4 Anti-Apartheid Blacks Found Guilty of Treason in S. Africa : Could Get Death for Inciting 1984 Township Violence

PRETORIA, South Africa —  Four black activists, including three leaders of the country’s largest anti-apartheid group, were convicted today of treason. They and seven co-defendants convicted of terrorism could be put to death.

The verdicts culminated a three-year trial on the role of the United Democratic Front, a pro-black rights coalition formed in 1983. The state alleged the front incited anti-government violence in black townships in 1984, at a time when the coalition’s leaders said they advocated peaceful protest.

Supreme Court Justice Kees van Dijkhorst described the front as a “revolutionary organization” which seeks to overthrow the government.

Three of those convicted of treason were senior leaders who had spent 40 months in jail without bail--Popo Molefe, 36, who was the coalition’s national secretary; Terror Lekota, 40, who was its chief spokesman, and Moses Chikane, 40, a leader of its Transvaal Province branch.

Also convicted of treason was the Rev. Thomas Manthatha, an activist in the Vaal Triangle area south of Johannesburg where the first wave of unrest flared in September, 1984.

Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 5.

‘Shattered by Verdict’

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a coalition supporter, said the convicted men are “gentle, rational people who in a democratic society would be regarded as civic-minded and public-spirited leaders.”

“I’m shattered by the verdict,” Tutu said. “If any of these people are sent to prison, I will not rest until I get them out. If this is treason, then I am guilty of treason.”

Eight of the 19 defendants were acquitted on all charges and seven were convicted of terrorism related to unrest in the Vaal Triangle.

A crowd, which included U.S. Ambassador Edward Perkins, packed into the courtroom but was subdued when Van Dijkhorst announced the verdicts. The judge began reading the 1,521-page trial summary Tuesday, and his preliminary conclusions this week left no doubt the top defendants would be convicted.

‘Haven’t Given Up’

“We haven’t given up. We will always maintain that the UDF is a nonviolent organization,” said Chikane before he and his colleagues gave clenched-fist salutes and were led away.

“This is very disappointing,” said anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman, a member of Parliament. “This very much narrows the field of protest.”

The front, banned earlier this year, was formed to mobilize opposition to a new constitution that entrenched the exclusion of the black majority from representation in Parliament.

The defendants had pleaded innocent to charges of treason, terrorism, murder and subversion related to the central allegation that the front and its affiliates incited violence in 1984 to make South Africa ungovernable.

Van Dijkhorst said the state proved treason because violence was an intended facet of the township uprisings. He also accepted the prosecution’s allegation that the core of the front’s leadership was supported and guided by the African National Congress, the main anti-government guerrilla movement.

The front has maintained it endorsed the front’s political goals, such as a one-person, one-vote system, but did not promote the use of violence.