South African History

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Slavery

As a point of fact, Black South Africa is still Not Truly Free: White people still control the country, although they no longer hold exclusive political power, but they continue to retain ruling positions in Industry, Commercial Agriculture, Commerce, and incredibly, in Education: where Blacks are still made to feel unwelcome and still suffer Emotional and Mental Abuse.

Unemployment in 2016 among Black South Africans stands at 39% compared to only 8.3% among hite South Africans. It is as if the tree was cut down, but the roots remain, continuing its ideological existence. An overwhelming majority of South African schools, private and public, don't allow black boys and girls to have African hairstyles because of "neatness". Black girls' hair is a central component to their identity and culture, and for decades these schools have robbed them from it. Schools not only make black people hate their hair at an emotional level but at an institutional level.

The Nguni

The four major ethnic divisions among Black South Africans are the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, Shangaan-Tsonga and Venda. The Nguni represent nearly two thirds of South Africa's Black population and can be divided into four distinct groups; the Northern and Central Nguni (the Zulu-speaking peoples), the Southern Nguni (the Xhosa-speaking peoples), the Swazi people from Swaziland and adjacent areas and the Ndebele people of the Northern Province and Mpumalanga.

Zulu

The Zulu are a Bantu ethnic group of Southern Africa and the largest ethnic group in South Africa, with an estimated 10–11 million people living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Small numbers also live in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique. The Zulu were originally a major clan in what is today Northern KwaZulu-Natal, founded ca. 1709 by Zulu kaMalandela. In the Nguni languages, iZulu means heaven, or weather. At that time, the area was occupied by many large Nguni communities and clans. Nguni communities had migrated down Africa's east coast over centuries, as part of the Bantu migrations probably arriving in what is now South Africa in about the 9th century.

Xhosa

The Xhosa people are a Bantu ethnic group of Southern Africa mainly found in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, and in the last two centuries throughout the southern and central-southern parts of the country. There is a small but significant Xhosa (Mfengu) community in South Africa with its language, Xhosa, being a recognized South African national language. The Xhosa people are divided into several tribes with related yet distinct heritages. The main tribes are AmaGcaleka, AmaRharhabe, ImiDange, ImiDushane, and AmaNdlambe. In addition, there are other tribes found near or amongst the Xhosa people such as AbaThembu, AmaBhaca, AmaMpondo, AmaMpondomise and AmaQwathi that are distinct and separate tribes which have adopted the Xhosa language and the Xhosa way of life. The name "Xhosa" comes from that of a legendary leader and King called uXhosa. There is also a fringe theory that, in fact the King's name which has since been lost amongst the people was not Xhosa, but that "Xhosa" was a name given to him by the San and which means "fierce" or "angry" in Khoisan languages. The Xhosa people refer to themselves as the AmaXhosa, and to their language as isiXhosa.

Sotho

Together the Nguni and Sotho account for the largest percentage of the total Black population. The major Sotho groups are the South Sotho (Basotho), the West Sotho (Tswana), and the North Sotho, which includes the Pedi people. Sotho (South Sotho or Basotho) people are concentrated in the Free State, Gauteng and Eastern Cape Provinces, with small groups in Namibia and Zambia. While the Sotho people’s history is not directly intertwined with that of Bloemfontein, their history had an important influence on the history and development of the Orange Free State province. Early Sotho origins and history is largely unknown, but Ironworkers, who were probably Sotho-speakers, were at Phalaborwa from the eighth century and at Melville Koppies in the Johannesburg area from the eleventh century. Oral tradition has it that the founding lineage knew the art of smelting and ancient ritual dances are associated with it. Archaeologists have produced indisputable evidence of Sotho-speaking people smelting at widely dispersed places in Gauteng, the North West Province, the Northern Province, and Botswana. The first pottery in South Africa associated with the Sotho is called Icon and dates to between 1300 and 1500. As with the Nguni, anthropological and linguistic data suggest an East African origin for Sotho-Tswana speakers, in this case in what is now Tanzania.

Tsonga

Tonga, Thonga or Tsonga people (Tsonga: Vatsonga) and languages span most of southern Africa, notable countries being South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In these countries, there are regions where one or more languages and/or dialects are more dominant. For example, in South Africa, Tsonga people are mainly found in the Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces, with smaller populations in North-West and Free State. Within these provinces, there are towns and cities where they are most prevalent, although this is continually changing in the new South Africa as black people can now move freely. Most or all of southern Mozambique is inhabited by Tsonga people, variously named as Copi, Rhonga, Ndzawu, Tonga, Shangana, and Tshwa.

Venda

Venda, also called Bavenda, a Bantu-speaking people inhabiting the region of the Republic of South Africa known from 1979 to 1994 as the Republic of Venda. The area is now part of Limpopo province, and is situated in the extreme northeastern corner of South Africa, bordering on southern Zimbabwe. The Venda have been called a “composite people” because they have historically consisted of a multiplicity of culturally different groups. Apparently the Venda have become more culturally uniform since they settled in their present location after migrating through Zimbabwe from an area farther to the northwest, and almost all now speak the Venda language. Much of the Venda’s countryside in the south features mountains and wide valleys that receive abundant rainfall and are both densely populated and agriculturally productive. The northern area has a hot, dry climate and flat grasslands suitable for stock raising. The rugged Venda habitat was largely responsible for protecting them from invading enemies in the 19th century. Zulu warriors led by Mzilikazi, the eventual founder of the Ndebele (Matabele) people, generally met defeat in their attacks on the inaccessible mountain fortresses of the Venda. The Venda were, in fact, the last of the peoples in the area to come under European control. Since the era of raids more Venda villages have been situated on the plains, and individual villages no longer need to be nearly self-contained. Agriculture dominates the Venda economy. The principal crops are corn (maize), peanuts (groundnuts), beans, peas, sorghum, and vegetables, and the planting season starts around October. The Venda may have been primarily herders in the past. During the 20th century their cattle holdings—especially the herds of their chiefs—increased from a few to an appreciable number; they also keep goats, sheep, pigs, and fowl. The Venda chiefs are traditionally custodians of the land for their people, while local headmen permit household groups to occupy and work tracts of land. Lineages of kinsmen, with membership based on patrilineal descent, are used to reckon inheritance and succession.

Arrival of Europeans in South Africa

The first Europeans to make contact with these three different social groups in southern Africa were Portuguese sailors attempting to find routes to the spice islands of Asia. For many years the Portuguese had been pushing further and further south along Africa's western coastline and in 1487 a ship captained by Bartholomew Diaz made it around the Cape of Good Hope and sailed up the eastern coast of southern Africa as far as Algoa Bay (modern - the harbor city of Port Elizabeth is situated adjacent to the bay). Ten years later another Portuguese sailor, Vasco da Gama, rounded the Cape and continued up the continent's eastern coast before heading further east, eventually to India. Over the next 200 years increasing numbers of Portuguese traders and their Dutch and British competitors began to make the journey to the east via the Cape of Good Hope. Though they occasionally stopped for fresh water and supplies in some of the more sheltered Cape bays and river mouths, the Portuguese usually tried to give a wide berth to the territory that is now South Africa. Apart from the treacherous coastline they also often encountered a hostile reception from the local inhabitants. Instead the Portuguese had trading and supply posts in present-day Angola and Mozambique where they were able to both resupply their ships on the way to their eastern empire and capture slaves to send to their American colonies. The Dutch were the first European trading power to set up a permanent settlement in South Africa.

In 1652 the powerful Dutch East India Company built a fort and established a supply station under the command of Jan Van Riebeeck on a site that later became Cape Town. The idea was that this was to be simply a point where passing Dutch ships could drop in to get fresh supplies and to rest sick members of their crew. The company did not envisage the settlement growing into a larger community and at first, every inhabitant was a company servant.

This situation soon altered, however, when the company decided that it would allow a group of servants who had worked out their contracts to settle close by as independent farmers and supply the post with their produce. Prior to this decision all fresh supplies had been either delivered by sea or brought from the Khoi groups living in and around the Cape Peninsula. These independent settlers were known as burghers and their number was soon increased by the freeing of more servants and the arrival of new settlers from Holland and, after 1685, Huguenots fleeing French anti-protestant legislation.

With the advent of free burghers, the size of the settlement began to increase and some farmers moved out into outlying districts. This brought them into increased conflict with Khoi herders. There were a series of small skirmishes which the Dutch, with their superior weapons, easily won and the Khoi found themselves displaced from more and more land and their herds of cattle diminished. Under these circumstances some began to work for the burghers on their farms, theoretically as free laborers but in effect as little more than slaves. In this early expansion and subjection of the Khoi the seeds of a whole long history of dispossession of the established population of South Africa are apparent. As the settler farming areas expanded they came into contact with San groups whom they systematically slaughtered in revenge for their raids on settler livestock. European and Asian diseases, especially smallpox, also killed many more San and Khoi and by the end of the 18th century they had almost all been either absorbed into the settler economy as servants, pushed into the most marginal mountain and desert areas, such as the Kalahari, or exterminated.

As the settlers moved further to the east and north they encountered environments less conducive to settled agriculture and more suited to pastoralism. Many settlers adopted a life as semi-nomadic trekboers (Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans (Germanic creole) word for "farmer"): living exclusively by trading their livestock and the products of hunting with the settled colonists in the Western Cape. As they moved east they also began to come into contact with Bantu-speaking Africans, in particular the Xhosa in what is now the Eastern Cape. Trading relations were established between the settlers and Xhosa, and some Xhosa also came to work on settler farms in return for guns and other European imports. As well as trade, however, the settlers and Xhosa also interacted through warfare. Cattle raiding was especially common and some historians argue that settlers also indulged in widespread slave raiding. These battles were, however, inconclusive and a fluid and unstable boundary between the trekboers and Xhosa persisted for many years.

