Statement by Mrs. Gertrude Shope at the special meeting of the Special Committee against Apartheid in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Struggle of the Women of South Africa and Namibia

9 August 1991

It is a singular honour and privilege for me, on behalf of the ANC Women's League, and in the name of the people of South Africa, to address this Committee marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Struggle of the Women of South Africa.

I also wish to thank the Special Committee for the kind invitation extended to the ANC Women's League enabling us to be present at this meeting and share with the representatives of the international community our concerns, hopes and aspirations for our country - South Africa.

This gesture comes as no surprise since it is common knowledge that over the years, the Special Committee has not only given invaluable support to us but it has also played a pivotal role in mobilizing the entire United Nations system and the international community against apartheid. Our people will remain forever indebted for the Committee's unswerving support.

I should also like to take this opportunity to place on record the profound gratitude of the National Executive Committee of the ANC for the very positive manner in which the Special Committee responded to our invitation to attend our historic conference which was held inside South Africa for the first time in thirty years.

The ANC felt greatly honoured that the Special Committee saw fit to be represented at the highest level through its Chairman, His Excellency Professor Gambari. Ambassador Gambari's message to our conference served as a great source of inspiration not only to the thousands of delegates, but also to our people as a whole reflecting, as it did, the unequivocal support of the United Nations for our just struggle. There can be no doubt that such assistance will be even more critical as we enter the decisive phase of transforming our country from an apartheid State to a non-racial and non-sexist democracy.

The relevant declaration by the United Nations General Assembly in 1984 which occasioned the annual observance of 9 August was not only a recognition by the world body of the courageous role played by our women in the struggle against oppression in all its forms, but also provided the opportunity for us to pay a fitting tribute to the heroines of our liberation struggle. On this occasion, we salute our women fighters - those who are celebrated world wide as well as those who are unknown and unsung in our urban ghettos and villages, those who are still languishing in the regime's dungeons and those who are still forced to remain in exile.

On this occasion, we dip our revolutionary banner in memory of all our departed heroines. We draw strength and inspirations from their lives' work, and reinforce ourselves for the challenges lying ahead.

Viewed from the perspective of the complex contemporary political reality of South Africa and present-day international relations, there can be no doubt that this year's observance of 9 August assumes a greater significance. Against a backdrop of a kaleidoscope of political activity in South Africa, a number of pertinent questions are emerging from within South Africa itself and from abroad.

Of great interest is whether we will soon be seeing a democratic South Africa emerging from the ashes of the apartheid State. More specifically, it will be of great interest to know what the prospects are for a negotiated settlement in South Africa in the light of the disclosures on, firstly, the secret funding by the regime of the Inkatha Freedom Party and its allied union, UWUSA, the United Workers' Union of South Africa, in order for them to serve as counterweights against the anti-apartheid forces and, notably, the ANC and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU); and, secondly, the overwhelming evidence linking the South African Defence Force to the violence that has been overtaking South African society and which has, to date, claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Also, do the anti-apartheid forces have the capacity, individually or collectively, to present themselves as a credible alternative to the Pretoria regime? In other words, are they organizationally strong enough to challenge the established parties? Do they have the capacity and political will to form a united front? Do they have a realistic political platform? For example, are the calls for an interim goverment and a constituent assembly realizable? Is there sufficient clarity on the role of the international community, notably on sanctions? All of these are legitimate questions which, we humbly submit, must be addressed, not only in order to provide the requisite clarity, but also to enhance the fighting capacity of all those arrayed against apartheid and for the speedy establishment of democracy in our country. We shall, therefore, crave your indulgence in order to deal with them, albeit very briefly.

As regards the organizational strength of the ANC, this Committee will be happy to know that both the ANC Women's League and the ANC as a whole have just emerged from their respective, historic conferences. These forums provided the opportunity to examine, in a most critical manner, each organization's strengths and weaknesses.

The Women's League came out of its April conference as determined to give battle to the regime as were the South African women on 9 August 1956, when 20,000 of them marched on the citadel of apartheid, Pretoria. Barely a year since the unbanning of the ANC, the ANC Women's League has emerged as a very important contingent in the struggle for democracy in South Africa. As an integral part of the liberation forces and also in its own right, it has spearheaded important anti-apartheid campaigns nationwide.

