On the wrong side
Sir: As my uncle was one of the South Africans killed at Delville Wood in 1916, I would like to answer Mr Lubbock's ques- tion (Letters, 2 August) as to why South African veterans were not invited to a `recent' Somme veterans reunion. It can hardly be because they were white, as he suggests, because there would then have been no reunion. It must have been there- fore because, rightly or wrongly, they were associated with the apartheid regime.
A few facts: while South Africa was on the side of the Allies in both world wars, the Afrikaner Nationalists, whose govern- ment introduced the peculiar form of racial discrimination known as apartheid, were not. In 1914 there was an armed rebellion against the government for siding with the British. The Nationalists voted against join- ing the war in 1939. Others were interned during the war for their Nazi sympathies, including B.J. Vorster, later to become prime minister. By contrast, thousands of black and coloured South Africans served with the Allied forces.
In later years, when the Nationalist gov- ernment tried to ward off its increasing international isolation, all of this was down- played, particularly by the South African propaganda machine which, like Mr Lub- bock, tried to paint South Africa as a loyal member of the Western alliance. In the end the corruption of the propaganda machine resulted in the 'Muldergate' scandal which ended Vorster's political career. So perhaps there is some justice somewhere, even if it was not accorded to the South African vet- erans of the Somme.
Julian Burgess
Orchard House, Wash Lane, Forncett St Peter, Norwich
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