Day by day the intolerable situation in South Africa gets more serious.
We have referred to the numerous executions of political opponents in South Africa in blatant defiance of the Security Council resolution that irreparable harm would be done by such executions and calling on South Africa to desist.
We noted a few weeks ago that three persons in Port Elizabeth were sentenced to death.
We have just received news that six African prisoners in Pretoria Supreme Court were sentenced to death. The charges and the sentences show that the country is fast drifting towards a settlement by arms.
Yet, the Powers most directly concerned continue their business as normal.
We have even received news that the Hawker Siddeley company of the United Kingdom is to supply jet aircraft engines to South Africa, for use by the South African Air Force, despite the arms embargo which was adopted by the Security Council and explicitly accepted by the United Kingdom. We are led to expect a new excuse: that these aircraft are civilian aircraft though they may be used by the military in South Africa.
The South African people and indeed the African peoples are losing faith in the effectiveness of the United Nations in solving this problem of apartheid, as they see what they regard as no more than verbal jugglery in the councils of this Organization by some Member States, and the stack of resolutions with little implementation.
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the South African people are increasingly thinking of more positive action of their own with the support of African States and other friendly States against South Africa and its friends or allies as the next step. I, for one, can fully understand and appreciate their feelings, but I think that all those who value the role of this Organization should ponder over this situation seriously.
A few days ago, a committee of 35 citizens of Denmark was set up in Copenhagen to collect funds to "support a more militant fight against apartheid in South Africa". Mr. Henning Carlsen, the Danish documentary film director, is chairman of the Committee.
At a press conference on 22 April 1965, attended by representatives of the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress of South Africa, spokesmen of the committee said that the funds would be used for anything including sabotage. The group felt, they said, that the peaceful methods advocated at the United Nations were useless. They disclosed that similar committees would be established in France, Italy, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom.
In this connection we should point out that on 12 April, the so-called Minister of Justice of South Africa told the Whites-only "Parliament" in Cape Town that there had already been two phases of sabotage in South Africa: the first had been carried out by unskilled saboteurs and the second by semi- skilled White "Communists". (Among the so-called" Communists" he includes many liberals and others, whom we have listed in our reports and who have not the remotest connection with Communism). The Minister continued that the next stage would see fully-trained saboteurs - people trained in Africa and elsewhere for the specific purpose of trying to overthrow the Government.
I have no official information on this matter - and I would not disclose it even if I had it - but it should surprise no one that oppressed people would find means to fight harder and harder in the face of obstacles, and never surrender.
I have said that the African people have a duty to give their unconditional support to the South African people whether they choose nonviolent means or violent means. The trend toward violence does not surprise us after the developments of the past few years. We have no doubt that the South African people will receive all necessary assistance. The question for us here is really the fate of the United Nations, the destiny of South Africa, and the future of race relations in Africa in particular and in the world in general.
At the last meeting, I made a statement on military assistance to South Africa and investments by foreign companies in South Africa, and made several suggestions.
I think it is necessary to expose to daylight all the forces which are reinforcing apartheid so that world opinion and international action will oblige them to desist.
Let me say again, so that there may be no misunderstanding, that our purpose is to secure the dignity and rights of all the people of South Africa, irrespective of colour. We are not anti-White, anti-European or anti-anybody else. It is the Whites of South Africa, and their leaders, who are their own worst enemies.
We do not look upon the problem of South Africa as a cold war problem, or an East-West or North-South problem. It is a problem of humanity, though particularly close to Africa whose dignity and destiny are involved.
The so-called Western world - particularly some States in the West - bear a special responsibility as they were responsible for creating this racialist State in Southern Africa, because they profit by this racialism and because they continue to support the present racist regime. It is not the Soviet Union or China or Poland which helped the dominance of racism in South Africa and reinforced it. The one most responsible is the United Kingdom, with a secondary responsibility borne by the United States, and a collection of so-called Western States. The solution requires that they desist from continued support to racism and that they undo the harm that they have done. If, instead, they hide behind cold war arguments or make their plans according to cold war strategies, they will be committing a serious crime - a double crime - in the eyes of history.
Our generation which has seen not only the agonies of imperialism in Asia and Africa and the bitter price we had to pay to end imperialism - in Ethiopia, Indonesia, Algeria and Kenya, for instance - but also the tragedies of involvement of the cold war in the process as in Vietnam and the Congo; we who have lived in a generation in which millions of innocent men, women and children, including some of the best sons and daughters of our nations, the flower of our youth, sacrificed in this whole process, cannot permit the exaction of this senseless toll in Southern Africa. A conflict in Southern Africa, as we warned many times, may well be more dangerous than any conflict in the postwar era. But let no one think it will be a repetition of Kenya or Algeria. Today we have a resurgent Africa which will not stand idly by or limit its involvement, whatever its other preoccupations. Today the issue of racism is a world issue and cannot be confined and settled by local military superiority.
So we call on the responsible Western Powers to settle this problem now - without delay and equivocation, and outside the framework of cold war or any other irrelevant considerations. We are determined to do our share and we will not be impressed by lame excuses or the mythology or demonology of the cold war.