Staffrider Vol.6 No.2 1985 - DISA

SOUTH AFRICA: PASSPORT REFUSED TOSOUTH AFRICAN ACADEMICSheila Sisulu, Project Head of the Turret CorrespondenceCollege, administered by SACHED (South AfricanCouncil for Higher Education), was told on 3 September1984 that her application for a passport — toenable her to follow a three-month course in Britain —had been refused.Turret Correspondence College prepares secondary schoolstudents and adults for the JMB (Joint Matriculation Board)'matric' examination. The college attempts to compensatefor the poor standard of teaching in many black secondaryschools — one of the reasons for continuing school boycottsand black township unrest. Few black schools enter theirstudents for the JMB matric because of its 'difficult'reputation: among those black students who sit it, the failurerate is notoriously high. Only six correspondence collegesoffering the JMB matric exist in South Africa. Recently therewere attempts by the JMB to prevent correspondence collegestudents from taking the JMB matric. SACHED's TurretCollege caters specially for black and disadvantaged students:at present it has some 400 students, of whom 200 arepractising teachers.Sheila Sisulu was to have attended a course with theNational Extension College in Cambridge from September toDecember. She was sponsored by the British Council, whowere to pay for her fare and her stay. Her application for apassport was made to the South African Department of theInterior in mid-June. In July, when she had been promisedthe passport, she was interviewed by the police: there seemedto be no problem and they wished her a pleasant journey.When in August her passport had still not come through, shebecame apprehensive and made enquiries. She was informedon 3 September by the British Council office in Pretoria thatthey had been advised by the British Embassy of the SouthAfrican government's refusal to grant her a passport. Thiswas Sheila Sisulu's third application for a passport. Her first,in 1980, was refused. On her second, in 1983, she wasrequired to submit travel documents which were not returned.Mrs Sisulu's fatherin-law, Walter Sisulu, was sentenced in1964 to life imprisonment. Her husband, Mlungisi Sisulu, abusinessman, was detained without charge from 7 to 21August this year; those arrested with him are still detained.But her brother-inlaw, the formerly banned journalist,Zwelakhe Sisulu, was granted a passport in mid-May and iscurrently studying in the United States.The blocking of Sheila Sisulu's travel to Britain wouldseem to be the result of continuing victimisation of theSisulu family. Not only is she denied the opportunity toimprove her contribution to the work of the correspondencecollege, but a blow is dealt to the work of SACHED generally.SOVIET UNION: THE DEATH OF VALERY MARCHENKOOn 7 October 1984 the Ukrainian writer, ValeryMarchenko, died of kidney failure in a Leningradprison hospital. He was 37.Valery Marchenko began a promising career as a writer in1970 when he graduated from Kiev University, a specialistin Ukrainian and Azeri philology. He soon became a regularcontributor to Literary Ukraine and other cultural journals.At the same time, his fascination with language and culturaltradition led him to challenge government policies towardsthe culture of the non-Russian peoples of the USSR. Hiscareer underwent an abrupt reversal when, like manyintellectuals of his generation, he was accused of Ukrainiannationalism and, in June 1973, arrested for 'anti-Sovietagitation and propaganda'.Valery Marchenko spent six years imprisoned in a strictregimelabour camp in Perm region, and two years exiled toa remote village in Soviet Central Asia. Ironically, it wasduring these years that he wrote his most famous essay,Letter to Grandfather. Marchenko's grandfather was thehistorian, Mikhail Marchenko, who became the first Sovietrector of Lvov University in 1947. In his letter, which wasnever published officially, Marchenko reproached him forwhat he was as his subservience to the 'Russification' ofUkrainian culture.Valery Marchenko's health deteriorated considerablyduring his imprisonment and when he returned to Kiev in1981 he was suffering from chronic nephritis andhypertension. His request to go to Italy for treatment wasrejected by the authorities in 1982. In 1983 he was rearrestedand charged with 'anti-Soviet agitation andpropaganda' — this time for letters and statements he hadwritten during his previous imprisonment.At his trial in March 1984 Valery Marchenko was alreadygravely ill. Nevertheless, the court sentenced him to 15 years'imprisonment and exile and he was sent to special regimecamp Perm 36-1. In an urgent worldwide appeal for hisrelease the human rights organisation, Amnesty International,expressed its deep concern that he had been given themaximum possible sentence to be served in the harshestcategory of labour camp. Valery Marchenko died sevenmonths later.UGANDA: JOURNALISTS HELDThe editor and three employees of Munnansi, twojournalists from the Uganda Pilot, and two journalistsfrom The Star were arrested during November and,according to Amnesty International, are detained,without charge, under the Public Order and SecurityAct.Munnansi (The Citizen) is a weekly English-language paperwhich has close links with the Democratic Party (DP), thelegal parliamentary opposition. Its editor, AnthonySsekweyama, is also the DP's deputy publicity secretary. Hewas arrested on 6 November — together with PaulSsemogerere (DP leader) and M. Ojok-Mulozi (DP publicitysecretary and Chief Whip) — and charged with utteringseditious words and publishing a seditious press release.Ssekweyama was also charged with sedition on two furthercounts referring to their publication in Munnansi. Thecharges refer to a letter — released at a press conference on26 October and published in Munnansi on 31 October —allegedly written by Chief Justice George Masika to PresidentMilton Obote regarding the trial of Balaki Kirya and fiveothers of the Uganda Freedom Movement (UFM), a politicalorganisation engaged in guerrilla warfare against the governmentof President Obote. Ssekweyama and the other two menwere remanded on bail to appear in court on 17 December.On 2 3 November, Ssekweyama was again arrested,released on police bond and told to report to the police on26 November when he was served with a detention order; he4: STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 2, 1985