On 17 June the EFF issued a statement to mark the 28th anniversary of the Boipatong massacre. It stated that the massacre had been orchestrated by “an Apartheid government led by FW de Klerk” who had “funded and supported the massacre in order to undermine negotiations…”
I remember Boipatong.
I was at the time head of the South African Communication Service (SACS). On 18 June I woke to the news of the awful event in which 45 residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Boipatong had been brutally murdered. Boipatong was egregious – even by the violent standards of the times. Women and babies were among the victims who were mercilessly hacked and stabbed to death.
President De Klerk decided that he would visit the community to express his condolences to bereaved families the following Saturday - 20 June. I was disturbed to hear an announcement of the visit on the SABC on Friday evening - because it was not our practice to provide advance notice of visits to potentially sensitive areas.
Our party assembled under the eggshell blue skies of a highveld winter at a police depot about 5 kms from Boipatong. SACS had made arrangements to transport members of the local and international media who wished to cover the event. We all climbed into an ancient bus and followed the presidential motorcade on its route to Boipatong. As we approached the township from the north-west, it became clear that my concerns about the early announcement of the visit were ominously warranted. Hundreds of ANC activists were present at the entrance to the township with banners and slogans demanding that De Klerk should leave.
Nevertheless, the presidential motorcade pushed on into the hornets’ nest. It skirted the northern border of the township and then turned south on a street between Boipatong and the Joe Slovo informal settlement. All along the way we encountered angry shouting demonstrators. The motorcade stopped in front of one of the township homes which the president was to have visited. However, by this time the crowd had become so aggressive that De Klerk’s security team quickly hustled him back into his armoured Mercedes.