11 October 1982
In taking this opportunity to address the Special Committee against Apartheid on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa and the entire fighting people of our beleagured country, I feel a deep sense of honour. I also wish to add that I am speaking here today on behalf of those men and women - including the selfless Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Dennis Goldberg, Dorothy Nyembe, James Mange, Thandi Modise and scores of others - who, because of their unswerving commitment to the noble ideals of human dignity and liberty, are today languishing in the horrible dungeons of the racist South African regime.
Mr. Chairman,1 please accept the sincere gratitude of the people of South Africa for the fact that the Committee has once again invited its liberation movement, the African National Congress of South Africa, to participate in this meeting and address it on this important occasion - the International Day of Solidarity with South African Political Prisoners. We take heart to see you - an illustrious son of that august country, Nigeria - chairing these deliberations. Permit me, sir, to salute you for the tireless efforts you personally have made to awaken and galvanize international public opinion and promote solidarity with the oppressed people of South Africa. Through you we salute and express appreciation to all members of the Special Committee against Apartheid for their co-operation and assistance.
We have drawn strength from the unflinching support of the Organization of African Unity, the Non-Aligned Movement; the Nordic countries, the Socialist States, the steadily growing number of States members of the European Economic Community, as well as of progressive forces the world over. Their recognition of the legitimacy of the struggle waged by the oppressed people .of South Africa under the leadership of the African National Congress is a source of inspiration and encouragement.
We wish to place on record our heartfelt appreciation and gratitude for the numerous messages of solidarity you have received, sir, from eminent leaders of governments and organizations, some of whose representatives are at present here with us. We also express our appreciation to the several individuals, representing national and grassroot organizations, who have similarly expressed their support on this Day.
The solidarity expressed on this Day inspires us. It is seen by our people as an eloquent testimony that their plight has not been forgotten by the international community. It no doubt spurs the determination of our leaders, cadres and the combatants of Umkhonto We Sizwe - the Spear of the Nation - to prosecute the struggle until final victory.
At this stage may I kindly be permitted a personal note. This meeting has a special significance for me. I joined the Natal Indian Congress in 1941 and became an executive member in 1956 until my arrest on 1 September 1963. At that time I was detained for 55 days under the notorious 90-Day Detention Law and was subsequently charged in the Natal sabotage trial sitting at Pietermaritzburg and sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment on 29 February 1964. I served the entire sentence on Robben Island and was released on 28 February 1978. Upon my release I was banned for five years. Before my arrest I worked for a legal firm and studied law part-time. Apart from being a member of the Natal Indian Congress I also was the Assistant Secretary of the Natal Indian Farmers Union - a body representing the Indian farmers, particularly those in the banana industry.
The Natal Indian Congress, founded by the martyred Mahatma Gandhi in 1894, was the progenitor of the South African Indian Congress. The South African Indian Congress was one of the five organizational co-signatories of the Freedom Charter of South Africa at Kliptown, Johannesburg in 1955. The evolution of the struggle in South Africa has resulted in the galvanization of all those forces - signatories to the Freedom Charter - into one movement under the leadership of the African National Congress.
Six years ago, when the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 11 October as the International Day of Solidarity with South African Political Prisoners, the United Nations clearly and unequivocally demonstrated support for the struggle against the apartheid system. The year 1982 is most significant for the struggle in South Africa: 1982, the seventieth anniversary of the founding of our organization, has witnessed ever-increasing political mobilization, militancy and mass action by workers and students under the leadership of the African National Congress; 1982 has also witnessed intensified armed attacks on the regime’s economic and military infrastructure by the combatants of Umkhonto we Sizwe – the Spear of the Nation – the military wing of the of the African National Congress.
The date 6 November 1982 shall mark the twentieth anniversary of the General Assembly resolution on sanctions against South Africa, whose intent and purpose has hitherto been repeatedly frustrated by the previous Governments of France, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America. Is it too much to hope that in the face of the regime's increased oppression internally, its systematic murder of ANC leaders and cadres, its continued illegal occupation of Namibia, its destabilization of neighbouring States and Seychelles, its undeclared war against Angola and Mozambique - all criminal actions further accentuated by its accelerated arms build-up and nuclear programme, the sum total of which is irrefutable proof that the regime threatens world peace - that all will join in the invoking of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations?
Yes, perhaps it is too much, as one of those three Governments is the self-confessed friend and ally that has vowed not to abandon fascist, terrorist South Africa.
The date 7 November 1982 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the historic statement in court by Nelson Mandela, who, in referring to the objectives in the Freedom Charter, declared.
'During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
There could have been no better opportunity than today for the Special Committee Against Apartheid to renew its world campaign for the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and all other political prisoners. The pledge by over 4,000 mayors, the honours bestowed on Nelson Mandela and others by various universities, cities and civic organizations around the world provide a dynamo that can and must be harnessed towards the commonly desired goal.
Although the question of political prisoners in South Africa has been on the agenda of the United Nations for many years and numerous resolutions have been adopted in that regard, the illegal, racist minority regime of Pretoria has stubbornly and arrogantly refused to pay heed to the call of the international community as contained in those resolutions. The regime has intensified its naked brutality against the oppressed people of South Africa, both outside and inside its gaols.
