US: Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid respect to the Soweto Uprising, a student demonstration whose sad conclusion inspired the world to rise up against the apartheid state, on Sunday as he began a three-nation African tour.
His trip coincides with increased diplomatic efforts by Washington to undermine Russian influence here on continent and comes soon after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s extended tour of the continent.
The senior US diplomat selected South Africa as his first destination because it is a leader in the undeveloped nations and has stayed neutral inside the Ukraine conflict by refusing to support Western requests to denounce Moscow, which had resisted apartheid before white minority rule ended in 1994.
Blinken visited the Hector Pieterson Memorial in and left a wreath there.A memorial to students died in a 1976 protest that served as one of the turning points in the anti-apartheid campaign, the Hector Pieterson Museum, was opened to the public by Blinken, who also paid a visit to it.
It was given that name in honour of the 12-year-old kid who was the initial police shooting victim on June 16, 1976.
Because we in the United States are engaged in a similar struggle for freedom and equality, Pieterson’s tale “truly resonates,” according to Blinken.
Whenever thousands of black schoolchildren resisted having to learn Afrikaans, the official language of the white minority administration, over 170 people were shot to death.
According to a release from Pretoria, Blinken will meet with his counterpart from South Africa, Naledi Pandor, and discuss the US government’s new Africa strategy.
