INTERNATIONAL ACTION FOR NAMIBIA’S INDEPENDENCE

I have followed the developments in Namibia since the United Nations took up the issue in 1946 and was privileged on several occasions to have been involved in United Nations action and assistance with respect to Namibia.

I believe that the Namibian liberation movement, SWAPO, is almost unique. It is a movement initiated not by "elites" but by contract labourers and peasants in a country where they were robbed of most of their ancestral land. To build a national movement - and, in fact, a nation - in a large territory under enormous difficulties, was a magnificent achievement.

SWAPO did not achieve the status of the sole and authentic representative of the Namibian people because of any resolutions by the United Nations or OAU but because it sprang from the people and has been led by men and women of great integrity. SWAPO is Namibia: it is the nation. SWAPO and its President, Sam Nujoma, deserve not only our support but our great respect.

The Namibian people have every right to demand why the United Nations has been so ineffective in the implementation of its numerous resolutions on the independence of Namibia. We know the difficulties faced by the United Nations because of the attitudes of the major Western Powers.

The racist regime in Pretoria is the child of colonialism and regrettably the umbilical cord which binds it to its colonialist parents seems not yet fully broken.

But I believe that the United Nations, which has assumed direct responsibility for Namibia, cannot plead helplessness. It cannot resign to becoming a prisoner of a few Powers or of outdated legal concepts. It has contributed significantly to promoting political support for the struggle of the Namibian people, as well as assistance to them and their liberation movement. But it has potentialities which have not been fully used in the case of Namibia - and it is the duty of the great majority of its members and of non-governmental organisations to find ways to overcome the hindrances caused by a few Powers.

Non-governmental Organisations have played a very important role in the past in promoting United Nations and international action on Namibia. Forty years ago, when the South African regime prevented the Namibian people from obtaining access to the world, Reverend Michael Scott and several organisations in Britain and the United States brought their views and appeals to the United Nations. The Defence and Aid Fund, led by Canon Collins, made it possible for the United Nations to provide assistance to the political prisoners and their families in Namibia. It was the International Conference on Namibia, organised in Oxford in 1966 by the Anti-Apartheid Movement and chaired by Olof Palme, which led to the United Nations decision to terminate South Africa’s mandate over Namibia. The Brussels International Conference on Namibia in 1972 and the international conference on Southern Africa held in Oslo 1973 led to the United Nations recognition of SWAPO as the authentic representative of the Namibian people.

The proposal for Decree No. I for the Protection of the Natural Resources of Namibia and for the establishment of the United Nations Institute for Namibia did not come from governments but from public organisations and individuals.

We need to press for the immediate implementation of the plan for Namibian independence endorsed by the Security Council of the United Nations in its Resolution 435 (1978), in pursuance of its unanimous Resolution 385 (1976), but at the same time we need to secure increased support to the liberation struggle.

Resolution 435 became possible because the South African regime could not defeat the liberation army of SWAPO or suppress resistance in Namibia led by SWAPO, because South African invaders were forced to withdraw from Angola as a result of the resistance by the MPLA Government and its army, FAPLA, aided by Cuban, African and other forces, as well as political support from the international community; because of the uprising in South Africa following the Soweto massacre; and because the major Western Powers exerted or threatened to exert pressure on the South African regime for a negotiated settlement.

The struggle of the Namibian people has further advanced and it is now reinforced by an unprecedented mobilisation of the South African people against the apartheid regime. Regrettably, the major Western Powers are playing a destructive role by opposing sanctions against the South African regime and even demanding that Angola abandon its arrangements for its security and national defence as a pre-condition for the exercise by the Namibian people of their inherent right to self-determination.

The decision of the United States to provide military assistance to UNITA is a very serious development. I hope that the United States Government will be persuaded to heed the unanimous appeals of the OAU and abandon its decision as it is against its own best interests. I am happy that there is now a serious debate on this matter in Washington.

The Stinger missiles are very dangerous and are known as ideal terrorist weapons. The United States sold them only to a few governments under very stringent conditions: the launchers and the missiles, and even components of the missiles, have to be stored in separate facilities to avoid the weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. Supplying these missiles to UNITA - which has a record of terrorist acts, including the shooting of civilian planes and the taking of hostages - and thereby making them available to the South African regime which is involved, directly or indirectly, in terrorism in many countries, is not a responsible decision for a super-power.

I will conclude with one observation: Sovereignty in Namibia, as in all colonial countries, belongs to the people. The role of the United Nations and the international community has been to end South African occupation and enable the people to exercise their sovereignty. The original mandate of the United Nations Council for Namibia was to arrange for the independence of Namibia by June 1968. Almost twenty years have elapsed.

It was never the intention of the United Nations that Namibia or SWAPO should be the ward of the United Nations indefinitely. I believe it is not enough to grant observer status to SWAPO or for the Council for Namibia to consult it.

Happily, SWAPO has been granted full membership by the Movement of Non-aligned Countries and has been given diplomatic status by several countries, including India. I hope that the UN will find ways to enable SWAPO to represent the Namibian people in all international organisations and to enjoy diplomatic status in all countries.

