African Activist Archive

The policy document says in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), Namibia (South-West Africa) and South Africa, people are struggling for goals with which we in the American Friends Service Committee unite; these include the ending of white minority rule, the elimination of exploitation and discrimination against black Africans, and the construction of just, non-racist societies; as a Friends organization, the AFSC desires to see these goals achieved in a just and nonviolent manner. The policy document says in view of the escalating armed struggle in the region, it is important to recall that for a great many years the blacks of South Africa, under the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chief Albert Luthuli, undertook a heroic nonviolent effort to achieve freedom and racial equality; the final response of the government of South Africa to the "Defiance Campaigns" was the brutal and bloody Sharpeville massacre of 1960. The policy document says we take note that for years the U.S. government paid relatively little attention to the plight of black Africans in southern Africa, and in fact maintained a record of official government backing for the white supremacy governments and support of the corporate and financial interests of those countries, from which black Africans draw little benefit. The policy document says earlier this year the AFSC decided to expand its educational efforts in this country; with the addition of full-time staff in the national office a heightened awareness of the grim and unjust situation in southern Africa is being generated through our forty regional, area, and field offices. The policy document discusses U.S. troops, liberation movements, Bill Sutherland, an arms embargo, Mobil Oil Company, the Center for Social Action of the United Church of Christ, sanctions, U.S. investment, civil rights, military aid, NATO, Congress, legislation, South African intelligence agencies, freedom, and majority rule.

African Activist Archive

AFSC Policy Guidelines on Southern Africa

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