‘Where peace at all cost was to be’

On 6 September 1984, when the dust had not yet settled and the townships were in a state of chaos, the Minister of Law and Order, Louis le Grange, spoke at a press conference to comment on the recent upheavals in the Vaal Triangle. Le Grange emphasised that, ‘I’m not convinced that the rent increase is the real reason for the problems we have here. There are individuals and other forces and organisations that are very clearly behind what is happening in the Vaal Triangle.’ Earlier le Grange had visited the townships of the Vaal Triangle in the company of three other ministers: General Magnus Malan, Minister of Defence, F.W. de Klerk, Minister of Internal Affairs and MP for Vereeniging, as well as Dr Gerrit Viljoen, Minister of Co-operation, Development and Training and MP for Vanderbijlpark. In Sebokeng, the group, accompanied by councillors and travelling in an armoured vehicle, had to turn around as they were confronted by several hundred local residents who had blocked the road.

Le Grange was not entirely wrong in thinking that the upsurge of popular protest and mass mobilisation in the Vaal Triangle was not merely a result of the latest rent increase but reflected increasing opposition to the apartheid regime. What le Grange, however, failed to respond to was the severity of socio-economic grievances that had been plaguing the residents of the townships and the pernicious implications an increase in rent of R5.90 had on the already tight funds of the population. A cartoon published in the Sowetan a few days after le Grange’s statement depicted him searching a garbage bin with a magnifying glass to discover ‘the causes of the rioting’. Le Grange further alleged that the uprising had been timed to coincide with the introduction of the new constitution – a claim that was confirmed by some activists.

Only months before the rebellion started, State President P.W. Botha toured Europe to win the international community’s favourable opinion of his reform programme. Buoyed by the signing of the Nkomati Accord, which had been a major blow for the liberation movements in exile, Botha exuded confidence that domestic resistance had fizzled out and global public opinion had swayed in favour of the government’s reforms. Nothing could have been further from the truth.