Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 27 Nov 1986

Vol. 115 No. 2

Third Report of Joint Committee on Co-operation with Developing Countries — Apartheid and Development in Southern Africa: Motion.

Mrs. Bulbulia

I move:

That Seanad Éireann takes note of the Third Report of the Joint Committee on Co-operation with Developing Countries: Apartheid and Development in Southern Arfica.

This House over the past year has had many excellent, concerned and indeed strong debates on apartheid and South Africa, Senators have been given an opportunity to voice their condemnation of what is unquestionably the most evil, pernicious, political and social philosopy extant in today's world. Indeed it is true to say that Senators have spoke with vehemence and a great deal of understanding and I certainly look forward to the debate that will take place on this report in the Seanad this morning. I am pleased indeed that what I consider to be a most excellent committee, one of the finest of the Houses, the Joint Committee on Co-operation with Developing Countries, has seen fit to devote its third report to apartheid and development in southern Africa because by deciding to do this - and they could have picked from a great number of development subjects — there is a clear recognition on the part of the committee that the political dimension must inevitably impinge on the development process and it cannot be ignored because, to do so and to avoid examining what is the most pressing reality in southern Africa today would be to live in a fool's paradise.

I would like at the outset to congratulate the committee and indeed their most able and concerned chairman, Deputy Nora Owen, for getting to grips with this vexacious and painful issue and for pithily and realistically addressing this in the report. I should like to congratulate them on the way in which they went about their remit because it is clear from reading the report that they went about their business very thoroughly. They amassed a body of information, they engaged in informative meetings with a broad spectrum of groups and individuals and they assembled the actual and most up-to-date facts and figures on the the effects of this evil and pernicious system of apartheid. It is a system which at present we in the outside world are watching because South Africa is writhing in an agony of self-destruction and the entire world can see this. South Africa is unique in the world today because it is the only country where racism is the official doctrine of the state and where the superiority of the white man is upheld by the constitution and rules of the country. The committee met with some of the most pertinent bodies in this country which concern themselves with the matter of apartheid. In the first instance a delegation from the committee heard first-hand evidence of the effects of apartheid on development in Lesotho which is one of our bilateral aid countries. I think it was significant and useful that they did that because — and I am sure Senators in the debate this morning will make this point clear — it is impossible to discuss development in Lesotho without taking into account the effects of apartheid on that small country.

The committee also sat down and discussed apartheid with AFRI, Action from Ireland, one of the most dynamic and active, albeit small groups of concerned thinking people at work in Irish society today. I would like to pay tribute to that body because they have suffered a great deal of setbacks in terms of their premises being destroyed, but like the Phoenix they rose again and they are out there in the forefront informing public opinion, arranging meetings, lobbying the public representatives, all the time keeping issues of justice and freedom and civil rights to the fore and they certainly are to be commended. The committee also met with the Dunnes Stores workers and indeed it is true to say that the members of the committee were supportive and concerned about the Dunnes Stores strike and were instrumental in bringing about an important and significant decision made by this Government in relation to the importation of South African fruit.

Obviously another body whom the committee met to inform themselves were the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement. This of course is the premier body in the country whose sole remit is to concern themselves with apartheid and it has a major role to play in informing the Irish public and in doing all that it can by way of lobbying and amassing information ensure that Irish public opinion is in no doubt as to the effects of apartheid and as to the developments within the regime in South Africa. I myself have had connections with that body since its inception in 1964 and indeed my involvement with movements against South Africa predate that body and go back to what was the South African Study Circle in Dublin in the late fifties and early sixties when groups of South Africans, many of them of Asian origin, would meet to discuss South Africa and inform themselves and Irish people who knew them about the effects of that system.

The committee also took evidence from the non-governmental organisations and their representatives — people with first-hand knowledge of the effects of the apartheid system in Southern Africa. Obviously the Department of Foreign Affairs submitted a body of evidence to the committee which was duly taken into account and which is reflected in the course of the report. Another courageous and outspoken and thoughtful person was consulted by the committee — I refer to Dr. Kevin Boyle of UCG. He of course is author of South Africa: Imprisonment under the Pass Laws published by Amnesty International. There is an excellent section in this report which deals with the prison system and the parole activities which are tantamount to slavery as we will see as we go through the report and debate it.

Sadly the committee — and I certainly would query this — found themselves unable to meet representatives of the African National Congress — ANC — or representatives of INKATHA. There is a curious phrase used in the report and I would like it explained if it is possible to do so. They state that it was due to various constraints it was not possible for them to meet representatives of the ANC or INKATHA and I do hope in the course of his reply that the Minister is perhaps able to give us an indication as to why this was not found possible because I think that the input from representatives of both of these organisations would have been valuable, incisive and would have added to the general body of the report. There is somehow a missing link or a gap or a glaring omission which had it been there and had it been part of the report would certainly have underpinned and strengthened the committee's view. It is in fact the only criticism I have of the report because I find it up to date, thoughtful, reflective of the views of those who were consulted in the course of compiling it and perhaps the most useful concise and pithy account of apartheid as it has developed up to the present time.

Another element of documentation which the committee considered was the South African Embassy's analysis of recent reforms which were announced by President Botha. That being so I find the omission of an ANC or an INKATHA input all the more curious and it is yet another reason why I would query what these various constraints were which inhibited meetings with these representatives.

The report deals with the issue of apartheid under five headings. I was discussing the report with one of my colleagues who is a member of the committee last night — Senator John Connor — who I hope will have an opportunity to make a contribution and both of us agreed that in fact it is a rather difficult report to debate because it says it all; it leaves very little room for discussion and that is a tribute to those who compiled it because it simply and in a very readable fashion covers every aspect one would wish to see covered. The five headings that have been selected by the committee are the operation of apartheid in South Africa itself; second, its effects on the development in the Southern African region; third, the prospects for change; fourth, external actions by which of course they mean sanctions; and fifth, the conclusion or the wrap-up to the report. I propose to go through the various headings and to make my own comments in relation to them.

The first one therefore is the operation of apartheid in South Africa. The committee set out the statistics of the problem, statistics which are probably widely known but quite frankly — and I have studied this problem for a long number of years — every time I see these statistics they shock me because they are so stark and because they set out the very real difficulties and problems. South Africa is a country of approximately 30 million people, the white population amounting to 4½ million or 15 per cent of the total population of the country. The non-white population consists of 21 million black people of various tribal origins, one million Indians of whom my husband is one and 2,500,000 people of mixed race, or coloured as they are called in South Africa.

Another most stark statistic and one that, in fact, sums up the whole apartheid problem is that 87 per cent of South Africa's land is reserved for whites and 13 per cent for blacks. On the face of it, that is just a most damning indictment of the greed, selfishness and rapacity of the South African regime. The 13 per cent which belongs to blacks is divided into self-governing homelands. Four of these are nominally independent. One must always put the word independent in inverted commas when one is speaking of South Africa, because it is a myth and a farce which the committe have uncovered and have clearly set out and one to which I will allude in the course of my contribution.

Since 1983 the South African Parliament has been tricameral. There are separate chambers for whites, for Indians and for people of mixed race, or coloureds. There is no inclusion or mention there, of course, of the 21 million black people of various tribal origins. They are not represented in the tricameral parliament. Of course, they are hived off into the so-called independent homelands where they have some franchise and government for themselves, part of the farcical policy of separate development which the regime promotes assiduously.

In fact, the elections of the tricameral parliament were in the main boycotted by thinking members of the Indian community and indeed, the coloured community. Those people who represent the Indians and the coloureds in this tricameral parliament are not representative of the large body of Indians, nor are they representative of the majority of the coloured community. They are regarded — I think the phrase used in South Africa is — as stools, or stool pigeons, by the Indians and by the coloureds. It is true to say that they are despised because they are regarded as people who collaborated with the regime and welshed on the Indians and welshed on the coloureds by agreeing to participate in a tricameral parliament which specifically excluded the black community.

The white Chamber is the one which provides the Government. The Indian and coloured Chambers are there in a weak capacity merely as some sort of window-dressing to provide a cosmetic effect for the regime. That is again part of the reason that members of the Indian and coloured community despise the entire sham. The white community are not without their divisions. That is, broadly speaking, divided into the Afrikaaners and the people of British descent. The Afrikaaners constitute the majority of whites and they are the people in the white Chamber who, in fact, lead in matters of decision making and legislation.

The committee give the statistical information and, indeed, sketches in very briefly, very effectively, the historic background to the regime. It goes way back to the early part of the 19th century and indicates that the apartheid policy derived from the Afrikaaners and from their particular historical experience, both as slave owners and as people who, since that time, were actively seeking autonomy for themselves. It is interesting to discuss this with Afrikaaners. Most people living outside South Africa do not have that opportunity, because Afrikaaners are not be found travelling outside South Africa in the same way as many other groupings do. It is not very often afforded to people to have the opportunity to discuss South Africa with these people. I have Afrikaaners friends with whom I disagree fundamentally on matters of politics but, nevertheless, who have other fine qualities.

I have had opportunity to try to explore the mentality which underpins the regime and the thrust of South African policy. Interestingly enough, South African Afrikaaners are, generally speaking, members of the Dutch Reformed Church. Here is where religion can go very sadly awry and where people can have been given from birth a biblical or religious reason that they should have particular attitudes towards people of colour. It is true to say that the underlying reason for the belief held by Afrikaaners that they are superior and that the nonwhites must remain in a subservient position is founded and grounded on a particular biblical interpretation which has been given to them from birth. It has led to their blinkered, laager mentality which, in turn, has caused misery and hardship and is inevitably leading towards a catalyst which will be terrifying if it unfolds as those who observe it are confident that it will.

The Afrikaaners largely withdrew in the early part of the 19th century from the Cape Province and they established the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. These states in turn, during the Boer War, lost their independence. The Afrikaaners did not regain full control of their destiny until they came to power with the union of South Africa in 1948. From then on, they refused to give the franchise to the majority black population because they felt that this would undo all they had achieved during their resistance movement. They decided clinically and coldly to preserve their position by denying the majority their rights through the policy of apartheid. It sounded reasonable, it sounded sensible in the circumstances that each race or tribe would develop separately, ideally in separate territorial areas. However, when one examines closely the way in which is is done and the vicious, ruthless way in which it is enforced, one sees that at the back of it all is economic gain, greed and intransigence.

The committee in paragraph 7 of chapter 1 state that they are "satisfied that while Apartheid is presented as an attempt to give Afrikaaners control over their own affairs the South African Government policy of separate development was a device (i) to retain control of South Africa's principal resources, (ii) to control black access to urban areas and (iii) to ensure a cheap labour market." Anybody who seriously reads this report and who still needs to be convinced that apartheid is a device to ensure economic supremacy will be in no doubt when they read the clearly expressed views of the committee. The committee also, in paragraph 9 of chapter 1, clearly state that apartheid is brought about and effected through violence and repression, which ensures a basic denial of human rights and of free speech. They go on to outline the legal mechanisms which allow this to be so. They talk about race classification, territorial separation, movement control and, of course, control of employment. In so doing, the committee clearly recognise the deceit which attempts to balance two conflicting objectives. The conflicting objectives are the exclusion of blacks from urban areas which prevents them from demanding rights but their inclusion in the cheap labour market to man farms, mines, services and manufacturing.

The accurate classification of one's race, in a State where one's whole life depends on one's colour, is very important. There is legislation in South Africa which is iniquitous. It is called the Population Registration Act of 1950. It set up a racial register of the entire population of South Africa. Everyone must hold an identity card indicating his or her racial group. The classification procedures were laid down. These have brought disaster to many homes and many families because very often the borderline between white and coloured is arbitrary. Many families have faced reclassification, with disastrous consequences. Within some families, different members have been classified differently. You might have a brother and a sister, one classified as white and the other classified as non-white, or coloured. This has spelt disaster and division for such a family.

It is intriguing to note the position of the Japanese in South Africa. Following the successful conclusion of an important trade deal between Japan and South Africa, the Japanese — it must be remembered that they are few in number in South Africa — found themselves classified as white, whereas the Chinese, who are more numerous and with whom there is no important trade deal, have found themselves classified as non-white. Many people find it very difficult to distinguish a Japanese from a Chinese and vice versa, so it makes nonsense of the whole system of racial classification and it points up the naked, economic reasons for having such classifications.

I remember discussing this whole matter with South Africans. I asked how on earth do they decide on their classifications. It is an obscene subject to have to talk about but, in the context of South Africa, under the Population Registration Act, it is a reality. In the course of this debate, while it pains me to think about it, let alone talk about it, we must face up to the way in which they arrive at their racial classifications. There is something called the hair test. Black people have kinky, curly, wiry hair; that is part and parcel of their genetic and physical make-up.

I am not too sure if it is still current today, but it was common practice in South Africa that in cases where people were unsure and unclear as to the racial classification of a person, a pencil of an official would be put into the hair of the individual waiting for classification. If the pencil remained in position, i.e. was held by the quality of the hair, the person would be classified as coloured or non-white, with all the downstream effects of that. If the pencil kindly slid to the ground the person would be classified as white. It is ludicrous; it is ignominious; it is shocking; it is appalling; but it is the way in which these arbitrary classifications were arrived at in South Africa and it is a practical detail of an evil, inhuman system. The committee did not refer to that detail; that is one that I happen to know because of my own contacts. It spelt out, in no uncertain terms, the fact of the Population Registration Act.

The committee moved on to deal with the territories in South Africa and the Homelands Act. Eighty seven per cent of South Africa's land is allocated to whites and 13 per cent to blacks. Homelands are self-governing and the South African Government have succeeded in pushing four of them into "independence". The committee made a point of stating in the report that no Government outside of South Africa gives recognition to these "independent" homelands. The entire world community sees them for what they are, a device to bring about a policy of separate development in South Africa. The committee go on to talk about the forcible movement of blacks to these homelands. Those of us who have watched South African affairs as depicted on television have seen the forcible movement of people in South Africa and the ruthless, savage, vicious and oppressive way in which this is done, with the police and the military wielding weaponry of all sorts, in particular, the dreaded sjambok.

Of course, the committee cannot discuss this without alluding to another of South Africa's strange or unusual species of persons. There are a group of people in South Africa called "qualified blacks". One would wonder what was meant by this. These are people who have worked in the city for ten years and who may, by virtue of that fact, live in proximity to the city, but only in controlled areas. These controlled areas are the black townships. They are really labour camps. The one with which we are most familiar is Soweto.

The committee move on to consider the pass laws. They explain very clearly that the pass laws have their origin in the 18th Century control of imported slaves. This restriction gradually moved to cover all Africans in general and was specifically related to certain areas of employment, that of domestics and miners. Today we know that blacks may reside only in designated areas and they need authorisation to travel from one area to another. All this is a device to control movement, but it must be remembered that it is also a device for controlling employment. The net effect of this type of control is to ensure separation and to ensure the subordination of the black to the economic needs of the white man. All this is degrading and disruptive, While statistically one sees it in black and white, the net effect of it is to slice right across human feelings, human considerations, families, bonds of kith and kin and tribe, which are particularly strong amongst the African, the Indian and the coloured. That makes it all the more wrong and immoral.

