TNAG-1066-FCO40-1316-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 23

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69.

Countless instances of detention without charge, torture of detainees, death while in custody and innumerable other violations of human rights have been well documented by human rights groups and discussed in various United Nations com- mittees. In July 1976, for example, Amnesty International presented a written submission on political imprisonment and the use

to of torture in South Africa

the United Nations Commission on Human Rights ad hoc Working Group of Experts on Southern Africa. Year after year, Amnesty International in its annual reports speaks of waves of arrests and major political trials, of raids by security police against members of organiz- ations such as the South African Students' Organization and the Black People's Convention before the outright banning of the Black Consciousness Movement of which those organizations were a part, just as the African National Congress and the Pan- African Congress had been banned,

been banned, their leaders arrested.

70. Re-arrests of defendants who leave the courts having been acquitted, the alleged forcing of state witnesses to make false statements under extreme security police pressure and the subjection of many to house arrest add to the picture of repression. Forced population transfers to the "independent" African "homelands" or "bantustans" within South Africa, the first of which, Transkei, made its appearance in October 1976, have been another means of limiting the freedoms of the 20.1 million-strong black population, and a further major cause for legitimate discontent.

71. Broadly speaking, it is the young who despair and decide to leave often after fruitless - and dangerous

school

-

boycotts such as that of "coloured" students protesting against discrimination and the marked disparities in their education in April 1980.

72.

-

The several thousand young South Africans who have suc- ceeded in leaving have sought asylum in, or transited through, the countries neighbouring South Africa Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zambia. They have been assisted by sympathetic governments, inter-governmental organizations, the OAU 2/ the African National Congress (ANC), and the Pan-African Congress (PAC) as well as non-governmental organizations to subsist and,

in most cases, to continue their studies, whether in Africa or further afield. The United Nations General Assembly, which established the United Nations Trust Fund for South Africa and the United Nations Educational and Training Pro- gramme for Southern Africa, has passed a number of resolutions

2/ Meeting in Libreville, Gabon in mid-1977, OAU decided to set up a fund for aid to Southern African refugees (Resol- ution CM/Res. 547/(XXXIX)). At an earlier meeting in Lomé, Togo OAU had decided to set up a special programme for the provision of educational, vocational and other training facilities in Africa (Resolution CM/Res.536/(XXVIII)).