Bostonians Stage Protests Against South Africa

Joining a recent nationwide wave of anti apartheid activity. Boston area demonstrators--including a number of prominent local politicians, union leaders, and university professors--have been staging a spate of highly visible protests.

About 40 to 50 people, chanting "No blood on our hands--No Kruggerands," have participated in an ongoing series of demonstrations outside of the Deak-Perera currency exchange in Boston, demanding that the store stop selling the South African gold coin.

Twelve people have been arrested on different days for trespassing at Deak Perera, among them local politicians, professors from MIT, Tufts and Brandeis, and Higgins Professor of Biology Emeritus George Wald, a Nobel laureate, IOP fellow William Sutherland, and Dominic M. Bozzotto, head of the union that represents the University's roughly 500 food service workers.

But Christopher D'Elia, manager of the Boston Deak-Perera, said the store does not plan to stop selling the coins as a result of the protests. "I don't think [the protesters] are being very effective in reaching their goals," D'Elia added, noting that Deak-Perera sells few Krugerrands and that far more South African gold goes into jewelry.

But before moving to Deak-Perera, protestors succeeded last week in getting South Africa's honorary consul in Boston, Richard K. Blankstein, to resign after protesting in front of his office.

Organizers in Boston and nationwide seek to raise awareness in the Boston area about apartheid, the Rev. Jack Mendelsohn, a protest leader, said Sunday at an Old South Church rally attended by 200 people. Boston Mayor Raymond L. Flynn and U.S. Congressmen John Conyers and Barney Frank also addressed the meeting.

Among the protestors' demands are that the South African government release 21 people arrested for violating a state security law; that the Reagan Administration abort its policy of "constructive engagement"--behind-the-scenes diplomacy--instead of public ostracism to pressure the white minority government in South Africa to implement reform, and that organizations divest themselves of stock holdings in companies that do business in South Africa.

$2.3 billion endowment is invested in such companies, but University officials have attacked divestiture for the last decade as an ineffective way of pushing for reform and an inappropriate use of Harvard's money.

The attention focused on the South Africa issue has prompted a group of 37 conservative U.S. congressmen to write a letter to South African Ambassador Bernardus G. Fourie seeking an end to apartheid.

The congressmen also threatened to push legislation to curtail invesment in South Africa and organize international diplomatic and economic sanctions if the South African government does not act.

Nine other congressmen, arrested in Washington, D.C., protests that began November 21, also have attracted widespread attention to the anti-apartheid cause, as have two children of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy '48 (D-N.Y.).