ANC Supports Joint Call for June 16 Stay Away
On 3 June 1986, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC) grouped to issue a call for a “One Day Work Stay-Away” on June 16. The call was issued to all South Africans, Black and White, in commemoration of the Youth of 1976, who were killed in the streets of Soweto while protesting against the Bantu Education system. The aim was to ensure that June 16 be regarded as a public holiday throughout the country with commemorative mass rallies and activities organised for that day.
From exile, the African National Congress (ANC) supported the 16 June 1986 “One Day Work Stay-Away” by broadcasting directives on Radio Freedom, coordinating international diplomatic sanctions, and deploying Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) to engage in an armed offensive as part of the entire defiance effort. Because the ANC was banned inside South Africa at the time, its leadership in Lusaka, Zambia, acted as the external wing that amplified and militarised the domestic call made by COSATU, the UDF and the NECC.
This historic joint declaration carried significant political weight as the mass stay-away was called to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising, during which apartheid police killed hundreds of students protesting against the forced use of Afrikaans in the Bantu Education system. The organisations demanded that 16 June be recogn