_{The UV (ultra violet) radiation level of the Sun is 11 (the maximum), from October through March, in Pretoria South Africa. No normal Albino European could possibly safely work the fields under those conditions. Thus the typical Albino solution, which has allowed them to occupy tropical and sub-tropical lands all around the world: lands in which they would not normally be able to sustain themselves: Enslave pigmented people, or the next best thing: Indenture them.} 

 The other factor that began to alter the original function of the settlement was the arrival, in 1658, of a group of slaves captured from the Portuguese in Angola. The company had originally intended that there would be no slaves at the settlement but the company servants and free burghers soon became accustomed to avoiding the hardest and most menial manual tasks and demanded that they be supplied with more slaves. Unlike in the Americas most of these slaves did not come from West Africa but from Asia and Madagascar. They tended not to be owned in large numbers on huge plantations but in small groups, often less than 10, by individual farmers. The balance between the slave and free population of the Cape remained much more even than in West Indian and South American colonies.

There was, however, always a big gender imbalance in both the settler and slave populations, with far more men than women. Sexual encounters between slave owners and their female slaves, or Khoi servants, were frequent and a number of slave owners married freed slaves. Apartheid history taught that the present-day colored population are the descendants of slaves and passing sailors, but even a cursory reading of the contemporary Dutch and other European reports of the settlement show that it is probably more accurate to see the present-day Afrikaner and colored population as having the same ancestry. Another fact about the present-day colored population that is seldom recognized is that they are frequently the direct descendants of original Khoi inhabitants of the area. This is especially so in the Eastern and Northern Cape, where there was never a large slave population and certainly no sailors.

A number of slaves managed to escape from their captivity and joined up with still-independent groups of Khoi and miscellaneous European and mixed-race adventurers beyond the frontiers of the Dutch colony. Here they formed new and unusual political groupings and often existed by raiding both European settlers and African groups in the interior. The best-known of these bands were the so-called Griquas. With European horses and guns they became an important political force in the South African interior right through until the mid-19th century. 

Arrival of the British

During the 18th century Dutch economic and political power began to wane. Just as the Dutch had superseded the Portuguese they were themselves challenged by the rising power of the British. In 1795 the British sailed into False Bay and annexed the Dutch colony (The Battle of Muizenberg). The British were concerned that the French, with whom they were fighting in Europe, would take over the strategic port. In a general peace settlement of 1803 the colony was returned to the Dutch but in 1806 the British reconquered the territory and their sovereignty was finally accepted by other European powers in the peace settlement of 1816. The British were only really interested in the Cape as a staging post and strategic port to protect trade with their new Asian empire. The colony was not profitable and neither the British government nor business took much interest in the new possession. There were, however, two important events in the early years of British rule that were to have crucial impacts on the subsequent history of South Africa.

The first factor was the British authorities' concern over persistent and inconclusive fighting along the colony's eastern frontier with the Xhosa. Some Xhosa groups had taken advantage of the instability in the colony to re-establish themselves to the west of the Fish River. The British decided that the only way to stop the persistent battles was to push the Xhosa back across the Fish River and establish a secure and clear frontier. During the first years of their rule they cleared the Xhosa occupying this area and tried to ban trekboers from having any contact with them. It was decided that what was needed was a group of permanent settlers on new farms in the area from which the Xhosa had been cleared in order to keep them apart from the trekboers.

In 1820 the British parliament agreed to release £50,000 to transport settlers from Britain to occupy this area. The money was used to send out 4000 settlers, with an additional 1000 paying their own passage to the region. These people became known as the 1820 Settlers and formed the nucleus of the subsequent British settler community. Though the British authorities had intended that they should become farmers and hence occupy the disputed territory, most of the settlers were from urban artisan backgrounds and few had the skills or inclination necessary to become successful cultivators in the difficult and unfamiliar environment of the Eastern Cape. Most of them quickly gravitated towards the small towns, especially Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown, where they used their previous experience to become traders or skilled artisans. Their presence introduced an important new element to the equation, not least cultural, and 1820 Settler attitudes towards things such as the freedom of the press and towards the proper role of government played an important part in shaping 19th-century Cape settler society.

It soon became apparent that the British attempts to create a permanent border between the Xhosa and settlers had failed and cattle raiding backwards and forwards across the border continued. The Xhosa tried on numerous occasions to reclaim their land, occupied now by the settlers, but these attempts always failed, despite many initial successes. The Frontier Wars between Xhosa and settler continued for the next half century with Xhosa independence and land occupation being progressively eroded until their remaining areas (which became known as Transkei), were eventually incorporated into the Cape Colony.

The other fundamental change that British rule brought about was the ending of the slave trade and then the total banning of slavery. The peripheral role of South Africa in the British colonial empire and the dispersed nature of its slave population meant that it was seldom considered in debates about slavery, which instead concentrated on the massive slave plantations of the West Indies. Nevertheless, when the British parliament eventually decided to call an end to the institution that many felt was both inhumane and, more importantly, not beneficial to the empire's economy, it was also banned in South Africa. In 1834 slaves throughout the British Empire were officially emancipated, though they were to remain with their owners as apprentices until 1838. Slave owners were also offered compensation of one third of the value of their slaves.

Though emancipation provided some slaves with new opportunities, in reality many of them continued to live very similar lives, carrying out the same heavy manual labor, under extremely harsh conditions, on the same Cape farms. Nevertheless, many of the original Dutch settlers were extremely unhappy about the emancipation of slaves. To make things worse the British government, after extensive lobbying by British missionaries working in South Africa, also prevented them from introducing legislation aimed at tying both freed slaves and Khoi servants to individual farms as indentured laborers. The Dutch settlers had already been annoyed by the way their extremely loose system of administration had been reformed by the British, making it more difficult for individual farmers to impose their own law on their particular district. Many trekboers in the eastern districts also felt that the British were not quick enough in coming to their support when they had cattle raided by Xhosa groups to the east. Now they were not only losing a large proportion of their 'property' (slaves) but were being prevented from making sure they had a captive (cheap) labor supply. Though they were offered compensation at one third of the value of their slaves this had to be claimed in London. Many slave owners, therefore, sold their compensation rights to agents at usually about one fifth of the slave's value.

In response to these complaints a number of Dutch settlers decided that they would set out with their families and servants in search of new land beyond the British colonial boundaries. Between 1835 and 1840 around 5000 people left the Cape colony and headed east in a movement that later became known as the Great Trek. It tended to be the trekboers from the eastern areas, who had fewer possessions and little investment in established farms who took part in this movement. The settlers taking part in the trek became known as Voortrekkers and their experiences beyond the colonial frontiers became fertile ground for 20th-century Afrikaner nationalism. One thing not often celebrated in the national myths that grew up around the Great Trek is that accompanying the treks were a large number of Khoi servants and a small number of freed slaves still economically and socially bound to their masters/patrons.

Pure Albino South African History: The Battle of Blood River 

At first, the Voortrekkers met with little or no resistance as they moved northeast into South Africa's interior. The land seemed bereft of tribespeople - a symptom of a far more formidable force that had moved through the region ahead of the Voortrekkers. Since 1818, the Zulu tribes of the north had become a major military power, conquering minor clans and forging them together to create an empire under the rule of King Shaka. Fainthearted opponents had fled to the mountains, abandoning their farms and leaving the land deserted. It was not long however, before the Voortrekkers crossed into Zulu territory.

Albino version: The Massacre

Retief, at the head of the Voortrekker wagon train, arrived in Natal in October 1837. He met with the current Zulu King, King Dingane, a month later, in order to try and negotiate ownership of a tract of land. According to legend, Dingane agreed - on the condition that Retief first recovered several thousand cattle stolen from him by a rival Tlokwa chief. Retief and his men successfully retrieved the cattle, delivering them to the capital of the Zulu nation in February 1838. On February 6th, King Dingane allegedly signed a treaty granting the Voortrekkers land between the Drakensberg Mountains and the coast. Shortly afterwards, he invited Retief and his men to the royal kraal for a drink before they left for their new land.

Once inside the kraal, Dingane ordered the massacre of Retief and his men. It is uncertain why Dingane chose to dishonor his side of the agreement. Some sources suggest that he was angered by Retief's refusal to hand over guns and horses to the Zulu; others suggest that he was afraid of what might happen if Voortrekkers with guns and ammunition were allowed to settle on his borders. Some believe that Voortrekker families had begun to settle on the land before Dingane signed the treaty, an action that he saw as their disrespect for Zulu customs. Whatever his reasoning, the massacre was seen by the Voortrekkers as an act of betrayal that destroyed what little faith there had been between the Boers and the Zulu for decades to come.

Blood River

Throughout the rest of 1838, warfare raged between the Zulu and the Voortrekkers, with each determined to wipe out the other. On February 17th, Dingane's warriors attacked Voortrekker camps all along the Bushman’s River, slaughtering over 500 people. Of these, only around 40 were white men. The rest were women, children and black servants traveling with the Voortrekkers. The conflict came to a head on December 16th at an obscure bend on the Ncome River, where a Voortrekker force of 464 men were encamped on the bank. The Voortrekkers were led by Andries Pretorius and legend has it that the night before the battle, the farmers took a vow to celebrate the day as a religious holiday if they emerged victorious. At dawn, between 10,000 and 20,000 Zulu warriors attacked their circled wagons, led by commander Ndlela kaSompisi. With the benefit of gunpowder on their side, the Voortrekkers were able to easily overpower their attackers. By midday, over 3,000 Zulus lay dead, while only three of the Voortrekkers were "Injured". The Zulus were forced to flee and the river ran red with their blood. Britannica -The Boers then overran the Zulu kingdom and forced its population loyal to Dingane north of the Mfolozi River. The Boer victory at Blood River helped undermine Dingane’s power: in 1840 he was deposed by his brother, Mpande, and was later killed. Conflict between the Zulu and the Voortrekkers ceased under Mpande.

