Forty Years of the Kabwe Conference: Apartheid Crisis Deepens

Forty Years of the Kabwe Conference: Apartheid Crisis Deepens

(Portions of the Political Report of the National Executive Committee to the National Consultative Conference, which was presented by the President of the African National Congress, Oliver Tambo, 17 June 1985, Kabwe, Zambia)

The International Front

“As we have said, already by 1975 we had defeated Vorster’s ‘détente’ offensive. At the beginning of 1976 he was forced to withdraw his defeated army from the People’s Republic of Angola. His puppet forces in Mozambique and Angola were not making much headway. Despite such atrocities as the Kassinga Massacre of 1978, the struggle in Namibia continued to escalate, SWAPO’s position having been greatly strengthened by the birth of independent Angola. The offensive of the Patriotic Front also intensified, underpinned as it was by the popular victory in Mozambique.

“Further afield, the Vietnamese liberation movement had finally won victory in 1975 with the collapse of the Thieu regime and the humiliating flight of the Americans remaining in South Vietnam. The Shah of Iran, originally placed on his throne by the CIA and since armed and developed by United States imperialism as one of its counter-revolutionary strongmen in the Persian Gulf, was swept out of power by the popular masses in 1979. As an act of solidarity with our struggle, the new Government of Iran, which was visited by an ANC delegation led by our Secretary General, imposed an oil embargo against apartheid South Africa. Up to this time, Iran had provided 90 percent of South Africa’s oil imports.

“In the same year, the democratic anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution in Afghanistan had been saved, with the support of the Soviet Union. In the Western Hemisphere, progressive changes took place in Nicaragua and Grenada with the victories of the Sandinista and the New Jewel Movement. The United States took the first tentative steps to normalise its relations with socialist Cuba. The democratic forces had won in Spain, bringing to an end an era which had been imposed on the Spanish people by resurgent European fascism in 1939. The Soviet Union and the United States had concluded the second SALT Treaty.

Imperialism in Retreat

“All these events are important not just as a matter of historical record. We recall them because they marked a further shift in the balance of forces against imperialism and also reflected the extent of its weakness at that point in time. One outstanding result of this situation that accrued to the peoples of southern Africa was that United States imperialism was unable to intervene more extensively in Angola in support of the South African invasion of 1975–76.

“In 1977, taking advantage of the adverse international situation for the Pretoria regime created by the murder of Steve Biko and the wholesale banning of popular organisations, but also bearing in mind that international imperialism was on the retreat, the progressive world pushed for and got the Security Council to impose a mandatory arms embargo against apartheid South Africa. This was the first such action to be adopted by the United Nations, despite the fact that the question of apartheid had stayed regularly on its agenda for thirty years up to that point.

“Earlier in the same year, 1977, international imperialism had to consider the issue of sanctions against racist South Africa, but this time over the issue of Namibia. The United States, in particular, felt that its political positions were too weak to allow it to use its veto to block these sanctions. It managed to have this proposal postponed by establishing the so-called Contact Group and, in 1978, getting the Security Council to adopt Resolution 435 as the operational plan for the implementation of the earlier Resolution 385 which called for: ‘free elections under the supervision and control of the United Nations… for the whole of Namibia as one political entity’.

“We should also bear in mind that already in 1974, under the Presidency of Algeria, the General Assembly of the United Nations had refused to accept the credentials of the Pretoria regime. The Western allies of this regime failed to stop this outcome and have, since, failed to reverse it. This was an important victory for our diplomacy, which was further reinforced by the recognition of the South African liberation movement by the United Nations as a legitimate representative of the people of South Africa.

“From this came the decision to accord us the status of official observer to the United Nations. In 1976, for the first time ever, we addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations, accepted fully as a representative of our people and entitled to be heard by the representatives of all nations of our globe. These developments had an important bearing on the central questions of our political posture on the illegitimacy of the apartheid regime and our own character as the alternative to the Pretoria regime.

“The importance of these positions is confirmed by the fact that in the aftermath of the conclusion of the Nkomati Accord, the offensive against our movement among other things, aimed to challenge these theses. But as we have said earlier, the position is that a large part of the international community views the ANC as the genuine representative of our people. Thus, we enjoy observer status both within the OAU and the United Nations, as against the Pretoria regime whose status with regard to these two important international organisations the delegates are familiar with. We enjoy a similar status with regard to the Non-Aligned Movement and participate fully in its activities.

Apartheid Crisis Deepens

“During the period we are discussing, the situation internally and externally was therefore developing against the Pretoria regime. As we have said, this deepened the crisis of the apartheid regime and brought it out into the open. In 1978, the once mighty John Balthazar Vorster lost his premiership of apartheid South Africa to his colleague of long standing, P. W. Botha. He was kicked upstairs and made State President. The following year, in 1979, he left the Presidency in even worse disgrace than the year before and died in obscurity, despised by many of his erstwhile friends as a fascist leader who had failed.

“In 1977, responding to the changed balance of forces and wishing to assert his leadership and the constancy of his policies, Vorster had called a snap white general election. His party won with majorities which were the largest in its entire history. The fact that Vorster could tumble in a period of two years from the most popular white Prime Minister to a retired and discredited politician reflected the seriousness of the crisis confronting the apartheid regime, the speed with which this crisis was developing and the intensity of the conflicts that these developments were generating within the ruling group.

“Vorster had in fact taken a series of measures to protect his regime and the criminal system he sought to perpetuate. One of these, which served as the catalyst in his downfall, was the secret political and information offensive through which the Pretoria regime tried to buy itself international acceptance.

“When this was exposed, the leading groups among the fascist party feared that the prestige of this party among the white population would suffer permanent damage and thus further worsen the crisis of the apartheid system. Scapegoats had to be found and sacrificed. Therefore, Vorster and other leading fascists such as General van den Bergh and Connie Mulder were sacrificed.” (To be continued)

– Oliver Tambo (17 June 1985) –

Source:
Oliver Tambo, “The Eyes of Our People are Focussed on this Conference”, Sechaba, October 1985, pp. 2 – 9.

Castro Khwela
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