Dear Editor,

The Sunday August 26 cartoon by Clovis is right on the mark. The recent killings in South Africa and the massacre of the miners are so shocking that I thought I was rereading the experiences of Nelson Mandela in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. Mandela’s book also deals with the atrocities committed by the racist regime under apartheid.

To think that these senseless tragedies can be taking place in post-apartheid South Africa is a continuing testimony to the enduring legacy of injustice, fear, greed and stupidity on the part of those in power. It’s as if the 1960 Sharpeville massacre is being replayed when 69 people were slaughtered, and hundreds more wounded because the people were demonstrating against the iniquitous “pass laws”. It’s like the Soweto students’ uprisings of 1976 being revisited when over 200 people were killed and over 1000 men, women and children were injured when forces of oppression opened fire on defenceless school children demonstrating against being forced to learn in school the oppressors’ language, Afrikaans.

Indeed, is this what Mandela was imprisoned for, and scores of other freedom fighters died for, so that mainly black South Africans can commit fratricide on their own brethren?

George S Garwood

merleneg@yahoo.com