Defend Moses
SOUTH AFRICA
REGIME that gaols Nelson
A
Mandela for life, murders Steve
Biko, tortures children and
-promotes racism as its official
Mayekiso!
MARISO
LAYER
DETAILA ideology has no moral credit with the majority of its people. A measure of its bankruptcy is the stature of its opponents. As the trade unions have moved into the front line of the battle with apartheid in South Africa many trade unionists have become victims of state terror. The spotlight naturally falls on these fighters, now in peril. What is their background, their circumstances? How may we support them?
Moses Mayekiso (known as "Moss" to his closest friends) is a living embodiment of the courage, political culture and determination shown by many in the South African trade-union movement. His story teaches how thousands of trade unionists live under apartheid's gun.
Moses Mayekiso, now general secretary of the metalworkers' union NUMSA, COSATU's second largest affiliate, was born in the Transkei in 1949. The early part of his working life was spent as a migrant miner. He was no stranger to the death and sudden injury that stalks the mines. He knew the singlesex hostels, the miserable wages, the daily racial discrimination. He left the mines to work in factories, ending up in Toyota, where he organized for MAWU (the Metal and Allied Workers' Union).
A pioneer of democratic trade unionism
He became a senior shop-steward, was victimized and dismissed. The Transvaal branch of the union took on Moses Mayekiso as branch organizer, and then in 1980 as full-time branch secretary. He was reluctant to take the post. His feelings are with, and for, the
THE STATE of emergency in South Africa has hit all components of the people's movement. For the first time, the trade-union movement as a whole has become a target of this repression. The assault is no longer a selective one against certain unions, but an open and deliberate attempt to curb all trade-union activity, to disrupt the functioning of the national and intermediate leaderships and to silence the workers' movement.
The means used in recent months to weaken the independent union movement have included repression against the striking Black railway workers, terrorist attacks against COSATU's headquarters and use of gangs of "vigilantes" against trade-union militants. In this context, the case of Moses Mayekiso has assumed exemplary importance. PAUL SMITH ranks. In many ways, that is the theme of his life. He does not espouse a crude "rank-and-filism"; on the contrary, his point is that the workers, the great mass of ordinary workers, should control and direct their own organizations as an apprenticeship for taking control over all aspects of their own lives.
That profoundly held impulse fired Mayekiso to pioneer much of the exemplary democratic structure of the metalworkers' union itself. It has also meant that he has seen no reason to move from his single-roomed shack in Alexandra township that he shares with his wife, his brother and seven children, which has no electricity and a communal toilet.
Mayekiso was the MAWU representative in the unity talks leading to the formation of COSATU in December 1985. The struggle for unity of the 9 movement against apartheid; the lead-
October 26, 1987 • International Viewpoint
SOUTH AFRICA ing place to be taken by the workers; the defence of the Freedom Charter as the starting point of that unity these are the political themes of Mayekiso's efforts. He has called for the development of the Charter to consolidate that unity in the direction of programmes for youth, for women and, of course, for the workers' movement.
Solitary confinement and interrogation
It was therefore entirely natural that Mayekiso "the union leader" became Mayekiso "the chair of the Alexandra Action Committee". At the height of the struggle in that region - and after the Transvaal stayaways of 1984, where more than a million students and took strike action - Moses was arrested and detained in solitary confinement for over a month. He was charged under the Internal Security Act. Then, after a rash of strikes and demonstrations, the charges were dropped.
In 1985, he was elected general secretary of MAWU. He personified the bridge between the unions and the great wave of resistance to apartheid gathering momentum in the communities.
On February 6, the "six broke out in Alexandra after a police attack on a funeral procession. Mayekiso's home was attacked; but he was not there. In April 1986, he was detained again. Once more, he suffered solitary "interrogation techniques of the South African police. forced Mayekiso's release in May 1986, and he went to Sweden to win support for his union. While there, the second state of emergency was declared in South Africa on June 12.
