It’s so different today, there was a particular atmosphere in SA in those days that involved underground work because of the restrictions the government imposed. There were many trials involving political activity that bordered on violence, and there were a lot of people involved at the time.
The ANC was prohibited. And any activity which was in support of the ANC was charged against. You can’t compare today with what happened in those days, the political atmosphere is totally different in the last, nearly 30 years. I don’t think that young people appreciate today, what is involved to be politically active in those years. The risks were high, many people were imprisoned simply for dealing with documents, for supplying documents, or attending meetings.
University students were involved, scholars were involved, I had a trial in Grahamstown of a whole lot of young black students who were involved with burning the school as a protest and they were charged with having set light to various classrooms. To be convicted, they had to call other young students to give evidence and each one of these young students came into the witness box and said they knew nothing about the people who were being charged. As a result of which the evidence wasn’t sufficient for them to be convicted and the case was acquitted.
Shortly after that, I appeared for Steve Biko, he was charged because he lived in that area, and was said to have advised the youngsters not to give evidence, so he was allegedly interfering with the court of justice. At trial, the youngsters came into the witness box and all of them denied that Biko had advised them. They had consulted Biko about giving evidence and he had said to them go ahead. He was then acquitted because there wasn’t evidence against him. A month later he was murdered. It was the police. They picked him up and took him to Pretoria and they beat him so badly that he died.
