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South Africa on Trial

By Bill Davis

The reality of South Africa is grim for the non-white peoples living there; the weight of apartheid is everywhere. Things we take for granted—voting, freedom of movement, the right to association and speech—virtually do not exist. There is no shortage of holding pens, areas of restriction, reservations or jails. Detention for any Black man, woman or child without a charge is a way of life. A long line of Black writers, dissidents, and politicians have faced detention, and many have not emerged alive.

White South Africa who unite with or support anti-apartheid measures have had their lives made unpleasant, and have often been manipulated out of the country, but all too few have stood up for their fellow human beings.

This Christmas-time in South Africa, cities saw a massive police crackdown, forcing Black off the streets to allow white shoppers "room" to make last-minute holiday purchases. Christmas is one of the few holidays Black people are allowed by law to travel to their homes and families. Obviously, this is not a positive reform of the creeping type now being advertised so loudly by the Reagan Administration in hopes of keeping alive their whole-hearted support for the South African government.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Black Anglican whose anti-apartheid views are outspoken has once again focused world attention on the brutality of South Africa. In the U.S. Congressmen and women stepped on picket lines to be arrested at the South African Embassy in Washington, and there were demonstrations at South African buildings around the country. Ultra-Conservatives pressured Reagan to make statements condemning apartheid. The statement came grudgingly, weakened and half-stepping, under the title "constructive engagement," a diplomatic trickledown that gives South African government freedom to continue their policy of brutality, detention and murder without fear of diplomatic or economic sanctions from the U.S. government.

Pointing to the recent reforms such as the ability to purchase land and homes by the Black population of South Africa, the Reagan Administration will firmly resist economic sanctions, divestiture, or even cultural boycotts. Not a large number of Black people can buy a house on wages amounting to 25 cents to 50 cents an hour. The 300 U.S. corporations who have combined South African assets of $2.3 billion with companies or subsidiaries are not exactly the share-the-wealth boys either. Divestiture of their South African assets is not a considered option. U.S. corporations support apartheid: it's good business. The Reagan Administration will continue to use half-assed studies and facts and figures to paint a rosy picture of racial oppression in South Africa.

Bishop Tutu was asked by the press reveal his views on divestiture. His response was that, "You realize that for me to say to yourselves that I support economic sanctions is an indictable offense in South Africa and, until recently, the penalty was a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years."

In South Africa no Black person is above the law—Nobel prize winner of freedom fighter.

—Bill Davis
National Office VVAW