Arusha, Tanzania, 1-4 December 1987
Our Common Victory is Assured. Address by Mwalimu Julius K Nyerere, Chairman, Chama Cha Mapinduzi at the Opening of the ANC Conference, Arusha, 1 December 1987
The Illegitimacy of the Apartheid Regime, the Right to Struggle against it, and the Status of the African National Congress. Statement from the ANC Arusha Conference, 1-4 December 1987
"Arusha Declaration". Declaration Adopted at the Conference "Peoples of the World Against Apartheid for a Democratic South Africa"
We have just begun a new year, a year that follows closely on the footsteps of the 75th anniversary of the ANC, which will forever be remembered as the year Comrade Govan Mbeki was released from 24 years of incarceration. Some people think this release will lead to the release of Comrade Nelson Mandela and all other political prisoners. May be they are right. But a word of caution: We should not be complacent. There is a big battle going on around Govan Mbeki.
For us this release has been a victory, for the Botha regime it is a tactical retreat so as to deliver even harsher blows. The Botha regime has failed dismally to defeat our people and we, the people, are not yet strong enough to defeat the Botha regime. That is why they call it a "test case" - to test our strength. We say Govan Mbeki is released but not yet free. Let us use this occasion of his release to demand the freedom of Govan Mbeki and all our gaoled comrades and our people.
The second important occasion was the Conference held in Arusha, Tanzania, on December ist-4th, 1987. This was an historic Conference, called by the ANC, under the theme: Peoples of the World Unite Against Apartheid for a Democratic South Africa. More than 60 countries were represented at Arusha and there were more than 500 delegates. The ANC had called the progressive people throughout the world to come and devise new forms of struggle under the new conditions.
Never before has a national liberation movement called such a conference on its own; there were representatives from capitalist countries, the socialist world, non-aligned movement and leaders and activists of the anti-apartheid forces and movements.
The Conference demonstrated that whilst the racist regime is isolated, our struggle - the ANC and the mass democratic movement - enjoys the support of the overwhelming majority of humanity. The Conference recognised that the racist regime is illegitimate and therefore it is necessary to impose people's sanctions in order to compel the intransigent Western governments to impose mandatory and comprehensive sanctions. Support for SWAPO, ANC and the Front Line states is a pre-condition for the successful implementation of people's sanctions.
The representatives of the mass democratic movement in South Africa who were courageous in attending and addressing the Conference electrified the Conference with their accounts of the brutality of apartheid and the heroic militant resistance of our people and their mass democratic and trade union movement.
The opening speech by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, a legendary figure in Africa and Chairman of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party was inspiring. So was the Chairmanship of Ahmed Salim Salim, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence. Both Tanzanian leaders stressed the leading role of the ANC in the struggle. The delegates were warmly welcomed by the Tanzanians. The warm reception expressed itself and was emphasised at a mass rally after the Conference. This was attended by over 10,000 people. This was internal solidarity in action. Without the support of the Tanzanians, it would have been impossible to hold this conference.
All file delegates present came back convinced that this was a successful event. They benefited from it. So did the ANC. We got to know what the different forces in various parts of the world are doing. We learnt a lot from our allies, friends and supporters.
This is solidarity in action: the identity of interests of people united in action by their desire to rid the world of colonialism, racism and national oppression. The question is always put.. How long will apartheid survive? It will continue to survive as long as we allow it.
By Borifi Ntathela
In the January and February issues of Sechaba we printed the address Ndugu Mwalimu Julius Nyerere made to the Arusha Conference in December, and the Declaration made by that historic gathering . This is an account of the conference from an ANC journalist who was there.
On December 1st to the 4th, Arusha, Tanzania's conference city, hosted the first ANC International Conference. Held under the theme, "Peoples of the world united against apartheid for a democratic South Africa," it drew over 500 delegates from all continents and regions of the world.
Delegates represented intergovernmental organisations like the OAU and various UN agencies; many non-governmental democratic organisations like the World Peace Council, which was represented by its President, Romesh Chandra, AAPSO, Amnesty International, Socialist International, and so on. We were also delighted to have attending the conference high-level representations from the Front Line States and national liberation movements, such as the Honourable Mavis L Muyunda, MP, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Zambia, Teodato Hunguana, Minister of Information of the People's Republic of Mozambique, and Sam Nujoma, the President of SWAPO.
The broad mass democratic movement inside South Africa - workers, youth, women, the religious community, the Democratic Lawyers among them - also sent representatives to the historic ANC International Conference.
