1 June 19831
Mr. President, I thank you most sincerely for giving me the opportunity to express) on behalf of the oppressed and struggling people of South Africa, the views and position of the African National Congress (ANC) on the burning issue before the Council. Our thanks also go to all the other members of the Council for making this possible.
Your country’s and your own personal commitment to the struggle for the total liberation of the African continent is wellknown, Sir.2 It is therefore with a deep sense of satisfaction that we see you presiding over the deliberations of the Council when it is discussing the Namibian problem.
The ANC delegation wishes to pay a well-deserved tribute to the States members of both the Organization of African Unity and the Non-Aligned Movement for their initiative in having so many Foreign Ministers come to New York to express their common concern with clarity and firmness at this crucial period in the struggle of the Namibian people.
Since this is the first time we have appeared before the Council this year and this month, I should like first of all to take this opportunity to congratulate you, Sir, on your assumption of the high office of President of the Council during the month of June and the representatives of Malta, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Zimbabwe, the new members of the Council. That all their Governments and they themselves fully share the paramount objective of the ANCof a non-racial, democratic society for all the South African people, regardless of race, colour or creed is a source of strength to our movement and our noble cause.
We must not fail to express our appreciation to the representatives they have replaced. Their teamwork with all the other countries that are equally committed to the African liberation cause helped us to reach important political milestones.
May I also be excused for singling out the delegation of Zimbabwe so as to salute, even in his absence, a dear friend and comrade-in-arms, the Foreign Minister. This is not simply because wefeel singularly inspired and encouraged at seeing former fellow freedom fighters - with whomwe share the so-called terrorist label that rightfully belonged to Ian Smith – now seated as representatives in the Council. I salute you, Mr. President, and your Foreign Minister and express the ANC’s admiration of the able manner in which your Government and Comrade Robert Mugabe continue successfully to detect and defuse the numerous time bombs deliberately set by the erstwhile Pretoria-Salisbury axis and its partners in the anti-African alliances.
The exhaustive catalogue of betrayals of the Namibian people’s just and heroic struggle so eloquently cited by several Foreign Ministers and many representatives of non-aligned and other countries committed to the African liberation cause revealed the continuing conspiracy not only to delay but also to derail the progress towards genuine independence of Namibia.
We shall refrain from repeating what has been so effectively stated to demonstrate the endless maze of double-talk, prevarications and other impediments designed to delay and prevent the independence of Namibia under the leadership of the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), the sole authentic and farsighted representative of the Namibian people.
I should like at this juncture to pay a glowing tribute to the brother people of Namibia, our comrade-in-arms, SWAPO and the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) for the outstanding heroism, perseverance and fortitude that they have displayed not only in shattering racist South Africa's much-vaunted military might but also in facing up to the endless conspiracies.
The task of Comrade Sam Nujoma, the President of SWAPO, has not been an easy one.
The hopes raised by the emergence in 1978 of the Western contact group have been dashed to the ground by its refusal to exert the promised collective diplomatic and economic leverage on the intransigent racist regime.
However, it would not be proper or fair to say that the present state of affairs fully vindicates the fears that were entertained by some silent but doubting Thomases who strongly questioned the intentions of the contact group, comprising as it does countries which have earned international notoriety for the collaboration they continue to enjoy with the illegal occupier of Namibia.
In their favour it can be argued that they succeeded in bringing the Pretoria regime, albeit screaming and kicking, to the negotiating table at the pre-implementation conference in Geneva in 1981. The fact that these were countries that throughout had pursued a policy of duplicity, if not of outright support for the apartheid regime, raised sharp questions and doubts.
Even though mindful of the fact that this initiative could have been motivated by the contact group's attempt to delay the struggle with a view to imposing a fictitious neo-colonialist solution, the self-confidence, maturity and good faith of SWAPO and the front-line States were proved by their co-operation and agreement to make concessions.
SWAPO’s co-operation and readiness to facilitate the settlement were demonstrated unequivocally when Comrade Sam Nujoma stood up at the Geneva conference and declared his readiness to sign a cease-fire and agree to the immediate implementation of the United Nations plan. It will be recalled that the so-called South African Administrator-General announced on 13 January 1981 - a week before the inauguration of the new United States Administration - that South Africa was not prepared to proceed with implementing the United Nations plan. Torpedoed by the apartheid regime - which was obviously jubilant over the demise of the Jimmy Carter Administration and its policy of recognizing the indigenous character of the struggle for decolonization in Namibia and a non-racial, democratic society in South Africa - the pre-implementation conference broke up.
What followed those developments is of vital and fundamental importance for the settlement of the Namibia question, the elimination of the apartheid system and the solution of the problems of peace, stability and security in southern Africa. It is vital to the Council, whose raison d'etre is the settlement of disputes and the maintenance of peace.
