Origins of the UDF

Roots of the United Democratic Front

From the 1970s and into the early 1980s, people across South Africa began to organise community-based groups to oppose the many hardships that apartheid created in their lives. These groups brought together people with similar concerns – sometimes as residents of the same township, at times as women’s groups, or student groups, or church groups, or as workers in a factory or an industry. The apartheid government continued to repress banned liberation movements, but its efforts to smash these “grassroots” groups were less effective. By focusing on immediate community problems, these groups survived and multiplied.

In January 1983, a number of these community-based groups held a conference to oppose the South African Indian Council – the Anti-SAIC Conference. In his closing speech at the Anti-SAIC Conference, Dr Allan Boesak, then president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, said: “We cannot accept a ‘new deal’ which makes apartheid work even better. We cannot accept a future for our people when we had no say in it. And we cannot accept a ‘solution’ which says yes to homelands, the Group Areas Act, to laws which make us believe that we are separate and unequal.”

The Anti-SAIC Conference called for a united front to be launched to co-ordinate the mass campaigns against black local authorities and the tri-cameral parliament. The result was the launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF) six months later.

In August 1983, representatives from over 475 “grassroots” organisations from across the country came together in Mitchell’s Plain in Cape Town to form a single, overarching organisation: the UDF. Within months over 600 organisations had joined in. This heralded a new stage in the mass struggle for the South African liberation.

The UDF aimed to mobilise people and organisations on a national level, throughout the country, against apartheid injustice. It called for the creation of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, and democratic South Africa.

From its birth, the UDF had the support of the banned liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC). The UDF organisations became a way to link with the ANC’s internal underground structures, and to establish contacts with the ANC in exile. But these contacts were illegal – South Africa’s law laid down a five-year jail sentence for anyone found guilty of “furthering the aims of a banned organisation” such as the ANC.

The UDF Declaration

All organisations that joined the UDF adopted the UDF Declaration. This stated that:

“We, the freedom-loving people of SA, say with one voice to the whole world that we cherish the vision of a united democratic South Africa based on the will of the people. We will strive for unity of all people through united action against the evils of apartheid … and in our march to a free and just South Africa we are guided by these noble ideals, we stand for the creation of a true democracy in which all South Africans will participate in the government of our country, stand for a single, non-racial, unfragmented South Africa, a South Africa free of Bantustans and Group Areas. We say that all forms of oppression and exploitation must end.”

The Million Signature Campaign

In January 1984 the UDF launched the Million Signature Campaign. The plan was to send activists from door to door to ask people to sign the petition against apartheid. 

Blacks were not allowed to vote in national elections. The UDF saw the Million Signature Campaign as a way of organising and expressing the political ideas of the majority of the people.

The campaign would engage many people in actively talking about the need for democratic organisation and an end to apartheid laws; it would show the mass strength of the movement; it would not break existing security laws.

Working in the early days of the UDF

Dillip Waghmarae was head of the UDF’s media committee. He recalls being asked by Mohammed Valli Moosa to give lectures on design and layout to community groups:

“I headed the media committee in those days. We gave assistance to all sorts of community organisations. I did not get a cent for any of that – no financial gain at all. We held the UDF national meetings in my house in Actonville.”

Public support for the UDF could cause problems for activists, however. Waghmarae recalls: “My car was covered with stickers; every time I stopped for petrol some Afrikaner would come and kick my car.”

Early response of the apartheid government to this mass organisation

At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, a security police official asked for amnesty for “harassing” activists between 1982 and 1986 in the Witwatersrand area. His application for amnesty stated:

“The targets were members of anti-government organisations such as the UDF, Young Christian Students, End Conscription Campaign and National Union of South African Students (Nusas). Applicant furnished the following particulars …

“Slashed tyres and loosened the wheel nuts of activists’ vehicles whilst they attended meetings. Some of the activists got discouraged, others developed a more hardened attitude. ...  I was involved in this type of activity during 1983-1986 whilst I was in Johannesburg. In some instances we did the same to sources and agents to improve their credibility.”

He also described his efforts to disrupt the UDF Million Signature Campaign in the Johannesburg city centre:

“Disrupted the UDF’s ‘One Million Signature’ campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela as follows: Uniformed police were deployed at or nearby signature collection points to discourage the public from signing. The organisers [the chief organiser on the main day was David Webster] were followed around and harassed by the Security Branch. Vigilantes were arranged by me to snatch the clipboards with the signature lists later in the day. One of the collectors resisted (a Mr Brendan Barry) when his forms were snatched. As a result his jaw was broken ... This was around 1985.”

– Source: TRC, Amnesty Committee decision on Michael Bellingan amnesty application, May 22, 2001. http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/decisions/2001/ac21184.htm

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If you would like to share experiences or historical material about these events, please contact SAHA on sfj@saha.org.za