Bophuthatswana coup
Encyclopedia
The Bophuthatswana coup of March 1994 occurred in the tribal homeland
of Bophuthatswana
and resulted in the reincorporation of the homeland into South Africa
following the negotiated ending of apartheid. The mutiny of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force followed a major civil service strike, and was opposed by heavily armed, paramilitary members of the right-wing Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF) and white supremacist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
(AWB) invading the territory. The conflict is remembered mostly for an incident in which 3 AWB members were shot dead in front of television cameras by a member of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force. This proved to be a public relations disaster for the AWB and demoralized the white right. Despite this disaster, Eugène Terre'Blanche
claimed the failed campaign was a victory because over a hundred Bophutatswana soldiers were killed and only five AWB members.
and releasing Nelson Mandela
from prison. This led to a growth in support for far-right parties among the ruling Afrikaner
minority, some of whom opposed the end of apartheid and joined organisations such as the AWB and AVF. The negotiators at the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, agreed on 27 April 1994 as the date for the first election allowing all of South Africa's citizens to vote. It was clear that the ANC would win these elections.
, an aging and autocratic leader.
Mangope had made clear at the 1993 Kempton Park negotiations that Bophuthatswana would remain independent of the new and integrated South Africa and that he would not allow the upcoming multiracial elections to take place in his country. This led to increasing opposition from the citizens of Bophuthatswana. Mangope had previously used his Defence Force and Police to suppress protests, and had been accused of police brutality when a student protest was suppressed by his police force.
Mangope's Defence Force and Police were on the brink of mutiny because many of them were in favour of re-integration into a democratic South Africa. The forces had been abused by the people, physically and verbally, had their homes and families attacked and found it increasingly hard to remain loyal to Mangope. Mangope refused to relent on his policy of keeping Bophuthatswana independent. By this stage widespread rioting and looting broke out, including the burning of the Mega City shopping mall in Mmabatho. Mangope decided to call on outside forces to restore order.
On Tuesday 8 March 1994 Mangope invited General Constand Viljoen
, then head of the right-wing, Afrikaner Volksfront, to a meeting of the heads of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force, Police, National Intelligence Service and Cabinet Ministers.
It was concluded that Viljoen would use militiamen to defend certain government locations in Bophuthatswana if the situation deteriorated. On the following Tuesday, March 15, the Bophuthatswana parliament was planning to meet to discuss, again, the possibility of re-integration. However if necessary he would call on Viljoen sooner because the scheduled ANC invasion was planned for the weekend of March 12 - March 13. Yet Mangope made it clear that he would not tolerate the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
being present because they were regarded as racist and over-violent. Viljoen was regarded as a more moderate right-wing leader, and was respected as the former head of both the South African Army (from 1976-1980) and the entire South African Defence Force
(from 1980-1985).
Later on that afternoon a group of anti-Mangope policemen took a memorandum to the Bophuthatswana embassy to South Africa and gave it to the ambassador, Professor Tjaart van der Walt, calling for Bophuthatswana to be re-integrated into South Africa, against Mangope's orders. By late afternoon virtually all policing in Bophuthatswana had ended. Only the Defence Force remained to maintain order.
Following another group of policemen joining student protests and reports of ANC troops on the Bophuthatswana borders Mangope asked Viljoen and the Afrikaner Volksfront to keep order in Bophuthatswana.
The AVF were hastily rallied and mobilised, under the command of retired SA Colonel J. Breytenbach. It was, however, under the command of Commandant Douw Steyn that they were escorted by the Bophuthatswana Defence Force to an Air Force base on the outskirts of Mmabatho
, early on Friday March 11, 1994.
Meanwhile both the AWB and SA Defence Force had been mobilising and moving in, the SA Defence Force to protect their embassy and the lives and interests of any South African nationals in the area. The majority of the AWB forces had been called in from the towns of Ventersdorp (the AWB's headquarters), Witbank and Rustenburg in the Western Transvaal, and other places, such as Naboomspruit.