The committee got information about the operation of the pass laws and, in particular, their relationship to the question of enforced labour. The Land Act and the Urban Areas Act lie behind the forced removals. This has affected millions of Africans since 1960, while within the urban areas the notorious Group Areas Act has forced ethnic segregation, deprived black people of homes, business rights and residential mobility and has been responsible for moving hundreds of thousands of people, mainly coloured. It has also been responsible for the destruction of countless integrated suburbs and villages throughout the country.

I have knowledge of a particular area in Johannesburg, Vrededorp, which was the area where my husband was born and grew up and was a traditional Indian trading area. It should be mentioned that the Indians in South Africa arrived in two waves. The first waves were the indentured labourers who were brought in, largely from Southern India, to work on the sugar cane plantations in Natal. They were followed by a later wave of migration from India to South Africa, people from Northern India in the main and in large measure from the Gujerat States, to service the needs of the earlier migrants, the indentured sugar cane workers, with goods and services. These were the traders or the merchant class who followed on and my husband is a member of this latter group of people. Many of them in Johannesburg settled in the suburb or area of Vrededorp and there they set up their shops and their businesses and they prospered.

It is true to say that in Africa the Indians have demonstrated a particular business acumen and have, in the main, succeeded there. In that sense by being given an opportunity to use their entrepreneurial skills they have prospered economically, though in many ways they have lost out very sadly and one questions the value, indeed, of migration. Vrededorp was a busy, bustling, thriving centre of Asian commerce. It was decided at one stroke of a pen that it should become a white area and in came the bulldozers and the police and the military and the Asian traders found themselves with their premises razed to the ground. All that tightly knit, interconnected, interwoven community were blitzed and blasted apart by the actions of the central government and were forced to pick up the pieces and relocate elsewhere. I had an opportunity to speak to people in the aftermath of that notorious action and to witness the humiliation, anger, pain, grief and powerlessness of people who found themselves in a situation like that, where these mighty apartheid machines moved in and wrecked what had been constructed through hard work, commitment, dedication over a long number of years.

The committee have an excellent section on prisons in South Africa. I would refer to pages 6 and 7 of the report. I would consider this a very valuable and useful section; it certainly provided me with information and insight which I need. I am sure that other Senators will comment on this in the course of the debate. The report states that relative to the question of the extent to which information on the use of prison labour was available, witnesses agreed despite the fact that an examination of the South African prison parole system presented difficulties, the committee amassed quite a body of information.

In section 15 of that chapter of the report, the committee speak on the poverty levels in South Africa. South Africa is one of the richest countries in the world and it is certainly the richest country in Africa. That makes statistics relating to poverty all the more scandalous in the context of such wealth — natural wealth and wealth which has been developed over the years. The committee do not put a tooth in it. They state that one-third of all black children in the country suffered from malnutrition, that the infant mortality rate is 31 times higher among blacks than among whites and that more than one million blacks have no income — stark statistical evidence of the presence of poverty, an obscene poverty in a country which is so wealthy, and the committee state it boldly. They go on to conclude that poverty is not endemic, as it is, of course, in many African countries, but that it is a direct result of the policy of apartheid which excludes the black majority from equal rights, equal opportunities and equal access to South Africa's material wealth.

The committee then go on to discuss the effects of apartheid on development in the Southern African region which is, I suppose, the reason that it is decided to include in their terms of reference a discussion on South Africa because they are charged in the first instance with the whole matter of co-operation with development countries and are particularly concerned with our bi-lateral aid programme. They see very clearly that there is a seamless robe in operation here and that it is impossible to discuss issues of development co-operation in Southern Africa without having regard to the fact that the system of apartheid spills over into the independent countries in Southern Africa and denies them their place in the sun by not allowing a full and free development of their resources and their people. There is an excellent section on that and the committee certainly state very forcibly that South Africa, with its apartheid policy, is having a destabilising effect on the entire Southern African region. In pages 18, 19 and 20 there is a clear indication that there is no escaping the effects of South African policy on the development of Lesotho.

There is an interesting section on the position of refugees and the committee come up with some interesting recommendations as to how Ireland could have a greater input into coping with or ameliorating the plight of people who find themselves refugees as a consequence of the policy of apartheid. I have visited refugee camps in other parts of the world and have seen that the plight of the refugee is such a hopeless and desperate plight. If there is anywhere that needs attention more, I would find it hard to be convinced because what, in fact, happens in refugee camps in the Middle East, in South Africa and elsewhere is that these camps become breeding grounds, training grounds for hatred, bitterness and resentment. All of these feelings ferment in these camps because people are so convinced of the injustice of the situation which has brought them to this state. They are time-bombs ticking away and lives are led in a sort of anger which is mixed with despair. In our development co-operation budgets and in the allocation of our funding we could perhaps think of putting even more money towards training and development of refugees.

Mr. Lanigan

Hear, hear.

Mrs. Bulbulia

It is interesting to note, and the committee mention it, that 10 per cent of the population of Namibia are now refugees, 60,000 in Angola and 20,000 in Zambia. The committee also state that northern Namibia and southern Angola constitute a war zone in which normal life is not possible. The NGOs in evidence to the committee suggested that South Africa was strongly opposed to aid for refugees and that the organisation of reception centres endangered the lives of development workers.

Of course, the South African Government would not be interested in seeing aid going to refugees because it recognises that refugees are people, across whose eyes one cannot pull any further wool. They are people who have been exposed, hurt and damaged by apartheid and who will not in any way climb down. The Irish anti-apartheid movement has begun to provide direct humanitarian aid to refugees. They suggested that the Irish Government, under the Bilateral Aid Programme should directly give priority to refugees under this programme. There was another interesting suggestion from the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement that Irish institutions — our county councils — could be more responsive to refugees' training needs.

As a former member of Waterford County Council I attempted to have a motion passed in the Chamber some years ago condemning the apartheid regime. This did not find favour with the majority of the councillors. Perhaps I was ahead of my time. I noticed recently that Waterford County Council — when the actual problem of apartheid had surfaced and nobody could ignore it any longer — saw fit to pass a motion of condemnation of South Africa. Although I did not personally have the satisfaction of seeing my motion passed, nevertheless I was pleased to see that it had been passed by Waterford County Council and that the level of consciousness and awareness had risen to the degree where that was possible. It makes me wonder if it would be possible to get a motion through council that they might assist in the training needs of refugees. It would be interesting to try it. It is one that I would consider proposing by virtue of my membership of Waterford Corporation. No matter how cashstarved local authorities are and no matter what the problems they have, it should be possible to reach outside the purely local and parochial from time to time and to extend help, assistance, solidarity and comfort to people who find themselves victims of the most oppressive regime in the world. I hope Senator Lanigan in the course of his contribution will refer to that. I would be interested to hear if he feels that Irish institutions, and in particular county councils, have a role to play in assisting the training needs of refugees.

In the second chapter of the report the committee deal with the prospects for change and with the role of sanctions. The sources of possible change in South Africa are the South African Government policy itself and action by the majority. The committee refer to the package of reforms which President Botha announced at the opening of the tricameral parliament at the end of January 1986. The official South African line is one of gradual reform, not that there is any great willingness or wish to initiate such reform but rather that they find themselves in a position where more and more clearly it is being seen that they have no choice but to reform. They talk about legislation to remove existing influx control measures. They talk about providing a uniform identity document for all. There is mention of freehold property rights for members of black communities and of one citizenship for all South Africans. The final — although it should be the first — reform measure is greater participation by all South Africans in the democratic process of government. It falls far short of stating that there should be universal franchise in South Africa. That of course, would bring the whole shaky edifice tumbling down overnight.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in a suitably cautious comment to the committee stated that this was the first occasion on which apartheid as a policy was stated to be outdated. The Department intended to study the actual effects of the proposed changes before coming to a conclusion about them. I hope that the Minister in his contribution can give us an inkling as to departmental thoughts on these reforms of President Botha. I know very many people would be interested in having an insight into the current view of these reforms which are grudging and which are unequal to the task in hand. The questions the departmental officials must ask are; Are these real changes or are they merely cosmetic? Are they a grudging adaptation to accommodation pressures, both internal and external and follow upon very rapidly changing circumstances which means that changes must be initiated or they will be swamped by a tide of resistance?

Regarding President Botha in his exposition of this so-called reforms, I make no apology for being cynical and suspicious and for viewing these reforms as cosmetic. A number of elements in the South African situation are immutable and non-negotiable. If the changes do not satisfy the black majority, nobody can accept that apartheid is dead or outmoded. The elements I speak of are the Constitution Act, 1983. That is the Act which set up the Tricameral Parliament, a parliament without black representation. It is important to remember that the present phase of unrest in South Africa is directly related to the establishment of that Act and that parliament. The committee in the report notes the fact that the United Democratic Front, which is a broad-based, umbrella organisation, representative of most of the anti-apartheid forces in South Africa, was established as a direct response to the Constitution Act, 1983.

Another immutable or non-negotiable element in President Botha's view is the Group Areas Act. He insists on separate residence, schooling and hospitalisation for the differnt ethnic groups in the country. This makes a nonsense of the fact that he would decide to rescind the Immorality Act. The Immorality Act in South Africa is one which prohibits marriage between people of different racial backgrounds. It is very hard to legislate for human emotion, human conduct or human behaviour. One asks why it is necessary in the first place to have an Immorality Act when the presence of so many colours in the South African community gave the lie to the fact that anybody wishes to have such legislation on the Statute Books.

The rescinding of the Immorality Act is rendered meaningless by virtue of the fact that the Group Areas Act, which insists on separate residential areas is still in place. If people decide to marry across the racial boundaries in South Africa they have a very major problem as to where they will legally live together. Leaving in position of an Act or rescinding of an Act has a domino effect and must be looked at in that light.

Another immutable area is that of race classification which I have already spoken on and, of course, the homelands policy is one that the South African regime advocates and sees as some sort of solution to the problem and which will not be rescinded in any way by the regime.

The committee note that common citizenship will be restored only to blacks permanently resident in non-homeland South Africa and de-nationalised people will remain aliens and thus subject to control. Although influx control might be deemed in the future to apply to all, in practice because other groups are mainly urbanised, it will apply only to non-urbanised blacks which shows the various permutations of the regulation and its effect on real flesh and blood human beings. The committee make a very simple but a very obvious and factual statement that, if the will were there to change the system of apartheid, it could be abolished in the morning and all of this tinkering around with the rules and regulations and putting a nice face on things and showing that there is a perception of something being done is just a cosmetic adaptation because it is clear to see that the will is not there to change the system of apartheid.

The committee go on to make a practical suggestion that there should be a proper approach to monitoring whether the system is being genuinely dismantled. They suggested that a check list should be established of all the elements which go into making up apartheid, for example, race classification, group areas, restricted movement, homeland policy, and that there should be a monitoring of change and progress in each of these areas. The committee do not suggest who should draw up the check list and who should do the monitoring but, of course, it would be an interesting exercise and I expect it should be done by either the United Nations or the EC or some body with clout and influence who could quickly draw attention to difficulties and to clear-cut decisions which indicated that there was no progress at all in any of these areas.

The committee state apartheid as a system would not cease until its constituent and interlocking elements were abolished. They note that if influx control were truly abolished the system of apartheid would crumble and went on to point up the unpalatable fact for the whites that the abolition of apartheid and the introduction of genuine equality would reduce white living standards, given that the blacks provide cheap labour for farming, mining and manufacturing. That is the kernel of the problem. What it is all about is jealously guarding privilege, jealously guarding economic clout and economic prosperity. The tenacity with which whites hold on to this and are determined to do so indicates that there will have to be a bitter, protracted struggle to achieve genuine equality and genuine democracy in that country.

Everybody who appeared before the committee or submitted evidence or with whom the committee had discussions agreed that the majority want apartheid abolished and abolished immediately. No longer is it possible to speak about a gradual, negotiated change or, indeed, about partial concessions in the context of dismantling this vicious system. It is too late for that. It is too late for an olive branch or for promise of reform. Nobody who watches television and sees those young blacks in the townships like Soweto, who are fearless for their own life, their own safety or their own wellbeing, and who are frustrated to that degree, can feel it will be possible to contain the tide of opposition by means of gradual and graduated responses to the problem. The question now is not whether change will come about but the manner of that change. Is it possible to have non-violent change in South Africa? Would that it were. I would like to state my own personal belief that change should be brought about by non-violent means, but I fear that in the context of South Africa it is too late for that kind of approach and it grieves to me to say it but I fear that violence in South Africa to bring about a change in the system is sadly and depressingly inevitable.

The NGO witnesses who came before the committee felt that South Africa was already on the road to a violent transitional approach. The ANC — and all credit must be given to this organisation in the liberation struggle in South Africa — had been dedicated to a peaceful and non-violent approach but in the sixties they responded to the increased oppression within the country by developing a violent wing. The situation was deteriorating rapidly. There was increased militarisation, forced removals of people and clear-cut oppression. One of the witnesses before the committee felt that the violent approach was gaining ground in South Africa not so much because of the ANC but despite it and that violence was growing within the majority communities. A boycott of white supermarkets was enforced at the time of the compilation of this report and the committee noted that violent intimidations seemed to be associated with it.

The committee noted that the majority of people in South Africa were not agreed on any specific strategy for coping with the resolution of the problem. Of course it is clear to see that the South African Government, with their divide and rule policy, are preventing a coherent strategic response from the majority within South Africa by insisting on formenting tribal divisions and by the use of the Group Areas Act which means that the communities largely live within their own ghettos or laagers and do not have the necessary across-the-board contacts which would be important in devising a clearly thought out, universally supported approach to resolving their difficulties.

The committee went on to consider the possibility of a non-violent solution and they felt that perhaps the answer lay in the trade union movement in South Africa which they saw as a possible vehicle for massive change in South Africa. It is an interesting point. I am not so sure that it is a possible way forward. In the past, trade unions were restricted and there were registered ones and unregistered ones. Some of them had legal guarantees and others did not and were subject to harassment. Recently — one ray of hope in this process of coming together — they formed a confederation and it was felt that this was possibly a vehicle for change and movement, but given, the fact that unemployment is becoming as much a problem in South Africa as it is elsewhere, it is becoming less obvious, to me at least, that such a confederation could be used as a vehicle for non-violent change.

The committee have been told by witnesses that two unifying factors within the country were first the palpable love which South Africans of all races have for their homeland, a love which seems to transcend racial and tribal divisions. This is certainly borne out by my own experience. People of all shades from South Africa have said to me over and over again how much they love their country, its very physical being and not its political system which generally the people I know abhor. They have a strong love of country and an admiration for its beauty, its sheer physical beauty which seems to exert a magical pull or drawing power over everybody who has had experience of it despite the system of apartheid. This might be something which could be tapped if one were to seek a non-violent change.

