an upsurge of violence in the 1990s was a desperate attempt by wright wing political organization to derail the process of negotiations. do you agree?
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Answers
Answer:
The Commission had considerable success in uncovering violations that took place before 1990. This was not true of the 1990s period. Information before the Commission shows that the nature and pattern of political conflict in this later period changed considerably, particularly in its apparent anonymity. A comparatively smaller number of amnesty applications were received for this period. The investigation and research units of the Commission were also faced with some difficulty in dealing with the events of the more recent past.
2. Two factors dominated the period 1990�94. The first was the process of negotiations aimed at democratic constitutional dispensation. The second was a dramatic escalation in levels of violence in the country, with a consequent increase in the number of gross violations of human rights.
3. The period opened with the public announcement of major political reforms by President FW de Klerk on 2 February 1990 � including the unbanning of the ANC, PAC, SACP and fifty-eight other organisations; the release of political prisoners and provision for all exiles to return home. Mr Nelson Mandela was released on 11 February 1990. The other goals were achieved through a series of bilateral negotiations between the government and the ANC, resulting in the Groote Schuur and Pretoria minutes of May and August 1990 respectively. The latter minute was accompanied by the ANC's announcement that it had suspended its armed struggle.
Explanation:
The violence during the 1990s stemmed from intensification in the levels of conflict and civil war in KwaZulu/Natal. While the province had been plagued for five years by a low-level civil conflict, conflict intensified dramatically in the 1990s. The Human Rights Committee (HRC) estimates that, between July 1990 and June 1993, an average of 101 people died per month in politically related incidents � a total of 3 653 deaths. In the period July 1993 to April 1994, conflict steadily intensified, so that by election month it was 2.5 times its previous levels.
9. Moreover, political violence in this period extended to the PWV (Pretoria� Witwatersrand-Vereeniging) region in the Transvaal. The HRC estimates that between July 1990 and June 1993, some 4 756 people were killed in politically related violence in the PWV area. In the period immediately following the announcement of an election date, the death toll in the PWV region rose to four times its previous levels.
10. The escalation of violence coincided with the establishment of Inkatha as a national political party, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), in July 1990, and its attempts to develop a political base in the Transvaal. The development of self-defence units (SDUs) in largely ANC/UDF strongholds led to an escalation of violence in both provinces.
11. Many came to believe that a 'hidden hand' or 'third force' lay behind the random violence, which included military-style attacks on trains, drive-by shootings and a series of massacres and assassinations. The train violence swept the Rand from 1990 onwards. By June 1993 it had caused some 400 deaths and countless more injuries, and left thousands of commuters consumed with fear on a daily basis. Such attacks frequently generated further violence.
12. At this time, there was also a marked increase in attacks on police officers. Between July 1991 and June 1992, the HRC recorded a total of sixty-eight police officers killed. A further 200 deaths were recorded between July 1992 and June 1993.
13. Violence also arose from the continued use of lethal force in public order policing. The HRC estimated that killings by the security forces, primarily in the course of public order policing, numbered 518 between July 1991 and June 1993. In the first major incident, less than six weeks after President de Klerk's speech, seventeen people died and 447 were injured when police fired without warning on a crowd of 50 000 protesters at Sebokeng. Other massacres occurred in Sebokeng in July and September 1990 and in Daveyton and Alexandra townships in March 1991.
There was little change in the policing of demonstrations after 1990. Unrest and deaths continued to occur as a result of the use of deadly force. The following graphs indicate violations recorded by the Commission. While not reaching the same level as the 1984�87 period, killings by the SAP increased significantly between 1989 (the year of the Defiance Campaign) and 1990 and remained at relatively high and constant levels until the end of 1993. The breakdown reveals that over 600 of the SAP killings were the result of shooting. As the number of assassinations by known/identified security force personnel during this period was relatively small, most of these shootings would have arisen in public order policing situations.