E EPISCOPAL CHURCHPEOPLE for a =REE SOUTHERN AFRICA 339 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y. 10012·2725 C (212) 4n-0066 FAX: (212) 979-1013 S A #103 25 October 1990 MEANNESS and MURDER Wesselton township residents desperate for water dug up pipes after Ermelo city officials terminated essential services to the 'impoverished African corrmunity which had been on a persistent rent boycott. Families in Cassim Park, classified Indian under apartheid, of­ fered water to their neighbors two miles away, but police set dogs on mothers and child­ ren seeking water at taps. White cops roamed about, crushing buckets under the wheels of their Casspir armored vehicles, laughing. At Toekornrus, another of the eight boycotting townships in the Johannesburg area, police shot dead a protester. The threat of epidem­ ic hangs over all these corrmunities. The Separate Amenities Act of 1953 empowered local authorities to enforce separate (but of course unequal) facilities for the four apartheid classifications of South Africans. The law was allowed to expire in mid-October 1990, another rnaneuvre by the De Klerk 'government to appear to sacrifice substantial power in the process of negotiations and to bedazzle the world into believing change is irreversible. Local white officials reacted instantly, instituting charges for the use of libraries, swirrnning pools and public lavatories. Sorre town councils closed them down. Others hesitated because African consumer boycotts were biting into white merchants' trade. Pretoria oomes off as earnest in its anti-apartheid efforts and local rednecks can be pointed out as difficult obstructionists. General Jannie Geldenhuys, chief of the South Afric~ Defence Force, announced 31 July that the SADF I S secret assassination group, the Civil Cooperation Bureau, had been disbanded. Yet rrembers say to press and in court that CCB still exists. An officer disclosed he and others had been advised they would be on full pay until at least March 1991. Of the some 250 'conscious' members only 10 are known and they by code names. SADF generals have stone­ walled the official Harms Corrmiss ion, saying the CCB membership lists have disappeared. Death squad attacks and killings are surging. The chairman of the ANC-affiliated Western Cape Civic Association and his wife were gasoline bombed from their home on 19 October;she was shot dead, he badly wounded. A hooded gunman strode into an ANC meeting,:in Mdantsane township outside East London on 9 October and shot dead an official. On 12 October, Job Sithole, who works for Johannesburg's Human Rights Corrmission, was cilmost killed by gunfire while returning to his Alexandra township home. Joyce Mabudafhasi, HRC official, was ha­ rassed at night at home by men prowling and inquiring of neighbors. She narrowly escaped being burned alive three years ago when her house was petrol bombed. These instances oc­ cur srortly after President F. W. De Klerk promised to investigate ANC charges of security force involvement in the August-September bloodbath in and around Johannesburg. Pretoria and its friends and allies continue to benefit from charges of 'tribalism' as ap­ plied to the violence in South Africa. Hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu: 'Here in Soweto.... people who speak different languages, Zulus, Xhosas, Sotro, Tswana, have lived harmoniously together. There has never been any threat even of ethnic factionalism. Aroillld my house in Orlando West, we are surrounded by Zulus, Sothos and Tswanas, and nobody has ever brought up even the rerrote possibility of tribal warfare. ' De Klerkmagic turns white black for the schizophrenicMrikaners AS CONVERSIONS go, there dropped yet. Not judging by itself at the congresses, such as has been nothing like it since Pretoria these four congresses. when Julie Coetzee, of the Saul of Tarsus. Since its forma­ .All that has caught on is the Women's Action group, spoke tion 76 years ago, South Africa's slogan. De Klerk embellishes it of the 'wonderful new spirit' ruling National Party has been a little. He speaks of 'the new, infusing the National Party as a dedicated to racial exclusivity. just South Africa'. But if that result of De Klerk's reformism. But in the seven weeks since implies that the old South Africa 'It reminds me,' she said, 'of President F. W. de Klerk sug­ was in any way unjust or when I was a young girl and the gested it should prepare for the wicked, he does not say so. wonderful spirit I felt when I New South Africa by opening Another feature of this mass joined the crowd at the airport ranks to black members, there conversion is that it is not to welcome Dr Verwoerd back has been a mass conversion to accompanied by any repentance from the Commonwealth con­ the idea