S/PV.1929 Security Council

In view of the limited number of seats available at the Council table, I invite the representatives of Cuba and Madagascar to take the seatsreserved for them at the side of the Council chamber, on the understanding that they will be invited to take a seat at the Council table when they are given the floor. Present: The representatives of the following States: Benin, China, France, Guyana, Italy, Japan, Libyan Arab Republic, Pakistan, Panama, Romania, Sweden, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America. At the invitation of the President, Mr. Acosta (Cuba) and Mr. Rabetafika (Madagascar) took the places reserved for them at the side of the Council ,chamber. Provisional agenda (S/Agenda/l929) 1. Adoption of the agenda

I wish to inform the members of the Councilthat I have just received a letter bearing -today’s date from the representatives of Benin, the Libyan Arab ;Republic and the United Republic of Tanzania [S/12102] which reads as follows: 2. Situation in South Africa: killings and violence by the apartheid regime in South Africa in Soweto and other areas: Letter dated l8 June 1976 from the representatives of Benin, the Libyan Arab Republic and the United Republic of Tanzania to the President of the Security Council (S/12100); Telegram dated 18 June 1976 from the President of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar to the Secretary-General (S/12101) (a) @I -- The meeting was called to order at 10.30 p.m. Adoption of the agenda The agenda was adopted. Situation in South Africa: killings and violence by the apartheid regime in South Africa in Soweto and other areas: (a) Letter dated 18 June 1976 from the representatives of Benin, the Libyan Arab Republic and the United Republic of Tanzania to the President of the Security Council (S/12100); (b) Telegram dated 18 June 1976 from the President of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar to the Secretary-General (S/12101)

I should like to inform the members of the Security Council that I have received letters from the representatives of Algeria, Cuba, Liberia and Madagascar in which they ask to be invited to participate in the discussion. In accordance with the usual practice, I propose to invite these representatives to participate in the discussion without the right to vote. At the invitation of the President, Mr. Rahal (Algeria) and Mrs. Brooks-Randolph (Liberia), took places at the Council table. “We have the honour to request that in the course of the current discussion of the Security Council concerning :the situation in South Africa-killings and violence’by the apartheid regime in South Africa in Soweto and ‘other areas-an invitation ,under rule 39 of the provisional rules of procedure be extended to ‘Mr. Thami Mhlambiso, representative of the African National Congress of South Africa, and to Mr. David Sibeko, representative of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania.” If I hear no objection, I shall take it that the Council agrees to that request. It was so decided.

This meeting of the Security Council has been convened at very short notice and as a matter of urgency in accordance with the request addressed to the President of the Security Council this afternoon by three non-permanent members of the Council, the representatives of Benin, the Libyan Arab Republic and the United Republic of Tanzania [S/12100]. A request for a Council meeting was also contained in a telegram which the President of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar today addressed to the Secretary-General [S/12101]. 5. The first speaker is the representative of Liberia, Chairman of the Group of African States, upon whom I now call.

Since I represent the interests of the African Group, let me first take this opportunity to congratulate you, Mr. President. We have no doubt that under your 7. I wish also to thank the members of the Council for responding to the request of the representatives of the African Group for the convening of an emergency meeting of the Council necessitated by the diabolical acts committed by the Pretoria regime against the precious jewels of Africa-that is, our youth. 8. The item on our agenda is urgent. It needs actions rather than words. I shall therefore be very brief. 9. In the press release issued today by the African States, it is stated: “The African Group at the United Nations has received with great shock the news of the coldblooded murder of peaceful demonstrators by South African police.” From the report on the incident in The Christian Science Monjtor, we gather that these students had committed no crime. They were simply protesting against the action of the South African Government, which had insisted that they be taught mathematics and social studies in Afrikaans and not in the English language. The students felt that that was against their interests and they therefore protested, carrying banners expressing their views. Today’s press release also stated: “The African Group resolutely condemns this crime and renews its unswerving solidarity with the masses of the African people in South Africa who are joining the growing uprising against the apartheid regime.” 10. I should like to stress again that the racist South, African regime has once again defied the soul of Africa in its direct massacre of our children-the future of Africa. We consider the slaughtering and injury of hundreds of Africans to be tantamount to premeditated genocide. 11. The insistence of the South African Government that high-school students who have never studied the Afrikaans language should now be taught mathematics and social studies in Afrikaans raises a serious question about the intention of the South African Government. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a grand design to retard the educational progress of the Africans. 12. The event in Soweto, in which more than a hundred students were gunned down by the racist police of the South African regime, is reminiscent of the savage holocaust that took place in Sharpeville in 1960. A few minutes ago it was announced over the radio that the death toll continues to rise and that over 800 persons have been wounded. 14. In the same press release issued by the African Group it was also stated: “The United Nations and the international community have a special responsibility towards the oppressed peoples of South Africa and the liberation movements’, and as such the African Group calls upon all true friends of Africa to. support the people of South, Africa in their just struggle against the fascist regime of apartheid .” 15. The African members are also concerned that in this racially tense area of the world commitments are being made to supply South Africa with atomic reactors or other means by which they can exterminate the peoples of Africa. 16. In conclusion, the African States condemn these atrocities by the Pretoria regime which have resulted in the death of hundreds of innocent people, including children six and seven years old. 17. The African States call on the Security Council to take bold and positive action against the racist regime of South Africa, which for the past 30 years has flouted the resolutions of both the Council and the General Assembly.

I now call on the representative of Algeria.

