The diary of Maria Tholo - August 11 - 15 by Carol Hermer

From the book: The Diary of Maria Tholo by Carol Hermer

Maria's Diary, Friday, August 13

It's happened. Cape Town is no longer the only quiet place in the country. We have Soweto with us. Wednesday started ordinarily. We were doing activities with the children, making things from waste. I was particularly involved because I wanted things to show at a parents' meeting. All of a sudden one of the mothers burst in. She's a sister at the clinic in NY 1. She was shouting, 'Where's my child? I've come to fetch my child. Gugulethu is in turmoil. We've got the Soweto riots here. The schools are on strike. The air's thick with teargas. Just go out and see.'

I couldn't breathe, I just kept on repeating, 'Schools. Teargas. NOMSA.' It was all one thought. Before I noticed what was happening Shelley was up and out to lock the gate against the people running about. I had to go and fetch Nomsa from school. I ran out, down NY 108. There were crowds of people, mostly young, running towards me from the direction of the pool. You could smell the teargas. I didn't stop to ask what was happening because my only thought was to get to Intshinga Higher Primary School. It was quiet there but the principal was outside, walking up and down. I ran straight to Nomsa's class and gasped, 'My child.' One of the teachers, a Miss Gobile, said, 'It's alright. Someone has already gone to fetch Nomsa. Now I know why she is so nervous. She must take after you.' I didn't care. All I wanted was to get her out of there while the going was good.

As we left the school my next thought was of Gerda, the white volunteer at the church school. I had to know whether they had been able to get her out of the township. In Soweto the mob had attacked any whites they saw. I tried the phone at the clinic but couldn't get through so we went back home. I left Nomsa inside with strict instructions not to get inquisitive, and ran out again. Cars were just rushing through the township so I stopped one, a van. Thank heavens the driver agreed to take me to the church. He suggested that if I drove Gerda's car she could hide in the back of the van. I wasn't too keen on driving something with gears but as long as she got out safely, her car could stay. But by the time we got there she had already been escorted out safely. What a relief. Veronica had been on her way to the Early Learning Centre ¹when she saw what was happening and came straight back to get Gerda. By the time I was dropped back at the house Mother was there, exhausted, her eyes streaming. She couldn't wait to tell me what had happened.

Whew! You should ask. I was sitting quietly in my house, sewing, when some kids threw open the back door and burst into the house. I looked out of the window and NY 43 was full of riot police holding guns. The children were jumping over the wall from Fezeka school and fleeing into any open door. And the police were running into the houses after them. So I collected everything, locked up and cleared out. The streets are full of people and teargas.' I left Mother with Nomsa and went back to my school. We all wanted to close early because we were dying to know what was going on but we couldn't. So many of the mothers work. The Day Hospital had closed at 11.00 a.m. and those mothers who work there had already collected their children, but there were still many who remained. The last to come was Reverend N. who fetched his two kids at about 4 o'clock. He was very excited. He said, 'I'm not sure what's happening but I'm glad about one thing and that's that I don't belong to a dead society. I've been feeling miserable.'

When school was closed Nomsa and I went to take Mother home. I would have preferred it had Nomsa not come with me but she wouldn't stay home alone. The weather wasn't so grand anymore. It was beginning to drizzle.

The whole township was noisy. The siren at the Central Administration Block was wailing. Usually it summons workers for anything special - like to fetch their pay or announce lunch or tea break. They also use it as a fire alarm. But this day they were using it to call the police in case of trouble. You can hear it from all sides of the township. Just as we came out this wailing started again. This time the trouble was in the Section 2 offices near us.

There was a post office, a library and municipal offices all near each other. A mob was surrounding the buildings. The place was surging with riot police following the mob as it moved. First it flowed towards the post office, and four of the riot trucks followed, leaving the administration block bare. So the mob surged back there. I had the feeling that the mob was studying the movement of the police.

By the time we'd left Mother and got safely back, Gus was home. I asked if we could take the car, firstly to see that Isaac in Nyanga East was alright and then to go round and see what was happening. The streets were filled with stones and bottles. The crowd was still around the Section 2 buildings. It was something past six. The police were concentrated at the administration block because it was the most threatened. There was also a throng at the beerhall. As we looked we noticed a few young men at the post office, hanging onto the doors, trying to rip them open. There were a few stragglers around the library. We didn't think much of it.

