UN General Assembly
1976

29. Botswana welcomes what has come to be known as the Kissinger initiatives. In our view negotiations and the armed struggle are complementary strategies in the liberation effort. The armed struggle impels negotiations; meaningful negotiations showing practical progress result in the deescalation of armed warfare. While therefore we appreciate the efforts deployed by the United States Secretary of State to prevail upon rebel Smith to declare his acceptance of the inevitability of change to majority rule, we should recognize the fact that, without the successes registered by the nationalist guerrilla cadres in the armed struggle, without the sacrifice, both human and material, and the sustained efforts of the front-line States to awaken the conscience of the nationalist movements to their collective responsibility in the liberation of their motherland, without the support and determination of OAU to liquidate the remaining pockets of colonialism from the African continent and, last but not least, without the assistance -material, financial and otherwise-of freedom-loving peoples, the Kissinger initiatives would probably not have achieved the success they have. To miss this point would be to misread the Rhodesia situation and the determination of the rebel regime to resist change.