By Norm Dixon
PRETORIA, March 12 — "Bop breaks down — Judgment Day", "There is no government in Bop", "Mangope, beware the ides of March!". These were just some of the homemade signs carried by 20,000 angry Bophuthatswana residents and striking workers who converged on the Union Buildings here on Thursday to demand that the Transitional Executive Council intervene in the discredited apartheid-created "homeland".
The defiant mood of the demonstrators left little doubt that Bop dictator Lucas Mangope would not last long. Six hours later, soon after many of the protesters arrived back in Bophuthatswana's capital, Mmabatho, a popular uprising was under way.
Masses of young people waving African National Congress, Pan Africanist Congress and Communist Party banners and flags barricaded the streets with burning tyres and cars. Shopping centres and other businesses in which Mangope and his henchmen have an interest, or in which people believe they do, have been looted, some being torched.
The Bophuthatswana police and defence force have at times stood by and let the looting continue, and at others reacted by firing randomly at the crowds. They are split between those who have joined the struggle of the people and those who have not. What remains unclear is whether those who have not joined the people remain loyal to Mangope.
The jigsaw puzzle-like homeland, scattered in islands that form an arc from the south-west of Johannesburg to the north-east of Pretoria, has been racked by mounting civil service strikes and protests by university students.
The strikes began over demands that workers' pension fund money be returned. As the struggle intensified, strikers insisted that the government agree to participate in the April elections, allow free political activity within the homeland borders and accept reincorporation into South Africa prior to the elections. Mangope and his Christian Democratic Party are members of the right-wing Freedom Alliance and are bitterly opposed to the elections.
Bophuthatswana was given "independence" by the apartheid regime in 1977 as part of its denial of black South Africans' citizenship. The homelands policy was bitterly opposed by the liberation movement and rejected internationally. Only South Africa and Israel recognised Bophuthatswana.
In the early hours of March 6, three senior leaders of the African National Congress were arrested by Bop police. (The ANC is outlawed in the territory.) Virtually every public employee in the homeland had been on strike for almost three weeks, and day by day they were being joined by private sector workers.
The strikers met that same day and voted to impose a consumer boycott and begin a blockade of roads into the homeland. (Bop is the site of the infamous Sun City complex and six other major hotels.) They voted to march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria on March 10. Rumours were already rife that police and army were likely to join the strike.
On March 7, Mangope and his cabinet decided that Bop would not allow its citizens to participate in the elections. That same morning, several ANC offices were petrol bombed. Mangope called the Bop Defence Forces into the streets.
ANC leaders, speaking at a press conference in Johannesburg on March 7, said that the patience of the ANC and the people had been exhausted. Popo Molefe, head of the election commission, reported that the ANC over the last few weeks had "attempted to find a way for Mangope to gracefully bow out".
Essop Pahad said that various punitive measures should now be considered by the TEC to ensure free and fair elections were held in Bophuthatswana, including a blockade of the territory. All budget allocations to the homeland by the South African government should cease immediately.
Molefe added the ANC would now be "openly supporting the mass struggles taking place there. That is the only option we have got ... It is important to stop tyranny in Bophuthatswana now and reconstruct its economy in a democratic South Africa ... we are proceeding to coordinate systematically the struggles that are taking place inside Bop. We supporting fully the workers' struggles."
ANC president Nelson Mandela announced that the ANC would pressure the South African government to tighten the screws on the homeland. Speaking in the northern Transvaal, Mandela said that, while he preferred dialogue with Mangope, it now seemed it would be futile.
On March 8, the struggle intensified. Security forces fired tear gas at striking workers. University students entered the fray, setting up barricades of burning tyres. Police fired bird shot and tear gas. Workers at the Bop Broadcasting Corporation, singing freedom songs, occupied their studios, trapping BBC chairperson Eddie Mangope, the Bop president's son, as well as the homeland's minister for broadcasting. A concerted tear gas attack by police eventually freed the officials. Fifteen workers were detained.
"The civil service has come to a total collapse. We have everybody on strike. There is nothing actually going on. I mean everybody is on strike and it is only the police that are working", a young protester told reporters.
The ANC proposed in the TEC on March 8 that it take over control of the homeland's civil service and security forces. Mangope was given a week "to change his attitude" and allow free political activity. South African Communist Party chairperson Joe Slovo, who moved the motion, told the only dissenter, Ciskei bantustan representative Mickey Webb, that it was too late for "polite recommendations. This is their last chance. We are resolved to act. No pussy-footing."
In a meeting with the head of the Independent Electoral Commission on March 9, Mangope again refused to allow free political activity or to allow its residents to vote.
Meanwhile, the battles in the streets of Mmabatho and nearby Mafikeng intensified. Police attacked opponents with extreme violence. Thirty-five people were injured when police fired on people waiting for taxis outside the ANC office. Battles continued between police and students at the university. The University of Bop Senate voted to support the students and participation in the election.
March 10 was declared a complete stay-away as tens of thousands converged on Pretoria to demand Bophuthatswana's reincorporation into South Africa. Singing freedom songs, they gathered in downtown Pretoria for the march to the Union Buildings.
It was an inspiring sight, as the mainly young crowd's songs and chants echoed across the citadel of white political power in South Africa. They arrived in kombi taxis and in the back of dump trucks. Black shop workers and domestic workers gave the marchers clenched fist salutes.
The marchers heard the ANC's PWV chairperson, Tokyo Sexwale, make an impassioned call to the Bop police and army to side with the people: "Mangope says he will fight fire with fire, but you will be the fire. Do not point your guns at your brothers and sisters ... Do not enter the new South Africa as murderers of your own people."
Congress of South African Trade Unions vice-president George Nkadimeng pledged that the unions would "force Mangope to his knees". "Mangope is a monster created by the National Party. He is killing our people. We are telling them they are no longer his people."
That afternoon, 300 Bop police marched to the South African embassy in the territory to hand in a petition backing the strikers' demands. People flooded the streets, cheering. Their joy was further fuelled by rumours that Mangope had been seen fleeing the territory by helicopter. Sections of the defence forces joined the protesters in the streets.
In desperation, Mangope has called on the assistance of the far-right Afrikaner Volksfront led by General Constand Vilijoen, a Freedom Alliance colleague. Vilijoen claimed that 3000 armed farmers were in the homeland under the command of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force. Several people have reported that white men have opened fire on looters, but nobody has reported them in the numbers claimed.
Another force of several hundred neo-Nazi AWB members also entered the fray. Vilijoen claims that the AWB members were not invited by Mangope, who specifically requested that they not be involved.
The AWB intervention proved to be a major blunder when three uniformed AWBers were gunned down by BDF soldiers. The rest were escorted out of the territory by the Bop security forces.
Mangope's immediate status is not clear at the time of writing, but he can not survive long. The people of Bop remain in the streets. Nelson Mandela met with South African President F.W. de Klerk on March 11. Prior to the meeting, Mandela said that the TEC and the South African government would jointly take control of the homeland. Radio reports indicate that the South African Defence Force is preparing to enter.
In a last desperate bid to survive, Mangope announced late on March 11 that Bop would participate in the April elections and that his Christian Democratic Party would register.