FREE anti· iACTION! October 1985 BAY AREA FREE MOVEMENT No.4 BAFSAM Opposes Trade With Apartheid On October 8, the Bay Area Free South Africa Movement (BAFSAM) met with the Oakland Port Commission to demand that the Port of Oakland forbid the handling of both incoming and outgoing trade with South Africa. The struggle to get the Port Commis­ sioners to agree to this demand is part and parcel of an international call to break all diplomatic, economic and cul­ tural ties with the apartheid (racially­ segregated) regime. The call for breaking these ties with South Africa has been made by the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and other black trade unions. It has been endorsed by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the World Fed­ eration of.Trade Unions (WFTU) and the International Labor Organization of the United Nations (!LO). Given that the United States is South Africa's number one trading partner, the BAFSAM has always stressed the importance of cutting off trade relations with the South African regime. the BAFSAM joins with the workers and community activists of New Orleans, Vancouver, B.C., Los Angeles, Tacoma, and Vancouver in Washington state, and picket line at the Oakland offices of the SAM, along with representatives from San Francisco who have refused to Pacific Maritime Association, and mon­ 20 other community organizations and unload or have delayed unloading itored and picketed other incoming trade unions, attended the West Coast South African car_go. ofteh risking vio­ ships laden with South African goods. Meeting to Stop South African Trade. lation of state and· tederal labor laws On one occasion in mid-August, BAF­ held at the Local 10 meeting hall of the and existing contract agreements. SAM activists, in a small craft of the International Longshore Workers BAFSAM was formed last December anti-nuclear Peace Navy, delayed the Union. Over 100 people attended in all. to gather community, trade union and entry of another N edloyd vessel for a After a morning of spirited presenta­ religious support for San Francisco considerable time before being arrested tions from Leo Robinson of Local !O's dockworkers who, for 11 days last by the harbor patrol. African Liberation Support Committee, and from Solly Simelane of the African November and December, refused to Organizing Against South African National Congress, there were afternoon unload cargo from the Dutch vessel Trade Nedloyd "Kimberley''. Since that time, presentations and workshops leading to the BAFSAM has kept up an on-going On August 17, members of BAF- coniinued on page 4 Reagan's Toothless Government Terror Sanctions Apartheid's

On September IO-in what the media Africa's number-one trading partner, Bottom called "a major reversal"- Reagan and one of it s few remaining apologists. announced his decision to impose the U.S. government was taking a lot of limited sanctions against South Africa. heat for its cozy relationship with the Administration officials admitted that apartheid regime. Each new incident of Line the move was intended "to avoid foreign government violence- the mass shoot­ policy disarray ... and humiliation at ings, police torture of detainees, the Police and army terror are not new home." death squads- was a serious blow to the facts of life for South Africa's black The Reagan Sanctions must be rec­ continued credibility of the Reagan majority. What is new, however, is that ognized for what they are: a new tactic administration's foreign policy. the nation's black majority has sus­ to buy time for the apartheid regime. There is some basis for concern that tained a struggle against the apartheid This move enabled the Administration Regan's move will serve to undermine (racially-segregated) government for to avoid having to veto stronger Con­ the groundswell of support for strong over a year now. Government­ gressional sanctions-a politically costly sanctions against South Africa. At this sponsored "urban councils" have been move. But close study of the sanctions writing, the Republican-dominated dismantled and genuine people's coun­ proposed by Reagan reveals that most Senate has halted all further motion on cils established. Known police informers of the provisions are not even as strong the Congressional sanctions package. have been run out of town and in some as the measures already being imple­ Reagan's supporters are claiming a vic­ cases killed . mented by many U.S. banks and tory, saying that the President's move The year-long struggle has been businesses. has returned authority for making U.S. largely coordinated by the United A ban on U.S. bank loans to the foreign policy to the Oval Office. Des­ Democratic Front (UDF), a multi-racial South African government has already pite complaints voiced by South African coalition of over 3 million people. The been implemented by the banks them­ President P. W. Botha, the apartheid UDF was formed in 1983 to organize a selves. Among them, the Bank of Bos­ regime is now assured that Reagan's boycott against sham elections in which ton, Citibank and Chase Manhattan "active constructive engagement" will be mixed-race and Asian peoples were to have each decided to stop all lending to no different than the policy he's been be given limited citizenship and separate South Africa. They are fearful of the implementing all along. Botha's so­ "chambers" of representation in a white­ risky business climate created by the called reforms demonstrated