The second unifying factor was felt by witnesses to be Nelson Mandela. No other African, it was felt, could be such a unifying force of the political and ideological differences in South Africa. There was a feeling that his release would be in some way a contribution to a possible peaceful resolution but that release does not seem to be forthcoming because of course it would only be offered on the condition that Nelson Mandela would renounce all he stands for and has continued to stand for over the years of harrassment and imprisonment. In preparing for this debate I found a little booklet priced 2s.6d, which indicates how old it is, which contains the speeches of Nelson Mandela when he was on trial in South Africa before his imprisonment. Most of what he says is still true today and I felt deeply sad when I read it. He talks about being treated as an unconvicted criminal. He was not allowed to pick his company or to frequent the company of men or to participate in their political activities or join their organisations. He was not free from constant police surveillance; he was made by the law a criminal, not because of what he had done but because of what he stood for, because of what he had thought and because of his conscience. He goes on to say:

Can it be any wonder to anybody that such conditions make a man an outlaw of society? Can it be wondered that such a man, having been outlawed by the Government, should be prepared to lead the life of an outlaw, as I have led for some months, according to the evidence before this Court?

It has not been easy for me during the past period to separate myself from my wife and children, to say goodbye to the good old days when, at the end of a strenuous day at an office, I could look forward to joining my family at the dinner table, and instead to take up the life of a man hunted continuously by the police, living separated from those who are closest to me, in my own country, facing continually the hazards of detection and of arrest.

It is a most moving address and one that will go down in world history and in particular in the history of South Africa. He has been joined subsequently by men like Steve Biko whose very sensitive biography has been written by Donald Woods. The list of courageous dedicated, determined South African men and women of all races who have stood up to the regime goes on and on. When one stands up to the regime in South Africa one needs inner reserves of courage, determination and will because the counter-force which is in place to crush you is so oppressive and so organised and so ruthless that one ends up like Mandela rotting in Robin Island or like Steve Biko with the life crushed out of you. It behoves all of us on the outside, who know about the conditions in South Africa, who have been privileged through membership of this House of the Oireachtas and who have been informed and educated by reading this report, to speak out clearly and consistently and not to prevaricate on issues affecting South Africa and on suggested reforms.

In the past in this House I have indicated my disappointment at the Irish Government's slowness to respond and about the fact that we seem to decide to go along with decisions taken at EC level. Apart from our unique stand on the importation of fruit we seem to have lost the lead and have decided to put in our back pocket our moral authority on South Africa. I know the Minister will not agree with me but it is his task — and he will fulfil it ably — to insist that we are to the fore, giving a lead and indicating that we feel very strongly about this problem but I am afraid that I remain to be convinced that this is so.

We have always indicated that we are in favour of a graduated response to the problems, particularly in our approach to sanctions and I am disappointed that we do not support comprehensive mandatory sanctions. Our approach is less than adequate in that we call for graduated and selective sanctions. We have supported mandatory sanctions through the Security Council of the United Nations in such matters as the oil embargo investments, the export of South African arms and the strengthening of the existing arms embargo on the regime. That is very easy for us because in none of these areas has Ireland any interest whatsoever. The principal areas in which we are involved are the importation of fruit and vegetables, coal, fertilizers and manufactures and the export of computers, electrical and electronic materials and chemicals and the very important investment of de Beers in the Shannon Free Trade Area which permits the large scale repatriation of profits to the regime. Irish exports to South Africa are only one-tenth of our exports to the whole of Africa.

Unlike a number of western European states this state has taken few unilaterial measures in the last year or so. We have preferred to await multilateral action through the EC and the Security Council of the UN. But the decision to licence the exclusion of South African fruit and vegetables was taken as a contribution to the settlement of the long standing Dunnes Stores dispute. It is interesting to note that the Government stated at that time that there would be a further programme of action against apartheid. I want to know what is that further programme of action because I have seen nothing else done on a unilateral basis since that decision. I know there is a certain disappointment that other EC countries did not see fit to follow our lead in that matter and I share that disappointment but nevertheless it is not enough to indicate a promise of further action and then to do nothing further. I am calling on the Government to establish what their programme of further action is and to let us know how they intend to proceed.

The Taoiseach attended a Summit meeting of the EC on 26 June 1986. He had hoped that important measures would be taken by the Summit meeting and, indeed, his own commitment to the struggle against apartheid is not in any doubt.

The operative word in the EC is not sanctions, they prefer to talk about measures against South Africa, and that is not without significance. It is a back-pedalling, a certain softening of approach. We know that the EC enabled the British Foreign Minister to go to South Africa to discuss the issue of apartheid. The regime was given three months to release Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners and to lift the ban on the resistance movement in South Africa. Of course the regime did not need and did not choose to comply with these requests. They rejected the conditions which were requested of them by the EC.

I am unhappy about the thrust of the EC policy on South Africa. I see it being dictated by those member countries who have vested interest in seeing the system remain in place despite the lip service and the high-minded, high sounding speeches that are made to the contrary. That must be stated very clearly on the record of this House. The Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group published a major report in June of this year and they stated that the regime is not yet prepared to negotiate fundamental change, to countenance the creation of genuine democratic structures or to face the prospect of the end of white domination. It is a great pity that Ireland has found it necessary to associate itself with the type of back-pedalling and prevarication which I see as part of the EC approach to the South African situation. The people of Ireland, like in everything else and the area of development co-operation, have clearly signalled their abhorrence at apartheid. I am not in any doubt when I say that the people of Ireland, if requested, would give their support to comprehensive and mandatory sanctions against South Africa because those who speak for the majority in South Africa have given their support. The frontline states in the United Nations, the non-aligned movement and the OAU have all indicated their support for this type of approach.

In June 1986, the largest sanctions conference ever was held in Paris and a consensus called for comprehensive mandatory sanctions. Ireland, however, no longer takes diplomatic or other initiatives on the issue of sanctions. We are subsumed into decisions made at EC level. It begs questions about our independence, our moral authority, our neutrality and our sovereignty when we are sucked into this type of consensus view and prevented from striking our and giving a lead for what we believe and what we hold dear. Constant reiteration and condemnation begin to ring hollow after a while when not accompanied by a clear and decisive action. Even countries who have larger stakes in Southern Africa are getting around to giving official support for comprehensive mandatory sanctions, but at the end of the day the United States — we have seen how morally bankrupt that administration is in recent days — and the United Kingdom are the primary obstacles to such action because of the abuse of the veto by these countries at the Security Council.

Why is Ireland not speaking out in criticism against this type of approach and against these countries for holding up international action against this oppressive regime? Other countries have found it possible to give clearer signals as to the extent of the support they have for this type of approach. The Irish Government still adopt what I consider to be an ostrich-like attitude towards apartheid. They state, and I share and have said I share the opinion, that peaceful change in South Africa is necessary. Of course it is necessary, but the question must be asked: Is it possible? My feeling, having observed this over the years, is that, sadly, it is no longer possible and the Irish Government should be busy recognising realities rather than hopes, dreams and wishes. There is an inconsistency in the Irish Government's approach because our continued dealing with the regime is assisting and strengthening the very system which we believe is capable of peaceful change.

The report deals with sanctions and, of course, it rightly expresses pleasure at the outcome of the Dunnes Stores workers' dispute. I compliment the role of the committee and, in particular, its chairperson, Deputy Nora Owen, in lobbying for this decision. Indeed, it would be remiss of me not to express my admiration and support for the courage, the self-sacrifice and the dignity with which the Dunnes Stores strikers conducted their very moral campaign against their employers in the context of the dispute.

I should like to make reference to something else not directly related to the report but tangential to it. It is all very well for us to speak in a high-minded fashion about the evils of racism but, of course, we must remember that Ireland together with Turkey are the only two countries which have not yet signed the United Nations Convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. We should do this. It would be an earnest of our commitment to combat apartheid in South Africa, to combat racism at home and bring us into line with our European partners.

I find it extraordinary that we have not ratified this convention and that the ensuing legislation is not ready to roll. I understand the reason why we have not signed the convention is that we have not yet had our parliamentary draftsman draw up the legislation. I am aware that another party has a Private Members' Bill before the Dáil and this is an indication of the frustration being felt at the undue delay in processing what appears to be a simple, straightforward measure. The Minister might comment in his reply on whether or not he sees any merit in ratifying the convention and then getting on with the business of having our parliamentary draftsman draw up suitable legislation. It would be a step in the right direction and would, as I said, be an earnest of our intent. I am not absolutely certain if it would be possible to proceed in this way. I suppose it would not do if there was too long a gap between the ratification of the treaty and the coming on stream of the requisite legislation.

We must respond to the dire position of South Africa in a meaningful way because not to do so would be a betrayal of the people of South Africa whose misery, poverty and suffering have been compounded by external collaboration through economic, diplomatic, military and cultural activity. I do not want to be part of any collaboration which allows that regime to persist. I do not want the Irish Government to be in any way tainted with a perception of collaboration.

That may sound very strong but I am unhappy lest at the end of the day that should be the perception of Ireland and our EC partners in relation to the problem of South Africa. I urge the Minister not to let that be the case because in the long run there will be majority rule in South Africa. We will be facing black, brown, coloured and white members of that community across diplomatic tables at diplomatic meetings and we must be in a position to hold our heads high as a sovereign independent State and say "Yes, we were there when you needed us". That is all I have to say.

I am very pleased to have had an opportunity to speak on this report. It is concise, factual and says it all. In that sense it is difficult to debate it because as it is presented there is no longer any room for debate. I hope it is debated in the other House. Their track record of debating all-party committee reports is abysmal, unlike the Seanad where we diligently, and one hopes, intelligently and intelligibly, debate all reports. One wonders what is the point in having committees sit down, work diligently and amass information if there is not going to be a debate and indeed a follow through of action and response from appropriate people as a consequence of the work that goes into the compilation of these reports. This report deserves wide dissemination and I hope it gets that. I look forward to hearing contributions from my colleagues in the Seanad.

Mr. Lanigan

I am not sure how I can follow the very excellent remarks of Senator Bulbulia. She mentioned the fact that the report is an all-embracing report and that very little debate is possible on it because the report says it all. I was critical of the Minister on the last occasion when this report was mentioned. I felt that when there was an all-party motion here on sanctions neither the Minister nor his Department gave enough cognisance to the fact, as Senator Bulbulia said, that throughout Ireland there is an abhorrence of the system of apartheid in South Africa, there is an abhorrence of the Government of South Africa and that there is a feeling that change is necessary.

Before I refer to the report, Senator Bulbulia asked that I comment on a few items which she mentioned, one of which was the possibility of having training in Ireland for refugees from South Africa. We have had in the past a reasonable attitude towards training of people from outside Ireland, going back to 1956 when the first refugees arrived from eastern Europe right up to the arrival of the boat people. We disgraced ourselves utterly in recent times, when the Government decided, because of pressure from Great Britain and America, to debar in future students coming from Libya.

Mrs. Bulbulia

Hear, hear.

Mr. Lanigan

We have had students from Libya over the past number of years. Libya has benefited from their presence in Ireland and small towns such as Carlow, Limerick——

Mrs. Bulbulia

Waterford.

Mr. Lanigan

——and Waterford have benefited from the fact that these students have been living in houses in the area and Irish people have learned much from them. What do the Irish Government do at the behest of Great Britain and America — two totally discredited Governments? They decide they will not allow any future students to enter. We have had no problems with students from Libya. The stupidity of the Department of Foreign Affairs in allowing the students who are here to stay and finish their studies but not to allow any new students in does not have any basis. If there were students from Libya in Ireland who were creating problems, they should have been sent home. It is beyond credibility to ban future students coming in. I agree with Senator Bulbulia that there is a need to bring in students from under-privileged backgrounds for training. While there will be people in Ireland who will say that we have enough under-privileged people ourselves to train, nevertheless, the degree of our under-privilege cannot compare with the under-privileged in countries like South Africa or other Third World countries. I agree with what the Senator has said. She mentioned the fact that at a county council meeting in Waterford she could not get a motion on apartheid through on one occasion. I am not too sure but maybe people are changing their attitudes. Perhaps if somebody else had proposed the motion in Waterford the proposition might have gone through.

Mrs. Bulbulia

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lanigan

I would not have suggested that Waterford was behind the times in its expression of abhorrence to the system of apartheid because as a former student of the De La Salle Brothers who have been in Waterford for many years, it was not long after 1948 when we were told the horrors of the apartheid system in South Africa. The De La Salle Brothers brought to my attention the problems of South Africa a long time ago — I left school in 1956.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. G. Birmingham)

As a past pupil of more recent times, I endorse that.

Mr. Lanigan

I am delighted. Pre-1956 there were Brothers who came back from South Africa. I suggest that the best library in terms of conditions in South Africa was in De La Salle College in Waterford. There may have been better libraries, but one of the best was in De La Salle College in Waterford. I remember it being hammered into our heads in first year in 1951 and one recalls that the apartheid system did not come into being until 1948. I can remember still the phrase in De La Salle "Apartheid is a crime against humanity". That was the cry of the Brothers at that stage; it is still the cry of the Brothers and the cry of the people of South Africa.

Senator Bulbulia also mentioned the subject of refugees and refugee camps being the breeding ground for hostility, anti-Government feelings or whatever. Refugee camps have to be breeding grounds because of the fact that they should not exist. The refugee camps I know of are in the Middle East and I have seen the conditions under which people have lived: I have seen kids and and parents who have grown up in refugee camps and who see no life outside them. There is a difference, of course, because they are recognised as refugee camps and the United Nations Relief and Welfare Association are in there doing a tremendous job in educating these people and in giving them dignity.

Of course, the refugee camps in South Africa are not talked about. They are not defined as refugee camps; they are defined as townships.

To many people a township would be a very small area with a very small number of people. There is a township called Mamelodi outside Pretoria where over 250,000 people live, and where there is only one dentist, 10 doctors, 18 watering points and no department store, no shop and no other facilities. These are not places where people can live in dignity; there are not meant to be places where people live in dignity. Basically they are dumping grounds for the labour which is needed by the white people in Pretoria. Whether one is a bus driver, a mechanic, a lawyer, a street sweeper, or doctor if he is black he must live in Mamelodi if he is working in Pretoria. Of course the services for the white minority are not afforded to the citizens of Mamelodi. The system breeds dissent. People have to leave their homes between 4 and 6 o'clock in the morning to get into Pretoria and they do not get back home until 9 or 10 o'clock that night. Family life, which is very important to the black citizens of South Africa is disrupted.

Senator Bulbulia mentioned that there have been changes in South Africa in recent years but the changes are only superficial. They are cosmetic changes which are of no great importance to the people who suffer the problems of the apartheid system. The Immorality Act might seem to be a major change to us but from speaking to people from South Africa it is not a major change. As Senator Bulbulia said there is quite a considerable coloured minority in South Africa and of course there could not be quite a considerable coloured minority in South Africa if the Immorality Act had not been broken right through the years. In the eyes of what I would consider to be a reasonable majority of South Africans the change in the Immorality Act will not be too significant. The fact that black people can eat in certain restaurants with white people is no significant change. It may have significance for the white minority when they are trying to say that changes are taking place but it does not make any difference to me where I eat and I do not consider that it is of any major consequence to blacks where they eat except to show that the Government is making a cosmetic change.

