16 July 19631
.....(Summary)
Ms. MAKEBA thanked the Chairman for giving her the opportunity to address the Committee on the question of South Africa - a question which concerned the entire world and which all peoples must help to solve. Having recently attended the Addis Ababa Conference, she had been impressed by the determination with which the Africans were attacking the problems facing them. One of those problems was the serious situation developing in South Africa.
All the members of the Committee knew what apartheid meant for the Africans; it was, therefore, unnecessary to explain to them in detail what was happening in South Africa. The members of the Committee also knew that every time the Africans had tried to better the situation, the Verwoerd Government had resorted to further police brutality and terrorism to make South Africa a nightmare to the Africans.
The Sharpeville shooting was known throughout the world; everywhere, men and women of goodwill had protested, but their protests had fallen on deaf ears. Since the Sharpeville incidents, other terrible events had occurred in South Africa: political parties had been banned, and leaders had been forced to go underground or into exile in order to continue the fight outside the country and to appeal for support from the world.
However, ever since the South African freedom fighters had begun to ask in the United Nations for the removal of the Verwoerd Government and the transfer of power to those to whom it rightfully belonged, most of the great Powers had replied only with lip service. If those Powers were to take positive action to assist in solving the South African problem, that problem could be solved with less cost in suffering.
The political situation in South Africa was becoming increasingly tense. The Africans therefore had no choice but to ask the United Nations to take positive action against the South African Government. The United Nations must put into action [General Assembly] resolution 1761 (XVII) calling for the boycotting of South Africa and especially for stopping the shipment of arms to that country. There was no doubt that those arms would be used against the African women and children.
She had come before the Committee to appeal urgently to the United Nations and to the entire world to do their utmost to compel the Verwoerd Government to open at once the doors of the prisons and concentration camps in South Africa. Thousands of South African men, women and even children were now in jail; some had been brutally assaulted. Among those jailed, detained or subjected to restrictions, were leaders such as Chief A.J. Luthuli, Robert Sobukwe, Nelson Mandela, Mrs. Lilian Ngoyi and Mr. Walter Sisulu. All those people must be released at once.
The Verwoerd Government had turned South Africa into a huge prison. The time had come for all mankind to act with firmness to stop those mad rulers from dragging the country into a horrifying disaster.
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