PW Botha Declares a State of Emergency – 20 July 1985
Exactly forty years ago, on 20 July 1985, at a press conference in Pretoria, apartheid President P.W. Botha claimed that “violence and lawlessness” in the townships had “increased and become more severe and more cruel”. According to Botha, such actions had taken the form of “incitement, intimidation, arson, inhuman forms of assault and even murder” and could “no longer be tolerated”. As a result, he then resolved to impose a state of emergency that was to be applied in thirty-six districts nationwide, primarily in the East Rand and the Eastern Cape.
Indeed, during that period the township rebellion had brought government structures in black townships around the country to the point of collapse. On 19 July 1985, writing in the “Christian Science Monitor”, Patrick Laurence reported that the Centre for Applied Social Sciences in Durban estimated that by the end of June 1985, at least 240 local government councillors in South Africa’s black areas had resigned. Consequently, fewer than six black councils were operative in the entire country. According to Laurence, the resignations were the consequence of a sustained campaign of violence from militants against councillors.
Following the increased efforts by the apartheid government to retain control of South Africa’s political, economic and social spheres, resistance against the state came in different forms. Within the country, resistance came