The ANC, at its 48th national conference, held in Durban in July this year, had the opportunity to sum up its experiences, spanning many decades, and to carry out an in-depth study of the political challenges lying ahead. The restructuring of its leading committees to cover three broad segments, namely, the political, policy and service organs, was designed precisely to address the current demands of our struggle.

Equally important, the ANC conference provided a platform for animated debates on issues such as strategy and tactics, negotiations, a new constitutional dispensation, affirmative action in favour of women, foreign policy and the post-apartheid social, economic and political order. Clearly, therefore, from an organizational standpoint, the ANC has taken some important steps in eliminating its weaknesses and towards gearing itself for a vital role in the transformation of South Africa.

The recently held fourth congress of COSATU, a leading trade union federation and an important member of our alliance, also undertook a similar exercise with a great measure of success.

With regard to the issue of a united front, or the patriotic front of the oppressed, it is instructive to note that both the ANC, at its national conference, and COSATU, at its recent congress, adopted resolutions underlining the importance of such a front, and thus endorsed the preparations already under way for a meeting, which, it is envisaged, will lead to the creation of a front. In this regard, we are happy to state that the meeting has now been scheduled to take place in September. It was postponed from August in order to allow for wider consultations.

Allow me now to turn to the question of negotiations, in the light of the recent political scandal involving the secret funding of Inkatha. Whatever the so-called "Inkathagate" scandal may or may not have done, and whatever the regime may say in an effort to exercise damage control, two issues emerge with crystal clarity.

First, the scandal has vindicated the long-standing concern that the regime in its dealings with the ANC has been pursuing a double agenda. Consider the question of Namibia as a backdrop: despite the fact that the regime was a signatory to the international accord signed at these very Headquarters of the United Nations, to the accord called the New York agreement - which also included Cuba and Angola - and despite the fact that the accord explicitly precluded the States parties to the agreement from interfering with the political process leading to independence, the regime, by its own admission, provided about 100 million rand to anti-SWAPO formations simply because, in the words of the regime's Foreign Minister, "we did not like SWAPO".

The contempt for international accords which is being displayed by the Pretoria regime is nothing new. Only a few years ago, in 1984, the regime signed the Nkomati accord with Mozambique. The accord stipulated that the Mozambican Government would cease its assistance to the ANC whilst Pretoria would stop all aid to RENAMO.

Evidence subsequently collected at the RENAMO base in Gorongosa proved that even as P. W. Botha was signing the accord at Nkomati the then Deputy Minister of Information, Louis Nell, was landing secretly and illegally on Mozambican territory with military supplies for RENAMO.

That the regime has a double agenda has also been clearly manifested in its secret funding of Inkatha against the ANC, whilst talking to the ANC. The regime's defence on this issue is as irrelevant as it is childish. To argue that they were justified in funding Inkatha because the ANC was receiving millions of dollars from abroad is to ignore the fact that whatever support the ANC was receiving and continues to receive from abroad it is in the context of those countries making their contribution to the struggle against what has been internationally condemned as a crime against humanity. Therefore, such support is consistent, rather than at variance, with their international obligations. In any event, there has never been anything furtive or secretive about such assistance - let alone any allegation of abuse of taxpayers' money.

The equally devastating disclosures regarding the role of the special forces within the South African Defence Force, concerning the question of violence, further reveal that double agenda of the regime. Participants will no doubt have heard ANC representatives at various gatherings arguing insistently that the so-called black-on-black violence was orchestrated violence by a third force within the security establishment in South Africa. In spite of the denial by the regime's spokesmen, including De Klerk himself, there is overwhelming evidence, collected from actual participants, that the random killings in trains and at funeral gatherings were being planned and executed by security forces based in military camps such as Palaboro.

In a feeble attempt to explain why there were foreigners in the South African Defence Force special forces - a fact which the regime had always denied - De Klerk would now have the world believe that they were needed for their expertise as trackers: that they were highly essential to the Defence Force in order to help track down cattle thieves.

The second point about this political scandal is that it has destroyed the credibility of the regime - certainly, in our view, as part of a future negotiation process. By the admission of De Klerk himself, the scandal has adversely affected the climate for negotiations.

Under the circumstances, therefore, it would seem that the ANC ought to address itself as clearly as possible with respect to the way forward. First, the ANC remains fully committed to the process of negotiations to bring about democratic transformation in South Africa. Secondly, the regime, instead of preoccupying itself with efforts aimed at covering up its role in the scandal, would be better employed in earnestly seeking to restore faith in its commitment to negotiations.

