Struggle Against Racism and Apartheid in South Africa

Victory is Certain: Struggle against racism and apartheid in South Africa

http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1978_46

Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education.

The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law.

Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Victory is Certain: Struggle against racism and apartheid in South Africa

Alternative title Notes and Documents - United Nations Centre Against ApartheidNo. 46/78 Author/Creator United Nations Centre against Apartheid; Shope, Mark William Publisher United Nations, New York Date 1978-10-00 Resource type Reports Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa, Southern Africa (region), Zimbabwe Coverage (temporal) 1978-00-00 Source Northwestern University Libraries Description World Conference to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination. Military preparedness of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Racism and apartheid in South Africa. Our struggle against racism, colonialism and imperialism. People's resistance through armed struggle. The victory of our cause is assured. Format extent 12 page(s) (length/size)

http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1978_46

http://www.aluka.org NOTES AND DOCUMENTS*

NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* October 197F VICTORY IS CERTAIK[ Struggle against racism and arartneid in South Africa by Mark William Shope, African National Congress of South Africa (P-7TC) fjote: This issue of Notes and Documents contains the text of n statement made by Ivr. Tark William Shope, representative of toe African Dational Congress of Soutu Africa (A.NC), at the ,Jorld Conference to Comboat Pacism and Racial Discrimination, held in Geneva from 14 to 25 August 1278. The views expressed are those of tre authior./ 78-26246 46/78 * 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.

-I- World Conference to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination. It is with profound satisfaction that the delegation of the African National Congress of South Africa conveys to this Conference, ardent fraternal greetings. Most of what we are going to say is not nev. The facts are fully documented in the records of the United Nations and its specialized agencies., Our task, therefore, is to restate these facts with stronger emphasis. As the title of the Conference denotes, we meet here to find ways and means of combating racism and racial discrimination. I am going to confine myself to southern Africa in general and to South Africa in particular. We do so because racist South Africa is the key obstacle politically, militarily and economically, to the solution of the problems in the whole of southern Africa, particularly Southern Rhodesia and Namibia. Both Southern Rhodesia and South Africa believe in the superiority of the White race and the inferiority of the dark skinned. To get a clear picture of the situation in southern Africa, we should look first at the military build-up and the policies of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Military preparedness of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa According to the latest available information, South Africa alone 6ommands a regular army of 41,000 including 34,000 conscripts and 2,000 women, and an active reserve of so-calied "citizen force" of 130,000, who serve 30 days a year for eight years. It has a navy of 5,500 men with a citizen force of 10,000. The Air Force has 8,500 men including 3,000 conscripts and, in reserve, a citizen force of 25,000. In addition, South Africa has a paramilitary force of 90,000 commandos, who engage in 12 months initial and 19 days annual training, and who are grouped in battalion units for industrial and rural operations. It has also a police force of 19,500 Whites and 16,000 Blacks, which can be counted as an important auxiliary of the armed forces. In Southern Rhodesia, Ian Smith's regime, in its ruthless offensive against the Patriotic Front and its allies, has an estimated armed force of 9,500 including 3,250 conscripts and an air force of 1,300 mobilized men. In addition, a territorial force of 55,000 can be called up for service when required. All Whites, Asians and Coloured citizens are required to undergo military training and serve actively in the territorial force for periods of five weeks a year. The Southern Rhodesian police are a paramilitary force consisting of 8,000 men in active service and 35,000 reservists.

