MARCH 21, 1991
Today we observe as we have done over the past years, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. By annually observing this day, the United Nations and the international community at large have consistently reaffirmed commitment to the global struggle for the elimination of racial discrimination wherever it may exist. A threat to human dignity anywhere is a threat to human dignity everywhere.
As in the previous years, this gathering today serves as a poignant reminder for us all of the evils of racism. We call to mind those who lost their lives due to racism and related acts of racial discrimination and racial violence. More directly, we remember the martyrs of Sharpeville for whom today, March 21, will eternally serve as a memorial day.
There are no illusions about the evils of racism and the need to urgently eradicate them wherever they exist. We are mindful that in spite of a concerted global campaign to combat racism - a campaign born out of our collective concern - racism thrives globally in different shades and colours. We are also mindful, that in defiance to the dictates of the Charter of the United Nations and more specifically, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, pockets of racism abound globally and that the universal attainment of racial equality and freedom has remained an illusive objective. But we should neither be deterred nor discouraged. Our collective task is to eradicate racism. The task ahead of us all is challenging. It can neither be abandoned nor allowed to waver.
For those of us in the Special Committee against Apartheid, the global campaign against racism is anchored and made more imperative by the need to eradicate the obnoxious system of apartheid - a policy that is founded on the principles of inequality of races, racial discrimination and the institutionalization of separate and unequal standards in all spheres of livelihood for the different races in South Africa.
It is a matter of public information and record that the invidious system of apartheid has over the years imposed intolerable hardship and an extreme degree of inequality on the majority of South Africans, particularly the blacks. The racial policies of the South African Government codified in its discriminatory laws, are fundamentally in contradiction with natural justice and accepted international laws relative to fundamental human rights and liberty. The challenge before the international community has been, and remains, the need urgently to eradicate racial discrimination worldwide but more so in South Africa where it has been institutionalized through executive and legislative fiats.
It is therefore with great interest and anticipation that we have been following a number of positive developments in South Africa since last year and we took particular note of the recent announcements of the President of South Africa.
While the recent repeal of the Land and Group Areas Acts and the promise to introduce interim changes to the Population Registration Act are welcome and deemed a step in the right direction toward the eradication of apartheid and racial discrimination in South Africa, such initiatives - which by themselves are merely a theoretical foundation for requisite action - will lack merit and remain unwholesome if they fail to redress substantive issues related to access to land, and affirmative action programmes that would in turn redress the grave socio-economic inequities generated by racial and discriminatory policies.
We are all aware that questions are now being asked in many quarters about the propriety of sustained and continued pressure against Pretoria. I believe the rationale is as obvious as the answer itself. Whereas there has been perceptible progress in the policies of the de Klerk administration, neither apartheid policies nor the practice have yet been eradicated. Racism too may have been tempered by a new and visible racial tolerance, but certainly not eradicated in South Africa.
Continued violence in South Africa, and the South African regime's glaring failure to arrest the situation and administer the requisite reprisals to the perpetrators of violence, suggest neglect and may be indifference. Such a stance analyzed dispassionately, finds its basis on certain elements of racism which suggest that any violence that does not violate racial boundaries is tolerable, therefore the need to contain violence among blacks becomes a task less urgent than if it involved whites. Such a disposition, no matter how subtle, is an obvious source of concern and worry. The regime in Pretoria in arrogating the right to leadership to itself, has an unquestionable obligation to guarantee security and the right to life and liberty for all; it also has the responsibility to underwrite the stability and a peaceful atmosphere that will usher in the advent of a non-racial democracy in the country.
It is the position of the Special Committee that in order to ensure that the South African Government fulfils its statutory obligations towards the peace process, the international community, in keeping with the spirit of the consensus resolutions adopted by the General Assembly in September and December 1990, should "maintain measures aimed at applying pressure on the South African regime to eradicate apartheid and to promote profound and irreversible changes, having in mind the objectives of the Declaration, namely the speedy eradication of apartheid and the establishment of a united, democratic and non-racial South Africa."
This solemn meeting is part of our ongoing monitoring of the evolving situation in South Africa. At a point when there is hope, such hope must be sustained as well as guarded carefully. In the prevailing circumstance where the evolving situation in South Africa is gradual, positive, but yet incomplete, the international community must guard against unilateral and premature actions aimed at either relaxing pressure on South Africa or indeed abrogating the measures aimed at sustaining such pressure. We are witnessing a crucial juncture in the delicate ongoing process in South Africa. We have an obligation to lend our supporting hand towards achieving an enduring solution to its problems. The moral obligation of the international community does not end by merely condemning the embodiment of racial discrimination. Our obligation means more than just verbal vilification of these abhorrent practices. We need action to eradicate racism. We must continue to fight until we win this global battle against racism and racial oppression. It is only then that we can help reconstruct a new and just society on the ruins of the old.
In this spirit and with renewed commitment, let us remember all those who have paid dearly with their lives to combat the evils of racism and apartheid. We owe them a modicum of dignity and an obligation to sustain the cause for which they died until racism and apartheid are eradicated from South Africa.