Injustice in South Africa

Excerpt from Address by the Honourable Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica, at an International Conference in support of the peoples of Zimbabwe and Namibia, in Maputo, Mozambique, May 17, 1977

“… This conference takes place at a critical juncture. Repeated efforts that have been made to get the illegal racist Smith regime to hand over power have all come to nothing. The Rhodesian racists have made one thing clear: they will not yield to moral suasion nor even to partial pressure. Unless there is a dramatic change in world response, we must conclude that armed struggle provides the only realistic path to a solution.

“In Namibia, years of defiance by Pretoria have only recently been modified to the extent of a promise of some sort of elections under some unspecified international supervision and United Nations observation. Once again there is nothing to suggest that even this limited undertaking will be honoured. It is more likely that each succeeding promise from Salisbury and Pretoria is made to buy time. And each promise will be broken because those who urge negotiation are, as yet, unwilling to exert the kind of pressure which could force a lasting solution by peaceful means. And meantime while the world fiddles with Zimbabwe and Namibia, the ultimate villain in the piece, South Africa, remains largely unscathed.

“Throughout the world today, there are millions of people who sincerely want to believe that the international community has the capacity to deal fairly and equitably with the basic issues of peace and justice. They listen each day to the latest rhetoric about equality and dignity. And, they ask, why can we not solve even this most glaring, most obvious, most vicious example of injustice in southern Africa? Many of those who claim to hate injustice say they also love peace. So in the name of peace they counsel patience and call for more talks, and another conference. But as each conference fails, the people of the world are left to conclude that the talking does not take us nearer to the goal of justice. Hence it was to armed struggle that our brothers and sisters turned and it is that struggle which we must increasingly support…”