MDC youth leader urges school children to join the struggle

By Lance Guma
19 June 2006

At least 5000 youth converged at Stanley Square in Bulawayo Saturday to commemorate the 1976 Soweto Uprisings. They then marched to the Large City Hall in the city centre. According to the National Youth Chairman of the Tsvangirai MDC, Tamsanqa Mahlangu, the police were caught off-guard by the demonstration since it did not stick to the planned activities. He says the police denied them permission to march and instead allowed them to converge at Stanley Square. ‘So when we decided to march to the large city hall they were caught off guard,’ he said. The march ended without incident.

In an interview with Newsreel Mahlangu urged school children in the country to join the fight for justice in Zimbabwe. He says the 1976 protests in South Africa succeeded because they involved students from primary, secondary and tertiary institutions whereas in Zimbabwe the burden is left to students in colleges and universities. Youth groups in the country organised two separate marches for the weekend to mark the 30th anniversary of the Soweto uprisings. Representatives from the Zimbabwe National Students Union, the National University of Science and Technology and other youth groups were in attendance. The economic hardships facing the youth in Zimbabwe’s collapsed economy took centre stage. Most speakers felt the youth were acting like ‘passengers’ instead of ‘driving’ events in the country.

The Soweto uprisings in 1976 were credited with kick-starting the liberation struggle against apartheid. The students in South Africa refused to learn in Afrikaans and took to the streets resulting in the fatal shooting of many. Hector Pieterson, a 13-year-old, was gunned down by police who shot at the unarmed demonstrators. His death has come to symbolize the sacrifices of young people in South Africa’s the fight for democracy and freedom. Over 500 are estimated to have been killed in the Soweto Uprising and its bloody aftermath. Thousands are said to have disappeared in detention while others fled the country to join the guerilla movement. The brutality with which the police dealt with the students alerted the whole world to the brutality in apartheid South Africa.

Every year the youth in Zimbabwe hold commemorations in remembrance of the day but no information was available on the Harare commemorations at the time of broadcast.