[ Home ] [ Speeches & statements ]

19 February 2009

Former President Nelson R Mandela,
Members of the Mandela family,
Comrade Ahmed Kathrada,
MEC for Arts, Culture, Sport and Recreation in the Gauteng Province, Ms Barbara Creecy,
Your Worship, the Mayor of Tshwane,
Your Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Members of the National Archives Advisory Council,
Members of the South African National Commission of Unesco,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen

We are here this morning to enter into the Memory of the World Archives documentation relating to a notorious legal process. It must be absolutely clear us all that we are preserving for posterity something that should never have occurred. What we are doing is safeguarding for future generations, both here and in the rest of the world the record of an act of repression, the Rivonia Trial of 1963 to 1964.

There does appear to be a great deal of confusion about three different, but equally well-known trials. For the benefit of our media, where this confusion seems to reign supreme, I want to set the record straight. Hopefully, this will be the last time one is required to do this.

In 1952, Nelson Mandela, as volunteer in chief during the Defiance Campaign of 1952, was charged together with others, in what became known as the Defiance Campaign Trial. In 1956, Nelson Mandela, together with 156 other leaders of the ANC and its allied organisations was charged with treason, in the Treason Trial of 1956. That case finally collapsed in 1961, and all the accused were discharged.

In 1963, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Dennis Goldberg, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada and others were charged with planning acts of sabotage and plotting to overthrow the apartheid regime. That trial is known as the Rivonia Trial, after the suburb of Johannesburg where they were arrested, it began in 1963 and ended in 1964.

Though they were accused of plotting to overthrow the apartheid regime, treason did not feature among the charges. It is important that we clearly distinguish among these three trials because we have so often seen media references to the "Rivonia Treason Trial", which creates confusion and has badly muddied the waters. Perhaps this arises from the fact that Nelson Mandela was among the accused in all three these cases, but they are very distinct.

Today's event relates to the Rivonia Trial of 1963 to 1964 alone.

Today's event takes place during the year that the father of South African democracy, Nelson Mandela, will be celebrating his 91st birthday. And, may you see many, many more! I am reminded of what you said during last year's Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture delivered in Kliptown. You joked that many had attended out of curiosity because they wanted to see what a 90 year old man looked like!

I'm told that many people, who had the privilege of attending, said the lecture so rejuvenated them, that the words of wisdom from yourself and President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, so inspired them that they said you were 90 years young! May you long retain that inspirational youthfulness, Myem-yem.

I also would like to use this opportunity to congratulate MaSisulu, Comrade Albertina Sisulu, who like you celebrated her 90th birthday on the 21st October last year. The long and enduring friendship between you and Mama Albertina is a matter of record, as is your comradeship in the struggle for freedom and democracy. No words can express the profound appreciation and gratitude of our people for the sacrifices you both made so that we can enjoy the freedom we have today.

Programme Director,

As we all know, Nelson Mandela was accused number one in the Rivonia Trial. When we celebrated his 90th birthday last year, the world recalled his stirring words, pronounced in his statement from the dock, and I quote:
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

It was those memorable words that transformed what was otherwise a desperate act of repression into a heroic moment, which no one can ever forget! The manikins and shrill-voiced midgets of the prosecution team have long been consigned to the dust-bin of history, but the men of Rivonia attained immortality in the eyes of the world community because of their undaunted courage and those defiant words.

South Africa, Southern Africa and its people all owe a great debt of gratitude to all those who were charged and imprisoned as a result of the notorious Rivonia Trial. I want personally, to thank all the Rivonia Trialists who shared their personal accounts during the re-union held at the Nelson Mandela Foundation of 14 March 2008.

On an occasion like this, we must recall also the names of the trialists who are no longer with us: Govan Mbeki, Elias Motsoaledi, Lionel"Rusty" Bernstein, Walter Sisulu and Raymond Mhlaba. We recall too the sterling role played by the international community who supported our trialists and believed in our cause.

A trial of this magnitude generated a lot of documentation in the form of photographs, files, written reports, leaflets, pamphlets, notebooks, dictabelts, sound recordings etc. The mandate of the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa is to collect, preserve and make accessible public and non-public records under its custody. Because of the interest created, at home and abroad, during and after this trial, it has not been possible to have a complete set of the Rivonia Trial papers here at the National Archives.

