The PTL collection is a small collection (0.5 linear metres). It has been arranged to reflect its main activities. This collection also reflects the increasing militancy of teacher organisations, and the impact the education crisis of the 1980s had on teachers.

Sections A - H deals with the PTL itself and its membership. As the PTL was formed under the state of emergency and operated under repressive conditions, there are no minutes of its executive meetings available as these were not kept. This phenomenon holds true for many organisations during this period who were opposed to the apartheid regime.

Section I - K deals with the whole teacher unity process at the National and the Southern Transvaal regional and NECC level at which the members of PTL were involved. This process culminated in the formation of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU). Copies of minutes as well as hand-written notes of some of these meetings provide interesting insight to the whole process of the formation of a national teacher organisation

Section L has files kept by the PTL on the various teachers organisations in the country. It was not uncommon for PTL executive members to also be members of some of these organisations, more notably TASA. Section M are miscellaneous documents relating to education that the PTL had collected in the course of its activities.

These paintings were painted in 1993. From 1912 to 1993 the ANC has had ten President-Generals. Only 9 portraits were painted, of which only eight are found in this collection. These are:

1. John Dube

2. Josiah Gumede (not sure)

3. Pixley ka Seme (not sure)

4. Unidentified

5. Dr Moroka

6. Chief Lutuli

7. O R Tambo

8. Nelson Mandela

The initial deposit of Planact material was made when the premises that Planact occupied in Rockey Street, Yeoville were literally bursting at the seams.

This was mainly material in their storerooms.

This was the documentation of completed projects that Planact was involved with, and the files from the offices staff who had resigned from Planact.

Before the new staff occupied the office, the 'old' material was packed up and kept in the storeroom.

The bulk of the Planact material, however, was transferred to SAHA after they moved to their new premises in Braamfontein.

This also included the documents from the offices of ex-Planact employees and from the Planact Resource Centre which was closed down.

The bulk of the collection covers the period 1988 - 1992. There is a gap of earlier Planact material - both of the project work and the internal organisational material. An attempt has been made to separate the project documentation (Sections 1-49 & Sections A1-A70) from the organisation records (Sections P1-P9).

However, this was not totally possible as in some instances there was a blurring of distinction when project work was discussed at meetings, and memos and reports written.

The first deposit was roughly sorted, and listed by Ephraim Siluma.

When Ephraim had almost completed, the second acquisition arrived.

It was then decided to incorporate this with the first, and to rework the classification scheme using the broad headings that the (newly arrived) boxes were labelled with (Sections 1-49).

Sections A1-A70 was added to incorporate material that was either misfiled, marked miscellaneous or unknown.

Planact did not have a centralised filing scheme - each staff kept their documents in various systems with some using the Resource Centre as a repository.

As a result there are overlaps and duplications in some of the sections.

Where possible this has been weeded out. Given the size of the collection, documents on particular topics or townships are dispersed throughout the collection.

An attempt has been made to cross-reference material to assist researchers in finding related material.

Given the voluminous nature of the collection, 3 people have worked on this collection and creating this finding aid.

This is based on the Planact Annual Reports, informational leaflets and brief discussions with an ex-Planact employee.

The collection includes mission statements of a few of the service organisations that participated in the struggle against apartheid, together with official and unofficial publications by the International and Defence Aid Fund (IDAF).

This collection consists of ten photographs of Patrick Fitzgerald, a demonstration and unidentified people. Two duplicates. NEGATIVES of all 10 in the Neg. file. These photographs are stored in the filing cabinet.

This collection includes documents, newsletters and pamphlets collected from various anti-apartheid organisations. It covers a wide spectrum of political, community and trade union organisations which were active in South Africa in the 1980s.

The Open Secrets collection is a digital collection. It has been arranged according to the location of information acquired in the process of research by Hennie Van Vuuren. Available online are research notes and summaries of information compiled by Open Secrets. The copies of documents from these sources/archives will not be put online, however they will be made available on inquiry by researchers.

Section 01: African National Congress Archive based at Fort Hare University.

Section 02: Bodleian Library University of Oxford.

01 Anthony Sampson papers; 02 Minerals and Resources Corporation Ltd (Minorco) Reports; 03 UK Anti-Apartheid Movement; 04 UK Conservative Party

Section 03: Armscor Archive, South African Government.

Section 04: Auditor General of South Africa.

Section 05: Barbara Hogan donated papers of investigations by the Auditor General, African Studies Library, University of Cape Town

Section 06: Belgium Foreign Affairs.

Section 07:Belgium National Archive.