^{Let us examine this preposterous Albino claim: 464 Albino men, armed with SINGLE SHOT – MUZZLE LOADING, RIFLES AND CANNON - defeated 10,000 or 20,000 Zulu warriors with Bows and Spears.}

^{Well, first of all, if you can't tell the difference between 10,000 or 20,000 attackers, either you are blind, or a lying Albino.}

 The Blomfield cannon - Cannon operation required specialized crew and gunners, cannon operation is described by the 1771 Encyclopædia Britannica. Each cannon would be manned by two gunners, six soldiers, and four officers of the artillery. The right gunner was to prime the piece and load it with powder, while the left gunner would fetch the powder from the magazine and keep ready to fire the cannon at the officer's command. Three soldiers stood on each side of the cannon, to ram and sponge the cannon, and hold the ladle. The second soldier on the left was charged with providing 50 rounds. It usually took about 60 seconds, depending on crew, to reload a cannon.

Now to the numbers - it takes about 20 seconds to load a musket, and about 60 seconds to load a Cannon. Whereas, a Bowman can fire 20 Arrows a minute: which works out to an Arrow every 3 seconds. In raw mathematics, that means that as each Albino Boer was firing on the Zulus, 22 or 44 (depending on which Albino lie number you use), Zulu were firing “5” arrows on him! Guess who would win that fight?

If you say, well the Guns would have the advantage in range! That is true, and also totally negated by the Africans fighting only at NIGHT! Note: at close range, as would be typical of “Night” fighting where opponents sneak up on each other: a Jabbing Spear, such as the Zulu used, would be the most devastating weapon of all. See - as is typical with Albino lie history: it does not stand up well to scrutiny.

BUT: There is no doubt that the Zulu were indeed defeated – so what happened? Probably the SAME thing that happened in the Americas with the Black Inca and Aztec: the Albinos used local enemies of the Zulu, who had themselves been conquered by the Zulu, to do the actual fighting - with their help. And after the Zulu were defeated, over time - the Albinos turned their guns on them.

The Aftermath

Following the battle, the Voortrekkers managed to recover the bodies of Piet Retief and his men, burying them on December 21st 1838. It is said that they found the signed land grant amongst the dead men's possessions, and used it to colonize the land. Although copies of the grant exist today, the original was lost during the Anglo-Boer War (although some believe it never existed at all). There are now two monuments at Blood River. A laager or ring of cast-bronze wagons erected on the battle site commemorates the Voortrekker defenders. In December 1998, Zulu Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi unveiled the newest version of a memorial on the east bank, dedicated to the 3,000 Zulu warriors who lost their lives at Blood River. After liberation from apartheid in 1994, the anniversary of the battle, December 16th, was declared a public holiday. Named the Day of Reconciliation, it is meant to serve as a symbol of a newly united South Africa. It is also an acknowledgement of the suffering experienced at various times throughout the country's history by both the Afrikaans and the Zulu people.

The Boer Republics:

During the early 1800s, many Dutch settlers departed from the Cape Colony, where they had been subjected to British control. They migrated to the future Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal regions. The Boers founded the Boer Republics: the South African Republic (now Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West provinces) and the Orange Free State (Free State).

The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1884 in the interior started the Mineral Revolution and increased economic growth and immigration. This intensified British efforts to gain control over the indigenous peoples. The struggle to control these important economic resources was a factor in relations between Europeans and the indigenous population and also between the Boers and the British.

The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Following Lord Carnarvon's successful introduction of federation in Canada, it was thought that similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics in South Africa. In 1874, Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to bring such plans into being. Among the obstacles were the presence of the independent states of the South African Republic and the Kingdom of Zululand and its army. The Zulu nation spectacularly defeated the British at the Battle of Isandlwana. Eventually though the war was lost resulting in the end of the Zulu nation's independence.

The Boer Republics successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880–1881) using Guerrilla WarfareTactics, which were well suited to local conditions. The British returned with greater numbers, more experience, and new strategy in the Second Boer War (1899–1902) but suffered heavy casualties through attrition; nonetheless, they were ultimately successful.

Boer Independence

Within the country, anti-British policies among white South Africans focused on independence. During the Dutch and British colonial years, racial segregation was mostly informal, though some legislation was enacted to control the settlement and movement of native people, including the Native Location Act of 1879 and the system of pass laws. Eight years after the end of the Second Boer War and after four years of negotiation, an act of the British Parliament (South Africa Act 1909) granted nominal independence, while creating the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910. The Union was a dominion that included the former territories of the Cape and Natal colonies, as well as the republics of Orange Free State and Transvaal. 

 The Natives' Land Act of 1913 severely restricted the ownership of land by blacks; at that stage natives controlled only 7% of the country. The amount of land reserved for indigenous peoples was later marginally increased. In 1931 the union was fully sovereign from the United Kingdom with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, which abolished the last powers of the British Government on the country. In 1934, the South African Party and National Party merged to form the United Party, seeking reconciliation between Afrikaners and English-speaking "Whites". In 1939 the party split over the entry of the Union into World War II as an ally of the United Kingdom, a move which the National Party followers strongly opposed.

The Black History of the Boer War 

South Africa’s ‘Black’ tribal population also took part in the war, on a scale most people are unaware of. In the case of the Boer forces, very often Black farm workers took on the role of ‘agterryers’ (rear rider) in fighting Commandos, their job was a combination of military ‘supply’ and one of a military ‘aide-de-camp’ (assistant) to one or more of the Boer fighters. These ‘agterryers’ ferried ammunition, weapons, supplies and food to the Boer combatants, they arranged feed for horses and in some cases, they were even armed.

It was not only Black men in support, but Black women too, they supported the Boer women in providing food and feed to frontline commandos and when the concentration camp systems started they (with their children) were also swept up and in many cases also accompanied and lived in the tents with the Boer families interned in the ‘white’ concentration camps themselves, primarily looking after the children (black and white), sourcing food and water as well as cooking and washing. They too were exposed to the same ravages of war in the camps as the white folk, mainly the water-borne diseases which so decimated the women and children in these camps.

The British were no different, they quickly employed the local Black population as ‘scouts’ and numerous examples exist of these ‘scouts’ conducting surveillance of Boer positions and intelligence on Boer movements as well as guiding the British through the unforgiving South African terrain. The British also sought manpower from the local Black population in cargo loading and supply haulage. These people were as much a part of moving British military columns as any military person involved in logistics and supply and to a degree they were also exposed to hazards of war.

The British would also ‘commandeer’ entire Black tribal villages for the use of setting up forward bases, strong points and defences – putting entire village populations at risk and literally bringing them into their ‘war effort’. The British would also ‘commandeer’ entire Black tribal villages for the use of setting up forward bases, strong points and defences – putting entire village populations at risk and literally bringing them into their ‘war effort’.

Beginning of apartheid

In 1948, the National Party was elected to power. It strengthened the racial segregation begun under Dutch and British colonial rule. The Nationalist Government classified all peoples into three races and developed rights and limitations for each. The white minority controlled the vastly larger black majority. The legally institutionalized segregation became known as apartheid. While whites enjoyed the highest standard of living in all of Africa, comparable to First World Western nations, the black majority remained disadvantaged by almost every standard, including income, education, housing, and life expectancy.

Albino Republic in Africa

 On 31 May 1961, the country became a republic following a referendum in which white voters narrowly voted in favor thereof (the British-dominated Natal province rallied against the issue). Queen Elizabeth II was stripped of the title Queen of South Africa, and the last Governor-General, namely Charles Roberts Swart, became State President. Despite opposition both within and outside the country, the government legislated for a continuation of apartheid. The security forces cracked down on internal dissent, and violence became widespread, with anti-apartheid organizations such as the African National Congress, the Azanian People's Organization, and the Pan-Africanist Congress carrying out guerrilla warfare and urban sabotage. The three rival resistance movements also engaged in occasional inter-factional clashes as they jockeyed for domestic influence. Apartheid became increasingly controversial, and several countries began to boycott business with the South African government because of its racial policies. These measures were later extended to international sanctions and the divestment of holdings by foreign investors.

Life under apartheid: demeaning, often brutal

By Michael Pearson and Tom Cohen, CNN - Updated December 6, 2013

Ellen Moshweu was just trying to go to church. A police officer shot her in the back on that November day in 1990. David Mabeka was at home in 1986, sleeping through a newly declared South African government state of emergency, when police burst in to his home and took him away. A young black man, just trying to get home, was thrown into the back of a police van and taken to jail despite the indignity of presenting a white police officer valid identity papers. The officer crumpled the pass at the man's feet and took him to jail anyway. Thaabo Moorsi, "severely tortured and detained." Soyisile Douse, "shot dead by policemen." Families separated: Races relocated - This was apartheid.

For many too young or too distant to remember, apartheid is little more than a distant historical fact, a system of forced segregation to learn about in history class, to condemn and to move on. But for South Africans who survived the decades of punishing racial classification, humiliating work rules, forced relocation and arbitrary treatment by authorities, the end of apartheid was the birth of an entirely new world, midwifed in large part by Nelson Mandela.

A history of apartheid

Though white Europeans had long ruled in South Africa, the formal system of apartheid came into existence after World War II. The country's National Party -- led by the descendants of European settlers known as Afrikaners -- ushered it into existence after sweeping into power on a campaign calling for stricter racial controls amid the heavy inflow of blacks into South African cities. Between 1949 and 1953, South African lawmakers passed a series of increasingly oppressive laws, beginning with prohibitions on blacks and whites marrying in 1949 and culminating with laws dividing the population by race, reserving the best public facilities for whites and creating a separate, and inferior, education system for blacks. One of the laws, the Group Areas Act, forced blacks, Indians, Asians and people of mixed heritage to live in separate areas, sometimes dividing families. Blacks had to live in often barren tribal homelands or townships near cities, often in polluted industrial areas. Whites got the best agricultural areas, the choicest city addresses.

