For nearly twenty years now the United Nations has been trying to find a solution to the problem of apartheid. For more than two years the Special Committee has had this problem under constant study; during that period alone, the Security Council has adopted four resolutions. The African States have been concerned with this problem for years and have adopted collective measures for its solution. The Asian States, as also many other States in the world, including the Scandinavian States, have taken an active part in this struggle against apartheid. Yet the situation in South Africa is going from bad to worse. Some well-intentioned people are even wondering whether all the international action taken in this matter has not been in vain.
I think that we should ponder this question and examine the situation in all its aspects, so that we may be able to propose realistic and effective measures.
I am convinced that the doubts that have been expressed about international action reflect a naive and altogether superficial attitude towards apartheid.
Apartheid is not just a problem arising between the Whites and the non-Whites in South Africa; it is not just a problem created by the greed of the Whites of South Africa; it is not a colour problem.
The Whites of South Africa are not allergic, if I may so put it, to the colour black: they are only too pleased to exploit the black man and to profit from his work. They would have seen no point in reducing the Africans to slavery if it had not been possible to force them to work for their masters.
As I tried to show in my last statement, the discrimination to which the non- Whites in South Africa are subjected serves certain interests far beyond the frontiers of that country.
Among those interests, we may mention those of a large number of powerful companies of the City of London.
There are also 175 American firms operating in South Africa. The percentage of profits they make on their investments is fantastic: 20 per cent in 1961, 25 per cent in 1962 and 27 per cent in 1963.
There are also numerous trade and financial interests that are linked to colonialism in Angola, Mozambique and Southern Rhodesia.
Lastly, there are militarist elements who regard South Africa as a trustworthy ally and are afraid to see a world of free and independent nations appearing before their eyes.
In tackling the problem of apartheid we come up against the opposition of all these interests, in one form or another. We must not be simple enough to think that we can overcome them by resolutions and speeches, but neither must we give way to discouragement: the cause of equality will end by overcoming the forces which today may seem so formidable. We must persevere and not allow ourselves to be deluded or to delude others. Above all, we must determine clearly what are the forces upholding racism in South Africa and what are the forces opposed to it.
We must study how the forces upholding racism operate and consider what methods must be used to defeat them. Only thus shall we be able to obtain clear ideas and adopt effective measures.
With your permission, I should like today to deal with some aspects of this problem.
In resolution 1761 (XVII) the General Assembly requested Member States to sever economic relations with South Africa. We have seen, however, that on the contrary some States have increased their trade with South Africa and the volume of their investments in that country.
Not only are the big investors interested in South Africa because it makes vast profits for them, but they seem to have conceived the idea of making that country a base for operations which will give them access to larger areas.
In March 1965 the South African Press reported that the giant Leyland Motor Corporation of the United Kingdom had selected South Africa as the base for a sales drive in the growing markets in the Far East and that it planned to spend $140 million on this development programme.16
In February 1965 it was announced that some American companies, the Rand Mines and the Eastern Stainless Steel Corporation, were building a plant, at the cost of $14 million, to produce 25,000 tons of stainless steel a year. South Africa's annual consumption of stainless steel does not amount to 7,000 tons, but the investors are said to be confident that they can easily sell the bulk of their production in Europe and North America.17
The General Assembly asked that air and sea connections with South Africa should be broken off.
The African States have forbidden South African aircraft to fly over their territory or to use their airports, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 1761 (XVII) and the resolutions of the African States. At the end of 1963 the air space of the African States was closed to South African aircraft. But what happened? Portugal allowed those aircraft to use new routes to Europe, and the colonial Powers, in particular the United Kingdom, continued to cooperate with South Africa in that respect.
South African Airways has been able to make profits and even develop its operations abroad thanks to the help of Portugal and other non-African Powers. Recently it opened new offices at Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and San Francisco. It has bought new aircraft in the United States.
The Portuguese airline T. A. P. (Transportes Aereos Portugueses) has been serving Johannesburg since April 1965.
The French airline UTA - formed by the merger of the UAT and the TAI - is contemplating putting jet aircraft into service on the Paris-Johannesburg flight in November 1965, for the transport of passengers and freight. It is also planning an "intensive campaign" to advertise the tourist attractions of South Africa.18 The UTA is associated with Air Afrique, an airline partly owned by African States, which will undoubtedly follow its activities closely.
The BOAC is in process of negotiating a new agreement with South African Airways.
Lufthansa, the West German airline, has announced that it will go on serving South Africa even if some African States will not allow it to fly over their territory.
