JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 14, Reuter: South Africa hit back ‘at Commonwealth critics on Wednesday with a radio commentary which depicted Britain and its former colonies as countries riddled with racial discrimination, human rights abuses and violence.
The commentary, which normally reflects government thinking, was timed to coincide with the Commonwealth Summit in Vancouver which will consider further sanctions against South Africa in a bid to force it to scrap apartheid race segregation.
Radio South Africa hurled back accusations frequently leveled against Pretoria, singling out Australia Sri Lanka, Fiji and India for particular criticism.
There is, in Vancouver this week, much food for thought — and for introspective inquiry”, the radio said. South Africa quit the Commonwealth when it became a Republic in 1961
The radio said that Australian discrimination against abrigins was a cause for concern and that 15 aborigines had died this year in police detention.
“When Australia was settled by Europeans just on 200 years ago, there were an estimated 300,000″ aborigines: today there are only half that number. By contrast, the black population of South Africa grew fivefold between,…1904 and 1980”.
In Sri Lanka, more than 6,000 people had been killed in four years of ethnic conflict, while in Fiji, indigenous Melanesians had seized political control from the majority Indian population, the radio said.
Racial discrimination had been rampant in India since independence and hundreds of political prisoners were presently detained without trial, the radio said.
These four countries were not alone in having “sordid backyards that they would prefer not to open up to inspection by the Common wealth and the World at large”, said.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 23, 1987
