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198 Broadway Now York, N.Y. 10038 0 (212) 962-1210 Tilden J. LeMeile, Chairman 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.
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