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RELIGIOUS ACTION NETWORK for Justice and Peace in Southern Africa

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RELIGIOUS ACTION NETWORK for Justice and Peace in Southern Africa RELIGIOUS ACTION NETWORK for justice and peace in southern Africa a project of the American Committee on Africa SOUTH AFRICA: WHAT'S GOING ON FOUNDING MEMBERS AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT (Pa rti al listing) Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, Cha,·persan by Aleah Bacquie Concan Bophst Church, New York Canon Frederick B. Williams what's going on ••• Church of· the Intercession, New York Rev. M. William Howard, President In South Africa' it seems' the more things change' the Amencon Common .. on Afr;co more they stay the same. In the past two years' Nelson Jennifer Davis, EKecvtove Director Mandela and other prominent political prisoners were Ame,;canCommoHeeonAfnco released from prison . The African National Congress' Aleoh Bocquie, Coordmatar Pan Africanist Congress and other political parties RelogoousActoonNetwork were unbanned. But Blacks, some 83% of the South African · popula­ tion, are still denied the vote. In some areas, the rate of malnutrition among black children is as high as 60-70%. Some 400 political prisoners remairi in apartheid jails where ill­ treatment, torture, and murder by officials are still rampant according to human rights groups. And now, in addition to everything else, government sanctioned political violence threatens a just and democratic transition. It is no small indictment of South African society that its history is known mainly by its massacres. The Sharpeville Massacre thirty-two years ago left sixty-eight dead at the hands of police. The Soweto Uprising sixteen years later had a death toll of over 1000 due to South African police and security forces. On June 17th, 1992, another sixteen years later, fifty people lost their lives to state-sponsored violence in Boipatong. The victims of the Boipatong Massacre, among them a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy riddled with bullets and an infant with numerpus stab wounds to the head, are now part of the over 7,000 killed by politic~l violence since Nelson . Mandela's release. This mind boggling figure of ~partheid violence victims totals more during de Klerk's three year tenure as president than the 40 previous years of apartheid _rule,! . _,. - ~ Following the Boipatong Massacre, on June 23rd the African National Congress broke off talks with the South African government demanding that the regime take concrete steps to end the political violence and to agree to the democratic principle of one personjone vote, and the consequent abandonment of the idea of white min9rity yeto. Meanwhile the ANC, COSATU, the largest ' labor federation in the country, and the South African Council of Churches called for nonviolent mass action like strikes, demonstrations, _sit-ins, and boycotts to pressure the· apartheid regime to meet those demands. In fact, this August 3rd ­ and 4th saw the largest anti-apartheid protest action in South African history with about 5 million Blacks participating. And, due to the presence of United Nat-ions, Organization of -African Unity, and Peace Accord monitoring teams which surveyed townships by helicopter, violence was kept to a minimum. · 198 Broadway, Room 402, New York, NY ~0038 212-962-1210 What to do about it ... We can respond to the calls of ANC president Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu for international acts of solidarity to pressure the apartheid government and to advocate in support of the people of South Africa. We should work hard to maintain our state and local sanctions against South Africa until an interim government is established. And we should strongly urge our senators to co-sponsor senate Resolution 301 which condemns apartheid violence, calls on the South African government to take immediate steps to end it, and directs President Bush to investigate the violence and its impact on South Africa's transition to democracy. It seems our support was never more crucial than it is now to ensure a just and democratic society in South Africa. The Religious Action Network was created with ju?t that purpose in mind. RAN, a national network of congregations united for peace with justice in southern Africa, is chaired by Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker and has Canon Frederick B. Williams as Vice­ chairperson, two men who believe that faith without works is dead. Consequently, in the past few years RAN has testified before the United Nations, and traveled to South Africa on a solidarity mission where they met with Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Rev. Frank Chikane. We helped organize the historic Interfaith Service for Nelson Mandela, and held a Rally Against Apartheid for Walter and Albertina Sisulu, ANC Deputy­ President and ANC Women's League vice-president respectively. RAN has delivered thousands of keys at the doors of the South African Embassy to symbolize our demand for the release of all political prisoners, and advocated to keep state and local sanctions against South Africa. Recently, RAN churches answered the call of Reverend Frank Chikane, General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, for Two Weeks of Prayer for Peace. RAN contacted over 1,000 congregations about Rev. Chikane's request. The World Council of Churches and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations endorsed RAN's call and urged their members to participate. Congregational response was overwhelming and enthusiastic. RAN ended the Two Weeks of Prayer with annual soweto sunday Services to mark the anniversary of the peaceful student protest against apartheid education practices when hundreds of students were fired upon and killed by South African police. Episcopalian RAN member churches have long been participan~s of these initiatives. Bishop Orris Walker of Long Island who went on the RAN trip to South Africa is a strong supporter of RAN, once even donating funds to an effort to highlight the plight of political prisoners close to death in a hunger strike for their release. Most recently, after I was allowed to give a special report on the situation in South Africa at the Union of Black Episcopalians annual conference, Canon Kwasi Thornell presented a resolution on South Africa which was unanimously adopted by the body. This resolution rendered the Union of Black Episcopalians the first denominational conference to pass a resolution on the violence in south Africa. Let's keep the pressure on apartheid. August 6, 1992 .
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