Pan Africanist Congress of Azania

The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC ) ( later the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania ) was a South African liberation movement, and is now a minor political party.

History

The PAC was established in 1959 as a splinter group of the African National Congress ( ANC) was founded by some former members who were no longer in agreement with the most peaceful and aimed at all races policy of the ANC and a more radical, pure black African organization striving. Among them were Robert Sobukwe and Potlako Leballo. The foundation was there partly a reaction to the adoption of the Freedom Charter by the ANC and other organizations four years earlier. At the inaugural conference in April 1959 in Johannesburg Sobukwe was elected the first chairman of the organization.

The name " Azania " is used except by the PAC by many black South African political activist and is another name for South Africa. An etymological among several interpretations is to derive from the Arabic Adzan ( " East ").

The ANC decided to start on 31 March 1960 campaign against the pass laws by which black South Africans had to carry a personal document outside the homelands. The PAC decided to forestall ANC and to organize their own campaign. The campaign of the PAC launched ten days before the ANC on 21 March. Robert Sobukwe urged the public to let their " passports " at home to demonstrate peacefully and not to resist against arrests by the police. The protest ended in tragedy when police a demonstration with 10,000 participants in Sharpeville ended bloody. In this case, 69 people were killed and over 200 injured.

Shortly after the Sharpeville massacre, the then reigning National Party declared a state of emergency due to the unrest and banned on the basis of the Unlawful Organizations Act (Act No. 34/1960 ) on April 8, 1960 both the PAC and the ANC.

Robert Sobukwe was arrested in 1969 and released. Many members fled into exile, about to Tanzania. As armed underground movement Poqo was founded, which was responsible in the 1960s for several armed raids on police and alleged henchman of the apartheid regime. Later the movement Azanian People's Liberation Army was called (about: Liberation Army azanischen people ). As Sobukwe died in 1978, he left behind in the PAC a power vacuum that could not be replenished. Chairman of the Tanzanian exile was from 1978 Potlako Leballo, who was overthrown a year later. As a result of power struggles erupting PAC activists from Tanzania were displaced.

On 2 February 1990 the ANC and PAC were approved by President Frederik Willem de Klerk again as political organizations, in addition, the release of political prisoners took place. However, in the party, there was continue to internal power struggles. In the 1994 elections it received only 1.25 % of the vote in the elections five years later even less. In 2003, after another failed Congress left Patricia de Lille, one of the most popular members of the PAC to form their own party, the Independent Democrats.