There has been legal argument about whether the offenders are allowed to leave the camp at all and go into the town—Mafeking, fifty miles away—on parole. It is true there are no barbed-wire fences, no armed sentries, no forced labour—and Dr T. S. Van Rooyen, Chief Journalist of the Native Affairs Department, says that it is technically incorrect to refer to Frenchdale as a concentration camp. He explains that a removal order may be served upon any African, under Section 5 of the Native Administration Act of 1927 (which, he says, is a consolidation of all similar legislation prior to Union), if the Governor-General deems it in the public interest. Such people can be taken from any part of the Union and dumped in one small district out in the bush. They must remain there. Dr Van Rooyen says they are offered work and if incapable of it are given an allowance.
In the district of Mafeking it just so happens that these people are also offered accommodation at the camp known as Farm Frenchdale. They are not confined there, he says. In the other areas like Bushbuckridge and Vryburg, there is no such accommodation, and the people live in the district. It is only in exceptional cases, like that of people going about with sticks of dynamite, that they may be confined to a camp. ‘I don't quite know what the special reasons are in the case of Mr Gwentshe, but he may be one of those exceptional cases,’ concludes Dr Van Rooyen.
For Alcott Gwentshe is a man who was arrested in Mafeking on a charge of defying the Governor-General's order, and after he won his case another order was served on him, seeking to confine him to Frenchdale. But all Gwentshe carried around was his saxophone, and all he sought was a chance to keep alive within the district of Mafeking.
This Gwentshe guy with the beak nose and smart manner of a night-club compère had been, some time ago, president of the African National Congress Youth League in the Cape. In June, 1952, he led the Defiance Campaign in East London. On March 23, 1953, he was convicted under the Suppression of Communism Act with Dr Njongwe and others—fifteen in all. This was in Port Elizabeth.
On July 1, 1953, he appeared before a judge after he had been arrested, for attending a meeting when he had been banned from them. He won the case. Earlier, in May, 1953, he was visiting Tsomo, in the Transkei. Suddenly the police swooped on him. They found him in an hotel and asked him what he wanted in Tsomo. Gwentshe explained that Tsomo was his home and that he had gone there to pay his taxes. They searched him and released him. Getting arrested seems to be quite in his line, but it was not always so. Now 41, Gwentshe was born in Tsomo, but grew up in Queenstown, where he received his secondary education. Then he went to work in a shop in East London for ten years. Later he worked in a Cape Town office, in Burg Street. But he decided to open up his own shop back in East London. He hired the premises from a Mr Ngesi in Ngqika Street in Duncanville. And he was doing well. On the morning of July 19, 1954, he got a visit from the Native Commissioner at his shop. That worthy read to him an order signed by the Governor- General. The order said he should leave ‘forthwith’ to Bushbuckridge 800 miles away in the Eastern Transvaal. The Native Commissioner told him to leave by himself on the following day, Tuesday 20, by the Johannesburg train, and they would give him a second-class railway ticket and £2 provision money. If he failed to leave they would send a constable to escort him.
He failed to leave. He felt the time was too short, and, moreover, there was a little matter of breaking the news to his wife, Irene, dear to him for so long, and to crush a goodbye from his four sons, Mzwandile (Big Family), Mzimkulu (Big City), Zwelibanzi (Big Country), and Zweliyazuza (Land in Turmoil). But he had failed to leave. On the Wednesday they arrested him and locked him up. The following morning they escorted him to the Cambridge railway station, and no one was allowed to see him; in any case many of his friends were too scared to see him. At this place he met another chap who was also politically hot. This was Mr J. M. Lengisi. On the Johannesburg train he travelled as far as Kroonstad and was removed there. Word had come through that a crowd of people had prepared to meet him at Germiston station and give him a roof-raising ovation. So he and Lengisi were removed in cars to the Pretoria police station. ‘The treatment was not bad,’ Gwentshe told Drum with a wry smile, ‘But we were photographed for the records.’ Later during the same day they left with private C.I.D.s and policemen for Nelspruit, again by car. They arrived at Nelspruit, that small Eastern Transvaal town, at the dead of midnight, and slept in cells.
