I

198 Broadway • New York, N.Y. 10038 • (212) 962·1210 William H. Booth. President Wyatt Tee Walker. Vice President David Scott. Vice President Jenni fer Davis. Executive Director

December 16, 1992

Today in South Africa at least ten people will die in apartheid violence. The escalating toll of br~tality and death is imperiling all the hopes for a relatively peaceful transition to majority rule.

Yet the Bush Administration has adamantly refused to use its considerable influence to stop the killing. Even the simplest requests have been ignored.

Back in August we gave the State Department a request from people in Northern Natal that U.S. consular personnel visit the region. They believed that the presence of U.S. government observers would help deter the killers. We have yet to receive a reply.

We have good reason to hope for better from the incoming Clinton Administration.

We at ACOA have worked with several key members of the Clinton transition team. I expect to be meeting soon with members of the foreign policy transition staff to help them shape a new policy towards southern Africa.

But we have learned over the years that even with the best intentions in the world, no administration will take decisive action unless there is active citizen concern. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt once told a group of supporters "You've convinced me. Now go out and put pressure on me."

ACOA is already organizing to ensure that the new administration receives a powerful message supporting freedom for southern Africa.

We have mobilized distinguished civil rights leaders including Benjamin Hooks, Joseph Lowry, Wyatt Tee Walker and Coretta Scott King to write to the President-elect urging him to "publicly condemn the South African government's role in perpetuating apartheid's violence." And to "expand your support

Supporting African freedom and independence since 1953 • Established The Africa Fund. I 966 for Nelson Mandela and the democratic forces that are negotiating a new constitution."

On the weekend of December 12-13 hundreds of Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations from our Religious Action Network will pray for the victims of the violence and send South African President de Klerk a message that the killing must end.

In February, sho~tly after the new administration takes over, people across the country will join in weeks of action urging a new U.S. policy supporting African freedom and demanding that the apartheid regime make way for a democratic government.

Still we must do more to keep the pressure on.

Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu and hundreds of ordinary South Africans have told me how much they need us. They have said that the days and months ahead will be both very difficult and also critical for the future of their country.

As I write this letter we have just received word of a firebomb attack in Natal that killed a mother and father and their four children, one of whom was only six. I dread to think of the news we may get tomorrow.

That's why I am turning to you for help. We need your generous contribution so that we can continue and expand our work.

Today lives are on the line. But if we succeed, we can help to bring a new day of freedom for all the people of So~th Africa.

I know we can count on you.

For freedom, /J =f =-= ~a0l~ Executive Director

P.S. I want to tell you how much your support means to me. You are among the very special people who stuck by us even when freedom seemed only a dream. Although these are terrible times they are also times of hope. You have helped to make the hope possible. Thank you.