Stefan Löfven: "The eyes of the world are on China ... sorry India', Make in India forum - 2020

14 February 2016, Mumbai, India

Good evening Mumbai, nama ste! The eyes of the world are on China … sorry India.

Martin Luther King: 'This was the birth of a new nation', visit to Ghana - 1957

Estimated 7 April 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, USA

I want to preach this morning from the subject: “The Birth of a New Nation.” And I would like to use as a basis for our thinking together, a story that has long since been stenciled on the mental sheets of succeeding generations. It is the story of the Exodus, the story of the flight of the Hebrew people from the bondage of Egypt, through the wilderness and finally, to the Promised Land. It’s a beautiful story. I had the privilege the other night of seeing the story in movie terms in New York City, entitled the “Ten Commandments” and I came to see it in all of its beauty. The struggle of Moses, the struggle of his devoted followers as they sought to get out of Egypt. And they finally moved on to the wilderness and toward the Promised Land. This is something of the story of every people struggling for freedom. It is the first story of man’s explicit quest for freedom. And it demonstrates the stages that seem to inevitably follow the quest for freedom.

Prior to March the sixth, 1957, there existed a country known as the Gold Coast. This country was a colony of the British Empire. This country was situated in that vast continent known as Africa. I’m sure you know a great deal about Africa, that continent with some two hundred million people, and it extends and covers a great deal of territory. There are many familiar names associated with Africa that you would probably remember, and there are some countries in Africa that many people never realize. For instance, Egypt is in Africa. And there is that vast area of North Africa with Egypt and Ethiopia, with Tunisia and Algeria and Morocco, and Libya. Then you might move to South Africa, and you think of that extensive territory known as the Union of South Africa. There is that capital city Johannesburg that you read so much about these days. Then there is central Africa with places like Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo. And then there is East Africa with places like Kenya and Tanganyika, and places like Uganda and other very powerful countries right there. And then you move over to West Africa where you find the French West Africa and Nigeria, and Liberia and Sierra Leone and places like that. And it is in this spot, in this section of Africa, that we find the Gold Coast, there in West Africa.

You also know that for years and for centuries, Africa has been one of the most exploited continents in the history of the world. It’s been the “Dark Continent.” It’s been the continent that has suffered all of the pain and the affliction that could be mustered up by other nations. And it is that continent which has experienced slavery, which has experienced all of the lowest standards that we can think about, and it’s been brought into being by the exploitation inflicted upon it by other nations.

And this country, the Gold Coast, was a part of this extensive continent known as Africa. It’s a little country there in West Africa about ninety-one thousand miles in area, with a population of about five million people, a little more than four and a half million. And it stands there with its capital city, Accra. For years the Gold Coast was exploited and dominated and trampled over. The first European settlers came in there about 1444, the Portuguese, and they started legitimate trade with the people in the Gold Coast. They started dealing with them with their gold, and in turn they gave them guns and ammunition and gunpowder and that type of thing. Well, pretty soon America was discovered a few years later in the fourteen hundreds, and then the British West Indies. And all of these growing discoveries brought about the slave trade.

You remember it started in America in 1619. And there was a big scramble for power in Africa. With the growth of the slave trade, there came into Africa, into the Gold Coast in particular, not only the Portuguese but also the Swedes and the Danes and the Dutch and the British. And all of these nations competed with each other to win the power of the Gold Coast so that they could exploit these people for commercial reasons and sell them into slavery.

Finally, in 1850, Britain won out, and she gained possession of the total territorial expansion of the Gold Coast. From 1850 to 1957, March sixth, the Gold Coast was a colony of the British Empire. And as a colony she suffered all of the injustices, all of the exploitation, all of the humiliation that comes as a result of colonialism. But like all slavery, like all domination, like all exploitation, it came to the point that the people got tired of it.

And that seems to be the long story of history. There seems to be a throbbing desire, there seems to be an internal desire for freedom within the soul of every man. And it’s there; it might not break forth in the beginning, but eventually it breaks out. Men realize that, that freedom is something basic. To rob a man of his freedom is to take from him the essential basis of his manhood. To take from him his freedom is to rob him of something of God’s image. To paraphrase the words of Shakespeare’s Othello: “Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis,something, nothing; ’twas mine, ’tis his, has been the slave of thousands; But he who filches from me my freedom robs me of that which not enriches him, but makes me poor indeed.”2

There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom. There is something deep down within the very soul of man that reaches out for Canaan. Men cannot be satisfied with Egypt. They tried to adjust to it for a while. Many men have vested interests in Egypt, and they are slow to leave. Egypt makes it profitable to them, some people profit by Egypt. The vast majority, the masses of people never profit by Egypt, and they are never content with it. And eventually they rise up and begin to cry out for Canaan’s land.

And so these people got tired. It had a long history. As far back as 1844, the chiefs themselves of the Gold Coast rose up and came together and revolted against the British Empire and the other powers that were in existence at that time dominating the Gold Coast. They revolted, saying that they wanted to govern themselves. But these powers clamped down on them, and the British said that we will not let you go.

About 1909, a young man was born on the twelfth of September. History didn’t know at that time what that young man had in his mind. His mother and father, illiterate, not a part of the powerful tribal life of Africa, not chiefs at all, but humble people. And that boy grew up, he went to school at Achimota for a while in Africa, and then he finished there with honors and decided to work his way to America. And he landed to America one day with about fifty dollars in his pocket in terms of pounds, getting ready to get an education. And he went down to Pennsylvania, to Lincoln University. He started studying there, and he started reading the great insights of the philosophers, he started reading the great insights of the ages. And he finished there and took his theological degree there and preached awhile around Philadelphia and other areas as he was in the country. And went over to the University of Pennsylvania and took up a masters there in philosophy and sociology. All the years that he stood in America, he was poor, he had to work hard. He says in his autobiography how he worked as a bellhop in hotels, as a dishwasher, and during the summer how he worked as a waiter trying to struggle through school.3 [recording interrupted]

“I want to go back home. I want to go back to West Africa, the land of my people, my native land. There is some work to be done there.” He got a ship and went to London and stopped for a while by London School of Economy and picked up another degree there.4 Then while in London, he came, he started thinking about Pan-Africanism, and the problem of how to free his people from colonialism. For as he said, he always realized that colonialism was made for domination and for exploitation. It was made to keep a certain group down and exploit that group economically for the advantage of another. He studied and thought about all of this, and one day he decided to go back to Africa.

He got to Africa and he was immediately elected the executive secretary of the United Party of the Gold Coast. And he worked hard, and he started getting a following. And the people in this party, the old, the people who had had their hands on the plow for a long time, thought he was pushing a little too fast, and they got a little jealous of his influence. And so finally he had to break from the United Party of the Gold Coast, and in 1949 he organized the Convention People’s Party. It was this party that started out working for the independence of the Gold Coast. He started out in a humble way, urging his people to unite for freedom. And urging the officials of the British Empire to give them freedom. They were slow to respond, but the masses of people were with him, and they had united to become the most powerful and influential party that had ever been organized in that section of Africa.

He started writing, and his companions with him and many of them started writing so much that the officials got afraid and they put them in jail, and Nkrumah himself was finally placed in jail for several years because he was a seditious man. He was an agitator. He was imprisoned on the basis of sedition. And he was placed there to stay in prison for many years, but he had inspired some people outside of prison. They got together just a few months after he’d been in prison and elected him the prime minister while he was in prison. For a while the British officials tried to keep him there, and Gbedemah says—one of his close associates, the minister of finance, Mr. Gbedemah—said that that night the people were getting ready to go down to the jail and get him out, but Gbedemah said, “This isn’t the way, we can’t do it like this, violence will break out and we will defeat our purpose.”5 But the British Empire saw that they had better let him out. And in a few hours Kwame Nkrumah was out of jail, the prime minister of the Gold Coast. He was placed there for fifteen years but he only served eight or nine months. And now he comes out, the prime minister of the Gold Coast.

And this was the struggling that had been going on for years. It was now coming to the point that this little nation was moving toward its independence. Then came the continual agitation, the continual resistance, so that the British Empire saw that it could no longer rule the Gold Coast. And they agreed that on the sixth of March, 1957, they would release this nation, that this nation would no longer be a colony of the British Empire, that this nation would be a sovereign nation within the British Commonwealth. All of this was because of the persistent protest, the continual agitation on the part of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah and the other leaders who worked along with him and the masses of people who were willing to follow.

So that day finally came. It was a great day. The week ahead was a great week. They had been preparing for this day for many years, and now it was here. People coming in from all over the world. They had started getting in by the second of March. Seventy nations represented to come to say to this new nation: “We greet you. And we give you our moral support. We hope for you God’s guidance as you move now into the realm of independence.” From America, itself, more than a hundred persons. And the press, the diplomatic guests and the prime minister’s guests. And oh, it was a beautiful experience to see some of the leading persons on the scene of civil rights in America on hand to say, “Greetings to you,” as this new nation was born. Look over, to my right is Adam Powell, to my left is Charles Diggs, to my right again is Ralph Bunche. To the other side is Her Majesty’s First Minister of Jamaica, Manning, Ambassador [Richard L.] Jones of Liberia.6 All of these people from America, Mordecai Johnson, Horace Mann Bond, all of these people just going over to say: “We want to greet you and we want you to know that you have our moral support as you grow.”7 Then you look out and see the vice-president of the United States, you see A. Philip Randolph, you see all of the people who have stood in the forefront of the struggle for civil rights over the years, coming over to Africa to say we bid you godspeed. This was a great day not only for Nkrumah, but for the whole of the Gold Coast.

