OLIVER TAMBO, whose speech to the Labour Party conference is reprinted in part below, is president of the African National Congress, the major national liberation movement in South Africa today. Tambo was a collaborator of Nelson Mandela's since they formed the AN Youth League in the 1940s. He has been in exile since early 1960 when the apartheid state banned the ANC.
COMRADES, 1 bring the fraternal greetings of the national executive and entire membership of the ANC. I salute you in the name of all the oppressed masses and all democrats in On this occasion, I want to greet in particular an old and long-standing member of the anti-apartheid movement, one whose interest in our struggle goes back to his student days, and has remained constant throughout his whole political life. We now find great hope in the fact that he will be the next prime minister of this country. Neil Kinnock, when you are atNumber 10, we have confidence that your support will remain with our people. Drama Brothers, sisters and comrades, a great and exciting drama is unfolding in South Africa. The old is giving way to the new. The future presses on with an insistence walch HOL even the gentlemen of the City of London, the Wall Street financiers or the gnomes of Zurich can ignore. It will be a future without the apartheid white minority regime and without the domination of one race by another When that moment comes, it will mark the close of the epoch of colonialism. A new society will emerge which will, because of its past, make a "The masses of the British people can and must impose sanctions themselves' significant contribution to the worldwide struggle to banish the crippling cancer or racism ana to buna relations of equality and fraternity between black and white people. If for no other reason, it will redress the inequities inflicted on our people by centuries of oppression and exploitation, with a true society of equals.
It will also have to attend to other important questions. equitable distribution of the wealth of our country, the genuine emancipation of women, and the defence of the rights of the 'Amandla Ngawethu' (Power to the people that rings out from every corner of our land, refers to the transfer of votes and to political and economic power to the people.
In the Freedom Charter, we encompassed the aspirations masses people, peasants, the middle strata, black and white, foundry workers, miners, United around these objectives, our people have been able to overcome the divisiveness inherent in the apartheid system and brought our country close to its transformation into a united, society.
remove the apartheid regime. Our people have graduated from protest to challenge. campaign we launched was an appeal to the powers that be to redress the wrongs heaped on us have gone. We are on a path that must end in the destruction of these butchers, have for a native land into a seething piece of hell.
historic reality regime is confronting the democratic movement of our country with savage fury, which has claimed the lives of more than a thousand people in the such as last 12 months. Indeed, so widespread has torture become that the courtThe cry issue for 55 years, have been forced to issue injunctions abuse of detainees. The racist regime is now using death squads.
Oliver Tambo teachers, shopkeepers and students. one epinc.
democratic and non-racial But much remains to be done to We The days when every who generation turned our It is, of course, recognising this Pretoria Britons s, which have remained silent on this prohibiting the day. and the country ungovernable.
it is clear, will res HUSI pond with even greater brutality. But whatever may be done, we shall not WIth retreat. Rather, it is inevitable that we shall win more allies to our cause. The much-vaunted unity of the whites in South general, or the Afrikaners in pal" ticular, is a thing of the past.
Democratic determined do everything in our power to draw as many whites to the side of the democratic movement as possible. Being certain that the security and happiness of all our people, including our white compatriots, lies in the kind of democratic South Africa spelt out in the Freedom Charter.
We stand here today to ask this great party what contribution it is willing to make to the birth of the new society. We have the right to know whether the millions of ordinary that this great represents have remained unmoved by scenes of terrible savagery and obscene brutality that they see on masses of the British people can and impose sanctions themselves. You have the power to stop all trade apartheid South Africa. We plead with you that you do not worry. The stomachs of those shot down in Africa today empty already. The bellies of those who pull the trigger are bulging to the point of
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We are convinced of the certainty of victory... There can be no turning back'