14 June 1985
The African National Congress, and especially its youth section, feels greatly honoured to have been accorded this opportunity to address this very important body, the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid, on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of the Soweto uprising, the International Day of Solidarity with the Struggling People of South Africa. This initiative on the Committee's part is yet another demonstration of its commitment to the struggle against apartheid in particular, and against racism and national oppression in general. The contribution of this specialized body of the United Nations in our struggle, which has increased immeasurably through the years, is particularly valued by our organization, our youth and, indeed, all the people of South Africa. It is undoubtedly partly owing to its special contribution that South Africa finds itself in a great search for friends, because of political isolation. Allow me, therefore, Mr. Chairman, to extend to this meeting fraternal greetings and deeply felt gratitude from our organization and all our youth.
Once again last night the apartheid regime carried out a criminal act of aggression against an independent African State and violated its territorial integrity. During the perpetration of that dastardly act the peaceful population of Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, were rudely shocked and terrorized as the bandit bands of the South Africa Defence Force rained mortar shells all around their peaceful homes. According to the latest reports, 12 people were killed and six were injured. Those killed included three women, a five-year-old child and a Dutch citizen. The rest of humanity can now see that the apartheid regime is not interested in peace and is committed to maintaining itself in power by perpetrating violence against our people and against independent Africa. The world must condemn those murders and take urgent measures to cut off that cancerous regime by imposing sanctions against it and adopting other measures for its total isolation.
Today, nine years after the Soweto uprising, the youth and students of South Africa are still up in arms against the intransigent apartheid regime and the obnoxious system of Bantu education. Nine years later, the streets of Soweto, Langa, Gugulethu, Mamelodi, Kwanobuhle and Uitenhage are the scenes of heroic battles by the youth and students of our country in bitter confrontations not only with the South African police and the riot squad but against the racist army itself. Our people's spirit of no surrender and their refusal to submit has compelled the racists to bring their death force into the townships, thereby revealing its real nature - that of a military State.
The regime tries to justify the presence of the Defence Force in the cities by arguing that its role is auxiliary. The truth of the matter, however, is that the soldiers have come to supplant the police force - hence, their permanence in those townships. But is that argument about the South African Defence Force in the cities being auxiliary, or not, really material? It is not, in our opinion. The point at issue is that the South African Defence Force is currently occupying the South African townships and destroying life and property. It is making our people live in constant fear of being arrested or killed. The cities have become shooting ranges, and that is what matters; that is what concerns us. What concerns us is the fact that the South African Defence Force went into Uitenhage and at once butchered 19 innocent people. What concerns us is the fact that between September last year and May this year more than 400 civilians were killed by that death force throughout the country. Whether it did that in an auxiliary capacity is immaterial.
All those brutalities notwithstanding, the youth and students of our country have in the past nine years scored historic victories in their unrelenting struggle against the regime. The mere fact that there are in existence various student and youth organizations, including the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), the Azanian Students Organization (AZASO), the Azanian Students Movement (AZASM) and the many youth congresses throughout the country, organizations that came into being not long after the 1977 clampdown on 18 others, attests to our youth’s determination to defend to the bitter end its right to organize and to be organized. It has also made giant strides in the struggle for the democratization of educational institutions. The regime has been compelled to recognize the right of students to form student representative councils at all high schools anduniversities. More than that, the regime was forced to withdraw the constitutions that it had prepared for those Councils, intended, as the regime puts it, to guide their activities. Those were rejected and, instead, alternative ones drawn up by the students themselves had to be recognized.
At this point, a most powerful campaign for the adoption of a national education charter is under way. The charter will reflect the most fundamental demands of the whole South African student community and their perspective of the alternative system that they want. The campaign, which is being conducted with the utmost seriousness throughout the four Provinces, is already receiving full backing from parents and workers, and is sure to be successful. The 1976, 1980 and 1984 experiences have made the regime realize that it can no longer deal with student matters in the old, unscrupulous and arrogant manner. Those experiences have forced the regime to retreat on some issues, at least to the extent that its real intentions can remain concealed.
