{ title: 'The Spectrum (Buffalo, N.Y.) 1955-current, October 24, 1979, Page 8, Image 8', download_links: [ { link: 'http://www.loc.gov/rss/ndnp/ndnp.xml', label: 'application/rss+xml', meta: 'News about NYS Historic Newspapers - RSS Feed', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-10-24/ed-1/seq-8/png/', label: 'image/png', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-10-24/ed-1/seq-8.pdf', label: 'application/pdf', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-10-24/ed-1/seq-8/ocr.xml', label: 'application/xml', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-10-24/ed-1/seq-8/ocr.txt', label: 'text/plain', meta: '', }, ] }
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09 Editor’s note: This is the first of a three part Series on South Africa. Below Reg Gilbert examines the Bdntustan or black homeland policy which the white government of South Africa has been busy implementing. Separated from thei unemployed black w families in barren run have so much as overcrowded Bantu sti the only means of sur existent. UNESCO cst black children die befe Commentary S. Africa: Repression continues despite reforms by R. Gilbert Southern Africa blackens with each passing day. The remaining politically white dominated countries on the African continent number only three: Rhodesia (Zimbabwe); Southwest Africa'(Namibia); and South Africa Where black familii South Africa, as in woman’s right of rcsidi or that of her husbam divorce her, she and out.” Throughout the area armed guerilla activity increases monthly. Zimbabwe (population 250,000 whites, four million blacks), surrounded on three sides by hostile black states, now has a black prime minister and legislature, though control over the all important military, and crucial aspects of the legislative process remain in the hands of whites. Apartheid there is dissolving, and the guerilla war is continuing. Half of Namibia (population one million) is under martial law, and the liberation movement, SWAPO, is able to strike at will. Occupation of the country by 20,000 South African soldiers continues unabated, as docs the guerilla resistance, based in Angola immediately to the north. Angola was freed from Portuguese colonialism only in 1975. And South Africa. Additionally, womc white South African “tribal custom” regard legal or property rights a husband or male rel Finally, the byzantii South Africa common mother, children, he mixing of the races or If fundamental chai must be reflected in E intact of the entire ec The strongest and seeming most impregnable of the entrenched white regimes is finally experiencing the long feared guerilla siege. But for the first time in its history, South Africa’s response has not been more brutal military repression, bannings, and torture, but the offering of concessions to the huge black majority (outnumbering whites five to one in this country of 26 million). who are 17 percent of South Africa’s population, will live here. budgets for these Bantustans is supplied by South Africa. Black workers residing in white Johannesburg, Capetown, Durban, Port-Elizabeth and everywhere in white South Africa are only visitors with temporary visas permitting them to live near the white cities they work in. If they are close enough to the Bantustans, they must commute. Following the intei strikes and rioting accelerated its Bantus The remaining ten “countries,” presently called Bantustans or homelands are designated for ten ethnic groups or tribes that comprise most of pre-industrial black South African civilization: the Zulus, the Xhosa and so on. This 83 percent of South Africa’s population (black, colored and Asian) will call their home that 13 percent most barren and rcsourceless of South Africa’s land area. Concessions were 1976 and 77. In 19’ Botha broadened th< Botha think about tl general? The pass system that_ enforces this artificial arrangement is immensely complex and severely restrictive of all black movement and residence in South Africa. A Dead caricature “1 do not believi division ” In other w< South Africa is considering parallel parliaments for 'coloreds’ (mixed descent), improved education and health care for blacks, and tolerance of black trade union freedom. South African Prime Minister P.W. Botha Mirage of Independence As foreigners, non-whites living or working in white South Africa will have no legal rights, voting or otherwise; and may be expelled at any time. Though this in fact describes South Africa as it has actually been for the last 25 t/ears (coloreds finally lost the right to vote in 1956), the subterfuge of independent nation-homelands is necessary, South Africa feels, to legitimize apartheid internationally. The appearance of areas in which blacks enjoy limited political rights as well as the right to vote will allow South Africa to claim that it has eliminated ‘racialism’ within its borders. The white South African city’s suburbs arc divided into black, ‘colored,’ and Asian townships. One’s pass states place of work and residence. To be in the wrong place, or in the right place at the wrong time is a serious violation, punishable by heavy fines, imprisonment, loss of job, and/or resettlement. The pass must be carried by all non whites over sixteen years of age, 24 hours a day. In one typical year, 1969, 600,000 were arrested for pass law violations. Next: Black Resista FOR THE ohlt: Most serious is apartheid’s systematic destruction of black family life and its still greater oppression of black women. snot KENI Discrimination will not be according to race, but according to citizenship. Every country restricts the political rights of foreigners. South Africa will be, as former New Hampshire Governor Meldrin Thomson called it last year, “fascinating, inspiring ... a great democracy.” Three of the ten Bantustans have declared political independence from South Africa since 1977: the Transkci (for blacks of Xhosa descent), Bophuthatswana (Tswana descent) and, this September, Venda (Vcnda descent) South Africa maintains control over foreign policy, the police, and economic development in these areas. All three have tribal chiefs as heads of government, appointed by the South African government, and legislative assemblies, 50 percent of whose members are also appointed. Women, children and the old, quoting from official documents, are “superfluous appendages” to the basic economic function of the black worker. Whenever possible they are to remain in or be resettled to the Bantustans. AUEENI VAN 0LAf Since 1960 the South African government has resettled over 500,000 “coloreds” and blacks from urban areas to the Bantustans. Another half million have been cleared out of newly designated “white areas” as the white city encroaches on its suburbs. The former residents are transferred to other townships or “endorsed out” (resettled) to the Bantustans. MflUftE ■UCHWWISC ' S«MMBUSSOC rutTsmmmi omit it tecs m, mmmvsm says, \ the caricature of apartheid as the world knows it. is dead.” Can South Africa change peacefully and flow with the tide in African history—black liberation? Can the U.S. help, as the Carter administration insists, by not backing the beleaguered South African whites into a corner with threats of disinvestment and economic boycott? In short, will slow reforms lead to the end of apartheid in South Africa? A STUKKWU (5 S€K M2DM UMAR munaut mt tit mememstnm ram mum sn Black movement restricted Demonstrating the nature of these political rights in the homelands was the recent electoral chaos preceding Venda independence this year. Forty-two of the 84 legislative seats are elective. The South African appointed Chief Nphephu, running on the Venda National Party slate, won only eleven scats; ■* 31 were taken by the opposition Venda Independence \ Party in a sparse election turnout. Nphephu promptly arrested 12 of the newly elected opposition and 50 members of their Party. They were quickly taken to South African jails and detained without any formal \i charges being brought against them. I \ . » .i The homelands are all completely economically dependent on white South Africa. With little industry, and therefore little to tax, 80 percent of the national ripem. South Africa, for its white citizens, is a parliamentary democracy with a free press. But South African political and economic life really centers around apartheid, appropriately pronounced apart-hate. Defined officially as separate development, apartheid is a long-term political plan dividing South Africa into eleven separate countries. Simply stated, no. For many reasons One, white South Africa, comprises 87 percent of the land area in present day South Africa, all its major cities, industries and mines, and most of South Africa’s known mineral reserves. 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