India's decision to grant diplomatic status to SWAPO is not only a culmination of forty years of solidarity with the Namibian people but has great international significance at this time when the racist regime in South Africa and its friends are intensifying manoeuvres to complicate the situation in the whole of Southern Africa.

For eight years, the implementation of the United Nations plan for the independence of Namibia, approved by the Security Council in Resolution 435 (1978), and accepted at the time by the South African regime and SWAPO, has been blocked. At first, the Pretoria regime sought to impose pre-conditions and resort to delaying tactics in order to find ways to conduct rigged elections and install a puppet regime. Since the beginning of 1981, there has been a deadlock because of the linkage introduced by the United States between the independence of Namibia through free elections and its demand for the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. The recent decision of the United States to grant military assistance to UNITA to step up subversion in Angola has been unanimously opposed by the Organisation of African Unity and the Movement of Non-aligned Countries. It is likely not only to further delay the independence of Namibia but to reinforce a community of interests between the South African regime and the United States and to create wider complications in the region.

On the other hand, SWAPO now enjoys not only the unquestioned loyalty of the Namibian people but widest international support, including that of a great majority of Western governments. Its struggle is reinforced by the unprecedented and irrepressible upsurge of the South African people against the Pretoria regime. The Namibian people and SWAPO can secure the independence of their country, given political and material support by the international community to overcome external interference.

India has shown, by granting diplomatic status to SWAPO and by offering increased material assistance to it, that she will continue to make a major contribution both as Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement and after her term ends later this year. The example of India will no doubt be followed by a number of other countries. It is a warning against any manoeuvres to grant bogus "independence" to the puppets now installed in a so-called "interim government" in Windhoek and an undertaking to provide SWAPO with all necessary assistance for liberation by armed struggle if the negotiated settlement is frustrated.

The actions of India should come as no surprise in view of the long record of support to the Namibian people in their struggle for self-determination and independence.

In 1946, during the second part of the first session of the General Assembly in New York, the South African Government submitted a proposal to annex the mandated territory of South West Africa (now Namibia) instead of placing it under the United Nations trusteeship system.

Field Marshall Jan Christian Smuts personally appeared before the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly on November 4, 1946, to move the proposal. He was the darling of the West, extolled as a liberal despite his racist record in South Africa. He tried to be very clever. He recalled that the mandate agreement had allowed the Territory to be administered as an integral part of South Africa, and continued:

"By now, South West Africa was so thoroughly integrated with the Union that its formal incorporation was mainly required to remove doubts, and thereby attract capital and encourage individual initiative, and to render unnecessary a separate fiscal system. Incorporation would thus admit the inhabitants to the full benefits enjoyed by the population of the Union". (All quotations from the official summary records of the United Nations.)

Smuts presented a long document claiming that the wishes of the people had been ascertained, and that the Europeans and a majority of "Natives" (2,08,850 against 33,520) favoured integration.

He argued:

"The integration of South West Africa with the Union would be mainly a formal recognition of a unity that already existed. The South African delegation was confident that the United Nations would recognise that to give effect to the wishes of the population of South West Africa would be the logical application of the democratic principles of political self-determination."

His racism, however, came through despite himself when he explained the nature of consultation of the people of South West Africa:

"The wishes of the European population had been expressed through the normal democratic channels, that is, through the press, through public utterances, and through the unanimous resolutions of the South West African Legislative Assembly.

"The wishes of the natives had been ascertained in an equally democratic but rather different form, with due regard to their differing tribal organisation and customs… the task of explaining the purpose of the consultation had been entrusted to the most experienced officials, Commissioners who had long resided among the natives, who understood fully the native mind, and who enjoyed the complete confidence of the tribes."

The United Nations was then dominated by the Western and colonial Powers and General Smuts might have gotten away with his plot. The few Socialist States could have been ignored. Other delegations had little knowledge about the Territory. South Africa had prevented African chiefs from leaving the Territory and even held up their letters to the United Nations.

The only information, rather scanty, was from groups such as the Council on African Affairs in New York and the Anti-Slavery Society in London.

But Smuts received a shock and a surprise. A national government had been established in India, under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, and its delegation came to New York with instructions that colonial freedom was the foremost concern of India.

India had a few months earlier broken trade relations with South Africa because of new discriminatory laws against Indians in South Africa and had complained to the United Nations against the breach of agreements by South Africa.

At the very next meeting after Smuts spoke, Sir Maharaj Singh of India (who was ably assisted by V.K. Krishna Menon in the Fourth Committee) politely but firmly exposed the plot. He described the rampant racial discrimination in South Africa which belied the claim that the people would benefit from incorporation. He also exposed the fraud of consultation of the Africans in the Territory.

He stressed India’s view that sovereignty resided in the people and that the purpose of United Nations trusteeship was to enable the people to accede to independence as soon as possible. He asked the Assembly to demand that South Africa place the territory under the United Nations trusteeship system.

