Roma : ‘ :
Parents tell their children: “We have lived our lives, you have a life to live, therefore, leave the country and go to Botswana and Zambia so tha

i-

it you

can escape the ravages of Smith's soidiers.” This is why there are so many children in the refugee camps which are being attacked.

By Tom Foley

Littie is known in this country about
the real issues confronting the libera-
tion movements in southern Africa
other than what is read in the mass
media. Few people from the U.S. have
visited those areas or have had first-
hand knowledge of the crimes commit-
ted against the African people living
under the racist regimes of Namibia
(South West Africa), Zimbabwe
(Rhodesia) and apartheid South Africa.
And the extent of U.S. investments and
military support to these governments
is certainly not common knowledge
here.

In order to collect detailed evidence
and testimony from eyewitnesses about
the crimes of these regimes.a four-
member fact-finding mission of the In-
‘ternational Association of Democratic
Lawyers visited Angola, Mozambique
and Zambia from July 26 to August 17.

Paulette Pierson-Mathy, Assistant
Professor of Law at the Free University
of Brussels and director of the Belgian
Committee Against Colonialism and
Apartheid, headed the IADL inquiry
mission. The three other members in-
cluded: Richard Harvey, barrister,
representative of the J.B.S. Haldane
Society of Socialist Lawyers of Great
Britain; Lauren Anderson, representa-

tive of the National Conference of Black -

Lawyers and IADL permanent repre-
sentative at the United Nations, and
Rudolph Schware, U.S. attorney and
representative of the National Lawyers
Guild of the U.S.

The two U.S. IADL members Ander-
son and Schware met with World
Magazine in New York to discuss their
trip aswell as their participation in the
International Meeting of Jurists
Against Racism and Apartheid, held in
Baku, capital of Soviet Azerbaijan, in
September.

“The war in Zimbabwe is escalating
every single day,”’ said Ms. Anderson.
“The Patriotic Front is winning this
struggle, and everyone agrees that the
Smith regime will be militarily defeated
within the next year provided nothing
intervenes to prevent its certain defeat.

“That is one major reason why it is
critical that the U.S. public learn what is
really going on in Zimbabwe, and aiso
Namibia,” Ms. Anderson said. ‘‘For in-
stance, the move in the U.S. Congress to
lift the embargo against Smith is simply
a move to have the U.S. join the war —
on Smith’s side.

“Smith and his racist regime are
desperate,’’ she said. ‘Right now, at
least 60% of Smith’s armed forces are
mercenaries. There are 13,500 foreign
mercenaries in the army, of which 3,500
are U.S. citizens, many with Vietnam
war experience. And what they are
doing in Zimbabwe is a repeat of what
they inflicted on South Vietnam and its
people. When they attack Mozambique
and run into well-trained troops, they
always pull back and call for air sup-
port. But they attack unarmed civilians

“Smith and his racist re-
gime are desperate ... at
least 60% of Smith’s
armed forces are mer-
cenaries. . . of which 3,500
are U.S. citizens, many
with Vietnam war experi-
ence.”

and refugee camps by preference, and
what follows is simply mass murder.

“On the IADL mission, we heard °

horrifying testimony from survivors of
these massacres, testimony that re-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—October 27, 1978~Page 6

minds me of Nazi Germany, of the Nazi
occupation of Poland, the Soviet Union
and other countries,’’ Ms. Anderson
continued. ‘‘There are the same puni-

tive expeditions levelling of whole vil-

lages, massacre of all men, women and
children solely because of race, the
same fiendish ‘Gestapo’ tortures, the
same concentration camps . . . But we
were fighting Nazism in World War II.
And now, we are supporting the racists
against their victims.”

The testimony of refugees from
Zimbabwe will remind all U.S. readers
of the war in South Vietnam. There are
the same ‘“‘free fire zones,’ where any-
thing ‘moving is killed, the same
“strategic hamlets” into which over
250,000 people have been herded, the
same fiendish tortures inflicted on vil-

Eyewitness

from south

lagers to try to get them to reveal the
whereabouts of the liberation forces.
Portable electric generators are
used to send electric shocks against the
villagers’. bodies; electrodes are
clamped on men’s testicles,: women’s
breasts. Iron rods are heated over fires
and then forced into women’s vaginas. -
Men and women prisoners are tied to |
the back of Land Rovers (a British-
made jeep) and dragged through the
streets ...It happened yesterday in |
the Vietnam war; it is happening today 4
in the war in Zimbabwe. And perhaps _
the very same war criminals are com-
mitting these atrocities. .
The South African forces, operating ~
out of Namibia, and using U.S., British,
French and West German war equip-

x
9

ment, hit the Namibian refugee camp at

“.. they attack unarmed civilians and refugee camps!

Sal