Walters Calls Tutu Demand ‘Sloganeering’

The United States today condemned as “demagogic posturing and sloganeering” a demand by Bishop Desmond Tutu that the West impose tough sanctions on South Africa if apartheid is not ended in six months.

“The United States believes that apartheid will not be undone by demagogic posturing and sloganeering,” U.S. Ambassador Vernon Walters told the U.N. General Assembly during a debate on racial segregation in South Africa.

“Exhortations to bloody revolution, calls for mandatory sanctions and hypocritical talks about liberation from the leaders and representatives of nations that deny liberty to their own people will not bring peace and justice to millions of South Africans,” Walters said.

“Others call for destructive, punitive sanctions, arms and more violence.”

Walters’ speech to the 159-nation assembly, his first since assuming the post of U.S. permanent representative to the U.N. last June, did not mention Tutu by name, but the comments on sanctions were a clear reference to Tutu’s U.N. speech Monday.