that the dominated parliament. The U OF turned year-long rebellion. apartheid regime will continue its pro­ the 87%-effective electoral boycott of The ban on sales of computer tech­ gram of granting cosmetic changes while August, 1984 into a full-blown cam­ nology to agencies of the South African employing force to maintain the politi­ paign to make the apartheid system government that administer or enforce cal and economic foundations of white ungovernable. apartheid is misleading because under minority rule. the current "state of emergency" all In the U.S., the anti-apartheid move­ BAY AREA FREE agencies of the South African govern­ ment is faced with the challenge of SOUTH AFRICA MOVEMENT ment, as well as all businesses licensed regrouping and launching a new offen­ for operation in South Africa, are sive. And while the character of its next 5424 E. 14th St., Oakland (First Universe Baptist Church) required by law to assist in the enforce­ campaign has not yet been determined, P.O. Box 3581, Oakland CA 94609 ment of apartheid. (See BAFSAM / it is clear that the movement must con­ ACTION #3, Ed.). tinue to target the U.S. role in maintain­ The Bay Area Free South Africa Movement (BAF­ SAM) is a local, multi-racial grouping of men and The ban on sales of nuclear technol­ ing the system of apartheid. women-members of community, labor, religious, ogy has already been circumvented political, peace, youth and student movements-who through the close cooperation with are determined to change the United States govern­ ment's policies supportive of the racist apartheid Israel- South Africa has been a nuclear regime of South Africa, and support the liberation power since 1979. movement in South Africa. Finally, the ban on export assistance Anti-Apartheid Action is published by the Bay Area to U.S. corporat .~ons which fail to Free South Africa Movement and produced by the "No amount of intimida­ Publicity-Media Committee. The newsletter is dis­ adhere to the fai'r~mployment practices tributed free by the BAFSAM Outreach Committee. outlined in the so-called "Sullivan Prin­ tion can stop us on our ciples" ignores the fact that these volun­ way to liberation." Chairperson: John George tary principles are little more than Coordinators: Franklin Alexander, window-dressing to justify the continued -Thami Mali, UDF Lorenzo Carlisle, Willia Gray presence of U.S. corporations in South Editor: Phil Gardiner Africa. Media Committee: 436-7130 Taken as a whole, the Reagan Sanc­ Divestment Task Force: 451-5127 tions reflect the Administration's recog­ Outreach Committee: 533-3392 nition or political realities: as South The U OF has proven its ability to On June 27 , four prominent UDF the chief defense lawyer since the coordinate a long-term struggle. It is leaders left a meeting in murder of ; Albertina also an open secret that the African and started home to Craddock Town­ Sisulu, whose husband, Walter, is serv­ National Congress (ANC) has provided ship, some 120 miles north of the city. ing a life sentence along with Nelson both the moral standing and political They had told people at the meeting Mandela; and Archie Gumede, 70 years guidance in the UDF that has enabled that they would only stop for a police old, a life-long activist in the Asian the UDF to do its work well. After 25 roadblock. They never made it home, community. years of underground existence as a and four days later the burned and mut­ South African President P. W. Botha banned organization, the ANC has ilated bodies of , Spar­ makes speeches offering sham citizen­ emerged as the leading anti-apartheid row Mkhonto, Siselo Mhlawuli and ship to blacks in South Africa while force in South Africa. , were found in the sand South Africa's black leadership is being the ANC's imprisoned leader, is consi­ dunes north of Port Elizabeth. The assassinated or put on trial for their dered by most South Africans to be that death squads had deprived Craddock lives. Government blue-ribbon commis­ country's only legitimate leader. Township of four of its leaders in the sions call for the scrapping of identity struggle for quality non-apartheid edu­ passes while upwards of 16,000 people Government Reprisals cation and decent, affordable housing. have been arrested for political offenses Griffiths, Victoria, Mathew, Sparrow, The South African police have been in the past year. The whereabouts of at doing much more than shooting men, Siselo and Fort all died victims of a least 27 of those arrested- all known women and children in hog-wild deliberate campaign to eliminate the U OF leaders- are unknown to the fashion. They have deliberately mur­ leadership of a people who, for over a police, so they say. dered and kidnapped U OF leadership. year, have been in rebellion aimed at These speeches and commission And they are trying other leaders for destroying apartheid. The purpose is reports are for public consumption out­ treason- to be hanged if convicted. quite clear: the government wants to side of South Africa to offset the grow­ On August 1 of this year, for exam­ make people afraid to step forward and ing international isolation of the apart­ ple, Victoria Mxenge stepped out of a take leadership in the struggle against heid state. In South Africa itself, the car in front of her home in U mlazi South African racism. government continues to speak its mother-tongue: violence. Township, an all-black suburb of Dur­ Treason Trials ban. Her three children stepped out But