The fifteenth session of the United Nations will in future years be remembered, firstly because of the record attendance of Heads of State and of Prime Ministers, and secondly because of the entry into the Organization of no less than sixteen States from the continent of Africa.
2. But there is a third, and a more important reason why this fifteenth session will be noted in the history books of the future. At previous Assemblies there have been clashes, some of them serious, between the opposing communist and non-communist blocs, which in some cases assumed the appearance of a clash between the West and the East.
3. At this session, the cold war against the Western nations has been openly and, I may say, aggressively waged by the Soviet delegation and by the other communist States, under the personal leadership of Mr. Khrushchev, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. There is a danger that the cold war could lead to a shooting war — to global war. I think that all or at least most of the delegations are aware of the fact that a delicate and dangerous situation has been created.
4. Mr. Khrushchev's attacks on the Secretary-General, and his threat to lead the communist States out of the United Nations, may be regarded by some as idle threats. On the other hand, the happenings at this Assembly, the unruly proceedings of last Thursday, the proceedings at yesterday's session, can also be regarded as an indication of what is going on in the minds of the communist leaders.
5. The threatening danger may be temporarily averted, but the state of tension which has existed since the West Berlin blockade of 1948 will continue, unless the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Russia get together and settle outstanding issues round a conference table. True, such talks have taken place in past years, and without fruitful results; but that is no reason why another attempt should not be made, which might be successful provided there is adequate preparatory work, and provided also that the leaders on both sides approach it in the proper spirit. I fully agree with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Mr. Macmillan, that the atmosphere of suspicion and fear should first be removed. My delegation fully supports the attempt made in that direction by Mr. Menzies, the Prime Minister of Australia.
6. There is a factor in connexion with the present situation which cannot be ignored, and that is the large increase in one single session of no less than sixteen new Member States from the continent of Africa, which has materially altered the relative position of the different groups in the United Nations. There seems to be little doubt — at any rate, in my mind — that this was one of the main reasons for Mr. Khrushchev's unexpected decision personally to lead his delegation at this session of the Assembly.
7. Mr. Khrushchev is keenly interested in Africa. It is common knowledge that for the past five or six years there has been a steady infiltration into some of the emergent States of Africa of Communist agents of various kinds — commercial, technical and political. This courting, if I may so call it, of the emergent States of Africa has met with some success, as has been evident at this Assembly in the pro-Soviet leanings shown by certain of the African delegations. The record of Soviet interference in the Congo is of course well-known to all delegations.
8. We in South Africa have good reason to regard with apprehension the signs of growing Communist influences in Africa. We have had experience of those influences in our own country. A number of the leaders of the African National Congress, which is a subversive organization, an organization which largely contributed to the Sharpeville riots earlier this year, are well-known Communists, some of them having been trained in Moscow.
9. In spite of the attacks to which my country has been, and still is being, subjected, South Africa has always taken a strong stand against Communism in any form. The Communist Party is banned in South Africa. The Soviet Consul-General was asked to leave the country in 1955 and Consular representation was abolished or terminated.
10. In 1948 the present Government of its own volition sent units of the South African Air Force to participate in the West Berlin airlift. And when the United Nations called for military assistance in Korea, South Africa was one of only sixteen out of sixty countries to send an air squadron, at a considerable cost of human lives and heavy financial sacrifice. South Africa — unlike some of (the other countries that responded to the call — has no direct political or strategic interest in the Far East. The sending of our squadron was our contribution to the fight against Communist aggression. We in South Africa stand where we have always stood in our opposition to Communism in any form — be it of the pale pink variety, or of the brightest red. We will tolerate neither professed Communists nor fellow travellers.
11. I say again that we in South Africa have reason to be concerned about Communist penetration in the continent of Africa. This is particularly so in regard to that part of Africa that lies south of the Sahara.
12. It is necessary to remind this Assembly that South Africa is as much an African State as any of those that during the past year or again at this session, were admitted as Members of this Organization. The word “African” is purely a geographical term and does not have an ethnic connotation. There is not an “African" race as such. As regards racial origin, language and customs, the African States and territories differ as much from each other as the different countries of Europe and Asia respectively.
