A Roman Catholic priest who has been one of the most outspoken critics of social injustice in Haiti has been expelled from his ecclesiastic order and accused of using religion to incite hatred and violence.
In a statement prepared in Rome, the Salesian order, one of the largest groups in the church, accused the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a 35-year-old Haitian priest, of desecrating the sacraments by using them for political purposes.
Father Aristide, who preached on a need for a ''real revolution'' in Haiti and alluded to armed warfare as a means of ending military domination of the country, had refused an order by Salesian officials to leave Haiti by Oct. 17 and take up duties in Canada.
The priest, who has been seen in public only once since narrowly escaping death in early September in an attack on his church in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, has been in contact with Haitian radio stations by telephone, but has expressed no reaction to his expulsion. No Public Response From Avril
The expulsion order came as the Government of Lieut. Gen. Prosper Avril began its third month in office at a time of rising disappointment over its slow progress in moving the country toward democracy.
For several days in October, thousand of Haitians protested the efforts to transfer Father Aristide to Canada. But there has been no public reaction since the expulsion was first reported on Haitian radio stations on Thursday. There has also been no comment from either General Avril or the Haitian Conference of Bishops. Both have been criticized by Father Aristide.
In a statement in November on Radio Metropole, an independent station, Father Aristide accused several bishops of plotting against him. He said the Avril Government was incompetent and guilty of failing to curtail violence by right-wing thugs known as Tontons Macoute.
Shortly after General Avril, an adviser and confidant to the dictators who ruled Haiti for nearly 30 years, assumed power in a coup in September, he said he wanted to go down in history as a leader who had ''saved the country from anarchy and dictatorship'' and had established ''an irreversible democracy.'' Washington Is 'Still Encouraged'
Though no date has been set for elections, United States officials in Haiti say that they are ''still encouraged'' by the things General Avril ''has been doing and saying'' and that they feel he is making progress toward democracy.
The Haitian Government said Friday that the last comments and suggestions by political and civic leaders on a proposal by General Avril to form a body to conduct elections would be accepted Thursday and that a public meeting to discuss the plan would be held in early January.
Many Haitian political leaders have expressed concern that General Avril is trying to limit the independence of the electoral body But have praised him for fostering debate on the plan.
In recent statements, General Avril has reaffirmed a pledge to respect human rights. But he has been criticized by some religious and civic leaders for jailing a group of noncommissioned officers who he asserts tried to overthrow him in mid-October.
There have been continued reports of unrest within the armed forces and new rumors of a coup circulated this week as the retirement and transfer of a half dozen key noncommissioned officers was announced.
Source: New York Times
Sunday, December 18, 1988
Monday, September 12, 1988
Gunmen in Haiti Kill 3 In Attack on a Church
Gunmen burst into the church of a radical Roman Catholic priest during Mass today, shot and killed at least three parishioners, wounded 60 and and burned the building down, Radio Haiti-Inter reported.
A foreign journalist attending the Mass telephoned The Associated Press in New York and said the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide had just begun 9 A.M. Mass when a group of men began throwing rocks at the church, panicking 600 to 800 parishioners, who rushed for the doors. ''Suddenly the doors at the back of the church burst open and 20 to 30 men with machetes, huge sticks and guns came in,'' said the journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''They started shooting people, beating them, and stabbing and slashing them.''
The journalist said at least five parishioners were wounded by bullets or stabbed and at least three were killed. The reporter said parishioners surrounded and protected Father Aristide, who was not injured.
The priest heads the Catholic Church's radical wing, which opposes military rule. There have been several attempts on his life by people widely believed to be connected to elements in the army loyal to the deposed Duvalier dictatorship.
A foreign journalist attending the Mass telephoned The Associated Press in New York and said the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide had just begun 9 A.M. Mass when a group of men began throwing rocks at the church, panicking 600 to 800 parishioners, who rushed for the doors. ''Suddenly the doors at the back of the church burst open and 20 to 30 men with machetes, huge sticks and guns came in,'' said the journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''They started shooting people, beating them, and stabbing and slashing them.''
The journalist said at least five parishioners were wounded by bullets or stabbed and at least three were killed. The reporter said parishioners surrounded and protected Father Aristide, who was not injured.