-2 - In June this year, a South African journal, The Financial Mail wrote on South Africa's military preparedness as follows: "Psychologically, and in practice, South Africa is being prepared for the gathering storm .... With the days of minority rule in Rhodesia and South West Africa rapidly drawing to a close, South Africa is now digging in for the White man's last stand .... The surge in defence spending - from less than P500 million five years ago to R1,550 million in 1978/79 - has provided the means for Pretoria to expand its military machine and to rake a growing number of businessmen, students, housewives and even school children into the war effort. "Our rulers' control of radio and television has enabled them not only to step up the quantity of defence-oriented prograpmies beamed into our homes, but also to make sure we get the kind of news they think we ought to hear. "The military has become one of South Africa's biggest employers. Nearly 60,000 civilians were called up for military duty in 1977, while applications to join the permanent force have leapt by 80 per cent in the past three years. In the first two weeks of January 1,000 people applied, compared with 6,900 recruits during the whole of 1976 and 8,000 last year. Armscor and its subsidiaries employ over 13,000 workers .... "Since the army women's college opened in George seven years ago, about 150 girls a year have been trained there. In Jaiuary last year, the annual intake was more than trebled to 500. And this year, for the first time, women have registered at the military academy at Saldanha Bay .... they do many jobs that used to be only for men - parade ground instructors and signallers, for instance. "More disturbing is the increasing militarization of schools. Defence Minister P.W. Botha declared last year that the nurber of school cadets would be doubled from the existing 150,000. "Cadet groups are being affiliated to permanent and citlzen force regiments. Many boys already undergo cadet training d.uring school holidays, and there is talk of further improving cadets' 'preparedness' by sending them on 'adventure camps.' "Likewise, to brush up the skills of their instructorF, it was announced last month that young teachers are to be called annually in the January holidays for training as commando officers. "Compulsory military service for Coloured youths and mes, envisaged within five years, and the South African Defence 'orce )Asc plans a big recruiting drive among Africans.....

-3- " 'There has been an upsurge in public interest in civil defence,' notes Civil Defence Director, Brigadier Chris Muller. Last December there were 664 civil defence organizations throughout the country. Now there are 692. Muller points out that local authorities are compelled to form civil defence units, whereas this was voluntary in the past."i/ Financial Times of London also wrote: "Inevitably, the business community has also become increasingly involved in the war effort. In 1976 Armscor concluded about 25,000 contracts with private sector suppliers. It was estimated then that some 1,200 companies were involved in some way.with armaments production, and that 400 of them relied to a significant extent on defence work. The men from the ministry have felt increasingly obliged to direct production in private factories. In late 1975, for instance, they stepped in to supervise the manufacture of army tents."2/ Racism and apartheid in South Africa "This huge armed force, the militarization of industry, the mobilization of the whole White corinunity - including school children - is aimed at suppressing by brute force people's resistance against racist policies and to maintain and defend racial discrimination and White domination." Racism in South Africa can correctly be characterized as "genocide". As we know from recent experience of history in Hitler Germany, the organized application of genocide on a wide scale, as is the case today in South Africa, has always been connected with racism and fascism. To quote Professor Paul A. Samuelson, "Fascistic movements are always highly nationalistic, sometimes with emphasis placed on a vaguely defined 'master race' which exploits minority groups."3/ This is the position in South Africa, and the only difference is that it is not the minority that is being exploited, but the majority. Samuelson goes on to say that: "Usually capitalists and the lower middle classes contribute to the initial strength of fascist movements; .... one of the earmarks of a fascist regime is opposition to communism. 1/ Financial TMail, Johannesburg, 23 June 1978. 2/ Financial Times, London, 5 July 1978. 3/ Paul A. Samuelson, Economics, 10th edition (New York, McGraw- Hill Book Company, 1976), p. 870.

Generally fascism sails into power by exaggerating the immediate likelihood of a Marxist revolution, and after it has come into power, the threat of communism is used ,,4/ as an excuse for the suppression of democratic processes. Who can deny that the South African regime is highly nationalistic and it places emphasis on a itmaster race"? Who can deny that, from its very inception to the present, the racist regime of South Africa has been, and continues to be, supported not only by local capitalists and lower middle classes, but also by big monopolies, multinational corporations and the Western imperialist Governments? The racist regime of Vorster uses "anti-communism" as an excuse for the suppression of all democratic processes in South Africa. All political parties representing Blacks, as well as liberal and progressive Whites, have been banned. Racism and fascism in South Africa have become institutionalized as a dictatorship of the most reactionary and chauvinistic element of monopoly capitalism, a dictatorship which has become notorious for its naked terror. Thousands of people have been and continue to be murdered annually. The policy of apartheid in South Africa is grounded on the idea of racial superiority of a chosen race - the White race. It has become an ideological weapon used by the ruling class in the country to kindle national strife and intolerance among the people of South Africa, and to divide the working class. Its fundamental objective is to keep the Black majority of South Africa in perpetual bondage to the White minority. In pursuance of this racist policy, South Africa has over the years turned into a full-fledged police State. Even Andrews Maguire, co-chairman of the Congressional ad hoc monitoring group on South Africa of the United States, was forced to come to that conclusion after his 11-day visit to South Africa last month. He said: "This regime is a police State as regardt the non-W4hite population. They are regularly tortured. There are instruments of torture and, in some and all too frequent circumstances, some are kilfed while in detention. "There is no rule of law in the way the West would understand that term and this Government systematically intimidates, harasses, forces into exile and imprisons people without any judicial process at all. "Torture is used to force statements from prisoners. one of those most commonly described is the use of electrodes on the head and neck./ k Ibid. 5/ Times of Zambia, 3 August 1978.

