Revolt Against Apartheid
UYS, STANLEY
After 12 years of 'separateness policy, anger of South Africans is finally spilling over Revolt Against Apartheid By Stanley Uys JOHANNESBURG THE DECLARATION of a State of emergency in South...
...Organizations can be summarily banned, newspapers seized or suppressed and heavy penalties imposed...
...Even the police, according to reports, were aghast...
...They are mostly leaders of various political organizations...
...Their leaders describe these Laws as the principal source of race friction in South Africa...
...The baby was being taken out of Nyanga by its mother when the military cordon turned them back...
...The 10,000-strong procession halted, however, a quarter of a mile from Parliament, and a deputation of eight African leaders strode down the road, declaring they wanted to see Minister of Justice F. C. Erasmus...
...The deputation was led by Philip Kgosane, a 21-year-old student, wearing blue shorts...
...This total mobilization gives the Government a potential force of 160,000 whites to suppress any further uprisings that may occur among the 10,000,000 Africans...
...The Pan-Africanist Congress is an offshoot of the older, more seasoned African National Congress...
...But the Africans are still resisting the policies and the forces of the regime...
...They have set fire to schools, churches, administrative buildings, etc.—anything that symbolizes white authority...
...The "young Turks" became impatient...
...The plan was for groups of Africans to go to police stations, surrender their passes and demand to be arrested...
...There were no deliveries of milk, bread or newspapers...
...At least 60 Africans lay dead and 150 wounded...
...This "act of treachery," as Africans have termed it, has greatly angered the residents of Langa and Nyanga...
...But the pinch of hunger began to be felt and arrests eliminated many of the strike leaders, so that two weeks ago most of the Africans were forced by economic necessity to return to work...
...White garage proprietors had to man their own gasoline pumps...
...Since that fateful Monday, there has been sporadic unrest in various parts of the country...
...In a month of sporadic clashes, at least 100 Africans have been shot dead by police and nearly 200 wounded...
...There have been smaller clashes at a dozen other centers, mostly in the rural areas...
...After 12 years of 'separateness policy, anger of South Africans is finally spilling over Revolt Against Apartheid By Stanley Uys JOHANNESBURG THE DECLARATION of a State of emergency in South Africa has placed the country virtually on a war footing...
...At Langa, the same afternoon, a crowd of more than 7,000 Africans clashed with the police...
...There is not a single English-speaking person among the 180 Nationalist parliamentarians...
...The African National Congress was too strong there, and also too strong in Durban and Port Elizabeth, the other main industrial centers...
...The two African townships of Langa and Nyanga, which supply Capetown with most of its African labor, engaged in a stay-at-home strike for several weeks after the Sharpeville massacre of March 21...
...After the stay-at-home strike had been in progress for a week, the police swooped on Langa in force one morning and chased the residents out to work...
...Troops were rushed to the defense of Parliament, and for the first time in the Union's history armored cars protected the entrances to the massive Parliamentary buildings, while steel-helmeted troops, armed with Bren and Sten guns, lined up behind the high iron railings...
...The scene was like a battlefield...
...Unless major concessions are made, unrest will become chronic...
...In both these centers, the African National Congress had only a weak organization...
...At Sharpeville, five miles from Vereeniging, a crowd of 20,000 Africans gathered around the police station...
...Unchecked, they swept on to the main road leading toward Parliament...
...The Pass Laws drive us mad," declare the Africans...
...Both Langa and Nyanga are firmly under the control of the Pan-African-ist Congress, a year-old organization of militant young African nationalists...
...There were women and children as well, and many were squatting on the ground...
...Approximately $28 million worth of damage has been caused by African rioters...
...On March 21, the Pan-Africanist Congress launched a national anti-Pass Law campaign...
...But the campaign succeeded spectacularly in Vereeniging-Vanderbijl Park (35 miles from Johannesburg) and in Capetown...
...As the car in which they were traveling reversed and then swung round, it crossed the cordon line...
...Many factories stood completely idle...
...In Johannesburg, where Sobukwe and about 50 others surrendered themselves, the campaign flopped...
...At the bachelor barracks, the police stood on the roof and fired shots to frighten the occupants...
...They surrendered themselves voluntarily to the police in different parts of the country, until the police announced suspension of the Pass Laws...
...It stated that the suspension of the Pass Laws is only temporary—that it was done under duress and not because of a change of heart...
...He was immediately arrested and locked up in the police cells with the other members of the deputation, and has since been reported to be exiled to an island off Capetown...
