Democratic Palestine : 18 (ص 29)
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- Democratic Palestine : 18 (ص 29)
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South Africa
Apartheid in its Death Throes
The mass struggle in South Africa today stands at the forefront,
challenging US imperialism’s global strategy for reversing the tide of
history.
«The people had lifted the ban on the
ANC and imposed on our situation
their own system of legality.» - This is
the ANC’s evaluation of the escalating
mass struggle inside South Africa, as
presented by President Oliver Tambo in
the Political Report of the National
Executive Committee to the National
Consultative Congress in June 1985. In
these words lies much of the explana-
tion for why Pretoria’s most recent,
pervasive and brutal state of emergency
has failed to harness the masses’
struggle for freedom.
Quite the opposite, the state of
emergency has served to expose the
depth of the apartheid regime’s crisis.
The movement for sanctions against
South Africa is gaining ground daily,
displaying the dialectical relationship
between the oppressed masses’ militant
struggle and international solidarity. In
all this, the ANC is playing a key role,
guiding the struggle and coordinating
its multiple aspects, inside and outside
South Africa.
On June 12th, Pretoria imposed a
state of emergency, ostensibly to pre-
vent mass commemoration of Soweto
Day and attacks on the apartheid
system planned by ANC revolutiona-
ries. It is quite clear that the masters of
apartheid fear the occurrence of an all-
out insurrection. Yet the extent of the
draconian measures imposed shows
that the reactionary, racist regime’s
aims were more pernicious than quel-
ling unrest. The police are empowered
to make arrests without charges, and
search without warrants. In this way,
approximately 4,500 persons were
detained within three weeks (some
estimates run at 8,000). In most cases,
their families were not informed; only
after a month was the way cleared for a
fraction of the detainees to see a
lawyer. Reports of torture are rampant.
The detainees include trade unio-
nists, social workers, schoolchildren,
women, students, teachers, clergymen,
journalists, community leaders and
anti-apartheid activists, especially from
the mass organizations affiliated to the
United Democratic Front. Their com-
position reveals that the aim of mass
detentions was not only to paralyze the
organized mass struggle, but to silence
the voice of all those qualified to speak
out against apartheid’s crimes. This is
only one of many indications that the
state of emergency was intended to
permit the regime to use the most brutal
methods, not excluding mass murder.
In South Africa today, the police and
army may use any amount of force to
move people. Any place can be
designated an ‘unrest area’, authorizing
the regime’s forces to use extraordinary
measures. To hide real and potential
atrocities, press censorship is near total.
Reporting on the actions or deployment
of the security forces is forbidden, as is
mentioning the names of detainees.
Reporters are banned from the Black
townships, many of which are under
nightly curfew. Press offices are raided
and newspapers seized. Indoor mee-
tings are banned (outdoor meetings
were already illegal). About 120 anti-
apartheid groups are banned from
issuing statements, publications or
posters. Foreign teachers, clergymen
and journalists have been expelled.
Under these conditions, people are
shot down on the whim of a police
officer. Whole church congregations
were drrested on Soweto Day. Babies
were teargassed when police raided a
township, as were one thousand people
in a mosque in the Western Cape.
Government bulldozers were sent to
flatten the remains of KTC squatters’
camp near Cape Town, while thou-
sands of homeless were ordered out of
refugee centers. Under the cover of the
state of emergency, vigilante groups
and death squads increased their
attacks on anti-apartheid activists and
centers. These atrocities and others,
that may still be unreported to the out-
side world, led Oliver Tambo to charge
that Pretoria aimed to create a situation
where it can massacre tens of thou-
sands. This is the ultimate logic of
apartheid. The white minority regime,
which presides over the interests of
international capitalism in resource-
rich South Africa, is prepared to enact
a genocidal policy to maintain the
oppression and exploitation of the vast
majority.
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