There is hardly any need in this forum to discuss the so-called pros and cons of sanctions or the various diversions from the basic issues of liberation.
It is more than twenty years since the national liberation movement of South Africa appealed to the world for sanctions against the racist regime. It is more than twenty years since anti-apartheid movements were formed in response to that appeal. It is 18 years since the General Assembly of the United Nations called by a large majority for individual and collective sanctions - and set up the Special Committee against Apartheid to promote action.
Already in April 1964, the International Conference on Sanctions against South Africa - organised in London by the British Anti-Apartheid Movement and others - proved conclusively that sanctions were feasible, effective and essential.
What has been lacking has been the will of certain governments and economic and other interests to cease collaborating with the apartheid regime.
Constantly they find excuses to oppose or delay sanctions against South Africa. When some partial measures are adopted by the United Nations - measures like the arms embargo - they find means to evade such measures.
To quote a former Chairman of the Special Committee:
"One wonders if the South African regime is a very favourite illegitimate child of the West - a love child - which is always protected, even if somewhat surreptitiously."
Sanctions Frustrated
The Charter of the United Nations solemnly signed in San Francisco thirty-five years ago, cries out for sanctions against the South African regime.
After scores of attacks by the South African regime against other States, after an increase in the South African military budget by 5,000 per cent, who can honestly deny that there is a threat to the peace - indeed a breach of the peace - in southern Africa?
After the Sharpeville massacre, the Soweto massacre, and the recent killings of school children, who can deny that there is a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter which must outrage world conscience?
Yet, there are no sanctions against South Africa.
Governments which have imposed sanctions against other countries, often without any Untied Nations decision, tell us that they cannot support sanctions against South Africa because sanctions are ineffective and have always failed - ever since the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and even the Napoleonic wars.
When a mandatory arms embargo has been imposed against South Africa, when the oil producing countries have prohibited supply of oil to South Africa, we hear reports of a conspiracy, masterminded by South Africans and involving companies from many countries, to keep South Africa supplied by the black market
This black market, which represents an international threat, operates without the slightest interference by the intelligence services of major Powers which protest their abhorrence of apartheid and their love of peace.
Role of Non-governmental Organisations
The problem today is not only the liberation of South Africa and Namibia.
The situation has developed to a stage where South Africa has tried physical occupation of the territory of Zambia and Angola.
What is at stake is a programme by South Africa to undo the liberation of frontline States and establish a so-called "constellation of States" under its hegemony.
What is at stake is the enormous danger of a racist regime - which has defied scores of resolutions of the United Nations - wielding a nuclear bomb to reinforce its defiance of the world.
What can we expect from the Western States and the peoples of those countries in this situation? Part of the answer must come from the anti-apartheid movements and other non-governmental organisations.
Sanctions against South Africa are not a matter for governments alone or for the United Nations alone.
They are a matter for everyone committed to solidarity with the struggle for liberation in southern Africa.
Non-governmental organisations have played an important role through consumer boycotts which develop public consciousness.
They have mobilised the people in various countries in support of sanctions so that several of the smaller Western countries are now, in principle, in favour of sanctions.
They have also played a very important role in policing the implementation of measures already announced by governments - performing a role which the governments concerned have failed to do.
I would like here to pay tribute to organisations and the media which have exposed blatant violations of resolutions against South Africa.
Three Lines of Action
I would say that there are three ways in which sanctions will come about.
They can come by a vote of the United Nations Security Council. But it is clear that there is no prospect at present of such mandatory sanctions.
During this month, on two occasions - in connection with the killings of school children and the aggression against Angola - the African States proposed in the Security Council some modest measures to strengthen the implementation of the arms embargo and the imposition of an oil embargo. On both occasions, these proposals had to be dropped - even without being tabled in the Security Council - because of the strong resistance of the Western Powers.
Because of this resistance, the alternative is to develop a powerful public movement for sanctions, especially in the major Western countries, in close cooperation with OAU and Non-aligned countries, and the Socialist States.
That, as I see it, is the purpose of this Conference.
There is, of course, a third way - and that is for the people of South Africa and their national liberation movement to force sanctions by their own struggle.
You may remember that the national uprisings after the Sharpeville massacre and the Soweto massacre forced a flight of capital from South Africa.
In recent consultations with certain Western governments, I find that no development had greater effect in promoting positive thinking than the attack by freedom fighters against the SASOL installations last month.
All these three ways are interlinked, and we should view them in perspective.
The topmost priority should, of course, be for the strengthening and full implementation of the arms embargo, and an end to nuclear collaboration with South Africa.
An oil embargo has now become crucial as an indispensable complement to the arms embargo.
At the same time, attention will need to be given to a number of other aspects in a comprehensive programme.
For instance, the increasing import of coal from South Africa, even by the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany, which are major producers of coal, calls for urgent action.
I will not make a catalogue of these issues as relevant papers are before the Conference and we will have an opportunity to discuss and consult in the Commissions and in group meetings.
I would, however, like to make special reference to the need for consultation on co-ordination of campaigns for sanctions.
Many national campaigns - for instance, the campaign on the oil embargo in the Netherlands - need to be internationalised.
Cooperation of Governments and Non-governmental Organisations
In conclusion, I would like to thank the NGO Sub-Committee for its initiative in organising this Conference and to express my delight that this Conference is being presided by you, Mr. Sean MacBride, whose activity in the struggle for liberation of peoples covers a span of more than half a century - even before the Anti-Imperialist Conference of Brussels in 1929.
I have always felt that we should not draw a rigid distinction between NGOs and Governments and inter-governmental organisations. In fact, close cooperation among committed NGOs, UN and OAU, as well as individual governments, has became crucial in the struggle against apartheid.
We are all born non-governmental and most of us die non-governmental.
The life of Sean MacBride has covered both governmental and non-governmental responsibilities, and I am sure his guidance at this Conference will be of great value.
TRIBUTE TO DR W.E.B. DUBOIS
I was particularly happy to accept the invitation to participate in this ceremony because Dr. W.E.B. DuBois—and his colleagues and friends, Paul Robeson and Alpheus Hunton—had a great influence on my own life and my career in the United Nations.
I met those great men in 1946, as a young student from a colonial country, at a small gathering to welcome a delegation of the African National Congress of South Africa and to plan a demonstration in front of the South African Consulate-General in New York to protest against racism in South Africa and the massacre of Africans during the historic African mineworkers’ strike.
I became concerned with African freedom movements as an extension of the freedom movement in my own country. Since I joined the United Nations Secretariat in May 1949, most of my work has been with African liberation. I still draw inspiration and guidance from the works of Dr. DuBois.
I had, of course, known of Dr. DuBois even before 1946—as one of those Americans who supported our own freedom struggle.
It was my privilege many years later, in 1977, to accompany the officers of the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid to Accra to pay tribute to the late Dr. W.E.B. DuBois at his grave—and in February 1978, to organise, for the Special Committee, an international tribute to Dr. DuBois at the United Nations Headquarters.
The Encyclopaedia Africana, a cherished dream of Dr. DuBois, is now being published in Ghana.
