Anti-Apartheid Group UDF Dissolves
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MITCHELLS PLAIN, South Africa — The United Democratic Front, a mass opposition group that led the anti-apartheid fight during much of the 1980s, dissolved Sunday after eight years in operation.
About 2,000 people gathered at the Rocklands Civic Center outside Cape Town for a ceremony ending the front, which claimed hundreds of affiliates and more than 1 million members at its peak.
Many in the UDF backed the previously banned African National Congress, and the front’s role diminished after the ANC was legalized in February, 1990.
Speakers credited the front with forcing the government to legalize the ANC and release political prisoners such as ANC President Nelson Mandela.
ANC official Mac Maharaj said that a hallmark of the front was its defiance in the face of government repression and a state of emergency from 1986-90.
When the movement was launched Aug. 20, 1983, “Nelson Mandela was still in jail. Today he is the future president of a non-racial, democratic South Africa,” Allan Boesak, a prominent leader of the front, said to resounding applause.
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