Background
Since the end of the apartheid system in 1994, many white South Africans —Afrikaners in particular —felt alienated by black rule and the government of the African National Congress (or ANC). They feared the concurrent violence against whites in Zimbabwe would spill across the border into South Africa. In particular, there were concerns about the rising wave of crime across the country.
In the month leading up to the bombings, sixteen members of the Boeremag (a militant far-right organization) had been put on trial for plotting to overthrow the government. This group, and others like it, had been formed in response to the ANC rebellion in the early 1990s —and the resulting violence, described by the then ruling National Party government as terrorism. South Africa has had a history of such events. The AWB were responsible for several assassinations and attacks during the late 1980s and early 1990s, before its leader, Eugene Terre'Blanche, was imprisoned. In 1996, bombs had targeted a Western Cape shopping center, killing four Cape Coloured shoppers, and injuring sixty others.
Read more about this topic: 2002 Soweto Bombings
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