The UNESCO is bringing out volumes of the history of Africa, inspired largely by the pioneering work of Dr. DuBois on African history. The UNESCO and the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid are now planning a project to promote the preparation of an objective history of southern Africa from the point of view of the indigenous African people rather than a travesty of history beginning with the arrival of white settlers in the seventeenth century.
For us, Dr. DuBois was not a dissenter, or a representative of a minority community, but the spokesman of the great majority of humanity, and his vision is being fulfilled in our time.
I would not venture to add to what the distinguished panelists have to say on Dr. DuBois and Africa—his pioneering work on the history of Africa, his influence on the national leaders of Africa, his leadership of the Pan African movement and his tremendous contribution to the dignity and freedom of Africa. But I would like to remind you that it would be a mistake to see Dr. DuBois mainly in the black context or in the African context in the narrow sense. Dr. DuBois belongs today not to the blacks of America alone, nor to Africa and people of African origin—but to humanity, as one of the beacon lights for building a new world.
To the extent that the African people and the people of African origin were the most oppressed and humiliated, their liberation will mean not some "reverse discrimination" but the true liberation of all mankind so that history will cease to be a catalogue of oppression of one segment of humanity by another. It is in that context that the struggle of the African people and people of African origin assumes tremendous significance.
The historic time has come at last for victory in the struggle to destroy racist domination in South Africa and Namibia, to complete the emancipation of Africa, to break the colour line and build a common humanity. The last stage of a struggle is never easy—but what was a distant vision of Dr. DuBois in 1900 is today a realistic goal and an imperative duty.
This archive cannot be a morgue or a museum or a collection of memorabilia. It contains precious documents of a revolution which is not yet completed—a revolution to end racism, oppression and exploitation, and to build a new international economic and social order. It must be and can be a source of reference and inspiration to those engaged in the struggle for redemption.
SIGNIFICANCE OF SOUTH AFRICAN STRUGGLE
The struggles for independence have an impact far beyond the borders and shores of the countries directly involved. In my country, in my own childhood, we were greatly inspired by the Irish struggle and learnt from that struggle.
I mention this particularly because the struggle for freedom in South Africa is one which had a tremendous international impact.
Next year it will be one hundred years since the first modern political organisation of Africans was established in South Africa— and seventy years since the African National Congress was founded.
The ANC is perhaps the oldest liberation movement in Africa and a movement with an inspiring history of sacrifice, statesmanship and heroism.
The ANC inspired the establishment of liberation movements in many other African States. It had a tremendous impact on India through Mahatma Gandhi and later on the struggle of the black people in the United States of America.
It has given birth to anti-apartheid movements which have become an important moral force in the world. Many leaders, especially in Western countries, have had their early training in these movements. Hundreds and thousands of people have risked their limbs and their liberty to express solidarity with the African people of South Africa—as has happened only a few weeks ago in New Zealand—because the struggle of the African people involves great moral issues and has been a great moral struggle.
The struggle in South Africa has a long history. The movement of solidarity with that struggle too has a long history. Massacres of Africans have a long history—long before Sharpeville and Soweto.
Twenty years ago, on December 11, 1961, the world recognised the righteousness of the struggle of the African people and its contribution to the whole of Africa and the world, when Chief Albert Lutuli was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Soon after, when the liberation movement felt obliged, in the face of inhuman terror, to give up its strict adherence to non-violence and embark on armed resistance, under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, the world has shown understanding. If there was any time in history when people were forced to take up arms to enforce peace, then this was it.
The struggle in South Africa is not a mere political conflict in one country. Apartheid is not and can never be politics. It is a crime. The issue is not political but deeply moral.
I am reminded that five hundred years ago—in 1482 to be precise—the Portuguese built a fort at Elmina in the Gold Coast, now Ghana—and the next year they began colonisation at the mouth of the Congo river.
These are some centenaries we will not celebrate, but we will not forget. For they began an era in world history—a shameful era of the rape of Africa, of murder, exploitation and humiliation of a great continent which gave birth to human civilisation. Tens of millions of human beings were killed in raids for slaves and in the mid-passage to the Western Hemisphere and whole areas of the continent depopulated. The end of slavery was soon followed by the cruel century of colonialism—especially after the Berlin Conference of 1884—and the institutionalisation of racism against the indigenous Africans in the form of apartheid.
What the people of South Africa and Namibia are fighting for—and what we are striving for in our movement for solidarity—is nothing less than the closing of this tragic chapter in human history and the building of a new world in which human beings are not tortured and humiliated because of the colour of their skin.
It is, therefore, not surprising at all that in this righteous and moral struggle, the churches and other religious bodies have an important role and that my good friend Father Austin Flannery has been leading the
Anti-Apartheid Movement here. We wish there were many more like him.It is not surprising at all that the trade union movement—a movement based on the principle of human equality—was among the first to support the call for sanctions against South Africa more than twenty years ago. The Irish trade union movement, I believe and hope, is accepting today’s challenge, namely, that the trade union movement should play the leading role in imposing and implementing sanctions against South Africa.
MY LIFE AND WORK
I would like to express my gratitude to you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the Special Committee, for your very kind words on my appointment to the post of Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations.
I cannot find words to convey my feelings fully to the Special Committee and to you personally—but I hope you will bear with me if I use this opportunity to say a few words about my life and my work.
I was born in a colonial country—in fact the largest colonial country under the rule of the then mightiest colonial power. We suffered the humiliation of racism in my own country, though much less than the blacks have suffered in South Africa. To contribute to the eradication of racism and apartheid is, for me, not a job but a privilege, perhaps an irresistible passion.
So while I am immensely grateful to the Secretary-General for appointing me the Assistant Secretary-General for the Centre against Apartheid, it is not the title or what goes with it that is important but the responsibility.
I cannot forget that the post has been upgraded on the recommendation of the Special Committee in the belief that an upgrading was essential to enhance the effectiveness of the work of the United Nations against apartheid in this crucial period. That is a demand that does worry me, but I will try to meet the challenge, under your guidance.
As you know, the European settlement in South Africa began more than three centuries ago—as a mere way station, on the route of the colonialists to the riches of the Indies.
Long before I was born, the national movement of India began to support the oppressed people of South Africa—not only because people of Indian origin were humiliated in that country but also because our leaders recognised their international duty.
I myself became involved in the struggle against the abomination of racism and colonialism at an early age.
My father was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and courted imprisonment. I recall collecting money when I was only six or seven years old for Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign to assist the so-called "untouchables". I rebelled against the caste system as a child.
In 1943 I happened to obtain and read a pamphlet by a leader of the liberation movement in South Africa who described how the gold of South Africa, instead of becoming a treasure of all the people, was used to tighten the shackles on the blacks. Around that time the African Youth League was formed in South Africa with a militant programme of action, and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru called on the people of Indian origin in Africa to identify themselves fully with the indigenous people. I developed an interest in South Africa and Africa.
In 1946, when I came to the United States as a student, I was overwhelmed by the affection of the black people and was able to learn more about Africa from the great black leaders. In that year, I met Dr. A.B. Xuma, President of the African National Congress of South Africa, attended the United Nations debates on South Africa and Namibia, and helped organise a demonstration to protest the killing of African mineworkers during the historic strike in South Africa.