While the AVF had been mobilising, on the evening of March 10, a contingent of AWB members had gathered outside Mafikeng
. An even larger contingent were at a border post near Rooigrond.
That evening Colonel Antonie Botse asked AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche
and his men to leave but Terre'Blanche refused to take orders from a Colonel. During the night from March 10 - March 11, Jack Turner of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force re-iterated Botse's request but Terre'Blanche falsely stated that Mangope had requested his presence even though Mangope denied it to Turner. It was agreed that the AWB could remain in the area but that Terre'Blanche himself was to leave and that the men were under the command of Breytenbach and Steyn, not Terre'Blanche, and additionally that they were to remove all AWB insignia from their clothing.
During the evening of negotiations some 37 people were killed, allegedly by the AWB. The next morning the AWB joined the AVF convoy to the air base. General Nicolaas Fourie, one of the 3 AWB commandos killed in an incident on their way out of Mmabatho, had told Terre'Blanche that it was unwise to move into the airbase. They were sent to guard various places, although many blacks in the Bophuthatswana Defence Force had threatened to attack the AWB and AVF because they had supported Mangope only on the terms that the AWB would not be involved and they were upset about the 37 deaths. Greg Marinovich, journalist and member of the Bang-Bang Club
, stated that one Afrikaner present had remarked, "Ons is op 'n kafferskiet piekniek", Afrikaans for 'we are on a kaffir
-shooting picnic'.
Between 12.00 and 13.00 hours the AWB forces left the air force base in Mmabatho without an escort and, despite promising to remove all AWB insignia and work under Steyn and Breytenbach, they did neither and drove through Mmabatho and Mafikeng and shot many civilians.
Marinovich described pulling out at an intersection in his car and seeing columns of AWB vehicles extending left and right, as far as the eye could see. AWB members were indiscriminately shooting and tossing grenades at civilians alongside the convoys.
The AVF left at 16.00 hours on March 11 and were escorted out via a route which kept them from contact with the general public.
AWB Colonel Alwyn Wolfaardt, AWB General Nicolaas Fourie and Veldkornet (Field Cornet
) Jacobus Stephanus Uys were driving a blue Mercedes at the end of a convoy of AWB vehicles that had been firing into roadside huts. Members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force returned fire and hit the driver of the car, Nicolaas Fourie, in the neck, another gunman, Alwyn Wolfaardt, in the arm and the remaining gunman, Jacobus Uys, in the leg. Wolfaardt got out of the car and waved a pistol but was advised by nearby journalists not to start shooting. A Bophuthatswana police officer relieved him of the weapon. Another policeman tried to fire on journalists but his rifle jammed and it was taken from him by yet another policeman. Menyatsoe approached and spoke to Wolfaardt, asking if he was a member of the AWB. Wolfaardt confirmed this, saying they came from Naboomspruit
, and pleaded for his life and the lives of the other two wounded AWB members. Menyatsoe then shot the three wounded men dead at point blank range with an R4 rifle
, saying "what are you doing in my country". The shooting was captured by the watching journalists and broadcast worldwide.
. Menyatsoe claimed that his emotions were raised by his seeing a wounded mother, who had been hit when the AWB had fired from their vehicles into a nearby crowd. According to other journalists dozens of paramilitaries had been firing into traditional houses along the road out of Bophuthatswana. Terre'Blanche pointed out that the three soldiers were wounded by the time Menyatso shot them and that they no longer posed any threat. Menyatso claimed that he acted on his own initiative because of the absence of a commanding officer. Terre'Blanche countered that he could not claim he acted as a policeman because his function was to protect high-ranking government officials, i.e. Mangope, that he was a part of a mutiny, and that the AWB and AVF were an ally of Mangope's regime brought in to quell rioting and suppress the mutiny.
Menyatsoe was granted amnesty by the TRC.
