Nelson Mandela and other leaders of South Africa have repeatedly acknowledged that the triumph of freedom in South Africa was the result of a common struggle of the South African people and the international community.
The struggle at the international level was led by an alliance of governments, non-governmental organisations and individuals committed unequivocally to support of the South African liberation movement. Through their efforts, the United Nations, the Non-aligned Movement and the Organisation of African Unity, as well as numerous trade unions, churches, and organisations of students and youth, women and other segments of the population, became actively involved. The struggle was carried on not only in chancelleries and inter-governmental forums, but in parliaments and local governments, universities and sports fields, factories and stores, especially in Western countries.
The anti-apartheid movements played a key role in mobilising the people in action to isolate the apartheid regime in South Africa and assist the liberation movement. They undertook direct action to press their governments to impose sanctions against South Africa and support United Nations action against apartheid; and fought vested interests in their countries which were deeply involved in apartheid.
Abdul Samad Minty, one of the founders of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain and its honorary secretary for over three decades, was the foremost spokesman of the anti-apartheid movements and one of the architects of the international alliance against apartheid.
As Principal Secretary of the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid since its inception in 1963 and head of the UN Centre against Apartheid, I have had the pleasure of working in constant consultation with him in promoting cooperation between the United Nations, the Organisation of African Unity, the liberation movement and the anti-apartheid movements.
When the Special Committee began its work, one of the first letters we received was from "S. Abdul" offering cooperation of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. That movement, however, had no funds to send a representative New York to consult with the Special Committee.
Next year, in February 1964, when I visited London, Oliver Tambo, then Deputy President of the African National Congress and leader of its External Mission, arranged for me to meet Mr. Minty. Oliver greatly appreciated the work of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and valued the dedication and ability of Mr. Minty. He was anxious that there should be regular contact between the Special Committee and the movement.
In April, the Special Committee sent a delegation to the International Conference on Sanctions against South Africa, organised by the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and we were able to have further discussions.
At that time, the foremost concerns of the Anti-Apartheid Movement were the "World Campaign for the Release of South African Political Prisoners" and the campaign for sanctions against South Africa - both of which it shared with the Special Committee.
The World Campaign, headed by Jeremy Thorpe, M.P., was set up in the wake of an emergency resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on October 11, 1963, soon after Nelson Mandela and his colleagues were charged in the "Rivonia Trial". It organised world-wide appeals for the release of Nelson Mandela and other leaders, and sent numerous petitions to the United Nations.
The Anti-Apartheid Movement had also carried on a vigorous campaign for the boycott of South Africa by the public and sanctions against South Africa by governments. The boycott campaign - begining with a consumer boycott of South African products and extending to boycott of racially selected sports teams from South Africa and boycott of South Africa by musicians, writers and playwrights - provoked wide public interest and debate on apartheid. It helped persuade the British Government which had opposed any international condemnation of apartheid to change its attitude in 1960.
A landmark in the activities of the Movement was a rally in Trafalgar Square in March 1963 at which Harold Wilson, Leader of the Opposition, called for an immediate arms embargo against South Africa. Britain imposed an arms embargo, though with qualifications, when the Labour Party came to power in October 1964, with Harold Wilson as Prime Minister.
The Special Committee appreciated the work of the Anti-Apartheid Movement as supplementing governmental action. But it was not until 1965-66, however, that we fully recognised the vital role of the anti-apartheid movements and the need for closest cooperation, indeed partnership, with them in the international campaign against apartheid.
At the United Nations, there had been almost unanimous condemnation of apartheid after the Sharpeville massacre and the great increase in African membership in 1960. From 1962 the United Nations was able to go beyond verbal condemnation and appeals to South Africa and take some action - such as the decision on an arms embargo, the setting up of a scholarship programme for South Africans and the establishment of a United Nations Trust Fund to assist the political prisoners and their families through humanitarian organisations, particularly the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, led by Canon L. John Collins.
However, on sanctions against the South African regime, which was the principal request of the African National Congress, progress was difficult. A resolution calling on all States to terminate economic and other relations with South Africa was adopted by the General Assembly in November 1962, but none of the Western Powers and other main trading partners of South Africa supported it. They even boycotted the Special Committee set up under that resolution - the first and only time they boycotted any United Nations Committee. The Assembly resolution reflected the strong sentiment against apartheid in Africa, Asia and other regions, but had very limited economic effect on South Africa.
In 1963, with massive repression in South Africa, and the formation of the OAU, as well as the goodwill of the Kennedy Administration in the United States, it was possible to obtain a resolution by the Security Council appealing to all States to refrain from selling arms to South Africa. But the resolution was not binding; Britain and France abstained. While Britain announced an embargo in November 1964, France became the main source of arms and continued to supply sophisticated military equipment to South Africa.
