Rivonia trial

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Commemoration of the trial

The Rivonia Trial ( English Rivonia (Treason) Trial , officially The State versus The National Command, later The State versus Nelson Mandela and others ) was a trial from October 1963 to June 1964 in Pretoria , South Africa . It is named after Rivonia , a suburb of Johannesburg where seven of the convicts were arrested during a raid.

The trial was directed against members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military arm of the African National Congress (ANC). They were resistance fighters against the apartheid regime who stood up for freedom and equality . The legal basis of the process was the Sabotage Act General Laws Amendment Act ( Act No. 76/1962 ) and the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950. The original charges were sabotage, attempted coup and communist activities.

prehistory

In 1960 the activities of the ANC were banned. In 1961 the MK was founded as the armed arm of the ANC, to which numerous ANC leaders belonged. The MK was supported by the South African Communist Party , which had been banned since 1950. The MK leaders had to operate underground. The communists Arthur Goldreich and Harold Wolpe bought the Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia as a meeting point . On July 11, 1963, the MK leaders present there were arrested. A strategic plan, Operation Mayibuze, fell into the hands of the authorities. Nelson Mandela had been arrested on August 5, 1962.

Goldreich was one of the men arrested in Rivonia. Wolpe was arrested a few days after Rivonia was arrested on the border with Bechuanaland - later Botswana . Mosie Moolla and Abdulhay Jassat of the Natal Indian Congress had been arrested elsewhere. Before the trial began, the four men escaped abroad after bribing a prison guard. South African agents blew up a plane in Bechuanaland that was supposed to enable Goldreich and Wolpe to escape to Tanganyika . But you had chosen a different plane. The lawyer and anti-apartheid campaigner Bob Hepple had also been arrested. He made himself available pro forma to the public prosecutor as an incriminating witness, whereupon he was released. Before he had to testify in court, he also managed to escape abroad.

Andrew Mlangeni and Elias Motsoaledi had been arrested before July 11, 1963.

Those arrested were initially held in solitary confinement. It was not until October 7, 1963, two days before the prosecution was announced, that they were allowed to speak to their lawyers.

accused

The eleven accused mainly included leading ANC members and representatives of the SACP, some of them in personal union . Nelson Mandela ("Defendant No. 1"), Walter Sisulu ("Defendant No. 2"), Govan Mbeki , Raymond Mhlaba and Ahmed Kathrada belonged to the closer leadership of the ANC and the MK, with Sisulu, Mbeki, Mhlaba and according to the SACP Mandela were also SACP members. Denis Goldberg , Lionel Bernstein and Bob Hepple belonged to the SACP. Andrew Mlangeni and Elias Motsoaledi were ANC members without belonging to the close leadership, while James Kantor belonged to neither the ANC nor the SACP. He had previously run a law firm with his brother-in-law Wolpe, but was not active in the resistance. The law firm Kantor and Partners and the management of the MK were also charged.

defender

The defense of nine of the defendants - excluding Hepple and Kantor - was headed by Bram Fischer . He was supported by Joel Joffe , Harry Schwarz , Vernon Berrangé, George Bizos and Arthur Chaskalson .

Accuser

The Prosecutor was the Republic of South Africa, represented by Percy Yutar , Deputy Attorney General of the Transvaal .

Judge

The presiding judge was Quartus de Wet, President of the Transvaal Court.

course

The trial took place at the Palace of Justice ("Justice Palace") in Pretoria, the country's Supreme Court. The indictment was read to the defendants at the start of the trial on October 9, 1963. Since they did not have time to prepare with their lawyers, the trial was suspended for three weeks. The court convened again on October 29. The defense challenged the charges as imprecise and flawed. Judge de Wet therefore overturned the charges, but the defendants were immediately arrested again and a new indictment prepared. It was now on

  • Recruiting young people to sabotage and guerrilla warfare with the aim of starting a violent revolution
  • Plan to assist foreign military units for an invasion to aid a communist revolution
  • Efforts to raise funds from abroad for a revolution.

The actual trial began on November 26, 1963. All of the defendants pleaded "not guilty" and stated that the state should be in the dock instead.

The main witness for the prosecution in lieu of Bob Hepple was Bruno Mtolo, former MK member, known as “Mr. X ”, who was involved in several MK attacks. The Operation Mayibuze plan was brought forward by the prosecution as incriminating material. Among other things, military intervention from abroad was considered.

