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Title: | 'Punching above its weight': the Mafikeng Anti-Repression Forum (Maref) and the fall of Bophuthatswana |
Author: | Manson, Andrew |
Year: | 2011 |
Periodical: | African Historical Review (ISSN 1753-2531) |
Volume: | 43 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 55-83 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | South Africa Bophuthatswana |
Subjects: | NGO human rights political repression anti-apartheid resistance 1990-1999 |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17532523.2011.634091 |
Abstract: | This article traces the history of the Mafikeng Anti-Repression Forum (Maref) that operated in the former homeland of Bophuthatswana (South Africa) from early 1990 to late 1994. It was the only human rights organization in Bophuthatswana. Maref's work was in five areas. Firstly, it monitored human rights abuses as a consequence of political repression in the homeland. Secondly, it responded to these abuses by means of disseminating the facts behind them. Thirdly, it attempted to defend the interests of the victims by means of seeking legal redress and relief from suffering and deprivation. Fourthly, it agitated for political change in Bophuthatswana in accordance with the changing nature of political reform in South Africa as a whole. Lastly it collated and published the information that formed an essential component of the negotiations that led to the new dispensation in 1994. For these activities, Maref members were severely harassed. The role the organization played generally has received little analysis or comment, and is deserving of a place in the annals of human rights activities and activists during this period of transformation and upheaval in South Africa. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |