Berkeley Apartheid Protest Heats Up : Protesters Seek Campus Shutdown Over S. Africa Investments

Boycotting students emptied classrooms and filled Sproul Plaza on Wednesday in an escalating battle to force the University of California to rid itself of its $1.7 billion worth of financial holdings in South Africa.

About 3,000 cheering and chanting demonstrators rallied peacefully in front of Sproul Hall, the administration building at the Berkeley campus, to call on more students to join the boycott and shut down the 30,000-student university.

Unlike the day before, there were no arrests Wednesday, even though several hundred demonstrators defied university orders not to camp out on the steps in front of Sproul Hall.

Late in the day, however, University of California police from the Los Angeles, San Francisco and Davis campuses were called in for what was described as an effort to relieve their tired counterparts at Berkeley.

The protest mushroomed Wednesday, when the university’s 2,000 teaching aides and other graduate-student employees voted overwhelmingly to walk off their jobs, while a number of other students followed the advice of handbills urging them to boycott classes.

Volunteer student tutors staffed tables next to poster-strewn Sproul Plaza to help boycotting students keep up with their studies, and a “teach-in” was also offered to students who skipped morning classes.

Protest leaders said overall attendance was off by about 40%, but it is not clear how many students boycotted and how many simply got a head start on a four-day break that begins today.

“I could see people blowing off classes today because it’s the day before vacation,” said James Orchison, a 19-year-old freshman.

University officials said they could not judge the boycott’s effectiveness. But students said attendance was down sharply, and that some classes were canceled or used to discuss the South Africa apartheid issue. Orchison said his anthropology lecture class drew only about 100 of its usual 500 students.

The apartheid protest, however, had some support even among students who went to class. One of them, 19-year-old physiology major Gus Papadakis, said: “I believe in the cause, but I don’t think that boycotting our classes will do anything.”

But Lula Fragd, a doctoral candidate in ethnic studies, disagreed. “It gets students to be aware of why we are striking,” she said. “We are at the point now where we are disseminating information (about South Africa). There are a lot of students who are not aware of apartheid.”

University police kept a low profile Tuesday night and Wednesday.

Despite the arrest Tuesday of 140 people who had camped out on the steps of Sproul Hall, about 50 protesters were back Tuesday night to defy the university’s prohibition against camp outs.

On Wednesday morning, more protesters joined them and marched around the campus waving bed sheet banners and chanting: “UC regents you can’t hide; we charge you with genocide.”

Chanting continued at the big noon rally outside Sproul Hall, where the crowd repeatedly shouted: “What do we want? Divestment! When do we want it? Now!”

After the rally, about 400 demonstrators paraded through downtown Berkeley to the municipal building, where arraignments were held for 29 protesters who refused to give their real names after being arrested Tuesday.

‘Drop the Charges’

As the bus carrying the protesters arrived, they were greeted with loud cheers and chants of: “Drop the charges! Drop the charges!”

Officials repeated Wednesday that neither the university nor the Alameda County district attorney will drop the charges--all misdemeanors, ranging from illegal lodging to battery--filed against protesters arrested yesterday.

The 29 protesters, all of whom claim to be named Steven Biko, a leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa who died in police custody in 1977, were released on their own recognizance by Berkeley Municipal Judge George Brunn.

The student protest was endorsed on Wednesday by Local 3211 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents 4,000 university workers.

Union spokesman Bob Tofanelli said members were not being ordered to honor picket lines but were asked to “follow their consciences.” He said other locals of the same union may endorse the protest within a few days.

The Berkeley protesters already have earned the support of some of their colleagues at two other UC campuses, in Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. Several dozen San Francisco State students came to Berkeley Wednesday to show their support, too.