SOUTH AFRICA: TRANSKEI, FIRST OF SOUTH AFRICA'S HOMELANDS, PREPARES FOR INDEPENDENCE.

Record ID: 1061877

  • Title: SOUTH AFRICA: TRANSKEI, FIRST OF SOUTH AFRICA'S HOMELANDS, PREPARES FOR INDEPENDENCE.
  • Date: 3rd June 1976
  • Summary: 1. GVs Umatata town (2 shots) 0.19 2. CU ZOOM OUT Map showing Transkei area in South Africa 0.27 3. GV Huts 0.40 4. TRAVEL SHOT Umtata street 0.53 5. GV Modern buildings in Umtata (2 shots) 1.10 6. CU Transkei Chief Minister, Chief Kaiser Matanzima walking with reporter into office 1.28 7. CU Matanzima talks with reporter Hogan 1.58 8. GV & SV Umtata street with people walking (3 shots) 2.29 HOGAN: For South Africa's blacks, the road to self determination and independence passes through this town, Umtata. Six hundred kilometres south of Johannesburg, Umtata is the capital of the Transkei which will become an independent country in October of this year. For the South African Government, Transkei will be the showcase for their policies of apartheid, or separate racial development. Transkei is one of 10 Bantustans, or African homelands, where the South African Government hopes to resettle most of the country's blacks in their own independent countries. In October, Umtata will become the capital of a new country, about the size of Switzerland, which in theory will be free to pursue its own policies entirely free of any influence by South African Government. As a measure of its determination to make Transkei succeed, the south African Government will this year pour over a hundred million dollars into major public works, including a new government administrative centre, an international airport, and a major military base. (HOGAN) The Chief Minister of the Transkei is Chief Kaiser Matanzima. To critics of the South African regime, he's stooge and a puppet, an Uncle Tom who supports apartheid by accepting the policies of the Vorster government. Not that that's a view he accepts. Nevertheless there are those who argue that the Transkei is the showpiece for the South African Government, and that if Transkei succeeds, then the South Africans can turn to the rest of the world and say, our apartheid policies are right, they work. MATANZIMA: You can take it that way. As far as we are concerned, it is our desire to become free. We don't care how the world feels about it, and the position can not be reverted, we shall be free on the 26th of October. And our constitution will tell the world what our position is. HOGAN: At the moment Umtata is nothing more than a small provincial city. Its level of development is a reminder that South Africa's plans for separate racial development, means that once the African homelands are set up, the bulk of the country's natural wealth plus almost 90 per cent of the land, will be in the hands of four million whites, while fifteen million blacks will have to settle for what's left. Initials CL/1755 CL/1813 (This film is serviced with a sound commentary in English by Australian Broadcasting Commission reporter, Allan Hogan, and part of an interview in English between Hogan and Transkei Chief Minister, Chief Kaisor Matanzima, a transcript of which appears overpage.) Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 17th June 1976 13:00
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  • Location: UNTATA, TRANSKEI, SOUTH AFRICA
  • Country: South Africa
  • Reuters ID: LVAY886H6I4I549CXJ3H2V6DFPS
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  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS - SOURCE TO BE VERIFIED
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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