On March 28, 1994, about 20 000 Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) supporters marched to Shell House, the headquarters of the African National Congress (ANC), in central Johannesburg, South Africa, in protest against the 1994 elections, which at that stage the IFP was intending to boycott.
ANC security guards opened fire, killing nineteen people.[1] At the time, guards claimed that the IFP supporters were storming the building, or that they had received a tip-off that this was planned. The Nugent Commission of Inquiry into the killings rejected this explanation. The commission's conclusion was that the shooting by ANC guards was unjustified. Shell house in Jeppe Street, Johannesburg, was home to the ANC after the organisation was unbanned.
This incident reflected the rising tensions between the ANC and IFP, which had begun in the 1980s in KwaZulu-Natal and had then spread to other provinces in the 1990s. The IFP claimed that the ANC was intent on undermining traditional authorities and the power of Zulu Chiefs. The ANC saw it as a power struggle as the demise of apartheid was finalised.
In June 1995, ANC and then President Nelson Mandela claimed that he had given the order to defend Shell House, even if it should require killing people.[2][3]
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