Call for Concerted International Action Against Apartheid South Africa

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Alternative title Notes and Documents - United Nations Centre Against ApartheidNo. 17/85 Author/Creator United Nations Centre against Apartheid Publisher United Nations, New York Date 1985-12-00 Resource type Reports Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1985 Source Northwestern University Libraries Description Statements by H.E. Mr. Joseph Garba (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid: The seminal role of the United Nations in promoting international action against apartheid, The case for the cultural boycott of South Africa, Divest from apartheid South Africa now. Statement by H.E. Mr. James Victor Gbeho (Ghana), Chairman of the Sub-Committee on the Implementation of United Nations Resolutions and Collaboration with South Africa of the Special Committee against Apartheid: Doing business with apartheid is immoral as well as unprofitable. Format extent 14 page(s) (length/size)

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http://www.aluka.org UNITED NATIONS

UNITED NATIONS CENTRE AGAINST APARTHEID NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* 17/85 December 1985 CALL FOR CONCERTED INTERNATIONAL ACTION AGAINST APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA Lotes This issue contains extracts from policy statements made at major conferences and meetings by H.E. Mr. Joseph N. Garba (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, and H.E. Mr. James Victor Gbeho (Ghana), Chairman of the Sub-Committee on the Implementation of United Nations General Assembly Resolutions and Collaboration with South Africa of the Special Committee against Apartheid.j7 *All material in these Notes and Documents may be freely reprinted. Acknowledgement, together with a copy of the publication containing the reprint, would be appreciated. United Nations, New York 10017 86-06858

CONTENTS Page I. Statements by H.E. Mr. Joseph Garba (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid The seminal role of the United Nations in promoting international action against apartheid ...... 1 The case for the cultural boycott of South Africa ...... 5 Divest from apartheid South Africa now ...... 7 II. Statement by H.E. Mr. James Victor Gbeho (Ghana), Chairman of the Sub-Committee on the Implementation of United Nations Resolutions and Collaboration with South Africa of the Special Committee against Apartheid Doing business with apartheid is immoral as well as unprofitable ...... 8

-1- I. Statementsby H.E. Mr. Joseph Garba (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid THE SEMINAL ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS IN PROMOTING INTERNATIONAL ACTION AGAINST APARTHEID Statement by H.E. Mr. Joseph Garba (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid at the opening of the debate on agenda item 35, "Policies of apartheid of the Government of South Africa," United Nations General Assembly, fortieth session, United Nations Headquarters, 28 October 1985 Extracts The Special Committee's recommendations on the future course of action are contained in its annual report, which will shortly be presented to the Assembly by the Rapporteur. I shall therefore not go into the matter in detail. The centerpiece of these recommendations, as in years past, is the imposition of sanctions - comprehensive and mandatory under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter - and, meanwhile, every sort of action by Governments, governmental and non- governmental organizations, private groups and even individual sportsmen, artists, performers and so forth, to isolate the racist r6gime, to bring home to it in the most concrete way possible the world's revulsion and outrage at its actions and policies, to make the cost of maintaining apartheid unbearable and to tell the apartheid r6gime that time is indeed running out. The Special Committee has recommended such action year after year, for many years now, and the General Assembly has adopted numerous resolutions endorsing those recommendations. It is well to recall that the United Nations did not decide on this course of action capriciously or out of vindictiveness. The call for sanctions must be seen against the early United Nations attempts at mediation and conciliation. In the early years, the United Nations recommended a round- table conference on South Africa, called for the holding of a national convention of genuine representatives of all the people in South Africa, and appealed to - indeed implored - the r~gime to reverse its policies. The apartheid regime rejected or ignored all those -efforts and, on the contrary, as I have just said, went about more ruthlessly and at greater speed entrenching a system for the despoliation and exploitation of the black population. I spoke a moment ago of the failure of the United Nations to do anything in the face of South Africa's defiance of its decisions and resolutions, and South Africa's challenge to the very ideals and concepts on which the Organization is founded. But let us put matters in perspective: the failure is not a failure of the United Nations as an organization, or of the great majority of its Member States. If the United Nations has not been able to act more decisively, it is because it has been prevented from doing so by a small group of countries - the very countries that have the principal responsibility

