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Soweto uprising

Explanation
On 16 June 1976, police opened fire on approximately 10 000 school students in Soweto during a protest against the compulsory use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools. The shootings provoked extensive unrest and protest throughout Soweto, spreading over the following months to several other regions in South Africa, particularly Cape Town. Around 575 people were killed, 390 in the Transvaal and 137 in the western Cape. Over 2000 people were injured. Arrests, deaths in detention and trials followed the revolt, and the first members of the 'Class of 76' left South Africa for training in armed resistance.

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... all parts of the country outside of the homelands. These boards fell under the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. 151 In 1973, Soweto was removed from the control of the Johannesburg City Council and placed under the authority of the WRAB. This had a profound effect on the ...
Public order policing 163 The SAP Riot Unit was set up at the beginning of 1975, some eighteen months before the Soweto uprising. From its inception there was a strong connection between riot control and counter-insurgency. The Riot Unit was initially based in several centres around the country ...
... greater amount of violence”. 99 The security police, severely criticised for their poor intelligence and thus lack of forewarning regarding the Soweto uprising, also underwent a process of expansion and reorganisation. The Security Branch continued to play a role in South West Africa, despite ...
State and allied groupings The Soweto uprising 119 In 1975, a directive was issued by the Bantu Education Department to schools in the Transvaal that Afrikaans was to be used on an equal basis with English as a medium of instruction in secondary schools. In February 1976, two members of the ...
... review, Ms Winnie Nomzamo Mandela, who had been restricted under various banning orders since 1961, was restricted to her home township of Orlando, Soweto. In May 1977, a new order was served on her during a dawn raid, banishing her to the Orange Free State town of Brandfort. She was taken there ...
134 The death of Dr Edelstein, a WRAB official, was one of the most ironic events of the 16 June uprising. Dr Edelstein was deeply involved in the Soweto community and had recently published research on Soweto and other townships in which he warned the government that unless the political and ...
... status during the 1970s. 118 In view of the political conflict and violence which swept the country during the two decades following the Soweto uprising, the relatively small number of submissions received for this period did not adequately convey the unprecedented significance of the ...
also protested during incidents of social and political unrest, most notably after the Sharpville massacre (1960), the Durban strikes (1973) and the Soweto uprising (1976). 88 But, as the submission from SAB points out, the responses of business were not without their contradictions: Although ...
... Soweto in the early stages of student resistance. Dr Melville Leonard Edelstein [JB00786/01GTSOW], who was killed by student protesters during the Soweto uprising, was the Chief Welfare Officer with the West Rand Bantu Administration Board (WRBAB). The WRBAB, its staff and its property were ...
... in 1960. Mr Phineas Shirinda [JB06393/02NPPTB], Mr James Mogadi Penya [JB00196/01GTSOW] and Mr Mandla Khoza [KZN/SANG/013/DN] went missing from Soweto and Alexandra on 16 and 17 June 1976, while several other persons were reported missing in the ensuing months of the Soweto uprising. Mr ...
state were the daily realities of children in exile in frontline states, including Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.16 81 One of the leaders of the Soweto uprising of June 16, Tsietsi Mashinini survived no less than three kidnap attempts whilst living in Gaberone in Botswana until it was felt ...
... were reported by several witnesses. The Commission also heard of the death of activist Peter Nchabaleng and the disappearance of Stanza Bopape. d Soweto (22-26 July 1996). The first two days of this hearing focused on the events of the 1976 student uprising. Many activists and observers of that ...
... and brought about an age divide that was to have far-reaching consequences for traditional relationships between old and young. 58 The 1976 Soweto uprising produced a wave of popular protest in the province and generated the beginnings of youth and student polarisation. Student ...
■ 1976–1982 Historical overview 39 The 1976 Soweto uprising triggered a surge of student protests in centres around the Orange Free State, bringing young people into the frontline of anti-apartheid protest. A number of influential student organisations were formed during this period. 1978 ...
... to operate uncontested on any scale within the space provided by the homeland policy and the state’s repression of all other opposition. 5 The Soweto uprisings are described in the chapter on the Transvaal in this volume. ...
... reflected in their tendency to use maximum force. Minister of Police Jimmy Kruger reported at the cabinet meeting of 10 August 1976 that unrest in Soweto continued and that the children were “well-trained”.The Minister proposed that: “This movement must be broken, and the police should ...
... by the backlash from the former state which used its oppressive armoury against the young. 22 In June 1976, the student revolt that began in Soweto transformed the political climate. One hundred and four children under the age of sixteen were killed in the uprising and resistance spread to ...
... to mask the consequences of unrestrained torture. The death in police custody of Mamelodi activist Stanza Bopape on the tenth anniversary of the Soweto uprising led to a high-level cover-up involving the commissioner of police and a range of other senior police officers. 248 During this ...
... coinciding with the declaration of a national state of emergency, street battles between police and township residents, massacres in Mamelodi and Soweto and mass detentions across the region. Numbers fell dramatically in 1987, when the former state used legislative means provided by the ...
... (COSAW), an organisation of exiled conscientious objectors, formed in the aftermath of South Africa’s invasion of Angola in 1975 and the Soweto uprising the following year. Its aim was to raise international awareness about the role of the SADF and to provide support to objectors in ...
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