From: barnhart@netcom.com (Aaron Barnhart)
Subject: IPS:SOUTH AFRICA: Violence key danger t
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 14:50:45 GMT
Organization: Netcom
Reply-To: barnhart@netcom.com

Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: SOUTH AFRICA: Violence key danger to women and transitional talks


new york, aug 10 (ips) -- ongoing indiscriminate violence
threatens the security of women and children as well as the
transition to a democratic and non-racial south africa, a high-
ranking african national congress (anc) official said here monday.

ruth mompati, representative of the anc's women's league, urged
the united nations to ''contribute towards the speedy end of one
of south africa's saddest chapters, namely, violence.''

mompati addressed members of the united nations special
committee against apartheid, which met aug 9 in observance of the
u.n.-declared 'international day of solidarity with the struggle
of women in south africa.'

mompati charged that the current white minority government led
by president f.w. de klerk has ''from the beginning of talks,
sought to stifle the democratic movement by promoting civil strife
through the sponsoring of violence.''

she said that more than 11,000 women and children had died as a
result of such violence in the past six years, and that nearly
2,000 people were killed in the first half of this year.

the increased violence culminated in last month's massacre at
boipatong, which the anc contends was government-inspired. that
led to the breakdown of talks between the anc and the government
for a convention on a democratic south africa (codesa).

mompati charged that the de klerk government had ''financed the
activities of organisations opposed to the cause of the oppressed;
they have created and continue to maintain hit-squads; (and) they
have gone further by unleashing hordes of assassins against
ordinary citizens.''

''this they have done with the express purpose of creating a
climate of mistrust, instability and fear so as to deny the forces
of change,'' mompati said.

in a monday statement to the special committee against
apartheid, u.n. secretary-general boutros boutros-ghali said,
''the level of violence and wanton killings is alarming.''

''it is widely recognised that such violence, if not curbed,
could lead to a total breakdown of law and order," boutros-ghali
added. "it is therefore vital that south africans find a way to
move ahead again, together, to a new democratic and non-racial
society.''(more/ips)

south africa: violence key danger to women and transitional talks(2-e)

south africa: violence(2)

on friday, the secretary-general's special representative to
south africa, cyrus vance, submitted a report to the security
council. boutros-ghali's statement said the report contained
specific recommendations on ending the violence and facilitating
the resumption of the codesa talks.

chief among those recommendations was the call for full-scale
investigations into ''the functionings and operations'' of the
country's security forces and the military organs of certain
political organisations.

according to the report, ''such investigations could indeed
serve to curb violence and be of benefit to the country as a
whole.''

mompati told the special committee, ''the harsh reality that
today stares millions of south africans in the face, is that
apartheid is far from dead. those who are hardest hit by apartheid
policies are women and children.''

''whilst many nations of the world invest in their future by
ensuring healthy development of their children, apartheid
continues to create many orphans through violence, terror and
generally through policies of criminal neglect,'' mompati said.

she added that ''the road to (south african women's)
emancipation is through the destruction of apartheid and the
creation in its place of a non-racial and non-sexist democratic
society.''(end/jd/wr/92)


-- 
Aaron (Barnhart@netcom.com) -- posting from Evanston, Illinois