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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 36 No. 5. 29 March 1973

Dominion: above all for Vorster

page 6

Dominion: above all for Vorster

Photo of a man offering his hand to an injured woman

"Today is Sharpeville Day, anniversary of the riot 13 years ago in South Africa. Protestors have given their version of it in terse placards year by year. Here's how the Government of South Africa recalls it". With these words "The Dominion" introduced an unsigned article by the South African Consul General, Mr Peter Philip, on its editorial page last Wednesday.

Philip's article was nothing new. It contained the usual half truths and banalities that characterise South African Government propaganda. For example it stated that there were 10,000 to 20,000 "Bantu" outside the Sharpeville police station on the morning of March 21, 1960. Investigations at the time by Bishop Ambrose Reeves established the crowd numbered no more than 5,000. "Sixty-nine Bantu were killed and a number wounded — some of them in the back as they turned to flee", wrote Philip. In fact 186 people were wounded, and post-mortem inquiries established that 70 per cent of the dead were shot in the back.

Philip went on to wax eloquently about the effects of Sharpeville on South Africa. It was, he said, "a terrible traumatic experience which penetrated to the very roots of the national life. Nothing like it has happened before in South Africa, and South Africans pray that nothing like it will ever happen again. It plunged the country into the deepest depression, both economic and spiritual, from which it took years to emerge".

Of course it is not true that Sharpeville was an isolated incident in South African history. The history of European occupation of South Africa is full of numerous examples of brutal massacres of non-whites, and since 1960 the Nationalist regime has only become more secretive and sophisticated in its policy of eliminating all opposition. Philip's emotive language about the "terrible traumatic experience" of Sharpeville sounds very hollow when it is remembered that straight after the massacre the South African Government detailed 1,900 political leaders for five months or more without trial and another 20,000 people were detained for "control purposes". No accusations were brouqht against the police for the killings and the Government issued a special decree ensuring that police personnel would not be liable to pay financial recompense to the victims' families.

"The Dominion's" reaction to Sharpeville Day this year was far more revealing than Philip's article. Unlike other papers it made no attempt to publicise the activities or the views of anti-apartheid groups. The Christchurch "Press" for example published Philip's article but attributed it to him and printed the National Anti Apartheid Co-ordinating Committee's plans for pickets on the day.

On Sharpeville Day "The Dominion" reduced all those who disagree with the South African Government's interpretation of the massacre to "protestors". Presumably because "protestors have given their version of it in terse placards year by year", their point of view should not be publicised further. The paper deliberately ignored the National Anti-Apartheid Coordinating Committee's activities which were directed against local companies which have a connection with apartheid. These plans had been well publicised in the "Sunday Herald" and the "Sunday Times" so there could be no excuse that they were unknown.

However The Socialist Action League's pathetic "mass demonstration" of 42 people against the Springbok Tour was fully reported as the main activity. John Gaetsewe's address, which was transmitted throughout the country by a telephone link up, was not mentioned at all. On Friday "The Dominion" published a reply by Philip to "a number of claims against South African policy in pamphlets distributed in the city on Sharpeville Day".

The South African Government and "The Dominion" claim there was a 'riot' of 10,000 to 20,000 people at Sharpeville Police Station on March 21st 1960. The photograph on the right shows a woman shot in the back while running away from the station. Most of the bodies pointed away from the police. The photograph below is an aerial view of the Police Station and surrounding streets, taken on the morning of the shooting. Note the thin crowd and people walking away.

We have a number of other photos of the whole incident, which completely disprove accusations that the African demonstrators were riotous and violent.

Aerial photo of the Sharpeville Police station

Last week a number of correspondents in "Salient" attacked us for being biased and too left-wing. We tried to answer their criticisms by pointing out that the idea of complete impartiality was just a myth. The same day, however, "The Dominion" produced a far better answer to our critics than any argument we could produce. Anti-apartheid groups were deliberately denied any space to put forward their point of view and the paper's introduction to Philip's article even exaggerated Philip's description of Sharpeville by referring to the demonstration there as a "riot".

"The Dominion" has been a covert supporter of the South African regime for a long time. A few years ago Mr J. A. Burnet, the Managing Director of Independent Newspapers, the company which came into being last year when the Wellington Publishing Company and Blundell Brothers merged, wrote an article in "The Dominion" praising apartheid. More recently John Marshall, son of the former Prime Minister, wrote a similar whitewash of the Vorster regime.

This year "The Dominion" has made several attacks on Hart which, it has said is an extremist organisation unworthy of attention. It seems that last week "The Dominion" decided to put this attitude into practice by suppressing or distorting anti-apartheid groups' point of view. Because of the whims of a few friends of South Africa in Independent Newspapers readers of "The Dominion" are being told only one side of the apartheid issue.

It would not be exaggerating to say that "The Dominion's" attitude to Sharpeville is just a typical example of the paper's editorial support for right-wing politics. Every election the paper comes out with solid support for the National Party. Last election, it printed an article by a former President of the National Party, Sir Wilfrid Sim, who claimed that the real issue before voters was the survival of the private enterprise system. "The Labour Party as a socialist party has as its fundamental objective the socialising — i.e. the destruction — of the system as such", wrote Sir Wilfrid.

Then there was the series of articles last year by one J. Bernard Hutton called 'The Subvertors of Liberty'. Hutton claimed that all the political and industrial trouble in Britain in recent years had been caused by special Russian and Chinese agents trained to destroy our 'democratic' society. "The Dominion" is still publishing articles by the Australian journalist Francis James who was released by the Chinese in January. Plenty of evidence has been published by Australian newspapers suggesting that Francis James is an eccentric who should not be taken too seriously. Yet "The Dominion" has made great play of his articles attacking the Peoples Republic of China.

The announcement on Thursday night that Mr Philip Harkness had resigned his position as deputy managing director of Indpendent Newspapers indicates that Independent Newspapers will be going ahead with its plans to merge "The Dominion" and "The Evening Post" and produce morning and evening editions of "The Post". The differences between the two papers are few enough as it is but a merger would mean a complete uniformity of news and opinions in the Wellington dailies.

British newspapers' coverage of events in Northern Ireland has provided a good example of how deliberate press bias can totally distort the facts of a situation. The IRA has been built up as a band of mindless, ruthless murderers while Protestant extremists have scarcely been mentioned. "The Dominion's" coverage of Sharpeville Day was an example of the same despicable practices.