Sharpeville stats were lies!

The police deliberately undercounted the deaths and injuries following the massacre which shocked the world. I wrote this story two years ago and reprint it here.

The official dead and injured statistics for the Sharpeville Massacre on 21 March 1960 have been overturned by new research that went back to the original sources, including survivors and the community of Sharpeville itself.

The new findings are a shocking indictment of apartheid, the police, and our current government, which has not done the right thing by the community.

The original police figure of 69 dead is now confirmed at 80, at least, and the original injured figure has escalated from 178 to a confirmed 297 injured.

This new information was released by two researchers at a meeting at the Sharpeville library this morning (Thurs 20 Oct 2022), attended by Sedibeng Mayor

MMC Lerato Maloka.

The researchers, Professor Nancy Clark, the Dean of Honours and professor of history at Louisianna State University, and Professor William Worger, from the history department of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), each made a presentation to the assembled guests, which included academics from UNISA, Wits and other institutions, NGOs such as Khulumani, and members of the Sharpeville community, led by Nicho Ntema, the Convenor of the Sharpeville Heritage and Tourism Association task team.

Prof Clark first became interested in Sharpeville while researching for one of her degrees in the Vaal Triangle in the 1980s. The pair began serious research on the massacre in 2015 and have returned to the country many times to visit the community and interview survivors and their relatives, to hear and record oral histories, and to do detailed original research of the records held by the police, Department of Justice, the Deeds Office, and the National Archives.

Their research shows there was a massive cover-up of the massacre, and that the police told a pack of lies to exonerate themselves. Some of the lies told by the police, aside from the doctored dead/injury figures, are:

* The police claimed to not know who opened fire first, saying that no command had been given, but witnesses said they heard one policeman shout "skiet!" (shoot!), while another policeman was heard to give the command "VUUR!" (FIRE!).

* The police claimed a small group of police had been frightened by an "armed, angry mob", but the crowd of 4000-5000 were peaceful, singing songs and chanting political slogans. They were not armed. In fact, there were four Saracen armoured vehicles within the grounds of the (new) police station, and 77 policemen lined up shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the Saracens, 12 of them armed with Sten sub-machine guns which take 25 nine-millimetre bullets in each magazine. Another 160 police reinforcements, both black and white, were inside the police station precinct, and 60 police were in Zwane Street. Only the white policemen had guns.

* The police claimed the crowd had pushed against the fence and were about to push it over, but photographs show the crowd was not pushing against the fence. They were actually waiting for the Police Commissioner to come and address them.

* The "angry mob" lie was further debunked when witnesses told how after the massacre, the police commander had ordered his men to pick up stones from the street and put them in a fire bucket to show that "stones had been thrown at the police". Witnesses saw the police picking up stones in the street. There were none inside the police precinct.

* The police claimed they had used batons and teargas before shooting. They had not. Witnesses gave individual testimony that corroborated each other's stories and gave the lie to the police claims.

* The statistic of 69 dead was a lie to reduce the numbers of the dead. Superintendent Labuschagne, the Sharpeville police station commander, counted 70 dead in the vicinity of the police station many of whom he "knew well" from the community. Within 20 minutes of the massacre, the police had piled almost all the bodies on top of each other in the police vans and rushed them away to the Vereeniging police station, out of sight of the gathering photographers. When Major Van Zyl arrived at the police station at 2pm, only two to three bodies still lay in the street. Within days, most of the corpses were transferred to the Johannesburg government mortuary and most of the injured to Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.

The crowd had gathered as part of the Pan Africanist Congress campaign of defiance against the hated pass laws, which forced every black person to carry a document which indentified him, and had information about where he was allowed to work and live, an employment record and other personal data.

The PAC campaign had begun 10 days earlier than the ANC's planned pass law defiance campaign, in order to preempt their rivals. PAC leader Robert Sobukwe had told his followers to present themselves at police stations without their pass books and demand to be arrested.

But Lieutenant Colonel Pienaar, the commanding officer of the police reinforcements, demonstrated the predominant arrogant white attitude when he said that "the native mentality does not allow them to gather for a peaceful demonstration. For them to gather means violence."

However, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found the police responsible for the deaths and injuries.

Although these much higher figures (80 dead, 297 injured) have been incontrovertibly confirmed, there are other unconfirmed deaths and injuries.

The police list did not include three unborn babies lost due to gunshot wounds to their mothers. The National Archives in Pretoria also contain files relating to the deaths of Isaac Sepeng, who left an orphaned minor daughter, and John Mahudi, who left a widow, Maria, and a minor child.

Sello Ralebakeng was injured in the 21 March shooting, but died in police custody on 20 July when a truck taking Sharpeville prisoners from the Boksburg gaol to their trial in Vereeniging crashed. He left a widow and four young children.

Joseph Morobi, 51, spent five months in Baragwanath Hospital after having his right leg amputated. On 12 April 1961, he returned from seeing a doctor in Johannesburg, complained of feeling tired, and passed away the same day, leaving a wife and three young children, one of whom his wife Alice was pregnant with at the time.

The Sten-gunners were constables Johannes Joubert, Johannes Petrus Mostert van Zyl, Paul Steyn, Louis Christiaan van Wyk, Jeremiah Oosthuizen, J du Plessis, a Bosch, C Janssen, and Sybrand Gerhardus van Niekerk.

They all fired point blank into the crowd from a distance of 3-4 metres (half the distance of an official firing squad). Three Sten-gunners on a Saracen also fired: a Sergeant Van der Merwe, and constables Frank Sniegans and J Steynberg.

A Sten-gun fires 25 bullets in 3.2 seconds, and can be reloaded in four seconds. All the Sten-gunners emptied three magazines into the crowd, with one, Constable Steynberg, emptying a fourth into the backs of the fleeing crowd (that's 88 bullets fired by one policeman in approximately half a minute).

Then several of the Sten-gunners took out their .38 revolvers and fired into the crowd, joining the other policemen, who were using Lee Enfield .303 rifles and .38 revolvers.

The fusillade (correct) lasted about 45 seconds, dispatching 1 400 bullets into a crowd of humanity fleeing in fear – men, women and children.

Carnage. Shocked silence. Blood seeping into the dust. The cries of the wounded. Shouted police commands.

Daniel Makhoba was just 14 when one of the first police bullets tore into his body. His mother, Maria who had waited four days with her husband for her son to return went the following Friday to the Government Mortuary in Johannesburg, where she found his body. It had a gunshot wound in his chest that had gone through to his spinal column, injuries to has facial bones, and a bullet in his right buttock that had fractured his femur. He was just one of those killed.

The African National Congress (ANC) prepared to initiate a campaign of protests against pass laws. These protests were to begin on 31 March 1960, but the rival Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), led by Robert Sobukwe, decided to pre-empt the ANC by launching its own campaign ten days earlier, on 21 March.

In South Africa, 21 March is commemorated as Human Rights Day, while around the world it is commemorated as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

David Forbes is an independent filmmaker, writer, artist and social and political commentator.