Looking Back

From the Sunday Times 50 years ago

WHEN the Government refuses to issue a visa to a person of international standing to enable him to visit South Africa it should immediately make a statement giving its reasons, Mr. Japie Basson, United Party M.P., said in Cape Town on Saturday.

Mr. Basson was commenting on the refusal of visas to two newspaper editors, Dr. J. Bruins Slot, of Holland, and Dr. Ralph Emerson McGill, of America — both men of world-wide repute.

Dr. Bruins Slot is editor of Trouw in Amsterdam. The Nationalist newspaper the Burger said “that the refusal of the visa can be expected to have repercussions in Holland”. — March 26 1967

From the Sunday Times 25 years ago

THE government and the ANC are locked in a test of strength — only days after President FW de Klerk’s resounding referendum win. Cabinet ministers said this weekend there would be no Codesa 2 unless the ANC abandoned the armed struggle. But Chris Hani, SA Communist Party leader and head of MK, told a Sharpeville Day gathering that the ANC’s army would not be disbanded. He said a new army would be created for South Africa — and it would not be the SA Defence Force. At the same rally ANC general secretary Cyril Ramaphosa said Mr De Klerk would have to face a real election in December — “and then we will know what a landslide is”. — March 22 1992