protes
Sharpeville:
69killedinpeaceful
ON 2l MARCH 1960,69people
were killed and 180woundedby
police bullets outside Sharpeville police station,near Vereeninging.This massacre
proved
to be a watershedin the struggle
for democracyin South Africa,
coming as it did after 12 yearsof
concerted,popularoppositionto
the Apartheid policies of the
nationalistgovernment.In 1948,
the year the Nationalistgovernment came to power, the ANC
Youth League had decided to
call for a Programmeof Action
to abolish all unjust laws. This
programme would
entail
national one day strikes,
boycotts, protests and other
forms of peacefulcivil disobedi
ence.
On June 26. 1952.in line with
this plan, the ANC and the
South African Indian Congress
launched the Defiance Campaign. This campaignwasaimed
againstsix specificActs of Parliament which included the Pass
Laws, the Group Areas Act,
Bantu Authorities Act and the
r
^
.
'fl
-
:l-_
test of the defiance campaign
illegal. The state also arresred,
banned and banished to remote
rural areas, nearty all the leadership of popular organisation.
Congress
In the climate of popular militancy and state repressionfour
organisationscame together to
form the CongressAttiance:The
Congressof Democratsmadeup
of white progressives;
the ANC;
the South African Coloured
Peoples'Organisation(SACPO)
and the South African Indian
Congress(SAIC). In 1955 the
CongressAlliance co-ordinated
the drawingup of the Freedom
Charter. After a well organised
campaign,involving thousands draconianlegislationintroduced
of volunteers who collected by the nationalistparty, all 186
demandsfrom millions of ordidefendentswere aquitted.
nary South Africans covering
In this context, the ANC and
every aspect of their lives, a
the Africanist offshoot, the PAC
"Congressof the People" was began an active campaign
held to formulatethesedemands againstthe passlaws. Passlaws
into one document.At this Conhad long beenat the root of the
gressof the People,heldon June
exploitation and oppressionof
26th 1955at Kliptown, 3 Ofi)repthe majority of South Africans.
resentativesfrom every corner
Froin the beqinning, white
people were rhot In the becl whlle tleelng trom a
On the day of March 21,
1960, Africans were to leave
their passesat homeand surrender peacefullyandvoluntarilyto
the police.
On that same
day,about5 000peoplegathered
at the Sharpevillepolice station
to offer themselvesfor arrest.At
10.20 am, Captain Coetzeeof
the
Snrrth
Africen
Pnlice
ing stones.What cannotbe disputed, is that police openedfire
with stengunsand .303rifles.
About 7fi) shotswere fired and
the firing lastedbetween 10 and
30 seconds. This brutal police
attackleft 69 peopledead.When
the dead and wounded were
examined afterwards, it was
noted that 25 people had been
shot in the front of their bodies.
emergencywas declared by the
government. Hundreds of
people were arrested and
detained. Both the ANC and
PAC were severely harassed
This culminatedin the banning
of these organisationson April
8th 1960. Members of these
organisations were forced to
work under- ground. Realising
the failure of peaceful protest,
v break these laws ancl' rt includedequatrightsiliail; free
ueh peoplevolunteered,the andcompulsoryeducation,univrJriti". would be unable to ersal franchiseand the just share and the laws would be ing of the country's wealth,
Lov€d. After onlY three amongmany others.
rths of the camPaign18 000
The yearsafter the Congressof
testerswere arrested.
the People were marked by
re ANC grew enormouslYin further repressionwhich sawthe
rularity during the defiance state attempting to charge L86
loaisn - l0O000 new mem- leaderswith treason. Much of
sloineAuPin the first Yearsof the statesargumentin the trialprotests.
which lastedfour years- was
ut the state Passed the that the activity of the Congress
Alliance, especiallythe drawing
ninal Laws Amendment Act
up ofthe FreedomCharter,were
the Public SafetYAct which
le much of the PeacefulPro- treasonable. In spite of the
Campaign
Kommando' and at 1 pm, 3
police officers and a sergeant
arrived with 3 Saracen tanks.
The police, who were positioned
along the fence bordering the
police station, were instructed
not to shoot, yet they had begun
to load their rifles with rounds of
ammunition.
When the ANC and PAC called
for a campaign against passes
hundreds of thousandsof black
South Africans responded:in
essencethey would be resisting
the states' control over every
aspectof their lives.
There are conflicting rePorts
about what followed: the Police
claimed that they exPectedan
attack any minute and that theY
started firing becausethe crowd
becameunruly and beganthrow-
rr4l
r Ellru
uil
a
cneap,
unor-
ganised and highly controlled
black labour force. The pass
laws,togetherwith other pieces
of labour and security legislation, all functionto maintainthis
inequality of accessto wealth
and privilege.
Stenguns
Umkhonto we Sizwe, and the
PAC formed Poqo, which would
concentrate on sabotageaimed
at governmentinstallationswith
the stern promise that no lives
would be endangered by the
sabotage.Even in the light of the
naked repression which drove
these organisations underground, the commitment to
establishinga just and peaceful
society and the determination
not to sink to the level of the
indiscriminate brutality of the
enemy, the aPartheid state,
remainedfirm.
tried to justify their ruthlessmassacreby claimingthat the people
were armed, and therefore
posed a threat. This claim sharply contradictswhat can be seen
in the photographsof the death
sceneand the accountsgiven by
eye-witnesses.
