Oliver Tambo: South Africa and Imperialism

Oliver Tambo: South Africa and Imperialism

(Extracts from the ANC Statement to the Preparatory Meeting of the Non-Aligned States, May 1970)

“The South African racists’ allies, the imperialist powers, … have been building the White regime into a dangerous, aggressive and expansionist state. It is this imperialist conspiracy which today is guilty of the crime and atrocities against the people of South Africa, Southern Africa, Africa, Asia, Latin America for which Hitler Nazi bandits were arraigned and convicted by the world at the Nuremberg trials.”

“Just as in the case of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, this criminal conspiracy is aimed at regaining lost colonial territories and countries, the plunder and exploitation of the peoples and the resources of their country, and the perpetuation of a system of amassing fabulous profits for industrial and armaments monopolies. It is a desperate plot for the imperialist second Reich in an era when socialist and national revolutions have made empires shrink.”

“South Africa clearly demonstrates the wolfish nature of this conspiracy. … The merger of White South African capital with international finance has been a specific feature of South Africa’s penetration in the economies in many countries in Africa and elsewhere. There is no other country in the world in which the imperialists have been prepared to relegate their differences to the background and unite their efforts economically, technically and militarily as they have done in South Africa.”

“Financially, South Africa is the spearhead in Africa for imperialist capital penetration and the subversion of the achievement of genuine national and economic independence in Africa, Latin America and South-east Asia. … The ‘outward or northward policy’ is a neocolonialist device to expand and spread the ideological and financical interests of South African and international finance, to subvert political and economic independence and support for the national liberation struggle.”

“South African fascists and their imperialist allies have set themselves the task to suppress the national liberation movement and to subvert national independence. The struggle for national liberation and the consolidation of national independence are inextricably interlinked and bound together, because the greatest enemies of national freedom, the oppressors and exploiters allied internationally, remain the greatest enemies of national independence throughout the world. The achievement of national independence and the consolidation of independence are themselves a great contribution to the whole anti-imperialist struggle. This is a great achievement. The joint strength of the progressive movements and states has a great potential.”

“Imperialists have through their armed repression in Southern Africa compelled the oppressed and exploited peoples to meet this repression with armed revolt. … Our peoples draw inspiration from the historic armed struggle of the Algerian People, the Cuban People, the Heroic Vietnamese Peoples and all the struggles of the oppressed and exploited against tyranny.”

“Your Excellencies, the armed struggle in South Africa will be protracted and costly in terms of human life. This is not the choice of the people. However protracted it might be, whatever the cost may be, victory is assured.”

– Oliver Tambo –
(NAM Statement, May 1970)

Source:
Oliver Tambo, “ANC Statement to the Preparatory Meeting of the Non-Aligned States, May 1970”, Sechaba, Vol. 4, No. 7, July 1970.

Castro Khwela
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