S.A. persecuting mixed marrieds

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 32

S.A. persecuting mixed marrieds

NZPA-AFP Johannesburg

The honeymoon is over for Richard Coates and his wife Joan who married last November, a year after the South African Government scrapped laws barring inter-racial sex and marriage.

Mr Coates, an electrician, aged 40, has been given three months notice by the authorities to sell his house in an upperclass area of Uitenhage, in south-eastern South Africa, and move out. His crime was that he was living in a white suburb with a mixed-race wife.

At least 100 people including inter-racial couples have been served with notices they were breaking the apartheid law which decrees segregated racial living areas.

“I don’t care any more. I’ll move if I have to. I’m sick and tired of the obscene phone-calls, the stone-throwing at my house and the terrible graffiti that gets painted on my walls,” Mr Coates said. Mr Coates has been liv-

ing in the house for 13 years. Early last year Joan moved in and the .couple were married in November.

Within six days they had to appear in court because Mr Coates was living in a white area with a mixed-race woman. Since then, they have been in court eight times. Mr Coates, who has two children aged eight and two by Joan, said:/'The problem is that I couldn’t find a buyer for my house. It’s been on the market for two years and it looks as though we’ll have to let it go for a song.” If he does not, the State will auction it and subtract the costs from the price.

Equally shocked by the wave of eviction orders being served on multiracial couples throughout the country is Jimmy James, a white man aged 63, and his Indian wife, Shan.

They were one of the first couples to be married after the Mixed Marriages Act . barring inter-racial marriage was scrapped. Mr James, who owns a

luxury beach-front apartment in Durban valued at more than 3U575.000 ($130,000) was told by the authorities last week he had to sell Up and move out within three months, or the State would auction it off.

Like Mr Coates, he believes he will have to sell the apartment for a fraction of its value, because potential buyers know he has no choice but to sell.

“Thirty years have gone by and the Government is behaving in the same way. It’s getting worse and worse. They rescinded the Mixed Marriages Act but they don’t allow you to live together. Where are we supposed to go?” Mrs James said. Mr James fought in the South African forces for the Allied forces during World War 11, and now likens Pretoria to Nazi Germany. “I fought for this country. I worked for this country. I saved money to get what I have, and now the Government has decided to take it away from me. I cannot live peacefully with my wife because the Government says so,” he said.