GA/AP/810, 27 February 1978
The following statement was made today by Leslie O. Harriman (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid:
Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, President of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) and one of the great sons of Africa, passed away on 26 February.
A brilliant scholar and teacher, he joined the liberation struggle in his youth. While attending Fort Hare University, he was elected President of the Students' Representative Council and secretary of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League and was one of the authors of the programme of the ANC in 1949. In 1952, he was a leader in the "Campaign of Defiance of Unjust Laws" and was dismissed from his post as a school teacher. Subsequently, he was appointed lecturer in African languages at the University of Witwatersrand.
When the Pan Africanist Congress was formed on 6 April 1959, he was unanimously elected its President.
He led the "Positive Action" campaign of the Pan Africanist Congress on 21 March 1960, beginning with the rejection of the hated pass system. The massacre of peaceful demonstrators at the African township of Sharpeville shocked the world and led, for the first time, to world-wide denunciation of apartheid by Governments and by the United Nations Security Council. It also sparked a national uprising which shook the foundations of the apartheid regime.
But that regime was able to defy the world and survive by resort to massive repression. While many nations imposed economic sanctions against that regime, its trading partners blocked further action and selfish economic interests bailed it out of a crisis.
Mr. Sobukwe, who led the righteous struggle commended by the world, was sentenced by a racist court and imprisoned for three years. When he was due for release, the regime passed a special law to keep him in jail. He was kept in Robben Island under this law for six years from May 1963 to May 1969. He was then released after numerous protests, but confined to Kimberley under partial house arrest and other severe restrictions.
Last year, when he fell seriously ill, the racist regime gave him special permission to undergo surgery in Cape Town. But it refused facilities for recuperation and he had to go back to confinement in Kimberley where he died.
Mr. Sobukwe was feared in his life by the racist regime which kept him a virtual prisoner for 18 years. He shall be feared in his death, for the freedom-loving peoples will follow his injunction after the murder of Steve Biko: "We must turn our grief into strength".
On behalf of the Special Committee against Apartheid, I salute the memory of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, and denounce anew the apartheid regime for its callousness which led to the untimely death of this great African patriot and symbol of African resistance against apartheid.
I send my condolences to his wife, Zodwa Veronica, and his four children, Miliswa, Dinilesizwe, Dedani and Dalindyebo. I extend my solidarity on this sad occasion to the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania and to all the oppressed people of South Africa for whom Mr. Sobukwe was a revered leader and guide.
We shall cherish the clear-sighted declarations of Mr. Sobukwe which defined the objectives of liberation. To quote a few:
"We wish to emphasize that freedom of the Africans means the freedom of all in South Africa, because only the African can guarantee the establishment of a genuine democracy …
"We aim, politically, at government of the Africans by the Africans for the Africans, with everybody who owes his loyalty to Africa and who is prepared to accept the democratic rule of an African majority being regarded as an African…" (Address at the PAC inaugural conference, April 1959)
"We are not fighting against Europeans … We are fighting against nobody. Our energies and forces are directed against a set-up, against a conception and a myth. This myth some call racial superiority; others call it herrenvolkism; others call it white leadership with justice, or white supremacy … We fight to destroy this myth …"
(Statement on 18 March 1960)