Former independent black homeland in South Africa; comprised seven separate units of land in Cape, Free State, and Transvaal provinces; self-government, 1971; second homeland to receive independence from South Africa (not recognized internationally), 1977; incorporated into North West province in the South African constitution of 1994.
Bophuthatswana was a former Bantustan (homeland) in the north-west of South Africa. It had a surface area of approximately 40,000 km² and consisted of seven enclaves dispersed over the former South African provinces of Cape Province, Transvaal and Orange Free State.
Bophuthatswana was given nominal self-rule in 1971, and became nominally independent on December 6, 1977; In reality Bophuthatswana was a client state of apartheid-era South Africa and was not recognized as an independent country by any government other than that of South Africa. Those relocated to Bophuthatswana lost their South African citizenship. In 1988 an attempted coup was suppressed by South Africa, who reinstated Mangope.
It was the richest of the TBVC states (nominally independent Bantustans), as it had platinum mines.
In the beginning of 1994 with South Africa heading for democratic elections, the autocratic President Lucas Mangope resisted reincorporation into South Africa. Mangope took an increasingly hardline stance, rejected Independent Electoral Commission chairman Judge Johann Kriegler's plea for free political activity in the territory, and fired the staff of the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation, closing down two television stations and three radio stations.
The white supremacist group Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) took the opportunity to move in and try to restore the apartheid status quo, but was humiliated in early March when, in the presence of photojournalists and a TV crew, uniformed members of the AWB on an armed incursion to the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area shot at people alongside the road, injuring and killing many . Mangope was replaced by an interim government, and on April 27 of the same year all ten homelands, including Bophuthatswana, were reincorporated into post-apartheid South Africa.
See also
Heads of State of Bophuthatswana Coins of BophuthatswanaFurther reading
The Bang-bang Club: The Making of the New South Africa, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, William Heinemann, 2000 ISBN 0-434-00733-1
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