When I joined the United Nations Secretariat in 1949, my first assignment included South Africa. And since I was appointed principal secretary of the Special Committee on March 9, 1963, it has been my privilege to serve this Committee. I use the term privilege not as an expression of courtesy, but in its full meaning. In this Committee, I found representatives of governments who shared my convictions, and I have always found friendship and, indeed, affection.
Many kind words have been said about my work. I have, I believe, worked harder than I was required, and made some personal sacrifices. But they are nothing compared to the sacrifices of many friends in the anti-apartheid movements who have given up their careers, who have suffered injuries and imprisonment, and who have even risked their lives, not to speak of people in the liberation movement whom I have known—fine men and women who have been assassinated, tortured and imprisoned.
I was able to make a contribution, as a member of the Secretariat, especially to the recognition of the liberation movements; to the development of close relations with anti-apartheid and solidarity movements and other public organisations; and to assistance for the political prisoners and their families. I have made many friends, including many great men and women of our time.
I can look back at my career with great satisfaction.
What has been most satisfying to me was the fact that the Special Committee and I shared the same convictions. We have hated racism, but never the so-called races which are the oppressors. Mr. Chairman, you have stressed this again and again, with your deep religious conviction, even at this meeting.
In all the numerous documents of this Committee or of the Centre, one can never find hatred of the whites of South Africa, or of the Afrikaners.
I have said that if only the Afrikaners will remove their blinkers and study their own history, they will understand and respect the struggle and sacrifice of Nelson Mandela and other leaders, and recognise that freedom and equality will inevitably triumph.
They lost 30,000 lives—of men, women and children—in the so-called Anglo-Boer war at the turn of the century. They were defeated in the battlefield but prevailed.
I firmly believe that something like the same will happen again in South Africa. As the apparent might of the regime and its aggressiveness have reached a climax, that is the beginning of the end of apartheid.
NO ONE CAN BE NEUTRAL ON APARTHEID
That the World Peace Council has chosen to award me the medal named after Frederic Joliot-Curie can only be a token of friendship of its many eminent leaders whom I have known and respected, and with whom I have had occasion to co-operate in my official duties. The gesture of the World Peace Council, and the kind words spoken today about my own contribution, are indeed far too generous. But I am most gratified that this award is a recognition of the work of the Centre against Apartheid to which all its present and former staff have contributed, often at some sacrifice, because of their regard for the Special Committee, their commitment to non-racialism and their respect for the national liberation movement of South Africa.
The contribution of the Centre, within the structure of the United Nations, and under the guidance of the Secretary-General and the Special Committee, was possible because of the cooperation of numerous governments, national liberation movements, non-governmental organisations and individuals. I find it most appropriate, therefore, that this award is being made at a meeting of the Special Committee on its twentieth anniversary when we have the great pleasure of the participation of many guests.
Our lives have coincided with the historic march of peoples of our two continents for liberation from colonial and racist domination. We have seen great struggles and great triumphs. We have looked forward to the dawn of a new world order. But this historic process, during which millions of people have given their lives, has been arrested, especially in southern Africa. The resurgence of racism in some parts of the world cannot be unrelated to the paralysis of our efforts and the dark clouds on the international horizon. There is a need for renewed determination to see that freedom is irreversible, that emancipation of Africa is soon completed and that a new era of world history is opened—an era of human equality and of genuine international cooperation. When we are committed to a cause, and there is no greater cause than the defence of the dignity of the human person, irrespective of so-called race or colour, it is not enough merely to affirm our support verbally. It is not even enough to demonstrate our conviction by individual action. The final test is whether we join with all those who are equally committed, in decisive action to ensure the triumph of justice.
At the behest of the Special Committee, the Centre against Apartheid has cooperated with numerous public organisations committed against apartheid irrespective of their ideological and other orientations so long as their commitment is sincere. We have tried constantly to promote concrete action by all such organisations. The World Peace Council has not only consistently and unconditionally cooperated with the Special Committee and the Centre against Apartheid, but through its President helped to bring together many other non-governmental organisations to join with the Special Committee ~n the international campaign against apartheid. For that we are grateful.
In my work with this Special Committee since its inception, I have been inspired by the guidance I received from the late Secretary-General U Thant. I have acted on the assumption that no one, not least a servant of this Organisation, can be neutral on apartheid. 1 have felt that we must totally reject and hate racism without any equivocation and compromise, but we must never hate the communities which the racist doctrines have poisoned. I have in mind particularly the white people of South Africa, and especially the Afrikaner people of that country; they too have produced some of the great fighters for freedom.
While the oppressed people have every right to fight against oppression, by arms if they have no other choice, it is our task by international action to avert conflict and human suffering in the inevitable process of liberation. I have had no illusions about painless and swift victories.
I was most fortunate that the Special Committee, at its very inception, proclaimed its policy which I could fully share and respect. In attempting to obey fully the oath of my office, and at the same time to follow my convictions without succumbing to any pressures whatsoever, I found no contradiction. I can look back with satisfaction that I have made no enemies but numerous friends; that this Organisation has been very generous to me; and above all, that I could make some contribution to the cause of freedom. I am most grateful to the Secretariat and to the Secretary-General, to the Special Committee and its successive Chairmen and to all its friends.
I have felt that I should say this, despite any impression of a lack of modesty, because I feel deeply the moral imperatives of the civil service. I believe that the civil service cannot be neutral on great human issues and that objectivity should not be allowed to degenerate into insensitivity. This is true, above all, of the international civil service bound by the principles of the United Nations Charter.
Many of us owe our jobs, our advancement and our security - even our lives - to those who have struggled and sacrificed to end colonial domination and discrimination on the basis of race, colour, sex or creed. We have a duty to them.
In the course of the past two decades, the Special Committee and the Centre have made many friends. Many of the great leaders of the movement for peace, including many of the laureates of the Nobel and Lenin Peace Prizes, have appeared before this Special Committee and cooperated with the Centre. I have known and been inspired by several of the great leaders and martyrs who are among the recipients of the Frederic Joliot-Curie medal, from the great Dr. W.E.B. DuBois who passed away twenty years ago, to Dr. Amilcar Cabral, the leader of liberation struggle and a dear friend of ours who was assassinated ten years ago.
For my part, I can assure you and the Special Committee that this beautiful medal will only be a reminder to serve even better this Special Committee, this Organisation and the cause of freedom and peace in southern Africa.
SAVE THE LIVES OF FREEDOM FIGHTERS
Today, on the anniversary of the execution of Solomon Mahlangu. a young freedom fighter, we not only pay tribute to his memory and to the memory of others who were executed. We are concerned about six other freedom fighters of the African National Congress who are in the death cells.
You have just seen, on film, the spirit of the freedom fighters and their families. They have knowingly and willingly risked their lives for the freedom of their people. They do not seek pity. They ask for solidarity not only for themselves but for their people.
The United Nations has condemned apartheid as a crime. It has demanded for more than thirty years that the authorities in South Africa abandon apartheid and seek a just solution based on consultations among the genuine representatives of all the people of South Africa. It has also declared that the struggle of the people of South Africa for freedom and human dignity is a legitimate struggle.
