S/PV.2225 Security Council

As this is the first meeting of the Security Council in the month of June, I should like, on behalf of the Council, to express to Mr. IdC Oumarou, representative of the Niger, appreciation of his services as President of the Council for the month of May. I should like to pay a tribute to him for the diplomatic skill, tact and courtesy with which he guided our work last month. Adoption of the agenda The agenda was adopted. 5. The first speaker is the representative of Mozam- The question of South Africa: Letter dated 29 May 1980 from the Charg6 d’affafres a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Morocco to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Sizcurity Council (S/13969)

Mr. President, on behalf of the Group of African States, I should like to congratulate you on your assumption of the presidency of the Council for the ‘month of June. My Group is quite sure that under your wise leadership and with the good will and honest contribution of your colleagues, the Council will be able to respond decisively - and. without ambiguity to the explosive situation in South Africa.

I should like to inform the members of the Council that I have received letters froni the representatives of Mozambique and Nigeria in which they request tobe invited to participate in the discussion of the item on the agenda. In accordance with the usual practice, I propose, with the consent of the Council, to invite those representatives to participate in the discussion without the right to vote, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Charter and rule 37 of the provisional rules of procedure. At the invitation of the President, Mr. Clark (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, took a place at the Council table, and Mr. Loho (Mozambique) took the place reserved for him at the side of the Council chamber.

I should like to inform members of the Council that I have received a letter dated 4 June 1980 from the representatives of the Niger, Tunisia and Zambia [S/13981], which reads as foilows: “We have the honour to request that the Security Council extend invitations under rule 39 of its provisional rules of procedure to Mr. Johnstone Makatini, representative of the African National Congress of South Africa and to Mr. Henry Isaacs, representative of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, to participate in the Council’s consideration of the item entitled ‘The question of South Africa’.” If I hear no objection, I shall take it that the Council agrees to grant this request. It was so decided.

The Security Council is meeting today in response to a letter dated 29 May 1980 from the Chargi d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Morocco addressed to the President of the Security Council [S/13969]. bique, who wishes to make a statement in his capacity as’ Chairman for the month of June of the Group of African States at the United Nations. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement. 8. The African Group requested the calling of an emergency meeting of the Council because there is an alarming and explosive situation developing in a part of our continent-specifically, in South Africa. The cause of this situation, which since the beginning of this year has been progressively deteriorating, is we!! known to you, Mr. President, to each and every one of your colleagues and especially to us Africans. It is a thorn in our side, with which we have been forced to live for the last three decades, namely, apartheid, the policy of the racist minority in South Africa. It is true that it seems as if everybody knows what is going on in South Africa, but from the way the wind has been blowing, recently nobody can tell what kind of storm is brewing or what its magnitude will be. The presentiment we have is that something very explosive will result from the prevailing situation in South Africa if appropriate steps are not taken in time, and that time is now. To speak of the explosive situation that prevails today in South Africa is to speak of the misery, indiscriminate arrests, human degradation, humiliation, oppression and repression imposed daily upon the people of South Africa by the inhumane policies of upartheid. 9. After their numerous attempts to bring about change through peaceful means and after being confronted by such violence and brutality, the people of South Africa are left with no other choice than that which has been forced upon them. They are being forced to resort to other means of attaining their legitimate rights as human beings, which will enable them completely to destroy the deplorable policies of apartheid. 