Randall Robinson's testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and International Economic Policy and Trade about President Bush's repeal of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 (CAAA). TransAfrica opposes this move, as does the South African Council of Churches (SACC), the African National Congress (ANC), Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), COSATU, the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), and Amnesty International. The global anti-apartheid movement, including groups that represent the black majority in South Africa, felt the President acted prematurely. Political prisoners are still in jail, new apartheid measures have replaced the old ones, the vicious system...
Randall Robinson's testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and International Economic Policy and Trade about President Bush's repeal of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 (CAAA). TransAfrica opposes this move, as does the South African Council of Churches (SACC), the African National Congress (ANC), Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), COSATU, the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), and Amnesty International. The global anti-apartheid movement, including groups that represent the black majority in South Africa, felt the President acted prematurely. Political prisoners are still in jail, new apartheid measures have replaced the old ones, the vicious system of bantustans lives on, and Nelson Mandela cannot vote. Five conditions were set out in the sanctions law and the President decided that all five were satisfied, with the backing of Assistant Secretary of State Herman Cohen, despite many claims that the conditions had not been met. Robinson recounts his prior testimony in April about the conditions for lifting sanctions, which the South African government had not satisfactorily met. This includes discussion of political prisoners still in jail, "unrest areas" being declared in the place of a national state of emergency, the lack of genuine political freedom in South Africa, exiles not being able to return with indemnity, security legislation legalizing detention without trial, and the average South African still not exercising the basic right to vote. Black South Africans continue to be classified by race, despite so-called repeal of the Population Registration Act. Residential segregation also continues, despite repeal of the Group Areas Act. The F. W. de Klerk government has been surreptitiously spending over $133 million on covert operations, including plans to discredit the ANC and arm Inkatha (including over $610,000 given to Inkatha and its affiliated labor union). Robinson said that the State Department made little mention of the hundreds of affidavits that implicated the South African police and its hired gangsters in recent violence in black townships. The good faith of both the Administration and the DeKlerk government is at issue here. The remaining sanctions against South Africa must be kept in place. There are reports that the Justice Department will undertake, somehow, to invalidate state and local anti-apartheid laws, which must not be permitted. Restrictions on International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank lending to South Africa should be kept in place. All aid destined for black South Africans should go through non-governmental organizations.
