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In the name of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress of South Africa and on behalf of the struggling people of South Africa, I thank members most sincerely for giving us the opportunity to express before this body the aspirations, determination and concerns of the South African patriots at this critical phase in the struggle against apartheid.
This year`s debate is of singular importance to our people and to our leaders, especially those sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, up to and including life imprisonment, to the families and friends of hundreds who have been murdered on the gallows, in the prison cells and in the streets while on strike or demonstrating against apartheid rule and its attendant iniquities. It takes place at a crucial moment and under the presidency of a distinguished son of Africa from a committed country, Zambia, whose role in the fight against the inhuman system of apartheid is of cardinal importance to Africa`s fight for the total liberation of the continent.
Having long known and admired not only his dedication to this noble cause but also his special diplomatic skills, I am confident that the President`s able guidance will help steer our deliberations to action-oriented conclusions designed to respond optimally to the current situation in South and southern Africa. We seize this opportunity to extend our fraternal congratulations to him and to put on record our appreciation of the uncompromisingly anti-apartheid role played by his predecessor, a friend of the freedom fighters in southern Africa, the President of the thirty-eighth session of the General Assembly.
We would be failing in our duty if we failed to express our indebtedness to the Secretary-General for his outstanding sensitivity to the danger posed by the Pretoria regime to harmonious international relations and his active commitment to the implementation of United Nations resolutions to help end apartheid.
The year 1984 reminds us of important historical events that marked significant developments in the history of human relations. It reminds us of the Berlin Conference 100 years ago when the European imperial Powers of the era, with the low-keyed participation of the United States of America, met to partition and apportion among themselves the continent of Africa. It also reminds us of the founding of the United Nations almost 40 years ago when, in the wake of the defeat of fascism, the founding Member States of the body resolved to translate into concrete action the aspirations of the peoples of the world to rid the earth of all the causes of war. It also reminds us of the forthcoming twenty-fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples [resolution 1514 (XV)], which gave an impetus to the struggle of the colonized peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America for self-determination.
For over a century the African people throughout our continent have been waging a relentless struggle to rid themselves of colonial domination. Over the years, as more newly independent countries took their rightful place in the world body, the United Nations has played an increasingly crucial role in helping millions of people throw off the yoke of colonialism. Yet, as stated in the Declaration on Southern Africa made by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity at its twentieth ordinary session, held at Addis Ababa from 12 to 15 November 1984:
"Africa`s political struggle is not over. Some 30 million people are still subjected to racist minority and colonial rule in South Africa and Namibia.
"While this situation continues, no African can be really free. No independent African State can claim that its sovereignty and independence are assured.
"The total liberation of Africa, and specifically the liberation of Namibia and South Africa, thus remains an urgent and central objective for all the nations and peoples of Africa, both singly and collectively."
The consensus of the international community on the criminality of the apartheid system on the one hand and the continuing collaboration by certain Member States with the Pretoria regime on the other must be seen against that background.
We do not intend to dwell on the monumental crimes conceived at the infamous Berlin Conference and ruthlessly perpetrated for decades thereafter against the African people. Suffice it to stress that, despite our conscious intent not to forget these dastardly acts, it is for the present rulers of those countries to heed the repeated calls by the United Nations and end their collaboration with racist South Africa.
The developments of the past three months have again exposed beyond any reasonable doubt the true nature of the Pretoria regime.
In pursuit of its orchestrated campaign of so-called reforms aimed at hoodwinking domestic and world public opinion, the P. W. Botha regime organized in August sham elections for the Coloureds and people of Asian origin in preparation for its so-called new constitution. In the period preceding the implementation of those insidious manoeuvres, ANC called on our people firmly to resist those developments and, further, warned the international community that, far from being reformist, those manoeuvres represented the continuation of the regime`s policy of colonial conquest and the further entrenchment of the apartheid system. Comrade President Oliver Tambo, in his annual New Year`s message, on 8 January 1984, specifically called on all the South African patriots, in the spirit of united action, to reject this new instrument of oppression and to render the country ungovernable.
The fate of the regime`s so-called new dispensation is well known. In an unprecedented demonstration of unity in action the oppressed people totally rejected those attempts to divide and rule. In keeping with the spirit of the Freedom Charter, the enduring embodiment of the people`s aspirations and determination to fight relentlessly side by side for a non-racial democratic society, the Coloureds and people of Asian origin staged a decisive boycott of the sham elections, thereby, according to many observers, irreparably undermining the credibility of the regime`s scheme.
ANC welcomes the recent General Assembly and Security Council resolutions condemning and declaring null and void Pretoria`s so-called new constitution. This stand constitutes a logical and appropriate response to the regime`s efforts, characterized by ever-growing intransigence, to entrench further the apartheid fascist system in our country. This is of course the system which the international community, in support of our struggle, has condemned as a crime against humanity and a threat to world peace and international security.