There, then came Tuesday, December the fifth, many events leading up to it.8 That night, we walked into the closing of Parliament. The closing of the old Parliament. The old Parliament which was, which presided over by the British Empire. The old Parliament which designated colonialism and imperialism. Now that Parliament is closing. That was a great sight and a great picture and a great scene. We sat there that night, just about five hundred able to get in there. People, thousands and thousands of people waiting outside, just about five hundred in there, and we were fortunate enough to be sitting there at that moment as guests of the prime minister. At that hour we noticed Prime Minister Nkrumah walking in, with all of his ministers, with his justices of the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast, and with all of the people of the Convention People’s Party, the leaders of that party. Nkrumah came up to make his closing speech to the old Gold Coast. There was something old now passing away.

The thing that impressed me more than anything else that night was the fact that when Nkrumah walked in, and his other ministers who had been in prison with him, they didn’t come in with the crowns and all of the garments of kings, but they walked in with prison caps and the coats that they had lived with for all of the months that they had been in prison.9 Nkrumah stood up and made his closing speech to Parliament with the little cap that he wore in prison for several months and the coat that he wore in prison for several months, and all of his ministers round about him. That was a great hour. An old Parliament passing away. And then at twelve o’clock that night we walked out. As we walked out, we noticed all over the polo grounds almost a half a million people. They had waited for this hour and this moment for years.

As we walked out of the door and looked at that beautiful building, we looked up to the top of it. And there was a little flag that had been flowing around the sky for many years. It was the Union Jack flag of the Gold Coast, the British flag, you see. But at twelve o’clock that night we saw a little flag coming down and another flag went up. The old Union Jack flag came down and the new flag of Ghana went up. This was a new nation now, a new nation being born. And when Prime Minister Nkrumah stood up before his people out in the polo ground and said, “We are no longer a British colony, we are a free, sovereign people,” all over that vast throng of people we could see tears. And I stood there thinking about so many things. Before I knew it, I started weeping. I was crying for joy. And I knew about all of the struggles, and all of the pain, and all of the agony that these people had gone through for this moment.

After Nkrumah had made that final speech, it was about twelve-thirty now. And we walked away. And we could hear little children six years old and old people eighty and ninety years old walking the streets of Accra crying: “Freedom! Freedom!” They couldn’t say it in the sense that we’d say it, many of them don’t speak English too well, but they had their accents and it could ring out “free-doom!” They were crying it in a sense that they had never heard it before. And I could hear that old Negro spiritual once more crying out: “Free at last, free at last, Great God Almighty, I’m free at last.” They were experiencing that in their very souls. And everywhere we turned, we could hear it ringing out from the housetops. We could hear it from every corner, every nook and crook of the community. “Freedom! Freedom!” This was the birth of a new nation. This was the breaking aloose from Egypt.

Wednesday morning the official opening of Parliament was held. There again we were able to get on the inside. There Nkrumah made his new speech. And now the prime minister of the Gold Coast with no superior, with all of the power that [Harold] MacMillan of England has, with all of the power that [Jawaharlal] Nehru of India has, now a free nation, now the prime minister of a sovereign nation. Duchess of Kent walked in, the Duchess of Kent who represented the Queen of England, no longer had authority now. She was just a passing visitor now. The night before she was the official leader and spokesman for the Queen, thereby the power behind the throne of the Gold Coast. But now it’s Ghana, it’s a new nation now, and she is just an official visitor like M. L. King and Ralph Bunche and Coretta King and everybody else, because this is a new nation. A new Ghana has come into being. And now Nkrumah stands the leader of that great nation, and when he drives out, the people standing around the streets of the city after Parliament is open, cry out: “All hail, Nkrumah!” The name of Nkrumah crowning around the whole city, everybody crying this name because they knew he had suffered for them, he had sacrificed for them, he’d gone to jail for them. This was the birth of a new nation.

This nation was now out of Egypt and had crossed the Red Sea. Now it will confront its wilderness. Like any breaking aloose from Egypt, there is a wilderness ahead. There is a problem of adjustment. Nkrumah realizes that. There is always this wilderness standing before him. For instance, it’s a one-crop country, cocoa mainly. Sixty percent of the cocoa of the world comes from the Gold Coast or from Ghana. In order to make the economic system more stable, it will be necessary to industrialize. Cocoa is too fluctuating to base a whole economy on that. So there is the necessity of industrializing. Nkrumah said to me that one of the first things that he will do is to work toward industrialization.

And also he plans to work toward the whole problem of increasing the cultural standards of the community. Still ninety percent of the people are illiterate, and it is necessary to lift the whole cultural standard of the community in order to make it possible to stand up in the free world. Yes, there is a wilderness ahead, though it is my hope that even people from America will go to Africa as immigrants, right there to the Gold Coast and lend their technical assistance. For there is great need and rich, there are rich opportunities there. Right now is the time that American Negroes can lend their technical assistance to a growing new nation. I was very happy to see already, people who have moved in and making good. The son of the late president of Bennett College, Dr. Jones, is there, who started an insurance company and making good, going to the top.10 A doctor from Brooklyn, New York, had just come in that week and his wife is also a dentist, and they are living there now, going in there and working, and the people love them. There will be hundreds and thousands of people, I’m sure, going over to make for the growth of this new nation. And Nkrumah made it very clear to me that he would welcome any persons coming there as immigrants and to live there. Now don’t think that because they have five million people the nation can’t grow, that that’s a small nation to be overlooked. Never forget the fact that when America was born in 1776, when it received its independence from the British Empire, there were fewer, less than four million people in America, and today it’s more than a hundred and sixty million. So never underestimate a people because it’s small now. America was smaller than Ghana when it was born.

There is a great day ahead. The future is on its side. It’s going now through the wilderness. But the Promised Land is ahead.

And I want to take just a few more minutes as I close to say three or four things that this reminds us of and things that it says to us. Things that we must never forget as we ourselves find ourselves breaking aloose from an evil Egypt, trying to move through the wilderness toward the promised land of cultural integration: Ghana has something to say to us. It says to us first, that the oppressor never voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed. You have to work for it. And if Nkrumah and the people of the Gold Coast had not stood up persistently, revolting against the system, it would still be a colony of the British Empire. Freedom is never given to anybody. For the oppressor has you in domination because he plans to keep you there, and he never voluntarily gives it up. And that is where the strong resistance comes. Privileged classes never give up their privileges without strong resistance.

So don’t go out this morning with any illusions. Don’t go back into your homes and around Montgomery thinking that the Montgomery City Commission and that all of the forces in the leadership of the South will eventually work out this thing for Negroes, it’s going to work out, it’s going to roll in on the wheels of inevitability. If we wait for it to work itself out, it will never be worked out! Freedom only comes through persistent revolt, through persistent agitation, through persistently rising up against the system of evil. The bus protest is just the beginning. Buses are integrated in Montgomery, but that is just the beginning. And don’t sit down and do nothing now because the buses are integrated, because if you stop now, we will be in the dungeons of segregation and discrimination for another hundred years. And our children and our children’s children will suffer all of the bondage that we have lived under for years. It never comes voluntarily. We’ve got to keep on keeping on in order to gain freedom. It never comes like that. It would be fortunate if the people in power had sense enough to go on and give up, but they don’t do it like that. It is not done voluntarily, but it is done through the pressure that comes about from people who are oppressed.

If there had not been a Gandhi in India with all of his noble followers, India would have never been free. If there had not been an Nkrumah and his followers in Ghana, Ghana would still be a British colony. If there had not been abolitionists in America, both Negro and white, we might still stand today in the dungeons of slavery. And then because there have been, in every period, there are always those people in every period of human history who don’t mind getting their necks cut off, who don’t mind being persecuted and discriminated and kicked about, because they know that freedom is never given out, but it comes through the persistent and the continual agitation and revolt on the part of those who are caught in the system. Ghana teaches us that.

It says to us another thing. It reminds us of the fact that a nation or a people can break aloose from oppression without violence. Nkrumah says in the first two pages of his autobiography, which was published on the sixth of March—a great book which you ought to read—he said that he had studied the social systems of social philosophers and he started studying the life of Gandhi and his techniques. And he said that in the beginning he could not see how they could ever get aloose from colonialism without armed revolt, without armies and ammunition, rising up. Then he says after he continued to study Gandhi and continued to study this technique, he came to see that the only way was through nonviolent positive action. And he called his program “positive action.” And it’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? That here is a nation that is now free, and it is free without rising up with arms and with ammunition. It is free through nonviolent means. Because of that the British Empire will not have the bitterness for Ghana that she has for China, so to speak. Because of that when the British Empire leaves Ghana, she leaves with a different attitude than she would have left with if she had been driven out by armies. We’ve got to revolt in such a way that after revolt is over we can live with people as their brothers and their sisters. Our aim must never be to defeat them or humiliate them.

On the night of the State Ball, standing up talking with some people, Mordecai Johnson called my attention to the fact that Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah was there dancing with the Duchess of Kent. And I said, “Isn’t this something? Here it is the once-serf, the once-slave, now dancing with the lord on an equal plane.” And that is done because there is no bitterness. These two nations will be able to live together and work together because the breaking aloose was through nonviolence and not through violence.