Mention was made of Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela and of all those who who have suffered because of their hatred and abhorrence of the apartheid system. From listening to Winnie Mandela, a woman of supreme courage, talking about the life she has had with her children since Nelson Mandela was im prisoned one would see that the system is a system created by people who were slavers — let us be quite straight about it. The reason for the setting up of the State of South Africa was that they did not go along with the British Government when the Anti-Slavery Acts were introduced. They have the mentality of people who own slaves and they consider still that blacks are their slaves. From listening to some of the leaders of white society in South Africa, one would realise that they do not consider the blacks or the coloureds in South Africa too be anything else except their property to be used for their benefit in a cheap labour situation.

The apartheid system that has grown up in South Africa, in which it was decided that there should be parallel development of the whites, the blacks and the coloureds, divides each ethnic group into their own areas. It was said that there would be parallel development in economic terms but of course the parallel development did not take place. Basically what the whites wanted to do was to keep the blacks away from them and they would pursue the goals of God, faith and fatherland. I think that is their motto. Unfortunately their god is a white God for white people, their faith is a faith in a white God for white people and their fatherland, unfortunately, is a fatherland for people of white colour who think they are superior to everybody else in the world. I do not know what colour Christ was, I do not know what colour God was and it does not matter. It does not matter what colour Buddha was but colour is of supreme importance to the South African white. No matter what cosmetic changes there may seem to be they are not going to back away from that.

It is frightening that the AWB, the Africano right wing party have huge support at present in South Africa. They have a flag which is no different from the Nazi flag; the Zs are very similar to the Nazi Zs. Their belief in white supremacy is no different from the philosophy of the Nazis in the thirties and forties. Of course they are going against the tide.

Senator Bulbulia mentioned the possibility of the Government asking for the release of Nelson Mandela. The South African Government cannot release Nelson Mandela because the very minute he is released it means the end of South African Government, it means the end of the apartheid system, it is the end of the white supremacy scene and the middle of the struggle for South Africa by the black majority.

There have been changes in attitudes in South Africa in the last few years. The white mentality of invincibility is changing. They are now getting together like some of the white Southern American planters did to try to protect what they have. The gun clubs meet on a weekly basis and shoot at black targets. They say they are getting ready to protect themselves from the black onslaught which is going to come but they are no different from the gun clubs in southern America. Their target is the same — to kill blacks. They are set up to maintain their own economic status and kill blacks.

Of course, the black mentality is changing as well. There was a black mentality of desperation, a feeling that things could not change, but things will change in South Africa. Senator Bulbulia said she hoped that change could come without violence. The South African State was born in violence and it will die in violence. The children of South Africa are no longer willing to sit back, as their parents were, and try to bring about change by political means. As Senator Bulbulia said, up to 1963 the ANC were probably the most moderate liberation movement in the world but suddenly they had to change because the attitude of the young people was changing.

These changes come about in a lot of liberation movements, in movements of people who are suppressed. I was speaking recently to Khalid-al-Hassan, who is the second most important man in the PLO. He was talking about the change that is coming in the young people of Palestine in the camps. They are beginning to get fed up with what to me and to a lot of people, the moderate Palestinians, led by Arafat, have been trying to do by political means. The young people are no longer willing to go the political road. They are fed up with being oppressed, they are fed up with not having passports, they are fed up with being bullied and I am afraid the Palestinians are going to go the road of extreme violence, the same as the blacks and the coloureds are going to go in South Africa.

I am not saying that I like the prospect but I think that the prospect is inevitable. Khalid-al-Hassan has striven through the years to go the democratic, peaceful road but he has been knocked at every stage by the so-called democracies of the world and that is a pity.

Senator Bulbulia talked about the weak position that Ireland has been taking on South Africa and the fact that we have not done anything except on the importation of fruit. We have been sucked into the morass of EC politics and we have a very small voice there. The voice against South Africa — as I said in this House before — is dictated by countries which were imperialistic, countries which in the past have had huge connections in terms of trade with South Africa and which have devastated the whole of Africa by trying to change the ecology.

There have been famines because of the changes that European countries tried to make in the farming methods of the African Continent. They did away with the bush, they did away with the forests and now African farmers cannot survive because of what was done to them by Europe.

The Single European Act will be brought in. I think it has good elements in it but one of the major weaknesses in it is that there will be a consensus on foreign policy and majority rule on foreign policy will be brought in. We will not have exclusion rights to have our own foreign policy situation stated. Of course in terms of South Africa this is important, as I have said, because of the connections that some of the other European countries have had with South Africa, in particular the connections that Britain, France and Holland have had. We have read a lot over the past few days and weeks about the withdrawal of American companies and British and European companies from South Africa. They have withdrawn in name but they have left their investment there. What they have done is transferred their investments to the local entrepreneurs. For instance, Kodak and Barclays Bank cannot take anything out so they have left their assets in the hands of the whites in South Africa, whereas the public perception is that they have withdrawn. They have withdrawn nothing except their names. They have given their shareholders the impression that they have withdrawn whereas they have not.

Of course when we consider what is happening in Europe vis-a-vis South Africa, we cannot forget the connections between Israel and South Africa. The EC has major connections in trade with Israel. We do not have any trading arrangements with South Africa but South Africa and Israel have major trading arrangements and there is absolutely no doubt that a lot of materials that come in from Israel to this country and to the EC have their origins in South Africa. There is collusion between the Israeli Government and South Africa in terms of arms trading, in terms of nuclear weapons. In 1978 the Israeli and South African Governments held a joint nuclear test. We read in the Sunday Times recently about the amount of nuclear armaments that Israel has. These can be easily transferred. The technology transfer is taking place at present but the physical transfer could take place overnight and we would not know anything about it. Israel and South Africa are in collusion and South Africa use Israel as a transit point for breaking any trade barriers that we can put up through the EC against South Africa.

In the past the policy of the Government of South Africa has been to exclude, divide and rule, to exclude the blacks from the very basis of civilised living, to divide the people into ethnic groups and to rule because of that division. They made certain changes in 1983/84 when the tricameral system of Government was brought in but again they excluded the blacks. They brought the coloureds into parliament but the blacks, the majority of the people, were totally excluded. How can one suggest that they are making changes when they get a certain number of coloureds who, generally speaking, represent the upper classes in Southern Africa into parliament and exclude the majority of the people? That does not make sense at all.

There is a group basis in South African politics which dictates that whites, blacks and coloureds should be separated and that they should be allowed to develop equally within their own systems, but of course that does not happen. The situation in Brits, which is a small township of about 10,000 people, is that they have no electricity, no sewerage and no house has been built there since 1930. The population was totally black until recently. Because it is a beautiful area a small number of whites have been brought in and they are living on the heights overlooking Brits. They are living in beautiful homes looking down on a shanty town which has not changed since 1930. Now because they are looking down on these shanties, the whites want the shanties eliminated and they are bulldozing the town of Brits. The only reason they are bulldozing the town of Brits is that it is a black shanty town overlooked by white supremacists, 90 per cent of whom are members of the AWB.

It was not by chance that members of the AWB were brought into that area. It was a deliberate policy of the Government who gave them cheap land in an area in which the blacks had been living in bad conditions but in conditions in which they could recognise a home. The resettlement they are trying to make in the township of Brits is reminiscent of Nazi Germany because what they have done first in their resettlement programme, apart from bulldozing, is to build a graveyard. The graves are open graves. I presume they are not open graves for the whites who are going to move in. They might be graves for the people who might be bulldozed if they do not leave their houses in front of bulldozers.

There is a brutality in daily life in South Africa and the brutality which is implemented by the State is abhorrent. The brutality is aimed at taking away from the blacks and the coloureds their will to live in Southern Africa. I believe what has happened is that this brutality has cemented the people of Southern Africa, the blacks and the coloureds and, it has to be said, a certain small minority of whites. It has cemented them together and they eventually will win. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind — and I do not think there is any doubt in the minds of thinking people — that the system of Government in South Africa is going to fall, that black majority rule will come in. Whether the whites will have a part to play in the new South Africa is a matter for themselves.

I have not yet heard any radical South African politician, any revolutionary South African politician, suggesting that they want to eliminate the whites from the face of the earth in South Africa. Basically what they want to do is to ensure not that the wealth of South Africa will be divided equally but that people will have equality of opportunity. The question of equality has to be taken in context. No system has ever been evolved where people are equal. People are not equal but people should live in a system where there is equality of opportunity. Those who are deprived for any reason should be looked after. I have not heard any revolutionary politician in South Africa saying they want to eliminate the whites from the face of South Africa, but they are adamant that they want a piece of South Africa. They want a piece of their homeland, a piece of the place they were born in.

People say that not to have army dominance, or police dominance, or police brutality in an area would not be considered normal. We could apply that to the Cathaoirleach's area. In certain areas in Northern Ireland it would not be considered normal if there was not a very heavy army and police presence at all times. It would not be normal for me but the South Africans have had it for so long that normality is abnormality. I saw a programme on Channel 4 recently on South Africa and I listened to a white farmer. His problem was that the blacks had changed. They no longer have only assegais. They now have bombs and guns, AK 47s. He did not really mean that the scene has changed but he meant that for the black Africans, just as for everybody else, technology is advancing. The assegai in its day was a useful weapon. The AK 47 today is a more useful weapon.

Life, they say, is cheap in South Africa. Life is not cheap in South Africa. Life is precious to the people of Southern Africa just as it is precious to us, but 2,000 people have been killed by the police in the past two years for no reason — school children outside their classes, people walking along the sidewalks. The only reason they have been killed is that they are black or they are coloured. That is a fact of the system in South Africa at present. It is the reason why this very excellent report has been brought forward.

Changes will have to be made and we will have to play our part. People ask what can a small country like Ireland do. We can maintain our neutral attitude. We can fight from the basis of not having an involvement in a colonial situation except possibly there was a minority of churchmen who believed they were part of the colonial system. In the past, unfortunately, there were certain churchmen from Ireland who believed they were bringing Christ to South Africa when, in actual fact, they were bringing a white Christ. They were bringing a white system which the blacks in South Africa did not really need, did not want and rejected to a large degree. That is the only area of colonisation that we have ever been involved in. It may not be colonialism to many people but nevertheless to a lot of Southern Africans that was their perception of it.

The Government manipulated in South Africa the total lives of the inhabitants who are not white. The blacks consider that the Government are an immoral Government because they are not the servants of the people; they are the masters of the people. The blacks had no part to play in the setting up of the Government system in South Africa and therefore they reject the system. They did not participate in the making of the Constitution. One hears the radical — radicals in inverted commas to our mentality — suggesting that for every one who dies there will be ten to take that person's place. If that mentality continues in South Africa the whites will have no part to play in the future of South Africa. I feel they have a future in South Africa.

There is a need for the white Afrikaaner to stay there, to be part of the system there, but they will only be able to retain that right in the future if they give equality of opportunity to the blacks before the blacks and the coloureds take over in what I would consider will not be a peaceful change. It will be a bloody change. Who would blame the blacks if the change is a bloody one? The tortures that take place in African prisons are barbarous. Unfortunately, the South African prisons are not available for criticism by world bodies. The African prisons are above the international bodies who monitor what happens to prisoners. Amnesty International are not allowed in, the Red Cross are not allowed in. The situation of the townships and these prisons can be forgotten very easily in international terms. It has been said that the black resolution is absolute. They want a part of Africa. They want a part of what is, as Senator Bulbulia said, a beautiful country, a pearl. Anybody who has travelled to South Africa has commented on the beauty of the land and the friendliness of the people. Unfortunately the friendliness in white areas is only extended to white visitors. This friendliness is not extended to anybody who is not white.

The editor of the New Nation, a man named Sisulu, whose father has been in jail since he was 14 years of age, says there is a limit to the perseverance of young people. Young people feel that time is running out and that the quality of life of people living in what would be considered middle class black areas is not good enough. Even though they are living in a township and have plenty of money they cannot use it. He said that the dividing line between that and going to the bush with an AK 47 is very thin. If he is thinking like that, what are the young people who have been deprived all their lives thinking? The AK 47 will come. The Afrikaans gained their status by violence. I think they are going to lose it by violence. We, as a small country should use our influence. Our influence is appreciated although since we were subsumed into the politics of the EC we have not been tough enough on this matter, we have not been tough enough on other matters of morality in world affairs. The more we get involved in consensus European politics the less will our neutral, independent position be respected throughout the world.

The report is excellent, but, as Senator Bulbulia said, it is being debated here essentially for the record of the House and for the information of the Department of Foreign Affairs. It should be for the enlightenment of the people of the country. The press will be very plausible when they cover South African politics being debated in this House. I see one reporter here. It will be very interesting to see if the press takes any cognisance of what happens in this House when this debate is published tomorrow. In the past they have ignored what has happened in this House. We are debating a matter of extreme importance, not only to this country but to the people of South Africa. Of course it will not be debated in the other House. Why produce the Report? Is it just so that we can stand up here and talk to ourselves? I noticed, when Senator Bulbulia was making what I thought was one of the most moving speeches the House has heard, the only reporter in the House was dead asleep. I make no bones about saying that. When criticism has to be made it should be made. I will make it of Ministers or of press. It is an utter disgrace that the only reporter who was in the House — not the reporter who is here at present — was asleep.

Acting Chairman (Mr. McGonagle)

May I ask you, Senator, to refrain from referring to persons in that vein? You may refer to the press but not to persons. They cannot defend themselves.

Mr. Lanigan

They have a very good method of defending themselves, as you know. The work of this committee is of importance in allowing us to debate it or to refer to it. It is important that it is on the record of this House and it should get a wider audience than just this House of the Oireachtas.

Acting Chairman

Is it the decision of the House to adhere to the decision made on the Order of Business this morning?

Mr. Harte

With regard to the adjournment from 1.30 pm to 2.30 pm, I had a discussion with the Fianna Fáil Whip. The Fine Gael Whip is tied up in sub committee meetings but Senator Bulbulia has assured me that the Minister would not mind a continuation of the debate. There seems to be a unanimous acceptance of the continuation of the debate.

Acting Chairman

Until?

Mr. Harte

The recess would be from 1.30 until 2.30 p.m. The reason for not dispensing with the lunch hour altogether is that I could not contact some people. I do not want to deprive them of an opportunity to make their contribution. It is essential that the Labour Party, which has been in the forefront of protests on this situation for more than a quarter of a century, should have an opportunity to make a contribution and to have some continuity. Therefore, I think a recess at 1.30 would be a nice compromise.

Acting Chairman

Is it agreed that we suspend the sitting at 1.30 p.m. until 2.30 p.m.

Agreed.

Mr. M. Higgins

I would like to begin by thanking the different groups represented in this House for their generosity in facilitating the change in the lunch hour, which is primarily to accommodate the Labour Party. I am grateful for that.