All of the defendants except Kantor and Hepple had a common defense strategy. Kantor was released early because no evidence of involvement in the crime could be proven.

In his plea, Percy Yutar called for the death penalty for all remaining defendants except Bernstein.

On April 20, 1964, the last day of the trial before the verdict was pronounced, the defendants had the floor. In his four-hour, prepared speech, Mandela explained in detail the necessity of armed struggle, because the government had neither responded to appeals nor to the non-white resistance of the non-white population in its quest for equal treatment and instead passed increasingly repressive laws. His contribution was published worldwide in the Rand Daily Mail and later under the title I am Prepared to Die . It was his last public speech before his long imprisonment.

judgment

Two days before the judgment was announced, the UN Security Council appealed to the South African government to end the trial and release the accused. Four countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom , abstained from voting.

Eight of the accused were found guilty on June 11, 1964, and Bernstein was acquitted. Then the attorney Harold Hanson made a plea for a lighter sentence. Even Alan Paton , President of the Liberal Party of South Africa asked in court about not impose the death penalty.

On June 12, 1964, the remaining eight accused were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Seven of the convicts, Kathrada, Mandela, Mbeki, Mhlaba, Mlangeni, Motsoaledi and Sisulu, were taken to the prison island Robben Island in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Town , where they remained until the 1980s. Denis Goldberg, the only white person in the group to be sentenced to life imprisonment, was serving his sentence in Pretoria Central Prison, then the only high-security unit for white political prisoners in South Africa. Goldberg was released from prison in 1985. The other convicts served their sentences until 1987 (Mbeki), 1989 (Sisulu, Mhlaba, Kathrada, Motsoaledi, Mlangeni) and 1990 (Mandela). It was not until 1990, when apartheid was abolished, that the defendants were officially rehabilitated.

literature

  • Nelson Mandela: The Long Road to Freedom. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-10-047404-X .
  • Nelson Mandela: No Easy Walk to Freedom: Articles, Speeches, and Trial Addresses of Nelson Mandela. London 1965 (Editor Ruth First )
  • Joel Joffe: The state against Mandela. The Years of Struggle and the Rivonia Trial. Dietz, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-320-02076-5 .
  • Glenn Frankel: Rivonia's Children: Three Families and the Cost of Conscience in White South Africa. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 1999, ISBN 0-374-25099-5 . Digitized
  • Kenneth S. Broun: Saving Nelson Mandela: The Rivonia Trial and the Fate of South Africa. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-992103-4 . Digitized

Movies

  • The Rivonia Trial. Two-part documentary play by ZDF, 1966, 2 × 75 min., Director: Jürgen Goslar, actors: Jürgen Goslar, Nino Korda, Bert Fortell
  • Accused: Nelson Mandela. The Rivonia Trial. Documentation and docu-drama , Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, South Africa, 2004, 52 min., Written and directed: Pascale Lamche, production: ZDF

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nelson Mandela : Long Walk to Freedom. Little, Brown and Company, New York 1995, ISBN 978-0-316-03478-4 , p. 481
  2. ^ The Rivonia Trial. The historical background to Mandela's final public speech for 27 years. (accessed on January 25, 2010)
  3. ↑ Short report at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on May 28, 2013
  4. ↑ Kenneth S. Broun: Saving Nelson Mandela: The Rivonia Trial and the Fate of South Africa. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-992103-4 , p. 12. Digitized
  5. ↑ a b c d e Description of the Rivonia process at umkc.edu (English), accessed on April 26, 2013
  6. ↑ a b The Rivonia Trial on the ANC website ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed May 27, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.anc.org.za
  7. ^ Statement by the SACP after the death of Nelson Mandela ( Memento of the original from August 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed on August 13, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sacp.org.za
  8. ↑ a b List of those involved in the process , accessed on May 28, 2013
  9. ↑ Chronicle at 702.co.za ( Memento from August 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on December 1, 2015
  10. ^ A b Nelson Mandela : Long Walk to Freedom. Little, Brown and Company, New York City 2008, ISBN 978-0-316-03478-4 , p. 487.
  11. ^ A b Nelson Mandela : Long Walk to Freedom. Little, Brown and Company, New York City 2008, ISBN 978-0-316-03478-4 , p. 512.
  12. ^ Bibliographic entry in the catalog of the National Library of Australia
  13. ↑ brief table of contents on www.abebooks.de
  14. ^ Table of contents, staff, cast accessed on February 8, 2011
  15. ↑ Summary of arte  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.arte.tv