On 10th June the African National Congress issued a statement by Nelson Mandela, imprisoned since 1962. According to the ANC President, O.R. Tambo, the message was written in the aftermath of the Soweto uprisings of 1976; "it was smuggled out of Robben Island under very difficult circumstances and has taken over two years to reach us. Nonetheless we believe the message remains fresh and valid and should be presented to our people".
Mandela's statement, here reproduced in full, is a call to unity and mass action; it appears at a time when the black youth of South Africa are once again demonstrating their rejection of the discriminatory apartheid educational systems, and when workers and the rest of the community, while supporting the students, are also engaged in organised strikes against low wages, bus boycotts against fare increases, and other forms of political protest throughout the country.
MANDELA'S CALL
Racists rule by the gun
'The gun has played an important part in our history. The resistance of the black man to white colonial intrusion was crushed by the gun!
Our struggle to liberate ourselves from white domination is held in check by force of arms. From conquest to the present the story is the same. Successive white regimes have repeatedly massacred unarmed, defenceless Blacks.
And wherever and whenever they have pulled out their guns, the ferocity of their fire has been trained on the African people.
Apartheid is the embodiment of the racism, repression and inhumanity of all previous white supremacist regimes. To see the real face of apartheid we must look beneath the veil of constitutional formulas, deceptive phrases and playing with words.
The rattle of gunfire and the rumbling of Hippo armoured vehicles since June 1976 have once again torn aside the veil.
Spread across the face of our country, in black townships, the racist army and police have been pouring a hail of bullets, killing and maiming hundreds of Black men, women and children.
The toll of the dead and injured already surpasses that of all past massacres carried by this regime.
Apartheid is the rule of the gun and the hangman. The Hippo, the FN rifle and the gallows are its true symbols. These remain the easiest resort, the ever ready solution of the racemad rulers of South Africa.
Vague Promises, Greater Repression
In the midst of the present crisis, while our people count the dead and nurse the injured, they ask themselves: What lies ahead?
From our rulers we can expect nothing. They are the ones who give orders to the soldier crouching over his rifle; theirs is the spirit that moves the finger that caresses the trigger.
Vague promises, tinkerings with the machinery of apartheid, constitution juggling, massive arrests and detentions side by side with renewed overtures aimed at weakening and forestalling the unity of us Blacks and dividing the forces of change — these are the fixed paths along which they will move.
For they are neither capable nor willing to heed the verdict of the masses of our people.
The Verdict of June 16
That verdict is loud and clear: Apartheid has failed. Our people remain unequivocal in its rejection. The young and the old, parent and child, all reject it.
At the forefront of the 1976/77 wave of unrest were our students and youth. They come from universities, high schools and even primary schools.
They are a generation whose whole education has been under the diabolical design of the racists to poison the minds and brainwash our children into docile subjects of apartheid rule.
But after more than 20 years of Bantu Education the circle is closed and nothing demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of apartheid as the revolt of our youth. The evils, the cruelty and the inhumanity of apartheid have been there from its inception.
And all Blacks — Africans, Coloureds and Indians — have opposed it all along the line.
What is now unmistakable, what the current wave of unrest has sharply highlighted is this: that despite all the windowdressing and smooth talk, apartheid has become intolerable.
This awareness reaches over and beyond the particulars of our enslavement. The measure of this truth is the recognition by our people that under apartheid our lives, individually and collectively, count for nothing.
Unite!
We face an enemy that is deep-rooted, an enemy entrenched and determined not to yield. Our march to freedom is long and difficult.
But both within and beyond our borders the prospects of victory grow bright.
The first condition for victory is Black unity. Every effort to divide the Blacks, to woo and pit one Black group against another must be vigorously repulsed.
Our people — African, Indian, Coloured and democratic Whites — must be united into a single massive and solid wall of resistance, of united mass action. Our struggle is growing sharper.
This is not the time for the luxury of division and disunty. At all levels and in every walk of life we must close ranks.
Within the ranks of the people differences must be submerged to the achievement of a single goal — the complete overthrow of apartheid and race domination.
Victory is Certain
The revulsion of the world against apartheid is growing and the frontiers of white supremacy are shrinking. Mozambique and Angola are free and the war of liberation gathers force in Namibia and Zimbabwe.
The soil of our country is destined to be the scene of the fiercest fight and the sharpest battles to rid our continent of the last vestiges of white minority rule.
The world is on our side. The OAU, the United Nations and the Anti-Apartheid Movement continue to put pressure on the racist rulers of our country.
Every effort to isolate South Africa adds strength to our struggle. At all levels of our struggle, within and outside the country, much has been achieved and much remains to be done.
But victory is certain!
We Salute All of You!
We who are confined within the grey walls of the Pretoria regime's prisons reach out to our people. With you we count those who have perished by means of the gun and the hangman's rope.
We salute all of you — the living, the injured and the dead, for you have dared to rise up against the tyrant's might.
Even as we bow at their graves we remember this: The dead live on as martyrs in our hearts and minds, a reproach to our disunity and the host of shortcomings that accompany divisions among the oppressed, a spur to our efforts to close ranks, and a reminder that the freedom of our people is yet to be won.
We face the future with confidence. For the guns that serve apartheid cannot render it unconquerable. Those who live by the gun shall perish by the gun!
UNITE! MOBILISE! FIGHT ON!
Between the anvil of united mass action and the hammer of the armed struggle we shall crush apartheid and white minority racist rule!
AMANDLA NGAWETHU! MAATLA KE A RONAI!
RELEASE CAMPAIGN
Regional committees have been formed in the campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela and all other political prisoners in South Africa. The Natal Committee has been particularly active; in May it arranged a meeting, addressed by Zinzi Mandela and Zwelakhe Sisulu, respectively daughter of Nelson Mandela and son of Walter Sisulu, both imprisoned for life on Robben Island.
Zwelakhe Sisulu said "We call for the return from imprisonment and exile of all our leaders as they are the only people capable of steering this country away from bloodshed". Other speakers included the vice-president of the Natal Indian Congress, M.J. Naidoo and the Roman Catholic Archibishop Denis Hurley.
At the beginning of June, the secretary of the Natal Release Mandela Committee, attorney, Paul David, announced that meetings were being planned by the regional committees for 26 June, 25th anniversary of the Congress of the People. "The commemoration of 26 June 1955 is inextricably linked with the Free Mandela Campaign" he said. "As Nelson Mandela was the leading light of the Congress". Mr. David also urged all business premises to close on 26 June. Legal advice is being sought as to whether the Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People, may be republished; it was not a document of the banned ANC. Mr. David and others involved in the campaign were subsequently detained and all meetings banned.
ROBBEN ISLAND VISIT
In May political prisoners on Robben Island were visted by Mrs. Helen Suzman, opposition MP in the South African House of Assembly. In an interview she said she had met many prisoners and had spoken to Nelson Mandela for 30 minutes and to SWAPO leader Toivo ja Toivo for a similar period. She spoke to the prisoners face-to-face, rather than through a window and telephone, and was accompanied by senior officials of the Prisons Department. She also spoke to the group of juvenile prisoners under 18, some of whom were aged 14 and 15 when sentenced and visited the prison library, hospital and shop, where 'A' grade prisoners may buy groceries and toiletries.
