< 1985. Mark Esslemont directing Die Verdwaaldes, Oupa Uil en Koor at Kleinzee Rec Club.
ANC / UDF continued to make SA ungovernable. Pass laws were abolished. (Jon Murry, et al, South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, Lonely Planet, Hawthorn, 1997).
Crossroads shanties, Cape Flats near the airport: Unemployed puppet homeland blacks flowed into the Western Cape, traditional coloured area. SAP repeatedly bulldozed and burned shanties. Crossroads regenerated. (Hilda Bernstein, The Rift, The Exile Experience of South Africans, Johnathan Cape, London, 1994).
South of the Limpopo: White farmers were land-mined. (Martin Meredith, Nelson Mandela, A Biography, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1997).
Eastern Cape, March killings: 20 black mourners shot by cops at a Langa funeral. (Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness, Random House, New York, 1999).
Government suspended forced-removals, but forced-removals continued.
Fish River: Cops dumped 3 black bodies. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol 2, Macmillan, London, 1999).
East Rand: Blacks killed.
Gaberone, Botswana: SADF raided ANC houses. 12 people killed, including white pupil I'd taught. (Sean Moroney, Editor, Africa Volumes 1, 2, Facts on File, New York, 1989). Another old-boy was hit-by-truck killed while hitching home from an army camp. Official hitching spots for troopies were designated along freeways.
Cradock: 4 blacks killed by cops. (Ibid TRC, Vol 2).
Duduza: Maki Skosana was burnt, suspected of being an impimpi informer. (Bruce Connew, et al, South Africa, Hodder and Stoughton, Auckland, 1987). Bishop Tutu threatened to leave SA after her township incineration was shown on SATV.
Daveyton: 3 blacks shot by cops. (Ibid Connew).
Brandfort: Winnie Mandela's house, where she was banished, was raided. (Ibid Connew).
July State-of-Terror: (Euphemistically called State-of-Emergency) first in over two decades declared by president Botha, and enforced in selected Eastern Cape and Witwatersrand areas. Cops did what they liked. So much for Botha's Tricameral parliament and "reforms."
Puppet Ciskei, August: Army corporal necklaced by funeral mourners. (Alan Cowell, Why Are They Weeping? South Africa Under Apartheid, Stewart, Taboriand, Chang, New York, 1988).
Queenstown: Blacks necklaced.
Soweto: Blacks killed.
Durban City Hall, August: Botha's "Rubicon" speech, never stated expected reforms, nor the end of apartheid. The result of Botha's speech was that the Rand devalued and America demanded debt millions back, causing a financial crisis in SA. (Alan Cowell, Killing The Wizards, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992). Although the Nat government was bankrupt, it would wriggle and squirm for years before dying.
Black schools were boycotted, and black rent and consumer boycotts increased. Thousands were detained, including some black De Beers employees.
Tambo, exiled ANC president, wanted to nationalize mines, but white businesses needed to make profits for shareholders, so Anglo American boss Relly, and other businessmen, consulted Tambo in Lusaka, the first open consultation with ANC. (Ibid Cowell, 1992).
We paid off what we owed on our Durban house. Aged 34, I had the financial security of a fully paid house. Tenants provided extra income for us. We didn't know that within 12 years, during our NZ emigration, we'd lose every cent we made in SA.
We bought two plots at Pringle Bay, where Hottentots Holland Mountains dropped to False Bay. I climbed a hill, viewing Cape Hangklip. A sunset silhouetted Table Mountain 100 kays away. I feared being watched, but saw only spotty rocks and fynbos. I rushed downhill to Leah in our bakkie. "I skrikked myself," I said. "I felt I was watched, but saw niks."
"There's a 'friendly leopard' up there," said Leah, "roaming Hangklip. The leopard wanted to eat you." The agent who sold us our plots later shot the leopard.
Kiwi lawyers in 1985 stopped the All Blacks touring SA, stopping the rights of All Blacks leaving NZ, a hypocritical punishment for 1981 Kiwi riots when Springboks toured NZ. (Charles Sturt, Dirty Dollars, Reed, Auckland, 1998). Only in 1985 was the NZ Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Act passed, enabling Maori to make dispossession claims going back to 1840 when the Treaty was signed. If NZ took that long to sort out dispossession claims, SA would need centuries to resolve apartheid dispossession.
Kleinzee white sports, including rugby, cricket, golf, jukskei, MotoX, were excuses for piss-ups. Sport was the only socializing between some coloureds and whites. Dreyerspan blacks didn't socialize with whites or coloureds, as Dreyerspan barrack-hostel was deep in the mine security- area, behind security-fences.
< 1985. Xhosa mineworkers' war dance, Kleinzee sports field.
Coloured / whitey Christmas Fairs were held on Kleinzee sports-field. De Beers paid for coloured / whitey kids' Christmas presents, which parents chose according to their Paterson pay band. On Fair days, Father Christmas arrived in a De Beers' bakkie and doled out presents and sweets. Kids got tickets for more sweets, ice-cream, cool drink and fairground entertainment, including merry-go-round, ferris -wheel tractor rides, throw-the-hoop, coconut-shy, fishing for magnetic fish. It was rare for coloured / whitey families to socialize. Black men weren't invited for Christmas Boxes, as blacks were too low on the Paterson pay scale, and their families stayed in homelands.
Salaries, seniority and perks were evaluated according to the Paterson System of Job Evaluation: based on the level of decision -making in each job. Senior E band managers like Gallstone and Duiwelsteen had big company houses, cars and private swimming pools. Pom, General Manager, God in De Beers firmament, had the best salary, company house, company car and pool. Status in Kleinzee and De Beers empire was defined by saint Paterson: D band - middle management; C band - artisans and professionals like teachers; B band - secretaries, clerks, machine-operators, drivers; A band - labourers. Each band had subdivisions based on job complexity and supervision.
Unrest, Maseru: 9 blacks killed. (Ibid Tutu).
Zondo limpit-mined Amanzimtoti Sanlam shopping centre: whites killed. (Ibid TRC, Vols 2, 3). Years before, Leah and I had swum in Amanzimtoti River of sweet waters.
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