At this point we must re-state that Blacks held an overwhelming numerical advantage of perhaps 1000s to 1 originally, and about 7 to 1 in modern times, yet were unable to defend their lands. We have seen evidence that Africans seem genetically programmed to hold Tribal affiliations superior over Racial affiliations and Racial self-interest. Quite the opposite of Albinos, who in their conquest of Black Europe, showed no trouble putting aside their tribal differences for the common Racial good. This was repeated in the Americas, were Black and Mongol tribes not only failed to join forces to defend their lands from the Albinos, but actually continued to actively fight each other, sometimes in support of the Albino invaders. That type of unintelligent behavior actually made Africans and Paleoamericans complicit in their own demise, and the oppression of their survivors. Naturally, as in the Americas, the Albino nonsense of the few hundred defeating the many thousands, because of guns, is pure Albino lie history. See the Mesoamerican history for the truth of what happened with the Aztec.

Wiki: In South Africa, the term "Township" refers to the often underdeveloped segregated urban areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of apartheid, were reserved for non-whites, namely Indians, Africans and Colored’s. Townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities.

A system of passes and identity papers controlled where blacks could travel and work. "Ooo, don't talk about the Group Areas Act," the resident of one such area, Gadija Jacobs, said, according to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. "I will cry all over again. There's when the trouble started ... when they chucked us out of Cape Town. My whole life came changed. What they took away they can never give back to us." Apartheid rules governed virtually every aspect of daily life.

Blacks had to use different beaches and public restrooms. Signs distinguished facilities reserved for whites -- often referred to as Europeans. Blacks earned meager wages compared with whites, and their children went to poorly funded schools. In one of the telling anecdotes of the apartheid era, black nannies who dressed and fed and sang to the children of their white employers were unable to join them in the Dutch Reformed Church, the main Afrikaner congregation. In the 1950s, growing calls for civil disobedience against the government took hold, sometimes resulting in violence as police cracked down on the protests. The 1952 Defiance Campaign, for instance, prompted thousands of black Africans to flout the laws in hopes that their arrests would overwhelm the country's prison system and bring attention and eventual change. Thousands were arrested, but the African National Congress, which organized the campaign, had to call it off after scores were hurt by police. In 1960, the tide began to turn when South African police killed 69 protesters gathered outside the Sharpeville police station for a nonviolent protest. The killings led not only to international outcry but calls for armed struggle by the ANC and other groups. That struggle continued for years.

It's laid out in gruesome detail in the records of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, formed after the end of apartheid to help expose and heal the country's many wounds. Moshweu, the woman shot in the back as she went to church, told her story to the commission in 1996. She told an awful story, of a police officer with almost complete power in her neighborhood, a man who used to randomly fire off his gun -- and who she said had also killed her son. "He brought suffering to me by killing my son. He wanted to kill me. That is why he shot me," she told the commission. Mabeka, who testified at the same hearing, told the commission he spent two months in prison after being taken from his home in 1986 and beaten at a police station. "They assaulted me with fists; they kicked me, and I fell on the ground," he said. "They didn't ask me anything; they didn't tell me what do they -- what did they want." John Biyase told his story to researchers from Michigan State University in 2006. He recalled marching in Johannesburg in 1977 after police closed many of the high schools attended by blacks in an apparent effort to break up resistance efforts. Police trapped the marchers and set on them as they tried to escape. "They just hit everybody," Biyase told his interviewers. "There was blood, cries. I remember we were shouting, 'Peace! Peace! Peace!' “He spent three weeks in the city's John Vorster Square prison in a cell with 20 other young men.

There, he remembers police threatening to take troublemakers to the 10th floor "workshop," where police were suspected of staging fatal accidents involving inmates. "We knew what the workshop meant," he told his interviewers. "Death." When Mandela was freed in 1990, four years before he would become president, another surprising element of apartheid reared its head. Before his release, few had seen Mandela's now-famous face or heard his voice. Under apartheid, the government banned the publication of anything to do with opposition groups such as his African National Congress. "We were fed the information we were allowed," said Susan Campbell, a former prosecutor who now is an environmental lawyer in the coastal town of Knysna. "It was only after his release, really, that we actually saw who he was."

South African Army Infantry Formation

In 1954, the SAAC's Infantry Branch, and the personnel of the South African Instructional Corps, were formed into the South African Infantry Corps. In 1972, continuous national service was increased to twelve months and by 1974, there were ten full-time motorized infantry battalions, besides the parachute battalion. The infantry reserve comprised 42 citizen force infantry battalions, a parachute regiment and over 200 commando internal defense units. Plans were in place to establish volunteer black infantry units along ethnic lines, comparable to the Cape Corps.

The volunteer black infantry unit plans eventually bore fruit with the formation of 21, 111, 113, 115, 116 (Northern Sotho, Messina), 117, 118, 121 and 151 Battalions. Another battalion, 114 Battalion, was planned but not actually formed. Many of their members were Service Volunteers, members of all the population groups who were not compelled to do National Service (hence excluding white males). Eventually the various black battalions amounted to about 16,000 troops, and some of the members of these battalions became Auxiliary or Permanent Force members.

The Cape Corps

The Cape Corps and its predecessor units were the main military organizations in which the Colored members of South Africa's population served. As one of the military units of South Africa with one of the longest histories, the Cape Corps reflects the history of South Africa's Colored population to a great extent.

1781–1782

The first Colored unit to be formed was the Corps Bastaard Hottentoten (Afrikaans: "Corps of Bastard Hottentots"), which was organized in 1781 by the Dutch colonial administration of the time. Based in Cape Town and drawing its members from men of mixed Hottentot and White ancestry, this unit had about 400 members under the command of Hendrik Eksteen and Gerrit Munnik. However, the unit was disbanded in 1782 when French mercenaries arrived in the Cape. (Khoikhoi use a click language. The click sounded like stuttering to Albinos thus: from German hotteren-totteren ‘stutter’). In 1793 this unit was re-formed in Cape Town as the Corps van Pandoeren (Pandour Corps) with 200 men under the command of Captain Jan Cloete, only to be disbanded again in 1795. The unit was re-formed again under the British colonial administration in May 1796, this time under the name Hottentot Corps. It was headquartered in Wynberg and consisted of about 300 men. In 1798 the headquarters were moved to Hout Bay.

On 25 June 1801 the Cape Regiment was formed. It was organized as a British imperial regiment of ten companies and retained all the personnel of the Hottentot Corps. With the Dutch taking over colonial administration of the Cape once again, the Corps Vrye Hottentotten ("Corps of Free Hottentots") was formed on 21 February 1803. It was later renamed the Hottentot Ligte Infanterie ("Hottentot Light Infantry"). When the British returned to the Cape, they formed The Cape Regiment in October 1806. Headquartered in Cape Town, it was organized as a typical colonial unit with British officers and Colored other ranks. In later years, the Regiment also had a troop of light cavalry added. On 24 September 1817 the Regiment was reduced in size (a previous order to completely disband having either been ignored or rescinded) to two small units of about 200 men for the defense of the Cape Colony's eastern frontier. The two units were named the Cape Cavalry (consisting of one troop of dragoons) and the Cape Light Infantry. Mathew Richmond, coming from the Royal Military College, joined them in 1817.

In 1820 these two units were again combined under a unified command and renamed the Cape Corps. The Cape Mounted Riflemen (Imperial) were formed on 25 November 1827; the cavalry wing was disbanded and the Corps reorganized as battalion of mounted infantry. In 1850 some soldiers effectively mutinied by joining Colored rebellion in the Eastern Cape; the regiment was subsequently reconstituted as mixed unit with both White and Colored members. Some years later, in 1854, the recruitment of Colored members for the battalion was completely halted. The battalion was completely disbanded in 1870 when military service abolished for Colored’s, although its name and traditions were appropriated in 1878 by another (all-White) Cape Mounted Riflemen.

1915–1918
Driver of the Cape Corps assigned to the South African 6th Armored Division outside Bologne, Italy 1944. As part of South Africa's efforts for World War I, the Cape Corps was re-formed in the Cape Province by Sir Walter Stanford, as a single battalion in December 1915 as part of the Union Defense Force. In 1916 the Corps was expanded and a second battalion raised. The original battalion was redesignated the 1st Battalion and the new unit (which was disbanded in 1918) as the 2nd Battalion.

1940–1950
In order to provide additional troops for South Africa's participation in World War II, the Cape Corps was reconstituted again on 8 May 1940, partly from the Association of the 1915-1918 Corps. This unit was assigned the role of a non-combatant service corps with a pioneer battalion and five motor transport companies. It was later expanded to include several motorized infantry battalions, infantry battalions, prisoner of war (POW) guard battalions and POW escort battalions. At its peak strength, the Corps had about 23,000 members. On 13 October 1942 the Corps absorbed the South African Indian and Malay Corps but was disbanded at the end of hostilities in 1945. In 1947 the Cape Corps was reconstituted as a Permanent Force Colored service corps only to be disbanded in 1950 by the newly elected National Party, which abolished military service for Colored’s.

1963–
The Cape Corps was reformed again in 1963, as a non-combatant Colored service corps; it was considered to be the successor to all the previous Colored and Cape Corps units since 1796. The Corps was designated a Permanent Force unit of the South African Defense Force in 1972. In 1973 the unit was renamed the South African Cape Corps Service Battalion. When the South African Defense Act was amended in 1975 to give Colored’s "equivalent status to whites" in the South African Army, the battalion was renamed the South African Cape Corps Battalion, its combatant status was restored and the first Colored officers were commissioned. During the period 1979 to 1989 the South African Cape Corps (SACC) was substantially expanded: The SACC Maintenance Unit was formed in 1979 from some of the members of the original service battalion. The original combat battalion was renamed 1st Battalion when the 2nd Battalion was raised in December 1984. The 3rd Battalion was raised in Kimberley in 1989. The SACC School and SACC School for Junior Leaders were founded.