We are entitled to ask whether these States and the companies subsidized by States which help South Africa to defy the United Nations, and which try to profit from the sacrifices made by some African States and by other parts of the world, attach any importance whatsoever to the decisions of the United Nations or to the Organization itself. They seem to think that because they voted against General Assembly resolution 1761 (XVII) they can disregard it and that they are entitled to do the very opposite of what that resolution recommends. Is that their attitude towards the General Assembly resolutions? We are obliged to ask that question in view of the somewhat different attitude they seem to adopt in other Committees. If the General Assembly's decision about the organization of military forces for peace-keeping operations is binding on all States, as they appear to suggest, who could logically maintain that the resolutions adopted by the same body with regard to economic sanctions are invalid?
Nevertheless, there is, of course, a certain logic in this illogical attitude.
We peoples of Africa have realized for a long time that efforts are being made to stem the liberation movement of the African countries. As the bastions of colonialism fall one after the other before the determined spirit of the African peoples, the enemies of Africa and their accomplices have decided to take up a firm position in the southern part of Africa, that is to say in South Africa, in the Portuguese colonies and in Southern Rhodesia.
An unholy alliance has been formed between the racists and the colonialists, with the object of keeping this part of Africa under tutelage. This alliance is being strengthened day by day.
Recent news reveals the frenzied activity of the Powers concerned to consolidate this alliance, which is directed against the African peoples and the United Nations.
On 13 October 1964 South Africa and Portugal concluded five agreements, on the following points: assistance by South Africa in the construction of a hydroelectric plant in Angola; the supply of electric power in South West Africa by the Portuguese authorities; and an undertaking by South Africa to give favourable consideration to all applications for the investment of capital or any other form of assistance in Mozambique and Angola.
On 30 November 1964 South Africa and Southern Rhodesia signed a new trade agreement, which went into effect at the end of the year. Under this agreement tariff barriers were lowered in order to promote the development of trade. According to the South African Press, its object is to hound British exporters out of the Southern Rhodesian market and to lay the foundation for the Common Market of Southern Africa advocated by Dr. Verwoerd.
It will be noted, moreover, that Southern Rhodesia is increasing its trade with the Portuguese colonies and that Portugal has concluded a new trade agreement with that country.
In March 1965 the South African Minister of Finance announced a loan of $7 million to the white minority Government of Southern Rhodesia.
In April, while the United Nations and the whole world were uneasy about Mr. Ian Smith's manoeuvres towards a declaration of independence by his racist Government, all sorts of encouragement poured in to him.
The David Whitehead group of British industrialists announced an expansion programme for the textile industry of Southern Rhodesia, at a cost of about 1. 9 million pounds, or $5,320, 000.19
A Spanish trade delegation arrived at Salisbury for talks with the Minister of Trade.20
A Japanese steel mission arrived in Southern Rhodesia on a one-month visit. Mr. M. N. Hirose, General Manager of the Kobe Steel Works and head of the mission, said that Japan was already importing 600,000 tons of iron ore and 200,000 tons of pig iron a year from Southern Rhodesia and that it would like to see those figures increased substantially in the next few years. The friendship between Rhodesia and Japan, he said, had developed rapidly and had now become very close,21 no doubt because of Mr. Smith's intention of declaring the British colony independent.
We cannot fail to compare this situation with what we know to be the state of relations between South Africa and Japan.
Various South African companies whose interests are closely linked with those of international investors are establishing themselves in the colonial territories.
At the end of last year it was announced that a fish-processing factory, costing $2.8 million, had been installed at Porto Amelia in Northern Mozambique. The main shareholders of the company, which is called Industiias de Pieze Nosa Senhora de Fatima (INOS for short) are the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa and Irvin and Johnson. They expect eventually to invest $42 million in this enterprise, which will have a chain of twenty-three catching stations and factories and twenty-one radio stations along the entire Mozambique coast.22
In January 1965 the limited company Angola Investments, a South African group, obtained control of the largest fishing enterprise in Luanda. This group, which has its own fishing fleet and fish-meal plants, will also buy fish from other enterprises in Luanda.23
There is apparently more to these deals than just fish.
