The Sharpeville Massacre is dated on March 21, 1960. The setting of the massacre was the Sharpeville police station.By 10 o' clock in the morning time, there had been a crowd of blacks gathered, where at least 7,000 people had showed up. The blacks were protesting peacefully and very festively. None of these blacks were carrying their pass books, so they were basically giving theirselves up to the police. At around 1 o' clock in the afternoon, the police had tried to arrest an alleged ringleader. There was a small altercation between some of the protesters and a few policemen. The police were armed with many different firearms, some being as big as sub-machine guns. There were jets and air crafts flying over the crowd in attempts to disperse it but that didn't work. The jets and air crafts were hovering less than a hundred feet over the crowd.
On this day, people were protesting against laws, when police began to fire at them. Over 69 people were killed and, as many as 180 injured. Of the 69 killed there were at least 8 women and 10 children. Of the 180 injured there were at least 31 women and 19 children. People were shot in the back as they turned to run away from the firing.
The police claimed that they opened fire on these innocent people because they panicked and didn’t know what else to do. The police also claimed that they had no training in “mob disturbances”.
Lieutenant Colonel Pienaar, which was the commanding officer at the time, stated that the native mentality doesn't allow them to gather for a peaceful demonstration. For the natives to get together means violence. Pienaar also did not admit to giving any order to fire and said that he would not have given that order under any circumstances.
Following the massacre, there were marches, strikes, and riots all around the country. The communities all around were coming together in a huge uproar. There was a lot of protesting. There was also many sympathetic demonstrations in all of the other countries who has heard of the massacre. The Sharpsville a Massacre had become an international crisis just like many others. Some sources say that the crowd was a peaceful crowd, while others say the crowd was violence ridden.
This event was a major point in history for apartheid. The massacre showed just how cruel the authorities were to the people. It also shows the problems the people faced when just trying to fight for their innocent rights. Personally, I think this was a tragic event. Why would the policy have the audacity to fire at people who were peacefully protesting their rights? That is a question that shall remain unknown. I pray nothing will ever happen like this in my years, I would never want to experience such great tragedy. As I kept reading the many different articles and documents on google, I couldn't even conjure up a reason of why this massacre occurred. What was the real reason? I don't recommend this topic to anyone. The topic was very saddening, and I'll never choose something so horrific as a topic again.
Bibliography:
Boddy-Evans, Alistair. "Sharpeville Massacre, The Origin of South Africa's Human Rights Day". about.com. Retrieved 15 December 2006.
This is a very interesting topic. I think that its a topic that is some what pushed under the rug. Police are still murdering innocent people. Although it's on a much smaller scale its still happening. I think that much more attention should be directed towards cases like this. Stuff like this really does matter. I dont think that its okay for Police Officers to just get away with some of the things that they do. This isnt just speeding, its murder. Murder by the hand of a police officer should be taken even more seriously.
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