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SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
FOURTH MEETING OF THE COMMONWEALTH FOREIGN MINISTERS'
COMMITTEE ON SOUTHERN AFRICA
CANBERRA 7 AUGUST 1989
The task ahead of this fourth meeting of the Commonwealth
Foreign Ministers' Committee on Southern Africa is an
important one for all members of the Commonwealth.
More than that, you are engaged in an endeavour of truly
global significance.
The scourge of apartheid is an affront to all humanity.
And eliminating that scourge bringing to an end South
Africa's abhorrent practice of institutionalised racism is
an obligation that demands the most committed involvement of
every Government and individual of good will.
The Commonwealth has a proud record of determined and
effective struggle against the racist regimes of Southern
Africa: in the period leading up to the withdrawal of South
Africa from the Commonwealth in 1961;
through the peaceful creation of majority rule in
Zimbabwe; through the development of the Gleneagles Agreement
banning sporting contacts with South Africa;
through the achievement of the Eminent Persons Group in
finding a valid and workable basis for a negotiated
settlement in South Africa;
through our role in developing international sanctions
against South Africa and, with the regrettable exception
of Britain, through our own co-ordinated imposition of
sanctions, including financial sanctions;
through our active support for the emergence of an
independent Namibia;
and through the continuing important work of this
Committee.
, Australia is proud of the role it has played in these
efforts and, indeed, in the broader international struggle
against apartheid.
We remain totally committed to fulfilling our
responsibilities in these tasks.
For all these reasons, then, it is a pleasure to welcome to
Canberra our distinguished overseas visitors, and to wish
this meeting success in the critical work ahead.
We meet against a backdrop of confused signals and
expectations about the current situation in South Africa.
We hear talk of the release of Nelson Mandela and
suggestions of negotiations with representative black
organisations such as the African National Congress.
of course these would be enormously welcome developments if
ever they occurred.
They would be substantial steps down the path towards the
elimination of apartheid.
But let us not forget the basic facts.
The massive convulsions of the mid-1980s in which the
black communities of South Africa were once again confronted
by the violence with which apartheid represses its own
citizens are no longer, due to censorship, the daily diet
of western media reporting.
But in the face of more than three years of consecutive
states of emergency imposed by the South African
authorities, the repression continues still.
The grotesque system of apartheid continues the refusal of
basic political rights to the black South Africans who make
up 75 per cent of the population, the banning of black
organisations, the jailing and exile of black leaders and of
others who seek to speak out against the repression, the
racially segregated Parliaments, the infamous Group Areas
Act with its bizarre injustices of the homelands system.
These are the basic and terrible facts before us.
we can take comfort only from the fact that the internal
contradictions of this system will ultimately bring about
its demise.
The responsibility of the international community not
least of the Commonwealth is to try to bring the South
African authorities to understand this, so that the
inevitable end of apartheid will not be bloody civil war but
a peaceful transition to majority rule.
That is the purpose of sanctions to bring South Africa to
its senses, not to its knees.
Leading South African financial spokesmen including the
Governor of the South African Reserve Bank and the Finance
Minister acknowledge that sanctions are working.
South Africa is now facing a net outflow of capital at a
time when It desperately needs foreign funding to help
support the gross inefficiencies of apartheid.
It cannot service the principal on its debt.
Its agricultural products are subject to boycott in many
countries. It has been forced to halt production of the once
prestigious Krugerrand.
It cannot modernise much of its weaponry or its ageing
warships and fighters.
Its representative sports players are largely confined to
their own country.
All of these factors are telling reminders to white South
Africans that their Government and their country will remain
the pariahs of the international community until they
abandon apartheid completely and forever.
That is the message that must be understood by the
President-presumptive F. W. de Klerk and his colleagues.
The way forward has been outlined with clarity and fairness
by the Eminent Persons Group.
It is a testament to the work of the Group, led by Malcolm
Fraser and General Obasanjo, that they should have made such
an accurate reading of the circumstances in South Africa in
such a short time.
We will not, and we cannot, settle for apartheid with a
so-called human face.
Such a thing is a contradiction in terms.
We insist on real change.
There can be no real change if life in South Africa
continues to be premised on the basis that the colour of
one'q skin determines one's place of residence, one's level
of education, one's rights under the law, one's lifestyle,
the way one participates in the political process, indeed,
one's very place in society.
