An Open Statement For Private Citizens and Public Officials

Contents: The U.S. should disengage from South Africa • The U.S. should end the contradiction in its avoid support for self-determination in Africa and its real support for Portugal's military suppression of its "overseas" territories • The U.S. should aid independent Africa in its quest for self-reliance and progress • THE U.S. SHOULD REDUCE THE LEVEL OF SUPPORT TO SOUTH AFRICA • THE U.S. SHOULD END ITS SUPPORT OF PORTUGAL'S ULTRA-COLONIALISM IN MOZAMBIQUE, ANGOLA AND GUINEA • AMERICAN AID SHOULD BE EXTENDED TO THOSE AFRICAN STATES THREATENED OR BESIEGED BY APARTHEID • OTHER MATTERS • WHAT CAN YOU DO? • As A Private Citizen • As A Public Official • As A Member of Organizations and Institutions • The statement says our relations with South Africa are normal; communications with South Africa have failed. In more than 20 years of relations with South Africa under its Nationalist Party the amount of oppressive legislation has steadily increased; under normal relations the bureaucracy of our government interacts with the bureaucracy of South Africa, and, through their own inertia, these institutional relations facilitate deeper involvement with the South Africa regime; South Africa is the world's only racist dictatorship, the totality of its oppression is unique; the American economic exploitation in South Africa deepens the U.S. stake in the status quo in; South Africa has continued to defy international opinion with its new administrative take-over of Namibia (South West Africa). The statement says Portugal, the most backward country in Europe, retains the world's largest colonial empire through U.S. support; Portugal, in its so-called civilizing mission in Africa, first depopulated its provinces by selling the people as slaves to the Americas, now it seeks to divest those territories of their mineral wealth with the help of Gulf oil and other American interests; U.S. military support to Portugal through NATO allows Portugal to free other resources for use in suppressing its colonies. The statement says Congress should allocate no more funds for the U.S. Space Tracking Station in South Africa; it should support the expansion of the NASA facilities in Malagasy and/or the development of space tracking facilities, as required, in Zambia or Botswana; an amendment to tax legislation should provide that income from new American investments in South Africa should not be exempted from ''double taxation"; the arms embargo should be extended by Congressional action amending the Export Control Act to provide that any materials convertible to military purposes (such as trucks and aircraft) would also be defined as military exports. The statement discusses the sugar quota, Bingham-Kennedy amendment, the Sugar Act, the Federal Aviation Act, South African Airways, religious and racial discrimination, the Secretary of Labor, the Appropriations bill, the State Department, Foreign Service personnel, the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Science Foundation, and the National Space and Aeronautics Administration, private American economic involvement, American mining companies, the Export Control Act, an embargo on all arms to Portugal, refugees, the Azores military base, the Export-Import Bank, trade, foreign and military aid, HR 3295, non-self governing territories, Rhodesia, the President, Martin Luther King, and Albert Luthuli.