Tutu, in L.A. to Receive Award, Assails S. Africa Regime for Cape Town Curbs
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South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, in Los Angeles to receive an award, denounced the declaration of a state of emergency Friday in Cape Town, saying it demonstrates that the government of President Pieter W. Botha “more and more is not in control of the situation.”
The Nobel laureate at a press conference warned that after the latest development his country stands “on the edge of a catastrophe.” He called on the Reagan Administration to alter “drastically” its South African policy of so-called constructive engagement, through which Reagan has sought to work diplomatically with the Botha government to bring change.
“The United States has a critical role to play in what happens in South Africa,” the 53-year-old Anglican bishop said. “Were it not for this policy of constructive engagement we might now be at a different point. If that policy can be changed drastically, we might be able to move away from this precipice.”
Citing two months of unrest, Botha expanded a partial state of emergency to include Cape Town, its outskirts and several nearby towns. The declaration affords police and military virtually unlimited powers of arrests and, among other restrictions, allows for censorship and unlimited detention of suspects without trial.
Tutu said the expanded state of emergency is an “acknowledgment” of his contention that the ruling whites of South Africa are losing control as the country’s crisis escalates.
“The trouble is that they have so much power they don’t know where they are going or how to get there,” he said..
He called on the United States and other nations to urge the goverment to lift the state of emergency and set free the political prisoners whose jailing has incited violence.
Tutu’s press conference followed a Beverly Hills banquet at which he received the John-Roger Foundation’s International Integrity Award.
Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and Dr. Helen Caldicott, an anti-nuclear activist, also were honored at the Beverly Hilton banquet.
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