Word: brutus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Brutus is now waiting for the State Department's recommendation. Elliot Abrams, assistant secretary of state for human rights, who is handling the case personally, says that the decision will be made by the end of March. The general criterion used by the State Department, according to Abrams, is that the applicant demonstrate "a well-founded fear of persecution" if he were to be deported Brutus says that he satisfies this criterion. If he were forced to return to South Africa, he believes that, at the very least, he would be thrown into prison. And if he were deported...
Despite these concerns and despite letters of support from Rep. Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. (D-Mass.), Sen. Paul E. Tsongas (D-Mass.), and several other members of Congress. Brutus is by no means confident that the State Department will rule in his favor. The increasing friendliness between the Reagan Administration and the regime in Pretoria makes Brutus and his supporters uneasy. As a staff member at TransAfrica, a Black-American lobbying group, says, many view the attempt to deport Brutus "as another symbol of the Administration's growing closeness with South Africa...
...Brutus himself continually emphasizes signs of growing closeness between Pretoria and Washington. He considers it ironic that INS is attempting to deport him at the same time the State Department has relaxed rules that prohibited South African military personnel from visiting the United States. And he believes that the Reagan Administration's desire to befriend South Africa has led to loosened restrictions on sales of American products and technology to the South African police and military...
...only the U.S. government, but also U.S. businesses are "prime allies" of apartheid, Brutus maintains. "Sometimes I think that our real oppressors are not in Pretoria, but in the boardrooms of the multi-national companies," he says, noting that corporate withdrawal from South Africa can play a major role in the eventual destruction of apartheid...
...lead the way in bringing about corporate withdrawal, says the college professor and political activist. But even though many colleges made commitments to some form of divestment in the early 1970s, he says he is worried that many institutions are now reconsidering their decisions. At too many schools, Brutus thinks, the question of divestment has been relegated to ineffective committees or research groups that allow the universities to appear concerned while taking-no-effective action. While Brutus does not consider Harvard's Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility as bad as many of these groups, he sees it as "part...