Black Students Attack Polaroid On South Africa

A forum on "African Legal Systems" at the Law School last night turned into a heated attack on Polaroid's South African policies. Law students and sympathizers of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers' Movement quizzed Thomas Wyman, a vice-president of the Polaroid Corporation, on the conclusions reached by a company-sponsored fact-finding trip to South Africa.

The trip-taken several weeks ago by Wyman and three other company-selected employees, two of whom were black-resulted in Polaroid's decision to discontinue sales of equipment used to enforce apartheid in that country; to publicly denounce the South African government and its policies; and to provide financial assistance for a group concerned with black education in South Africa.

"We don't want money for educational or cultural organizations," said Chris Nteta, a South African black enrolled in the Divinity School and a consultant to the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers' Movement. "We are addressing ourselves to serious business-armed revolution."

Andrew Lukele, a black lawyer born in South Africa and another of the four guests on last night's panel, also warned against Polaroid's pledge to "assist" blacks educationally in South Africa.

"When Polaroid says it will give money to assist, education, it is not helping blacks at all-it is damaging them," he said. "Prime Minister Verwoerd used to say, 'We do not want to give the natives an education that will let them gaze on what they may not graze.'"

The other speakers at the forum-the third in a series of six being sponsored by the Harvard International Law Club-were Olu Adenji, a member of the Nigerian delegation to the U.N., J.F. Engers, a staff member of the U.N. secretariat, and Edward Bustin, professor of Political Science at Boston University, who also served as moderator of the discussion.