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Racist Policy Continues

The Government has condemned a family of coloured South Africans to a life of persecution and misery by refusing their application to immigrate to New Zealand.

Fourty-seven-year-old Godfrey Beck has been a "banned person" in South Africa since 1965 when he was Secretary-General of the South African Textile Workers' Union. He managed to escape to Botswana, where he was joined by his family, and was granted the status of a United Nations refugee by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Early in 1972 the Citizens Association for Racial Equality (CARE) was asked by Amnesty International to sponsor the Becks' immigration to New Zealand. An application, with full documentation provided by the UNHCR, was lodged with immigration authorities in the Labour Department.

Months and months dragged by, while the Labour Department thought up one excuse after another to refuse the Becks entry into New Zealand, e.g. "They do not identify with previous refugee groups", "Unfair to the family to bring them here," said successive Immigration Ministers, National and Labour.

In March this year the present Minister of Immigration, Fraser Colman, wrote to CARE suggesting that it should write again "in the latter part of the year" about the Becks because the Government was carrying out "a complete review of immigration policy to decide what changes may be desirable". But while the NZ Government was reviewing its policy the South Africans acted.

Because he had openly worked to help his fellow refugees in Botswana Godfrey Beck was suddenly deported to South Africa on April 2 and immediately thrown into prison for 90 days until July 2. On August the appeared in court in Johannesburg on two charges under the Suppression of Communism Act, and jailed for ten days with a further three months imprisonment suspended for three years.

On August 14 Tom Newnham of CARE wrote to Colman appealing that the Beck family be immediately allowed into New Zealand "while the family is united and before it is too late...." Newnham said he had been in contact with a friend in Johannesburg who reported "that the circumstances of the Becks were 'dreadful' — he and his family are living with relatives, there are 15 people in three rooms and Mr Beck is unable to get employment." Newnham added that while Godfrey Beck had been released from prison "under South African laws he is liable to be rearrested at any time."

Colman replied on August 20 stating that "while I feel for the family and the plight in which they find themselves they would be well advised to explore (he possibility of ascertaining if some other country would be prepared to accept them." Colman had consulted the Prime Minister "and it is our considered opinion on the information available to us, that we should not approve the application."

Colman said the matter had been discussed with the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees who "accepted our decision and gave an assurance that he would not press us to accept Mr Godfrey Beck", but gave no reasons for turning down the Beck's application. Replying to Colman on September 3 Newnham said that since the Deputy High Commissioner visited New Zealand "for the express purpose or raising much-needed finds for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and would have no personal knowledge of the Beck case it would have been difficult and certainly impolitic of him to have pressed the case."

"Would you please advise whether your letter of 20th August is the result of the new policy which we have been waiting for?" Newnham asked Colman. "If so, are we to understand that the absolute right of the Minister of Immigration to without stating reasons, refuse entry to persons whose applications for entry are in order — is to be maintained by the new Labour Government. This Ministerial veto, widely-exercised, has of course been the cornerstone of New Zealand's racist immigration policy up till the present — it has enabled this country to operate such a policy by subterfuge whereas Australia at least was honest about it."

When he handed over New Zealand's $5000 contribution to the UN Trust Fund for South Africa in March this year, the then NZ Permanent Representative to the UN, Mr J.V. Scott, said this contribution was first and foremost a practical gesture of support for the victims of apartheid. In this case why is the government unwilling to make "a practical gesture of support" to the Becks by admitting them to New Zealand? It seems the Becks' only crime is that they aren't white and have been politically active opposing racism.