Southern Africa
19. For the first time in several years there was no resolution on South Africa. ASLEF had contemplated introducing a motion asking the General Council to intercede on behalf of Solomon Mahlangu who had been convicted and condemned to death in South Africa for murder. The motion had not found its way on to the agenda because the General Council had given the union an assurance that they had acted on the condemned man's behalf. Mr P Ward of AUEW (TASS), however, raised the matter on the floor of Congress stating that a prominent United Nations official had said that the people of South Africa had a duty to defy the Terrorism Act and that the execution of Mahlangu would be murder. Mr Ward said that the response of the British Government on the matter compared unfavourably with that of France, who had protested to the South African Government. He asked what action the General Council would take.
20.
Replying on behalf of the General Council, Mr Jones reported that the TUC had sent a letter to the South African Ambassador in London urging clemency. Mr Jones asked for endorsement of the action and was warmly applauded by the delegates.
21. Mr Copeland of the CPSA raised Southern Africa in a brief debate on a paragraph in the General Council's report. He said that South Africa was responsible for helping Rhodesia to survive and that British oil companies were also playing their part in open defiance of Parliament. He called for the Bingham Report to be published and for the Chairmen of the British companies concerned to be prosecuted personally. He expressed the view that armaments used for internal repressive measures were being manufactured within South Africa. West Germany was also providing arms for South Africa. If the British Government was serious in pursuing its policy towards South Africa it should press for oil sanctions to be introduced by the UN. He said that both the African National Congress and the South African Congress of Trade Unions supported oil sanctions in order to end the system of slavery in South Africa even though both organisations acknowledged that Black people would suffer more than Whites in South Africa as a result. South Africa was the only regime in the world that by law ordered discrimination in every walk of life. The trade loss in the short term through the application of sanctions against South Africa would be small in comparison to the loss of British trade with the rest of Africa and the developing world if Britain were not to make her contribution now.
22. A brief reference to South Africa was made by the fraternal delegate from the Co-operative Union in his fraternal address. He said that at various meetings in the co-operative movement trade unionists had proposed resolutions that Co-operative Societies and the CWS should not sell South African goods. He argued that if the co-operative movement did this unilaterally then customers who were
/trade unionists
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