South African Teacher Urges Rejection of Negotiations

Negotiations between working-class South Africans and the current South African government must not be part of the plan for that country's reform, a visiting anti-apartheid speaker said last night.

Mercia Andrews, a South African teacher and organizer for the Worker's Organization for Socialist Action (WOSA) spoke to an audience of 40 in Boylston Auditorium.

The 39-year-old white South African, who is on a 16-city speaking tour, said she wants to increase awareness of South African worker's struggles.

"I have come to represent the views of my organization," she said.

Andrews said South Africans should create a socialist government. The current ruling order, she said, must have no hand in establishing a new government.

The existing government has repeatedly pressured the working class into negotiations, Andrews said. She cited the government's history of violently suppressing gatherings of workers with the use of "hired mercenaries" and "vigilantes."

For South Africans to negotiate with the ruling elite will result only in "a government of collaborators, a government with no interest of the working class," she said.

Andrews also addressed the upcoming whites only referendum on whether or not to move forward with dismantling apartheid.

"Once more, we are told there can be no change unless we have the mandate from white South Africans," she said.

Andrews pointed out that rich white South Africans control 90 percent of the country's wealth and 87 percent of its land, as well as its educational system and its police forces.