The South African Police (SAP) was the national police force in South Africa from 1913 to 1994; it was the de facto police force in the territory of South-West Africa (Namibia) from 1939 to 1981.
During South Africa's rule under apartheid, the SAP operated in close conjunction with South Africa's military to quell civil unrest amongst the country's disenfranchised black majority. Beyond the conventional police functions of upholding order and solving crime, the SAP employed counter-insurgency and intimidation tactics against black activists and critics of the white minority government.
The SAP was responsible for numerous human rights abuses against black South Africans, including acts of state terrorism and murder. After South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994, the SAP was reorganized into the South African Police Service.
Famous quotes containing the words south, african and/or police:
“Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“The fact that white people readily and proudly call themselves “white,” glorify all that is white, and whitewash all that is glorified, becomes unnatural and bigoted in its intent only when these same whites deny persons of African heritage who are Black the natural and inalienable right to readily—proudly—call themselves “black,” glorify all that is black, and blackwash all that is glorified.”
—Abbey Lincoln (b. 1930)
“I guess a career in the police didn’t really prepare you for this, did it?”
—Bob Hunt (b. 1951)