Bantustan
A bantustan was a territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa , as part of the policy of apartheid...
of Bophuthatswana
Bophuthatswana
Bophuthatswana , officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana was a Bantustan – an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity – and nominal parliamentary democracy in the northwestern region of South Africa...
and resulted in the reincorporation of the homeland into South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
following the negotiated ending of apartheid. The mutiny of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force followed a major civil service strike, and was opposed by heavily armed, paramilitary members of the right-wing Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF) and white supremacist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging is a South African far right separatist political and former paramilitary organization, since its creation dedicated to secessionist Afrikaner nationalism and the creation of an independent Boer-Afrikaner republic or "" in part of South Africa...
(AWB) invading the territory. The conflict is remembered mostly for an incident in which 3 AWB members were shot dead in front of television cameras by a member of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force. This proved to be a public relations disaster for the AWB and demoralized the white right. Despite this disaster, Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche was a former member of South Africa's Herstigte Nasionale Party who founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging during the apartheid era...
claimed the failed campaign was a victory because over a hundred Bophutatswana soldiers were killed and only five AWB members.
Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa
In 1990 South African State President F.W. de Klerk began negotiations to end apartheid, unbanning the African National CongressAfrican National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
and releasing Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
from prison. This led to a growth in support for far-right parties among the ruling Afrikaner
Afrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
minority, some of whom opposed the end of apartheid and joined organisations such as the AWB and AVF. The negotiators at the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, agreed on 27 April 1994 as the date for the first election allowing all of South Africa's citizens to vote. It was clear that the ANC would win these elections.
Bophuthatswana homeland
Bophuthatswana was one of several nominally independent homelands in which blacks had to live under apartheid. At the time the leader was Lucas MangopeLucas Mangope
Kgosi Lucas Manyane Mangope is the former leader of the Bantustan of Bophuthatswana and current leader of the United Christian Democratic Party, a minor political party based in the North West province of South Africa....
, an aging and autocratic leader.
Mangope had made clear at the 1993 Kempton Park negotiations that Bophuthatswana would remain independent of the new and integrated South Africa and that he would not allow the upcoming multiracial elections to take place in his country. This led to increasing opposition from the citizens of Bophuthatswana. Mangope had previously used his Defence Force and Police to suppress protests, and had been accused of police brutality when a student protest was suppressed by his police force.
Civil service strike
In February 1994, a Crisis Commission was held when heads of 52 government departments had gone on strike. This caused almost the entire Bophuthatswana public services to collapse, including the Health Service, because nursing staff were striking. 30,000 teachers went on strike.Mangope's Defence Force and Police were on the brink of mutiny because many of them were in favour of re-integration into a democratic South Africa. The forces had been abused by the people, physically and verbally, had their homes and families attacked and found it increasingly hard to remain loyal to Mangope. Mangope refused to relent on his policy of keeping Bophuthatswana independent. By this stage widespread rioting and looting broke out, including the burning of the Mega City shopping mall in Mmabatho. Mangope decided to call on outside forces to restore order.
On Tuesday 8 March 1994 Mangope invited General Constand Viljoen
Constand Viljoen
General Constand Viljoen SSA SD SOE SM is a former South African military commander and politician. He is partly credited with preventing the outbreak of armed violence by disaffected Afrikaners prior to the 1994 elections.-Military service:Viljoen received a degree in military science in 1955...
, then head of the right-wing, Afrikaner Volksfront, to a meeting of the heads of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force, Police, National Intelligence Service and Cabinet Ministers.
It was concluded that Viljoen would use militiamen to defend certain government locations in Bophuthatswana if the situation deteriorated. On the following Tuesday, March 15, the Bophuthatswana parliament was planning to meet to discuss, again, the possibility of re-integration. However if necessary he would call on Viljoen sooner because the scheduled ANC invasion was planned for the weekend of March 12 - March 13. Yet Mangope made it clear that he would not tolerate the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging is a South African far right separatist political and former paramilitary organization, since its creation dedicated to secessionist Afrikaner nationalism and the creation of an independent Boer-Afrikaner republic or "" in part of South Africa...
being present because they were regarded as racist and over-violent. Viljoen was regarded as a more moderate right-wing leader, and was respected as the former head of both the South African Army (from 1976-1980) and the entire South African Defence Force
South African Defence Force
The South African Defence Force was the South African armed forces from 1957 until 1994. The former Union Defence Force was renamed to the South African Defence Force in the Defence Act of 1957...
