"This attempted rehabilitation of Thatcher is odious" (Apr. 13, 2013)

Letter from key anti-apartheid activist Terry Crawford-Browne at 
PoliticsWeb in response to article 
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71656?oid=369338&sn=Detail&pid=71616.
[Crawford-Browne is author of "Eye on the Money", an account of the 
international banking sanctions campaign against apartheid during the 
1980s ]: 

"PW Botha did not understand the "carrot" 
and needed the stick. He thought he could play Thatcher and Reagan for 
suckers, AND DID, per his treatment of Thatcher's Eminent Persons 
mission in May 1986. On 28 October 1985, Desmond Tutu and Beyers Naude 
launched the banking sanctions campaign at the United Nations calling 
for the "rescheduling of South Africa's debt to be conditional upon 
the resignation of the present regime, and its replacement by a 
government responsive to the needs of all South Africa's people." The 
C-AAA followed in the US in 1986, and by 1989 the international 
community set June 30, 1990 as the deadline to abolish the apartheid 
government. 

Thatcher intervened on 19 October 1989 to reschedule SA debt for 
another three years, and still attempted to save the apartheid 
regime. 

Instead, the first Bush Administration (surprisingly!) issued an 
ultimatum demanding compliance with the first three of our demands by 
February 1990. And that -- not Thatcher -- was what caused FW de 
Klerk's speech on 2 February 1990 [leading eventually to Mandela's 
release]. 

"This attempted rehabilitation of Thatcher is odious. She was a 
fascist, and her politics are reflected in the present disastrous 
cultures of greed and corruption." 

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