African Activist Archive

A leaflet about increasing violence in South Africa and its impacts on negotiations. The African National Congress (ANC) led by Nelson Mandela, with support of trade unions and others, suspended talks with the white government. COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and the ANC then called for a general strike on August 3 to end the violence and break the logjam in negotiations to end white minority rule and transition to a democratic government. Talks began in late 1991 under CODESA (Convention for a Democratic South Africa), with most political factions participating. Here is the context for these decisions. On June 17, 42 residents of Boipatong were brutally murdered by attackers who were protected by the South African police. From hostels, Inkatha (Inkatha Freedom Party, IFP) warriors launch raids, hacking to death hundreds on the trains, in the streets and in their homes. The leaflet provides background about the Bantustan policy that denies blacks citizenship, diffuses unity, and forced blacks into ethnic homelands. Since the early 1900s, apartheid reserved 83% of all land for the white minority and denied blacks the right to buy or own property. Little has really changed for South Africa's black majority under President F. W. De Klerk's so-called "reforms." The document mentions Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, black workers, urban townships, South African defense forces and Police (SAP), political and union activists, civic organizations, forced removals, Soweto, Alexandra, poverty, and unemployment.

African Activist Archive

SOUTH AFRICA TODAY & THE LEGACY OF APARTHEID

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