S.A. firms let protest proceed

Press, 13 February 1982, Page 9

S.A. firms let protest proceed

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg Important elements of the South African white establishment, including two Eng-lish-language universities as well as big corporations, cooperated yesterday with a call by black trade unions for a protest over the death in detention of a white union organiser who had been held without charge. According to the police account the detainee. Dr Neil Aggett, apparently committed suicide by hanging in his cell at security police headquarters in Johannesburg last week after having been interrogated in connection with a political trial in which the State intended to use him as a witness.

He was held under the Terrorism Act for more than two months, and was the first white to die in such circumstances.

Yesterday more than 50,000 industrial workers across the country, mainly blacks, were reported to have stopped working as part of a 30-minute protest against the practice of detention without trial. This was in response to a call for a nationwide work stoppage from the mostly non-white African Food and Canning Workers' Union, for which the doctor worked.

In most areas the stoppage appears to have involved only a few black industrial workers, those who have been organised so far by the fledgling black unions which have been granted legal standing in the South African labour system in the last two years. But the readiness of corporations and employers’ associations to allow the protest to proceed was seen as significant on two scores: as a sign of respect for the potential power of black unions, and as a sign that the white business community had serious reservations about security police crackdowns on black unions which seem inclined to take a political stand.

The Anglo-American Corporation, the nation’s biggest conglomerate, issued a statement of concern after the announcement of Dr Aggett’s death, as did the Federated

Chamber of Industries, and the Associated Chambers of Commerce, the two main business groups. These statements stopped short of questioning the practice of detention without trial, but they were viewed as an unusual challenge to the authorities. There were no incidents at any of the factories where stoppages were observed, an indication that many companies had made arrangements with the unions on the handling of the protest. The response appears to have been especially strong in the industrial cities of East London and Port Elizabeth, where the stoppage was observed at the plants of the Ford Motor Company and General Motors.

A spokesman for the Federation of South African Trade Unions asserted that 52,000 workers in 83 factories it has organised took part in the protest. In addition, Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg and Rhodes University in Grahamstown formally associated themselves with the stoppage. All university activities were halted and an overflow crowd of about 2000 listened to speeches hailing Dr Aggett as a martyr to the cause of a non-racial South Africa. The principal of the university, Dr D. J. du Plessis, said Dr Aggett had “lost his life in the pursuit of an idea.” Later, the mainly white crowd joined in the mournful singing of an anthem that is closely associated with the outlawed African National Congress. This was followed by the chairman of the Students’ Representative Council reading excerpts from the Freedom Charter, a manifesto the movement issued 26 years ago that is also banned in South Africa.

Many in the audience wore black 'armbands and others wore stickers - which said: “Remember the detainees.” More than 40 blacks have died in the custody of the security police over nearly two decades. The last was Steven Biko, whose death in detention in 1977, aroused an international outcry.