From: gavan@elc.mth.uct.ac.za (Gavan Tredoux)
Subject: Re: ANC Leadership Wanes
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 16:35:43 GMT
Organization: University of Cape Town
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
: In article <1992Sep28.215721.28128@ucthpx.uct.ac.za> gavan@elc.mth.uct.ac.za (Gavan Tredoux) writes:
: >Er, you might be a little more cautious when drawing conclusions about
: >a complex situation from an article in the New York Times - that *is*
: >ambitious. Regarding credibility, there's no doubt that the police and 
: >military are partial, particularly in Natal. That doesn't alter the SOURCE
: >of the conflict. 
: 
: The Times article was mainly concerned with Soweto, which as far as
: I know is not in Natal. In any case, I'm not sure what relevance the
: "SOURCE" of the conflict has. 
 
Well, at least you know where Soweto is not. The SOURCE of the conflict,
which was the point I made originally, but which I will charitably repeat,
is not the Police or military, HENCE mentioning their partiality is idle.
 
: You evade my question. I don't care who you believe is originally
: responsible for the violence. 

That's cruel - not caring.

: The fact remains that the security forces
: and Inkatha seem to be engaged in somewhat open warfare against the ANC.

Look at it the other way: the ANC seem to be in an open state of warfare
with the Police and the IFP. Hence the citing of the ANC by the National Peace
Committee for violating the peace accord. In this little conflict the police
are taking heavy casualties, something which DOESN'T make the papers - hardly
ever if at all. Some 170 serving policemen have been murdered so far this year.
And the IFP are taking heavy casualties, again something that seems to get
overlooked. They're all taking heavy casualties.

: What is it you expect ANC leadership
: to do in response to combined police/Inkatha campaigns against their
: organizers? You find marches to be irresponsible and  you object to armed
: responses. What option does the ANC leadership have? Must they wait for
: the U.N. to step in? Give up? It's quite easy for you to generate complaints
: about the moral and tactical failures of the ANC leadership, please explain
: what would happen if they followed your advice.

Being charitable again, I'll "rephrase" my original post: the ANC have been 
cited by the National Peace Com. for violating a Peace Accord they are
signatories to, and by which they have bound themselves. In a word, the ANC 
leadership should at the very least desist from the actions they were cited
for, holding mock trials of political opponents, and stating their intention
to wipe out IFP officialdom. Simple. And I thought I'd said this already ...

Waiting for the UN to step in, well Godot would come sooner.

If they followed my advice they'd ... oh well, that's idle speculation. Giving
up wouldn't be all bad - violence stats would go right down and a lot of
thorny problems would disappear. And we'd be able to hold
political meetings here at UCT without fear of having the ANC disrupt them.
But I guess that doesn't make the NY Times. These peace loving democrats
in the ANC, they're so huggable.

Gavan Tredoux
UCT
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african