The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. The aftermath of violence are emptiness and bitterness. This is the thing I’m concerned about. Let us fight passionately and unrelentingly for the goals of justice and peace. But let’s be sure that our hands are clean in this struggle. Let us never fight with falsehood and violence and hate and malice, but always fight with love, so that when the day comes that the walls of segregation have completely crumbled in Montgomery, that we will be able to live with people as their brothers and sisters. Oh, my friends, our aim must be not to defeat Mr. Engelhardt, not to defeat Mr. Sellers and Mr. Gayle and Mr. Parks.11 Our aim must be to defeat the evil that’s in them. But our aim must be to win the friendship of Mr. Gayle and Mr. Sellers and Mr. Engelhardt. We must come to the point of seeing that our ultimate aim is to live with all men as brothers and sisters under God, and not be their enemies or anything that goes with that type of relationship. And this is one thing that Ghana teaches us: that you can break aloose from evil through nonviolence, through a lack of bitterness. Nkrumah says in his book: “When I came out of prison, I was not bitter toward Britain. I came out merely with the determination to free my people from the colonialism and imperialism that had been inflicted upon them by the British. But I came out with no bitterness.”12 And because of that, this world will be a better place in which to live.

There’s another thing that Ghana reminds us. I’m coming to the conclusion now. Ghana reminds us that freedom never comes on a silver platter. It’s never easy. Ghana reminds us that whenever you break out of Egypt, you better get ready for stiff backs. You better get ready for some homes to be bombed. You better get ready for some churches to be bombed. You better get ready for a lot of nasty things to be said about you, because you getting out of Egypt. And whenever you break aloose from Egypt, the initial response of the Egyptian is bitterness. It never comes with ease. It comes only through the hardness and persistence of life. Ghana reminds us of that. You better get ready to go to prison. When I looked out and saw the prime minister there with his prison cap on that night, that reminded me of that fact, that freedom never comes easy. It comes through hard labor and it comes through toil. It comes through hours of despair and disappointment.

And that’s the way it goes. There is no crown without a cross. I wish we could get to Easter without going to Good Friday, but history tells us that we got to go by Good Friday before we can get to Easter. That’s the long story of freedom, isn’t it? Before you get to Canaan you’ve got a Red Sea to confront. You have a hardened heart of a pharaoh to confront. You have the prodigious hilltops of evil in the wilderness to confront. And even when you get up to the Promised Land, you have giants in the land. The beautiful thing about it is that there are a few people who’ve been over in the land. They have spied enough to say, “Even though the giants are there we can possess the land, because we got the internal fiber to stand up amid anything that we have to face.”

The road to freedom is a difficult, hard road. It always makes for temporary setbacks. And those people who tell you today that there is more tension in Montgomery than there has ever been are telling you right. Whenever you get out of Egypt, you always confront a little tension, you always confront a little temporary setback. If you didn’t confront that you’d never get out. You must remember that, that the tensionless period that we like to think of was the period when the Negro was complacently adjusted to segregation, discrimination, insult and exploitation. And the period of tension is the period when the Negro has decided to rise up and break aloose from that. And this is the peace that we are seeking. Not an old negative obnoxious peace, which is merely the absence of tension, but a positive lasting peace, which is the presence of brotherhood and justice. And it is never brought about without this temporary period of tension.

The road to freedom is difficult, but finally, Ghana tells us that the forces of the universe are on the side of justice. That’s what it tells us, now. You can interpret Ghana any kind of way you want to, but Ghana tells me that the forces of the universe are on the side of justice. That night when I saw that old flag coming down and the new flag coming up, I saw something else. That wasn’t just an ephemeral, evanescent event appearing on the stage of history. But it was an event with eternal meaning, for it symbolizes something. That thing symbolized to me that an old order is passing away and a new order is coming into being. An old order of colonialism, of segregation, of discrimination is passing away now. And a new order of justice and freedom and good will is being born. That’s what it said. Somehow the forces of justice stand on the side of the universe, so that you can’t ultimately trample over God’s children and profit by it.

I want to come back to Montgomery now, but I must stop by London for a moment. For London reminds me of something. I never will forget the day we went into London. The next day we started moving around this great city, the only city in the world that is almost as large as New York City. Over eight million people in London, about eight million, three hundred thousand; New York about eight million, five hundred thousand. London larger in area than New York, though. Standing in London is an amazing picture. And I never will forget the experience I had, the thoughts that came to my mind. We went to Buckingham Palace. And I looked there at all of Britain, at all of the pomp and circumstance of royalty. And I thought about all of the queens and kings that had passed through here. Look at the beauty of the changing of the guards and all of the guards with their beautiful horses. It’s a beautiful sight. Move on from there and go over to Parliament. Move into the House of Lords and the House of Commons. There with all of its beauty standing up before the world is one of the most beautiful sights in the world.

Then I remember, we went on over to Westminster Abbey. And I thought about several things when we went into this great church, this great cathedral, the center of the Church of England. We walked around and went to the tombs of the kings and queens buried there. Most of the kings and queens of England are buried right there in the Westminster Abbey. And I walked around. On the one hand I enjoyed and appreciated the great gothic architecture of that massive cathedral. I stood there in awe thinking about the greatness of God and man’s feeble attempt to reach up for God. And I thought something else. I thought about the Church of England. My mind went back to Buckingham Palace, and I said that this is the symbol of a dying system. There was a day that the queens and kings of England could boast that the sun never sets on the British Empire. A day when she occupied the greater portion of Australia, the greater portion of Canada. There was a day when she ruled most of China, most of Africa, and all of India. I started thinking about this empire.

I started thinking about the fact that she ruled over India one day. Mahatma Gandhi stood there at every hand, trying to get the freedom of his people. And they never bowed to it. They never, they decided that they were going to stand up and hold India in humiliation and in colonialism many, many years. I remember we passed by Ten Downing Street. That’s the place where the prime minister of England lives. And I remember that a few years ago a man lived there by the name of Winston Churchill. One day he stood up before the world and said, “I did not become his Majesty’s First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”13

And I thought about the fact that a few weeks ago a man by the name of Anthony Eden lived there. And out of all of his knowledge of the Middle East, he decided to rise up and march his armies with the forces of Israel and France into Egypt. And there they confronted their doom, because they were revolting against world opinion. Egypt, a little country. Egypt, a country with no military power. They could have easily defeated Egypt. But they did not realize that they were fighting more than Egypt. They were attacking world opinion, they were fighting the whole Asian-African bloc, which is the bloc that now thinks and moves and determines the course of the history of the world.14

I thought of many things. I thought of the fact that the British Empire exploited India. Think about it! A nation with four hundred million people and the British exploited them so much that out of a population of four hundred million, three hundred and fifty million made an annual income of less than fifty dollars a year. Twenty-five of that had to be used for taxes and the other things of life. I thought about dark Africa. And how the people there, if they can make a hundred dollars a year, they are living very well they think. Two shillings a day—one shilling is fourteen cents, two shillings, twenty-eight cents—that’s a good wage. That’s because of the domination of the British Empire.

All of these things came to my mind, and when I stood there in Westminster Abbey with all of its beauty, and I thought about all of the beautiful hymns and anthems that the people would go in there to sing. And yet the Church of England never took a stand against this system. The Church of England sanctioned it. The Church of England gave it moral stature. All of the exploitation perpetuated by the British Empire was sanctioned by the Church of England.

But something else came to my mind. God comes in the picture even when the Church won’t take a stand. God has injected a principle in this universe. God has said that all men must respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, “And if you don’t do that, I will take charge.” It seems this morning that I can hear God speaking. I can hear Him speaking throughout the universe, saying, “‘Be still, and know that I am God.’15 And if you don’t stop, if you don’t straighten up, if you don’t stop exploiting people, I’m going to rise up and break the backbone of your power.16 And your power will be no more!” And the power of Great Britain is no more. I looked at France. I looked at Britain. And I thought about the Britain that could boast, “The sun never sets on our great Empire.” And I say now she had gone to the level that the sun hardly rises on the British Empire. Because it was based on exploitation. Because the God of the universe eventually takes a stand.

And I say to you this morning, my friends, rise up and know that as you struggle for justice, you do not struggle alone. But God struggles with you. And He is working every day. Somehow I can look out, I can look out across the seas and across the universe, and cry out, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.” Then I think about it because His truth is marching on, and I can sing another chorus: “Hallelujah, glory hallelujah! His truth is marching on.”17

Then I can hear Isaiah again, because it has profound meaning to me, that somehow “every valley shall be exalted, and every hill shall be made low; the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places plain; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”18

That’s the beauty of this thing: all flesh shall see it together. Not some from the heights of Park Street and others from the dungeons of slum areas. Not some from the pinnacles of the British Empire and some from the dark deserts of Africa. Not some from inordinate, superfluous wealth and others from abject, deadening poverty. Not some white and not some black, not some yellow and not some brown, but all flesh shall see it together. They shall see it from Montgomery. They shall see it from New York. They shall see it from Ghana. They shall see it from China.

For I can look out and see a great number, as John saw, marching into the great eternity, because God is working in this world, and at this hour, and at this moment. And God grants that we will get on board and start marching with God because we got orders now to break down the bondage and the walls of colonialism, exploitation, and imperialism. To break them down to the point that no man will trample over another man, but that all men will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality. And then we will be in Canaan’s freedom land.

