Sharpeville - South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) brought its election campaign to Sharpeville yesterday, on the 39th anniversary of the massacre there.
On March 21st, 1960, the radical Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) held a demonstration in the township, 40 km south of Johannesburg, to protest against pass laws that restricted the movement of blacks into white areas.
Panicking at the display of black defiance, police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69 and wounding about 180. Most of those killed were shot in the back trying to escape.
"Our peace-loving people fell on this spot because they decided enough is enough," Mr Mathole Motshega, the ANC premier for Gauteng province, told 300 ANC supporters at the site of the shootings.