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. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington that, "those who prompted the demonstration should carefully reconsider future actions...that expose innocent supporters to violence." Yet Mr. Boucher offered no such advice to democracy protesters in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia or Rumania. I urge you to contact both George Bush and Bill Clinton and urge therm to speak out publ-cly against the continuing slaughter in South Africa. Ask them to demand the immediate resignation of F.W. De Klerk and his white minority government, the dismantling of the bantustan system and installation of an interim government of national unity to guide South Africa to democracy. Ask them to do eveiything in their power to STOP APARTHEID'S VIOLENCE and support the people in their struggle for one-person, one-vote democracy in a unified non-racial, non-sexist South Africa. George Bush Bll Clinton 1030 15th Street N.W. Corner, Third and Louisiana Washington, DC 20005 Little Rock, AK 72201 FAX (202) 336-7954 FAX: (501) 372-2292 For more information contact The Africa Fund. Established by The American Committee on Africa, 1966 * Contributions are tax- deductible 'THE Tilden J. LeMelle, Chairman Jennifer Davis, Executive Director NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1992 Democracy vs. Dictator in Apartheid's 'Homeland By BILL KELLER Special to The New York Times BISHO, South Africa, Sept. 9 - The make-believe country of Ciskei has a shiny "international" airport capable of landing a Boeing 747, in case one ever attempts to visit this curious figment of apartheid. It has 846,000 inhabitants who were not consulted in 1981 when they were stripped of their South African citizenship and gerrymandered into one of 10 tribal homelands to protect white control of the wealthy remainder of the. country.. Ciskei has a foreign service with a single ambassadorial posting, to the only country that recognizes its sovereignty, South Africa. It has its capital here, a miniature pastel metropolis with a three-block downtown, a hotel-casino complex where South Africans can enjoy the blackjack tables forbidden a mile away in their own country, and high-walled' compounds where government ministers and business executives dwell in luxurious isolation from Ciskei's wretched poverty. It has its own development bank, its own army and its own diminutive military dictator, Brigadier Oupa J. Gqozo, who boils with rage -when he is ridiSculed as a puppet of South Africa. "I need some help to make the world realize that I am a very serious leader," Brigadier Gqozo pleaded during an interview last Friday. Three days later his army fired a seemingly interminable machine-gun fusillade at protesters marching on his capital, killing at least 28 and convincing many that if he. is not a serious leader, he is at least part of a serious problem. ' Having manufactured these mockstates, entrenched their rulers in positions of power and small-time luxury and employed them as surrogates to divide the black political opposition, South Africa now seeks to undo the experiment by reunifying its territory. South Africa is struggling to fit homelands like Ciskei, where at least 28 people were killed Monday, into the eventual post-apartheid order. But as the brigadier served bloody that the brigadier's position is wobbly. notice on Monday, there is explosive Following the Ciskei killings, the Afdisagreement about where these home- rican National Congress staged an unlands fit in the post-apartheid order. ' eventful march today against the tiny The African National Congress de- homeland of Qwa Qwa, which is about mands that homeland leaders it re- 200 miles south of Johannesburg, on the gards as inimical to democracy be northern border of Lesotho. replaced by impartial caretakers until More ominously, its leaders said elections can be held. The South Afri- they were contemplating action can Government insists it is "not in the against KwaZulu, the Zulu homeland business of replacing governments,", and the domain of the A.N.C.'s bitterest asaspokesmanputit. I Iandmost powerful black political rival, The killings left Ciskei extremely' Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi. volatile. Police and soldiers conducted' door-to-door searches today, and were T said to be arresting and beating partic- The Clearest Border: ipants in Monday's march. In the Cis- Where the Poor Are keian townships southwest of Bisho, residents burned the homes of Ciskei soldiers. A visitor driving through the rolling It was no surprise that the congress pasture and voluptuous mountains of chose Ciskei for Monday's march, Ciskei finds no border posts to mark which was aimed explicitly at toppling the frequent passage across the "interBrigadier Gqozo. The region, where the national" border with South Africa. Xhosa and the British fought their fron- But the boundaries are easily detier wars in the 19th century, is one of duced from the standard of living. The the congress's most militant strong- cozy 19th-century English colonial holds, and there have been many signs towns, Queenstown, Fort Beaufort, Established by The American Committee on Africa, 1966 * Contributions are tax- deductible 198 Broadway * New York, N.Y. 10038 * (212) 962-1210 King William's Town, are in South Africa The sprawling townships and the barren rural settlements, Zwelitsha, Thornhill - those are in Ciskei. 7! Indian Ocean port of East London i0 South Africa's shipbuilding center. The neighboring slum of Mdant ;mne s _::iThe brigadier readily admits that in economic terms, his republic is anything but independent. South Africa underwrites the budget that pays for the 30,000-mrremrber civil service and its perks, including the black bulletproof Range Rover that the brigadier favors and the flee! of Mercedes preferred by his cabinet. Sduth Africa trained and equipped the army - assisted by such a large contingent I of Israelis that for a time the Pick 'n Pay supermarket in Bisho had a kosher section. "South Africans - many retired or seconded from the South African Go nv.1 ernment and military - still make up more than half the brigadier's cabinet I and the leadership of his military andintelligence services. The commander of the Ciskei Defense Force that fired its machine guns into the crowd on Monday, Brig. Marius Oelschig, is on loan from the South African Army. When a Town Dies, A Stereotype Is Left Almost inevitably, the homelands have tended to confirm ai the worst prejudices of white So,-'tb, Africans about black rule. Stripped by the mapmakers of their, assets, burdened with millions of irripoverished blacks forcib',y resettled from other areas and saddled in manyi cases with ruthless and corrupt rultrs, they have deteriorated into wretchec p verty and political frustration; hard. relieved by some spectacular scenery. "You do admire the place when you see it," said Jeanette Mahonga, ac-P knowledging the scenic mountains that F surround her hometown of Seymour in central Ciskei. "If you could just flavor it with a bit of life." Seymour, a farming center of about 18,000 people, is one place wheie blhc's regard South Africa with nostalgia. When "independence" was imposed in 1981, many whites fled, fearing the uncertainties of black rule. The tobacco farms that were the economic mainstay were sold cheap, locals say; either to absentee black landlords with the right connections or to subsistence farmers who use them to graze goats. The Kat River tobacco mill closed. Seymour today boasts one of South Africa's more wretched settlements of mud- brick huts and tin sheds. The primary school has a dirt floor and no electricity. The drinking water that flows to the few communal taps comes from a reservoir polluted by two ceme-. teries that lie submerged in the rainy season. Mrs. Mahonga, a member of the municipal council and a local leader of the African National CongresS. said the town gets even shorter shrift than other pockets of poverty because it isknown as strong A.N.C. country, and Brigadier Gqozo despises the congress. Although Seymour seems more sleepy than militant, the brigadier keeps a tight lid on the town. Last Thursday, when 70 residents gathered to hear a pep talk about the march on Bisho, 50 heavily armed troops gathered outside while their commander ordered the meeting dispersed.