The extremely urgent nature of this meeting of the Security Council suffices in itself to emphasize the gravity of the situation that is to be the subject of the Council’s discussions. In availing myself of the Council’s authorization to participate in these discussions, I think that it is my duty to confine my statement to the precise problem before us today, without entering into developments which, since apartheid is involved, would in any event be supertlous since there is no longer any need to convince anyone. This. restraint which I thus wish to impose on myself will not, however, prevent me from thanking you, Mr. President, and the other members of the Council for allowing the non-aligned group to make its voice heard, through me, in this debate. Nor would I wish to miss this opportunity to express to you my personal satisfaction at seeing you conducting the work of this Council, with your well-known competence, intelligence and authority, at a time when the Council has before it questions of vital importance for non-align-. ment and for world peace. 21. The Security Council is aware of the imminent danger inherent in these events, so it is unlikely that we shall need ‘to appeal to it to assume its responsibilities and to take without delay the steps it considers fit to avert an even more serious deterioration of the situation. 22. At any rate, no one can be unaware of the profound significance of what is at present happening in South Africa. The obstinate way in which the racist regime of Pretoria has maintained the system of apartheid is, without a shadow of doubt, the root cause of the present tragedy, as it has been the reason for the nightmare which up until now has been the daily lot of the black African population. The universal condemnation of apartheid was clearly not enough to ensure its disappearance. It was, however, to be foreseen that by thus preserving a society based on the separation of the races and based on the subjugation of the black majority by a white minority, the system of apartheid was inexorably moving towards an explosion like the one we witness today. It was fostered by long-repressed racial hatreds, steadily increasing mistrust and valid fears about the vicissitudes of a future threatened by attempts at revenge and the defence of privileges which had finally been called into question. 23. What is happening today is an ample demonstration of the fact that the Africans in South Africa have become aware of the state of inferiority in which they have been kept up to now in the system of apartheid and also a proof of their desire to accede to complete equality as free and equal men. The violent incidents which we have heard about also show that the Africans in South Africa can no longer rest content with the international solidarity which has always been demonstrated in their favour nor with the general indignation 24. Information has been received to the effect that white students joined the black demonstrators in the course of the recent incidents. If that is true, it would at least introduce an element of hope into the present tragedy, because that would mean that at least a portion of the white population in South Africa is sufficiently alerted to the dangers inherent in the system of apartheid or sufficiently convinced of its moral unacceptability to dare to stand up to the authority which represents’it and to go even further, in other words, to associate themselves with the demonstrators and to share their dangers and reinforce their struggle. 25. We have already had an opportunity to denounce the direct or indirect support given by certain Govemments to the racist regime of South Africa by supplying arms or by developing economic relations which encourage and strengthen the system of apartheid. In the present circumstances, the attitude of those Governments becomes even more reprehensible because they can no longer be unaware of the tragic consequences involved, consequences for which they bear a certain measure of responsibility. 26. The Bureau of Non-Aligned Countries met in Algiers from 30 May to 2 June before violence broke out in South Africa. However, even at that time it was concerned at the situation developing in that country because of the persistence of the system of apartheid. The final communique which it issued at the conclusion of its work contained the following paragraph, which I should like to read out: “The Bureau expresses its serious concern over the steady support given the racist minority regime by certain Western Powers. In this connexion, it condemns the most recent decision of the French Government to provide the South African regime with nuclear reactors and calls upon the French Government to reconsider that decision, since its implementation would have the gravest repercussions on the struggle against the obnoxious system of apartheid and on peace and security in the region.“’ 27. The recent turn taken by events in South Africa and the active phase that has now begun in the struggle 28. What is happening in South Africa may degenerate into a situation which will be extremely regrettable for that country. But we are all aware of the serious repercussions that would result from this throughout southern Africa, at a time when more attention is being paid to its future and to ways in which it might move, as smoothly as possible, towards a lasting state of equilibrium. 29. In the Security Council we have, at one and the same time, those countries which are most sensitive to the threats now lowering over Africa and those countries which have always tried to argue against the need for resorting to violence in order to re-establish justice. In the Council there are those who, since they cannot force the Pretoria regime to give up its racist practices, have attempted to bar it from the international community. There are also those who have preferred to keep it in our midst in order to be able to condemn it at leisure-as if that could in any way change the situation. 30. But those divisions can no longer hold in the face of the present events. There can be no one here who is a protagonist of injustice, no one who supports racism or defends apartheid. What the Africans in South Africa expect of the Security Council is already vividly exemplified by the struggle which they are now waging, by the sacrifices which they accept and by the hope which guides them. It would of course be a very modest contribution by the Council to their search for justice and dignity if its discussions were to culminate in a unanimously reaffirmed condemnation of apartheid, in the expression of the warmest possible solidarity of the Council with the African peoples in South Africa, and in the absolute prohibition of any political, economic or military relations with the Pretoria regime. This is also the very least that we can expect of the Council.

I have been informed that Mr. Thami Mhlambiso, representative of the African National Congress (ANC), to whom the Council has extended an invitation under rule 39 of its provisional rules of procedure, wishes to make a statement. If no member of the Council objects, I shall invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make a statement. 32. Mr. MHLAMBISO: In general, I am not familiar with diplomatic protocol, but I do think that at this stage I must express the satisfaction of the African 33. We are meeting tonight to consider the emergency situation that has arisen in South Africa as a result of the legitimate uprising of the African people against the illegal apartheid regime of South Africa. 34. I do not propose at this stage to go into the whole history of the apartheid regime, but I think it proper to give a few explanations regarding the policies of apartheid and the motives actuating the architects of the obnoxious system which has been roundly condemned by the General Assembly, the Security Council and all the other agencies of this august Organization. 35. Vorster today is faced with an uprising which the. ANC, the legitimate spokesman and representative of the African people, has for decades warned would inevitably erupt, for, generation after generation, my people have been targets for wanton violence, repression and torture to death, execution and long terms of imprisonment for having dared to raise a finger against apartheid. This of course has to stop. We are prepared to pay the price. 36. In March of 1960, the international community witnessed the massacre in Sharpeville, where 69 people were mown down and shot to death and hundreds of other defenceless men, women and children were maimed by the South African police. That time the African people were protesting against the notorious Pass Laws. These laws alone, one would think, would be sufficient to keep the African people in check. No, not for the South African Government. We have the Suppression of Communism Act, the Riotous Assemblies Act, the Immorality Act, the General Laws Amendment Act, the Group Areas Act, the Urban Areas Act, the Bantu Education Act, the Separate Universities Act, the Job Reservation Act, the Bantu Authorities Act, and the infamous Terrorism Act, to name only a few. 37. Specifically, this evening we are gathered to consider the grave situation that is unfolding in South Africa as a direct result of the Bantu Education Act. 38. In 1964 the South African white supremacist Government passed the Bantu Education Act. In the terms of this act all African education was to be through the medium of the mother tongue. English, which for decades had been used as a medium, was to be taught as a subject. The Africans were to be taught to honour their chiefs and their humble tribal backgrounds. For as Verwoerd once said, false hopes must not be raised in the minds and aspirations of Africans, as the green pastures in South Africa are not 39. Some supporters of apartheid may argue that Bantu education and instruction in one’s mother tongue is not so undesirable a proposition but we know that the orbit of our mother tongues is very narrow. It is fallacious to think that a child coming from a Bantu education institution can benefit from the advancement that mankind has made. This is why the African people are at war with Bantu education. In this world of shrinking horizons, it is criminal on the part of any Government to waste and imprison the minds of the African people. Any democratic Government would make sure that its future citizens get a free, universal and democratic education. Our people are denied all these rights. This is not surprising, however, for no undemocratic Government can have democratic education. 40. The illegal white supremacist Government of South Africa must be wiped off the face of the earth. The struggle of the African children and students, who are being murdered in dastardly fashion by the South African police, must be seen as part and parcel of the general struggle of the African people, under the leadership of the liberation movement against a racist settler regime. 41. I recall the meeting of the Security Council in 1974 when my friend Piet Botha yelled himself blue in the face asking to be given six months, during which period his Government was to bring about meaningful changes in South Africa. Mr. Botha at that time professed that they did not have hatred for blacks. I wonder how he would explain things today. 42. Just after the statement by Mr. Botha, the racist regime of South Africa decided to increase its military expenditure. The defence budget for the financial year 1975/76 amounts to 948 million Rand: an increase of 36 per cent over the previous financial year. This amounts to 18 per cent of the entire budget, and 3 per cent of South Africa’s gross national product. These figures are given in the report of the Special Committee against Apartheid.2 The South African Government, in a white paper on defence and armaments production, justified this increased military expenditure as a measure for “countering all forms of insurgency and the maintenance of a credible and balanced conventional force”. 44. The demonstration by African school-children and students, joined by white students at the University of the Witwatersrand, is now no longer just a demonstration: it is a struggle of the oppressed peoples of South Africa against an illegal white minority regime. Already eight other African townships have joined in the struggle. The students of the universities of Zululand and Turfloop have already demonstrated their indignation by destroying the buildings, libraries and all symbols of the oppression which has been their lot at those institutions since the introduction of Bantu education and the Separate Universities Act, which gave rise to the tribal colleges. 45. I must point out in all humility that we are unable to give exact figures as to how many children have been shot or hacked to death by the South African police. From communications we have received from the people at home, we have learnt that well over a hundred are reported killed, and hundreds maimed. It is also reported that, apart from the police with its wanton violence, the army is standing in readiness to march in. All the time, helicopters are constantly hovering over the townships, ready to kill at any moment. __ _..-. ----- ~. - __-- 46. I cannot emphasize strongly enough the need for strengthening the arms embargo against South Africa. I also wish to say, with all the courage and support of my people that I can muster, that the French Government should bow its head in shame, for the helicopters mostly being used today were supplied by the French. The United States Government must also be condemned for the enriched uranium it has been selling to South Africa. Of course, France has supplied South Africa with all the weapons which it needs to mow down defenceless schoolchildren. It is now going further in supplying South Africa with nuclear reactors in order to wipe out every African Government north of South Africa’s borders that may support the liberation movement. The British Govemment also bears a share of the blame, for we must also hold that Government responsible for what is going on in South Africa today, for it was the British Government which sowed the seeds of white supremacy in South Africa. There are many other countries, including West Germany, which must be strongly condemned for having supported the apartheid Government in South Africa, and there are Govemments which co-operate very closely with South Africa. But at this stage, I want to confine my remarks to these countries. -----__ - 47. Just in passing, we wish to suggest that the Secretary-General should do all in his power to stop 48. It has not been for lack of courage that the African people have taken so long to demonstrate their total rejection of apartheid. We are a people which was defeated after fighting for many years with the South African Governments that succeeded each other there. But although we were defeated, we were never conquered, for how can one quell the will and the spirit of a people to be free in the land of their fathers, of a people to rule themselves, of a people to have a place in the sun? 49. In conclusion, the ANC, which is the vanguard liberation organization in the struggle against upartheid, in the struggle against colonialism, and in the struggle against imperialism, also sent a cable to Mr. Kurt Waldheim, condemning the savage act of murder which has resulted in the killing and maiming of hundreds of African people and other South African patriots. We have also requested, through the Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, that a meeting of that Committee be called to study the current situation in South Africa. This, too, I must mention: cables have been sent to .Yvonne Burke, Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus of the United States, United States Congressman Charles Diggs, United States Senator Dick Clark, and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States. The Secretary of the Special Committee against Apartheid has been requested to distribute the texts of these cables to all appropriate sections of the United Nations. 50. We should all like to leave this meeting tonight or tomorrow morning having the full assurance that appropriate measures are going to be taken against the racist regime, for the international community should have no misconceptions’ about the feelings of the African ,people. The international community must bear with us, because we have for so long pursued a non-violent course, attempting to explore all avenues so as not to endanger the lives of the people in South Africa, to demonstrate amply to the international community that we are not cut-throats, even at this stage when my people are being killed. Their targets are still the symbols of apartheid, the symbols of oppres- 5 1. We are equally determined to ensure that mankind is, once and for all, freed of the scourge of apartheid. We are the alternative government, the true leaders and spokesmen for all South Africans.