13. In this connexion last year [811th meeting] when speaking from this rostrum, I informed the Assembly that when the first European settlers arrived at the Cape of Good Hope more than 300 years ago, the country comprising the present Union of South Africa was uninhabited except for roaming bands of Hottentots near the Coast and small bands of bushmen further north. At that time the Bantu, the black men that had moved southward from east and central Africa, were crossing the Limpopo which is today the northern boundary of the Union of South Africa. Those Bantu from the eastern and northern territories were themselves immigrants and settlers to what is today the Union of South Africa, and their descendents have no better claim to South Africa than the descendents of the original Dutch settlers who arrived there more than 300 years ago, and then the later English settlers.
14. May I point out that the position of the European- descended people of South Africa is in that respect similar to the European-descended people of North, Central and South America. The European descended population has as much right to be in South Africa as the descendents of the original settlers have to claim North, Central and South America respectively as their homes. We are as much entitled to call ourselves South Africans as they have to be known as North Americans or as Latin Americans.
15. The original European settlers in the two Americas opened up and developed the countries of North, South and Central America and made them what they are today. What happened to the indigenous people of those countries — how many of them remain, and in what condition most of them are living — are questions to which I do not intend replying.
16. So also, the original Dutch immigrants that came to the Cape of Good Hope more than 300 years ago and the latter English settlers, those who came after them, opened up and developed South Africa and made it what it is today, the most prosperous and far and away the most highly industrialized country of the whole African continent. We in South Africa are proud of the fact that our country is financially and economically sound. It has never been necessary for South Africa to seek outside aid, be it Marshall Aid or any other kind of aid. When, for purposes of capital development, it has been necessary to float loans abroad, these have been promptly repaid on the due date, and there are no arrears of interest.
17. In the case of South Africa, the natives or Bantu that migrated from Central and Eastern Africa have greatly increased in numbers; they have flourished in South Africa, More than half of them, or about half, live in their own territories, extensive territories, which are reserved solely for their own occupation. Those territories are progressively being given increased powers of self-government and they are being financially assisted to develop along sound economic lines. That is the policy now and for the future.
18. In this respect — I am referring now to the condition of the native peoples — the Bantu peoples in our country, compared with present and past colonial territories in Africa and also in other parts of the world, the descendants of the original Dutch and English settlers in South Africa have a record of which they may well be proud.
19. I return again to the communist infiltration and penetration of Africa. The aim of that penetration in the continent of Africa appears to be to create conditions of unrest and later of chaos in the emergent African States and territories. That seems to be clear from recent events in the Congo.
20. Unfortunately, the stirring up of unrest in South Africa has not been limited only to Communist activities. Permit me briefly to show how, in this Assembly and its Committees, the attitude also of some Western delegations has had the effect of indirectly encouraging subversive activities, and also revolt, in the Union of South Africa and in South West Africa. In this connexion I wish to direct the attention of leaders of delegations to information which was given to the Fourth Committee last week. I think it is necessary that other leaders of delegations should know about that information.
21. During past years, the United Nations Committee on South West Africa has, in spite of protests from successive South African delegations, been willing to hear evidence from expatriates and other persons, of no standing whatsoever amongst their own people in South West Africa, and who certainly cannot claim to speak on behalf of those people.
22. It is necessary, I think, to give this Assembly some idea of the type of witness to whose evidence credence is being given by the United Nations Committee on South West Africa and also by the majority of representatives in the Fourth Committee.
23. It will be recalled that last year rioting took place in the Windhoek native township. The direct cause of those riots was that the inhabitants were incited to oppose moving to a new township which, at considerable cost, had been erected by the Windhoek Municipal Administration. Rioters attacked the municipal officials Und also the small police force. The police were obliged to fire in self-defence, and there were some deaths. A judicial inquiry was immediately ordered by the Union Government, and it was entrusted to Mr. Justice Hall, Judge-President of South West Africa and a former Judge of the Appeal Court of South Africa — a judge of the very highest standing in our country, where the judicial level, I may say, is very high. This is the man — this very eminent judge — who, during the course of this year, was described by one of these petitioners as a stooge of the South African Government.