-2 - or the peace and security of the world and that are usually the most vocal in criticizing the Organization's alleged ineffectiveness and double standards. On the other hand, if the veto of the Western Powers has prevented the United Nations itself from acting decisively, the United Nations has unquestionably played a key role in generating the great wave of anti-apartheid sentiment which is sweeping the world. General Assembly resolutions have established the international jurisprudence on apartheid, as it were. It is the General Assembly's resolutions, based on the recommendations of its Special Committee against Apartheid, which have inspired the multitude of actions against apartheid now being taken all over the world. In the last 12 months the Special Committee has held two seminal conferences. The North American Regional Conference, which was organized in June 1984, brought together all major non-governmental organizations in Canada and the United States. The proposals and ideas which the Conference generated have been followed by action by trade unions, municipalities, State legislatures and the Congress itself, and even by action by many business corporations, banks and financial institutions. The Ad Hoc Committee on the Drafting of an International Convention against Apartheid in Sports, has held a series of formal meetings and informal consultations in pursuance of the relevant provisions of General Assembly resolution 39/72 D of 13 December 1984. These meetings, conducted by Mr. Ernest Besley Maycock, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee, have resulted in agreement on the draft convention and finalization of the work of the Ad Hoc Committee by the submission of the draft convention to the fortieth session of the General Assembly for adoption. I commend the Ad Hoc Committee for a job well done and should like to seize this opportunity to appeal strongly to all Member States for the speedy signature, ratification, approval and acceptance of the convention, which will help to complete the isolation of apartheid in sports. The Special Committee has taken action also to mobilize the world of arts and culture in the struggle against apartheid. An exhibition of paintings by some of the foremost contemporary artists, sponsored by the Special Committee, opened in Paris a year ago, has been shown in all major European countries and will form the nucleus of a museum of apartheid in South Africa when that country is liberated. This year, as is well known, the popular singer Stevie Wonder came to this Assembly Hall on the invitation of the Special Committee and sang a message of solidarity to those engaged in the struggle against apartheid. The popular impact of Stevie Wonder's action was such that the South African r~gime put a ban on the playing of his music in that country. The Special Committee has sent missions to front-line States and other regions in pursuit of its objectives. It has arranged meetings and consultations with eminent leaders and statesmen to discuss action against apartheid. In the course of the past week, the Special Committee was honoured by the presence of Father Walther Lini, Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India and Mr. David Lange, Prime Minister of New Zealand, all of whom addressed the Special Committee. Foreign confidence in the apartheid economy has plummeted, as Bishop Tutu told us this morning. A number of nervous international banks which have long dealt with the apartheid r6gime have announced that they will not roll over short-term South African debts of more than $US 10 billion. The apartheid r~gime immediately defaulted by suspending repayment of debt principal until

-3- the end of the year. The South African currency, the rand, has fallen to its lowest level ever and is now worth barely one quarter of its 1980 United States equivalent. In short, over 16 months of determined resistance by South Africa's oppressed black majority has shattered Pretoria's smug confidence, so manifest only a year ago. International actions have played a prominent and important part in reversing the situation. I have already referred to the crucial and seminal role played by the United Nations in promoting those actions. In the past year, pressure for economic disengagement from South Africa has increased beyond anything we have seen before. In a number of Western countries the popular abhorrence of apartheid has been galvanized by developments inside South Africa. In the United States particularly a broad coalition of democratic groups has mounted an impressive and prolonged campaign for disengagement from apartheid that has brought the issue into sustained public discussion and stimulated significant disinvestment from companies dealing with South Africa. The vicious oppression and total intransigence of the apartheid r6gime in the past months have likewise galvanized action by a number of countries and international bodies. In recent months Australia, Japan, the European Economic Community (EEC), the United States, Canada and, most recently, the Commonwealth Heads of Government and the Nordic countries, have all announced either new or intensified actions against the Pretoria regime. Those actions vary widely in scope and in depth. Some were manifestly announced only to pre-empt more comprehensive measures already in progress through national legislatures and represent little more than tokenism. Others, and I again must single out the Nordic countries, propose far-reaching measures as part of working towards comprehensive, mandatory sanctions under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Allow me to commend those organizations and Governments which have announced disengagement actions. Allow me also to hope that such actions will start a ground swell. But important as unilateral action is, such steps do not go nearly far enough. I hope to return to this issue in my concluding remarks. This growing international action against apartheid, taken in the context of the r6gime's inability to control the popular revolt and the rapid deterioration of South Africa's standing in international economic circles, has generated something of a panic in the country's business community. Today a deep political crisis confronts the white community as a whole, and the r~gime's own political base in that community seems to have been seriously eroded. Perhaps it is worth reiterating what seem to be the minimum demands of black South Africans, what they mean by a dismantling of apartheid. To win any real support in the black community, such measures would have to include, at the very least, the following: abolition of the Group Areas Act; total abolition of the system of influx control and pass laws; an end to all forced removals; freedom for all political prisoners; an end to the system of racial classification in which every single South African is assigned by the State to one of four racial categories; abolition of the bantustans and Bantu educational system and, most importantly, one person, one vote in a united, democratic and non-racial society.

