Lucas Manyane Mangope

Lucas Manyane Mangope was born west of Zeerust near Bechuanaland border  on December 27,1923,the son of a local chief,Mangope graduated from St Peter's School in Johannesburg in 1946.After working for several years in the Department of Native Affairs,he earned two teaching diplomas and taught Afrikaans at secondary school level until the late 1950s.During the 1957-59 uprising in the Hurutshe reserve against the extension of passes to women,he advanced rapidly from minor hereditary chief to vice-chairman of the tswana territorial Authority when it was established in 1961.

Mangope after the re-organization of the Bantu Authorities system, he became head of the new Tswana executive council,then chief minister of Bophuthatswana legislative assembly three years later.Mangope moved unilaterally in 1974 to begin independence negotiations.In December1977,the homeland celebrated "independence" under the leadership of Mangope and his Bophuthatswana Democratic Party. After the 1976 Soweto uprising when arsonist set fire to the homeland's legislative assembly building in Mmabatho,Mangope's authoritarian disposition became more evident in measures to crush all opposition.South Africa mass upheavals of the Bophuthatswana.

In February 1988,Mangope was taken hostage in a one-day military coup that was put down by South African Defence Force (SADF) and followed by intensified repression.During negotiations led by the ANCcand the National Party in the early 1990s,Mangope joined a right-wing alliance of Afrikaners and africans opposed to a new democratic order.When he refuse to cooperate with the independent Electoral Commission in March 1994 and armed right-wing whites came to his defence,violence erupted in Mmabatho.