Dennis Goldberg was part of a group in the early 1960's in South Africa that went to prison because of their violent actions in their fight against apartheid. Nelson Mandela and ten other men were tried during the Riviona Sabotage Trial. The eight men who were convicted, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Dennis Goldberg, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Matsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni, were the core of the African National Congress leadership.
Apartheid was a form of segregation used in the Union of South Africa. It separated non Europeans from Europeans. In a country of approximately 30 million people, 5 million whites and 25 million blacks, the whites were much better off than the blacks. The whites had better public areas, schools, educational systems and all around a better life. Apartheid denied most human rights to all the blacks, including the right to vote, run for public office and the right to a fair trial.
The dreams that the group of eight men were involved in were ending apartheid, allow banned organizations, release all prisoners jailed without a trial, free all political prisoners. .
Eleven men from the African National Congress were tried in the Riviona Sabotage Trial, which took its name from the area near Johannesburg where Mandela's African National Congress colleagues were arrested in a police raid which took place in a farm house. They were charged with plotting sabotage to end white-minority rule, and blowing up power lines with home made explosives that often didn't work. Many of the defendants, Mandela included, chose not to answer to the sabotage charges because they said that the ANC's use of violence was an ultimate resort, after the Government rejected non-violent protest campaigns. It was said that many of the witnesses "lied shamelessly, purposefully and apparently to order." Joel Joffe, one of the defense lawyers, said in an account of the trial that was never published that many of the witnesses were kept in solitary confinement.
