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by W. A. HUNTON

‘Hush-hush at L

ake §

HE news item, datelined
i Lake Success, N.Y,, Oct.
"~ 15, stated: “The UN
Trusteeship Committee, by a
vote of 27 to 20, with four ab-
stentions, today directed the
Union of South Africa to sub-
mit a trustee agreement for
‘Southwest Africa to the next
Session of the General Assembly.”
Tt represented at least a par-
tial triumph of the non-colonial
Powers ‘over the United States,
Britain and ‘other colonial pow-
ers defending the ‘white em-
Pire” policies of General Jan
Smuts of the Union of South
Africa. But it wasn’t played up
by the daily press. It rated no
banner headlines as the contro-
versy over Greece had done. For
all the public could glean from
the pages of their daily news-
Papers, it might haye been the
disposition of some remote Pa-
cific atoll.

What the United Nations spent
two weeks debating was actual-
ly a twofold problem vitally af-

/fecting the future of eight and
a half million Bantu people and
another two and a half million
“non-Europeans” who have been
Systematically exploited and vir-
tually enslaved by alien overlords
among a two-million white popu-
lation.

There was, first, the question
Cf whether the UN would pér-
imit..the Dominion of South Af-
rica :to flout the authority of
the international organization
and maintain exclusive owner-
Ship of Southwest Africa, a for-
mer German colony of 300,000
African inhabitants and 30,000
Whites, which South Africa re-
Ceived from the League of Na-
tions in trust under the mandate
System.

All other such mandate terri-
tories which have not won inde-
bendence—even though it be a
dubious. independence ~ have
been prought under the UN
trusteeship system. But the
Smuts government refuses to
recognize the authority of the
ON over Southwest Africa.

Whe ‘second issue was whether
the UN would let South Africa
ignore the instructions given last
year to clean up its vicious sys-
tem of racial discrimination
which the government of India
brought to the “attention of the
General Assembly—and the world.
' Both questions were thrashed
Sut completely at last year’s As-
Sembly meeting and verdicts
against South Africa were won
both counts. It was because
the Smuts regime had openly
@efied the UN decisions that the.
two questions were again on ie
Assembly's agenda, this year.

It boils down to whether the

Peoples living in colonies and

minority peoples elsewhere have
any rights which the United Na-
tions collectively and the mem-
ber states individually are
nd to respect and safeguard.
You won't get the answer to
this by reading the UN Charter.
® Charter says some very nice
things about the “sacred trust’
help colonial peoples forward,
_48Qd about “respect for human
‘ights for all without distinction

®

’S to race”; but when it comes

“own to specific cases, the im-
Perialist powers manage to “in-
terpret” the Charter to suit their
: purposes.

On the South African ques-
“ons, as in the case of all the
other vital problems before. the

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1947

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prominent
member of the
Council on Afri-
can Affairs, Paut
Robeson, world-
famous singer,
has led the cam-
paign to bring to

Somali

US and Canada
an awaremess of
conditions in
Africa,

UN, the forces of reaction and
imperialism aim at converting
the international ..organizstion
from an instrument to promote
world progress and peace into
an instrument for perpetuating

their domination over colonial

and subject peoples, and into a
weapon to be used against the
chief adversary of world im-
perialism, the Soviet Union.

E Union of Souta Africa

represents the same fascist
threat in that part of the world
that Spain is in Europe and Ar-
gentina is in this hemisphere.
That the government of India
brought charges against the

Union of South Africa is itself
an indication of the seriousness
with which Asians, as well -as
Africans, regard the menace of
the Herrenvolk spirt prevailing
in South Africa and spreading
northward through that contin-
ent.

The Herrenvolk spirit of white
South Africa is coupled with an
aggressive imperialism. The
white ruling class in this Brit-
ish dominion with the backing
of the Churchills in Britain, has
designs for annexing not ‘only
Southwest Africa, but also ad-
jacent territories which are now
under the jurisdiction of the
British Colonial Office, known
as the high commission terri-

~ General Smuts’

Qa wes ‘
_ By LESLIE MORRIS

. “fixed policy” of General,

T smuts of the Union of South

Africa, is “to maintain white

-supremacy.” They are his own

words. The General, who is pic-
tured by the tories as some sort
of an elder oracle, is defying the
United Nations and pursuing
with grim deadliness his policy

of the. “color bar.”