-5- Racism in South Africa has divided the working people on racial bases. Race has become the major fact of life in South, Africa, and not class. This is understandable. Over three centuries of White colonialism has welded South African Whites together in common identity based on racial domination and exploitation of the African people to such an extent that, when the National Party came to power in 1948, they did so on a policy of rationalization of this domination and exploitation and a blueprint for the finaldismemberment of the country with total disregard for the territorial integrity of the land that belongs to "all who live in it," as' the programme of the African National Congress - the Freedom Charter - states. Our struggle against racism, colonialism and imperialism The struggle of the indigenous people of South Africa - the Africans and all the Black oppressed masses - is a struggle against racism, against Fascist terror and repression. It is a struggle for national democratic revolution, leading finally to the social transformation of oir people as a whole - Black and White - and to the creation of a new. South Africa. It is a struggle against a strongly entrenched capitalist State supported by world imperialism. Our struggle envisages the territorial integrity of our country and the gaining of control over its mineral resources. The aspirations of the vast majority of our people and the policy of the Fascist police State are heading for a predictable collision course. We are intensifying our struggle to bring down a brutal dictatorship which is bent on crushing every semblance of freedom in our country, so that we can create in its place a people's democracy, that is, to create a government of the people, for the people and by the people. The harsh reality of war in South Africa has become the concern of all the peoples of our country - Black and White. Racism has made the main protagonists for power in South Africa fall into two racial camps: the ruling Fascist minority who want to Balkanize and dominate the country, and the Black majority who want a united South Africa. Vorster's Nationalist Party represents the position of the racist ruling minority, and racism and apartheid have been made the blueprints for the preservation of White domination. The whole structure of the South African society is tailored to this end. The economy of the country, the laws, the culture, the military, the dismemberment of the land into bantustans, the education system - all are geared to preserving White domination, privilege, identity and power.

-6- Every White child born in the South African society is from birth a victim of tne brainwashing and conditioning process. Education in schools is geared towards perpetuating the ideology of White supremacy. The churches, television, radio,and artists and writers are either directly controlled, indirectly manipulated through a system of rewards by the Government or are heavily censored to prevent freedom of thought and speech. Almost all Whites grow up believing in the ideology of racism, and the supremacy of the White race. Their fears have been thorougbly exploited, and they, driven by massive social pressures, have come to believe the official policy of the ruling class. That the minds of the Whites in South Africa have been effectively colonized by the State propaganda machinery cannot be disputed. The situation in South Africa is an extremely complicated one and defies any traditional model or analysis, the complicating factor being the diverse origins of the country's various ethnic groups. Racism feeds on this historical fact. Furthermore, South Africa is a rich industrialized country, well-integrated into the monopoly capitalist system of imperialist world, strategically placed on the African continent and ruled by an extremely repressive and aggressive r~gime. In this context, our struggle therefore will have to take place on various levels. We make no apology in saying that we see it as a struggle of the Black majority against the White racist minority for national liberation. We see'it as a struggle for national freedom, and national freedom is the inalienable right of all peoples. On one level, we see it as a race struggle. It must be seen as the struggle of the indigenous people against settler colonialists, for self- determination free from the results of centuries of domination and exploitation. At the same time, our struggle is an anti-imperialist struggle. It is a struggle for national democratic revolution and for social: and economic emancipation of our people, against a strongly entrenched capitalist State, supported by the most powerful imperialist Powers of the world. It is an anti- imperialist struggle with strong internationalist dimensions. We can also say that it is a class struggle with subtle class dimensions underlying the overtly racial appearance of it. It is therefore a struggle for a genuine national independence. This is how the world should try and understand the struggle of the people of South Africa. It is essential that these apparently divergent, but in fact inter-. locking, aspects of the South African struggle are understood as part and parcel of the total situation facing the South African national liberation movement led by the African National Congress. It is true, certain aspects may be more important at various stages of our revolution than others, but these, in our view, are all crucial factors with which one must come to terms if our liberation movement is to be understood correctly.

