Record of Murder and Repression Justifies Term ‘Terrorist State’

Party platforms usually don’t mean much. But an agreement to designate South Africa a “terrorist state” in the Democratic Party platform may rattle the very foundations of the apartheid system.

The “terrorist state” label is not as inconsequential as it may seem. If the Democratic nominee is elected and keeps his promise, the “terrorist state” designation will become much more than an idle exercise in symbolic rhetoric. Under the Export Administration Act it will automatically trigger a number of stringent economic and political sanctions against South Africa.

Reportedly, Michael Dukakis’ campaign was at first hesitant to accept the “terrorist state” terminology. The term conjures up images of state-sanctioned car bombings and hostage-taking and is rarely applied to powerful industrial nations.

Dukakis will undoubtedly be criticized by some who believe it is an exaggeration to identify the apartheid regime as a terrorist state on par with Libya and Iran. But he need make no apologies.

Ask those who witnessed the massacre of 69 black protesters in Sharpeville on May 21, 1960, if South Africa is a terrorist state, or those who saw the massacre of more than 1,200 following the Soweto protests in June, 1976, or those who saw 600 refugees, mostly women and children, killed by South African bombers and troops in Angola on May 4, 1978.

Ask the families and friends of the more than 3,000 black citizens who have been killed since 1984 in attacks on South African townships. Ask the more than 30,000 black South Africans, 40% of them children, who have been imprisoned, tortured and brutalized by the Botha regime during the last three years.

Ask the colleagues of Dulcie September, a representative of the African National Congress, who was assassinated in Paris as she opened her office door in March 29, or ask Godfrey Motsepe, ANC representative to the Benelux countries, who survived an assassination attempt in Brussels in February. Ask any victim of the countless incidents of apartheid terrorism that go unreported every day.

In addition to the relentless physical brutality being forced on black South Africans by Botha’s security forces, the extension on June 9 of the state-of-emergency decree renews bans on all political gatherings, provides police with unlimited detention powers and establishes Draconian restrictions on the press.

In my book, any government that commits assassinations, massacres and atrocities and denies its citizens basic human rights because of their race should be branded a terrorist state by all civilized nations. It doesn’t matterwhether the terrorism is motivated by religious or racist fanaticism, the result is the same--the brutal, state-sanctioned repression of innocent people.

The terrorist designation is also important because it lends legitimacy to proposals for stronger U.S. economic and political sanctions against South Africa, which are supported by a broad spectrum of black South African leaders from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to ANC leader Nelson Mandela. It also sends a message of unequivocal American moral condemnation of apartheid to African nations and to South Africa’s trading partners in Europe and Asia.

Legislation providing for comprehensive U.S. sanctions against South Africa is expected to pass the House in the weeks ahead. The vote is expected to be much closer in the Senate, where weakening amendments may be adopted to secure enough votes to override the inevitable veto by President Reagan. The hope here is that the upcoming presidential debates will help advance U.S. policy to the point where further “constructive engagement” in the terrorist state of South Africa is unacceptable and the dismantling of apartheid is inevitable.