India’s statement encouraged many Asian, Arab and Latin American countries to reject the South African proposal. The United States delegate, John Foster Dulles, then conceded on November 14 that "the data before the Assembly did not justify the approval by the Assembly during the current session of the incorporation of the mandated territory of South West Africa into the Union of South Africa."

The colonial powers were anxious to get approval for trusteeship agreements for their own colonies and did not wish to jeopardise their interests by active support to South Africa.

The only exception was the United Kingdom. A.G. Bottomley, the British delegate, said:

"The Government of the United Kingdom was satisfied with the steps taken to determine the people’s wishes. In the opinion of Lord Hailey, a member of the Permanent Mandates Commission, the freedom of the people to express themselves on that question had been complete, and in accordance with normal tribal practice. Consequently there was no reason to doubt the fairness or the accuracy of the results of that popular consultation."

After the statement by Dulles, it became clear that South Africa could not get approval by the United Nations for the annexation of the Territory. The matter was sent to a Sub-Committee.

In the Sub-Committee, the United States sponsored a resolution, agreeable to South Africa, to state merely that "the data before the General Assembly does not justify action of the General Assembly approving the incorporation…" India moved a resolution to reject incorporation and to call on South Africa to submit a trusteeship agreement for the Territory. The Soviet Union moved a more strongly worded resolution along the same lines.

Because of the composition of the Sub-Committee, the Indian resolution was rejected by 11 votes to 6, with 2 abstentions, and the Soviet resolution by 12 votes to 2, with 6 abstentions. The US draft was adopted by 12 votes to 6, with one abstention.

But the Indian delegation did not give up, as the United States draft left open the possibility of annexation. It reintroduced its draft when the matter was taken up in the plenary meeting of the General Assembly.

Again, it was Britain alone which fully supported South Africa. Its delegate, Sir Hartley Shawcross, argued that "the measures taken by the South African Government to ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants… were as complete and satisfactory as practicable" and the results "genuinely represent the wishes of the inhabitants."

India could not hope to obtain a two-thirds majority for her draft. But it embarrassed the Western Powers and they too became uncertain of a two-thirds majority for their draft.

A compromise was reached to add to the United States draft the Indian proposal recommending that South Africa place the Territory under the United Nations Trusteeship system. It was adopted as Resolution 66 (I) on December l0, 1946, with South Africa, Britain and several Western Powers abstaining.

The demand that Namibia be placed under trusteeship became the focus of United Nation resolutions until the General Assembly decided to terminate South Africa’s mandate in 1966. The integrity and the international status of Namibia were preserved.

India continued to take the lead in United Nations debates on Namibia until African states joined the United Nations and the Namibian people established a broad-based national movement, SWAPO, in 1960.

In 1949, India took the lead, against strong Western opposition, to secure a hearing for the late Reverend Michael Scott, to enable him to present to the United Nations the appeals of the chiefs and people of Namibia and to expose the fraud of the 1946 "consultation" by the South African regime.

In 1958 when a Good Offices Committee - consisting of the United Kingdom, the United States and Brazil - negotiated with South Africa the partition of Namibia, with the mineral-rich southern half to be annexed outright by South Africa and the northern half to be administered under trusteeship as an integral part of South Africa, India again led the fight to reject any proposal for partition or for annexation of any part of Namibia.

The major Western Powers continued to advocate negotiations with the South African regime - despite its constant defiance of United Nations resolutions and opinions of the International Court of Justice - knowing well that no solution ending racial discrimination in Namibia or granting genuine independence to the country could result from such negotiations. From 1962, India, along with African States, pressed for sanctions against South Africa as the only means to oblige it to comply with the demands of the United Nations.

India also joined with the Organisation of African Unity and African States in providing political and material assistance to SWAPO when it emerged as the dominant political force in Namibia and launched an armed struggle on August 26, 1966.

SWAPO has always been able to count on India as a reliable friend.

Namibia is far from India and India has no material "interests" there. But it is a country which was designated by the Allied Powers after the First World War as a "sacred trust of civilisation" - a trust that was cynically and repeatedly betrayed by the Powers concerned.

The Namibian people have suffered grievously under alien occupation. They were the victims of the first modern and organised genocide by the German conquerors. They have continued to suffer from South African racism and apartheid, as well as plunder by foreign interests. They have been robbed of their lands and reduced to the level of contract labourers or poor peasants in a country endowed with great riches.

It was enormously difficult to organise a national movement in the huge territory populated by many tribal groups, separated and repressed by the South African regime, and denied educational and economic opportunities.

But SWAPO, a movement essentially of labourers and poor peasants, has been able to develop a national mass movement for liberation and, indeed, build a nation in the struggle for freedom. It has carried on an armed struggle for twenty years against a powerful and ruthless enemy and earned the loyalty of all the people, including the leaders of all the churches, except for a few chiefs appointed by the South African regime and a handful of renegades.

.In 1986, as the Pretoria regime is under siege in South Africa itself, there is an unprecedented opportunity to secure Namibia’s independence. But there are short-sighted and sinister plots to plunge the whole region in Cold War and prevent genuine independence of Namibia. India cannot but join with Africa in ensuring that the international community counters these plots and fulfils its sacred responsibility to the Namibian people.

