APARTHEIDIN CRISIS
Thereafter the reform program ground to a halt. Botha himself realized
that foreigners would never be satisfied unless he gave the franchi~e to
Africans. That he was not willing to do.
Between July 20,1985,
and March 7,1986,
the government applied a
state of emergency in many parts of the country. On June 12, 1986, it
proclaimed
what became an annually
renewed, indefinite, nationwide
state of emergency and arrested hundreds of antiapartheid
activists. The
emergency regulations
gave every police officer broad powers of arrest,
detention, and interrogation,
without a warrant; they empowered the po-
lice commissioner to ban any meeting; and they prohibited all coverage of
unrest by television and radio reporters and severely curtailed newspaper
coverage. The government had resorted to legalized tyranny.J-'
The State of Emergency
In proclaiming the state of emergency, the Botha government's primary
objective was to reestablish control over the republic, especially over the
African townships. The government also continued to 'pursue two other
goals: the durable pacification of South Africa and hegemony over South
Africa's neighbors. But none of those goals was fully attainable; moreover,
they were mutually incompatible. First, the use of emergency powers in the