But by twenty past six when we were on our way back - Isaac was fine and staying indoors out of trouble - the library was just a big ball of fire and the post office had an orange glow coming out from the centre. The police were not far away but they just stood there watching.

After supper when the children were settled we went out again on foot. It was drizzling heavily but we still wanted to go out. There was such an air of excitement. The whole township was outside. We were not afraid. We didn't know what was going to happen though we could hear shooting. The streets were full of people with handkerchiefs over their faces. They were coming from Heideveld station where there had been lots of teargas. It looked very funny somehow - all those handkerchiefs.

We checked to see that Mother was safely locked in, then walked back to the Section 2 buildings area. The administration building was still there but there was smoke coming from the beerhall and the bottlestore.

Gus was starting to get nervous. Besides, it was raining heavily, so we went to some teacher friends. We just wanted to talk and talk. They had heard plenty of stories. No one knows when the students had actually planned this big march but Fezeka seems to have been in the centre of things. The students there were particularly dissatisfied because of an incident involving some lost money that had occurred on a school tour.

That morning after assembly and morning prayers the children marched straight out of school. They didn't go into class even when the principal ordered them to. His deadly mistake was to go and call the police. Some of the children followed him to his house to beat him up and others went to call the l.D. Mkize students. By the time the police came the children from Nyanga East and l. D. Mkize had joined the Fezeka ones, so it was already a big group. The police met them near the Day Hospital on their way from Nyanga East. The police chased everything in uniform. Mrs. B. was on her way from the hospital and she saw those big lorries with their doors open and the police plucking the girls by the waist and throwing them into the open vans. You know, just like chickens.

Some of the boys got hold of one of these jikelezas ²and used it as a taxi. They said to the driver, 'Let's go this way!' He protested that it wasn't his route but they said, 'We are the ones who are giving you the route today.' The inspectors had to come to his rescue.

At first the children were orderly but when the teargas came they saw red. They threw stones at any car that came their way. The buses were also attacked and the lorries - the lot. So there are no more buses coming into Guguletu.

It was still raining heavily when we left, walking back along NY 6. Things were generally quieter but on the road we met a mob of youths, singing and wielding axes and sticks. At first they didn't want to let us through. I waved my fist, sort of cheering them and ululating and said 'Power!' but Gus had gone completely stiff with fright. I nudged him. 'You've got to be excited about this too. Lift up your fist and say "Power!" boy.' Finally he came out with it and they let us through. But it was quite scary. 'Black Power' is like a password now.

We wanted to see Pete and Angela but they were already in bed so we sat up round the heater at home. I felt I couldn't go to bed. We could hear shooting, shooting, and eventually a particularly loud bang that could only have been a bomb. We must have got to bed after twelve.

First thing yesterday we decided to go on a tour of inspection. I wouldn't let Gus go to work. One couldn't tell what the streets would be like and he leaves so early. I went to the school in case some children arrived. Not one turned up. Only Mr. P. who was in a panic. ³I've never seen him frightened before. 'I don't know what's happening,' he said. 'It's as if the children have taken over the township.'

So we just packed everything away as if it was a Friday. ⁴Then we went on our tour.

Whew - Section I is just a pile of mangled steel. The whole administration block has been burned down. Just the walls are standing. There are six rubbish lorries standing there - just husks. Section 2 - no beerhall. We went to Nyanga East - no beerhall. No post office. But what's funny is that around each building that's been burned down there are about six policemen standing with rifles. Why weren't they there before? They could have saved those places. Those buildings only seem to be watched after they've been burned down. At the Section 3 offices there are no windows - but plenty of policemen. And the bottle store there is also burned out. Six police with rifles but it's been burned.

We took Mother to Langa in the late afternoon. She wanted to see what was going on. There was a tremendous holdup along Vanguard Drive. On one side of the road was a cordon of traffic police and on the other, where the bushes are, was a bunch of youths carrying beer boxes and kannetjies. ⁵They were lined up along the route and whenever they could manage they'd open a bottle and just tip-tip-tip it out onto the ground.

