Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC)
Struggles over apartheid legislation continued through the 1950s. The failure to achieve any real success caused a major split in black resistance in 1959. Critics within the ANC argued that its alliance with other political groups, particularly the white Congress of Democrats, caused their organization to make too many compromises and to fail to represent African interests. Influenced by the writings of Lembede, the anti-communist Africanists, led by Robert Sobukwe, called on the ANC to look to African interests first and to take more action to challenge the government. They were, however, forced out of the ANC, and in 1959 they formed their own organization, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) [also seen as Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC/A)].
In March 1960, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) began a national campaign against the pass laws and called on Africans to assemble outside police stations without their passes and to challenge the police to arrest them. One such demonstration outside the police station at Sharpeville, a "native" township in the industrial area of Vereeniging to the south of Johannesburg, ended in violence on 21 March 1960 when the police fired on the demonstrators, killing at least sixty-seven of them and wounding 186. Most of the dead and wounded were shot in the back. Stoppages and demonstrations continued, including a peaceful march of 30,000 Africans on the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town. Verwoerd's government reacted by declaring a state of emergency, by arresting approximately 18,000 demonstrators, including the leaders of the ANC and the PAC, and by outlawing both organizations.
Prohibited from operating peacefully or even having a legal existence in South Africa, both the ANC and the PAC established underground organizations in 1961 to carry out their struggle against the government. Poqo (Blacks Only), the militant wing of the PAC, engaged in a campaign of terror, targeting in particular African chiefs and headmen believed to be collaborators with the government and killing them. The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) military forces were known as the Azanian People's Liberation Army). The regime sought to be in a position to launch attacks on African National Congress and Pan-Africanist Congress military training camps in Zambia and Tanzania. Because of his success in defeating the ANC and the PAC, John Vorster became prime minister of South Africa in 1966 when Verwoerd was assassinated by a coloured parliamentary messenger.
With the ANC and the PAC banned and African political activity officially limited to government-appointed bodies in the homelands, young people sought alternative means to express their political aspirations. Led by Steve Biko, an African medical student at the University of Natal, a group of black students established the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) in 1969 with Biko as president. He rejected the use of violence adopted by the ANC and the PAC in the early 1960s and emphasized that only nonviolent methods should be used in the struggle against apartheid. Biko, who had been held in indefinite detention, died September 12, 1977 from massive head injuries sustained during police interrogation. By that time, SASO and the BPC had been banned and open black resistance had been brought to a halt.
Hundreds of young Africans slipped across South Africa's northern borders in the aftermath of Soweto and volunteered to fight as guerrilla soldiers for the ANC and the PAC. In the late 1970s, some of these people began to reenter South Africa secretly and to carry out sabotage attacks on various targets that were seen as symbols of apartheid. In the mid-to-late 1960s, the South African Defense Force (SADF) military was interested in gaining experience in bush warfare and establishing enhanced intelligence monitoring capabilities of ANC and PAC political and guerrilla activities in neighboring states.
President Frederik W. (F.W.) de Klerk announced on February 2, 1990, not only the impending release of Mandela, but also the unbanning of the ANC, the PAC, and the SACP. Blacks who had been unanimous in their demands for Mandela's release from prison, nonetheless differed sharply in the extent of their willingness to reconcile peacefully over past injustices. In addition, militant black consciousness leaders, especially in the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), rejected outright Mandela's proposals for multiracial government and demanded black control over future decision-making institutions. At PAC offices in Zimbabwe, PAC leader Zephania Mothopeng rejected appeals by Mandela and by Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe for the PAC leader to join Mandela in discussions in Pretoria.
South African business leaders formed the Consultative Business Movement (CBM) in 1990, a group of ninety business leaders who recognized the need for a “constructive transformation of the country’s political economy.” When South African president F.W. De Klerk announced he would host a two-day peace conference in the spring of 1991 and the ANC and other groups refused to attend, the CBM continued to mediate between the two groups until all parties agreed to a CBM-hosted meeting in Johannesburg in June. Representatives from twenty different organizations (to include the government, ANC, IFP, Pan African Congress, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions) attended this meeting. This meeting paved the way for the National Peace Convention in September of 1991.
In December 1993, the multiracial Transitional Executive Council (TEC) was installed as part of the executive branch of government--over the objections of the Freedom Alliance and the PAC. The challenges for the military were considerable. The most obvious challenge was to incorporate the members of seven different armed groups into the state’s armed forces. The military forces to be integrated into the new South African National Defence Force (and then rationalized) are the old South African Defence Force; the militaries of the four independent states (only recognized by the Republic of South Africa) of Transkei, Bophutatswana, Venda, and Ciskei; and the liberation armies of the African National Congress (Umkonto Wi Sizwe) and the Pan-African Congress (Azanian Peoples Liberation Army).
It should be noted that only around fourteen thousand of the non-statutory forces of the ANC and PAC presented themselves for integration although the figures that were given differ drastically from the Certified Personnel Register.3 The figures for the total military integration were (Note: not accurately. There is still uncertainty in the MK and APLA about the correct figures) SADF 110,000 / TBVC States 6,000 / MK(ANC) 26,000 / APLA (PAC) 6,000 / KZSPF 2.000.
The antielection Freedom Alliance began to unravel in early 1994. With the Freedom Alliance severely weakened, PAC President Clarence Makwetu--another election holdout--announced that group's suspension of its armed struggle, thus opening the way for election participation by its members.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