I support the motion that we take note of this Report of the Joint Committee on Co-Operation with Developing Countries. It was the third Report of the committee. I had the privilege of being a member of the committee. I was also a member of the group which visited Africa in 1985 — a visit which is referred to in several pages of the report. I have also had the benefit of listening to the thoughtful speeches of Senators Bulbulia and Lanigan, which have raised a number of issues. The great value of the report is that it links together three different kinds of policy response which have been noted in Irish foreign policy in relation to the apartheid system. The linking of these three together is very important. The first of these is in relation to what might be regarded as the moral abhorrence of apartheid as a system, which is racist. Direct parallels have been drawn between that regime and the Nazi regime historically. The second is a political response in which Ireland, in participating in international fora, including the United Nations, is party to discussions, has supported resolutions and has discussed resolutions condemning the political system that uses apartheid as an instrument.

The third dimension is one which is strictly within the mandate of the joint committee and that is the one which links the moral and political statements made on behalf of the Irish community with the general strategy of development aid. I welcome this as a small move towards the integration of Irish foreign policy.

I have long felt that Irish foreign policy — and following on one of the points made by the previous speaker — suffers sometimes from appearing to be moving in different directions. Sadly, I recall times at which it appears foreign policy positions were mitigated in public comment by industrialisation strategies. It was pointed out very forcibly to myself and some people a few years ago that our foreign policy was fine as long as it was both moral and political but if it impinged on the economic area it needed to be trimmed and industrialisation strategies should influence not only the strength but also the content of what we had to say.

There are Deputies in another House and there are Members in this House who will recall receiving telephone calls from commercial interests representing those who had decided to invest in Ireland, clearly pointing out that we could make whatever sounds we liked as long as it did not offend the principal donors in our industrialisation policy. It is something which I have noted in my own notes. I know exactly how it was organised and it redoubled my own efforts to establish not only the independence of Irish foreign policy but also its integration.

We were very fortunate on the Oireachtas joint committee in having the evidence of a number of very distinguished people who came to visit us. I recall two documents which above all else shaped our thinking. One was a major report on the extent of poverty in Africa. It was a report that laid a number of myths in relation to the general assumption that had been made in relation to South Africa.

In a document dated 24 July 1984 submitted to the committee entitled Scientific Survey Buries the Myths, reference was made to the findings of the Carnegie Corporation on poverty. This has been already referred to. That was very valuable because it served to point out to us that not only were we dealing with something in a moral and political dimension but that sustaining the appalling regime based on apartheid were a systematic tissue of lies, lies that have found their way into international discourse by those seeking an easy rationalisation of the regime in South Africa or a rationalisation of policies that were less than vigorous. Three of these were dealt with, for example, the report in the Lincoln letter which summarises the report of the Carnegie Corporation's study, addressed itself to the myth that however deprived in political and civil rights terms, black South Africans were relatively well off in economic terms compared with blacks in other African countries. I quote the second myth, That while some blacks still live in poverty in South Africa, the trend is towards a rising standard of living, and the third myth, South Africa's poverty, illiteracy and disease levels are attributable to general underdevelopment in the context of a Third World continent.

Reflecting on the work of the joint committee, I feel there has been a growth in consciousness among all Members about South Africa and aspects of development that are related to it. It cannot be explained as in the classical colonialist theory, sometimes called in academic language the modernisation theory, as explainable in terms of indigenous features of these countries. I went to a university in this country in which economic undevelopment was explained as backwardness on the part of the individuals who occupied what were regarded as backward countries; countries that had not what was regarded as the achievement orientation, in forward time span, orientation towards planning of the so-called developed countries, as if we were talking about gooseberries and strawberries not linked together. It has been a moral leap in people's consciousness to realise that much of western development that has taken place and for which its benefits have accrued to different groups within the so-called developed world, has been historically through the extraction of primary commodities at terms which were totally unfavourable to countries that were exporting such primary commodities and the manipulation of these countries themselves as markets. There is now a reaction to this dependency theory, as it has been called, within the language of development, suggesting that perhaps we should go back to some of the other explanations. It is simply a reaction. In the Irish phrase, it is under each other's shadow — ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.

We have to look at our responsibilities in relation to Africa very much in the context of decolonisation of the world. Great failures which are taking place at the international monetary level very much show our failures in that regard. The whole debate on debt aid, trade and so forth seems addressed to imposing conditions on debtor countries to try to get out of their dilemmas by imposing restrictions on themselves. The morality of accruing surpluses in relation to financial imbalances and debt in relation to hegemonies established in trade on an old pattern of exploitation and in relation to aid the reluctance of many donor countries to undo aspects of tied aid which themselves do not respect the integrity of the recipient country shows how far we have to go.

When we went as a delegation from the joint committee to the different countries, Tanzania, Kenya and Lesotho we saw at first hand, particularly in Lesotho, what it meant to live and run the country in the shadow of such a powerful neighbour. No matter what moral principles one might hold, the fact that the economy of Lesotho was so dependant on migrant earnings meant that one cannot divorce aspects of apartheid from the economic consequences that it has or the economic base which makes it possible. What advice could one give the most reform-minded person living in Lesotho, who had to know that the day they took the high moral position they were going to condemn their people to even further poverty and put at risk whatever little was available for relief. It is to the great courage of the black populations of southern Africa that they have taken the choice that they want the obnoxious and inhuman system of apartheid disestablished, at great consequence and great enormous loss to their generation so that other generations might live as equals. The evidence they have sent our committee was unequivocal in this regard. They said they did not want us, as outsiders, expressing support to taper our message, to be lured into any kind of arguments that are essentially evasive, or that we should moderate our condemnation or our position taken at the international assemblies, in the supposed interests of the black community in South Africa.

The point that struck me from meeting people during our visit, and from the evidence that came afterwards, was that there were enormous benefits to accrue to Ireland from making acts of solidarity for over, and away beyond the actions that had been taken by the European Community. Senator Lanigan has touched on this and I think correctly. It is a matter that will be debated another day, the important contribution Ireland can make in the context of fora which include the presence of larger nations. It is a matter we have to debate again and I look forward to it. It raises a number of fundamental questions, including the structure of international diplomacy, the parallel with that on foreign policy, the degree of accountability, the openness that is there, that is possible and so forth. I agree with the suggestion that we are entitled, are expected and have everything to gain morally, economically, politically, and in every other way from having a strong position in relation to our opposition to apartheid.

It has filled me with anger that so many voluntary groups in this country, including some sporting groups, have tried to suggest that it is possible to have sporting relationships and other cultural relationships with a regime that is built on apartheid. There is a moral distance that they are trying to suggest is sustainable between their actions and the actions taken in their name by different governments. Their actions are based on the kindest interpretation, on a profound ignorance. There has also been a suggestion that they are above politics. What they are really saying is that they are above and beyond life itself, that what is a matter of specific recreation for them has to be removed from the realm of moral accountability.

People who truck with the regime, based on apartheid, are lending themselves to that regime and its support. They are lending themselves to be used by it. I would hope that on this occasion we might renew our appeal to these people to consider very carefully what they are doing in the realms of humanity. We are not talking about individuals or a group of individuals, but I am very conscious of the fact that when people put the name "Ireland" on their backs and take to the field in South Africa, they are drawing Ireland's name, and all of us, into the gutter. They are not speaking just for themselves. They do not leave this country. They sneak out through airports early in the morning or late at night. I see no great anxiety on their part to put on white jerseys and say that they are people just playing rugby for some unknown country. They drag us into complicity with what is, in effect, an extreme racist system.

We have benefited enormously as a committee from the Carnegie Corporation Survey findings. Taking up these three myths which I have heard propagated in this country that maybe the blacks in South Africa are better off than the blacks in other parts of Africa and so forth. I quote from the Lincoln Letter of July 1984:

Nearly nine million blacks currently live below the minimum subsistence level in the homelands, the numbers having doubled in the past 20 years and the numbers of people living in the homelands without any income stood at 1.43 million in 1980 compared with a quarter of a million in 1960. The findings established also that this level of poverty is a direct result not of poor resources, drought or historical accident but of apartheid policies. The forced expulsion of millions of blacks from the urban centres of industrial, commercial and mining growth creates a vicious circle of deprivation which affects blacks throughout the country. The rural black reserves are denuded of their means of agricultural livelihood through gross overcrowding, forcing their populations into an endless round of increasingly desperate illegal entry to the cities where they are harassed, arrested, fined and removed again.

Following from that statement the question arises as to how adequate are suggestions of reform, given the structural properties of the system where you have not only a policy that is racist but which is closely sustained by an integrated economic system. In practical terms, even if you were to look at the labour mobility aspects of it, there is labour mobility reflected in the migration flows in which you can dominate your neighbours. Politically, there are the other actions being taken by the South African authorities. Even in relation to the other evidence we got as a committee from my colleague at University College Galway, Mr. Kevin Boyle, it was very clear that the reforms were paper thin, that they did not affect the majority of people. They did have the effect of supplying a gloss on what was taking place. This is very serious because politics in the end is about language. Diplomacy is even more about language and foreign policy is about diplomatic language made accountable. In this case it is very encouraging that Ireland has strengthened its position. I hope it goes much further in rejecting the casuistry of the reform proposals of the South African Government.

We find it very difficult to understand something else which surfaced again and again as we began to prepare this third report and that was the question of violence and non-violence. I had a slightly different view of this than some people on the committee. I find it very difficult to make the moral judgment for South Africans as to what is appropriate within their situation, when I watch on television young black people totally alienated from the society in which they can look at a State that is in itself an instrument of oppression. The other speakers very correctly drew attention to the impact on one's life of the abuse of every apparatus of the State — mobility itself, the whole question of moving from one area to another; the requirements of the pass laws; the abuse of the prison system; the abuse of the parole system; the use of people on parole, as Professor Boyle has shown, in relation to farming and agricultural products, exports and so forth. I found it very interesting to reflect on that. You could say: now we have identified something, the abuse of prison labour in relation to an agricultural export from South Africa: We will address that. We cannot address it without looking at the entire economic system of which such a produce is a part. When we begin to trace the economic system back, we are back at the political system again. What we have is an inexorable logic that brings us to an outright condemnation of the apartheid system.

How can we, at a distance, advise people where every non-violent option is almost exhausted? We could fall into the model presented by Chief Buthelezi in his evidence in England to their parliament in which he gives a long description of the difference between himself and the African National Congress and how he came to choose a different perspective. I found an unfortunable parallel between Chief Buthelezi's presentation and that of Mr. Jinnah, at the time of the independence of India. It is working almost to an exact copy of the British foreign policy attitudes, the idea being, that you can sustain the historical separateness of an Afrikaaner country, a white country, built around the principal resources, and you can tolerate a black majority South African statelet which would be separate and different from that to which the African National Congress aspires. I am not saying that I would not have criticisms to make of the ANC. We are not in the business of throwing our foreign policy into the Buthelezi option only. It would be a tragic mistake. Many liberals are falling into that one. It is the same old case again of allowing liberation on the coloniser's terms and ignoring entirely the factual complexity that exists at a time of oppression. People have the right to look forward to equality as human beings in South Africa and to aspire to the use of the resources for all of their people.

We have uncomfortable parallels very near home that we should bear in mind in this regard. It would ill serve us to in any way make undue concessions to options in relation to South Africa which fell short of the demands of the total abolition of apartheid. You might say, is that not an aspiration beyond our lives? It is one, to some extent, because of the difficulties we are in, that transcends present policy achievements. It is so fundamentally rooted in concepts of human liberty, and in concepts of human rights in all the great aspirational documents to which we have given our own names that we cannot afford to regard it as some transcendent thing to be removed to the future. It is a moral position and we have to condemn apartheid outright. We have to go beyond the position taken by those who have trading and other links. Gradually we are seeing in recent times even the most conservative of institutions being embarrassed and seeking to shed some of their commitment, either in terms of services or exports in South Africa. What we do not see, and I am very worried about this — I do agree it is something we have to fight and it will surface during the debate, which I hope will be a very long one on the Single European — is how our position in relation to South Africa can be advanced significantly with respect to our own position. There is a great deal of difference between our position and that of France. I have seen the reality of a change of Government in France. It was a great shame to some of the Ministers in Monsieur Mitterand's administration that they continued a French armaments industry and an export industry for armaments that was in flat contradiction of charters and principles that they had signed as members of the Socialist International. I make no apology for voicing my utter condemnation of that. It is something I have said to the Parti Socialiste in France. I think it is outrageous.

We must be very careful here. We are not colonisers; we have been colonised. We do not like to see that word, but we were. People keep trying to forget this and think that we live in some hey-day of the present without a past and some kind of future in what we might invest for ourselves and in which there can be some kind of liberal playground. Life is not like that. We have colonisation, and apartheid is within the context of colonisation. Africa is a colonised continent and it was colonised by whites. In many cases I have been enormously impressed by the generosity and dignity of many black people who have sat and listened to lectures about the terms on which they might aspire to equality from people who come wearing the skin of the oppressor. That is my view on it. I have some reluctance in having the same ease some people have about saying, "Is it not important that we can have a transition in South Africa to black majority rule without violence?" I certainly hope so. My commitment is towards that but I cannot say at the same time that I condemn those against whom the inter-apparatus of the State is addressed in a system of terror. The system of South African terror extends not only within Africa but outside.

The first section of the report deals with the operation of the pass card system, how it impacts on labour movement and how it impacts on different sections of the population. What is very useful in that first chapter is that people have at first-hand an opportunity, and Members of the House will have an opportunity, of looking at how the system works in practice. In many cases there is no moral disagreement in Ireland as to the objection we have to apartheid as a system. There is no real political disagreement because there is a consensus on the issue except for very few people who would put orange juice before people. But it is very important that the detail of the operation of the system be made familiar to those who are activists in opposing apartheid because then they are not able to draw on something more than that to which they have been converted by way of a moral argument. That chapter gives details of how, in fact, exploitation of the black majority by the white minority works out. In the dramatic opening phrase in paragraph 5.1 the report states and I quote:

South Africa is a country of approximately 30 million people. The white population amounts to about 4½ million i.e. 15% of the total. The nonwhite population consists of 21,000,000 black people of various tribal origins, and approximately 1,000,000 Indians and 2,500,000 people of mixed race. 87% of South Africa's land is reserved for whites and 13% for blacks. The latter is divided into self-governing homelands, 4 of which are nominally independent.

Is it possible to convert those who have lived such a multi-generationally layered level of life as it exists and to give it all up? Could one reach into South Africa and say the work of reform will be sufficient that they will consciously give up all of what these privileges make possible by way of a separate lifestyle. We see the lifestyle of whites in South Africa, enormous walls, high barbed wire, private guns, bodyguards, swimming pools at a distance from the black majority and so forth. Will all that be dissolved by some great movement of reform? Undoubtedly even the most superfical reforms have been forced on the South African administration, but we have to increase our endeavours to go beyond simply saying that the reforms are insufficient. I think we will have to start building links and it will strengthen our position in Europe. We must build links with all those countries who are engaged in what are effectively liberation struggles to make sure that they can live in an effective democracy. It is not an effective democracy when there are so many exclusions.

