Sharpeville Remembered

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32253, 23 March 1970, Page 17

Sharpeville Remembered

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) I LONDON. March 21. | The Sharpeville massacre in South Africa 10 years ago was re-enacted in the heart of London today in a commemorative demonstration a stone’s throw away from the boardedup windows of the South African Embassy. About 3000 people gathered in Trafalgar Square to watch anti-apartheid demonstrators dressed as Africans and South African police portray the event in which 69 Africans were shot dead. A cordon of police ringed South Africa House, the embassy building, across the road from the demonstration.

The highlight was the reenactment of the shooting itself which was watched in silence About 20 men dressed as South African police marched into the square to face a chanting crowd representing the African demonstrators at Sharpeville. To the recorded sound of gunfire the “police” opened

up with artificial machine-: guns, rifles and pistols while; (the crowd ran wildly with; many collapsing on the ground writhing and crying. Shortly afterwards a coloured professional actor walked through the “corpses” in the square with a dummy of a dead black child in his arms. He offered it to another performer representing the South African police chief, who spat on the ground and at this his force marched off giving the Nazi salute.

Demonstrators linked arms and chanted “black and white unite and fight” to a burst of cheering from the spectators. Bishop Ambrose Reeves, who was Bishop of Johannesburg at the time of the Sharpeville shooting, said that by no stretch of the imagination could the men, women and children shot down at Sharpeville be described as agitators. Mr Frank Hooley, a Labour member of Parliament, told the crowd that Sharpeville was “one of the most savage and brutal massacres of innocent people ever perpetrated by police of any country.” To many people in Britain, apartheid seemed to be a rather silly argument about black and white golfers or tennis players playing to-

gether. But to the people of South Africa it represented the break-up of families, and the arbitrary arrest and detention of people who had no protection of any kind from the law, he said. Another Labour parliamentarian. Mr Frank Judd, was cheered when he said the British people had to resist “the treacherous voice that argues that we should resume the sale of arms to South Africa.”

The demonstration was part of a three-day remembrance rally organised by the AntiApartheid Association and the United Nations Students’ Association.

In Birmingham about 350 student immigrants and Church ministers marched two miles in a demonstration against the South African cricket team’s planned visit to Birmingham this summer. They carried banners inscribed “Fight for Racial Harmony” and “Stop the Cricket Tour.” In Nottingham, 200 demonstrators followed a hearse containing a wreath commemorating the deaths of the Sharpeville Africans. The wreath was presented to officials of the cricket club where the South African team will play.