Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 21, 1990 TAG: 9004210068
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SCOT HOFFMAN CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"As long as there is foreign capital being pumped into the apartheid structure, that is all the support it needs to continue," said Nomonde Ngubo, a South African and a special interest representative for the United Mine Workers of America. "Now is the time to put more squeeze on the South African regime."
Ngubo spoke Thursday night to an audience of about 80 in the Wesley Foundation auditorium. She and and other speakers are touring Southwest Virginia as part of the Africa Peace Tour, a national organization meant to educate Americans on the realities of war, famine and apartheid in South Africa.
Ngubo was joined by Shuping Coapoge, a spokesman for the African National Congress observer mission to the United Nations.
Coapoge also told the audience that as long as the system of apartheid is still in place in any form in his country, there should be no relenting by other countries, particularly the United States.
"You can't have peace or justice when an American company goes to South Africa, invests a dollar and then accrues $70," he said.
Already, though, England has loosened some trade sanctions, for which Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher drew strong criticism from the ANC and personally from Mandela, who refused to meet with her when he went to England for a benefit concert last week.
Coapoge, who's been with the Africa Peace Tour for five years, talked about the inequality and injustice apartheid creates, such as many foreign businesses paying workers in his country less than $20 a month for their labor.
"That's $4 or $5 a week," he said. "Not an hour, a week."
Ngubo said workers of her country, who particularly have felt apartheid's effects through extremely low pay and little concern by industry about working conditions, need to take the lead in the revolution.
"We, the workers, have to be on the vanguard of the struggle to free the people of South Africa," she said.
Ngubo explained the escalating violence of the freedom movement as "a part of the apartheid structure."
"There can be no peace without justice," she said. "And South Africa has to come to terms with that." Both speakers ended their talks on a similar note.
"We call on you," Coapoge said. "Help generate sympathy for a new South Africa, a democratic South Africa. Please don't relax. Put more pressure on."
And Ngubo: "We can't do it alone. Please, put the pressure on and keep it on."
by CNB