Picture taken during the Christmas season beach deployment 2009
The Marshals / Peace Corps Project
Ever since the signing of the National
Peace Accord in 1991, the marshals, through the participation of their umbrella
organization the ANC, participated in the local Peace Structure for crowd
control and peace facilitation missions. When organized into the ANC at the
time of the unbanning there were 10,000 marshals registered in the old Border
Region. They were organized as a parallel structure at branch level with a
hierarchy through to national level.
While a somewhat amorphous structure
during the unrest period since 1985, the concepts of organization into street
and area committees were accepted and practiced. Leadership structures were not
always clear but by the time of the establishment of SANCO as an umbrella body
of the Civic organizations, especially in the Eastern Cape, they were easily
integrated into ANC branch structures after the unbanning of the ANC in 1990.
Given the fact that the ANC itself was a rather amorphous organization, with
little or no structuring or leadership in place which could give direction to
the masses of township youth activists, the marshals, it would not be far off
the mark that the coming o0n board of these cadres made up the backbone of the
structures after 1990. They were also the backbone during the years of struggle
who, although mostly spontaneous groups, forcing the PW Botha government to
send the military into the townships. Thus, those who later became known as
marshals were those who made Apartheid ungovernable. Once into the townships
the SADF, meant to assist the South African Police in quelling unrest, got
stuck and there was no other way out but through negotiations.
This is an important element of the
overall struggle against Apartheid to understand. Quite often historians,
especially those who are into myth building of the central role played by the
ANC in “defeating” Apartheid point to the battle between the SADF and
Cuban/Fapla at Cuito Cuanavale as the turning point of struggle against
apartheid. While plausible if one looks at the overall picture of disengagement
of the USSR / USA (twilight years of the Cold War), in fact the youth in the
townships were primarily responsible for tumbling the Botha government. Botha’s
successor, FW de Klerk took the final step of recognition of the dire situation
not only in township unrest, but economic realities, the so-called “crossing of
the Rubicon”. What is more, the driving ideology with the township youth was
not the Freedom Charter, but bread and butter issues like housing, corrupt
local government, water and electricity. It is these issues which are playing a
similar role today. Ficksburg is as exemplary today as was the Soweto uprising
of school kids in 1976. In Ficksburg there was only one killing, but taken
together, the number of police killings and the gradual expansion of the wealth
gap- between rich and poor gives us something to worry about!
Schooling for blacks under the Apartheid
was a major source of discontent resulting in unrest sparked by black youth.
This resulted in an entire generation of youth who threw in the towel on
Apartheid education and turned against the entire system, let alone the idea
that their inferior education was in any way warranted or dignifying during a
time when jobs and skills went hand in glove in keeping away from them decent
work and living in the urban areas. There are so many who have thrown in the
towel on dashed expectations today, living in old houses with new ones promised
pipedreams, many going for the pipe literally and figuratively, many passing
degraded high school to reach matric but no work, no pay. Unless, that is you
are a teenage women and just get pregnant to get a grant, or wait out life on
the pipe for an old aged pension.
Just look at the sociological picture of
the 10,000 community volunteers mobilised as marshals in branches of the ANC
Border Region. Of the total 5,000 who were surveyed after their volunteering to
join the Marshals Peace Corps, 95% were unemployed. &0% were male, 30%
female; 30% had lower primary education, 25% some secondary education, and 15%
some senior secondary education. Their average age was 35 years. Each had at
least one dependant that he/she was taking care of. Now this poor education
slate had nothing to do with their having had no schools or facilities. The
youth boycotted and burnt down their schools and with the very clear idea what
there must “first be freedom, then free education”. They also had classes
amongst themselves and the slogan “each one, teach one” had meaning. There was
a fantastic self help approach to everything, a cooperative spirit which was
one of the most promising spring boards for the Reconstruction and Development
Programme to take off.
After 1994 when the marshals found
themselves "redundant", this time without legitimate cause ass “democracy” had
come”, only half of the original 10,000 remained in the structure to push
forwards on their original agenda. They wanted a decent life, a job, respect in
their communities, ready to sacrifice, a roof over their heads, and food to
eat. This waiting out for “democracy” to reveal itself in beyond attending
rallies and listening to all the goodies of the promised land of freedom and
democracy, last precisely one year. After a year, at the first anniversary
celebrations, I was called to a meeting of the marshal commanders from Duncan
Village and Mdantsane. They did not get a call to marshal the first
independence rally held that day in Bhisho stadium. They wanted to know from
me, WHY!!! As their coordinator during the transition years 1990 – 1994 I
undertook to take the matter up with the Regional Executive Committee, which I
did. I made it clear to the leaders that I was charged to take forward the
marshals agenda settled by ANC Head Quarters, that is that they would continue
to play an active role in the RDP. In this sense they were not disbanded as a
structure as was the case with the “liberation army” hand picked and those
chosen by the lottery of fortune of being in the right place at the right time
and get “deployed” to the now renamed SADF, the SANDF. Clearly things were
failing. Many who went to the SANDF soon returned disgruntled and shouted down
by white officers as not worthy of being soldiers, in fact of being
“onopleibaar”.