On Thursday 22, Lengisi was removed and taken to Barberton. Gwentshe was left for a while at Nelspruit. In the afternoon of the same Thursday he was removed by the Nelspruit police to Bushbuckridge. It all looked so thoroughly arranged. At Bushbuckridge he was taken to the Native Commissioner's office. The Native Commissioner allocated him a house near the forest and there he stayed for nine months. When he arrived he was broke—‘stone-broke, I tell you, sir’—worse still, he did not know Shangaan, the staple language of the people around there. Those people seemed to fear him. Even enlightened people would not speak to him. Life was very difficult. In fact, he was helped by two deportees from Pietersburg who had got there before him. They were Matlalas who had got into bad favour with the Government over some tribal disputes. They gave him food. He also wrote letters to his friends in East London because the Government was not supporting him. It was his friends at home who kept him alive with money for food during those nine long months. In this same period he also wrote to the East London branch of the Congress. They, too, helped with money. Later he asked his wife in East London to send him his saxophone. He used this to organize a little jazz band, and they played at functions. ‘I think that's why they later deported me from there, because I was becoming socially too popular and fraternizing with too many “uncertain people”.’
‘My political life in that area was dormant, and I did not indulge in any politics. You see …’—and that wry, half-furtive smile again—‘I knew I'd be committing suicide,’ Gwentshe said. So Gwentshe, the fiery leader of the Youth League, had to be dumb, had to confine his activities to soccer clubs and his pet jazz band. And that was just as well, for in April, 1955, some C.I.D.s came from Roodepoort and went around Bushbuckridge asking questions about him from the people who hired his band, which he called the Bushbuckridge Band. They were not satisfied that he only played Bushbuckridge Blues, so they went to see the secretary of a local football club and asked more questions. They wanted to know if the secretary knew Gwentshe, and what private and political activities he exercised in his leisure. But those local fellows were only interested in Gwentshe as a musician. That, too, apparently was not good enough. As it happened, Gwentshe was teaching a young boy of promising talent to play the saxophone; they would meet a couple of times a week for practices. One day, police from the Native Affairs Department paid the boy a visit. They asked him some questions. All Gwentshe ever knew about it was that the boy became too scared to come to rehearsals again.
Gwentshe was called to the Native Affairs Department and served with a further banishment order which said that by 1 p.m. that day he should be ready to leave the place, and make a 500-mile move to Frenchdale in the Mafeking district.
So at about ten minutes to one he left Bushbuckridge with two escorts. When they arrived in Johannesburg they took their luggage to the cloakroom. His escorts had never been in Johannesburg before and he had to show them the cloakroom, and the booking-office for the trip to Mafeking. From there they left for Mafeking, where he had to see the Native Commissioner. That official told Gwentshe that he did not like people like him there, but that he was just forced to carry out the orders of the Government. He also said that he had a place for him to stay, in town, until Monday, May 9. This was Friday, May 6.
So Gwentshe was placed in a Native Affairs depot where they kept Nyasalanders who were illegal immigrants, on condition that he did not talk to anybody. Gwentshe wanted to know if he wanted water or relief, should he not ask anybody? The Commissioner said even if he wanted water he should not speak to anybody. Gwentshe replied, ‘I promise, though I'm not sure. And by what authority do you say that? Even Swart, the Minister of Justice, bans us from public gatherings, but he never says I shouldn't speak to anyone.’ The Native Commissioner got angry and removed him to Frenchdale forthwith in his car with some policemen. At Frenchdale the Commissioner showed him his two huts and left immediately. When he opened one of the huts he noticed it was not ready for human habitation. It was dirty and so empty that there was not even a bucket. The other hut was worse, with its broken windows. Now, in Mafeking when the Commissioner had got angry with Gwentshe's cheeky answers they had left so soon that Gwentshe did not get a chance to buy supplies. He found the place ‘a desert’, as he puts it. There was no shop, no post office, not a cow, not even a mealie stalk that nature might have allowed to grow accidentally. The nearest village was Pitsani, about 12 miles away. He went round the other huts. There was Thompson Dlamini, exiled ex-Induna from Bergville in Natal. Dlamini helped him with food which he had scraped together by devious ingenuity, and then they talked and talked.