-4 - The present South African Government is totally incapable of even beginning to contemplate such changes. Much talk has been heard of reform, but the vague and superficial proposals thus far put forward, reluctantly and conditionally, are simply an additional insult to black South Africans. The racist r4gime's President has left no one in any doubt that he does not contemplate now, or at any future time, any fundamental change in the basic tenets of apartheid. No, as we have said often enough, apartheid cannot be reformed, it cannot be made more pleasant or less onerous. It should and must be dismantled and eliminated. Ending apartheid is a task for the people of South Africa, and one which they have already begun. Yet the international community can and should play a very important role in this process. The international community needs to act now. Much has been done by individual countries, and even though some have taken only symbolic or token measures, we applaud these actions. But unilateral action and symbolic condemnations of apartheid are no longer enough. The apartheid r~gime has ignored four decades of warnings and condemnation. As the sports boycott and other actions have decisively shown, it responds only to palpable pressure in areas which go to the heart of its interests. International action against apartheid must now be based on a clear and comprehensive strategy rather than piecemeal measures. Such action must be designed to be effective rather than symbolic. Fortunately there exists a range of peaceful measures which will achieve exactly this result. The report of the Special Committee contains a series of recommendations for such actions. At their heart is a programme of comprehensive, mandatory sanctions under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. The structure of the apartheid economy renders it unusually vulnerable to external pressure. South Africa imports an unusually high proportion of intermediate goods and almost all of the technology needed to run its industrial sector. Without foreign investment, foreign loans, foreign oil supplies, let alone foreign trade, it simply could not function. We are told that sanctions will drive the whites into the twentieth century equivalent of the laager from which the nineteenth century Boer colonists defeated African armies. Those Boers had to buy their guns from external producers. Their modern descendants now make their own guns but, without foreign machinery, oil, finance and technology, they simply could not do so. This body today confronts seemingly intractable problems in many areas of the world. South Africa is one of the few where all Members are unanimous in the assessment of the problem. In this anniversary year, let us translate this into unanimous action. Let us act now and act decisively in the very best traditions of the United Nations.

