Sus,—Ruth First (Mrs. Slovo) was commissioned some two years ago
by the Penguin African Library to produce a book on South West Africa, with special reference to the history of its mandate status and the dispute between South Africa and the United Nations over the territory's future. The book was published at the end of June this year, and its effect on African opinion—particularly at the Addis Ababa summit conference, where African leaders had received copies—was stridently reported in the South African press.
On August 9 Mrs. Slovo, mother of three young children, was arrested by political police while work- ing in the library of Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg and held under the General Law Amendment or 'No Trial' Act of 1963, by which persons may be detained in solitary confinement for endlessly recurring periods of ninety days, without charge or trial of any sort. Some of the others detained in terms of the Act have already been redetained at the end of their first ninety days in prison.
It is possible that the police are holding Mrs. Slovo in pursuit of their ubiquitous security investigations. It is also possible--and on present evidence far more probable—that they,, are imprisoning Mrs. Slovo indefinitely as punishment for having written a book on South West Africa which so clearly reveals the injustice and inhumanity of South Africa's colonial rule. The 'No Trial' Act was passed to assist in the suppression of all political resistance to the South African Government. Is it also being employed as an instrument of revenge?
22 Jameson Street. WR
RONALD SEGAL
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