24. In the course of this judicial inquiry, original letters and telegrams were produced which had been sent by these petitioners to their fellow conspirators in South West Africa — petitioners who had been operating here, from New York, under the cover, shall I say, of the United Nations. From these letters and telegrams it is quite clear — dealing first with one of the petitioners — that, while operating here from New York, he urged his countrymen in the township at Windhoek to resist and to oppose moving to the new township — even, he said, at the risk of violence and bloodshed. That this was clearly in his mind appears from one of the letters produced at the inquiry, in which he wrote: "If the Administration is forced to use violence they will show their true character to the world. We do not want to see one drop of African bloodshed, but we must face that possibility, and make the most of it." [A/4464, annex V, para. 24.] May I say, in passing, that never at any time did the municipal administration threaten or even suggest that the inhabitants should be forcibly moved from the old to the new township, although it was greatly in their interest to go to the new township.
25. This witness went so far as to write and encourage his fellow conspirators in South West Africa to bum the homes of the loyal chiefs in Ovamboland, in the north. This is what he wrote: "If those nominated Chiefs say a word, tell our people to bum their places at night — secretly, of course." [Ibid.]
26. In an earlier letter, dated 14 February 1959, this petitioner suggested that "a petition be sent to the United States Government and to the Prime Minister of Russia for immediate military action against South Africa". He then went on: "Boy, this will make the British to even force South Africa to place South West Africa under trusteeship, because they" — the British — "are afraid of Russia". [Ibid.]
27. Then there was another petitioner about whom I also informed the Fourth Committee. He recently went to Peking in Communist China, and there he made several broadcasts — he also held press conferences — addressed to "our comrades and brothers in Communist China". In true Communist style, he denounced the "imperialist" countries and spoke of the United States as the "self-styled guardian " of peace and freedom".
28. This broadcast of his was monitored. He evidently did not realize that, when he was speaking in Peking, his words would be monitored and sent to the rest of the world. In this broadcast, in any event, he went on to say:"Under the guise of assistance, our enemy is one, and he is international... Let us not only keep Washington and its leaders in check, but let us destroy them...We can shorten [our struggle] by learning from the dynamic leadership of Chairman Mao Tse-tung... We can also learn from the great leadership of Fidel Castro, who is at the moment fighting the United States aggression."
29. I think that I may perhaps be pardoned for drawing these words particularly to the attention of the United States delegation.
30. Also, on the subject of the United Nations and the Secretary-General, he followed what has since emerged as the Communist policy. He said: "It is the dollar that maintains the United Nations and Secretary-General Hammarskjold; it is the dollar that divides Asia and in the Congo is carrying on a campaign of sabotage of the people’s independence under the guise of United Nations assistance, and where Ralph Bunche becomes the big adviser of Hammarskjold against troops being used to liquidate the imperialistic stooge Tshombé." This is a man who gives evidence before the Fourth Committee, and to whose evidence credence is given by a majority of the members of the Fourth Committee.
31. I mention these activities of these so-called witnesses from South West Africa because I consider it necessary to make clear, to those delegations that may not be aware of it, and particularly to leaders of delegations, the threat of Communist penetration not only in other parts of Africa but also in South Africa and in South West Africa.
32. Instead of appreciating South Africa’s stand against Communism and against communist infiltration and penetration in Africa, many of the Western countries, and also the Press of those countries, in association with a majority — not all, but a majority — of the African-Asian bloc and also the Communist countries, have gone out of their way to create trouble for South Africa. And, as I pointed out when I spoke in the inscription debate [898th meeting] some of these Western countries and also their newspapers, which are continually attacking South Africa, are themselves permitting discrimination in various forms, including racial discrimination.
33. I would add that these attacks on South Africa, which have been going on for the past fifteen years, are to a very large extent based on prejudiced, one-sided and often false Press reports published in the newspapers.
34. Speaking in the present general debate, Mr. Wadsworth, [870th meeting] the leader of the United States delegation, referring to Mr. Khrushchev's attacks on the United States, complained that they had been based on what he called a distorted image of events in the United States as presented in some foreign newspapers. Our complaint in that respect is the same as that of the leader of the United States delegation.