He stayed there through the Friday and Saturday. On Sunday the Native Commissioner came with a police lieutenant from Mafeking to arrest people supposed to be staying in the camp when they were not exiles. Gwentshe spoke to him about the state of his hut. The Commissioner said there was nothing he could do about it. So Gwentshe asked to be allowed to go to town to buy beds, stoves, pots and groceries; and to write to East London. The Commissioner gave leave to visit the Mafeking shops. Gwentshe wrote to East London, and to the Governor-General (Supreme Chief of all the Africans). He described to the Governor-General his conditions in Frenchdale: that he could find no work since he was not allowed into Mafeking; that he had no support; that he was in what was virtually a desert; and that he could not even use his saxophone because there were no people there amongst whom he could organize functions. The Governor-General replied that he would see the Cabinet. Since then, about May 11, 1955, he has heard nothing further about it all. ‘I don't know what the Cabinet decided on the matter,’ he remarked bitterly. When the Native Commissioner had taken him into Mafeking he told Gwentshe to stay in the same old Native Affairs Depot. Gwentshe started complaining about the filthy condition of the place and the stinking blankets. The Native Commissioner was very sympathetic. He explained that he had no other place else he would help him. But he just had to keep him there.
For quite a while no money came from East London. Gwentshe had so little money that furniture was out of the question. It was hard even to pay his way back to Frenchdale. He was completely stranded, and soon there was not even the money to eat. He appealed to the Native Commissioner, who gave him some money. ‘Out of my own pocket,’ he said. First £1 10s., and later 10s.
‘I think the man had suddenly appreciated the seriousness of my plight,’ Gwentshe explained, ‘for he was most sympathetic.’ But Gwentshe had to fend for himself somehow. There was his horn, and there were a few fellows who looked as if they could distinguish one note from another, and make a few new ones. He organized a small band again. They rehearsed in the Mafeking Stad and the Location. Soon they were playing at parties and dances, and they made a little money—barely enough to keep the wolf from the door. In February, 1956, their band was hired to play at the reception of the new, young Barolong chief, Kebalepile Montsioa, in Mafeking. Naturally, the Native Commissioner and other officials of the Native Affairs Department were present. And there was Gwentshe moaning into the saxophone. He was arrested and kept in custody for three days. ‘The police did not tell me the charge,’ Gwentshe wailed. ‘When I wanted to know the charge, the police said: Sluit hom op! (Lock him up!)’
Luckily a friend, Dr S. Molema, paid the bail of £25 for him. The case was scheduled to appear on February 29. It was again remanded to March 14. Advocate Joe Slovo came from Johannesburg to defend him. The charge was the defiance of the Governor-General's order by not staying in Frenchdale. During cross-examination by Adv. Joe Slovo, the Native Commissioner admitted that he had lost his friendliness towards Gwentshe after he had visited East London and had been influenced by the Native Commissioner there. The defence also argued that the Commissioner had promised to get Gwentshe a job in Pitsani, and that proved that Gwentshe could stay anywhere as long as it was in the district of Mafeking. Gwentshe won the case. Meanwhile, he has applied to the Supreme Court to have the banishment order set aside. But he dreams … he still can dream, this man.
‘Look here, Gwentshe,’ I said to him during one of his visits to Mafeking, ‘I'd like to see this Frenchdale place. It's all very well to say the Government has a concentration camp for political offenders, but where's the evidence?’
