Anti-apartheid notes; Solidarity Day.

The Special Committee against Apartheid held a solemn meeting on 15 June in New York to observe the International Day of Solidarity with the Struggling Peoples of South Africa. The observance of the Day marked the eighth anniversary of the massacre by the Government of South Africa of students in Soweto on 16 June 1976.

In a message to the meeting, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said the observance each year of the International Day underlined the commitment of the international community to promote the elimination of apartheid in South Africa and the establishment of a society in which all the people of the country, irrespective of race, colour or creed, enjoyed human rights and fundamental freedoms. The system of apartheid was a negation of the purposes and principles of the United Nations and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The South African Government, he said, had proceeded with forcible removals of African people, establishment of so-called independent states in African reserves and other measures to perpetuate racial discrimination. Such unilateral moves, and the repression which had accompanied them, could not but exacerbate the situation. He appealed again to the South African Government to end repression, release all political prisoners and seek a solution through consultations among the representatives of all the people of South Africa.

The meeting also received messages from the Heads of State of Bangladesh, the Syrian Arab Republic and Viet Nam.

In an opening statement, Joseph N. Garba (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee, said the situation in South Africa had reached a very critical stage. The apartheid regime was unwilling to abandon racism. As a result of its blatant acts of aggression, destabilization and terrorism in violation of international law, some independent African States had recently been obliged to enter into talks and accords with the Pretoria regime. The South African racists could not have acted so outrageously if they had not enjoyed the overt and covert support and protection of a number of Western Governments. He called on those Governments and transnational corporations collaborating with the apartheid regime to join the concerted international action against apartheid.

Stephen Cletus Chiketa (Zimbabwe), speaking on behalf of the African Group, said draconian laws had turned South Africa into an armed police State. Leaders had disappeared one by one. Night curfews had been imposed, student organizations had been banned -- all those acts had been directed at cowing the black population of South Africa. A racial conflagration in South Africa would affect all countries where any form of multiracial society existed. The problem must be resolved before all were destroyed by that time bomb.

Ali Alatas (Indonesia), speaking on behalf of the Asian Group, said Soweto represented but one link in the oppressive chain of events that continued to engulf South Africa. There could be no credible argument nor any justifiable reason for hope that the racists in Pretoria would ever reverse, on their own, the dehumanizing doctrine of apartheid; hence the legitimacy and inveitability of continuing struggle, including armed struggle, by the people of South Africa, and the urgent need for comprehensive mandatory sanctions by the international community.

Harry Ott (German Democratic Republic), speaking on behalf of the Eastern European Group, said the socialist countries continued to develop their relationship with and support of the front-line States. They felt aligned with the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) and the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). The certainty of their final victory could be delayed but not prevented. The most active supporters of the apartheid regime were the reactionary forces of the United States and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries.

Susan Nancy Gordon (Trinidad and Tobago), speaking on behalf of the Latin American Group, said the heroic resistance of the South African people against apartheid and international efforts for its elimination would ultimately triumph. She called for the implementation of relevant United Nations resolutions and decisions, in particular the call for an end to economic collaboration with South Africa. It was incumbent upon the international community to take effective, definitive action to force the Pretoria regime to desist from its present policies.

Mongezi Stofile, representative of ANC and former President of the South African Students Organization, said he was deeply moved to be speaking on behalf of more than 24 million voiceless but fighting black nationalists and white activists. He could legitimately claim to be an emissary of more than 55,000 political prisoners. The Soweto uprisings were a historic landmark -- South Africa had never been the same since.

Daniel Mthimunye, member of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), said the introduction of oppressive measures in the black schools had become the order of the day. Nothing short of a complete dismantling of the entire apartheid system with its colonial base, and the restoration of power to its rightful owners -- the indigenous African majority -- would end the education crisis.

Louis Edozien, member of the African Students Association in the United States, said students on campuses throughout the country were willing to take action in support of the struggle against apartheid.