10. The recent boycotts of classes by students demanding an end to discrimination in schools are not isolated acts, as were the peaceful demonstrations that took place in Sharpeviile in 1960, in Soweto in 1976 and in other instances throughout South Africa’s history. Although a!! those protests were peaceful ones, they were a!! met by the racist police with firearms<onfrontations that inevitably resulted in the murder of scores of defenceless civilians and the assassination of young schoolchildren. ii. The long struggle of the people of South Africa for dignity and human respect deserves the admiration of us a!! and demands our concrete and consistent support, so that the degrading system of apartheid may be eliminated once and for a!!. 12. As the Council knows only too we!!, Africa totally supports the struggle of the people of South Africa for their human dignity. Africa’s stand on the question 13. At the present moment, the situation in Africa is such that now, more decisively than ever before, the South African people have risen up against the minority and racist regime of South Africa because they have become aware of the fact that the present conditions in South Africa are more favourable than ever to their cause. The victory of the people of Zimbabwe extended the liberated zone in southern Africa into the corridors of apartheid and came to reinforce the correlation of forces in favour of liberty, peace, justice and democracy. 14. At this stage, on behalf of the African Group, I wish to salute the independence of Zimbabwe, a victory for a!! Africa and for a!! peace-loving peopies of the world. When the people of Zimbabwe and others in the region achieved their glorious victory and historic independence, the people of Africa in genera! and of southern Africa in particular became another example of courage to reactivate the struggle against any type of oppression. The independence of Zimbabwe added fuel to the fire already burning strongly within the struggles for freedom and dignity waged by others in southern Africa, namely, the Namibian and South African peoples. IS. We fee! that the South African Government should have !eamt a lesson from what has happened in Zimbabwe and should look at Zimbabwe’s independence as another piece of evidence in the case which proves that it has never been possible to stop the people from achieving their legitimate place in society as human beings. 16. The policies of apartheid and of territorial fragmentation through the bantustanization of South African territory constitute a gigantic assault on the most elementary rights, the liberty and the human dignity of the people of South Africa. 17. Everybody in the world agrees that apartheid is a crime against humanity, so Africa would like to see the illegal minority racist regime of South Africa strongly condemned for its criminal policies and actions. The international community can secure the elimination of apartheid by giving full support to the national liberation movement of South Africa, the authentic representative of the South African people, in its just struggle for freedom. 18. The international community can secure the elimination of tension in Africa by discouraging any 19. Recently, we have had many examples of the fact that the South African rt?gime has not only been leading a massive and hostile campaign against the neighbouring countries but also systematically violating their airspace and territory in a deliberate effort to provoke an armed confrontation with its defence forces. 20. Africa has never indiscriminately incited armed struggle in any decolonization process. It has been the very history of each individual colonial Power that has caused the people to revolt. In this case, it is South Africa itself which is causing the publicized unrest and uprisings within the country. 21. The international community can prevent the situation in South Africa from exploding by persuading the racists to face the. realities of the continent. South Africa should be made to accept that what is happening is the result of its own policy--apartheid. South Africa should not be allowed to export its internal conflicts to the neighbouring countries. 22. In view of the deplorable situation in South Africa,. we think that it is time for appropriate measures to be taken by the Security Council to end all the sufferings of the South African people. We consider the present situation intolerable. The repression and terror must cease. The massive and indiscriminate detentions must end, and all the political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, must be freed. 23. For all diehard racist minority cliques in South Africa, the entire continent of Africa has a short and infallible message: whether or not they agree, change will come in their lifetime as it did to Ian Smith. 24. To conclude: we think that it is the duty of the Council to follow closely the evolution of events in South Africa.

I call now on the representative of Nigeria, whowill be speaking also as the Chairman of the Special Committee against Apanheid.

