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This day in history

The name of the military base, Voortrekkerhoogte is officially changed to Thaba Tshwane

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Thaba Tshwane is the military headquarters of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in Pretoria. The base had been known as   Voortrekkerhoogte since 1939. , It was officially renamed on 19 May 1998, marking its third name change. The military base was founded in 1905 by the British Army and was named Robert Heights after Lord Roberts, a British soldier and one of the best commanders of the 19th century.

The United Nations adopts a resolution establishing an eleven member United Nations Council for South West Africa

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The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution establishing an eleven member United Nations Council for South West Africa. Their task was to administer the Territory and to enter immediately into contact with South Africa to lay down procedures for its transfer. The resolution was supported by eighty-five votes, two against (Portugal and South Africa) and thirty abstentions, including the Union of Soviets, Socialist Republics (USSR), the US,, Great Britain and France. At the time of the UN’s resolution the political situation in South Africa was bleak as the African National Congress (ANC), South African communist Party (SACP), Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and other liberation movements were banned under Unlawful Organisations Act in April 1960. The South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO), aligned to the ANC in a liberation struggle against South Africa’s occupation of Namibia, then South West Africa, was also banned.    References: O’Malley P. ‘1967’, from O’Malley, [online], available at www.nelsonmandela.org.za (Accessed: 03 May 2012) South African History Online, ‘Rivonia trial sentence is delivered’, [online], available at www.sahistory.org.za(Accessed: 03 May 2012)

Thabo Mbeki is honoured

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The Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Law on the South African president and the president of the African National Congress (ANC), Thabo Mbeki. He also received the Newsmaker of the Year award from the Pretoria Press Club. References: http://www.info.gov.za/leaders/president/index.htm http://www.capegateway.gov.za/eng/your_gov/8284/pubs/public_info/B/95145/2

Malawi’s Kamuzu Banda losses election

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Malawi's first President Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda since independence from Britain in 1964 concedes defeat to Bakili Muluzi in the country's first multi-party election. With 30 years at the helm as Africa's longest ruling dictator, Kamuzu bowed gracefully and congratulated the incoming president wholeheartedly and hoping that he would be able to usher Malawi into a new era. Banda died in a hospital in South Africa in 1997, at the age of 101 and despite the controversy, which surrounded his rule, he was given a state funeral. References: Mwenenguwe, R.,  Malawi: Political crisis in the midst of starvation, from Global Politician, [online], Available at www.globalpolitician.com [Accessed 21 May 2013]

SADF mounts raids on ANC targets in neighbouring states

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Troops of the South African Defence Force (SADF) carry out raids on alleged ANC targets in Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Several people are left dead or injured. The targets include the ANC's operational headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia and bases in Ashdown Park, Harare and Gaborone, Botswana. Such raids were not new, the first one having taken place in 1981, on an alleged ANC base in Matola. Other military raids include actions against ANC bases in Mozambique (1981), Lesotho (1982 & 1986) and Swaziland (1986). Following the banning of the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations in 1960 and increasing terror from the Apartheid security forces, these movements went into exile, and the ANC set up headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia. In the 1960s, the ANC extended resistance activities to armed struggle and thus set up an underground armed wing uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK). MK undertook various acts of sabotage against strategic state structures. Although it did not target civilians, a bomb explosion outside the Air Force headquarters in Church Street, Pretoria on May 20 1983 resulted in injury of civilians. The government retaliated with an attack on an alleged ANC base in Maputo, Mozambique. As the conflict escalated, President P. W. Botha declared a state of emergency in mid-1985. The next year, he sanctioned the raids on the neighbouring countries to crush the resistance leadership and destroy the ANC in exile.

Notices served on Solly Sachs

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The then Minister of Justice, C.R. Swart, served two notices on Solly Sachs, an official of the Garment Workers' Union of South Africa (GWU). The first notice ordered Sachs to relinquish his position in the Union within thirty days and not to participate in any way in the activities of the union. The second order restricted his movements to the Transvaal and prohibited him from attending any meetings other than religious, social or recreational gatherings.