Section 08: Companies and intellectual Property Commission (CIPC)

Section 09: David Klatzow Papers - Helderberg Air Crash

Section 10: Department of Defense Archive (SANDF)

Section 11: Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO)

Section 12: United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

Section 13: From Verwoerd to Mandela - Original Contributions - Stellenbosch University Library.

Section 14: Julian Amery Papers, Churchill College Archive, Cambridge University.

Section 15: Minister Danie Steyn Private Papers.

Section 16: National Party Papers, Archive for contemporary Affairs, Free State University.

Section 17: National Security Archives - George Washington University.

Section 18: Shipping Research Burea;

Section 19: South African National Archives.

Section 20: South African National Library.

Section 21: South African National Treasury.

Section 22: Swiss National Archive.

Section 23: Times Media Limited (Avusa)

Section 24: UK National Archive.

Section 25: United States Library of Congress.

Section 26: University of Leuven (KADOC)

01 Andre Vlerick; 02 Walter de Bock.

Section 27: World Council of Churches (WCC)

Section 29: West German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Section 30: Wits Historical Papers

Section 31: South African History Archive. 01 DOJ TRC Related Documents; De Beers_Release on OAG PAIA Request

Section 32: Polokow Suransky Papers, DoD Documents.

This is a Digital collection of documents comprising of 8.01GB ; 2553 Files; 143 Folders.

Materials collected from TRC Archival Audit.

The TRC Archival Audit

SAHA and Historical Papers, University of Witwatersrand have embarked on a project to locate and retrieve records relating to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC). The project entailed conducting an archival audit of all existing TRC records in order to identify and locate documentation in danger of being lost.

In the process of conducting the archival audit, SAHA and HP located many collections from individuals and organizations that participated in the TRC process. Selections from these materials as well as TRC related material found in the freedom of Information Collection and other pre-existing SAHA and HP collections, were digitized and can be accessed online at http://truth.wwl.wits.ac.za/.

A guide to archival resources relating to South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission can also be found at: http://truth.wwl.wits.ac.za/trc_directory.pdf

The collection includes a passive resistance certificate, banning orders imposed on Thandray and a profile by Ahmed Kathrada.

A sizeable portion of the collection comprises publications issued by student organisations operating on the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Wits campuses. Noel Stott was a student at the UCT from 1978 to 1981, a period of political and social turmoil in South African society.

The Soweto students' uprising of 1976 had indelibly changed the political climate of South Africa, and students across the country were becoming increasingly militant. An ever-more desperate Apartheid regime attempted to maintain its stranglehold on the masses by invoking emergency powers, and employed its security forces to clamp down on so-called dissidents. The South African Defence Force (SADF) was embroiled in a war against the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) in what was then South West Africa (now Namibia), and was further involved in incursions into neighbouring Angola, in support of Jonas Savimbi's UNITA movement. "Preemptive strikes" into other frontline states were also launched by security forces against "enemies of the state". Internally, the SADF and South African Police (SAP) were deployed to maintain "order" in non-white townships; the atrocities and abuses committed by the security forces in the pursuit of this objective have been well documented elsewhere.

The SAP also targeted the so-called "liberal" South African universities, such as UCT, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), and Rhodes University. Student leaders were frequently targeted, detained, and banned, and student publications were subjected to scrutiny and banned whenever "subversive" material was published. During his student years, Noel collected a large body of the material published by student organisations at UCT, such as newspapers, leaflets, flyers, and pamphlets. This body of material is augmented by similar publications from Wits, donated by acquaintances who had been students there.

This material is significant in that the "student politics" they present highlight many of the issues of the day, such as then-president PW Botha's so-called reforms, military service (which was compulsory for white males at the time), police activity on campuses, government interference in education, the "Quota system", calls for solidarity with the masses, and so on.

The publications clearly illustrate the divisions between "moderate" student organisations and those that favoured the maintenance of the status quo and so-called "radical" organisations calling for mass action to effect change. On occasion, differences between organisations espousing these different views spilled over into violent campus clashes. Student politics on the "liberal" university campuses may not have been very "polished", but it was certainly very passionate!

Noel's involvement with organisations such as JODAC and FFF are represented in the collection. UDF newsletters and magazines, JODAC newsletters and magazines, as well as FFF publications demonstrate the efforts that were being made to draw whites into the democratic movement.

However, the bulk of the collection comprises materials collected as a result of Noel's skills as a librarian and his association with ecumenically oriented NGOs. A sizeable collection of newspapers, magazines and journals, from both Catholic and Protestant organisations within South Africa as well as abroad, combine to create a vivid picture of the vast network of organisations that were working to bring about a just and democratic South Africa (and elsewhere, such as in Namibia).

This is augmented by magazines and journal from the period that deal with more general issues, such as the economy, the arts, and the environment, to name but a few.