May I offer you, Mr. President, my warmest congratulations on your assumption of the high ofice of President of the Security Council. I also sincerely want to thank you and the other members of the Council for giving me this opportunity to participate in the present debate on the pitiful situation in South Africa. Having just returned from your idyllic country with its beautiful, heroic people and sensitive understanding of the tremendous tragedy that is unfolding in South Africa, I think it of capital importance that this meeting should be taking place under your able leadership. Given your own personal qualities of statesmanship and unwavering commitment to the principles of liberty, justice and democracy, so characteristic of your 27. After the landmark student uprising in Soweto in June 1976, the racist regime in South Africa established an official Commission of Inquiry, under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Cillie, Chief Judge of the Transvaal, to investigate its causes and circumstances. Both the evidence before it and the Commission’s own conclusions revealed that the underlying discontent of the 19 million Africans in South Africa ran very deep and that the source of their problems were the upartheid policies, laws and practices of the Government of South Africa. 28. Earlier on after the Rivonia trial in 1964, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, A. M. Ramsey, said: “The men were guilty of sabotage and other offences against the law as it exists, but their actions were the outcome of conscience, and wherever in the world there is respect for conscience and hatred of the policy ofuparrhid there will be understanding of Mr. Mandela’s words that he acted from ‘a calm and sober assessment of the situation after many years of oppression and tyranny of my people by the Whites’. If he is guilty before the existing law, the guilt before heaven belongs to the policy which the law is designed to enforce. The ideal and practice of apartheid is a denial of God’s law of the relation of man to man as, irrespective of colour, created in the image of God.“’ 29. The painful part of the South African tragedy is that the signals and signs of its impending doom have always been known to the Government of that country. But its responses have always been equally crude, heavy-handed, negative and unimaginative. After the Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960, when the South African police cold-bloodedly killed 69 Africans and wounded some 186 others engaged in a peaceful demonstration against the pass laws, the Government quickly proceeded to ban all democratic forms of protest by the African population; all meetings of Africans were prohibited. The national liberation movement, comprising the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), was banned. A state of national emergency was declared. More than 11,000 people, including leaders of ANC and PAC, were detained, banished or imprisoned. Then followed a succession of iniquitous security laws. The General Laws Amendment Act of 1961 literally stripped the African population, which makes up 75 per cent of the Republic’s population, of their individual rights and liberties. The Terrorism Act of 1967, providing for the indefinite detention of prisoners, completed the picture of the Draconian regulations which legitimized political violence in South Africa. 31. In South Africa, Africans are not allowed to protest against any ill treatment suffered at the hands of the Government; they are expected only to die in silence. But the African schoolchildren have refused to die in silence. In the past six weeks, African schoolchildren aged 7 to 18 have abandoned classes in open protest against their racially segregated and inferior education, which denies them free and progressive schooling fit for full-fledged citizens and which equips them only to serve their white compatriots. They are being attacked by the South African police and army with automatic weapons. Many of those children have been killed; others have been maimed. But those children are resisting, fighting back with stones and often with bare hands against the South African armed forces, which are equipped with the most sophisticated arms and weapons that Western technology can devise. 32. I hope and, indeed, expect that the Security Council will speak out and condemn in clear, specific .terms the current brutalities being committed against schoolchildren by the South African authorities. Otherwise, people of conscience everywhere are bound to ask how international and; indeed, human relations have become so brutalized that no Govemment or even the Council now really cares about children being murdered or maimed as part of.official policy. Why was the murder of African children by the former Emperor Bokassa so repugnant and universally condemned, but not the murder of African children by the whites in South Africa? Must the Security Council continue to remain silent while children are defending with their bare hands in the streets of Bloemfontein, Cape Town and Durban the universal truths of freedom, justice, liberty and human dignity against a pitiless war machine) fitted with nuclear weapons, rockets and other of the most modem weapons? I repeat that more than 600 African schoolchildren were killed in 1976 during a similar protest. How many more do we want to die in South 33. Yesterday we heard of the well co-ordinated attacks two days ago on three major South African oil installations by supporters of ANC. That incident cannot but be a most serious setback for the Govemment of South Africa, since. it had earlier placed all major installations, including oil-storage depots, dams, power stations, and so on, under wartime security conditions. It should undermine that Government’s overbearing confidence in itself. But the Council should be more interested in the message which the incident has for the future of the white minority rule and regime of oppression in South Africa. 