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Nuun 1 9 7 8 INOTES AND DOCUMENTS* INOTES AND DOCUMENTS* 4/78 April 1978 ROBERT 11MIAGALISO SOBUKWE (1924 - 1978) Tributes at a special meeting of the Special Committee against Apartheid E-Note: On 3 March 1978 the Special Committee against Apartheid held a special meeting to pay tribute to the late Mr. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, President of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, who died on 26 February 1978 in Kimberley. Mr. Sobukwe, an outstanding fighter against apartheid, had dedicated his life to the liberation struggle in South Africa. He was President of the Students' Representative Council at Fort Hare University and an active member of the African National Congress Youth League. He subsequently founded in 1959 the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania of which he became President. In 1960 he led the Positive Action Campaign against the hated pass laws, which led to the Sharpeville massacre by the apartheid regime and to his own imprisonment for nine years. Since his release from Robben Island in 1969, Mr. Sobukwe had lived in Kimberley where the regime had placed him under banning orders. This issue of Notes and Documents contains statements made at the meeting of the Special Committee by H.E. Mr. Kurt Waldheim, SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations, H.E. Mr. Leslie 0. Harriman (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, and 1Mr. David Sibeko, The Director of Foreign Affairs of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania.] * 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. 78-08749 MESSAGE BY H.E. MR. KURT WALDHEIM SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS* I am glad that the Special Committee against APartheid has arranged this meeting so that we at the United Nations can honour the memory of Robert Sobukwe and express our deep sense of loss at his untimely passing away. The thought uppermost in my mind at this time is that there is both triumph and tragedy in his life and death. There is tragedy in the fact that he was subjected to great indignities and was silenced by the very society which could have profited most from his great gifts of spirit and intellect, from his deep and enduring humanity. There is tragedy, too, in the loss of his leadership, suffered not only by the Pan Africanist Congress but by the black population of South Africa. Finally there is tragedy in the fact that the rejection of men of peace like Robert Sobukwe brings South Africa further along the path of violence and bloodshed. But a life like Robert Sobukwets is never wasted. Even while we mourn the tragic circumstances of his death, we cannot fail to profit from the inspiring legacy of his life. His leadership of the historic campaign in 1960 against the hated pass laws is a monument to his courage. His opposition to racism of all kinds aad his lack of bitterness towards his oppressors are monuments to his unfailing belief in the common humanity of all men. For our part, we in the United Nations must continue with renewed vigour our efforts on behalf of the many other political prisoners and detainees whose opposltion to apartheid has led to the loss of their freedom. Over the years the United Nations has adopted many resolutions calling for the release of all political prisoners and for the repeal of all repressive legislation directed against the opponents of apartheid. I have had occasion to address personal appeals to the Government of South Africa on this matter, but unfortunately there has not been any positive response. *The message was conveyed to the meeting by Mr. Abdulrahim A. Farah, Assistant Secretary-General for Special Political Questions. - 2 It is my view that a resolution of the problems of South Africa can best be achieved through peaceful and constructive dialogue at the national level, on the basis of equality, between leaders of all sections of the population. This cannot, of course, be realized if the South African Government continues its policy of banning, detaining and imprisoning political leaders, and excluding the black population from the mainstream of the political, economic and social life of the country. In spite of the constraints that were laid upon him during his lifetime. Robert Sobukwe was still able to make an inspiring contribution to the struggle against apartheid. South Africa is immeasurably poorer because it did not allow him to use his great qualities of mind and heart freely in the service of his country and in the cause of all its people. -3- STATEMENT BY H.E. MR. LESLIE 0. HARRIMAN (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid (Extract) We meet here today to join with the people of South Africa and indeed the people of the whole continent of Africa - who are mourning the death of Mr. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe and seething with a ger at the apartheid regime which, by its vengeful persecution and callousness, cut short the life of this great African patriot and leader. We must turn our grief into strength In the course of its struggle to recover its honour and dignity, Africa has lost many of its best sons and daughters - some in the hands of colonialist and racist assassins and torturers, and some through slower and more sophisticated methods of persecution. We have had to mourn again and again the loss of our beloved leaders, but as Mr. Sobukwe declared after the death of Steve Biko last year: "They -'im to finish us off one after the other. We must turn our grief into strength." We have no doubt that the oppressed people of South Africa and their true friends will turn their grief at the death of Mr. Sobukwe into strength and destroy the hateful and criminal system of apartheid. only a few weeks ago, the United Nations decided unanimously to launch the International Anti-Apartheid Year on 21 March- a day which will live in history not so much as a day of mourning for the victims of the Sharpeville massacre, but as the annivrsary of the day of "positive action" by the opiressed people under the dynamic leadership of Sobukwe, as the day which marked the turning point in the struggle of humanity against apartheid and racism. Historic role of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe I will not try to trace the life of this remarkable African a brilliant student and r acher, an uncomproir.-i.g fighter agai st racism and a courageous and far-sighted leader of the people - who remained, throughout the last eighteen years of his life when he was imprisoned and restricted, a symbol of defiance against racist oppression. I would like to refer, however, to the historic role he played - after many years of activity as a militant in the liberation movement - when he rose to national leadership in the late 1950's as the leader of the Africanists. -4 - He studied deeply the events in his country where cruel repression by the apartheid regime - with the connivance of foreign vested interests, for whom South Africa meant little more than uranium and gold, military bases and fabulous profits, and game parks and cheap labour - had required the liberation movement to consider a new direction in its resistance. He had also followed the developments in West Africa where the independence of Ghana, under the leadership of the late Kwame Nkrumah, had begun the process of the elimination of colonial rule and the establishment of independent African Governmeits. He also watched the colonialist and racist -.r o~uvres in East and Central Africa - especially in Kenya where the alien rulers had imprisoned Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and attempted to foist a neo-colonial and racist set-up under the slogan of "multi-racialism." He gave the clarion call for continental African unity, for the rejection of multi- racialism as distorted by the colonialists, and for a non-racial struggle toward a non-racial society. No compromise with racism Today, when some forces, in the guise of peacemakers, are mano-uv: ig in Rhodesia to foist a system under which a white man's vote would have more than a tenfold weight over a black man's vote, with the preservation of the ill-gained wealth of white settlers and immigrants endowed greater sanctity than the basic rights of Africans, and when plots are being hatched to turn a national liberation struggle into a fight of blacks against blacks, we must repeat the call of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe that there can be no compromise with racism - indeed no intrusion of so-called racial classifications into politics, because there is only one race, the human race. "In our vocabulary", he said, "the word 'race' as applied to man has no plural form." I have often quoted the declaration of Mr. Sobukwe at the inaugural congress of the Pan Africanist Congress in April 1959, when he said: "We aim, politically, at government of the Africans by the Africans, for the Africans, with everybody who owes his only loyalty to Africa and who is prepared to accept the democratic rule of an African majority being regarded as an African..." That is the testament of Mr. Sobukwe to Africa - a continent which is generous but which will never more tolerate appendages of other continents on its soil, or any enclaves of racist drmination. -5- He declared in his memorable statement at his trial on 4 May 1960: "We believe in one race only - the human race to which we belong. The history of that race is a long history of struggle against all restrictions, physical, mental and spiritual.
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