UN General Assembly
1987

As we stand here today, we humbly appeal to the Assembly to re-examine the issues at stake in the light of the new realities and the new dangers of the present time and to seek to secure the undoubted influence of international pressure to negotiate, now, for a settlement that will bring true peace and genuine security to southern Africa because we may not have such an opportunity for a long time to come. We wish this Assembly to recognize that it is no longer a question of whether apartheid should be dismantled and abolished, for we in southern Africa are talking about how it will be abolished, about when it will be abolished, on whose timetable it will happen, and with what kind of outside involvement and help it will happen. It is therefore vital for all of us in southern Africa that the international community see these realities of our present struggle not in terms of any East-West conflict and not in terms of ideologies or alignments.