United Nations 62nd GENERAL PLENARY MEETING ASSEMBLY Friday, 18 November 1983, THIRTY-EIGHTH SESSION at 11 a.m. OffICial Records NEW YORK President: Mr. Jorge E. ILLUECA (panama). South Africans will be welcome only as hewers ofwood and drawers ofwater for the white man. The 1936 Land Act was designed for this purpose. Already a few million black South Africans who have been herded into barren In the absence ofthe President, Mrs. Jones (Liberia), bantustans have been deprived of their citizenship of Vice-President, took the Chair. South Africa and forced to become citizens of tribal archipelagos scattered all over the periphery ofso-called AGENDA ITEM 32 white South Africa. When all the tri~ ofthe bantustans have been forced to accept tribal independence, 87 per Policies ofapartheid of the Government ofSouth Africa cent ofSouth Africa will become a whiteman's country; (continued): albeit a white man's country surrounded by an angry sea ofblack humanity. This is the ingenious evil philosophy (a) Ref)Ort of the Special Comndttee against Apartheid; behind the constitution which the white people ofSouth (b) Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Drafting Africa accepted on 2 November. of an International Convention against Aparth2id s. And yet there are among us a few doubting Thomases in Sports; who still insist, against all the evidence to the contrary, (c) Report of tbe Secretary-General that the blacks will be taken care of in some future dis­ pensation. It is argued that urban blacks, in particular, 1. Mr. LEGWAILA (Botswana): On 13 July 1983 the who may be found to have no connection with distant South African Broadcasting Corporation broadcast an tribal enclaves and cannot therefore be expelled to those essay on constitutional development, part ofwhich reads: enclaves, will have to be accommodated somehow. What "Evading reality, building constitutions to ideological accommodation? The day after the 2 November referen­ constructs, is a prescription for disaster". dum the Prime Minister of South Africa made it clear 2. It is common knowledge that early this month, on that there was no hidden agenda for working out a con­ 2 November to be exact, a referendum designed precisely stitutional accommodation for blacks. Indeed, through­ to entrench the ideology ofapartheidand white domina­ out thecampaign for the referendum the Prime Minister tion was held in South Africain which anew, even more of South Africa and his Ministers wt:nt out oftheir way rabidly racist so-called constitutional dispensation was to assure their Afrikaner nation that there would never approved by the white minority. The new dispensation, be power-sharing between whites and blacks, and that a veritable prescription for disaster, invites Coloured and blacks were already exercising their right to self-deter­ Indian South Africans into the white man's laager '0 join mination in the bantustans. the white minority in a futile attempt to evade reality~ 6. In other words. so far as the white Government in to seek refuge in the precarious company ofa beleaguered Pretoria is concerned, blacks have already been taken care minority hell-bent on preselving a racist and inhuman of. They have been given homelands, or bantustans, to ideology at all costs. run as independent sovereign States. Four ofthese home­ 3. The results ofthe referendum welcomed by a promi­ lands are today "independent" and sovereign republics. nent member ofthe United Nations as marking "apoten­ It is the Coloureds and the Indians who, in the pecking tially significant date in the modem history of South order of the race classification Act and the 1936 Land Africa" [56th meeting, para. 124), have been totally Act, have no homeland they can call their own. They rejected by this Assembly-rightly so, because the results therefore must be accommodated within white South of the referendum are far from being a step in the right Aftica, so the reasoning goes, as junior partners, or co­ direction, the direction of meaningful change in South conspirators ina crude conspiracy contrived to delay sine Africa. On the contrary, the new constitutional dispensa­ die the introduction of majority rule in South Africa. tion can serve only to exacerbate racial polarization in 7. To Coloured and Indian SouthAfricans, we have this ~'outh Africa, as it entrenches for all time the disfranchise­ to say: South Africa belongs to all South Africans­ ment ofthe majority population ofthat unhappy country. black, white, Coloured, Indian, Chinese and all others By what logic can the enfranchisement of 2.8 million who have over the centuries of South African history Coloured and 800,000 Indian South Africans, and the made their homes in their country. South Africa is the continued disfranchisement of 23 million black South common heritage ofall who live in it. The minority whites Africans, be described as a step in the right direction, have no right to deprive the majority non-whites of the "a potentially significant date in the modern history of citizenship of their country. South Africa"? By what logic can a constitution which 8. Coloured and