Boipatong is a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

Gauteng Gauteng ( , ; Sotho-Tswana languages, Sotho-Tswana for 'place of gold'; or ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts f ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. It was established in 1955 to house black residents who worked in

Vanderbijlpark Vanderbijlpark is an industrial city with approximately 95,000 inhabitants, situated on the Vaal River in the south of Gauteng province, South Africa. The city is named after Hendrik van der Bijl, an electrical engineer and industrialist. V ...

and

Vereeniging Vereeniging ( ; ) is a city located in the south of Gauteng province, South Africa, situated where the Klip River empties into the northern loop of the Vaal River. It is also one of the constituent parts of the Vaal Triangle region and was forme ...

. Boipatong means "the place of hiding" in the

Sesotho Sotho (), also known as ''Sesotho'' (), Southern Sotho, or ''Sesotho sa Borwa'' is a Southern Bantu languages, Southern Bantu language spoken in Lesotho as its national language and South Africa where it is an official language. Like all Ba ...

language. Boipatong's expansion took place in tandem with the growth of

Afrikaner Nationalism Afrikaner nationalism () is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnic nationalistic political ideology created by Afrikaners residing in Southern Africa during the Victorian era. The ideology was developed in response to the significant events in Afrikaner ...

and the South African discrimination policy called

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

. Boipatong, along with other surrounding townships, served as a pool of cheap labour for steel industry giant ISCOR. ISCOR was built mainly as part of job creation and poverty eradication for the white working class. Although small, Boipatong was one of the places where the anger of the black people was felt during the marches of the 1960s against the requirement that they carry passes.

Boipatong massacre

The township was the site of the infamous Boipatong massacre on 17 June 1992, when 46 township residents were massacred by local hostel-dwellers. The massacre took place while the Convention for a Democratic South Africa ( CODESA) negotiations towards the end of

in South Africa were in progress; the killings were one of the factors that led to suspension of the talks. The

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

(ANC) National Working Committee released a statement that it could not negotiate in conditions where the poor majority was being killed by state-sponsored violence. The ANC subsequently withdrew from the talks, only to return after then-President F.W. de Klerk committed to controlling his security forces, two years after

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

's release. The talks were attended by 228 delegates from 19

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

. Further investigation from the

Truth and Reconciliation Commission A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state ac ...

(TRC) confirmed that the massacre was state-sponsored. The hostel dwellers who killed the residents were

Inkatha Freedom Party The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP; ) is a conservative political party in South Africa, which is a part of the current South African Third Cabinet of Cyril Ramaphosa, government of national unity together with the African National Congress (ANC). A ...

(IFP) members who later confessed to the TRC that they had been transported by government police vehicles and led by white police officers who painted their faces black. This massacre was added to a US lawsuit against

multinational corporation A multinational corporation (MNC; also called a multinational enterprise (MNE), transnational enterprise (TNE), transnational corporation (TNC), international corporation, or stateless corporation, is a corporate organization that owns and cont ...

s that did business with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Boipatong Heritage Site

A Boipatong Memorial and Youth Heritage Centre dedicated to freedom struggle veterans was being built and about to be completed. The centre was commissioned at a cost of 40 million

rand The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...

by the Gauteng Province former Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport, now the Department of Infrastructure Development (DID). The private sector contributed a larger portion of the amount R40 million, including a consortium responsible for the construction of

Gautrain Gautrain is an Higher-speed rail, higher-speed Express train, express commuter rail system in Gauteng, South Africa, which links Johannesburg, Pretoria, Kempton Park, Gauteng, Kempton Park and O. R. Tambo International Airport. It takes 15 minu ...

. The memorial center construction created a number of jobs and provided skills training to members of the community.

References

1992 in South Africa Populated places in the Emfuleni Local Municipality Townships in Gauteng {{Gauteng-geo-stub