A committee set up by the Security Council to study the feasibility of sanctions submitted its report in February 1965: the report was not even considered by the Security Council as it contained no proposals with sufficient support for adoption by the Council. The major Western Powers - particularly France, Britain and the United States which wielded the veto in the Security Council - opposed sanctions or other strong pressure on South Africa. Diplomatic action and representation by African and other governments could not persuade these Powers to change their attitudes and facilitate United Nations action against apartheid. There was thus a deadlock on action at the governmental level.
We realised that our only recourse was to develop public opinion and public pressure inside the Western countries. For this purpose it was essential to find ways to encourage, assist and work with the anti-apartheid movements which were already engaged in this task and had achieved some success.
This new approach was projected in the proposal by the Special Committee, endorsed by the General Assembly in 1966, for an "international campaign against apartheid under the auspices of the United Nations" involving action by governments and the public. It began to be actively pursued after the Special Committee held a session in Stockholm, London and Geneva in June 1968 for extensive consultations with the anti-apartheid movements and others. The United Nations to encourage and actively support sports, cultural and other boycotts of South Africa, launch an information campaign on apartheid and promote the activities of anti-apartheid movements and other organisations, particularly in Western countries.
The Special Committee established closest relations with the anti-apartheid movements. Leaders of those movements were no longer petitioners before the Committee but honoured guests. They were invited to all conferences and seminars organised by the Special Committee, with full rights of participation, and were elected as officers. No United Nations committee had ever developed such intimate relations with non-governmental organisations.
Mr. Minty played an important role in developing this relationship between the anti-apartheid movements and the United Nations.
Mr. Minty was born in South Africa on October 31, 1939, and grew up in Johannesburg. He studied at the Central Indian High School which had been established by the Indian community when the apartheid regime moved the Indian secondary school from Johannesburg to the segregated Indian location of Lenasia. The CIHS had a multi-racial staff which included some of the prominent leaders of the liberation movement who were a great source of inspiration to Mr. Minty. He left for Britain in 1958 for further studies.
In London he met Father Trevor Huddleston, whom he had known in South Africa, and Canon L. John Collins, President of the Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, and developed a long association with them in efforts to support the South African struggle.
On June 26, 1959, a Boycott South Africa Movement was launched in London, at the request of the African National Congress, by a small group of South Africans and British friends, at a meeting addressed by Father Huddleston and Julius Nyerere. It organised a nation-wide boycott of South African oranges, wine and other consumer products. After the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960, it changed its name to Anti-Apartheid Movement to undertake more comprehensive work on South Africa. Mr. Minty was a founder member of the Boycott Movement. On return to London from a year of studies at Leeds, he was elected honorary secretary of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in 1962 and has been annually re-elected to that post ever since.
Even as a young student, Mr. Minty was most effective in persuading people of varied backgrounds to join in anti-apartheid action and in lobbying Parliaments and other bodies. He was also efficient in developing international contacts to promote anti-apartheid movements and activities in other cvountries. His lobbying at the International Olympic Committe in 1963 was instrumental in securing the suspension of the racist South African Olympic Committee from the Olympic movement.
Pressed by Oliver Tambo and others, he resumed his studies at the University College, London, and obtained a B.Sc. in International Relations in 1968 and an M.Sc. in 1969. He was a Research Fellow of Richardson Institute for Conflict and Peace Research from 1969 to 1975. His study and research were closely related to his work in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
As South Africa rapidly built up its military strength, despite the United Nations arms embargo, and began to threaten neighbouring territories, he undertook research on the defence establishment and military plans of the apartheid regime and the support it received from external sources. His study of South Africa's Defence Strategy, published in 1969, attracted wide attention and helped develop the campaign by the Anti-Apartheid Movement for the abrogation of the Simonstown Agreement between Britain and South Africa and the ending of all military links with South Africa.
He visited New York in May 1970 to plead for urgent action to close the many loopholes in the United Nations arms embargo against South Africa. The Special Committee and the African Group at the United Nations took action and were able to obtain a resolution by the Security Council, incorporating his suggestions, but France, Britain and the United States abstained on the resolution.
Since then the Chairmen of the Special Committee and I have constantly consulted Mr. Minty on all aspects of the campaign against apartheid. Many of the resolutions of the United Nations on apartheid were based suggestions by him and his colleagues in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
Mr. Minty was invited to numerous conferences and seminars of the United Nations. The papers he prepared and his contributions to the discussions were always highly valued. He was an effective and persuasive speaker, always meticulous in his research, and his proposals were always sound and practical.
Mr. Minty became one of the few individuals who were invited to speak in the Security Council on several occasions; this reflected the great confidence and regard of African and other States in him.
Close association with the Special Committee, I believe, enabled Mr. Minty to establish wide contacts with leaders of governments in Africa and around the world which proved useful in developing cooperation between committed governments and anti-apartheid movements in action against collaborators with apartheid. He has been highly respected by the leaders of the southern African States, of Nigeria, Nordic countries etc. He has met several Prime Ministers of India - from Pandit Nehru to Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao - and received full support and encouragement.
