25

ON JANUARY 9, 1957, we once again assembled in the Drill Hall. It was the defense’s turn to refute the state’s charges. After summarizing the Crown’s case against us, Vernon Berrangé, our lead counsel, announced our argument. “The defense,” he said, “will strenuously repudiate that the terms of the Freedom Charter are treasonable or criminal. On the contrary, the defense will contend that the ideas and beliefs which are expressed in this charter, although repugnant to the policy of the present government, are such as are shared by the overwhelming majority of mankind of all races and colors, and also by the overwhelming majority of the citizens of this country.” In consultation with our attorneys, we had decided that we were not merely going to prove that we were innocent of treason, but that this was a political trial in which the government was persecuting us for taking actions that were morally justified.

But the drama of the opening arguments was succeeded by the tedium of court logistics. The first month of the trial was taken up by the state’s submission of evidence. One by one, every paper, pamphlet, document, book, notebook, letter, magazine, and clipping that the police had accumulated in the last three years of searches was produced and numbered; twelve thousand in all. The submissions ranged from the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to a Russian cookbook. They even submitted the two signs from the Congress of the People: “SOUP WITH MEAT” and “SOUP WITHOUT MEAT.”

During the preparatory examination, which was to last for months, we listened day after day as African and Afrikaner detectives read out their notes of ANC meetings, or transcripts of speeches. These recountings were always garbled, and often either nonsensical or downright false. Berrangé later revealed in his deft cross-examination that many of the African detectives were unable to understand or write English, the language in which the speeches were given.

To support the state’s extraordinary allegation that we intended to replace the existing government with a Soviet-style state, the Crown relied on the evidence of Professor Andrew Murray, head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Cape Town. Murray labeled many of the documents seized from us, including the Freedom Charter itself, as communistic.

Professor Murray seemed, at the outset, relatively knowledgeable, but that was until Berrangé began his cross-examination. Berrangé said that he wanted to read Murray a number of passages from various documents and then have Murray label them communistic or not. Berrangé read him the first passage, which concerned the need for ordinary workers to cooperate with each other and not exploit one another. Communistic, Murray said. Berrangé then noted that the statement had been made by the former premier of South Africa, Dr. Malan. Berrangé proceeded to read him two other statements, both of which Professor Murray described as communistic. These passages had in fact been uttered by the American presidents Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson. The highlight came when Berrangé read Murray a passage that the professor unhesitatingly described as “communism straight from the shoulder.” Berrangé then revealed that it was a statement that Professor Murray himself had written in the 1930s.

In the seventh month of the trial, the state said it would produce evidence of planned violence that occurred during the Defiance Campaign. The state called the first of their star witnesses, Solomon Ngubase, who offered sensational evidence that seemed to implicate the ANC. Ngubase was a soft-spoken fellow in his late thirties, with a shaky command of English, who was currently serving a sentence for fraud. In his opening testimony, Ngubase told the court he had obtained a bachelor of arts degree from Fort Hare, and that he was a practicing attorney. He said he became secretary of the Port Elizabeth branch of the ANC as well as a member of the National Executive Committee. He claimed to have been present at a meeting of the National Executive when a decision was made to send Walter Sisulu and David Bopape to the Soviet Union to procure arms for a violent revolution in South Africa. He said he was present at a meeting that planned the 1952 Port Elizabeth riot and that he had witnessed an ANC decision to murder all whites in the Transkei in the same manner as the Mau Mau in Kenya. Ngubase’s dramatic testimony caused a stir in and out of court. Here at long last was evidence of a conspiracy.

But when Ngubase was cross-examined by Vernon Berrangé, it was revealed that he was equal parts madman and liar. Berrangé, whose cross-examination skills earned him the nickname Isangoma (a diviner or healer who exorcises an illness) among the accused, quickly established that Ngubase was neither a university graduate nor a member of the ANC, much less a member of the National Executive Committee. Berrangé showed that Ngubase had forged certificates for a university degree, had practiced law illegally for several years, and had a further case of fraud pending against him. At the time of the meeting he claimed to have attended to plan the Port Elizabeth riot, he was serving a sentence for fraud in a Durban jail. Almost none of Ngubase’s testimony bore even a remote resemblance to the truth. At the end of his cross-examination, Berrangé asked the witness, “Do you know what a rogue is?” Ngubase said he did not. “You, sir, are a rogue!” Berrangé exclaimed.