(from 1980-1985).
The invasion and AWB involvement
By Thursday March 10 the situation had severely deteriorated and Mangope was advised to leave Bophuthatswana for his own safety. He left via personal helicopter at 2 p.m. that day and returned to his tribal homeland of Motswedi.Later on that afternoon a group of anti-Mangope policemen took a memorandum to the Bophuthatswana embassy to South Africa and gave it to the ambassador, Professor Tjaart van der Walt, calling for Bophuthatswana to be re-integrated into South Africa, against Mangope's orders. By late afternoon virtually all policing in Bophuthatswana had ended. Only the Defence Force remained to maintain order.
Following another group of policemen joining student protests and reports of ANC troops on the Bophuthatswana borders Mangope asked Viljoen and the Afrikaner Volksfront to keep order in Bophuthatswana.
The AVF were hastily rallied and mobilised, under the command of retired SA Colonel J. Breytenbach. It was, however, under the command of Commandant Douw Steyn that they were escorted by the Bophuthatswana Defence Force to an Air Force base on the outskirts of Mmabatho
Mmabatho
Mmabatho is the former capital of the North-West Province of South Africa. In the apartheid era, it was the capital of the former "Bantustan" of Bophuthatswana. Following the end of apartheid in 1994, Bophuthatswana was integrated into the newly established North-West Province and Mmabatho was...
, early on Friday March 11, 1994.
Meanwhile both the AWB and SA Defence Force had been mobilising and moving in, the SA Defence Force to protect their embassy and the lives and interests of any South African nationals in the area. The majority of the AWB forces had been called in from the towns of Ventersdorp (the AWB's headquarters), Witbank and Rustenburg in the Western Transvaal, and other places, such as Naboomspruit.
While the AVF had been mobilising, on the evening of March 10, a contingent of AWB members had gathered outside Mafikeng
Mafikeng
Mahikeng – formerly legally, but still commonly known as Mafikeng – is the capital city of the North-West Province of South Africa. It is best known internationally for the Siege of Mafeking, the most famous engagement of the Second Boer War.Located on South Africa's border with Botswana, it is ...
. An even larger contingent were at a border post near Rooigrond.
That evening Colonel Antonie Botse asked AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche
Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche was a former member of South Africa's Herstigte Nasionale Party who founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging during the apartheid era...
and his men to leave but Terre'Blanche refused to take orders from a Colonel. During the night from March 10 - March 11, Jack Turner of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force re-iterated Botse's request but Terre'Blanche falsely stated that Mangope had requested his presence even though Mangope denied it to Turner. It was agreed that the AWB could remain in the area but that Terre'Blanche himself was to leave and that the men were under the command of Breytenbach and Steyn, not Terre'Blanche, and additionally that they were to remove all AWB insignia from their clothing.
During the evening of negotiations some 37 people were killed, allegedly by the AWB. The next morning the AWB joined the AVF convoy to the air base. General Nicolaas Fourie, one of the 3 AWB commandos killed in an incident on their way out of Mmabatho, had told Terre'Blanche that it was unwise to move into the airbase. They were sent to guard various places, although many blacks in the Bophuthatswana Defence Force had threatened to attack the AWB and AVF because they had supported Mangope only on the terms that the AWB would not be involved and they were upset about the 37 deaths. Greg Marinovich, journalist and member of the Bang-Bang Club
Bang-Bang Club
The Bang Bang Club was a name primarily associated with four photographers active within the townships of South Africa during the Apartheid period, particularly between 1990 and 1994, from when Nelson Mandela was released from jail to the 1994 elections...
