Unanimous call for end to apartheid made at 16th special Assembly.

• Position: UN General Assembly - Includes related information

"The issue that the General Assembly is addressing today has been an unremitting concern of the United Nations since its inception. Through all the twists and turns of international affairs over the last four decades, the point of principle involved ... has remained absolutely clear. No ambiguity has lurked in, nor dissent caused by, the proposition that racial discrimination, entrenched in the system of apartheid ... is totally impermissible"

Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar

12 December

The General Assembly, at the conclusion of its sixteenth special session (12-14 December), encouraged the people of South Africa, "as part of their legitimate struggle, to join together to negotiate an end to the apartheid system" and agree on steps to transform their country into a nonracial democracy.

"We support the position held by the majority of the people of South Africa that these objectives-and not the amendment or reform of the apartheid system-should be the goals of the negotiations," the Assembly stated.

In adopting by consensus a 10-paragraph "Declaration on Apartheid and its Destructive Consequences in Southern Africa", the Assembly also specified conditions for creating a climate for such negotiations, guidelines for the negotiation process, and a seven-step Programme of Action to promote international support.

"We are at one with the people of South Africa", the Assembly declared, "that the outcome of such a process should be a new constitutional order determined by them and based on the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights".

The Assembly also stated its belief that a "conjuncture of circumstances" existed, which if South Africa demonstrated its readiness for genuine and serious negotiations, and given the "long-standing preference" of the majority of South Africans for a political settlement, could create the possibility to end apartheid through negotiations.

More than 120 speakers participated in the three-day debate, including the Presidents of Zambia and Zimbabwe, representatives of the two South African liberation movements-the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC),

In opening the special session on 12 December, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said that the prospects of a negotiated solution were "far more hopeful" than ever before. Developments in southern Africa in 1989 had provided grounds for guarded optimism that peaceful...