I have been informed that Mr. David Sibeko, representative of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), to whom the Council has extended an invitation under rule 39 of the provisional rules of procedure, wishes to make a statement. Accordingly, as there are no objections, I shall invite Mr. Sibeko to take a seat at the Council table and to make his statement. 53. Mr. SIBEKO: Mr. President, your country is a progressive member of the non-aligned movement, and we regard it as a privilege to address this Council during your term of office. But for the grave developments taking place in my country I should be taking this opportunity to pay the fullest tribute of respect to Guyana and its courageous people, whom you represent with particular distinction in the United Nations. 54. We have met on this occasion to familiarize ourselves with the facts of the situation that is unfolding in Azania following the dastardly murder of small children by police goons in the employ of the South African apartheid regime. We have respect for the dignity of this Council and its members, who have so kindly allowed us to appear before them, and we recognize the solemnity of this meeting and the gravity of the situation facing our people inside Azania, and we have not come here to make propaganda. We will therefore unfold the facts and try and attempt to relate them in perspective so that the full depth of what is unfolding in our country is given the appreciation it deserves, so that in the end, when the Council has ceased to be seized of this matter, appropriate action may be taken within the terms of reference available to the Council under the Charter. We hope that for once we shall not be witnesses to a spectacle in which the solemn duties entrusted to the Council suffer sabotage at the altar of vested interest. 55. Sixteen years ago this Council convened in very similar circumstances to consider an almost identical situation. On 21 March 1960 the Pan Africanist Congress launched an unfolding programme of positive action for the liberation of Azania. It specifically targeted the loathsome pass system as the first objective to be attacked. The history of what happened to African patriots who responded to that clarion call at Sharpeville, Langa, Nyanga and Vanderbijl Park on that important date in the calendar of our liberation is very well known. The wholesale massacre by 56. Within South Africa, Sharpeville had created an unprecedented crisis for the racist regime. This was a bold initiative spearheaded by bold men and women determined to make whatever sacrifice was deemed necessary for their freedom, for the liberation of their country. It is fitting, therefore, that those sons and daughters of Africa who laid down their lives so that Azania might be free and independent among the nations of the world have been posthumously honoured by the General Assembly, which has in effect declared 21 March “Sharpeville Day”, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. 57. Two days ago, the South African racist regime initiated a campaign of wanton murder which will even surpass Sharpeville, and by far. As I speak to you tonight, it has already surpassed Sharpeville in terms of the loss of human life. We have in our possession’ eye-witness accounts from irrefutable sources which report that completely unprovoked South African fascist police tired point-blank at a young boy during a demonstration against the imposition of the narrow Afrikaans language of the Boer settlers as the medium of instruction in mathematics and social-science subjects in primary and junior secondary schools in Soweto. The little boy was between six and seven years old. The young woman who picked him up was a reporter for a Johannesburg newspaper, Sophie Tema. She struggled to take the young boy to the nearest clinic in the press car. The boy was bleeding from his mouth. He was dead on arrival at the hospital clinic. It was that callous and cold-blooded murder that ignited the time-bomb that has been lying just below the surface in Azania, waiting for just such a detonator to set it off. 58. ‘As all of us around this table know, an unparalleled wave of resistance is spreading throughout Azania. The apartheid regime is running scared, and it has resorted to the only way it knows to deal with such popular resistance. Vorster, who has been unmasked in his very carefully cultivated attempt to strike a supercool posture-to borrow from modem parlance-has now flung his sheep’s clothing to the dogs. His face, that of a murderous wolf, has been revealed, and the evidence is .a11 too plain in the mounting death toll among Africans in Soweto and in other areas where Africans are joining the snowballing demonstrations. This evening, the official report-that is, the police report-says 100 people have been killed and more than a thousand have been injured. We know that in Soweto alone more than 2,000 policemen have been deployed and ordered to seal off the complex of African townships. Inside the complex, police with dogs on leash are roaming the streets in large numbers and shooting at random at groups of demonstrators. 60: I understand very well the sentiments of an Azanian brother who said, “Our children are going about doing what we should have done long ago”. ‘We are not proud of the fact that we did not set an example for our children earlier. Of course, I am not in any way disparaging the sacrifices that were made by those freedom fighters whose actions preceded this initiative. The records here contain information about what Poqo has done under the leadership of PAC in Azania. The archives of the United Nations also contain information about what Umkonto we Sizwe has attempted to do under the leadership of ANC. But the present struggle goes far beyond the initiatives attempted in the past. 61. As I have said, we are not making propaganda; we are stating facts, facts which stare us in the face, so that this Council may grasp the gravity of the situation unfolding in our country. 62. Before coming to this meeting, we received news that the dark pall of smoke from burning government buildings in Soweto has spread to at least 10 African townships outside Soweto and around Johannesburg. The areas affected include Kagiso, 20 miles from Soweto; Alexander Township, 9 miles from Johannesburg City centre; Tembisa, about 15 miles from Johannesburg; and the University of Zululand, more than 200 miles away, outside Transvaal Province, where Soweto is located. Furthermore, the BBC reported this morning that trouble was brewing also in Johannesburg’s industrial areas. African workers could soon be taking industrial action-a move that will have far-reaching consequences, as we know from what happened after Sharpeville. 63. We have said before that in regard to its military strength South Africa, like all reactionary oppressors, 64. This is a very interesting situation for those who are selling nuclear reactors-a subject we shall deal with later-to the South African racist regime. A great Vietnamese revolutionary once said to me when I was in Hanoi: “We are not afraid of the nuclear bomb, because if the United States imperialists use the nuclear bomb they will have to blow up 500,000 American soldiers”. We deplore the fact that these highly destructive facilities are being extended to South Africa, but we want to call attention to the fact that even this will not prevent actions such as the present ones from eventually triumphing over South African white fascist rule. It is just as a matter of human responsibility that we call upon countries in the West to desist from continuing to arm the South African racist regime, and thereby to make our burden lighter. 65. Imagine what would have happened if France had not sent Alouette helicopters, and Panhard armoured cars to South Africa; or if my good old British friends had not sent Buccaneer aircraft and Saracens to South Africa; or if our American friends had not sent trucks which are now being used in Soweto to carry police. If the South African racist regime were without all that equipment, how much more swiftly would the forces of liberation be attaining their goal: the total liberation of Azania. 66. We are told that the University of the North at Turfloop-some 150 miles from Soweto-has now been closed following a demonstration by over 2,000 African students. For me, as a black man from Azania, I find it very touching that South African whites who in the past had distinguished themselves by cheering on police terrorists as they were going in to massacre Africans in our ghettos are now being seen on television in the United States showing solidarity for the African school children. We have seen white students from the University of the Witwatersrand demonstrating in solidarity with African schoolchildren in African ghettos. That picture which some of you might have seen of a bleeding white girl being . -manhandled and pushed into a police car possibly -just possiblydffers hope for the future of race relations in a liberated Azania. -- -.- -_-.-. --___ .-. .-. . . 67. The barbaric rule of apartheid colonialism, with all its ugly ramifications that are so well documented in this Organization, has more than earned the disgust of all decent human beings. It is a pity that the great majority of whites in South Africa do not count themselves as belonging among decent human beings. Those 68. Yesterday PAC began consultations with the African Group at the United Nations with the object of having this emergency meeting of the Security Council convened. The response has been swift and our struggling people will treasure this important act of solidarity. Greatly stimulating at this time when our people are up against the most fearful odds are the messsages of solidarity pouring in from all over the world. Among Western countries the Scandinavians are once more in the forefront; Sweden and Norway through their Prime Minister and their Foreign Minister, respectively, have condemned the apartheid regime’s violence against African school-children and other demonstrators. The Secretary-General, Mr. Kurt Waldheim, has added his weighty voice to the growing chorus against the apartheid regime, and we thank him for responding to the letter that the PAC sent to him yesterday. These statements will certainly go some way towards assuaging the pain of the wounds suffered by the champions of freedom in Azania. 69. However, I must point out that this meeting has been called because the responsibility of the United Nations towards the oppressed people in Azania and their liberation movement should go far beyond words of condemnation. Before the Security Council disposes of the matter before it, decisive action should be taken against the apartheid regime as a way of showing practical support for the heroic struggle Azanians are waging for their freedom. 70. As I have already said, the uprising spreading through our country wasdetonated by a struggle against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in vital subjects. In the Universal Declaration of Human ‘Rights article 26 categorically states: “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.” The South African racist regime-a regime which, incidentally, is a signatory of that solemn Declaration- _ __. in the light of what I have said and in the light’ of what is well known, is in gross violation of the article I have quoted, not to mention the other 29 articles of that Declaration. 71. When the school-children of Orlando West Junior Secondary School began the strike against Afrikaans on 17 May they were at the same time acting in defence 72. Here I recall the other occasion when I had the honour to appear before the Security Council on behalf of the Azanian people. The solid arguments we presented on that occasion for the expulsion of South Africa from the United Nations were rewarded with a very impressive majority-10 members voted in favour and two abstained, but there were three negative votes. Unfortunately but predictably, those negative votes were cast by Western countries with the power of veto. Therefore, by what was then an unprecedented triple veto, apartheid South Africa’s total expulsion from the world body was stayed. PAC offers no prize for guessing where the child-killers will be looking for saviours should the Council once more deem fit to take decisive action against the apartheid regime and in support of the defenders of the principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Azania. 73. As he watches his French-supplied South African Air Force helicopters dive into the black pall that is shrouding Soweto and the other areas where Africans are putting up resistance, and drop tear-gas bombs, Vorster completely ignores the Security Council’s call, made after Sharpeville, for the aparfheid regime to “initiate measures aimed at bringing about racial harmony based on equality. . . and to abandon its policies of apartheid and racial discrimination” [resolution 134 (1960)]. 74. In face of the mounting threat that could remove him from power, Vorster is panicking and is a desperate man. This morning he called for the maintenance of law and order at all costs, and his police chief flunkey, Jimmy Kruger, promised that they would now be taking stronger measures to crush the uprising by the Africans in Azania. 75. I have said that Vorster has lost his carefully cultivated super-cool because he says even his highly prized encounter with United States Secretary of State Kissinger does not enjoy priority over the maintenance of “law and order” in South Africa. What has happened to the “statesman” who was going .. to help the Zimbabweans gain majority rule? Under pressure, Vorster is no less obtuse or vulgar than Ian Smith. 76. Not so long ago some people were toying with the idea of Vorster releasing Mangaliso Sobukwe, the national leader of our people and President of the PAC from house arrest, and my brother, Nelson Mandela, the leader of the ANC, from Robben Island 77. In his struggle for survival, Vorster is hell-bent on unleashing even greater violence before surrendering to the Azanian people’s just demand-their inalienable right to self-determination. It is a right that has been enjoyed by almost all the peoples of the world. In the decades of hard struggle that we have been waging, we have more than earned the right to self-determination. Apartheid is essentially a byproduct of a far more sinister form of domination, a ruthless and calculated exploitation of the Azanian masses and their natural resources by monopoly capital. All of us around this table know that full well. 78. The reports from Soweto tell of widespread arrests of prominent Africans, along with other African demonstrators. This is part of Vorster’s survival formula. The main victims are leaders and members of the black consciousness movement, that is, members of the South African Students Organization, the Black People’s Convention and the Black Allied Workers Union. The dedicated sons and daughters of Africa who are members of those mass organizations have chiefly been responsible-on the surface, at least-for broadly rekindling the fires of black resistance in the past few years. 79. Vorster’s police are also saying that they are looking for infiltrators from abroad who are stirring up trouble from the underground. An African boasted to the Christian Science Monitor-as reported in its issue of 17 June-that underground workers are there but the police cannot lay their hands on them. 80. Our sources also say that a number of informers have been liquidated, along with white police and government officials; and that, as you know, is a very strong deterrent against telling. The racist regime is being outsmarted by the black resistance movement, and the record amply shows that, when outsmarted, Vorster does nothing but resort to even more wanton violence and massacres. . 81. Yesterday, The Times of London said in an editorial that the authorities of apartheid South Africa have lost disastrously, because of the police violence, “their political prestige and the credibility of their racial policy at a time when they never so desperately needed to claim it was working”. Now, if it is obvious to the Times that apartheid South Africa is no longer a going concern, it should be easier for the conscience of the world-which is the role in which “He [Sobukwe] is convinced that large-scale guerrilla war will soon break out in Namibia and will ultimately spill over to the South African heartland itself. The tide of black liberation, he thinks, cannot be resisted, and the regime of Prime Minister Vorster, for all its outward strength, will crumble surprisingly fast.” The reporter also said: “Sobukwe hears that young South African blacks greet each other in the segragated townships with clenched fists, the symbol of black power.” That was in February. Yesterday The Times of London further commented: “The young are roused, poised, awaiting their moment in South Africa.” So we do not hear only indirect reports; we see them in our own living rooms on the television screen saying “Power to the people!” 82. The Organization of African Unity, in a statement this morning, pledged once more that it will assist PAC and ANC and the people of Azania to repel South Africa’s reactionary violence with revolutionary violence. 83. All we ask is that the Security Council, before it lays aside this item on this occasion, should resolve to take mandatory action to effect the arms embargo and other punitive measures to curb trade and diplomatic ties with South Africa. 84. Finally, we wish to appeal to the Council to uphold the slogan “Long live Azania!“, which was heard by the reporter from The Christian Science Monitor last Wednesday in Soweto, by recognizing that the Azanian people’s fight against apartheid and colonialism is a legitimate struggle for self-determination.