35. I come now to something else. In my statement in the inscription debate [898th meeting] on Monday 10 October I said that we in South Africa were no longer prepared to bear with patience and with forbearance the attacks and the vilification to which we had been subjected both inside and outside of the United Nations. In this general debate, also, attacks have been made on South Africa, some of them in unrestrained language.
36. I referred also in that statement to the generally acknowledged principle of equity that a complainant must come to court with clean hands, and said that that was a principle of equity that was observed in my country and, I believe, in many other countries. I said also that the bulk of the forty-one States that are this year making these charges against the Union of South Africa have not come to this Assembly with clean hands. It is my intention today to present to this Assembly, as I promised in the inscription debate, the necessary evidence in support of my contention.
37. I leave aside the fact that in acting on these complaints, as it has been doing in past years, the Assembly has itself grossly violated a basic principle of the Charter enshrined in Article 2, paragraph 7, namely, that the United Nations shall not interfere in the domestic affairs of a Member State.
38. The main charge against South Africa relates to our alleged contravention of Article 55 of the Charter — more specifically South Africa’s alleged non-observance of the principles laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms. I shall now proceed to give some evidence about our attackers.
39. Let us take a look first at India, whose delegation for the past fifteen years has led the attack on South Africa. On Friday 7 October 1960 when Nigeria was being welcomed as a new Member State of the United Nations, the representative of India [893rd meeting] could not refrain from making use of what was intended to be a happy occasion by sandwiching, shall I Say, into his speech some unsavoury remarks about South Africa. My Department has accumulated a wealth of evidence regarding conditions in India and the manner in which discrimination and oppression are being practised there.
40. When, earlier this year, a small force of South African police was obliged to take action against some 16,000 to 20,000 Bantu rioters, who had been actively incited also from outside the Union, India was among those who raised their voices in outraged indignation. What is India’s record in this respect? It shows that over the years riots in India have been of regular occurrence. In 1955, I believe it was, riots took place in connexion with certain boundary questions. Police fired on the rioters and, according to official figures, seventy-five persons were killed and a very large number were wounded. Unofficial reports placed the casualties at a much higher figure. There have been many other riots in India during past years when numbers of persons were killed and wounded. I cannot recall that the Security Council ever called India to account for those shootings.
41. The story of the oppression and violence committed against the Naga people in India is a terrible and shocking one. The President of the Naga National Council, Mr. A. Z. Phizo, in a report recently issued in London and entitled "The Fate of the Naga People”, gives in some detail the acts alleged to have been committed by the Government of India by means of the Indian army against the Naga people. I quote from that report recently issued: "For the past seven years, our age-old freedom has been and is being systematically destroyed by the Indian Army. The Indian Army have tortured, killed, and raped, set up and filled concentration camps and prisons, banned the very means of living: the tilling of the ground and the growing of crops. They have tried to subjugate our nation or to annihilate it. ”... The twentieth century has seen no more bitter irony than this terrible relapse of...the apostle of non-violence in world affairs, into the use of atrocity and attempted genocide to press its will on a tiny and almost defenceless people. ”…On November 15th, 1954, Indian armed forces raided the village of Yengpang and killed sixty men, women and children. On November 27th a battalion from a military camp destroyed the village of Chingmei by bombardment, causing an unknown total of deaths. The Indians developed their plan for wholesale village extermination, and in the year 1955 it is believed that about 10,000 Free Nagas lost their lives.” That is as regards alleged violence in Naga.
42. Delegations which have been here during past years are, of course, aware of Indian violence and oppression in Kashmir, which has been going on for a considerable period. That is a matter which has been discussed not only in the General Assembly but also at great length in the Security Council.
43. From many accounts the Sikh minority in India is also struggling against oppression and denial of fundamental rights and freedoms. As recently as in June of this year it was reported that thousands of peaceful demonstrators in Delhi, men, women and children, mainly Sikhs, had been trampled by the mounted police, beaten ruthlessly with heavy steel reinforced lathis, and large numbers of them killed. And according to a Reuter report police again opened fire only a few days ago when gaoled Sikhs rioted in Bhatinda. Four persons were killed and forty-eight injured.
