African Activist Archive

This fundraising mailing focuses on TransAfrica's newly launched Southern Africa Media Project. Through American history, important political decisions have followed on the heels of strongly held, persistently voiced majority public opinion. Therefore, it is important to make sure that newspaper, magazine, radio and television throughout the U.S. more fully report the crisis in South Africa, including everyday atrocities and horrors of apartheid and the Botha regime. Leaders of the Free South Africa Movement recently met to plan key actions in coming months to more fully address the escalating crisis in South Africa and, in particular, to accelerate accurate, timely and more detailed news reporting throughout the U.S. about South Africa. This is needed to counter the "media blackout" by the South African government and to expose the lies, distortions and half-truths of the South African regime, the Reagan Administration, and reactionary right-wing groups. They want to hide the truth that, under the Botha regime, children are tortured, thousands of innocent men and women face prolonged imprisonment, countless families are ripped apart, and millions of black South Africans are consigned to lifelong squalor. Also, an intense campaign has been launched to depict members of the African National Congress (ANC) as violence-prone Communists. We must show Americans that the ANC is a legitimate and responsible majority-movement in South Africa recognized by the leaders of India, Sweden, Norway, and assisted by the government of Italy. The ANC is encouraging constructive negotiations to create a new Constitution for South Africa and hold democratic elections. The Southern Africa Media Project must also report South Africa's out-and-out war on the neighboring states of Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Namibia. Few Americans know that South Africa periodically occupies the southern part of Angola and arms the anti-government guerrillas in both Angola and Mozambique. We must make South Africa's military destabilization of other African nations and U.S. adventurism known to the American public. No group is currently conducting this kind of focused mass media campaign. The mailing also mentions disappearances of church and labor union leaders, children shot to death on the streets by security forces, bans on all indoor and outdoor meetings, SWAPO, and the United Democratic Front (UDF).

African Activist Archive

[Dear Friend of a Free South Africa,The South African government hopes you won't bother to read this letter.]

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