(4) Demand the Release of all Political Prisoners in South Africa!

There are two kinds of political prisoners in South Africa; those convicted, being the political Prisoners, and those detained without trial, the political Detainees.

Of the many laws used to detain people, the two most commonly used are: the Terrorism Act, tinder which people are arrested for interrogation, the Internal Security Act, under which people are put in preventative detention.

The Terrorism Act of 1967, under which several hundred have been detained during 1976-77 provides for detention without charge for an indefinite period, of any person suspected of Terrorism, defined as an act "likely to endanger the maintenance of law and order". There have been known cases of persons detained in solitary confinement for periods of up to 513 days under the Act.

Persons arrested under S. 6 of the Terrorism Act have no access to families, lawyers, independent medical practitioners. Only the Minister of Justice has access to a detainee.

While it isn't possible to know how many hundreds have been arrested under the above acts (detainees being held incommunicado), over 5000 people were imprisoned in the aftermath of the Soweto uprisings, in addition to the 1000 plus who were shot dead in 1976-77.

Looking at the history of struggle for liberation in South Africa, it is easy to see it as a series of defeats. Strikes are broken, demonstrations suppressed with massive bloodshed, liberation movements outlawed and their leaders jailed. But each time this happens a fresh wave of dissent emerges, a new movement stronger and more determined than the last. The writing is on the wall for the Apartheid state. How long the struggle continues, how protracted and intense it becomes, and how much blood is shed, depends very much on the rest of the world and how effectively South Africa is isolated from it.

It's true that here in New Zealand "we got problems of our own", as the Bastion Point incident clearly demonstrates. But these problems are not divorced from the rest of the world. Foreign companies and multinationals that reap superprofits in South Africa (eg. Rothmans, Phillips, Leyland) have a not insignificant influence on the NZ economy. Our government, like the South African Government, serves the interests of foreign monopoly capital.

Its reluctance to sever all ties with South Africa, its refusal to halt the alienation of Maori land, and its attacks on democratic freedoms and civil liberties, are all symptoms of the same disease - the slow collapse of our dependant economy and the corresponding movement towards a reactionary and authoritarian system of government. The campaign to cut all links with South Africa is thus part and parcel of the wider struggle to preserve democracy in New Zealand.