44. South Africa has frequently been attacked for the alleged conditions under which the Bantu people live in our country. In this connexion I could, if I had the time, quote extensively from ILO reports, and from authoritative works on the shocking conditions under which the peasants and working classes in India are living, and on the prevalence of disease and malnutrition in the larger cities and also in the Scheduled Areas.
45. And yet, in spite of conditions existing in its own country, the Indian delegation has had the effrontery in past years also to accuse South Africa of not conforming to the precepts set out in Article 55 of the Charter. The effrontery is so much greater when there is borne in mind the great progress that has been made in South Africa, not only in clearing up the slums that came into existence at Johannesburg and Durban, particularly during the war years, but also in the very great extent to which suitable housing has been supplied in our leading cities and elsewhere.
46. Now I come to the question of discrimination. What is the position with regard to discrimination in India? According to ILO reports it appears that in spite of the prohibition against the cruel caste system it is still being maintained on a large scale.
47. Sir Alan Burns, in an authoritative work published in 1957, quotes from Indian official reports to show the shocking conditions under which the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes live. He quotes the following statement by an Indian author: "Our case at the United Nations would have been stronger, if the high moral standards of human rights that Pandit Nehru demands for our people elsewhere, were available to them at home. The maxim which says that whoever comes to equity, must come with clean hands, operates adversely on us, in view of some of the shocking manifestations of caste which are still to be seen in our ’deep south' ..."
48. I would here mention that I had already drafted that part of my address in the debate on allocation of items where I referred to the principle of equity and about "coming to Court with clean hands" when the above quotation from Sir Alan Burns’s book came to my notice.
49. Indian delegations to the United Nations are horrified by discrimination on the ground of colour. And yet, students from Africa attending Indian universities and colleges, in a statement issued about two years ago, complained bitterly about the way in which they were shunned and looked down upon by most of their Indian fellow students because of their black skins. These allegations by students from Africa were denied in the official India News, but a former Commonwealth High Commissioner to India — at that time retired — immediately reacted with a letter to a prominent London newspaper. And this former High Commissioner wrote: "The average Indian, beguiled by the diatribes of his delegates at the United Nations, and sharing the human frailty of seeing the mote in his neighbour’s eye while missing the beam in his own, would be astonished to learn what the thousand or so African students in India think about Indian race prejudice ... because of their black colour."
50. Owing to limitation of time, I have mentioned only a few examples of non-observance by India of Article 55 of the Charter. There are many other examples, including the Preventive Detention Act, which provides that persons can be detained for an indefinite period without trial. It is clear from the wording of the Act that it is intended to be used against so-called political offenders.
51. And then there is the system of debt bondage. Under this system, which operates particularly in Southern India, employers and landlords will lend money if the borrower will pledge himself and his children to work as bond-slaves. This system is described by Bruno Lasker, a member of the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery, who states the following: "Bondage for debt is still the lot of millions of people in India."
52. On the strength of the evidence at my disposal, and of which I have used only a small portion, I am fully entitled to say that, in laying charges against South Africa, the Indian delegation has not come to this Assembly with clean hands.
53. Now let us turn from Asia and take a look at two Western countries — Sweden and Norway — whose delegations in past years have joined in the attacks on South Africa. Apart from participating in the attacks on South Africa in the United Nations, the Press of those two countries, particularly that of Sweden, has, with one or two exceptions, been carrying on a vindictive and malicious campaign against my country. I should say that the Press campaign carried on there is one of the worst of any country in the world.
54. Once again I put the question: have the Swedish and Norwegian delegations, whose Governments are sponsors of the complaints against South Africa, come to this Assembly with clean hands? Can these delegations, in all sincerity, say that discrimination is not in fact practised in respect of the small Lapp minorities in both their countries? Can they testify that the Lapps enjoy, in northern Sweden and northern Norway, the conditions of "higher standards of living full employment, and conditions of economic... progress" as specified in Article 55 of the Charter of the United Nations?
