GOP Platform Writers Embrace Contra Rebels, Assail Apartheid

Republican platform writers, reaffirming Administration and party policy, today declared the GOP stands “shoulder to shoulder” with the Nicaraguan Contra rebels and condemned South Africa’s apartheid racial policy as “morally repugnant.”

While declaring, “We will not rest until apartheid is eliminated,” the 106-member platform committee also adopted language warning against economic sanctions that have the effect of “adversely affecting” black South Africans.

Several committee members strongly criticized a bill passed by the House on Thursday that would impose more stringent sanctions against the white minority government of South Africa.

“Republicans deplore the apartheid system of South Africa and consider it morally repugnant,” said the language adopted as the committee moved to wrap up its work on the party platform.

In the section dealing with Central America, the platform committee approved language asserting that democratic progress in Central America “is threatened directly by the Sandinista military machine and armed subversion exported from Nicaragua, Cuba and the Soviet Union.”

Saying the Contras are struggling “to free their homeland,” the platform declared: “The Republican Party stands shoulder to shoulder with them in this struggle and is committed to assist them, including military aid.”