Boesak joins hunger strike in S. Africa

Press, 15 February 1989, Page 10

Boesak joins hunger strike in S. Africa

NZPA-Reuter Johannesaburg The civil rights leader, Allan Boesak, has joined 300 South African prisoners in a hunger strike against detention without trial and the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, may follow suit. A statement from Bishop Tutu’s Cape Town office last night said the veteran anti-apartheid campaigner would meet Church colleagues today to decide whether to join the strike.

Mr Boesak, the president of the World Council of Reformed Churches, announced his decision in an open letter to the Law and Order Minister, Adriaan Vlok.

“None of us wants to die. But if this is the road we must take to make you

and your Government understand the evil of your ways, we will take it,” Mr Boesak said. r

The prisoners, nearly a third of South Africa’s political detainees, are taking only liquid with a little salt and sugar in what could be the most sweeping hunger strike in South African history.

They want detainees charged or freed without delay. Fourteen are already in hospital — three more were admitted yesterday — and some are reported to be seriously ill after refusing food for 20 days, the point at which doctors say irreversible physical damage can occur. .