April 1955
The unique Afro-Asian conference which is being held in April in Indonesia will be watched with great interest by the entire world, perhaps by different peoples for different reasons. To the vast majority of the Asian-African peoples it will certainly be a source of inspiration. It will be regarded as paving the way for good things to come, and a step in the direction of meeting the aspirations of the vast majority of mankind, particularly the oppressed peoples of Asia and Africa.
The main purpose of the conference is to devise ways and means of securing and maintaining pace by eliminating all causes and sources of war. These representatives of more than two-thirds of the world's population are moved by a common approach to the most burning issues of the day, namely, war and imperialism, which are the world's thorniest problems.
This conference meets at a time when the whole world has been angered and disturbed by the American moves to provoke a general war by her stubborn and unreasonable determination to interfere in Chinese affairs, by her refusal to admit the only Chinese representative government, and by her intrigues in Asian countries.
The significance of this conference, therefore, lies in the fact that the sponsors and the people who are meeting have themselves been for centuries the subjects of exploitation and foreign domination by Western colonial powers, and have now decided to take the destiny of their people and their countries unto themselves. It is logical to expect people who themselves have so long been persecuted, oppressed and humiliated, to be strongly conscious of these evils and more realistic in their approach to them since they have no other designs, save to see the end of exploitation, colonialism and racial domination. They want to see permanent independence of their newly-founded democracies and the freeing of those who are still under the yoke of foreign domination and racial oppression.
Another significant point to us in South Africa is the fact that this very important conference meets in Indonesia, the original home of the Cape Malays, one of
the oppressed national minorities in South Africa whose forefathers came to this country as slaves brought by the Dutch colonisers, whose descendants have forcibly installed themselves as masters of South Africa.
O. R. Tambo
Acting Secretary-General
African National Congress