The regime has had to reckon with the fact that Bantu education and the Department of Bantu Education have become synonymous with oppression in the eyes of our people, and it decided to change the Department's name to "Department of Education and Training", without tampering, not even slightly, with the system as such. Bantu education as a system remains intact and its aims remain unaltered. The youth and students in our country have realized that, and it explains the continuing boycotts of classes and street protests. The students have also compelled the Department of Education and Training to suspend the prefect system and to recognize as a reality the newly formed parent-student committees and to accept them as a necessary and appropriate go-between.
It is important to note that those gains by our youth and students, which clearly stand out as historic gains, result from very bitter confrontations with the regime, confrontations during which very many lives were lost. They have no reflection whatsoever on the regime's desire for change, neither do they have anything to do with the so-called reforms being introduced by racist Botha.
The ninth anniversary of the Soweto uprising comes at a time when the general political situation inside the country is characterized by an unprecedented wave of protests sweeping through the four Provinces. It comes at a time when South Africa finds itself sunk in the deepest-ever economic, social and political crisis. On the one hand, the apartheid regime is having to contend with an ever-widening split within its own ranks, a split due to the bankruptcy of the apartheid ideology. Apartheid as an ideology has become so bankrupt that it can no longer keep the racists together. The recent split within the Nationalist Party, leading to the formation of the many tiny political groupings which keep on levelling accusations and counter-accusations against one another, attests to that fact, and points to a real political dilemma within the South African ruling clique. Botha's so-called reforms are being subjected to different interpretations, leading to a general state of confusion, disillusionment, fear and uncertainty among the white population. This split within the enemy camp is also to be seen in the number of young men who refuse to undergo military training. That number stood at 326 in April this year.
On the other hand, the racist regime is having to face up to a very serious crisis of government. The oppressed people in our country are no longer willing to live in the old way and are making the country ungovernable by the day. They are refusing to pay the unjustifiably high rents and to accept the exploitatively low pay and the ever-rising cost of living. The workers, who are the worst victims of racist exploitation, are up in arms protesting against retrenchments which have become so much a feature of the South African labour scene. Not only are they demanding better working conditions and salaries, but they are also pressing for definite political reforms in the country, such as the release of political prisoners and the dismantling of apartheid.
The South African economy also is going through one of the worst economic crises in years. Unemployment has for eight years now remained above the 3 million mark, and there is nothing to suggest that things will get better for the regime in the foreseeable future. The inflation rate keeps on rising, and now stands at 16 per cent, after a steep rise of 3.2 per cent in February. Scores of factories remain closed and many others are being forced to merge in an attempt to avert total collapse. The motor industry is the worst hit, and its particular problem is being compounded by South Africa's inability to get out of the economic recession. All the automobile companies, without exception, have had to retrench workers, close temporarily or cut down on the number of working days to avert further losses.
But what threatens South Africa most is the ever-escalating armed struggle waged by our people's army, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Since the 1976 student uprisings South Africa has received some of the heaviest military blows from this, our people's army, whose courageous deeds have for ever destroyed the old myth about the invincibility of the racist army. The cadres of our army have infiltrated some of the most secure military centres of the regime, including the headquarters of the South African Air Force and the nuclear plant in Koeberg. One after another, racist police stations and administration buildings have come to the ground.
We have continued to destroy both economic and military installations, with the express purpose of weakening the racist economy, whose strength has so far been used for negative ends as a means of blackmail, political pressure and the attainment of political hegemony in the southern African region, while scores of people in the Bantustans and black townships go hungry, without jobs and education. To us, armed struggle is not an adventure, but a serious undertaking. We opted for it after we became fully convinced that it was the only alternative left to us and the only language that the regime understood. That is why we are determined to carry it through to the bitter end. Nothing short of complete liberation is going to stop us from waging that armed struggle.
We once again call upon Member States of the United Nations, through this Special Committee, to impose mandatory and comprehensive sanctions against the racist State. We call for the complete isolation of South Africa and the strict maintenance of the cultural boycott. South Africa must be squeezed, and only then can we hope to eliminate this crime against humanity, this shame of the twentieth century, from the face of the earth.