GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT
Mr Chairperson, on the 16th of June 1976, that is the day when the unrest and the riots erupted as a result of the issue of Afrikaans as medium of instruction in the schools in Soweto.
	On the 17th of August of 1976, the riots started in Port Elizabeth, and that led to total anarchy.  Schools were burnt down, vehicles were burnt, police vehicles were burnt out and black police members had their homes attacked.  Delivery vehicles entering the black areas were robbed, burnt and the beer halls belonging to the administration boards were totally burnt down and robbery took place there as well.
	The riots started as a result of the fact that Afrikaans was the medium of instruction as part of the so-called Bantu Education policy, and it was a defiant action against the Education system of the State and it led to total anarchy.   Everything was orientated towards black power at that stage, and the ANC and the SACP played a very minimal role at that stage.
	Black power was at that stage the leading internal revolutionary organisation.  
	The situation escalated and people who had done certain building operations to their homes, found that their homes were also attacked and burnt because the inference was drawn that those people had to have received money from the State to be able to build and renovate their homes.
	Innocent people were burnt, and their homes attacked, there was a total boycott and that spilt over right down to 1978 after the banning of all black power organisations, BPC, SASO and all related organisations.