Human rights in Southern Africa.

• Position: South Africa and Namibia

Human Rights in Southern Africa

The Committee reviewed three reports of the Ad Hoc Working Group of Experts on Southern Africa. The Group, established in 1967 by the Commission on Human Rights, is comprised, at present, of six experts from Austria, Chile, Ghana, India, Yugoslavia and Zaire, acting in their personal capacities. They examine policies and practices that violate human rights in South Africa and Namibia.

The first report reviews a broad range of human rights violations in both South Africa and Namibia (document E/CN.4/1983/10) and is based on information received from concerned individuals and bodies, s well as from official documents and news reports. It identifies individuals-- members of South African military, police and security forces--"suspected to be guilty of the crime of apartheid or of a serious violation of human rights', most of whom are cited for murder, rape or atrocities against civilians.

The Ad Hoc Group concludes that "apartheid remains cruel, inhuman and degrading' and that no significant development in that regard has taken place since last year. It says constitutional developments in South Africa have continued to evolve in a discriminatory manner, citing recent proposals aimed at establishing three assemblies, in which white, Coloured and Asian populations would have representation, but blacks would be denied any role. It notes that South Africa has one of the highest rates of judicial executions and states that violations of the right to life have been committed by security forces inside and outside South Africa.

A new Security Law has brought together all previous legal provisions for detention without trial, and the prison population has increased, the report adds. Various methods of torture are employed during interrogation of suspects, and deaths resulting from torture have been reported. The number of persons who have disappeared has increased.

The conditions of black workers have not changed fundamentally. The Code of Conduct of the European Economic Community has not made any significant impact, the report continues. Strikes by black workers are treated as criminal acts. Black unemployment is high, and black workers are forcibly removed from urban centres to the so-called "homelands' or bantustans. The Group reports that transnational corporations in certain cases have shifted environmental responsibility from European countries to South Africa, which has weaker environmental regulations, resulting...