rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (06/15/91)
From WORLD PERSPECTIVES magazine. Box 3074, Madison, WI 53704
SOUTH AFRICA
The following story comes from R. Havana (Sorry, we missed the
beginning):
According to new revelations in South Africa, the government
has been giving aid to the Inkatha Freedom Party. That aid has
been used against the African National Congress. Clashes
between the two rival groups have raged through many black
townships over the past years, claiming thousands of lives.
According to the revelations, the South African military paid
an agent $23,000/month to run a similar secret operation in
Namibia two years ago, designed to discredit SWAPO, the party
now running the former South African colony.
The charges corroborate allegations by the African National
Congress and its leader Nelson Mandela that right-wing forces
in the military have been instigating the violence between the
country's black organizations. While Inkatha leader, Chief
Gatsha Buthelesi, has denied any link between his organization
and the South African military, it is now alleged that the
military gave AK-47 assault rifles to Inkatha and was helping
the organization set up units in townships where Inkatha has
little influence. Soviet-designed AK-47 rifles have been used
in recent factional fighting between Inkatha and ANC
supporters. According to the new charges, security forces
could have stopped the fighting immediately had they wanted
to.
Two army units are identified: the Military Intelligence
Institute and the Specialized Communications Operations. Those
had tried to manipulate politics in Namibia and now have a
similar mission inside South Africa. The country's security
forces have been accused in the past of running secret
operations against political enemies. In one of them, an
under-cover unit of the South African military, calling itself
the Civil Cooperation Bureau, is said to have harassed
apartheid opponents, including Nelson Mandela and Archbishop
Desmond Tutu. An attempt by a South African judge to
investigate that unit's activities failed when his court
records mysteriously disappeared. (6/13)
SOWETO DAY
The African National Congress is stepping up mobilization for
nation-wide protest marches to mark the 1976 Soweto massacre.
The marches will be held in 48 locations throughout the
country and focus on the continued violence in the black
townships, claiming the lives of more than 10,000 people
since 1984. On June 12 the government's Constitutional
Development Ministry charged the ANC with promoting unrest
with its plans to mark Soweto Day with marches. The day
commemorates June 16, 1976, when police attacked hundreds of
black school children, killing a number of them. (R. Havana
6/13)
The African National Congress (ANC) has accused the
white-minority government of declaring war on the country's
squatters. A statement issued by ANC Deputy President Nelson
Mandela said measures adopted by the government to deal with
the problem of squatters display a lack of sympathy and caring
for the plight of homeless people who are forced to erect
miserable shacks to survive. On June 7, the government
announced the establishment of squatter assistance units to
deal with illegal occupations of land. According to the
government, there are 1.6 million squatters and another 1.7
million people living in shacks that were erected illegally
across the country. However, the independent Urban Foundation
says the number is closer to 7 million. In the past,
squatter's shacks were simply bulldozed. (R. Havana 6/10)
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