This is not an ordinary meeting of the Security Council. It is a meeting which, I believe, every member of the Council would have liked to avoid, for the circumstances which prompted the President of Madagascar in his Telegram to the Secretary-General, and the African Group at the United Nations, through the African members of this Council, to call the present meeting are tragic indeed. 86. In the last 48 hours, the South African racist authorities have been on a murder rampage, killing, maiming and wounding innocent people, including students, and not even sparing school children. According to news agency reports by 8 o’clock last evening, more than 100 people had been killed and more 87. Yet, it is not sufficient to be outraged, for outrage and indignation alone have not in the past and will not in the future deter the racist authorities from proceeding on the course of disaster and destruction. We all remember Sharpeville. In fact, the United Nations has made it an annual affair to commemorate that bloody massacre. Yet such commemorations and the continual display of wrath and indignation by the international community have not deterred the apartheid regime from continuing its suppression and oppression of the African people. We now have the Soweto massacre; and, as if that were not enough, in an attempt to crush the popular uprising of the African people, as demonstrated in Soweto, the South African authorities have gone on to commit more murders, more maimings and more injuries in several other townships where the resistance to apartheid and discrimination has been demonstrated. 88. The question is: now that the ‘African people of South Africa have clearly demonstrated and openly and fearlessly shown their determination to resist the obnoxious system of apartheid, and with the corresponding calculated carnages committed by the South African authorities in an attempt to stem the tide of resistance, where does the Security Council stand? This is the question which the African Group in asking for this meeting of the Council, wanted the Council to ponder. 89. We have already heard in moving terms the presentation of events given by the authentic spokesmen of the African people of South Africa, the representatives of the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress. I shall therefore refrain from going into too many details. A brief outline of these sad and revolting events would, however, be pertinent. 90. The immediate sequence of events is quite clear from all reports: more than a month ago, African secondary school students in Soweto, a segregated location of Johannesburg, began to boycott classes in protest against the order of the regime that mathematics, history and geography must be taught in Afrikaans. 91. The African students not only suffer from segregation and rampant discrimination in education, but are required to study some subjects in English, and some subjects in Afrikaans, to satisfy the prejudices of the white rulers. They are thus subjected to severe handicaps in pursuing their education. According to all accounts, there are hardly any qualified African teachers to teach the subjects in Afrikaans, and the students find it difficult to follow the lessons in Afrikaans. 93. On 16 June, 10,000 African students led a peaceful-1 repeat, a peaceful-demonstration in support of their demands. They were blocked by 300 heroic, courageous policemen. According to eye-witness reports, these courageous police officers fired at the demonstrators at random, directly into the crowd, without the slightest provocation. Soon, more police cars raced to the scene; a special police squad recently set up by the rdgime to combat urban terrorism was dropped into Soweto by helicopters, along with tear gas canisters. Incidentally, it is pertinent to point out that South Africa does not manufacture helicopters: they had been obtained from several Western countries which are still equivocating about the arms embargo. 100. These are sick people, but they are a natural product of a sick society. It was certainly not inexperience that led to the massacres. It is now, as it was in fact in 1960, the desperation of the authorities determined to protect the oppressive system, and devoid of any sense of human decency and human morality. The destruction of life-African life-is nothing, in their conception. The system has built them to be like that. To pretend otherwise is to run away from the ugly reality. 101. These events have justifiably aroused the indignation of the international community and of nations all over the world. The Secretary-General was absolutely right in asserting in his statement yesterday that the continuing tensions and unrest in South Africa emphasize once again the necessity of putting an end to the policy of apartheid and racial discrimination. : 94. They then practically sealed off Soweto, and ordered reporters out, to put down the resistance by a massive show of force and violence. The rkgime, as we know, had segregated the blacks in the Soweto township, separated from the rest of Johannesburg, precisely in order to be able to suppress any resistance. The township, which has a population of 1 million-or half the population of Johannesburg-is built in such a way as to be suitable for military operations. 102. The Special Committee against Apartheid, in its statement of 17 June, pointed out, inter alia: 95. The rising toll of dead and wounded shows that the rigime is dealing with the situation as a virtual war against the blacks. 96. In the centre of Johannesburg, several hundred white students from the Witwatersrand University held a demonstration to express their solidarity with the black students. They were brutally attacked by the thugs from the Rand Afrikaans University-students who have been indoctrinated by the rigime with racism, fascism and fear-and later led, of course, by the police. 97. Instead of trying to end the violence and meet the just demands of the people, the Vorster regime is reported to have called out the Defence Force in a virtual declaration of war. 98. It was but natural that when the shooting of African students and little children took place, people should recall the tragic memory of the Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960. At that time, police fired at peaceful demonstrators against Pass Laws, in the township of Sharpeville, killing 69 people and wounding nearly 200. We were told at that time that the massacre had taken place because the police were inexperienced and had lost their nerve. Now, however, there is no doubt that the massacre was deliberate and premeditated, a wanton act on the part of that ri5gime. The Special Committee’s statement continues: “The killing of the black students follows a series of police attacks against demonstrating workers and students in the past four years, described in South Africa as ‘mini-Sharpevilles’. “These events are, on the one hand, yet another example of the brutality of the Vorster regime, which has again resorted to large-scale detentions, trials and tortures of prisoners to intimidate the growing opposition to racism. It has introduced in the current session of Parliament two new laws which are even more obnoxious than the armoury of repressive laws condemned by the United Nations and the intemational community. “These events demonstrate, on the other hand, the growing militancy of the oppressed people and their courage in the face of inhuman repression.” “In resolution 3411 C (XXX) of 28 November 1975, the General Assembly proclaimed that the United Nations and the international community have a special responsibility towards the oppressed people of South Africa and their liberation movements, and towards those imprisoned, restricted or exiled for their struggle against apartheid. Every crime committed by the Vorster regime against black people is, therefore, a direct affront to the United Nations and the international community. The killing 103. But reactions have not been confined within the circles of the United Nations. The representative of the PAC referred, for example, to the declarations made by the Prime Minister of Sweden and by the Foreign Minister of Norway. I believe that these declarations are so moving and so apt that they merit mention here. Prime Minister Olof Palme of Sweden issued the following statement: “The massacre in Soweto in South Africa fills us with anger and despair. Police opening fire on peacefully demonstrating school-children is an appalling manifestation of the brutality of an unjust society. This event confiis once again that in the long run it is impossible to base human relationships on a system which violates the principle of the equality of all people. Apartheid is not only in direct conflict with our whole conception of human decency and dignity. It is also the greatest obstacle in the way of peaceful development in southern Africa.“‘3 And the Foreign Minister of Norway, in equally pertinent remarks, declared: “The use of violence and weapons against schoolchildren and youth clearly demonstrate[s] the unbearable racist situation that prevails in South Africa.‘14 104. I go back to South Africa. The Christian Institute of Southern Africa, in a statement on 17 June, made the following pertinent declaration: “In calling for a national convention of the true leaders of the people at an early date, we reiterate our conviction that the violent conflagration in Soweto is but a sign of black attitudes throughout the country and is a direct result of the policies of apartheid. We assert our solidarity with the oppressed of our land and call upon all Christians, white and black, not to rest or fear in these times of stress, but to press on through the peril until a just society is won.” 105. Since the South African propaganda machine is renowned for its efficiency, I should also like to quote some relevant comments made by no less important newspapers than those originating in the country of my good friend the representative of the United Kingdom. The Daily Mirror, in its editorial of today, asserted, inter alia: “The name of Soweto bums like a raw brand in the face of South Africa. Rage, despair and bloodlust have taken this huge African township outside Johannesburg by the throat.. . Will the South African Government ever learn that repression by a minority is vicious and futile? Last year Mr. Vorster promised The Yorkshire Post, which is not renowned for radical’ views, in its editorial considered that “the South African Government must have been quite out of its mind”. I could not agree more with it. 106. I have made these random quotations and I have deliberately avoided quotations from any African spokesmen, whether at the governmental level or at any other level, in order ,to demonstrate that indignation against these barbaric events is indeed universal. But although these events were sparked by a grievance of African secondary school students, they reflect much more. As Mr. Barney Ngakane, the senior African official of the South African Council of Churches, said, “This issue has become, in a way, a symbol of resistance among the youth to white oppression and white authority”. I believe The Times of London of 17 June expressed the problem aptly when it editorialized as follows: “... Afrikaans was only the detonator; the explosive is the whole South African apartheid policy. Two or three years ago, however, the edict might have been grumblingly accepted. Now that there is a free African State on one of the Republic’s borders and now that Africans are fighting it out with white troops in Rhodesia on another, it cannot be. The young are roused, poised, awaiting their moment in South Africa.” 107. Like the events at Sharpeville, the recent incidents are not isolated ones. They indicate that the South African regime will go to any lengths out of cowardice to suppress innocent people. It is a regime which lives in fear because it knows that the injustice it is committing will one day be crushed. From the viewpoint of the oppressed majority, these incidents are a manifestation of the continuing struggle against the apartheid system, for they are nothing less than an uprising. It will be remembered that those who were massacred in 1960 were protesting against the Pass Laws. Those students and children who have been killed and those who are still being killed in South Africa today are protesting against the teaching of Afrikaans in their schools. But both the Pass Laws and the teaching of Afrikaans are oppressive measures, symbolizing and intended to perpetuate the heinous apartheid system. But the Africans of South Africa, who number more than 18 million, will not sit idly by amidst this brutality. Their demonstrations and protests are a beginning of an end to the system of the racist regime. Their uprisings are self-generating in that no self-respecting people can fail to meet cowardly violence without resorting to the legitimate form of struggle. Indeed, the internal situation in South Africa clearly reflects the growing resistance to the apartheid system. For example, the terms and working conditions in the mines are no longer accepted by the workers. 