While the contribution of Mr. Minty covers all anti-apartheid activities, it was particularly significant and crucial in the efforts to impose an effective arms embargo against South Africa. This collection of his papers and speeches at United Nations meetings and conferences gives special attention to that aspect.
After fifteen years of effort by governments and anti-apartheid movements, the Security Council unanimously imposed a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa, binding on all States, on November 4, 1977. The next month it set up a committee to study reports from governments on action they had taken and to monitor the implementation of the embargo.
The Committee, however, was unable to discharge its task effectively. Reports by governments were often evasive. The United Nations had no means to discover violations of the embargo and the secret purchases of arms by South Africa. Governments which knew of the illicit trade did not report to the United Nations, even when the sales were by their competitors.
Fortunately, Mr. Minty, the Chairman of the Special Committee (Ambassador Leslie O. Harriman of Nigeria at the time) and I had discussed all aspects of the arms embargo during a conference in Lagos in August 1977. We agreed that it would be most useful if Mr. Minty could set up a World Campaign against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa, with the support of the anti-apartheid movements, to complement our efforts at the United Nations. The World Campaign was inaugurated in 1979, with the patronage of several African Heads of State and sponsorship of leaders in the West. It had its headquarters in Oslo, with Mr. Minty as director, and received financial support from the governments of Norway and Sweden.
Since then, the World Campaign has been the main source of information to the Security Council Committee on violations of the arms embargo. Mr. Minty appeared before the Committee on several occasions to provide information and to make suggestions on strengthening the embargo. His suggestions were pursued by the Special Committee and African delegations and incorporated in resolutions of the General Assembly or the Security Council.
At the meeting of the Security Council on May 25, 1994, when the arms embargo was finally lifted, the Chairman of the Security Council Committee paid a handsome tribute to Mr. Minty for his cooperation with the Committee.
I have referred particularly to the arms embargo because of the remarkable personal contribution of Mr. Minty and because, despite its weaknesses, the embargo retarded South Africa's military build-up and saved many lives.
The work of the anti-apartheid movement, however, covered a very wide range of activities such as pressing governments to impose sanctions against South Africa, and exposing violations of the arms and oil embargoes; action to force corporations and banks to withdraw investments from South Africa and stop loans to South Africa; sports, cultural and other boycotts; demands for release of political prisoners and honours to Nelson Mandela and other leaders; assistance to the liberation movements; scholarships to South African students; and assistance to conscientious objectors seeking asylum in the West.
The movement, however, was bigger than the numerous campaigns it led. A small group of people - South African exiles and people of conscience in the West - built the movement which encompassed millions of people who detested apartheid and were inspired by the cause of Chief Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and other leaders of the South African liberation movement who stood firm, despite all the brutal repression, in their vision of a non-racial democratic society. More than ten thousand people in the United States, Britain, New Zealand and Australia even courted imprisonment in solidarity with the people of South Africa - in an international passive resistance movement against the external supporters of apartheid. Governments were forced to change their policies and some were even toppled when they resisted growing public sentiment against apartheid. The movement played a historic role in the 1980s when the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the United States and Britain sought to protect the Pretoria regime when it used its military power even against children in South Africa and began to devastate neighbouring countries for their support to the liberation movement.
Without the anti-apartheid movement, international support to the South African struggle may have been confined to the Non-aligned and Communist countries. It helped to make solidarity a world-wide effort transcending ideological differences and narrow concepts of national interests. Thirty years of its determined and persistent work was crucial in persuading the racist rulers of South Africa that apartheid has no future and ensuring that the international community as a whole welcomed the birth of a non-racial democratic South Africa.
The history of the anti-apartheid movement - one of the great international people's movements of our time - has many lessons for those interested in causes which need and deserve widest support.
It is a source of great satisfaction to me that I was associated with this movement and I am grateful for the cooperation I received from it in my work at the United Nations. I must record my great appreciation to Mr. Minty for his friendship, advice and cooperation over the long years of the campaign against apartheid. I have also valued the friendship of many of his colleagues in the Movement - like Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the late Bishop Reeves, Robert Hughes, M.P., David Steel, Mike Terry, Ethel de Keyser, David Haslam and many many others. I must confess that I was proud of the contribution of many Indians and people of Indian origin to the Anti-Apartheid Movement. I must make special mention of Kader Asmal in Ireland (now in the South African Cabinet), Vella Pillai in Britain, and Hanif Bhamjee in Wales with whom I was privileged to be associated.
I have compiled and edited this collection of some speeches, papers and letters of Mr. Minty as a contribution to the study of the work of the anti-apartheid movements and their cooperation with the United Nations - and, indeed, to the study of recent South African history. It is also, in a sense, my tribute to the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain which is being dissolved this month after completion of its task; to Mr. Abdul S. Minty and his colleagues; and to the hundreds of thousands people who have marched year after year in solidarity with the great liberation movement of South Africa.
E. S. Reddy
October 1994