STATEMENT AT THE PLENARY MEETING OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

15  November 1977¹

Mr. President, allow me to extend, on behalf of our President, Oliver Tambo, warm greetings and sincere apologies to you and to all the representatives gathered in this Assembly. He apologizes for his failure to be with you today owing to pressing obligations dictated by the rapidly unfolding situation in our country.

Mr. President, the task assigned to me by our National Executive Committee, to congratulate you on your election to this eminent post, gives me great pleasure.² Your experience and dedication to the cause of human progress in general and African liberation, in particular, is well known. You represent a country which, in the struggle against Nazism, produced unsurpassed heroes and paid tremendous sacrifice in defence of the universally cherished goal of freedom. Our people and our movement, the African National Congress, take great pride in Yugoslavia's example. The indefatigable role of your great leader in the non-aligned movement is long and distinguished. It is for these reasons that we are confident that, under your presidency, the deliberations of this important debate will be crowned with success commensurate to the expectations of our people and progressive mankind.

It is the second time in the history of the United Nations that the African National Congress of South Africa is accorded the opportunity to address the General As­sembly.³ To us this further testifies to the importance that the United Nations attaches to the problem of apartheid, which it has declared its special responsibility. And it is of historic significance that this year 1977 marks the twenty-­fifth anniversary of the debate on apartheidby the United Nations - an event which followed the arrest of 8,500 African National Congress leaders and activists during the defiance campaign launched on 26 June 1952 and as a result of the request by the African National Congress to the late Pandit Nehru, whose birthday, 14 November, coincides with the beginning of this debate. It is equally significant that 7 November, the date initially set aside for the opening of this debate, also marked an important occasion, the fifteenth anniversary of the sentencing to life imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, later joined by Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Arthur Goldberg and others today incarcerated in Robben Island for their part as leaders in the struggle against apartheid.⁴

The struggle of the oppressed people of South Africa has entered a decisive stage. This can be attributed to two developments: first, the triumph of the world-wide anti­-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles, which drastically changed the balance of power in favour of the liberation forces in the world, including our country; and secondly, internal developments within South Africa itself,­ developments that are characterized by ever-escalating plunder, exploitation and repression.

The African National Congress would like to seize this opportunity to salute the representatives of Viet Nam, the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Democratic Kam­puchea, whose glorious struggle was a beacon and examplar and proved, once again, the old truth that just struggles are mutually self-supportive. We also cannot overemphasize the historic importance of the successful struggles waged by our comrades-in-arms, the brotherly peoples of Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola. This victory changed the geo­politics of the region and exposed the inherent vulnerability of the white supremacist redoubt. The imperialist strategy, which was based on the continued existence of Portuguese colonial domination, of the Ian Smith illegal regime and of racist South Africa's vaunted impregnable military and economic power, was decisively smashed. Since then, the imperialist Powers, determined to preserve their mono­polistic interests in the region, are now scrambling for new positions, using new methods and flying new banners.

The events of 16 June last year, which started as the rejection of slave education, have escalated to a general revolt against the entire system of apartheid and have plunged the country into a general crisis. Daily, parents, workers and peasants have, through individual and collec­tive efforts, demonstrated an unequalled zeal and deter­mination to win their freedom. Schools, bantustan institutions, police stations, police informers and agents have all been targets for destruction. With the soaring inflation and deepening economic crisis, the country is, for the first time in its history, facing the problem of unemployment within the white working class. The colossal expenditure on arms has exacerbated the regime's balance-of-payments problem. The colonial war the regime is waging in the illegally occupied Namibia is draining its manpower and causing a haemorrhage of its shaky financial and manpower re­sources. This is further aggravated by its full-scale military and economic support of the Ian Smith illegal regime. Added to this is the extremely costly invasion of Angola and continued military and financial backing of União Nacional para a Independệncia Total de Angola (UNITA) against the People's Republic of Angola.

We highlight these developments in order to show the momentous nature of the recent decision taken by the South African regime, which has called for the all-white general elections a year before theywere due in order to ride the wave of panic and repression that has reached an unprecedented height in the country.

Faced with the growing and daring activity of our underground militants at a time when its informer infra­structure is in shambles, the regime no longer stops at detaining and banishing the captured activists but has resorted to the policy of systematic assassination of political detainees. The cold-blooded murder of Steven Biko is the latest in the series of these heinous crimes which have taken the lives of 44 heroic sons and patriots of our country.

The continuing upsurge is not accidental, as our President, Oliver Tambo, stated in Lagos:

"They are born of harsh realities of the pernicious system and mark a new and decisive chapter in the long and bitter struggle led by the African National Congress. No people who are prepared to sacrifice their lives for their inalienable right to self-determination can ever be suppressed and subdued even by the most powerful military monster”.

It was Victor Hugo, the eminent French philosopher, who stated that the one thing that was stronger than all the armies of the world was an idea whose time had come. The workers' upsurge which preceded the student uprising confirms this old truth.

