for ANC members inside South Africa to mobilise against the state. In other words, the UDF was alleged to be the "internal wing" of the ANC. The state claimed that "the UDF, its management, officialdom and members of organisations affiliated to the UDF and members of organisations that actively support the UDF" were all participants in a conspiracy whose ultimate aim was to overthrow the state.
More proximately, the prosecution alleged that the Delmas defendants had attempted to serve the ANC's revolutionary aims by instigating violence in the Vaal townships in September 1984. Political leaders in Vaal were accused of having exploited residents' socioeconomic grievances to provoke subversion. In this respect, the prosecution concurred with national Minister of Law and Order Louis le Grange, who had announced in September 1984 that the uprising was not in fact a response to the rent increases but was driven by "individuals and other forces".
In this framework, and with the aid of the common purpose doctrine, the state presented ostensibly normal, non-violent political acts by the defendants – including attendance at political or community meetings, statements at such meetings, and possession of political literature – as evidence for their complicity in the ANC's revolutionary conspiracy. By a similar logic, the state argued that the defendants could collectively be held responsible for the killing of the five black councillors during the uprising, even though the state did not claim that they had individually participated in any murderous acts.
Defence The defendants denied all charges, but the UDF's Lekota said that they would attempt to use the trial to "assist in the process of change in this country". Leading co-counsel George Bizos later described their strategy as "a Socratic defence", similar to that adopted by activists in the 1956 Treason Trial: "we would admit to most of the facts but then you say far from committing any crime, I have done my patriotic duty and shouldn't be punished". The defence conceded that they had participated in opposition politics but argued that their participation constituted legitimate and non-violent acts of protest. The defendants also put forward that they had been politicised by their socioeconomic circumstances, not by the ANC's political ideology. At a broader level, they claimed that the UDF had been formed as a popular front not in response to a call by Oliver Tambo but to an earlier call by internal activist Allan Boesak, an account generally supported by scholars of black politics.