- 5- THE CASE FOR THE CULTURAL BOYCOTT OF SOUTH AFRICA Statement by H.E. Mr. Joseph N. Garba (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, at the meeting of the Special Committee in honour of Mr. Stevie Wonder, world-famous American singer, United Nations Headquarters, 13 May 1985 Extracts Of late a campaign appears to have been opened against the efforts of the United Nations and others to implement the cultural boycott of South Africa. It is said that the measures taken to this end introduce "politics" into the field of culture and sports, that they interfere with artistic freedom and integrity and even that they smack of McCarthyism. These assertions are so far from, indeed contrary to, the truth that I should like to take this occasion to explain clearly and plainly the background and purpose of the cultural boycott and the actions the Special Committee is taking in pursuit thereof. The cultural boycott goes back two decades In the first place I should recall that the cultural boycott in South Africa is not a new phenomenon but goes back nearly two decades. It was the natural reaction of the artistic community to the stringent regulations issued by the racist r~gime in 1968 with the aim of completely prohibiting multi-racial performances and audiences. The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution at the time requesting "all States and organizations to suspend cultural, educational, sports and other exchanges with the racist r~gime and with organizations and institutions in South Africa which practised apartheid." 1/ Trade unions of musicians and actors and other groups took action to persuade their members not to perform in South Africa. Many playwrights refused to allow the staging of their plays in South Africa. A number of Governments also took action. In 1974, the Government of Japan decided that no visas would be issued to South African nationals for the purpose of interchanges in the fields of sport, culture and education. Following the Soweto massacre in 1976, the Government of the Netherlands suspended and later abrogated its cultural agreement with South Africa. Many organizations of artistes and performers have voluntarily taken action to strengthen the cultural boycott of South Africa. In July 1982, a festival and symposium entitled "Culture and Resistance", were held in Botswana with the participation of many South African musicians, writers and artistes. It supported the cultural boycott of South Africa. Many individuals and organizations in this country have taken the same position. Among the most active and prominent individuals, I might mention the names of Harry Belafonte, Roberta Flack and Arthur Ashe, the National Black United Front, the African Jazz Artists Society and Studios, the Black Music Association, the American Committee on Africa. Phyllis Hyman put the whole matter in perspective when, in rejecting a tempting offer from South Africa,

-6 - she said- "I have a moral commitment that supersedes money". Many others have rejected similar financial temptations and among them I might mention Ben Vereen, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Diana Ross, Lena Horne, Millie Jackson, Bross Townsend, Betty Wright, as well as the Boston Ballet and the Newport Jazz Festival. The cultural register is not a blacklist In 1983, in pursuance of a decision of the General Assembly to strengthen the cultural boycott further, 2/ the Special Committee began to publish a register of entertainers, actors and others who have performed in apartheid South Africa. I want to make it absolutely clear that neither in form nor substance is this a blacklist. The purpose of a political blacklist is to penalize and pillory individuals for their views and opinions. The Special Committee's register 3/ is not concerned with the political opinions of the persons whose names figure on the register, nor does it suggest any punitive actions against them. It does not promote a McCarthy-style campaign of innuendo and guilt by association. It simply records the fact that an artiste or performer visited South Africa and, in so doing, put his or her gifts and talents at the service of the racist r~gime in contravention of a cultural boycott imposed by the United Nations. The register serves to inform these performers, who may have gone to South Africa unwittingly, of the existence of a cultural boycott. Performers who undertake not to return to apartheid South Africa can have their names deleted from register I should like to mention that a number of performers, having learnt of the boycott through the register, have written to us to affirm their abhorrence of apartheid and pledged not to return to South Africa as long as that system prevails. Among those who have done so recently I might mention the names of Tina Turner, Michael Love and other members of the Beach Boys and Kenny Rogers, The case of those performers who go to South Africa knowing that there is a cultural boycott and aware of what is going on in South Africa calls for some comment. I shall not speak to those who are unable to resist the lure of the large fees. We should let their own consciences speak to them. I should only say that the huge fees South Africa is offering these days are an indication of its anxiety to break the cultural boycott. I want to address those who feel that culture and politics should not be mixed or, that by performing before mixed audiences, artistes are somehow helping to undo apartheid. It is true that in recent years the South African authorities have begun to go back on the very stringent segregation of cultural events and audiences which was decreed in 1965. They have tried in particular to make a showcase of places like Sun City in the bantustan of Bophuthatswana. But such spurious desegration is an optical illusion, put on show in order to mislead and delude an increasingly impatient world opinion. I should like to recall the words of Eddie Amoo, a British pop singer who, on his return from South Africa in 1962 said: "Sun City is an Afrikaner's paradise in a blackman's nightmare."

