Identity of policy
Sir: Nicholas Ashford's 'South Africa's secret government' (13 January) about the Afrikaner Broederbond is a very fair summary of this organisation's nature and activities, but perhaps fails io make clear the essential arrogance and indeed megalomania which characterise South Africa's secret rulers.
I had been living in South Africa for some years when the Johannesburg Sunday Times published secret Broederbond circulars proving this 'cultural' society to be both subversive and corrupt. But even this did not prepare me for the infamous Broederbond broadcast in mid-November of that same year, in which this allegedly innocent 'private' group at a few hours' notice simply commandeered fifteen minutes' peak listening time on the national networks of the publicly-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation, in order to smear the character of a defecting Broeder bond member, in front of all South Africa.
This ex-member was Dr Beyers Naude, now-banned head of the Christian Institute, who was refused permission by the SABC to defend himself. Complaints to both the SABC and the South African government were met with stony silence, even though it was public knowledge that the chairman of theSABC was also the chairman of the Broederbond. The Afrikaans press was also silent.
Little more than a year later this same 'Broer' gave a series of talks in Afrikaans on the SABC, entitled 'The Spiritual Crisis of the West'. The courageous Laurence Gandar, then editor of the Rand Daily Mail, translated and published parts of one of these talks, in which the Broederbond leader told Afrikaners that 'South Africa will make a decisive contribution to the consolidation of the entire West as a white world united in its struggle against the joint forces of the yellow and black races of the earth. . . When America reaches this level of maturity, the West will be very favourably placed to win the racial struggle on a global scale.' Again, the Broederbond and the government totally ignored the outcry, but the Broederbond has since been rather more careful about revealing its true nature in public. Yet, as Mr Ashford notes, its policies are South Africa's policies.
L. Clarke Porthoonan, Middle Road Denham, Uxbridge, Middlesex
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