New York Times Op-Ed, 1981
Houston Chronicle Op-Ed, 1981

What do you put in a food parcel for a political prisoner in South Africa? Where do you go in New York to get that sort of information? You try to remember the food he loved as a child. Chocolates – in the shape of a key, perhaps? But levity may not be appreciated by prison officials. At first, there is no levity – the news is always sickening, a shock. This is the third time my brother Nicholas has been detained without charges and it does not get any easier to take.

It is sometime harder to take when people speak of progress. Chester Crocker, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, told Congress recently that South Africa, in giving recognition to trade unions, was making progress. His words came a week after my brother and about 28 other people, most of them involved in trade unions, were rounded up by security policemen. No charges have been brought against them, so we – my family in South Africa, my brother here in New York, and I – do not know why any of them were taken.

My brother was picked up in the early hours of the morning, which is when they usually come (though it’s hard to see why, since they know perfectly well where he is during the day).

The people detained that day were blacks and whites, men and women. It is difficult to be sure exactly how many were taken, because the security police are not required to inform anyone about detentions. Unless there is a witness to an arrest, a person can simply “disappear.”

People who are detained are allowed no access to a lawyer – no access to anyone. Inexplicably, where they are being held is also a secret. We are told we are lucky my brother is white. It is ironic, because inequities based on race are what he opposes.

We were advised to do nothing for 14 days. At the end of that time, we were told, he would be either detained again under the same law that allows 14 days’ detention without charges, or kept in detention under other laws that require no indictments and allow the police to hold him indefinitely.

He could, of course, be charged with committing an illegal offense and be brought to trial. Or, he could be released, as he was on the two earlier occasions when he was detained without charges. Once, however, he was asked to give information about a colleague. He refused for reasons of conscience and was sentenced to a year in jail on a contempt-of-court charge. He appealed, and the term was suspended for three years on condition that he did not receive a similar conviction in that time. It is conceivable that while he is being detained he is being asked again to be a witness against his friends. If he refuses, that jail term will take effect.

Evidence that political prisoners have been brutalized in custody is on the public record. There have been many allegations of torture. Heaven knows, we are grateful he is not in El Salvador or Argentina, where political prisoners become political corpses. But we worry, all the same.

Most families worry. Those without access to power or influence must despair. Support groups have been set up across South Africa to help get food, clothes and medical attention to prisoners and to give advice and comfort to families. My brother was chairman of the Johannesburg group until he was detained.

The president of the Trade Union Council of South Africa, Dr. Anna Scheepers, describes the wave of detentions as a “reign of terror” – no one can be sure whether the next knock will be on their door.” Many of the men and women detained – about 120 – are held under a law that was supposed to prevent public terror.

In the last five years protests against these laws, once vigorous, have dwindled. There are elaborate restrictions against public demonstrations. What is more, social sentiment and police excesses can make it dangerous to participate in them. Many white South Africans are uneasy about the snarl of security laws that override the rule of law. But few publicly oppose them.

When the 14 days’ detention was over, my brother was neither charged nor released. He as well as most of those detained in the nationwide sweep were again detained under the law that allows him to be held indefinitely.

In a rare exception to the practice in dealing with political prisoners, my family was allowed to see him. They went to Pretoria for the brief visit. He was pale, they said, but in good spirits.

Here, we still wonder what to put in that food parcel. We try to remember what he liked to eat at Christmas. But we cannot forget how lucky we are to know he is safe – how lucky we are he is white.

(Cheetah Haysom, a South African, is a correspondent for Argus Newspapers, a South African chain.)