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The Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), formerly known as Poqo, was the military wing of the
Pan Africanist Congress The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, often shortened to the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), is a South African pan-Africanist national liberation movement that is now a political party. It was founded by an Africanist group, led by Robert So ...
, an
African nationalist African nationalism is an umbrella term which refers to a group of political ideologies in sub-Saharan Africa, which are based on the idea of national self-determination and the creation of nation states.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 ...
. In the
Xhosa language Xhosa ( , ), formerly spelled ''Xosa'' and also known by its local name ''isiXhosa'', is a Bantu language, indigenous to Southern Africa and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Xhosa is spoken as a first language ...
, the word 'Poqo' means 'pure'. After attacks on and the murder of several white families the APLA was subsequently classified as a
terrorist organisation Several national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and former ...
by the South African
National National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...
government and the United States, and banned. APLA was disbanded and integrated into the
South African National Defence Force The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) comprises the armed forces of South Africa. The Chief of the SANDF is appointed by the President of South Africa from one of the armed services. They are in turn accountable to the Minister of ...
(SANDF) in June 1994.


Etymology

In 1968 the "Azanian People's Liberation Army" (or APLA) replaced the defunct name "Poqo", which means pure in Xhosa, a local South African language, as the armed wing of the PAC. Its new name was derived from Azania, the ancient Greek name for Southern Africa. The name Azania has been applied to various parts of southeastern tropical
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
. In the
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
period and perhaps earlier, the toponym referred to a portion of the Southeast African coast extending from
Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
, to perhaps as far south as
Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
.


History


Formation and early resistance

Poqo was founded in 1961 following the massacre of PAC-led protestors at the hands of police outside the
Sharpeville Sharpeville (also spelled Sharpville) is a township situated between two large industrial cities, Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging, in southern Gauteng, South Africa. Sharpeville is one of the oldest of six townships in the Vaal Triangle. It was ...
police station the previous year.
Potlako Leballo Potlako Kitchener Leballo (19 December 1924 – January 1986) was an Lesotho Africanist who led the Pan Africanist Congress until 1979. Leballo was co-founder of the Basutoland African Congress in 1952, a World War II veteran and primary school ...
, the chairman of the PAC at the time of the formation of its military wing in the 1960s, modelled APLA on the
Chinese People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). It consists of four Military branch, services—People's Liberation Army Ground Force, Ground Force, People's ...
, with
Templeton Ntantala Templeton is a Scots-English surname and also may refer to: Places * Templeton station, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada * Templeton, New Zealand * Templeton Hospital, New Zealand United Kingdom * Templeton, Angus, Scotland * Templeton, Devon ...
as his deputy. Members of Poqo targeted the town of
Paarl Paarl (; ; derived from ''parel'', meaning "pearl" in Dutch) is a city with 294,457 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the largest city in the Boland, Western Cape, Cape Winelands. Due to the growth of the Mbekweni ...
in the
Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...
on 22 November 1962, when a crowd of over 200 people armed with axes,
panga The panga (''Pterogymnus laniarus''), or panga seabream is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Sparidae, which includes the seabreams and porgies. It is the only species in the monospecific genus ''Pterogymnus''. This spec ...
s and other home-made weapons marched from the Mbekweni
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 ...
into Paarl and attacked the police station, homes and shops. Two white residents, Frans Richard and Rencia Vermeulen were killed. This attack was followed by the murder of a family camping at Bashee River in the
Transkei Transkei ( , meaning ''the area beyond Great Kei River,
he river The He River is a tributary of the Xi River in Guangxi and Guangdong provinces in China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it ...
Kei''), officially the Republic of Transkei (), was an list of historical unrecognized states and dependencies, unrecognised state in the southeastern region of South Africa f ...
on 4 February 1963. Norman and Elizabeth Grobbelaar, their teenage daughters Edna and Dawn, together with Mr Derek Thompson, were hacked to death in their caravans. Leballo had planned a massive revolt for 8 April 1963, but Basotholand police managed to track down and raid the PAC's headquarters, seizing a complete list of Poqo members. In the following government crackdown, nearly 2000 Poqo members were sent to prison, almost wiping out the entire organization. Consequently, Poqo ceased to be an important participant in the anti-Apartheid struggle during the remainder of the 1960s. In 1968, the Poqo was renamed APLA and unsuccessfully attempted to form diplomatic and political ties to foreign states and movements. It received some support from China, which attempted to shift the group toward
Maoism Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...
. PAC leaders, who had been vehemently
anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...
, nevertheless accepted the aid by attempting to rationalize it as being because the Chinese were "non-white" and that their value system had not been "tainted by European thought" as they deemed the
South African Communist Party The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded on 12 February 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), and tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by t ...
to have been. The result was the formation of a small Maoist faction within the APLA that contrasted the strong anti-communist currents within the PAC as a whole. However, the organization's ties with China were short-lived and the pro-Chinese members were soon after purged from the group.