During an open-air rally attended by thousands at the Arusha stadium after the close of the conference, President Tambo summarised the aim of the conference in no ambiguous terms:
"It took a whole world war to destroy German nazism. It will take the determined action of the entire community (international) to dislodge the South African version, the apartheid system."
By organising such a conference, the ANC has done something without a precedent. This was the first conference of its nature to be organised by the ANC, in fact by any national liberation movement.
The objective was to bring together the supporters of the South African liberation movement in one conference to jointly map out an international strategy to advance the struggle for liberation within South Africa and share with us, the ANC and the broad democratic movement inside South Africa, the perspective of a post-apartheid South Africa, a united, non-racial and democratic South Africa. We have always held the view that the main theatre of struggle is inside the country, but that international solidarity is a vital and important complement to the efforts of our people there.
In his address to the opening session, Comrade President Tambo put across the aim of the conference as follows:
"We had thought it necessary that as we draw to the end of the 75th anniversary of our movement, and in the light of the developing situation in our country, we should not only put to our allies and friends the central and vitally important task of opposing apartheid, but also seek to focus on the need to support the democratic perspective and the broad movement that is fighting for the victory of that perspective."
Given the situation inside the country and internationally, the conference could not have been more timely. We are living at a time when the prestige of the ANC inside the country stands higher than at any other moment in our history. The leading role of the ANC in that struggle is above challenge. It is also a time when the Botha regime is isolated as never before, a time when there has developed internationally a huge groundswell of opinion favourable to our cause. No regime in modern times has been opposed by all mankind as is the apartheid regime.
We have built up in the international community a huge and ever-expanding antiapartheid constituency, that is, people who are opposed to apartheid. Their hatred for the apartheid regime is undoubted. They sympathise with and render support to victims of apartheid in various ways.
Anti-Apartheid - Pro-Liberation
But some of our supporters are not necessarily pro-liberation. What the first ANC International Conference sought to achieve is to transform this broad antiapartheid feeling into a pro-liberation one - that is, to develop it from mere opposition to apartheid to support for a specific programme of liberation which, in our case, is encapsulated in the Freedom Charter and the Strategy and Tactics of the ANC.
In the words of President Tambo at the opening of the conference:
"The attainment of the level of unity over the question of apartheid as demonstrated by this conference also suggests that the extent of international education and mobilisation we have all brought about enables the world community to set itself additional tasks in the continuing struggle against apartheid. Indeed, that is one of the central reasons that we meet here today - together to consider the future and together to consider how we should shape that future."
Meeting under the wise chairmanship of Salim Ahmed Salim, Secretary for External Affairs in the National Executive Committee of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the United Republic of Tanzania, the conference carried out its deliberations in both plenary sessions and commissions.
Julius Nyerere - A Great Leader
Introducing the former President of the United Republic of Tanzania and the current Chairman of Chania Cha Mapinduzi, President Tambo said:
"For us in South Africa, the history of the 75-year-old struggle of the ANC would not be complete without reference to the contribution of such outstanding revolutionaries and world-renowned leaders as Mwalimu Julius Nyerere ... the name Julius Nyerere has become increasingly a household name throughout South Africa.
"Our confidence in Mwalimu knows no bounds today. He is a leader beloved of all who know him, admired and adored for his great 'leadership of the struggle of mankind, particularly of the struggle of the people of South Africa. In 1959, not satisfied with confining the struggle to Tanganyika, as it was then known, he was one of those with Father Trevor Huddleston who established the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, which has since then spread to many countries and has enveloped the world in opposition to apartheid."
Opening the conference, Ndugu Mwalimu Julius Nyerere paid tribute to all those who have fought for freedom and human equality, within the ANC and in co-operation with it, from 1912 until today. He said:
"... inside South Africa ... the vast mass of the people ... keep alive the flame of freedom, and spread knowledge of it."
He called on the international community to increase the support given to the struggle in South Africa. Acknowledging the economic problems faced by the countries of Africa, and, in particular, the Front Line States, which are daily confronting the military and economic aggression of apartheid, he urged Africa to fight for greater economic independence, for these endeavours would inflict defeats on apartheid. He reminded the conference of the need for African countries to support the struggle against apartheid, for the apartheid regime cannot long survive if it is deprived of all external support and all external acceptability.
South Africa a Prison
He likened South Africa to a prison, and on the question of 'negotiations' said:
"Negotiations between prisoners and prison authorities are not really about fundamentals and cannot be about fundamentals."
