Kirkpatrick on the ANC

Jeane Kirkpatrick’s article “U.S. Is Too Quick To Cast Its Lot With African National Congress” (Op-Ed Page, March 26) is another example of a prominent columnist besmirching a people and culture of which she knows little, and beguiling the increasingly gullible and ill-informed American public into embracing her point of view.

Kirkpatrick criticizes Secretary of State James Baker for naivete in his dealings with the African National Congress while attending independence ceremonies in Namibia. She opposes Baker’s suggestion that the ANC be granted U.S. assistance; she balks at the ANC claim that it is the “largest black group in South Africa, when there has never been a test of its popular support,” and she condemns the organization for its failure to renounce violence. Kirkpatrick also appears to favor a vague “federal system” in South Africa in lieu of a “non-racial” democracy, which is demanded by the ANC and supported by Baker.

The United States has a moral obligation to provide assistance to the ANC to facilitate the movement toward justice in South Africa.

Secondly, now that after years of intense struggle the ANC has forced South Africa to the negotiating table, Kirkpatrick questions the organization’s legitimacy. While there are, to be sure, other well-respected groups among black South Africans (such as the Pan African Congress), the ANC has stood steadfastly at the forefront of the cause for liberation since its inception in 1912, and it has enjoyed the unwavering support of most black people. This organization was founded on principles of nonviolence, but the intransigence and bellicosity of South Africa’s white minority forced the freedom fighters to take up arms in self-defense.

Finally, I am sincerely bemused by Kirkpatrick’s opposition to the proposed “non-racial” democracy in favor of a “multiracial” federal government in South Africa. I can only surmise that she would exchange a one-man, one-vote system for a quota plan that would provide a privileged status for whites by guaranteeing them a national voice far in excess of their actual numbers.

LEGRAND H. CLEGG II

Compton