From: "FRANCO BARCHIESI" <029FRB-AT-cosmos.wits.ac.za>
Date:          Fri, 20 Jun 1997 17:32:37 GMT + 2:00
Subject:       REPRESSION AT UNIVERSITY OF DURBAN-WESTVILLE


>From the Johannesburg Collective of "DEBATE-Voices from the South 
African Left":

URGENT INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY REQUIRED

Repression against Comrades at University of Durban-Westville (South 
Africa)

THE FACTS
On 17 June 1997 the Presidential Commision of Inquiry appointed to 
investigate the last three years of conflict at the University of 
Durban-Westville (UDW) submitted a report which recommended the 
criminal prosecution of comrades in the Combined Staff Association 
(COMSA) and in the Student Representative Council (SRC). Three of 
these comrades are also part of the Durban Editorial Collective of 
the journal "Debate-Voices from the South African Left". In 
particular, the following comrades have been targeted for criminal 
charges including kidnapping, public violence, incitement to public 
violence, intimidation, theft of confidential documents and contempt 
to court:
Regan Jacobus (COMSA member, now Vice-Principal at Technikon Natal) 
Prea Banwari (former COMSA chairman), 
Heinrich Bohmke (COMSA organiser), 
Ashwin Desai (COMSA member and sociology lecturer), 
Melissa McKay (SRC), 
Robert Malunga (SRC), 
Nhlanhla Ndlovu (SRC),
Rajesh Choudree (COMSA chairman),
Evan Mantzaris (COMSA member and university lecturer),
Dumisani Ngcobo (SRC)
Logan Naidoo (COMSA).