Again in January 1965, it was announced that a South African, in partnership with two local businessmen, had acquired the Luanda trading company Martins and Macedo for about $1.4 million.24
On 5 February 1965 the Portuguese news agency ANI reported that a company under the direction of Castro Soromenho, but whose capital of 2.5 million pounds is mainly South African, had made a bid for a concession to exploit diamond deposits in southern Angola. The Portuguese colonialists, who have always been afraid of attracting too much foreign capital to their colonies, seem to be opening wide their doors to people from South Africa.25
During the past few months negotiations have been going on concerning the exploitation of Angolan oil by South African interests. In December 1964 there were reports that South Africa was seriously thinking of constructing a pipe line which would link the oilfields of Angola to the railhead at Windhoek, in South West Africa; another proposal by South Africa was that oil might be regularly transported in oil tankers from Walvis Bay to the Cape.26
In February and March 1965, Mr. W. B. Coetzer, Chairman of the South African mining group Federale Mynbou, had talks in Lisbon about a possible participation in the Angolan oil industry with the Portuguese Government and the Belgian and Portuguese groups which control the concessions. It was decided that the talks should be continued.27
Before leaving for the talks, Mr. Coetzer told the Star of Johannnesburg that the company was seeking to participate not only for economic reasons but also because of the essential strategic importance it would have. He said: "If it becomes known that we can obtain oil from the Portuguese, it will be a great factor in influencing boycotters not to boycott South Africa seriously. The strategic aspect of this question is as important as the economic, particularly as Portugal and South Africa are fellows in world distress politically."28
South African companies already possess large interests in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia and they are still investing there.
In February 1965 it became known that the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa acquired the mining assets of Felixbourg Mines, which has a concession to mine and prospect in the Felixbourg gold belt, about 28 miles south of Umvuma, in Southern Rhodesia.29
Opening the pseudo electoral campaign in Southern Rhodesia recently, Mr. Ian Smith was asked at Bulawayo whether any European country had given him a firm assurance that it would support and guarantee his regime in the event of a unilateral declaration of independence. He replied that he had been given such an assurance and added: "It was given in the utmost confidence." He said that it would not be in the interest of Southern Rhodesia, or of those who pledged their support, to divulge any more.30
I am sure that the members of the Committee can guess what country gave the assurance.
Mr. P. K. Van der Byl, Parliamentary Secretary for Information in Mr. Smith's regime, told the electors on 4 May:
"We (i.e., the Whites of Southern Rhodesia) are the leaders of the West and of the free world in Africa."
So here we have the representatives of the fascist regime of the racist and colonialist minority in Southern Rhodesia proclaiming themselves leaders of the free world and the West in Africa.
Only a few days ago, Mr. Ian Smith, the so-called Prime Minister of the colony of Southern Rhodesia, told a Portuguese journalist from Mozambique:
"We (Mozambique, Angola, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa) shall have to work together to halt the threat from Communist-inspired black nationalism."
According to Mr. Smith and his clique, African nationalism is Communist inspired. That is another absurdity.
He also said that the threats against Southern Rhodesia "give us an opportunity to strengthen our economic front, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean." That is their well-known theory of the Mason-Dixon line in Africa. We are, of course, well aware that Rhodesia touches neither the Atlantic nor the Indian Ocean. On the other hand, we know which countries are bounded by the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. In the face of these racist designs, to quibble would simply amount to a desire to give them time to complete their infamous plans.
At about the same time, Mr. J. J. Fouche, the South African Minister of Defence, boasted at Bloemfontein that the manufacture of arms in South Africa was so advanced that South Africa could supply all the neighbouring States with weapons and might even export arms to Western Europe.31
The day is probably not far off when South Africa will supply arms to the Portuguese colonies, Southern Rhodesia and perhaps even the United States, the United Kingdom, France and West Germany, by way of payment for the military assistance those Powers are giving it.
As I suggested in the address I made to the Conference held recently at Washington, every State should ask itself whether each aspect of the relations it maintains with South Africa, and each of its acts in relation to South Africa, strengthen or weaken apartheid. That is the first thing to do.
There has been much talk about economic sanctions, their feasibility, their desirability or appropriateness, their results etc. Let Governments decide, as a first step, that they will not grant any special concession, any special consideration or any quota to the South African Government.
I should like to cite a few specific examples in support of what I have just said.
The South African Department of Commerce announced in March 1965 that South Africa would take part officially in eighteen trade fairs in a dozen different countries during the present year.32 Is it necessary for South Africa to be invited to these fairs and to be given these opportunities to help its trade and its propaganda?
South Africa still enjoys "imperial preferences" in the United Kingdom although it left the Commonwealth in 1964. On 10 December 1964 Mr. Edward Redhead, Minister of State, informed the United Kingdom Parliament that South Africa was receiving preferences on about 60 million pounds worth of exports to the United Kingdom.
As I mentioned earlier, the United States has given South Africa a sugar import quota, which partly replaces that of Cuba. In February the United States Secretary of Agriculture announced a quota of 100,108 short tons for this year.
