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GENERAL ASSEMBLY FOURTH COMMITTEE, 1878Th United Nations FOURTH COMMITTEE, 1878th GENERAL MEETING ASSEMBLY Friday, 9 October 1970, at 3.35 p.m. TWENTY-FIFTH SESSION Official Records NEW YORK Chairman: Mr. Vernon Johnson MWAANGA subjected to forcible removal from one place to another in (Zambia). order to provide room for the expansion of the European area. The means used for that purpose included deprivation of water and sanctions against sanitary arrangements. The In the absence of the Chairman, Mr. Sadry (Iran), new townships into which Africans were being squeezed Vice-Chairman, took the Chair. were tightly surrounded by barbed wire fences, with only one gate facing the city. Whenever they entered or left a township, residents were required to show twelve or more AGENDA ITEM 62 passes to the armed policemen stationed at the gate. The police had master keys which enabled them at any time of Question of Namibia (continued) the day or night to enter any premises in which they (A/8023/Add.2, A/C.4/127/Add.1 and 2) suspected an African of committing the criminal offence of allowing relatives or friends to stay with him for seventy­ HEARING OF PETITIONERS two hours. No African lawfully residing in a town by virtue of a permit issued to him was entitled to have his wife living 1. The CHAIRMAN recalled that at its 1875th and 1876th there with him. According to reliable sources, the death meetings the Committee had decided to grant a number of rate had tripled in the new townships as a result of requests for hearings concerning Namibia. He suggested that ill-health, suicides and murders. several petitioners should be heard at the present meeting. 5. In the rural areas, Africans were being removed from one reservation to another. The notorious Odendaal Com­ At the Chairman's invitation, Mr. Veiue N. Mbaeva and mission had been appointed in 1962 to study ways and Mr. Mburumba Kerina, representatives of the South West means of partitioning an insignificant, arid portion of Africa National United Front (SWANUF) (A/C4/727/ Namibia into reservations known as "homelands" for the Add. I}, and the Reverend Michael Scott, representative of respective African ethnic groups. The rest of the country, the International League for the Rights of Man ( A/C.4/ with its mineral resources, industries, farming areas and 727/Add.2}, took places at the Committee table. ports, would be annexed by South Africa. Moreover, the South African Parliament, interpreting the Constitution, 2. Mr. MBAEV A (South West Africa National United would retain broad powers in the homelands, leaving the Front (SWANUF)) said that it was a great honour for the so-called autonomies control of the courts in matters representatives of the Namibian people to be able to affecting "non-whites" only. All laws passed by the acquaint the Committee with the situation in Namibia, so-called assemblies of the various homelands would have to· which was deteriorating rapidly. SWANUF would continue have the assent of the South African President. Attention to do everything in its power to facilitate the work of the should be drawn to the fact that the racist colonial United Nations in its efforts to help the struggling people of Government of South Africa had now embarked on new the world, particularly the Namibian people, to attain programmes, through which it intended, by using new freedom and self-determination. methods, to implement all those recommendations. 3. By resolution 2145 (XXI) of 27 October 1966, the 6. The Ovamboland Bantustan had been established General Assembly had terminated the Mandate exercised on with a population which was 99 per cent illiterate, socially behalf of His Britannic Majesty by the Government of the isolated and lacking any political maturity. According to Union of South Africa, which therefore no longer had the local newspapers, the head of that Bantustan, whose right to administer Namibia. By resolution 2248 (S-V) of external affairs were the responsibility of the South African 19 May 1967, the General Assembly had established the Government, opposed the struggle of the Namibian people United Nations Council for Namibia and had authorized it for freedom and self-determination. Okavango, which was to administer the Territory until independence, with the the next area to be converted into a Bantustan, was even maximum possible participation of the Namibian people. worse than Ovamboland from the point of view of political The United Nations Council for Namibia had not been able awareness. All its progressive leaders had been imprisoned to proceed to the Territory, as requested in resolution or killed by the South African police or forced to flee to 2248 (S-V), because of the refusal of the colonial Govern­ the Republic of Zambia. The other peoples were being ment of South Africa and its condemnation of United forced to accept