2 THE CAROLINA TIMES, SAT., NOV. 8. 1975
Harvard Proff Coues Blact
i
NEW YORK - Prof. F.wart
Guinier, head of the Afro-American
Studies Department at Harvard
University has again defended such
black studies departments as "our
best, perhaps our only academic
vehicle for introducing those values
with which our greatest leaders
have been deeply concerned.
Prof. Guinier, who has been
engaged in a long-simmering dispute
with the Harvard University's
President and Dean of Faculty over
the state of its six-year-old
Afro-American Studies'
Department, now includes among
its opponents three black members
of the Harvard University faculty,
including economist Andrew
Brimmer, former member of the
Federal Commerce Commission.
"It is in Black Studies that our
black youth, especially those on
white campuses, have been learning
the great lesson needed to survive in
a hostile environment," Guinier
states.
He claims that ' the" greatest of
Mack leaders such as William E.B.
DuBois and Paul Robeson, neither
who could teach at Harvard, were
concerned with "the need for the
liberation of African people
throughout the world - the need to
create a more humane structure of
human relationships for alll."
"We can aspire to nothing less:
otherwise, we break the faith with
our ancestors and shame ourselves
before our young people. He who
teaches differently is not fit to
instruct our young or to counsel
; their elders."
Guinier contends that the main
problem confronting
Afro-American Studies at Harvard -is
that the University "refuses to .
acknowledge that the
Afro-American Studies Department
has needs which go beyond those of
traditional departments. The
University refuses to acknowledge
this although the record groans
with evidence of the white
supremacist, ethnocentric character
- of the oldest, most distinguished
, Harvard departments.
"We cad upon those people in
the Harvard community and
elsewhere concerned with honest
scholarship to come to the aid of
the Afro-American Studies
Department and prevent thetriumph
of charlatanism."
Prof. Guinier is especially
disturbed over- the fact that the
DuBois Institute is being conceived
with an Advisory Committee that
does not, include a single member
from the Afro-American Studies
Department.
"In recent months," he declares,
"Harvard undergraduate students
have renewed demands originally
endorsed in 1969 when the DuBois
Institute was conceived - that they
be given some role in helping to
shape the future of the Institute,
that the Institute and the
Afro-American Studies Department
have a formal tie, and that the
Institute, in theory and practice,
address problems of the black
community,
"Despite the fact that these
objectives were sanctioned by the
University at the time the Institute
was authorized, President Derek
Bok has shown a total disregard for
both precedent and the
requirements for orderly growth of
Afro-American Studies at Harvard.'
Prof. Guinier calls Prof. Brimmer
"Bok's spokesman on Institute
matters" and charges the economist
of having created "an antagonistic
atmosphere between students and
the administration by arrogantly
refusing to meet with them and by
refusing to take seriously their
written critiques of developments
around the Institute at Harvard."
- He is extremely put out by what
he calls President Bok's crowning
insult: "he proceeded to appoint to
the Advisory Board two of the
most notorious defenders of white
power, Kilson and Patterson."
Guinier says Patterson has
written ibat 'The (Afro-American
Studies) Department . . . should be
scrapped entirely . - . and a new
etlort made toward the creation of
a research institute . . . along the
lines already suggested for the
DuBois Institute. An undergraduate
program in Afro-American Studies
might be reconsidered in five or six
years."
Prof. Guinier contends that all
this shows that the Harvard
academic leadership "has
abandoned any pretense of
manners, of courtesy, of civility in
relating to the Afro-American
Studies Department."
former Ambassador Urges UN Commission To Probe
Violations Of Human Rights In Uganda
CHICAGO, ILL. - A former
American Ambassador to Uganda
Thursday called on the United
States and other member states of
the United Nations to start action
that would establish a UN
commission to investigate "gross
violations of human rights" in
Uganda.
Dr. Thomas P. Melady, who
represented the U.S. in Uganda
when the U.S. Embassy there was
closed in 1973, urged other nations
to withdraw their diplomatic
missions from Kampala, as the U.S.
had done, and also called on
member-states of the Organization
of African Unity to force the
resignation of Idi Amin. Uganda's
President, as its chairman.
Dr. Melady, a specialist in
international relations, Afro-Asian
affairs, and developing societies, is
now Executive Vice President of St.
Joseph's College, Philadelphia. He
made his remarks at a news
conference at the opening of the
annual meeting of the American
Jewish Committee's top
policy-making National Executive
Council'.
Referring to President Amin's
October 1 speech in the UN
General Assembly, in which he
called for the extinction of the '
State of Israel and charged that the
American government and society '
were "controlled by Zionists," Dr.
Melady asserted that President
Amin was an unfit spokesman for
the developing African nations, and
that he was "stained with the blood
of thousands of innocent people."
He added that President Amin had
maintained a "four-year reign of
terror over the Ugandan people."
The former Ambassador was
joined at the news conference by
Rev. 1. Kefa Sempangi, a native
Ugandan and a Presbyterian
minister, who escaped from his
country a year and a half , ago, and
is now associated with Westminister
Theological! Seminary in
Philadelphia. He maintained that
President Amin was not only
anti-Jewish, but anti-Christian as
well.
Both Dr. Melady and Rev.
Sempangi accused President Amin
of "Heinous crimes" against his
own people and others. According
to their testimony, President Amin
has murdered more than 60,000
native Ugandans for political
reasons and expelled more than -55,000
Asians. In addition, they
said, he has deported
approximately 500 Jews sent by,
Israel to train the Ugandan army
and provide technical assistance, as
well as Christian missionaries whom
he accused of propagating the
Jewish cause in Africa.