34. The entire edifice of apartheid is tottering. It is crumb!ing not only from the uprising of the schoolchildren. The political consciousness of the average black South African is rising. He is revolting against a system under which the white 16 per cent of the population wields all the powers of the State, enjoys all the wealth of the country and vows never to give equality orjustice to its 21 million compatriots who are regarded as black Africans. The average black South African is questioning why he should be content to lead his life of semi-imprisonment in work hostels, away from his wife and family, a constant victim of the pass laws which circumscribe his entire life. In 1979, according to official South African statistics, some 120,000 Africans were arrested under the pass laws. In other words, some I2 Africans just have to be arrested evem hour of the. day because those. laws regulate their very movement to or from work or play, and every condition of their domicile. 35. The response to Percy Qoboza’s appeal for the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners has been overwhelming. it is not an appeal based onhumanitarian considerations alone., although it is. true that-many of the political prisoners have been in Robben Island for over 16 years. But the appeal has won tremendous support from all thinking men in South Africa across racial lines because political change just has to come. A new society hasto be born in South Africa. There cannot be liberation without a liberation movement and liberation movements need their leaders. The ANC and PAC movements may be banned in South Africa, but. their truth and all they represent are marching on inside South Africa. I want to call upon the Council to support energetically the campaign to free Mandela and the other political prisoners. Through him and other men bie him, South Africa may be saved before it is too late. 36. The mood in South Africa is dangerous. The pass laws are being tightened. The Africans are finding political protests murderous. Young white South 37. In 1976, Hector Peterson, a 13-year-old African schoolboy was the first martyr of Soweto. I fear that a second Soweto is in the making. Already, Bernard Fortuin, a 14-year-old “Coloured” boy, whose relatives may be sitting in the inner recesses of the Pretoria Government or in the Broederbond-because, ironically, he is descended directly from the Boershas become the martyr of the new student revolt of May 1980. The youth in South Africa have lost their fear of the police’s batons or bullets. The Government has no sense of history. It has not kamed the lessons of the wars of national liberation of Algeria, of Angola, of Guinea-Bissau, of Kenya, of Mozambique and, recently, of Zimbabwe: that repression only hardens resistance and swells the ranks of freedom fighters; that there are no insurmountable barriers to the expansion of the frontiers of African emancipation; that there is an inevitability in the African peoples’ will to be free, a will now much stronger than the British Maxim guns at Fashoda. 38. Bishop Desmond Tutu, Secretary-General of the South African Council of Churches, was arrested along with 52 other black and white leading churchmen on 26 May 1980 because they were demonstrating peacefully in support of the schoolchildren of South Africa. He and his wife will appear for trial on 1 July, the twenty-fifth anniversary of their wedding. His passport was withdrawn by the South African authorities last Marchlecause he refused to withdraw a statement which he had made while on a visit to Denmark that importation of coal by Danish authorities was contributing to the survival of the system of apartheid in his country. We all know what the outcome of his appearance before a South African kangaroo court will be. But he is at peace with himself. As he said, “One has to arrive at a day when one decides whether to obey man or God.” 39. Prime Minister P. W. Botha of South Africa has threatened to use maximum force to smother the current ferment in South Africa. Naturally, he means the intensification of cruel repression against the schoolchildren, churchmen and other civic leaders 40. Apurthd cannot be reformed. It must be abolished. In the last five years or so, when the Western mass media, bamboozled by South Africa’s $21 million effort to win friends and influence people in the West, were reporting the prosperity of South Africa with the rise of gold prices, or the misleading statistics on improvement of black wages, the South African Government was passing on the burdens of an economic crisis to the blacks. Black unemployment has risen to an estimated 2 million in the townships. There has been no end to racial discrimination, nor any change in the philosophy ofapurzhd. The student revolt, therefore, coincides with trade-union struggles which are brutally repressed; with bus boycotts against rises in fares; with protests against rises in rents in African townships, and so on. 41. There is a maior difference between 1976 and 1980. The intervening period has seen a great advance in the activities of freedom fighters, mainly the children of Soweto. The national liberation movement, which has long been wedded to non-violence, has decided that the people cannot allow the tigime to kill with impunity. There have been many attacks on police stations and other targets, culminating in the attack on the SASOL oil-storage facilities on 2 June. The world ignored clear signals before the tragedies of Sharpeville and Soweto, and then adopted resolutions in the United Nations which proved toothless. The world cannot afford to ignore the clear warnings at this time, because the prospects are even more grim and more serious. 42. After Zimbabwe, South Africa was confronted with an urgent and inescapable choice: peaceful progress to majority rule and reconciliation, or tragic conflict. Western leaders have often recognized the danger of a catastrophe in South Africa and in southern Africa, but have hesitated to take effective action to avert it. In 1977, it may be recalled, President Jimmy Carter of the United States warned at the United Nations that a gathering racial storm threatened southern Africa. He pledged that the United States would work to help attain majority rule in the region by peaceful means. 