Let us be clear in our minds that, if any changes have occurred in this sphere, it is only because the cultural isolation in which South Africa finds itself today has forced the r6gime to rethink its policies. DIVEST FROM APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA NOW Statement by H.E. Mr. Joseph N. Garba (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, issued on 17 April 1985 The Special Committee against Apartheid considers that the international campaign against the racist r4gime of South Africa during the past few months in Western Europe and North America, especially in the United States, has reached a significant stage. Anti-apartheid movements, parliaments, local legislators, trade unions, church groups and other religious institutions, political parties, students, academicians and individuals have been in the forefront exposing the evils of the apartheid system to the public. In the United States, this concerted action has led to divestment, legislative action, and other measures by States, cities and universities as well as by Congress. The Special Committee welcomes these steps, which can only further isolate the abhorrent apartheid r~gime and assist the oppressed people of South Africa in their legitimate struggle to eradicate the system of apartheid. The Special Committee wishes to reiterate its support and encouragement of the ongoing divestment campaign, especially in the United States of America. The Special Committee is of the view that this divestment campaign comes in support of the United Nations call for mandatory and comprehensive sanctions against South Africa under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations. Such sanctions are an essential condition for the eradication of apartheid by peaceful means. It may be recalled that the General Assembly has passed numerous resolutions, inter alia, recommending to the Security Council the adoption of measures to impose comprehensive and mandatory sanctions. The Assembly has also called on Member States, organizations and all concerned with the deteriorating situation in southern Africa, pending the imposition of comprehensive and mandatory sanctions by the Security Council, to take effective unilateral steps to put an end to trade with, investment in and loans to South Africa. The majority of Member States have abided by the resolutions of the General Assembly. However, certain Western States and transnational corporations have ignored these appeals and continued to increase their trade with apartheid South Africa and encourage investment there. They have thus become partners with the r~gime through their increasing collaboration. The Special Committee wishes to appeal to Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, anti-apartheid movements, church and other religious institutions to redouble their efforts to support comprehensive and

-8 - mandatory sanctions against South Africa under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter and promote the international campaign for the total isolation of apartheid South Africa through, inter alia, divestment, the boycott of trade with and cessation of loans, to South Africa. II. Statement by H.E. Mr. James Victor Gbeho (Ghana), Chairman of the Sub-Committee on the Implementation of United Nations Resolutions and Collaboration with South Africa of the Special Committee against Apartheid DOING BUSINESS WITH APARTHEID IS IMMORAL AS WELL AS UNPROFITABLE Statement by H.E. Mr. James Victor Gbeho (Ghana), Chairman of the Sub-Committee on the Implementation of United Nations Resolutions and Collaboration with South Africa of the Special Committee against Apartheid at the Public Hearings on the Activities of Transnational Corporations in South Africa and Namibia, United Nations Headquarters, 16-20 September 1985 Extracts For over 20 years and more we have heard that foreign investments in South Africa assist the black community and make a positive contribution to the ending of apartheid. It is argued that international action would be ineffective and impracticable. Some claim that in the event of sanctions imposed on South Africa by individual nations, the vacuum would be filled by other nations, adversely affecting workers in sanctioning countries. There are even a few who urge that foreign investments should in fact be increased and that economic development will help to bring the walls of apartheid down. Since the 1960s, the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council have adopted progressively stronger resolutions against apartheid, including calls for the boycott of South African goods; the termination of trade, loans investments and technical assistance to the South African Government, and the adoption of an oil embargo against South Africa. All these resolutions relate directly to relations between the transnational corporations and South Africa. In addition to its calls for an end to collaboration by transnational corporations with the South African r~gime, the General Assembly has repeatedly requested the Security Council to adopt comprehensive, mandatory sanctions against South Africa under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter to implement the mandatory arms embargo which was adopted by the Security Council in 1977. The first international conference on economic sanctions against South Africa was held in London in April of 1963. Then, as now, opponents of sanctions were putting forth the same arguments. The London Conference was followed by conferences in Oslo in 1973, in Maputo and Lagos in 1977 and

