S/PV.1992 Security Council

In accordance with the decisions taken by the Council at previous meetings, I invite the representatives of Algeria, Bahrain, Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, the Syrian Arab Republic, the United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia, Zaire and Zambia to take the places reserved for them at the side of the Council chamber, on the usual understanding that they will be invited to take a place at the Council table when they wish to address the Council. At the invitation of the President, Mr. A. Rahal (Algeria), Mr, S. M. Al Sal&r (Bahrain), Mr, i? Tlou (Botswarw), Mr. A. E Abdcl Meguid (Egyptj Mr. T. B. Sam /Ghana), Mr. M. S. Gmara (Guinea), Mr. A. Marpaung (Indonesia), Mr. F. M. Kasina (Kenya), Mrs. A. Brooks-Randolph (Liberib), Mr. H Rasolondruibe (Madagascar), ME M. El Hassen [Mauritania), Mr. L. 0, Harrimqn (Nigeria), Mr. M. Fall [Senegal), Mrs. S. Y, Gbujama (Sierra Leone), Mr. 1 B. Fonseka (Sri Sanka), Mr. M Allaf (Syrian Arab RepubW Mr. S. A. Salim (United Republic of Tanzania), Mr. J. Petrii (Yugoslavia), Mr. Urnba di Lutete (Zaire) and Mr. .!I. W. Kamana (Zambia) took theplaces reserved for them at the side of the Council chamber.

The first speaker is the representative of Guinea. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. President, permit me, on behalf of my delegation, to convey to you our most sincere congratulations on your assumption of the presidency of the Council for this month, at a time when this body is once again examining such an urgent problem as that of southern Africa. 4. The fact that you have been chosen to represent the United States of America in our Organization is no accident. The choice was inspired by your personal qualities displayed in your political life and, above all, because of your experience of the problems which face the world in general and in particular your intimate knowledge of the lot of those who are discriminated against and oppressed and for whom you have the heavy responsibility of representing today a source of hope. 5. Before 1 make my statement, permit me to convey to you and, through you, to the members of the Council my gratitude for having been given an opportunity to participate in this debate without the right to vote. 6. I cannot begin my statement without paying a heartfelt tribute to the memory of a heroic son of Africa, the late and very much lamented President Marien Ngouabi of the sister Republic of the Congo, assassinated in such a cowardly manner by the forces of evil OII 1X March of this year, This loss for the people of the Congo and the whole of Africa occurred at a time when the struggle for the rights to existence and to sovereignty of African peoples was becoming ever more fierce. We should like to extend our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved people of that country. 7. We should also like to express to the representative of Romania our feelings of sympathy and compassion with regard to the earthquake which has caused so much damage and resulted in the loss of so many lives in that country. We should also like to express the same feelings to the representative of Iran whose country recently fell victim to a similar catastrophe. 8. The question of South Africa which is on the agenda of the Security Council is the most important focal point of our attention and concern, particularly because the obstinacy of those champions of apartheid who hold power is 10. After so many years during which the United Nations has ceaselessly adopted resolutions ranging from appeals to warnings and to recommendations for sanctions against the white minority @me of Pretoria, after,so many years of patience in the face of the universal condemnation of apartheid, the Security Council is meeting again to examine the consequences of the arrogance of the South African Government, which, year after year, has been defying the international community while undermining the moral authority of the Council. 11. Almost nothing has been left unsaid about uphrtheid and the conduct of those who hold power in Pretoria, All possible denunciations have been uttered. Right after the foundation of the United Nations following upon the horrors of Hitlerian fascism, the signatories of the Charter adopted resolution 103 (I), which stipulates: “The General Assembly declares that it is in the higher interests of humanity to put an immediate end to religious and so-called racial persecution and discrimination, and calls on the Governments and responsible authorities to conform.. . to. . . the Charter of the United Nations, and to take the most prompt and energetic steps to that end.” 12. Thirty-two years later, the response of one of the States Members of the Organization was clearly formulated by its Minister for Foreign Affairs, none other than the former Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations, Mr. Botha. When questioned by the press as to the future of his country, Mr. Botha hastened to state that there would never be universal suffrage in South Africa. That statement is totally in keeping with the response which Vorster made in 1976 with regard to the participation of blacks in his Government: that it would never happen in South Africa. 13. There is no further need to go into detail about the inhuman practices and laws adopted by South African nazism. I should just like to quote President Ahmed SBkou Tourd: “In South Africa, the imperialist offensive progresses from escalation to escalation. Thus those who still speak of dialogue can see spread before them the dialogue begun in South Africa. Vorster, their friend, is in the process of massacring thousands and thousands of our brothers and sisters in South Africa. We say No to such a policy of resignation and indignity. “In southern Africa, we must liberate Namibia and Zimbabwe and bury apartheid so that the black majority can exercise legitimate power over its own territory. 14. Today, more than ever, the concatenation of intemaconal strategic and economic interests in the African hemisphere is the best explanation of the retreat of various groups in the face of this evil in its purest form. This attitude of imperialism, guilt ridden as it is, has encouraged Pretoria, over the course of time, to adopt every year fresh discriminatory and humiliating measures and to increase and worsen its repression to the point where the prime importance of the right to life is nothing but an empty word and where non-whites have no means of even peacelirl protest and no legal means of obtaining redress for the wrongs that they suffer. 15. We must recognize that all the measures hitherto advocated by our Organization against the policy of apartheid of South Africa, the arms embargo, economic sanctions or assistance to the peoples of South Africa in their struggle for independence, have proved ineffective because of the impunity which Pretoria enjoys. 16. South Africa has blocked all possible negotiations to bring about majority rule, not only in Azania but also in Zimbabwe. If Ian Smith, in his turn, can defy the international community, it is certainly because he too has become a student in the school of apartheid and because Vorster is giving Rhodesia the necessary economic assists ante for its survival. 17. It js clear that all the dialogues in the world wjll serve no purpose. The only purpose they could serve would be that of providing the Fascist white minorities more time for lynching and murdering blacks. That is why it is for us to take practical action and to opt for the total liberation of Africa, so as to bring about the exercise by Africans of their inalienable rights. For that to take place, the capitalist Powers, the natural allies of South Africa, must immediately cease all aid of any kind whatsoever to the Republic of South Africa. Those countries must desist from any attempt at dialogue with the Vorster rbgime, because we now have damning evidence that any dialogue only provides respite to apartheid. 18. We request the Security Council to call upon all Governments vigorously to respect the Charter by applying the resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council, we request the Council to adopt a resolution condemning all forms of co-operation with the shameless regime of Pretoria and stress that an embargo should not only relate to arms but also to matters affecting the survival of the Fascist regime in South Africa, and we ask the Council to help to make that embargo obligatory. The adoption of a draft resolution along those lines, which is so 20. Mr. President, your presence as President of the Security Council in your capacity as Permanent Representative of a great Power, the United States of America, gives you an opportunity to prove to the world, which is watching and hoping, that your country is finally committed to a definitive solution of the problem of clpn~thci~. The abusive use of the right of veto, from which our Council has suffered, is something that should be stopped, so that we may be in a position to prove the axiom that all -our efforts ultimately are judged by one criterion: the ability to translate into action our human concerns.

