Alexander and ten other opponents of apartheid was rejected by the appeals division of the South African Supreme Court. The Eleven were convicted in April 1964 under the "sabotage" law and sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to ten years. Since December, 1963, the male defendants have been held in the maximum security prison of Robben Island, much of the time in solitary confinement,
Dr, Alexander was the first non+White South African to receive a Humboldt Foundation scholarship for study in West Germany. After receiving his doctorate in German literature from the University of Tiibingen, he refused several offers of academic positions in Europe to return to South Africa, where he became a high-school teacher, He was a co-founder of the National Liberation Front, to which the other ten defendants also belonged. At the trial of the Eleven, the prosecution made no attempt to prove that any overt acts of sabotage had been committed, The defendants were charged only with having studied Marxist works and books on guerrilla warfare and with having formed discussion groups to consider possible ways of con= ducting the struggle against apartheid,
Funds to meet the costs of the first trial were raised largely in West Germany. Action by individuals and organizations in England, Ireland, Japan, Algeria, Norway, and the United States, as well as Germany, made the appeal possible. Although, for the present, no further legal avenues are open, funds are still urgently needed, The families of the victims are destitute; in most cases, the defendants were. the only breadwinners.
The Alexander Defense Committee in the U.S. has announced, . that it will continue to support the families of these valliant men and women. It will continue to focus attention on their plight and on the character of the apartheid tyranny.
Alexander Defense Committees in other countries are now con-
sidering further “steps to be taken in the fight to win freedom for the Eleven.
WHY SARTRE WON'T GO TO THE U.S.
When Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher and literary figure, cancelled a series of meetings in’ the United States March 18, he gave as his reason, "The policy of violence practiced in Vietnam by the government of the United States with the approval of the majority of the American people. ..
Sartre's decision made no sense. to the growing number of Americans in active opposition to Johnson's war, who are very far from conceding that the "escalation" of the conflict represents the will of the majority, There is no doubt that in a national tour, halls would be packed to hear