It is in the context of the consistent rejection by the South African regime of all appeals by the world, and its resort to increasing repression and indiscriminate killings, that we should view the current death sentences.
We ask for clemency to the six young men on humanitarian grounds. We also point out that they are not common criminals and that, even in the course of an armed struggle, they had taken care to avoid loss of life, as shown during the trials themselves.
But the charges and trials are not the basic issue. There cannot be a just verdict or sentence under unjust laws in a system like apartheid which enshrined injustice.
In the course of the struggle for African freedom in our own lifetime, millions of lives have been lost. Many leaders of Africa have been assassinated, tortured to death and fallen in battle— leaders like Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Eduardo Mondlane of Mozambique, Herbert Chitepo of Zimbabwe, Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde and Steve Biko, Joe Gqabi, Ruth First, Neil Aggett and many others in South Africa. Their deaths have deprived Africa of precious leaders, but have not stopped the irresistible course of liberation.
We are entitled to ask whether the South African regime and the whites in South Africa are so blind as to think that more killings will stop the destruction of apartheid and the emergence of a democratic society.
In South Africa, on the one hand, you have a national liberation movement, supported and admired by the world, which has rejected racism despite all provocations, which has demonstrated respect for life, which has led great non-violent struggles and which, even when it felt obliged to embark on an armed struggle, took great care to avoid undue loss of life. Tens of thousands of black people paid tribute to Neil Aggett, a young white man who gave his life for his principles.
On the other hand, the authorities in Pretoria and their police have been responsible for numerous deaths—not only for the untold number of deaths from malnutrition and disease resulting from racism, but also for the massacres of unarmed demonstrators and the killings of detainees and even refugees in neighbouring States.
The South African forces have killed more men, women and children in their attack on Maseru last December than perhaps all those killed in the armed struggle in the past several years.
The Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid has been warning the whites to wake up. If the regime can kill unarmed blacks, the blacks are certainly capable of killing whites. Is that what they seek?
The execution of captured freedom fighters, in contravention of Geneva Conventions, cannot but arouse anger. It cannot but aggravate the situation.
We do hope that the authorities in South Africa and its white supporters will heed reason and retreat from their suicidal course. But from past experience, we do not have much reason to entertain hope, unless there is tremendous pressure on them.
The Special Committee against Apartheid believes that the government and people of the United States can exert decisive pressure on South Africa.
The United States has a tremendous responsibility. It could have acted in 1948 when the apartheid regime came to power. It could have taken energetic action in 1952 when the South African people launched the non-violent defiance campaign. But the preoccupation with the "cold war" acted as a break. There was a tendency to see the Pretoria regime as a "natural ally", rather than a liability.
With the recent increase in international tension, some people in the United States are calling for closer relations with the Pretoria regime than with the African States and peoples.
It is essential that every effort should be made to see that the United States will not become a source of comfort and strength to a doomed racist system, but will lend active support to freedom and peace in southern Africa.
The campaign to save the lives of the six freedom fighters, the campaign to free Nelson Mandela and the campaigns for all forms of sanctions against South Africa can be an important step in that effort.
ROLE OF PUBLIC SERVICE
As an international civil servant for over thirty years, I have been constantly concerned with the moral and social responsibilities of the public service. The public service can do much to help or harm the community by its commissions or omissions—by the way it assists the legislative and executive bodies and implements legislation, regulations and other directives.
The public service has a tradition of neutrality, perhaps less so in the United States than in some other countries. But I believe that no public servant—especially one serving under a system governed by principles such as those enshrined in the United Nations Charter and the United States Constitution—can be neutral on the great moral issues of our time such as peace and war, discrimination against people because of race, religion or sex, and human rights for all. Let us also remember that many of us owe our employment, security and advancement to those who have made great sacrifices in struggles for justice.
It is in this context that I would like to deal with the implications of the situation in South Africa.
South Africa, like some other countries, has a legacy of racial discrimination following European settlement and conquest. The regime which came to power in South Africa in 1948 was committed to extend, consolidate and perpetuate racist domination while the United Nations was committed to promote human rights for all persons.
The United Nations has, therefore, adopted numerous resolutions calling on South Africa to abandon apartheid. The authorities in Pretoria have rejected the United Nations resolutions for over three decades and continued their policy at the cost of great human suffering and increasing violation of basic human rights. In view of this, and at the request of the national movement in South Africa, many governments imposed diplomatic, economic and other sanctions against South Africa.
My own country, India, cut off its substantial trade with South Africa in 1946 at considerable sacrifice at a difficult time. There was full support of public opinion for this action. One of the first actions of most African States, on attainment of independence, was to break all relations with South Africa.
Sanctions are now supported by an overwhelming majority of States—including majority of Western Powers. A great majority have imposed sanctions, and many others have expressed willingness to impose sanctions if there is a binding decision by the Security Council…
What may be a minority concern in this country is a majority concern in the world....
Enforcement of Sanctions
The case for sanctions has been argued endlessly in the United Nations and outside.
I will only stress at this stage that the overriding consideration is moral. It is immoral in any way to assist the perpetuation of the system of apartheid.
All governments in the world, including the United States Government, are committed to the implementation of the binding decision of the United Nations Security Council, adopted in 1977, for an arms embargo against South Africa. But there have been many loopholes in national implementation.
South Africa has been able to obtain foreign assistance and technology to expand its military apparatus despite the arms embargo. From the United States and Canada, it was able to obtain shells and technology to develop a powerful artillery. One wonders whether the responsible administrators have been lax or negligent or ready to give the benefit of doubt to South Africa.
Last year, a South African company was able to obtain two or three thousand electric shock batons from the United States. It was reported that there was an error in administration. That could not have happened if the public service was aware and alert.
Divestment Campaign
Even more crucial is the question of economic sanctions.
The United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid has been watching with great interest the development of the campaigns in universities and communities, and in trade unions, city councils and state governments for action to stop purchases of goods made in South Africa, to stop contracts to corporations involved in South Africa and to remove pension or other funds from corporations and banks involved in South Africa. The last is generally known as the "divestment campaign".
Divestment legislation has been passed or is pending in 24 States, 18 cities, 2 counties and the District of Columbia.
As a result of legislation passed in 1982, more than $300 million of public money will be divested from corporations and banks involved in South Africa.
Many of the legislative measures concern investment of pension funds, and there is a great deal of propaganda that these measures will reduce the income of these funds. But the public service employees and teachers have shown understanding of the issues. I would like to pay tribute to them.
SPIRIT OF LUMUMBA
I have visited this university ten years ago and followed its progress since its inception because it is a unique international university and bears the name of a great martyr of the struggle for independence from colonialism. I will cherish the memorial medal of this University.
For, Patrice Lumumba has meant much to me. And I would, with your indulgence, make a brief personal statement.
When the news of the brutal assassination of Patrice Lumumba arrived, in February 1961, some of us from Asia in the United Nations Secretariat met to share our grief.
Some of us felt ashamed and guilty to work in an organisation which had been accused of a share of blame for the death of Patrice Lumumba and which was viewed by many African leaders as a neo-colonialist organisation. The question was raised as to whether we should submit a collective resignation on moral grounds.
