Dennis Brutus, president of the South African Nonracial Olympic Games Committee, was sentenced in Johannesburg January 9 to a total of eighteen months in jail. The internationally known 59-year-old colored school teacher was found guilty of attending a meeting of the South African Olympic Games Association and of seeking the expulsion of South Africa from the Olympic Games because of the country's racist policies,
The meeting had beén banned under South Africa's fascist-like "Suppression. of Communism" Act. It is likewise a crime in South _ Africa to advocate a change in the government's "epartheid" laws.
In August, while awaiting trial, Dennis Brutus fled to the British protectorate of Swaziland and applied there for political asylum. A decision on this was still pending when he set out for | Europe on his British passport. The trip took him through Mozambique, There PIDE, the Portuguese secret political police, kidnapped him and beat up his traveling companion. Dr. George Msibi, a prominent Swazi~ land political figure.
Without so much as a pretense at a hearing, the Portuguese secret political police took Dennis Brutus:across the border and delivered him to the South African police, They in turn delivered him to a hospital. They had shot him twice in the stomach from close range, in front, the two bullets passing completely through his body.
Their story was that he had broken away as they. were bringing him to the police station and that they shouted at him. When he refused | to obey the command to halt, a single shot was fired at the back of the fleeting man, This was the police story and they stuck with it.
In sentencing the victim, the judge said that he was exercizing clemency and giving only an eighteen-months sentence because the wound Brutus had suffered was in itself a "punishment."
It is quite in accord with the operation of the law in South Africa for the police to thus participate with the judge in meting out justice, The police hand out justice before the trial and the judge hands it out at its close. The guilt of the victim is determined by the simple. procedure of ascertaining the color of his skin.
NO PANIC IN TOBACCO INDUSTRY
Representatives of the $8,000, 000,000 United States tobacco industry refused to panic over the government report condemning their product as cancer-producing, They expect the 70,000,000 consumers to worry a little and then smoke more then ever like their "English brothers" after a similar report. As long.as they're free to spend $200, 000, 000 a year in advertising they see no profits going up in smoke.
~ OTe
"Do Away with Ghetto Schools"