The state of emergency was exacting a horrific toll on the forces of resistance in South Africa, including the student movements. Large numbers of troops were being deployed in the townships to assist the police. Thousands of people had been detained including substantial numbers of children. In March 1987 Vlok had admitted that 43 people had died in detention and 263 detainees had been treated in hospital. An investigation by doctors of the National Medical and Dental Association (Namda) in 1988 found that 73 per cent of a group of 131 detainees had been mentally abused by threats and humiliation during interrogation. Restrictions on the press imposed by emergency regulations prevented the reporting of detentions, disturbances or activities of the security forces. A report of the International Commission of Jurists in May 1988 based on the findings of a team of lawyers from Western Europe the previous year, condemned the widespread use of torture and violence by security forces with the connivance of the Government.

Although the Government had lost ground to the Conservative Party during the 1987 elections for the white House of Assembly because they were perceived by the political right to be moving away from the Verwoerdian apartheid principles, P W Botha was telling the party faithful at the annual congress in August 1988 that he was not considering the possibility of a black majority government. Instead he was contemplating various constitutional devices such as a National Council that would have only advisory powers. This was contemptuously rejected by black leaders as were segregated municipal elections which in October 1988 were boycotted and supported by a mere 3 per cent of voters from the entire African population of South Africa, including the homelands.

While the conflict between the universities and the Government on the subsidy issue was being resolved in the Supreme Court in February 1988, the start of the new academic year was clouded by amendments to the emergency regulations on 24 February. These amendments and the orders published under them empowered the Government to ‘name’ seventeen organisations, which effectively banned them. Among them were Sansco, the United Democratic Front (UDF), the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee (DPSC), the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC), Azapo and the South African Youth Congress (Sayco).