The next speaker is the representative of Senegal. I invite Mm to take a place at the Council ldbk and to make his statement. 22. Mr. FALL (Senegal) (interpretation jam French). Mr. President, allow me first to discharge a pleasant duty by extending to you my warmest congratulations upon your accession to the presidency of this august body of the United Nations, the Security Council. My delegation believes.it is a good sign that today’s debate on one of the problems which concern the very future of Africa is presided over by a distinguished son of the United States of America, a militant of the first rank who has always been devoted to the defence of humanity, regardless of colour. My delegation has no doubt that your past as an activist, your personal experience of the problem under discussion and your experience of human relations will make it possible for us in this debate to achieve positive results. 23. My delegation welcomed with special satisfaction the Security Council decision to hold a debate on the question of South Africa. It hopes that that decision is an expression of a profound change in the attitude of some of its members which will permit the adoption of effective measures to put an end to the apartheid regime which prevails in that country. That racist and colonialist r&gime, which has developed in opposition to the natural course of history, constitutes the root of the evil afflicting South Africa and by extension the whole of southern Africa. Its very existence is a permanent threat to international peace and security, and it becomes increasingly clear that because of the Pretoria r&me’s inability to change, that threat will continue to grow, unless the international community resolves to take appropriate measures to put an end to the situation. 24. The racist regime of Pretoria has up to now not given the slightest indication of a wish to renounce the systematic violation of human rights, the oppression and the increased repression of the black population. Its odious system of discrimination based on skin colour is still in force and its 25. “As long as apartheid was practised, days without violence could be no more than intervals in Which tensions built up and hatred grew.” That was said 011 Monday last bY the Secretary-Gencrall in his statement on the occasion of the cornnlenloration of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Slarpeville and Soweto are only symbols because, in reality, it is South Africa as a whole which is now in revolt, and today, at the very time of this debate, a people composed of 18 million men, women and children who are exploited, subjugated and humiliated, arc rising up against oppression and injustice, fighting and dping in defence of their freedom and their dignity. The people of South Africa are resolved to exercise their inalienable rights, and the blind and bloody massacres of Soweto only reinforced their strong determination to fight and to win, The citadel of white racisn\has now been shaken to its very foundations. We should note moreover that the South African people understood quite early on that Vorster and his friends left them no alternative but armed resistance organized and carried out through their national liberation movements, the legitimacy of whose struggle is recognized by our Qrganization. 26. The Vorster regime is showing itself less and less capable of containing the current revolt of the oppressed people of South Africa and that is why it is desperately attempting certain diversionary tactics it thinks it has discovered in the policy known as bantustanization, which is presented as a miraculous panacea. But nobody is fooled by this fraud. Those famous bantustans are intended only to serve as reserves of cheap labour for the colonial economy of the South African regime. The black population to be dispossessed of their lands and turned into foreigners in their own country find no positive changein thisnew policy. For its part, the international community has showli the Pretoria regime that that is a dead-end road, by condemning the creation of bantustans and refusing to recognize the puppet State of the Transkei /Genera/ Assembly resolution 31/6AJ. 27. Despite everything, the racist regime of Pretoria continues to pursue those pseudo-alternatives, once again demonstrating its inability to bring about reforms likely to prevent the outbreak of a general conflagration in tile country. Recently the new Minister for Foreign Affairs of South Africa reaffirmed his total opposition to the granting of any civil equality to the black communities. 28. AS part and parcel of’ that arrogant refusal, the Pretoria regime continues illegally occupying Namibia, a Territory placed under the authority of the United Nations 1 See the summary record of the 344th meeting of the Speciil Committee against Apartheid (A/AC.llS/SR.344, psm. 1). 30. There is no denying that the existence of independent and sovereign African States is for the disciples of apartheid an embarrassing piece of evidence in that it destroys the very foundations of their racist thesis of the black man’s inability to assume responsibility for his own fate. 31. But despite their innumerable acts of aggression against neighbouring States, the Pretoria racists have with great publicity launched a policy of currying favour with many independent African States, in the hope that that diplomacy of duplicity will gain for them a position of respectability on the international scene, at the expense of only minor changes in the basic question, apurtheid. But these manoeuvres have been condemned in advance since they go against the stream of history. 32. In reality, if the Pretoria leaders wish to achieve a peaceful solution they can take no better road than that leading to the opening of negotiations with the national liberation movements, in order rapidly to achieve the elimination of apartheid and the establishment of a democratic regime in South Africa. But the Pretoria racists refuse even to contemplate such ali alternative. With the same arrogance, they continue to violate United Nations resolutions and to endanger international peace and security. 33. The present explosive situatidn in southern Africa, resulting from the unjust political and social system in effect there, requires strong action by the United Nations to prevent a tragic development of events. The deluge of violence now sweeping South Africa could develop into a confrontation with unforeseeably dangerous consequences. The succession of violent crises now shaking southern Africa does not augur well for international peace and security. Those crises give rise to increasing concern and disquiet in the international community and the Security COUIIC~I is duty bound to put an end to them before it is too late. 34. The United Nations must without delay compel the Pretoria r&ime faithfully and honestly to take the path of co-operation with the other communities of countries in order to build a multiracial South African State based on freedom, justice and equality among persons of all races and origins. The Republic of South Africa is located on the African continent; 80 per cent of its pOpUkLtiOl1 is black. No theory, no police repression can destroy that obvious fact. 35. My delegation believes that the international community, because of its special responsibility towards the 36. Indeed, so long as the Pretoria regime has all the necessary foreign loans and investments it wishes, in order to strengthen its colonial economic system and provide itself with the means to consolidate its military machine of aggression and oppression, it will hardly be inclined to take account of the opinion of those who ask it to change its politico-economic system which has been universally condemned, The foreign corporations and countries which provide it with assistance are making themselves accomplices, for sordid material interests, in the perpetuation of one of the most serious crimes against mankind. That attitude, which to say the least is hostile to the interests of the peoples of South Africa, will in the long run militate against the interests of the very ones who are now its beneficiaries. 37. With regard to the role of the United Nations, my delegation believes that the Security Council should take strong and effective measures against the Pretoria r6gime. To that end, the Council should be enabled to decide that the situation in South Africa constitutes a threat to ‘international peace and security and to adopt a mandatory embargo on the supply of all arms to that country. Furthermore, it should take other measures provided for in the Charter to put an end once and for all to the serious situation in that part of the African continent. The States which SO far have delayed Council action in that field must, in order to lend more credibility to their condemnation of the apartheid rigime, associate themselves fully with the adoption of such measures. For the international community, and more particularly the great Powers-whatever the nature of their interests in the region-must respond to the irresponsibility of the Pretoria racists and to their icability to prevent a conflagration in southern Africa, by adopting a consistent strategy designed to cut out the root of the evil, that is, the abominable policy of apartheid, political and social injustice and police repression.

