MONDAY, March 21, 1960. That date always will Land out in bold red letters on the calendar of South africa's history of struggle against the regime of oppression and humiliation which is known to the porld as apartheid.
On that day and the next the world's press and devision screens carried pictures of the carnage in bat remote black township near Vereeniging in the Transvaal. Who can forget the picture, spread over so pages of the Daily Mirror of those bodies of cad women, men and children round in front of the police station in Sharpville?
It brought home to the hole the real ature the white apitalist regime in south Africa minority gime which could only eep itself in power by the ACI LISC of naked brute against the overhelming majority of the opulation. cople died on that day in harpville, dulls them eht women ten hildren hundred eighty people were pounded. The majority of hose killed and wounded pere shot in the back.
The demonstration in harpville was part of a ampaign organised by the African PAC), an Alcansi ak-away the National Con against the hated laWs The pass is the docuwhich every South frican wao is onciany esignated black in buth lature has to carry.
Failure to produce the ass to an authorised peron on demand can lead to Pass laws almost as old as white : in South Africa. They first introduced Dutch colonists in the 550's when the first slaves imported into the Madagascar • te cast inales.
Passes travelling aween With of white in varyhack GovernThe of the atrol the For the Blacks it was a ambol of slavery miliation. With the inaduction apartheid, be a tightening of the Blacks did not calmly the new repressive Women, especially, ely resisted the extenof the hated laws to Protests against the laws mounted. there were 400,000 ChoRS Tor offences control regulaPressure the asses were urging the aders of the liberation rganisations to take some The ANC decided on a maign which would inde deputations to local government authores urging the abolition of 'day aver' sprawling on the The MOTE PAC, under the leadership Robert sobukwe had resolved on 'decisive and Dosiuve allion azallist unc pass laws as the first step in freedom 1963.
By Charlie van Gelderen The campaign was planned to begin on March 21 when people would be askca lo leave tell passes at home and surrender at local ponce Stallons Il al Ics.
The slogar would be "no bail, no defence, no fine.
Sobukwe had informed the police of the emphasising that it would be of a pee demonstrators had demonstrators had disperse orderly manner if the police ordered them to do so.
Although the PAC was not a large organisation at the time, caught the mood of the Lilasses.
On Watch distributed a leaflet telling people to stay away from work on the Monday.
govColl wais organised with women playing a promical part in the picketing of bus terwere on the to stop pedestrians and cyclists.
by lu o clock a large soon turned into terror as bodies started falling to the Volley after volley of pistol autonale weapons tore into the fleeing crowd.
The shooting lasted for less than a minute. When it stopped, the ground was literally covered with This Sharpwas ville, March 21st, 1960.
The immediate repercussions shook South Africa to its very toundations. In the days which followed the shootings, while the people of Sharpville mourned, Vereeniging was held in the grip of a general by the workers Irom Lne townships. They did not return to work till atter the mass funeral on Wednesday 30 March.
At the other end of the country, in the Cape, Housands DaCK workers rose in fury in the • lowiismps or causa and Nyanga. What was significant was that for the first time the PAC was able to mobilse migrant workers alongside the urban-based working class.
The shooting of two Blacks in Langa was the signal for three weeks of upheaval confrontacon In Ine Cape Town A *stay at home' strike was called jointly by the PAC ANC on March 28. Several nun. dred thousand Black workers around the country observed the strike call.
Blacks to continue striking PAC SUCaNCIS urged until passes were abolished, f35-a-month minimum wage had been won, ana the authorities had pledgnot victimize SunKers For a brief moment in historv it anpered DISSUE C masses. Prime Minister Verwoerd, the architect of a - eyewitness report Police open fire at Sharpeville apartheid, was in hospital recovering an assassination attempt. The government ordered the temporary suspension the pass laws acting Prime Minister, Paul said: The old South African history was closed...for the immediate reconsider in earnest whole approach to the Native question. We must create a new spirit which must restore faith both white non-white South Africa... We mus alter the conception of baaskap (white boss menabsolutely no reference to tality)... there should baaskap...
moved not events in Sharpeville and Langa but by the massive withdrawal of overseas investments which gave rise a short-term business slump. And his views were The hardliners in the government asserted themselves Verwoerd returned to the scene. A state of Emergency was declared the PAC and ANC were banned.
At that time, Blacks in South Africa were still represented in Parliament by white MPs. 'The Con. gress of Democrats MP, closelv associated with the Communist of South Africa, made the shameful plea in Parliament that the government should only ban the PAC and not the ANC He said need, it exists today for the ever Government to realize that it has in the ANC a friend and not an enemy, because these organizations that we are asked to ban are so diametrically opposed that the government should SCILC lc opportunity of order Africa.' (Quoted in Peteel Drever, Martyrs fanatics math Africa and human destiny, But it Sharpville and its brought curiscuucila Mom the regimes alo regime, it also brought wealth lessons to the oppressed the Sobukwe 'In Sharpville we overcame the fear of the consequences of disobeying colonia laws...It ecame respectable 1 the stripped dill....V white man of that weapon against us The white man now, in Soweto, had to fall back on his ultimate weapon, the gun. . Soweto has been a lesson in overcoming the fear of the gun...now that he relies on the gun and we" too can get the • gun, con frontation is inevitable...
That lesson has been well learned and is inspiring the current WaVe of unrest which brought 7,000 armed military police to Sharpeville a few months boycott which has kept the schools empty for months; the growing resistance t the forcefu removals of people barrer wildernesses of the 'homeland'; the rapid growth of the Black and Trade Union Movement; the rejection of the fake constitution; the growing unity between all sections of the Black working 'Black' 'Coloured' and 'Asian'. their beds.' Despite the strength of the miners' position. their acceptance of the govern.
settlement which entailed vanced demand their advancer indicates that both they the COB the early elections demanded by the right would only result eturn to power of Genera Banzer. The policies of the Siles government in the economic have strengthened the right. Not oniv has Banzer more money than any other political party to invest in an election campaign, but people remembe his regime for its high level of spending - forgetting that that is what they are now paying for What is clear is that the people of Bolivia cannot continue to exist in a situa tion where inflation runs at well over 3000 per cent Prices have been rising dai.
uncle are queues lo bread, for paraffin for cooking, and for petrol. and where strikes paralyse transport every other month. One class must prevail.
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appealing to the ANC to assist it do restore peace