The Bethal Trial Story – Where do we begin

June 16, 1976 remains the decisive moment that brought a new impetus to the struggle for
liberation in South Africa. Little of this uprising is contained in a published book written by the student leaders themselves.

This book is the first and does just that. The authors relate individual and collective accounts of their role as SRC leaders of Mosupatsela High School from March 1976 in the lead up to the June 16, 1976 uprising. This is the story of the uprising in Kagiso, Krugersdorp and the resulting detention of the authors in September of 1976.

The Bethal trial, two years later in 1978, was to divide the students of Mosupatsela High.
This book analyses that trial and details the role of the security police in formenting this division. The late Bonaventure Malaza, President of the subsequent SRC, was to be a casualty of this division and his fellow SRC members were to turn state witnesses.
Read how Judge Curlewis conducted that trial, with fitting comparisons to Tokyo Sexwale’s
“Bordergate case”, Pennuel Maduna’s “Ongoye student protest case” and the seminal Harry
Gwala, “Pietermaritzburg case”.