The next speaker is the representative of Zambia. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

A few days ago [1989th meeting] I addressed the Security Council in my capacity as President of the United Nations Council for Namibia. Today 1 speak as the representative of my country, Zambia. 40. It is with great pleasure that I extend to you, Sir, the congratulations of my delegation on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for the. month of March. You represent the new United States Administration and, perhaps, a new American spirit. Certainly, you bring with you a background and reputation which will 47. Undaunted by the might of their, oppressor, the African people of South Africa are saying that they have had enough. Their patience has run out. Their appeals to reason have fallen on deaf ears. They have therefore now decided to call the bluff of the South African regime. It would be foolhardy to minimize the uprisings in South Africa. They are not mere isolated incidents or riots. They are the beginning of a major popular revolt. More than 11 years ago, my President, Mr. Kenneth Kaunda, predicted a racial conflagration of unimaginable proportions in southern Africa. President Kaunda has wished and hoped he would be proved wrong. 1 fear he has instead been proved right, for the racial conflagration in fact began long ago. The battleground for South Africa will be South Africa itself. The oppressed people will fight their war in the kitchens and gardens of their white oppressors. In this respect, South Africa will awaken with a rude shock when it discovers that its sophisticated military might is irrelevant because the target is out of range. 41. It is not by accident that the question of South Africa is the first among the problems of southern Africa to be brought before the Security Council this year. South Africa is at the core of all the problems of our turbulent region of Africa. In Southern Rhodesia, Ian Smith and his henchmen am still running amuck with their rebellion against the British Crown, largely because of the succour and solace they receive from South Africa, in contemptuous disregard of United Nations sanctions. Namibia remains illegally occupied by South Africa. Angola and my own country, Zambia, have been victims of South African aggression. Botswana and Mozambique, and again my own country, have been victims of aggression by the Smith regime with the complicity of South Africa. Through the utilization of its bantustan of the Transkei, South Africa has attempted to place a stranglehold on Lesotho. 42. Inside South Africa itself, the repression of the African people has taken a turn for the worse. Everyday there are arrests and detentions of the opponents of the evil apartheid system. They include those of women and children, some children being literally taken out of their class-rooms. While in prison and detention camps, those victims of apartheid are invariably subjected to despicable police brutality, including the most primitive forms of torture. Some of them have been wantonly and brutally “murdered in prison. Many others face that dreadful prospect. 48. My colleague and friend, Ambassador Jaipal of India, aptly reminded us the other day [ibid.] that the United Nations had been on trial regarding the question of South Africa since 1946, when his own country had brought this issue before the General Assembly at its very first session. One could say that there is a general consensus at the United Nations that apartheid is unacceptable and must be done away with, In numerous resolutions, both the General Assembly and the Security Council have condemned apartheid, South Africa has literally been exhorted to change its policies, but to no avail. Thirty-one years of fruitless efforts is a long time. 43. The beastly treatment meted out by the South African regime to the African people, coupled with the regime’s lawless activities outside its borders, is a deliberate and calculated effort in the defence of that inhuman and savage abomination known as upartheid. Those activities have earned South Africa the distinction of being an international outlaw. 49. The time has come for the United Nations to re-examine its methods. The Security Council in particular must decide now what role, if any, it is going to play regarding the grave threat to international peace and security that now obtains in southern Africa. There is a real possibility that, unless it acts now, the Security Council may be irrelevant, if not impotent, as it was in the case of Viet Nam. 44. It is indeed’ no mere coincidence that this debate of the Security Council began on 21 March, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. We held a solemn meeting on that occasion to commemorate Sharpeville and to pay tribute to the martyrs who died in cold blood 17 years ago at the hands of the trigger-happy and Fascist forces of South Africa. But the arrogance and recklessness of the South African regime has grown over the years. Last year, there was the massacre of Soweto, which was far ln excess of that of Sharpeville. The horrors of Sharpeville and Soweto, in effect, constitute two loud and clear messages which the international community and the Security Council in particular would do well to note. 50. This meeting of the Security Council is being held after the thirty-first session of the General Assembly. There is no doubt that, at that session, the Assembly understood the gravity of the situation in southern Africa and saw the urgent need for effective action against South Africa. After a most serious and thorough consideration of the situation, the Assembly adopted important resolutions on southern Africa with an impressive majority. Thus the position of the majority of Member States is very clear regarding what needs to be done. In fact, the General Assembly specifically urged the Security Council to take urgent action against South Africa under Chapter VII of the Charter. 45. First, they demonstrate that the South African Fascist regime, the Nazis of today, will resort to the most extreme and savage measures in defence of the evil system of apartheid. Let there be no doubt that Vorster and his clique are determined to preserve the status quo in South Africa. 51. My delegation fully shares the position of ihe General Assembly in this regard. We therefore call upon the 52. [ am aware that there is supposed to be a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa. However, by its very nature, that embargo has not been effective. The Security Council must no longer leave it to the goodwill of States to ban arms sales and other forms of military collaboration with South Africa. What is needed now is a mandatory arms embargo wllich will oblige every State to terminate all military relations with South Africa. Any country claiming to have imposed a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa cannot have a valid reason for opposing a mandatory arms embargo. 53. Another area of grave concern is that of economic collaboration with South Africa. Such collaboration has in fact sustained and strengthened lrpartheid in no small measure. The time has come for the Security Council to address itself seriously to this problem. At the very least, the Council must act now to prevent, with immediate effect, any further foreign economic investments in South Africa. 54. It is important that all States, particularly the major Western countries, should be credible in their opposition to apartheid and in their professed commitment to the cause of the oppressed people for the exercise of their inalienable lights. South Africa hopes it can continue to count on the support of the major Western countries in the unfolding struggle in southern Africa. To that end, it is attracting increased Western economic investments, is desperately seeking increased military collaboration, and has intensified its propaganda campaign against the so-called communist infiltration of southern Africa. South Africa has even gone i)vcr the heads of the Governments in the Western countries to arouse public sympathy by projecting itself as the defender of Western interests in southern Africa and the bulwark against communism. It is all too common these days to see expensive South African propaganda advertise. mcnts in Western newspapers, intended for the consumption of right-wing and reactionary elements. 55. No nation should allow itself to be fooled by South African propaganda. The issues involved in southern Africa are very clear. The oppressed people are fighting for the eradication of the evils of apartheid, racism and white minority ruIe which have afflicted the region for too lollg. They are fighting for the enjoyment of their inalienable political rights and for the restoration of their diglfity. Any 56. My delegation earnestly hopes that the major Western Powers and trading partners of South Africa will not allow themselves to be duped by South Africa. Since change in southern Africa is inevitable, we hope that they will understand that the South African rCgime cannot be the custodian of their long-time interests in the region. It would be a mistake for them to be preoccupied with economic greed and other extraneous considerations. In the fi11a1 analysis, the oppressed people will count among their friends only those whose policies advance rather than hinder their cause or indeed make the struggle more protracted. It goes without saying that the proper way for the Western Powers and trading partners of South Africa to generate goodwill among the oppressed people is to stop being ambivalent in their policies and, instead, identify themselves with the oppressed people and their liberation movements, without equivocation. 57. The advent of the new Administration in the United States offers us hope that the issues of southern Africa will be seen in their true perspective. We hope that the United States will assume a leadership role among its western allies in favour of majority rule in southern Africa. We hope that the United States will not wait for those others who have been hesitant for too long. The non-aligned countries, the socialist countries and the Nordic countries have all made an important contribution in the struggle for the liberation of southern Africa. Such a contribution is very much appreciated by the oppressed people and those of us in southern Africa whose everyday lives are affected by events in the region. 58. This debate is important for zhe credibility of the Western countries. We hope that they will be counted on the side of freedom, independence and justice in southern Africa, which notions we know they value very much for themselves.

