Southern Africa, South Africa and the ANC – 27 March 1968

Southern Africa, South Africa and the ANC – 27 March 1968 Sechaba Interviews Oliver Tambo, Acting President-General of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, on Southern Africa, South Africa and the ANC – 27 March 1968 Question: Mr Tambo, you have just completed a tour of some African countries; what was the aim of this tour and what are its results? “Our delegation has been to Algeria and Tunisia. Other ANC delegations have visited other States. The need for the delegations to undertake these missions arises directly from the unfolding crisis in Southern Africa. After all, we are not fighting an individual cause. Africa has committed herself to the total liberation of the Continent before any individual independent state can consider itself truly independent. At the moment the greatest problem facing Africa in terms of liberation is Southern Africa. And within Southern Africa itself the hardest core of reaction is the South African regime. It has always been clear to us that an armed struggle against South Africa poses immediate dangers and threats to the entire continent of Africa, if it supports that struggle.” “We have always warned that South Africa’s annual military budget which now stands at £128,000,000 has designs not only to the ruthless suppression of the Liberation Movement in South Africa, but also for the support of all reaction in the rest of Southern Africa and for the invasion of the African continent itself. We think it