In 1990 the SACC was reduced to a single battalion and redesignated 9 South African Infantry Battalion which was reroled as a seaborne light infantry unit. Currently, as a result of the post-1994 transformation of South Africa, Colored soldiers, sailors and airmen serve alongside their fellow South Africans in a fully integrated South African National Defense Force.

Demographics of South Africa in 1986

Necklacing - Wikipedia

Necklacing is the practice of summary execution and torture carried out by forcing a rubber tire, filled with petrol, around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire. The victim may take up to 20 minutes to die, suffering severe burns in the process.

The practice appears to have begun in the Eastern Cape area of South Africa in the mid-1980s. One incident sometimes cited as the first recorded instance of necklacing took place in Uitenhage on 23 March 1985 when a group of people killed Benjamin Kinikini, a local councilor who was accused of having links to a vigilante group. Kinikini and members of his family were dragged out of their house, stabbed to death, and their bodies set on fire. Two of those judged to be the perpetrators, Wellington Mielies, 26, and Moses Jantjies, 23, were hanged on 1 September 1987. But in this case the victims were killed by stabbing, and not by burning tires.

Necklacing was used by the black community to punish its members who were perceived as collaborators with the apartheid government. These included black policemen, town councilors and others, as well as their relatives and associates. The practice was often carried out in the name of the African National Congress, although the ANC executive body condemned it. In 1986 Winnie Mandela, then-wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, stated "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country" which was widely seen as an implicit endorsement of necklacing, which at the time caused the ANC to distance itself from her, although she later took on a number of official positions within the party. The number of deaths per month in South Africa related to political unrest as a whole from 1992 through 1995 ranged from 54 to 605 and averaged 244. These figures are inclusive of massacres as well as deaths not attributed to necklacing.

'Necklacing' represented the worst of the excesses committed in the name of the uprising. This was a particularly gruesome form of mob justice, reserved for those thought to be government collaborators, informers and black policemen. The executioners would force a car tire over the head and around the arms of the suspect, drench it in petrol, and set it alight. Immobilized, the victim burned to death.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu once famously saved a near victim of necklacing when he rushed into a large gathered crowd and threw his arms around a man accused of being a police informant, who was about to be killed. Tutu's actions, which were caught on film, caused the crowd to release the man.

^{Some commentators have noted that the practice of necklacing served to escalate the levels of violence during the township wars of the 1980s and early 1990s as security force members became brutalized and afraid that they might fall victim to the practice.}

_{After a relatively short time of Necklacing aimed at Black security force members, F. W. de Klerk realized that the jig was up, South Africa’s Blacks had finally realized where the real problem lay, and now they could not be stopped. So he opened bilateral discussions with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for a transition of policies and government. And just like that, hundreds of years of oppression were all over.}

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was born Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18, 1918, in the tiny village of Mvezo, on the banks of the Mbashe River in Transkei, South Africa. "Rolihlahla" in the Xhosa language literally means "pulling the branch of a tree," but more commonly translates as "troublemaker."

Family and Early Life

Nelson Mandela's father, who was destined to be a chief, served as a counselor to tribal chiefs for several years, but lost both his title and fortune over a dispute with the local colonial magistrate. Mandela was only an infant at the time, and his father's loss of status forced his mother to move the family to Qunu, an even smaller village north of Mvezo. The village was nestled in a narrow grassy valley; there were no roads, only foot paths that linked the pastures where livestock grazed. The family lived in huts and ate a local harvest of maize, sorghum, pumpkin and beans, which was all they could afford. Water came from springs and streams and cooking was done outdoors. Mandela played the games of young boys, acting out male right-of-passage scenarios with toys he made from the natural materials available, including tree branches and clay.

At the suggestion of one of his father's friends, Mandela was baptized in the Methodist Church. He went on to become the first in his family to attend school. As was custom at the time, and probably due to the bias of the British educational system in South Africa, Mandela's teacher told him that his new first name would be Nelson. When Mandela was nine years old, his father died of lung disease, causing his life to change dramatically. He was adopted by Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, the acting regent of the Thembu people — a gesture done as a favor to Mandela's father, who, years earlier, had recommended Jongintaba be made chief. Mandela subsequently left the carefree life he knew in Qunu, fearing that he would never see his village again. He traveled by motorcar to Mqhekezweni, the provincial capital of Thembuland, to the chief's royal residence. Though he had not forgotten his beloved village of Qunu, he quickly adapted to the new, more sophisticated surroundings of Mqhekezweni.

Mandela was given the same status and responsibilities as the regent's two other children, his son and oldest child, Justice, and daughter Nomafu. Mandela took classes in a one-room school next to the palace, studying English, Xhosa, history and geography. It was during this period that Mandela developed an interest in African history, from elder chiefs who came to the Great Palace on official business. He learned how the African people had lived in relative peace until the coming of the white people. According to the elders, the children of South Africa had previously lived as brothers, but white men had shattered this fellowship. While black men shared their land, air and water with whites, white men took all of these things for themselves.

When Mandela was 16, it was time for him to partake in the traditional African circumcision ritual to mark his entrance into manhood. The ceremony of circumcision was not just a surgical procedure, but an elaborate ritual in preparation for manhood. In African tradition, an uncircumcised man cannot inherit his father's wealth, marry or officiate at tribal rituals. Mandela participated in the ceremony with 25 other boys. He welcomed the opportunity to partake in his people's customs and felt ready to make the transition from boyhood to manhood.

His mood shifted during the proceedings, however, when Chief Meligqili, the main speaker at the ceremony, spoke sadly of the young men, explaining that they were enslaved in their own country. Because their land was controlled by white men, they would never have the power to govern themselves, the chief said. He went on to lament that the promise of the young men would be squandered as they struggled to make a living and perform mindless chores for white men. Mandela would later say that while the chief's words didn't make total sense to him at the time, they would eventually formulate his resolve for an independent South Africa.

Anti-Apartheid Movement

Mandela became actively involved in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress in 1942. Within the ANC, a small group of young Africans banded together, calling themselves the African National Congress Youth League. Their goal was to transform the ANC into a mass grassroots movement, deriving strength from millions of rural peasants and working people who had no voice under the current regime. Specifically, the group believed that the ANC's old tactics of polite petitioning were ineffective. In 1949, the ANC officially adopted the Youth League's methods of boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non-cooperation, with policy goals of full citizenship, redistribution of land, trade union rights, and free and compulsory education for all children.

Cuba helped defeat South African insurgents in Angola and win Namibia’s independence from South Africa in 1990, adding pressure on the apartheid regime. After Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in 1990, he repeatedly thanked Castro.

For 20 years, Mandela directed peaceful, nonviolent acts of defiance against the South African government and its racist policies, including the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He founded the law firm Mandela and Tambo, partnering with Oliver Tambo, a brilliant student he'd met while attending Fort Hare. The law firm provided free and low-cost legal counsel to unrepresented blacks. In 1956, Mandela and 150 others were arrested and charged with treason for their political advocacy (they were eventually acquitted). Meanwhile, the ANC was being challenged by Africanists, a new breed of black activists who believed that the pacifist method of the ANC was ineffective. Africanists soon broke away to form the Pan-Africanist Congress, which negatively affected the ANC; by 1959, the movement had lost much of its militant support.

Mandela's Time in Prison
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison, from November 1962 until February 1990. Formerly committed to nonviolent protest, he began to believe that armed struggle was the only way to achieve change. In 1961, Mandela co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe, also known as MK, an armed offshoot of the ANC dedicated to sabotage and use guerilla war tactics to end apartheid. In 1961, Mandela orchestrated a three-day national workers' strike. He was arrested for leading the strike the following year and was sentenced to five years in prison. In 1963, Mandela was brought to trial again. This time, he and 10 other ANC leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment for political offenses, including sabotage

Nelson Mandela was incarcerated on Robben Island for 18 of his 27 years in prison. During this time, he contracted tuberculosis and, as a black political prisoner, received the lowest level of treatment from prison workers. However, while incarcerated, Mandela was able to earn a Bachelor of Law degree through a University of London correspondence program. A 1981 memoir by South African intelligence agent Gordon Winter described a plot by the South African government to arrange for Mandela's escape so as to shoot him during the recapture; the plot was foiled by British intelligence. Mandela continued to be such a potent symbol of black resistance that a coordinated international campaign for his release was launched, and this international groundswell of support exemplified the power and esteem that Mandela had in the global political community.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid in 1994. Witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations were invited to give statements about their experiences, and some were selected for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution. The TRC was set up in terms of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No. 34 of 1995, and was based in Cape Town. The hearings started in 1996. The mandate of the commission was to bear witness to, record, and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as reparation and rehabilitation.

The commission was empowered to grant amnesty to those who committed abuses during the apartheid era, as long as the crimes were politically motivated, proportionate, and there was full disclosure by the person seeking amnesty. To avoid victor's justice, no side was exempt from appearing before the commission. The commission heard reports of human rights violations and considered amnesty applications from all sides, from the apartheid state to the liberation forces, including the African National Congress.

Honor the Criminals, but not the Victims.

 The rather receding nature of the Black South African is further demonstrated by their relationship with the legacy of Stephanus Johannes Paulus "Paul" Kruger (1825–1904). He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and President of the South African Republic (or Transvaal) from 1883 to 1900. He has been called a personification of Afrikanerdom, which is undoubtedly true, but we will not go into his crimes at this time.