108. The South African regime has been engaged for some time in an effort to destroy the “black consciousness movement’*, which is led mainly by black students and youths and which has acquired extensive support in the black community. Since the demonstrations held under its leadership on the tenth anniversary of FRELIMO [Frente de Liberta@o de Mocambique-liberation front of Mocambique] on 25 September 1974, the regime has detained, tortured and put on trial numerous leaders of the black consciousness organizations, such as the South African Students Organization, the Black People’s Convention, the Black Allied Workers Union, the Black Communities Programme and several black cultural groups. The trial of nine leaders of these organizations is still going on, after two years. But despite this repression black youth has constantly found new leaders and the movement has survived as a result of the courage and militancy of the black people. During the session of the white Parliament this year, the regime introduced two new obnoxious repressive laws. Those laws are intended to destroy any remnants of legality in South Africa and to suppress the black movement. 113. What lessons can we draw from the events in Soweto and in other African townships? The most obvious is that the apartheid system is wholly and completely untenable. Despite the massive repressive legislation, despite the ruthless atrocities that have been committed, despite all the measures that have been adopted by the South African regime, the Africans have continued to resist the apartheid system, and, in fact, there has also been an increasing number of white liberals and progressives opposed to that regime. 114. We have very often been told of the changes that are taking place in South Africa. We have heard of the cosmetic changes, the elimination of petty apartheid. Mr. Vorster is now changing. He is becoming more outwardlooking-and so on, and so on. The murders of children and students clearly demonstrate that all this talk is utter nonsense. We have been told that South Africa desires peace with its neighbours, that it desires peaceful co-existence with the African States, that it desires to promote cooperative interaction with the sovereign States of Africa. But a regime which thrives on internal aggression against its own people and external aggression against its neighbours cannot have any right to claim any co-operative interaction either with free Africa or with the rest of the world. Furthermore, it would be the greatest of tragedies and the height of naivete if free Africa were to accept coexistence with the oppression, represkion and violence that is daily being inflicted upon our fellow Africans in South Africa. 109. Obviously, the Pretoria regime is in a hurry to consolidate apartheid by speeding up its bantustan policy. It is planning to declare the sham independence, of Transkei on 26 October. Incidentally, that date is also the tenth anniversary of the revocation of the Mandate over Namibia; it will be a date of infamy in South Africa. According to its calculations, when Transkei becomes independent not only the 2 million people in that Bantustan but also the 2 million Xhosaspeaking people in the rest of South Africa will have to become “citizens of Transkei” or stateless people. The 2 million Xhosa-speaking people in South Africa will automatically become aliens. 115. There is yet another lesson, and that is a lesson of which we should like to speak as mildly, as solemnly as possible, and without acrimony, without bitterness, but obviously with a lot of suffering. To those who continue to pay lip-service in support of the struggle against apartheid and then continue to supply that regime with massive assistance, economically, materially, and, even more, militarily-to those nations, whose honour we do not want to question, whose sovereignty we are in no position to challenge, we appeal to consider their conscience. For every single dollar that is pumped into South Africa and every single weapon that is supplied to the South African regime enables that regime not only to preserve a measure of respectability among the international community, but, more seriously, to continue with massacres of the kind that are now happening in South Africa. 110. The crisis in South Africa has been unfolding rapidly in recent years. As I have stated, there have been numerous killings of workers and youth in the mines, in the factories and in several cities. The regime has hoped that it could intimidate the people by these acts of police violence. As events have now demonstrated, it has failed miserably, hence the resort to large-scale massacres. 111. This crisis has many factors. I do not intend to go into these factors in detail, but just let me enumerate them. 112. First, there is the continuing repression and the intensification of apartheid in contradiction to the propaganda disseminated abroad by the South African regime. Secondly, there is the economic crisis. And, thirdly, the upsurge of the liberation movement 116. In the past we have heard in the Council arguments that some of the weapons being supplied to South Africa were for external defence. When the African representatives in the Council have argued 117. Another lesson is that a people cannot accept perpetual subjugation, however mighty the oppressor may be. In this field, I believe the representatives of the ANC and the PAC have said all’that needs to be said. I 118. In view of all this, what can .we do? What can the international community do in order to alleviate the sufferings of our brethren in South Africa, in order to minimize the holocaust in an increasingly serious situation that is now building in that area, a situation which, let there be no doubt, poses a direct threat to international peace and security?.. What , can the Security Council do? We believe that the Council must act in a responsible manner. It must be faithful to its responsibilities as the organ for the maintenance of international peace and security. We believe that the Council must do everything within its power, in accordance with the appropriate provisions of the Charter, to ensure that an end is put to’ the apartheid system. 119. Of course, in calling for this meeting of the Security Council the African members of the Council were aware that they could not at this stage go into all the measures they are demanding. There will certainly be a time when we shall approach the Council with demands for measures that we believe the Council must adopt in order to meet the requirements of the situation. But, for the present, when killing continues, when little children are still suffering and becoming victims of the trigger-happy new heroes of the apartheid system of South Africa, we believe that this Council has a responsibility’ to echo in unison the collective indignation, the collective wrath of the international community at the injustices being committed against the African people, at the tyranny being perpetuated by the Vorster rbgime. We believe that the Council has a responsibility to show solidarity and support for the legitimate struggle of the people of South Africa. We hope that the Council will act in accordance with the needs of the hour.. 120. We really do not need to come again to the Council after further Sowetos. We really do not need 121. We do not believe that our Western colleagues need these sad reminders. To them and to the rest of the Council we appeal for swift and decisive action. 122. Mr: PAQUI (Benin) (interpretation from French): It is late; this is the time not for long speeches but for positive and concrete action: That is why my delegation will limit itself to a few observations. The facts of the case now before the Council are well known to all the members. 123. After’the Sharpeville events of sad memory, which the international community has commemorated ever since they occurred, the torch of violence is now blazing over Soweto and in several other parts of South Africa, where the abominable apartheid regime is clearly demonstrating its unshakable determination to prove its great contempt for the various resolutions adopted by all the organs of the United Nations family and its determination pitilessly to repress any attempt of the black people of South Africa to raise their voices against, the policy of apartheid established by the Vorster gang in South Africa. 124. The events in which the South African Nazi police have been unleashed against schoolchildren and other students, events that have culminated in the death of some hundred persons and the wounding of hundreds of others, are a crime against mankind as a whole. The reports in the international press do not even try to hide the barbaric and savage nature of this repression. 125. The events that have led to the urgent convening of the Security Council must arouse the conscience of those who still believe that they are justified in complacently dreaming that in one way or another they can deflect the madmen of Pretoria, led by Vorster, from their policy of apartheid. 126. According to press reports, this arrant racist, this mentally retarded person is seeking ways and means to enable the Ian Smith regime to review its policy in order to come to some agreement with the blacks and establish conditions favourable for a black majority government in Zimbabwe. At the appropriate time we have denounced this masquerade relating to the so-called liberalizatidn of the policy of a Govemment which denies the most elementary freedoms to the overwhelming majority, the blacks and the coloured persons in South Africa, and which claims-at least officially-that it wants to counsel moderation to the 127. My Government has already had an opportunity to criticize severely the criminal action which the racist apartheid regime is continuing to take in Soweto. We believe that Vorster’s and Smith’s defiance of the international community fully justifies the application against those regimes of the provisions of Chapter VII of the’charter. For the events in Soweto and the strengthening of the Pretoria-Salisbury axis are without doubt. serious threats to international peace and security. The Council must not wait for a general conflagration in ,Africa before deciding to act. 132. The Chinese Government and people have always firmly supported the Azanian and other southern African peoples in their just struggle against ‘racism and colonialism and for national independence and liberation. The Chinese delegation maintains that the Security Council must immediately take action strongly to condemn the atrocities committed by the .South African racist authorities and to mete out the necessary punishment to them, enjoin them to stop immediately their persecution and repression of the .African people, and call upon all States and peoples of the world to give active support to the just struggle of the Azanian people against racism and for liberation until they win complete victory. 128. My delegation dares to hope that those who lend their support to that regime by giving it military assistance and strategic material and by refusing to look facts in the face will understand that morality, elementary morality; makes it more than ever indispensable that ‘they stop supporting this abhorrent regime and examine their conscience. May the victims of Soweto and other places in South Africa help them finally to decide to give resolute assistance to the efforts to isolate Vorster and his disciple, Ian Smith. 129. Mr. LA1 ‘Ya-li (China) (translation from Chinese): Since 16 June the African students and people in South Africa who are the victims of racist persecution there have taken to the streets for demonstrations in Soweto and’other areas in protest against the South African authorities’ policy of apartheid and racial discrimination. This is in fact an entirely legitimate and completely just act. However, the South African Vorster racist authorities wantonly sent a large number of armed police to carry out a genocidal massacre against bare-handed young students, and even many schoolchildren were not spared in the cold-blooded slaughter. It is reported that as of now some 100 people have been killed and nearly 1,000 wounded. The situation is still developing.

