'March 21 is a day to honour'

2006-03-21 14:31

Johannesburg - Suffering and sacrifices made during apartheid had not been in vain, Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa said at a Human Rights Day rally in Sharpeville, Vereeniging, on Tuesday.

March 21 is a South African public holiday to commemorate the massacre in 1960 when 67 people were killed and 180 injured during a protest at Sharpeville.

Said Shilowa on Tuesday: "To borrow from the words of freedom fighter Solomon Mahlangu, their blood had indeed nourished the tree that would bear the fruits of freedom."

He said that while South Africa was charged with remembering those who lost their lives in struggling for freedom, the impact of apartheid, discrimination and injustice against which they fought, should also be remembered.

"An important pillar of apartheid's vision of racist domination and control was the system of influx control. This system sought to make African people foreigners in the country of their birth and banish them to the poverty-stricken Bantustans, which were apartheid's reservoirs of cheap labour."

Shilowa said South Africa's new constitution was proof that those hurdles had been overcome.

"It (the constitution) represented the beginning of a new phase in the struggle to make a living reality of the political and socio-economic rights which our people had lived and died for.

"This year we are also celebrating the 10th anniversary of the adoption of our democratic constitution on 8 May 1996."

South Africa's current democracy was hailed as a shining testimony to the strides made in terms of constitutional rights and the values of human dignity, equality and freedom which it upholds.

Shilowa ended in thanking the public for their participation in the March local government elections, saying many analysts were proven wrong when they projected low voting turnouts.

"I want to thank all of you who participated in the election, proving wrong many of the analysts who said you would stay away from the polls."

He challenged the voting public to work with those they placed into leadership to build better communities.

- SAPA