ofracial integration. of the past. Apartheid may have ference in London,' That was in Not just by most National­ been a political mistake, a policy 1961, when South Africa left the ists, but by all of them. The last that proved to be unworkable, Commonwealth rather than of the party's four provincial but there is no acknowledgment abandon apartheid - highpoint congresses, here in the deeply that it was immoral. ofAfrikaner chauvinism. conservative Transvaal, gave its As Information Minister Then there was Mr Willie unanimous endorsement to the Stoffel van der Merwe put it Breedt, an elderly delegate from President's idea on Friday. Allister Sparks when asked to explain the a Transvaal country town, 'I Only at the Orange Free State unquestioning acceptance of welcome this move (oPening congress, where there were But do the people who such a dramatic policy turn­ the party to blacks) because it is three dissenting votes, was enthuse about the New South around: 'The idea ofa just soci­ the right thing to do. We in the there any questioning of this Africa really know what it ety is not new to the Afrikaner. National Party have always renunciation of everything the implies? Black government per­ That was our motive for trying done what was right, even when party stood foi-. haps? Or is it just a magic catch­ to have separate States for the it was unpopular,' Instead there has been enthu­ phrase that seems to be bringing different races, and when it At the Cape congress there siasm. The Transvaal delegates South Africa back into the proved to be unattainable, the was Frikkie Botha, of Queen­ gave the endorsement of an world, that is getting the Presi­ search for justice remained.' stown, who proposed that there open party a standing ovation. dent invited to lunch at Che­ De Klerk has sometimes been should be a law entitling the Like born-again liberals they quers and dinner with the compared with Mikhail Gorba­ police to shoot any black person made speeches of saccharine Quayles (surely the only place chov for the way he has tried to who picked up a stone to throw praise for De Klerk and his on earth to regard that as a liberalise a failed authoritarian at them. He, too, applauded the vision of the New South Africa. social cachet), that is opening system, but there is one impor­ idea of the New South Africa, as That is the latest phrase. It is on up the prospect of sanctions tant difference: South Africa has did another Cape delegate who everyone's lips. A slogan emba­ being lifted, and perhaps even a had no equivalent of de-Stalini­ pleaded for a special law that zoned on banners and posters, rugby tour before long? sation. Hendrik Verwoerd, would enable the police to get even stamped on bottles of wine But a change of government? chief architect of apartheid, rid of blacks in small towns bearing pictures of the party A change in the white-privi­ remains an honoured figure. 'who are not actually commit­ leaders which were sold in the leged lifestyle? A change ofany­ This has led to a certain ting any crime but are being, foyer of the Pretoria City Hall thing very much? If so, that schizophrenia among loyal shall we say, a nuisance.' As the where the congress was held. penny doesn't seem to have party followers which revealed French say, plus ~ change ... National Party in SA .confirl11s open door :-O'-- ......- ...-.Io-rd----- Iisions, to consider the _!bU· terday beard a passionate speecb caJllng for national and In _" ity~po~~:~t;~~~ve not racial reconciliation from Presi· specified what alliances will be dent De KJerk's wife, Meme, HE declalon by South considered. But the IJ4Jty Is be­ who embarraosed her husband Africa's ruling National lieved to be oeeking links with several years ago wben caught . Pariy to throw member­ the niling parties in the two rnakine ofT·the-cuff remarks Tship open to all races subsidiary Houses of Parlia­ about the Inferiority of other was oonllrmed by its Transvaal ment - the C410und Labour races. provlndal oongreas yesterday. Party and the Indian SolIdarity Mn De KJeri< said yesterday , "Our house as a party Is in Party - as well as with the rul­ that a M new South Africa" had order'flow and .....dy for the ing parties in non·lndependent to be created, because the new South Africa," said a trI· homelands. notably Kwalulu, country oould no longer afford umPhant State President, F. W. Qwaqwa and Gazankulu. It is Its people living "in hatred and de Kletk, given a slandlng ova­ assumed that the ruling parties dlsiust with one another"_ . tlon by about 1,000 delegates. In the other three non-indepen­ The majority population "The Nalional Party and dent homelands - KaNgwane, could not be left "to be lnOu­ 'South Africa Is now on the KwaNdebele and Lebowa ­ enced' by radlcals", she said.