Moses might not get to see Canaan, but his children will see it. He even got to the mountain top enough to see it and that assured him that it was coming. But the beauty of the thing is that there’s always a Joshua to take up his work and take the children on in. And it’s there waiting with its milk and honey, and with all of the bountiful beauty that God has in store for His children. Oh, what exceedingly marvelous things God has in store for us. Grant that we will follow Him enough to gain them. [recording interrupted]

O God, our gracious Heavenly Father, help us to see the insights that come from this new nation. Help us to follow Thee and all of Thy creative works in this world. And that somehow we will discover that we are made to live together as brothers. And that it will come in this generation: the day when all men will recognize the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Amen.

The below video is this speech edited for length

Nelson Mandela: 'The struggle continues! Victory is certain!', Final speech as leader, ANC Party Conference - 1997

16 December 1997, Mafikeng (Mahikeng), North West Province, South Africa

The first three years have provided us with a multi-faceted domestic and international experience which also lays the basis of the agenda for the period ahead of us, both for the ANC and the rest of the progressive movement of our country.

The purpose of this Political Report is to reflect on these matters. Hopefully, it will also assist Conference as it formulates both our policy positions and the programme of action that will guide our activities in the period up to our next Conference at the end of the 20th Century.

What are these matters?

The Principal Issues

The first of these is that – the principal result of our revolution, the displacement of the apartheid political order by a democratic system, has become an established fact of South African society.

Secondly – the majority of our people have chosen the national liberation movement, led by the ANC, as the political force that should lead our country as it goes through its post-apartheid process of reconstruction and development.

Thirdly – the challenges of creating a people-centred society, of living up to the vision contained in the Freedom Charter, requires that all elements of South African society be subjected to genuine reconstruction and development.

Fourth – that process of reconstruction and development will also have to encompass the spiritual life of the nation, bearing on the moral renewal of individuals and institutions, as well as the ideas and practice of a new patriotism.

Fifth – the success of our process of reconstruction and development will, to a good extent, depend on the peoples of our region of Southern Africa and Africa as a whole themselves achieving the same goals that we pursue, of democracy, peace, prosperity and social progress, within the context of an African Renaissance.

Sixth – we have to succeed in our objectives in the context of an accelerated process of globalisation which is leading to a greater integration of the nations of the world, the limitation of the sovereignty of states and the enhancement of the disparities between the rich and the poor.

Seventh – we have to construct our system of international relations in a manner consistent with our domestic programme of reconstruction and development and our vision of a world of democracy, peace, prosperity and social progress for all.

Eighth – the objective of reconstruction and development cannot be achieved unless the ANC and the rest of the progressive movement of ourcountry are strong and united around the realisation of clear policy objectives which actually result in reconstruction and development.

This Political Report will therefore focus on these matters as they have impacted on South African life in the last three years.

Stabilisation of democracy

Our democratic system is now three-and-half years old. Nothing has happened since our last Conference which threatened its survival.

In other words, there has been no open and serious counter-revolutionary offensive which sought to reverse this historic victory of our national liberation struggle.

Neither have any serious mistakes been made by the democratic movement itself, which would create the conditions for the rejection of the new order by the masses of our people.

Further, there has been no breakdown in the system of governance. Whatever the limitations and occasional mistakes, if any, we have ensured that all organs of state, including the national, provincial and local legislatures and executives, as well as the judicial system, continue to function.

Similarly, we have succeeded to maintain the unity and territorial integrity of the country, having guarded against any serious tendency towards balkanisation, such as would be reflected by an intense conflict around the question of provincial boundaries.

Since the first democratic elections of 1994, free and fair local government elections were held in 1995 and 1996, which produced local legislative and executive organs of government which were accepted as legitimate by the masses of the people.

Since then, a significant number of local by-elections have been held, again in a manner consistent with our goal of ensuring an open and legitimate democratic process.

Last year, the national legislature, acting as a representative Constituent Assembly, and after interacting with millions of our citizens, adopted a Constitution which replace the 1993 Interim Constitution, which had been drafted and legislated into force by structures which had not been elected by the people as a whole.

During these last three years, the Constitutional Court and other echelons of the judiciary have also acted to discharge their responsibility as the guardian of the constitutional order, annulling decisions of both the legislature and the executive where these were in conflict with the Constitution.

In all instances, these authorities of state have respected the decisions of the courts, or relied on the courts for redress, thus contributing to the entrenchment of our democratic system.

We can also say the same thing about other independent organs of state, such as the Public Protector, the Auditor General and the Human Rights Commission.

These important successes do not, however, mean that the obligation to defend, advance and deepen democracy has disappeared and that anti-democratic forces of counter-revolution no longer exist in our society.

Indeed, one of the reasons why we have not seen these forces raise their ugly head more forcefully, has been the fact that our programme of reconstruction and development is at its early stages.

Consequently, because we have just begun, the process of fundamental social transformation has not yet impacted seriously on the apartheid paradigm which affects all aspects of our lives.

This process has therefore not yet tested the strength of the counter-offensive which would seek to maintain the privileges of the white minority.

However, the desire to maintain these privileges has been demonstrated consistently during the period since our last Conference.

This is exemplified, for instance, by the determined effort to define the process of national reconciliation, which our movement has sought to encourage in the national interest, in a manner that would result in the protection of the positions of those who were privileged by the apartheid system.

Accordingly, during the last three years, the opponents of fundamental change have sought to separate the goal of national reconciliation from the critical objective of social transformation.

In many instances, they have sought to set these one against the other, with a view to the elevation of the first of these aims to a position of hegemony, with national reconciliation defined as being characterised by such measures as would compensate the white minority for the loss of its monopoly of political power by guaranteeing its privileged positions in the socio-economic sphere.

In the detail, we have seen this reflected in the assertion that our programme of affirmative action to address the racial disparities we inherited from the apartheid system, is permissible and can be pursued, provided that it is carried out within such bounds as would be acceptable to those who occupy positions of privilege.

Thus, whenever we have sought real progress through affirmative action, the spokespersons of the advantaged have not hesitated to try foul, citing all manner of evil – such as racism, violation of the constitution, nepotism, dictatorship, inducing a brain drain and frightening the foreign investor.

When he had to dealt with this very same question of racial equality, the then President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, had this to say:

“We seek not just freedom but opportunity – not just legal equity but human ability – not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.”

In truth, the debate on these issues in our own country has not reached the level of honesty and sophistication achieved in the United States more than three decades ago, when, at Howard University in June 1965, President Johnson uttered the words we have just cited, motivated by the adoption in this own country of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Further, even a cursory study of the positions adopted by the mainly white parties is the national legislature during the last three years, the National Party, the Democratic Party and the Freedom Front will show that they and the media which represents the same social base, have been most vigorous in their opposition, whenever legislative and executive measures have been introduced, seeking the end the racial disparities which continue to characterise our society.

Equally, we have experienced serious resistance to the transformation of the public service, with representatives of the old order using all means in their power to ensure that they remain in dominant positions.

Some among these owe no loyalty to the new constitutional and political order nor to the government of the day, and have no intention to implement our government’s programmes aimed at reconstruction and development.

At the same time, the former ruling establishment has refused to co-operate with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, especially with regard to telling the truth about the National Security Management System it had established as a comprehensive and last ditch mechanism to protect the criminal apartheid system, including the informers, agents and operatives who were such an important part of this system.

The reason for this is that the defenders of apartheid privilege continue to sustain a conviction that an opportunity will emerge in future, when they can activate this counter-insurgency machinery, to impose an agenda on South African society which would limit the possibilities of the democratic order to such an extent that it would not be able to create a society of equality, that would be rid of the legacy of apartheid.

During the period under review, the counter-revolution has also sought to regroup to create the possibility for itself to act decisively to compromise the democratic system at whatever moment it considered opportune.

Accordingly, various elements of the former ruling group have been working to establish a network which would launch or intensify a campaign of destabilisation, some of whose features would be:

the weakening of the ANC and its allies; the use of crime to render the country ungovernable; the subversion of the economy; and the erosion of the confidence of both our people and the rest of the world in our capacity both to govern and to achieve our goals of reconstruction and development.

This counter-revolutionary network, which is already active and bases itself on those in the public administration and others in other sectors of our society who have not accepted the reality of majority rule, is capable of carrying out very disruptive actions. It measures its own success by the extent to which it manages to weaken the democratic order.

Consistent with the objectives we have just mentioned, it has engaged in practical activities since our last Conference which include:

the encouragement and commission of crime; the weakening and incapacitation of the state machinery, including the theft of public assets, arms and ammunition being among these; the hiding of sensitive and important information from legal organs of state; and the building of alternative structures, including intelligence machineries as well as armed formations.

Evidence also exists that elements of this counter-revolutionary conspiracy have established or are maintaining a variety of international contacts.

Some of these are neo-fascist groupings. Others are old contracts established during the years of the international isolation of apartheid South Africa.

And yet others belong among establishment forces which, for one reason or another, are afraid of and are opposed to the fundamental transformation of our society.

Despite all this, it would be correct to say that the overwhelming majority of both our own people and the peoples of the world remain committed to the defence of the democratic system in our country and would be ready to act in pursuit of this goal whenever the need arose for them to express that commitment in action.

