A Talk with Oliver Tambo
GELB, NORMAN
FIGHTING APARTHEID A Talk with Oliver Tambo by norman gelb The best known black political party in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) has lately stepped up its long-term campaign...
...Tambo: Yes...
...The ANC is accepted, I would say, as the leader of the forces opposed to apartheid...
...FIGHTING APARTHEID A Talk with Oliver Tambo by norman gelb The best known black political party in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) has lately stepped up its long-term campaign against white minority rule...
...Pretoria gets this declaration from the United States and immediately puts that alliance to the test by increasing aggression against Angola...
...They are all of equal worth and value...
...Now only two nations are not independent-namibia and our own South Africa...
...There is no possible danger that majority rule would be racist...
...What has happened is that South Africa has persuaded the United States to accept the theory that a liberation movement is by definition Communist...
...We certainly are not asking for some sophisticated way of perpetuating apartheid, which is what they are trying to do...
...There is a greater focus throughout South Africa on the question of majority rule...
...South Africa does not want Zimbabwe to succeed because Zimbabwe is a nonracial state...
...Of course, we do not accept the so-called reforms...
...Tambo: We must step up our armed struggle...
...The transformation of an entire continent has left Pretoria far behind the times...
...Otherwise, though, from the moment they came to power, their opponents were called Communists...
...Q: Isn't there a danger that because of the intense black bitterness over apartheid, majority rule in South Africa would be just as racist as minority rule is now...
...They realize they can't rule by the old-fashioned methods...
...Education should be for all human beings...
...This was supposed to be against the Communist Party...
...But they are bedeviling the future of South African whites, because their clandestine maneuvers can only lead to the escalation of the conflict...
...Tambo: It is absolutely true...
...We say that if the ruling clique had thought up these measures 20 years ago, when Africa was still involved in the liberation struggle, we could have regarded them as breakthroughs...
...Q: Since the founding of the ANC in 1912, has the situation in South Africa changed significantly...
...Nuclear plants are very sensitive, important installations in our country...
...It also signals action on a bigger scale...
...They create those conditions precisely to mislead the white population into supporting and defending the present system...
...Its ideology is racist...
...Africa was not independent...
...But as for the idea that the ANC is controlled by Communists, or is Communist-oriented, I reject it outright...
...Oliver Tambo, the President of the Congress, spends most of his time in Lusaka and other African capitals directing the group's activities...
...QWhat is your opinion of + the policies of the United ^ States government toward the situation in South Africa...
...In addition, several exiled ANC officials have been assassinated...
...We think there should be cooperation among all political forces in the country...
...It couldn't be anything else, otherwise you sit down and accept the status quo...
...We don't accept that the majority of the people should be hungry, or should be poor in a wealthy country...
...There's going to be chaos...
...It's the same statute...
...Within 10 days of Reagan entering the White House, we were attacked across the border...
...I think there is a point, not very far away, when we will bring this about...
...When the ANC was formed, it was simply asking for equal rights and treatment on the same terms as everybody else...
...Pretoria wants to be able to point a finger and say, "Look what is happening to the north of us...
...Q: How strong is the ANC within South Africa...
...The racist approach to our problem is wrong...
...Q: If not through legislative reforms, how will change in South Africa take place...
...It is trying to establish a nonracial society which is an argument against South Africa...
...And this has the encouragement of the United States...
...Tambo: Considering that the ANC is proscribed in South Africa, it is a very powerful movement, so powerful that the regime regards the ANC as its principal enemy...
...We think we have generally the same objectives...
...We think this unfortunate...
...They are all South Africans and they must govern the country together, democratically, in accordance with the will of the majority...
...Tambo: The first time in my experience in the ANC that this allegation was made was when the apartheid regime came to power after 1948...
...Q: I mean in the future Tambo: Oh, yes...
...The whole massacre was carried out without a Whisper of protest coming from Washington...
...To the extent that we can work with them, we do...
