Carte Blanche Denied Permission to Quote Oliver Tambo
On 30 January 1987, the Minister of Law and Order issued a message to the South African mainstream media denying Carte Blanche, an investigative television programme, permission to quote Oliver Tambo, the exiled President of the banned African National Congress (ANC), during his visit to the United States.
The communication from the office of the Minister stated that: “Please note that the Minister of law and order has not given Carte Blanche permission to quote Oliver Tambo. He has given permission to quote freely from three particular newspaper articles which appeared in the New York Times, New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.”
Carte Blanche was intending to broadcast portions of Oliver Tambo’s visit to Washington on 28 January 1987, where he endorsed the use of violence in the struggle against apartheid. “Apartheid is inherently a practice of violence”, he was quoted as saying in a speech at Georgetown University on the same day of the meeting with the United States Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
“We choose not to submit but to fight back, arms in hand. We have no alternative but to intensify our armed resistance because, as your Declaration of Independence says, in the face of systematic tyranny, it becomes a duty and a right to take up arms.” He told reporters that the ANC was indebted to the Soviet Union for providing arms, but he stressed that non-military assistance also came f
