All blacks were required to carry ``pass books ' ' containing fingerprints, photo and information on access to non-black areas. As well as the introduction of the race convention, Sharpeville also spurred other moves at the UN that changed the way it could act against countries that breached an individuals human rights. But attempts to transform this non-binding moral declaration into a binding legal code were immediately bogged down in Cold War disputes. All the evidence points to the gathering being peaceful and good-humoured. This year, UN and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) joined South Africans in commemorating the 61st anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre, using the flagship campaign #FightRacism to promote awareness of these critical issues. The events also prompted theInternational Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discriminationwhich took effect on 4 January 1969. The Minister of Justice called for calm and the Minister of Finance encouraged immigration. The Sharpeville Massacre awakened the international community to the horrors of apartheid. In 1960, states had no binding international human rights obligations and there were no oversight mechanisms. Black citizens began to resist this prejudice though and also used violence against the enforcers of Apartheid. As part of its response, the General Assembly tasked the UN Commission on Human Rights to prepare the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the first global human rights treaty. It is likely that the police were quick to fire as two months before the massacre, nine constables had been assaulted and killed, some disembowelled, during a raid at Cato Manor. Sharpeville massacre, (March 21, 1960), incident in the Black township of Sharpeville, near Vereeniging, South Africa, in which police fired on a crowd of Black people, killing or wounding some 250 of them. The policemen were apparently jittery after a recent event in Durban where nine policemen were shot. [16], The Sharpeville massacre contributed to the banning of the PAC and ANC as illegal organisations. Selinah Mnguniwas 23 years old and already three months pregnant when she was injured in the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960. Without the Sharpeville massacre, we may not have the international human rights law system we have today. As the protesters tried to flee the violent scene, police continued to shoot into the crowd. Some of them had been on duty for over twenty-four hours without respite. It was adopted on 21 December 1965. International sympathy lay with the African people, leading to an economic slump as international investors withdrew from South Africa and share prices on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange plummeted. Lined up outside was a large contingent of armed police with some atop armoured cars. Early on the 21st the local PAC leaders first gathered in a field not far from the Sharpeville police station, when a sizable crowd of people had joined them they proceeded to the police station - chanting freedom songs and calling out the campaign slogans "Izwe lethu" (Our land); "Awaphele amapasti" (Down with passes); "Sobukwe Sikhokhele" (Lead us Sobukwe); "Forward to Independence,Tomorrow the United States of Africa.". On the 21st of March 1960, black residents of Sharpeville took to the police station to protest against the use of the dompas in South Africa. Only the four Native Representatives and members of the new Progressive Party voted against the Bill. 1960 police killing of protesters in Transvaal (now Gauteng), South Africa. Reddy. The police and army arrested thousands of Africans, who were imprisoned with their leaders, but still the mass action raged. Its been 60 years since the Sharpeville massacre, when 69 unarmed civilians were killed by armed South African police on March 21 1960. Sharpeville Massacre Newzroom Afrika 229K subscribers Subscribe 178 Share 19K views 2 years ago As South Africa commemorates Human Rights Day, victims and families of those who died at the. The people of South Africa struggle day by day to reverse the most cruel, yet well-crafted, horrific tactic of social engineering. The concept behind apartheid emerged in 1948 when the nationalist party took over government, and the all-white government enforced racial segregation under a system of legislation . Eyewitness accounts and evidence later led to an official inquiry which attested to the fact that large number of people were shot in the back as they were fleeing the scene. By the end of the day, 69 people lay dead or dying, with hundreds more injured. Some were shot in the back as they fled.[1]. On 20 March Nana Mahomo and Peter Molotsi has crossed the border into Bechuanaland to mobilize support for the PAC. March 16 saw a demonstration in Montgomery, Alabama in which 580 demonstrators planned to march from the Jackson Street Baptist Church to the Montgomery County Courthouse (Reed 26). T he Sharpeville massacre, the name given to the murder of 69 unarmed civilians by armed South African police, took place on 21 March 1960. In the following days 77 Africans, many of whom were still in hospital, were arrested for questioning . One of the insights was that international law does not change, unless there is some trigger for countries to change their behaviour. In Pretoria a small group of six people presented themselves at the Hercules police station. Amid confusion, two shots were fired into the air by somebody in the crowd. There was no evidence that anyone in the gathering was armed with anything other than stones. However, the police simply took down the protesters names and did not arrest anyone. [3], South African governments since the eighteenth century had enacted measures to restrict the flow of African South Africans into cities. (2000) Focus: 'Lest We Forget', Sunday World, 19 March. Some of them