55. In this matter I am going to leave if to prominent Swedish and Norwegian newspapers to provide the evidence which will show that, in accusing South Africa of racial discrimination and of denying fundamental human rights, these delegations have not come to this Assembly with clean hands. I shall quote first from Swedish sources. In an article in Expressen in January 1959, under the heading "Discrimination against the Lapps" we read the following: "The Lapps are not allowed to decide for themselves ... Their representatives are elected by the State. Their franchise is in practice limited. Their land is stolen. There are laws which are purely racial discrimination." That article was written in January of last year — not ten years ago. I quote from another article in Expressen written also in January 1959 by Bjorn Forslund — I do not know who he is: "The oppression of the Lapps, i.e., state laws and regulations, which puts them in a less privileged class, together with the prejudices of the ordinary people, has created a growing nationalism among our Swedish Lapp youth. "The Lapp school system means: "(a) An inferior form of teaching as compared with that of the usual Swedish school children; "(b) Isolation" — "apartheid" — "of the Lapp children from other school children in the same village."
56. Then there is another editorial from a well-known Swedish paper, Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar, also in 1959: "Here in Sweden we cannot give a satisfactory solution for the problem of the 10,000 Lapps. It has even been said that the Lapp organisations will go to the United Nations if nothing is done." The article then puts its independent question as to what the position of the Swedish delegation to the United Nations would be if it had to defend Swedish racial discrimination against South Africa's representatives — which is happening right now.
57. Another well known Swedish paper, Vecko-Journalen. wrote in December 1958: "Those who have the care of the Lapps, have lately been disturbed in their consciences. There has been mention of action by the United Nations, and the foreign press has said nasty things about an oppressed minority."
58. At the fourteenth session [814th meeting] of the General Assembly the Foreign Minister of Sweden went out of his way, in participating in the general debate, to criticize South African policy, and I suggested afterwards that he would do better to show some concern for the conditions under which the Lapps in his own country were living. There was an immediate reaction, as could be expected, from the Swedish Press-some violent, but some more sober. An article in Tidningen in October 1959, after the statement was made here, gave examples of racial discrimination as practised in Sweden, and stated: "It exists to such a degree that the Lapps have been obliged to relinquish their original Lapp names. Racial invective particularly against Lapp children has become intolerable." These are not my views. What I am giving you are the views expressed by leading Swedish newspapers.
59. I now come to Norway. There is also a Lapp minority in northern Norway, and again I quote only from their own leading newspapers. There is discrimination against the Lapps also in Norway. I quote from an editorial in the Dagbladet. Oslo, November, 1959: "Although we all know that there is racial discrimination and oppression of a minority here in our own country, it has not been possible to secure any particular reaction against it..." The editor of that paper thereafter deals with social and racial prejudice against the Lapps, and also with dwelling restrictions to which they are subjected, And then comes the following significant statement: "Their situation today" — that is, of the Laplanders — "is a clear violation of the Declaration of Human Rights" which is the accusation that is being made against South Africa by the Norwegian and Swedish delegations, in sponsoring the items which they have sought to place on the agenda.
60. I quote from an editorial in the Fadrelandsvennen of November, 1958: "There is clear race discrimination in Northern Norway. A young Lapp must have a strong character to keep going in a community where many look down on him socially and meet him with race prejudice..."
61. The information which I have given, as I said, comes from leading Swedish and Norwegian newspapers. If the information is not correct, then I suggest that these two delegations take the matter up with the newspapers concerned — I have given the names of the newspapers. If, on the other hand, the information is substantially correct, then, I say, these two delegations have not come to the Court of the United Nations, to call it by that name, with clean hands, and I suggest that they — and also their Press — desist from making unsubstantiated charges against the Union of South Africa.
62. I have dealt with an Asian country and with two European countries. Let us now turn to Africa and the Middle East.
63. I am sure it will be readily agreed that the practice of slavery constitutes the denial of the most elementary of human freedoms, and that any country which tolerates slavery within its borders, even if there are so-called laws prohibiting this inhuman practice, should be the last to charge any other State with disregarding the precepts set out in Article 55 of the Charter.
64. During recent years, slavery has been a subject of discussion by the United Nations General Assembly and was investigated by a special United Nations Commission on Slavery. It has also been discussed at conferences of the ILO. In spite of periodic discussion and condemnation, slavery is still being carried on in, for instance, Arabia and in certain "countries of the Middle East, and in some West African countries.