-9 - finally, in Paris in May of 1981. The last mentioned Conference adopted the Paris Declaration on Sanctions against South Africa which, inter alia, stressed that - sanctions under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, universally applied, were the most appropriate and effective means to ensure South Africa's compliance with the decisions of the United Nations. The message of the Conference was: "The choice is between an escalation of conflict or imposition of international sanctions." At the same time, the Paris Declaration called for an end to collaboration by transnational corporations with South Africa and a withdrawal of investments. Similar demands have been voiced by the majority of Member States of the United Nations. The position in this regard is that an estimated 1,068 transnational corporations have operations in South Africa. As of the end of 1983, their investment there was estimated at a total of about $US 17 billion. Together with other external liabilities, including portfolio equity investment and bank lending, foreign investors held nearly 10 per cent of South Africa's capital stock in 1983. A survey conducted by the South African Reserve Bank in 1980 found that 41 per cent of direct foreign investment in South Africa was in manufacturing, 31 per cent in finance, 17 per cent in trade, and 8 per cent in mining. Moreover, the manufacturing sector relied heavily on other external capital resources, such as borrowing from international capital markets and portfolio investments which totalled nearly 20 per cent of external liabilities, in addition to direct foreign investment. At the same time, financial institutions bore 23 per cent of external liabilities, while mining and utilities represented 18 and 16 per cent respectively. Over the past five years, the financial stake of the West in South Africa has steadily increased. This has further entrenched apartheid and bolstered the South African r~gime. As former Prime Minister John Vorster once said: "Each trade agreement, each bank loan, each new investment, is another brick in the wall of our continued existence". Thus the presence of transnational corporations in South Africa constitutes, in the present circumstances, a virtual partnership with apartheid. The rationale advanced by transnational corporations and by their home countries for their presence in South Africa is that they have introduced fair practices, equal wages and desegregation in the work place in accordance with the tenets embodied in three codes of conduct: The code of conduct of the European Community, the Canadian code of conduct and the Sullivan Principles. It is asserted that the example set by foreign firms will help to break down apartheid elsewhere. The facts of the situation do not bear out these contentions in the slightest degree. In the first place, the codes are not compulsory, reporting procedures are voluntary and monitoring is lax. A relatively small number of foreign firms have subscribed to the codes and fewer still have actually applied the codes. But even if the codes were to be made compulsory and rigourously monitored, the number of black workers who work in foreign firms and who would benefit, is only a small part of the total black working population. Even they, when work is over, must leave whatever amenities and consideration they are vouchsafed in the precincts of the work place, and return to the real world of apartheid. A substantial proportion of the black population, however, is simply not a part of the monetary economy; they have no employment and no regular cash income. Banished to the homelands

- 10 - and bantustans, they eke out a poor existence on subsistence agriculture and get arrested and locked up under the pass laws if they venture into town to look for work. Only a fortunate few get signed on to work and then they have to accept slave wages and live in all-male hostels, separated from their families, wives and children, for 10 to 11 months at a stretch. Thus while transnational corporations have a very limited capacity to change things for the better, they are a dominant force in the South African economy because they are concentrated in crucial sectors of the economy that underpin the infrastructure of apartheid. This point is well-documented, particularly in the case of several transnational corporations from the United States. Through IBM, Control Data, NCR and Burroughs, the United States control 70 per cent of the computer market in South Africa. These computers are used by the South African Government to administer its infamous pass laws system and generally to monitor and control South Africa's black population of 24 million people. Mobil Oil, Caltex and Exxon control 44 per cent of the South African market in petroleum products, especially oil which is not found in South Africa. For automobile vehicles, Pretoria turns to Ford and General Motors which are used by the ubiquitous South African military and police. These two companies constitute approximately 24 per cent of the automotive market in South Africa. Foreign firms are bound by apartheid laws in the same way that everybody else is in South Africa. The r~gime may allow them some marginal latitude as a matter of public relations and in order to make it possible for foreign investment to keep coming. But it is an illusion to think that the regime will allow foreign firms to infringe on the apartheid laws in any really important respect or that the codes of conduct can serve as a model for South African industry and businesses in general. With the best intention in the world they cannot do so, for the laws of apartheid are specifically designed to prevent equal treatment, to close off opportunities to blacks, to keep the blacks in an inferior position. Indeed, if this were not so, if South Africa were not a reservoir of cheap labour, of wages kept artificially and deliberately low by apartheid, one of the main attractions which South Africa has for foreign investment would disappear. After all, foreign businesses have not put their billions in South Africa for the purpose of eradicating apartheid. They go there because they find the investment environment specially attractive. And what made South Africa attractive to foreign capital was cheap labour and the cheap minerals it helped to extract. So we see that while the United Nations is prevented by the American-British vetoes from imposing mandatory and comprehensive sanctions, businessmen faced with the demonstrated bankruptcy of apartheid are beginning to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. They are not talking of the virtues of gradual reform nor expressing concern that the blacks would be hurt more than the whites. At the same time, confronted with a nationwide black revolt, worldwide movement in favour of sanctions, and the resulting economic crisis, the ruling minority is losing the self-satisfaction and the arrogant self-confidence. It would be naive to think, however, that the r6gime is thinking of giving up apartheid. There are an enlightened few, exemplified by the businessmen's delegation which met the leadership of the African National