The next speaker is Mr. Olof Palme, to whom the Council extended an invitation at its 1988th meeting, as requested of it in the letter contained in document S/12300. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement. 60. Mr. PALME: Mr. President, I should like to begin by congratulating you on your appointment to your high office. In view of your record in civil rights and many other fields and in view of your concern for social justice and peace, you are eminently qualified for your office. You have created much hope and I wish you the best of luck. 61. I should like to express my deep gratitude to the Council for the honour it has bestowed upon me and the ’ movement I represent by giving me this opportunity tc 62. On this occasion I wish also to pay a tribute to the African States for having so persistently sought to work through this Organization in findingasolution to theproblems of southern Africa. The United Nations was created as an instrument for the peaceful settlement of conflicts. This is also the way those States have-chosen to work in order to seek a change in South Africa-through negotiations and by seeking support from the rest of the world. 63. South Africa is still a bastion of racism. But an increasing number of people are beginning to see the end of apartheid and colonialism and the beginning of freedom and human dignity for the oppressed majority. 64. At the last Socialist International Congress held at Geneva in November last year, the problems of southern Africa were the centre of interest. The democratic socialists of the world made it clear, through a resolution, that: “Neutrality towards the existing and coming struggles in southern Africa is impossible. Between the exploiters and the exploited there is no middle ground. Action must be taken designed to end a system which is both evil in itself and a threat to peace.” 65. This week, the people of South Africa have been painfully reminded of a tragic day: the massacre at Sharpeville. Sixteen years later, came the events at Soweto. Both those atrocities against a defenceless population were logical consequences of the apartheid system. But there are important differences. During those 16 years, we witnessed an escalation of the violence of the ruling minority; but at the same time the will and the ability of the majority to resist the oppression and to unite against the rulers increased. A people’s longing for freedom can never be extinguished. The time of submission is over. 66. Yet the system prevails, maintained by force. Could that be because those who are not directly affected simply cannot conceive what apartheid is really like, what it really means? Let me give a few examples of what apartheid means to the people;in human terms. 67. Take Soweto: we know now what really happened in June last year. The official documents and police reports, give this picture. It all started at Soweto, but the protests spread to more than 100 townships in the entire country. The immediate cause was the children’s protest against the compulsory study of Afrikaans in the schools. But behind that there was the dissatisfaction of the black majority with social and economic conditions in towns like Soweto. The brutality of the police led to new demonstrations. According to Police Inspector Gerber at Soweto, more than 16,000 bullets were fired at Soweto alone from 16 June, when the 68. Take the system of “mental prisoners”. This very day the World Health Organization is publishing a report2 on a chain of privately owned institutions accommodating many thousands of mentally ill black Africans, detained against their will. They are being forced to work without any pay. Those institutions, labelled “human warehouses” by a retired official, get the bulk of their “patients’‘-in reality “mental” or political prisoners-from South Africa’s Ministry of Health, The private firm of Smith-Mitchell of Johannesburg, which operates this $ave-labour system on a profit-making basis and has done so for more than a decade, calls it “therapy”. It earned $13.7 million in 1973. Between 8,000 and 9,000 black mental patients are involved. Testimonies, published, among others, in the Swedish daily Dugens Nyhetcr, claim that many Africans are arrested in the slums for having “stirred up trouble” and, after a hasty examination, are sentenced as “unbalanced” and sent away to those institutions. 69. Take the torture and deaths in South Africa’s prisons. Many people have died by “suicide” in the South African prisons. They have been held under the so-calied security laws, which allow for incommunicado detention without charges for an indefinite period. The most absurd explanations have been given for those deaths. The police talk of hangings, slipping on a piece of soap or on a staircase, jumping out of a window and so on. The Minister responsible for the police, Mr. Kruger, has given his explanation : the prisoners committed suicide on instructions from the Communist Party. The Catholic bishops of South Africa have protested against the widespread torture in the prisons, which is inflicted on children as well as old people. The authorities answer by preparing new laws against so-called terrorism-laws which in other countries would be applied only in times of war. 70. Such, then, is apartheid: a weird dictatorship of the minority for social and economic expioitation. But it also has a unique feature, Apartheid is the only tyranny branding a person right from birth according to the colour of his skin, From the very moment of conception the child’s destiny is determined. A Swedish author has called that system “spiritual genocide”. 71. Apartheid systematically dissolves family ties. It legalizes a cruel displacement of populations. The whole black labour force is turned into migrant workers in their own country. A growing majority of both sexes is forbidden by law <to live with their families outside the workless bantustans. Normal family life is increasingly a rarity. The children are, in the words of Colin Legum, becoming a 2 Apartheid and Mental Health Care, document MNHl77.5, Geneva, 1977. 72. Outside South AfTica we may feel that there is time to go step by step in the struggle against apaHheid. But time is running out for the children of South Africa. The white minority should consider that those children are the People with whom they will have to negotiate one day; and those are the children whom we look forward to welcoming hi our midst as representatives of their people. 73. Mr. Ian Smith has said that Rhodesia and South Africa arc agreed that they are both fighting to preserve the Western democracy that the white man brought to Africa. They are both hoping for external aid to fight for the interests of the so-called Free world. For us in Europe, with our colonial past, it is necessary to be crystal clear. We will never accept Smith’s and Vorster’s perversion of Western democracy. Their oppression ‘and racism will never be included in a free world. They represent the very opposite XX democracy. They are denying the peoples of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa the most fundamental human and political rights-the same rights that the European labour movement was denied and that formed the basis for the original programmes of our liberation movements. Therefore the workers of Europe are historically linked in solidarity with their oppressed brothers and sisters in Africa. 74. The resistance of the racist r6gimes raises the question of whether changes can be brought about only by violence or revolution, or whether there is still a peaceful way of eradicating the affront to human dignity known as colonialism, racism and apartheid, But it is easy to foresee that when people in search of peace and progress are met only by oppression and exploitation they will ultimately resort to violence. The armed struggle becomes the last possible resort. Now in Namibia and Zimbabwe continued armed struggle seems unavoidable. How much armed pressure from the nationalists is necessary depends on how much unarmed pressure the Western Powers apply in the form of sanctions and the like, as President Julius Nyerere so well put it. 75. It is quite possible that, earlier, white South Africa could have believed that the policy of apartheid would succeed, if only it could buy a little more time and show a little more flexibility in some areas. But the architects of (zl’artheid have built their plans on a quicksand. Minority rule is coming to an end and southern Africa is rapidly moving towards an uncertain climax. As the climax approaches and the struggle deepens, the risks of unnecessary violellce and economic disruption increase, as well as the risk of the wrong kind of foreign intervention. As I have said before, the wrong kind of foreign intervention is the colltinued introduction of major-Power rivalries in the region, The right kind of foreign intervention is that which will support the liberation struggle and reduce the resistallce of the forces which still cling to the idea of maintaining white supremacy. 77. The liberation of the Africans will be their own work, and that liberation will inevitably come some day. But the international community can contribute to shortening the struggle and making it more peaceful, with less human suffering. It goes without saying that the United Nations, with the Security Council, has a very particular and central responsibility. I sincerely hope that the United Nations, through the deliberations in the Council, will make a decisive contribution towards a just development in South Africa and towards the liberation of the whole of southern Africa. 78. However, the actions taken by the United Nations, or the lack of such actions, cannot serve as an alibi for passivity on the national level. Each country and Govern. ment, each popular movement, has its own responsibility and its own role to play, Allow me then, in reply to the Council’s kind invitation, to mention some of the areas where such action could be taken. 79. First, we must work for a halt to all arms exports to South Africa and all military co-operation with its Government. The apparatus of oppression is strengthened by each new weapons delivery or licence. The military co-operation gives the country the means to start its own manufacture of arms in most important areas of weapon technology, maybe also in the ultimate of weapons. Can one really condemn the policy of apartheid at the United Nations, while at the same time sending arms to those who arc practising it? Let me also point out that the Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, Ambassador Harriman, recently referred to substantial foreign involvement-direct or indirect-with regard to the supply to South Africa of rifles, helicopters, tear-gas and ammunition used in the Soweto massacres. No African country or combination of African countries could really be a military threat to South Africa. Yet South Africa has continued to be armed from abroad. What is the logic behind such a policy? South Africa’s continued refusal to heed the demands of the international community yields no alternative to a mandatory arms embargo. 