The priest heads the Catholic Church's radical wing, which opposes military rule. There have been several attempts on his life by people widely believed to be connected to elements in the army loyal to the deposed Duvalier dictatorship.
Sunday, July 31, 1988
Address to the Nation: Hussein bin Talal
Recognizing the desirability of supporting the Palestinians in their struggle for independence, on July 28, 1988, King Hussein announced the cessation of a $1.3 billion development program for the West Bank, explaining that the measure was designed to allow the PLO more responsibility for the area. Two days later, he formally dissolved Parliament, ending West Bank representation in the legislature. Finally, on July 31 he announced the severance of all administrative and legal ties—with the exception of guardianship over the Muslim Holy Sites of Jerusalem—with the occupied West Bank.
This severance of ties allowed Jordan’s electoral law to be changed, redrawing the map to include only East Bank districts. Disengagement therefore marks the turning point that launched the current democratic process, and began a new stage in Jordan’s relationship with the Palestinians.
Source: The Royal Hashemite Court
This severance of ties allowed Jordan’s electoral law to be changed, redrawing the map to include only East Bank districts. Disengagement therefore marks the turning point that launched the current democratic process, and began a new stage in Jordan’s relationship with the Palestinians.
Source: The Royal Hashemite Court
Sunday, June 12, 1988
Death in Detention
According to the South African Police, Maisha "Stanza" Bopape, General secretary of the Mamelodi Civic Organisation, was arrested in Hillbrow on June 9, 1988 and "disappeared".
His death at John Vorster Square came to light only at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in March 1997, when 10 security policemen applied for amnesty for his death. Five said they had been involved in his torture, three said they had covered up the reasons for his death and two said they had disposed of his body. It was never found.
Source: Sunday Times Heritage Project
His death at John Vorster Square came to light only at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in March 1997, when 10 security policemen applied for amnesty for his death. Five said they had been involved in his torture, three said they had covered up the reasons for his death and two said they had disposed of his body. It was never found.
Source: Sunday Times Heritage Project
Friday, April 8, 1988
White Foe of Pretoria Injured by a Car Bomb in Mozambique
A prominent intellectual in the outlawed African National Congress was seriously wounded early today by a car bomb outside his home in Mozambique. The wounded man, Albie L. Sachs, a 52-year-old legal scholar and author, was among the first whites to join the Congress in its fight against the Pretoria Government, and was a key figure in the group's recent efforts to draft constitutional guidelines for a South Africa without racial barriers.
A report from the official Mozambican press agency said the explosion occurred as Mr. Sachs tried to unlock the door of his car in central Maputo, the capital. The force of the blast reportedly shattered every window in the block and damaged the nearby Portuguese Embassy.
Mr. Sachs, who was conscious, was rushed to a hospital, where his shattered right arm was amputated, according to Congress officials. They said he was expected to live. Ideologue for the Congress Spokesmen for the guerrilla group and for the Mozambican press agency blamed South Africa for the attack, which occurred a week after the assassination of the Congress's chief Paris representative, Dulcie September.
The South African Foreign Minister, Roelof F. Botha, denied that his Government had any connection to either attack, and hinted that the attack on Mr. Sachs was the result of internal disputes in the guerrilla group.
Mr. Sachs, who went to Mozambique after the Marxist revolution that overthrew the Portuguese colonialists in 1976, has never been a full-time Congress official but has played an important role in its revolutionary thinking. As a university professor and an employee of the Mozambique Ministry of Justice, Mr. Sachs was one of the few Congress officials allowed to remain in Maputo after a 1984 agreement with South Africa in which Mozambique promised to expel Congress members.
The attack on Mr. Sachs bore strong similarities to a bombing in Maputo in 1982, when Ruth First, a leading anti-apartheid campaigner and Congress member, was killed by a parcel bomb in her office at Eduardo Mondlane University. Like Mr. Sachs, Miss First was an early foe of apartheid and a member of the outlawed South African Communist Party. Mr. Sachs has since left the Communist Party.
A witness to today's bombing, Jacinto Sitoe, said Mr. Sachs left his apartment dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and appeared to be on the way to the beach. Today was a public holiday in Mozambique. Mr. Sitoe said the blast left a hole 12 inches deep and 35 inches wide in the tarred road.
