SASC Holds First Meeting, Draws Crowd

About 120 people attended the year's first meeting of the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC) in Adams House last night, and listened to speakers discuss Harvard's indirect links to South Africa, the protests of last spring, and general plans for the future.

The meeting's organizers said yesterday they were pleased with the size of the crowd. "We had a really good turnout," Allison Brown '79, who chaired the meeting, said, adding "I think the movement is growing around the country and at Harvard."

Luther Ragin '76, a freshman proctor, told the crowd that U.S. and European multinational corporations "help to efficiently administer the apartheid system." The companies provide the South African government with crucial technology, tax revenues, and important goods and services, he added.

The corporations also lobby the U.S. government on behalf of South Africa to protect their investment, Ragin said.

Just Not Enough

Joseph M. Schwartz, a fourth-year graduate student at the Kennedy School of Government, and Ragin attacked the South Africa-related stocks policy adopted by the Harvard Corporation last spring.

Despite student demands for either divestiture of stock in all companies in the investment portfolio that operate in South Africa or the initiation of shareholder resolutions calling for withdrawal of the companies, the Corporation opted for a case-by-case review of each company.

The review is to balance the harm done by the companies' support of the apartheid system against the good it produces through progressive labor practices.

Ewart Guinier, professor of Afro-American studies, who spoke at last night's meeting, said the protests of last spring, as well as last night's high turnout, show students "are acutely aware of their responsibilities as moral human beings."