Leadership struggles in exile

After the
Soweto uprising The Soweto uprising, also known as the Soweto riots, was a series of demonstrations and protests led by black school children in South Africa during apartheid that began on the morning of 16 June 1976. Students from various schools began to p ...
in 1976, a number of students went into exile in APLA camps elsewhere on the African continent. In 1976, APLA received 500 recruits, including 178
Basotho The Sotho (), also known as the Basotho (), are a Sotho-Tswana ethnic group indigenous to Southern Africa. They primarily inhabit the regions of Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. The ancestors of the Sotho people are believed to h ...
, for a new
Lesotho Liberation Army The Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA) was a guerrilla movement in Lesotho, formed in the mid-1970s and connected to the anti-Apartheid Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). It was the armed wing of the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP), a pan-African ...
(LLA), to be formed as an offshoot of the exiled-
Basutoland Congress Party The Basutoland Congress Party is a pan-Africanist and left-wing political party in Lesotho. The Basutoland African Congress (BAC) was founded in 1952 by Ntsu Mokhehle and Potlako Leballo. The party was renamed the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP ...
under the leadership of Matooane Mapefane, who was a senior instructor of APLA in Libya. Ntantala's original group of 70 APLA soldiers felt threatened by the influx of new recruits, leading Ntantala to attempt a coup against then commander,
Potlako Leballo Potlako Kitchener Leballo (19 December 1924 – January 1986) was an Lesotho Africanist who led the Pan Africanist Congress until 1979. Leballo was co-founder of the Basutoland African Congress in 1952, a World War II veteran and primary school ...
in
Dar es Salaam Dar es Salaam (, ; from ) is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of the Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over 7 million people, Dar es Salaam is the largest city in East Africa by population and the ...
. This was prevented by LLA soldiers, a move which exacerbated tensions within two PAC factions, the "Diplomat-Reformist" (DR) and "Maoist-Revolutionary" (MR) factions. Vusumzi Make's appointment as Leballo's successor sparked a mutiny at Chunya, an APLA camp in Tanzania, on 11 March 1980, during which several APLA forces were killed and the rest further factionalised and confined to different camps; many escaped to Kenya. Leballo himself relocated to
Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
in late 1980 along with senior intelligence and air force personnel from the MR faction. Pressure from Tanzania, however, resulted in his deportation in May–June 1981, as well as the deportation or imprisonment of the others. Make was replaced by John Nyathi Pokela (who was released from
Robben Island Robben Island () is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa. It takes its name from the Dutch language, Dutch word for seals (''robben''), hence the Dutch/Afrika ...
in 1980), but his ineffectual term of office was marred by further mutinies, executions and assassinations. Following Pokela's death, Leballo made a comeback through support from Libya, North Korea and Ghana. After his sudden death in January 1986, the DR faction, outmaneuvered by the ANC, fell into disarray leaving behind the legacy of a semi-national socialist political front.


Attacks on white civilians

After 1986, APLA rejected the MR faction's concept of the guerrilla as a social reformer and instead adopted an ultimately disastrous rallying cry of " One Settler, One Bullet". In the 1990–94 period, the organisation became known for its attacks on civilians despite the progress in negotiations at the
Convention for a Democratic South Africa The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of bilateral and multi-party negotiations between 1990 and 1993. The negotiations culminated in the passage of a new interim Constitution in 1993, a precursor to the Constitution ...
.