Born in Cape Town, Mr. Sachs is the son of a prominent Communist trade-union organizer, E. S. (Solly) Sachs. Albie Sachs was one of 20 whites to join the Congress movement's nationwide defiance campaign in 1952. He was briefly arrested for entering the black entrance of a post office, but the charges were dropped. Held in Solitary In the 1950's he defended anti-apartheid campaigners in political trials, gaining a reputation as an able lawyer. He also defended his former wife, Stefanie Kemp, a member of the African Resistance Movement. In 1963, Mr. Sachs was one of the first held under South Africa's law allowing detention without trial, and was kept in solitary confinement for 168 days. After his release, he wrote an autobiography, ''The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs,'' part of which was adapted as a play. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and was recently on British television. It was staged in New York in 1979 at the Manhattan Theater Club. Shortly after his release, he left South Africa for Britain, where he lectured on law for more than 10 years at Southampton University. Assailed Pretoria Justice System
Mr. Sachs joined the African National Congress in 1969, when its ranks were first opened to whites. Tom Lodge, a political scientist at Witwatersrand University and an expert on the Congress, said Mr. Sachs's 1973 book on the South African legal system, ''Justice in South Africa,'' was the ''first powerfully argued critique of the South African system of justice.'' Since 1977, when he emigrated to Mozambique, Mr. Sachs has worked at Eduardo Mondlane University and has recently been employed by the Mozambican Justice Ministry to devise a legal system for a post-revolutionary socialist Mozambique. A prominent member of the Congress's commission on constitutional change, Mr. Sachs was also the author of a study, ''Towards a Reconstruction of South Africa,'' that served as the Congress's blueprint on constitutional change. It was published in 1985. U.S. EDUCATORS EXPRESS SHOCK
In New York yesterday, deans of the Columbia and Harvard Law Schools issued a statement expressing shock at the attack on Mr. Sachs, who had lectured widely in the United States. The statement praised his ''idealism, his courage and his unyielding struggle against apartheid,'' which they said had ''inspired thousands of American law students.'' It was signed by Barbara A. Black and Jack Greenberg, the dean and vice dean of the Columbia Law School, and by James Vorenberg, the dean of the Harvard Law School.
Source: New York Times
A report from the official Mozambican press agency said the explosion occurred as Mr. Sachs tried to unlock the door of his car in central Maputo, the capital. The force of the blast reportedly shattered every window in the block and damaged the nearby Portuguese Embassy.
Mr. Sachs, who was conscious, was rushed to a hospital, where his shattered right arm was amputated, according to Congress officials. They said he was expected to live. Ideologue for the Congress Spokesmen for the guerrilla group and for the Mozambican press agency blamed South Africa for the attack, which occurred a week after the assassination of the Congress's chief Paris representative, Dulcie September.
The South African Foreign Minister, Roelof F. Botha, denied that his Government had any connection to either attack, and hinted that the attack on Mr. Sachs was the result of internal disputes in the guerrilla group.
Mr. Sachs, who went to Mozambique after the Marxist revolution that overthrew the Portuguese colonialists in 1976, has never been a full-time Congress official but has played an important role in its revolutionary thinking. As a university professor and an employee of the Mozambique Ministry of Justice, Mr. Sachs was one of the few Congress officials allowed to remain in Maputo after a 1984 agreement with South Africa in which Mozambique promised to expel Congress members.
The attack on Mr. Sachs bore strong similarities to a bombing in Maputo in 1982, when Ruth First, a leading anti-apartheid campaigner and Congress member, was killed by a parcel bomb in her office at Eduardo Mondlane University. Like Mr. Sachs, Miss First was an early foe of apartheid and a member of the outlawed South African Communist Party. Mr. Sachs has since left the Communist Party.
A witness to today's bombing, Jacinto Sitoe, said Mr. Sachs left his apartment dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and appeared to be on the way to the beach. Today was a public holiday in Mozambique. Mr. Sitoe said the blast left a hole 12 inches deep and 35 inches wide in the tarred road.
