NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9577

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From: [e-mail] (Maoist Intl'ist Mvmnt)
Subject: "New" S.Africa Looks a Lot Like Old
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Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit

from the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

MIM Notes, Issue 70: November, 1992


         The "new" South Africa looks a lot like the old

                             by Nxele

It has been three years since South African President F.W. de
Klerk ushered in the era of a "new South Africa" and "closed the
chapter of apartheid." Nelson Mandela and many political prisoners
were released from jail, the African National Congress (ANC) and
other political organizations were legalized and a host of
apartheid laws (many of them meaningless) were scrapped.

De Klerk was hailed globally as an enlightened leader. But the
changes being made were not a gift from de Klerk, but the results
of heroic mass struggles by unions, civic and youth organizations.

Having done little to lead the masses for change, the ANC was the
biggest beneficiary of these changes. And yet today South Africa
is no closer to freedom that it was before February 1990. What
went wrong?

The so-called changes de Klerk was talking about should be
understood for what they are, a not-so-ingenious attempt by the
racist regime to pump life back into a mortally-wounded system of
white privilege and capitalist exploitation.

The regime's plan has been elaborate and well-financed. It
involves both coercion and persuasion. Unfortunately for the
regime, nowhere in the history of humankind have people been
persuaded into slavery. Consequently, the linchpin of Pretoria's
plan for "change" has been coercion. The "new era" for South
Africa can be correctly characterized as an era of massacres and
political assassinations.

The list is endless:

The Jeppe Station Massacre - September 6, 1990, 32 people shot to
death;
Sebokeng  - January 1991, 38 people dead;
Alexandria - March 26, 1991, 13 killed, 17 wounded;
Boipathong - June 1992, 42 killed;
Swanieville Massacre - 28 dead, more than 100 wounded.

There was Crossroads, Athlone, Kliptown Station, Braamfontein,
and, only a month ago, Bisho, where 25 people lost their lives.
This list does not include the province of NatalDthe headquarters
of Gatsha Butelezi and his Inkatha Party. In June of this year,
567 people lost their lives through political assassinations at
the hands of Gatsha's police in Natal alone, according to the
South African Human Rights Commission.

Not one person has been convicted of these crimes, despite
eyewitness accounts and confessions by former members of the
police force. Who said de Klerk's cops cannot do their job?

Last June, an off-duty cop was robbed of his gun and a watch. A
huge contingent of armed police stopped and searched a train in
Soweto and recovered the gun and the watch. Tens of thousands of
tired workers were delayed for hours as a result.

On the other hand, the South African Defence Force has been busy
setting up bogus trade and community organizations and front
companies. This program fell under the code name Operation Henry.
Some of the groups that were established were the Domestic
Worker's Association of South Africa, Save the Child, Ama-Africa
National Front and the Azanian National Youth UnityDto name but a
few.

The most chilling aspect of this has been the role played by the
ANC. In the face of all these killings, the ANC has failed to
protect the people. On the contrary, Mandela and company have been
responsible for some of these massacres. They call for marches to
places where there is a 100% chance of being murdered.

To be sure, there is always a chance of being killed when one
marches in South Africa. But a national movement of the ANC's
stature and resources has the ability to ensure that this does not
happen. Just this July, 60 ANC members were arrested after the
police found two houses full of arms. The people keep asking the
ANC to give them guns and the ANC keeps giving them to the
government. The people keep asking the ANC not to negotiate with
murderers. Yet, Mandela and de Klerk keep getting together for
cocktails, cynical smiles and meaningless handshakes.

The ANC urged whites to vote "yes" in a referendum early this
year. They did, and de Klerk won big. He is now using that mandate
to kick us around and retrench white rule. The ANC has done the
impossible, getting the ambitious Gatsha together with the other
Black puppet leaders to form a national movement opposed to
revolutionary change. The ANC, with the misguided advice of the
South African Communist Party, is wasting time demonstrating
against homeland leaders. ITALIC The real locus of power,
Pretoria, is left unchallenged. END

Once again the murderous regime of de Klerk is calling the shots,
forcing the ANC to come hat-in-hand asking for negotiations. These
same negotiations have been rejected by the people as nothing else
but an attempt by the regime to build a Berlin Wall around white
privilege. Mandela should be next for the Nobel Peace Prize.

                        -30-

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