43. The situation in South Africa now presents a challenge crying out for a solution. The United Nations has repeatedly proclaimed the way to a peaceful solution. It may be recalled that as early as December 1963 the Security Council requested the Secretary- Genera1 to establish a group of experts “to examine methods of resolvinrz the oresent situation in South Africa through fulL peaceful and orderly application of human rights and fundamental freedoms to all inhabitants of the territory as a whole, regardless of race, colour or creed” [resolurim 182 (1963)]. 44. It is quite clear that a peaceful solution can be attained only by effective international action. But the Western Powers have constantly resisted such action. The only concrete measure adopted by the Security Council was a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa i-r 1977. But it is alarming to find that countries firmly committed to the embargo have not adopted effective legislative and other measures-thereby facilitating gun-running by corporations and individuals in their respective countries. 45. The members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other major oilproducing countries-notably Mexico and, of course, Mr. President, your own great country, Norwayhave all decided on an oil embargo against South Africa. But tankers--even from countries voting for General Assembly resolutions on an oil embargo-are clandestinely supplying oil to South Africa. South Africa has been enabled to acquire nuclear capability. One wonders whether there is a gigantic conspiracy to shore up the Pretoria regime for a war against Africa. 46. The Council must express revulsion at the killing of children in South Africa and call on world public opinion to exert its influence. But that hardly meets the responsibilities of the Council under the Charter. 47. The Council must demand the immediate release of Nelson Mandela and all political prisoners; it must call for an end to all repression; it must call for the full participation of the genuine leaders of the oppressed people in determining the future of South Africa, and the establishment of a democratic govemment based on majority rule; it must call on all States to exert all their influence towards that end; it must call on all States to implement strictly the arms embargo against South Africa, and to stop all nuclear collaboration with that regime. 48. The Council must ask the Committee established under resolution 421(1977) to make proposals urgently for the reinforcement and effective monitoring of the arms embargo, including the banning of all arms exports from South Africa, the ending of all licences for the manufacture of arms in South Africa, the prohibition of all sales of equipment to the South African military and police and the prohibition of the export of all dual-purpose equipment, such as radar, to South Africa. Thus companies like Plessey of the United Kingdom, the Space Research Corporation of 49. The Council must also realize that an oil embargo is the inverse side of the coin of arms embargo. Consequently, it should impose an oil embargo against South Africa. In the meantime, it must take adequate measures to stop illegal transport of oil from OPEC countries to South Africa to fuel the military and police vehicles which are used for the murder of children and aggression against neighbouring States. In anticipation of the Council’s decision. Nigeria will confiscate any ship, tanker or aircraft within its territorial waters or airspace found to be violating the OPEC oil embargo against South Africa. The crews of such ships, tankers or aircraft will be penalized mercilessly by the Nigerian authorities when caught. 50. Lastly, the Council must take action in response to repeated urgings of the General Assembly for an end to new investments in and trade with South Africa. 51. Time is running out. For those who live on profits and dividends from. their investments in: the cheap African labour and abundant natural. resources of South Africa, time for the immediate abolition of the apartheid system may not be a critical factor. But their investments and capital will be among the first casualties of the liberation war, the beginnings of which we are now witnessing. Those Governments which count on South African contributions to their war plans and strategic considerations may fail to see that they have already lost any war in which only South Africa is their ally in the continent of Africa. 52. Perhaps this is the point at which to recall that Mr. Hendrik Verwoerd, who was a major intellectual architect of the apartheid doctrine of South Africa, had his post-graduate education in Hitler’s Germany. Vorster and Botha were his proteges. FromHitler they learned how God himself anointed the whites of South Africa as a master race. From Goebbels they learned the technique of making the obscene appear credible. 53. South Africa continues to occupy Namibia in flagrant defiance of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. Yet, in its negotiations-with the Secretary-General and the five Western countries, the South African Government professes that it has a sacred duty to protect the Namibian peopleagainst the. South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) and the rest of mankind. The South African Government proceeds to export apartheid to Namibia and calls it homeland administration. South Africa lures Western countries into purchasing uranium from Namibia and terms this illegal transaction a contribution to Western security. South Africa arrests SWAP0 freedom fighters in the name of saving South Africa from communism.. 55. It must be recalled that the Sharpeville uprising took place in 1960. Although it was a spontaneous uprising against the pass laws, its organic links with the attainment of independence by some 20 African countries in that year cannot be easily dismissed. Then came Soweto in 1976. Again, it was soon after the defeat of Portuguese colonialism in Angola and Mozambique. Now comes the independence of Zimbabwe. Its impact on the internal situation in South Africa has been direct, immediate and predictable. I hope that the Council will justify the trust we all repose in it for the maintenance of international peace and security by pointing a new direction for change and majority rule in South Africa, for the Council’s credibility is at stake.