Born in Cape Town, Mr. Sachs is the son of a prominent Communist trade-union organizer, E. S. (Solly) Sachs. Albie Sachs was one of 20 whites to join the Congress movement's nationwide defiance campaign in 1952. He was briefly arrested for entering the black entrance of a post office, but the charges were dropped. Held in Solitary In the 1950's he defended anti-apartheid campaigners in political trials, gaining a reputation as an able lawyer. He also defended his former wife, Stefanie Kemp, a member of the African Resistance Movement. In 1963, Mr. Sachs was one of the first held under South Africa's law allowing detention without trial, and was kept in solitary confinement for 168 days. After his release, he wrote an autobiography, ''The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs,'' part of which was adapted as a play. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and was recently on British television. It was staged in New York in 1979 at the Manhattan Theater Club. Shortly after his release, he left South Africa for Britain, where he lectured on law for more than 10 years at Southampton University. Assailed Pretoria Justice System
Mr. Sachs joined the African National Congress in 1969, when its ranks were first opened to whites. Tom Lodge, a political scientist at Witwatersrand University and an expert on the Congress, said Mr. Sachs's 1973 book on the South African legal system, ''Justice in South Africa,'' was the ''first powerfully argued critique of the South African system of justice.'' Since 1977, when he emigrated to Mozambique, Mr. Sachs has worked at Eduardo Mondlane University and has recently been employed by the Mozambican Justice Ministry to devise a legal system for a post-revolutionary socialist Mozambique. A prominent member of the Congress's commission on constitutional change, Mr. Sachs was also the author of a study, ''Towards a Reconstruction of South Africa,'' that served as the Congress's blueprint on constitutional change. It was published in 1985. U.S. EDUCATORS EXPRESS SHOCK
In New York yesterday, deans of the Columbia and Harvard Law Schools issued a statement expressing shock at the attack on Mr. Sachs, who had lectured widely in the United States. The statement praised his ''idealism, his courage and his unyielding struggle against apartheid,'' which they said had ''inspired thousands of American law students.'' It was signed by Barbara A. Black and Jack Greenberg, the dean and vice dean of the Columbia Law School, and by James Vorenberg, the dean of the Harvard Law School.
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, March 30, 1988
Foe of Apartheid Is Shot Dead in Paris
The Paris representative of the African National Congress was shot and killed today as she arrived at her office. The official, Dulcie September, a 45-year-old South African of mixed race, has served in France since 1984 as spokeswoman for the A.N.C., the most prominent anti-apartheid group.
Tom Sebina, a spokesman at the organization's headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, blamed the South African Government for the killing and called on governments to crack down on all secret agents of the South African Government operating in their countries. But South Africa said it ''could not be held responsible'' for Miss September's death, and Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha issued a statement noting that ''serious quarrels exist in the ranks of the organizations that utilize violence to obtain political objectives.''
The A.N.C. and the South-West Africa People's Organization have had political representation here, without diplomatic status, since 1981. Miss September came to Paris from Lusaka, where she worked as administrative secretary at the organization's offices. The French police said she was killed with a .22-caliber weapon as she was opening her office. She was found still holding her morning mail with two bullet wounds in the head and six empty shells on the floor.
The group's treasurer in Paris, Maurice Cukierman, said that Miss September had received several threats against her life over the last eight months and had told French police, but that ''nothing was done.'' On Sunday the Belgian police defused a bomb placed outside the A.N.C. office in Brussels, and in February shots were fired at the Belgian office of the group.
The congress maintains guerrillas in countries around South Africa, including Lesotho, Mozambique and Botswana, and has some 20 offices around the world to lobby for political support. It has been outlawed in South Africa since 1960, and its principal leader, Nelson Mandela, has been jailed there since 1962. Two slayings of A.N.C. figures in countries bordering on South Africa drew wide attention in the early 1980's.
Joe Gqabi, a congress representative in Zimbabwe, was killed by gunfire July 31, 1981, at his home in Harare, then called Salisbury. And on Aug. 17, 1982, Ruth First, was killed by a parcel bomb in her office in Maputo, Mozambique. She was a leading member of the A.N.C. and the wife of Joe Slovo, a South African Communist leader and a principal figure in the military wing of the A.N.C.
The killing here today quickly became an issue in the French presidential campaign. Prime Minister Jacques Chirac's Government was criticized by opponents on both the right and the left for what was called a lax attitude toward Miss September's security.
