ANC CENTENARY n African National Congress (ANC) foreign policy or Ainternational relations strategy is as old as the movement itself: a (Heinemann 1978) (Heinemann whopping 100 years! There are very many ANC, South African Communist Party (SACP) and South African Congress of Trade Union (SACTU) leaders and activists who played a critical role in defending and promoting the theory and practice of internationalism, international solidarity, world peace, African unity, African renaissance and an African agenda. Let us in the year of the Preparing for Power – Oliver Tambo Speaks Tambo Oliver – Power for Preparing centenary mention some of them. They are: John Langalibalele Dube, Pixley ka Seme, Z. K. Mathews, Inkhosi Albert Luthuli, Walter Sisulu, Yusuf Dadoo, Image taken from taken Image Brian Bunting, Ray Simons, Joe Slovo, Johnny Makhatini, Alfred Nzo, Kader Asmal, M.P Naicker, Dennis Brutus, Alex La Guma, O.R Tambo, Mark Shope, Duma Nokwe, Gertrude Shope, Ruth Mompathi, Nelson Mandela, Reginald September, Thabo Mbeki, Jacob.G Zuma, and others like Pan-African Congress leaders Robert Sobukwe and Black Conscious leader Steve Biko. The white minority embarked on efforts to create their “white state” in a black land, which culminated in the elections in September 1910 to consolidate the Union of South Africa, with the 100 Years of South African Party (SAP) winning comfortably. The primary aim was to seek reconciliation within the white community between descendents anc foreign of the English and Dutch who had engaged in the two Anglo-Boer Wars of 1880 to 1881 and 1899 to 1902. The establishment of this white- policy dominated Union changed the face of black politics forever. Black South Africans and other anti-racist OR Tambo with Fidel Castro in the 70s forces objected to the fact that black citizens were given no protection, privileges, or legal safeguards. On 12 Mobilising international solidarity and fighting January 1912 African leaders met in Bloemfontein, in the spirit of African for the self-determination of black South nationalism, and vowed to establish a Native Union in South Africa. Its Africans, and other peoples under the gripping aim was to provide a representative and responsible outlet for African yoke of colonial domination, became a hallmark opinion and to counter exploitation. of ANC international strategy. The NNC took umbrage at the fact that blacks were not even consulted over the establishment of the Union By Chris Landsberg and delegates to the 1912 Convention responded emphatically with the 24 THE THINKER ANC CENTENARY establishment of the South African clear reference to African sovereignty UN, OAU, Commonwealth, non- Native National Congress (SANNC), and self-determination. It specifically aligned movement, progressive trade to be re-named the African National opined in this regard that ‘The right of union, peace, youth and student Congress (ANC) in 1923. all people of Africa to independence movements and international civic The ANC articulated a foreign policy and self-governance shall be movements in ways that few other component to its political strategies recognised, and shall be the basis of issues could. Former Swedish Prime from the onset. It should be noted that, close cooperation’. The principles of Minister and stanch ANC ally, Olaf a good 8 years before the SANNC was self-determination and solidarity thus Palme, once depicted the struggle established, one of its future leaders, loomed large in ANC foreign policy against apartheid as a ‘universal cause’; Pixley ka Seme would publish his from its very foundation years. and Kadar Asmal similarly noted that seminal document ‘The Regeneration ‘opposition to racism and apartheid’ of Africa’, which would help to shape The International Anti-Apartheid established ‘the only universal the thinking of the new movement Crusade consensus the world has seen since the and infuse modernity into the African It was in fact after the Freedom Second World War’. consciousness of the organisation. Charter that the ANC came to develop In 1962, the United Nations Special In reaction to the arrogance of a real foreign policy in the form of Committee Against Apartheid was the whites to establish their Union, an “international isolation” crusade, established. One of its objectives was to the SANCC sent its first delegation to complementing its other strategic maintain detailed surveillance of, and Britain to mobilize solidarity against arenas: underground organisation, to seek to curtail, South Africa’s trade, the creation of a white union of South mass mobilisation and armed struggle. economic, financial, business, military, Africa., but did not get a sympathetic The ANC in fact became one of the diplomatic, sport and cultural ties with hearing from the Crown. From that world’s most sophisticated liberation the outside world. The Organisation time, mobilising international solidarity movements precisely because of this of African Unity (OAU), established in and fighting for the self-determination ambitious foreign policy strategy. 