I remember the debate about the Northern Ireland State. We rushed to say, for example, at times that the Northern Ireland State had in fact lost legitimacy. The South African State lost legitimacy in a moral, political and every other way a long time ago. Having lost that legitimacy it is not entitled to the consideration that we would give to other regimes dealing with a dispute within its territory. This is something we should bear in mind.

I will conclude on Chapter II because there are other Senators who wish to contribute. I have had the benefit of participating in the work of the committee and also on its delegation. Chapter II deals with the whole question of the effect of sanctions. We had the great benefit of meeting representatives of the Dunne's Stores strikers as mentioned by Senator Bulbulia. We met representatives from the anti-apartheid movement and from different organisations who made submissions to us. What is important here is that there is a great deal of confusion as to whether the Irish public are happy about the way in which we present our arguments at the international fora. I am one of those who respect the competence and the expertise of diplomacy. The value of having a committee and its report and the value of the committee interesting itself in the debate on apartheid and linking it to development is that we can debate the connection between the speeches we give and the way we vote for or against, or abstensions at different fora, in relation to strategies of undoing apartheid and also the debate we have about development.

For me the great strength of this report was that I saw, to some extent, the steps that it represents towards the work of international political morality, the work of political opposition to apartheid and the work of development linked together very forcibly. There are good things in the report and many people say that they are not noted sufficiently. There is assistance to those who are refugees from the system or assistance to those who are preparing for the day they will work as experts within their own country which will be free and which will be democratic. But I think one of the things we will have to bear in mind is that there are countries like General Stroessner's Paraguay in Latin America. I would not hesitate to say that the great moral blot on our present history and humanity is the continued existence of a State of South Africa built on the principle of apartheid. I would wholeheartedly recommend to the Minister that he respond as strongly as he can to the suggestions of this House and that he will have all our support in every additional measure he can take to go away beyond the community to take the position of condemning that system.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Rogers might perhaps commence.

Mrs. Rogers

I congratulate the committee for the work they have done because I think that unless these problems are examined in detail and the public are made aware of the actual situation in South Africa and how the system operates and how brutal it is, then we have not the same chance of fighting it. After all it is so far away from our shores.

Sitting suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 2.30 p.m.

Mrs Rogers

Every society has experienced in smaller or greater measure some degree of discrimination against certain sections of its community based on various criteria such as sex, class, religion, race, and so on. Regrettably the phenomenon of man's inhumanity to man is not confined to South Africa and we in Ireland should know something about that. Nevertheless nowhere in the world is that inhumanity more starkly exemplifed than it is in South Africa where the brutal and dehumanising system of apartheid is nothing short of a monumental mockery of civilisation. Other societies can and do bring about change through the slow grind of political process. We have seen this in our own country and, indeed, in others: legislation on equality of treatment for women, legislation on race relations, on employment practices and so, on all attempts to reform practices which were unfair to minorities, some of which were very successful.

The fundamental difference between South Africa and the other countries lies in the stark fact that the prospect of change through the political process is not open to the victims of apartheid. They are denied even the minimal democratic right, the right to vote, a right we take for granted. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that support for violent change is strong in South Africa. Perhaps it is even more surprising that, given all the circumstances, violence has not already engulfed them.

We in Ireland, because of our history and experience, have a deeper understanding of the meaning of discrimination and second class citizenship. The deep repugnance which we feel for the system of apartheid has been most publicly expressed in the area of sporting and cultural relations and, indeed, exemplified by the public sympathy and suport for the courageous campaign of the Dunnes Stores workers. I have no doubt that, as Senator Bulbulia has already said, the people of Ireland would fully support the Government in any action, tough or otherwise, they might take to alleviate the situation in South Africa. Also I have no doubt that the Irish people would like to see their Government, given our history and our understanding of such problems, taking a lead in this field.

There is practically universal agreement about the evil of apartheid. Regrettably, however, there is not agreement on the measure which may be taken by the outside world in order to bring it to an end and this I find very sad. It is indeed disgusting to hear the excuses trotted out by some of the free nations of the outside world who would posture as champions of human rights and democracy — excuses to protect vested interests; let us call them what they are. Total and comprehensive sanctions, we are told, might damage the black workers by affecting their employment prospects. We are talking about slave labour; not about employment.

Might I respectfully suggest that the only real source of guidance to those of us who wish to help the people of South Africa to bring about an end to this abomination is the opinion expressed by the responsible leadership of the South African black people themselves. It is notable that in this report we learn that the leadership of 90 per cent of those black people want tougher sanctions. They are the people who ought to guide us and not the South African regime or outside Governments who may have vested interests. We should be guided by people who know the score. They live with it and they are asking for help from us. If they want tougher sanctions, who are we in our arrogance to tell them that we, the outside nations of the world, know better? They have been more than patient as it stands.

The Botha regime would have us believe that the slow process of dismantling apartheid was initiated in 1983 when certain reforms were introduced but, as Professor Kevin Boyle has pointed out to the committee, those reforms were indeed cosmetic. In effect, they were introduced as a result of pressures being brought to bear on the Government but by any reading, they did not attempt to deal with the basic problems and the elements of the present system which remain non-negotiable according to the Prime Minister of South Africa would clearly belie the proposition that those reforms are a serious attempt to do away with the system of apartheid. At the end of the day the key to real change is power and the exercise of that power by those who are committed to bring about the change. Those of us who have been involved in Northern Ireland politics for a few decades are only too well aware of that reality. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to wring change from people to whom change means a loss of privileges which they have come to take for granted and to which they will cling at all costs. Even the prospect of instability and the horrific prospect of what may happen in South Africa, does not seem to have any effect on the thinking of people who are holding onto privilege at all costs.

The report deals with the need for external action and this is the most important part of this report for us because, within South Africa, there are really only two options. The black people of South Africa who want change have two options. They can have recourse to violence or they can have recourse to non-violent means. They cannot have recourse to non-violent means because there are not the non-violent means there to begin with. They have no vote; the democratic process is not open to them. They have tried non-violent means. This has not worked, so can anyone blame a black South African at this stage for coming to the conclusion that within South Africa the only course open to him or to her is violence? That, of course, increase the pressure on those of us outside South Africa to recognise the need for external action. Paragraphs 35 and 36 of this report clearly set out the most powerful and irrefutable arguments in favour of comprehensive sanctions that I have read and the need for total solidarity against the brutality of the system of apartheid.

Senator Bulbulia referred to the inevitability of violence and I share here apprehension. It is not any longer enough for the rest of the world to wring its hands and to contemplate with horror such an inevitability. The time for non-violent change is, by all available evidence, clearly running out in South Africa and will run out unless those within South Africa who have favoured non-violent change are backed up by the immediate imposition of sanctions. Only the nations of the outside world can prevent the holecaust and the conflagration which threaten in South Africa and, indeed, Ireland must give a lead. The Botha regime is afraid of all out sanctions, so afraid that the law in South Africa expressly forbids public support for the policy of sanctions. Surely that fact, in itself, is a powerful argument in its favour. One of the cop-outs put forward by countries opposing all out sanctions is in the form of the proposition that sanctions will not work unless they are universally applied. What that means in practice, if we think about, is that one of two countries, indeed one, country can hold up the implementation of such a mesure.

I should like to see Ireland talking a led in this area and giving a moral lead to all the other countries of the world. After all, if countries unilaterally are prepared to enforce and implement sanctions and go ahead without wating for the support of all the other countries, is it not true to say that those who pay lip service to a policy of anti-apartheid will become increasingly isolated and exposed? They will thn be clearly seen as the only people failing to put the necessary pressure on the regime in South Africa. I do not think we can afford to wait until everyone is in agreement because, as I have said already, waiting until you get agreement from all the countries of the world means doing nothing. I do not think we can afford that.

It has become clear in recent times that the last hope for peaceful change in South Africa lies with the countries outside South Africa. Ireland with its history and experience of colonisation, with the experience of discrimiantion that we have had and even recently of second-class citizenship, ought to understand better than most the meaning of such oppression and, therefore, ought to be taking a lead. We are a small country. We do not have force of arms. In terms of world power we may not count a great deal, but in terms of moral power we have a great deal to contribute. I suggest that there is an analogy in a sense between the black people of South Africa and the situation in Northern Ireland.

Many people say we ought not to have all out sanctions because even some black people within South Africa are opposed to such a policy. If you take the view, in the case of Northern Ireland Nationalists that you listen to the democratic voice of the representatives of the Nationalist community and to those who represent the majority of the Nationalist community, that after all that is a guideline that ought to be followed in Northern Ireland, how then could you possibly argue in the case of South Africa that you do not listen to the guidelines as enunciated by the leaders of 90 per cent of black Africa?

I do not think you can pick and choose. You have got to listen to the case of those who are suffering and to make up your mind that you will act upon their advice, not on the advice of the regime which is oppressing them or on the propaganda which emanates from that regime. The activities of the South African Government and the amount of literature we have been receiving in recent times from the embassy in London are a clear indication that any attempt to have sanctions would hurt them because they are desperately trying to avoid that. In itself, that to my mind is a very strong argument for the countries of the world to stop sitting on their hands and to get on with the work that needs to be done to help the suffering people of South Africa.

Mr. E. Ryan

There is very little necessity at this stage of condemn apartheid because condemnation of it has been expressed for so long and has been so widespread that it is no longer necessary to describe what is happening or to deplore it. Everybody knows it is happening and the only question that arises at this stage is what we can do about it. What can be done about it, short of violence? Unfortunately, violence seems to be taking over gradually and, if something else is not done, widespread violence will become the solution which, of course, is not the solution we would see as being the best one.

Sanctions have been imposed with considerable success in recent times but, of course, on a very limited scale. Even the limited sanctions that have been imposed have been resisted by some countries, in particular by the UK and to some extent by the US. One of the objections to it is difficult to take too seriously, that the blacks would suffer most. The South African Govenment allege that the blacks are against sanctions. They have produced some polls, some figures, and they are certainly endeavouring to make this case. They have said that polls show that the blacks are against sanctions but, of course, in view of the fact that the black people in South Africa not only have no vote but the parties who represent them are not allowed to function, it is very difficult to accept the validity of the argument that some kind of poll or vote shows that they are against sanctions.

The report we are discussing takes the view that to say blacks are against sanctions is not a valid opposition to the more serious and comprehensive imposition of sanctions. It is difficult, as I say, to get a valid, acceptable measurement of the view of the blacks in relation to this subject. There have been a number of expressions on this matter from time to time by those organisations and spokesmen for the black people in so far as they have been allowed to give expression to their views.

I think the first representative request from the blacks for international sanctions came from the ANC during its final year above ground. In 1959, it was made publicly by Chief Albert Luthuli, then President of the ANC and, two years later, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The resolution adopted by the all-Africa people's convention in ACCRA in 1959 calling for an international boycott of South African goods was proposed by the ANC which renewed its appeal early in 1960. The call was for both a consumer boycott and the Government sanctions and evoked a wide response in the newly independent countries and the rest of the Third World. Lithuli's articulation of the black perceptive, written before the Sharpeville massacre on the 21 March 1960, was both to the point and prophetic:

He said,...I shall not argue that the economic ostracism of South Africa is desirable from every point of view. But I have little doubt that it represents our only chance of a relatively peaceful transition from the present unacceptable type of rule to a system of government which gives all our rightful voice. The alternative to it is to let things run their course while white South Africa earns its bread on the international market by the sweat of African Brows. At home the situation will get further out of hand, and when all African leaders have ben put away, violence, rioting and counter-rioting will become the order of the day. It can only deteriorate into disorder and ultimate disaster.

The economic boycott of South Africa will entail undoubted hardship for Africans. We do not doubt that. But if it is a method which shortens the day of bloodshed, the suffering to us will be a price we are willing to pay. In any case, we suffer already, our children are undernourished, and on a small scale (so far) we die at the whim of policeman:

Over the intervening quarter century the ANC's external leadership has campaigned for comprehensive sanctions against South Africa by people and Governments throughout the world. It has also suppored drives for particular kinds of sanctions, in particular the arms and oil embargoes, as part of the wider campaign.

During his visit to the UK in October 1985, Oliver Tambo, President of the ANC, in number of speeches and interviews, restated the ANC's commitment to sanctions as part of the campaign for the complete isolation of South Africa. In evidence to the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs on 29 October 1985, he strongly reffirmed the ANC's call for comprehensive sanctions, including disinvestment, the withholding of loans, and the severing of trade relations. In giving the ANC's reasoning for the use of sanctions, he echoed Luthuli's position of 26 years previously. He said, and I quote from the Labour Weekly of 11 October 1985

The thing about sanctions is that it really aims to a peaceful resolution of the South African problem. That is the primary aim of sanctions — to make the transition through struggle as limited as possible in terms of the scale of conflict.

In an interview, he specifically endorsed disinvestment as opposed to a ban on new investment, stressing the importance of hitting hard to achieve an early result rather than protracted attrition: He said, as reported in the same publication:

What happens if they stop investing is that the economy is put in difficulties over a period of time. But if they withdraw the effect is immediate. Merely to stop future investment is to create conditions for South Africa to adjust over that period. If there is withdrawal the impact is bigger, the results are better, we want effctive action and disinvestment is more effective than withdrawal of future investment.

In a speech to the Labour Party Conference on 3 October, 1985, he appealed directly to the British people to challenge the British Government's adamant refusal by imposing `people's sanctions'. To the people — the man in the street — he said, `you have the power to stop all trade with apartheid South Africa', thereby endorsing the consumer boycott of South African goods and direct action by trade unions to block imports from and exports to South Africa.

He also confronted head-on the objection that blacks would suffer under sanctions. He said:

We plead with you that you do not worry that we will, as a result, have to do without an evening meal. The stomachs of those who are shot down every day are empty already. The bellies of those who pull the trigger are bulging to the point of obscenity. Stop feeding them. Stop giving them the strength to take even more lives of the people.

The above quotation was from the Labour Party Conference report.

Interviewed later, he said that objections to sanctions out of sympathy for blacks was misplaced. He went on to say, as reported in the Publication to which I have referred:

It is a sacrifice which many people must make — it is a small sacrifice in relation to the monstrosity of the crime of which we are victims. It is nothing to lose a job — that kind of sacrifice is nothing compared to the damage the apartheid system is doing to the lives of millions of people, the enslavement that is taking place

The ANC remains the senior political party in black resistance to apartheid. Although by no means the only major black political force, it is widely recognised among blacks as both symbolic and the actual leader of the black liberation movement. At one mass funeral after another, many among the tens of thousands of mourners have openly worn ANC colours, ANC banners have been paraded and ANC flags have covered the coffins, despite the risk from the frequent and violent police attacks on the processions.

The ANC has, of course been banned for 26 years. Membership and public support for is strictly illegal and risks imprisonment and violent victimisation and there is no conceivable way in which its support can be properly democratically tested under an apartheid repression.

