STATEMENT AT THE 2295^TH MEETING OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL

27 August 1981¹

Mr. President, we are happy and encouraged to see you preside over this Security Council meeting, which is considering a case of extreme importance to our movement.² Your country's and your personal commit­ment to the struggle against apartheidis well known and deeply appreciated by the ANC. Your tireless and unswerving contribution, not only in the forums of the United Nations but also in those of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, have always inspired and encouraged us. It is for that reason that we are con­vinced that under your guidance the Council will, to the satisfaction of the international community, respond to the challenge posed by the apartheidregime.

Comrades Anthony Tsotsobe, Johannes Sha­bangu and David Moise are members of the ANC. the ANC perhaps holds the world record as the liberation move­ment that, for over 60 years and in the face of ever­-growing fascist intransigence, brutal repression, wanton murder of peaceful demonstrators, not to mention aggression against neighbouring States, has most persistently pursued non-violent forms of struggle in the fight against a system that has been condemned by the United Nations as a crime against humanity.

When on 16 December 1961, after consulting the entire oppressed population, the ANC took the historic decision to close the chapter of non-violence and prepare for what had been forced upon it, it still hoped that limited sabotage would help to bring the Pretoria regime to sense and reason and make that regime join hands with the vast majority of the population in the application of the Freedom Charter. Members of the Council are no doubt aware of the fact that that document, which to this day remains the political plat­form of the ANC and its allies, states in its preamble:

"We, the people of South Africa, declare for our country and the world to know:

"That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white…

“…

"That only a democratic State, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief”.

On its part, and in support of this struggle, the General Assembly has for a number of years - and particularly the last consecutive years - adopted resolutions recognizing the legitimacy of the struggle waged by the South African people in all forms, including armed struggle, for the seizure of power and the establishment of a democratic State.

The Security Council itself has, through resolu­tion 473 (1980), recognized the legitimacy of that struggle for the establishment of a democratic State.

To this day the ANC combatants have strictly adhered to the instructions of their leadership - instruc­tions to focus exclusively on guarded installations and police stations and thus avoid "soft targets". It has presented to the International Red Cross headquarters a declaration in which it commits itself to the humanitarian conduct of war and calls on the United Nations and the international community at large to pressure the apartheidregime to accord prisoner-of-war status to all captured freedom fighters, in keeping with the revised Protocol II of the Geneva Convention.

Again the Botha regime's response has been not only a series of massacres, such as the Soweto one in 1976, but also the Matola raid in which 12 ANC refugees were killed and some abducted. It has been the assassination of Comrade Joe Gqabi, the ANC repre­sentative in Zimbabwe; it has been the imposition of death sentences on captured freedom fighters like Lubisi last year, and now Tsotsobe, Shabangu and Moise.

In addition to the gross legal irregularities which surround the trial of those patriots - such as the ruling that the so-called confessions, extracted under torture, were admissible as evidence - the intention is to pave the way for indiscriminate prosecution and eventual execution of all opponents of the apartheidregime. The blanket application of the so-called principle of com­mon purpose and conspiracy is designed to render every member of the ANC liable for armed action com­mitted in the country, regardless of personal knowledge or direct involvement in the commission of such acts.

It is for that reason that the ANC appeals to the Council to make its voice heard in order to save the lives of these patriots and to halt this dangerous trend towards paving the way for mass judicial murder. In the eyes of the entire oppressed black community in South Africa, in the eyes of the whole of progressive mankind the world over, those men are freedom fighters who were captured while playing their role in spearheading what is perceived throughout the world as the international struggle against an inhuman system and for the establishment of a democratic society that would be in conformity with the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Council cannot afford by omission to encour­age the further deterioration of the already explosive situation in South Africa, a situation whose explosion might poison race relations not only in Africa but throughout the world for decades to come. It is true the regime has not yet resorted to gas chambers, but it has resorted to its courts in order, as I have said, to pave the way for mass judicial murder. Therefore, we cannot consider this normal judicial process. It is for that reason, and in the name of those who are awaiting execution in Pretoria, that we appeal to the Council to take action.