APLA attacks

Explanation
During the early 1990s, the PAC proclaimed a military strategy of a 'protracted people's war', which involved the infiltration of APLA guerrillas into the country to conduct rural guerrilla warfare. The initial targets of such attacks were members of the security forces and white farmers who were perceived to be the frontline of defence for the former apartheid government. A 'repossession unit' was also set up, in which APLA cells conducted armed robberies on the instructions of the APLA High Command to raise funds andor obtain weapons and vehicles to enable APLA to carry out its military strategy. Civilians were killed or injured in many of these robberies. In 1993, attacks on civilians increased sharply with a series of high-profile attacks by APLA cadres on public places, including restaurants, hotels and bars, in urban areas. These were usually, but not always, places frequented by white civilians. The PAC/APLA claimed that the attacks were not racist in character, but directed against the apartheid government as all whites, according to the PAC, were complicit in the policy of apartheid. The 1993 attack on the St James' Church, Kenilworth, Cape Town, produced the highest number of casualties, with 11 people dead and 58 injured.