Pretoria, South Africa (PANA) – Millions of South Africans came together on Friday to mark the March 21, 1960, Sharpeville massacre, one the darkest days in the country’s history.
On that fateful day, police opened fire and killed 69 people and wounded 180 others.
The unarmed demonstrators were protesting against unfair laws and were demanding basic human rights.
The tragedy, which reverberated around the world, laid bare not only the cruel and barbaric aspect of apartheid, but also the clear, systematic, and consistent violation of the human rights of black people in general, and the African people in particular.
President Jacob Zuma, who addressed a rally in Sharpeville on Friday, urged South Africans to also recall thousands of others who died in many other massacres and assassinations engineered by the apartheid regime during the period of apartheid colonialism.
“When freedom dawned in 1994, thanks to the relentless struggles of the people, human rights became the anchor of the democratic state.”
”The human rights ethos is entrenched in the Constitution of the Republic and has been a defining feature of our democratic state since the dawn of democracy under the leadership of our founding president, Nelson Mandela,” he said.
President Zuma added: “As we mark 20 years of freedom and democracy this year, it is an opportunity to celebrate all the achievements that South Africans have scored in all walks of life, working together. We now live in a thriving constitutional democracy with equal citizenship for all and a respect for human rights and dignity.
”We will never forget the fact that our compatriots were brutally killed for demanding the right to equal citizenship and not to be subjected to pass laws.”
Photo: Ian Berry
