Remembering the Sharpville Massacre
Remembering the event that shaped the history of a nation.
South Africa’s Human Rights Day, which is commemorated annually on 21 March, is synonymous with an innocuous but historic township, Sharpeville, situated between the industrial cities of Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging about 50 kilometres south of Johannesburg.
The Sharpeville massacre took place on 21 March 1960, when the police mowed down 69 unarmed people and injured 180 others who refused to carry the hated dompas identity document that was meant only for indigenous Africans.
The day, sometimes also referred to as Heroes’ Day, was a watershed in the country’s liberation struggle, hence its inclusion in South Africa’s post-apartheid holiday calendar.
What happened on that day?
The PAC [Pan Africanist Congress], which was 16 days short of its first birthday, had called on African men to leave their pass books at home, go to the nearest police station and demand to be arrested for not carrying the dompas.
The apartheid pass laws humiliated African men in particular. Every indigenous African male above the age of 16 had to carry the dompas on his person day and night and produce it on demand by the police.
Failure to produce, forgetting the pass at home, or not having the right stamp, meant arbitrary arrest and jail. When the police in Sharpeville saw the masses marching towards them, they panicked and opened fire, killing 69 and injuring hundreds.
An outraged international community turned against the Nationalist Party government. The struggle reached a new level on the long road towards the country’s democratic elections on 27 April 1994.
New country, new constitution
The ANC-led government chose Sharpeville as the venue to launch South Africa’s new Constitution, signed by its first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela, on 8 May 1996.
Since then, a number of laws have been enacted to protect basic individual rights in South Africa.
Among these are pieces of legislation that significantly provide for gender equality, and give citizens equal access to courts in the event of any form of discrimination.
Statutory institutions such as the Commission for Gender Equality, the Human Rights Commission, and the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural and Linguistic Communities, also now exist.
On 21 March 2001, South Africa unveiled the Sharpeville human rights memorial on the site outside the police station where the 69 men, women and children were shot – most of them in the back. Their names are all displayed on the memorial plaque.
Courtesy of South Africa.info For pictures and more information follow the link.
