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The African-American Institute
30TH • ANNIVERSARY AWARDS • DINNER

Ted: I'll seek justice in S. Africa

By SIMON ANEKWE
Amsterdam News Staff

Attacking the Reagan Administration, U.S. industry and the Sullivan Principles, Sen. Edward Kennedy announced, Tuesday night, that he would go to South Africa in January to help "build a current that one day will sweep down the walls of injustice and oppression, even in South Africa."

He spoke at the 30th anniversary awards dinner of the African-American Institute where he accepted the Institute's posthumous award to the late Robert F. Kennedy which was presented by Bishop Desmond Tutu. The South African Nobel Prize winner and Archbishop-elect of Johannesburg had invited him to make the visit, the Senator said.

Dwelling on his brother's visit to South Africa in 1966, he stated noted that the late Senator "called on us to reject the allure of comfort," or, in Robert's words: "the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education."

With that rejection he asked for an examination of "our own commitment" in the face "one of the most catastrophic famines inall recorded history;" and in the other "famine of the spirit that is no less crippling, no less killing to the soul than starvation to the body."

On the famine the Senator noted that large quantities of food were being sent to Africa but much more food was needed. And he added that such aid by "government alone is not the answer."

Stressing the achievements of U.S. industry, Kennedy said it had "been slow to respond" to the famine so he urged "the captains of our industry to turn some of their extraordinary energy and talent to the task of being captains in the crusade to bring food to the people of Africa." 

Speaking about the equally crippling "famine of the spirit" in South Africa, the keynote held "that governments have become part of the problem." He termed the Reagan Administration's policy of constructive engagement with South Africa a "a failure."

Of the Reagan view that South Africa's new constitution was "an important step," Kennedy said it was "a political miscalculation and a moral abdication."

"Rather than persuading South Africa to pursue honest reform or to temper the harshness of its police state, constructive engagement has had the destructive effect of lending apartheid the appearance of legitimacy.

"In the eyes of most Black Africans," he continued, "it has made America a collaborator in oppression," as it "gives aid and comfort to the architects of apartheid in South Africa;" an "unmitigated disaster," as Bishop Tutu called it, the Senator stated.
 
Since his brother's visit to South Africa which briefly sparked hope for change, no phase of Black South African life has changed for the better. "The evil of apartheid remains, and we are here tonight to add our voices tonight to add our voices to the cry that apartheid must end," Kennedy stated. 

Action for change must involve not just government but "individuals and nations." Despite "billions of dollars of investment" by U.S. corporations and the Sullivan Principles. the condition of
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[[images - scenes from the dinner]]

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