It was that characteristic and blind intransigence of the racist regime that led to the repeated rejection of Pretoria`s credentials and culminated in the suspension in 1974 of apartheid South Africa`s representation in the General Assembly. We deplore the conspicuous abstentions by the United States and the United Kingdom on this vital issue at this crucial time. Those acts of abstention constitute not only a retreat from the defence of freedom but also a deliberate effort to underwrite the most inhuman, oppressive and violent system since Hitlerite fascism. What they seek to underwrite and have hailed as a step in the right direction is an exercise whose objective is to co-opt a handful of the so-called Coloureds and people of Asian origin as junior and token partners in apartheid`s quest to make total the dispossession, denationalization, exploitation and oppression of the indigenous African majority and the rest of the black population.
This is obviously in conflict with the lofty ideals and principles enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence, the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is indeed in conflict with the will of the peoples of the United States and the United Kingdom - peoples whose opposition to apartheid in all its manifestations is well known.
The year 1980 was the best of times and the worst of times for the African liberation struggle. Thanks to the heightened resistance, combined with concerted international pressure on the illegal Ian Smith regime, that year saw the defeat of settler colonialism and the victory of the Patriotic Front in Zimbabwe. Added to that of Mozambique and Angola, the independence of that other erstwhile buffer zone drastically changed the balance of forces in favour of the liberation struggle. The total liberation of Africa seemed to be closer than ever before.
But, alas, the equally intensified struggle in Namibia during the same period and the liberation process accelerated by the international diplomatic offensive for the independence of that Territory, were torpedoed by the Pretoria regime following the assumption of power by the Reagan Administration and its openly avowed alliance with Pretoria. The true position that the Western contact group had grudgingly come to accept - that the liberation struggle in southern Africa is an indigenous phenomenon that stems from the unbearable living conditions under colonial and apartheid domination - was abandoned. It was replaced by reference to South Africa as the "Persian Gulf" of vital strategic mineral resources, as controlling the long coastline through which 60 per cent of the oil destined for the Western countries passes, and as the bulwark in the fight against communist influence in Africa.
Then came constructive engagement, preceded by two important policy statements by leading spokesmen of the Reagan Administration. In its opposition to the campaign for the isolation of the Pretoria regime, the Administration told the world that its objectives were to remove the polecat status imposed on racist South Africa, as well as to reward the countries that befriended Pretoria while punishing and even toppling those that assisted ANC and SWAPO.
The subsequent developments are well known: the attempted repeal of the Clark Amendment prohibiting covert action in Angola; the policy of linkage and insistence on the withdrawal of the Cuban internationalist force from the People`s Republic of Angola as a pre-condition to the independence of Namibia; increased United States investment in and trade with apartheid South Africa, now totalling over $14 billion; the violation of the arms embargo, as well as stepped-up nuclear collaboration; and the changed voting pattern of the United States and its allies in the United Nations, which has taken the form of opposing virtually all resolutions against the apartheid regime and resorting to blackmail, aimed at forcing other Member States not to condemn constructive engagement.
The Reagan Administration`s policy of constructive engagement, strongly condemned by the American people, as well as by scholars, legislators, community leaders, political personalities and major newspapers, as having further emboldened the apartheid regime to increase its intransigence, repression and aggression, and the assured diplomatic protection to apartheid, flowing from the same constructive engagement, have certainly encouraged racist South Africa to wage the undeclared war of aggression, destabilization and blackmail against the front-line States and Lesotho. Using armed bandits recruited from those countries as an extension of its fascist army, it has committed dastardly acts of terrorism and ravaged the economies in the region, as part of its gunboat diplomacy aimed at imposing unequal agreements designed to secure the neighbouring States` co-operation in its attempts to liquidate ANC and the liberation struggle.
The United States, the United Kingdom andother friends, allies and apologists of the apartheid regime have in the past few months strenuously argued against the condemnation of P. W. Botha`s so-called new constitution. The international community was told that Botha should be given time and co-operation to enable him fully to implement his so-called step in the right direction and to secure executive presidential authority empowering him to introduce meaningful changes away from apartheid.
What has happened since then? Following the imposition of the so-called new constitution and his inauguration as the all-powerful President, P. W. Botha has imposed martial law conditions, prohibiting indoor and outdoor meetings, including funerals. He has on several occasions unleashed his racist army to assist his fascist police in the killing of civilians, including hundreds of defenceless students, workers and demonstrators on strike and protesting against inhuman living conditions, slave wages, inferior education and the entrenchment of apartheid itself.
In the face of this mounting repression by the regime, nothing has been heard from London and Washington, other than polite but ineffectual statements of regret over the killings. The result is that the American people and the world community remember only the objection of the United States to the Security Council resolution`s characterization of the killings of blacks as a massacre. For the bereaved families and friends of the hundreds wantonly killed, and indeed for us, the question remains: how many defenceless blacks must be killed before the term "massacre" can be used and not rejected as excessive language?