South Africa’s Albinos have immortalized him by giving his name to one of the great wildlife reserves in the world “Kruger National Park” with well over a million visitors yearly. To help those who may not know the name of the reserve, there is a huge bust of him over the entrance.

A bronze statue of Kruger in his characteristic Dopper suit and top hat was erected in Church Square, Pretoria. Thirteen years later the South African Mint put his likeness on the Krugerrand, a gold bullion coin still produced and exported in the 21st century. His home in Pretoria and farm at Boekenhoutfontein are provincial heritage sites. During the Second World War Kruger's life story and image were appropriated by propagandists in Nazi Germany, who produced the biographical film Ohm Krüger ("Uncle Krüger", 1941).

Kruger gives his name to the town of Krugersdorp, and to many streets and squares in South Africa and other countries, especially the Netherlands. This has, on occasion, led to controversy; in 2009 local authorities in St Gallen, Switzerland renamed Krügerstrasse "because of racist associations. Talk about “Stockholm syndrome”, even some Albino Europeans realize the need to do, what the Black South African lacks the thought or courage to do.

As far as we know, there is no Memorial in South Africa, for the countless millions of Black South Africans who were killed by the Albino invaders – and not forgetting the attempted Genocide of the San and Khoi people. Hell, as far as we know, there has never even been an attempt to come-up with a reasonable estimate of how many were murdered.

BUT BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS “DO” HONOR BLACK WAR DEAD!

(When they died fighting to protect Albinos)

 
The South African Museum and Memorial of Longueval - The South African Brigade.

Delville Wood is well known in South African military history; it represents the national symbol for bravery and sacrifice as it was here that the 1st South African Infantry Brigade accomplished one of the finest feats of arms of the First World War in July 1916.

On the 15 July 1916, the brigade, comprising 121 officers and 3032 men, received orders to take the wood “at all costs”. For five nights and six days, the South Africans fought against various units of the 4th German Army Corps. Outnumbered, and being fought against from three sides, they were almost decimated but managed to hold on and fight back, sometimes resulting to hand to hand fighting, until most of the woods had been captured. When they were relieved on the 20 July, only 142 men came out of the woods unscathed

19 July 2016 - President Jacob Zuma has inaugurated a new memorial at Delville Wood honouring South Africans of all races who fought in the First and Second World Wars. South Africa's leader visited the Somme on July 12th 2016 for commemorations marking the centenary of the first major action fought by South African troops on the Western Front. President Zuma said: "We have gathered to honour South Africans who sacrificed their lives during the Battle of Delville Wood, one hundred years ago, regardless of race, colour or creed. "We are here to honour in particular, black people who fell in this war, who were not accorded the respect and recognition they deserved, and which is equal to that of their white compatriots." The names of all the Great War fallen have now been engraved, in alphabetical order, on a new commemorative wall at the South African National Memorial. 

The Telegraph Media Group (Apr 2015) - Members of a radical South African movement have burned and charred a monument to British soldiers who died in the Boer Wars (1899-1902), describing it as a "colonial statue". The protesters "put (a burning) tyre over the statue" of a soldier in the centre of the southern town of Uitenhage, police warrant officer Basil Seekoei told AFP. "We haven't arrested anyone yet. We're still busy with the investigation first," he added.

Responsibility for the incident on Thursday was swiftly claimed by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a political party formed in 2013 by Julius Malema, formerly the firebrand youth leader of the ruling African National Congress, which expelled him after a conviction for hate speech.

The incident follows calls by Mr Malema to bring down statues of South Africa's former white rulers, British and Afrikaner alike. "We said that economic liberation must be accompanied by the falling of these colonial statues and we would want to see them replaced by liberation hero statues," EFF Regional Deputy Chairperson Bo Madwara said on state-run SABC television. South Africans are currently debating the status of colonial-era monuments more widely, after student activists at the University of Cape Town succeeded in having a statue of Cecil Rhodes boarded up.

Rhodes (1853-1902), the British colonist, mining magnate and politician for whom Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe) was named, is seen in hostile circles as the embodiment of white oppression in southern African history. The ANC, in power for 20 years following the end of white minority rule, has issued threats to colonial monuments but thus far left most of them standing in the name of national reconciliation. The party says it is open to discussion, within a legal framework.

_{The Zulu (who were allowed their own separate land) were not particularly interested in helping to free South Africa from the Albinos: as witnessed by their kings own words. Whether this was an active hindrance in support of the Albinos from the beginning (after their defeat in 1906), is unknown.}

History: The AmaZulu are a Bantu tribe who believe that they are the direct descendants of the patriarch Zulu, who was born to a Nguni chief in the Congo Basin area. In the 16th century, the Zulu migrated southward to their present location in South Africa (Natal Province), incorporating many of the customs of the San, including the well-known linguistic clicking sounds of the region.

During the reign of King Shaka (1816-1828), the Zulu became the mightiest military force in southern Africa, increasing their land holdings from 100 square miles to 11,500. Shaka was followed by Dingaan, who tentatively entered into treaties with English colonizers. Mpande was the next King. He allowed the British extensive control over his peoples. By the time he died in 1872, the Zulu had enough of the English invasion. Cetewayo, who replaced Mpande, tried vainly for six years to avoid a confrontation with the British, yet in 1879 war erupted. Although the Zulu initially experienced some success, the British army eventually prevailed. In less than six months, Cetewayo was exiled to England, and the Zulu kingdom was divided to the British advantage.

The last Zulu uprising against European domination was led by Chief Bombatha in 1906 with no success. In recent times, Chief Buthelezi has doubled as the political leader of the Zulu, and the head of the Inkatha Freedom Party, leading the fight against Apartheid and the ANC, demanding a voice for his people who are more than three million strong. After 1994 this has change, as corruption and weak leadership has basically turned the IFP into a weak regional opposition. The Zulu king, King Goodwill Zwelithini is as well not happy and is apparently feeling the pains of living in an ugly nation with us. He took his time to blame his kind (blacks) for ruining South Africa at his royal palace during a recent celebration of his 44th year on the throne. 

Addressing the crowd, the king revealed that he’s lucky the year of his birth was the same year the apartheid National Party came to power. He recounted that the National Party built a powerful government, with the strongest economy and army in Africa which are persistently being destroyed by the present democracy. King Goodwill ruled that the apartheid government is better than the present. The South African currency and economy, he said, “surprisingly shot up” when the National Party government was in power. In this “so-called democracy,” black people are destroying the gains of the past. And “history will judge black people harshly as they have failed to build on the successes of the Afrikaners.”

You are going to find yourselves on the wrong side of history; you do not want to build on what you had inherited…the economy that we are now burning down… You “use matches” to burn down infrastructure built during apartheid…”You on the ground are burning everything that you found here…You don’t want to use them, you say this is apartheid infrastructure…” But “I am surprised that all presidents who have been in the so-called democracy occupied apartheid buildings where they make all these laws that are oppressing us.” The king as well hinted that he’s being disrespected by the existing government as he stated that the Afrikaners respected him. “I don’t know how it happened, the Afrikaners respect me so much” he emphasized.

Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu (born 27 July 1948 at Nongoma) is the reigning King of the Zulu nation under the Traditional Leadership clause of South Africa's republican constitution. He became king on the death of his father, King Cyprian Bhekuzulu kaSolomon, in 1968. Mangosuthu Buthelezi (born 27 August 1928) is a South African politician and Zulu tribal leader who founded the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in 1975 and was Chief Minister of the KwaZulu bantustan until 1994. He was Minister of Home Affairs of South Africa from 1994 to 2004. His praise name is Shenge.

EW YORK TIMES
Zulu King Breaks Ties To Buthelezi
By BILL KELLER,
Published: September 21, 1994

JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 20— The King of the Zulus today broke off relations with Mangosuthu G. Buthelezi, the powerful Zulu nationalist leader, setting up a potentially fratricidal battle for leadership of South Africa's largest ethnic group. The King, Goodwill Zwelithini, and his princes announced early this morning that the King would "sever all ties" with Mr. Buthelezi after rock-throwing followers of the nationalist leader stormed the royal palace and disrupted a visit by President Nelson Mandela. Tonight an aide said the King had left the palace with an army escort and his official entourage, fearing for his safety. A fight for the loyalty of the seven million Zulus no longer poses the dire national threat that it did before the April elections, when many feared that disorder in the predominantly Zulu province of KwaZulu/ Natal could make a fair election impossible. But any resumption of political carnage in that most embattled piece of South Africa would be a strain on Mr. Mandela's young Government.

The announcement today was a humiliation for Mr. Buthelezi, who rebuilt the scattered Zulu nation into a formidable and often bellicose engine of ethnic politics and deployed it against Mr. Mandela's African National Congress. Thanks in large part to the emotional pull of the Zulu monarchy and the vote-mustering power of tribal chiefs; the Inkatha Freedom Party of Mr. Buthelezi narrowly won a majority in the provincial legislature. He also secured three seats in Mr. Mandela's unity Cabinet, including his own post as Minister of Home Affairs. Mr. Buthelezi, who is a royal cousin and claims the title of "traditional prime minister" to the King, has shown every sign of being willing to challenge the King if necessary to retain his control of the potent tribal political machine. Since the elections, as the King has gradually distanced himself from Inkatha and moved closer to Mr. Mandela, Mr. Buthelezi has responded with thinly veiled threats, embarrassing revelations about the King's high living, and assertions that the King was being duped by turncoats in the royal family.

While the King is the symbolic center of the nation, he has not been much of a political operator. Mr. Buthelezi has coopted much of the tribal network under his own control, and, abetted by officials of the apartheid police, has helped secure them weapons and training in military tactics. King Goodwill, who is 46 years old, ascended to the throne in 1971 and for a time tried to assert himself as a political force. Mr. Buthelezi, who is 20 years older, used his power as leader of the KwaZulu apartheid homeland to put the young King in his place.