We of the African National Congress remain encouraged by the knowledge that, in spite of the regime’s intransigence and the continued economic, military and nuclear collaboration it enjoys with some Western States and Israel, the Special Committee Against Apartheid shall never tire in its efforts to keep the world informed of the plight of the political prisoners in South Africa, and that, together with other anti-apartheid organizations, shall continue the fight to secure the release of all political prisoners in South Africa.
As I take this opportunity to salute and thank all Member States, officials, non-governmental organizations and support groups that have ceaselessly, since the formation of this Committee in 1963, worked tirelessly to mobilize international solidarity with our struggle against that abomination, I wish through you, Sir, to remind the international community that those patriots - men, women and children - are incarcerated in the hovels of the regime because of their determined commitment to freedom and liberty.
As I address this gathering I remain moved by the remembrance of James Mange, Johnson Lubisi, Naphali Manana and Petrus Mashigo, whose lives were saved by the intervention of the international community. Alas, like Comrades Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada and Dennis Goldberg, whose lives were also saved by the intervention of the international community, starting with the 1968 General Assembly resolution which called for their immediate and unconditional release, they are languishing in gaol, serving long prison sentences.
I take this opportunity once again to convey our deepest gratitude to all those who participated in the campaigns to save the lives of these outstanding patriots of our beloved country.
As the opposition to the regime has intensified, so have the conditions in the South African prisons deteriorated. The regime has increased its brutality against both the political prisoners and the detainees. Numerous reports brought to the international community are replete with evidence of the brutal methods of torture increasingly utilized by the racist interrogators on political prisoners and detainees. The case of the six detainees who had to be hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in the first half of this year is but one example. Two detainees killed by their interrogators and later found hanged by pieces of cloth in their cells is another. To this can be added the cases of Comrades Aggett and Ernest Depali, whose deaths were also the direct result of the brutal torture to which they had been mercilessly subjected in the criminal effort to extract confessions from them.
On 5 August 1982 -- the twentieth anniversary of the arrest of Nelson Mandela - while Comrade President Oliver Tambo was calling on the international community to launch a renewed campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela and other South African political prisoners, we noted with satisfaction that you, Mr. Chairman, had issued a statement announcing that on this day would be launched a new and wider campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela and all other political prisoners.
The co-operation of purpose and action between the ANC and the Special Committee against Apartheid assumes a special significance when viewed in the light of the fact that the ANC has designated 1982 as the Year of Unity in Action. The Committee's action further emphasizes the tenacity of the Special Committee in its efforts to force the Pretoria regime to change its policies towards political prisoners and treat them as befits their status in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Geneva Convention regarding political prisoners.
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the formation of the Special Committee - which we hope will be observed next year - we have no doubt that, when that occasion arrives, the campaign for Unity in Action and the general international mobilization will have reached unprecedented heights.
The Pretoria regime, in its vain attempt to stem the tide of history, has resorted to the most naked acts of aggression against all the neighbouring States and has increased its repression. The neighbouring States are targets of the regime's policy of economic and political destabilization. In this connection the regime recruits, trains, equips and maintains groups of bandits which it sends into these neighbouring States to carry out acts of sabotage and forays. In Lesotho it is the LLA; in Angola it is UNITA in Mozambique it is the MNR; in Zambia, it is the Mushala gang; and, in Zimbabwe it is the Selous Scouts of the Ian Smith-Muzorewa terror troops. In addition to the use of counter-revolutionary groups against these sovereign States, the racist regime has several hundreds of its armed forces illegally occupying the southern part of Angola. The armed forces of the racist regime have killed thousands of innocent Angolan citizens, destroyed schools, hospitals, churches, factories and water reservoirs, pillaged villages and left thousands of Angolan citizens displaced persons and refugees in their own country.
As we meet here today, these armed forces still continue their occupation of Angola, carrying out further acts of aggression, death, pillage and destruction. By these acts, the racist regime hopes to intimidate and blackmail the neighbouring States and thus force them to cease their most noble support for the struggle for the liberation of South Africa and Namibia.
The Pretoria regime has also embarked on a campaign to disrupt the Southern African Development Co-ordination Committee (SADCC), whose programme is designed to lessen and eliminate the dependence of the southern African States on South Africa. The systematic thwarting of the SADCC programme has become one of the centre-pieces of the Pretoria regime's vain attempt to impose the so-called Constellation of the Southern African States, the economic aspect of Botha's ‘Total Strategy’, a scheme which would further deepen the southern African States’ dependence on and servitude to apartheid South Africa.
Inside the country, and in pursuit of the divide-and-rule strategy, the regime has embarked on the most sinister policy of subterfuge, designed to break the firm alliance of the blacks, founded on the objectives contained in the Freedom Charter and comprising the Africans, the Asians and the so-celled Coloureds. The new charade has taken the form of the so-called Presidential Council, in terms of which the Indians and the Coloureds are to be granted limited political rights while their 23 million oppressed fellow Africans and comrades-in-arms remain unfranchised and face being legally robbed of their South African citizenship. This diabolical scheme is intended to pave the way for the conscription of the Indians and Coloureds into the racist army, thereby pitting these two minority groups against the liberation struggle led by the ANC for a non-racial democratic society for the South African people as a whole, regardless of race, colour or creed.