The Socialist Party called for a protest rally in front of the South African Embassy, and the Communist Party's presidential candidate, Andre Lajoinie, accused Mr. Chirac's Government of ''political complicity'' with South Africa. Mr. Chirac is a candidate for the presidency in the election next month, as is the Socialist incumbent, Francois Mitterrand. Mr. Mitterrand's wife, Danielle, said the killing of Miss September today provoked a sense ''of horror in the face the cowardice of this act.'' 4 GUERRILLAS REPORTED KILLED
JOHANNESBURG, March 29 -South African security forces announced today that they had shot and killed four suspected guerrillas of the African National Congress near the border with Zimbabwe on Monday. The gun battle in the northern tribal homeland of Venda brought the number of suspected guerrillas reported killed by the South African military to 12 in the last five days. The attacks follow repeated warnings by Pretoria in recent months to neighboring countries that allow guerrillas to use their territories.
The killing of the four guerrillas was announced today by Brig. Albertus Botha, Chief of Staff of the Far North Military Command in northern Transvaal. He said in an interview on state-run television that he did not regard the recent activity as new infiltration by guerrillas.
Source: New York Times
Tom Sebina, a spokesman at the organization's headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, blamed the South African Government for the killing and called on governments to crack down on all secret agents of the South African Government operating in their countries. But South Africa said it ''could not be held responsible'' for Miss September's death, and Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha issued a statement noting that ''serious quarrels exist in the ranks of the organizations that utilize violence to obtain political objectives.''
The A.N.C. and the South-West Africa People's Organization have had political representation here, without diplomatic status, since 1981. Miss September came to Paris from Lusaka, where she worked as administrative secretary at the organization's offices. The French police said she was killed with a .22-caliber weapon as she was opening her office. She was found still holding her morning mail with two bullet wounds in the head and six empty shells on the floor.
The group's treasurer in Paris, Maurice Cukierman, said that Miss September had received several threats against her life over the last eight months and had told French police, but that ''nothing was done.'' On Sunday the Belgian police defused a bomb placed outside the A.N.C. office in Brussels, and in February shots were fired at the Belgian office of the group.
The congress maintains guerrillas in countries around South Africa, including Lesotho, Mozambique and Botswana, and has some 20 offices around the world to lobby for political support. It has been outlawed in South Africa since 1960, and its principal leader, Nelson Mandela, has been jailed there since 1962. Two slayings of A.N.C. figures in countries bordering on South Africa drew wide attention in the early 1980's.
Joe Gqabi, a congress representative in Zimbabwe, was killed by gunfire July 31, 1981, at his home in Harare, then called Salisbury. And on Aug. 17, 1982, Ruth First, was killed by a parcel bomb in her office in Maputo, Mozambique. She was a leading member of the A.N.C. and the wife of Joe Slovo, a South African Communist leader and a principal figure in the military wing of the A.N.C.
The killing here today quickly became an issue in the French presidential campaign. Prime Minister Jacques Chirac's Government was criticized by opponents on both the right and the left for what was called a lax attitude toward Miss September's security.
The Socialist Party called for a protest rally in front of the South African Embassy, and the Communist Party's presidential candidate, Andre Lajoinie, accused Mr. Chirac's Government of ''political complicity'' with South Africa. Mr. Chirac is a candidate for the presidency in the election next month, as is the Socialist incumbent, Francois Mitterrand. Mr. Mitterrand's wife, Danielle, said the killing of Miss September today provoked a sense ''of horror in the face the cowardice of this act.'' 4 GUERRILLAS REPORTED KILLED
JOHANNESBURG, March 29 -South African security forces announced today that they had shot and killed four suspected guerrillas of the African National Congress near the border with Zimbabwe on Monday. The gun battle in the northern tribal homeland of Venda brought the number of suspected guerrillas reported killed by the South African military to 12 in the last five days. The attacks follow repeated warnings by Pretoria in recent months to neighboring countries that allow guerrillas to use their territories.
The killing of the four guerrillas was announced today by Brig. Albertus Botha, Chief of Staff of the Far North Military Command in northern Transvaal. He said in an interview on state-run television that he did not regard the recent activity as new infiltration by guerrillas.
Source: New York Times
Sunday, March 13, 1988
South Africa Bans New Anti-Apartheid Group
The South African Government today banned a new church-led anti-apartheid movement headed by Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu. The authorities also banned its first meeting, which was to have been held Sunday on a university campus near Cape Town. Several thousand people had been expected to attend.