Joe Slovo, one of the accused and a superb advocate, conducted his own defense. He was an irritant to the state because of his sharp questions and attempts to show that the state was the violator of laws, not the Congress. Slovo’s cross-examination was often as devastating as Berrangè’s. Detective Jeremiah Mollson, one of the few African members of the Special Branch, claimed to recall lines verbatim from ANC speeches that he attended. But what he reported was usually gibberish or outright fabrication.

Slovo: “Do you understand English?”

Mollson: “Not so well.”

Slovo: “Do you mean to say that you reported these speeches in English but you don’t understand English well?”

Mollson: “Yes, Your Worship.”

Slovo: “Do you agree that your notes are a lot of rubbish?”

Mollson: “I don’t know.”

This last response caused an outbreak of laughter from the defendants. The magistrate scolded us for laughing, and said, “The proceedings are not as funny as they may seem.”

At one point, Wessel told Slovo that he was impugning the integrity of the court and fined him for contempt. This provoked the fury of most of the accused, and it was only Chief Luthuli’s restraining hand that kept a number of the defendants from being cited for contempt as well.

As the testimony continued, much of it tedious legal maneuvering, we began to occupy ourselves with other matters. I often brought a book to read or a legal brief to work on. Others read newspapers, did crossword puzzles, or played chess or Scrabble. Occasionally, the bench would reprimand us for not paying attention, and the books and puzzles would disappear. But, slowly, as the testimony resumed its snail’s pace, the games and reading material reemerged.

As the preparatory examination continued, the state became increasingly desperate. It became more and more apparent that the state was gathering — often fabricating — evidence as it went along, to help in what seemed to be a lost cause.

Finally, on September 11, ten months after we had first assembled in the Drill Hall, the prosecutor announced that the state’s case in the preparatory examination was completed. The magistrate gave the defense four months to sift through the eight thousand pages of typed evidence and twelve thousand documents to prepare its case.

The preparatory examination had lasted for the whole of 1957. Court adjourned in September, and the defense began reviewing the evidence. Three months later, without warning and without explanation, the Crown announced that charges against sixty-one of the accused were to be dropped. Most of these defendants were relatively minor figures in the ANC, but also among them were Chief Luthuli and Oliver Tambo. The Crown’s release of Luthuli and Tambo pleased but bewildered us.

In January, when the government was scheduled to sum up its charges, the Crown brought in a new prosecutor, the formidable Oswald Pirow, Q.C. Pirow was a former minister of justice and of defense and a pillar of National Party politics. He was a longtime Afrikaner nationalist, and an outspoken supporter of the Nazi cause; he once described Hitler as the “greatest man of his age.” He was a virulent anti-Communist. The appointment of Pirow was new evidence that the state was worried about the outcome and attached tremendous importance to a victory.

Before Pirow’s summing-up, Berrangé announced he would apply for our discharge on the grounds that the state had not offered sufficient evidence against us. Pirow opposed this application for dismissal, and quoted from several inflammatory speeches by the accused, informing the court that the police had unearthed more evidence of a highly dangerous conspiracy. The country, he said portentously, was sitting on top of a volcano. It was an effective and highly dramatic performance. Pirow changed the atmosphere of the trial. We had become overconfident, and were reminded that we were facing a serious charge. Don’t fool yourselves, counsel told us, you people might go to jail. Their warnings sobered us.

After thirteen months of the preparatory examination, the magistrate ruled that he had found “sufficient reason” for putting us on trial in the Transvaal Supreme Court for high treason. Court adjourned in January with the ninety-five remaining defendants committed to stand trial. When the actual trial would begin, we did not know.