Lucas Mangope

Kgosi Lucas Manyane Mangope (27 December 1923 – 18 January 2018) was the leader of the Bantustan (homeland) of Bophuthatswana. The territory he ruled over was distributed between the Orange Free State – what is now Free State – and North West Province. He was also the founder and leader of the United Christian Democratic Party, a political party based in the North West of South Africa.

Mangope attended an Anglican mission school for most of his school career. He matriculated from St. Peter's College, Rosetenville in Johannesburg in 1946. After matric, he registered for a Junior Teaching Diploma at the Diocesan Teachers' Training College in Polokwane (then called Pietersburg). He studied towards a Higher Primary Teacher’s Diploma at Bethel College in the Transvaal from 1951. After graduating he started teaching and specialised as an Afrikaans teacher. He taught at secondary schools in Mahikeng, Motswedi, Krugersdorp and Potchefstroom and was awarded in 1959 when one of his classes obtained the best results in Afrikaans among competing schools in South Africa.

When the Tswana Territorial Authority was established in 1961, Mangope became the vice-chairman, working under Chief TR Pilane. He was promoted to the Chief Chancellor of the organisation in 1968. He remained in the position until 1972 when he became the first Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana. He was also accused of spying for foreign powers, misappropriation of state funds, repossession of land from tribal authorities without adequate compensation and discrepancies in appointments and salaries within the Bophuthatswana Defence Force.

He became President in 1977, when Bophuthatswana was declared independent by the South African government. On 10 February 1988 he was briefly overthrown by members of a military police unit, led by Rocky Malebane-Metsing of the People's Progressive Party (PPP), who had accused Mangope of corruption and charged that the recent election had been rigged in the government's favour. Mangope was reinstated following intervention by the South African Defence Force. South Africa's government stated that it was responding to a request for assistance from the legal government of a sovereign nation.

Sasha Polakow-Suransky (American journalist and author) wrote that Mangope was "widely considered a puppet and a joke in South Africa" during his presidency. Mangope was nevertheless given some recognition during visits to Israel, meeting with prominent figures such as Moshe Dayan. Bophuthatswana had an unofficial "embassy" in Israel in the 1980s despite objections from the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which did not recognize the bantustan as a state.

Mangope was accused of using his defence force and police to suppress protests, and had been accused of police brutality when a student protest was suppressed by his police force. Mangope's supporters, however, have argued that Bophuthatswana was comparatively more successful than other Bantustans in social and economic development, owing to its mineral wealth. Although designated as an ethnic Tswana homeland, Bophuthatswana was more or less an integrated society where Apartheid legislation did not apply, in common with other homelands.

At the Kempton Park negotiations in 1993 that led to the first non-racial election in South Africa in 1994, Mangope had made it clear that Bophuthatswana would remain independent of the new and integrated South Africa and that he would not allow the upcoming election to take place in "his country". With most residents in favour of reintegration, the homeland's military mutinied. Mangope called on outside help, but was eventually forced to flee the homeland, and shortly thereafter, the homelands were reincorporated into South Africa.

Pik Botha, South Africa’s Foreign Minister at the time, and member of the Transitional Executive Council Mac Maharaj removed Mangope from office in March 1994.