n April 7, 1988,
Albie Sachs, a
leading lawyer
and author for
the African Nat-
ional Congress,
was critically
injured by a
bomb planted in
his car outside his home in Maputo,
Mozambique. Coming only a week after
the assassination in Paris of ANC repre-
Sentative Dulcic September, the attack
was clearly part of the assassination
campaign carried out by agents acting on
behalf of the South African government.
Now recovering in a London hospital,
Sachs was interviewed by Morning Star
deputy editor David Whitfield.

LONDON, ENGLAND — Albie
Sachs will remember the warmth of the
sun and the children running around
the rose bushes of Regent’s Park for
the rest of his life.

“It was a very emotional moment,”
he said quietly, looking back a few
days to his first weekend outdoors after
months in a hospital bed.

The detail is vivid. They are the
Memories of a man who has come
Close to death for his political beliefs
and actions. And they are the memo-
Ties of a revolutionary facing his own
Personal struggle and the painful road
to recovery.

“People had come to see roses and
beautiful things — I hesitated to take
off my track-suit top with my injured
Short arm exposed.

“But there was no problem at all.
Somebody came and sat on the bench
next to me. Parents were taking photo-
_ graphs of their children. I was just part
of the scene. It was a lovely expe-
rience.”

On April 7, Sachs was unlocking the
door of his car parked outside a block
of flats in Mozambique’s capital city,
Maputo. “I was aware that something
very violent was happening, of being
flung about. But I can’t- remember the
explosion. I was told about it after-
wards.”

Bits of his Honda were flung 50
yards. The bomb blast dug a
crater three feet across.

The 53-year-old African
National Congress militant
and lawyer was meant to
die. But today, slowly, his
shattered body is recovering.

ALBIE SACHS...
blast in Maputo.

He is due to be fitted soon with a
prosthesis to replace his right arm and
hand. His ear drums were perforated in
the blast, but his hearing is steadily
improving.

With pride he walks to the front
door of the building where he is conva-
lescing. His steps are still very hesitant,
but it’s an unaided journey he couldn’t
have made 10 days ago, he points out
with a smile.

The damaged nerve in his right leg
and the broken left ankle are coming
back to rights. And the sight in his left
eye is not entirely lost and could
improve. His right eye is strong, he
adds.

A map of scars runs into his hair-
line — thin blue lines like a miner’s.

After months of patient and, he
emphasizes, loving care of nurses, phy-
siotherapists, occupational therapists
and doctors in the British hospital,
Sachs is quietly reflective and apprecia-
tive. “I’d like to thank them all very
deeply,” he says.

“T took a terrible knock, no question
about it. I’m still very weak,” he says.
But “the support — medical and
moral — and the love have
been enormous.”

The tone of his voice
makes it plain he doesn’t
want to underplay the
blow he suffered on
April 7 nor underplay

the speed of what is a

remarkable recovery.
His days are spent

lifting weights, riding

. at right, recovering in London; above, following the bomb

an exercise bike and of balancing in-
creasingly less precariously on top of a

large rubber ball to improve his balance.

“It’s anything but restful,’ he jokes.

Sachs speaks of the London concert
for Nelson Mandela as
“tremendous — 80,000 young people
cheering lovely music and our leader at
the same time.

“Such events don’t just warm the
heart, they help get my legs moving,
creating a kind of glow, inspiring and
encouraging personal recovery.”

Sachs is also getting back to thinking
about the detailed legislative proposals
for a future democratic, non-racist
South Africa that he was developing
when he was attacked.

In addition to working with the legal
and constitutional affairs committee of
the ANC on proposals for a Bill of
Rights for South Africa, over the past
10 years he has worked with a team at
Maputo University and at the Mozam-
bican Ministry of Justice on legislative
proposals for Mozambique. These
include investment, maritime and copy-
right laws. A new family code com-
bines the progressive principles of
equality between men and women with
the protection of children, but with a
sensitivity for Mozambique’s cultural
and social traditions.

Sachs thinks it must have been his
work on the South African Bill of
Rights that made him a target for the
apartheid bombers. “I don’t know if it
was that which prompted the attack. I
was the most visible part of the team.

“The ideas we were proposing go
completely counter to the whole apar-
theid philosophy. Pretoria has been
pushing racist constitutional themes
down the throats of the South African
people. It might be they regard any
proposals which are both democratic
and realistic as highly threatening to
them.”

Papers discussing the proposals have-
been circulating in South Africa, and at
least one set has been seized by the
apartheid regime. Fundamental to the
proposals is the concept that the
broadest sections of the population
should be involved in determining

the contents of the Bill of Rights.

The committee believes, for instance,
that religious organizations should help
formulate provisions dealing with the
right to belief and worship, as well as
how they can contribute to ending
inequality and injustice.

The trade unions — which have
made tremendous strides in recent
years” —should help produce a
workers’ charter. The women’s organi-
zations must have an input in defining
women’s rights.

“We envisage extensive democratic
involvement in this process — and if
one envisages a pluralist society and a
mixed economy, this also means that
business people and professional
groups must be involved.”

These are dangerous ideas for apar-
theid. Intellectuals both within and out-
side South Africa are now targets for
what Sachs calls the “cop-soldier men-
tality”. Lawyers, doctors and commun-
ity workers inside South Africa have
been killed and are “symbols of the
fight at the intellectual level’.

The apartheid leaders’ ‘way of fight-

" ing the battle of ideas is to try to physi-

cally eliminate their opponents. They
are exporting their terrorism beyond
the borders against intellectual workers.
They want to physically blot out the
ANC rather than come to terms with
what it represents.”

The bombing attack on Sachs came
shortly after the assassination of his
close friend, the ANC’s Paris represen-
tative, Dulcie September.

The apartheid regime has con-
sciously opted to wage a campaign of
state terrorism, he says. “At one level it
has to be seen as an indication of
almost despair on their part.”

Sachs was detained twice in South
Africa during the ‘60s. The diaries of
his 168 days of detention were featured
in a play presented by the Royal Sha-
kespeare Company in London.

“T knew I was at risk. I lived under a
certain tension. But I didn’t expect the
attack. Naively, as it turns out, I
thought that somehow as an intellec-
tual worker I wouldn’t be high up on
their list.

“In a small way I see myself as per-
haps a symbol of our movement.
We’ve taken some knocks, but basi-
cally we have to build up patiently. It'll
be a lot of hard work. There can be no
short cuts. But the achievement of our
goal is certain.”

Pacific Tribune, August 24, 1988 e 5