NEW DELHI: African National Congress (ANC) leader Dr Nelson Mandela Tuesday said the anti-Apartheid campaign in South Africa has reached “the crucial point” in the talks with the South African govt.
Delivering the Jawaharlal Nehru memorial lecture, organised by the Jawaharlal Nehru memorial fund, the ANC leader said one of the major areas of discussion with the South African govt was that of reaching an agreement for the creation of a mechanism fora constituent assembly to enable maximum participation of all people of South Africa, a constitution and a bill of rights which would guarantee individual liberties.
However, he cautioned against the lurking forces of the right wing and their agents, whose aim was to disrupt progress. He cautioned against the lurking forces of the night wing and their agents, whose aim was to disrupt progress and maintain white domination.
Dr Mandela asserted that the people of South Africa were determined that the process of an onward march of people through mass mobilisation, demonstrations and other affirmative actions was not allowed to be halted.
Deprecating apartheid ideology, which attempted to fragment the people of South Africa, Dr Mandela said this system had elevated the whites to a dominant, super-caste which was to reign over a detribalized, dispossessed, dislocated majority.
The white South African govt, Dr Mandela said, pursued this goal with single-minded brutality, including forced removals, disruption of community life, and the creation of Bantustans. He said this “master plan” did not take into account the persistence of values emerging out of shared experience in the workplaces.
Paying rich tributes to Jawaharl Nehru, India’s first prime minister, Dr Mandela described him as a militant freedom fighter against colonialism, the eminent architect of Afro-Asian unity and the policy of non-alignment,
Among the dignitaries who attended the lecture Tuesday were prime minister Singh and his wife, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife, federal commerce and tourism minister Arun Nehru and external affairs minister Inder Kumar Gujral and a large number of former ministers of Cong (I) and members of Parliament.
Dr Mandela said the foresight of the Nehru formula was a valuable resource, as the ANC embarked on a formulation to solve the Apartheid problems. He said the fundamental premise of the people of South Africa, especially of the oppressed classes, was that progressive change had to be based on democratization and affirmative action for the majority.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 26, 1990
