Former Treason Trialists with friends and family visiting the Old Fort Prison at Constitution Hill.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)Mar 13, 2008 – A group of former Treason Trialists visited the Old Fort Prison at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg today, reliving an extraordinary time when many of the top leaders in the Congress Alliance were held there over 50 years ago.
In December 1956, 156 members of the African National Congress, South African Indian Congress, Coloured People’s Congress, the Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions, among others, were arrested in police and military raids and charged with high treason by the apartheid government, following the Congress of the People in 1955 where the Freedom Charter was adopted.
Motsamai Mpho shows a Rand Daily Mail newspaper clipping from 1957, describing his release from the Treason Trial.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)Among them were Chief Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, ZK Matthews, Oliver Tambo, Helen Joseph, Archie Gumede, Ruth First, Florence Matomela and Dr Yusuf Dadoo. Ironically, leaders who had been actively prevented from meeting by the apartheid government now had unparalleled access to each other.
“That first meeting was like a school reunion,” says Norman Levy, who was a Communist Party member at the time. “Many had come from different parts of South Africa; some of us were meeting for the first time. …That first reunion was quite a hilarious one, and very memorable.”
“It was for the first time that we suddenly found most of the active people in the movement coming together,” chuckles Kay Moonsamy, who was an executive member of the Natal Indian Congress. He says he received a master class in politics as different leaders led political discussions each day. “It was a good get-together – which the state provided.”
Norman Levy reflects on his incarceration more than 50 years ago
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)Reginald September, who was an executive member of the South African Coloured People’s Organisation, says it was a great privilege to meet such experienced comrades. “It was a wonderful community we developed here, extraordinary. … Some time after that I had to go into exile, but you would be able to use those contacts that you had.”
South Africa’s Constitutional Court now stands on the site of the old prison.
Tomorrow, those who stood trial in the Treason Trial, Rivonia Trial and Defiance Campaign Trial are meeting again to relive their memories in a dialogue coordinated by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and sponsored by the Swedish International Development and Co-operation Agency. Those attending include Ahmed Kathrada, who survived all three trials, and Rivonia trialists Denis Goldberg and Andrew Mlangeni.
