AUTUMN, 1982 WASHINGTON NOTES ON AFRICA Scholarships: Education or Indoctrination? The Reagan Admini- promoted by Assistant stration is once again Secretary Chester Crock­ moving to thwart South A Decade of Struggle: 1972-1982 er as a complement to Africa's liberation strug­ scholarship opportun­ gle. Over the past year, We are proud to present this special anniversary edition to you. ities. Crocker has con­ the White House and For ten years, the Washington Notes on Africa has kept you demned solely "exter­ Congress have ad­ informed about events in Southern Africa and US policy responses. nal" programs which vanced characteris­ We take pride in knowing that this publication has played an bring South African tically different ap­ important role in the struggle for the liberation of Southern Africa. students and refugees proaches to the educa­ As in this issue, we have exposed US complicity with white minority to the US because they tional needs of Black regimes and have probed South Africa's efforts to gain support for "benefit the top achiev­ South Africans. Con­ its racist apartheid system in this country. In our endeavor to make ers within apartheid gress, rather than in­ each issue informative and readable, we have sought to provide you education, while writ­ creasing funding for with the informational resources to educate, to motivate, and to ing off apartheid's sad­ refugee education, has agitate for an end to the unjust racist system and US support for it. dest victims." initiated a new scholar­ You, our readers, have given us the political, moral, and financial Actually, the Reagan ship program to permit support to keep us going through the good and lean times. With this proposal plays directly Black South Africans to anniversary issue, we rededicate ourselves to the cause of freedom into Pretoria's hands, study in the US. Rea­ in Southern Africa and ask that you continue to support our work pouring US tax dollars gan, consistent with his until that cause is achieved. into apartheid educa­ strategy of "construc- The Struggle Continues, tion, a system both tive engagement," has Jean Sindab, Executive Director racially segregated and petitioned Congress to racist in its orientation. discard its policy of The plan would not opposition to oppressive apartheid education and divert funds only assume some of the growing costs of educating that directly to Pretoria to "improve" educational facilities for nation's rapidly increasing Black school-age population, but Blacks. The Reagan plan faces dismal prospects on Capitol would consequently unencumber funds for expenditure in the Hill, however, so conservative ideologues in the admini­ white regime's campaign of escalating repression. Internal stration have begun an effort to make the Congressional assistance would also aid Pretoria's efforts to create a buffer program meet the goals of "constructive engagement." That class of skilled Black workers with a stake in South Africa's effort involves a suspicious, new private agency, the African economy substantial enough to lure it away from support from American Educational Foundation, which could undermine for the liberation movement. the struggle for majority rule. Seeking to distance themselves from this program, The Reagan proposal is a $2.3 million "internal education Congressional liberals will almost certainly block the Reagan program" put forth as a part of its Supplemental Foreign plan. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has already added Assistance Authorization request for 1982. The program, language to the bill which would render implementation of the designed to support teacher training, management training, program virtually impossible. The new restrictions require that and "open universities" within South Africa, has been the appropriated funds be used "only if the recipients of the ® 67 <g8gXgS8888888Rx88H888888888g8&X8XXX88X88888X&X888XXX88XXX8 training will be able to receive the tr.aining in non-segregated (now,'once again, called the US Information Agency [USIA]) institutions. will be allowed to use all the facilities of these to allocate the program's funds. That agreement further institutions on a racially non-discriminatory basis, and will not stipulated that both the liE and "the African American be prohibited from using their training in racially integrated Educational Foundation (AAEF) or other qualified organi­ organizations and institutions." No existing South African zation" should receive grants. One month later, liE was educational facility can satisfy these requirements. awarded $2.7 million to place 57 to 72 students, while $1.3 went to the AAEF to support 18 students. Scholarship Plan Prevails AAEF: Collaborator or Pawn? An alternative program, sponsored by Rep. Steve Solarz (D-NY), received Congressional approval in December of last Unlike II E, an organization with a consistent track record of year. The measure, which allocates $4 million in both FY 1982 assisting South African students, the AAEF is an untested and FY 1983 to provide scholarships for Black South Africans to study in the US, received strong bipartisan backing because it offers training opportunities outside of the rigid and oppressive structures of apartheid education. However, unlike "Through the AAEF, the USIA established scholarship programs which assist South African refugees, the new plan selects recipients from within South could select politically naive, Africa to study in the US. malleable students, The program has been criticized in some circles as a retreat from refugee scholarship assistance, signalling the lessening indoctrinate them with an of even token US support for those fleeing the oppression of apartheid. While there may be no direct link, during the 1982­ accommodationist 83 academic year the total number of South African refugee students in the US on government-funded scholarships has perspective, and return them dropped. The program also gives the South African government a de to South Africa to undermine facto role in the selection process by virtue of its control over support for the liberation student exit visas. By requiring that participants go back to South Africa following their studies, the program further limits struggle." selected students' freedom to speak out against apartheid. More importantly, the implementation of the program by the Reagan administration has subverted its liberal intent. The $4 agency. It was founded in July, 1981 by its director, Kevin million appropriated under the bill originally seemed destined Callwood, a 24-year-old native of the Virgin Islands and a to be allocated to the Institute for International Education recent graduate of George Washington University. It was not (liE). an organization which has regularly funded students because of Callwood's background in educational services under the auspices of the Fulbright program and the South that the AAEF received funding. He has no prior experience in African Educational Program (SAEP). (SAEP selects students administering such a program and has only limited knowledge from within South Africa with the help of the Educational of the South African situation. Opportunities Committee, chaired by Bishop Desmond Tutu, The right-wing ideologues whom Reagan has appointed to Secretary General of the South African Council of Churches.) run the USIA (in particular, Ron Trowbridge, Associate liE competed with only one other agency for the funds, an Director of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs) unknown and inexperienced agency named the African may have seen in Callwood an opportunity to further the American Educational Foundation (AAEF). administration's strategy of slow, non-disruptive change in In Apri I, 1982, the Agency for International Development's South Africa-an opportunity that would otherwise be lost if (AID) Assistant Administrator for Africa, Frank Ruddy, Congress rejects the Reagan "internal education" proposal. authorized the then International Communications Agency Through the AAEF, the USIA could select politically naive, malleable students, indoctrinate them with an accomoda­ tionist perspective, and return them to South Africa to undermine support for the liberation struggle. Callwood's articulation of the AAEF's organizational philosophy is clearly compatible with such a scheme. At the time of the AAEF's formation, Callwood co-authored an article for the Washington Star with attorney Harry Hogan. The column outlined the AAEF's desire "to offer educational opportunities to black South Africans so as to train them beyond first level jobs for future leadership opportunities in business, education, community affairs, and the government... These students will eventually return to South Africa trained in the principles of democracy and free market enterprise and prepared to participate in effective fashion in the inevitable effort of their country to move from repression to democratic freedom." This theme is reiterated in the AAEF's final proposal for Secondary school, Soweto. USIA funding: "Ideally, the students should come out of this Photographer unknown. courtesy of InternatIOnal Defense and Aid Fund. experience with a sense of common participation in a social 2 WASHINGTON NOTES ON AFRICA 88X8x888888XXXXXg8gXXRXX888X&&88888g8X888888&X88&XB88R2888> mission, not shaped solely as resistance of oppression, but affirmatively with appreciation of making the freedom of the Western social and economic system open to all." (Emphasis added,) Although Callwood argues that this rhetoric was included in the