This day in history

The town of Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape Province was founded when then Commissioner-General Jacob Uitenhage de Mist felt there was a need to improve the colonial administration of the Cape areas. The new district of Uitenhage was then founded and was named after de Mist. Uitenhage is today a thriving industrial town. It boasts the Volkswagen factory which is the largest car factory on the African continent.

Malaria Day is observed annually on 25 April. The day was officially instituted by the World Health Assembly in May 2007. Malaria Day was first observed by African governments in 2001 and was known as Africa Malaria Day. Subsequent to a proposal made by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Member States at a meeting held during the World Health Assembly in 2007, the event was changed to World Malaria Day. World Malaria Day was first held in 2008 in recognition of the existence of malaria in countries worldwide. The annual observance held on 25 April is primarily to raise awareness of the global effort to control and ultimately eradicate malaria mortality in African countries. In addition, the WHO has run many campaigns to combat the disease globally.  

Frene Noshir Ginwala was born on 25 April 1932. She studied in the United Kingdom (UK) where she obtained a LLB degree and later a doctorate in history from the Oxford University. On her return to South Africa Ginwala completed her legal training. Ginwala got involved in politics, and as a result she had to go to exile. She worked as an African National Congress (ANC) official and a journalist in the UK and other African countries like Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia. Ginwala’s achievements in her career over the years include being appointed the first Chancellor of KwaZulu-Natal University (UKZN)  in 2005. Prior to her return from exile in 1990, Ginwala was head of the Political Research Unit in the office of ANC President Oliver Tambo. Her most notable and better known achievement though is probably her serving as the speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa from 1994 to 2004.

The Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who arrived in Pretoria for the 10th anniversary of a free South Africa and the inauguration of President Thabo Mbeki, was housed in a guesthouse after two 5-star hotels refused to accommodate him because of human rights abuses in his country. Zimbabwean ambassador in South Africa, Simon Moyo, glossed it over by saying that Mugabe stayed at a guest house out of choice.  

Political parties in parliament tabled more than 300 amendments to the constitutional legislation. The New National Party (NNP) strove for the insertion of a lockout right as a counter measure to labour's right to strike. It also called for the provision for single-language education. Subsequently, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) called for a one-day general strike on 30 April 1996 to demonstrate opposition to a lockout clause proposed by the NNP. The African National Congress (ANC) was criticised for supporting the NNP call. They were both (ANC and NNP) accused of negotiating in private.

In 1981, Dirk Coetzee, Jan Viktor and Jac Buchner began Vlakplaas, a parliamentary hit squad, with 16 police officers. The existence of the unit was first revealed publicly in 1988 on the eve of the execution of Almond Nofomela. Before his execution, Nofomela confessed to being part of the Security Police 'hit squad', which was headed by Dirk Coetzee. Coetzee admitted the existence of the unit in a November 1989 in an interview with Vrye Weekblad, and confirmed the story that Nofomela had told a Johannesburg weekly the previous year. On strength of this and public pressure, the new state president, F.W. De Klerk, appointed a commission of inquiry, led by Judge Louis Harms, to investigate these allegations, and the operations of the Security Police and the Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB). The De Klerk government therefore set up the Harms Commission in Britain in 1990 to investigate these claims. In his testimony, Coetzee told the Harms Commission how he had watched his colleague murder the student activist Sizwe Khondile and the human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge. The Security Police closed ranks to lie and denounce Coetzee's revelations as fantasies, and Harms accepted their testimony. Coetzee was found to be an unreliable witness. In Coetzee's later testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Coetzee said that Khondile had been killed on 11 August 1981. After his release from detention, the police took Khondile to Komatipoort near the Mozambique border, where he was shot dead. His body was then burnt for more than seven hours to obliterate evidence. Dirk Coetzee was granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on 4 August 1997. In 1997, Eugene de Kock, a former commander of Vlakplaas, was convicted for attempting to murder Coetzee.  

King Mswati III (Makhosetive Dlamini), became King of Swaziland when he succeeded his late father King Sobhuza II, who had died of pneumonia in 1982. Two relatives, Queen Dzeliwe Shongwe and Queen Ntombi Thwala, served as regents until Makhosetive, who was fourteen years old when his father died, was ready to take the reigns. Queen Shongwe ruled from 1982-1983 while Queen Thwala ruled from 1983 until 1986. During that time the prospective King was pursuing his studies at the English Sherborne School.

The South African government for the first time allowed 20 local journalists, five correspondents of international news agencies and two official photographers to visit the prison on Robben Island where 370 men, convicted under security legislation, were held. On the island, 12km north east of Cape Town, political prisoners of the anti-apartheid movement were kept together with hardened criminals. Though Robben Island has been used as prison and a place where people were isolated, banished and exiled to for more than 300 years, the new maximum-security prison was established in the early 1960s. The living conditions were, particularly in the early years, extremely bad. Prisoners had to labour in the quarry, were not dressed sufficiently and had to sleep on thin straw mats on the stone floor. Through strikes and endless protests, more humane conditions were implemented in 1971, when the prisoners were also allowed to study. During this visit in 1977, material conditions were considered in general to be satisfactory, but the lack of contact with the outside world was very severe.

On 25 April 1961, France conducted its fourth nuclear bomb  test in the Sahara Desert. Adding to the tension of the time, was an underlyingFrench ambition to lead Europe and potentially become a superpower in its own right. This ambition was thwarted by the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the position occupied by Britain and the United States in this military alliance. This situation was further complicated by the loss of Algeria, a French colony. Further, France had lost faith in her British and American allies to defend French interests, after the United States compelled Britain and France to withdraw their troops after the Suez Canal crisis. Thus, producing and testing an indigenous nuclear capability was vital to France maintaining its position and prestige in Western Europe. The fourth nuclear bomb test by France in the Sahara was thus symbolic in that it demonstrated the prestige that France retained despite being diminished by two World Wars.