South Africa & Palestine:

Long Roads to Freedom

GLASGOW: Friday 20 March, 6pm:

Room 514, Graham Hills Building, Strathclyde University

EDINBURGH: Sat 21 March, 2pm:

Augustine Church Centre
(tickets £3 for Edinburgh event)

Ronnie Kasrils, who will be speaking for the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC), was an important figure in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.  Kasrils was a prominent member of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1960 and helped to organise underground resistance until the overthrow of apartheid through democratic elections in 1994.  He was a Government Minister in South Africa continuously until September last year.

In 2001 Ronnie Kasrils initiated a letter that was signed by over 200 Jewish veterans of the ANC which condemned Israel’s “cruel suppression of the Palestinian’s struggle for national self-determination” and noted that such attempts have “failed time and time again, not only in the Middle East, but in every other colonial style situation in history including South Africa”.

Kasrils notes that his position on Israel-Palestine is “hardly a radical one” but is insistent that those who commit such massacres such as we saw recently in Gaza must:"be told that they are behaving like Nazis.  May Israelis wake up and see reason, as happened in South Africa, and negotiate peace. And finally, yes, let us learn from what helped open white South African eyes: the combination of a just struggle reinforced by international solidarity utilising the weapons of boycott and sanctions".

Kasrils is now active in the South African Palestine Solidarity Committee which recently persuaded the South African Dockworkers union to refuse to unload Israeli ships at Durban and other South African ports.

Samena Dean, from the Islamic community said: “The struggle against apartheid continues, as do the continuing double standards.  Last week 9 nations agreed on a plan to stem arms flow to Gaza whilst at the same time they continue to supply Israel with weapons of mass devastation, weapons that Israel uses on a captive civilian population.  One of those governments was Britain.  So it comes as no surprise to me that people standing up against racist apartheid Israel are themselves being labelled as racist.  We have seen this with the arrest of 3 human rights supporters in Swansea and the charge of ‘racially motivated conduct’ against members of the SPSC here in Scotland.  This is beyond a joke, was Kasrils or Mandela ever accused of being anti-white?  ”

*Also featuring an *exclusive* report back from Gaza

(Scottish Aid Convoy - "Justice 4 Palestine")

- with Rizi Mohammed.

ENDS.