The records are scattered all over our country. Some are universities; others are in libraries and collections in other parts of the world. During the recent years the National Archives embarked on a drive to locate all these records, with a view to repatriating them to South Africa, or at the very least, obtaining copies of them to be deposited at the National Archives. According to the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act No 43 of 1996 (as amended), the Rivonia Trial papers are public records, and therefore have to be preserved at the National Archives of South Africa.

The process of tracing and repatriation has been slow and arduous. During 2000, for example, Mr. Mandela handed the microfilm copies of these papers to my predecessor, the then Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST), Dr Ben Ngubane, for onward transmission to the National Archives of South Africa for preservation. We thank you, Madiba, for that public spirited gesture. On 28th November 2008, the Oppenheimer Family, who had acquired a sizeable collection of the papers from the leader of the prosecution team, Percy Yutar, handed that collection to the National Archives of South Africa. Let me once again thank the Oppenheimer family for that gesture. All these original documents are now preserved at the National Archives of South Africa where they rightly belong.

Programme Director, I would now like to turn to the Memory of the World Programme of Unesco. To quote Ms Miriam Nisbet, Director of the Information Society Division of Unesco:
"The memory of the World is the recorded collective legacy of the peoples of the world. It is a significant proportion of the world's heritage of human achievements since the dawn of time."

Unesco, having realised the potential dangers, both man-made and natural disasters, threatening documentary heritage, established a Memory of the World Programme in 1992. The objectives of the programme are:

* To preserve the world's documentary heritage by providing practical assistance, advice and information, training of information professionals and by obtaining sponsorships for worthy projects.
* Promoting universal access to documentary heritage by, for example, digitising collections, use of the world wide web, publishing and distribution of books, CDs, whilst respecting the laws governing copyrights and intellectual property of countries, and most importantly, taking cultural sensitivities into consideration, including the rights of indigenous peoples to hold custodianship of their cultural heritage and guardianship of access to that heritage.

The programme's main strategic objectives are:
* identification of documentary heritage the world over
* raising awareness of documentary heritage
* preservation
* promotion of access.

The Memory of the World Programme is a three tiered structure managed at the International, Regional and National levels. The Director General of Unesco appoints 14 experts from around the world to advise him about collections and to make recommendations regarding the awarding of the Unesco or JIKJI prize for preservation of endangered documentary heritage. The prize is sponsored by the Government of the Republic of Korea. It has already been won by the Czech Republic and by Austria.

It was during the historic eighth meeting of the International Council on Archives held in Tshwane, between 11 to 15 June 2007 that two more South African collections were placed on the International Register of the Memory of the World. These are the Rivonia Trial papers and the DOXA Collection, the latter being an audio–visual collection focusing on the worst aspects of the apartheid system. Our country has a total of four collections on the International Register, the other two being:
* The Bleek collection, documenting the activities of the San people of the Kgalagadi, housed at our National Library Campus in Cape Town. That collection was listed many years ago, thanks to the efforts of then State Librarian, Dr Peter Lor.
* The Dutch East India Company (also known as the VOC) collection, documenting the history of that giant trans-national company, with its headquarters in the Netherlands, that operated on our shores, in Indonesia, Malaya, India, Sri Lanka and the China seas during the colonial era. South Africa is part of an international collaborative project called, "Towards a New Age of Partnership"(TANAP) whose aim sharing of the documentary heritage generated during the centuries when the VOC was active in all the countries I have named.

In South Africa, those records of the VOC are preserved at the Western Cape Provincial Archives (Cape Town Repository). The Consulate of the Netherlands made funds available for the transcription of the collection, written in 18th Century Dutch, so that more scholars and researchers will be able to use it today. I acknowledged the listing of this collection in Unesco's Memory of the World International Register in April 2005.

That month, April, was chosen because of its significance, because it Jan Van Riebeck landed at Table Bay during that month in 1652. The oldest known written document from that time is a diary, dated 1651, penned by Jan van Riebeck himself when he was on his way to the Cape. That diary forms part of the collection now in the Cape Town Repository.

The participants in the Tshwane meeting already referred to also took a decision to form an African Chapter of the Memory of the World Programme. Its official name is, Africa Regional Committee of the Memory of the World, ARCMOW.

