South Africa Stiff Challenge, Swift Reaction

Stiff Challenge, Swift Reaction The A.N.C. changes tactics, and the government slaps the press

The headline of the full-page advertisement that appeared last week in 22 English-language newspapers across South Africa said simply, LET THE A.N.C. SPEAK FOR ITSELF. The ad then urged State President P.W. Botha to legalize the outlawed African National Congress, which that very day was holding a 75th-anniversary celebration at its headquarters-in-exile in Lusaka, Zambia. Prominently featured in the advertisement was a silhouette of Nelson Mandela, the A.N.C.'s symbolic leader, who is serving out a life sentence at Pollsmoor Prison, near Cape Town. The advertisement, placed by 18 antiapartheid and church groups, asserted that "there can be no solution to this...

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