Tutu Equates Apartheid, ‘Frankenstein’

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa on Saturday called apartheid a “Frankenstein” that must be destroyed.

Tutu, the black prelate from Johannesburg who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, said some countries mistakenly believe South Africa’s system of racial separation can be reformed.

“We don’t want apartheid reformed--who wants a Frankenstein (monster) reformed?--we want apartheid destroyed,” he said.

By law and custom, apartheid establishes a racially segregated society in which the 25 million people in the black majority of South Africa have no vote in national affairs. Tutu also questioned the stand that some Western leaders have taken toward sanctions--Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, for one.

“Mrs. Thatcher applied sanctions over Argentina, President Reagan applied them to Poland, Nicaragua (and) Libya,” he said. “And at no point have we ever heard them discussing whether the sanctions . . . hurt the ones you want to help most or not.

“It is only the South African situation where they all suddenly become so wonderfully altruistic,” he said.