Nelson Mandela on the Sharpeville Massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred 66 years ago, on 21 March 1960, outside the police station in the Vaal township of Sharpeville, in the then Transvaal. After a day of demonstrations against the pass laws, a crowd of about 7,000 protesters went to the police station. The apartheid police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69 people and injuring 180 others, including 19 children. Various sources maintain that the shooting started when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station. Many were shot in the back as they fled the scene.
Nelson Mandela provided an appropriate version of the events following the Sharpeville Massacre in his autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom”. According to Mandela, “The shooting at Sharpeville provoked national turmoil and a government crisis. Outraged protests came in from across the globe, including one of the American State Department. For the first time, the UN (United Nations) Security Council intervened in South African affairs, blaming the government for the shootings and urging it to initiate measures to bring about racial equality. The Johannesburg stock exchange plunged, and capital started to flow out of the country. South African whites began making plans to emigrate. Liberals urged Verwoerd to offer concessions to Africans. The government insisted that Sharpeville was the result of a communist conspiracy.”
“The massacre at Sharpeville”, Mandela contin