The funniest thing was the coloureds coming back from work in Epping shouting, 'What a waste. Gee. Gee.' ⁶There was just one sour smell all the way to Langa. Not everybody was pouring it away. Some people were grabbing an armful of liquor and running off into the bush with it. One man pleaded with the children. 'Please, this is whisky. It's expensive. Can't you spare me a drop?' One of the boys said to him, 'You see? This is why you don't go to church and can't think straight. In 1960 when you wanted freedom they gave you beer; they gave you bottle stores and you thought freedom had come to you. You could drink, get drunk and forget. This time we're stopping you from having liquor.' ⁷

We got to Langa in the end. It's really worse than Guguletu. The whole shopping complex of the Langa flats is down. There are four cars outside. I don't know if they were taxis or what but now they are just husks. And a dry-cleaning lorry and a bakery van - burned out. And that beautiful pride of the township, the bar lounge - nothing.

We came back the other way round to avoid the traffic. After all the excitement we were very tired and meant to get a real good sleep. No such luck. At 2 a.m. there was a knock on the door - Grace with her brother. He was just covered in blood. He'd closed the shop early to go and visit friends and been stabbed and left for dead in a puddle. He had so many wounds. One in the chest and two in the back and he never even saw who his attackers were. So we had to get up to take him to Conradie Hospital.

Now I know my way around there, because it's only six days since Father was discharged, so while we were waiting I thought I'd go and visit the old man who had had the next bed; his people are all in the country. I just walked into the ward as usual.

But what a change. It was full of bloodstained people and there were policemen all around. One patient hissed, 'Hey, sis Maria,' and when I looked I realised I knew him. He had no hand left, just a stump. But I couldn't talk to him because the doctor said, 'Out, sisi,' and the policeman shouted, 'No talking to them.' So after promising I'd let his people know where he was I got out in a hurry.

Most of the people don't know where their children are, whether they're dead or in hospital or whatever. A lot of people have been shot.

Commentary

The riots in Cape Town may have been late in erupting but their violence made up for lost time. By midnight of that second day, August 12, 29 blacks had been shot dead, 100 injured and more than 100 arrested. Damage was estimated at R2 million.

It had started early in the morning as groups of children all over the townships refused to go into classes and collected in their school grounds, singing freedom songs. Apparently a march to express solidarity with Soweto had been arranged to start from the opposite ends of Nyanga and Langa, winding past each high school and higher primary school, collecting fellow students as it went by and culminating at a central point in Guguletu. By all accounts the march was clearly intended to be peaceful. It wasn't allowed to happen that way.

As about 6 000 black pupils streamed towards the Guguletu police station they were met by a squad of riot police who an­nounced that the gathering was illegal, giving the children eight minutes to disperse. The crowd just swelled. The police attempted to break it up with teargas and stonethrowing started. According to police statements 19 pupils were arrested.

Meanwhile in Langa, pupils from Langa High School, armed with sticks, marched towards the shopping centre. One boy was arrested. Again there was teargas and stonethrowing. There were similar scenes of stones and teargas when police confronted about 3 000 young blacks gathered on an open space in Guguletu.

By afternoon the pupils from Nyanga had regrouped around the police station to demand the release of their fellow students. This was granted. According to police evidence the 19 joined their friends and all began to throw stones. A police van was damaged and for the first time police opened fire though no one was killed.

By night-time, mobs on the rampage were setting fire to admini­stration buildings, shops leased out by the Bantu Board, beerhalls, bottlestores and many other buildings that, however useful, were regarded as symbols of a deeply disliked system. There was looting and police shooting.

A large body of opinion felt that had the school children been left alone the riots might not have occurred. ⁸A reporter for the Cape Herald, Maruwan Gasant, witnessed a small group of school children grow into a throng of black power salutes and a roar of voices. He described the march as peaceful until the riot squad drew up. ⁹A Guguletu teacher, who watched the march, believed the stonethrowing came as a reaction to the teargas. ¹⁰

Brigadier Jan Visser, who flew from Johannesburg to take charge, believed they followed the same pattern as those in Soweto, starting with school children 'incited by agitators' holding 'so-called' peaceful protest marches. When this led to a confrontation with the police, criminal elements took over and began to loot, burn and intimidate local residents. He was careful to emphasise that only 2,5 percent of the residents had been involved in the riots and he thanked the others for their calmness. ¹¹

Mr. MacLachlan, head of the Cape Bantu Administration Board, BAAB, issued a statement that 'leading' black persons had informed him that they were disgusted by what had happened. ¹²Minister of Police, Jimmy Kruger, issued a statement on television linking the Cape riots with those of Soweto, claiming that the same 'agitators' were behind both.

