SACP (Emails?????) South Africa.

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FBC contacts in South AFrica? Are they out there?


> SOUTH AFRICAN CONGRESS DISGUSTED BY PARTICIPATION OF MYANMAR IN EXPO
> 
> (TRADE EXPO ORGANISERS DEFEND PARTICIPATION OF MYANMAR )
> JOHANNESBURG October 19 1999 Sapa
> 
>     Myanmar had full diplomatic relations with South Africa and was
> therefore eligible to participate in the SA International Trade
>     Exhibition (Saitex) despite calls for its expulsion because of its
> human rights record, exhibition director Johan Theron said on
>     Tuesday.
> 
>     Theron was reacting to demands by the Congress of South African
> Trade Unions and the SA Communist Party on Tuesday that the
>     government and the private sector cut all ties with the south Asian
> country because of human rights abuses in Myanmar, formerly
>     known as Burma.
> 
>     Cosatu and the SACP objected to the presence of Myanmar
> representatives at Saitex in Johannesburg and criticised Theron for
>     remarks that Saitex organisers were pleased to have attracted
> Myanmar and that this was seen as a breakthrough.
> 
>     Theron said the only prerequisite for a country to participate in
> Saitex was diplomatic links with South Africa.
> 
>     He told Sapa that Saitex did not invite Myanmar or any other country
> to participate in the fair.
> 
>     "Countries who wish to participate have to approach us if they want
> to come," he said.
> 
>     "The Myanmar government approached us because they said they would
> like to expose their country to South Africa and
>     Sub-Saharan Africa.
> 
>     "We do not necessarily have to apply for permission on who we may or
> may not accept," Theron said.
> 
>     Foreign Affairs spokesman Daniel Ngwepe on Tuesday confirmed that
> Myanmar had enjoyed diplomatic relations with South Africa
>     since the ANC-led government came to power in 1994.
> 
>     Myanmar established an office in South Africa at the end of 1996.
> South Africa reciprocated at the beginning of this year by
>     designating its ambassador in Bangkok, Thailand, to also handle
> Myanmar.
> 
>     Theron said Saitex was a commercial exercise which specialised in
> running exhibitions. "We have no political motives for accepting
>     or not accepting a country that approaches us to exhibit at Saitex,"
> Theron said.
> 
>     The trade exhibition, with 800 exhibitors, was officially opened on
> Tuesday and will continue until Saturday. Forty two countries
>     including China, the USA, Portugal, Nigeria, Namibia, Zimbabwe and
> Uganda, are represented.
> 
>     Myanmar was given its name by the military junta which overthrew the
> country's democratically elected government in 1990.
> 
>     The SACP said earlier on Tuesday that to promote trade and economic
> relations with the military junta, was to prop up a regime that
>     was no different from the apartheid regime.
> 
>     It said South African business could not afford to make the same
> mistake twice.
> 
>     It accused the junta, which forcibly overthrew and repressed the
> previous democratic government, of being guilty of forced slave
>     labour, child labour, extra-judicial killings and the suppression of
> basic human rights.
> 
>     It had banned all opposition political and labour organisations, and
> held Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest for
>     several years.
> 
>     The SACP said the Myanmar junta represented one of the most
> repressive, corrupt and immoral "governments" anywhere in the
>     world.
> 
>     The presence of any of its representatives in South Africa was an
> affront to the dignity and struggles of the Burmese people as well
>     as to South Africa?s own principles of respect for human rights,
> justice and democracy.
> 
>     "The SACP calls for all political, economic and trade ties with the
> Burmese junta to be halted with immediate effect," the party said.
> 
>     Cosatu in turn said it was shocked by the presence of Myanmar's
> trade representatives at Saitex and believed that South Africa
>     should cut all ties with the Myanmar regime.
> 
>     The trade union also called for the expulsion of the regime's
> representatives from the exhibition.
> 
> source: gopher://gopher.anc.org.za/00/anc/newsbrief/1999/news1020
> processed Wed 20 Oct 1999 08:38 SAST.