Operation Great Storm

In 1991 APLA launched ''Operation Great Storm,'' a violent paramilitary campaign aimed at displacing white farmers to reclaim land for black Africans and obtaining arms and funding. Initially APLA attacked and robbed farmsteads in the Free State and Eastern Cape provinces resulting in a number of farm deaths. Attacks would later expand to urban civilian targets such as churches, hotels and drinking establishments. The APLA's chief commander,
Sabelo Phama Sabelo Phama orn Sabelo Gqwetha(31 March 1949 – 9 February 1994) was a political Activist, Military Commander of Azanian People's Liberation Army APLA and Secretary for Defense of the Pan African Congress PAC. Early life Sabelo Phama was ...
, declared that he "would aim his guns at children - to hurt whites where it hurts most." Phama proclaimed 1993 as "The Year of the Great Storm" and sanctioned the following attacks on civilians: *
King William's Town Golf Club King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a constitutional monarch if his power is restrained by fi ...
on 28 November 1992, killing four people. *Highgate Hotel in
East London East London is the part of London, England, east of the ancient City of London and north of the River Thames as it begins to widen. East London developed as London Docklands, London's docklands and the primary industrial centre. The expansion of ...
on 1 May 1993, killing five people. *
Saint James Church massacre The Saint James Church massacre was a massacre perpetrated on St James Church of England in South Africa in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa, on 25 July 1993 by four members of the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). Eleven members of ...
in
Kenilworth Kenilworth ( ) is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Warwick (district), Warwick District of Warwickshire, England, southwest of Coventry and north of both Warwick and Leamington Spa. Situated at the centre of t ...
on 25 July 1993, killing 11 people during a church service. *
Heidelberg Tavern Massacre The Heidelberg Tavern massacre occurred in Observatory, Cape Town on 30 December 1993. Three Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) operatives entered the Heidelberg Tavern and opened fire on the crowd, killing four students and the owner of an ...
in
Observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...
on 31 December 1993, killing four. *
Mdantsane Mdantsane is a South African urban township situated 15 km away from East London and 37 km away from Qonce in the Eastern Cape. It is the second largest township in Eastern Cape and 17th largest in the Top 20 largest townships in So ...
on 11 March 1994, killing three
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
ians at a Baha'i Faith meeting for being 'white'. APLA took responsibility for the attacks, stating that: "The men were shot to show there is no role in the new South Africa for any one of the race that invented apartheid or suppressed the black masses." In total thirty-two applications were received for attacks on civilians. In these incidents, 24 people were killed and 122 seriously injured. 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 ...
concluded that the PAC-sanctioned action directed towards white South Africans were .


End of the armed struggle

In April 1992, PAC President Clarence Makwetu declared during the PAC's Annual Congress that his party would now not oppose participation in the
multi-racial The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mul ...
negotiations to end the apartheid. In spite of their failure to achieve their goals at the negotiations, the PAC decided to participate in the
1994 elections The following elections occurred in the year 1994. Africa * 1994 Botswana general election * 1994 Guinea-Bissau general election * 1994 Malawian general election * 1994 Mozambican general election * 1994 Namibian general election * 1994 South Afr ...
, and PAC leader Clarence Makwetu ordered APLA to end its armed struggle.


Post-1994

In 1994, APLA was disbanded and absorbed into the new
South African National Defence Force The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) comprises the armed forces of South Africa. The Chief of the SANDF is appointed by the President of South Africa from one of the armed services. They are in turn accountable to the Minister of ...
, although members of the MR-faction refused to accept this agreement. Attempts by MR officers to regroup in
Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...
,
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...
, and
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
were unsuccessful, although links were maintained with the
Tamil Tigers The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; , ; also known as the Tamil Tigers) was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eela ...
and Maoist groups in Nepal and India. Occasional propaganda leaflets distributed within South Africa focus on disparity of wealth and the issue of land.


Awards

* * * * * * * * *


See also

*
Military history of South Africa The military history of South Africa chronicles a vast time period and complex events from the dawn of history until the present time. It covers civil wars and wars of aggression and of self-defence both within South Africa and against it. It in ...
*
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 ...
*
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 ...
*
Umkhonto we Sizwe uMkhonto weSizwe (; abbreviated MK; ) was the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress (ANC), founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre. Its mission was to fight against the South African government to brin ...
*
Internal resistance to apartheid Several independent sectors of South African society opposed apartheid through various means, including social movements, passive resistance, and guerrilla warfare. Mass action against the ruling National Party (South Africa), National Party (N ...


Further reading

* Leeman, Lieutenant-General Bernard “The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania” in ''Africa Today'', A Multi-Disciplinary Snapshot of the Continent in 1995 Edited by Peter F. Alexander, Ruth Hutchison and Deryck Schreuder The Humanities Research Centre The
Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...
Canberra 1996, pages 172–195


References

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