S. African 'whites only' referendum: A blow to Black freedom struggle

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sive show of strength and determination that our demands cannot be denied. We won't go back! We will fight back!"

Over 150 organizations have endorsed April 5. Students on over 300 campuses are mobilizing for the march.

Participants in the march are urged to wear white clothing in the tradition of the women's suffrage movement at the beginning of the century. Delegations will carry purple, white, and gold banners that are replicas of those carried by the Suffragists.

The marchers will assemble at 10 a.m. on the Ellipse in Washington. The march will then culminate in a mass rally.

NOW has set up a special hotline telephone number to organize support for April 5. For information, call the hotline at (202) 331-0066.

In the meantime, women's rights supporters on the West Coast expect tens of thousands to take part in a demonstration in San Francisco on Sunday, March 29. The event, sponsored by the San Francisco Area Pro-Choice Coalition, is seen as a building action for April 5.

Busloads of demonstrators are expected to come from as far away as Utah for the S.F. march and rally.

All out for March 29 and April 5!

Defend All Reproductive Rights!

South African President D.W. De Klerk's announcement of a March 17 whites-only referendum hit the country with the force of a nuclear explosion.

Blacks feel they've been betrayed once again. The referendum is a flagrant violation of the principle of "one person, one vote." It gives the white minority population an effective veto over the process of writing a new democratic constitution.

The question before the voters reads: "Do you support continuation of the reform process which the state president began on Feb. 2, 1990, and which is aimed at a new constitution through negotiations?"

In effect, whites are being asked to approve CODESA (Convention for a Democratic South Africa), the negotiating body in which the government, the African National Congress (ANC), and other Black groups participate. CODESA is scheduled to resume deliberations this month.

The referendum represents a gamble by De Klerk and his advisors that he can calm the fears of white voters-and thus, for the time being, stave off his right-wing critics. De Klerk wants to be given a free hand in order to snare the ANC and its allies into a power-sharing arrangement that would give whites strong guarantees.

The ANC, however, issued a statement condemning the referendum as an attempt to save white-minority rule. According to one ANC executive member, "This is an insult to Blacks and a warning to the world that the process of change is not irreversible." (London Observer, Feb. 23, 1992.)

Nevertheless, the Feb. 21 Los Angeles Times points out: "The ANC has acknowledged that De Klerk needs the unqualified support of his white constituents to be an effective negotiator and to keep the negotiating forum functioning as a decision-making body."

Other Black liberation forces, meanwhile-including militants inside the ANC-said that the white referendum proves it was a mistake for Blacks to participate in CODESA. The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), which has been steadily gaining strength in the Black townships, said that CODESA should be scrapped.

Challenge from the right De Klerk's call for the referendum came one day after his National Party was trounced in a district election by the proapartheid Conservative Party. The defeat took place in a rural district (De Klerk's boyhood home) that was once a stronghold for the "Nats."

The Conservatives charged that De Klerk no longer has a mandate from the white electorate to participate in negotiations with Black groups. Addressing himself to De Klerk, Conservative leader Treürnicht taunted: "You don't represent the white nation at CODESA. You can't speak on (continued on page 13, in “South African socialist women's organizations, and youth”)