Some people believe that change can take place in some parts
of South African society while leaving the fundamental
structures of apartheid intact.
The most obvious case is sport.
Some choose to see the end of segregation in sports arenas
and the beginning of efforts to involve young blacks in
sports such as rugby and cricket as evidence that South
Africa has mended its ways and should be readmitted to
international sporting contests.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and now that a
rebel British cricket tour has been agreed on, and that a
rebel rugby tour is being organised with the possible
involvement of Australians, it is even more essential that
we do not mistake the appearance for the reality.
The reality is, of course, that the very structure of South
African society, and the actions and expenditures of the
white minority government, confine non-whites to
second-class participation in all aspects of South African
life, including sports.
Under apartheid's residential segregation, those granted
access to facilities enjoyed by whites have to travel
considerable distances and at great cost and inconvenience.
Under apartheid's education system, young whites have access
to superior sports facilities while the black school system,
starved of funds, cannot offer anything comparable.
The rebel British cricketers, and those in Britain,
Australia and elsewhere who condone such tours may believe
some claim they do believe that these events will actually
help break down the barriers of apartheid. Unfortunately,
the opposite is the case.
The deception involved in organising such tours, the
gloating from South Africa which follows their announcement,
the cosmetic and peripheral multiracial events with which
they are embroidered all underline the fact that they give
comfort and support to the apartheid regime.
Let it be clearly understood that reform, on and off the
sporting field, has a long way to run before desegregated
sport in South Africa becomes a reality.
Until then, there can be no sporting contacts.
Equally, let it be understood that broader international
contacts with South Africa cannot be normalised until
apartheid itself is a thing of the past.
In particular, let it be understood and let this meeting
make perfectly clear that, to achieve this goal of the
total abolition of apartheid, sanctions must be maintained
against South Africa.
I will have the pleasure tomorrow of returning to the issue
of sanctions when I launch the book Apartheid and
International Finance by Keith Oednand Tony Cole.
The work your Committee is undertaking, and will continue at
this Canberra meeting the work of assessing the impact of
sanctions and investigating ways of widening, tightening and
intensifying current economic and other sanctions is
fundamental to achieving our goal of a free and just South
Africa. I emphasise again, as I always have, that I and my
Government see no virtue in sanctions for the sake of
sanctions. They have no virtue other than as an instrument to bring the
South African regime to the bargaining table.
For it is only at the bargaining table that justice can be
done justice that involves not only full democratic rights
for all South Africans irrespective of the colour of their
skin, but economic justice that will see equality of
opportunity for all within a system where the accumulated
capital, entrepreneurship and skills of whites will be fully
welcomed and employed.
So you have a challenging and exhaustive agenda before you.
You will be continuing your dialogue with representatives of
South African opinion and hearing first-hand testimony from
a number of witnesses about current trends and developments.
You will discuss South Africa's destabilisation of its
neighbours and the costs they have incurred as a result.
African members of this Committee need no reminding from me
about the nature of the direct threat apartheid projects
beyond its own borders. For you, it is a daily concern that
goes to the heart of the security and prosperity of your own
societies.
Australia, for one, is committed to continue our efforts to
assist those states and to contribute to their economic and
social development.
We have recently announced a three-year $ 110 million
extension to our existing development assistance program in
Southern Africa, on top of which we will continue where
appropriate an emergency relief assistance involvement.
You will also be discussing the heartening, though still
uncertain, movement forward in relation to Namibia and
deliberations on how the international community can best
assist a smooth and peaceful transition to independence.
Resolution 435 is now being implemented, UNTAG has been
deployed and the refugees are returning home.
Australia is pleased to be assisting this process through
our contingent of 300 engineers in UNTAG.
The Commonwealth has of course already signalled that we
would welcome an independent Namibia into our ranks.
6.
You will in short be preparing the ground for a constructive
and thorough consideration of South Africa by the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kuala Lumpur in
October. I hope that CHOGM itself, at which I look forward to
participating personally, will be able to assist the
progress of dialogue in South Africa leading to genuine
negotiations with authentic representatives of South
Africa's people.
Again nd it gives me much pleasure to
de, Tare open this fourth m eting of Commonwealth Foreign
-Miir--on outnern Af rica.
I wish you success in your deliberations and express the
hope that this will be one more step by the international
community towards bringing about a genuinely free and
multi-racial South Africa.