African Activist Archive

The Action Alert says in February, 1987 Members of Congress introduced legislation to give aid to black-ruled southern African states and impose comprehensive economic sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. Activists need to educate and mobilize anti-apartheid networks to build the grassroots support needed to pass these bills. The budget-cutting mood in the Congress, general resistance to providing urgent and necessary assistance to Africa, and Congressional ignorance about South Africa's total strategy of regional destabilization has resulted in reduced funding for Africa. On February 19, 1987 the Washington Office on Africa (WOA) joined with Congressman Ron Dellums and Senator Alan Cranston at a press conference announcing introduction of H.R. 1580/S. 556, comprehensive sanctions legislation against South Africa am Namibia. These bills mandate complete disinvestment of all U.S. corporations from South Africa and Namibia within six months of passage and banning all trade with South Africa. These bills are an updated version of H.R. 997, the Dellums bill, which passed in the House in July 1986. H.R. 1580/S. 556 strengthens the prohibition on collaboration between U.S. and South African armed forces to prohibit all intelligence cooperation. The Action Alert mentions Representatives Julian Dixon, Bill Gray, and Mickey Leland, aid to the Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), emergency food and medical supplies, refugee assistance, disaster relief, UNICEF emergency projects, the House Foreign Affairs and Appropriations Committees, agricultural training and research, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. support for the apartheid government, loopholes in the law, weakening some of the stronger provisions, local divestment campaigns, GM (General Motors), IBM (International Business Machines), and South Africa's destabilization policies. • AID TO SOUTHERN AFRICA • THE 1987 SUPPLEMENTAL AID REQUEST • THE FY 1988 FOREIGN ASSISTANCE ACT • ACTION ON AID BILLS • COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS: Bill, Timeline and Action

African Activist Archive

SUPPORT AID TO THE NATIONS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA AND COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA

ACTION ALERT

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Coverage Africa

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