UN General Assembly
1978

35. It has been the firmly-held view of Ghana that if all members of the international community had really felt so enamoured of universal human rights as was often claimed, Ian Smith's regime would not have survived the past 13 years. It has survived and wreaked extreme havoc upon the lives of the Africans of Zimbabwe because it has received external support and assistance from Members of our very Organization. The Government of Ghana has had occasion in the past to express its concern and displeasure over breaches by some British firms of the United Nations mandatory sanctions imposed on Rhodesia. Once again British firms have, according to world-wide press reports admitted responsibility for deliberate assistance to the regime of Rhodesia, which is, by common consent, not only illegal, but also blatantly racist and brutally oppressive. Ghana again deplores this flagrant connivance and hopes that the United Kingdom Government will ensure that no British firm ever again supports racism and the repression of African peoples through such acts as British Petroleum and the Shell companies have been accused of.