-7- People' s resistance through armed struggle Having said that, I would like to state here and now that the situation in South Africa can be characterized as being in a virtual state of war. Even Government spokesman characterizes it as such. All our efforts to redress our grievances by legal and nonviolent protest has met with nothing but increased repression. Faced with such a situation we had to find new methods of struggle. As did our comrades in Vietnam, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe, we have found it necessary to launch an armed struggle. In June this year, Colonel H. Muller, in his appeal to Whites for preparedness, said that South Africa was in a virtual state of war, and urban terrorism could be expected. "Terrorists were entering the country these days with instructions to eliminate specific individuals. Already security policemen and State witnesses in terror trials have been murdered .... More than 4,000 Black youths from the Reef alone were presently undergoing terror training .... they were returning to South Africa a well prepared force who fully realizes the gravity of their action .... the picture looks blacks I can speculate the picture will look blacker before it ceases." 6/ Today, after the magnificent victories of the peoples of Angola, Guinea Bissau and Mozambique, the balance of forces has irreversibly shifted in favour of the liberation struggle. More than at anytime in our history, the revolutionary situation has matured and we are making preparations for the final confrontation for armed seizure of power. The massive armed preparation of Vorster and his racist clique does not deter us, because our course is Just. We have learnt from the history of other liberation movements that, even if the revolution may have powerful enemies as is the case today in our country, once the people are determined to fight, they are sure to win because no real revolution can be defeated. In our own African continent, during the height of the struggle in Algeria, the French had 600,000 troops that is, more than twice South Africa's present capacity - supplied and equipped by a leading industrial nation. They had highly sophisticated weaponry and an economic base outside the reach of the Algerian revolutionaries. So it was the case in Vietnam. Yet, the massive military strength of France and the United States was not enough to defeat the heroic peoples of Algeria and Vietnam. 6 Star, Johannesburg, 21 June 1978.

-8- Today all indications are that the struggle and combat capability of the underground African National Congress and its military wing, UL honto We Sizwe, is steadily being consolidated and strengthened. Our struggle continues to intensify, involving ever-growing numbers of people throughout the country. The blatant terror unleashed by the apartheid regime upon our people has failed to curb the youth, the super-exploited workers, the rural and urban masses and the revolutionary intellectuals. We have decilsively seized the political initiative from the racist regime, and the illusions of stability of the regime have been shattered. Indeed, never in the history of White minority domination has the regime been faced with such a crisis. In the last two and a half years - that is, from 1976 to June 1978 there have been repeated waves of strikes by the Black industrial workers. In a situation where the Black working class is denied trade union rights of collective bargaining and negotiations, every such action poses a challenge to the racist system. In various parts of our country, there has been an increasing number of revolutionar actions carried out by underground units of our movement, the majority of which have not been reported by the South African press. The police have publicly stated that they are working round the clock to discover the ANC underground units that are carrying out attacks against installations and personnel. Recently the head of the racist security police revealed that, since May 1976, at least 2,500 so-called insurgents have been arrested and many have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The majority of these were members of the ANC. He has also been forced to acknowledge that several clashes have taken place between the South African security forces and ANC freedom fighters in the Eastern Transvaal and other border areas, and that an increasing number of trained and equipped AINC cadres were returning to South Africa. There are increasing reports of the" discovery of ANC arms caches; of collaborators being dealt with and of sabotage against installations. All these are a reflection of the growing intensif4ication of the liberation struggle in South Africa. Today the entire South African society is organized on a basis of a "total war strategy". New and harsher legislation is being introducedin 1977 almost all remaining legal Black groups and students organizations were banned; mass arrests are continuing on an unprecedented scale; South Africa's defence budget for 1977 was a record R.1,850 million and military service has been extended to two years. This is a living testimony to the intensification of the liberation struggle in South Africa, 'Tamibia and Zimbabwe.

