Pan Africanist Congress

The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) (later the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania), was a South African liberation movement, that is now a minor political party. It was founded in 1959 after a number of members broke away from the African National Congress (ANC) because they objected to the ANC's non-racial policies and wished to take a bolder approach based more on mass action. Robert Sobukwe was elected as the first president, at the founding conference held in April 1959 in Johannesburg.

Related Topics:
South Africa - 1959 - African National Congress - Robert Sobukwe - Johannesburg

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The ANC decided to launch a campaign against the pass laws to begin on March 31, 1960. The PAC decided to pre-empt the ANC by launching their own campaign ten days earlier, on March 21, 1960. Sobukwe urged people to leave their passes at home and to non-violently hand themselves over for arrest at the nearest police station. The protest erupted in tragedy when police opened fire on a group of protestors in Sharpeville, killing 69 people and injuring 186, many being shot from behind.

Related Topics:
Pass laws - March 31 - 1960 - March 21 - Sharpeville

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Shortly after the Sharpeville Massacre, the National Party government imposed a state of emergency, and banned both the PAC and ANC. Sobukwe was arrested and jailed, only to be released in 1969. Many members fled into exile, and when Sobukwe died in 1978, the PAC was left with a leadership vacuum which was successfully filled only with the appointment of David Sibeko to head the Presidential Leadership Council in 1979. The assassination of Sibeko in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania on 12 June 1979 inaugurated the demise of the PAC.

Related Topics:
Sharpeville Massacre - National Party - 1969 - David Sibeko - 1979 - Dar-Es-Salaam - Tanzania

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Although founded by ANC members who were in profound opposition to the policies of the South African Communist Party, in the 1960s a prominent section of the PAC's leadership adopted a Maoist positon. The ANC consistently regarded the PAC as reactionary and backward due to the PAC's Africanist stance which proclaimed that South Africa was above all an African country. The military wing of the PAC was launched in 1968 as Poqo and later renamed as the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). APLA became famous for its wildly popular slogan "One Settler, One Bullet", but was never able to launch a particularly effective guerilla campaign. Despite its organisational weaknesses, the PAC's Africanism did much to inform the student uprisings of the late 1970s and inspired the formation of the Black Consciousness Movement under the leadership of Steve Biko.

Related Topics:
South African Communist Party - Maoist - Africanist - Poqo - Azanian People's Liberation Army - Black Consciousness Movement - Steve Biko

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The PAC was unbanned in 1990, along with the ANC, but was plagued by infighting, and only gained a small percentage of votes in the 1994 election, which shrank even further in the 1999 election. In 2003, after yet another failed congress, one of the party's more prominent and popular members, Patricia de Lille left to form her own party, the Independent Democrats. This did not affect the PAC's continued poor performance in the 2004 election, though ID did better.

Related Topics:
1990 - 1994 - 1999 election - 2003 - Patricia de Lille - Independent Democrats - 2004 election

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