South Africa

Press, 9 March 1987, Page 20

South Africa

Sir,—Lindsay Alan Randle’s letter (March 3) is 100 per cent incorrect, as anyone who has been to South Africa would confirm. I suggest that, instead of believing the A.N.C. propaganda, he transfers, his attentions to conditions in the black African dictatorships, or perhaps to criticism of the slaughter that has been going on for years in Afghanistan.—Yours, etc.,

L. R. WILKINSON. March 3, 1987.

Sir,—Why cannot Bert Walker (March 5) admit a mistake? In a newspaper letter in May, 1986, he wrote: “Leonid Brezhnev confirmed Russia’s aim was to gain control of the two great treasurehouses on which the West depends: the Persian Gulf and Southern Africa. Now it seems, by stealth, Malcolm Fraser, Rajiv Gandhi, Bishop Tutu and Hart have their greedy eyes on the same goal and to hell with black welfare.” (Malcolm Fraser, exLiberal Prime Minister of Australia, and Rajiv Gandhi were members of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group set up to investigate the situation there.) Therefore “I am not attributing spurious statements to whomsoever suits my outrageous presumptions.” Bert Walker’s claim to “obtain balanced news about South Africa and hard facts in place of minority terror-ist-group propaganda” imitates Humpty-Dumpty: “Words mean what I choose them to mean.” According to Bert Walker, Fraser and Gandhi are communists.— Yours, etc., VERNON WILKINSON. March 5, 1987.