Tutu Likens Campus Rallies to Vietnam Era

Bishop Desmond Tutu thanked college activists Thursday for opposition to apartheid “that is near to paralleling what happened on university campuses during the Vietnam War” and condemned investments in companies that do business in South Africa.

Speaking to about 2,500 people in the Main Gymnasium at UC San Diego, Tutu, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his anti-apartheid activities in South Africa, said that “with the South Africa issue, the remarkable thing is in many ways that you needn’t be involved. It is many, many miles away and your bodies aren’t in jeopardy.”

And in a remark that brought howls of laughter from the crowd, Tutu said, “I just want to tell you that you are all very neat.”

Later in his speech, the 54-year-old Anglican bishop of Johannesburg said South African blacks are willing to accept any hardships that might be brought on by tough economic sanctions against that country’s government. “Let those who invest in South Africa not kid themselves. Whether they like it or not, whether they intend it or not, they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems since Nazism,” he said.

The remark brought the loudest applause of the afternoon and chants of “UC divest” from the audience. The University of California has $2.4 billion in pension money invested in companies with ties to South Africa.

Appearing near the end of an 18-day fund-raising tour of the United States, Tutu arrived at the gym 63 minutes late for his scheduled 3 p.m. speech and left for the airport in a blue limousine less than an hour later. A press conference scheduled to follow the speech was canceled. The visit, sponsored by various academic departments at UCSD, raised $10,000.

Minutes after Tutu departed, a scuffle erupted outside the gym when a man snatched and destroyed a placard from a demonstrator who supported the South African government. Several campus police officers moved in and grabbed the assailant, but released him after dozens of demonstrators surrounded them, shouting, “Leave him alone.” Anti-apartheid protesters continued their demonstration after police withdrew.

Security for Tutu’s speech was tight. More than 20 uniformed and plainclothes campus police officers were assigned to the gym, according to one officer. Campus Police Chief John Anderson said there were no threats made against Tutu in San Diego, though some had been received earlier this week in Los Angeles, when Tutu spoke there.

Wearing a white clerical collar, Tutu delivered a basic lesson on apartheid, South Africa’s racist system of separation for blacks and whites. He told of families starving because the government had relocated them to regions “where there is little work and little food,” of South African police firing on children who threw stones at them, and of blacks who are stripped of their South African nationality and are “being turned into aliens in the land of our birth.”

“That represents the final solution of the South African government,” he said. “And you ought to know that ‘final solution’ has sinister connotations. I use that advisedly.”

Tutu appealed for Western nations to impose tough economic sanctions against South Africa, scoffing at the notion that black workers would be the first to suffer.

“We are suffering now,” Tutu exclaimed. “If additional suffering is to end this system, blacks have said quite clearly that we are willing to accept that suffering.”

“Let’s make it quite clear,” Tutu said at the end of his lecture, “we are going to be free . . . When we get to the other side of this freedom trail, we would like to be able to say, ‘America made the right choice. America backed the right horse.’ ”