THIS week marks the 25th anniversary of the End Conscription Campaign, where young white South African men faced lengthy jail terms for their refusal to support the apartheid government by joining the SA Defence Force.

The Herald reporter Neil Oelofse speaks to one conscientious objector who was sentenced to six years behind bars.

IN 1988 Charles Bester was just 18 years old when he took the courageous decision to join the small but growing number of young white men who shook the very foundations of the apartheid government by refusing to serve its military machine – but the mantle of hero does not sit easily on him.

History has vindicated the brave and principled move taken by Bester and other conscientious objectors, but he says – without a trace of false modesty – that thousands of “real” anti-conscription heroes deserved much more credit than they ever received.

“Like the guys who, without support, were forced into the army but then refused to put on a uniform, or those who would not pick up a rifle and were sent back to detention over and over again for refusing to obey a so-called ‘lawful’ command.”

Bester was not the first to declare that he was prepared to go to jail rather than play a role in the oppression of his black countrymen, but he did become known as the youngest among the crop of objectors whose cases received widespread media attention amidst a blaze of government hostility directed at the End Conscription Campaign, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

He was called up in July 1988 and duly reported for duty, but immediately informed the SA Defence Force officer in charge of the new intake that he was refusing to serve. He was sent home, but two weeks later police arrested him and dragged into court, coincidentally on the same day the ECC was banned under the ubiquitous state of emergency imposed by a government desperately trying to stem a growing tide of dissent.

In the run-up to the trial Bester deliberately did not join the ECC because the organisation was being stigmatised as “the enemy” by the government, but his refusal to take up arms on grounds of his Christian faith was probably even more harmful to the authorities because they claimed to be guided by the same faith.

When the case eventually went to trial in December that year, it took the court just a few hours to convict Bester and sentence him to six years’ imprisonment. The presiding magistrate dismissed as “irrelevant” his argument that his Christianity was his guide in all aspects of his life, including his understanding that apartheid was inherently wrong and that his faith did not allow him to serve a system which he abhorred.

Bester says he probably would not have been able to act on his commitment to go to jail rather than serve in the army had it not been for the support of his parents, hence his refusal to criticise the thousands of white men who were conscripted simply because their families expected them to go.

He was given a greater political awareness of the abnormal times he lived in by his father Tony, who once stood for Parliament as a candidate for the Progressive Federal Party.

Being sent to a multiracial school also helped. “It was considered normal for young boys to go the army after school, but for us it was clear that some of our classmates were not going because they were not white.”

He eventually served 20 months in an all-white prison in Kroonstad and was released on the strength of the precedent set by the successful appeal by fellow jailed objector David Bruce.

He joined the ECC after his release and remains proud of his association with a group of people who made a huge contribution towards eliminating the requirement for today’s 18- year-olds to make the difficult choices he was faced with at that age.

Although conscription is long gone, Bester believes the ECC’s ideals are still relevant to this day, such as the concept of a united and reconciled South Africa free of racism, reducing levels of militarisation and violence, and the need to question authority, no matter what form it takes or how correct it claims to be.