Apartheid: The Tyranny of Racism Made Law

In white-ruled South Africa, black people are denied their basic human and political rights. Their work is exploited and their lives are segregated. In 1982 almost one million of them were forced to immigrate to Swaziland without option. That is the tyranny of apartheid, of racism made law, of a system under which a small white minority holds all economic and political power, and dictates how and where the large black majority lives, works, and dies. It is this system of institutionalized racial discrimination which defies the principles of the UN Charter and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that has set South Africa on a collision course with the rest of the world.

Youngsters in earnest concentration at a lower primary school in Soweto, a black township some ten miles away from Johannesburg. These are the lucky few black children who actually attend school. The large majorities either never do or stay for only a short time. Public facilities and teaching are totally inadequate and private schools too expensive for most black parents. Growing dissatisfaction with this situation has led to widespread class boycotts and demonstrations that have continued despite the bloodshed and deaths that have resulted from the Government's efforts to stop them. [1982]