There has been a fallacious assumption about the recent and ongoing development in South Africa. It was suggested that this represented the break with and rejection of the traditional leadership and a new and alternative force. But today we are happy to note that there is a general awareness and acceptance of the fact that these are but currents in the broad mainstream whose vanguard is the African National Congress and its allies. In South Africa, since the advent of the white invader and settler, every generation has found itself in duty bound to raise the sacred and historic struggle to ever higher levels. Chief Albert Luthuli, our late beloved President, told our people that our struggle would always demand "courage that rises with danger". The youth of Soweto, Queenstown, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and other parts of our country, joined by their Coloured and Asian compatriots, are only responding to Luthuli's call. When the annals of this era are written, it will be said that this was indeed a glorious hour.

After the Vorster regime had murdered Steven Biko and summarily outlawed 18 organizations and proscribed the publishing of The World and arrested its editor, Percy Qoboza, and banned Donald Woods, editor of the East London Daily Dispatch, the Security Council convened an emergency meeting. After more than a week of delibera­tion, the United States, the United Kingdom and France vetoed three of the four draft resolutions introduced by the African group on 29 March this year. They were joined in that hostile act by Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany. That diplomatic defence of the Pretoria regime, whose system of apartheidhas been condemned by the international community through the United Nations as a crime against humanity, is taken very seriously by the African National Congress, the oppressed and struggling people of South Africa and progressive mankind.

The pompous virtue displayed after the adoption of the symbolic mandatory arms embargo should not be allowed to absolve those Powers of their complicity with the apartheid regime. The oppressed people of South Africa and the African National Congress, which spearheads their struggle, have watched with alarm the strategy of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany in the case of Namibia as well as the Anglo-American strategy in that of Zimbabwe - a strategy based on the Vorster regime's playing the role of arbiter. This is unquestionably an attempt to give the Vorster regime legitimacy and international respectability. Having armed it to the teeth and systematically undermined all efforts by the United Nations aimed at minimizing the bloodshed and loss of human life in South Africa and having provided it with the technological know-how to produce nuclear weapons, those Powers are now projecting themselves as champions of the right to self-determination in southern Africa and in South Africa itself. They even campaign against the commendable role of the countries that have always complied with the United Nations calls for active support for the liberation movement against apartheid.

In the past 20 years investments from those countries and members of the European Economic Community made them full partners of and accomplices in apartheid, and they enjoy all the economic super-profits drawn from the sweat and blood of our people. Today the Vorster regime has - rightly or wrongly - openly dared those countries to impose economic sanctions. "Pik" Botha, the regime's Foreign Minister, is reported by The Star of 15 October to have said that if economic sanctions were imposed on South Africa, Pretoria would finally say to the world: "Go to hell". In the meantime the regime has invoked sweeping measures to compel and control the production of strategic goods on a war-time basis by the multinational corporations operating in South Africa. The question that we now pose to the United States, the United Kingdom and France, taking into account their veto record and their usual claim of being in possession of powerful economic leverage, is this, Are they going to let the multinational corporations under their jurisdiction comply with Vorster's repressive and aggressive programme? Was that part of the plan that they consciously pursued in violating the United Nations resolutions calling for the withdrawal of investments?

We mention these developments to underline the weakness of the "mandatory arms embargo" recently adopted by the Security Council in its resolution 418 (1977). The triple veto exercised on the three draft resolutions calling for mandatory economic sanctions and the withdrawal of investments reveals not only the moral obtuseness of those Powers but also their hostility to the aspirations of the African cause. The battle lines are clearly drawn in southern Africa and in South Africa itself and the situation demands immediate and decisive action and cannot be mitigated by sanctimonious virtue and meaning­less gestures.

The position of the African National Congress since 1959 when, through its late President Albert Luthuli, it called for economic sanctions, revealed its consciousness of the fact that these measures could only complement our struggling people's own efforts. The success of our revolu­tion, as our President, Oliver Tambo, has stated on numerous occasions, can only be the product of our own efforts, and we shall not shirk our duty. The assistance and support which we ask of the world cannot supplant the need for us to wage our struggle. However, by implementing mandatory economic sanctions under Chapter VII of the Charter, this world body can help to create more favourable conditions for victory over settler colonialism and apartheid, and that help cannot be denied our people.

There is also some talk in certain circles to the effect that the isolation and ostracism of the apartheidregime only serves to push the so-called Afrikaner back into the laager. The analogy of the laager episode is used to confuse international opinion and to justify continued economic, military and nuclear collaboration. The battle of the so-called Blood River from which this analogy is taken was but an episode in the expansionist wars of colonization and European settlement. Since then, and thanks to imperialist collaboration, the successive minority regimes have con­solidated the most anachronistic racist system the world has ever known. And the analogy of the laager is used to conceal this fact.

The relevant and appropriate analogy is in fact the Great Trek and not the laager. The Great Trek of 1835 and 1836 was the Boer reaction to the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and, ultimately, the abolition of slavery in South Africa in 1834. In his manifesto the trek leader, Piet Retief, in giving reasons why his party was leaving the Cape to wage wars of colonial conquest and expropriation, declared: "We shall establish such relations as will... preserve proper relations between master and servant". This was the raison d'etre for the Great Trek expansionist campaign later articulated by the then President of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger, when he said: “The black man had to be taught that he belonged to the inferior class, which must obey and learn”.