65. A most informative discussion on slavery took place in the United Kingdom House of Lords in July 1960. It is clear from that discussion that those who participated had made a thorough study of the subject. Lord Shackleton, who opened the debate, said inter alia: "The centre of slavery is still the Arabian Peninsula, and in particular Saudi Arabia". He then proceeded to give details on how the system works — some of them have a somewhat unsavory character.
66. He was followed by Viscount Maugham who gave further details, including prices paid for slaves. In fact, he bought one himself for £27 10s. and then gave the slave his freedom. Viscount Maugham said inter alia: "There are two main slave routes into Saudi Arabia. The first comes from West Africa across Africa to the Port of Suakin and across the Red Sea to Lith, a port south of Djedda. The other route goes from Iraq, Persia and Baluchistan across the Gulf and then across to Rijadh." He then went on to say, and these are his words: "... slavery exists in West Africa, concealed behind a legal code that asserts that it has been abolished."
67. The Marquess of Landsdowne, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the House of Lords, in replying to this debate, congratulated the mover of the motion which he described, and I draw attention to these words, as a "remarkably well-informed" speech.
68. I come to another aspect. According to a survey made by the well-known Royal Institute of International Affairs, the rate of infant mortality in Iraq is one of the highest in the world, and is ascribed mainly to malnutrition. In an article in a London newspaper it is stated that at Baghdad there exists some of the worst poverty in the world. The article then goes on to say that: "Perhaps a quarter of a million people live in crude straw shelters or in shacks made of old tin cans, without roads, drains, lighting or clean water".
69. According to a United Nations document it was found impossible to apply compulsory education in certain of the rural provinces because of the poverty of the parents who needed the labour of their children on the land.
70. In contrast with these conditions of peasant poverty in Iraq, we find the following illuminating statement in the report of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development [IBRD]. "Except for some limited areas…” the country is almost devoid of peasant proprietors." — and I emphasize the following — "The land is largely in the hands of sheiks and urban proprietors". We are not dealing here with a completely undeveloped and poor country, evidently. That is the IBRD report.
71. That report goes on to describe the system of sharecroppers, who "have neither the equipment nor the knowledge to increase production, and for the most part eke out a bare subsistence".
72. It also appears from the Bank’s report that there is a law which forbids a sharecropper to leave the property as long as he is indebted to the owner — a sort of debt-bondage.
73. The report further states that only 175,000 children out of 750,000 are at school and that only one-half of the children progress beyond the primary standard, and there is a serious lack of medical services, with only one doctor per 8,000 persons.
74. One sympathises with the Government of Iraq in having to deal with such difficult problems, one of their problems apparently being the privileged position of the wealthy sheiks and urban land-owners, but having regard to conditions under which people are living in their own country, I suggest that they should not sponsor an item which accuses South Africa of a mass denial of human rights, which in Article 55 of the Charter include social and economic welfare of the inhabitants; that also is a human right, mentioned in Article 55 of the Charter, which we are accused of violating.
75. My delegation has evidence that conditions similar to those in Iraq are also found in some of the other countries of the Middle East that are making charges against South Africa.
76. Now, coming to Africa, we find that Liberia is taking a leading part in attacks on South Africa. On the matter of colour or racial discrimination it is interesting to note that, according to the laws or Constitution of Liberia, the ownership of land and the right to vote in that country is confined to persons of Negro blood. There we have racial discrimination in reverse. Of course, Liberia is perfectly free to have such a law if it wishes, but, then, it should not accuse South Africa.
77. A correspondent of The New York Times in Liberia wrote the following not so long ago; "Liberian officials have consistently taken a firm stand against colonialism and racial discrimination. The position would be stronger if Liberia herself could be cited as a model of liberalism".
78. Liberia’s attacks on colonialism are interesting in view of the fact that a comparatively small group of what are called Americo-Liberians at the coast control the huge majority comprising the indigenous population, who have a minimal representation — I think that the figure is three, or something of that sort — in the Legislature of the country. In the very authoritative book The African Giant. Mr. Stuart Cloete described the position in Liberia as follows: "The peculiar feature of the country is the colonial exploitation of black men by black men. ...But the yoke of the African lies heavy on the African’s neck here". This opinion is confirmed also by other authorities, who tell of the appalling conditions of poverty under which the vast indigenous majority of inhabitants are living, and of their exploitation by the Americo-Liberian minority.