...Persons can be detained and held without trial for 30 days...
...Once the Africans were out in the street, they formed a procession and marched on the city five miles away...
...A young sailor immediately fired a shot, which shattered a window of the car, wounded the mother in the shoulder and blew the baby's brains out...
...One report said that 45 caliber copper-nosed bullets were used, and that as the bullets were extracted from the victims at hospitals, they were seized by the police...
...Other eye-witnesses said that the police suddenly fired, without an order having been given...
...After 12 years of apartheid rule, the anger of the African people is finally spilling over...
...Then reports trickled out that the police had used special bullets which left gaping wounds in the victims, even powdering the bone...
...In addition, nearly 1,700 Africans are in jail for antiSTANLEY UYS is a political analyst for the Johannesburg Sunday Times...
...The result was the Sharpeville massacre...
...newspapers may not disclose the identities of any detained persons or publish any statement likely to cause "panic, alarm or fear" or "weaken the confidence of the public in the successful termination of the state of emergency...
...There have been major racial clashes in Capetown, Johannesburg, Durban, Vereeniging-Vander-bijl Park and Worcester...
...The full resources of the state will therefore be mobilized—and used—before the Nationalist Government agrees to any modification of its apartheid policy, or to the acceptance of any English-speaking elements in its ranks...
...A detective diverted the deputation to the police station, where a crowd of 20,000 Africans soon assembled...
...Verwoerd's government itself represents a nationalist movement — Nationalist Afrikaners...
...In Capetown, particularly, the business life of the city has been severely affected by the mass absenteeism...
...After receiving a promise from a police colonel that he would be granted an interview with Erasmus, Kgosane led his 20,000 followers peacefully out of Capetown...
...This has temporarily halted the fill-the-jails campaign, but the Pass Laws have now been reimposed...
...The police were totally unable to control the crowd, and they appealed to Kgosane, who used a police megaphone to keep them calm...
...They have also been angered by the shooting of an African baby...
...The mystery of the appalling wounds has still not been solved...
...About four Africans were killed and 30 injured...
...Their national president, Richard Mangaliso ("Wonderful") Sobukwe, formerly a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), is in jail on a charge of incitement...
...That afternoon Kgosane came into Capetown for the promised interview with Erasmus...
...The police said shots were fired from the crowd, which threatened to overwhelm the police station...
...An entire issue of the left-wing newspaper, New Age, has been seized...
...Nor are their any indications at this stage of a change of Government, despite the attempted assassination of the Prime Minister...
...Pass Law offences...
...The police gave the vast crowd three to five minutes to disperse and then began hitting them and shooting...
...The angry residents of Langa and Nyanga, at a point where many felt they had nothing more to lose, then entered the third week of their stay-at-home strike...
...Many Africans were hurt as they rushed down the steps...
...No whites have been killed...
...They are now enforced again, and those who have burned their passes will be issued duplicates...
...Cargoes piled up at the docks and ships had to be diverted to Port Elizabeth...
...Eye-witnesses said that the crowd was peaceful...
...The Africanists believe that if the leaders are prepared to make sacrifices, the people will follow — and they have acted accordingly...
...A number of Africans have also been assaulted and killed by their own people, a group of Africans known as "spoilers," who use force to persuade other Africans to strike...
...About 1,000 South Africans of all races have already been detained and are being held without trial...
...Africans are not allowed to own firearms, and although some of them are in possession of stolen pistols, the "weapons" they have used have been stones, sticks and knives...
...Prime Minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd's Nationalist Government refuses, however, to make a single conciliatory gesture...
...The state of emergency proclamation drastically restricts ordinary civil rights and suspends some judicial processes...
...Any change of Government would involve sharing political power with the English-speaking section, which comprises nearly 40 per cent of the white population...
...A blast of Sten-gun and rifle fire cleared a vast, fan-shaped gap in the crowd and it fled in terror...
...The African National Congress, under the leadership of ex-Chief Albert Luthuli, has consistently preached non-violence, but its slow "painless revolution" program was rigidly curbed by repressive Government legislation...
...Nationalist parliamentarians are not prepared to make this concession—at least not yet...
...The immediate demand is for the abolition of the Pass Laws...
...The Nationalist Government has mobilized the police, the Army, Navy and Air Force, the Citizen Force (territorials) and the Rifle Commandos (home guards...
Vol. 43 • May 1960 • No. 18