The next speaker is Mr. Henry Isaacs, to whom the Council has extended an invitation under rule 39 of its provisional rules of procedure. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement. 57. Mr. ISAACS: Mr. President, on behalf of the Pan Africanist Congress, I wish to register our con- .gratulations to you on your assumption of the high office of President of the Security Council. We also wish to express our gratitude for this invitation to participate in the deliberations which focus upon the present situation in South Africa. 58. The accession to power of a popularly elected Government in Zimbabwe after the electoral success of the Zimbabwe African National Union, under the leadership of Robert Mugabe, has knocked away a further pillar of white supremacy in southern Africa, leaving South Africa as the last bastion of white minority domination in Africa. Commenting on the independence of Zimbabwe one magazine observed: “The process which started in the 1960s with Britain’s wholesale withdrawal from its African co!onies and accelerated in the 1970s with the collapse of Portugal’s African empire was at last complete. South Africa’s 4.5 million whites now stand alone as the last bastion of white supremacy on an otherwise black continent.” 60. It has long been recognized that in South Africa internal, regional and international factors are interwoven. In 1960, for example, the black majority responded to the Positive Action Campaign launched by PAC and in March thousands of blacks offered themselves up for arrest at police stations in various parts of the country for having defied the iniquitous pass laws, under which all Africans above the age of 16 years have to carry on their persons at all times a document known as a “pass”. Failure to produce such a “pass” on demand results in immediate arrest. Racist police responded to this non-violent protest by killing 69 African men, women and children and wounding 186. 61. The Sharpeville massacre had profound and farreaching consequences for the South African regime. First, the white establishment suffered an acute “crisis of confidence”. The pass laws were temporarily suspended, a white businessman, David Pratt, made an attempt on the life of the then Prime Minister, Mr. Verwoerd; Paul Sauer, who acted as Prime Minister for the wounded Verwoerd, adopted a conciliatory attitude in a public address when he suggested that an old order had passed away. Secondly, in so far as blacks were concerned, the brutal reaction of the South African police demonstrated the futility of non-violence as a strategy for political and social change. Thereafter, PAC embarked upon a course of armed struggle as the principal form of struggle for the seizure of political power. Thirdly, South Africa came under sustained criticism and condemnation at the United Nations and other international forums. One commentator writes: “In some ways, the Sharpeville massacre seemed to have more profound effects beyond the country’s borders than in South Africa itself. Already the target of European and American liberal criticism and of the Afro-Asian bloc, on account of its policy of apartheid, the South African Government now found itself even more unpopular. Following Sharpeville, there were repercussions on the stock exchanges of the world, and for a time overseas investments in South Africa practically ceased.** 63. While there was panic among foreign investors, as a result of which there was a massive withdrawal of capital-in 1960 alone some f48 million left the country-and a temporary cessation of investments which brought the South African economy to the brink of collapse, after the repressive measures adopted by the racist regime to crush the black resistance, there was a new and certainly greater confidence in the “stability” of the apartheid regime and a rush by foreign economic interests to invest in apartheid. A consortium of United States banks, led by Citibank, Chase Manhattan and others, demonstrated their confidence in apartheid by making available to the Pretoria regime massive loans at very low interest rates. “ . . . in the wake of the rebellion sparked off by the black youth of Soweto in June 1976, the level and intensity of conflict forming the basis of South African society has grown eitormously . The nature of that conflict, and its very quantitative size, sug gests that it is structural in type. By this I mean that it is not a temporary aberration, or something incidental to the fabric of society. Rather, conflict forms a very part of the structure of society in South Africa. As the ruling cIass attempts to maintain and