When we got there Gwentshe took us to the leader of the camp. He is Mr Kuena who describes himself as ‘the important Divine servant in the Divine activities’. Indeed when we got to his hut a ‘Divine service’ was just beginning. His pretty daughter, Aletta, and some girls from Mahelo around, were yelling their heads off, Zion-fashion. We were invited into the ‘service’ and found Bishop Kuena's brother conducting it.
Then spoke P. Tsepho K. Mokwena—he wears a khaki uniform and a moustache that curls with his speech and makes him appear snarling—he said, ‘We have sent out the sorry story of our condition here many times, but we never knew whether the people were aware of this barren existence. Let them get it.’ Mokwena was sent to Frenchdale from Witzieshoek in 1954. He was deported for refusing to cull his cattle and to repair a fence that had been torn down during the riots there. He says the authorities declared him dangerous when he tried to express his opinion on cattle culling.
Old Thompson Dlamini could hardly bide his turn to speak. He stood up dramatically and raising his arms, he said, ‘God brought you here. God has heard our prayers, and has come among us. You see us in trouble, without food, in ramshackle houses that look like bird's nests. How can the Government say they don't care about us? A Government is a provider, one that cares for his people, even his prisoners. If the Government will not do that, he is no Government …’ Then he veered off into a praise of Tshaka, ‘Thou bird that devourest the lesser birds in the morning, and when the morrow cometh, thou devourest more …’ It was aggressive. Dlamini is an ex-Induna from Bergville, Natal, but is not connected at all with the dagga raids there this year, for he came to the camp in 1953. He was an Induna of the Vunamina tribe, and supporter of Chief Vunamina. The Native Commissioner, whom Dlamini says the people at Bergville called Nyamazan (Wild Beast), and the late Dr Ka I. Seme were plotting to oust Vunamina in favour of Bangeni, the present chief. When Vunamina got married to a daughter of the late King Solomon ka Dinizulu, the tribe agreed to pay the lobola (bride-price) of 110 cattle. ‘I was one of at least sixty people who paid the lobola,’ Dlamini says, ‘at a time when Vunamina had fallen from favour with the authorities. But I alone was deported. Fifty-nine others are still back there. I even asked the Commissioner why he had left the fifty-nine behind. He said, “That's my decision, don't ask questions”.’
Now, oddly, Thompson Dlamini cheerfully accepts his position. ‘I am a man with two farms: one in Natal and one here,’ he said, and roared with laughter. He has actually brought out his fourth and youngest wife, Lena, and her seventeen-month-old child, Mafeking (that is the child's name), to come to stay with him.
The only other man who has brought out his family is Matela Mantsoe. He spoke with real bitterness. ‘They brought us here without a trial,’ he screeched. ‘They do not try our case. This is the first time for me to hear of a prison that has no food, no water, no hope of release. At home my stuff is rotting. My grocery store is rotting. Here—here—’ and he held up a colourful Basotho blanket with rat-eaten holes in it—‘That is how my property is rotting at home. This, my wife just brought to me to show me.’ And he broke into terrible bitter tears.
Matela Mantsoe is also from the Witzieshoek area. He was closely related to the great chiefs of Witzieshoek, and had been at Frenchdale for about four years. He seemed to be in a daze about the exact events that went before his deportation. It was obvious he shied from thinking about them.
When Bishop Kuena called on Gwentshe to speak, Gwentshe startled us off our stools by just barking, ‘Mayibuye!’ There was a long, deep silence before we walked outside the huts. I examined them from the outside. They were sturdily built of concrete blocks with thatched roofs. Each deportee had two allocated to him, and they stood in two rows, leaving a wide space between. Some occupants had tried to make little front-yards or gardens, and in the back the ground had been scratched here and there. I saw a calf or two grazing around, but it was promptly explained to me that they belonged to Mahelo people who sometimes allowed the deportees to milk their cows. As we left the camp, Gwentshe sadly said, ‘You leave the place sadder and quieter than it was.’