COMMITTEE OF NINE
SCORED .ON USE OF FUNDS
In a lengthy letter published in the March 11 issue of The Nationalist, an English-language daily printed in Dar es Salaam, L. Jipula of the Unity Movement, a federation of South African organizations, offers searching criticism of the Liberation Committee of Nine. This is the subcommittee set up by the Organisation of African Unity Loau] to channel material aid to national liberation movements throughout the continent.
Jipula charges that only negligible aid is actually reaching
those most in need of it.
"Having recently come from South Africa," he states, "I have an idea of the negligible trickle that has never reached that coun= try apart from moneys that went to lawyers and this only in those cases that have received maximum publicity. I know for a fact of hundreds of freedom fighters who belong to organisations that have received assistance from Africa, Europe and elsewhere who were -unable to have legal defence for lack of funds -- all because their cases did not hit the headlines of the enemy press. I am in a position to know this because I was myself directly involved in the defence of hundreds of these victims of tyranny in South Africa."
- This has led "to cynicism on the part’ of the population there," continues Jipula, "which can only have adverse effects on the struggle as a whole. The attitude of the people towards the leaders outside South Africa is summed up in the words of one man who said, ‘Every time the police here shoot down innocent people, moneys flow into the pockets of the leaders abroad. Money never comes home.!"
Jipula thinks that it is high time an investigation were begun:
"Indeed there is sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation into the activities of certain leaders; and the Committee of Nine, being an agency of the OAU, has both the means and the authority to do so. They are in a position, for instance, to be able to find out how much money each leader has received from Africa, Europe and elsewhere and how this money has been spent. This is possible because most of the money received is banked in one or other of the banks in various states in Africa. Through the banks it is possible to know how much of these moneys went to the place or origin of these leaders and how much has been banked in personal accounts."
Jipula notes the "anomaly" that one of the members of the Liberation Committee of Nine "is a very good friend of the South African fascist regime. I refer to Congo (Leopoldville). It isa notorious fact that members of Verwoerd's army, masquerading as mercenaries, have been seconded to go and fight side by side with
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Tshombe!s forces in their determination to crush the spirit of freedom in that unhappy country."
"Tt is this same Tshombe," observes Jipula, "who has to sit in judgment over the freedom fighters of South Africa. Is it a wonder then, that the major organisations in that country united under the Unity Movement and the All-African Convention have been refused assistance by the Committee of Nine! Let it be stated that from its inception in 1943, the Unity Movement earned the unbridled hatred of the imperialist as well as the herrenvolk press at home. For the first time in the 300 years of white domination, all the major progressive organisations, African, Coloured and Indian came together under one leadership and staked their claim to full political rights in the land of their forbears. They declared a policy of noncollaboration with the oppressor, which meant a complete rejection of all institutions created for an inferior race."
As a result of such figures as Tshombe sitting in the Committee of Nine, the hearings of this body have become available to the foes of Africa's freedom fighters. “It might surprise even some of the members of the Committee," declares Jipula, "to know that Verwoerd has printed in Afrikaans the minutes of the Liberation Committee of Nine. All the chiefs of the Special Branch have copies. , When the officials and members of the organisations affiliated to the Unity Movement were interrogated under detention, they were confronted with these Minutes. The most painful thing worthy of mention here, is the devilish’ and cunning way the gendarmes used these . minutes. They were not only able to confront our men with the precise utterances of their leaders before the Committee of Nine in order to extract from them further information concerning the plans of the organisation but could, with telling effect, jeer at them for being repudiated by those whom they have hitherto considered as their brothers in the struggle. This was calculated to produce the maximum state of demoralisation."
S IHLALI-MPSHIZANA TRIAL