Bophuthatswana, 11 March 1994

…developments in Bophuthatswana provided a visible sign of the final collapse of the politics of armed reaction. Throughout the negotiation period [from 1990 to 1994], President Lucas Mangope had increasingly adopted a hard-line approach to the multi-party talks and to the ANC in particular. In the end, Mangope abandoned the negotiations altogether, announcing that he was prepared to take Bophuthatswana into the future on its own if necessary. As the date for elections drew near and popular resistance to the Mangope government intensified, Mangope called in members of the white right wing to help quell the opposition. In March 1994, the Bophuthatswana Defence Force [BDF], in conjunction with the SADF, took action against an estimated 5 000 armed members of the AWB who had answered Mangope's call. In the process, a film crew captured footage of a member of the BDF murder an injured white supremacist in cold blood. As the politics of white armed resistance collapsed in the wake of the AWB's ignominious withdrawal, the footage, which was broadcast around the world, became a symbol of the inevitability of change in South Africa. South Africa took over control of Bophuthatswana, installing an interim government under the Transitional Executive Council (TEC).