MULDERGATE REACHES BERKELEY?

The statement by YES ON A and B/ BERKELEY OUT OF SOUTH AFRICA COMMITTEE criticizes the invitation to John Chettle to address the Berkeley Commons Club on March 23 about the Divestment Initiative and challenges his statement. Chettle, Director of the North America office of the South Africa Foundation, purportedly came to make an unbiased analysis of the effects the divestment initiative would have on South Africans. The Foundation was founded in 1960, soon after the Sharpeville Massacre, to restore overseas confidence in South Africa. It originated out of talks with Piet Meining, then Director of the South African Department of Information, and Eric Gallo, a wealthy South African businessman. The Foundation receives large contributions from U.S. corporations operating in South Africa. Token Africans, Asians and Coloureds are brought into the Foundation's public activities, largely to appease liberal American consciences. It has stressed the Bantustan policy, especially the supposed "independence" of the Transkei. Former Secretary of the South African Department of Information, Eschel Rhoodie (now in exile after the Muldergate scandal) described the South Africa Foundation as an organization "which tries to do on a private basis what the Department of Information is doing on an official basis." The statement says most South African black leaders have called for the immediate withdrawal of foreign investments, although doing so is considered an act of treason. This includes the late Stephen Biko, the Black People's Convention (BPC), the South African Council of Churches (SACC), the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan African Congress (PAC), as well the U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs, National Council of Churches (NCC), AFL-CIO, Organization of African Unity (OAU), and the NAACP. The short-term disadvantages of withdrawal affect the few (U.S. corporations only employ 100,000 workers, many of these white); they must be weighed against the long-term suffering caused by the political and economic discrimination under apartheid. Loans and investments mainly serve the needs of the white population, not social development programs in black communities, and they contributing to the growing income gap between blacks and whites. The statement says all black opposition groups have been declared illegal and, as of 1977, all black journalists and newspapers have been banned. The right to hear charges, the right to trial, and the right to set sentencing have been abolished, and torture of prisoners has been widespread. Chettle's visit to the Berkeley Commons Club is another example of the Muldergate syndrome, which under cover of 'objectivity' seeks to sway U.S. public to support the unjust South African status quo. The statement uses information from "The Great White Hoax, South Africa's international propaganda machine," published by Africa Bureau in London in 1977.