Our experience of democracy over the last three years also points to the fact that we still have to address adequately a number of problems that are relevant to the very character of this democracy.

One of these is the translation into practice of the concept expressed in the Freedom Charter in the words – “The People shall Govern” – and more recently, in the concept of a people-driven process of change.

The difficulty around this issue has sometimes been explained as the contradiction between representative democracy and participatory democracy.

Where the people have freely elected representatives to govern and have the right and possibility to change such representatives, what need is there for these elected representatives to seek a popular mandate for every decision they have to make!

But if they do not seek such mandates, how do we avoid the development of an elite, alienated from the people, that, during its five years in office, will implement policies which, in reality, do not represent the will of the people!

In our circumstances, this is related to the two questions of the possibility of representatives elected on a party list system to represent distinct geographic constituencies and the issue of the possibility of such representatives to abandon their parties and “cross the floor” or form their own parties.

All these are matters that require further discussion to which this Conference must attend, informed by the twin realities of our commitment to the deepening of democracy, predicated on the empowerment of the citizen to impact on governance, and our sensitivity to the realities of our situation, which calls for dynamic stability interacting with the imperative for change.

At another level, we have to consider these matters in the context of the impact of the continuing technological revolution on communication and information, which results in the enhancement of the ability of the citizens and non-governmental organisations to intervene in the process of governance on an informed basis, independent of information provided and opinions propagated by political parties and state institutions.

As a movement, we would not consider this development as a threat to either the professional politician or the public service manager. Rather, it enhances the possibility for the realisation of the demand that “the people shall govern”.

Nevertheless, the force of inertia would suggest that the most likely response of both the politician and the public servant would be to defend their positions as the mediators, the prism through which the interpretation of reality and the posing of policy options to the citizen, must necessarily traverse.

Put crudely, precisely at the point when the process of social development confers “sovereign” powers of decision-making to the citizen, and because of this, the politician and the public servant will or may be driven to argue that “the man in the street” is incapable of governing himself without the intervention of the professionals.

Obviously, the matter we are raising is relevant not only to ourselves, but is a vexed question which impacts on the functioning of all democracies throughout the world.

Returning to our own reality we must make the point that our experience of the last three years points to the importance of non-governmental organisations (NGO’s), community-based organisations (CBO’s) and grassroots-based political formations in ensuring popular participation in governance.

The effective and admirable way in which many of these structures have functioned has served to emphasise the point that, in many instances, the public service, however efficient it may be, may not be the best instrument to mobilise for popular involvement and participation.

However, we must also draw attention to the fact that many of our non-governmental organisations are not in fact NGO’s, both because they have no popular base and the actuality that they rely on the domestic and foreign governments, rather than the people, for their material sustenance.

As we continue the struggle to ensure a people-driven process of social transformation, we will have to consider the reliability of such NGO’s as a vehicle to achieve this objective.

The success achieved by many CBO’s based on the contribution of “sweat equity” by very poor communities, points to the need for us seriously to consider the matter of the nature of the so-called organs of civil society.

Another matter relevant to the aim of entrenching and deepening democracy is the unresolved question of the role of the traditional leaders, especially in the context of the establishment of a democratic system of local government and the impact of traditional African societies on the formation of the new South Africa.

The departure of the National Party from the Government of National Unity in 1996 also brought to the fore the contradiction that derives from the need for the various political formations in our country to act together to promote a national consensus in the context of, and as opposed, to the felt imperative of especially the minority parties to act on their own account, in order to maintain their individual identity in the eyes of the electorate.

Institutionally, this found expression in the concept of a “government of national unity” reflected in the composition of the executives and the leadership of the legislative structures at all three levels of government.

The reality of the last three years is that the white parties have essentially decided against the pursuit of a national agenda. Rather, they have chosen to propagate a reactionary, dangerous and opportunist position which argues that:

a normal and stable democracy has been achieved; the apartheid system is a thing of the past; their legitimate responsibility is to oppose us as the majority party, this to present themselves as elements of a shadow government which has no responsibility both for our past and our presents; and consequently, that they have a democratic obligation merely to discredit the ruling party, so that they may gain power after the next elections.

The delegates will readily recognise the fallacy of these arguments. They will draw on their own practical experiences, which will have demonstrated to all of us how much this approach, driven by partisan interests, undermines the effort to consolidate a stable non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous democracy in our country.

As we have said, the issue of how to address commonly defined national objectives in a united manner, while protecting the identities and public appeal of the separate political parties and formations, remains a matter which only the future will be able to resolve.

We have failed to achieve this result during the last three years.

The answer to this and other undecided questions must form part of the policies we elaborate at this Conference, to ensure that the important victory of the liberation movement to establish a democratic order, serves as a basis for the defence and advancement of our revolutionary gains.

We would also like to report that during the last three years, we allocated a particular responsibility to the Presidency, and therefore the necessary capacity, to ensure that the entirety of our Government focuses of the questions of the emancipation of women, youth development, the rights of the child and the empowerment and development of the disabled.

We took this decision because we are convinced that forward movement in these areas is central to the very nature of our democracy and is not a mere matter of partisan political programmes.

It has been a fundamental feature of our policy for many years that ours could not be a genuine democracy unless the complete emancipation of women was an inherent part of any process of democratisation.

It is critical that this commitment should find expression in actual programmes that address the gender question in a way which enables us to measure progress actually achieved.

We are therefore pleased that, in the last three years, we have succeeded to establish the Commission for Gender Equality and the Office on the Status of Women in the Presidency, as well as adopt as Government, the Beijing Platform of Action dedicated to the goal of the emancipation of women.

Similarly responding to the other matters we have mentioned as being fundamental to the very nature of our democracy, we have:

established the National Youth Commission within the Presidency, which has now elaborated a national Programme for Youth Development; established an Office on the Status of the Disabled, again within the Presidency, and adopted the first ever White Paper spelling out an integrated policy for the upliftment of the disabled; and, ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child and constituted a permanent Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Rights of the Child, headed by the Presidency.

These matters will continue to receive the focused attention of the Government as part of the defining feature of the people-centred democracy we are committed to create.

We will return to some of the issues raised in this Section under other Sections of this Political Report.

ANC in Government

We now turn to the second major subject of this Report, viz the fact that the people have chosen our movement as the government of South Africa.

As the Conference is aware, the confidence our people have in the ANC, demonstrated throughout our years of struggle and the 1994 elections, was confirmed in the local government elections held in 1995 and 1996.

It would also be true to say that our own direct contact wit the masses of the people throughout the country, during the last three years, has continued to indicate that this popular confidence has not been dented.

It is however also true that we are still faced wit the challenge of increasing our support among all three national minorities.

It is clear that the majority within these national minorities continue to believe that the ANC represents the interests of the African majority and that their own perceived interests stand opposed to those of the African majority.

This is a direct hangover from the apartheid years during which the policies of the racist ruling group discriminated against this majority, in favour of the national minorities, especially the whites.

It is as a result of this racist practice that the view has emerged that where apartheid benefited the national minorities, a non-racial democracy would disadvantage them.

Such imagined disadvantage would range from economic and employment opportunities to language and cultural rights.

The Conference is aware that the National Party, in particular, has continued to exploit this apartheid legacy to present itself as the political representative of the national minorities.

In this regard and characteristically, it raises the spectre of a “swart gevaar” to frighten these sections of our population to its ranks unashamedly using the apartheid years of racist policies as justification for the argument that the national minorities should entrust their future to the party of apartheid.

As we can expect, among the Coloureds an Indians, the view that the non-racial democracy constitutes as threat would be most prevalent among the working class and the lower middle class, who would be the first to feel the pressure of African competition in the context of a deracialised labour market.

It is among these sectors of the population that we find the greatest fear of the impact of our policy of affirmative action.

This has required especially of the principal political forces that we agree on a common, multi-party agenda of transformation that these forces would advance and defend, in the interests of the medium and long term future of our democratic, united, non-racial and non-sexist country.

Accordingly, each on of these forces would, as part of this agreement, promote this agenda even when its particular constituency felt that such an agenda did not serve its immediate interests.

Clearly, the promotion of the concept of united national action, designed to bring together all political parties so that we can ensure the greatest unity around the fundamental issues facing our society, must therefore, also take into account the desire of three parties not to seen as lackeys of the ANC.

During these past three years, it has been a basic tenet of our approach that despite our people’s achievement in stabilising the democratic settlement, we are still involved in a delicate process of nursing the new-born baby into a state of adulthood.

It is therefore clear that we continue to be faced with the major challenge to sustain our political work among the national minorities focusing on the two issues of:

educating them both about our policies and the country’s constitutional framework, which requires of government that it pursues non-discriminatory policies and provides for the protection and promotion of language, cultural and religious rights; and; urging them to be active participants in, and not passive objects of the process of determining the future of our country, including the “resolution” of the national question.

It has also become clear during the past three years that elements among the former ruling group, especially among the Afrikaners, suffers from a sense of disempowerment and marginalisation from the centres of political power.

Put in other words, these elements find it difficult to redefine their role in the setting of a non-racial democracy. They continue to be imprisoned by notions of white supremacy and of supposed Afrikaner interests that are separate and opposed to the interest of the rest of the population.

To advance their interests, they use every opportunity to present their “disempowerment and marginalisation” as being the disempowerment and marginalisation of the Afrikaner population as a whole.

