JOHANNESBURG — More than six decades after South African apartheid police opened fire on an unarmed crowd protesting pass laws in Sharpeville, a township south of Johannesburg, survivors and relatives of the victims announced on Thursday they would launch a class-action lawsuit against the government.
At a media briefing held in Sharpeville, lawyers said the case seeks compensation and asks a court to strike down the 1961 Indemnity Act, which they say prevented victims from pursuing claims arising from the massacre and remains in force today.
Police shot at an unarmed crowd protesting apartheid pass laws on March 21, 1960, and drew international condemnation. Apartheid-era police records put the toll at 69 dead and 180 injured, while research cited by the plaintiffs says at least 91 people were killed and more than 238 wounded.
The massacre became a defining moment in the struggle against apartheid, with March 21 now observed in South Africa as Human Rights Day, a public holiday.
Before Thursday’s announcement, family members of victims retraced the protesters’ route in a silent walk of witness.
Survivor lives with the trauma
Abram Mofokeng, 87, was 20 when he was shot in the foot and back as he fled the gunfire. A bullet remains lodged in his back.
“It is not possible to forget what happened in 1960,” Mofokeng said. “I cannot go a day without thinking about how we have been affected.”
Mofokeng is one of three Sharpeville residents acting as representative plaintiffs for a wider group in the case brought by Lawyers for Human Rights. The others, Paulina Mathinye and Ishmael Poho, both lost their fathers in the massacre when they were young children.
More than 70 survivors and relatives have expressed support for or interest in joining the litigation.
The government had not yet responded to queries by the time of publication.
Why victims could not sue
The fight for compensation is not new. In the aftermath of the massacre, around 258 claims were filed, but the government later enacted the Indemnity Act of 1961, shielding officials from legal liability and extinguishing the claims. Only about a third resulted in discretionary payments, totaling less than 4% of what claimants had sought.
The applicants want the legislation struck down, arguing that it violates their constitutional right of access to the courts. If they succeed, their claims for damages can proceed.
The lawyers did not give a total figure for the claim but said it would vary for each claimant and would be worked out with the help of experts.
They also said the case seeks to address gaps left by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, under which only 51 Sharpeville survivors were formally awarded reparations.
‘A time of reckoning for modern South Africa’
The Sharpeville litigation comes amid a broader push in South Africa to revisit apartheid era abuses, including reopened inquests into the deaths of anti-apartheid figures including Steve Biko, the Cradock Four and Chief Albert Luthuli.
Dan Leader, a partner at British human rights law firm Leigh Day, which is advising the South African legal team, called the case part of South Africa’s “unfinished business.”
“This is a time of reckoning for modern South Africa,” Leader said.
Charne Tracey, from Lawyers for Human Rights, said the plaintiffs hoped the case would push the government into talks with survivors and families over reparations.
“They are under no illusions that they must carry a legal stick if their voices are going to be listened to,” she said in a statement.
Poho said the case was about more than compensation, explaining that the effects of the massacre had been felt across the wider Sharpeville community.
“This is not a case for an individual as such,” he said. “It is a case for every other person who suffers an injustice.”
Gumede writes for the Associated Press.
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