The French Government, too, grants import quotas for South Africa's agricultural products.
Are these preferences and quotas really necessary and do they help to weaken apartheid? Or is the United States Department of Agriculture unaware of the hatred of apartheid expressed here at the United Nations by the spokesmen of the United States Government?
Atomic energy is a field in which Governments exert strict control and the assistance granted to South Africa in this respect is significant.
The Allis Chalmers Company of Milwaukee has constructed a research and test reactor called "Safari" for the South African Atomic Energy Board at Pelindaba, near Pretoria. It achieved its initial chain reaction on 18 March 1965.33
Furthermore, there are South African atomic scientists studying in the United States and in France. South Africa is one of the ten countries in the world that would be able to manufacture nuclear weapons. Is this co-operation in the atomic field necessary and is it helping to weaken apartheid?
The United States has installed a radio station for space research at Hartebeeshoek, near Krugersdorp; the station is run by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of South Africa.
France is building a space tracking station near Pretoria which is expected to be in operation by the end of the year.
The United States has allowed South Africa to be party to an agreement on telecommunication satellites and to have the benefit of telecommunications services through the United States Communications Satellite Corporation.
We are entitled to ask whether all these relations are necessary and whether they encourage or undermine apartheid. We are entitled to receive clear and forthright answers to this question from the States concerned. We are naturally very anxious to have these answers.
We know that recently the South African authorities informed the United States Government that they would not allow the United States black members of the crew of the aircraft carrier "Independence" to go ashore and mix with the Whites if that ship were to call at the Cape.
We should like to know what the 20 million black Americans think of the actions of the representatives of 3 million South African Whites who are still receiving United States aid and yet dare to treat American citizens in that insulting way. Does the United States Government prefer the 3 million South African Whites to the 20 million black American citizens?
The South African Government is still telling the Whites who support it that the so-called isolation of South Africa is a myth, that the Western Governments are secretly very well disposed towards South Africa and that South Africa is a bastion of the "Western World". I wonder what the Western nations think of this statement. Do they think that Dr. Verwoerd's fascism is in conformity with freedom as understood by the West?
The South African Press has recently reported that South Africa will be called upon to play an important part in the Anglo American plans that are now being discussed for the Indian Ocean region.
In this connection, I should like to draw attention to a letter dated 21 January 1963 and addressed to the Anti-Apartheid Movement in London by Mr. Alfred Wells, Executive Assistant to the United States Ambassador in London. I have a photostat copy of this letter. It says:
"In any determination of our arms policy towards South Africa, consideration must be given to the fact that South Africa has always been firmly anti-Communist and a staunch member of the Western community of nations, while geographically that country occupies a strategic position on one of the principal East-West communication routes."
What I have just read out is an extract from a communication from an official representative of the United States. Yet here at the United Nations the United States has repeatedly expressed its opposition to apartheid and its abhorrence of that regime. Is that not hypocrisy?
That letter was written a little more than two months after the adoption of General Assembly resolution 1761 (XVII) on 6 November 1962. We know that in August 1963 the United States announced an arms embargo, though with certain reservations with regard to the defence of the so-called free world. I think, however, that we are entitled to expect a categorical statement from the United States that there can be no alliance or common interests between the United States and the racist Pretoria regime, since the latter constantly professes its contempt of the United Nations and of the principles of international cooperation. The United States has, we think, subscribed to all those principles.
The United Kingdom, for its part, is party to a military agreement with South Africa, signed on 30 June 1955, concerning "the joint defence of the maritime routes round Southern Africa." There is no doubt that the United Kingdom is assuming special responsibility for defence in Southern Africa. According to the South African Minister of Defence, this agreement was revised in 1961, but needless to say the text of the 1961 Agreement is not available.
We do not concern ourselves with the military plans of the Great Powers, but when these Powers take account of South Africa in their plans we are bound to express our anxiety and our opposition.
The members of the Committee will remember the statement that President Nyerere made recently in London, in which he said that Tanzania was determined to see Mozambique attain independence, either by peaceful means or by violence, and that if the West did not provide the necessary assistance, the arms needed to fight the Portuguese would be sought elsewhere.
It must be recognized that, in this context, the military collaboration between the West and South Africa, which has become the bastion of the colonialists and racists of the region, presents an obvious danger.
In order to ensure a just settlement in South Africa and to avoid unnecessary bloodshed and complications of all kinds, and in fact in order to preserve the integrity of the Western Powers themselves and to help them to avoid historic errors, we must insist upon their putting an end to all the compromising relations that they maintain with South Africa.
Footnotes