79. It is with reluctance that I mention the case of Ghana — a fellow member of the Commonwealth. We in South Africa have gone out of our way to show a desire to maintain friendly relations with Ghana; I could give particulars, but that would take too much time. However, our desire for friendly relations has unfortunately not been reciprocated. Indeed, in the general debate the President of Ghana, in a strongly worded attack on South Africa, boasted of the boycott action that he had recently taken against South Africa. In passing, I may say that he did not mention that he had had to go back on part of that boycott action.
80. The Ghana delegation joins with others in charging South Africa with denying democratic rights to the Bantu. Anyone who has followed events in Ghana cannot deny that democracy in Ghana will soon exist in name only. The rights of the Legislature have been considerably reduced. Members of the Parliamentary Opposition are being detained without trial, under a law which permits such detention for a period of up to five years. Mr. Busia, the Leader of the Opposition, is in exile in the Netherlands.
81. I shall not go into further detail. As I have said, Ghana is a fellow member of the Commonwealth, and, personally, I should have preferred not to mention these facts had it not been that Mr. Nkrumah made so virulent an attack on South Africa when he participated in this debate.
82. I could continue to show how many others of the forty-one sponsors of the complaint against South Africa have not come to this Assembly with clean hands, including certain Central American countries, Malaya and Indonesia, where, according to Press reports, freedom of the Press appears to have been completely abolished recently. However, time will not permit me to do that.
83. I turn now to the Soviet Union. The unsavory history of oppression and the denial of human rights and freedoms in the Soviet Union and its colonies — and I stress the word "colonies" — and also in other communist countries, is so well known to Members of this Assembly that further information or comment from me would be quite superfluous.
84. I have referred to a number of countries which, in view of conditions existing there, do not have the right to accuse South Africa of denying to its nonwhite peoples the fundamental freedoms which are set out in Article 55 of the Charter and which include higher standards of living, social services and health and education services. Statistics show that in these respects far more is being done in South Africa, per caput of the Bantu population, than in any other country of the African continent. I go further and say that, according to available information and statistics, and from what I have seen personally, the Bantu and other Non-European peoples of South Africa are, in the above-mentioned respects, much better cared for than the working classes, the labourers and peasants, in many countries of Asia and of the Middle East, of Central America and the Caribbean Islands, and also of certain South American countries.
85. True, in South Africa we do not have the system of "one man, one vote”. But, as I fully set out in my statement from this rostrum last year, we are making rapid progress in the development of self-government for the six territories which have been reserved for occupation by the Bantu only-huge territories, comprising some of the best parts of the country. So, also, the Bantu living in urban centres are being given an increased measure of participation in municipal affairs. There is continual consultation with Bantu leaders, both in their own territories and in the urban centres, in regard to their particular needs and interests.
86. In spite of everything that is being done to improve the position of the Bantu and other Non-Europeans, we find that, in line with the communist policy of penetration of Africa, subversive elements under the influence of communist agents are active among the Bantu. There was the trouble at Sharpeville and Langa earlier this year. Our neighbours in the Federation and in Southern Rhodesia have recently also found it necessary to deal with communist-inspired organizations there, which are allied with those operating in South Africa. The effects of these activities were recently seen also in Pondoland, which is part of the Transkeian territory, where the policy of progressively increasing the powers of self-government is operating satisfactorily. The Bantu in the Transkeian territory have always been law abiding and contented.
87. In regard to the charges made against South Africa I am convinced that the peasants and labouring classes of most of the countries which are attacking South Africa would consider themselves fortunate indeed if they could be in the position of the great bulk of the Bantu peoples of my country.
88. In conclusion, a word of warning. The basic principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of any Member State contained in Article 2, paragraph 7 of the Charter was put there by the founders of the United Nations particularly for the protection of the smaller and weaker Member States. Those who are today making a mockery of that Article are engaged in removing one of the foundation stones upon which the United Nations rests.
89. The United Nations is being increasingly subjected to stresses and strains and is passing through a very difficult period. The position of the Organization is not as strong as is generally believed. I suggest that this is not the time to weaken one of the cornerstones upon which the United Nations rests.