i.d.a.f. news notes

The newsletter includes an interview with Audrey Coleman of the Detainees' Parents Support Committee (DPSC) that was broadcast by the BBC Africa Service on 4 December; in it, Ms. Coleman discusses the over 200-page report that had just been issued by the DPSC on the mounting crisis of detained children in South Africa. The newsletter reports six of the seven nations at the Commonwealth mini-summit, excluding Britain, agreed on steps set out at the 1985 Nassau summit: a ban on air links with South Africa and new investment there, and on double-taxation agreements, government trade and procurement, tourist promotion, and imports of agricultural products, uranium, coal, iron, and steel, as well as a withdrawal of consular facilities; Britain agreed only to a voluntary ban on new investment and tourist promotion, and to accept any EEC decision on imports of coal, iron, steel, and gold coins. The newsletter reports three ANC (African National Congress) members were hanged at dawn at Pretoria Central Prison; the U.S. Senate voted 78 to 21 to overturn President Reagan's veto of sanctions against South Africa; President Samora Machel was killed with 27 others when his plane crashed in South African territory on its return from a summit meeting in Lusaka. The newsletter discusses President P.W. Botha, the Department of Trade and Industry, a bomb, Walvis Bay, Helen Suzman, the State of Emergency, anti-apartheid groups, the kwaZulu Bantustan, Gatsha Buthelezi, "Pik" Botha, the US Catholic Conference, detention, Rev. Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, unequal education, boycotts, the Children's Act, the Internal Security Act, the Public Safety Act, COSATU (Congress of South African Unions), SACC (South African Council of Churches), the Labor Monitoring Group, Prime Minister Mugabe, Annica van Gylswyk, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, Desmond Tutu, UDF (United Democratic Front), Edward Perkins, Nelson Mandela, Black Sash, the South African Council of Trade Unions, the Soviet Union, South African troops, Cuito Cuanavale, Neil Ross, PFP (Progressive Federal Party), the Anti-Censorship Action Group, Andrew Young, UNITA, the Nationalist Party, the South West African Bar Council, Soweto, Allan Boesak, the Nkomati accord, Benjamin Pogrund, Reserve Bank governor Gerhard deKock, capital flight, sanctions, foreign credit, Winnie Madela, Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lucky Payi, Sipho Xulu, Andrew Zondo, Coretta Scott King, President Banda, Kenneth Kaunda, Law and Order Minister Louis le Grange, Geoffrey Howe, Oliver Tambo, the EEC (European Economic Community), President Reagan, Chester Crocker, MNR (Mozambique Nation Resistance), Sen. Richard Lugar, Sen. Edward Kennedy, the National Union of Mineworkers, the Group Areas Act, South African Airways, the National Security Management System, police, the World Council of Churches' Program to Combat Racism, SWAPO, PAC (Pan-Africanist Congress), General Motors (GM), Roger Smith, IBM, the Dutch Reformed Church, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, the Honeywell computer company, the Warner Communications Company, Xoluso Johannes Jacobs, Goldfields, Stephen Marais, and smuggling arms. Contents: Southern Africa News Calendar August, September, and October 1986 • The Children's Crisis • New Books Available from IDAF • Special Quarterly Issue • "Severest Censorship in the World" • Official Violence • Official Violence • Still an Emergency • "Severest Censorship in the World" • Still an Emergency • Acronyms and Abbreviations