The death of President Samora Machel of Mozambique and several of his Ministers has come at a very critical time in southern Africa when the frontline states have been bracing for a confrontation with the apartheid regime in South Africa, with Mozambique assuming a crucial role.

These states have suffered enormously in the past decade from incessant acts of aggression, destabilisation and blackmail by the apartheid regime, while the indifference and acquiescence, if not the connivance, of major Western powers or their secret services has greatly aggravated the situation.

The attacks began on a large scale after P.W. Botha, the militarist, became Prime Minister of South Africa in 1979. They escalated after the Reagan Administration came to power in the United States, evincing greater concern over Soviet influence in southern Africa than over the crimes of the apartheid regime.

Angola and Mozambique were persuaded - in their anxiety to avert a wider conflict and East-West confrontation in the region - to try to secure a cessation of South African aggression by the assurance that they would deny transit facilities to the freedom fighters of the African National Congress (ANC) and the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO). Angola reached an understanding with the Botha regime in February 1984 and Mozambique signed the Nkomati accord in March 1984. (Zimbabwe and Botswana had not provided such facilities to the liberation movements.) They hoped that the Botha regime would cease aggression and destabilisation - and that the Western Powers, the United States in particular, would prevail on it to conform to its undertakings.

But the Pretoria regime continued its attacks though in a clandestine manner, causing extensive damage, especially to Mozambique while it was suffering from unprecedented natural disasters.

All the railroads in Mozambique, except those leading to South Africa, were sabotaged. Assistance projects in the countryside had to be abandoned, as the MNR bandits, sponsored and directed by South Africa, killed and abducted foreign experts and volunteers. Mozambique’s exports fell by three quarters. Zimbabwe and Zambia suffered as their shortest routes to the sea through Mozambique were closed, except for the Beira line which was restored for partial operation by the stationing of Zimbabwean troops.

It became clear that the Botha regime was not concerned only about ANC and SWAPO guerrillas. It sought to establish its hegemony over the whole region and force changes of government to include its mercenaries.

The United States administration, which claimed credit for the agreements by Angola and Mozambique with South Africa, did little to prevent South African aggression, except to warn the Botha regime against attacks on American oil installations in Angola. Instead, it began to aid UNITA in Angola, while conservative elements in Washington began openly to support MNR in Mozambique.

The frontline states found that their restraint had only led to an intolerable situation and that the elimination of apartheid had become a matter of self-defence and survival.

That is why they took a serious risk early this year in pressing for economic sanctions against South Africa. In the resolution of the Non-Aligned Summit at Harare on the AFRICA Fund, they showed great courage in undertaking not only to impose sanctions against South Africa, but "to fight the apartheid regime of Pretoria and to support the liberation movements in South Africa and Namibia." Mozambique was destined to play a crucial role as the gateway to the sea for the landlocked frontline states.

The security problem had to be given urgent attention even while reconstruction of transport routes was undertaken.

Samora Machel, together with President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Prime Minister Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, met with "Life President" Kumuzu Banda of Malawi on September 11, 1986, to warn him against allowing MNR to operate against Mozambique from Malawi. Malawi denied the presence of MNR bases, but early in October, several thousand fully armed MNR personnel crossed the border into Mozambique and occupied the frontier areas.

Samora Machel convened the frontline Heads of State meeting in Maputo on October 12 to deal with South African threats against him and the danger of a generalised war. He indicated that Mozambique would seek military assistance from the Soviet Union and the West as necessary. Zimbabwe began to recruit additional soldiers to guard its transport routes through Mozambique and other contingency plans were under consideration.

Then, on October 19, 1986, the day of the fateful flight, Presidents Machel and Kaunda, together with President Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, met with President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire to press him to use Angolan, rather than South African, ports for foreign trade and to prevent any assistance through Zaire to UNITA.

However, while India and other Non-Aligned states were focussing attention mainly on economic assistance to the frontline states, the South African regime was alert to the full significance of the moves by the frontline states. It decided to strike first by announcing the expulsion of Mozambican workers and threatening military action against Mozambique. There is suspicion that the landmine incident, which was used by General Magnus Malan, the South African Defence Minister, to threaten President Machel was fabricated by the South African military forces.

That was the context of the crash of the Mozambique presidential aircraft on South African soil. The incident has naturally given rise to serious suspicions.

It was strange that the first announcement - that an "unidentified aircraft" flying from Lusaka to Maputo had crashed on the South African side of the border - came from the Foreign Minister of South Africa rather than the civil aviation authorities. Though the occupants of the plane were apparently unknown, both the Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, and the Defence Minister, Gen. Magnus Malan, rushed to the scene. Subsequent reports indicated that South African radar had followed the plane from Lusaka and that the MNR office in Lisbon knew of the crash before the South African announcement. The South African liberation movement - recalling the terrorist record of the apartheid regime and its acquisition of sophisticated radar equipment - has held the South African military responsible.

