“People were running in all directions, some couldn’t believe that people had been shot, they thought they had heard firecrackers. Only when they saw the blood and dead people did they see that the police meant business.”
These words, written by Petrus Tom in his book My Life Struggle, are part of his eyewitness account of what would become known as the Sharpeville Massacre.
It was in Sharpeville, a township sandwiched between the industrial cities of Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark south of Johannesburg, that residents began to gather in the early morning of 21 March 1960 in protest against having to carry pass books.
The pass book, known as the dompas, was an apartheid design – an identity document black people over the age of 16 had to carry at all times which limited their movement and places of work.
More than 4 000 protestors, which included women and children, led by the Pan Africanist Congress, gathered in a field near the local police station, singing and chanting.
Then, at 1H40 in the afternoon, the police unexpectedly opened fire on the peaceful crowd; most were shot in the back as they fled. Eyewitness accounts echo those of Tom, that no warning was issued.
More than 1 000 rounds were fired that afternoon by the police.
For years, the official death toll was put at 69, with 180 people injured. New data by Nancy L Clark of Louisiana State University and William H Worger of the University of California, Los Angeles, in their publication Voices of Sharpeville: The Long History of Racial Injustice, now puts that figure at 91 dead and 281 injured.
A turning point
21 March 1960 was a watershed moment in South Africa’s history: it exposed the apartheid government’s violation of human rights to the world; ignited an international outrage that saw the birth of the anti-apartheid movement; led to ongoing protests inside the country; and precipitated the decision of the liberation movements to take up arms.
The next 30 years saw countless lives lost or destroyed in the struggle for liberation.
After South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, 21 March was declared Human Rights Day to remember and honour those who paid the ultimate price for South Africa’s freedom.
Human Rights Day is more than just a public holiday. It commemorates the most important pillars of our democracy – our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
A pillar of democracy
South Africa’s Constitution is seen as one of the most progressive in the world – a document that gives voice to everyone in the country, including those who were excluded under apartheid.
As voiced in the National Development Plan, Vision 2030: “The Constitution enshrines a rights-based approach and envisions a prosperous, non-racial, non-sexist democracy that belongs to all its people.
“Healing the wounds of the past and redressing the inequities caused by centuries of racial exclusion are constitutional imperatives.”
Rights include:
- The right to life.
- The right to equality, where everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law.
- The right to dignity.
- Freedom of movement and residence.
- The right to use the language of their choice and to participate in the cultural life they choose.
Fittingly, it was South Africa’s first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela, who signed the Constitution into law in Sharpeville on 10 December 1996 – International Human Rights Day.
He also opened the Sharpeville Human Rights Precinct on 21 March 2002.
A call for social justice
This year, the theme for Human Rights Month is “Deepening a culture of social justice and human rights”, with all South Africans urged to foster social cohesion.
It is the preamble to the Constitution that provides the answer of how to do just that.
“We, the people of South Africa, recognise the injustices of our past; honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land; respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
“We, therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to:
- Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice, and fundamental human rights;
- Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
- Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
- Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.
“May God protect our people.”
