| 1967 | The Terrorism Act is passed, in terms of which police are empowered to detain in solitary confinement for indefinite periods with no access to visitors. The public is not entitled to information relating to the identity and number of people detained. The Act is allegedly passed to deal with SWA/Namibian opposition and NP politicians assure Parliament it is not intended for local use. Besides being used to detain Toivo ya Toivo and other members of Ovambo People’s Organisation, the Act is used to detain South Africans. |
| SAP counter-insurgency training begins (followed by similar SADF training in the following year). |
| Compulsory military service for all white male youths is extended and all ex-servicemen become eligible for recall over a twenty-year period. |
| Formation of the PAC armed wing, the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army (APLA). |
| MK guerrillas conduct their first military actions with ZIPRA in north-western Rhodesia in campaigns known as Wankie and Sepolilo. In response, SAP units are deployed in Rhodesia. |
| 1968 | The Prohibition of Political Interference Act prohibits the formation and foreign financing of non-racial political parties. |
| The Bureau of State Security (BOSS) is formed. BOSS operates independently of the police and is accountable to the Prime Minister. |
| The PAC military wing attempts to reach South Africa through Botswana and Mozambique in what becomes known as the Villa Peri campaign. |
| 1969 | The ANC holds its first Consultative (Morogoro) Conference in Tanzania, and adopts the ‘Strategies and Tactics of the ANC’ programme, which includes its new approach to the ‘armed struggle’ and ‘political mobilisation’. |
| PAC President, Robert Sobukwe, is released after spending six years in detention (imposed after the expiry of his three-year prison sentence) and is placed under house arrest in Kimberley. |
| The South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) is formed by black students, led by Steve Biko, in a breakaway from the white-dominated National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). |
| Imam Abdullah Haron dies in detention on 27 September after 122 days. |
| 1970 | The Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act effectively strips all black South Africans of their citizenship by making them automatic citizens of one of the ten ‘homelands’. |
| 1971 | The International Court of Justice revokes South Africa’s mandate in Namibia. |
| Ahmed Timol dies in detention on 27 October, allegedly by jumping from the tenth floor of John Vorster Square police building. |
| The World Council of Churches allocates R91 000 of its annual R140 000 fund against racism to liberation movements in Southern Africa – including SWAPO, the ANC, and anti-apartheid groups. |