With the death of Samora Machel - a man of the people with immense popularity not only in Mozambique but in neighbouring states - there has been much speculation about succession and prospects.

Mozambique has suffered a grievous loss at a time when it has to cope with enormous problems. But having known FRELIMO and its leaders since the inception of the movement in 1962, I have no doubt that the South African racists and their hirelings who seek to exploit the situation, will fail. FRELIMO has an excellent tradition of discipline and collective responsibility. Its able and tested leaders like Marcelino dos Santos, Joaquim Chissano and Mario Machungo can be depended upon to guide the nation to fulfil the legacy of their departed leader.

Some sections of the Press, echoing South African propaganda, have begun to describe Samora, the revolutionary, as a pragmatist and to berate his senior colleagues as "ideologues." That propaganda has little substance. The top leaders of FRELIMO have worked as a team for over twenty years through a difficult liberation war and through many crises.

Samora Machel joined the underground freedom movement in Lourenco Marques (now Maputo) in the 1950s while working as a nurse in a hospital. He was one of those who persuaded Dr. Eduardo Mondlane, then a United Nations official, to give up his career and lead the movement.

Mondlane was able to unify the many scattered groups in Europe and Africa to form the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO). Among the founding members were Marcelino dos Santos, a poet and intellectual, who was a leader of the conference for the freedom of all Portuguese colonies (CONCP) based in Rabat, Joaquim Chissano, leader of the Mozambique students union in Europe, and Samora Machel.

Samora received military training in Algeria and helped organise the guerrilla army, which launched the war of liberation in September 1964. He spent most of the pre-independence period inside Mozambique leading the armed struggle and extending liberated areas. He proved his ability not only in organising and leading a disciplined and revolutionary armed force, but also in educating and unifying the various tribes and building a nation in struggle. Dos Santos and Chissano gained a reputation by their international and organisational work abroad.

When Eduardo Mondlane was assassinated by a parcel bomb in Dar-es-Salaam, at a difficult time in 1969, the leadership was assumed by a triumvirate - Uriah Simango, Marcelino dos Santos and Samora Machel. Simango proved to be totally unreliable and had to be removed. It was then Dos Santos and Chissano who ensured the election of Samora Machel as President.

Samora Machel continued to devote his attention primarily to the struggle inside Mozambique. FRELIMO began to hold all its conferences in the liberated area so that its decisions were taken by the movement without external influences.

After the fall of the Portuguese colonial regime, FRELIMO appointed Chissano as the Prime Minister in the interim government. He proved to be an exceptionally able negotiator, statesman and leader. When Samora Machel returned to Laurenco Marques on independence day to assume the office of President, the authority of FRELIMO was fully established and there were great expectations.

But FRELIMO and its leaders were internationalists and they showed as much concern for the march of liberation as for the reconstruction of their own country.

Even during the liberation struggle, they had helped ZANU to go through their liberated areas to initiate the armed struggle in Zimbabwe. When ZANU freedom-fighters faced difficulties, they sent hundreds of FRELIMO volunteers to fight with them inside Zimbabwe. After the independence of Mozambique, they made great sacrifices to ensure the independence of Zimbabwe.

The example and assistance of FRELIMO were also helpful in promoting the resurgence of the resistance movement inside South Africa. The close bonds between FRELIMO and ANC were reinforced. Mozambique thereby become the target of massive destabilisation by the Pretoria regime.

Faced with an extremely difficult economic and security situation, Samora Machel signed the Nkomati Accord with South Africa in March, 1984. That was a painful decision for FRELIMO and created serious, though temporary, difficulties for ANC.

Samora Machel felt, from his own experience in the liberation war, that the agreement would make it perfectly clear that the struggle is essentially inside South Africa. Indeed, there was soon an unprecedented mobilisation of the South African people in resistance, frustrating the calculations of the Botha regime and its Western friends that the Nkomati Accord would help consolidate apartheid.

The Nkomati Accord is now virtually dead, killed by the perfidy of the Pretoria regime. Samora Machel took the lead in trying to consolidate the frontline states for a new confrontation with South Africa. He has left a legacy for his successors. They will, I am sure, rise to the occasion, but will need the goodwill and support of the international community.

The first priority is to mobilise world opinion in order to persuade major Western Powers to end all military and intelligence links with the Botha regime and to force it to cease all aggression and destabilisation against the frontline states.

Mozambique and the other frontline states should be assured of all necessary military and other assistance so long as the apartheid regime continues to act as an outlaw. That is an essential complement to economic assistance to enable them to overcome their current economic difficulties and become independent of South Africa.

India, as the largest Non-Aligned nation and Chairman of the Committee of the Non-Aligned Movement for the AFRICA Fund, will need to assume a special responsibility in providing diplomatic, political and other support to Mozambique and other frontline States.

The significance of the decision of the Non-Aligned Summit in Harare to establish an AFRICA Fund – for "Action for Resistance to Invasion, Colonialism and Apartheid" – should be seen more in political than in economic terms.

