Treason Trial

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Treason Trial (German: the treason process) was a court process in South Africa . 156 South Africans were charged with treason . The trial lasted from 1956 to 1961 and ended with the acquittal of all defendants.

prehistory

On June 26, 1955, the oppositional, cross-racial Congress Alliance passed the Freedom Charter , which primarily advocated overcoming the apartheid introduced in 1948 . The Congress Alliance consisted of the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the South African Colored People's Organization (SACPO) and the Congress of Democrats (SACOD). The goals of the Freedom Charter were viewed by the South African government as treason.

144 of the later defendants were arrested on December 5, 1956, and another twelve a week later. They were taken to the Johannesburg Central Prison, called Fort .

Process participants

accused

The 156 defendants represented all organizations of the Congress Alliance. According to the racial laws of the time, 104 of the accused were black, 23 white, 21 of Indian origin and 8 colored . Ten of the defendants were women. The defendants were held in community cells in Johannesburg Prison, but were separated by skin color and gender.

The number of defendants was reduced to 92 after the hearing period. In November 1957 the trial of 30 defendants was separated, including Nelson Mandela . These proceedings began in August 1959. The remaining 61 defendants were acquitted in mid-1959.

The 30 defendants up to the end included:

  • Nelson Mandela , ANC
  • Ahmed Kathrada , General Secretary of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress
  • Walter Sisulu , ANC, SACP
  • Stanley Lollan, SACP
  • Leon Levy, union leader of the South African Congress of Trade Unions
  • Helen Joseph , union leader and campaigner for women's rights
  • Lilian Ngoyi , ANC, co-founder of the Federation of South African Women
  • Joe Slovo , SACP
  • Duma Nokwe, ANC
  • Bertha Mashaba Gxowa, ANC
  • Ida Flyo Mntwana, ANC, First President of the South African Federation of Women
  • Farid Adams, Transvaal Indian Youth Congress
  • Elias Moretsele, ANC, died shortly before the end of the trial

Other defendants included:

defender

The head of the defense was Israel Maisels, also known as Issy Maisels. Other defense lawyers included Vernon Berrange, Bram Fischer , Maurice Franks, Ruth Hayman, Sydney Kentridge , G. Nicholas, Norman Rosenberg and Rex Welsh. Joe Slovo defended himself, while Nelson Mandela and Duma Nokwe defended themselves at their own request after the Sharpeville massacre and the ensuing state of emergency in April 1960.

Accuser

The Prosecutor was the South African Union , represented by chief prosecutor van Niekerk and Oswald Pirow (January 1958 until his death in 1959) and de Vos, who replaced Pirow.

Judge

The judges were FL Rumpff as chairman and the judges Kennedy and Ludorf, who was replaced by judge Bekker due to bias .

Procedure and judgment

From December 1956 to January 1958 the charges were prepared and examined for validity by the Magistrate Court in Johannesburg . In the courtroom, the defendants sat in alphabetical order, not separated by skin color.

64 defendants were acquitted at the end of the examination phase. The second phase of the process took place in Pretoria . The defendants were bused from Johannesburg to Pretoria on trial days. They weren't permanently detained. In November 1957 the indictment was rewritten and separate proceedings against 30 defendants began. The remaining 61 defendants were acquitted in mid-1959. In August 1959 the trial of the 30 main defendants began in the Pretoria Supreme Court. On April 8, 1960, the ANC was banned as a result of the Sharpeville massacre; the trial took place for months without a defense attorney. Mandela began his pleading on August 3, 1960, and the defendants' pleadings were completed on October 7 of that year. On March 29, 1961, the 30 remaining defendants were acquitted for lack of evidence.

Events in South Africa during the trial

While the most important representatives of the ANC were in jail, a successful bus boycott took place in Alexandra in 1957 . The blacks gained in self-confidence. In 1959, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) was founded to fight apartheid from the perspective of blacks. His supporters protested above all against the discriminatory passport laws , so that on March 21, 1960, the Sharpeville massacre broke out, in which 69 black demonstrators were shot by the South African police. On April 8, 1960, numerous anti-apartheid organizations such as ANC and PAC were banned and a national state of emergency was declared.

In the same year Albert Luthuli was the first black man in the world to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. However, he was only allowed to leave the country in 1961 to receive it.

consequences

The process brought about the solidarity of the opposition groups across the "racial barriers".

"Inter-racial trust and cooperation is a difficult plant to cultivate in the poisoned soil outside. It is somewhat easier in here where ... the leaders of all ethnic factions of the movement are together and explore each other's doubt and reservations, and speak about them without constraint. Coexistence in the Drill Hall deepens and recreates their relationsships.
Trust and collaboration across racial barriers are difficult plants to graft in the poisoned earth out there. It's a little easier in here, where ... the leaders of all the ethnic groups of the liberation movement are gathered and they can explore and speak freely about mutual doubts and reservations. The drill they endured together deepens and renews their relationships. "

- Rusty Bernstein: Memories Against Forgetting; Memoirs of a Lofe in South African Politics 1938–1964. Viking, London 1999, p. 179

In Western Europe, especially in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, the Treason Trial saw for the first time noteworthy expressions of solidarity with the South African anti-apartheid organizations. To bail out the accused was assisted by Sammy Davis Jr a Treason Trial Fund set up. Other significant financial support came from the International Defense and Aid Fund for Southern Africa .

Under pressure from other member countries, South Africa left the Commonwealth in April 1961 and henceforth operated as the "Republic of South Africa".

On December 16, 1961, the ANC and the SACP, which was also banned, founded the military branch Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in order to take up the armed struggle against the apartheid regime. Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada and Lionel Bernstein were later arrested again and sentenced to life imprisonment in the 1964 Rivonia trial, among other things for “sabotage and planning armed struggle”. Bram Fischer also served as a lawyer in the Rivonia trial.

Oliver Tambo was under house arrest after his release , then went into exile and became chairman of the ANC. Many of the accused were also later placed under house arrest or otherwise persecuted. Archie Gumede became chairman of the United Democratic Front in the 1980s .

During the trial in 1957, Mandela met his future second wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela , whom he married in 1958.

literature

  • Nelson Mandela: The Long Road to Freedom. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-13804-3
  • JC Buthelezi: Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Nelson Mandela: An Ecological Study. Trafford Publishers, Victoria 2002, ISBN 978-1-55369-894-4 , Google Books (pp. 101–130; pp. 125–130 are missing from internet source)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ JC Buthelezi: Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Nelson Mandela: An Ecological Study. Trafford Publishers, Victoria 2002, ISBN 978-1-55369-894-4 , Google Books (detailed list of defendants pp. 104–110)
  2. ↑ Description of the process on the ANC website ( Memento from April 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  3. ↑ JC Buthelezi: Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Nelson Mandela: study on ecological. Trafford Publishers, Victoria 2002, ISBN 978-1-55369-894-4 , Google Books (p. 122)
  4. ↑ Winnie Mandela : A piece of my soul went with him. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1984, ISBN 3-499-15533-8 , p. 88
  5. ↑ JC Buthelezi: Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Nelson Mandela: An Ecological Study. Trafford Publishers, Victoria 2002, ISBN 978-1-55369-894-4 , Google Books (p. 102)
  6. ↑ Denis Herbstein: How Canon Collins and friends smuggled £ 100,000,000 to South Africa and were never found . on www.canoncollins.org.uk ( Memento from September 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (English)