reproduce that society, so the conflict itself is maintained and reproduced. In other words, only a thorough restructuring of all aspects of South African society-and that includes the economy, the ruling political. structures and practices, ideology and culture-can remove the root causes of the conflict, which is taking on the proportions of lowintensity civil war.” 65. The same interplay between internal, regional and international factors was again discernible in June 1976, when South African police fired upon crowds of unarmed blacks who were protesting against a decision by Pretoria that certain subjects should be taught in the medium of the Afrikaans language, which is regarded by blacks as the language of oppression. The new mood of defiance amongst blacks that was so evident during the Soweto uprising had been partially inspired by the successes of the brotherly peoples of Mozambique and Angola, which had gained their freedom after successful armed struggles against Portuguese colonialism. The Soweto massacre again had the effect of provoking an intense debate within the white establishment about apartheid and the most effective means of maintaining white supremacy. Again, the Soweto shootings provoked 64. It-is largely as a result of the economic support that the regime receives from the Western countries in the form of loans and investments in the private and public sectors of the South African economy that the regime has been able not only to pursue its policies of repression against the Azanian people so ruthlessly but also to defy international opinion and the resolutions of the United Nations with impunity. Economic investment in apurtheid has necessitated diplomatic and political protection of the Pretoria regime whenever the demand has been made for the imposition of mandatory economic sanctions. 66. Since the Soweto uprising of June 1976, there has been a rising tide of black resistance in Azania, evidenced in part by the increase in the number of political trials. The political trials have been the subject of a study by Glenn Moss, who, in his booklet, Sourh Ajirirun Politicui Trials: 1976-1979, states: “the years since 1976 have seen a new spate of political trials which have placed more inmates in South Africa’s political prisons than any comparable period since the notorious trials of the early 1960s”. 67. The evidence provided by the trials fully justifies Moss’s own conclusions that conflict pervades South African society as the ruling class attempts to maintain its cohesion and that only a thorough restructuring of all aspects of the society can remove the root causes of a conflict which is taking on the proportions of a low-intensity civil war. To quote Moss directly: The truth of Moss’s conclusion can be seen in the present conflict in South Africa, where again black students have been in the forefront. of resistance to upurtheid and have been able to sustain their resistance for a surprisingly long time, considering the repressive conditions prevailing in that country. 68. Black resistance to apartheid colonialism tias intensified during the past month despite the efforts of the.Pretoriaregime to crush.@pposition to its racial policies through the use of Draconian legislation to imprison and detain black leaders and activists. During the past 10 days therehas been an escalation of the strike by black students protesting against-the inferior system of education provided for blacks by the regime. There has also been a strike by black 69. The student strikes began in April of this year with a boycott of classes by so-called coloured students in the western Cape who were protesting against the inferior system of education for blacks. Although the requirement that certain subjects be taught in the medium of the Afrikaans language had been rescinded after the Soweto revolt of 16 June 1976, the disparity between Government expenditure on black education and that on white education and the disparity between salaries for black teachers and those for white teachers remains, as does the serious overcrowding in black schools. The Coloured students were joined by socalled African and Indian students as well as by white students at several English-language universities. Within a few days, the strikes spread to other parts of the country and soon engulfed the Transvaal, the Kwa Zulu bantustan, the Orange Free State and the eastern Cape. In Port Elizabeth, in the eastern Cape, on 14 May 1980, one man was stoned to death by the protesting students after a group of nine armed men attempted to persuade them to return to classes. On 21 May, police fired on crowds