Forty Years of the Kabwe Conference: Consolidation and Further Advance
(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)
Period of Expansion
“Conversely, during this period, the victories of the national liberation movement in southern Africa in particular, acted as an important factor in raising the level of militancy among our own people and spurring them further into action. Great, new possibilities emerged for us to reach into our country. Because allies with whom we had cooperated for a decade and more in the struggle for national liberation were now in power in Mozambique and Angola, a whole variety of other opportunities to increase our effectiveness emerged.
“One outcome of these developments was that, from 1975 onwards, we were able to establish an official presence in the Kingdom of Swaziland. Among the independent countries of southern Africa, Malawi was the only one with which we had and have no relations. At the same time, and as a consequence of these developments, the political crisis of the apartheid regime began to emerge into the open.
“Building on what had been achieved in the past, we continued to expand our contact with the masses of our people as well as their democratic organisations, including the trade unions and the Black Consciousness Movement as well as th
