Ciskei was a fiction built on force. The South African government established it in 1961 under the Bantu Authorities Act as a homeland for the Xhosa people, then spent two decades coercing Xhosa-speakers to relocate there. On 4 December 1982, Ciskei became an "independent republic" -- recognized by no country on Earth except South Africa and its other manufactured homelands. By 1992, the charade was crumbling. Negotiations between the ANC and the National Party government had raised the prospect of multiracial elections, and the ANC wanted to organize in the Eastern Cape, its traditional heartland. But Brigadier Oupa Gqozo, Ciskei's military ruler, blocked them at every turn. He formed his own party, the African Democratic Movement, to compete with the ANC, and in August 1992 he physically prevented ANC marchers from crossing into Ciskei from nearby King William's Town.

By September, South Africa's transition was stalling. The ANC had withdrawn from negotiations following the Boipatong massacre in June, accusing F. W. de Klerk's government of fomenting the violence that was tearing through Black communities. The ANC sent a memorandum demanding that De Klerk replace Gqozo with an interim administration; De Klerk refused, arguing that Ciskei lay outside his jurisdiction -- a legalistic dodge, since the homeland's very existence was a product of Pretoria's policies. So the ANC launched a campaign of mass action. On 7 September, a vast crowd gathered outside Bisho. Among the leaders were Chris Hani, secretary general of the South African Communist Party; Cyril Ramaphosa, who would one day become president; Steve Tshwete; and Ronnie Kasrils. A court order confined the march to Independence Stadium, outside the capital. The ANC refused to recognize the authority of a Ciskei court.

What happened next unfolded with terrible speed. A group of marchers led by Ronnie Kasrils breached the razor-wire barrier. Colonel Vakele Archibald Mkosana radioed his commanders with a false report: his troops were under fire. He received permission to return fire. Soldiers opened up on the crowd. Rifleman Mzamile Thomas Gonya launched a grenade into the marchers. Twenty-eight ANC supporters died. A Ciskei soldier also fell -- shot, investigators later determined, by one of his own comrades. The Goldstone Commission, tasked with the inquiry, condemned Gqozo for suppressing political activity and found that the demonstrators had not fired first. Justice Richard Goldstone also criticized Kasrils for his role in leading the breach, calling his actions irresponsible. The truth, as always in apartheid South Africa, was tangled in complicity. Former Ciskei foreign affairs minister Mickey Webb later testified that South African Military Intelligence had fed Gqozo misinformation designed to provoke exactly this confrontation.

The massacre did not end the struggle -- it sharpened it. The ANC demanded Gqozo's removal, the repeal of laws banning political activity in Ciskei, and the withdrawal of South African military intelligence operatives. Gqozo clung to power until just before the April 1994 elections, then resigned. When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission convened, only two men applied for amnesty: Colonel Mkosana and Rifleman Gonya. Both were denied on the grounds that their actions were reckless, disproportionate, and not politically motivated. They were later charged with murder and culpable homicide but acquitted on claims of self-defense. Gqozo agreed to testify but never appeared, having been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Justice, incomplete as it was, could not undo what had been done.

In 1997, Archbishop Desmond Tutu unveiled a granite monument on the site of the killings, outside Independence Stadium on Maitland Road between Bhisho and King William's Town. The victims were buried in nearby Ginsberg township. Each September, the Bisho Massacre Memorial Lecture draws leaders from across South Africa to honor the dead and reckon with what their sacrifice cost and what it achieved. The homeland of Ciskei no longer exists; the land is now part of the Eastern Cape province. Bhisho -- the town has reclaimed its original Xhosa spelling -- serves as the provincial capital. The razor wire is gone. The monument stands where it stood.