The opening session was also addressed by President Nujoma of SWAPO. He congratulated:
"... the ANC comrades for the impressive achievements in making South Africa ungovernable and apartheid unworkable. I congratulate you for the extensive political mass mobilisation inside South Africa itself - the workers, the women, the youth and students and, indeed, for having caused a split and permanent schism among the Afrikaners. Your struggle has made impressive advances and your people are resolute in their commitment, despite oppression and repression."
President Tambo, in his address, made a profound analysis of the situation inside our country, in the region and internationally.
Call to Battle
He said the imposition of the state of emergency by the apartheid regime is an open admission of the fact that the struggle to liberate South Africa has reached a critical stage:
"In the end, the battery of repressive legislation that the apartheid regime has enacted since it came to power in 1948 proved insufficient in the face of the
determined offensive of the masses of our people. And so the state of emergency will itself prove insufficient to stop our advance to liberation.
"It will prove insufficient because it is impossible to break the will of our people to free themselves. Life itself has proved this. The amount of blood our people have shed since 1976, the number of lives lost, demonstrate two things.. the savagery of apartheid and the determination of our people not to be cowed into submission by that savagery. We have broken through the barrier of fear. We have come to recognise death as an inevitable price we have to pay to attain freedom. Our forward march may be slowed down temporarily, but it can never be stopped.
"Pretoria's campaign of repression and terror itself provides the argument why the apartheid system must go, and go now. The greater the number of children racism kills and detains, the more pressing the demand becomes - apartheid must go! The more townships the apartheid army occupies, the more pressing the demand becomes - apartheid must go! The longer the occupation of Namibia lasts and the greater the degree of aggression against independent Africa, the more pressing the demand becomes - apartheid must go! And because that demand is made by the victims of apartheid violence themselves, it serves as a summons to action, a call to battle and not merely a wish for an end to the tyranny."
On the situation in Southern Africa, President Tambo said:
"Everywhere in our region millions of people cannot be certain that they will not die from bombs and bullets. There is no guarantee that development in the independent states can take place or can be sustained, because always there is the threat of deliberate destruction of everything, by forces which see the development of the peoples of Africa as, dangerous and impermissible. Democracy and justice are still in bondage. Reaction and tyranny remain un chained, with terrible consequences."
He acknowledged the victories scored in the campaign for the total isolation of apartheid, attributing them to, among other factors, the raising of international awareness of what apartheid is and what it means in practical terms:
"There must, indeed, be very few people in the world who are totally ignorant of this system of racial tyranny and the disastrous consequences it has had for the peoples of South Africa, Namibia and the rest of Southern Africa... Only a few countries maintain diplomatic relations with South Africa. There is a mandatory arms embargo in place. Many countries have imposed selective or comprehensive economic sanctions. There is an extensive academic, cultural and sports boycott. All these are important achievements brought about through the sustained work carried out by all who are present. here and others who unfortunately could not attend."
President Tambo paid tribute to the Scandinavian countries, which have taken significant unilateral actions to cut down economic relations with the apartheid regime despite the blockade on sanctions placed in our path by the United States and the United Kingdom in the Security Council.
Strategies for Further Sanctions
With regard to the major western powers, which continue refusing to act against apartheid, he urged the conference to discuss the matter and draw strategies for further sanctions, regardless of the resistance of the governments in question. He said that the campaign for people's sanctions must become a central element in our overall work to isolate racist South Africa.
In relation to the cultural and academic boycott in particular, President Tambo emphasised that the task of defending and strengthening the mass democratic movement is vitally important. While intensifying the campaign for the isolation of apartheid South Africa, the world should discriminate between those forces within South Africa which represent apartheid and those which oppose it and actually struggle for a democratic order - for the latter are part of this whole humanity united against apartheid and cannot be treated as forces that must be isolated and destroyed. He also conveyed to the conference Govan Mbeki's warmest regards:
'We looks forward to the day he will be able to travel out of South Africa so that he can, in person, convey toyou and the peoples of the world the profound appreciation of all who are imprisoned, for the sustained campaign you have waged for their release. He feels a pressing need that everything be done to secure the immediate and unconditional release of his comrades-in-arms who are still in prison.
