Oliver Tambo: The Weapon of Unity
(Extracts from the Message to the ANC External Mission, delivered by ANC Acting President Oliver Tambo, January 1971).
“Today, it is ever more important that we continue to hold in our hands the weapon of unity we have in the past wielded with such dramatic results in our External work. It is the weapon with which we have build up a volume of international support for our struggle, and a mountain of international pressure against the Racists, such as cannot but give great satisfaction to our colleagues who languish in South African jails. With that weapon of unity we have stood firm in the face of sustained and powerful enemy attacks on our movement – attacks mounted from different points at different angles with different methods.”
“With that weapon in our hands, we have gone to war, and it inspired the gallants of Umkhonto we Sizwe in the historic battles of Wankie and Sipolilo. They fought and fell, they punished and routed the imperialist agents, under the banners of the ANC, in the name of a united and suffering people. With that weapon, we shall fight and fall, we shall conquer and be free.”
“It is a weapon the enemy has sought to take from the oppressed people. ‘Hold fast on it!’ Chief Luthuli cries from the grave. ‘Hold it fast!’ It is not yours, it belongs to a suffering people, to posterity; it is the key to freedom. ‘Hold it!’ That is the call from Mini, Saloojee, Florence, Solwandle, and others.