White women achieve suffrage in South Africa

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The roots of White women's suffrage in South Africa began with the founding of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1899. The goal of this organisation was to campaign against the trade in alcohol, which they considered the greatest contributor to moral decay.  This organisation was the first to campaign for White women's right to vote in South Africa.  They set a Franchise Department six years after the founding of the organisation, because the members had concluded that without political influence, their temperance campaign would be ignored.  As in Britain, the first organised advocates for women's suffrage were middle class reformers, and for them the suffrage was a means to an end with regard to influencing legislation and not connected primarily with the status of women.  Women's organisations formed specifically around the issue of suffrage first appeared in the early years of the twentieth century.  The first Women's Enfranchisement League (WEL) in South Africa was established in 1902 in Durban. It was established through the work of an English couple, the Ancketills, who had settled in Natal in 1886. Subsequently chapters of this league were established in other South African cities, and this group became known as the Women's Enfranchisement Association of the Union (WEAC). While WEAC did much to change the perception of women in the period after the South African War, the issue of giving women the vote was overshadowed by a number of issues. Among these were issues that pertained to the Union of South Africa, the status of Blacks and lesser concerns pertaining to their commitment to equality in womanhood and the image they wished to portray. These issues successfully delayed the granting of the vote to White women in South Africa up until 1930 when the Hertzog election platform promised to raise the issue of granting the vote to White women in parliament, on condition that they supported his re-election. After his re-election, Hertzog made good on his word and on the 19 May 1930, White South African women gained the right to vote.  This development was tied to denying the vote to Black men in the Cape Province.  The efforts by most of the South African suffragettes was based on self interest and not of justice, to the extent that very few of its members expressed solidarity with the plight of Black women and labour.

Boer statesman, soldier and first president of the South African (Transvaal) Republic, Marthinus Wessel Pretorius dies

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Boer statesman, soldier and first president of the South African (Transvaal) Republic, Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, died at his home in Potchefstroom at the age of eighty-one. He was elected as president by the Volksraad in 1857 and also served as president of the Orange Free State from 1859 to 1863, the only man to have held both offices. Despite that success, however, his plans to merge the two republics were unsuccessful. Pretorius was the eldest son of the Great Trek leader Andries Pretorius and his wife Christina Petronella de Wit.

The Khoikhoi carry out a series of raids on the free burghers’ herds

With the coming of the Dutch settlers, the Khoikhoi faced a stronger demand for their cattle. Trade disputes and charges of theft caused great tension between colonists and the Khoikhoi who feared that the settlement of free burghers (farmers) in 1657 would eventually deprive them of their valuable pastures and watering places.

Into this increasingly volatile situation stepped a Goring-haiqua (Khoikhoi group) named Doman, who was sent to Batavia to learn to become an interpreter in about 1657. Since he had witnessed first hand the capacity of the Dutch to reduce indigenous people to positions of servitude, he became a staunch opponent of European colonisation.

Unfortunately for Doman, his earlier attempts at Khoikhoi trade with the Dutch, exclusive to the peninsular Khoikhoi groups, left him dangerously short of allies. Therefore he could not persuade local chief Gogosoa to attack the Dutch. However, Doman was able to persuade some of the younger leaders to join him in what he regarded as a 'war of liberation'.

On a cold and drizzling day on 19 May 1659, the Khoikhoi carried out a series of raids on the free burghers' herds. Doman had waited for rainy weather, knowing that the Dutch matchlock muskets could not be fired in the rain with damp powder.

The First Khoikhoi-Dutch War followed, which lasted almost a year and resulted in only a few deaths. Initiative lay chiefly with the Khoikhoi, who attacked, often in groups of several hundred. Instructed by Doman, who had witnessed Dutch military tactics in Java, they darted about erratically to frustrate Dutch marksmen.

Commander Van Riebeeck responded with defensive tactics, withdrawing the free burghers to the fort, temporarily arming the slaves (an extraordinarily risky measure), and building a strong kraal to protect the colony's remaining livestock.

Lacking firearms and unwilling to storm the central fort, the Khoikhoi eventually signalled their willingness to parley. A peace was negotiated, and the war had ended in a stalemate. The Khoikhoi returned no livestock seized during the war and paid no reparations. Yet they did accept the continued European occupation of the Cape peninsula, a threat to their perseverance as an independent people.

The Dutch erected fortified posts and planted almond hedges (some of which still survive) to prevent cattle being driven off again. Khoikhoi were obliged to use specified routes and paths, and to enter the settlement only at certain guarded gaps in the hedge.

Horses which arrived from Batavia gave the colonists the mobility they had lacked in the war, and expeditions from the fort became longer and more frequent. As trading contacts were established with more Khoikhoi groups, the settlement gradually became independent of the Peninsular Khoikhoi, whose wealth and importance waned rapidly.