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school boycotts

Explanation
School boycotts originated in the Western Cape in April 1980 and spread to several other regions in South Africa. Grievances initially concerned the standard and quality of education but these grew into wider political protest. Street protests and police actions resulted in widespread violence. In the Cape, police shootings led to over 40 deaths. In the Orange Free State, police made use of force and firepower to break up crowd demonstrations, often resulting in injury and, in some cases, death. In Natal, boycotting pupils in KwaMashu defied Chief Buthelezi's calls to return to school, resulting in clashes between pupils and Inkatha supporters. These boycotts allegedly led to an increased exodus of youth from the country to join the ANC. Towards the end of 1985 , the UDF adopted a campaign to make the townships ungovernable. Educational institutions and trade unions became key sites of revolutionary activity. School boycotts and strikes were transformed into scenes of violent conflict and bloodletting. A state of emergency was declared in July and extended in October. It continued until the first democratic election in 1994.

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During the 1970s and 1980s, boycotting students threw stones, petrol bombs and hand grenades at the houses of several school principals who opposed school boycotts and who were therefore seen to be ‘collaborators’ with the government. Similar confrontations took place during worker strikes in ...
arrest of students and the creation of a general climate of intimidation. 69 Ms Elizabeth Sizane Mdluli was a student in Nelspruit during the 1986 school boycotts. She told the Commission about the disruption caused at the school by the presence of the police: During the year 1986 – it was ...
in the PWV had cost more that R188 million. 282 Rent boycotts quickly spread beyond the confines of the PWV. In June 1985, tension around rent and school boycotts in the townships surrounding Barberton in the eastern Transvaal reached a peak. Many of those injured in the course of the ensuing ...
... the Congress movement. This was at the time of the formation of the UDF. 278 Mr Matthew Goniwe, the popular principal of the Lingelihle Secondary School, and his nephew Mr Mbulelo Goniwe were approached by Mr Arnold Stofile, an ANC underground activist based at Fort Hare university, and asked ...
Vigilantes 121 In Grahamstown in 1980, some parents opposed to the school boycotts formed a vigilante group called the Peacemakers. On 14 May, Peacemakers member Mthantiso Alfred Soya [EC0437/96ALB] was attacked with pangas and stoned to death by youths in the grounds of a Grahamstown school, ...
... ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEM. 168 Several statements were made to the Commission by victims who were unwittingly caught up in township disturbances and school boycotts. The lives of such individuals were irreversibly altered by injuries sustained during the conflict as a result of police action. ...
1980–1981 school boycotts 92 After the founding of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and the Azanian Student’s Organisation (AZASO) in 1979, school protests became more organisationally directed. Across the country, up to 100 000 children in coloured and African schools and ...
... tortured and beaten at Caledon Square police station by Security Branch members Swarts and Coetzee in January 1977 while being questioned about the school boycotts. He then served three years for arson. Mr Joseph Ndabezitha [CT03031] also mentions Swarts and Sergeant Greeff in his account of ...
... in South Africa’s political history. The conflict sparked by the former state’s attempt to impose Afrikaans as a medium of instruction on black school children lasted fifteen months and spread to 200 towns and cities across South Africa.18 108 Officially 575 people died and 2 380 people ...
... period saw two waves of large-scale public resistance with high numbers of casualties: the 1976 revolt and the violence associated with the 1980 school boycotts. The 1976 revolt began in the Transvaal and spread to the western Cape in August 1976, with an accompanying shift to more violent and ...
... return to school, resulting in clashes between pupils and Inkatha supporters. Altogether thirty-six KwaZulu and Natal schools were affected by the school boycotts of 1980 and 1981. These boycotts allegedly led to an increased exodus of youth from the country to join the ANC. 60 In the first ...
... primary focus of conflict. As in the previous period, the youth and particularly the students bore the brunt of police brutality in the course of school boycotts and other protests, as well as being disadvantaged academically by the disruptions. 69 In the industrial sphere, striking workers, ...
... [KZN/AT/010/FS]. 127 Vigilante action surged again in Thabong in 1986, when parents and elders launched a violent attempt to get children back to school. The council, which had by this time set up an official law enforcement unit, was said to be actively organising adults to beat up children. ...
to have unfairly amassed wealth in poor townships were also vulnerable to attack. Teachers and school principals who were conservative or opposed to school boycotts were targeted in some instances. Black local authority offices, schools, homes and businesses were also frequently attacked. 499 ...
town. 63 Physical disabilities fundamentally alter the victim’s life. Ms Elizabeth Sizane Mduli was an eighteen-year-old student during the 1986 school boycotts in Nelspruit. During a protest gathering, she was shot by the police. At the Nelspruit hearing, she told the Commission: What ...
... to the formation and launch of youth congresses in areas such as Giyani, which were previously not politically organised. Stay aways, consumer and school boycotts were subsequently organised in Giyani, spreading to Kujwana, Lenyenye, Nkowankowa, Elim and Bonn. 757 In Gazankulu, reported gross ...
detention. Two of these incidents resulted in deaths in custody. 48 Many detentions were recorded for this period, arising largely out of the 1980 school boycotts and the disturbances that preceded them. Students and student leaders were detained, including members of AZAPO, the Young Christian ...
... and was banned until 1983. Tension between Reverend Maqina and the UDF started in 1984 over responses to the education crisis. Maqina opposed the school boycotts, which made him unpopular with COSAS. 221 The conflict in Port Elizabeth became violent in April 1985. On 6 April, at the funeral ...
... and died immediately with three bullet wounds. 118 About two weeks later, scholar Mr Tefo Timothy Machesa [EC0560/96UIT] was shot dead during the school boycotts in Uitenhage. He was on his way to buy bread. His mother, Ms Malehlohonolo Lucy Machesa, told the Commission: Later a friend, Tesco, ...
... cases brought to the Commission occurred in one incident on 28 December 1989, when thirteen youth who were abakhwetha (initiates at circumcision school) were attacked by AmaAfrika vigilantes in KwaNobuhle, Uitenhage. 244 Ms Miriam Nombulelo Manziya testified about the death of her son, Mr ...
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