"Being conscious of the decisive importance of the international community to the victory of our common cause, he also asked us to inform you that he looks forward to the results of this conference, which he assesses as of great importance. He wants us to assure all who are gathered here that he is in good health and will use all his strength and capabilities to con tribute what he can to the emergence of a non-racial, democratic and unfragmented South Africa. "
This session was also addressed by Madame Lisbet Palme, the wife of the assassinated former Prime Minister of Sweden, Olof Palme, who was an outstanding champion and supporter of the cause of national liberation. It closed with a message of greetings to the conference from Masupatsela a Walter Sisulu (ANC Young Pioneers) who are learning at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Morogoro, Tanzania. Heads of delegations presented their statements at the plenary sessions. The conference also received a large number of messages from many heads of state and governments, from inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations, solidarity organisations and support groups from all parts of the globe. Mikhail Gorbachov, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, also sent a message to the conference.
Participants From The Field of Battle
One of these sessions was devoted to addresses given by participants from the mass democratic movement in South Africa, representing women, the youth, workers, the religious community, the democratic lawyers, and so on. They all presented moving accounts of battles raging in the different trenches they occupy in the struggle. Organisation and mobilisation continue to grow in spite of the regime's campaign of terror and repression. What came out very clear from their presentations is that the people, our entire people, are no longer prepared to live under Botha's yoke, and to get rid of it they are prepared for everything, even if it means laying down their lives. They are looking to the ANC as their authentic representative.
Mention should be made of a different category of freedom fighters - Klaas de Jonge and Pierre Albertini. Klaas is a citizen of the Netherlands, and Pierre is French. They were both involved in the activities of the ANC underground and Umkhonto we Sizwe.
Pierre was arrested by the Ciskei police who tried to force him to give evidence against the Reverend Stofile, former UDF Secretary of the Border region (part of the Eastern Cape). He refused to break, and was given a term of imprisonment. Klaas de Jonge evaded arrest and sought refuge at the Dutch embassy in Pretoria.
They were released as a result of the exchange of prisoners that took place between Angola and racist South Africa. Klaas de Jonge declared:
"What the South African police achieved is that we are even more committed than before."
The conference also sent an appeal to the meeting of the Heads of Government of the European Community held in Copenhagen from December 4th to the 5th, urging them to commit themselves to securing the adoption of comprehensive and mandatory sanctions as adopted by the United Nations
Security Council, and to agree immediately on a programme of sanctions based on the measures adopted by the Nordic countries.
Individual States Should Apply Sanctions
The appeal called on the countries of the EEC to cease using lack of unanimity to justify its failure to impose sanctions on racist South Africa, as happened in September 1986, during the Council of Ministers meeting, when a bin on the import of coal from South Africa was under discussion. It called on individual member states to act at national level in such an eventuality. The appeal concluded:
"The European Community cannot escape from its responsibility for the situation in Southern Africa arlsing from the historic role of European countries in the region and the existing links between members. of the European Community and South Africa, as well as illegally occupied Namibia. We commend this appeal to the Heads of Government in the belief that this responsibility will be discharged in a manner which will contribute to securing independence for Namibia and the creation of a non-racial and democratic South Africa."
Four commissions sat during the conference to discuss the following topics:
Out of these intense discussions, the Arusha Declaration on South Africa and a Programme of Action emerged, covering measures:
The Programme of Action also addresses different interest groups like religious bodies, professional bodies, minority groups, trade unions and the media.
Addressing itself to the regional policies of Pretoria, it called for increased aid to the victims of apartheid destabilisation, and emphasised that such aid cannot be restricted to economic assistance but should also be geared towards strengthening and improving the defensive capacities of the countries of Southern Africa.
The Programme Concerns Ordinary People
What is of utmost importance and significance to note is that the ANC did not come with this Programme of Action as a blueprint to the conference; the Programme emerged from the conference itself. Furthermore, the Programme en visages the activity of ordinary people, in all walks of life, in isolating apartheid. It states:
"Grassroots action involving the people in every country is vital to the success of. the sanctions campaign. Through a concerted people's sanctions campaign, even the most intransigent opponents of sanctions can be compelled to reverse their position."
The first ANC International Conference was, in all ways, an impeccable success. No tribute could have been more fitting to the 76 years of unbroken offensive on the part of the ANC. But the best measure of the success of the conference will be the swift and determined implementation of decisions taken. If the Programme of Action is not pursued rigorously and to the letter, the conference will, in fact, have been a failure. In the words of President Tambo:
"What we have to see is a further shift in the balance of strength so that the world forces against racism and for a democratic South Africa, including the central contingent that we represent, reach the point where they overpower the apartheid regime."