The Soviet Union and its delegation, like many other countries and their missions to the United Nations, have learned with intense indignation and outrage of the unprecedented monstrous crimes committed by the racist regime of South Africa against the African population, the true masters of that country. The mass shootings and killings of completely innocent children, adolescents and young Africans perpetrated in cold blood by the racist police and soldiers over the last four days in Soweto and other parts of South Africa cannot fail to arouse strong indignation, outrage and very strong condemnation. These brutal and callous acts of terrorism and violence can be compared only with the equally monstrous atrocities which three decades ago were perpetrated by the Hitlerite executioners and their Fascist henchmen in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and other countries of Europe. 130. The Soweto incident is the most serious incident of barbarous slaughter created single-handedly by the South African racist regime since the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. It is also a most flagrant provocation against the Azanian people and the entire African people. The Chinese delegation is very indignant at the brutal .atrocities committed by the South African racist authorities and condemns them most severely. In this connexion, we should like to express our deepest sympathy and solicitous regard to the families of the victims and voice our firmest support and solidarity with the Azanian people who are engaged in heroic struggles against brutality. 134. Today the world is once again convinced of the fact that the racist Vorster and his henchmen are fascists too, not only in spirit or, so to say, in a like minded approach, but in action or, rather, in bloody crimes; only they call their racist crimes by a new word, apartheid. 135. The Soviet Union, together with all African and other countries, strongly condemns these callous crimes of the South African racist authorities and very 131. These shocking atrocities of brute force committed by the Vorster regime have totally exploded the 136. In resolution 3411 G (XXX) the General Assembly reaffirmed that the racist regime of South Africa was illegitimate and had no right to represent the people of South Africa. At the same time the Assembly also reaffirmed that the national liberation movements were the authentic representatives of the overwhelming majority of the South African people. 137. As everyone knows, the General Assembly has frequently called on all States to cease completely all co-operation with the criminal racist regime of South Africa, and that includes halting co-operation in the military field. Nevertheless, a number of Members of the United Nations, as has been mentioned here, and primarily certain Western countries, are continuing to disregard these many appeals and decisions by the United Nations to put an end to cooperation with South Africa. Today when that callous racist regime has finally unmasked itself as an enemy of peace and mankind, those who in words support respect for human rights now have an opportunity to back up their words with deeds, to come out in defence of the rights of the indigenous population of South Africa, to condemn its racist regime for its bloody crimes and to put an end completely to the provision of any political, diplomatic, economic, military or other support to it. 138. The events in South Africa require the intemational community-and primarily the Security Coun- 139. In the view of the Soviet delegation, the strongest sanctions in the Charter should be applied against South Africa. We agree with the statement made yesterday by the Acting Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid in which an appeal was made for a total embargo on all supplies for the armed forces and police in South Africa and for total isolation of the South African racist regime. 140. In the view of the Soviet Union, following today’s urgent meeting of the Security Council, further action must be taken, both by the Council and by other organs of the United Nations and the intemational community. That is the only way in which we can put an end once and for all to racism and apartheid in South Africa and to that Government’s continuing crimes against mankind. 141. The Soviet Union has always been and remains a strong supporter of the courageous fighters against racism and apartheid and, together with the African countries and all progressive mankind, will continue to provide them with active assistance and aid in their noble and just struggle for freedom and independence. 142. The position of the Soviet Union on all questions of anti-colonialism and anti-racism was again reaffnmed in the programme adopted by the Twentyfifth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union following the report of Comrade Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, that is, the programme of further struggle for peace and international co-operation, and for freedom and the independence of the peoples. The programme says the following: “To consider as crucial the international task of completely eliminating all vestiges of the system of colonial oppression, infringement of the equality and independence of peoples and all seats of colonialism and racialism.” 143. The representative of the African National Congress, in his sharp political statement which exposed South Africa, expressed and stressed the faith of the people of his country in the United Nations and in its principal organ, the Security Council. He urged the Council to adopt urgent measures against the racist regime of South Africa. It is the duty of every member of the Council and of the Council as a whole to heed 144. The delegation of the Soviet Union, considering the importance and urgency of this question, believes that today-and I repeat today, not tomorrow-the Council should take a decision. The Council must strongly condemn the racist regime of South Africa and call for an immediate halt to the violence against the African population. 151. Can there still be any doubt that the Vorster regime is bent on suppressing the black majority of South Africa, in its megalomaniac pursuit of the anachronistic and savage policies of apartheid and racial dominance? Can there still be any doubt that the apartheid regime is the incarnation of the unjust society that seeks to impose its will through violence and terrorism? This is, in the view of the Special Committee, what terrorism is all about. 145. The Soviet delegation is willing to vote today in favour of the draft resolution on this question which has been submitted by eight members of the Council. We are convinced that this draft resolution, if put to the vote today, will be adopted by an overwhelming majority of the members of the Council.

