John Harris’ station bomb of 24 july 1964: who will speak for the victims?

The word ‘rehabilitation’ in the title of C J Driver’s book ‘The Man with the Suitcase: The Life, Execution and Rehabilitation of John Harris, Liberal Terrorist’ (Crane River, ISBN 978-0-620-66852-1), launched at Clarke’s Bookshop in Cape Town on 16 September, is so inexplicable that it has become necessary to set out the facts of this case.

As someone who knew John Harris very well, attended every day of his trial, and regularly visited him in prison until the day before his execution, I offer the following restatement of factual evidence that after 50 years is no longer easy for researchers to come by.

John Harris’ views on violence

In the year or two before the placing of the bomb, Harris argued to everyone willing to listen (and some who weren’t) the proposition that the killing of innocent people was morally justified if it would save more lives in the long run – for instance by hastening the end of apartheid.

He did so to me, passionately, on 12 July 1964 - two days before, as it would later turn out, he would start (unbeknownst to me) making his bomb. And I know from personal conversations that he had put the same argument to at least four other people I know over the previous year or two.

At the time none of us took these discourses to be anything other than an argumentative young man trying to start a provocative debate – something he was constantly doing about every subject under the sun, and which I for one generally enjoyed.

But on 9 July 1964 Harris unexpectedly came into possession of a cache of explosives (given to him in circumstances outlined in Mr Driver’s book), and a few days later started to secretly construct a bomb consisting of eight sticks of dynamite and two gallons of petrol, all concealed in an innocent-looking suitcase.

The bomb

At 4.05 pm on Friday 24 July 1964, Harris placed the suitcase in the main concourse of Johannesburg station – specifically, in the waiting cubicle above platforms 5 and 6 – with an attached note saying in Afrikaans that he would be back in 10 minutes. The bomb was timed to go off at 4.33 pm.

He then drove through rush-hour traffic to Jeppe Street post office, and made three warning telephone calls, as follows:

-- One to the newspaper The Rand Daily Mail ‘soon after 4.20 pm’, which the newspaper passed on at 4.30 to Colonel H Venter of the Security Branch of the police in Johannesburg.

-- One direct to the police at 4.25 pm.

-- One to the newspaper Die Transvaler at 4.27 pm.

The above times were given to the court under oath and were not materially challenged by Harris’ defence counsel. Nor was the wording of the telephoned messages, which stated briefly that the call was from the African Resistance Movement; that there was a bomb in the main concourse of the station, timed to go off at 4.33, which must not be touched; and that the station must be cleared immediately.

At 4.33 the bomb duly exploded. It was powerful enough to blow a 6 x 6 inch hole through an 8 inch concrete wall and wrench the metal frame of the bench beside the bomb away from the wall.

The effects of the bomb

A witness present at the explosion, Magdalena Lombaard, said: ‘It looked as if the whole building was alight, with flames going up to the concourse ceiling. People with burning hair and clothes were running about’. A commentator wrote: ‘The screaming and groaning gradually ceased … There were handbags, toys, shoes, and bits of clothing that had been left on the ground. Sawdust was put over the blood.’

Twenty-three people were injured by the bomb, some of them horribly. They included:

-- The 77 year-old Mrs Ethel Rhys, who had the flesh blown off her bones in various parts of her body, one bone broken, and was extensive burned by flaming petrol. She died later in hospital after indescribable suffering.

-- The 12 year-old Glynnis Burleigh, who had much of her face blown away, and despite extensive plastic surgery has been forced to live the rest of her life virtually as a recluse.

-- The 3 year-old Cecelia Koekemoer, whose clothes were set on fire, and her brother, ‘standing a sea of fire’, tried to tear the clothes off her. She was dreadfully burnt and hospitalised for months.

-- The 9 year-old Reinholdt Buttner, who was badly burnt about the face, head and arms.

And nineteen more.

John Harris’ reaction

Upon arriving home and hearing of the carnage on the radio, Harris showed no surprise, shock or remorse. Quite the contrary: according to evidence given to the court under oath, he was ‘very cheerful, talkative and elated’. His father dropped in for a visit, and ‘he chatted animatedly’. He also telephoned somebody, then went to bed and slept soundly until woken by the police, and detained for questioning.

The Trial

On 14 September 1964 John Harris appeared in the Supreme Court in Pretoria on formal remand, on charges of murder and sabotage.

On 6 November, after a trial conducted to standards equal to any in a British court and represented by an exemplary legal team, Harris was sentenced to death for the single offence of murder (the judge saying that in the circumstances he would refrain from passing sentence on the two charges of sabotage).

In passing sentence the judge made 3 points:

(1) A person had been killed by Harris’ bomb;

(2) Harris ‘had intended to kill people with the explosion, and a threatening letter he wrote to the Prime Minister, Dr Verwoerd, was no idle threat’.

(3) The court could not ‘allow this potential mass murderer to be at large again’.

The letter mentioned above was one addressed to Dr Verwoerd, which was found by the police together with the cache of explosives Harris had used in making the bomb. It called for the release of all political prisoners; the removal of banning orders (these prohibited people from participating in political activities); and the calling of a National Convention. It concluded with the threat that if Dr Verwoerd failed to meet this demand ‘you will be forcing us to accept that you will be moved only by the killing of White people. We have plans for such killing, and with great reluctance will put the plan into operation if you reject or ignore our ultimatum’.

Harris admitted in court to writing the document, and it sealed his fate.

After an appeal to the Supreme Court in Bloemfontein failed to overturn the sentence, John Harris was hanged on Thursday 1 April 1965.

Who speaks for John Harris’ victims?

Fifty years on, Mr Driver’s book gives poignant accounts of large reconciliation celebrations in South Africa in which the families of the victims of ‘political executions’ (his words) in the apartheid era forgave their former persecutors and put the past to rest.

One such was held on 2 April 2005, when fifty South Africans gathered in Freedom Park, Pretoria, to commemorate John Harris as a hero of the struggle against apartheid. Other great names were evoked on this occasion, including Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Luthuli (both of them passionate apostles of non-violence), and even Alan Paton, President of the Liberal Party of South Africa, of which John Harris had been a member. Paton was extremely bitter about Harris, accusing him not only of inhumanity and cowardice, but of ‘putting a bomb under the Liberal Party’ with his homicidal act.

Another was held in December 2011, when ‘the families of those hanged for political crimes [sic] were invited to a memorial event in Pretoria’. These included the families of John Harris and (in Mr Driver’s words) ‘others who were killed for their opposition to apartheid’ [sic]. He continues that ‘since John Harris was the only white man executed for a political crime [sic], they were the only white family there’.

But quite apart from the irony of a man convicted of murder being celebrated as the victim of a ‘political execution’ among ‘others who were killed for their opposition to apartheid’, who in these events spoke for the victims of Harris’ bomb?

And, it may be asked, who in this case owed forgiveness to whom? Had the 23 victims of the station bomb (or their surviving relatives) forgiven the man who did that to them? Should they have done so if asked?

Before there can be forgiveness, there must be repentance. And I know of no word of repentance to these now forgotten people from John Harris, or, more recently, any sustained attempt by the organisers of the VIP-studded ‘reconciliation’ events to find them, meet with them, express repentance, and seek forgiveness for a terrible deed.

Until that has been done, this matter cannot be regarded as closed.

The word ‘rehabilitation’ in the title of C J Driver’s book remains unexplained.

Maritz van den Berg

London

13 September 2015.