A Government decree prohibits the committee from engaging in ''any activities whatsoever.'' Speaking 12 hours after the decree was published in the official Government newspaper, the archbishop announced that a prayer service would be held in St. George's Anglican Cathedral at the same time the banned meeting had been scheduled for Sunday afternoon. ''It is clear to us as it must be to everyone in the world that we are dealing here with a Government that is virtually totalitarian and determined to bludgeon God's people into submission,'' Archbishop Tutu said at a press conference.
Archbishop Stephen Naidoo, a Roman Catholic, said at the same conference that churches were now the only place where legal protest meetings could take place. The new movement, known as the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, was formed in Cape Town this week to continue the work of the United Democratic Front, the major anti-apartheid umbrella group, and 16 other groups effectively banned Feb. 24 from engaging in political activities.
Archbishop Tutu emphasized that the church service was not intended to replace the banned meeting and said there would be no attempt to form a new committee. But he added, ''We will get someone representing the community to speak.'' A nationwide crackdown on Feb. 24 effectively outlawed any organized anti-apartheid dissent except that expressed in places of worship.
Archbishop Tutu and the Reverend Allan A. Boesak, a patron of the United Democratic Front, were among 150 churchmen briefly arrested last month for protesting the bannings. Sunday is National Detainees Day, the day on which anti-apartheid groups usually organize meetings to pay respect to an estimated 25,000 people, about 10,000 of them children, who have been in detention without trial under a 21-month-old state of emergency. But the Detainees' Parents Support Committee, the group that organizes such protests, was banned last month along with 16 other anti-apartheid organizations and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the major black trade union federation. The union federation and three of the anti-apartheid groups restricted in the crackdown have begun legal proceedings to challenge it in the courts.
Four church services to be held in other centers to mark National Detainees Day were not banned today. The most prominent of these was to be held in Regina Mundi Roman Catholic Church in Soweto, the sprawling black urban complex outside Johannesburg. Archbishop Tutu asked today what more proof President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher needed before they realized that they were dealing with a Government that ''will tolerate no opposition to its evil and immoral policies.'' ''We refuse to be treated as a doormat for people to wipe their jackboots on,'' he said. ''We refuse to be manipulated into a position of oppression.''
Source: New York Times
A Government decree prohibits the committee from engaging in ''any activities whatsoever.'' Speaking 12 hours after the decree was published in the official Government newspaper, the archbishop announced that a prayer service would be held in St. George's Anglican Cathedral at the same time the banned meeting had been scheduled for Sunday afternoon. ''It is clear to us as it must be to everyone in the world that we are dealing here with a Government that is virtually totalitarian and determined to bludgeon God's people into submission,'' Archbishop Tutu said at a press conference.
Archbishop Stephen Naidoo, a Roman Catholic, said at the same conference that churches were now the only place where legal protest meetings could take place. The new movement, known as the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, was formed in Cape Town this week to continue the work of the United Democratic Front, the major anti-apartheid umbrella group, and 16 other groups effectively banned Feb. 24 from engaging in political activities.
Archbishop Tutu emphasized that the church service was not intended to replace the banned meeting and said there would be no attempt to form a new committee. But he added, ''We will get someone representing the community to speak.'' A nationwide crackdown on Feb. 24 effectively outlawed any organized anti-apartheid dissent except that expressed in places of worship.
Archbishop Tutu and the Reverend Allan A. Boesak, a patron of the United Democratic Front, were among 150 churchmen briefly arrested last month for protesting the bannings. Sunday is National Detainees Day, the day on which anti-apartheid groups usually organize meetings to pay respect to an estimated 25,000 people, about 10,000 of them children, who have been in detention without trial under a 21-month-old state of emergency. But the Detainees' Parents Support Committee, the group that organizes such protests, was banned last month along with 16 other anti-apartheid organizations and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the major black trade union federation. The union federation and three of the anti-apartheid groups restricted in the crackdown have begun legal proceedings to challenge it in the courts.
Four church services to be held in other centers to mark National Detainees Day were not banned today. The most prominent of these was to be held in Regina Mundi Roman Catholic Church in Soweto, the sprawling black urban complex outside Johannesburg. Archbishop Tutu asked today what more proof President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher needed before they realized that they were dealing with a Government that ''will tolerate no opposition to its evil and immoral policies.'' ''We refuse to be treated as a doormat for people to wipe their jackboots on,'' he said. ''We refuse to be manipulated into a position of oppression.''
Source: New York Times
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)