Thus they seek to mobilise especially the Afrikaner population against the non-racial democracy, to force the democratic order to introduce a system of government net based on majority, rule, but on an entrenched process of co-determination with those who would, in one way or another, be selected as the political representatives of the Afrikaners.

What this points to is the need for us to increase our political work among the whites in general and the Afrikaner population in particular. This work should draw in all sectors of our broad movement, including the progressive trade union movement.

It is generally true that in the last three years, inadvertently and unconsciously, we have tended to surrender these sections of our people to the white political parties, on the basis that it was unlikely that we could persuade them to join our electoral support base.

Once again, we must emphasise the point that one of the national responsibilities of our movement is to mobilise all sectors of our population actively to participate in the process of determining the future of our country, without necessarily expecting that they should become active supporters of the ANC.

Efforts have also been made during the last three years to use the traditional leaders against our movement, especially in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

All this emphasises the need for us to agree on a clear and consistent policy with regard to the institution of traditional leadership and to popularise this policy among the population in general.

Our work in this regard will be greatly assisted by the positions agreed at our Policy Conference held at the beginning of last month.

We must also make the point that our work in this area has not been assisted by the positions and activities of some sections within the broad democratic movement which, in reality, have sought the destruction of the institution of traditional leadership, on the basis that this institution was incompatible with a democratic political system.

These historical positions, detached from reality and contemptuous of the views of our rural masses, have nothing to do with the defence and advancement of the democratic revolution. They constitute an infantile radicalism of which the broad democratic movement must rid itself.

They help to create the possibility for the forces of reaction in the countryside to undermine the confidence of the rural masses in our movement.

In its turn, this enhances the ability of reaction to encourage the consolidation of conditions conducive to the expansion of its own influence, for purposes opposed to such genuine transformation of our country as would serve the interests of these rural masses, among others.

We must bear this in mind that it is precisely these masses who demonstrated the greatest loyalty to our movement in the national, provincial and local government elections.

We must also refer to sections on the non-governmental sector which seek to assert that the distinguishing feature of a genuine organisation of civil society is to be a critical “watchdog” over our movement, both inside and outside of government.

Pretending to represent an independent and popular view, supposedly obviously legitimised by the fact that they are described as non-governmental organisations, these NGO’s also work to corrode the influence of the movement.

Strangely, some of the argument for this so-called “watchdog” role was advanced from within the ranks of the broad democratic movement, at the time when we all arrived at the decision that with the unbanning of the ANC and other democratic organisations, it was necessary to close down the UDF.

Thus we ended up with the situation in which certain elements, which were assumed to be part of our movement, set themselves up as critics of the same movement, precisely at the moment when we would have to confront the challenge of the fundamental transformation of our country and therefore, necessarily, the determined opposition of the forces of reaction.

They lack the issue-driven mass base that is the defining feature of any real NGO and are therefore unable to raise funds from the people themselves.

This has also created the possibility for some of these NGO’s to act as instruments of foreign governments and institutions that fund them to promote the interests of these external forces.

For example, a “Review of the U.S.Aid Program in South Africa” dated November 5, 1996 and prepared by two members of the staff of the US House of Representatives, Lester Munson and Phillip Christenson, has this to say on this matter:

“AID’s program is not so much support for the Mandela government as support for AID’s undisclosed political activities within the South African domestic political arena involving the most difficult, controversial issues in South Africa. By funding advocacy groups to monitor and lobby for changes in government policies and even setting up trust funds to pay for legal challenges in court against the new government’s action or inaction, AID is in some respects making President Mandela’s task more difficult.”

Later the Review states:

“Two-thirds of AID’s funding…. is used to fund AID-dependent NGO’s… The Old “struggle NGO’s” have been redesigned by AID as “civil service organisations” (or “CSOs”). AID now funds CSOs to “monitor public policy, provide public information, and advocate policy alternatives” and to serve as “sentinels, brokers and arbiters for the public will. “The purpose of AID funding is to enable these CSOs to “function as effective policy advocacy groups” and “to lobby”… Through its NGOs, AID intends to play a key role in domestic policy concerning the most difficult, controversial issues of national politics. AID’s political agenda is ambitious and extensive.”

Earlier in this Report we referred to issue of the effort at the time of the dissolution of the UDF to set up an NGO “movement” separate from an critical of the ANC.

At the time, the newspaper “Business Day” cited the spokespersons of this effort as explaining the “actions (this movement) might take” in the following terms:

“Firstly, it would ensure that isolated communities would have a channel to voice their grievances. Secondly, it would allow bodies which might normally support the party in power but which disagreed with government on a particular issue a voice unconstrained by political affiliation.”

And more directly, these spokespersons are quoted as saying:

“It would be very wrong and a mistake for the ANC to try to co-opt organisations involved in the UDF. Life must exist, plants must grow outside the ANC.

It is presumably some of these plants that were and perhaps are still being funded by some from outside our country to promote their own political agenda within our country.

The drive to ensure the involvement of civil society and its organisations in the process of governance is an important pillar of our work to translate into reality the concept that “the people shall govern.”

However, the past three years have taught us the lesson that there are NGO’s and NGO’s. As a movement, we have to learn to make this distinction, we have to learn to make this distinction, recognise the great relevance and importance of the Community-based Organisations (CBO’s) and defeat the pressure blindly to accept a Liberal determination of which organisation is an NGO and what role such NGO’s should play.

Similarly, we have to confront the fact that during the last three years, the matter has become perfectly clear that the bulk of the mass media in our country has set itself up as force opposed to the ANC.

In a manner akin to what the National Party is doing in its sphere, this media exploits the dominant positions it achieved as a result of the apartheid system, to campaign against both real change and the real agents of change, as represented by our movement, led by the ANC.

In this context, it also takes advantage of the fact that, thanks to decades of repression and prohibition of a mass media genuinely representative of the voice of the majority of the people of South Africa, this majority has no choice but to rely for information and communication on a media representing the privileged minority.

To protect its own privileged positions, which are a continuation of the apartheid legacy, it does not hesitate to denounce all efforts to ensure its own transformation, consistent with the objectives of a non-racial democracy, as an attack on press freedom.

When it speaks against us, this represents freedom of thought, speech and the press – which the world must applaud!

When we exercise our own right to freedom of thought and speech to criticise it for its failings, this represents an attempt to suppress the freedom of the press -for which the world must punish us!

Thus the media uses the democratic order, brought about by the enormous sacrifices of our own people, as an instrument to protect the legacy of racism, graphically described by its own patterns of ownership, editorial control, value system and advertiser influence.

At the same time, and in many respects, it has shown a stubborn refusal to discharge its responsibility to inform the public.

Consistent with the political posture it has assumed, it has been most vigorous in disseminating such information as it believes serves to discredit and weaken our movement. By this means, despite its professions of support for democracy, it limits the possibility to expand the frontiers of democracy, which would derive from the empowerment of the citizen to participate meaningfully in the process of governance through times access to reliable information.

I know that these comments will be received with a tirade of denunciation, with claims that what we are calling for is a media that acts as a “lapdog” rather than a “watchdog”.

We must reiterate the positions of our movement that we ask for no favours from the media and we expect none. We make no apology for making the demand that the media has a responsibility to society to inform.

Neither do we doubt the correctness of our assessment of the role the media has played in the last three years. All of us know too much about what happens in the newsrooms.

In any case, we have to confront the product of the posture of the media daily. This daily product, reflected in all the media of communication, stands out too stark in its substance to allow us to doubt the conclusions of our analysis.

Conference will have to consider what measures we have to take. In addition to what we are doing already, to improve our communication with our population at large.

In part, this must address the objective of enabling the still disadvantaged millions of our people, who are being deliberately disadvantaged even in the area of access to information, to know what is really happening in and to their country and their future.

Again, this would enable these masses, who sacrificed everything for democracy, including the freedom of the press, to take informed decisions about what they have to do to influence the process of the reconstruction of their own country, including the critical objective of its deracialisation.

Later in this Report, we will discuss the intrusion of this self-same media within our ranks, during the last three years to encourage our own self-destruction, with the active involvement of some who are present here as bona fide delegates to the Conference of a movement to which they owe no loyalty.

At the same time as we consider these matters, we must also reaffirm our commitment to the freedom of the press and demonstrate this in all our practical activities.

We must now, come to the role of the opposition parties in their effort to challenge and undermine our role as the political force chosen by the people to lead our country, as it goes through its post-apartheid process of reconstruction and developments.

These parties see themselves as playing an opposition role to the ruling party in a multi-party democracy.

Our movement, which led the struggle for the defeat of the apartheid regime and the establishment of the new constitutional and political order, respects and defends the right of these parties to play this legal opposition role without let or hindrance.

Equally, we assert our own right to engage these parties in peaceful, political and legal combat in defence of our policies and programmes, also without let or hindrance.

Throughout its years as the ruling party, and before, the National Party consistently pursued the strategic goal of the destruction of our movement and organisation.

When it had the power so to act, it banned our organisation, murdered, tortured, imprisoned and exiled our members and supporters, demonised our movement and allowed itself to limit in the pursuit of the objective of our total destruction.

Some of the truth about all this is now being told through the processes in which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is engaged.

This includes the callous exploitation of the religious sensibilities of many who served in the apartheid security forces, to convince them to view and therefore deal with us as the anti-Christ.