I argued that the United Nations is our organisation, not the organisation of the imperialists, colonialists or racists who are at best a small minority in the world. If it does not function in the interests of freedom, we should not leave and hand it over to those who have little attachment to its purposes and principles. We must struggle with all our energy and resources to make it an effective instrument for Freedom, peace and justice.
The establishment of the Special Committee against Apartheid in 1963 and my appointment as Principal Secretary of that Special Committee provided me with a challenge and an opportunity.
I do not exaggerate my contribution—it was within the limits of my functions as a civil servant—but I believe I have done my duty in fulfilment of the pledge I took in the name of Patrice Lumumba in 1961. 1 have been reassured by leaders of African liberation that the decision I took in 1961 was right.
The address delivered by Patrice Lumumba on the day of independence of the Congo will remain one of the greatest documents of African history. He recalled the iniquities of colonialism and the long struggle by the Congolese people for their dignity, and yet extended a hand of friendship to the erstwhile metropolitan Power and to all nations of the world.
It was said that the Belgian authorities resented his reference to the humiliation of colonialism. The crisis began on the very day of independence of the Congo.because Lumumba spoke the truth.
As one who was born and raised in the largest colonial country, and one who has made a modest contribution to the struggle for its freedom, I would like to say: We can let no one deprive us of the tragedies and the glories of our history.
In the struggles for liberation from colonial and racist oppression in Asia and Africa, all our movements and leaders have had a vision of an international order of justice and equality. They have tried to seek and retain the friendship of the erstwhile colonial Powers, while developing relations with all other nations.
They have been forgiving.
They have not demanded compensation for the crimes of colonialism and racism—for nothing can compensate for the slavery, the famines, the exploitation and the indignities our generation and our forefathers have been subjected to.
But we can never, and must never, forget our history, or fail to honour our martyrs—for we can and we must never allow the return of colonialism in any form.
How can Africa forget the savage atrocities and the despoliation of the Congo under King Leopold II, when the hands of Africans were cut off if they did not fetch their quota of rubber, coffee or ivory for the foreign masters?
The name of Patrice Lumumba reminds us of many other leaders and patriots who have been assassinated at a young age in the course of the struggle for national independence in Africa— such as Amilcar Cabral and Eduardo Mondlane. I have personally known several of them.
I feel that their lives, and the noble causes they professed, should be made widely known to the youth all over the world. I recall that in January 1979, the United Nations General Assembly, on the proposal of the Special Committee, recommended that the world honour the memory and publicise the lives and contributions of leaders of the oppressed people in their struggles against apartheid, racial discrimination and colonialism, and for peace and international cooperation.
I hope that this great university and other institutions will give serious consideration to the matter.
TRIBUTE TO ARCHBISHOP TREVOR HUDDLESTON
I have come here on three missions.
First of all, it is my duty and honour to convey to you, Father Huddleston, the greetings and best wishes of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Javier Perez de Cuellar.
Secondly, it is a great pleasure to carry the message of greetings from one of your best friends—or shall I say admirers—the Chairman of the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid, Alhaji Yusuff Maitama-Sule, who would have loved to be here to greet you personally if only he could.
Finally, as head of the United Nations Centre against Apartheid, I would like to say a few words on my third mission.
Only a few years ago, we observed the seventieth birthday of your co-laureate in South Africa, Dr. Yusuf Dadoo, who has not only been a fighter and a leader of people, but became an institution through his historic contribution in forging the alliance of Indians and Africans of South Africa and helping to extend it to all decent and democratic people of that country.
Only a few years ago. we observed the seventieth birthday of Canon L. John Collins, the conscience of Britain, who not only became an institution but left behind the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa.
Only last year. we observed the seventieth birthday of another great institution, the African National Congress of South Africa.
When we think of seventy years, we cannot but recall how long this struggle has been.
The world has been warned for many years of the danger of racism in South Africa. Governments and those with power to bring about peaceful change have been warned for decades. But so far without success.
In these decades, the situation has become ever more serious. The Sharpeville massacre may have been the doing of jittery constables. Soweto may have been that of ruthless security police. But Matola and Maseru were acts of deliberate and callous killing of unarmed men, women and children, as was Cassinga.
Sharpeville convinced the South African leaders, who had preached and practised non-violence and inspired many of us in distant lands, to abandon strict adherence to non-violence.
Soweto convinced them that a few spectacular acts of sabotage are not enough to make the rulers wake up to reality—to make the ostriches to get their heads out of sand—and that it was necessary to try to overthrow the regime.
The recent incident in Pretoria in which several people were killed and injured should, therefore, come as no surprise.
We need to think carefully and act even more effectively.
So I came to tell you, Father Huddleston, that I am very happy that you will now be leading the British Anti-Apartheid Movement personally in London. I am glad you will be leading IDAF as Chairman of its Council. But I want to remind you of a third obligation.
The United Nations has formally recognised the contributions of the South African liberation movement to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. It has also commended the work of the anti-apartheid movements. The people struggling for freedom in South Africa, and the anti-apartheid movements abroad, are figuratively marching with the United Nations flag.
We are confident, because of your contribution to peace, freedom and human rights, that the UN flag is most appropriate in your hands.
Father Huddleston, you do not belong to the Anti-Apartheid Movement and IDAF alone. You also belong to the United Nations, especially to the Special Committee and the Centre against Apartheid.
Many happy returns.
LONG AND DIFFICULT STRUGGLE
June 26 is an important date for the United Nations. It was on that day in 1945 that the Charter of the United Nations was signed in San Francisco.
It has been an important date in the struggle for freedom in South Africa since 1950—as the day of dedication, the day for the launching of campaigns, and the day of the Freedom Charter.
I am happy to greet the ANC on the Freedom Day this year—a year which may well mark a crucial stage in the long and difficult struggle of the liberation movement and of the movements in solidarity with it.
I recall 1943 when, as a student in India, I read about the struggle of the African and the Indian people in South Africa and was deeply moved.
That was the year when the African leaders met in South Africa to plead that the principles enunciated in the "Atlantic Charter" should be applied in South Africa as well, and produced a document called "African Claims."
If only the Allied Powers were seriously and unequivocally committed to their own Atlantic Charter, the tragedy and misery that ensued in South Africa could have been avoided.
But regrettably, some of the Allied leaders had no desire to apply the Atlantic Charter to the black and brown and other people who constitute the great majority of humanity.
Indeed, the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom declared that he did not become the First Minister of Her Majesty to liquidate the British empire and rejected India’s demand for independence.
How then could they liquidate racism in South Africa which was so immensely profitable?
1943 was also the year when young patriots in South Africa got together to form the African Youth League—an organisation in which the present leaders of the national liberation movement, in prison or in exile, began their schooling.
That was the year when the Council on African Affairs in the United States, led by Paul Robeson, called for the application of the war aims declared by the Allied Powers to Africa, especially South Africa.
That was forty years ago.
In 1953, in the wake of the Defiance Campaign of South Africa, the United Nations fully recognised the justice of the demands of the Congress Alliance and warned of the danger if apartheid was not abolished and a just settlement reached by negotiations among leaders of all the people in South Africa in accordance with the principles of the United Nations.
That was thirty years ago.
In 1963, the Special Committee against Apartheid, established by the General Assembly, began its work.