The truth of the matter is that today South Africa is in revolutionary ferment. The overwhelming majority of the people in our country, the oppressed and exploited and racially victimized blacks, calling the bluff on apartheid`s parade of pseudo-reformist quasi-initiatives, are geared to advance into that phase of our struggle which must spell the end of apartheid. Responding to the calls of the ANC to participate in mass united actions against apartheid, and inspired and supported by a significant expansion of the scope and qualitative improvement of the military operations of Umkhonto we Sizwe, our people`s revolutionary army, they have devised and deployed ever-novel and increasingly more effective means of manifesting their militant opposition to apartheid.
Through the workers` strike movement, including the first mineworkers` strike since 1946, through the youth and students` opposition to Bantu education, which translated itself from 1976 onwards into a direct challenge to apartheid, through the militant actions of the churches and their congregations, through the efforts of our mothers and sisters, through the various initiatives of all sections of the South African people, including the recent highly acclaimed and conspicuously successful general strike in the Vaal Triangle, the South African people have not only rejected apartheid`s palliative reforms, so evident in recent times, but have also isolated the apartheid regime, decisively exposing its illicit nature. They have made it clear that they will not be governed by apartheid, that they will continue to reject it, whatever pseudo-reformist guise it assumes, and that, whatever its internal and external manoeuvres, its days are numbered.
Despite mounting repression, despite mass arbitrary arrests, assassinations in detention and massacres in the streets, despite long prison sentences, often including imprisonment for life, despite the use of the army against unarmed civilians, the people are insisting that apartheid must die and South Africa must be reborn in freedom. The people`s nation-wide and all-embracing resistance and struggle have created an irreversibly ungovernable situation for apartheid.
Commenting on this situation, and particularly on the increasing use of the apartheid army against civilians for repressive ends, Mr. Allan Boesak has said: "The regime cannot now control the situation and still does not know how to respond to the legitimate demands of the disenfranchised majority."
In a typical manner, refusing to recognize reality and thus bearing out Mr. Boesak`s observation, the apartheid Minister responsible for law and order, Louis Le Grange, commenting on the same situation, has obtusely remarked: "As long as the ANC operates as a militant organization, we will hit them as hard as we can. As far as we are concerned, it is war, plain and simple." Unable to govern, the regime has instead gone to war against the people of South Africa in particular and of southern Africa in general.
The shedding of blood and tears by the oppressed people of South Africa in their just and legitimate struggle is increasingly becoming the order of the day. But we have chosen to struggle rather than submit to apartheid`s tyrannical rule. We know full well that the Pretoria regime, reputed to be the most heavily armed in Africa and the southern hemisphere, is bent on using its army, equipped with sophisticated weapons, either supplied by or locally produced under licence from Western countries, to drown our resistance in blood. However, our resolve and determination to fight on until the inevitable victory are strengthened by our thirst for freedom, enjoyed the world over but denied us for centuries. It is strengthened by Africa`s unflagging commitment to the total liberation of our continent. It is strengthened by the ever-growing solidarity and support of the non-aligned countries, the Nordic countries, the socialist countries and the ever-increasing number of Western countries, now scaling down their collaboration with the Pretoria regime and raising the level of their support for ANC in its vanguard role in the struggle against the apartheid regime.
From this platform, we wish on this important occasion to convey our thanks, congratulations and admiration to Mr. Garba, Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, for the exemplary manner in which he has acquitted himself, thus ensuring the continuation of the Committee`s tradition and record of mobilizing the international community for action against apartheid. In like manner, we thank those countries that have responded to the United Nations calls for meaningful action against apartheid, especially including increased support to the struggling people of South Africa and their national liberation movement. In this regard, we make special mention of the countries in Western Europe and elsewhere which, in a break with tradition, have begun to reduce their ties with the apartheid regime and to establish and strengthen relations with the ANC. We wish to thank the international community for its commendable efforts in the campaign for the immediate and unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and all other political prisoners of apartheid, and the securing of prisoner-of-war status for all captured freedom fighters, in accordance with the Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. We appeal to all members further to intensify their efforts to ensure the earliest possible success for these important campaigns. We salute the Secretary-General of the South West Africa People`s Organization, Comrade Toivo ya Toivo, whose recent release is a victory which will certainly further strengthen the heroic struggle of the Namibian people for genuine independence.
We reaffirm our solidarity with the struggle of the Namibian people, led by SWAPO. Their struggle is our struggle. We reaffirm our solidarity with the struggles of the Palestinian people, led by the Palestine Liberation Organization; of the people of the Arab Republic of the Western Sahara, led by the Frente POLISARIO; of the people of El Salvador, led by the FDR and the FMLN; of the people of East Timor, led by FRETILIN; and of the people of Nicaragua, led by the FSLN.
Our solidarity extends to all peoples everywhere in the struggle against the oppression and exploitation of man by man and for freedom, democracy, peace and social progress.
Victory in our lifetime!