President Ronald Reagan's public embrace of the Pretoria regime as a friend and ally elicited surprise, consternation and shock, embarrassed the American people, friends and allies, angered the African people, and caused jubilation in Pretoria. He went further by assuring that regime that the United States would not leave it in the lurch, that the Administration would pursue a policy of constructive engagement aimed at removing the polecat status imposed on the racist regime by the international community and would set a precondition linking the withdrawal of the Cuban internationalist forces with Namibia’s independence; that the Administration would reward the African countries that befriended the regime and punish and even topple those that assisted the ANC and SWAPO; and that the settlement of the Namibian question must take into account the South African regime’s “legitimate security concerns”.
Those and several other statements of solidarity with the self-confessed Nazi supporters, whose system of apartheid stands universally condemned as a crime against humanity and a threat to world peace, led to the unholy alliance that continues to grow. That alliance has been further strengthened by secret visits by the regime’s military intelligence officials, the training of racist South Africa's coast guards in the United States, the visit to South Africa by William Casey, Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), for discussions on the problem of Namibia and apartheid, and constant attacks against the ANC and SWAPO as terrorist organizations.
There could have been no greater solidarity for a regime which for decades has been an international pariah. This encouraged and emboldened the regime to show greater intransigence, practice more brutal repression inside South Africa, step up assassinations of ANC leaders in the country and the neighbouring States, undertake more brazen acts of destabilization and aggression against the front-line, Indian Ocean and neighbouring countries. We have no doubt that the United Nations plan has been the biggest casualty of the Washington-Pretoria axis.
As a direct consequence of the United States giving comfort and succour to its strategic ally, the apartheid regime, we find that the present South African representative can make the outrageous claim that its presence in Namibia is legal.
In a statement before the. Council the other day the Pretoria regime’s representative declared:
“The time has come to remind the United Nations that South Africa has never accepted the United Nations view that South Africa's presence in the Territory is illegal; nor has the International Court of Justice ever delivered a binding judgement to the effect that South Africa's right to administer the Territory has been terminated. As far as South Africa is concerned it continues to administer the Territory legally and in conformity with the spirit of the lapsed Mandate from the League of Nations”.(S/PV.2440, page 26)
This defiant, categorical and unequivocal statement goes to the root of the whole problem and flatly negates the oft-repeated assurances by the contact group that the negotiations have reached a crucial stage and the independence of Namibia is round the corner.
In his statement before the Council, Comrade Sam Nujoma, SWAPO’s President, helpfully reminded us of the ruling given on 21 June 1971 by the International Court of Justice, in paragraph 133 of its advisory opinion, where it states:
“the continued presence of South Africa in Namibia being illegal, South Africa is under obligation to withdraw its administration from Namibia immediately and thus put an end to its occupation of the Territory”.
In the light of its position in the negotiation process for the independence of Namibia, it is abundantly clear that the role of the United States cannot be considered that of an honest broker.
That the Namibian people, SWAPO, the front-line States and the United Nations have been deceived is self-evident. The question before us is whether the South African regime has been deceiving the contact group as well, or the regime undertook this deceptive exercise jointly with, and with the conscious collusion of, the contact group. This question must be answered by the contact group in the interest of its own credibility, not just in words but through action. If the contact group has been deceived by the apartheid regime we believe that, in defence of their compromised moral integrity, its members must now take the lead in calling for the imposition of sanctions against the South African regime.
In his closing remarks, Comrade Sam Nujoma declared:
“unless this body acts decisively to secure the withdrawal of South Africa from the international Territory of Namibia, we shall have no alternative but to continue the armed struggle with greater intensity".3
This statement is a serious indictment of the international community in general and the contact group in particular.
For our part, we seize this opportunity to reaffirm our revolutionary solidarity with our comrades-in-arms, the sole authentic representative of the people of Namibia. We pay a glowing tribute to its armed combatants, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), and assure them that now that the situation is ripe inside South Africa and the ANC has joined them in the trenches, we shall fight side by side until final victory.
The Pretoria regime's illegal rule does not begin and end in Namibia. In South Africa itself as a product of colonial conquest, the regime keeps the 23 million blacks under subjugation at the point of the gun and governs without the consent of the governed.
We raise this point because a few days ago there a lot was said and written about the situation in South Africa. On 23 May South African war planes attacked Mozambique, bombing civilian targets, including private houses, a factory and a crèche, and killing five adults and a child. This was boastfully reported by the apartheid regime as an act of retaliation for what took place in Pretoria on 20 May when the armed combatants of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) attacked the South African Air Force headquarters.
We would like to make it quite clear that the alleged ANC bases that were supposedly attacked in Mozambique do not exist. This is well known to the South African regime thanks to its intelligence service. We would also like to make it clear that, contrary to the claims made by the regime, not only does the ANC have no bases in Mozambique, but this is the case in all the neighbouring countries. And this point has been repeatedly stated by the regime’s own Minister of Defence, Magnus Malan, who has said, according to the South African newspapers, that the ANC is not waging an area war but a psychological war.