Our experience over the last three years confirms that the National Party has not abandoned its strategic objective of the total destruction of our organisation and movement. The leopard has not changed its spots.

Its only problem is that it lacks the power it once had, to pursue this aim. Accordingly, it is involved in a desperate search to find the ways and means to destroy its historic enemy, to enable it to discharge its responsibility of defending white privilege.

All we need to do to understand the correctness of this thesis, is to study the positions the National Party has adopted inside and outside parliament, during the last three years, with regard both to our policy positions and to our movement itself.

Again, as we have already indicated, with regard to the first of these, this Party has put up the most determined opposition to all the legislative and White Paper initiatives we have taken to effect the non-racial transformation of our country.

This has included reliance on instruments of last resort, such as the obstruction of the passage of transformative legislation by appealing to the Constitutional Court. The withdrawal of the National Party from the Government of National Unity in 1996 constituted its own statement that it could not coexist, within the same government, with a political formation towards which it harboured feelings of implacable enmity.

The story it told of its inability to influence government policy was entirely fictional.

As a result, the more honest among its members, who occupied executive positions and were driven by the desire to protect the interests of both the Afrikaners and the rest of the population, did not support the decision to pull out of the GNU.

Forgetting its earlier assertion that within the GNU it was powerless, the National Party nevertheless presented a contrary argument towards the end of this year with regard to one of the Education Bills. In this instance, it argued that it wanted this Bill to be phrased in a form consistent with what it had negotiated while it served within the GNU.

But so strong was its antipathy towards our movement that, in pulling out of the GNU, it was ready to sacrifice its most far-sighted and open-minded members and leaders, to reinforce the tendency towards the consolidation of the National Party around the most reactionary positions it could take within our non-racial democracy.

Its determination to abide by its old strategic position is also reflected in the manner in which it has treated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

We refer here not only to the refusal of its leaders to take responsibility for their share in the commission of gross human rights violations. We draw attention to its absolute refusal to disclose the counter-insurgency machinery of repression it had put in place in its effort to protect the apartheid system, the National Security Management System.

We have made presentations to the TRC to indicate that this machinery was never dismantled, and therefore remains available to this day to those in our country who were part of the apartheid security forces and are still interested in engaging in anti-democratic activity.

The question has not been answered as to why the National Party has gone to the lengths it has to ensure that the truth is not known about the System and those who were integrated within it. Over the last three years, the National Party has continued to wage a struggle to hold on to its support among the white population in the first place, but also among the Coloureds and Indians.

To ensure that it insulates these sections of our population from our influence, it has continued to rely on its traditional resort to the use of fear. As before, it has continued to frighten the national minorities against the ANC by threatening them with both a “swart gevaar” (black danger) and a “rooi gevaar” (red danger).

The use of the instruments of fear is most prominent in the political positions taken by its leaders in the Western Cape. Daily, this leadership propagates the entirely false notion that our policies are aimed at promoting the interests of the Africans against those of both the whites and the Coloureds.

Accordingly, they argue, the national government is actually denying the provincial government its legitimate share of national revenues, deliberately to worsen the standard of living of both the Colours and the whites.

With its recent decision to exclude the ANC from the Western Cape provincial government, the National Party has taken its deeply held positions to their logical conclusion. Naturally, as a representative of the same white interests which the National Party represents, the Democratic Party has elected to join forces with the NP in the Western Cape.

This occurs precisely at the moment when it is striving at the national level, in the after-math of its municipal by-election victories against the NP, dishonestly to present itself as an opponent of the very same National Party with which it is entering into coalition in the Western Cape.

As the country knows, the Democratic Party has sought to present itself as the most effective parliamentary opposition to the ANC.

Knowing that it has no possibility to attract the masses of the disadvantaged of our country, the Democratic Party, which has no policy differences with the NP, has sought to position itself as an implacable enemy of the ANC, and on this basis, to try to convince the supporters of the National Party to switch their allegiance to itself. It therefore has no choice but itself to adopt reactionary positions aimed at protecting the privileges of the constituency it is struggling to secure for itself.

Accordingly, the NP and the DP are engaged in a desperate struggle to out-compete each other in a race which they believe will be won by whoever convinces the white minority that they are the most reliable and best defenders of white privilege.

Where this competition becomes counter-productive to the fundamental objectives of these two parties of white privilege, they show no hesitation to combine efforts as they are about the do as the government of the Western Cape.

Similarly, and not surprisingly, they both believe that their fortunes lie not so much in policies they can propagate, but in their success in projecting themselves as tireless fighters for the defeat of the ANC.

We say not surprisingly, because, in reality over the last three years, neither of these parties has produced any credible policies with which they can challenge the vision for the renewal of our country contained in our Reconstruction and Development Programme.

Indeed, we must expect that even in the forthcoming campaign for the 1999 elections, these parties will base their offensive not on any policy alternatives but on vilification of the ANC.

For its part, the Freedom Front has remained imprisoned in its narrow nationalist pursuit of so-called “Afrikaner self-determination”.

However, the Freedom Front has also recognised the fact that it can only advance its cause by reaching agreement with the ANC.

Because the correct solution of the national question in our country remains at the centre of the mission of our movement, we have continued and will maintain our dialogue with the Freedom Front to address the legitimate cultural, language and other concerns of those among the Afrikaner people who have these concerns.

The latest political grouping to join the miserable platoon of opponents of our movement is the United Democratic Movement of Bantu Holomisa and Roelf Meyer, former bed-fellows as functionaries of the apartheid system and its security forces.

Once more, this grouping predicates its success not on any challenge to our policies. It hopes and prays for significant dissatisfaction among our supporters, occasioned by any failure on our part to implement these policies.

More vigorously than the Democratic Party, it also seeks to convince some supporters of the National Party that the UDM offers a more credible non-racial political home than the NP.

Inevitably, it will draw into its ranks some of the most backward and corrupt elements in our society which have no interest whatsoever in promoting the interests of the people. Thus, the presence of leaders of criminal gangs at its founding conference was no accident.

We must also expect that some from this group will seek to promote its interests by resort to criminal violence against the people, especially members and supporters of the ANC and the rest of the democratic movement.

At the same time, efforts will be made to infiltrate agents of the UDM into the structures of our movement to try to destroy us from within and to gather information which will be used to try to discredit the movement.

Furthermore, elements of the Third Force will not hesitate to link up with members of the UDM to further a common counter-revolutionary agenda.

Ultimately, the objectives of the United Democratic Movement and the National Party, in particular, converge around the one objective critical to both – the destruction of the ANC. As it happens, the leaders of both groups owe their political origins to a common apartheid home.

It is inevitable that, in the course, they will coalesce into one formation.

We serve in the national and KwaZulu-Natal governments with the Inkatha Freedom Party. These governments are working well without any serious tensions, regardless of the differences that exist between us and the IFP, on various questions.

Further, our two organisations are involved in a joint effort to consolidate peace in the country and to encourage a culture of tolerance and non-violent political competition among our respective members and supporters.

More fundamentally, our two organisations have a responsibility to co-operate to ensure the achievement of the objectives contained in the Reconstruction and Development Programme, which they have jointly striven to attain over the last three years, as the government of our country.

We also need to recall that many members of the IFP grew up in the ANC and many of the people the IFP leads were educated in the politics of the African National Congress. Furthermore we share the same constituency, especially the rural and urban poor.

All this argues for the need for both the ANC and the IFP not to allow whatever issues they disagree about, to stand in the way of their Cupertino to achieve the genuine emancipation of all our people.

The challenge continues to confront both AZAPO and the PAC to abandon the illusion that, as organisations, they can be significant factors in the continuing struggle for the genuine liberation of the people.

The decision finally to play a constructive role in this struggle rests which the members of these organisations.

The prophets of doom have re-emerged in our country. In 1994, these predicted that the transition to democracy would be attended by a lot of bloodshed.

Disappointed in their expectations by what actually happened, they nevertheless never abandoned their resolve to spread despair. The pivot of their offensive is that the history of Africa is a history of failure and disaster.

Accordingly, they adhere to the openly racist position that a South Africa led by the African National Congress and no longer under white minority rule, will, inevitably sink into failure and disaster.

And so they go about their business to high-light and elevate anything that is negative. Neither do they hesitate to tell lies or to invent stories so long as this advances their purposes.

They also work in a determined manner to ensure that the truth is never told about the important advances that have been and are being made to improve the standard of living and the quality of life of all South Africans.

Their task is to spread messages about an impending economic collapse, escalating corruption in the public service, rampant and uncontrollable crime, a massive loss of skills through white emigration and mass demoralisation among the people either because they are white and therefore threatened by the ANC and its policies which favour black people, or because they are black and consequently forgotten because the ANC is too busy protecting white privilege.

A massive propaganda campaign has been conducted on the issue of crime, in many instances without any regard and respect for the truth. We will ourselves discuss this matter because of our own serious concern radically to bring down the levels of crime. However, what is necessary is that anybody genuinely committed to this goal should make an objective study of this problem and avoid the serious distortions which result from this exploitation of this issue for partisan political purposes.

Such a study for example will show that for Johannesburg murder, attempted murder and culpable homicide taken together, have been declining steadily since 1994. Facts and figures actually disprove the notion that there has been a rapid escalation of these crimes and confirm that we inherited the high levels of these crimes from the apartheid system.

