African Activist Archive

The mailing says I only wish things had turned out that way; but on my recent trip to South Africa with New York Mayor David Dinkins, Nelson Mandela told us that the apartheid government is still refusing to allow a peaceful transition to majority rule; that is why Mandela came to the United Nations last week to urge that sanctions must continue, to help end the rule of what he described as "a regime without credibility, without legitimacy." The mailing says South African President F.W. de Klerk has developed a sophisticated two-pronged strategy to preserve the power and privileges of the 13% white minority; on the one hand he is acting the statesman and sitting down to negotiate with the ANC; but at the same time his government has unleashed a deadly assault on the democratic movement. The mailing says there is now overwhelming evidence that the government is behind the killing, burning and maiming which has engulfed the Black townships; instead of organizing against apartheid, people in the townships live in fear for their lives. The mailing says this is intended to intimidate and demoralize the people and the democratic movement so that they will settle for de Klerk's terms; this would mean permitting some Black faces in a new government, while white political power and economic domination remain essentially untouched; for a family living in a squatter's shack in Soweto, very little would have changed. The mailing says this is why Nelson Mandela told us that it is vitally important to keep the pressure on Pretoria until an interim government is established and £ meaningful transition to democracy has at least begun. The mailing says so far, thanks to your help, we are winning: --- We are working with Mayor Dinkins on a letter to the mayor of every major city in America, urging that municipal sanctions remain in force until the transition to democracy is guaranteed; --- This fall we organized meetings with political and civic leaders for ANC Deputy President Walter Sisulu, who moved them with his intense concern for the victims of the violence and told them that sanctions must stay until apartheid is over --- We are fighting efforts to abandon state sanctions in North Dakota, Missouri and Florida; --- Our Religious Action Network is alerting Protestant, Catholic and Jewish congregations throughout America to the need to campaign to save sanctions; --- We are helping Mayor Dinkins prepare a January briefing on South Africa and sanctions for the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The mailing says we cannot predict the future; we don't know how long or short the road to freedom will be; but we do know that the greater the pressure, the sooner change will come.

African Activist Archive

[A year ago it seemed as if by now we might be celebrating the birth of freedom in South Africa, with sanctions laid aside and all our energies devoted to building a new society.]

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