STATEMENT AT THE 2763RD MEETING OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL

20 November 1987¹

Mr. President, on behalf of the African National Congress of South Africa I wish to thank you and the Security Council for giving us the floor to join the international community in addressing this most urgent matter before the Council today. We must also congratulate you on your assumption of the helm of this body,² and at the same time we thank your predecessor, the Ambassador of Italy, for a job well done. We are confident that the deliberations of the Security Council cannot but benefit from your guidance.

Racist South Africa's undeclared but naked war of aggression against the front-line States and neighbouring countries has had occasion to be discussed in these very chambers more frequently perhaps than most other issues that pose a threat to international peace and security. This has been particularly true in the specific case of racist South Africa's frequent aggression against and invasion of the People's Republic of Angola, as well as its occupation of portions of the southern part of that country. Each time, the guilt of the Pretoria racist regime has been crystal clear, if not established beyond doubt; yet each time attempts to adopt measures designed to compel the Pretoria racist regime to comply with the norms of international law have been sabotaged by certain permanent member States. Meanwhile the racist regime has interpreted each failure of the international community to act as permission and encouragement to proceed apace on its criminal warpath. The longer the Council fails to act, the more emboldened Pretoria will be to drown the entire region of southern Africa in a horrendous interracial blood-bath.

It is public knowledge that at least three battalions of the Pretoria racist regime have for a long time been occupying positions in southern Angola, positions which they have sought to expand by launching forays into the rest of the country. The regime now also has some 30,000 troops massed on the border with Namibia as back-up for its current unprecedented escalation of aggression against the People's Republic of Angola. In a blatant display of contempt for the very principles of national sovereignty and territorial integrity, P. W. Botha and three of his henchmen have had the temerity to visit the racist occupation troops on Angolan soil. In a statement which confirms what has always been public knowledge, namely that the UNITA bandits are the ignominious cat's-paw of apartheid, the Pretoria racist regime claimed that its heightened military aggression against Angola was in the interest of preventing a UNITA defeat. If clarity were ever needed, the elements are all in place. Pretoria's vain attempt is to create a so-called constellation of southern African States under the dominance of pax pretoriana. This is also intended to serve the objective of buying more time for Pretoria to impose a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) type settlement in Namibia, thus effectively sabotaging resolution 435 (1978) and extending its illicit lease on the use of Namibian territory, which it occupies illegally, as a launching-pad for its acts of aggression and destabilization against the front-line and other independent African States in the region.

There are those who have made it their vocation to see glimmers of hope even in the darkest aspects of the conduct of the Pretoria racist regime, frequently defying common sense and flying in the face of irrefutable historical evidence. It is alarming enough that they have persistently taken the position that apartheid should be given time to reform itself even as the regime's domestic reign of terror and its state terrorism against neighbouring African States have been consistently intensifying. At the dangerous extreme they have sought to purchase extra time for apartheid by militarily supporting the Pretoria racist regime's surrogates, as is the case in the United States Administration's support for the UNITA bandits. P. W. Botha's visit to his occupation troops on Angolan soil, apart from being an act of flagrant defiance, is also calculated to exploit this disposition on the part of its allies. This high-profile visit, taken in conjunction with the Pretoria regime's assertion that it is upping its war against Angola in order to prevent a UNITA defeat, is without doubt intended to involve the United States, which supports UNITA, more deeply and extensively in Pretoria's war against southern Africa. Nothing could be more dangerous than for the United States Administration to fall for this cheap ploy. In the name of international peace and security we strongly counsel against this horrendous possibility.

We must remember that attempts to accommodate Hitler even as he began to invade Poland led to his military occupation of the greater part of Europe. To fail to take decisive action as Pretoria is escalating its military aggression against Angola will have the effect of giving Pretoria carte blanche to overrun all of southern Africa. If we cannot turn Pretoria back from Angola, if we cannot accelerate the process of Namibian decolonization under the provisions of resolution 435 (1978), we hardly have grounds to hope that Pretoria can be prevailed upon to leave southern Africa alone.

The Security Council must, therefore, condemn racist South Africa's aggression against the People's Republic of Angola. It must demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of its troops from that country. The Security Council must make it clear that racist South Africa's failure to comply with this demand within a clearly fixed period will leave the Security Council no choice but to impose comprehensive mandatory sanctions on racist South Africa under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.