His government is conducting
a vigorous propaganda cam-
paign to try to blot out the
ugly. facts about South Africa.
He has assembled 150 photo-
graphs designed “to meet ad-
verse criticism abroad of the
Union’s treatment of its Na-
tives.” : :

The hideousness of the “color
par” is not given any publicity
in the press and our fellow Do-
minion in the Commonwealth is
covered up by our own govern-
ment. ©

Paut Robeson, who is exposing

the truth about South Africa,

ag time to see with both
eyes and fight with both fists.
Unless we . . . see the fight for
democracy in South Africa, China
and the whole world of colonial-

ism as part of our own struggles,
we'll never defeat reaction here
in America.” ; :

Smuts, according to the 1946
decision of the UN General As-
sembly, was to report to the
present session on the question

‘of discrimination against South

Africa’s 200,000 Indian people.
After turning down Smuts de-
mand for the annexation of
South West Africa, his govern-
ment was brought to the bar
of the UN. Both the U.S. and
Canada voted against requesting
the report. :

[= by Smuts, a “ruling nation”
of two million whites main-
tain their domination over eight
million Africans and a _ mil-
lion or more ‘colored” people of
mixed racial, non-European ori-
gin. :

The fabulous “wealth of dia-
monds and gold is extracted for
the benefit of the white ruling
group by the maintenance of
the “color bar.”

The African pays taxes, but
cannot vote with the whites or
hold office in parliament or local
councils. :

Democratic rights exist for

tories of Bechuanaland, Swazi-
land and Basutoland.

The old dream of Cecil Rhodes
to see a unified British empire

established in Africa stretching

from the Cape of Good Hope to
the Mediterranean js still very
much alive in the minds of
Smuts and his colleagues even in
this day of declining British
power.

The Union of South Africa is
of key importance in the re-
cently publicized schemes of the
British War Office to establish
a new zone of military opera-
tions spanning the African con-
tinent with its forward. supply
base centered in Kenya, South

‘white empire’

Europeans only. An elevator en-
trance in Johannesburg carries
this typical sign:-“This lift is for
Europeans only. Service lift- is
provided for tradesmen, non-
Europeans, prams and dogs.” On
a public pool at Parys, Orange
Free State is’ this sign: “Non-
Europeans and dogs not allowed.
By order Town Clerk.”

Africans in the cities cannot
ride in the same street car as
whites.

The ancient communal ‘lands
of the Africans have been stolen
from them. Less than one thous-
and wealthy white farmers hold
more land than eight million
Africans, who are herded on “re-
serves.”

Land hunger, starvation, ab-
‘normally high mortality rates,
are imposed by the Smuts govern-
ment to compel the Africans to
work in the gold and diamond
mines. Over 400,000 of them
toil as “contract laborers” for
“wages” averaging $12 monthly;
white mine workers average
$4.50 a day.

@
N August, 1946, 60,000 African
‘miners struck for $2 a day pay.
Bullets and batons broke the

Africa, and its rear supply base
and center of heavy manufactur-
er in South Africa. These
schemes, it is openly acknow-

ledged, have as their target the __

Soviet Union, although it is of
course stated that fortified Africa
is to be used in “defense of
western democracy against an
offensive and expanding com-
munism.” _

These are the considerations
which indicate why the South

the people of the —

Ae

African issues discussed by the

UN are deserving of far more
attention than they have re-

ceived in the daily press—or it

might better be said that they
explain why the issues were not
played up by the daily press. —

strike. The leaders of the Com-
munist party were arrested and
charged with sedition in connec-

tion with the strike. A long trial*

resulted in the temporary. with-
drawal of charges last week. _

In 1935 the South African gov-
ernment reported: “The educa-
tion of a white child prepares
him for a life in a dominant so-

ciety, and the education of a

black child for’ a subordinate
society.”

There is one school for every
430 Europeans, one for every
00 “colored” and one for every
1,850 Africans, the latter left
mainly to missionaries. :

It ‘is this hideous “civilization,”
built on the bones of millions
of African and other slaves,
which the “elder statesman”
Smuts, darling of the jingoes,
wants to preserve: 3

And Canadian representatives
in the United Nations defends
this racist! :

The people of the British Com-
monwealth cannot longer con-
done this crime. The “white su-
premacy” of the Smuts ruling
class must be broken.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 11