ANCYL REAFFIRMS THAT THE PAC HIJACKED THE SHARPVILLE PROTESTS
The ANCYL is disgusted by the lack of political education projected by the PAC and its youth structure by distorting the true history and struggles of the African National Congress and history of resistance in South Africa. The ANCYL is further appalled by the disingenuous attacks from and ignorance of the PAC and its youth wing on the President of the ANCYL. The ignorance of the PAC squarely explains why it has been polarised into many organisations since formation and does not enjoy the support of the people of South Africa.
The ANCYL remains firm on the position that the Pan Africanist Congress hijacked the anti-pass laws campaign and protests organised by the ANC in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The defiance campaign against the unjust laws of the apartheid regime was launched by the African National Congress in 1952 in what was called the Defiance Campaign. The Defiance campaign mutated into the anti-pass laws campaign, with then ANC Secretary General, Walter Sisulu leading the campaign through banning of his pass book. The ANC had a considered and clearly defined programme of action in bringing down the apartheid regime and had begun with the anti-pass laws campaigns, long before the narrow Africanist faction broke away from the ANC to form the PAC.
The PAC is a faction of ill-disciplined individuals who rejected the Freedom Charter and the multiracial principles of the ANC. PAC is an organisation born out of personal bitterness and aggressions that were prioritised over the mass will of the people, and they hijacked genuine campaigns of the African National Congress. Members of the PAC who had left the ANC had been aware of the organisational plans; the anti-pass campaigns had started prior to Sharpeville. In December 1959 there were anti -pass demonstrations in Durban. According to Tata Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom, the anti -pass campaign was going to start on the 31 March 1960 and culminate into a "...great bonfire of passes..." on June 26 that year. Tata Nelson Mandela clearly narrates in the Long Walk to Freedom how the PAC hijacked the anti-pass laws campaign and contributed to the massacre of our people.
The ANC's planning had commenced on a the intensification of the campaign, until the opportunist factionalists from the PAC, which was less than a year old hijacked a concrete, clearly defined struggle against repression. The PAC had known of the ANC plans and sabotaged its programme. In the spirit of nation building, the ANC democratic government made 21st of March to be Human Rights Day, because we appreciated that majority of our people and supporters of the ANC stood up against repression on the 21st of March 1960. The PAC has never been a formidable force; it was instead a group of violent, misguided factionalists who have never enjoyed the support of the people of South Africa.
The ANC Youth League will never shy away from telling the truth about the struggle against repression and will forever expose opportunists who claim they participated in the struggles to liberate our people, while they in fact distracted the focus of the Congress National Liberation Movement. We have a responsibility as this generation of youth to liberate our people from narrow Africanist propaganda, which has never espoused the values and objectives of the Freedom Charter. The reality is that the anti-pass campaigns begun long before the breakaway of the narrow Africanist faction to form PAC, and the 21st of March 1960 was a culmination of the mobilisations that were led by the ANC fir many years before that.
Statement issued Floyd Shivambu, ANC Youth League spokesperson, March 24 2010
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