The predicament was conveyed to ANC Head
Quarters and the reply was that the marshals should come up with their own plan
for how to play a useful and economically sustainable role in their own
communities. While this sounded like a tall order, in fact it was a wonderful
challenge. It drew out the best intentions in the remaining marshals and they
came up with a plan which was truly impressive. When this word came back there
was great enthusiasm among the valiant marshals spread all over the old Border
Region. They took on where they had left off during the transition years. They
would continue what they always did and were best at, namely staying mobilised
in their street and area committees to ensure the safety and development of
their communities, in their own back yards so to speak. And for the actual
ideology they did not have to look far. This was implicit in Chapter 5 of the
National Peace Accord – to stop violence one had to treat the social and
economic inequalities spread and deeply embedded South Africa seriously. Along
side this prerogative of the National Peace Accord, the Freedom Charter was a
swan song, useful to get the ears pricked up of the liberation movement
stalwarts at rallies, but nothing much besides.
From the ANC leadership we got promises
of open doors where ever we went. We were given the green light even to get the
United Nations Development Programme involved (UNDP). The latter was delighted to become a main
stakeholder in such an exemplary project and we had no difficulties to draw in
all the other stakeholders who had signed the National Peace Accord.
With the gradual envisioning of the
policy of the new South Africa by Thabo Mbeki there came surprises after more
surprises. First the structures of the National Peace Accord were abolished.
Obviously they had become too powerful and implied a major voice in the
government’s unfurling of an economic strategy. Then the Marshals Peace Corps
had a run-in with General Lambert Moloi, who was engaged in a similar project
for “liberation movement” members in the SANDF – they had to be reskilled and
“returned to civilian life” (After only a few months of actually having been
under a military regime, few were from exile!). Moloi thought it best that his
“soldiers” be trained individually and sent back to where ever they wished to
go to, city, town and many of course would not opt to go to a rural area. In
contradiction to this the Marshals Peace Corps had the approach of collective
training and that in their own groups they return to their own communities to
facilitate programmes that fell within the ambit of the Reconstruction and
Development Plan. This altercation turned nasty and marshal leaders were
forbidden to enter any military establishment in case there were orders that
they get shot . . . . How seriously this threat was to be taken is merely a measure
of the irritation that existed with Moloi who had been challenged by marshals
who knew what they wanted and knew what they were talking about.
Eventually the Marshal Peace Corps was
ready for launch with adequate funding from the UNDP. Only one thing was then still
outstanding – the signature and mandate from the government. This was supposed
to be Jay Naidoo’s Reconstruction and Development Department. On the very day
that the Marshals Peace Corps was ready to approach him we found that his
office, plus the RDP had been scrapped by the government altogether.
That was the end of the Marshal Peace
Corp sometime in early 1997. Since then the structure disintegrated still
further, many were able to get small security firms set up, many joined
security companies, while the more community conscious threw themselves into
the governments new plans to curb crime and do what they could to ensure the
safety of their own communities through the setting up of Community Policing
Forums. Eventually this plan degraded as well. In some instances wily figures
running shebeens owners, brothel pimps and other such opportunistic elements
infiltrated the CPF s. And the SAPS again took to military ethics and any
community participation in policing turned out to be dependent on a police
force degrading itself, shooting to kill and even shooting peaceful
demonstrators led by a new generation of community activists.
So, what has changed with the coming of
democracy?” Well, nothing except that there is today a universal hope but no
more excuse for the same social and economic maladies to flourish that led to
the great "liberation struggle” of years ago. In the end it’s about
disgruntled professional elements in the formerly disadvantaged community who
needed full recognition, and are getting that. Which puts content to the hollow
statement of Smuts Ngonyama, one of the very leaders that gave his blessing to
the Marshal Peace Corps as a Regional leader of the ANC in the Border – “we did
not fight to remain poor”?
Berend Schuitema
April 2011
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