The Eastern Cape Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture, the OR Tambo District Municipality, Ngquza Local Municipality and the Ngquza Hill Committee will on Saturday commemorate the 55th anniversary of the Ngquza Hill Massacre at Ngquza.
Department spokesperson Andile Nduna said the Massacre should be seen in the broader context of the South African peasants’ resistance to oppression and atrocities by the apartheid government.
The massacre is said to have started with a gathering of thousands of people of east Pondoland besides Ingquza Hill, which lies between Bizana and Lusikisiki to discuss the state of affairs under which they lived.
The peaceful gathering was met with a violent response from the state. Two military aircrafts bombarded the villagers with teargas and smoke bombs.
Eleven people were killed and 56 others injured on 6 June 1960.
Meanwhile, the remains of slain Umkhonto We Sizwe cadre, Thamsanqa Poto, will be buried in Port Elizabeth on Saturday.
Late April the Department of Justice handed over the exhumed remains to Poto's family.
Department spokesperson, Mthunzi Mhaga, says Poto's remains were exhumed from its unmarked grave in a cemetery in Louis Trichardt.
His remains were one of five MK soldiers exhumed as part of the process to implement recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
They were killed in an ambush by the apartheid government's security forces near Alldays in Limpopo in 1988.
