N.R. Mandela

Date: 21 June, 1992

African National Congress (ANC) President Nelson Mandela announced that he was suspending all talks with the Government in the wake of the killings in Boipatong. The ANC blamed President F.W. de Klerk for not doing enough to stop the violence and decided to withdraw from the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). The organisation placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of De Klerk, who had declared recently in Japan, Tokyo, that his government had a plan to counter mass action. That plan included mobilisation of the army, the police and police reservists. Mandela requested the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, to call a special meeting of the Security Council to discuss the killings.

Read Nelson Mandela's letter to President F.W. de Klerk in the wake of the Boipatong Massacre.

Read President F.W. de Klerk's response to Nelson Mandela's letter in which he had accused the government of being responsible for the Boipatong massacre.

Sources:

Kalley, J.A.; Schoeman, E. & Andor, L.E. (eds)(1999). Southern African Political History: a chronology of key political events from independence to mid-1997, Westport: Greenwood.