80. Secondly, we must deal seriously with the question of investment and export of capital to South Africa and Namibia. I shall elaborate on this vital point in a moment. X2. Fourthly, our refusal to recognize $he so-called independent bantustansthe Transkei being the first oneshould be followed up by opposition to the efforts of international companies to give unofficial recognition to those areas by massive investments. 83. Fifthly, we should increase our efforts to bring an end to the illegal occupation of Namibia, refute sham arrangements and support SWAPO, without whose participation no realistic policy can be shaped. Namibia should have immediate independcncc and majority rule. 84. Sixthly, parliaments could set up parliamentary committees to investigate the activities of those companies which have subsidiaries in South Africa for the purpose of making sure that such companies are run along the lines of internationally acknowledged working practices. Where these are not adhered to, the company in question should cease its activities entirely. 85. For a long time, the South African Government has been encouraging foreign investments in its country. Behind this policy there lies not just a desire to increase the economic resources of the country. Equally important is the fact that foreign investments create ties with a number of rich industrial nations which acquire an economic and political interest in the preservation of the apartheid system. The foreign companies benefit both from the country’s high technical standards and from the extremely low wages of the black labour force. The return on invested capital is high, In addition, the investments help the country’s flow of trade, which in turn makes South Africa’s trading partners more sensitive to disturbances in the South African economy. Riots in South Africa have repercussions on employtnent in other countries. 86. Since Angola and Mozambique have become independent, South Africa’s isolation has increased. The country has no friends on the African continent other than the Smith regime at Salisbury. In that position, South Africa has intensified its efforts to attract West European, American and Japanese capital. According to information from various sources, the Vorster Government is carrying on a broad international campaign to induce foreign capital to participate on favourable terms in the exploitation of natural resources, preferably in the Transkei and in Namibia. 88. In November 1976, at the Scandinavian Labour Congress-an association of all the Social Democratic parties and all trade union organizations in Scandinavia-a resolution was adopted calling for a ban on new investments in South Africa and the adoption of a nationaI plan oi‘ action in accordance with the recommendations of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). And at a conference on apartheid, ICFTU adopted recommendations which, among other things, call for a ban on all new investments in South Africa, including the replacement of machinery, repairs and maintenance. Those proposals reflect a growing awareness among the trade unions of the treatment of black workers in South Africa-arrests, dismissals, job reservations, bans on trade union activities and SO on. The trade unions want to show their solidarity with their harassed and persecuted friends. And they realize that unjust and unfair labour policies in South Africa will in the long run also harm labour relations in the investors’ home countries. 89. The Social Democratic Government in Sweden has, for several Years, discouraged Swedish businesses from investing in South Africa. Last August, we proposed a sharpening of the attitude against Swedish investments in South Africa. At the same time, on a Scandinavian basis, the Government took the initiative for common action at the international level. That policy has been continued. 90. In this context, I should like to refer to a resolution adopted two days ago by the Foreign Ministers of the five Nordic countries at a meeting at Reykjavik. In that resolution, they state that they would welcome a decision in the Security Council on a mandatory arms embargo as well as decisions with a view to preventing further investments. 91. Next week, the Swedish Parliament will debate a motion presented by the Social Democratic Party which asks for an immediate change in Sweden’s currency legislation in order to prohibit the export of capital to South Africa and Namibia. 93. The reason for this increased pressure for unilateral action is not difficult to discern. We all feel that a dramatic change has taken place in the political situation in South Africa since the riots at Soweto last summer. The risk of racial war has become greater, The question of limiting or ending foreign economic interests in South Africa thus becomes not merely a political question about what could conceivably be done to put effective pressure on the South African Government; it becomes a moral question for each Government: whether our companies-in our countriesshpuld be allowed to take part in the exploitation of the black labour force. According to South African laws, the foreign companies have to apply the rules of apartheid at their places of work. They are thus forced to place themselves on the side of the oppressors in the battle which is now about to enter a new and more serious stage. In my opinion, the situation in South Africa has progressed to such a point that each country has to consider unilateral prohibitive measures. 94. It has been argued that a ban on investments in South Africa would hurt the mother companies in the Western world and would lead to unemployment for the workers there. But in this case, it is important to note that the workers themselves have made their choice through their International Confederation. They have told their Governments that they support a ban on investments in South Africa and are prepared to accept the consequences. Now the Governments and the companies must take their responsibility. It is time to decide on which side we stand and which forces we want to support. 9.5. A ban on investments in South Africa can be really efficient only if it is part of an international action that has the support of those industrialized countries that have the largest economic interests in South African business and industry. It can be really efficient only if it has the whole-hearted support of the world community, Therefore the Security Council must take the lead in such actions. This underlines the great importance of the Council’s deliberations and its decisions. It is of primary importance now to get a process started in common action. 96. Permit me to conclude with one last reflection. The international debate has taken on a new dimension of moral commitment and involvement in the human and political rights of people. This reflects a concern for basic values, a concern for the fate of people, their plight and their suffering, but also their hopes and dreams of a better future. It represents an element of vitality and humanity that is badly needed today. 97. There can hardly be another case where moral commitment is more eminently justified than in the case of South Africa-first, because apartheid is a unique and in

The next speaker is Mr. Mfanafuthi Johnstone Makatini, to whom the Council extended an invitation at its 1988th meeting, as requested of it in the letter contained in document S/12299. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make a statement. 99. Mr. MAKATINI: Mr. President, allow me to associate myself and our Organization, the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, with the views expressed by previous speakers regarding your dedication to the cause of freedom, justice and world peace. We congratulate you most heartily on your assumption of the presidency of the Council. We are confident that, under your leadership, the Council will not fail to help to advance the cause of the oppressed peoples of Africa. 100. The situation in South Africa now presents a major crisis, not just for the people of South Africa and the African continent but for the whole world community. The question before us today has in one form or another been on the United Nations agenda for the past 30 years. Numerous resolutions have been adopted, both in the General Assembly and in the Security Council, in an effort to facilitate the downfall of the South African racist r&me. That r&me has been repeatedly condemned for its barbarous and indefensible policy of apartheid. It has been condemned many times as a threat to international peace and security. Yet the United Nations has still to take effective action against apartheid. The flow of noble words and resolutions continues unceasingly, but nothing results from it. No real action has been taken. Indeed, as time passes and the crisis in South Africa grows more serious, we are asked even more insistently by some to accept rhetoric as a substitute for action. 101. Mr. President, four days ago you condemned apartheid as an affront to mankind. You are not the first one to have done so. A number of leading statesmen have in the past used equally strong language to condemn apartheid. We recall, for example, the speech by Sir Alec Douglasilome at Manchester on 24 April 1964, in which he equated the problem of racism with the danger posed by the atomic bomb. Many others, including men like Dean Rusk, have had strong things to say against the South African rkgime. We have welcomed those pronouncements in the past, as we do yours now, as a prelude to the implementation of resolutions democratically adopted by the United Nations. 102. It has been clear for many years that the South African crisis could eventually become a world crisis. 103. Today we see the results of this temporizing. South Africa has gained invaluable time, which it has used to build its economic and military strength. Far from abandoning apartheid it has shown itself absolutely determined to preserve the status quo. South Africa, faced with a greatly intensified struggle on the part of the South African people, has today become a volatile and dangerous force on the African continent. Its enormous power has become a standing threat to every independent State south of the equator. 104. It is against that background that we must ask whether the United Nations can afford to wait any longer to take effective action against apartheid 105. There was a time when it seemed that the international community would take the kind of action demanded by the Charter. I recall how, in the early 196Os, each session of the General Assembly and each series of Security Council m’eetings would raise the expectations of our people to lofty heights. They were happy witnesses to the progressive and apparently irreversible collapse of alien rule in Africa. They watched one African nation after the other take its rightful place among the community of nations, And they were convinced that South Africa’s liberation was also on the agenda and that they would, thanks to their own efforts and to international solidarity, soon be free from bondage. 