1962 in South Africa

Events from the year 1962 in South Africa. This year is notable for its internal and international resistance campaigns against the country's Apartheid legislation. Umkhonto we Sizwe, the militant wing of the African National Congress had made its first sabotage attacks in 1961, and Nelson Mandela traveled to Ethiopia to rally support for Umkhonto and justify the attacks. Nelson Mandela was senteced to jail for 5 years upon returning to South Africa for illegally leaving the country.^[1] The international sporting community also showed its displeasure with the government's laws. FIFA suspended South Africa in 1962 for fielding an exclusively-white South African national football team, forcing South African football authorities to add black players to the team.^[2] The government, in turn strengthened methods of enforcing Apartheid, and the Robben Island prison was made a political prison in 1962.^[3]

Incumbents

• State President: Charles Robberts Swart

Events

January

• Nelson Mandela leaves South Africa for military training with Umkhonto we Sizwe.

March

• 12 – Defence Minister J.J. Fouché outlines South Africa's defence policy to make South Africa self-supporting in military equipment.

May

• 6 – Victorio Carpio (Philippines) and Martinez de Alva (Mexico), both United Nations representatives, begin informal talks in Pretoria about South West Africa with Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa.

July

• General Law Amendment Act removes freedom of speech from opposition activists.
• 20 – Nelson Mandela returns to South Africa after military training with Umkhonto we Sizwe in Algeria.

August

• 5 – Nelson Mandela is arrested in Natal province.

October

• 13 – Helen Joseph becomes the first person to be placed under house arrest under the Sabotage Act.
• Lillian Ngoyi is banned for 10 years, confining her to Orlando Township in Johannesburg and forbidding her to attend any gatherings.

November

• 6 – The United Nations begins sanctions to isolate South Africa politically and economically under Resolution 1761.

December

• 10 – Martin Luther King and Chief Albert Luthuli launch a Human Rights Campaign in which they appeal for "Action against Apartheid".
• Seven members of POQO, the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, die in a failed attempt to assassinate Chief Kaiser Matanzima.

Unknown date

• FIFA suspends South Africa.
• A maximum security prison is completed on Robben Island.
• Dieter Gerhardt begins spying for the Soviet Union.

Births

• 13 June – Mandla Nkosi, artist, is born in Soweto, Johannesburg.
• 15 July – Ebrahim Rasool, Premier of the Western Cape, is born in Cape Town.
• 29 August – Steve Hofmeyr, singer, songwriter and actor.
• 8 December – Greg Marinovich, photojournalist, was born in Springs

Deaths

• 6 May – Florence Josephine Zerffi, still life and landscape painter, dies in Kilgetty, Pembrokeshire, Wales.

References