South Africa - Bophuthatswana
The Republic of Bophuthatswana (Repaboleki ya Bophuthatswana; Republiek van Bophuthatswana) was a tribal homeland in the northwestern region of South Africa from 1977 until 1994.[1] The region was actually set aside for Tswana-speaking people in 1961, allowed nominal self-rule in 1971, and nominal independence in 1977.
Bophuthatswana was wracked by a series of attempted coups d'etat during its latter years of existence. In February 1988, Rocky Malebane-Metsing and his supporters took over the government for a single day, but an intervention by the SADF reinstated the president and restored order. In 1990, however, a second coup involved as many as 50,000 protesters who demanded the president's resignation over poor handling of the economy. Local security forces and another intervention by the SADF was required to quell the insurrection. And in 1994, when military personnel fired on protesting civil servants, this prompted the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) - an extremist Afrikaaner paramilitary secessionist movement - to mobilize in an effort to restore order. Subsequently, several deaths occurred as both sides fired at each other.
With the end of apartheid in 1994, all of the bantustans were dismantled and their territories incorporated into existing provinces of South Africa.
Notes
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- ↑ The African Homeland, or bantustan, was a territory specifically set aside for black Africans of a specific ethnic or tribal group during the apartheid era.