Lucas Mangope: The Deluded Dictator
On 10 March 1994, President Lucas Mangope, the leader of the Bophuthatswana, apartheid Bantustan, retreated from the capital, Mmabatho, to his hometown of Motswedi, located outside Zeerust, in the face of a popular uprising after he had tried to boycott participation in South Africa’s first democratic elections. Mangope rejected the South African Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) pleas for free political activity in Bophuthatswana, as a member of the anti-election Freedom Alliance. His stance caused widespread demonstrations in which 40 people were shot and wounded by local Bophuthatswana police. A public servants’ strike was also called in the entire Bantustan.
In Mabopane and Ga-Rankuwa, large banners of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress (ANC) were waved over the crowds. Masses of people were pouring in from different directions, each group with its own flags and placards, most of them written: “Away with Bantustans!”, “Away with Mangope!” and “Forward to a democratic South Africa!” Marshals also formed human chains, with police, marching alongside the crowd as escorts. Crowds raised their clenched fists and responded to shouts of “Viva ANC!”, while police took off their uniforms and joined the marchers.
Reacting to these insurrectionary developments, Mangope dismissed the staff of the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation, shutting down three radio and two t
