African Activist Archive

The introduction says recognizing that the domestic struggle for civil rights is linked to the struggle for human rights worldwide, the Lawyers' Committee in 1967 established the Southern Africa Project in response to urgent requests for assistance in human rights cases in South Africa and Namibia; since 1967 and the first trial under the Terrorism Act, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has been involved to some degree in every major political trial in South Africa. The introduction says the statement of our Board of Directors is accompanied by a detailed staff memorandum describing present conditions in South Africa, and the two together represent an effort to set the record straight in the current debate on South Africa. The statement says recent events in South Africa have focused renewed world attention upon the lawlessness and violence manifest in the apartheid system. The statement says we particularly deplore the following governmental policies and practices: influx control, the pass laws; the removal and relocation of the Black majority; the homelands policy, the purported denationalization of the Black citizens of South Africa; the security laws, bannings, disappearances, detentions incommunicado without-charges, trial or access to lawyers; the practices of the security police, torture and deaths in detention; and the abuse of the judicial function. The statement says we condemn the continuing illegal occupation by South Africa of Namibia in flagrant violation of international law, South Africa's application of apartheid to that international territory, and the gross violations of human rights committed by the illegal administering authority in maintaining its occupation. We urge the Government of the United States now to abandon the policy of "constructive engagement" which has been demonstrably ineffective. The statement says the range of options which might be considered are wide, and include the following measures of varying severity: limiting official relationships with Pretoria; tightened export controls on American goods and technology; strengthened restrictions on the export of nuclear equipment, technology and substances to South Africa; requiring United States companies doing business in South Africa to comply with fair employment principles; prohibition of new investment in, and bank loans to South Africa; and withdrawal of investment in South Africa.

African Activist Archive

STATEMENT OF LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER LAW CONCERNING APARTHEID

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