I should like to inform members of the Security Council that I have received a letter dated 18 June from Mr. Nicasio Valderrama, Rapporteur of the Special Committee against Apartheid, which reads as follows: 152. I do not need to describe in detail the sad, the deplorable events taking place in South Africa today. I merely wish to reiterate the appeal made by the Special Committee in the statement it issued yesterday, for a total embargo on all supplies for the armed forces and police in South Africa, and for the total isolation of the South African racist regime. “On behalf of the Special Committee against Apartheid, I have the honour to request that I be allowed to make a statement before the Security Council on the item presently on its agenda.” 153. As the Special Committee has pointed out on numerous occasions, and again yesterday, the conflict in South Africa is,a conflict between racism and nonracialism. The ractst regime of Pretoria, in its stubborn insistence on maintaining white domination, is precipitating a racial conflict which can have incalculable consequehces for international co-operation and peace. 147. On previous occasions, the Council has extended invitations to representatives of other appropriate United Nations organs in connexion with the consideration of matters on its agenda. It seems appropriate, accordingly, for me to extend an invitation to Mr. Valderrama under rule 39 of the provisional rules of procedure. If I hear no objection, I shall take it that the Council agrees to this procedure. 154. The black people of South Africa are upholding the principle of non-racialism. That is why their just cause has obtained the courageous support of hundreds of white students of the Christian Institute of South Africa and of many others. It was so decided.