The question of 'agitators' cropped up repeatedly when South Africans discussed the riots. Their existence was neither proved nor disproved. Bantu Administration officials noted that there had been an influx of cars with 'up-country' number-plates immediately before and during the riots and this suggested that outsiders were responsible.

But it would have been very difficult for agitators to have stirred up a contented community, as the political columnist for the Nationalist-backed daily newspaper, Die Burger, pointed out. Besides, this avoided the crucial question of why police confronted peaceful protest marches. The school children had their own grievances against the police apart from disliking them as instru­ments of white power. ¹³The schools had always been used as places of night study as few township houses had electricity or privacy. Since the Soweto riots the police had been checking up on the students using this facility and finally stopped them alto­gether. It was not difficult to see how confrontation could lead to violence.

Whether it was school children or tsotsis ¹⁴who were responsible for the arson and looting is still under debate. Children were stopping cars asking for petrol with which to make bombs, as were tsotsis. A teacher reported in the Cape Times that tsotsis were responsible for stopping cars trying to go into the city to work. ¹⁵But tsotsis, as the feared misfits in the society, have always been blamed when things go wrong. A social worker in Langa reported that contract workers and tsotsis had taken over the student protest. ¹⁶

It seems clear that adults did take advantage of the chaotic situation to vent their frustrations by burning and looting, though school children may have been involved. Police fire on the night of August 11 was directed mainly at looters, though there were reports of innocent bystanders being killed. 17 Of 28 people killed by police shots fired around the Guguletu and Langa bottle stores on the night of August 11 five were 22 years old, and only three others under that age, so school children certainly weren't in the majority.

Thursday August 12 was again a major day of rioting. Crowds of school children filled the square near the Langa police station and stoned police vehicles. The police responded with teargas and by shooting into the crowd through the mesh windows of their vans. At least one person died, the first student to be killed, Langa High pupil, Xolile Most.

Langa High students later staged a march to demand the release of fellow students who were held for looting. This was dispersed peacefully through diplomatic handling on the part of a senior police officer. In Guguletu the civic centre was set on fire, a large general dealer's store looted, roadblocks set up and cars stoned along the road near the police station. Three more blacks were killed and others injured by police fire.

Cars with black occupants were also stoned. In one such inci­dent the four occupants jumped out to chase a stonethrower, caught him and beat him up. No buses entered any of the three townships and no outsiders were allowed through police cordons. Deliveries of milk, bread and meat were suspended.

In Cape Town, 73 University of Cape Town students who staged a march with the intention of expressing solidarity with the students of the townships were arrested. University of the Western Cape students thronged the sides of Modderdam Road, rocking and stoning passing cars. The riot squad was called and dispersed the students with baton charges and teargas. ¹⁷were arrested. Blacks asked why their children were shot when the 'coloureds' were dispersed by baton charges.

Overnight, burnings continued. In Guguletu a creche and a room in the cripple care centre of the Day Hospital were burned out. The Langa swimming bath was also attacked. By morning of August 13 things were quieter and the townships could be described as relatively calm. At this stage the death toll had reached 30. Along with many township residents, Gus went back to work and the groups of intimidators forcing workers to stay home were fewer. School attendance in Guguletu and Nyanga was virtually nil though 60 percent was reported at some schools in Langa. This figure is misleading because Langa schools were the meeting place for all the students. They were not attending classes.

Riot squad units were very much in evidence in the streets but they passed through freely, without being jeered by the people. Reverend Qabasi, chairman of the Guguletu High School committee, promised that black pupils would be back at school on the Monday. Over the weekend things stayed quiet with the Weekend Argus reporting that apart from an encounter with 50 children looting a bread van, things appeared to be back to normal.