Other black political parties and leaders opposed to apartheid have of sheer necessity been cautious and sparing in their public pronouncements on sanctions. The UDF has restricted its public statements largely to disinvestment. At a London press conference on 9 April 1985 during his tour of the US and Western Europe, Murphy Morobe, a leading member of the UDF, pointed out that it was an offence under section 54 of the Internal Security Act to advocate sanctions against South Africa and that both he and the UDF were therefore constrained in what they could say.

There have been many other expressions by political personalities and political parties representing the black people in regard to sanctions. They have all said that they recognise the price that has to be paid, that they recognise that there would be hardship, as far as they are concerned but they are saying very loudly and clearly, nevertheless, "that is what we want, because it is the only way, short of violence, that pressure can be put on the South African regime".

There have been expressions of the same type from the black trade unions. Black trade unions and federations have inevitably found themselves at the sharp end of the sanctions debate, since it is they who are constantly engaged with foreign companies in industrial relations and their members who are the ones who stand to suffer first from any adverse impact on employment. The oldest of the anti-apartheid federations, the South African Congress of Trade Unions founded in 1955 and aligned with the ANC, has consistently compaigned for sanctions over the past quarter century, although it has not actively organised above ground inside South Africa since the mid-sixties. Its position was articulated in a resolution passed at the 8th National Annual Conference in 1963 and is quoted in the K. Luckhardt & B. Wall book Organise or starve! The history of the South African Congress of Trade Unions, published in London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1980 p. 346. I note:

"It is sometimes argued even by well-meaning people abroad that if the world boycotts South Africa, we, the working people, will suffer most. Even if this were true — and we do not believe it — let us assure our wellwishers abroad that we do not shrink from any hardship in the cause of freedom. As it is, we are starving and our children are dying of hunger.

The working people of our country do not eat imported food, or wear foreign made clothes, nor do we benefit from the export of South African mealies, wool, wine and gold. To our friends and wellwishers abroad we say that trafficking in the fruits of apartheid can never be in the interests of workers who suffer under apartheid.

These are a few of the clearcut, very vigorous expressions by political parties, by trade unions in South Africa to refute the suggestion that is being made, in the UK, in particular, and in the United States and a few other areas, that they now would consider sanctions but, by implication, they are saying "we would be prepared to consider them, but we realise that the very people that we are supposed to be helping are the people who are going to suffer most." The people concerned are saying and have been saying quite clearly: "Yes, we would suffer, but we are willing to make the sacrifice because this is the only way that pressure can be brought to bear on the South African Government."

Time is limited and, as I have already said, there is no real need to make the case against apartheid any further but I did want to deal with this argument that his been heard more and more nowadays and to ask the people concerned to refute that argument, encouraging and asking for the world outside to impose sanctions and by doing so to try to bring the apartheid system to an end as soon as possible and before it gets completely out of hand.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. G. Birmingham)

Let me say at the outset — and I think almost every Senator began his or her contribution by saying this — that I want to welcome very much this report of the development committee. It was an appropriate subject for them to select and I am very pleased that they did so. Before I get into the body of my contribution, I shall just preface it by saying that one Senator, Senator Catherine Bulbulia, having welcomed the report, said that she had only one criticism to make and that referred to the report reciting the fact that the members of the committee did not meet with representatives of the ANC and that they did not do so because of certain constraints. Senator Bulbulia then said she hoped that I would clarify this. She seems to believe that somehow or other the Government were in some way responsible for this. Let me assure her and assure the House that that is quite untrue, that there is no Government constraint whatsoever on meeting with the ANC. Officials of my Department have been meeting with them for years and I had a very useful meeting with them in Lusaka during the course of the summer. I shall say something about that in the course of my remarks.

I was trying to discover during the course of the lunch-break exactly what was mentioned in the report by this reference to constraints and I gather that it is, in fact, a question of logistial constraints in that some of the people they are hoping to meet were in London and it was not possible to fix a meeting at a time when it was convenient for them and for their sources in London. Anyway, it had nothing whatever to do with the Government and let me make that quite clear.

I last spoke on this subject in this House back in July and since then there has been no discernible improvement in the situation in South Africa. Indeed, if anything, the situation there appears to be deteriorating. A countrywide state of emergency is in operation and violence continues. Despite the draconian control on media reporting, enough of the truth is seeping out to portray a very depressing picture. Some 300 people have been killed since the state of emergency was declared. The total of those named by the authorities themselves as having been killed since the state of emergency was declared. The total of those named by the authorities themselves as having been detained under those provisions number some 10,000 and the estimates of those groups opposed to apartheid put the figure at 20,000 or more.

More recently, the South African Government have moved to take measures against the United Democratic Front, an organisation that have been mentioned in the contributions, of a number of Senators and which were until now one of the very few opposition groups that had not been proscribed. Alongside that the progress of self-styled "reform", and I use the word reform as others speakers have used it, that is, in italics, has proceeded at a snail's pace. No new initiative has even been promised by the Pretoria Government and that it a very limited test a the best of times.

Instead, the utterances of their leaders in recent weeks have, on the contrary, made clear that the "reforms" of which they speak will leave the basic structure of apartheid still intact. Now, undoubtedly, that has been well received by the backwoodsmen of the Afrikaaners and I am sure that they must be content with its effect in the short term, in that it appears to have headed off the challenge to the Nationalist Party from th right, but that dogged intransigence must create a sense of helplessness among moderates in South Africa and among those outside who are concerned that the current impasse should be resolved peacefully. There is much evidence of that frustration.

Senators will recall the decision announced somewhat earlier this year by the leader of the opposition white party, the Progressive Federal Party, Mr. Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert, to quite active politics. He did so in large measure because of his conviction that the Botha Government were not genuine in their protestations about reform. Equally, Senators will recall the remarks of the ill-fated Commonwealth eminent persons' group when they sought to promote a genuine dialogue within South Africa. Their efforts failed and they said themselves why they failed. Let me quote: "because while the Government claims to be ready to negotiate, it is in truth not yet prepared to negotiate fundamental change, nor to countenance the creation of genuine democratic structures, nor to face the prospect of the end of white domination and white power in the foreseeable future." There has been, not surprisingly, a widespread international reaction, an international reaction to the intrasigence shown by the Pretoria Government, to their continued contempt for world opinion, to their obstinate persistence with the abhorrent system of institutionalised racism that is apartheid.

Some months ago I had the opportunity to outline to this House not jsut the tenents of Ireland's national policy but also to give details of the deliberations of the Twelve Heads of Government of the Community, with particular reference to their discussions at The Hague. So I do not think at this stage it is necessary for me to spell out again the details of the Government's national policy. Indeed, the Government have already many times sated unequivocally their total abhorrence of apartheid and the fact that we look forward to a speedy and peaceful end of apartheid — an end of apartheid in all its manifestations and its replacement in South Africa by a democratic and multi-racial soceity. It is towards that end that Government policy is directed. That end, that policy has been pursued and pursued consistently both nationally and internationally through our membership of the Community and of the United Nations, always with the constant aim of finding ways and means of exerting pressure on the South African Government in order to induce them peacefully to abandon apartheid.

The most recent national measure taken by the Government was that recommended by the joint committee in paragraph 60 of their report — the introduction of the restrictions on the import of South African agricultural produce. That was felt to be a particularly appropriate response to a situation in which a white minority live in conditons of affluence unequalled perhaps, or equalled only in very few places in the First World, and, side by side with that,t he majority black community live in Third World conditions of hunger, disease and malnutrition. Their lot hunger, disease and malnutrition is not because of any lack of resources in that country, certainly not for lack of any natural resources, but simply because of the colour of their skin. The Government's policy, as I say, is pursued nationally and in the international fora that are available to us. Within the Community only Denmark has gone as far or further in taking measures.

When last the Seanad had an opportunity of discussing this question, the role then about to be undertaken by Sir Geoffrey Howe, President in office of the Council of Ministers, was understandably in Senator's minds. That role proved unsuccessful in seeking to set in motion a process that would lead to a genuine dialogue between the different groups of South Africa. Accordingly, in September the 12 Foreign Ministers of the Community again came to consider the matter. At that stage there was agreement on the taking of a number of measures, measures to ban the import of gold coins, measures relating to iron and steel, as well as a ban on new investment by the European Community in South Africa.

Senators will know that efforts continue with regard to reaching agreement on a ban of imports of South African coal into the Community. It is a source of considerable disappointment to us that coal was not included in the package. We argued for its inclusion and, at each opportunity that has been available to us sicne, have continued to argue that. For my part, I recall the meeting of the Community Ministers in Luxembourg just some weeks after the original decision, when we again realised this question of agreeing to include coal. That particular meeting was overshadowed by other items on the agenda, particularly the aftermath of the Hidawi affair. Our persistence will continue and our conviction that it is right and proper that coal be included in the package is undiluted.

The committee in their report were considering this whole question of the need for stronger international measures and were of the view that we should consider supporting those stronger international measures. Since the committee began their work — and, indeed, even since the report was published — things have moved on. I think it is worth saying the purpose of those measures or sanctions — I do not mind which word is used; I am perfectly comfortable with either. The purpose is not to ruin the South African economy. I say that not out of any concern for those who are now masters of that economy, but for those whom we look forward to seeing inherit that economy in a multi-racial society. Instead, the objective is to apply pressure and, by applying pressure, to induce the government in Pretoria to commence the process of dismantling apartheid and to induce them to institute a genuine dialogue with representatives of the majority community. It is the Government's firm view that international pressure can help to bring that about.

I have spoken about our role in the Community. In the United Nations, too, we have been to the forefront. There we have a well-known, well established policy of supporting the use of selective sanctions against South Africa. Sanctions, yes, that are carefully chosen and sanctions that are properly imposed by the Security Council and, most importantly, sanctions that are fully implemented. Above all else, what we want to see are sanctions that are effective, sanctions that would be designed to achieve resuls, that would be adopted internationally and that would result in the application of maximum pressure and receive maximum support.

It is not our function to prescribe the way in which South Africa should go about dismantling apartheid. The mechanics of that dismantling process are something to be worked out among the South African people themselves. We wish only that the end of apartheid should come swiftly and that it should come peacefully. We are convinced that sanctions can help towards the achievement of that goal.

Returning for a moment to the Community and to the process of European political co-operation, there Ireland has been concerned to work towards agreement among the Twelve on a common attitude to the taking of further measures against South Africa with the aim of applying pressure on the Pretoria Government. The purpose and the effect of the measures agreed to in September were to send another political signal to the South African Government and we still hope that signal will get through. The decisions — and I have indicated they were not the decisions we would like to see — represent a significant advance on the decisions that were put in place in Luxembourg a year earlier. We remain convinced they did not go far enough and we will continue to work to build on that package.

The Community has not gone far enough, but it remains true that the net cumulative effect of those measures, taken with the measures voted through by the US Congress, and taken with the actions of the Commonwealth Heads of Government, has been to leave the South Africans confronted by stronger and sterner opposition from among their major trading partners and included among those are some countries to which they had traditionally looked for support. Certainly, so far as South Africa looks towards the 12 member states of the Community, no-one is South Africa should be in any doubt of the determination of the Twelve to pursue their policy of action against apartheid.

Nationally, we continue to look at ways of applying pressure on South Africa. If you look at the lists that have become central to this debate — the Community list, the US list, the Commonwealth list, the UN list and so on — very many of the measures that have been recommended have already been taken, or in some instances do not apply for the simple reason that the link was not there in the first place. So, one is talking about things like the absence of diplomatic links, about the ban on promotion or support by State companies and about our strong discouragement of cultural and sporting links. All of those together, as I have said before, put Ireland in a position in advance of any country in the Community, with the exception of Denmark.

To that original list, now one adds the ban on fruit and vegetables and something else that I mention only because of the fact that it seems to me it received somewhat innaccurate treatment in the media. I refer to the recent meeting of Sports Ministers of the Council of Europe which was chaired by my colleague, Deputy Sean Barrett. In fact, it was the role there of Minister of State, Deputy Barrett, to succeed in getting adopted a resolution condemning sporting links. There are some who suggested that what was involved was something very different, but the factual situation is that it ws only his vigorous and, indeed skilful, chairing of that meeting which ensured that that resolution did get through and, with it, support for an area where Ireland has traditionally taken a very adavanced position.

I am convinced that Ireland is working effecively, nationally and internationally, in opposition to apartheid. In saying that, it is still the case that we consider the best hope for achieving that end, the ending of apartheid, is through concerted international action. It is that concerted action which is capable of bringing pressure to bear in a way that no unilateral action could ever posibly hope to do. the Government will be continuing to strive for that effective international action.

Coming back again to the United Nations, the current session of the General Assembly has again seen Ireland working actively for the adoption by that body of stronger measures against South Africa. That does not mean supporting the endorsement of all-embracing proggrammes, programmes which, frankly, have absolutely no chance whatever of getting through and of receiving endorse ment by the Security council. What it does mean is the sort of action, the type of motion, which w have been sponsoring with a number of like-minded countries over recent years. Whether they are motions on specific actions, or whether they are motions covering a fairly wide area such as the resolution on concerted action, then there is the prospect of real advance. We, of course, have been concerned to see that those resolutions should be carefully drafted and structured with the aim of ensuring maximum support.

On the last occasion when I spoke to the Seanad, I indicated what that had meant, that the resolution with which we were involved last year was carried by 149 votes for two, with only four abstentions. This sesion shows a similar result. I know it is a disappointment to come Senators, but it seems to us that there is nothing to be gained in supporting calls, perhaps well intentioned, to pass a motion which has not the remotest possibility of success. The key to securing change lies in applying pressure. Our concern is to see that that pressure is applied. The measure of the success of any step is the extent of which change is the result.

There has been some movement in South Africa, a movement Senator Bulbulia describes as grudging. That is a fair description. It is a movement that has been neither quick enough, far enough, nor far reaching enough. Again, one is forced back on the conclusion of the eminent persons' group which saw that there was no sign yet of a willingness to negotiate fundamental change. But there has been some movement, hesitant, grudging, a set of "reforms".

A set of "reforms" has been announced. Some of them are now on the Statute Book. A number of Senators speculated on how much credence should be given to those "reforms". At this stage, final judgment has to be suspended. A number of Senators were willing to categorise these "reforms" as being of a cosmetic anture. I have to say that the impression I have at this stage is taht what is involved is a cosmetic change only. Final judgment has to be suspended. For some, for example, with the abolition of the pass laws, much will depend on how the authorities implement the new legislation dealing with the common identity card and so on. At this sage, there is very little ground for optimism, but even those cosmetic changes are of interest.

Perhaps of greater or equal interest has been the reaction of a number of important groups in South Africa. The reaction of the business community has shown their impatiencewith the Pretoria Goveernment who have shown their concern with the paceand extent of so-called "reform"; the role of the Progressive Federal Party has shown signs of considerable movement; perhaps most interesting ws the debate within the Dutch Reformed Church. A number of Senators commented on the central role that Church had in the past in the ideology that is apartheid. It was Archbishop Hurley of Durban, former leader of the South African Catholic Church, who commetned that the debate that has taken place within tha church in recent times constituted — and I think I quote him accurately — a miracle.

