This year marks 30 years since violent protests that rendered Mmabatho and Mahikeng uncontrollable. This is as civil servants, students, and communities were demonstrating their unhappiness, after the leader of the erstwhile Bophuthatswana homeland, Kgosi Lucas Mangope, announced that the homeland will not take part in the first democratic elections in 1994.
Following the announcement, violent protests erupted, some people got killed in confrontations with the Afrikaans Weerstands Beweging, AWB, while others got injured.
An event to commemorate 30 years since those events took place, was held in Mahikeng on Sunday.
Three of the AWB militants were also shot and killed. And their pictures lying dead next to their vehicle is still vivid in the minds of many. Nico Tlhabanyane who organised the commemoration recalls what happened then.
“We rejected homeland system. We said no, we are going to the elections whether Bop leaders want or not. We agreed as workers in Bophuthatswana to form what we called crisis committee which included all the departments including the security forces.”
Thato Magogodi, a student’s activist then, says they were fighting for better education.
“The Apartheid system and Bantustan education system that time by OTS nature and content was training us to be passive participants in the economy. The difference now is that the education system is of course intended to train us and prepare young people as participants in the commanding heights of South African economy.”
Reverend Tebogo Mpa who was a member of the crisis committee representing protesters says they don’t regret ever taking action in those protests.
“Today we are commemorating only 30 years of what happened in this area. So, if you look at how we have been oppressed as a country and as a nation and you look at what is happening now, you will begin to understand that policies and systems are being put in place so that we must be able to correctly answer that question that you are posing.”
But Kgosietsile Moatlhodi and Sam Roberts, who were shot and injured during the protests say the government of the African National Congress (ANC) has failed them.
“30 years on the wheelchair living with a bullet in my body, no operation has been done for me,” says Moatlhodi.
“We are suffering, Kgosietsile must not have that pain for 30 years. I should not have pain in my head. They even call me a drunkard…and made us suffer,” says Roberts.
ANC veteran, Mac Maharaj acknowledges these concerns.
“Those of us who are elected to serve must become connected to the people on the ground. We have become a bit detached from that and that is how there is the pain in many parts of our country. In the case of the people of Bop, those who died, their relatives still destitute, those who were injured remain, some have been cared for, some not, inadequacies…We must look at our mistakes and correct them.”
Maharaj also say the ANC must fight corruption within its ranks.
Video: Former Bophuthatswana employees commemorate 1994 Bophuthatswana uprising