remain in prison", "Sharpeville Memorial, Theunis Kruger Street, Dicksonville, Sharpville ABLEWiki", Calls for inquiry into Israels Gaza killings, Storming of the Kempton Park World Trade Centre, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sharpeville_massacre&oldid=1140778365, Killings by law enforcement officers in South Africa, Short description is different from Wikidata, Use South African English from April 2016, All Wikipedia articles written in South African English, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 19:08. The Black resistance began to gain more momentum and increasingly became more threatening. Nelson Mandela was a member of the banned African National Congress and led an underground armed movement that opposed the apartheid by attacking government buildings in South Africa during the early 1960s. International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Committee Member - MNF Research Advisory Committee, PhD Scholarship - Uncle Isaac Brown Indigenous Scholarship. It's been 60 years since the Sharpeville massacre, when 69 unarmed civilians were killed by armed South African police on March 21 1960. After demonstrating against pass laws, a crowd of about 7,000 protesters went to the police station. The protesters offered themselves up for arrest for not carrying their passes. In the late 1980s, one of the most popular anti-apartheid movements that contributed to the end of the apartheid was the Free Mandela campaign. He became South Africa's . [13], A storm of international protest followed the Sharpeville shootings, including sympathetic demonstrations in many countries[14][15] and condemnation by the United Nations. The march leaders were detained, but released on the same day with threats from the commanding officer of Caledon Square, Terry Tereblanche, that once the tense political situation improved people would be forced to carry passes again in Cape Town. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Its been 60 years since dozens of protesters were killed at a peaceful anti-apartheid rally in South Africa. Sobukwe was only released in 1969. When it seemed the whole group would cross, police took action, with mounted officers and volunteers arriving at 1:12 pm. Perseverance and determination are also needed to build on the lessons learnedfrom the Sharpeville tragedy and repair the injustices of the past. On March 21, an estimated 7,000 South Africans gathered in front of the Sharpeville police station to protest against the restrictive pass laws. But change can also be prompted by seemingly minor events in global affairs, such as the Sharpeville massacre the so-called butterfly effect. Other evidence given to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission "the evidence of Commission deponents reveals a degree of deliberation in the decision to open fire at Sharpeville and indicates that the shooting was more than the result of inexperienced and frightened police officers losing their nerve. The people were throwing their hats to the aeroplanes. The Sharpeville Massacre is commemorated through Human Rights Day, a public holiday in South Africa, which honours those whose lives were sacrificed in the fight for democracy. This riot was planned to be a peaceful riot for a strike on an 8-hour day, ended up turning into a battle between protesters and the police. In order to reduce the possibility of violence, he wrote a letter to the Sharpeville police commissioner announcing the upcoming protest and emphasizing that its participants would be non-violent. This was in direct defiance of the government's country-wide ban on public meetings and gatherings of more than ten persons. In the aftermath of the events of 21 March, mass funerals were held for the victims. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone. The Sharpeville massacre was reported worldwide, and received with horror from every quarter. The ANC and PAC were forced underground, and both parties launched military wings of their organisations in 1961. By 9 April the death toll had risen to 83 non-White civilians and three non-White police officers. A new, third level of content, designed specially to meet the advanced needs of the sophisticated scholar. In March 1960, South African police shot dead 69 black protestors, sparking worldwide outrage . Philip H. Frankel, An Ordinary Atrocity: Sharpeville and its Massacre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); Henry F. Jackson, From the Congo to Soweto: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Africa Since 1960 (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1982); Meredith Martin, The History of Apartheid: The Story of the Colour War in South Africa (New York: London House & Maxwell, 1962). Although blood was not shed on Krogs hands directly, she took on the shame of her race. This set the UN on the path towards the recognition of all human rights for all, and, eventually, the establishment of the Human Rights Council, and the Universal Periodic Review of the human rights performance of all states. The argument against apartheid was now framed as a specific manifestation of a wider battle for human rights, and it was the only political system mentioned in the convention: Nazism and antisemitism were not included. A few days later, on 30 March 1960, Kgosana led a PAC march of between 30 000-50 000 protestors from Langa and Nyanga to the police headquarters in Caledon Square. Steven Wheatley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. It was one of the first and most violent demonstrations against apartheid in South Africa. The Department of Home Affairs (a government bureau) was responsible for the classification of the citizenry. . Early on that March morning, demonstrations against the pass laws, which restricted the rights of apartheid South Africas majority black population, had begun in Sharpeville, a township in Transvaal.