There are many signs that the South African conflict is sharpening and about to enter its final revolution.
The conflict is one between the bloodstained defenders of white supremacy and their victims, the fourteen million subjected Africans and other non-white population groups.
To sustain the confidence of their supporters in South Africa and that of their foreign shareholders and investors, the white racist regime and the white press strive to present a picture of stability, prosperity and contentment. But their own behaviour shows how far from the truth this picture is.
Internally, South Africa is seething with resentment and hatred of the regime, with its intolerable theory and practice of apartheid. Despite every imaginable form of repression and terror, the spirit of resistance and revolt is alive and growing rapidly.
Serious factors of instability, fraught with danger to the maintenance of the monstrous structure of minority domination, are developing on the borders of the country. The United Nations have formally decided to deprive South Africa of the mandate to South West Africa which has been illegally annexed by the Pretoria regime. Vorster's declaration that his Government will not surrender this vast stolen territory, but will defend it by force, is a challenge to the authority of the United Nations which it can hardly ignore, if the United Nations is to survive at all. The brazen declaration of independence by the white Rhodesians, with the connivance of Britain and the open support of Pretoria, has precipitated a crisis for South Africa's immediate northern neighbour which has become a major issue of African and international politics. Independence for Lesotho and Botswana, involving inevitable growing contact between these States and the African and world communities, is a potential threat to white domination. Even more so are the armed conflicts now going on both in South Africa's eastern neighbour Mozambique and to the north Angola, wars of national liberation against South Africa's closest ally, fascist Portuguese colonialism.
The rulers of South Africa know how vulnerable and shaky is the position of their regime as the bastion of racialism and imperialism in Africa. They are feverishly militarising the white population, transforming the economy on to a war basis, stockpiling the essential imports, attempting to indoctrinate the public with extreme fascist ideology. Their reign of terror is stepped up. Over 8,000 political prisoners are in jails and every day brings fresh cases of victimisation and persecution. The choice of Balthazar John Vorster as Prime Minister, Verwoerd's notorious hangman and a man so disreputable for his Nazi views and activities that even the ruling Nationalist Party found him unacceptable as a candidate for Parliament ten years ago, is a symptom of the desperation of the governing circles.
The overthrow of apartheid in South Africa has been delayed because of the support and assistance of the powerful international financiers in Britain, United States, Western Germany, France and other imperialist countries. They have accumulated vast fortunes out of cheap labour and stolen wealth of our people, and continue to do so. Their direct assistance and the enormous influence their wealth enables them to exert on their own governments, has thus far shielded the fascist Pretoria regime from the sanctions and isolation decided upon by the great majority of the people and governments of the world who abominate apartheid and all it stands for.
Yet the world anti-apartheid movement grows even wider, deeper, stronger, covering every field. South Africa expelled from UNESCO; excluded from Olympic Games; condemned by governments of every shade of democratic opinion, by trade unions of all countries, by churches of every religion, by organisations of women, youth, peace, science and culture, and by millions of people throughout the world - these are the outside signs of the universal detestation of and protest against the anti-human and satanic doctrine of apartheid. Seldom, if ever, has there been such a sustained and widespread movement of solidarity in the world.
The African National Congress can fairly claim a large share of the credit for evoking this mighty solidarity movement. Against the huge resources of the South African Government with its richly endowed "information" - or rather misinformation - services, and such non-governmental bodies as the multi-millionaire South Africa Foundation propaganda agencies, we as the organisation of the poor and oppressed people could not hope to compete in respect of the volume and quantity of our publications, the number of personnel employed in publicity or the size of our external establishment. Yet the world has heard and listened to us and believed in us, for our voice is the voice of justice and truth, and will continue to be heard long after the howls of apartheid propagandists shall have been silenced by the mighty blows of our fighting people.
With this, the first issue of Sechaba, we are launching a new and powerful weapon to carry the truth about South Africa, and the voice of the African National Congress into every corner of the world.
The African National Congress fights under a policy which alone will truly liberate and unite the people of our country. The Freedom Charter is the common programme of the ANC, the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured People's Congress, the Congress of Trade Unions and the Congress of Democrats. The Charter expresses the aspirations of our people, regardless of colour, for the right of the majority to rule our country and regain their stolen birthright, the wealth and the land of our country.
Our heroes have faced the gallows and Vorster's grim dungeons for the principles embodied in the Freedom Charter; in armed battle our freedom fighters will win the power to enforce these principles.
The hour of reckoning with the forces of racism is fast approaching in South Africa. We call, with confidence, on our millions of friends in all countries to help us in every way; to spread this new journal far and wide; to give us that necessary political, moral and material support which will ensure the dawn of the day of our victory over the forces of evil - a victory which will rebound to the benefit of all peoples, a victory for the cause of liberty, peace and humanity.
* Sechaba continued publication until 1990 when the leaders in exile returned to South Africa.