UN General Assembly
1990

The international community and the people of South Africa have travelled a long way in their fight against apartheid. Only determination and conviction in the right to freedom could sustain a people in such a bitter and fateful struggle spanning a period of almost half a century. It is quite a long time since this Assembly declared apartheid a crime against humanity, and yet only last year this Assembly, in a special session, was still seized of the issue of its elimination. We therefore cannot but welcome the long-awaited positive developments that we see unfolding in South Africa today towards the elimination of apartheid through dialogue and peaceful negotiation. The commencement of dialogue between the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) and the South African Government at Groote Schuur, and later in Pretoria, was an epoch-making event, hopefully prefacing the start of substantive constitutional talks for the creation of a just and democratic South Africa.