Zehdi Labib Terzi, representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said the Soweto uprisings had been just one manifestation of resistance to the racist regime. He expressed solidarity with the struggling people of South Africa.

North American Conference

"The Reagan Administration's policy of 'constructive engagement' and the continuing support given to the South African regime by Canada and certain Western countries bear major responsibility for helping to maintain apartheid rule inside South Africa and for the escalation of South African destruction against neighbouring States."

That statement formed part of the Declaration that was adopted by acclamation by the North American Regional Conference for Action against Apartheid, held in New York from 18 to 21 June. Organized by the Special Committee against Apartheid, the Conference was attended by many public leaders, State and local legislators, and representatives of non-governmental organizations active in the campaign against apartheid and for liberation of South Africa and Namibia. The Governments of Canada and the United States were represented by observers.

Among those who addressed the Conference were Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, United States Senator Edward M. Kennedy, United States Democratic Presidential candidate Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young and Sam Nujoma, President of SWAPO.

The Declaration said that by endorsing South Africa's claims to recognition as a regional Power, and following that with acts of friendship, the United States sought to legitimize Pretoria's racism and repression, and its undeclared wars against the front-line and neighbouring States. The United States policy of "constructive engagement", which advocated a strategic alliance with South Africa, had laid the basis for the recent top-level meetings of Western European leaders with South African Prime Minister P.W. Botha. That was an attempt to legitimize the illegality of the South African racist regime and allow it to end its international isolation.

To counter that attempt and to force intensified isolation of that outlaw regime, the Declaration said the following tasks, among others, had to be undertaken immediately:

-- Ending of all investment in South Africa, full implementation of the arms embargo and total economic and cultural sanctions against the apartheid regime;

-- Additional support for the national liberation movements and all progressive forces opposing apartheid;

-- Expanded support for the front-line and neighbouring States whose independence and development was under attack, by raising the visibility of the war being waged against them by South Africa;

-- Effective support for the independence of Namibia, on the basis of the immediate and unconditional implementation of Security Council resolution 435, and rejection of attempts by the United States and South Africa to link Namibian independence to the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola or other attempts to bypass the United Nations through internal or so-called regional settlements.

-- Countering the concerted South African propaganda campaign in the United States and Canada which falsely claimed that apartheid was being dismantled in South Africa and Namibia;

-- Ensure that South Africa did not return to the International Olympic Movement until apartheid was totally eliminated.

Struggle of Women

The Special Committee against Apartheid held a solemn meeting on 9 August in New York to observe the International Day of Solidarity with the Struggle of Women in South Africa and Namibia. The Day was proclaimed by the General Assembly in 1981 to commemorate a demonstration held on 9 August 1956 in Pretoria, South Africa, to protest the extension of pass laws to African women.

Opening the meeting, Vladimir A. Kravets (Ukrainian SSR), Vice-Chairman of the Special Committee, recalled that the Special Committee had suggested the widest possible publicity for the continued suffering of black women and their struggle to liberate themselves from the cruel system of apartheid. The Special Committee had also called for increased financial and material contributions to the projects of national liberation movements and front-line States for assistance to refugee women and children from South Africa and Namibia.

Suad Ibrahim Eisa (Sudan), speaking on behalf of the African Group, said women and children were also victims of the Petoria regime's oppression and apartheid policy. African women were powerful factors in the struggle in South Africa.

Rosalinda V. Tirona (Philippines), speaking on behalf of the Asian Group, said that in South Africa and Namibia, women were not allowed to take up most kinds of employment. Thus, they were forced to provide subsistence for themselves, their children and sick and elderly relatives, by tilling impoverished plots of land allocated to their husbands. Young women and girls did not have the opportunity to go to school.

Leonore Dorset (Trinidad and Tobago), speaking Group, said the people of South Africa and Namibia should know that they did not stand alone. However, she looked forward to a time when such international days of solidarity would not be needed.

