WYCLIFFE TSOTSI WINS CONTINUED POLITICAL ASYLUM IN ZAMBIA
New York
The Alexander Defense Committee was informed December 1 that Wycliffe Tsotsi, vice-president of the Unity Movement of South Africa, has been granted permission to remain in Zambia until he can find refuge elsewhere. The Zambian government rescinded its deportation proceedings against Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi following an international campaign protesting the deportation order.
Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi have lived in Zambia since their escape from the South African police in January, 1967. On October 30 the Zambian government informed them that their residence permits would not be renewed and that they would be deported from Zambia on November 14 if they had not left the country by then. No reasons were given for the deportation proceedings. The action appeared completely arbitrary, especially since Zambia has long been a haven for political refugees from the apartheid tyranny; indeed, all the anti-apartheid organizations, including the Unity Movement of South Africa, maintain offices-—in~exile in Lusaka.
While efforts to find a country to accept the Tsotsis continued, the Unity Movement appealed to foes of the South African police state to send messages to President Kaunda urging the rescinding of the deportation order. As messages poured in from organizations and individuals throughout the world, the Zambian government first extended the Tsotsis' residence permit to November 21 and finally granted an indefinite stay of the deportation order.
The messages to President Kaunda stressed the importance of Zambia as a haven for political exiles from South Africa, and pointed out that the deportation of the Tsotsis could only weaken the whole movement for African independence and strengthen the racist and reactionary forces on the continent.
Wycliffe Tsotsihas fought against apartheid in the ranks of the Unity Movement since 1935. He was a leading organizer among the peasants and nonwhite teachers until the South African government forced him to resign his post as principal of a high school in 1945. He then devoted himself to the study of law, and, as an attorney, represented hundreds of people who fell victim to the increasingly repressive laws of the South African police state.
Growing demands by political opponents of the state for Mr. Tsotsi's legal services and his organizing work among the peasants drew increasingly hostile attention from the government. Threatened with imminent arrest by the South African police for attending a forbidden meeting, Mr. Tsotsi fled to the British protectorate of Basutoland in 1960. From Basutoland Mr. Tsotsi made frequent secret trips to South Africa where he continued his organizing work among the peasants. On one such occasion he was arrested and detained in solitary confinement for eighty-two days. In Basutoland, Mr. Tsotsi also acted as attorney in practically all the cases involving Pan Africanist Congress menbers and other political refugees whom the South African government sought to have returned to South Africa or who were victimized by the Basutoland government.
In 1966 Basutoland became the formally independent state of Lesotho and immediately came under South African domination. As a consequence, Mr. Tsotsi met with increasing difficulty in his political work, and in December 1966 he was ordered deported from Lesotho on the ground that his presence was “inimical to the peace, order and good government" of that country. Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi were seized by the Lesotho police who turned them over to the South African police at the border post.
At this point, Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi made their escape. With the South African police in pursuit, they finally made their way to Zambia.
Among the many prominent Americans who responded to the campaign launched by the Alexander Defense Committee of the United States and sent messages to President Kaunda asking that he intervene to prevent the expulsion of the Tsotsis, were: John Henrik Clarke, associate editor of Freedomways; Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Jr.; Ossie Davis; Dave Dellinger, chairman of the National Mobi-
lization Committee to End the War in Vietnam; Professor John Gerassi; Charles P. Howard, president of the Howard News Service; Carl Haessler, managing editor, Federated Press; Professor B.E.Garskof; Dr. Edgar Keemer; Floyd McKissick, national director of CORE; Carl Oglesby, past president of Students for a Democratic Society and cochairman of the Alexander Defense Committee; Fabu Sabura;
Report from the Underground Paul Sweezy, coeditor of Monthly Review; Richard B. Tussey, president, Local 285, Agricultural and Allied Workers; G. Mennen Williams, past assistant secretary of state for African affairs; William Worthy, foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American; and civilliberties and civil-rights attorneys Max Dean, Bernard Feiger, Ernest Goodman and Conrad lynn.