I invite Mr. Valderrama, Rapporteur of the Special Committee against Apartheid, to take a seat at the Council table and to make his statement. 155. By taking action to eradicate apartheid, we shall be showing our solidarity with the black people of South Africa in their righteous and just struggle, as well as with those whites who are standing by them in South Africa.

On behalf of the Special Committee against Apartheid, I should like to thank you, Mr. President, and the other distinguished members of the Security Council for giving me this opportunity to participate in this debate. It is a matter of great satisfaction to the Special Committee that these proceedings are being conducted under the presidency of the able representative of Guyana, a country which has consistently supported the struggle for liberation in South Africa and southern Africa. Only a few days ago the Committee sent a message of congratulations to the Prime Minister of Guyana on the tenth anniversary of that country’s independence commending its contribution to the struggle against apartheid and colonialism. 156. I should like to emphasize that the tragic events of the past few days were predictable. The Special Committee had repeatedly warned that the ruthlessness of the racist regime of Pretoria and the growing militancy and resistance of the oppressed people of South Africa were bound to lead to a conflict. Many South Africans only recently warned the South African racist regime of the grave and imminent danger of violent conflict. 157. If we limit ourselves today to mere condemnations of the apartheid regime and fail to take effective 158. Sixteen years ago, the Council met urgently to consider the wanton killings of Africans in Sharpeville. It condemned the massacre and called for the aboliton of apartheid. The Council is meeting again today because it has been unable to take the effective action that was required by the situation in South Africa. We hope that all the Powers concerned will now see their way to facilitating such action. 159. For years the Special Committee has been calling for the imposition of a mandatory arms embargo against the racist regime of Pretoria, under Chapter VII of the Charter. This call has been repeatedly made and has been endorsed by the General Assembly by overwhelming majorities. Events in Soweto and other parts of South Africa justify this call. 160. .In the view of the Special Committee, the Council should not only condemn the latest atrocities in South Africa, but should also demand that the Litho in United Nations, New York 00400 83-60801-September 1984-2,200

The sponsors of the draft resolutions have asked that the following additions be made. At the end of the second preambular paragraph, add “1976,“. Insert a new preambular paragraph before the existing second preambular paragraph, which would read as follows: “Having considered also the telegram from the President of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar to the Secretary-General (S/12101),“. The meeting rose on Saturday, 19 June, at 1.15 a.m. Notes * A/31/110, annex, p. 9. 2 Qfficial Records of the General Assembly. Thirtieth Session. Suppiement NO. 22. - ’ AIAC.l15/L.438, p. 6. 4 Ibid. _ 5 Subsequently circulated as document S/12103.