1963, never even bothered to invite of black South Africans, and other In his famous Nobel Peace Prize South Africa to join, instead choosing peoples under the gripping yoke speech titled ‘Africa and Freedom’, in to support the liberation struggle of the of colonial domination, became a December 1961, Chief Albert Luthuli ANC and the PAC. hallmark of ANC international strategy. alluded to a philosophy of African The OAU campaigned for sanctions, Whites were determined to turn South renewal as he made clear that the international mobilisation and Africa into “a great White man’s land”. ANC’s goal was ‘a united Africa in armed struggle against the ‘the illegal The ANC was determined to see to it which the standards of life and liberty government of the settler minority’. The that international solidarity helped to are constantly expanding’. Luthuli ANC and other liberation movements thwart this goal. vowed that his movement would work were regarded as ‘the sole and authentic The Freedom Charter towards helping to realize ‘Africa’s representatives of the peoples of South The Freedom Charter was adopted age’. He called for sanctions against Africa’. Campaigned for by the ANC in 1955 following the ANC’s Defiance the apartheid regime, and for harsh and other liberation forces, the OAU Campaign which started in 1952. punishment of the racist government established a Liberation Committee It spelled out the basic demands of who committed the ‘cruelty’ at and a Special Fund for the Liberation the people, but it did not neglect to Sharpeville. of African Territories still under Colonial speak about foreign policy. Under In the aftermath of the bannings and Racist Rule. the clause ‘There shall be Peace and of the ANC and other liberation The broad anti-apartheid movement Friendship’ the ANC campaigned for movements, a new chapter would forged close working relations with the a clear identity as ‘a fully independent begin in earnest: deputy president South African liberation movements in state, which respects the rights and at the time, and soon to become exile, as well as the United Democratic sovereignty of all nations’. It went president, Oliver. R. Tambo would Movement (UDF) and the Mass further to assert that it should ‘strive come to spearhead the movements Democratic Movement (MDM) inside to maintain world peace and the new focus on building an international the country. Anti-apartheid movements settlement of disputes by negotiation solidarity movement, consolidating the took the art of lobbying to new heights. and not war’. The idea of a country at ANC’s bases abroad, notably in Africa, By the time of the obdurate P.W. peace with others was a strong point, and do so amidst trying circumstances. Botha’s enforced resignation from committing the ANC to a posture that Part of the new international strategy the presidency in August 1989, South ‘Peace and friendship among all our was to expose Apartheid as the Africa had been rendered one of the people shall be secured by upholding most extreme form of government- most isolated states in the world, with the equal rights, opportunities and sanctioned racial segregation in the only 27 countries maintaining formal status of all’. In terms of the African world, and former director of the UN diplomatic relations. continent, the Freedom Charter stated Special Committee Against Apartheid, that ‘The people of the Protectorates E.S. Reddy, stated, ‘apartheid was the Constitutional Guidelines of 1988 – Basutoland, Bechuanaland and world’s most blatant system of racism’. and the Harare Declaration Swaziland – shall be free to decide The international isolation campaign The rising intensity of the struggle for themselves their own future,’ a helped to unite against apartheid the inside South Africa, led by the ANC, Volume 35 / 2012 25 ANC CENTENARY an ethical, moralistic foreign policy while also pursuing its economic self- interests. The government tried to be both non-aligned and close to the West; and promised to put Africa first while also placing the global South at the top of its foreign policy agenda. In the end, the Mandela administration learned that it was no easy task to © ANC Archives, University of Fort Hare practice diplomacy along the lines of a set of seemingly contradictory doctrines as the government struggled to promote human rights on the African continent. On the one hand it wished to encourage the democratisation of, and Alfred Nzo, OR Tambo and Thabo Mbeki human rights in, countries like Nigeria; yet on the other hand it needed these and the enormous impact of the of National Unity was as committed countries as strategic partners to help it international solidarity movement to recomposing South Africa’s foreign to realise its goals of peace promotion gave impetus to the ANC formulating policy and international affairs as it was in the Democratic Republic of Congo The Constitutional Guidelines for a to reconstructing the post-apartheid and Burundi.