In the ensuing years Mr. Buthelezi built up the King as the embodiment of Zulu nationalism. As President Mr. Mandela has gently courted the King, while striving to avoid antagonizing Mr. Buthelezi. The President agreed to let the King be trustee of vast tribal lands. He provided an army contingent to replace the palace guard appointed by Mr. Buthelezi. He has pushed to entrench the King's powers and budget in the province constitution. Today's climactic falling out began when the King invited Mr. Mandela to attend the annual holiday next Saturday honoring Shaka, the 19th- century conqueror regarded as the founder of the Zulu nation. Mr. Buthelezi objected to being bypassed, and demonstrated his displeasure by organizing a boycott of the King's annual Reed Dance last week, a kind of debutantes' ball where Zulu maidens present themselves to the King.

When the three leaders met on Monday at the palace in Enyokeni to resolve the disagreement, a mob of young Inkatha supporters surged into the compound, chanting slogans against Mr. Mandela and stoning the palace and the presidential helicopter. Early this morning the King's legal adviser, S. S. Mathe, emerged from a meeting of the royal house to proclaim the events an insult to the dignity of the King and the Zulu nation."A resolution was taken by His Majesty and members of the royal house that all Shaka Day commemoration services for 1994 are hereby canceled and the King must not meet Buthelezi again," the adviser announced, according to the South African Press Association. Mr. Buthelezi insisted to reporters in Cape Town today that the rift was only a "rumor" and that the holiday would be observed.

AFTERMATH OF OPPRESSION
South Africa today

Unemployment in 2016 among black South Africans stands at 39% compared to only 8.3% among white South Africans. It is as if the tree was cut down, but the roots remain, continuing its ideological existence. An overwhelming majority of South African schools, private and public, don't allow black boys and girls to have African hairstyles because of "neatness". Black girls' hair is a central component to their identity and culture, and for decades these schools have robbed them from it. Schools not only make black people hate their hair at an emotional level but at an institutional level.

One Settler, One Bullet was a rallying cry and slogan originated by the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), during the struggle of the 1980s against apartheid in South Africa. The slogan parodied the African National Congress's slogan 'One Man, One Vote', which eventually became 'One Person, One Vote'.

NEWS story:

BLF to Rupert: “One bullet. One settler.”
Black First Land First (BLF), ANCYL and MKVA marched to the offices of Remgrow on Friday.
29/09/2017

Black First Land First (BLF), the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and the uMkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKVA) marched to the offices of Remgrow on Friday morning, a company chaired by South African industrialist Johann Rupert (who BLF call a "land thief") to deliver three memoranda 'dealing with the settler colonizer'. BLF were seen chanting "One bullet. One settler."

'Remgro is run by white monopoly capital thugs who dominate household goods purchases through their ownership of Unilever. Johann Rupert cannot be allowed to simply hold board meetings in Geneva, discuss the enslaving of the black majority and then tarnish the call for radical economic transformation; all in the name of maintaining his ill-gotten wealth.' BLF said in a statement issued on their website. This follows BLF's march on auditing firm KPMG on Thursday afternoon, which they called 'a criminal organization that uses the cover of doing auditing to facilitate looting by white monopoly capital' in a statement. Also on Friday the group laid charges against the South African Police Service at the Hillbrow police station in Johannesburg. They accuse SAPS of shooting 27 members of the Thursday protest.

To the average Black South African, little has changed.

SOUTH AFRICA: A VIDEO of white South African university students feeding black cleaners soup they had urinated in has caused outrage in a country scarred by decades of apartheid.

University classes were cancelled and staff and students protested yesterday, demanding action against the four men. The video shows one student urinating into a container of soup placed on a toilet seat at the University of the Free State, situated in a conservative Afrikaner farming region. "This is the final ingredient," he said before heating the soup in a microwave oven and giving it to the elderly cleaners. They were also taken to a bar where they drank alcohol and danced to Afrikaans music in what was portrayed as an initiation ceremony. The leaked video, filmed last year, led black and white students to demonstrate at the campus, marching to the Reitz men's residence where it was made. One placard read: "Stop This White Arrogancy." Police used stun grenades to disperse the crowd. Five students were arrested and there were incidents of intimidation and damage to property, the university said.

"The Boers (Afrikaners) lived happily in Reitz until the day that the previously disadvantaged discovered the word integration in a dictionary," said one of the students in the video. "Reitz was then forced to integrate and we started our own selection process." The Young Communist League of South Africa said the video reflected that some Afrikaner students at the university still "regard our people as inferior human beings equivalent to pigs". The video, released by South Africa's eTV, has made big news in the country, where white minority rule ended with multiracial elections in 1994. In a front-page story headlined "The aparthate video", the Star newspaper ran a sequence of photos of the footage, which shows the elderly cleaners on their knees gagging into buckets after drinking the contaminated soup. 

Girls At South African High School Protesting Hair And Language Bans

Last month, black students at the prestigious Pretoria High School for Girls protested a clause in the school's code of conduct that banned wide cornrows, braids and dreadlocks. It wasn't a new policy, and many South African schools have enforced similar rules before. But this time, girls pushed back — and their complaints touched a nerve. The school, which was an all-white institution until the mid-1990s, dropped the restrictions a few days later — but not before triggering a debate across the country. "They make it out to be about grooming, but it is about race," says Lesley Chandata, a black woman from Zimbabwe who waits tables at a pizza parlor outside Cape Town.

The crux of the complaints from students and their supporters is that black South Africans are singled out for punishment or derision because of their appearance or speech. Even political parties like the Economic Freedom Fighters and the ANC Women's League and government officials joined the discussion, denouncing the policy. "Schools should not be used as a platform to discourage students from embracing their African identity," tweeted South Africa's minister of arts and culture, Nathi Mthethwa. The Pretoria High hair rule seemed to perpetuate the notion that even in the post-apartheid era, Africans in Africa shouldn't look or act like Africans. "When I first heard about it, I took it very personally," says Thandi, a psychology student at the University of Cape Town who asked that only her first name be used.

"This is Africa, and we can't be naturally who we are." The reason for hair and dress codes, argue some South African educators, is that personal expression can take the focus away from learning. Uniforms are ubiquitous in schools across the country. And when it comes to hair, educators insist on neatness — a standard many of them have defended as race-neutral. But plenty of South Africans see a double standard at play. The Pretoria High policy singled out "cornrows, natural dreadlocks and singles/braids," limiting them to "a maximum of 10 millimeters [about a third of an inch] in diameter." Violators were told to cut their hair or they'd be given demerits that can lead to suspension and expulsion. Afros were not specifically mentioned but the hair code does state that "all styles should be conservative, neat."

Tiisetso Phetla, who graduated from Pretoria High last year, told NPR's Rachel Martin that people at school would call her natural hair "barbaric" and that it looked "like a dog's breakfast" and was told to "remove that nest off your head." "Your mood would completely change for the entire day," she said. "You'd be de-motivated for the day because they tell you that you don't look as if you belong in the school." As is often the case in such codes, however, straight hair was not limited in such specific detail. It could be worn long if pulled back in a ponytail. Under pressure from students and parents, provincial education minister Panyaza Lesufi suspended Pretoria High's hair clause last week. He also appointed an independent investigation into charges of racism at the school. Still, student protests continue across the country. On Monday, about 300 current and former pupils of San Souci Girls' High School in Newlands, outside of Cape Town, met with the provincial education minister, demanding systemic changes to school policies and personnel. Thousands of people have tweeted with the hashtag #StopRacismAtPretoriaGirlsHigh on Twitter, calling the code of conduct "offensive" and "absurd." And as of Tuesday morning, nearly 32,000 people had signed an online petition calling for an end to discrimination at Pretoria High, which includes "disciplinary action" for teachers who enforced the policy and "protection" for the students who protested.

Black girls at schools around the nation complained not just about hair but being referred to as "monkeys" or "kaffirs" (South Africa's rough equivalent of the N-word) or being told by teachers to stop making "funny noises" when they speak in African languages among themselves. While black and white girls may sit together at the same schools in a way that was inconceivable under apartheid, they aren't necessarily sharing the same experience."I wasn't surprised at all that this protest struck a chord with so many women," says journalist Milisuthando Bongela, who is working on a documentary about hair and black identity that will be released next year. "It is something that has been waiting to explode for a very long time in South Africa."

TheGuardian
Why is South Africa still so anti-black, so many years after apartheid?
By Panashe Chigumadzi - Friday 10 March 2017

In 1994 Shoshozola became the unofficial anthem of South Africa’s “miracle” transition into democracy. Taking its title from the Ndebele word for “going forward”, it was a song expressing the hardship of the lives of migrant laborers from what was then Rhodesia, who travelled on steam trains to work in South Africa’s mines. Today it has a painful irony as migrants find themselves no longer welcome in post-apartheid South Africa.

A recent spate of violent attacks led to an anti-xenophobia protest on 9 March. About 200 locals and foreigners, under the banner of the Coalition of Civics against Xenophobia, took to the streets of Pretoria calling for an end to the violence against foreign-born Africans and South Asians in South Africa’s townships and inner cities. Having been born in Zimbabwe and lived in South Africa for as long as it has been a democracy, I was as warmed by the solidarity as I was upset by the violence. I am reassured especially to see reports of the march acknowledge that “issues of unemployment‚ housing and crime are central” to the attacks.

Understanding and acknowledging the root causes of the violence has been largely missing from the public discourse here in South Africa. Too often the attackers have been dismissed as “irrational”, or provoked calls for more “hospitality that defines our democratic order”, in the words of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Both reactions seem to miss two key facts: South Africa isn’t anti-immigrant, it’s anti-black, and this violence is evidence that the “miracle” has failed the very people it should have uplifted – poor black South Africans.

