African Activist Archive

Jennifer Davis' letter to a small group of activists focused on southern Africa who had donated to The Africa Fund and other national activist organizations. Davis notes important current challenges - interpreting the conflicting messages coming from South Africa and determining a course of action that will accelerate the death of apartheid and the birth of new hope for the whole region. The work for which you have given key support is impacting directly on events in Southern Africa. The apartheid state has not abandoned its attempts to wipe out all progressive democratic organization - hence the new treason trial, closing down of newspapers, banning of organizations, and unleashing of unofficial hit squads. International economic sanctions and the high cost of its wars, both in terms of money and white lives has forced South Africa to mitigate its aggression against Mozambique and negotiate withdrawal from Namibia. South Africa's need to improve its international image has brought such dramatic concessions as the commuting of the death sentence on the Sharpeville 6 and the "promise" that Nelson Mandela will not return to his prison cell. Although South Africa was scarcely an issue in the recent U.S. election campaign, Bush made very clear his adamant opposition to sanctions - and his close advisors have indicated an interest in supporting RENAMO that is quite frightening. Davis outlines three projects for the coming year: the South Africa Human Rights Watch, Frontline State Education For Inner City Youth, and Sanctions Education. The 100,000 keys collected during our "Unlock Apartheid's Jails" Campaign showed it is possible to mobilize a dramatic U.S. response to repression in South Africa. Concerned that Washington policy-makers continue to see Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe in cold-war terms, which lead to U.S. alliances with South Africa in support of contra movements, we have intensified educational work about the Frontline States. When we began this work, the notion that more than 20 states and 80 cities would take divestment action, that Congress would cut off new investment in South Africa, and that a bill to force U.S. corporations to leave South Africa would pass the House of Representatives would have seemed incredible. The letter also mentions political prisoners, the Human Rights Commission, municipal elections, hunger strikes, President Botha, death sentences, Projects Director Rob Jones, Daddy-O, Oliver Tambo, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev. Frank Chikane, the South African Council of Churches (SACC), Jay Naidoo, COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions), refugees, material aid, rap singers, A.F.R.I.C.A., Stetsasonic, trading partners, and selective purchasing.

African Activist Archive

[What follows is an outline of our thinking, political and organizational, to help put key supporters "in the picture" as the year ends.]

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