On the same day, the 21st
March 1960, police killed 2
people and wounded another 49
in Langa,nearthe Cape.
Events after Sharpeville
TEN DAYS after the Sharpeville massacre, a state of
TherecanbenopeaceunderApartheid
ile we were going through
entation Week, registering
)ur courses,preParingoursefor another Yearof lectures
exams, 18 PeoPle were
gedly killed by the police at
,ssroads.
t Sharpeville 69 died, 547
re killed in 1976, 18 died at
rssroadswith over 200 deaths
ossthe countrysincethe elecas, school boycotts and rent
rtestsof Augustlast Year.
uth Africa is a diviciedcounand violenceemanatesfrom
,idesof thesedivisions.
r SABC justifies Police
to
on, seeingit as necessary
old "law and order" and the
,cessof peaceful change.'
commercialpresscondemns
andin
ce'heavyhandedness'
samebreaththe activitiesof
reengagedin'intimidation'.
,ut to
:l of
understand the
that
conflict
developed over the last
:, we have to look at how vio-
:e is structured into the way
our societv is organised.
A Turning Point
Sharpevillewas a turning point
in the history of South Africa.
The fifties had been a decadeof
peacefulprotest,stay-aways,
the
burningofpasses,petitions.The
1954 Defiance Campaign had
seen the African National Congress and South African Indian
Congressleading a programme
of civil disobedience,with protestersinvolvedin breakingwhat
werecalledthe 'unjustlaws'and
then willingly submittingthemselvesfor arrest.
What the 69 deadon the ground
at Sharpevillebrought home to
peoplewas the level of violence
to which the apartheid government was preparedto resort in
order to maintain its system.
This impressionhas only been
reinforced by the eventsof 1976
and thoseof the lastsix months.
Sharpeville, Crossroads,etc,
are however only examplesot
one particularkind of violence.
Violencein other forms extends
more broadly throughout our
societv. It extends th
MASS MEETIN
whole network of laws and
institutions which uphold the
apartheidsystem.
O Violence extendsthrough the
bantustans policy which forces
peopleinto conditionsof incredible poverty, making them victim to diseaseand malnutrition.
An average of 3 children die
every hour of malnutrition,
mainlyin the ruralareas.
O Violenceextendsthroughthe
influx control system, the pass
lawsplacinglargeproportionsof
the South African urban population in continuousfear of arrest,
separatingfamiliesand denying
black people any control over
their own lives in the places
where they work and where
manyof themwereborn.
O Violence extends through
poverty wages, long hours,
unhealthy working conditions,
mindlessor degradingwork-in
the factories,on the farms, and
in the kitchensof white suburbia.
This violence is organised
through a whole bureaucracv.
th
departmentsof
TODAY
Speakers:HelenJosePh; 4?119
ment, through the bantustans
and the Development Boards.
But at the bottom line, when the
system that mantains this violence feels threatened, it is maintained by the South African
Police and the South African
Defence Force.
Changing Role of the
SADF
Last year, as had happened
before in 1976 and,in 1960,the
SADFwasmobilisedto suppress
internaloppositionto apartheid.
In September7 000 troops surroundedandsearchedSebokeng
undermininggovernmentclaims
that the SADF existsto resistan
externalthreat to SouthAfrica.
As the Minister of Police,I-ouis
le Grangesaid:
"The SouthAtrican Army is to
be used in a supportingrole to
the SouthAfrican policein curbing riots and violencein South
Africa...This would result in
more policemenbeingavailable
for law enforcementand other
specialisedpolice functions."
Since Sharpeville, the military
has to a greater and greater
extent cometo hold a position of
increasinginfluencein the South
African government and over
our lives.Last years defence
budget was R3 745 million, an
averageof more than RlO million a day being spent on the
SADF. BeforeSharpevillethere
wasno compulsoryconscription,
now nationalserviceextends
up to four yearsof the lives of
youngwhite SouthAfricans.
Cadetsat school,military units
at the Afrikaans Universities,
the Civic Action Programmes
where national servicemenare
involved in teaching in black
schools,'his rifle standingin the
corner of the classroom',the
glorification of the military on
TV,
militarist advertising;
militarist fashion- all theseare
aspectsof the processwhereby
the militaryis becomingincreasingly incorporatedinto our daily
lives, all these are aspectsof a
country descendinginto civil
war.
Seminar TodaY
12.30
For many of us violence is
something from which we are
removed,of which we have little
experienceand little knowledge.
We have becomeimmunised to
the extent that stories of the
weeklymurderrate in Sowetoor
of the almost daily toll shot by
police in the streets of the
townships, scarcelyearn a second thoughtfrom us.
_For the people of Sebokeng,
Evaton, Soweto and Tembisi,
the violencethat theyexperience
as subjectsof the Group Areas
Act, influx control and the pass
laws has been translatedinto a
violence much more direct and
much more brutal. For them
there is little doubt as to who is
responsiblefor this violence.For
them the intimidation and violenceof portionsof the township
youth, the horrors of the pretoria bomb blast, hotd a logicat
placein a spiralof violence.
All this gives credanceto the
End ConscriptionCampaigncall
for a just peace.A peacewithout
the scrapping of unjust laws
would be no peaceat all.
2-30
Sharpeville Revisited: Influx control in people's lives today
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