106. There were several other factors that suggested that their hopes would be fulfilled, The unprecedented destruction of human lives and property which had been experienced during the Second World War was still fresh in our minds. The world’s horror at what had happened seemed an assurance that all nations, irrespective of their political or ideological affiliations, would make common cause and help to crush the cancerous evil which was rearing its head in South Africa. There was a nearly unanimous view that apartheid was not only repugnant and indefensible but also a crime against humanity. The massacre at Sharpeville had profoundly affected the conscience of the world. People saw in it a sign of things to come and were appalled. Thus South Africa, which had once enjoyed a certain respectability as a founding Member of the United Nations, became increasingly isolated in the international community. 107. The stage seemed to be set for measures which, together with the efforts of the South African people, 108. Pressure was increasing at the time for United Nations action against the racist rCgime. Resolutions were adopted in the General Assembly in the aftermath of Sharpeville, calling for the severance of all diplomatic, economic, military and cultural ti.es with South Africa. We saw such resolutions as an important beginning, as an indication that the international community would play an active role in helping to isolate South Africa. We thought that the United Nations would lend its active support to our struggle and thus hasten the downfall of the apartheid riginie. 109. The Security Council seemed poised on a number of OCCMiOllS to take action. In 1964, it constituted an Expert Committee to study the feasibility of mounting various kinds of sanctions against South Africa [resolution 191 (I964)/. The report of the Expert Committees indicated clearly that South Africa was vulnerable to United Nations action and that it could be seriously hurt, for instance, by certain kinds of economic sanctions. The Council never acted on the report. 110. There have been many similar cases in which the United Nations has begun to take specific steps to put pressure on South Africa and then withdrawn from further pursuit of the matter. Paradoxically, as the crisis in southern Africa has become more serious, as the liberation movement has demonstrated that it could pose a real threat to the power of the minority regimes, less and less has been heard about translating United Nations resolutions into action. As the situation has become more and more unusual, the doctrine of business as usual has taken command. It is hard to escape the impression that the successes of the liberation struggle have been seen less as part of a process of ending injustice and oppression than as a “threat” to the interests of certain Powers, and particularly the interests of the major Western Powers. 111, It must be said clearly that, in our view, this is now the core of the problem. South Africa’s actions over the last 10 years have demonstrated clearly that the racist rulers of our country are determined to try to maintain the system of exploitation and oppression which now lies so heavily upon the shoulders of our people. Far from being made “more humane”, apartheid has beeu given a new and more horrible form, combining the primitive laws and customs of 112. This new and more arrogant posture on the part of the apartheid r&me has been made possible by the growing support which it is receiving from other countries, support which is partly invisible but absolutely critical for the present regime. These countries, under the guise of business as usual, have in fact been helping to finance and arm a Power which is moving away from any possibility of reason or reform. It is clear that they are doing so because they believe that, by arming and protecting South Africa, they are also protecting their own interests in the southern African region. Thus South Africa has been made a surrogate colonial Power in Africa. It is expected to perform the function of local gendarme. There is no need to demonstrate the short-sightedness of such policies. It is obvious enough that such calculations fail to take into account the dynamics of the liberation struggle. They assume what cannot be assumed, that the apartheid system can survive. In the long run the people of South Africa will wrest their freedom and independence from the country’s racist rulers and make their own future. 113. The important point for the Council is that South Africa could not survive as it does today without the support which the Vorster Government receives from other countries. This points the way to effective action by the United Nations, for, if that crucial foreign support for apartheid were to be withdrawn, the present r&me would have no option but to begin the disniantling of apartheid. It would have no power to resist the efforts of the South African people to free themselves. That is the true and only way to peaceful change. 114. It is a sad comment on our deliberations here that we are being asked, even at this late date, to believe otherwise. For indeed we are being asked to wait yet again for our freedom. Not because the props which hold up the apartheid rigime are to be torn away, but because some believe that “with time” they can persuade those who now rule South Africa to change their very nature, to abandon the system which has for so long been the basis of their unprecedented power and privilege. Is this really a credible proposition? Can today’s rulers of South Africa, who shoot down children in the streets and claim that detainees are under orders to commit suicide, really be expected to abandon their whole way of life willingly, or even for a few hundred million Euro’dollars’? 115. Apartheid is a system of power, a particular form of economic and social organization originating from settler colonialism. It is based upon and institutionalizes the most extreme kinds of inequality in every sphere. Such a system cannot be made into its opposite. It cannot be turned into a democracy, and it cannot assure economic justice which must mean, at the very least, a decent and reasonably equal chance in life for every citizen. Apartheid means perpetual 117. The African National Congress was founded in 1912 in the wake of a heroic resistance waged by our forebears against colonial conquest. In the same manner as our fellow Africans in other African countries which are free and independent today, we in South Africa are resolved never to accept perpetual bondage. After 325 years of white supremacist policies, we are resolved to strive for self-determination in our fatherland. We recognize, however, that the whites in South Africa, having severed cultural ties with their respective mother countries, now consider South Africa their home. And indeed it is their home. The principle of the equality of peoples is therefore a cornerstone of ANC policy, as it is of the Charter of the United Nations. We believe that the principle of self-determination must have equal validity for all. 118. Our fundamental objectives were set out in the Freedom Charters which was adopted by the Congress of the People in 1955. That document was embraced not only by ANC but also by its allies, the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured Peoples’ Organization, the Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions. It faithfully reflects the spirit and idealism of the Charter of the United Nations. The preamble of that document states: “That our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality; “That our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; “That only a democratic State, based on the will of ill the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief; “And therefore, we the people of South Africa, black and white together-equal, countrymen and brothersadopt this Freedom Charter. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing nothing of our strength and courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won .” I.& me further indicate the principles OJI which the Freedom Charter was based: “The people shall govern”- “All national groups shall have equal rights”-“The people shall share in the country’s wealth”-“The land shall be shared among those who work it”-“All shall be equal before the law”-“All shall enjoy equal human rights”- “There shall be work and security”-“The doors of learning and of culture shall be opened”-“There shall be houses, security and comfort”-“There shall be peace and friendship”. 119. Those are the principles for which we stand, the principles which we strive to make a reality in our country. It should be abundantly clear that there is no way in which those principles could, be applied in an apartheid system. There is a fundamental incompatibility between the Freedom Charter and the system of exploitation and oppression so painstakingly pieced together by the present rulers of South Africa. There is no way in which such a system, especially in the present circumstances, could be modified and made to accommodate the just demands of the South African people. No African parliament sitting on a foundation of transnational corporations could accommodate those demands. The principles of the Freedom Charter can only be realized in a free and independent South Africa, when the repugnant system of racism has been entirely dismantled. 120. It is clear, therefore, why the decision of the African National Congress and of the people of South Africa to wage an armed struggle for the overthrow of the apartheid rt5gime is irreversible. The songs of “peaceful change” are simply the means by which some seek to beguile us and to sow confusion in the international community. We shall continue our struggle because the South African regime has left us no alternative. We should, of course, have preferred to see change come by peaceful means. Our record, crowned by the Nobel Peace Prize award to our late President, Albert Luthuli, is eloquent proof of that. 122. As they enter the decisive phase of the struggle, at a time when the independence of Mozambique and Angola has changed the balance of forces to the detriment of the Vorster rigime, our people are confident of victory. The role of the international community is actively to support this struggle and facilitate the elimination of the threat to peace and international security which the apartheid r8gime constitutes. It is for that reason that ANC hails the resolution adopted by the General Assembly at its thirtyfirst session [resolution 31/6 Z/, which declares the Pretoria rCgime illegitimate and reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle by the people of South Africa, by all possible means, for the seizure of power. We request the Council to endorse this position.