Coretta scott King of the United States, President of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change, said the women of every nation should build international coalitions with women's organizations to develop campaigns in support of freedom and justice in Namibia and South Africa. Bernice F. Powell, President, New York Coalition of 100 Black Women, said she was present to celebrate the brave women of South Africa, and to stand in solidarity with them in their heroic struggle against apartheid. Isabela Planeta-Malecka, head of the Pediatric Clinic at the Medical Academy in Lodz, Poland, said the women of Poland lived far away from southern Africa, but the plight of their sisters was not alien to them.

Lindiwe Mabuza, representative of ANC, called on the international community to, among other things, participate actively in the implementation of the United Nations comprehensive and mandatory sanctions against apartheid South Africa; intensify boycotts in the cultural and sports fields; and show effective implementation of the arms embargo against racist South Africa. Joyce Sifuba of PAC, appealed to the international community for increased financial and material support to the women's wing of PAC. Ellen Musialela, representative of SWAPO's Women's Council, urged the women of the United States to press the Reagan Administration to drop its "immoral stand" of the linking of fundamental rights of the Namibian people with the extraneous issue of the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola.

Messages were received from Maj. Gen. Muhammed Buhari, Head of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria; from the World Federation of Trade Unions in Prague, Czechoslovakia; and from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Also received was a resolution adopted at the solemn meeting of the representatives of Soviet women on the occasion of the International Day, held in Moscow.

Seminar on Legal Aspects of Apartheid

There was a "most urgent need" for the Security Council to impose binding economic, military, nuclear and other forms of sanctions against the apartheid Pretoria regime because the situation in south Africa was a clear threat to international peace and security.

That statement formed part of a Declaration issued on 16 August at the conclusion of a four-day seminar on the legal status of the apartheid regime in South Africa and other legal aspects of the struggle against apartheid, held at Lagos. Organized by the Special Committee against Apartheid in co-operation with the Federal Military Government of Nigeria, the seminar was attended by jurists and social scientists from a number of countries in Africa, Europe, North America and Asia, representing the principal legal systems of the world.

The Declaration stated that, in the meantime, the Security Council should strengthen both the content and the machinery of monitoring the arms embargo imposed in 1977. States should follow the example of many countries which had imposed voluntary embargoes in the areas of the sale of oil investment and other forms of collaboration.

Where Governments were unwilling to act, the seminar appealed to legal organizations, jurists and non-governmental organizations and individuals to consider bringing actions in their municipal courts to challenge governmental inactivity or complicity in such matters as the implementation of the arms embargo.

The seminar demanded that the Security Council take immediate steps to implement resolution 435 (1978).

The seminar recognized that the use of domestic and international law to combat the apartheid regime could be advanced in a number of ways. Committees of lawyers in as many jurisdictions as possible should be set up to study ways by which General Assembly and Security Council resolutions and internationally accepted human rights norms could be used in law suits to impede or frustrate the practice and perpetuation of apartheid. Assistance should be provided to trade unions and anti-apartheid movements which wished to impede the export or import of materials or know-how which were in breach of international obligations.

The Declaration stated that the national liberation movements of South Africa, as the authentic representatives of the people, had the right to seek and obtain assistance in the exercise of the right to self-defence against the international crime constituted by the denial of self-determination and the criminal nature of the apartheid system. The seminar drew attention to the fact that States had the legal right to provide all forms of assistance to those movements, as collective self-defence measures against the domestic and external terrorism of the apartheid regime.

The seminar affirmed its support for the international campaign for the release of all political prisoners in South Africa, and made an urgent plea to States who had not done so, especially the Western States, to ratify the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

Among other things, the seminar:

-- rejected the self-defence claim advanced by the South African regime to justify its aggression against its neighbours as devoid of any merit.

-- called upon the international community to support the right of Lesotho, completely surrounded by South Africa, to have free and unfettered access to the rest of the world.

-- called on the world community to provide maximum economic and other forms of support to those States which had been the victims of the racist South Africian aggression and destabilization.

-- appealed to all States to respect the status and rights of refugees from South Africa.