- 11 - Congress in Zambia last week, who may have come to recognize the inevitability of fundamental change. But the Government has no such thought in mind. Two conclusions emerge from these events and developments. In the first place, it is obvious that the apartheid r~gime will not on its own dismantle apartheid, for let us be clear, the dismantling and eradication of apartheid is our goal and not piecemeal reforms. Secondly, one can also see that external pressure and the threat of sanctions have indeed proved effective in bringing about a change in the attitude of the apartheid r6gime. In our view, it is more important than ever to take firm action now under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter which empowers the Security Council to impose comprehensive and mandatory sanctions. Only a small handful of Western countries, those which have huge investments in South Africa, continue to oppose such action. Of these the most important are the United Kingdom and the United States because it is their vetoes which effectively prevent the Security Council from acting. The spontaneous market reaction to Mr. Botha's speech ought to convince them that the time is up for apartheid, that apartheid cannot be redeemed, and that their investments are threatened not by the prospect of change but by the continuation of apartheid. The argument that sanctions will hurt the blacks sounds increasingly hollow. A poll recently taken by the Sunday Times of London shows that more than 77 per cent of blacks in urban areas view sanctions as necessary in order to shorten the cycle of death and destruction and hasten the day of freedom and human dignity for black South Africans. What peaceful alternative, and I stress the word peaceful, is there to sanctions for bringing about the needed changes in South Africa? For five years, Washington has propagated the effectiveness of "constructive engagement" as a way of putting an end to apartheid. What has "constructive engagement" achieved by way of dismantling any of the laws, regulations and structures of apartheid? What has it done to curtail South Africa's continuous campaign to destabilize the Governments and economies of neighbouring countries? What progress has it made in ending South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia? A week ago, President Reagan himself ordered selective sanctions against South Africa, thereby conceding the failure of constructive engagement. However, the sanctions announced by President Reagan on 9 September 1985 are extremely mild and qualified expressly to minimize their effect. I do not wish to end my statement on this somber note. While the major Western Powers still refuse to support strong Security Council action, a consensus is developing in the rest of the world, including now most of the Western countries, that only coercive measures will make the South African r~gime give up apartheid. In western Europe, all members of the EEC except the United Kingdom have decided in favour of certain limited sanctions. While these do not go far enough, they are certainly a step in the right direction. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Scandinavian countries have adopted various legislative and other measures to restrict collaboration and economic relations with South Africa. In the United States, a grass roots anti-apartheid movement has assumed the proportions of a nationwide plebiscite against the evil system. In the absence of comprehensive and mandatory sanctions imposed under international law by the Security Council, we must rely on the cumulative effect of such action by individual countries, organizations and groups, to make the racist rigime see the light of reason. In this context, recent actions by a number of transnational corporations to sever their links with South Africa, whether they are doing so out of moral considerations or because they fear for their investments, assume considerable

- 12 - importance. I should like to conclude by expressing the hope that corporations and businesses who have investments in South Africa 'r dealings with the racist regime will come to realize in time that doing bhiness with apartheid is inmoral as well as unprofitable. It is not too lat I even now, to join together in a great international effort to prevent further bloodshed and ultimate catastrophe in South Africa. Notes 1/ General Assembly resolution 2396 (XXIII), adopted on 2 December 1968. 2/ General Assembly resolution 38/39 D, adopted on 5 December 1983. 3/ See "Register of entertainers, actors and others who have performed in apartheid South Africa", Notes and Documents 19/84, December 1984.