198 Broadway Now York, N.Y. 10038 0 (212) 962-1210 Tilden J. LeMeile, Chairman Jennifer Davis, Executive Director MEMORANDUM TO: Key Contacts FROM: Jennifer Davis, Executive Director DATE: September 9, 1992 Ciskei, Boipatong, Empangeni, Sharpeville, Meadowlands, Swanievilie, Sebokeng. in the "New South Africa" ofF.W. De Klerk, the list of atrocities goes on and on. You all know the statistics - nearly 8,000 people dead since the "reformist" De Klerk began his bloody reign of terror, with tens of thousands more wounded. driven from their homes, gripped by hopelessness and fear. For months the white minority regime, aided and abetted by a willing Western press, passed off this concerted attack on the freedom movement as "Black on Black Violence." Now, with hard evidence of government complicity in the violence mounting, ihe misinfoi mers are trying a new tactic- blaming the victim. Increasingly, it is the ANC which is being blamed for the massacre in Ciskei. The movement, so the argument goes, knew full well that Pretoria's bantustan surrogate, Oupa Gqozo, would turn his apartheid-armed, led and financed army on the marchers, and should have called off the protest. According to this distorted logic, Black persons daring to exercise their right of peaceful assembly and protest have only themselves to blame if soldiers under the command of a South African Defence Force Brigadier mow them down without warning with machine guns. The ANC, said apartheid police minister Hernus Kriel, "had fair warnirg," of the massacre, and was therefore at fault. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington that, "those who prompted the demonstration should carefully reconsider future actions...that expose innocent supporters to violence." Yet Mr. Boucher offered no such advice to democracy protesters in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia or Rumania. I urge you to contact both George Bush and Bill Clinton and urge therm to speak out publ-cly against the continuing slaughter in South Africa. Ask them to demand the immediate resignation of F.W. De Klerk and his white minority government, the dismantling of the bantustan system and installation of an interim government of national unity to guide South Africa to democracy. Ask them to do eveiything in their power to STOP APARTHEID'S VIOLENCE and support the people in their struggle for one-person, one-vote democracy in a unified non-racial, non-sexist South Africa. George Bush Bll Clinton 1030 15th Street N.W. Corner, Third and Louisiana Washington, DC 20005 Little Rock, AK 72201 FAX (202) 336-7954 FAX: (501) 372-2292 For more information contact The Africa Fund. Established by The American Committee on Africa, 1966 * Contributionsare tax-deductible 198 Broadway * New York, N.Y. 10038 * (212) 962-1210 Tilden J. LeMelle, Chairman Jennifer Davis, Executive Director 'THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1992 Democracy vs. Dictator in Apartheid's 'Homeland By BILL KELLER Special to TheNew York Times BISHO, South Africa, Sept. 9 - The make-believe country of Ciskei has a shiny "international" airport capable of landing a Boeing 747, in case one ever attempts to visit this curious fig ment of apartheid. It has 846,000 inhabitants who were not consulted in 1981 when they were stripped of their South African citizen ship and gerrymandered into one of 10 tribal homelands to protect white con trol of the wealthy remainder of the. country.. Ciskei has a foreign service with a single ambassadorial posting, to the only country that recognizes its sover eignty, South Africa. It has its capital here, a miniature pastel metropolis with a three-block downtown, a hotel-casino complex where South Africans can enjoy the blackjack tables forbidden a mile away in their own country, and high-walled' South Africa is struggling to fit homelands like Ciskei, where at least 28 compounds where government minis people were killed Monday, into the eventual post-apartheid order. ters and business executives dwell in luxurious isolation from Ciskei's But as the brigadier served bloody that the brigadier's position is wobbly. wretched poverty. notice on Monday, there is explosive Following the Ciskei killings, the Af It has its own development bank, its disagreement about where these home- rican National Congress staged an un own army and its own diminutive mili lands fit in the post-apartheid order. ' eventful march today against the tiny tary dictator, Brigadier Oupa J. Gqozo, The African National Congress de- homeland of Qwa Qwa, which is about who boils with rage -when he is ridi mands that homeland leaders it re- 200 miles south of Johannesburg, on the gards as inimical to democracy be northern border of Lesotho. Sculed as a puppet of South Africa. replaced by impartial caretakers until More ominously, its