Prior to the televised press conference by De Klerk, the ANC proposed the following steps, amongst others: full disclosure of all such covert assistance and its immediate termination; dismissal of Defence Minister Malan and Law and Order Minister Vlok; and establishment of a multiparty commission of inquiry into the allegations of securityservices involvement in violence.

Failure by De Klerk to address our concerns has added some weight to the argument that it is the regime itself that poses a serious obstacle to negotiations. This has therefore added a sense of urgency to our demand for an interim government, since the regime has demonstrated by its actions that it is quite incapable of overseeing the democratic transformations in South Africa in an even-handed manner.

In that regard, all our demands remain valid. Furthermore, the sooner the all-party conference takes place and decides, inter alia, on the transitional arrangements, the better. Such transitional arrangements would, in our view, properly oversee the establishment of rules and mechanisms for the drafting of the new constitution, the election of a democratic parliament, and the establishment of a democratic government.

In all those processes, it is our considered view that the international community cannot just be a disinterested spectator. On the contrary, we maintain that the world can act in a manner that will have a positive impact on the process. It is an incontestable fact that it was pressure from both inside and outside South Africa that forced the regime to accept the negotiation option. It would be extremely helpful to the process under way in South Africa for the Governments of the world not to relax any pressure on the regime. Even those Governments that took De Klerk at face value and were inclined to act rather hastily in lifting sanctions must, in the light of the recent disclosure, be a little more circumspect.

From this rostrum we therefore launch an appeal to the peoples of the world, through their representatives gathered here. In doing so we go back to the questions we raised earlier. Is South Africa headed towards a democratic transformation in the near future? Do the anti-apartheid forces present a credible alternative?

That South Africa will be free and democratic there can be no doubt. Nor can there be any doubt that the democratic perspective of the anti-apartheid forces, as embodied in the Harare and the United Nations Declarations, is shared by the majority of the peoples of the world. The question how soon the actual transformations will occur will be answered, in the main, on the ground in South Africa.

But it is also true that in great measure the support of the international community will be critical. It is important to remember that whatever else might have happened in South Africa we still have a white minority regime firmly in place, commanding enormous resources to ensure that political change benefits primarily the white minority.

It should also be recalled that the ANC and other democratic forces are still faced with the problem of thousands of returning political exiles and thousands of released political prisoners who of necessity must be integrated into society. Then there is the question of the thousands of street children victims of apartheid, some of whom were orphaned during the lengthy political turbulance that characterized our country. Thus, the problems of housing, education, health and social welfare for the thousands of victims of apartheid cannot await a political dispensation, but need to be addressed right now. For this, we desperately need the assistance of members, both as the United Nations system and as States Members of the United Nations.

The Pretoria regime, in seeking to minimize the "Inkathagate" scandal, has been at pains to contrast the millions received by the ANC abroad with the 1.5 million rand given to UWUSA and the approximately 200,000 rand given to Inkatha. This is clearly intended to suggest that the ANC has an unfair advantage and therefore does not require any more assistance.

What it does not say is that the ANC's adversary is not so much Inkatha as itself, and that therefore, if there is to be any comparison of the respective budgets of the adversaries, we should examine the billions of rands that Pretoria has committed over the years to the destruction of the ANC as well as the billions of dollars that are at their disposal simply to ensure that the regime remains in power.

The truth is that the ANC and the democratic movement urgently require your assistance in order to ensure that they can give an effective challenge to the Pretoria regime. Such assistance will go a long way towards ensuring that we give an effective challenge to the regime and that South Africa is speedily transformed into a democracy.

We cannot conclude before we, ourselves needy of support, express our unequivocal solidarity with, and support for, all those who, like us, are fighting with great sacrifice for their self-determination. On this occasion, we wish to salute the people of Palestine, led by the Palestine Liberation Organization, who are daily engaging Zionist Israel in serious battles in order to raise their cherished ideal of a free Palestine. We wish to pay a tribute particularly to the women of Palestine, who have in many ways served as a source of inspiration to the women in our own struggle. We sincerely hope that the much-awaited international conference will be a reality and that it will give impetus to a solution of the wider Middle East question.

Similarly, we salute the people of the Sahraoui Arab Democratic Republic and express confidence that their issue will be resolved sooner rather than later. For our part, as members of the ANC and the ANC Women's League, we shall leave no stone unturned to ensure that South Africa becomes truly non-racial, truly non-sexist and truly democratic.