their Bantustans and sometimes even to Nations resolutions relating to Namibia. change their nationality, in other words, to drop their own name in favour of the term Coloured, and to adopt 4. The situation in the Territory was going from bad to Afrikaans, the official language of the Boers. The Hereros, worse. In the urban areas, Africans were continually being who had resolutely rejected any type of Bantustan, were 25 A/C.4/SR.l878 ----------------------------26 General Assembly -Twenty-fifth Session - Fourth Committee the chief victims of the forcible measur ~s enacted by the of militant nationalism which South West Africa was colonial Government against the Namibian people. They experiencing at the present time. Throughout his life he had were being deprived of water in order to force them to fought to defend the rights of the Namibian people, leave their reserve. The South West AfriCI National United irrespective of their ethnic origins, and it was thanks to him Front (SWANUF), the only revolutionary movement which that the case of Namibia had been one of the most had tackled the problem of Namibia by halting dissension important questions to be brought before the United and uniting Namibian forces against thee 1emy, did not yet Nations and the International Court of Justice. He had enjoy the support of the international community, particu­ striven sincerely, prudently, selflessly and valiantly, without larly, the Organization of African Unit~· and the United lowering himself to petty matters which occasionally Nations. It needed such support in oder to unify the destroyed great causes. He had represented the homo­ Namibian people. The United Nations Council for Namibia, geneity of his people because he had identified himself with which was the legal Government of the Territory, could them and knew what they needed and what they expected provide the best possible means of unify .ng the Namibian of him. On 31 July 1970 SWANUF had sent the Herero people by convening a conference tc which all the people a message in which it had urged them to observe the Namibian liberation movements would be invited. It should traditional period of mourning, to unite in order to put an be noted that, if the Council had been able to enter end to the sufferings inflicted on them by the South Namibia, the first and foremost task incurr bent on it as one African Government and, after the period of mourning, of its responsibilities would have beer to organize a unanimously to elect a successor to Chief Kutako, a national convention. The Council's inability to enter the successor who would represent national unity and would Territory should not have prevented it f1 om beginning to follow in the footsteps of the father and hero of the discharge those of its responsibilities whic 1 were within its Namibian people. means, it should, in particular, convene a conference of Namibian representatives to decide on: tht~ participation of 10. On behalf of his colleagues, he expressed the shock the Namibian people in the work of the United Nations and sorrow felt by his people at the death of President Council for Namibia and in the discharge of the duties of Gamal Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic. He asked the Commissioner; the planning and oq anization of an the Chairman of the Committee to convey their condol­ effective educational and training programme for the ences to the people and Government of the United Arab Namibian people; and the support to be given to the Republic. liberation struggle of the Namibian people. 11. The history of South African racist rule in Namibia 7. SWANUF recommended that the proposed conference was one of the blackest pages in the history of European should be held at Lusaka, since the majority of Namibian colonization of the African continent. The treatment exiles were in Zambia. Those who proposed that it should inflicted on Namibians by the racist South African Govern­ be held in Europe were claiming to be participating in the ment was no different from that which his people had liberation struggle of the Namibian peo Jle in order to endured under the German Government. A Government obtain subsidies for their own ends at the expense of the which removed Namibians from their traditional lands by Namibian people and revolutionaries who were fighting on force to settle them in areas of the Namib and the Kalahari African soil. SWANUF was grateful for anr effort directed deserts and which continued to deny Namibians their towards the liberation of Namibia, but it thought that those fundamental human rights was unworthy to be a Member who wanted to contribute to its liberatior should consult of the United Nations and thus to share in the honour it instead of submitting their proposals dire ;t to the United enjoyed by all nations dedicated to the task of making the Nations.
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