South Africa - Sharpeville Q5

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Rachel Redman

Q5) Why do you think Sources H and I disagree with Source F about the events at Sharpeville? [8]

             Sources H and I are both official government views of what happened at Sharpeville. Source H is Colonel Pienaar speaking soon after the shootings, and Source I is Dr Verwoerd’s account to parliament, he was prime minister of South Africa at the time. Source F is taken from a statement made by Ambrose Reeves, who had interviewed people who had witnessed the events at Sharpeville. In this answer, I aim to find out why Sources H and I disagree with Source F over what happened at Sharpeville.

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The sources disagree because they have different provenances. Sources H and I are both official sources from the government. The government tried to play down what happened at Sharpeville and told the outside world that it was self defence. This view is reflected in both these sources when Colonel Pienaar and Dr Verwoerd talk about ‘hordes’ of ’20,000 people’. However, Source F is from a completely different provenance. Ambrose Reeves was the Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg and gathered the evidence for his statement by interviewing witnesses, many of whom had been shot at. Therefore, they would not support the ...

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