South Africa Facing Bitter Attack At I.L.O. Talks

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29220, 2 June 1960, Page 15

South Africa Facing Bitter Attack At I.L.O. Talks

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) GENEVA, June 1. South Africa’s racial segregation policies are to be the target of a bitter attack by the independent African countries at the 44th International Labour Organisation conference, opening in Geneva today. The representatives of Ghana and Guinea will lead the attack, vyhich will concentrate on the lack of freedom of association and discrimination against non-white workers in South Africa.

The attack is expected to come during the general debate which takes up the opening 10 days or so of the three-week conference. Delegates from 80 countries are attending, including many Ministers of Labour. The credentials of the South African workers’ delegate may also be challenged by the representatives of the independent African States on the ground that he represents only the small white minority. When the South African delegates take the floor to speak, the representatives of the African States may walk out in protest, it has been learned.

Last night the principal of Cape Town University. Mr J. P. Duminy, speaking at an interdenominational service in Cape Town City Halt said Union Day. 1960. found

South Africa standing practically alone in a hostile world without hardly a friend to sustain her. He pleaded for renewed mutual trust among the peoples of South Africa. “This is the time to take good stock of ourselves and reassess our national and international situations, and to reexamine our old assumptions, attitudes and prejudices,” he said. Near Durban last night, Mrs Sushila Gandhi, daughter-in-law of the late Indian leader. Mahatma Gandhi, sipped orange juice and had a quiet word with hundreds of sympathisers who gathered at her home in Phoenix as she ended a nine-day fast last night. She underwent the fast as a protest against the imprisonment of detainees under the Emergency Regulations

A number of other Indian and African women—all wives of detained men—also broke fast with Mrs Gandhi. They had joined the fast over the last three days. They drank only an occasional glass of water with glucose.

Prayers were offered in British churches and cathedrals yesterday for racial reconciliation in South Africa.

The day of prayer ,vas asked for by the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town (Dr Joost de Blank) and endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Geoffrey Fisher).