African Activist Archive

A letter urges people to contact the President, Senator Clark, Rep. Diggs, and their members of Congress using as a reference an enclosed letter to President Jimmy Carter from the co-Chairs of the Association of Concerned African Scholars (ACAS). The ACAS letter expresses dismay at the increasing U.S. intervention opposing popular forces in southern Africa and takes issue with the rhetoric used to justify such intervention, which directs attention away from the real issues of African liberation and human rights. Recent events in Shaba (Zaire) and the continuing guerrilla warfare in Zimbabwe and Namibia are part of a single struggle to establish democratic, popular governments throughout southern Africa. The U.S. government is not well placed to complain about presumed Cuban indirect support for the FNLC in Zaire; the U.S. government supported coups by Mobutu against legally-constituted regimes in 1960 and 1965 - ten years before Cuban soldiers were invited into Angola. Also, the U.S. government has declined to make public its evidence for Cuban involvement in Shaba. The U.S. has been sending Mobutu weapons, flying in troops from other countries to aid him, and coordinating efforts of various Western powers in his support. The U.S. government persistently opposed the MPLA in Angola since 1961 - supporting both the Portuguese colonial regime and its political rivals within Angola. Evidence offered by John Stockwell has demonstrated U.S. appropriated large sums of money to oust the MPLA before there were any Cuban troops. The U.S. encouraged South African and Zairian troops to invade Angola to overthrow its government, and alone among major world powers does not have diplomatic relations with Angola. The letter said the U.S. encourage rescue missions for whites but not to help Namibians with South African forces invaded Angola and killed 604 Namibians. The real problem in southern Africa is the existence of undemocratic regimes in these areas - starting with South Africa - and those external forces who sustain them. The U.S. is again on a path of providing economic, political and military aid to anti-popular, anti-democratic forces. The letter mentions FNLC (Front de libération nationale congolaise, Congolese National Liberation Front), the USSR, France, hyperinflation, and the CIA.

African Activist Archive

[Dear ACAS Member, The Executive Committee voted to send the attached letter to President Carter.]

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