Nelson Mandela Defiant At Rivonia Trial

Pretoria, South Africa - Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress (ANC) and commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe, its military wing, today began the case for the defence in what has become known as the Rivonia Trial in which 16 black African leaders are fighting against state charges which carry the death penalty.

In an impassioned three-hour speech at the Palace of Justice in central Pretoria, Mandela spoke from hand written notes about a wide variety of topics, justifying actions of violence against the South African government and distancing both himself and his party from the Communist Party. The prosecution has made ANC connections with foreign communist forces one of the central planks of its case against Mandela and his co-defendants.

The ANC leaders are being charged under the Sabotage Act which was introduced only two years ago to combat a more militant policy by the ANC in their struggle for black rights. Serious charges against some of the more prominent leaders, including Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Denis Goldberg, could see those convicted hang.

This trial began on November 26th last year after ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe leaders had been arrested in July in the Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia, hence the trial's name. Mandela himself was in jail at the time, serving five years for illegally exiting South Africa two years ago to visit supporters abroad and to address the Conference of the Pan African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa.

Prosecution Case

The prosecution's case against the ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe members, being forcefully presented by the chief prosecutor Dr. Percy Yutar, deputy attorney-general of the Transvaal, lasted some three months and ended some six weeks ago at the beginning of March.

In that time, the defendants have been accused of the following: attempting to overthrow the state by violent means and being part of an international Communist conspiracy to do so. Over 150 witnesses have been called to support the government case, including three "mystery" witnesses simply called Mr. X, Mr. Y and Mr. Z for the purposes of anonymity. These secret witness claim to have been working for the liberation movement and been involved in explosives training and preparation for a guerrilla campaign against the Pretoria government.

Mary Scholes, the DailyPast.com legal affairs correspondent, gave us her opinion on the first part of the Rivonia trial, presided over by Justice Quartus de Wet. "The main defence lawyers Bram Fischer and Vernon Berrange, have not disputed some critical areas of the prosecution case against Mandela and his colleagues. This makes me think that their case will be based not on a denial of the charges of sabotage but on the justification for their actions. This can already be seen today with Mandela's stirring speech."

Mandela's Counter Claims

Which takes us to the events in Pretoria today where Nelson Mandela, 45 years old, used his opening statement to justify and explain the actions of himself and his co-accused. For those who sat through the whole three hours, it was a moving moment in the trial. It is likely that Mandela is fighting, quite literally, for his life.

Mandela went to great lengths to explain why the ANC, and Umkhonto we Sizwe in particular, had turned to violence and years and years of non-violent struggle against increasingly severe apartheid laws.

"...we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government.*"

It was not only the increasing desperation felt by those involved in the civil rights movement that convinced them to use violence, but also a direct reaction to the violence used against them by the state:

"Each disturbance pointed clearly to the inevitable growth among Africans of the belief that violence was the only way out - it showed that a Government which uses force to maintain its rule teaches the oppressed to use force to oppose it.*"

Mandela also used his courtroom time to hit back at those that would criticise the ANC's policy of violence in direct opposition to the policies employed by Gandhi twenty years ago in the struggle for Indian independence:

"At the beginning of June 1961, after a long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I, and some colleagues, came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the Government met our peaceful demands with force.*"

Umkhonto was formed as a direct result of this shift in policy, in November 1961 and it was a move that put Mandela and his fellow activists on a direct collision course with the government. Mandela, however, told the Palace of Justice that Umkhonto had chosen the "logical" choice of sabotage and had rejected more violent means, such as outright terrorism:

"Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality. This is what we felt at the time, and this is what we said in our Manifesto.*"

Much of the second half of Mandela's speech today was given over to countering the government's claim that the ANC is in collusion with the Communist Party. Whilst he accepted that their aims may be similar, their reasons were not.

"It is true that there has often been close co-operation between the ANC and the Communist Party. But co-operation is merely proof of a common goal - in this case the removal of white supremacy - and is not proof of a complete community of interests.*"

He used the co-operation of the USSR and the USA to defeat Hitler in the Second World War as a fine example of this mutual benefit at play. Speaking of his personal opinion of the Communists and their attitude towards apartheid, he went on to claim that "the communist bloc speaks out against it with a louder voice than most of the white world.*"

Uncertain Future

The trial is expected to last at least another five weeks during which time the world's attention will be focused on this courtroom in South Africa.

Mandela has built up quite a reputation abroad and it would be a major development if the Pretoria government decided that the safest place for Mandela and the others was on the gallows.

Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 12, 1964.