APARTHEIDIN CRISIS
1987, there were 1,148 strikes-an
unprecedented number. Most serious
was a strike by the National Union of Mineworkers, led by Cyril Rama-
phosa, when more than half of the country's 500,000 miners took part in a
stoppage that lasted three weeks, during which 9 miners were killed and up
to 300 were injured. Although they failed to achieve more than the 23
percent wage increase the Chamber of Mines had offered, they did receive
improved death and holiday benefits.t"
Because most secular antiapartheid leaders were in exile, in prison, or
banned, clergy ""rerethrust into the fore of the struggle against apartheid.
Especially prominent were Desmond Tutu, Anglican archbishop of Cape
Town, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984; Allan Boesak,
moderator of the Dutch Reformed Mission church and president of the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches; and Beyers Naude, general secre-
tary of the South African Council of Churches from 1985 to 1987, and his
successor in that office,Frank Chikane. InJune 1988, they and twenty-two
other clergy,representing sixteen denominations, openly defied the state of
emergency regulations by calling on all Christians to boycott the elections
of October
26 for segregated municipal councils. "The truth cannot be