Despite the obvious risks, Mayekiso went home, and was arrested on arrival at Jan Smuts airport. To this date, he has been detained in Johannesburg prison. He was held up to the end of 1986 without charge and then indicted for treason. This accusation alternates with others of subversion and sedition, should the first charge not stick. Visits are allowed infrequently, and until recently his conditions were bad. velled against Mayekiso. The state as-
"accused at all relevant times owes allegiance to the state." With this presumption, they
'seizing control of certain residential areas of Alexandra and/or rendering such areas ungovernable by the state by, inter alia, (1) establishing organs peoples power; (2) forming the
Alexandra Action Committee; (3) organizing residents into yard, street and area committees; (4) forming people's 10 courts; and (5) launching a campaign against the police, the Defence Force, International Viewpoint • October 26, 1987 the Town Council of Alexandra and against collaborators with the system."
In addition, Mayekiso is accused of "launching a recent boycott" "attempts to force the state to accede to their demands" and, even more incredibly "changing street names to "MK [an abbreviation for the armed wing of the ANC], Biko, Soviet, Mandela, ANC, Slovo, Bazooka, Oliver."
stands trial facing these charges along with Paul shabala, Richard Mdakane, Obed Bapela and his own brother, Mzwanele Mayekiso.
Some 25,000 people have been detained at one time or another since the state of emergency began. To begin
STOP
THE
TRIALS
with, the proportion of trade unionists was not high. Today the unions are in the front-line of the struggle and under increasing attack. At its July COSATU called for a "hands off" paign as terrorist activity, as well as official harassment, mounted.
More anti-union laws threatened
Further anti-union legislation is now threatened. Every major dispute quickly attracts state repression. Nevertheless, the unions are still relatively unshackled and have increased their political maturity in ways that might have used the example of Mayekiso's life as a signpost.
The July congress of COSATU committed the movement to form a union for the unemployed, to reach out to the "doubly oppressed" women workers, to
Namibia and to anti-imperialist labour movements in the rest of Africa. The trade unions continue to guard fiercely their organizational independence at the same time as giving a political lead in the struggle to all of the oppressed.
Mayekiso's union was always deeply committed to that principle. Among those unions whose members were detained in the earlier days of the second state of emergency, MAWU members figured disproportionately. Today, COSATU as a whole is set on a series of disciplined alliances with, for example, organization of the United Democratic Front, SAYCO, formed this year, and the newly formed national women's organizations.
Mayekiso and his fellow defendants appeared at Johannesburg Supreme Court on the morning of Monday, September 14. It is suspected that he has gastric ulcers, a hernia and an earache. No non-prison doctor is allowed to examine him. (It was prison doctors who passed Biko as fit before his fatal police van drive.) But Mayekiso is now in a cell with others from Alexandra -eight of whom are charged with setting up a people's court — and all who have seen him say he is in good spirits.
International solidarity is now crucial
The case was remanded to October 19. The reason given to the defence was that there was no judge available for the trial before that date, and the hearings were expected to last five or six months. Even, so, it was hinted that somebody in the public prosecution team might be unwell at that time. South Africa's summer holidays are over December and January. Perhaps the state thinks that the furore over Mayekiso and his fellow defendants will die away by then.
Mayekiso has always been concerned to build maximum unity with all groups involved in the struggle. Consequently, his life has been the property internationally. It is now that movement which has to act to save him and his fellow defendants, who face the death penalty, and all the other union leaders and members who are currently rotting in South African gaols.
NUMSA, which elected Mayekiso as their general secretary in his absence, has stated: "(We) call for the international trade-union community to build a campaign for his release. In this regard, the union welcomes all forms of independent, responsible support initiatives in the international arena and hopes for the maximum possible cooperation between groups in seeking to achieve this end." *
USSR
ONDRATIEV and
Shayanov were important intellectual figures in postrehabilitate the
October Russia. Both were non-communists and non-
Testament "the favorite of
701