leaders said "I need some help to make the world elections can be held. The South Afri- they were contemplating action realize that I am a very serious lead can Government insists it is "not in the against KwaZulu, the Zulu homeland er," Brigadier Gqozo pleaded during business of replacing governments,", and the domain of the A.N.C.'s bitterest an interview last Friday. as a spokesman put it. I I and most powerful black political rival, Three days later his army fired a The killings left Ciskei extremely' Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi. volatile. Police and soldiers conducted' seemingly interminable machine-gun door-to-door searches fusillade at protesters marching on his today, and were T capital, killing said to be arresting and beating partic- The Clearest Border: at least 28 and convinc ipants in Monday's march. In the Cis- Where the Poor Are ing many that if he. is not a serious keian townships southwest of Bisho, leader, he is at least part of a serious residents burned the homes of Ciskei problem. ' soldiers. A visitor driving through the rolling Having manufactured these mock It was no surprise that the congress pasture and voluptuous mountains of states, entrenched their rulers in posi chose Ciskei for Monday's march, Ciskei finds no border posts to mark tions of power and small-time luxury which was aimed explicitly at toppling the frequent passage across the "inter and employed Brigadier Gqozo. The region, where the national" border with South Africa. them as surrogates to Xhosa and the British fought their fron- But the boundaries are easily de divide the black political opposition, tier wars in the 19th century, is one of duced from the standard of living. The South Africa now seeks to undo the the congress's most militant strong- cozy 19th-century English colonial experiment by reunifying its territory. holds, and there have been many signs towns, Queenstown, Fort Beaufort, Established by The American Committee on Africa, 1966 • Contributions are tax-deductible King William's Town, are in South Af Bisho, 50 heavily armed troops gath him paranoid." rica The sprawling townships and the ered outside while their commander barren rural settlements, Zwelitsha, Mr. Hugo, whose account is backed ordered the meeting dispersed. by other former intelligence officers, Thornhill - those are in Ciskei. 7! iil-:e the Ifga'l:att,n of the Africe'r Indian Ocean port of East London i0 sail that the most audacious maneuver Natioaai Ccr.gruss a, .9O, the home wv.s staging a phony coup attempt. He South Africa's shipbuilding center. The lands have acquired a tiew utility for neighboring said South African agents lured Cis slum of Mdant ;mne s _::i h- vili a Go-rntmeit as YV.tical 'oils k.j's f)"rier security chief, Charles The brigadier readily admits that in to the black liberation movement. Sebe,back from exile in Transkei with The homelands - four of them "in economic terms, his republic is any a promise that mutinous army officers would ha.K' hirm the presidency. Mr. thing but independent. inF" - have gradually taken sides, South Africa underwrites the budget Sebe and a collaborator walked into the: soine tilting to the A.N.C., others to the Strap and were killed. that pays for the 30,000-mrremrber civil Govert men. service and its perks, including the Aicording to Gert Hugo, a former The congress did its share to embit black bulletproof Range Rover that the South African military intelligence offi ter r.e brigad ar, making a mistake the brigadier favors and the flee! of Mer car who was brigadier'iqozo's iPtetli whita.. in Pretoria did not: they insult cedes preferred by his cabinet. Sduth gence adviser for a year, until July Africa ed his pride. trained and equipped the army i1991, Ciskei has long been a covert After the brigadier dismissed strik - assisted by such a large contingent I battleground in the white Govern ing civil servants, the A.N.C. organized of Israelis that for a time the Pick 'n ment's "divide and rule" approach. rallies where he was denounced in Pay supermarket in Bisho had a ko The strategy, he said, was to manipu scathing terms. Keith Mathee, a law sher section. I late Ciskei as a bulwark against the yer who served s Brigadier Gqozo's "South Africans - many retired or 1 African National Congress, especially irst mtnister of justice, said the fum seconded from the South African Gonv. i the neighboring "independent" ing brigadier forced his cabinet to sit ernment and military - still make up homeland of Transkei. Transkei, the through repeated screenings of a police more than half the brigadier's cabinet I home of Nelson Mandela, the A.N.C. videotape of one protest march where and the leadership of his military and president, is ruled by a military dicta women bared their buttocks in deri intelligence services.