The next speaker is Mr. Abdul S. Minty, to whom the Council extended an invitation at its 1988th meeting, as requested of it in the letter contained in document S/12300. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement. 124. Mr. MINTY: I should like to thank the African Group and the three African members of the Security Council for having once again sponsored me to take part in the debate on South Africa. For me, as a South African and as one involved in the international campaign to end collaboration with apartheid, it is a special pleasure and honour to appear once again, for the third time, before the Council and provide it with information which may enable it to discharge its solemn responsibilities more effectively. 125. Mr. President, most of us who have known of your record of personal involvement in the struggle to combat racism were pleased to hear of your appointment as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, since it signifies the new importance placed by President Carter on the problem now under consideration by the Security Council. The fact that these meetings of the Council are presided over by you is also of special significance, and with these favourable portents it should not be too difficult for the Council to reach Jneaningful decisions which will result in the strict implementation of the international arms embargo and the cessation of all future loans to and investments in South Africa. In saying this, I do not underestimate the difficulties involved, but I am mindful of the ever threatening situation in southern Africa, which could so easily erupt into a major racial conflagration with menacing implications of a wider global confrontation. The responsibility of the international community to avert such a catastrophe has never been greater than it is today. 126. The international arms embargo against South Africa has been considered to be the only effective action taken so far by the United Nations to counteract apartheid. It is essentially a voluntary embargo relying on the goodwill and national discretion of Member States. Even a cursory 128. The international arms embargo is being evaded in a number of ways. Let me explain. Prior to the United Nations embargo decisions, the United Kingdom was South Africa’s major arms supplier and close ally. Since then, successive Governments have observed the embargo in different ways, and it would be true to say that, in the main, the United Kingdom does not supply any combat equipment directly to the Pretoria rCgitne today. The United Kingdom claims to implement the arms embargo; yet the way in which it interprets and appliesit leaves gaping loopholes which permit the apartheid armed forces to ob:ain a wide range of British equipment. 129. The following are examples of this. First, the Export of Goods (Control) Order 1970 prohibits the export of certain specified strategic items to other countries listed in a schedule, but those items may be exported without licence to any “port or destination in the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland, the Republic of South Africa or the United States of America”, It is remarkable that South Africa should be accorded a special favoured-nation status, which is denied to most Western European countries, including members of the European Economic Community and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Thus, a wide range of equipment may be and is supplied to the South African armed forces by British companies without a licence being required, In one example last year, we drew the attention of the Foreign Secretary to this gap, an action which resulted in a licence being required for the Marconi tropospheric scatter system. However, subsequently, despite the control exercised by the Government, that licence was granted and Marconi is now installing such equipment in South Africa. We are requesting that the British Government take away this favoured-nation status from South Africa. 130. Secondly, even in the case of goods which do require a licence, it is not clear which items are considered to be of military significance and covered by the embargo. For example, the tropospheric scatter system which I mentioned, ordered by the South African Armaments Board, was granted a licence last October, and Her Majesty’s Government claims that this does not violate British undertakings in relation to the arms embargo. There is a whole problem here of ascertaining what those undertakings amount to, since it appears that they limit the scope of the existing embargo. 132. Fourthly, an indirect method of providing South Africa with military equipment is to send it via another country. A recent example was the export of British rocket motors transported by Martin Baker Limited to France and then exported to South Africa. 133. Fifthly, British-designed equipment is made under licence in a third country and then exported to South Africa. The most flagrant example in this area involves Rolls Royce engines made under sublicence in Italy and then either fitted to Italian aircraft sold to South Africa or exported to South Africa to power Italian-designed Aermacchi planes which are made in South Africa. 134. Sixthly, there is the whole question of Britishdesigned equipment made in South Africa under licence, which also assists in building up the internal armamemts industry in South Africa. 135. Seventhly, British companies have established subsidiaries and invested in South African companies in order to make weapons there which might otherwise be prohibited for export by the embargo. Such equipment made in South Africa is supplied to the illegal Smith r6gime to increase its suppression of the people of Zimbabwe and to carry out attacks on neighbouring countries. For example, Racal “Transcriver” equipment made by a British subsidiary in South Africa, was captured by the Mozambique authorities following one of the attacks by Rhodesian forces against that country. All the relevant information was provided by us to the British Government, since it also involved a breach of sanctions against Rhodesia, and I have now been assured by Mr. Ted Rowlands of the Foreign Office that sanctions have in fact been broken in this case, that the equipment is of a type designed, developed and manufactured only in South Africa by Racal but that Racal there claims that it would not be a party to the supply of such equipment to Rhodesia. We find it difficult to believe that Rhodesia could receive such equipment except from South Africa. 136. I have spoken at length about the United Itingdom, but that is not because we feel that it is the major culprit, since the United Kingdom in fact is not now the principal supplier of arms to South Africa. That role has been taken over by France. But what is true of the United Kingdom in these cases and in the categories which I have mentioned is also equally true of the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany-all three countries claiming to observe the arms embargo. Those countries also supply a wide range of non-combat equipment under the general policy of not interfering with trade in industrial or commercial items even when such items are purchased directly by the South African military. 137. German firms have helped to construct the Advokaatnaval communications system based near Simonstown, but this is considered not to be a violation of the embargo, 138. In the case of the United States, a wide range of radar and other communications equipment as well as aircraft described as civilian are sold to South Africa. The United States claims to implement the arms embargo and declares that no aircraft are supplied to the South African armed forces. How has it come about then, we wonder, that South Africa has received Merlin aircraft for its air force? The South African Air Force has received twin-engined Swearingen Merlin 4As from the United States. The August 1976 issue of the South African aviation journal Wings reported that the aircraft were acquired by 21 Squadron a year ago, but that Commandant Robert Blake, South African Air Force public relations officer, said it was decided not to publicize the addition until the order was completed. One of the Merlins is equipped as an ambulance aircraft and the others are secret. The exact number of Merlins supplied directly to the South African Air Force is not even known. Here is a case of equipment which directly violates the United States interpretation of its own embargo. 142. The United Kingdom, the United Stales and Germany claim to adhere to the embargo, but as a result of the narrow way in which they interpret and implement that embargo there are major loopholes that need to be closed. France and Italy openly violate the embargo. Canada, which once supplied arms to South Africa, now operates perhaps the strictest embargo, having decided in 1970 to stop all sales of spare parts as well. But, in the absence of a mandatory embargo, there are other countries, such as Israel, which are embarking on arms sales to South Africa. So far, Israel has contracted to supply fast naval patrol boats equipped with Gabrielle missiles, some of which are now to be made in South Africa, and it is likely that there will be further equipment delivered to the Pretoria regime. 143. The need for a mandatory arms embargo thus becomes clear. But the Security Council should ensure that such an embargo will be comprehensive and cover all forms of military collaboration, There is no ban at present on the exchange of visits between South African defence officials and those of several Western countries. In 1974, a certain Mr. van Zyl, a senior South African defence official, secretly visited defence eslablishments and arms firms in France, the Netherlands, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom. Following representations made by us in the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Defence stated that he had discussed procedures for placing research contracts and methods and procedures. South Africa needs to obtain considerable information on counter-insurgency techniques and operations, including surveillance techniques, and visits such as those enable them to acquire it with ease. That must be stopped. 139. The two countries which are now the most blatant in their violation of the embargo are France and Italy, France has replaced Britain as South Africa’s major arms supplier and there is virtually nothing needed by the apartheid regime which is prohibited by France. Sophisticated helicopters and other aircraft, including AIouettes and Mirage F-l planes are sold to South Africa, and many are now.being made in that country. An examination of South Africa’s military hardware bears dramatic testimony to France’s role in strengthening the apartheid forces. Indeed, military collaboration between those countries is so intimate and close that South Africa funded the initial development of the Crotale missile system made in France which is now being passed off by France to other countries as if it were a wholly French product. Despite repeated appeals, France remains adamant and continues to increase its military collaboration with South Africa. 144. In June 1975, when I appeared before the Council [1829th meetil7g], we provided evidence which proved beyond doubt that the NATO Codification System for Spares and Equipment had been provided to South Africa. Since then, I have taken the matter up with all members of NATO, as well as with its Headquarters at Brussels. Last May, when the NATO Ministerial Council met at Oslo, we called upon NATO to withdraw the Codification System from South Africa and to cease providing it with classified or unclassified information. Several friendly countries, including Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Canada, responded favourably, but some of the other members of that alliance maintain that this is an open system and that they see no reason for withholding it from South Africa. Among those countries which provide information about that codification system to South Africa are the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany. In May of this year, the NATO Ministerial Council is due to meet in London just prior to the Commonwealth Conference in June, and we shall repeat our appeal to the NATO Ministers. We hope that the United Nations will be able to assist us so that the stand already taken by some of the 140. Italy is the other major violator of the arms embargo. It has supplied the Aermacchi MB326Ms and provided a licence for over 200 of them to be made in South Africa under the name Impala I. The more modern Aermacchi 326K has also been sold to South Africa, and a version of it is now being made in South Africa under the name Impala II. AM3Cs have also been sold to, and more are to be made locally in South Africa under the name Bostock. The Aermacchi-Lockheed AL60C.5, a United Statesdesigned light plane produced in Italy, is being made in South Africa under the name Kudu. Those are all aircraft particularly suited to counter-insurgency operations. The Italian Government denies at the United Nations and elsewhere that it sells aircraft to South Africa or sublicenses them for manufacture in that country. 