, stated that one Afrikaner present had remarked, "Ons is op 'n kafferskiet piekniek", Afrikaans for 'we are on a kaffir
Kaffir (racial term)
The word kaffir, sometimes spelled kaffer or kafir, is an offensive term for a black person, most common in South Africa and other African countries...
-shooting picnic'.
Between 12.00 and 13.00 hours the AWB forces left the air force base in Mmabatho without an escort and, despite promising to remove all AWB insignia and work under Steyn and Breytenbach, they did neither and drove through Mmabatho and Mafikeng and shot many civilians.
Marinovich described pulling out at an intersection in his car and seeing columns of AWB vehicles extending left and right, as far as the eye could see. AWB members were indiscriminately shooting and tossing grenades at civilians alongside the convoys.
The AVF left at 16.00 hours on March 11 and were escorted out via a route which kept them from contact with the general public.
Killing of Wolfaardt, Uys, and Fourie
The single most publicised event of the coup was the killing of three wounded AWB members who were shot dead at point-blank range in front of journalists by a Bophuthatswana police constable, Ontlametse Bernstein Menyatsoe.AWB Colonel Alwyn Wolfaardt, AWB General Nicolaas Fourie and Veldkornet (Field Cornet
Field Cornet
A Field Cornet was a South African term for either a local government official or a military officer.Initially, the term was used for a civilian official in a local government district of the Cape Colony, acting as and invested with the authority of a military officer and empowered to act as a...
) Jacobus Stephanus Uys were driving a blue Mercedes at the end of a convoy of AWB vehicles that had been firing into roadside huts. Members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force returned fire and hit the driver of the car, Nicolaas Fourie, in the neck, another gunman, Alwyn Wolfaardt, in the arm and the remaining gunman, Jacobus Uys, in the leg. Wolfaardt got out of the car and waved a pistol but was advised by nearby journalists not to start shooting. A Bophuthatswana police officer relieved him of the weapon. Another policeman tried to fire on journalists but his rifle jammed and it was taken from him by yet another policeman. Menyatsoe approached and spoke to Wolfaardt, asking if he was a member of the AWB. Wolfaardt confirmed this, saying they came from Naboomspruit
Naboomspruit
Mookgophong, also known by its former name, Naboomspruit, is a town in the Limpopo province of South Africa. It was established in 1910 when tin was discovered here...
, and pleaded for his life and the lives of the other two wounded AWB members. Menyatsoe then shot the three wounded men dead at point blank range with an R4 rifle
R4 assault rifle
The R4 is a 5.56mm assault rifle that was introduced into service with the South African Defence Force in 1982, replacing the earlier 7.62mm FN FAL rifle, that was manufactured in South Africa under a license agreement from Fabrique Nationale as the R1...
, saying "what are you doing in my country". The shooting was captured by the watching journalists and broadcast worldwide.
Amnesty hearing
Menyatsoe was not charged with murder. He applied for amnesty to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) , on the grounds that the killings were politically motivated. The application was opposed by the Wolfaardt, Uys and Fourie families. At the hearing in August 1999, Manyatsoe was cross-examined by AWB leader Eugene Terre'BlancheEugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche was a former member of South Africa's Herstigte Nasionale Party who founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging during the apartheid era...
. Menyatsoe claimed that his emotions were raised by his seeing a wounded mother, who had been hit when the AWB had fired from their vehicles into a nearby crowd. According to other journalists dozens of paramilitaries had been firing into traditional houses along the road out of Bophuthatswana. Terre'Blanche pointed out that the three soldiers were wounded by the time Menyatso shot them and that they no longer posed any threat. Menyatso claimed that he acted on his own initiative because of the absence of a commanding officer. Terre'Blanche countered that he could not claim he acted as a policeman because his function was to protect high-ranking government officials, i.e. Mangope, that he was a part of a mutiny, and that the AWB and AVF were an ally of Mangope's regime brought in to quell rioting and suppress the mutiny.
Menyatsoe was granted amnesty by the TRC.