PAC marks massacre

TOMORROW marks the 57th year since the barbaric murder of more than 70 men, women and children during a campaign led by the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania.

The Langa/Sharpeville Massacre was one of the most horrendous responses of the apartheid regime to the demands of the Africans for the right for self-determination in the land of their ancestors. The events of the day sent shockwaves across the world, earning it international recognition as Sharpeville Day and the UN General Assembly declaring it as the International Day For The Elimination Of Racial Discrimination.

The Sharpeville Uprising drew comments from the likes of Franz Fanon, author of Wretched of the Earth, when he said “The Pan Africanist Congress and the urban proletariat actively intervened in their affairs and ushered in a new period…

“Sharpeville has become a symbol (of the African liberation struggle). Through it,the world became acquainted with the problem of SA.”

To the PAC, the commemoration is a day of mourning, remembering and honouring their martyrs. PAC president Luthando Mbinda, the main speaker at the Commemoration Rally to take place at Sobukwe Square, kwaLanga, tomorrow, reflecting on that day stated that “it is with pain and sorrow to note that 57 years after the African martyrs laid their lives down for freedom, it seems their deaths were in vain as freedom seems to have eluded the African people who are seen, year-in, year-out, celebrating the dispossession of their land in the name of constitutional democracy. The PAC is still true to the fight started by the martyrs of 1960”.

The PAC invites all residents of Cape Town to this remembrance at Sobukwe Square, kwaLanga, tomorrow at 9am. The main speakers are PAC president Luthando Mbinda and Phillip Kgosana, leader of the 1960 March from kwaLanga to Cape Town.