It is clear that the South African regime, unable to contain the rising tide of resistance in South Africa, has resorted to using the front-line States and Lesotho as scapegoats in order to placate the panic-stricken white constituents who are beginning to wonder if the regime is capable of defending them should the ANC respond in kind and do whatthe regime has been doing since the advent of settler colonialism in South Africa.
The institutionalized racism, exploitation and plunder, bolstered by the legislative mechanism of the exclusively white Parliament, judiciary and provincial councils, are justified by South Africa on the basis of white supremacy doctrine preached from the pulpit and taught in the classroom. Its agents are covered with the blood of innocent blacks, killed in prison, assassinated by hit squads inside the country or in neighbouring States, or massacred at Sharpeville, Soweto, Langa, Maseru or Matola. The regime's hangman is the busiest in the world, since that regime holds the world record for hangings.
The 23 million Africans are not only denied the right to vote by this regime, considered in some circles in the West as a member of the so-called free world, but are today being made foreigners in the land of their birth. They are daily being uprooted in their millions and herded off to the vast concentration camps for displaced persons in the bantustans - the so-called national independent States where they either starve and die or sell their labour cheap in the urban areas where they can remain legally only for so long as they minister to the needs of the whites. Since 1976 a total of 8 million people have been forcibly removed and have lost their citizenship in South Africa.
These disabilities and a million others, including the expropriation of land, have been the lot of the blacks in South Africa since the advent of settler colonialism, when, after almost 200 years of fighting, our people's resistance was subdued thanks to the superiority of the gun to the spear. Two years after the formation of the so-called Union of South Africa, the African National Congress was formed in 1912. The 50 years of non-violent methods of struggle achieved little other than total dispossession, disenfranchisement and super-exploitation.
The heightened militancy and spirit of protests which coincided with the wind of change in other parts of Africa resulted in the increase of mass arrests, banishments, hangings and massacres, climaxed by the 1960 Sharpeville massacre in South Africa. The Soweto, Gugulethu, Langa, Sharpeville massacres, and many others, were the result of the wanton murder of innocent black men, women and children, gunned down by racist police using Western weapons and carrying out their masters' standing orders to “shoot first and ask questions later”.
It will be recalled that even after the Sharpeville massacre the ANC and its sister organizations, concerned over the then imminent proclamation of a fascist Republic following the regime's world-wide condemnation and forced withdrawal from the Commonwealth, called for a national convention to discuss the future of the country. The letters addressed to the racist Prime Minister of the day by Nelson Mandela, acting on behalf of the already outlawed ANC, were not even accorded the courtesy of acknowledgement. Thus the ANC’s last attempt to keep open the avenues for dialogue met with failure.
The last straw was the regime's use of its entire police force and army to crush a national strike, called by Nelson Mandela in the name of the ANC in order to protest against the fascist Republic. Yesterday's celebration of the proclamation was made less festive by the crisis of confidence which has hit the white community.
It was amid armed attacks against installations connected with the policy of apartheid that Umkhonto we Sizwe - the spear of the nation - announced its formation on 16 December 1961 through its manifesto:
“The Government policy of force, repression and violence will no longer be met with non-violence only. The choice is not ours. It has been made by the Nationalist Government which has rejected every peaceful demand by our people for rights and freedom and answered every such demand with force and yet more force. We of MK have always sought - as the liberation movement has sought - to achieve liberation without bloodshed and civil clash. We do so still. We hope, even at this late hour, that our first actions will awaken everyone to the realization of the disastrous situation to which the Nationalist policy is leading”.
This situation and the historic decision taken by the ANC in 1961 and continuing to this day is not unique. A large number of States, including Zimbabwe and the United States, were at some stage of their peoples' struggle for emancipation from colonial, alien or dictatorial regimes, forced to take the same position. A good number of States Members of the United Nations, including members of the Security Council, fall into this category. Indeed, it includes the United States, whose Declaration of Independence states that:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed. - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government ... organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness ... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”.
The rapidly deteriorating situation in southern Africa has been further aggravated by the regime's continued destabilization of Lesotho. Three days ago, following a bomb blast in Bloemfontein, carried out by one of the agents of the regime, later followed by an announcement from Maseru addressed to the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation, purporting to come from the ANC and claiming responsibility for the bomb attack in Bloemfontein, the border with Lesotho was closed, causing the prevention of the passage of supplies of essential goods such as foodstuffs, medical supplies and petrol. This showed clearly that this attempt by the regime to discredit the ANC was intended also to prepare the ground for stepping up the destabilization of Lesotho, if not the overthrowing of its legitimate Government and the replacing of it by South Africa's puppet, the leader of a counter-revolutionary group which is armed, equipped, financed and deployed by the South African regime.
We close by appealing to Member States to give this problem immediate attention, for Lesotho is the victim of aggression because it stands firm on the implementation of United Nations resolutions.
1. United Nations document S/PV.2451