Episcopal Press and News
Tutu Names Conditions for End to Sanctions
Episcopal News Service. February 14, 1991 [91041]
Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has announced his continued support of economic sanctions against the South African government to protest its policy of apartheid, according to a release from diocesan offices in Cape Town.
In an column written for the Los Angeles Times responding to the recent reforms proposed by State President F.W. de Klerk, Tutu described de Klerk as "a bold and courageous reformer" but presented four conditions that would have to be met before he (Tutu) would call for an end to sanctions:
- Schools must be open to all races without qualification, under one education ministry;
- All political prisoners must be freed and exiles allowed to return home under a general amnesty;
- The Population Registration Act -- which classifies all South Africans according to race and undergirds white rule -- must be abolished without qualification; and
- There must be a mechanism for negotiating a new constitution "which is representative of the people of South Africa and which does not allow groups defined by race or ethnicity to veto decisions which are democratically reached."
Tutu was particularly critical of the government's plan to replace the Population Registration Act with "transitional measures." He described de Klerk's announcement that the law would be repealed as a "stratagem."
U.S. sanctions cannot be lifted unless the law is repealed, Tutu insisted. "A key reason for our demand for the repeal of the... Act has been because it enables the exercise of political power to be limited on the basis of race," Tutu said.
"Yet the Government clearly intends replacing the law with measures having substantially the same effect in that crucial area," Tutu continued. "The implications are that white South Africans will have the right to veto the terms of a new constitution. This is totally unacceptable."