"The ten million people who
remain in Uganda live at the mercy
of the whimsical dreams,
nightmares, delusions, and
psychotic hallucinations of the
latter-day Hitler," Rev. Sempangi
declared.
Dr. Melady personally attested
to the charges.
1 1 was there in 1972 when Amin
expelled the Asians, and I saw the
daily brutality " he said. 'The
Ugandans who were murdered were,
first subjected to hours of torture
that made death seem like a
humane." act. Amin's selective
genocide is still going on. Almost
every week brings me a message
about a Ugandan who is missing or
dead. To cap it all, Aming has
indicated no regret lor tms massive
isolation of human rights. He has
turned the deaths of his victims
into a joking matter." .
Dr. Melady, endorsed the
statements that have been made
about President Amin by Daniel t.
Moynihan, U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations, and by Clarence M. '
Mitchell, Jr., a member of the U.S.
delegation, as well as President
Ford's support of those statements.
' The man is indeed a racist and
murderer,' as well as an
anti-Semite," he said, and added: :
' I was in Uganda in 1972. when
Amin sent a telegram to the UN
approving Hitler's holocause against
the Jews. This was a public
obscenity of the crudest type. In
1973, he confirmed his support of
genocide against the Jews, and he
recently announced that he will
name a park in honor of Adolf
Hitler."
"It was a sad day for the United
Nations, and for human rights
everywhere, ; when a man of this
caliber was given a standing ovation
in the General Assembly," Dr.
Melady continued.
Stating that the time had come
to "push past this nightmare," Dr.
Melady urged the following:
-that the United States and
other members of the United
Nations initiate action to establish a
commission to investigate the
violations of human rights in
Uganda;.
-that other governments
withdraw their diplomatic missions
from Kampala, as the U.S.
government did in 1 97 3 :
Rev. Sempangi corroborated Dr.
Melady's statements by relating his
own personal story, as well as the
experiences of other Ugandans.
He stated that President Amin,
who is a' Moslem, has been overtly
' anti-Christian as well as anti-Jewish.
This is so despite the fact, he said,
that 86 per cent of Uganda's
population are Christian. Moslems
number six per cent; the rest are
not church-affiliated.
Rev. Sempangi cited the story of
Joseph Kiwanuka, a leading
politician and, devout Christian,
who left Uganda because of
harassment b y the Amin regime.
President Amin's agents found him
in Nairobi, brought him back to
Uganda, beat him in an effort to
force him to recant his faith, and
when he refused, executed him in
public, Rev. Sempangi said.
He told of another instance in
which a leading Ugandan evangelist
publicly read passage from the
Book of Psalms in which it was
stated that "the children of Israel
will triumph over their enemies."
For this, Rev. Sempangi said, the
man was accused of treason and
killed.
In telling his own story, Rev.
Sempangi related that because his
congregation in Kampala numbered
more than 4,000 people, President
Amin .regarded him as a potential
political force.
"We came to realize that it
would be advisable to leave," he
said. "At the time of our departure,
our house was surrounded by many
men. It was only through some
members of my church that my
family and I managed to escape."
Rev. Sempangi, who is a member
of the Popular Movement for the
Liberation of Uganda, a group of
exiles living on the East Coast of
the United States, said that the
former Ugandans 'live in constant
fear of Amin's agents."
"Some of our refugee friends do
not meet with us because they are
too frightened," he said. "Amin
keeps sending his agents even
abroad. Scotland Yard, in 1973,
discovered more than 40 of his
agents operating in England.' -
"But we must carry on a
constant protest," he continued.
"If we keep silent, Amin will
continue his murder."
Rev. Sempangi emphasized that
he was "very anxious to reach black
people, among others, to inform
them that Amin is not doing
anything for blacks."
. 'When he expelled the Jews, he
replaced them with Arabs. When he
expelled the , Asians, he replaced
them with Sudanese. He says he is
liberating Uganda, but he is
enslaving it. True, the Sudanese are
black, but what difference is it if
you are enslaved by a white or a
black?"
In his summary at the
conclusion of the news conference,
Tabbi Tanenbaum pointed out that
President Amin's activities were
part of a "worldwide violence
syndrome."
Rabbi Tanenbaum called on
Christians and Jews to "join
together wtth other peoples of
conscience to inhibit present and
future Hitlers from playing God
with human uves."
He listed six suggestions for
interfaith effort:
-engender a national and
international attitude of scorn and
contempt for those who use or
advocate violence, since, from a
moral standpoint, "no ends can
justify anti-human means ?
-curtail- inflammatory
propaganda, especially from
. international forums, that have
psychological impact on an
international scale;
-work toward educational
development and communication
among peoples to reduce "the
abrasive effects of 'differences'";
-engage in a massive effort ' to
restore the Biblical value of the
infinite worth of each human life,"
and to promote a theology and
ideology of pluralism that assures
the right of each religious, racial,
and ethnic group to define itself in
its own terms and to be accepted
by its own self -definition;
-work toward making the
economy of each nation as
self-sufficient and stable as possible;
-work for the completion of the
judicial instrumentalities called for
in Article 6 of the Genocide
Convention at the UN, in the form
of an international' penal tribunal to
try those accused of genocide
attempts anywhere in the world.
Founded in 1 906, the American
Jewish Committee is this country's
pioneer human relations
organization. It combats bigotry,
protects the civil and religious
rights of people at home and
abroad.
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EAST BERLIN - American cWN righti ctmpaigntr Angala Davb (c) onlooking women as the givei autographs to participant
of the current World International Women's year in East Berlin.