The Non-Aligned countries, themselves facing serious economic problems, are in no position to contribute large-scale assistance to repair the enormous damage caused by South African aggression and subversion in the past decade or even to enable the landlocked frontline states to overcome their present dependence on transport routes through South Africa, much less to withstand further blackmail by the apartheid regime.

The damage suffered by the independent African states is estimated at twenty billion dollars. The restoration and improvement of communications in Mozambique – vital to the landlocked states – would alone cost some $ 660 million.

These enormous needs can only be met by a major international assistance programme with generous contributions from developed countries.

Moreover, an assistance programme by itself is inadequate so long as the international community is unable to eliminate the root cause of the problem, the blatant acts of military and economic aggression by the apartheid regime and its sponsorship of subversive forces to destroy the railways, pipelines and other installations in the frontline states. There is little point in repairing railways, if they can be sabotaged again or building stocks of food, if the terrorist bands can prevent distribution to the needy.

The Committee for the AFRICA Fund – consisting of nine of the most active and dependable members of the Non-Aligned Movement – cannot confine itself to appeals for financial contributions. It will need to give serious and urgent attention to the means to prevent continued aggression and destabilisation by the apartheid regime and to protect the vital installations in the frontline states.

The apartheid regime has been able to act as an outlaw because the major Western powers have failed to discharge their responsibility to prevent aggression and have in fact, protected that regime from effective international action. Those powers – particularly the United States – will need to be persuaded to curb the apartheid regime and help protect the independent African states. That was perhaps the reason why the Harare Summit did not include Cuba and North Korea – which provide substantial assistance to the frontline states – in the Committee for the Africa Fund.

The apartheid regime has always tried to take advantage of the Cold War to secure the goodwill and support of the major Western powers. It is not adverse to provoking African states to seek Soviet military assistance as it hopes that Soviet intervention in the region will assure it of Western support.

It embarked on aggression against independent African states with the clandestine invasion of Angola on the eve of its independence in 1975. P.W. Botha, then Defence Minister, was able to secure the support of CIA as the Ford administration was under the traumatic effect of the Vietnam debacle. When the role of the CIA became known, there was an uproar in the Congress, which adopted the Clark amendment prohibiting CIA involvement in Angola. South Africa was obliged to withdraw its forces from Angola in March 1976. It continued, however, to organise and finance Savimbi’s UNITA rebels for sabotage in Angola. The UN did not pay adequate attention to the matter in the hope a settlement for the independence of Namibia, which was then being negotiated, would solve the problem.

After the breakdown of the Namibia talks in 1978 and the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980, the apartheid regime, taking advantage of the resurgence of the Cold War, renewed large-scale aggression and destabilisation against the frontline states. After the advent of the Reagan Administration in the United States in January 1981, this developed into what the frontline states termed "an undeclared war" against the whole region.

The Reagan Administration, for its own reasons, was as anxious as the apartheid regime to exert pressure on Angola. When the South African forces invaded Angola in August 1981, it vetoed a resolution in the United Nations Security Council condemning the aggression. The Reagan Administration claimed to oppose all "cross-border violence" – equating acts of aggression by the apartheid regime with the transit of ANC and SWAPO freedom fighters to their own countries in the conduct of liberation struggles recognised by the United Nations as legitimate.

The apartheid regime understood the position as a license for aggression.

Mozambique and Angola became prime targets of destabilisation. Armed bands of UNITA and RENAMO, numbering some 20,000 were organised, equipped , financed and given air cover to destroy the railways and, indeed, the entire infrastructure of the countries. Zimbabwe also suffered considerable losses from sabotage by South African-sponsored terrorists, including the destruction of its military aircraft.

The frontline states showed great restraint and refrained from seeking military assistance from the Soviet Union in order to avoid widening of the conflict and East-West confrontation in the region.

Mozambique and Angola even heeded American advice and reached agreements with the apartheid regime early in 1984. Mozambique undertook to deny transit facilities to ANC freedom fighters in return for a pledge by the apartheid regime to stop subversion against it. Angola agreed to prohibit SWAPO freedom fighters from crossing its borders into Namibia in return for the withdrawal of South African troops occupying its territory.

The apartheid regime, however, has flagrantly violated the agreements. The United States Government did little to prevail on it to live up to its undertakings. Instead, the Reagan administration secured the repeal of the Clark amendment and ignoring repeated appeals by OAU, began military and other assistance to UNITA.

The simultaneous attacks by South African forces against the capitals of Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia in May 1986, the rebuff by the Botha regime to the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, the declaration of a State of Emergency in South Africa, and the threats of military and economic aggression against the frontline states forced them to choose between surrender to blackmail and confrontation with the apartheid regime.

The frontline states then courageously called for economic sanctions against South Africa and began to consider measures to withstand South African retaliation. Mozambique and Zimbabwe discussed further military cooperation to protect the vital communication links to the Indian Ocean. Mozambique invited assistance of military advisers from the East and the West.

That is the context in which the Harare Summit set up the AFRICA Fund "to strengthen the economic and financial capability of the frontline States to fight the apartheid regime of Pretoria…."

The present policy of the United States Government – more under the influence of myopic conservatives than the grassroots movement against apartheid – may well lead to disastrous consequences. An East-West confrontation in Southern Africa, ranging the West on the side of racism, will inevitably strain the Western alliance. Public opinion in the United States, concerned mainly with apartheid violence inside South Africa seen on the T.V. screens, has not given much attention to the violence of aggression and destabilisation in the region as a whole.

The conservative governments in the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany do not fully share the assessment of the United States. The United Kingdom has been developing economic relations with Angola and offered military training to the Mozambican army. West Germany seeks to maintain normal relations with all the frontline states. But these two governments join with the Reagan Administration in opposing effective action against the apartheid regime and have failed to restrain the United States from intervention in Angola.

Most of the other Western States totally disagree with the strategy of the conservatives in the United States. Unwilling to confront the Reagan Administration, however, they have pursued the less difficult option of increasing economic assistance to the frontline States and SADCC.

The first task before the NAM’s AFRICA Fund Committee is to persuade the Western states to prevail upon the Reagan Administration to cooperate in securing an end to South African aggression and sponsorship of armed bands in the frontline states. A powerful body of Congressional and public opinion in the United States would respond to such action.

A change in the attitude of the United States would make it possible to ensure effective action by the United Nations to protect the frontline states. In fact, the United States and the other major Western Powers alone can take decisive action to curb the South African military establishment.

Secure and lasting peace in the region requires the elimination of the root cause of conflict – the apartheid system in South Africa. But the frontline states cannot remain hostage to the apartheid regime until that takes place. The aggression against those States, in flagrant violation of international law, is a distinct problem though related to the issues of apartheid and Namibian independence.

Pending a change in the United States attitudes, NAM will need to assist the frontline states to secure the military assistance they need – particularly military training and equipment – to ensure the security of vital installations. It is for the frontline states to decide what assistance they need and from whom they wish to receive it. But NAM members should not only indicate a willingness to consider bilateral assistance but should persuade all other states, including the Western states, to respond to requests by frontline states.

Public opinion in the Nordic states, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia etc., should be helped to appreciate that economic assistance alone is not enough and must be complemented by military assistance to protect the projects financed by them.

The emphasis on such diplomatic and political action is in no way intended to belittle the importance of the economic and technical aspects of the NAM AFRICA Fund. The Fund can, even within the limited means of NAM members, make a vital contribution in covering needs which are not met by the assistance programmes of other States and in providing technical assistance in the context of South-South Cooperation. It is not only symbolic of the commitment of the Non-Aligned states but can be a catalyst for promoting greater assistance from all other sources.

The frontline states have suffered enormously because of their geographical proximity to South Africa. But in the struggle to eliminate apartheid, all NAM members should find ways to be on the frontline.

The AFRICA Fund is a serious challenge to NAM and to India as Chairman of its Committee. It is the first serious effort by NAM to go beyond conference diplomacy into operational activity. It serves a cause that is dear to India and vital to the credibility of NAM.

It must succeed.

October 11^th is observed annually by the United Nations and the world community as the "Day of Solidarity with South African Political Prisoners."

That date was chosen for the international day as on October 11, 1963, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 1811 (XVIII) calling for the abandonment of the trial of Nelson Mandela and other leaders of the liberation movement and for the release of all persons imprisoned or restricted for their opposition to apartheid. The resolution was adopted by 106 votes to one, with only South Africa voting against it. It was the first resolution on apartheid which received a virtually unanimous vote, including the votes of Britain and France – and reflected an international consensus that a general amnesty and an end to repression were prerequisites for any peaceful solution in South Africa.

During that year, the racist regime had resorted to mass arrests of thousands of former members of the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress, the Communist party and other banned organisations. Armed with a new law enabling it to detain people incommunicado – without even access to families, lawyers or courts – it allowed the Security Branch of the police to torture the detenus brutally in order to extract information on the underground movement.

In July, it was able to capture several leaders of African National Congress and its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) at Rivonia Farm. They were charged – along with Nelson Mandela, who had already been imprisoned a year earlier, betrayed by Western intelligence as it has now become known – on October 8, 1963, in what came to be known as the "Rivonia Trial".

I received the news of the arraignment early that morning and immediately contacted the Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, the late Diallo Telli of Guinea. Within hours, we were able to arrange a meeting of the African Group and table an emergency resolution in the Special Political Committee of the General Assembly. A hearing was arranged for Oliver Tambo, the leader of the ANC in exile and the Rt. Rev. Ambrose Reeves, former Bishop of Johannesburg who was deported after the Sharpeville massacre and who was then the President of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. The resolution was moved by Diallo Telli and seconded at his request by India.

Several Western states abstained on the resolution in the Committee, but when it was taken up in Plenary Session and voted by roll-call, one by one they changed their votes to the cheers of Afro-Asian delegations. I learnt later that when Nelson Mandela, who had expected to be executed, was informed by his lawyer of the unprecedented emergency resolution, he was greatly moved and enthused. That has been a source of great encouragement to me in all my work against apartheid ever since.

The General Assembly resolution helped initiate a world-wide campaign for the release of political prisoners in South Africa and I did all I could to promote that campaign. We were immensely relieved when the lives of Nelson Mandela and his colleagues were spared and they were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Ten years later, following a request by the ANC, I suggested the proclamation of the "Day of Solidarity" and the Special Committee enthusiastically endorsed the proposal. The day was observed widely around the world and became an annual event. The General Assembly then formally proclaimed the International Day in 1976.

In promoting the Day, we constantly emphasised that our purpose was not to appeal for the release of the prisoners merely on humanitarian grounds.

They were not unpopular dissidents whose human rights needed appeals from the international community. They were the leaders of the great majority of the people, who were jailed for struggling for the principles of the United Nations – by a regime which practised the crime of apartheid. They should not only be free but should be enabled to lead their people to a democratic, non-racial society.

Solidarity with the political prisoners was thus support to the cause for which they have risked their lives and liberty. The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed in 1975 that the international community has a special responsibility to the oppressed people and their liberation movements, especially to the political prisoners.

Regrettably, the international community has been unable – because of the short-sighted and misguided policies of a few powerful governments – to secure the release of political prisoners, much less the elimination of apartheid.

In South Africa, as in most other countries, persons sentenced to life imprisonment are normally released after fourteen years. But Nelson Mandela is now in his twenty-fifth year in prison. Political prisoners in South Africa are granted no remissions and no paroles, except for a few who were persuaded to give undertakings to the regime.

Instead, with the latest state of emergency, the racist regime, in its desperation, has resorted to new levels of inhumanity.

Tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned, including 3,000 children under the age of sixteen, some as young as ten years. The regime has disclosed that 850 persons have been charged with murder (of policemen, informers and members of the apartheid institutions) and face death sentences. In one case, 125 people have been charged with the killing of one member of the puppet community council. Those charged include many juveniles.

The regime of terror, however, has failed to curb the resistance, which has assumed revolutionary proportions. Faced with frustration of international action by the major Western powers, the people have decided to take their destiny into their own hands and struggle for power. Between January and May this year, the regime reported over 10,000 "unrest-related" incidents, including thousands of attacks on the security forces.

Resistance has spread to rural areas. The police are unable to enter many townships without large military escorts. Three hundred thousand families have joined the recent boycott. The local communities are building alternative structures for administration, justice, education and health.

The Botha regime has escalated its violence in the country behind the cloak of censorship and devastated the frontline states, but it is unable to suppress the mass resistance which defies all terror.

Twenty years ago, B.J. Vorster vowed to hold Mandela in prison "this side of eternity" and believed he would be forgotten. He has instead become a powerful symbol of the spirit of resistance. Internationally he has received greater recognition and honours than any prisoner in history.

In the 1960s when the resistance was trying to recover from the repression, I tried to persuade the rulers of South Africa to emulate the example of the British colonial masters in India – to talk to Nelson Mandela and release him as the British had done with Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, but they were then unwilling to bend. Now, the Botha regime is afraid to release Nelson Mandela for fear that his physical presence among his people will precipitate a massive upsurge leading to the end of the old order.

Solidarity with South African political prisoners has today taken on new dimensions.

It calls for the stepping up of the campaign for sanctions, for support to the liberation movement and for the defence of the frontline states. It also demands that we find ways to support the alternate structures being developed by the resistance inside South Africa.

The Pretoria regime has embarked on a propaganda campaign that the liberation struggle is led by Communists and it has found support in the United States administration.

Cold war thinking has unfortunately distorted American Policy for more than thirty years, undermining its professions of support to democracy and freedom except when Presidents were able to overcome the advice of the CIA and other Cold War institutions.

In 1963, some members of the United States delegation approached African and Asian delegates to advise them that the accused in the Rivonia trial included Communists, in the hope of dissuading them even from a condemnation of trial. Fortunately, their advice was not heeded and President John F. Kennedy and Ambassador Adlai Stevenson decided to support Resolution 1881 (XVIII).

Recently, however, the Reagan Administration has begun to support South African propaganda against the liberation movement. It is essential that world public opinion should assert that whatever one’s own preferences in regard to ideology, support for freedom in South Africa cannot be conditional. It is for the people of South Africa to choose their own future in a democratic system. The hostility of the American administration to the ANC and its policy of "constructive engagement" have by all accounts only increased support for the South African Communist Party.

I cannot conclude without expressing my satisfaction at the more active support by India to the liberation struggle in South Africa, and its willingness to shoulder the responsibility of promoting effective solidarity by the Non-Aligned Movement with the frontline states.

The recent messages of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to Winnie Mandela affirming fullest support and solidarity of the government and the people of India have been a great boost to the morale of the Black people in South Africa. Nelson Mandela will prevail as did the illustrious political prisoners of our country, Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru, who have been a source of inspiration to him. How soon the victory will come will depend not only on the struggle and sacrifices of his people, but the effective solidarity of the rest of the world.