Indian South Africans would be selling so recklessly launches the white minority in South Africa their heritage ifthey ever accepted a dispensation which on so dangerous a collision course with the black majolity clearly circumscribed their right to participate fully and be welcomed as offering the best hope ofavoiding disaster freely, on a basis ofequality, in the political life of their and catastrophe in South Africa? country. The new dispensation leaves them in an under­ 4. The facts are clear and irrefutable. The ultimate privileged position vis-a-vis whites, and to accept the objective of the white regime in South Africa is, and dispensation in the hope of working against apartheid always has been, the transformation of two thirds of "from Within" is an exercise in self-delusion. As we South Africa into a white man's country, where black pointed out in our statement on this item at the thirty- 971 A/38/PV.62 972 General Assembly-Tbirty-elgbth Session-Plenary Meetings seventh session [66th meeting], the new electoral college freedom and equality as the common heritage of all the constituted under the new dispensation will be composed children of God. ofso whites, 25 Coloureds and 13 Indians to ensure that 13. The Ciskei, an impoverished "independent" waste­ Coloured and Indian South Africans continue to play the land, has also been turned, by the ruling family ofSebe, role ofhewers ofwood and drawers ofwater. In a white­ into hell on earth-so hellish is the place indeed that the dominated electoral college, conditions which today Sebe oligarchy has even started incarcerating its own prevail in South Africa will remain unchanged. members, in addition to endeavouring, with the fanati­ 9. But something terribly traumatic would disfigure the cism of a zealot, to obliterate from the face of its feral political structure ofthat strange society ifthe Coloured fiefdom every trace ofthe authentic liberation movements and Indian South Africans should allow themselves to of South Africa. be lured into the white man's laager by the promise of 14. The situation is not much different in the Transkei a few cabinet posts in a partially recycled, seasonally and Bophuthatswana. Because these products of apart­ adjusted apartheid regime: the solidarity ofpurpose that heid take their hollow independence too seriously, they has always characterized the relationship between black, have concluded that the only way to ensure the perma­ Coloured and Indian South Africans would come to an nence oftheir discredited and treecherous tribal regimes end. Coloured and Indian South Africans would become society~a and their continued enjoyment ofthe perquisites ofstate­ part and parcel of an even stranger society hood, however hollow, is to enact the same oppressive composed of minority groupings brought together by a legislation that South Africa uses against freedom fight­ morbid fear of change. They would §hare the burdens ers: like father, like son. ofapartheid, co-author its crimes and become part ofthe enemy camp vis-a-vis the majority ofthe people ofSouth 15. Regionally, the brutal enforcement ofthe apartheid Africa. Surely, we cannot accept that our Coloured and policies in both South Africa and Namibia has wrought Indian brethren, who have contributed so much to the unspeakable havoc with the lives, economies and general struggle for justice and freedom in South Africa, their well-being ofthe countries and people ofsouthern Africa. motherland, will so recklessly wish to place their names No country, not a single one in the region, can feel safe on the roll ofinfamy by allowing themselves to participate in the face of an aggressive regime sworn to employ all ma constitutional charade which sets them on a collision the force at its disposal to intimidate its neighbours. The course with their own destiny as South Africans. region has become home to a growing assortment ofdis­ 10. We remain adama..,t in our view that there will be sident movements spawned by Pretoria, whose vocation no hope for the future of South Africa until the white it is to destabilize South Africa's neighbours, to intimi­ rulers ofthat country stop deluding themselves into think­ dat':: them into abandoning their opposition to apartheid. ing that apartheid and racism can be reformed and made 16. The case of Angola, whose southern sector has acceptable to its victims. There can be no hope for South virtually become a permanent home for uninvited South Africa until, as theNatal Mercury observed recently, "a African troops and their UNITAl 3urrogates, that of compromise is negotiated with the leadership ofall races Lesotho, against which the murderous thugs of the so­ about a conference table"-a conference table at which called Lesotho Liberation Army have been unleashing the genuine leaders of all the races in South Africa will operations from South Africa, and that ofMozambique, be present together to work out a non-racial and demo­ which is being subjected to periodic invasions and to the cratic dispensation acceptable to all the people of South murderous escapades ofdissident thugs-to mention but Africa.