ANC Statements

The 7th September 1992 will go down as one of the bloodiest days in the history of the liberation struggle. On this day, with mortars, cannons and machine guns the heavily armed forces of the Ciskei Defence Force (CDF) led by Oupa Joshua Gqozo, an apartheid-sponsored Bantustan leader killed unarmed and peaceful marchers led by the ANC.

The march was a people’s demand for the incorporation of the apartheid Ciskei into South Africa, an end to Bantustans, apartheid institutions, and violence that gripped our communities. It was a demand for an interim government as a catalyst towards a non-racial, non-sexist, united, democratic South Africa.

1992 is one of the distinct periods in our history, marking the final days of apartheid and its institutions, leading to its demise on the 27th April 1994. And one of the last attempts and concerted plans to defend and prop apartheid by forces opposed to democracy.

This march was a culmination of the collapse of negotiations after the ANC withdrew from talks for a democratic South Africa after the bloody massacre of Boipatong of the 17th June 1992 and the internecine violence that gripped the country at the time. These acts were not an accident of history but a planned and coordinated fightback against progressive forces and attempts to collapse negotiations.

Led by Cyril Ramaphosa, Steve Tshwete, Chris Hani and many leaders of the ANC, the country teetered on a brink, with FW de Klerk, the President of the country by then and right-wing elements viciously opposed to a democratic South Africa.

Any assertion that the National Party was committed to negotiations and as a gesture of magnanimity released political leaders and unbanned political organisations is a falsehood that must be out-rightly rejected. Our freedom was not donated but attained at a huge cost where our paid the ultimate price.

In commemorating this day, and the monumental feat of freedom, the ANC joins millions of South Africans in remembrance, paying tribute to those who were cold-bloodedly butchered by the callous Joshua Gqozo and his security forces abetted by the apartheid South Africa.

Our struggle led by the people to free the oppressed from the chains of secondary citizenship and statelessness. To those who still yearn for apartheid South Africa in a state of nostalgia, let us be reminded of a brutal system that relegated our people to the margins and the indignity of oppression.

Lest we forget