Strengthening Apartheid: Part I

STRENGTHENING APARTHEID:

Verwoerd’s government had 3 clear priorities or principles:

• Apartheid was God’s divine policy

• That all communities had a right to existence

• That this existence should be based on distinct and separate ‘self-determination’ i.e. creation of new state

‘Authoritarianism at home, isolationism abroad’

These new states were the Bantustans of the 1958 Bantu Self-Government Act. It was the South African equivalent of de-colonisation. African ‘homelands’ would be fully independent, self-governing and self-financing

TRANSKEI EXPERIMENT:

• Transkei created in 1963 and fully independent by 1976

• Territorial Assembly was the legislative body (110 members, 65 appointed by Chiefs and 45 elected)

• Kaiser Mathanzima declared a state of emergency through proclamation R400

• Poqo assassinated Chief Mabuza

• Seen by ANC and PAC as a barrier to ending apartheid and bank of cheap labour to be exploited without any real recompense

TOWARDS GREATER…