From its inception, it has repeatedly warned of the grave threat to the peace resulting from the situation in South Africa and called for comprehensive and mandatory sanctions against South Africa.
That was twenty years ago, the year of the Rivonia trial.
Since then, the United Nations General Assembly and numerous leaders of governments all over the world have warned of the danger of violent and escalating conflict with incalculable international repercussions. Even leaders of Western Governments, who were not prepared to go beyond appeals to the Pretoria regime, uttered grave warnings.
The inevitable conflict that the world has warned against for so long is today on the daily headlines. I need only mention Angola, Maseru, Matola and Pretoria.
We have failed to avert this situation.
Can the international community act even today to minimise violence, to prevent a catastrophe, and eliminate apartheid in cooperation with the people of South Africa?
This is the issue that preoccupies the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid which has for twenty years been tirelessly pressing for international action.
BOYCOTT OF APARTHEID SPORT
The Special Committee and the Centre against Apartheid are committed to promote all action for the elimination of apartheid— and the boycott of apartheid sport is one important component of such action. We make no apologies for that.
The boycott of apartheid sport began before the establishment of the Special Committee in 1963. I must pay tribute to the sports bodies, for instance in the Soviet Union and India, and to the anti-apartheid movements for their early initiatives.
For several years, the Special Committee refrained from promoting the sports boycott in order to avoid any accusation of governmental interference in sport.
It was only after the South African regime began to enforce apartheid in sport by administrative and police action that the Special Committee, at the request of SAN-ROC and others, called for the boycott, in 1968.
Since then, the South African regime, its sports bodies and its external friends have constantly been spreading propaganda about the end of racism in South African sport. The more they end racism, the more racism is left in sport. Blacks are now legally prohibited in the parks and playgrounds in Pretoria and that is the capital of the country.
Our position has always been clear and consistent. It is not a matter of black versus white. When South Africa sent segregated black teams abroad, we called for a boycott of those teams. We demand non-racialism in sport and society.
The changes that are made are perhaps meant not only to undo the boycott but to divert attention from a more diabolical plan to deprive South Africa of all its black citizens. There is no parallel to that, except in Nazi Germany. Already over eight million Africans are denationalised.
As South Africa makes more "changes", all the other Africans will be denationalised—and then, of course, there will be little discrimination among the citizens.
Meanwhile, the boycott of apartheid sport has made tremendous progress and has had a great impact, educating and involving millions of people all over the world in the campaign against apartheid.
Action has been taken by many Governments; by the International Olympic Committee and international sports federations; and even more important, by the public in mass demonstrations to prevent apartheid teams from playing in other countries.
We still have some work to do to make the boycott complete.
The boycott is not very effective as regards professional sport.
In those sports which are rich people’s games, or in sports played mainly in the West and administered by international sports federations with weighted voting, there has been little progress.
I do not see why rich people or people in the West should be insensitive to the problem of racism, but we face this problem.
We must also take action on the large-scale buying of sportsmen by South Africa.
But let us see this in perspective.
The money is being spent on enticing sportsmen beyond their prime and black sportsmen who, only a few years ago, were not even allowed to play in South Africa.
The money that South Africa spends is also a sort of tribute to the register of sports contacts with South Africa that the United Nations has been publishing since 1981.
There has been criticism of this "blacklist" which is merely a factual record. I cannot understand that.
Some sportsmen or sports bodies defy all appeals and go to South Africa. Why should they object to the register if they feel they were right and not guilty of anything? If they go to South Africa for money, how can they object if other countries do not allow them to make more money in their countries?
As I said, we need to continue action on the remaining sports—by governments, by sports bodies and the public at large.
We need to expose and fight the undemocratic constitutions of some sports bodies which are collaborating with South Africa. The International Tennis Federation is even penalising countries which boycott South Africa.
We need to expose and fight sports promoters who are making money by breaking the boycott. They are greater culprits than the sportsmen.
We need to act on Western television networks whose payments make possible the spectaculars in Sun City.
The action must, above all, be in Britain and the United States which are responsible for most of the sports contacts. We have circulated a consolidated sports register here and you will see that these two countries account for almost half the sportsmen and sportswomen going to South Africa.
INTERNATIONAL ACTION AGAINST RACISM
At the turn of the century, in 1900, the Pan African Conference in London warned, in the words of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, the great black American scholar and leader, that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line."
The great majority of the people of the world who have been victims of racism—and of colonialism and slavery which are but gross forms of racism—have struggled together with decent people in the West, to destroy the colour line and build a universal community.
Millions of people have sacrificed their lives in this struggle and great advances have been made.
But even today, eighty-three years after the prophetic warning of Dr. DuBois, we are far from solving the central problem of the twentieth century. We are far from uniting humanity in determined action to wipe out racism and build a new world order.
Racism is not only a crime against human beings, but one of the main causes of conflict and war.
In 1915, Dr. DuBois wrote an article on "African Roots of War" showing how colonialism and racism were one of the main causes of the First World War.
The major governments of the world did not heed the warning and with the rise of Nazism, even Europeans, even the so-called "master races", became the victims of racism. Tens of millions of people perished because of the shortsightendness of those who believed that racism is only a menace to black and brown people and perhaps even profitable to the "master races", if only they can close their eyes to the moral implications.
The United Nations was born with a pledge to eliminate racism and abolish the scourge of war. One of the first resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly in 1946 was on the problem of racism.
After the independence of African States, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1963, to be followed by an International Convention. It observed the International Year of Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination in 1971, and proclaimed a Decade in 1973.
But United Nations action has become paralysed because of controversy over one aspect and the announcement of non-cooperation by a number of States. Meanwhile, we are even confronted with a resurgence of racism in some countries.
We hope that the Second World Conference will overcome the problems. If the world is united in abhorrence of racism, and if all States are determined to abolish it, differences of opinion on one resolution should not lead to paralysis of all activities.
Vision of Pan-Africanism
When we discuss racism, we can never forget that the people of Africa—and people of African origin—have suffered the most. The ravages of the slave trade and the neo-slavery that followed are beyond imagination.
But the African people and their leaders have always upheld the vision of a future in which all the people of the world will be free and equal. They believed that when people of African origin are freed from racist domination, racism will soon disappear from the globe.
The people of African origin have made enormous sacrifices in their long struggle for freedom from bondage, for human dignity and equality, and for the redemption of the African continent.
We cannot but pay tribute to the vision of the great leaders of Africa and of the Pan African Movement.
I would invite all the Governments and organisations present here to consider means to honour these leaders and publicise their lives—through radio and television, publications and postage stamps—in accordance with the resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in January 1979.
Struggle at Various Levels
The struggle against racism must be waged not only at the national, local and community levels, but also at the international level, for racism is an international crime.
Discrimination against people of African origin and Asian origin, and against indigenous people and migrant workers, occurs in many countries and requires international action.
We must also keep in mind that the persistence of racism in the world is one of the main hindrances to effective action against the inhumanity of apartheid in South Africa.
The struggle against racism must be conducted on all fronts. Legislation alone is not enough. Equally important is the education of public opinion.
