CO-CHAIRMEN Donald S. Harrington A. Philip Ra ndolph VICE-CHAIRMAN ;'",om es A. Pike /" PRESIDENT t: Peter Weiss VICE-PRESIDENTS AMERICAN CO E ON AFRICA Elizabeth S. Landis Hope R. Stevens 164 Madison Avenue• New York, 2) 532-3700 • Cable AMCOMMAF SECRETARY Farrell Jones TREASURER Frederick A.O. Schwa rz, Jr. GENERAL COUNSEL Robert Delson NATIONAL COMMITTEE (partial listing) Sadie T. M. Alexander Thurman Arnold James Baldwin Roger N . Baldwin Stringfellow Barr Richa rd Bolling Mrs. Chester Bowles September 5, 1968 James B. Carey Marguerite Cartwright Allan Knight Chalmers Jerome Davis Max Delson Peter De Vries Dear Friend: Charles C. Diggs, Jr. Harry Emerson Fosdick Donald M. Fraser Carlton B. Goodlett Enclosed is a memorandum about a critical situation Seymour Halpern Henry W. Hobson in . Under the banner of , Arthur N . Holcombe Elmer J. Holland the white authorities of South West Africa (who cannot Sophia Yarnall Jacobs Clarence 8 . Jones be separated from the South .A.frican authorities) are Sidney Josephs George M . Leader threatening to remove 8000 Africans from their homes Rayford W. Logan Eugene J. McCarthy in . The deadline of August 31 (demanded by Robert J. McCracken John A. Mackay the authorities) has passed. If the Africans do not Will Maslow Howard M . Metzenbaum leave the , there will be a direct confron­ Wayne Morse Reinhold Niebuhr tation with the police, unless the authorities hold F. D. Patterson Sidney Poitier off action. Paul A. Porter Melvin Pr ice Ira De A. Reid Jackie Robinson Please read the enclosed memo and take what action you James H. Robinson James Roosevelt can. We will continue to watch the situation closely Robert St. John Francis B. Sayre and will supply further information. George W . Shepherd Ralph W . Sackman Edward J. Sparling Mark Starr Sincerely yours, Wi lliam E. Stevenson C. Sumner Stone, Jr. Rex Stout Norman Thomas Frank Thompson, Jr. /M,:;}11~~ Howard Thurman ..., ' - Mark Van Doren George M. Houser EXECUTIVE BOARD Nelson Bengston Executive Director Paul Booth Robert S. Browne Lewis Carliner Elsie Carrington Mar k Cohen Winifred Courtney George Daniels Ivanhoe Donaldson James Farmer Herschel Ha lbert John L. S. Holloman Jay Jacobson David D. Jones Dana Klotzle Stanley D. Levison Andrew E. Norman Frank C. Montero Victor G. Reuther Cleveland Robinson Bayard Rustin William X. Scheinman Adelaide Schulkind M ason Sears Richard P. Stevens Robert Van Lierop Arthur Waskow EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR George M. Houser ASSISTANT TO DIRECTOR Marilyn Brown EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE Janet I. Maclaughlin PROJECTS DIRECTOR Willis H. Logan MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR Ben Peterson STAFF ASSOCIATE Robin E. Myers

···•·· 8000 RESIST DISPOSSESSION 'B'f APARTHEID IN WINDHOEK, S. W,A. ()

Chief Designate of the of South West Africa (Namibia) asked the on June 8, 1968, for a meeting of the Security Council to consider the June 6 decision of the Windhoek City Council to deproclaim (i.e. demolish) their community, the Old Location, on August 31, 1968. The appeal to the UN was the last hope in a nine­ year struggle to save the homes of 8000 people who had refused to leave their homes despite increasing pressures. Mr. Kapuuo 1 s letter stated:

As indigenous people of South West Africa, we have an inherent right to the lands we inhabit and we will not move away from our lands on order from a foreign Gov­ ernment whose rights in South West Africa have been suspended. Apartheid in s.w.A. South Africa, which administers South West Africa in defiance of the UN's withdrawal of its mandate, is extending the South African system of apartheid into the international territory. The apartheid separa­ tion of peoples is imposed by the white government and thus in the words of the former Prime Minister, Dr. Hendrick Verwoerd, "The Bantu residential area near the city is only a place where the European pro­ vides a temporary home in his part of the country for those who require it because they are employed by him and earn their living there. 11 Un­ der South African control, Africans' homes are determined at the conven­ ience of their white rulers. In Windhoek, capital of South West Africa, the European area had been expanding in the direction of the African Old Location, while that area became more and more crowded. The administrative requirement of a 500- yard buffer strip between the white and African communities was no longer observed. The South West African administration in 1958 began construc­ tion of a new location (which the Africans named , Herero for "we have no place of our own") 3.5 miles northeast from the center of town. In November, 1959, the administration began evaluation of homes in the Old Location for compensation purposes.

