Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 2, 1994 TAG: 9405020084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He finds some chilling similarity in those two seemingly disparate experiences.
Gibbs, 40, of Bristol is a former coal miner for the Pittston Coal Group in Dickenson County but now works as an international field representative for the United Mine Workers of America. When UMW President Richard Trumka and Vice President Cecil Roberts asked him if he would join a six-member UMW contingent traveling with other American union members to South Africa, he says he felt honored.
Now, he said, he is thankful that they allowed him, as a black man, to be a part of it. "It brought back a lot of memories of when we were fighting for our civil rights in the states."
South African labor unions had asked the AFL-CIO to provide some observers who would work with South African and international observers to help ensure that the elections were conducted fairly; and it was "as fair and free" as it could be, Gibbs said.
Gibbs, who has been in South Africa since April 21, was on an observer team that included a teacher from New York, a communications worker from Alabama, a postal worker from Washington and an airline stewardess from Paris. They were assigned polling places in the communities where the population is 85 percent white.
The election, he said, left a deep impression on him and his colleagues, both because of the effort made to educate the voters (because of the high rate of illiteracy, the pictures of major candidates were printed on the ballots) and the enthusiasm with which the country's black residents embraced their first chance to vote.
On Tuesday, the first day of the four-day election, Gibbs saw a 70-year-old man carry his invalid wife into the polls and help her vote, then carry her back outside, lay her on a blanket and return to vote himself. He saw a woman with no legs and no arms come into the polls and mark her ballot with a pencil held in her teeth.
He saw handicapped people riding to the polls in wheelbarrows and thousands of people stand in line for hours to get their chance to vote.
Gibbs' group had a free hand to either watch for election irregularities or to help voters who needed it. There were few problems at the polling places he was assigned.
Many of the poll workers were young people and school teachers, hoping that a victory by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress will mean better housing and education for the nation's majority black population, Gibbs said. He saw Mandela at a rally of 80,000 supporters at a stadium. Some supporters told Gibbs' group that Mandela is "our Dr. King."
Gibbs and his group drove about 150 miles a day to visit polling places and traveled without body guards. The Sunday before the election a car bomb went off at the ANC headquarters just three blocks from Gibbs' Johannesburg hotel.
Even as a veteran of mine workers' strikes Gibbs said, "I can't tell anybody that there wasn't times over here that it wasn't scary."
by CNB