South Africa Bitter Reminders of Sharpeville

On a 25th anniversary, blacks die in police clashes and in riots

History seemed to be repeating itself, and more bleak ironies were piled high on a country already burdened with too many. Last Thursday marked the 25th anniversary of the massacre at Sharpeville, when police killed 69 blacks in the township 40 miles south of Johannesburg. That watershed conflict was still a vivid memory to many blacks in Langa, another township 25 miles from the southeast coastal city of Port Elizabeth. There, crowds defied a government ban on public gatherings to hold a procession in honor of three blacks who had been killed in clashes with police the previous weekend.

Before long...

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