OFFICIALLY Steve Biko, spiritual leader of South Africa’s black consciousness movement, died in a Pretoria prison cell last week as a result of a hunger strike. But many believe that Biko, who had gone without food for only eight days, was a victim of police brutality.

He was born 30 years ago in King William’s Town, in Eastern Cape Province. Exceptional ability won him a place at the country’s only black medical school, where he passed his exams with ease.

His first concern was the plight of his fellow blacks. By the late 1960s black political opposition hardly existed following the bannings of congress movements early in the decade. Biko led black students out of the non-racial students’ union to set up the South African Students’ Organisation.

As black consciousness gathered in strength, police persecution increased. Followers of the organisations were banned, arrested, jailed, beaten up, sometimes killed by parcel bombs. In 1973 Biko was banned for five years under the anti-communist laws (although certainly no communist himself) and restricted to his childhood home in “King”.

He lived in a small house in the Ginsberg area, away from the white district. It was named after a prominent local family and it was there I spent my school holidays. When I returned to King in April 1976, little seemed to have changed in 20 years. The town centre is decidedly blacker, but the post office and banks still had “whites-only” counters.

The government expected the ban on Biko to end his public life. His ideas could not be published and he was forbidden to be in a gathering of more than two people. But Biko’s magnetic presence and incisive analyses attracted a stream of followers.

I visited him in April 1976, a few weeks before the June uprising in Soweto. He drove at breakneck speed across the arid grassland of the Ciskei region, talking about black anger, how time was running out and the poverty of blacks in the tribal “homelands”. We arrived at Zenapilo, a clinic where mothers left destitute by husbands working in white towns were taught how to look after their babies.

A few weeks before, Biko had been taken to the clinic suffering from double pneumonia. The security police believed the clinic was outside the magisterial district of King and arrived to arrest him. The doctor said: “Take him by all means, but if he dies . . .” The police left.

When I met Biko that June he talked of the need for blacks to stand on their own feet: “When we broke away to form a black movement, we were accused of being anti-white. But with many more whites at university, the non-racial students’ union was dominated by white liberals. They made all the decisions for us. We needed time to look at our own problems and not leave them to people without experience of the terrible conditions in the black townships.”

In a country where violence by the state and its police is endemic, Biko managed to remain non-violent. But he was ready to defend himself. When in solitary confinement last year, a police interrogator got rough with him. Biko punched the man on the head. He was treated more correctly after that and released three months later to tell the tale.

Biko was careful, unwilling to take a militant stand he knew could not be backed up against the white state. “Can we be effective with such meagre resources?” he asked. “We have become effective because of our persecution.”

That was the only time I saw Biko. Last August I visited King, hoping to hear his views on the township rebellion. I was asked by an officer of the Bureau of State Security why I was in town. There was no point getting Biko into trouble, so I left.

A few days later Biko and several other black consciousness leaders were arrested. Biko stayed in prison until the end of 1976 but was never charged. Other charges were [later] brought against him, but they had not come to court at the time of his death.

Readers of the King William’s Town Mercury, the weekly newspaper, were left in ignorance of the fate of their most famous son last week. “It caters for local interests,” I was told, “and doesn’t get involved in politics.”

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission reported in 1997 that five members of the security forces had admitted killing Biko. No one was prosecuted