Forty Years of the Kabwe Conference: Destroy the Old Order (Part 2)
(Excerpts from an Address by Oliver Tambo to the Nation on Radio Freedom, 22 July 1985)
Compatriots,
“Our task, to take the struggle into the very midst of the enemy, presents all revolutionaries of our country with the challenge of devising the correct tactics to realise this objective. It is a challenge that all of us, workers, women and youth, must meet. It however also places a special responsibility on all our white compatriots who are committed to bring about a democratic South Africa to act now to show the white population of our country that however much it might try to close its eyes to what is happening, the fact of the matter is that our country is in crisis.
“White South Africa must be made to realise that Botha cannot guarantee its security. The greater the repression that he resorts to in defence of white minority rule and in the name of the whites of our country, the greater becomes the level of insecurity facing these very same whites. To guarantee its own security, white South Africa has to come over to the side of the forces fighting for a democratic and non-racial society.
“The alternative that Botha offers them – that of pitting themselves against the overwhelming majority of the people of our country – is nothing but a death trap. Nothing will come of it except grief for the whole of white South Africa. We offer our white compatriots the only way out of the crisis