Explaining why the violence is specifically anti-black or Afrophobic, the University of South Africa professor Rodney Tshaka described xenophobia as the fear of the other, while “Afrophobia is fear of a specific other: the black other from north of the Limpopo river [in other words, from Zimbabwe or Mozambique and beyond them, the rest of Africa]. If foreigners generally were the main target, those who are anti-foreigner would no doubt have sought out all foreigners and made it known that they are not welcome in this country.”

The fact that Africans bear the brunt of the violence isn’t simply about the numbers, though over 75% of international migrants living in South Africa come from the rest of the continent. Foreignness, or the notion of “other”, has a long, anti-black history in South Africa. Until 1994’s elections, black South Africans were not citizens of South Africa, but of “homelands” or “Bantustans”, areas where the black population was resettled under apartheid. The South Africa of postcards was the preserve of the white settler minority, who did not see themselves as part of the African continent.

Dismissing the attacks as “common township thuggery” or having “nothing to do with xenophobia” also ignores the fact that the post-apartheid dispensation has yet to deliver economic justice for black South Africans. A black-led government presides over an economy that is white-dominated, and which frequently ranks among the most unequal in the world. Economic inequality is said to have exploded after the end of apartheid, with the wealth of the top 10% growing by 64% in the first 17 years while the poorest 10% have seen no financial growth at all. It is not insignificant that the recent violence comes at a time when calls for “radical economic transformation”, which specifically includes land redistribution, have grown louder from factions within the ANC and opposition parties such as the Economic Freedom Fighters.

The accusation that (black) foreigners are stealing South African jobs also ignores the long history of regional migrant labor, predominantly from Mozambique and Zimbabwe. My family became a part of that history when we emigrated from Harare in Zimbabwe to Umlazi, a township outside Durban. My father, like many other doctors from Zimbabwe, was recruited to staff South Africa’s public hospitals under the structural adjustment programmers of the 90s. After the turn of the millennium we moved to Polokwane, 200km from Beitbridge, the busiest border post on the continent. Although my classmates would call me “lekwerekwere” (a pejorative term for black foreigners), I knew even then that we were different from the so-called border jumpers, the thousands of informal, hospitality and agricultural sector workers who fled Zimbabwe’s economic collapse. Though I am often made aware of my foreignness, I – like many other foreign-born nationals with “good papers” – have not experienced the same degree of physical vulnerability as other Africans living in the townships and inner cities because I have been insulated by my class.

South Africa is a hostile place for the poor and working class, but economic migrants will continue to come, attracted by the opportunities made possible by democratic government, good infrastructure and economic stability. Still, without social justice and a radical economic transformation that includes land redistribution, the promise of South Africa’s “miracle” will become increasingly untenable.

South Africas Trump - Jacob Zuma

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma - a profile

BBC - 8 August 2017

Jacob Zuma is the most colourful and controversial president South Africa has had since white-minority rule ended in 1994. He was born into poverty, went into exile to fight apartheid and has been embroiled in a series of scandals, which would have ended the careers of many politicians. His poor roots, charisma and strength in adversity partly explain his ability to hold on to power, despite calls for his resignation and attempts to oust him as ANC leader.

His credibility was most severely damaged in March 2016 when South Africa's highest court ruled that he violated the constitution by failing to repay the government for money used on upgrading his private residence, including building a cattle enclosure, amphitheatre, swimming pool, visitor centre and chicken run. The president apologised to South Africans for the "frustration and confusion" caused by the scandal and has repaid the money. He has now survived eight votes of no-confidence in parliament.

Mr Zuma's private life has also grabbed the headlines, and has caused much controversy. The 75-year-old is a proud polygamist - following a Zulu tradition - and currently has four wives. He is also known for his infidelity and has fathered a child with another woman. His political career was written off in the run-up to the 2009 election when he was simultaneously battling allegations of rape and corruption. He was acquitted of rape, though the corruption case has proved harder to shake off.

He always denied charges of money-laundering and racketeering, stemming from a controversial $5bn arms deal signed in 1999 and had said he would resign if found guilty of wrong-doing. The case was controversially dropped by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) just weeks before the elections which saw him become president. However, in 2016 a court ruled that some 786 counts of corruption should be reinstated. He has appealed, stalling the process.

2005: Charged with corruption over multi-billion dollar 1999 arms deal - charges dropped shortly before he becomes president in 2009

2016: Court orders he should be charged with 786 counts of corruption over the deal - he has appealed

2005: Charged with raping family friend - acquitted in 2006

2016: Court rules he breached his oath of office by using government money to upgrade private home in Nkandla - he has repaid the money

2017: Public protector said he should appoint judge-led inquiry into allegations he profiteered from relationship with wealthy Gupta family - he denies allegations, as have the Guptas No inquiry appointed yet

At the time of his election as president in 2009, Mr Zuma's supporters saw his charismatic popular touch as a refreshing contrast to Thabo Mbeki, who was seen as a rather aloof president. "He is a man who listens; he doesn't take the approach of an intellectual king," said one unnamed supporter, in an apparent swipe at Mr Mbeki, whose allies were accused of spearheading Mr Zuma's prosecution after he had wrested control of the ANC in 2007.

Mr Zuma's modest upbringing and promotion of traditional family values are seen as a major factor in his enduring popularity among many poor South Africans, especially in rural areas. His rise to power earned him the name "the people's president", but this carefully crafted image lay in tatters following the controversy over the upgrading of his residence in the rural area of Nkandla in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

ANC supporters heckled and booed him in front of foreign dignitaries - including US President Barack Obama - at a memorial in Johannesburg following the death of South Africa's first black leader, Nelson Mandela, in December 2013. "He is eating when we are hungry," one protester said, capturing the public anger over the Nkandla upgrade.

Nkandla was where he was born on 12 April 1942. Brought up by his widowed mother, he had no formal schooling. He joined the ANC at the age of 17, becoming an active member of its military wing, Umkhonto We Sizwe, in 1962. He was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government and imprisoned for 10 years on the notorious Robben Island, alongside Mr Mandela.

Mr Zuma, popularly known as "JZ", is said to have helped keep up morale among the incarcerated ANC grandees with songs and impromptu theatre - it was that comical nature which endeared him to ordinary South Africans before his elevation to the presidency. After being freed from prison, Mr Zuma left South Africa, living first in Mozambique, then Zambia, as he rose through the ANC ranks to the executive committee. He became one of the first leaders to return home in 1990 - when the ban on the ANC was removed - to take part in negotiations with the white-minority government.

While trying to oust Mr Mbeki, he enjoyed strong support among trade unionists and the communist party - an ANC ally - as they believed he would redistribute South Africa's wealth in favour of the poor. They said Mr Mbeki was too business-friendly and had presided over "jobless growth". However, Mr Zuma has not changed South Africa's economic policy and many of his erstwhile allies, such as firebrand youth leader Julius Malema, have since dropped him, accusing him of not doing enough to help the poor and of presiding over a corrupt government.

His private life has not helped this impression. Married six times in total, Mr Zuma has 21 children and has married twice since becoming president in lavish traditional ceremonies in Nkandla. One of his wives, Mozambican Kate Mantsho, took her own life in 2000, while his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is now chairperson of the African Union commission.

After being freed from prison, Mr Zuma left South Africa, living first in Mozambique, then Zambia, as he rose through the ANC ranks to the executive committee. He became one of the first leaders to return home in 1990 - when the ban on the ANC was removed - to take part in negotiations with the white-minority government. While trying to oust Mr Mbeki, he enjoyed strong support among trade unionists and the communist party - an ANC ally - as they believed he would redistribute South Africa's wealth in favour of the poor.

They said Mr Mbeki was too business-friendly and had presided over "jobless growth". However, Mr Zuma has not changed South Africa's economic policy and many of his erstwhile allies, such as firebrand youth leader Julius Malema, have since dropped him, accusing him of not doing enough to help the poor and of presiding over a corrupt government.

Ridiculed private life has not helped this impression. Married six times in total, Mr Zuma has 21 children and has married twice since becoming president in lavish traditional ceremonies in Nkandla. One of his wives, Mozambican Kate Mantsho, took her own life in 2000, while his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is now chairperson of the African Union commission.

Some analysts believe that with Mr Zuma due to step down as ANC leader in December 2017 and as president after general elections in 2019, he intends to back Ms Dlamini-Zuma as his successor in the hope that she will shield him from any further corruption investigations. In 2006, Mr Zuma was acquitted of raping an HIV-positive family friend, but his statement during the trial, that he showered after unprotected sex with the woman to guard against possible infection, provoked ridicule.

Four years later, he admitted that he had had a baby with the daughter of another family friend. He was again accused of undermining the government's HIV/Aids policy, which urges people to be faithful and use condoms.

But as president he won over many critics and activists when he announced a major overhaul to the country's Aids policy in December 2010 - this has seen a drastic increase of the roll-out of life-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. South Africa has an estimated five million people living with HIV - more than any other country. Mr Mbeki had denied the link between HIV and Aids and his government had always said ARV drugs were too expensive to distribute to all who needed them.

But that has been one of Mr Zuma's few unqualified successes. The economic situation has been worsening, and there are almost daily protests by people demanding better basic services such as housing, schools, water and electricity. More worrying for Mr Zuma, there are growing concerns within the ANC about corruption and cronyism, following allegations that the wealthy Gupta family influences cabinet appointments.

Both Mr Zuma and the Guptas have denied the allegation, but the ANC has ordered an investigation into what its secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has called the "corporate capture" of government. Some analysts believe that with Mr Zuma coming under pressure on various fronts, it is a matter of time before he is is forced to step down. However, others say it is unwise to write off the man whose Zulu name, Gedleyihlekisa, means one who smiles while grinding his enemies.