Government repression mechanisms

What were the terms of Biko's 1973 banning order?

He was banned from teaching or making public addresses, banned from speaking to more than one person at a time, barred from entering educational institutions, and required to report weekly to his local police station.

What did banning BC leaders from 1973 physically do to them?

It forced them to live in restricted, isolated locations inside South Africa.

What did the Internal Security Amendment Act of 1977 replace, and what powers did it give the Minister of Justice?

It replaced the Suppression of Communism Act, giving the Minister of Justice power to declare organisations unlawful, ban publications, prohibit attendance at gatherings, restrict people to certain areas, and detain persons or witnesses without trial.

How many organisations were banned in the 1977 crackdown, and how many people were detained?

17 organisations, including SASO, SASM, BPC, and SSRC, with 42 people detained.

What happened to Steve Biko during his final detention before his death?

He was chained to a grill overnight, left in urine soaked blankets, stripped naked, and kept in leg irons for 48 hours before the brain damage that killed him.

What explanation did police initially give for Biko's death, and how was it officially described?

Police initially claimed he died from a hunger strike, which is disputed, and his death was officially described as a prison accident.

What immediate action did the government take against the press after Biko's death?

It banned the newspaper The World, in addition to Thrust, already banned during the 1975 build up.

What mechanism did the Riotous, or Violent, Assemblies Act provide the government during the Soweto uprising?

It let the government ban outdoor public meetings, used after the 16 June 1976 march.

What was the Bantu Education system designed to enforce, and through what other measures?

Keeping black workers as a source of manual labour, enforced through Bantu Education, the colour bar, pass laws, and the homeland system.

What was the Afrikaans medium policy of 1975, and to how much of the curriculum did it apply?

A Department of Education policy requiring Afrikaans instruction, applied to half of the subjects taught at Black high schools, directly triggering the Soweto march.

What mechanisms did the government use to increase state control after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre?

It banned the ANC and PAC, increased state control of media, allowed indefinite detention without trial, and used restriction orders and house arrest against critics.

What was the Total Onslaught, Total Strategy policy, and who devised it?

A policy devised by P.W. Botha and Defence Minister Magnus Malan from 1978, claiming a communist plot via military attacks, protests, and international criticism, the Total Onslaught, met with a Total Strategy of military build up, censorship, bannings, and detention without trial, paired with limited reform to win support from the black middle class.

What reforms did Total Strategy include, despite its repressive core?

Effectively dropping the separate development and homeland independence policy, giving urban Africans the right to live permanently in cities, giving African workers limited trade union rights, relaxing some urban facility segregation, and permitting some multi racial private schools.

What did Total Strategy still deny Africans, and what powers did it give the army?

Africans still had no political rights outside the homelands, and the army was given increased powers in the townships and for cross border raids against anti Frelimo and anti MPLA proxy forces.

What penalty did conscripts face for refusing military service under Total Strategy?

6 years' imprisonment.

What was the Black Local Authorities Act of 1982 designed to do, and why did it backfire?

It gave elected Community Councils more power, including collecting rents and service payments, aiming to satisfy black demand for political power without conceding real power, but this rent collecting role made the councils unpopular and a target for civic resistance.

What was the 1983 Tricameral Parliament, and who was excluded from it?

A constitution creating three racially separate chambers, House of Assembly for whites, House of Representatives for coloureds, House of Delegates for Indians, each controlling only its own community's affairs while the white chamber controlled everything else, with Africans, numbering 21 million, given no representation at all.

What reasons did the government give for excluding Africans from the Tricameral Parliament?

A belief in white superiority and intelligence, the need to retain control of the economy and cheap labour, Swart Gevaar rhetoric, and claims that black people were insufficiently educated to govern.

What declaration in 1985 gave police sweeping powers, and what was banned under it?

A state of emergency, eventually nationwide, under which gatherings of more than one person were banned.

What happened to the pass system in 1986, and what had pass law enforcement looked like before that?

It was completely abolished, ending the separate development vision, after pass law prosecutions had averaged 540000 cases a year.

What organisations did the government ban in 1988, and why?

The UDF and the ECC, fearing the UDF's power to unify and coordinate opposition.

What treason trials did UDF leaders face in the late 1980s, and what were the outcomes?

Two trials: in the first, 16 accused, including Albertina Sisulu, were acquitted; in the Delmas treason trial, 19 were initially convicted, though this was later set aside.

From 1970, how did the government use the homeland system to control Black South Africans?

All Black South Africans were required to become citizens of an ethnic homeland, with nominal independence granted to the TBVC states, Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei, while they remained totally dependent on Pretoria and unrecognised by any foreign government, ensuring a steady supply of cheap migrant labour.