...Today there is an acceptance of the fact that it is really only a matter of time before South Africa is liberated, in the sense of rule passing to the majority, as it has done in Zimbabwe and everywhere else...
...There are more than 30 million people in South Africa...
...Tambo: We can't work with them because we are illegal...
...That has many implications in practice, because it's all a question of allies...
...The Reagan Administration starts out by declaring South Africa a very reliable, beloved ally...
...Q: Are there any white political movements in South Africa that you feel you can work with...
...Tambo: The trouble with white minority rule is that it is based on racism...
...We wouldn't have thought that an American administration, of all governments, could even find it within its possibilities to openly say that it is an ally of South Africa in this conflict...
...We want our countrymen to feel we all belong together...
...It's inconceivable...
...A recent raid by South African troops into neighboring Lesotho, for example, was directed against ANC members among the refugees there...
...What they are doing now is no longer acceptable because we are talking in terms of independent African peoples in Mozambique around the corner, Lesotho-and Namibia is coming along soon...
...Because of this expectation, because of the forces that are destined to overthrow the old system, the current regime in South Africa is looking for reforms to avoid a total breakdown, for a way to retreat slowly...
...Ours is a movement of poor, landless people...
...Q: What about the accusation by some circles in the United States that the ANC is Communist-oriented...
...In the future...
...The regime is simply trying to win support, particularly of the United States...
...Tambo: From our point of view, it is so hostile to the ANC and to the majority of South Africans that we don't know how to describe it...
...We shall make it even more impossible for the regime to rule in the old way, or even to rule at all...
...Still, we are encouraging political organizations aiming at the overthrow of the current system...
...Its practices are racist...
...Does that signal an acceleration of direct action against apartheid...
...As far as the people of South Africa are concerned, this doesn't mean anything...
...In 1950, they were already putting forth what was called the Suppression of Communism Act...
...Some of the things that are done are unbelievable...
...From the point of view of the ANC, any racist postures would be against the constitution, against the law...
...Pretoria is literally terrorizing the whole region...
...An arrangement that perpetuates the separation between whites and Coloreds and Indians and Africans is not acceptable...
...We are a liberation movement and our direction is socialist...
...We would legislate against racism, and punish it when it occurred...
...It is not correct to say that the ANC is Communist-oriented...
...If they persist, there will simply be a collapse of the system...
...They found that they couldn't say that the black consciousness movement, which was very active, was Communist, so they altered the words...
...Q: Do you believe the charges that the South African intelligence services have been involved in recent troubles in Zimbabwe designed to destabilize that country and damage the image of black majority rule there...
...We speak the same language...
...Tambo, the ANC has + claimed responsibility for the explosions that damaged South Africa's Koe-berg nuclear power station last month...
...I think we are really capable of bringing this about...
...Tambo: Yes...
...Q: Mr...
...That was the second time we attacked Koeberg, and we will be striking at several other plants like it elsewhere...
...We see the Reagan Administration as a declared enemy of liberation in South Africa...
...It's got to be...
...This is exactly what black people, the African people, are opposed to...
...We try to isolate the racist regime...
...We have sought to get the international community to put pressure on South Africa, to isolate it, to support us...
...That's a very important change...
...We reckon we will be illegal until we take over...
...The ANC opposed it because we knew it was against all opposition to the regime and, indeed, anti-Communists were arrested and charged under this act...
...He also maintains an office in London, where New Leader correspondent Norman Gelb interviewed him...
...Exchanging white racism for black racism would solve nothing, and we want peace in our country...
...It didn't matter who they were-they could have been priests...
...But I don't know what sort of future that will be...
...It is now called the Internal Security Act...
...That escalates the conflict...
...Outlawed in 1960, the organization is viewed by Pretoria with growing concern...
...It is what we would call an international terrorist, going from country to country terrorizing and killing, and sending in armies that are destabilizing, perpetrating atrocities, and financing all those operations...
...There is a great deal of impatience and desperation on the part of the oppressed, and the regime responds to this by more oppression...
Vol. 66 • January 1983 • No. 2