But let us be clear as to what we mean by education. It must be education of the public, not of racist criminals. The victims of racism cannot afford to wait until the racist regimes and organisations, and their leaders, are converted by education, if that is at all possible.
We need a sense of urgency on this matter. We must reject the conclusions of those well-meaning persons who claim that the elimination of racism will take many more decades. While we must extend our efforts to educate those who are not informed, there must be the closest cooperation with all those struggling against racism, especially the organisations of the victims of racism, in all our efforts.
The United Nations has set a precedent by granting observer status to the liberation movements struggling against apartheid and colonialism. Some governments and organisations have provided support and assistance to anti-racist organisations. The World Council of Churches, for instance, through its Programme to Combat Racism, is providing valuable assistance to organisations of victims of racism and apartheid. I hope that many other groups will emulate the example. I also hope that this Conference will seriously consider the important role of trade unions, religious bodies, public organisations, and the mass media in the efforts to eliminate racism.
Action against Apartheid
My own special concern as the head of the Centre against Apartheid in the United Nations is the situation in South Africa and the international repercussions of apartheid.
For four decades, the United Nations, as well as many Governments, organisations and public leaders have warned that unless apartheid in South Africa is abolished, there is a grave danger of violent conflict with incalculable international repercussions.
The warnings have now become a reality.
Not only have the national liberation movements felt obliged to resort to armed struggle, but there is an undeclared war all over southern Africa, as the regime in South Africa, bereft of buffer States, tries to consolidate apartheid.
Human lives are in danger. The aspirations of the people of newly-independent countries are frustrated. Peace is in grave peril.
The execution of three ANC freedom fighters on the 9th of June, despite world-wide appeals, demonstrates that the authorities in Pretoria continue to pursue their disastrous course.
We have come to this perilous state because scores of United Nations resolutions have not been effectively implemented.
We cannot but place special responsibility on the few States which have not even attempted to harmonise their positions with those of the overwhelming majority, and which have continued their collaboration with the Pretoria regime.
Even the mandatory arms embargo, adopted unanimously by the Security Council in November 1977, is not being scrupulously implemented.
Member States of the United Nations are now greatly concerned over the authority and credibility of the Organisation. In this context, let us recall that the mandatory arms embargo against South Africa was a unique decision under Chapter VII of the Charter and was indeed supported by all the Great Powers. Implementation of the embargo is the supreme test of loyalty to the United Nations.
We can never accept the contention that the security of supplies of strategic minerals of South Africa or the security of the sea lanes around the Cape, require the guardianship of a regime following a policy which has been denounced by the United Nations as a crime.
We can never accept that any number of so-called "reforms" in South Africa are meaningful so long as the leaders of the people and other opponents of apartheid are in jail and so long as the indigenous African majority is being deprived of citizenship of South Africa.
Frontline States
I must make special mention of the plight of frontline States neighbouring South Africa.
They have faced aggression and intimidation because of their support to liberation in South Africa and Namibia.
They have no more moral responsibility than all other States committed to the Charter of the United Nations. They are in danger purely because of their geographical location.
That is why the United Nations and the OAU have declared that an attack on the frontline States is an attack on Africa and an attack on the United Nations and the international community. We must find means to translate this declaration into action by providing all necessary support to the frontline States.
When apartheid is the issue, all States committed to freedom and to the United Nations Charter must become "frontline States."
Sense of Urgency
As we meet near the end of the Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, let us recall that it is twenty years since the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
It is thirty-five years since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It is fifty years since the Nazis came to power in Germany.
It is 150 years since Britain abolished the slave trade.
It is five hundred years since the European settlement in Angola and the beginning of the humiliation of the great continent of Africa.
These anniversaries should remind us of the enormity of the crime of racism and the long struggle to destroy racism.
We dare not ask the victims of racism for any more patience. Let us act with determination, with unity and above all, with a sense of urgency.
TRIBUTE TO THE REVEREND MICHAEL SCOTT
I have known Michael Scott for three decades, and particularly since I became secretary of the Special Committee against Apartheid twenty years ago.
His friendship and his appreciation of my work in the United Nations have been a great source of encouragement to me all these years.
He was one of those who not only espoused the cause of the oppressed people, but identified himself with them and lived with them. He was never intimidated by attacks nor frustrated by failures.
His greatest achievement was perhaps not even his own work, but the way he inspired so many others to join the struggle against apartheid.
I do not intend to reminisce about Michael, but to express two thoughts.
When we pay tribute to Michael for his life’s work, we cannot but remember that Michael was not only moved by the suffering and injustice in South Africa and Namibia, but was himself inspired by the nobility of the struggle of the oppressed people, as he was earlier by the Gandhian movement in my own country.
The involvement of Michael and other great men of our time in the struggle against apartheid is, therefore, a tribute to the struggle of the people of South Africa and Namibia, which must remind us always of the historic and moral significance of that struggle and of our duty in seeing to its triumph.
Secondly, while Michael was a very modest man, his contribution was monumental.
Coming from a former colonial country, I have felt that there is a need to write our own history of our times. In that history, prominence will be accorded not to the members of the establishment in the metropolitan countries, but to those who helped change the world, even though they had no titles and though many of them suffered neglect, derision and even persecution in their countries for espousing the cause of freedom of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
Michael Scott deserves a place in that history.
TRIBUTE TO BISHOP DESMOND TUTU
I have the great honour and privilege—on behalf of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Javier Perez de Cuellar—to join with you in honouring one of the great fighters for human rights, human dignity and peace.
Since he became the Dean of Johannesburg in 1975 and especially since he was elected General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches in 1977, the Right Reverend Bishop Desmond Tutu has been a courageous spokesman of the black people of South Africa.
It has been a stormy period in South Africa with the minority Government forcibly uprooting African people from their homes and intensifying repression against all opponents of apartheid.
It has been the time of the Soweto massacre, and the indiscriminate killing and maiming of thousands of school children.
Above all, the regime sought to deprive millions of people—the indigenous African people—even of their citizenship.
It has also been a time of unprecedented resistance by the people—and of executions of young freedom fighters in defiance of appeals by the international community.
Throughout this period, Bishop Tutu has sought—with unfaltering courage and in defiance of intimidation, harassment, persecution and even threats to his life—to articulate the true aspirations of the oppressed people of the country, espousing a peaceful, non-violent and just solution to the grave crisis in South Africa.
Indeed, he has been not only a spokesman of the wretched and the poor, but the conscience of all the people of South Africa—the oppressed as well as the oppressors.
His testimony has been a powerful force in arousing the conscience of the world to the inescapable moral challenge of apartheid and racial discrimination.
He is a man of the mould of Mahatma Gandhi who served his apprenticeship in South Africa.
I congratulate the Council of Churches of the City of New York for deciding to present the award to Bishop Tutu.
In honouring Bishop Tutu, we honour a person who has struggled without compromise, without fear but with humility, for the community of humankind—and may I say, we also honour his courageous companion, Mrs. Leah Tutu.
We also pledge our concern and our commitment to the people of South Africa—all the people of South Africa—black, brown and white—at this perilous time.
It is a great privilege for me to present the "Family of Man" gold medallion, on behalf of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to Bishop Tutu.
