14 November 19911
Before reading my statement I shall read a brief statement by the Library and Information Workers' Organisation (LIWO) of South Africa. This is an organization that has been set up to take the place of the racist, State-sponsored Librarian Information Organization.
"Since 1989 important changes have taken place in South Africa. Protest and resistance under Emergency rule in the 1980s culminated in the organizations of the liberation movement declaring themselves unbanned in late 1989. International pressure, a crisis of legitimacy and military defeats led to De Klerk's response of 2 February 1990. Organizations were unbanned and apartheid, declared the National Party Government, was dead.
"In the months that followed, some apartheid legislation was removed and today, locally and internationally, people speak of a 'New' South Africa.
"The Separate Amenities Act which barred blacks from using public libraries controlled by white local authorities, and sanctioned the establishment of inferior facilities in the townships, was removed from the statute books in late 1990. Its repeal made it possible for some to claim that public libraries were now open to all.
"But for the majority of South Africans seeking reading material for recreation, or for the purposes of non-formal or formal education, access to a free public library service is still difficult if not impossible.
"Most public libraries are situated in white suburbs or in the centre of cities or towns, and cater for the information needs of elite groups - whites, the employed, urban residents, the educated. They remain physically remote from the place of work and residence of most South Africans and in terms of their book stock are of limited relevance. In addition, these facilities are controlled and funded by local authorities (which are still segregated) serving the interests of their ratepayers. In extreme cases some prohibit the use of facilities by residents of nearby townships on the grounds that they do not pay rates to the relevant authority.
"In some areas of Natal librarians have demanded proof of residence, in the form of electricity accounts, before library membership for black patrons is considered. This is difficult for residents of townships without electricity, or those participating in services boycotts, or those living in rooms which have been sublet. In other areas, a prohibitively high annual fee was introduced, effectively preventing many of the poor from access to information. In still other areas, a ceiling has been placed on membership in order to prevent the facility being 'swamped' by local township readers. A situation has arisen where those black township residents who have the wherewithal to travel into the towns to get to the libraries, have to face further obstacles with regard to borrowing privileges. These actions are indicative of the extent to which the mechanisms for preserving white privilege still exist.
"Clearly, then, apartheid is far from dead. The majority of South Africans still do not have the vote. Racial discrimination has permeated the ways in which South African society is ordered in every dimension - political, social, religious - producing a bureaucratic and social system which will take decades to destroy. The persistence of Bantu education for instance ensures that millions of black children continue to struggle for an education with inadequate schools, and without teachers, books, pens, pencils, paper, laboratory equipment, playing fields and sports equipment and libraries.
"The Library and Information Workers Organization (LIWO) was launched in Natal in 1990 and in the Western Cape in 1991, to address the information needs of South Africans in the context of a history of repressive and discriminatory limitations on the exchange of information and opinion. We remain committed to defining our work in terms of developments in the wider socio-political and economic arenas. In doing so we have established contacts with progressive educational and cultural organizations and civic and political structures working in the area of local government. The imbalance in the allocation of library, and indeed all, resources in South Africa must be tackled at the root - that is, in relation to the balance of political and economic resources and power.
"We therefore call upon the international community to resist the temptation to herald prematurely the demise of apartheid, and to approach the De Klerk era realistically. For most South Africans, the 'new' South Africa remains as tainted as the old. We cannot be sure that fundamental change in the existing system of entrenched privilege is possible given the persistence of the current balance of power. As library and information workers committed to democratic ideals, we recognize the relationship between information and power and have defined our work in terms of individual and community empowerment, as our contribution to the realization of democracy in South Africa. We call upon the international community of library and information workers, and upon library users, whose lives have been enriched through free access to the information wealth of the world, to support our campaigns for the recognition of the following human rights in South Africa: the right to freedom of information and opinion, the right to free, accessible and relevant public library services, the right of children to learn and develop in the context of a free education supported by adequate school libraries.”
That is the LIWO statement of 12 November 1991.
Last year, I told this Committee that "data, documentation, information and knowledge were the tools with which we can expose the criminal activities” in South and southern Africa. It is my intention today, as an information worker, to bring the Committee up to date in this regard.
It has been a momentous year of struggle in South Africa. Through sacrifice and hard work, the South African people have created a small but extremely significant space in which to operate. In their quest for a stable, prosperous non-racial democracy, the South African people accorded the Government the trust necessary to conduct cordial dialogue. But the apartheid regime has abused all provisions of this trust at every possible opportunity.
The bantustan policy continues unabated, in the hope that these artificial entities can be negotiated on a point-by-point basis. Even at this late stage, the regime is giving land away to that gerrymandered territory it calls Bophuthatswana, under the military rule of its puppet, Mangope. Incredibly, it is once again necessary for this Committee to clearly state that there is no such entity as Bophuthatswana, that cities such as Mafikeng and Rooigrond are South African cities, that people living there are South Africans, that Bop Central Prison in Rooigrond is a South African jail, and that martyrs such as Rabusang Monnana were courageous South African freedom fighters who died at the hands of South African authorities. I would also ask that the Committee send a copy of such a statement to United States Assistant Secretary of State Herman Cohen and President Bush, who seem incapable of clearly enunciating this reality.
The world has watched in horror as massacre after massacre has taken place throughout the country, as more assassinations of leaders of the liberation struggle have taken place in the past one and one half years than in the previous decade, and as the regime has audaciously denied its obvious complicity in the face of hundreds of affidavits, eyewitness accounts, parliamentary reports, videotaped footage of State officials actively taking part in such crimes, and State documentation all of which clearly demonstrates a wilful and disciplined strategy of internal destabilization against the people's struggle for non-racial democracy.
This summer's revelations demonstrated that Inkatha and the United Workers Union of South Africa (UWUSA) are allies and agencies of the South African authorities and could never exist without being propped up by the weaponry, military training and logistical support, political bolstering and material aid provided - all of it ~ by the State at taxpayers' expense. But Inkatha and UWUSA are just a few components of the larger destabilization strategy. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Thirty-second Battalion; Koevoet; Five Reconnaissance Regiment; Two Reconnaissance Regiment; RENAMO; former members of the Civil Cooperation Bureau; gangs such as Amisinyora, the Black Cats, and the Three Million Gang; the KwaZulu Police under the command of Jack Buchner; and, of course, various units of the South African Police are all operating throughout the nation to create a climate of mass intimidation and terror. An internal paper of the National Intelligence Service exemplifies how seriously the campaign against the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies is being waged. The paper speaks of manoeuvring the ANC, step by step, into a position of weakness to force its leadership into compromising basic principles by intimidating the populace so that it will not openly support the ANC and its allies. All of these things are done with the goal of dictating conditions and terms during the negotiation process. …
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