Human Rights Campaign for South Africa ACTION ALERT November 1991 BANTUSTAN REPRESSION UNTOUCHED BY REFORMS The South African government created tustan of Bophuthatswana. As ANC 2. Please write orfax President Bush and the ten bantustans or so-called lawyer Mathew Phosa said: "If President your representatives in Congress. Say "homelands" as labor reserves where Bush is going to say there are no more that because the bantustan system denies Africans (86% of South Africa's popula­ political prisoners in South Africa, it citizenship and other basic human rights tion) would be confined to 13% of the means the United States recognizes to Africans, you urge them to reimpose least valuable land. Four of the bantu­ Bophuthatswana as an independent state." sanctions on South Africa and to issue stans have received so-called "inde­ strong statements of protest to the de The continued existence of the bantustans pendence," while the government con­ Klerk government. is highly dangerous. For instance, Gatsha siders the others to be "self-governing." No country in the world except South Buthelezi, the ruler of the kwaZulu ban­ President George Bush tustan, has used his position as a power Africa has officially recognized the ban­ The White House tustans as independent states. base to bolster his Inkatha Freedom Washington, DC 20500-0001 Party. Attacks by Inkatha against the Tel. (202) 456-1111 The bantustans, by dividing Africans ANC and other opponents have killed Fax (202) 456-2461 along ethnic lines, made it harder for ac­ thousands since the mid-1980s. tivists to oppose apartheid, and enabled Senator _ the government to exploit the labor of Some of the most serious human rights US Senate Africans without paying for health care, violations have occurred in the Ciskei Washington, DC 20510 education, and other social services. The and Bophuthatswana bantustans. These government installed and funded puppet include judicial executions, the holding The Han. _ leaders in the bantustans, who served the of political prisoners, and the suppression US House of Representatives government by suppressing political ac­ of political and labor union activity. (For Washington, DC 20515 more information, please see other side.) tivity. And by declaring Africans to be If possible, please send copies of your let­ "citizens" of the bantustans and not of ters to: South Africa itself, the government main­ WHAT YOU CAN DO tained that they should be barred from 1. Please write orfax the following voting in national elections. South African officials immediately. Tell Human Rights Campaign them you are outraged by the continued for South Africa Because bantustans are at the heart of the existence of the bantustan system, under apartheid system, the African National which Africans are denied South African Mobilization for Survival Congress (ANC) has called for their rein­ citizenship, and by human rights abuses 11 Garden Street corporation into a united, democratic in the bantustans, including the refusal to Cambridge MA 02138 South Africa. Although the present release hundreds of political prisoners. government claims that apartheid is dead, Say that you are writing to Congress and For more information on this Action President de Klerk's "reforms" have not President Bush to urge them to reimpose Alert, or to receive future Action Alerts abolished the bantustans. And while the sanctions against South Africa. government has modified the State of on a monthly basis, please call us Emergency and abolished political execu­ Mr. F.W. de Klerk at Mobilization for Survival, tions, bans on political gatherings, and State President (617) 354-0008. the repressive Internal Security Act, these Private Bag X83 Sources for this Action Alert: Africa same measures are still in force in some Pretoria 0001 Fund; Amnesty International; of the bantustans. The government says South Africa Grahamstown Rural Committee Newslet­ it intends to do nothing about this. Fax 011 27 123233982 ter (9/27/91); Johannesburg office of Worse yet, in July 1991 President Bush Ambassador Harry Schwarz Global Exchange and US-South Africa lifted US sanctions against South Africa Embassy of South Africa Sister Community Project; Washington although blatant human rights violations 3051 Massachusetts Ave. NW Post (7/10/91). were occurring in the bantustans. For in­ Washington. DC 20008 stance, at least 164 political prisoners Tel. (202) 232-4400 were being held in the "independent" ban- Fax (202) 265-1607 Recent human rights abuses in two ofSouth Africa's bantustans: Ciskei The Ciskei bantustan is ruled by Brigadier General Oupa Gqozo, who overthrew the brutal and corrupt Lennox Sebe in .March 1990. Gqozo, who at first promised to allow free political activity in the Ciskei, and eventually to reincorporate Ciskei into the rest of South Africa, later allied himself with the South African security forces, apparently in the hope of maintaining power in a future South Africa. Since then, Gqozo has launched his own party, the African Democratic Movement, which is closely allied to Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party and the South African government. He has forbidden mention of anti-apartheid groups such as the ANC on Radio Ciskei, has suppressed union activity, and has invited former dictator Sebe to return to the Ciskei. Gqozo has also attempted to reinstate the unpopular and hierarchical system of administration by rural headmen. When this move triggered protests by the Border Civic Committee and others, bantustan police arrested hundreds of people and held them without bail. In October 1991 Gqozo declared a State of Emergency allowing police unlimited powers of arrest. He was quoted on Radio Ciskei saying, "I say to the police that they should beat silly people [demonstrators] on the heads because courts take a long time." Ciskei police assassinated at least two people in 1991. Bophuthatswana The Bophuthatswana bantustan, ruled by Lucas Mangope, was holding at least 164 political prisoners in July 1991, when President Bush asserted that all South African political prisoners had been freed, and lifted US sanctions against South Africa. Most of Bophuthatswana's political prisoners were convicted of treason after an unsuccessful attempt in August 1988 to oust Mangope and set up a democratic government. Many of them have gone on hunger strike in an effort to obtain their release. Some of the hunger strikers wrote to President Bush in July from a hospital in the bantu­ stan, saying: "We always believed that your government did not recognize the 'homelands,' but it would appear that you have for­ gotten this in your haste to drop sanctions. Maybe we need to remind you that the 'homelands' are the very cornerstone of apartheid ... created by the 1913 Land Act which has now been abolished in a flurry of publicity. Maybe this convinces you that apartheid is dead - it does not convince us. We live in these creations and we are now imprisoned by those who run them. "We have decided to embark on a hunger strike until such time as we are released. We fall well within the defini­ tion of political prisoners [as agreed upon by the South African government and the ANC], and in terms of our offences we qualify for immediate and unconditional release. We require your urgent intervention in this matter. Some of us are close to death, but that has not lessened our determination." Bantustan police killed at least four people in 1991 while blocking anti-apartheid activities, and detained or arrested more than 600 people for political activities in 1991. Vigilantes have killed at least 30. As of November 1, there were over 100 political prisoners in Bophuthatswana. Although the South African government has suspended the use of the death penalty, 18 prisoners were believed to be under sentence of death in Bophuthatswana. One prisoner was executed in Bophuthatswana in November 1990 - the only judicial execution in South Africa in that year. (Another prisoner was executed in the Venda bantustan in February 1991-the first execution in South Africa in 1991.) Mobilization for Survival, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel. (617) 354-0008..