CULTURAL BOYCOTT AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA
Because of several reports which have appeared recently about a United Nations "blacklist" of entertainers and other cultural personalities visiting South Africa, I thought it would be desirable to brief the media about the United Nations role in the campaign against apartheid in the cultural field.
Statements by some entertainers and others that the United Nations is attacking their freedoms have been spread widely by South African propaganda.
It is rather strange, to say the least, that the South African regime which denies all freedoms—including freedom of residence, movement and employment—to the African majority, which deprives them even of their citizenship rights, and which restricts and jails people without due process or rule of law, should become a defender of the freedom of artistes and sportsmen of the world.
United Nations Lists
The United Nations has no "blacklist."
The Special Committee has a list of cultural personalities who have made sacrifices by boycotting South Africa because of their abhorrence of apartheid. They deserve appreciation and honour and we are considering means to recognise their contribution to the struggle against apartheid.
We have a list of people who have performed in South Africa because of ignorance of the situation or the lure of money or unconcern over racism. They need to be persuaded to stop entertaining apartheid, to stop profiting from apartheid money and to stop serving the propaganda purposes of the apartheid regime.
We also have lists of artistes whom we are approaching for cooperation in educating public opinion about apartheid and in organising performances for the benefit of the oppressed people of South Africa.
And I would like, here, to thank the many artistes who have performed for the benefit of the anti-apartheid movements in this country and in other countries.
I do not see why artistes who go to South Africa, in spite of appeals by the United Nations and the black people of South Africa, and whose performances are reported in the media, should object if we keep their names on file. If they believe they have done right, let them have the courage to be counted.
I am not familiar with Spike Milligan who is very much in the press. He said that he performed before mixed audiences, whatever that means; he even performed before some black audiences, whatever that means; and he also spoke with a taxi driver who said that things in South Africa are improving. I understand that Spike Milligan is a comedian—so I will leave it at that.
When one refers to blacklist, I think of Paul Robeson, one of the pioneers of the anti-apartheid campaign who suffered from persecution and blacklisting. I think of many South African writers, entertainers and others who are banned arbitrarily; and artistes from other countries prohibited from entering South Africa—for example, Jane Fonda.
The lists we produce are not lists for persecution, but essentially lists for persuasion. We want the people concerned to be informed of the situation in South Africa and of the implications of their involvement, so that they can be persuaded not to perform in South Africa.
If they undertake not to perform in South Africa, their names are immediately deleted. If they insist on continuing collaboration with apartheid, 1 believe that all those who are outraged by apartheid are entitled to the freedom and the right not to patronise them. The choice is between profiting from apartheid oppression and patronage by the opponents of racism.
Origin of Boycott
I recall that the cultural boycott of South Africa was not started by the United Nations, but in fact, initiated by the artistes themselves and their unions—by the British Musicians Union in 1961, by the British Screenwriters Guild and British Equity in 1965, by British, Irish and American playwrights between 1963 and 1965 and by the American Equity in the 1960s. The United Nations commended the boycott and tried to dissuade some artistes who were planning to perform in South Africa.
The Special Committee against Apartheid began taking more active initiatives only in 1980 because of new developments and in consultation with the British Anti-Apartheid Movement.
The South African regime, isolated by the cultural boycott, began to make some changes in the 1970s to deceive world public opinion—such as allowing some mixed performances in a few theatres, on permit.
It began to use secret funds to break the boycott—as revealed in the Muldergate scandal.
And Sun City—in the bantustan of Bophuthatswana—started to entice artistes by paying enormous fees. Sometimes one wonders where they get the money to pay these artistes because the income from the tickets is often less than what is being offered to the artistes.
I understand that a commercial counsellor of Bophuthatswana wrote a letter to Evening Standard on this cultural boycott. I did not know that there is a so-called "commercial counsellor" of a so-called "Bophuthatswana" in Britain because the British Government has voted for resolutions denouncing the bantustans and undertook not to have relations with them.
Through bribery and propaganda, South Africa was able to attract several entertainers from abroad—especially because of the unemployment among entertainers. Those who were enticed included a number of black entertainers, mainly from the United States of America, and even some entertainers who had reputation of being socially conscious—people who would have had difficulty getting visas to South Africa a few years ago.
That is why the United Nations General Assembly adopted a special resolution on the cultural boycott in December 1980. The Special Committee announced that after due notice, it would publish a list of entertainers who perform in South Africa from the beginning of 1981. The first list was published in October 1983, after giving sufficient opportunity to those concerned to undertake not to perform in South Africa again.
The United Nations action was also a response to appeals by black organisations in South Africa which courageously and effectively demonstrated against several foreign entertainers who defied the boycott.
Encouraging Results
The efforts of the United Nations and of anti-apartheid and other groups have had very encouraging results.
As you probably know, the American singing group "O’Jays" have not only pledged not to go to South Africa again but have supported the boycott campaign. They organised a seminar and offered to give performances for the benefit of the oppressed people of South Africa. There are others like James Moody, Lou Donaldson and William Benton who have undertaken not to go to South Africa. In the United Kingdom, I understand, the group "Real Thing" have said that they will never again go to South Africa. I am expecting letters from other entertainers offering not to go to South Africa.
Artistes and Athletes against Apartheid, a committee established in the United States under the chairmanship of Harry Belafonte and Arthur Ashe, is doing good work in persuading their colleagues. Several entertainers have now offered to appear in benefit performances for the black people of South Africa and donate their South African royalties when they cannot completely boycott South Africa, as in the case of royalties from the sale of records.
Wider Issues
I would like to emphasise that the issue in South Africa is not mere segregation of audiences and performers by race. That is only the superficial manifestation of an inhuman system. Its character does not change because a few blacks are allowed into concert halls on permit and a few blacks are brought into Sun City, even without tickets which are beyond the means of the blacks.
In fact, these so-called reforms and the enticement of foreign artistes are a deliberate cover to divert attention from the entrenchment of apartheid—the forced removals of hundreds of thousands of African people from their homes and the exclusion of the African majority from the political institutions and even citizenship rights, from the manoeuvres to turn an African country into a non-African country.
There is no parallel to this in history except to some extent under Nazism. The issue in Germany then was not segregation of audiences, but inhumanity and genocide and that is the issue in South Africa today
Collaboration with the ruling power in South Africa or with the authorities of bantustans, when there is national resistance by the oppressed people, is involvement with apartheid.
Performances in bantustans—which are recognised by no country and which are the mechanisms to dispossess the African people of their rights—is a particularly serious affront to the black people and their liberation movement.
Some entertainers claim that they are visiting South Africa to educate the whites against apartheid. We feel that this is worse than hypocrisy.
We have confidence that most of the entertainers of the world will join the boycott of South Africa when they know the facts about the situation in South Africa and the strong feelings of most of humanity.
As regards entertainers like Frank Sinatra who have deliberately chosen to become virtual propagandists for evil, or those who even entertain South African troops engaged in a war, like Geraldine Branagan of Ireland, we can only rely on public outrage.
I would like to conclude, however, not with any criticisms, but by paying tribute to entertainers who have made sacrifices because of their opposition to apartheid and racism—like Roberta Flack, who turned down an offer of two million pounds to perform in South Africa.