a year of struggle against the behind her. Suddently, from the hedges The upcoming teason trials in Pieter­ African continent's best-armed govern­ across the street, four men came run­ maritzburg are yet another attempt at ment shows no sign of ebbing. "We will ning toward her. One man shot her intimidation. Here, 16 black, mixed-race fight and we will expect a blood bath," point-blank with a pistol. Another split and Asian leaders of the U OF and some said ANC President to a her skull with an axe. All in front of her black trade unionists are on trial for Newsweek reporter, "but then again the three children. their lives. The accused include Thoza­ West knew it had to make many sacri­ Victoria Mxenge, 43 years old, was mile Gqueta, the national chairperson of fices when it fought to break the Nazi murdered by a death-squad of the South the South African Allied Workers regime. This regime will be broken, as African police. In the days that followed Union; Ismail Mohammed, who is now was Hitler's." her brutal murder, as countless times before, the government and the police claimed that they lacked information to arrest the murderers and bring them to trial. They had done the same four years earlier when Victoria's husband, Grif­ fiths Mxenge, was found dead- stabbed a number of times and tortured. Griffiths had been a prominent organ­ izer for housing and health care rights for black people in and around , when he was slain in 1981. He had also been imprisoned on Robben Island for being a member of the ANC. Victoria was a nurse who, after mapy years of studying in evening-school, became a lawyer. In the pa~·f:"ear she had been a prominent leader in the UDF, as well as in the leadership of several women's and legal-professional organizations. Most important, she was the head of a team of lawyers defending 16 black, mixed­ race and Asian UDF and trade union leaders charged with treason. For this she was killed. "Constructive engagement" with South Africa. S.A. Trade--­ continued.from page I included the U.S. export of $219 million "There is no morality in investing in worth of aircraft and aircraft turbines, an abnormal society like South Africa, resolutions concerning such topics as and $122 million worth of computers where the majority of people are cargo-picketing, product boycotts and and computer parts, as well as other oppressed and exploited," said Thoza­ refusal-to-handle campaigns, making vital machinery for South Africa's min­ mile Botha, Administrative Secretary of demands of port commissions, and ing and manufacturing industry. Some the South African Congress of Trade organizing liberation support commit­ $2.5 billion worth of South African Unions. He put the issue this way: "No tees in trade union locals. gold- the Krugerrand- is marketed and company goes to South Africa because One of the main resolutions that came sold in the United States. One-half of it has the interest of the black people at out of the conference was that port that amount is marketed and sold on heart; they go because they want to commissions be asked to schedule pub­ the West Coast. maximize profits. They are doing so lic meetings to consider banning cargo Such trade, in addition to bolstering under the protection of the racist South going to or coming from South Africa. the South African economy, is lucrative African laws." So far, no U.S. port authority has for U.S. companies that move to South This is the trade relationship that the banned the handling of goods coming Africa where the wages of black workers South African liberation movement and from or going to South Africa. Here, in are much lower than the minimum wage its supporters seek to break up. The Oakland, South African cargo is standards of the U.S. In 1983, here in BAFSAM and its community and trade brought into port primarily through the California, the Del Monte Corporation union friends intend to make this break Israeli shipping firm, Zims. shut down its Yuba City cannery and its a reality at the Port of Oakland. Were the Port of Oakland to ban Merced peach orchards-then the larg­ The struggle to cut trade ties with South African trade, in conjunction est peach orchards in the world- and South Africa "helps people in the com­ with the strong city ordinance passed on moved these operations to South Africa. munity, in the unions, and the unem­ July 9, banning corporate investments The effect on workers in the canning ployed see that they have a direct inter­ in South Africa or to business with industry and in the fields was devastat­ est, and a direct impact, on what is firms that have such investments, Oak­ ing: 40,000 cannery workers are now happening in South Africa," stressed land would set a precedent for the coun­ employed where only a few years ago David Bacon, chairperson of BAF­ try as a whole in the struggle against the number was 80,000. If you have on SAM's Labor Committee. And he South African racism. your kitchen shelf peaches and other added: "It is not just a question of feel­ The Political Cost of Trade With canned fruits labelled Del Monte, ing sorry, but of understanding that the Apartheid Monarch, Continental, Esco or Alex­ success of the South African people's then chances are that the contents were liberation struggle will directly benefit Nearly $5 billion worth of trade was picked, or canned, or both, by black us." conducted between the United States South Africans making $300.00 a year and South Africa last year. This at best.