JUSTICE MALALA: Today’s activists have few places to turn, even SA turns a blind eye to brutality
On September 13 1988 four anti-apartheid activists held in detention under the apartheid government’s brutal emergency regulations — routinely beaten and tortured by security police — decided to make a break for it. The four activists were Murphy Morobe, the publicity secretary of the United Democratic Front (UDF) at the time and later a senior government figure after the fall of apartheid; Vusi Khanyile, later a major South African business figure; and Mohammed Valli Moosa, who later served in Nelson Mandela’s administration as minister of the environment. The fourth activist was Clifford Ngcobo. The four men were taken for medical treatment at a Johannesburg facility where they decided to execute their escape plan. They could have fled into exile, where many of their comrades were. They decided that they wanted to underline the plight of the 1,300 people still under detention without trial in 1988. More than 30,000 people had been detained without trial in SA in just the two years...
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