Apartheid ‘War’ Will Intensify, Tambo Warns

The armed struggle of blacks for freedom in South Africa will increase and intensify because people in that country have become used to violence, Oliver Tambo, leader of South Africa’s outlawed African National Congress, said in Los Angeles on Monday.

“It’s a war--a low-key war, but a war all the same,” Tambo said. “People are dying in that situation.”

Speaking at a press conference, Tambo said it is wrong for the United States or any other country to insist on black South Africans renouncing violence in their struggle for freedom, and he said he had told U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz this in their meeting last week.

Shultz Meeting Successful

During that Washington meeting, Shultz warned Tambo that the use of violence to combat apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial segregation, “will only lead to a catastrophe for all.”

Tambo said his meeting with Shultz was very successful. “It has opened up possibilities for communication and support for us from the government of this country,” he said. “The meeting could contribute to the solution of the South African problem.”

Tambo said that in the talks with Shultz, he referred to the examples of insurgencies in Vietnam, Namibia, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Mozambique and Angola.

“We told him there was no instance we could think of where one party was asked to call off the struggle while the other continued,” he said.

“We cannot disarm unilaterally,” Tambo said. “This matter of our renouncing violence really comes later on the agenda. The first thing to be done is to have political prisoners, such as Nelson Mandela, released. That will unblock the whole process toward negotiations.”

Tambo said it would also be wrong for the United States to ask black South Africans to renounce their links with the Soviet Union.

“We go to the Soviet Union to ask for assistance, as we go to Sweden, Norway, Holland, Italy, and we get assistance there,” he said. “For us, support is very important, and we must get that support from everywhere in the world, including the socialist countries.