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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. [Volume 39, Issue 8. April 1976]
The Pan-Africanist Congress:
The Pan-Africanist Congress:
It has been mentioned earlier that the ANC was [unclear: essenially] a reformist, elite-led organisation working for the social, political and economic betterment of Blacks within a legal non-violent framework.
The growing restlessness of the Black youth "at lack of action led to the establishment in 1944 of the Youth League which worked within the ANC but demanded positive measures to publicise African opposition to [unclear: terimination]."2.
The Youth League was therefore a pressure group within the ANC but had its own basic policy, namely the overthrow of foreign domination and foreign leadership and implementing the fundamental right of the lack people to self determination.
One writer 3 observes: "Quite early in its history the League had committed itself to the policy of going on the offensive in its bid to alter the pace of movement [unclear: oward] freedom.
In pursuing this line, it had administered a fatal blow [unclear: of] the Native Representative Council. It broke Champion's [unclear: ship] on the ANC in Natal and threw Dr Xuma out of office by paying the way for Albert Luthuli, whom the [unclear: atal] Leaguers were steadily pushing to the fore as expressing the mood of the ANC. And when the League felt it had cleaned the Congress house sufficiently, it learned to direct action against oppression."
The militancy urged by the ANC Youth League was [unclear: manally] adopted in 1949 as the programme of the Congress [unclear: as] a whole.
The Programme of action proposed by the Youth league aimed at the attainment of National Freedom, which was defined as: "freedom from White domination [unclear: id] the attainment of political independence. This [unclear: oplies] the rejection of the concept of segregation, [unclear: partheid], trusteeship, or White leadership, which are all one way or another, motivated by the idea of White domination or the domination of White over Black".
The extent to which the ANC was rejuvenated by the Youth League can be seen in the 1952 Defiance campaign Against Unjust Laws, a campaign of passive [unclear: sistance] on the lines of Mahatma Gandi's philisophy of On-violence. Thousands of people participated in the campaign which resulted in mass arrests, the unbridled [unclear: avagery] of police brutality and eventually the enactment of more repressive legislation like the 1953 Criminal [unclear: aws] Amendment Act.
Among the members of the Youth League there was tremendous resentment of the dominant role being thought to be played in the ANC by the White members of the Communist Party. The members of the Communist Party were also members of the various [unclear: Confesses].
After the outlawing of the CP by the newly-elected Nationalist Party government in 1950, its members began to play an increasingly active role in the ANC - fact which led many of the militants to charge that he ANC was being used as a front by the CP members.
Following the Passive Resistance campaign and the Congress of the People" Campaign in 1955-56 the Africanists within the ANC left the ANC on 2nd November 1958 and formally formed the Pan-Africanist Congress on 6 April, 1959. A substantial amount of literature has been written about the split which led to the formation of the PAC - some of it hostile, some of it sympathetic - but that is outside the purview of this article.
The PAC took the first step in March 1960 in its non-violent national campaign against the carrying of passes. All over South Africa thousands of unarmed Blacks gathered around police stations, destroyed their passes and invited police to arrest them.
Thousands were peacefully arrested but in two places, Langa and Sharpevill, panicky police opened fire on the peaceful crowds. The horror of apartheid became known throughout the world with the Sharpeville massacre in which 69 people were killed and 183 wounded. The Government declared a state of emergency and outlawed the ANC and PAC under the Unlawful Organisations Act and jailed many of the leaders of both organisations.
| (1) | Spear of the Nation, founded by Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders, intended to disrupt communications and destroy government offices holding that public order would gradually collapse, guerilla warfare would begin and white supremacy would be overthrown. |
| (2) |
POQO, founded by members of the PAC after the outlawing of the Party, as the military wing. POQO militants armed with pangas, axes, home-made bombs and a few stolen guns and pistols engaged in several dashes with the police and with pro-apartheid government chiefs and supporters. The most serious clash was the Paarl uprising which resulted in a fierce attack on the police station probably in an attempt to capture arms. In the struggle which ensued two whites were killed and several police wounded. This alarmed the Government and its supporters; a one-man Commission of Enquiry into the spate of armed uprisings was instituted. On 4 February 1963 at Bashee Bridge in the Transkei five whites were reported killed with home-made bombs, causing alarm among whites in the country. The government denied that the killings were politically motivated but newspapers soon contradicted official reports by revealing that POQO was responsible. This period was characterised by great uncertainty. There were a number of uprisings and press-suppressed clashes between POQO forces and white police Black informers and spies were killed. |
| (3) | The African Resistance Movement, a multi-racial body of young students became active in 1963 with acts of violence in the hope of frightening the Government into making concessions. |
After three years of sabotage, killing and attacks the Government banned these three movements under the General Laws Amendment Act of 1962-63. By mid 1963 only scattered remnants of POQO remained and in July of that year the Security Police uncovered the headquarters of the Spear of the Nation. Subsequently Mandela, Sisulu and Lsovan Mbeki, among others were imprisoned for life and Robert Sobukwe was detained on Robben Island. After Robert Sobukwe had completed his three year sentence for incitment a special act of Parliament - known as the Sobukwe Clause - was passed enabling parliament to detain him for one year periods. He spent an additional six years on Robben Island and when he was eventually released in 1970 he was immediately banned and placed under house arrest under the "Suppression of Communism Act. He is presently confined to the magisterial district of Kimberley and last year he was banned for a further five years.