I seize this opportunity to pay a tribute to all the authentic leaders of the Coloured and Indian people, who have not only rejected this scheme aimed at transforming these communities into buffer classes, allies of the apartheid regime and enemies of the African people and the international community but also pledged to redouble their efforts to ensure the continued consolidation of the common front against the common enemy of progressive mankind.
The plight of the South African prisoners is an important aspect of the manifestations of the South African situation. The campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners should be seen within the context of the overall struggle to eradicate apartheid and to establish a democratic non-racial South Africa in conformity with the basic tenets of the Freedom Charter, which is inspired by the ideals embodied in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
On behalf of the struggling people of South Africa and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), I wish, through you, Sir, to draw the attention of the international community to yet another example of the crimes committed by the regime against people and stress the need for the international community to undertake urgent action to save the life of Oscar Mpetha, the 73-year-old stalwart and founding member of SACTU, from a possible death sentence by racist South Africa.
Oscar Mpetha, who is national organizer of the Food and Canning Workers’ Union, was arrested on 12 August 1980 and, together with 17 youths, charged 18 months ago with terrorism and two counts of murder. The arrest and charges follow an incident during the tenth week of a bus boycott in which a group of people in Nyanga stoned and set fire to vehicles, injuring two whites, who later died. Mpetha was neither involved in the stoning nor was he on the scene of these incidents. At the time of the bus boycott; he was, however, Chairman of the Nyanga Residents' Association, which participated in organizing the boycott, a fact which the prosecution strenuously exploited in an attempt to prove his guilt.
Oscar Mpetha suffers from general poor health but, despite all that, he has been kept in a cell incommunicado throughout the period of over two years since his arrest, refused bail and often brought to court with his hands and legs manacled with irons. He is diabetic and his health deteriorated seriously during the court proceedings, at which he would appear hobbling on crutches and assisted by his co-accused. He has had his toe amputated and occasionally the trial would continue in his absence owing to hospitalization. During the trial State witnesses testified to members of the group being intimidated and tortured by racist police. His ordeal during the past two years has been unspeakable.
When closing its case the prosecution demanded the death penalty against Mpetha. The racist court is expected to pass judgement in the middle of October 1982.
It is in the light of this determined persecution of Mpetha and his colleagues and the impending threat of yet another judicial murder of a trade union and community leader that we appeal to the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, Governments, non-governmental bodies, and national and international organizations to use all the means at their disposal to save the life of Oscar Mpetha and secure his unconditional release.
The racist Pretoria regime must be overthrown. It should be given no quarter. Mankind cannot stand by while some part of itself is being exterminated.
In expressing our sincerest appreciation and gratitude for the timely stand taken by the General Assembly and the Security Council in calling upon the Pretoria regime to commute the death sentences imposed on Thelli Simon Mogoerane, Jerry Semano Mosololi and Marcus Thabo Motaung, we further appeal for individual and collective action to arouse world public opinion in order to save the lives of these patriots and scores more at present facing trials.
The call by the ANC which has received your immediate response in the form of the campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela and other South African political prisoners is also an appeal for the immediate release of Herman Toivo ja Toivo and all other Namibian political prisoners. It is a call for the redoubling of efforts to put an end to the illegal occupation of Namibia. We seize this opportunity to renew revolutionary solidarity with the valiant people of Namibia who, under the leadership of their sole and authentic liberation movement, the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), have demonstrated rare heroism and political maturity. The time has come for the United Nations to stand up to the Western contact group's incessant assurances which announce an imminent settlement, while the United States does everything possible to help South Africa buy time in which to impose a neo-colonialist settlement in Namibia and to launch in southern Africa an Israeli-type of aggression, as recently witnessed in Lebanon.
On our part, we pledge to redouble our efforts effectively to engage in battle within the borders of South Africa itself our common enemy, the South African fascist armed forces, thereby contributing to the irreversible march to victory by SWAPO.
Before I conclude, I should like to add this. We are very appreciative of the moves we understand are under way in order to exert pressure on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reject the application for a $1.07 billion loan by the Pretoria regime. The purpose of such a loan is no doubt intended to enable the racist regime to continue its illegal occupation of Namibia and repression in South Africa itself, as well as the destabilization of the neighbouring States and the undeclared war of aggression against Angola and Mozambique .
We hope that the efforts of the Special Committee, the Council for Namibia and the Committee of 24 will receive full support from all Member States, for such an act by the IMF would be an act of hostility against African countries and would help the regime further to aggravate the threat it poses to world peace.
Finally, we salute the brotherly people of Palestine who, under the Palestine Liberation Organization, their sole, authentic representative, have earned the respect and admiration of freedom and justice-loving people the world over for the rare heroism manifested in the face of genocide. We express solidarity with the just struggle waged by the people of East Timor and Western Sahara, as well as the democratic forces in El Salvador and Guatemala.
1.Alhaji Yusuff Maitama-Sule of Nigeria was Chairman of the Special Committee.