of black protesters in the townships of Batho and Manguang surrounding Bloemfontein, the South African capital in the heart of “Afrikanerdom”. One man was killed and two women were injured during the police shooting. On 24 May, police violently dispersed a crowd of approximately 3,000 black students who had staged a sit-in at two supermarkets in Cape Town. 70. The media have deliberately played down the extent and intensity of the latest wave of black resistance in Azania. The impression is continually conveyed that the strikes have been petering out, and that this has been due to the conciliatory attitude of the Prime Minister, P. W. Botha. The available evidence, however, suggests that the unrest has been escalating. 71. The students’ strikes have been compounded by workers’ strikes in the western Cape and Natal. Black workers in the meat industry in the western Cape have been on strike since 21 May, following the dismissal of 800 workers who had staged a strike in solidarity with other black workers. Fifteen hundred workers in the textile industry have been on strike since 22 May, demanding higher wages. Both strikes have the potential to develop into national strikes because of the organization of workers into trade unions in the two industries. 72. On 26 May, South African police arrested 53 persons, 20 of them clergymen, including the Anglican Archbishop of Johannesburg, the Reverend Tim Bavin, and the Assistant Archbishop, the Reverend Bishop Desmond Tutu. The clergymen were protesting 73. The reaction of the Botha regime has been characterized by a systematic campaign of repression, comprising banning, banishment and detention without trial. Hundreds of students and community leaders have been detained over the past few weeks. Among those who have been detained are the following: Mr. Curtis Nkondo, former President of the Azanian People’s Organization, who was subsequently served with a five-year banning order upon his release; Mr. Achmet Kassiem, a teacher and former Robben Island political prisoner, who has been living under restriction in the Cape; Mr. Trevor Wentzel, a member of the Azanian People’s Organization; Mr. Michael Sedgwick, a member of the Churches’ Urban Planning Commission; Ms. Edna van Harte, a researcher with the Institute ,for Social Development at the black University of the Western Cape; Professor G. J. Gerwel, Professor of Afrikaans at the black University of the Western Cape; Mr. Neville Alexander, a former Robben Island prisoner, at present with the South African Committee for Higher Education; Mrs. Theresa Solomon, wife of Marcus Solomon, a former Robben Island prisoner; Johnny Issel, a former SAS0 leader, and community organizer in the Western Cape; Rommel Roberts, a community leader in the western Cape. Hundreds of students have also been detained in various parts of the country. 74. What is very clear is that the Government is not prepared to heed the warnings of credible and popularly elected black leaders like Bishop Desmond Tutu and Mr. Nthato Motlana, who have been expressing concern about the tension within the black ghettoes and warning of the dangers of a repetition of the violence which rocked the country in 1976 and 1977. 75. In conclusion, PAC wishes to concur in the demands upon the Security Council that have been made by Ambassador Clark of Nigeria: specifically, first, that the Security Council should demand the unconditional release of all political prisoners in Azania, and, secondly, that the Council should seriously consider the imposition of mandatory economic sanctions against the white racist regime. In this respect, we wish to refute the arguments that have been advanced by those who maintain that it is essential for economic contact to be maintained with Pretoria because that is one of the best ways of influencing that regime. The fallacy of that argument can be seen in the fact that between the years 1960 and 1970, which were the years of unprecedented economic growth, there was a corresponding increase in repression, so that something like 94 new laws were passed during that period, including the socalled Terrorism Act and various other laws that 76. In conclusion, we wish to state very clearly that we fully recognize that the task of liberation is one which has to be borne by the oppressed people themselves; it is a task which we have never shirked, nor will we shirk it in the future. But in the circumstances the international community has a duty to support the just struggles of the people of Azania, Litho in United Nations, New York 00306 83-61462-September 19862,050 The meeting rose at 5.10 p.m. NOTE