There are signs that at least sections of South African white opinion are begining to question. If it is right — and I think it is — that there have been indications of movement, however tentative, however grudging, however inadequate, it seems that those things must be related to the application of external pressure. What now remains to be seen is whether or not the latest signals being sent, the latest measures taken internationally, will produce further movement from the Government.

In saying all that, I do not want the House to lose sight of the fact that apartheid incorporates a number of basic interlocking elements — interlocking elements that have been developed, that have been honed, that have been adapted, that have been modified over almost four decades of rule by the Nationalist Party. Tinkering with the system is useless — changes here, one reform there, one structure altered here — if the basic structure of apartheid is left intact. Senator Lanigan addressed himself well to this subject. Alterations, whether for internation consumption or otherwise, in the areas that have become known as petty apartheid are irrelevant if grant apartheid remains in place, if political power continues to be the preserve of an oppressive oligachy and if the great majority of the people of South Africa are excluded from participation in the political system. There have been further signals. Further action has been taken by the Commonwealth, by the Community, by the United States. It will be some time before the effects of those decisions are actually felt. It is to be hoped that, when they are felt, they will result in some positive movement by the South African authorities.

This, of course, is the report of the Joint Committee on Co-operation with Developing Countries. To reason that prompted them to take up the issue of apartheid was their belief that apartheid was a development issue. The committee were right to draw attention in the report to the negative effects for the region, the whole Southern African region, of the policy of apartheid pursued by South Africa. Recently I had an opportunity to visit some of the countries of that region. I want to assert that the existence of apartheid is at the root of many of the problems affecting the whole of Southern Africa.

Senator Higgins refered earlier to the situation in Lesotho and to his own visit there as part of a delegation from the committee. For my part, however much I read about the situation there I was shocked at the extent of the vulnerability of that tiny country in the belly of South Africa as they describe themselves. The South African border is only a matter of ten or 15 minutes' walk from the Royal Palace. The South Africans have shown their willingness to squeeze when convenient. Throughout the region, South Africa has pursued policies showing scant regard for territorial integrity and an independence of their neighbours. Neighbouring States have been subjected to bloody raids by South African soldiers, subjected to destabilisation by open South African intervention, sometimes with the support of armed factions opposing the Government, subjected to economic blockade and to blackmail whenever and was often a Pretoria though fit.

More recently, Pretoria has threatened to withhold US grain shipments which transmits from South Africa to her needy neighbours and has threatened, as well, the repatraition of Mozambiquean workers from South Africa and purported to justify it but, of course it is a totally disproportionate reaction to a border incident. Perhaps the effect of South Africa on the region is well described by those who are in a position to know it best, by the Member States of the OAU in their Addis Ababa Declaration of 1985. Let me quote briefly from one paragraph. I quote from paragraph 112:

The policy of economic and military destabilization by the South African racist minority regime on the Southern African States, members of the Organisation of African Unity, constitutes one of the biggest challenges to the international community, particularly the African countries. Acts of destabilization by the apartheid regime have intensified in recent years with critical and far-reaching consequences for the economies of the independent Southern African States.

These consequences include:

(a) the loss of human life, live stock and property;

(b) the disruption of economic production and the destruction of infrastructure;

(c) the diversion of resources required for economic development to additional defence spending and repairing the war damage;

(d) the disruption of the supply and transportation of essential goods and raw materials;

(e) lost economic growth and

(f) the creation of a stream of refugees and displaced persons.

I think that perhaps says it all.

I would like to pause for a second to say something about the reference to refugees by both Senator Lanigan and Senator Bulbulia. There is no reason, in principle, why, through our bilateral aid programme, we cannot support the victims of apartheid who have been required to leave their homes. We do that to a certain extent already but I take careful note of the views from different sides of the Seanad that this is something we should turn to further. We are already involved, for example, in the Ruth Fowth Student Orientation Centre in Daraw, Tanzania. there are people working in the Centre who are funded thorugh theIrish aid programme. A programme is about to begin in Botswana aimed at the refugee community there where the Government there will be working in partnership with the Society of Friends. There are a number of other small projects of that nature. So far as working in a region is concerned, in many cases it involves the need for an invite. It seems to be an area where there is the potential for co-operation between some of the NGOs and ourselves. I know that a number of Senators have links with some of the NGOs and if they want to put that suggestion to them my Department would be glad to discuss it with them.

There is a question of what we can do to support refugees outside the region and whether there are things we can do within our own borders that would be of assistance. We have already been doing some things and reference is made to this in the report. Again, I would be very happy to look further at this. Members of the House will be aware that we have recently put in place structures to give coherence to our response to the problems of world refugees. It is my intention to have discussions with those concerned in those structures and to take up with them the question of what further support we can give to those who are the victims of apartheid. I spoke at some length about this question for two reasons; first, because it seems to be central to the reason the report addressed the question of apartheid and, secondly, because given the concentration of our bilateral aid programme — the fact that three out of the four priority countries are in that region, that three out of four of our priority countries are affected by the actions and by the threat of actions by the South Africans — we have a particular reason for concern at South Africa's policies towards her neighbours.

The observations and recommendations of the committee in relation to the help and support system to the victims of apartheid, including the neighbouring states, are welcome. I do not want to go back over the same ground I have dealt with at length in previous contributions. Suffice it to say that they will be aware that Ireland — in this we are joined by all other states of the Community — is anxious to see that whatever restrictive measures can be agreed should be supplemented by positive measures in support of the victims of apartheid. That was to be seen in the conclusions of the Hague European Council and it is to be seen in the policies we pursue domestically — our support for SADCC and our support for the Asingeni Fund and so on. If I do not deal with that in any detail it is not because I regard it as being of no substance but because I dealt with it at length on a previous occasion.

I mentioned earlier the opportunity I had to see the effect of South Africa on some of her neighbours and on States in the region generally. During that visit one question which was obviously agitating everyone with whom I spoke was how South Africa would react to the application of international pressure and in particular whether it would carry out its threat of counter sanctions against our neighbours. That was obviously an issue of concern through the regions, most particularly in Lesotho and in the so-called LSB countries. It is hard to anticipate South African reactions on the basis of logic. It can scarcely be in their interests to embark on such a policy or to set about punishing South Africa's weakest neighbours as surrogates for the international community. Logic has not always been their strong point and time will tell whether their leaders will follow that road or whether they will follow towards reform.

The problems of development and poverty in the region are daunting, ones to which Ireland seeks to contribute to the very best of her ability, both bilaterally and within the international organisations involved and we will continue to do so.

Let me conclude with a quotation from the Freedom Charter adopted in 1955, at a gathering that has been accurately described as perhaps the most representative ever held in that country:

We, the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:

— That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people.

It is that vision of South Africa which shapes, and will continue to shape, Government policy.

Mr. Connor

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this motion. I am one of the two members of the committee in this House to speak on it. As a member of the committee, I am delighted that it has excited such an eloquent and wide-ranging debate. It is a tribute to this House that we have spent almost all of today's business dealing with this particularly odious international problem.

I am at something of a disadvantage coming in as the last speaker in that most of what I would have liked to say has been said already. I know it can be invidious to to single people out but I must pay tribute to my colleague, Senator Bulbulia, who for one and half hours this morning, gave a most comprehensive examination and analysis of the report. I would have liked to say much of what she said because there is a coincidence of analysis of the situation and of the report.

Much of what I will say in the brief period I will allow myself has been said in some form or another. I will confine myself to the salient points in the report. In the first chapter we note that South Africa is a country of 30 million people, of whom 4.5 million — or 15 per cent of the total — are white and 21 million, almost 85 per cent of the population — are non-white. Eighty seven per cent of the land outside the so called homelands has been sequestered or seized by the non-white population and 13 per cent of the land has been reserved for 85 per cent of the population in those homelands. That shows very graphically the very basic institutionalised injustice of this regime. It is also noteworthy that 70 per cent of the population of South Africa, black and white, call themselves Christian. They may call themselves Christian but they do not act in a very Christian way.

The report dealt in quite considerable detail with the pass laws. It pointed out the odious implementation of those pass laws and how they are used as a deliberate policy of apartheid. I might add there have been some so called "reforms"— to use the Minister's quotation — since our report in that President Botha has since announced that there is now a pass regime whereby every South African black and white will have to have some form of passport. There is no guarantee that the administration of these pass laws will make any difference to non-white people in South Africa. The systematic way in which these pass laws are used against the non-white population ensures that they are put at a disadvantage in terms of work and in terms of where they live. The greatest freedom a non-white South African would have would be in one of the bantustans or in the homelands. No such freedom under the pass laws is afforded in the 87 per cent of the territory reserved for whites.

I note in another report since the pass laws were first enacted — they have been there in some form or other for 40 or 50 years — that no less than 17 million non-white people in South Africa have been arrested under these odious iniquituous laws. I note too that about 10 per cent of the total non-white population are arrested in any one year under these laws. Forty per cent of the offenders under these pass laws go to prison because many cannot pay the fines and others are sent to prison anyway. There was also a very vigorous pass law drive against women and their children. This had a deliberate purpose. It was to reduce the possible likelihood of a woman moving into a white designated area and setting up a black family. For that reason there was a vigorous odious aspect of the pass laws used against women.

We also sought in the report to bring together the relationship between apartheid and poverty and all the things related to poverty such as bad housing, bad health care, bad education etc. Against that background, South Africa is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It is the wealthiest country in Africa. The people in the magic circle, or the "white people" as the Minister referred to them, have a higher per capita income and a higher standard of living than most people living in the most prosperous countries in the First world. In the relationship between poverty and apartheid most rural farm workers — these are in the bantustans as well — earn about $16. That is their income for a 12 hour day. It is a particularly iniquituous way of paying certain coloured workers or black workers.

In the wine growing areas they are paid by measures of cheap wine given to them daily. One can imagine the particularly hideous reason for this, this hop and top, as they call it in South Africa, system of payment. It leads poor, uneducated and uninformed people to chronic alcoholism and docility. Like the white slave master, if the worker is nicely doped with the effects of intoxication he is docile and he might not get any ideas about lack of human rights etc. into his head. It is little wonder that there is an endemic problem of alcoholism among black workers. Unemployment is another area related to poverty and to the deliberate policy of apartheid or "separate" development. In many areas throughout the Republic of South Africa there are fewer than 33 per cent of the non-white population working.

In the area of education up to 40 per cent of the non-white population have never been to any school of any kind. The proportion of illiteracy is one of the highest in the world. Among urban non-white, people in South Africa the level of illiteracy is 52 per cent. In the rural areas it reaches a staggering 79 per cent. In the schools, such as they are, for coloured people 60 per cent of the black teachers are teaching black children. They have no teaching qualification whatsoever. I do not wish to denigrate the work they are trying to do or are doing but nevertheless you can see the shortcoming of having 60 per cent of the teachers who are educating a sector of the community with no teaching qualification whatsoever. Some of them are probably just basically literate and basically numerate. Figures for 1983 for spending an education in South Africa show that the Government spend $930 per head for every white child, while they spent $140 American dollars per head on black children. The policy is quite deliberate. The figures graphically set it out.

Housing is another area related to deprivation, poverty and so on. I have come across a figure showing that the average is as high as eight to ten people for each house in non-white areas. This is particularly so in the townships and in the squalid areas where larger numbers of people live in the bantustans. Many of these houses with an average of eight to ten people living in them only have one room.

In the area of health over 5 per cent of doctors in South Africa work in the rural areas where 50 per cent of the population, mostly the non-white people, live. In the homelands or the so called bantustans the doctor to people ratio is one to 174,000. Throughout South Africa there is one hospital bed for every 61 white people but, there is only one hospital bed for every 337 African people, one hospital bed for every 346 coloured people and one hospital bed for every 505 people of Asiatic race in South Africa.

It is internationally recognised that there are 9 million people in the black homelands living below the international poverty datum line and that is a conservative figure. Almost one and a half million people in the homelands have no income and many of them are stricken by famine. Living in a society like ours, we might ask what kind of welfare system looks after people who find themselves at the very bottom of this desperate, institutionalised system of poverty? Welfare and pensions for handicapped people or for older people are almost non-existent for non-white people in South Africa. Where they exist they are totally inadequate and badly administered. That is no accident. It is all part of the deliberate policy of deprivation and of robbing people of a basic human right. In Ciskai, one of the homelands, it is normal to find a family income as low as $55 per month. Over one-quarter of all children in that homeland, between one and five, are malnourished. In some non-white areas, and this is throughout the Republic, as many as one-third of babies die before reaching one year because of the inadequate water supply. Ninety per cent of rural black people obtain their water from open sources which are shared by livestock and other animals. I have tried to bring out graphically how this institution of deliberate white supremacy and racism operates with the guarantee of the law against the majority population in that unfortunate country.

I would like to make some comments on South Africa's relations with its neighbouring countries. It is true to say that South Africa is one of the most delinquent, aggressive countries in the world today. It has carried out a systematic policy of aggression towards its neighbours, towards Mozambique, Angola, Malawi and all the nine front-line States to one degree or another. The countries unfortunate enough to have common borders with South Africa have suffered particularly, namely, Mozambique, Angola and Lesotho. It is well known that on a number of occasions they have meddled in the internal politics of these states. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the South African Government officially conspired in assassination attempts on the leaders of two neighbouring countries.

It is interesting to note that their aggression against their neighbours consists of a deliberate policy of sabotage against rail and communication links to the sea in these countries. The aim, and the object of that is to destroy the internal communications in the front-line States, thus forcing them to use South African communication links to get their trade to and from ports. In turn, they are reducing these economically poor and politically unstable countries to subservience. That subservience means they are made to sign certain unequal treaties containing clauses about security co-operation with South Africa. Security co-operation might be allowing South Africa to go in hot pursuit after certain people of the ANC or whoever they want into the territory of other countries. Ireland must condemn South Africa for its international piracy and buccaneering among its neighbours.

The Minister also referred to the use of migrant workers by South Africa as a deliberate policy of intimidating and blackmailing its neighbours. In all the front-line states, especially those who have common borders with South Africa, there is a natural necessity that many black workers will migrate into South Africa to work in the mines and other areas where there is employment, albeit at a very low level of income. The remittances of these migrants form an important proportion of the economy of those front-line States. South Africa is now threatening Mozambique and Angola in this despicable way, that unless they cooperate in the so-called "security area" with South Africa they will repatriate their workers and send them home with the known economic effects that will have on those countries. This is a deliberately devious and mischievous policy in its relationships with another country.

It is part of the official policy of South Africa to effectively destabilise all of the countries in the region. Apartheid leads directly to underdevelopment in Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana and in the other countries. There is this deliberately exploitive nature in the relationship of South Africa with those poor countries, because their only natural trading partner has to be South Africa as a market for their raw materials and so on. South Africa aims by every way and means to expand and extend this exploitation, thus increasing the dependence of these countries on South Africa and making them further prisoners of this policy.

The Minister referred to the dislocation of the population in Namibia, southwest Africa. Ten per cent of the population of that territory have been turned into refugees as a result of apartheid. Sixty thousand of these people have fled to Angola.

Debate adjourned.