Popular Resistance

In the same month the UN Connnittee on South West Africa received cables and letters from both Herera chiefs and the president of the Peoples Organization requesting that the South African Government be asked not to proceed with the removal. In December, local residents be­ gan to protest by boycotting municipal undertakings in the Location - bus service, beerhalls, cinema, and dances. Arrests at the beerhall on De­ cember 10 resulted in a demonstration before the municipal offices where the prisoners were taken, culminating in the kil.ling of 11 Africans and injuring of 44. Page 2

A Government Commission of Inquiry claimed that opposition to the removal had been instigated in New York. But a joint memorandum to this Commis­ sion on behalf of Chief , the OVamboland Peoples Organization, and the South West Africa National Union (SWANU) summarized the opposi­ tion as

1) rejection of apartheid and the idea that Africans could be moved anywhere without their consent;

2) opposition to strict regulations applying to Katutura residents;

3) a protest against a rent increase from 50¢ to $5.60 a month, plus bus fare because of the increased distance from tow. The average African wage, they said, was about 10 pounds a month, whereas a subsistance level income was 27 pounds.

The UN Assembly adopted resolution 1567 regretting these incidents, point­ ing out that apartheid was contrary to the terms of South Africa's Man­ date, the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and the Univer­ sal Declaration of Human Rights, and recommended that housing developments in urban areas of the Territory be carried out in accordance with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.

Over the years, various pressures were used to compel the people to move. Municipal and administration employees were dismissed unless they moved to Katutura. No one was allowed to build or improve houses in the Old Location. Residents who left temporarily were not allowed to return. Refuse collection was ended. Schools were closed and teachers were left unemployed. The Katutura population grew to 9000 but more than a thousand new houses were empty while 8000 people still refused to leave the Old Location.

Deadline August 31

This summer, 1968, the situation worsened. On June 6 the European Wind­ hoek City Council asked the Minister of Bantu Administration and Devel­ opment, M.C. Botha, to deproclaim the Old Location as of August 31. On June 26 the Municipal Police began to serve notices on the residents,and employers were warned it would be illegal for them to employ residents of the Old Location. (Job advertisements already were worded "Only for residents of Katutura.") On July 1 the press reported a protest meeting of 500-600 Africans the previous day and the sending of communications to the UN and the press. (It was discovered late in August, through tele­ phone communication, that communications by letter between South West Africans and the United Nations were no longer reaching their destination.)

Representatives of SWANU who have been in telephone communication with Win~oek (and who, also, have found mail between family and friends cut off this summer) reported to the UN on August 23 that tractors and bull­ dozers have been stationed at various places in the Old Location; armoured cars, police vans, and jeeps are patrolling day and night. Page 3

If the people refuse to abandon their homes - and some thousands have shown themselves determined to stay - until the bulldozer actually rolls over them, an immediate crisis of violence and arrests may confront the world, as well as the longer range tragedy of a people made refugees in their own homeland for the benefit of alien rulers.

Suggested Action l. Urge the U.S. to support calling an immediate meeting of the U.N. Security Council to consider the question. Write Ambassador George W. Ball, United States Mission to the U.N., 799 U.N. Plaza, New York, N.Y. .. 2. Ask the Security Council to endorse previous actions of the U.N. General Assembly looking toward self-determination for Namibians.

3. Contribute to a legal defense fund for the Windhoek evacuees through the Africa Defense and Aid Fund, 164 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016 4. Protest to the government of South Africa. Protest demonstrations have been and will continue to be held at the South African Mission to the U.N. For further information contact Bill Johnston, Episcopal Churchmen for South Africa, 14 w. 11th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011. Phone: (212) 477-0066, 5. Ask candidates for office in your district to support a U.S. foreign policy that would aid the opponents of apartheid.

6. Write for further information. Publications about Namibia available from the American Committee on Africa include:

South West Africa. Information Sheet, Nov., 1967. Summary of a Report to the U.N. Council for South West Africa. Feb., 1968. The Terrorism Act. Oct., 1967. "south Africa has robbed us of our country", statement by Toivo Hermann ja Toivo at his trial under the Terrorism Act. Feb. , 1968,

It has just been reported that some residents of the Old Location have begun to move to Katutura for fear of South African reprisals. How many families have left their homes, where they have gone, whether others are still resist­ ing -- all of these facts are unknown. But the fact that the South African authorities have defied both the will of the Africans living in the Old Loca­ tion and the resolutions of the United Nations demands that protests against this action continue.

AMERICAN COMMI'ITEE ON AFRICA, 164 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10016

September 5, 1968