1~ a meeting I had at the Foreign Ministry last October, those denials were once again repeated to me. How is it possible, we wonder, that hundreds of aircraft of Italian origin should have been delivered to and should be in the hands of the South 146. It has been claimed by the Western permanent members of the Council in the past that the situation in southern Africa does not amount to a threat to peace. 1 would submit that since those Powers concluded in 1960, immediately after Sharpeville, that the situation at that time did constitute a disturbance of the peace, we have now, after 16 years, come to a stage where all the objective evidence points to more than adequate grounds for determining that there is a threat to peace undei Chapter VII of the Charter. 147. First, apartheid, a doctrine which insults the dignity and worth of dark-skinned people all over the world, is an affront to mankind as a whole, and in itself constitutes a grave threat to a world in which there are peoples of many colours. 148. Secondly, the persistent repression of the oppressed people in South Africa has created an explosive situation to which Mr. Palme referred earlier and which is likely to lead to a major conflagration in that area. 149. Thirdly, South Africa’s rapid arms buildup and its threatening military posture towards neighbouring African countries reveal its true aggressive ambitions. 150. Fourthly, South Africa has militarized Namibia, created military bases in that international Territory and refuses to end its illegal occupation. That amounts to a threat to the peace as well as an act of aggression against that Territory and the world community. And while we at the United Nations are talking about the Turnhalle agreements, the South African Government has just announced that it is going to introduce legislation to take over Walvis Ray and make it an integral part of the Cape Province. 151. Fifthly, South Africa sabotages United Nations mandatory sanctions against Rhodesia and provides it with military assistance, thereby perpetuating Rhodesia’s threat to the peace. Indeed, it was the United Kingdom which brought the Rhodesian issue to the Security Council and asked that it be declared a threat to the peace, If South Africa does not comply with the sanctions against Rhode- 153. Sevent]dy, its defence laws now permit its armed forces to operate freely in all territories south of the equator. 154. Despite a11 this, some Powers refuse to accept that SoLlth Africa is a threat to world peace, and ollc \~ondcr~ what else South Africa has to do before that determination is conceded. 1.55, Most of the major Western Powers claim that they do not sLIpport the African liberation slruggle in southern Africa because of their commitment to peaceful Change iI southern Africa. Those countries are entitled to that view and illdeed bear the consequcnccs of SLIC~I a policy. I3ut what in my view is impossible to KCC[Jt is a peaceful change thesis which involves supplying military weapons and technology to one side of that confrontation in southern Africa, namely the racist n~mThcid side. Those Western countries should not wait for mandatory arms embargo decisions in order to cease their military collaboration with apartheid. Indeed, the United States, in 1963, infonncd the Council that it had already decided to implement an arms embargo before such a decision was adopted by the Council. Yet it is those Western Powers which use their veto power in the Council to facilitate military collaboration with South Africa. 156. Now with the rapid transfer of nuclear technology and equipment to South Africa by several Western countries, it has been confirmed by Prime Minister Vorster as well as by overseas sources that South Africa has a nuclear capability, and if South Africa dots not already have atomic weapons it can produce them very quickly. Wit11 its modern aircraft it has the means of delivery. We have, therefore, the prospect of an apartheid bomb in the hands of a deSper& r&gime. Yet it is claimed that there is no threat to peace. 157. There is widespread international concern at the growing threat posed by South Africa, and that is why tens of thousands of British citizens have signed a petition calling for a mandatory arms embargo. We handed this petition to the new Foreign Secretary on Monday of this week when the Council began this debate. Incidentally, the Council may be pleased to hear that Mr. Owen gave us the assurance that some of the loopholes to which I have referred under the Export of Goods (Control) Order would be looked at afresh with a view to ensuring that they would be closed. We hope indeed that this kind ol action will be supported by other Western Governments as well. 158. In our view, a mandatory arms embargo is long overdue. The growing war situation in southern Africa requires even more decisive action if we are to avoid a catastrophe described by Vorster as being too ghastly to contemplate. He should know what he is planning. It is therefore vital that the Security Council impose mandatory who also argue that increased investment in apartheid will somehow bring about our freedom. We reject that contention. 159. It is time for the Western permanent members of the Security Council to decide which side they are on, Last year in March, the Prime Minister of Norway warned the Western world that, with regard to southern Africa, it had too often been identified with the wrong side and that it was time for it to change sides. At the opening of the NATO Ministerial Council meeting at Oslo, he gave the same warning and stated that there should be no doubt as to where the alliance members stood in the battle between the white minorities and the overwhelming black majorities in southern Africa. Yet this is a lead which is not yet being followed by most of the Western Powers. If the Western countries are on the side of freedom, they can agree to a number of initial steps to be adopted by the Council immediately. 160. The first would be to enforce a strict arms embargo and vote in favour of its being made mandatory by the Security Council; the second, to ban all future loans to and investments in South Africa. If those two minimal measures are supported, then one can at least hope that there will be further action on the part of the Council to take decisive measures against South Africa. But the key question is whether the political will exists to confront apartheid. This debate and the decisions taken here will give an indication to the world of the degree of change that we can expect from We’stern policy. South Africa is immensely encouraged when vetoes are used in the Council to protect it from international action. 161. Mention has already been made of the fact that today the problems of race and colour present perhaps the greatest single threat to world peace and security. The policy of the new Administration in Washington gives US considerable grounds for hope and we trust that it will be able, under your leadership, Mr. President, to give a decisive lead to other Western Powers. We are indeed at a turning point in the affairs of southern Africa in so far as the United Nations is concerned. If no firm action in the form of the minimal steps that we have indicated is taken at this moment, then South Africa will go on feeling encouraged and interpreting opposition to mandatory action in this chamber to mean support for its policies in that region. The South African apartheid policies are bound to lead to disaster. But the greater danger is that that conflagration will extend to other territories in the region and will bring forward the prospect of a global racial confrontation. If that occurs, it will create a catastrophe of a kind from which it will take the world much longer to recover than it

I shall now call on those representatives who have asked to be allowed to speak in exercise of their right of reply.

I listened very carefully to what Mr. Minty had to say, as indeed 1 always do. He made a number of allegations about violations of the arms embargo which my Government enforces and imposes against South Africa. I think all of them hav’e been made before. He discussed them with ministers in the Foreign Office last year. Indeed he admitted towards the end of his statement that he had discussed them with no less than the Foreign Secretary on Monday of this week and that assurances had been given to him that matters would be looked into and looked into urgently. How, therefore, it helps to come along to the Security Council and spend half an hour impugning the integrity of my country is frankly beyond me. 16.5. Nor indeed do I see how it helps to introduce such matters of a purely domestic concern as political asylum. If ever there was something which was remote from the consideration of the Security Council, looking around this table as I sit here, it would seem to me to be the various policies that individual countries pursue with respect to political asylum in their own nations. 166. Many of the allegations that were made were indeed recently made in documents of the Special Committee against Apartheid. I do not propose to go into detail now. Last Monday I sent Ambassador Harriman, the Chairman of the Special Committee, a letter in which 1 commented on certain allegations against the British Government and against British companies. I am perfectly ready at any time to clarify those or any other points which Mr. Harriman might care to raise with me. If Mr. Minty has not had the opportunity of reading that letter, I shall naturally be very pleased to supply him with a copy so that he can see it. 167. My Government’s policy, I think, is well known. It was outlined in a statement in the House of Commons by the present Prime Minister, Mr. Callaghan, then Foreign Secretary, on 4 December 1974. The statement was circulated as a General Assembly document.6 The British Government is totally committed to implementing its undertakings in respect of the United Nations arms embargo. I reject and indeed personally somewhat resent the implication that somehow or other we are cheating on it. If I may say so, we have implemented that embargo at some cost to, 6 See A/9918.

With regard to the arms sales to South Africa mentioned today by various speakers, I should like merely to recall my country’s policy in this respect as explained before the General AssembIy at its last session.7 The French Minister for Foreign Affairs has already pointed out that France has placed a ban on any further contracts or sales of arms to South Africa. 1 have nothing to add to that statement and I shall not reply to Mr. Minty, the last of the 7 Officinl Records of the General AssenCdy, Thirty-first Session, Pknary Meetings, 9th meeting. Litho in United Nations, New York Price: $U.S. 2.00 (or equivalent Ln other currencies) 77-700014anuary 1978-2,200

I am .encouraged by the statement of my colleague from the United Kingdom, in which he confirmed that the British Foreign Secretary had given assurance to Mr. Minty that matters regarding the arms embargo would be looked into. I shall study the statement of my friend Mr. Minty and I may be in a position to comment on it and the remarks made on it at a later stage.

I am glad the representative of Mauritius is encouraged that assurances have been given. I am slightly surprised that Mr. Minty did not take the trouble to inform him.

I wish to assure 11ly colleague from the United Kingdom that Mr. Minty did have an opportunity to advise me of the assurances. The meeting rose at 1.25 p.m.