-9- The victory of our cause is assured The victory of our cause is assured. As no force was able to deny the people of Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau their freedom, equally no force will be able to deny us our liberation. The people of Zimbabwe, led by the Patriotic Front, and the Namibian people led by the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), will be free sooner ,rather than later, and so will the people of South Africa led by the ANC. We have given ourselves one task and one task only - to seize power from the Fascist minority regime. To achieve that end we have been forced to take up arms. We shall pursue the armed struggle not merely for the abolition of racial discrimination or for amendments to the apartheid system of national oppression, super-exploitation and facism; we fight to transfer genuine political, social and economic power into the hands of the people. It is with that power that we will create a new society, free from racism and exploitation. In the coming period as the struggle in southern Africa reaches a new decisive stage, and as counter-revolutionary manoeuvres to impose neocolonialist solutions are being intensified, the tasks of and demands on the United Nations and on the international community are going to become greater and more difficult. I am sure that all those who are assembled here will not fail us. We are strengthened in this conviction by the fact that the United Nations has affirmed the legitimacy of our armed struggle. We are strengthened in it also by the knowledge that the Organization of African Unity, the Socialist countries, the non-aligned movement and the democratic forces in the imperialist countries have continuously demonstrated, in words and deeds, their resolve to support our struggling people. Now, therefore, we appeal through you, Mr. Chairman, that: 1. This Conference call for an early convening of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the situation in South Africa with a view to implementing comprehensive economic sanctions to follow up the adoption last year, of the United Nations arms embargo against South Africa; 2. This Conference call on the international democratic forces to ensure that all violations of the arms embargo, which is obligatory on all United Nations Member States, must be exposed and the violaters internationally condemned; 3. This Conference request the Secretary-General of the United Nations, together with whomsoever he considers appropriate, to intervene to save the life of Solomon !Iahlangu, an ANC militant, sentenced to death by the racist regime for his opposition to racism and racial discrimination in South Africa, and to report to the Security Council thereon;

- 10 - 4. Urgent campaigns for the release of all political prisoners in southern Africa must be launched without delay, and those already condemned to death must be reprieved and given their freedom; 5. Freedom fighters captured on the battlefields must be accorded prisoners-of- war status in terms of the relevant Geneva Conventions; 6. All creations of the bantustan policies of separate development must be isolated and denied international recognition; 7. The growing South African nuclear potential must be exposed and condemned and pressure brought to bear on all the imperialist countries that collaborate with the Vorster regime in the nuclear field to cease such collaboration without delay. Specifically, this Conference must recommend that an international campaign be launched against South Africa's nuclear enrichment project; 8. The countries that share borders with the racist fascist regimes of South Africa and Southern Phodesip. must be given all possible assistance by the international community in order to increase their capacity to repel the repeated aggression by these terror regimes. 9. The African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) must be recognized as the only, true, genuine and authentic organization representing the interests of the South African people as a whole, irrespective of colour, creed, sex or race; 10. The International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid must be enforced; 11. The South African r6gime must be expelled from the United Nations; 12. The liberation movements in southern Africa - the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe, the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) of Nanibia and the African National Congress of South Africa - must be given all-round assistance to increase their striking power against their common enemies and for the liberation of the oppressed peoples in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

- 11 The ultimate victory of our revolutionary struggles leading to the creation of just and democratic societies in southern Africa will call for more sacrifice on the part of the oppressed peoples. The course to that victory is clearly along the intensification of the armed revolutionary struggle. Nothing will divert us from this course. And we are confident that the results of the current Conference will consolidate and extend support for the struggle. Matla ke arona! Victory is certain! Amandla ngawethu! Power to the people!