All of them, together with hundreds of other students, workers and 
staff have been suspended, banned, and prohibited from entering the 
campus, which is now closed. All the South African media have 
depicted COMSA as a clique of thugs, while it is a trade union 
organising 1.300 workers on campus out of 1.700!
As a matter of fact, the main "crime" of the comrades in COMSA 
is their struggle against neoliberalism in the restructuring of the 
university, and their opposition to privatization, downsizing, 
retrenchments and flexibility. In fact, documents from the 
Commission of Inquiry leaked to the public have shown that the 
Ministry of Education had put pressure on the Commission itself in 
order to get the criminal charges for the comrades, thus getting rid 
of COMSA. In other words, the Commission was biased from the start to 
smash the student-staff-worker protest on campus by any means. This 
can then be defined as an act of repression. Not only: during the 
whole duration of the protests and the demonstrations the university 
administration has explicitly requested the intervention of the 
National Intelligence Agency (NIA) on campus to identify and isolate 
the leaders of the struggle. This, and the massive presence of 
private security vigilantes contributed to a massive 
militarization of the campus in the last three years. Many of the 
people here accused have been identified only on the basis of their 
membership of COMSA and of participation to its activities, while 
direct responsibility in the facts reported was not proved: a typical 
case of arbitrary charges for "associational crimes".
What happened at UDW is a warning for the future; it concerns all 
those who are fighting for real university transformation and against 
neoliberal restructuring in South Africa, one of the countries where 
the opposition to neoliberalism is now strongest.
In these days the South African ministry of education has released 
its White Paper on tertiary education; it is a clearly neoliberal 
policy document whereby the right to university education will be 
totally subordinated to market-related considerations. The repression 
at UDW indicates that the South African government is prepared to 
crush popular opposition to neoliberalism. For these reasons THE 
CHARGES AGAINST THE COMSA COMRADES MUST BE DROPPED. Comrades from 
COMSA need your solidarity. You can write to them at 
comsa-AT-pixie.udw.ac.za
***COMBINED STAFF ASSOCIATION (COMSA) MESSAGE***:
"The Union COMSA at the University of Durban-Westville has come under 
sustained attack from the Ministry of education. COMSA has been at 
the forefront of confronting the Ministry's attempt to force tertiary 
education to become a simple conveyor belt for a modernist economy. 
The neo-liberalism inherent in Minister Bhengu's various papers, 
policies and interventions has been exposed by COMSA at meetings, in 
the media at conferences and seminars. Now the other side of neo-
liberalism, REPRESSION, has been used to silence COMSA and the SRC at 
UDW. A Commission of Inquiry was set up to investigate unrest at UDW 
that took place in the context of financial exclusions and industrial 
action over the dismissal of ad-hoc workers last year. It was held in 
camera and not one student or workers participated in it labelling it 
a "witchhunt" from the beginning. Two of its three members were high-
flying African National Congress hacks who inspired no confidence in 
either SRC or COMSA. We ignored all subpoenas and invitations to 
"inform" on our colleagues. The Commission's report detailed below is 
thus one-sided. It calls on the National Intelligence Agency, the 
Attorney general and the South African Police Service to intervene.
Arising out of the report student and worker leaders have been 
suspended and banned from campus indefinitely. COMRADES, this is an 
attack crude and blatant. We have decided to fight back.
This is the one campus where the Left had a mass base to operate 
from. The journal "DEBATE" had a home here. There is a fighting UNITY 
between workers and student leaders of every radical persuasion. Left 
thinkers and activists always had a ready platform under COMSA's 
umbrella. It was from here that workers in the pharmaceutical and 
chemical industries were guided in their own particular struggles 
against retrenchments, pollution and union-bashing.
As COMSA, we want you to read the report which DAMNS us, to make up 
your own mind. Yes, COMSA has been a controversial, fighting union. 
We have disobeyed court interdicts and marched, occupied, demanded 
resignations, protested against privatisation and pursued demands for 
economic justice. It has been always difficult to fight disembodied 
concepts and so the individuals that have championed the 
corporatisation of our university have come under fire. They who have 
held power have weilded it against us with little mercy. You will 
read of horrible-sounding charges - marches, speeches, occupations - 
YES. All of our charges, barring one, are common purpose charges of 
the sort "You were in a crowd in which someone did X, and by being a 
leader of that crowd you thereby associated yourself with X". For 
what it is worth, we are willing to answer all charges in open court. 
What we cannot answer and will not apologize for is the Commission's 
REAL FINDINGS: that we are a highly effective (1300 out of 1700 
workers are COMSA members) Union, quite unstoppable in our crusade 
against workplace flexibility, privatisation, out-sourcing, racism, 
secret services' intrusion, poor wages, cuts to benefits.
It seems the state must intervene.
We have never pretended to be angels, but are aghast that the 
Commission which so condemns anonymous pamphlets has seen fit to 
include one of its own (published by the Helen Suzman Foundation by 
an anonymous "academic") to make what is essentially a racist case 
against us. It is strange to see such an intemperate, vulgar and 
biting report from a group of Commissioners who, operating within 
bourgeois norms of "impartiality", should at least have taken care to 
"appear impartial".
The Commission's report is an invaluable document, a clue along the 
road to neoliberalism and repression in our country. Examine this 
clue and put together your case against it. It is also a case study 
in the new battle lines being drawn crudely across the body-politic 
in South Africa.
COMSA and the SRC (1996 and 1997) appeal for your help and solidarity 
in these difficult, yet strangely PROUD times ahead. We will be 
incommunicado for much of the time, scurrying around to keep our 
organisation going (we have just one agency shop in arbitration). We 
will rely on you all to send us advice, messages of support, and 
build consciousness about our condition at your unievsrities".

COMBINED STAFF ASSOCIATION, University of Durban-Westville
-----------------------------------------------------------

Franco Barchiesi
Sociology of Work Unit
Dept of Sociology
University of the Witwatersrand
Private Bag 3
PO Wits 2050
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel. (++27 11) 716.3290
Fax  (++27 11) 716.3781
E-Mail 029frb-AT-cosmos.wits.ac.za
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/aut_html
http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~mshalev/direct.htm

Home:
98 6th Avenue
Melville 2092
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel. (++27 11) 482.5011


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