Word: idaf
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Dates: during 1983-1983
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...question is the International Defense and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF), an organization with committees in 10 countries that provides legal assistance to south Africans accused of political "crimes" and financial aid to their families...
...United States branch of the IDAF is housed in the basement of the Harvard Epworth Church in Cambridge. Though the group has no official ties to the University, its president is the Rev. Peter J. Gomes. Plummer professor of Christian Morals and Nancy Randolph, special assistant to President Bok, is a member of the board of trustees...
...IDAF was founded in 1956 to help defend 156 Black South Africa accused of treason. Its primary driving force in those days was an English clergyman. Canon L. John Collins, who raised funds in his country and elsewhere to pay for defense lawyers and to support the families of those on trial. In 1961, after one of the longest trials in South Africa history, all 156 Blacks were acquitted, largely thanks to the efforts of the IDAF...
...Carstens puts it, the IDAF is essentially wothwhile. "How can you measure success in these conditions?" he asks, "It's a humane task that we're performing. At the very least, we say to people: 'You are not alone...
Still, the vast majority of Blacks tried for political crimes are convicted and given the maximum sentence applicable to their "crime". Gomes admits that if the IDAF made a short run balance sheet of its success and failures, ceasing activities would seem "a perfectly pragmatic action...