The interim structure established in June 2007 was formalised in January 2008, with an Executive Committee appointed as follows:

* President – South Africa: our Deputy National Archivist, Ms Mandy Gilder
* Deputy President – Kenya National Archives: Mr. John Mreria
* Deputy President - Senegal National Archives: Monsieur Papa Diop
* Deputy President – Mozambique: Mr Simao Jaime
* Deputy President - Mauritius National Archives: Mr Roland Chung Sam Wan
* Deputy President – National Archives of Algeria: Monsieur Abdulaziz Bechane
* Secretary General – University Library of Namibia: Ms Ellen Ndeshi Namhila.

During November 2008, the 1st meeting for the ARCMOW took place in Windhoek, Namibia during which the Namibian Minister responsible for Archives acknowledged the listing of Chief Hendrik Witbooi's papers in the UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register. Delegates from South Africa, Kenya and Algeria attended this important event, held in the Court Yard of the National Archives of Namibia on the 19 November 2008, where a plaque was unveiled.

At the national level, in South Africa, I'm happy to announce that in 2004/5 I appointed a committee to advise me about the collections that could be nominated for listing in the International Register. The National Committee is represented by the following:
Chair - Ms Mandy Gilder: National Archives of South Africa
Secretary – Ms Khanyi Ngcobo: National Archives of South Africa
Member – Mr. Dennis Maake: National Film, Video and Sound Archives component of the National Archives of South Africa
Member - Prof Makhanya – Culture Sector, National Commission for Unesco
Iziko Museums of Cape Town: Prof Bredekamp / Ms.Lalou Meltzer
NFI: Mr Makgolo Makgolo
National Library: Messrs John Tsebe/ Andrew Malotle
Department Science and Technology: Prof Yonah Seleti or Ms Carol van Wyk
SABC Sound Archives: Ms Ilse Assman
Heritage Chief Directorate Department of Arts and Culture Mr Phakamani Mthembu
South African National Commission for Unesco; Messrs Letlhogonolo Lefoka/ Desmond Fillis
Freedom Park: Lubi Ndaba
National Heritage Council: Thabo Manetsi

I want to thank the South African National Committee for a job well done. It is thanks to their efforts that the two collections I have mentioned above, Rivonia Trial and Doxa Collection also managed to get onto the International Register. I want to encourage them to keep up the good work, more needs to the done, especially the creation of an awareness of the importance of preserving our documentary heritage. The public needs to be made aware of the vulnerability our heritage. They need to be made aware that anyone, be it an archivist, librarian, student or researcher can initiate a nomination for possible listing in either a National, Regional or International Register of the Memory of the World Programme.

I urge our archivists, librarians, museologists, specialists, curators, historians, conservators to collaborate with colleagues from other parts of the world to ensure that global awareness about the importance of preserving documentary heritage is taken to higher levels.

Programme Director, during the handover event held last year November at the Nelson Mandela Foundation, I urged that the example set by the Oppenheimer family be emulated by other prominent South Africans who bought portions of the Rivonia Trial papers from the late Mr Percy Yutar. They should return them to the National Archives as required by law.

Let me thank Mr. Craig Mathew of Doxa Productions, Cape Town for working closely with the National Archives and ensuring that his audio-visual collection also was listed in Unesco's Memory of the World International Register

I want to thank the staff of my Ministry, of the DAC and the National Archives for contributing to the success of this project. They include:

* Deputy Minister Ms. N.G.W. Botha
* Mr Themba Wakashe, the Director-General of the Department of Arts and Culture
* Professor KW Kgositsile, my advisor
* Mr Freddy Mashamba
* Mr Sandile Memela
* Ms Lulama Ndabankulu, from the Ministry

I acknowledge also the contribution of:
* Mr Vusi Ndima,
* Ms Nnete Mothlabani,
* Mr Mack Lewele
* Mr Corney Wright
* Mr Francis Moloi, from the Department of Arts and Culture

The personnel of the National Archives, under the leadership of the Deputy National Archivist, Ms Mandy Gilder, also deserve special mention.

I will now present certificates on the listing of the Rivonia Trial Collection to the following institutions:
* Ministry of Arts and Culture. National Archives of South Africa
* Nelson Mandela Foundation
* Lillieslief Museum or Library.
* South African National Commission for Unesco [to be accepted by Mr. Fillis]

I shall also hand over certificates relating to the Doxa Collection to the following institutions:
* Doxa Productions
* Ministry of Arts and Culture
* National Archives of South Africa
* South African National Commission for Unesco.

Thank You

Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture