We wish to place on record our appreciation of the resolutions passed by the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity in support of our just struggle. However, the resulting actions have been limited in relation to the immediate and long-term needs of our organization. We wish to condemn those who have deliberately sabotaged the effective implementation of these resolutions, particularly the leading Western Powers forming the NATO alliance.
The effects on our people of the apartheid system and the repressive actions of the South African Government are a matter of record. A meeting such as this should, in our view, not merely recapitulate the past, but concern itself rather with mobilizing action in support of the oppressed and exploited masses of South Africa.
The main feature of the situation in South Africa, and indeed southern Africa, is the conflict between the white minority Governments and the majority of black oppressed peoples of this area of the African sub-continent. The African National Congress, as the mouth-piece of the majority of the oppressed people, reaffirms its commitment to the violent overthrow of the apartheid State and the seizure of power by the majority. The main content of this struggle at present is the national liberation of the largest and most oppressed section of the African people. The overthrow of the apartheid system must result in a transfer of political and economic power from the white minority to the black majority.
Pretoria regime - the gendarme of southern Africa
The South African regime has in recent years considerably changed its general strategy and tactics while holding fast and tenaciously to its objectives of continued enslavement of the blacks in South Africa and domination of the sub-continent. This was no doubt at the instance of the Western countries, South Africa's major partners. The regime now projects itself as the so-called bastion of the free world and the indispensable bulwark against the "penetration of Communism" in Africa. The so-called outward-looking policy, culminating in the professed dialogue, must be seen against this background.
At the same time, the Western countries have armed the regime to the teeth, using the pretext that the strategic position of South Africa has been enhanced since the closure of the Suez Canal.
To the African National Congress, the situation was simply the following: the regime has been assigned a new special role by international imperialism, whose aim is the perpetuation of the plunder presently going on on a big scale in southern Africa - the treasure-chest of the African continent. This role is that of the gendarme of the whole region. It has taken the form of a continued reign of terror inside South Africa and progressive military intervention on the side of the Portuguese against the liberation movements in Mozambique and Angola. It has meant even greater intervention to prop up the Ian Smith regime while continuing the illegal occupation of Namibia.
As an imperialist outpost and potential bridgehead in this part of the continent, South Africa seeks to intimidate neighbouring African countries into a position of client states. Hence the repeated threats of aggression against Zambia and Tanzania for their refusal to help isolate and liquidate the liberation movements, the cause of which has been endorsed by the United Nations and is actively backed by the Organization of African Unity.
Thanks not only to her fascist character but also to her scheme in terms of' which she sees these northern territories as buffer zones, the Pretoria regime considers the defence of the Portuguese colonies as part of its own defence. In fact, it sees the defence of white minority regimes as indivisible.
Because of its military and economic capabilities, South Africa stands at the hegemony of the white racist alliance. Coordinated action in the whole of southern Africa is the sole answer to ensure an effective dispersal of the forces of reaction and the rupture of the imperialist alliance. Whoever consequently is for the liberation of the so-called Portuguese colonies, Namibia and Zimbabwe must ensure that the fascist forces are engaged and pinned down within their borders. Failure to do this frees the hands of the gendarme to roam about, snuffing out people's struggle against oppression.
Continued struggle inside South Africa
Despite persecution and harassment, our movement has consistently mobilized the oppressed people of our country. We have continued to send trained cadres into our country to prepare and train political and military units. It is sad that our record in this respect can only be judged when we suffer casualties and our people appear in fascist courts. The current trial of six of our comrades in Pretoria does illustrate our consistent activities in showing an organized, revolutionary way out.
Despite the brutalities perpetuated against members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the armed wing of our organization), the African National Congress and its allies continue systematically to lead the campaign of mobilization and resistance to the regime of terror. The military operations in Zimbabwe jointly carried out by the ZAPU-ANC units in 1967 and 1968, the 1969 Maritzburg trials and the Ramotse and Mzimela cases are eloquent evidence of a determination to intensify resistance against terrorist dictatorship.
The above-mentioned activities have been complemented by a well organized and purposeful propaganda distribution. The apex of our propaganda efforts is the production and the printing of an internal ANC newsletter called Sechaba-Isizwe. This is a clear illustration that the continuing policy of' mass terror against the people and the all-out fascist attempts to physically destroy all genuine revolutionary units and patriots has failed to stem the will of the people to organize and fight. Despite the reign of terror and the barrier of repressive legislation which has made our movement and strikes illegal and denied black workers the right to form trade unions, more and more workers are taking matters into their own hands. The past three years, in particular, have witnessed several strikes in the major industrial areas of our country.
The strikes of black workers
Recently in the Durban industrial complex alone, 100,000 black workers participated in strike action. The strikes have been spreading to all the parts of South Africa. They are following an organized pattern and have demonstrated very high discipline and leadership. The black working class is challenging the system that denies them political and economic rights, a system that condemns them to squalor and poverty, that dumps them into resettlement areas and barren reserves, a system that afflicts them with lethal diseases like tuberculosis and causes numerous cases of maiming accidents.
The white State of the oppressor groups and the employers was thrown into a panic by the strike wave. The political and economic fabric of the apartheid system was shaken. The various sections of the white establishment reacted in different ways but their aims were the same - to crush the militant actions by force, victimization and "hypocritical concessions". The South African regime, in typical reaction, amassed a huge army (some airlifted from Pretoria) to protect the interests of the "South African way of life' (racism under the guise of the maintenance of law and order".) In some factories the army has been called upon to maintain production. Strikers have been teargassed, baton charged, arrested and persecuted. The employers are making gestures to meet the workers' demands by contemptuous token offers of wage increases.
The extent of their gestures is evidenced by the fact that after the increases, the wages are still very meagre and remain a pittance. What is more, despite the increases, the average wage is still below that paid to African workers in Zambia - a country that has been independent for less than ten years and does not have South Africa's vast natural resources. The mining industry, in a blaze of publicity, increased African wages in the mining sector to less than one-quarter of those paid in Zambia.
The attitude of the Trade Union Council of South Africa (TUSCA), which is mostly white in leadership and composition, was absolutely treacherous. Instead of organizing solidarity with the striking black workers, it mounted pious statements about the extension of trade union rights to the African workers. Its attitude on this matter is both hypocritical and farcical. TUCSA has consistently championed the interests of the white monopolists and the labour aristocracy by ignoring the interests of the black workers. It has supported the repressive measures of the regime of terror against the national liberation movement and the African trade unions. Not a whisper was heard from TUCSA when the terrorist dictatorship in our country executed the trade union leaders Mini, Nkaba, Khayinga. TUCSA was very conspicuous by its silence when trade union leaders like Stephen Dlamini, Elias Motsoaledi, David Kitson, Billy Nair, Curnick Ndlovu and many others were given long sentences of imprisonment on Robben Island.
The record of TUCSA collaboration with the employers and the white state is sordid indeed. So this pious declaration by TUCSA on the extension of trade union rights is an attempt to control the black workers and emasculate their militancy. TUCSA would like the black workers to come under its tutelage so as to misdirect their orientation in the struggle.
The strikes in South Africa must be seen in their proper perspective as part of the mass revolt against the regime of terror. This mass revolt is taking many forms and shapes. It embraces legal and illegal forms of struggle. It embraces distribution of clandestine material and the establishment of clandestine groups. The African National Congress and its allies are part of this mass revolt and represent its advanced and properly equipped detachment.
Foreign investment
In the present period, the investment issue has become one of the battle grounds of two distinct and opposed perspectives. These run to the heart of the problem of support of apartheid by the West or its undermining.
On the one hand there is the thesis, advocated with growing insistence by business lobbies facing criticism for their involvement in South Africa, that the presence of foreign investments can be used to mitigate the rigours of apartheid (i.e. to "civilize apartheid, and allegedly to move South African policy towards peaceful change"). Proponents of this approach argue that foreign investors should use the leverage of their presence in the country's economy to push African wages up and that a policy of disinvestment would mean the surrender of this leverage for reform. By this perspective, the widespread and very welcome exposure of starvation wages paid to black workers runs the danger of being used to legitimize both the investments and the status quo in South Africa. In fact this approach not only legitimizes existing investments but encourages even deeper involvement on the grounds that the greater the capital share, the greater the influence of external interests for enlightened policies.
The reform-through-investment argument is, however, blatantly contradicted by the stark realities of apartheid., notably the fact that the period of the most extensive foreign investments is precisely the period of the most intensive application of apartheid and its cheap and migrant labour policy, together with the ever-widening disparity between black and white wages, the creation of a pool of unemployed, and the maintenance of an unorganized black work force, totally excluded from power. Such isolated attempts at reforms through business as have taken place, the Polaroid experiment for instance, have had the most marginal results and have not touched the rest of the problem.
Given the control of labour in the overall context of the labour system of apartheid, piecemeal reforms could lead to a decrease of African employment in urban industry and the further acceleration of a capital-intensive strategy by industry.
Essentially the only road to change in South Africa lies in the direction of structural changes in the economy and the re-distribution of power from minority to majority control. The role of external forces must be judged by their contribution for or against the encouragement and support of these forces of change.
Numerous resolutions have been adopted by the United Nations to isolate the regime of terror in South Africa. These resolutions have been violated with impunity by some members of the United Nations, especially the United Kingdom, the United States of America, France, Japan, Belgium and Italy. The time has come for the United Nations to take appropriate measures that would ensure the enforcement of the decisions and resolutions of the United Nations. If sanctions are adopted as a measure to deal with offenders like the Vorster regime, then they must be enforced and a machinery should be set to punish those who violate them.
The EEC
The South African regime is concerned by the British membership of the EEC and its possible effects on the South African economy. Despite the exclusion of South Africa from the Commonwealth, Britain continues to extend Commonwealth tariff preferentials to her.
The South African Government has estimated that by the end of the transition period of Britain's full integration into the EEC, South Africa's exports could be faced with the loss of 270 million dollars, arising mainly in the crucial agricultural sector.
South Africa's concern is evident by the appointment of a special ambassador to the EEC, and the attempt to woo member countries through the exchange of friendly visits by politicians including Prime Minister Vorster. South Africa's aim is to establish close trade links between the Community and South Africa to offset damage to South Africa's foreign trade, resulting from Britain's entry.
The international community must mobilize to prevent the further bolstering of apartheid. It is the high level of exports, 27 per cent of GNP, together with capital inflows that have hitherto sustained the apartheid system. The British Anti-Apartheid Movement has warned that the dangers of an EEC sell-out are considerable. The OAU should alert African associate member countries to the situation and support organizations in the EEC member countries which are intensifying their campaigns to prevent such an occurrence.
White immigration
Faced with difficulties in their own countries, white immigrants, especially skilled workers mainly from the United Kingdom and Western Europe, are entering South Africa in large numbers, no doubt to share in the all-white looting of African labour. They not only take jobs away from our people, by enabling the restrictions on black workers' acquiring skills to be maintained, but also sustain and give strength to the apartheid system. They render numerical support to the South African Government and give physical expression to the solidarity which the home countries of these immigrants have with white domination in South Africa.
Experience has shown that on occasions of sharp conflict, the Western Powers have not hesitated to intervene on the side of the oppressors under the guise of protecting not only their economic interests but their nationals as well. Such intervention cannot be ruled out in South Africa.
The international community must be alert to this danger, and intensify efforts to prevent foreign nationals from emigrating to South Africa.
The arms embargo
Notwithstanding the United Nations resolutions, the Western countries are continuing to supply South Africa with sophisticated weaponry and the technical know-how to help develop South Africa's arms industry to self-sufficiency in conventional equipment. This support for the South African military machine is forthcoming, particularly from Britain, Italy and France.
France has become the main supplier of military equipment to South Africa since the partial embargo by the British Labour Government in 1964. French Panhard armoured cars are manufactured under licence in South Africa. The production of French Mirage fighter planes is to be followed by the production of light transport aircraft. There is a programme to assemble 300 Italian ground-attack aircraft MB 326s, powered by Rolls Royce engines). The OAU and the United Nations are already aware of the development of the Cactus Crotale ground-to-air missile system obtained from France. A recent report of the Institute of Strategic Studies in London reveals that since at least 1969, South Africa has been importing more arms than all the other African countries put together south of the Sahara.
In conjunction with the fact that South Africa already has the largest locally-based arms industry on the continent, these developments pose an immediate threat to independent Africa. South Africa's policy is now clearly expansionist. The alternating carrot-and-stick policy which she is using is an attempt to break out of her isolation in Africa and find the markets and avenues for the export of capital that she so desperately needs.
She has tried to inveigle African countries with offers of aid and dialogue and the promise of prosperity through economic association. Though the policy of dialogue has been exposed and received some setbacks, it is still part of South Africa's programme which is re-initiated wherever there is a possible opening.
At the same time, South Africa has repeatedly threatened countries such as Zambia and Tanzania, which have refused to accept its advances, with military reprisals. It has attacked Zambian villages and innocent civilians.
The Zambian economy has also been subjected to various attacks. Zambia's current efforts at reducing her dependence on historic trade patterns deserve to be supported by all those seeking an end to white supremacy in South Africa.
Today South Africa is the most formidable military power on the continent and the capitals of every independent African country are now within range of South African planes. Its activities have not stopped at threats.
It has not only violated Zambian territory, but has invaded Zimbabwe in support of the illegal regime. Its military personnel have been active at Cabora Bassa and other parts of the Portuguese colonies. Its record and policy leave no doubt of its intentions.
It is therefore of vital importance for the future peace of Africa that the arms embargo be made total and mandatory and that the enforcement machinery be activated.
Boycott of apartheid sports teams
The isolation of South African sportsmen, sporting bodies and racist sports teams from international sport has met with great success. We commend all those bodies which have responded to the initiative of the black South African sportsmen and non-racial organizations which called for this isolation.
Faced with the success of the campaign, the South African Government and white sports bodies have devised a so-called multi-national sports policy - a euphemism for apartheid in sport. The "multi-national South African Games" held last month were an expression of this policy. The newly-formed non-racial South African Council of Sport has correctly stated:
"...The system of multi-national sports events... is a negation of the principles of non-discrimination in sport and is designed to maintain racial discrimination."
We commend those Governments, sports organizations and anti-apartheid movements which have refused to be taken in by the so-called new policy, and have maintained their support for non-racial sport.
It is gratifying to note developments in Australia and New Zealand. We welcome in particular the stand of the Prime Minister and the Labour Goverment in Australia in categorically dissociating themselves from apartheid sports, and for their general change of policy towards support for the United Nations resolutions and programmes.
Need for mass action
We do feel that there is a need particularly in Western countries for intensified international action involving workers, students, intellectuals, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as Governments.
We particularly urge actions by the international trade union movement intended to inspire support for and solidarity with the exploited workers in South Africa. It would be essential for workers in Africa and the Western countries to refuse to extend their labour on the production of weapons, ammunition, spare parts and the like, in factories which manufacture arms for sale to the regime of terror in South Africa.
It has become a question of great importance that we should seek to involve the mass of the ordinary people and their voluntary organizations in the struggle against apartheid, and this applies particularly to the countries that maintain links with South Africa. The history of the campaigns mounted by the anti-apartheid organizations in the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, Australia and other parts of the world show how much power the people possess even to force the governments that are hostile to the isolation of South Africa to submit to the popular will.
Material assistance
We welcome the programme of the United Nations and its specialized agencies to give aid to liberation movements. Hitherto much aid has been basically welfare-oriented - towards relief and educational aid for refugees. In view of the provisions of recent resolutions of the United Nations and the virtually unanimous support they have received from Member Nations, it is now necessary for the aid programmes to be politically oriented, and directed towards the liberation movements and their activities.
We, the African National Congress, are appreciative of the weakness of those who fight alone. That is why we have mobilized world opinion behind us and that is why we feel that in our struggle we are flanked by revolutionaries from all parts of the world. We shall continue to press progressive forces for support but, should this support not be forthcoming, we shall not sit idly in the face of oppression. Historically we cannot avoid confrontation with our oppressors.
We shall fight until victory is ours! Amandla!