There is no difference whatsoever between these outrageous policy utterances and what Vorster and his henchmen are saying and planning today. The acts of aggression against the neighbouring African States, and particularly the invasion of the People's Republic of Angola, are proof of expansionism and not the withdrawal into the laager. The same can be said of Vorster's statement that "Nothing is going to prevent us from becoming the leaders of Africa in every field". This in fact seems to be part of the global imperialist strategy based on arming the apartheidregime in order that it can play the role of gendarme in the subcontinent and bulwark against African freedom - which is called communism in Pretoria and some European capitals. This point is well understood by President Kaunda, who in 1967 declared:

"Apartheidis on the offensive. The old commando spirit in South Africa is being implemented to extend the boundaries of the influence of apartheid. The Boer trek is still on and is now instrumental to the wider concepts of neo-colonialism, the pillar on which the minority regimes find their livelihood and derive their confidence”.

President Kaunda's analysis has been vindicated by the regime's new Defence Amendment Act, in terms of which the Pretoria regime arrogates to itself the right to intervene militarily in all African countries.

We wish at this stage to reiterate once more that apartheid, a system founded on the strong Calvinist doctrine of predestination, is not amenable to change or reform. The architects and supporters of apartheid, who constitute the overwhelming majority of the whites in South Africa, as the 30 November racist elections will prove, fanatically believe they are a God-chosen race assigned the godly mission to keep in subjugation the inferior people they conquered, thanks to God's will. Professor de Kiewit, a South African historian, explains the Boer belief about the historical developments related to the colonial conquest of the African people as follows:

"According to their belief it was more than their arms that made them prevail over the natives and their superiority depended on more than their intelligence or their institutions. Their superiority was born of race and faith, a quality divinely given which could not be transmitted to other races or acquired by them. 'The black stinking dogs' as Van Riebeeck called them, suffered from an inferiority predestined and irreparable, which fixed their place in society of white man”.

This has remained the fundamental tenet of the white supremacists from that day to this, and the Dutch Reformed Church, which with its Calvinistic fundamen­talism and its emphasis on predestination and the writings of the Old Testament, was and remains the spiritual rock on which apartheidis founded. It was this Church and the Bible which nourished the Trekboer and today provides the spiritual justification of apartheidand assures its flocks that the laws of the State derive from God and are therefore beyond question.

Vorster is invoking this spiritual justification when he dismisses as irrelevant Mr. Jimmy Carter, the President of the United States, presumably together with the leaders of the other Western Powers who tell us they can as his friends persuade Vorster to accept majority rule. The same spiritual justification continues to nourish the regime in its campaign to engage in wanton killing of unarmed demonstrators, including children, as well as the torture and murder of political detainees.

When the time comes for it to use genocidal weapons, including the apartheidnuclear bomb - arms the Western countries have supplied and helped to produce internally in order to unleash open aggression beyond its borders - it will still claim this spiritual justification.

The Western countries have fooled us for decades now. They cannot fool us for ever. To them we say, there is only one way to cleanse their indefensible record, and that is immediately to put an end to their deception and duplicity. They must stop blocking the implementation of economic sanctions and a mandatory arms embargo under Chapter VII. They must support the African National Congress, the sole authentic liberation movement in South Africa that spearheads the broad alliance of black patriots and white democrats committed to the creation of a democratic State that will secure the birthright of all the South African people irrespective of colour, race, sex or belief.

They must abandon their futile attempts to promote puppet alternative organizations to rival the African National Congress which, thanks to its long history of struggle and principled and relentless championing of the true aspirations of the people, enjoys the unchallenged support of the people. Its principled and correct position of uncompromising opposition to both white and black racism has earned it world-wide support and makes it the only viable alternative to the apartheidregime.

The Western countries and all Member States must resign themselves to the reality that obtains today. They must accept the fact that there can be no peaceful solution to the apartheidproblem. They must support the position adopted by the Assembly at its thirty-first session and recognize the legitimacy of the armed struggle for the seizure of power by the people in South Africa. They must all follow the example of the Netherlands and join the Nordic countries in their progressive move toward aligning themselves with the forces which love justice and peace and whose opposition to apartheidis translated into concrete action such as political, financial and material support to the African National Congress.

Finally, it is necessary at this stage to spell out once again what the real issues are in South Africa. There is a tendency in some circles to draw false parallels and analogies regarding our struggle. Our struggle is for the armed overthrow of the apartheidregime, the seizure of power by the people, and for the reconstruction of our society. The African National Congress has always been conscious of the fact that racism is not its own justification but is an instrument to maintain super-exploitation of the black people over the last 500 years. Though racism as a doctrine has assumed a life of its own, it is first and foremost an instrument for an exploitative purpose. The victims, their land and their natural resources are system­atically plundered, exploited and expropriated. The strug­gling people of South Africa, whose status is that of a colonized people, are not only striving for the elimination of excesses of the present system. Those who persistently insist on reformism or peaceful solution are obviously bent on perpetuating the status quo in a disguised and neo-­colonialist form.