Anti-apartheid notes; Solidarity Day.

The Special Committee against Apartheid held a solemn meeting on 15 June in New York to observe the International Day of Solidarity with the Struggling Peoples of South Africa. The observance of the Day marked the eighth anniversary of the massacre by the Government of South Africa of students in Soweto on 16 June 1976.

In a message to the meeting, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said the observance each year of the International Day underlined the commitment of the international community to promote the elimination of apartheid in South Africa and the establishment of a society in which all the people of the country, irrespective of race, colour or creed, enjoyed human rights and fundamental freedoms. The system of apartheid was a negation of the purposes and principles of the United Nations and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The South African Government, he said, had proceeded with forcible removals of African people, establishment of so-called independent states in African reserves and other measures to perpetuate racial discrimination. Such unilateral moves, and the repression which had accompanied them, could not but exacerbate the situation. He appealed again to the South African Government to end repression, release all political prisoners and seek a solution through consultations among the representatives of all the people of South Africa.

The meeting also received messages from the Heads of State of Bangladesh, the Syrian Arab Republic and Viet Nam.

In an opening statement, Joseph N. Garba (Nigeria), Chairman of the Special Committee, said the situation in South Africa had reached a very critical stage. The apartheid regime was unwilling to abandon racism. As a result of its blatant acts of aggression, destabilization and terrorism in violation of international law, some independent African States had recently been obliged to enter into talks and accords with the Pretoria regime. The South African racists could not have acted so outrageously if they had not enjoyed the overt and covert support and protection of a number of Western Governments. He called on those Governments and transnational corporations collaborating with the apartheid regime to join the concerted international action against apartheid.

Stephen Cletus Chiketa (Zimbabwe), speaking on behalf of the African Group, said draconian laws had turned South Africa into an armed police State. Leaders had disappeared one by one. Night curfews had been imposed, student organizations had been banned -- all those acts had been directed at cowing the black population of South Africa. A racial conflagration in South Africa would affect all countries where any form of multiracial society existed. The problem must be resolved before all were destroyed by that time bomb.

Ali Alatas (Indonesia), speaking on behalf of the Asian Group, said Soweto represented but one link in the oppressive chain of events that continued to engulf South Africa. There could be no credible argument nor any justifiable reason for hope that the racists in Pretoria would ever reverse, on their own, the dehumanizing doctrine of apartheid; hence the legitimacy and inveitability of continuing struggle, including armed struggle, by the people of South Africa, and the urgent need for comprehensive mandatory sanctions by the international community.

Harry Ott (German Democratic Republic), speaking on behalf of the Eastern European Group, said the socialist countries...