26 October 19831
Mr. President, I wish to thank you most sincerely for giving us the opportunity to participate in this Council meeting.2 Our thanks also go to all the members of this body for making this possible.
Mr. President, like many representatives who have preceded us, we are pleased to see you preside over the Council whenit examines once again the problem to which the African people and justice-loving people as a whole attach so much importance. Your country’s commitment to the international fight for freedom, justice and peace in the Middle East and southern Africa is wellknown, as is your own personal devotion to these just causes. This double qualification and your rich diplomatic experience inspire us with confidence that, under your able guidance, the deliberations of this Council meeting will be crowned with success.
May I also, in the name of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC), pay tribute to my friend, brother and comrade, His Excellency Ambassador Noel Sinclair for whateverybody agrees was outstanding leadership which he provided to this Council during the difficult month of September. The role played by Guyana and a host of other countries as front-line States in the international rear base in the fight against the inhuman system of apartheid is a source of tremendous inspiration and encouragement to our people.
Having failed to secure the intended annexation and incorporation of Namibia as a fifth province of South Africa and contesting the legal authority of the United Nations on this question, the Pretoria regime defiantly imposed its illegal occupation of this African territory some decades ago. This was followed by countless resolutions and decisions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, the Security Council, the International Court of Justice and other international institutions, condemning racist South Africa's illegal occupation and calling for its termination. The international community also wentfurther and recognized the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) as the sole authentic representative of the Namibian people.
The Pretoria regime's response to this consensus was continued defiance, thereby forcing SWAPO to resort to armed struggle. In 1977, at a time when the development of the armed liberation struggle waged by the heroic people of Namibia, under their sole authentic representative, SWAPO, had reached a high point, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany came forward and offered their services as a contact group which would use its collective diplomatic and economic leverage in order to coerce racist South Africa to co-operate towards a negotiated settlement of the Namibian problem. SWAPO together with the front-line States and Nigeria, were to become participants in this exercise.
That SWAPO, the front-line States and Nigeria were suspicious is common knowledge. For our part, we of the ANC fully shared this suspicion. The cause of this strong suspicion was mainly the fact that all the members of the proposed contact group were countries that had done everything possible, short of direct military intervention in support of the apartheid regime, to thwart the Namibian people's liberation struggle.
What had brought about this change of heart, many asked. Was it the development of the struggle, led by SWAPO, which was progressively making the Namibian war of liberation unstoppable, as the ANC struggle intensified in South Africa itself? What was the group’s hidden agenda, others asked. Was it the derailment of this liberation struggle and the imposition of a neo-colonialist solution in Namibia?
More questions came up. Was this initiative intended to help the Pretoria regime buy the time it needed to set up and consolidate a third-force group in preparation for a solution of its choosing - that is, the exclusion of SWAPO and the imposition of a puppet neo-colonialist regime in Namibia? Were these negotiations to be held with the illegal occupier of' Namibia simply intended to put an end to the confrontational posture that had been taken by the international community against racist South Africa and to help rehabilitate that regime - a regime that stood universally condemned for its practice of the inhuman system of apartheid?
These questions have become pertinent in the face of not only the failure of the contact group to deliver what it promised but also the attitude, pronouncements and acts of solidarity displayed by the United States, the leader of the group, towards the apartheid regime.
We are convinced that the Pretoria regime is bent on perpetuating its illegal occupation of Namibia or imposing its own solution, in keeping with its determination to prevent the completion of the process through which neighbouring countries become independent and cease to serve as buffer zones. Its policy of destabilization and aggression against the front-line States and Lesotho is in fact further proof of its intention to reverse this situation, which had resulted in the independence of Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola and extended the frontiers of freedom to this last bastion of reaction on the African continent.
The propaganda campaign which accompanied the emergence of the Western contact group and the big promises that diplomatic and economic leverage would be collectively exerted on the Pretoria regime in order to force its hand tell the rest of the story.
A campaign was unleashed not only criticizing the countries that had always supported SWAPO and other liberation movements as interfering, but also claiming that the United States and other contact group members considered the mineral resources with which Namibia and South Africa itself were endowed to be of vital strategic interest to the United States. Although we remain convinced that the motive for setting up the contact group in 1977 was the determination to obstruct the outright victory that had become imminent in Zimbabwe and inevitable in Namibia, it is true that there were some positive elements. For example, we welcomed what we thought was the beginning of some movement towards recognizing the fact that the liberation struggle in southern Africa was indigenous and not an extension of East-West rivalry.
But the change in Washington and the assumption of leadership by the incumbent Administration has resulted in the cancellation of the limited positive elements and the multiplication of the negative elements.
While professing its commitment to the liberation of Namibia, the Reagan Administration has shamelessly proclaimed friendship and alliance with the racist oppressor, to which it has offered nuclear, dollar and other types of carrots, and pledged to reward countries that befriend their racist ally and punish or topple those that give assistance to SWAPO and the ANC.
This Pretoria-Washington unholy alliance has encouraged the apartheid regime’s intransigence, repression, terrorism, destabilization and aggression in Namibia and South Africa and against the front-line States and Lesotho.
The linkage issue introduced by the United States is the most flagrant act of hostility against the liberation cause of Africa and the international community. Unfolding events have in fact shown that it is but the starting-point of a long chain of other so-called linkages intended to impede the liberation of southern Africa and strengthen the political, economic and military position of the Pretoria regime as the bastion, gendarme and strategic ally in the region of the United States of the Reagan Administration. Part of this strategy has taken the form of economic blackmail and the use of armed bandits, who serve as the extension of the regime’s racist army in carrying out acts of destabilization and aggression against neighbouring States.
As a result, wefind that the posture adopted by the apartheid regime with regard to the independent African States of southern Africa is governed today by the promotion of what Pretoria describes as its policy of national security. Indeed, this policy constitutes the centre-piece of Pretoria's strategy for the defence and entrenchment of the apartheid system.
In accordance with this policy, the regime seeks to destroy SWAPO and the African National Congress in Namibia and South Africa, and it has examples to learn from as it continues its activities in the direction of a Beirut-type operation in southern Africa.
The second component of this strategy is the transformation of the rest of the region into a so-called constellation of client States under its domination. Again the central element of the strategy is the liquidation of SWAPO and the ANCeven outside the borders of the respective countries, or at least our eviction from the region. In pursuance of this strategy the Pretoria regime is bent on a campaign of terror, aggression and destabilization which we are convinced will only stop when this Council takes effective action or when the regime feels it has pacified the whole region.
This position of the Washington Administration is taken, for example, by the United States Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Mr. Lawrence Eagleburger, who states that the efforts to secure a negotiated settlement in Namibia must also address racist South Africa's so-called legitimate security concerns. This, wesubmit, is a creeping move towards campaigning for the liquidation of the ANC in the region, as yet another linkage.
The statement of the United States representative before this Council the other day is yet another example. And so is the statement of the Pretoria regime’s representative, to whom the simple discovery of a pamphlet during its unprovoked aggression in Maputo, a pamphlet that talks of ANC soldiers, justifies the regime’s aggression against the capital of Mozambique.
Perhaps the most central part of the Reagan Administration’s policy and strategy of so-called constructive engagement is helping to placate world public opinion and giving credibility to racist South Africa in its pretence of engaging in peaceful talks, thus helping that regime to buy time and prepare for the imposition of a neo-colonialist settlement in Namibia. Evidence on the ground also shows that part of this strategy is not only the destabilization of the front-line States but also the toppling of their legitimate Governments. We seize this opportunity to pay a tribute to those countries for the sacrifice they are making in resisting the combined pressure of the United States and racist South Africa, designed to force them to enter into secret agreements for the liquidation of the ANC and the liberation struggle in South Africa.
It is clear that an honest examination of the situation can only lead to the following conclusions.
The negotiated settlement has never been, and is not today, round the corner as some have been saying for a number of years now. There has been no substantial progress in that direction and none can be made in the face of the anti-African liberation position of the Pretoria regime and its Washington allies. Implementation of the United Nations plan can be achieved only through forcing racist South Africa to withdraw unconditionally from Namibia and not through persuasion. Continued delay by the Council in taking this position and imposing sanctions will not only erode the authority of the United Nations but make it an accomplice in the crimes yet to be committed by the apartheid regime. We therefore call for the immediate imposition of comprehensive and mandatory sanctions against the Pretoria regime, and appeal to the other members of the contact group to condemn the issue of linkage and publicly to dissociate themselves from that position.
In conclusion, I wish to pay a glowing tribute to the valiant people of Namibia, whose patience, perseverance and fortitude, combined with yet unsung political maturity acquired in the course of the bitter struggle they have been waging for so long under the far-sighted leadership of their sole and authentic representative, SWAPO, has enabled them to defeat the countless machinations and manoeuvres designed to derail their heroic struggle and pave the way for a new colonialist solution.
Through Comrade Peter Mueshihange, through the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia and the SWAPO Central Committee headed by the indomitable Comrade Sam Nujoma, we salute our comrades in arms, the people of Namibia, for the important victories they continue to win in both the political and the military fields.
We dip our banner in memory of those who have fallen in battle or as victims of massacres and assassinations perpetrated by the Pretoria regime while we are being told in this Council that our frustrations are shared by the mighty ones.
We salute the SWAPO leadership, and pledge to reciprocate the support the Namibian people have always given our struggle by intensifying ours in the belly of the apartheid beast, thereby complementing yours and bringing closer our inevitable common victories.
1. United Nations document S/PV.2488