This study would also show that these crimes occur in the black and the white lower income-group areas. Murder in the wealthier and therefore white areas of Johannesburg accounts for around 10 per cent of the total for the city as a whole.

Accordingly and first and foremost, the murder and related figures reflect the desperate socio-economic condition of the communities with a high incidence of these crimes which can only be brought down significantly as these conditions of life of the people in these areas improve in a meaningful and sustained manner.

Calls for the restoration of the death penalty are, in reality, calls to hang those who are black and poor and who, in the main, commit murder among themselves. Those who make this demand seek to deny the fact that it is the dehumanising poverty imposed on the people by the apartheid system which generates this crime.

This study will also show that the murders which occur in the relatively prosperous white areas, as well as instances of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, have virtually no connection with robbery and theft in all their forms, including car highjacking, where these occur in these white areas.

Again, the propaganda put out of a rapid escalation of murders in these areas as a result of the escalation of the crime of robbery is not borne out by the facts. The image projected that merely to walk in the streets in these white areas is to invite death and that this has been the case since 1994, is entirely false.

We can also make similar observations about these matters as they affect the Cape Town Metropole.

More recently, we have also been subjected to a tremendous barrage of propaganda and threats of vigilance action occasioned by the murder of white farmers. Again, the truth about this matter is studiously and systematically suppressed for political reasons.

In the period January 1 to November 24 this year, 51 crimes occurred on the Free State farms. During the commission of these crimes, 14 murders occurred, with only 3 known instances in which the motive was murder. Arrests have been made for 11 of these murders.

To illustrate the seriousness with which the Police Service has treated these crimes, the success rate achieved in terms of arrests and convictions amounts to around 85 per cent. The propaganda that the Government and Police are doing nothing is again entirely without substance.

But in the battle to serve narrow partision interests, our opponents do not hesitate to sacrifice the truth.

As part of this same campaign, horror books are being published about what will happen “when Mandela goes”, to advance this agenda of gloom and doom on which the enemies of real progress and social transformation rely to create the conditions for the defeat of the ANC, so that they are better able to ensure that no progress and no transformation occur.

All this emphasises the point that for us, the challenge remains to discharge our responsibilities to the people to continue to lead our country as it traverses its historically decisive period of reconstruction and development.

In this context, we must refer to the issue of what has, in the general vocabulary, come to be known as “delivery”. Our opponents make the false accusation, based on a refusal by the mass media to tell the truth, that since our election into government in 1994, we have “failed to deliver”.

The reality that the masses of our people’s experience is that:

the formerly oppressed are now governing themselves; the homeless are being housed; those without access to modern power are gaining access to electricity; millions are no longer condemned to travel long distances to fetch unhealthy, unprocessed water for personal and domestic use; the formerly oppressed are gaining access to free and adequate medical services; many among the very poor, including children and the elderly, who had formerly been excluded now have access to welfare benefits; people who had been forcibly removed from their land are regaining their land; and greater numbers of people are gaining access to education at all levels.

As the capacity of the state administration improves and we manage to generate more resources, while maintaining fiscal discipline, so will we do more to address the people’s needs, consistent with our commitment to provide a better life for all.

This leads us to the consideration of the third theme among the subjects of this Political Report. This is the need for the fundamental transformation of all sectors of our society.

Reconstruction and Development

Perhaps one of the most dramatic and important lessons we have learnt in the last three years is that all elements of our society reflect and are characterised by the three hundred years of the colonial and apartheid domination of our country.

Our movement, the leadership that is gathered here, in whose hands rests much of the future of our country for many years, needs to understand this in a deep and comprehensive way, that the country we have inherited is essentially structured in a manner which denies us the possibility to achieve the goal of creating a new people-centred society.

Accordingly, the realisation of this objective, from which we will not depart, requires that we work to transform our country, fundamentally. The accomplishment of this task requires that we should all be made in the metal of revolutionaries.

The one component of South African society we have found easiest to change has been the legislative instructions at all three levels, as already discussed in this Report. This we did through the holding of democratic elections.

Having been elected into government, one of the first things that was very clear to us is that we cannot effectively use our access to political power to effect a fundamental transformation of our society by relying on the old apartheid state machinery.

One of the central tasks of the democratic revolution is the abolition of the apartheid state and its replacement by a democratic state. A complicating factor is that we must accomplish this task at the same time as we continue to use the existing state machinery to implement our programmes.

This emphasises the urgency of achieving decisive movement forward with regard to the creation of the democratic state. Work has been going on within the movement to elaborate the necessary theoretical framework relating to the nature and the role of such a state.

This is important because we must avoid an ad hoc approach to this critical question, bearing in mind that many of the questions we have to address about the state are not unique to our country, but occupy the attention of many others in all parts of the world.

We must move with greater speed to complete this theoretical work so that we can tackle our work of building the new democratic state more energetically and systematically.

Many of the problems we have experienced over the last three years with regard to the implementation of our programmes have arisen from the fact that we had to rely on the old apartheid state machinery.

These problems range from faster delivery of social services, through crime prevention and combating, to the management of public finances and the collection of state revenues.

However, this is not to say that everybody from the old is bad.

Indeed, many are carrying out sterling work to serve the people.

These, both black and white, are working hard within the public service and the security organs to promote the objectives contained both in our constitution and in new legislation and the programmes of our government.

This also extends to other people outside of the state system, again both black and white, who have not hesitated both to co-operate with the new government and to assist in ensuring that we have an effective system of democratic governance.

But the point remains true that the state institutions of the past and some of the people who served in those institutions cannot be expected to constitute an effective and loyal part of the new.

As we elaborate our positions on the nature and role of the democratic state, the following are some of the issues we will have to address:

identification of the national and class forces the democratic state represents; the democratic state and the management of the contradictions inherent in our society; the developmental role of the state and the reorientation of the civil servants; legalised force and the democratic state; the participation of the masses and civil society in the process of governance; the continuing scientific and technological revolution in information and communication and its impact on the relationship between the individual and the state; the state and capital; and, the state, national sovereignty and globalisation.

But once more, we must emphasise that the fact that we continue to focus on the complex work of defining the nature and role of the democratic state, must not result in a delay in attending to the critical issue of the creation of the democratic state.

As we discuss this matter at this Conference, we must also deal with the reality that the creation of the democratic state is part of our continuing struggle. The process of the creation of this state will meet the determined resistance of some within our country, especially those who stand to lose something from the abolition of the apartheid state.

The trade unions, and in particular the public sector unions, will be an important player in this process. An especial challenge will face the progressive public sector unions which will have to balance their obligations to the revolutionary transformation of our country and their necessary and legitimate commitment to the exclusive interests of their members.

Since we came into government, one of the matters that has become clear is that one of the principal instruments of government that we had inherited, the national budget, was inherently structured in such a way that it was impossible for the democratic government speedily to bring about the social changes to which we are committed.

An enormous and heroic effort has gone into the struggle to reprioritise the budget so that the democratic order could address various tasks, including:

releasing funds for social upliftment and development by reducing recurrent spending, including servicing the public debt, in favour of capital expenditure and therefore the expansion of the infrastructure so as to improve the quality of life of the people; deracialising the patterns of public spending; ensuring that the state does not appropriate such a proportion of the gross national product and in such a manner as would impact negatively on the possibility for us to achieve high and sustainable rates of economic growth and development and, collecting the revenues legally due to this national Revenue Fund, to finance the transformation and other commitments to which our government and society are obligated.

Among other things, this has necessitated that we take the important decision to reduce the budget deficit to more manageable levels.

In the short term this results in a shrinkage of the resources available to government to finance the variety of programmes to which we are committed in terms of the perspectives spelt out in our Reconstruction and Development Programme.

Indeed, the opposition that has been expressed from within the broad democratic movement to our “GEAR” programme announced by government in the middle of the past year, is, in reality, focused on this particular element of our economic policy.

We will return to this matter later in this Report.

Another important element of our policy is the deracialisation of the economy to ensure that, among other things, in its ownership and management, this economy increasingly reflects the racial composition of our society.

There are, of course, other challenges that we face with regard to the economy. These include:

its modernisation with regard to technology, managerial skill and productivity; increasing its international competitiveness especially with regard to our non-gold and manufactured exports; reducing the relative importance of raw materials and agricultural products in the composition of both the GNP and our export product-mix; integrating the Southern African economies and strengthening South-South economic relations; and fully integrating ours into the world economy and exploiting the possibilities created by the emergence of the information society; and setting our economy on a high and sustainable growth path which would result in the elimination of poverty and unemployment and the continuous upliftment of the standard of living and quality of life of all our people.

Let us, however, return to the matter integral to the achievement of these objectives – the deracialisation of the South African economy.

While some very limited progress has been made in this area, it is clear that a major and determined effort will have to be made by both the public and the private sectors to realise this objective.

In particular, we will have to focus on three areas, namely:

further elaboration of policy options to address this issue more effectively and expeditiously; evolution and firm implementation of programmes affecting both the government and parastatals to bring about sustained change: and, engaging the private sector itself to take on this matter, informed by the understanding that the perpetuation of the apartheid patterns of economic ownership and control constitutes a recipe for an enormous social and political explosion in future.

The important point is that we must integrate this in our strategy that the deracialisation of ownership of productive property, and the facilitation of the participation of black people in this process, is an essential part of our perspectives.

Further, we must deal with this matter in the context of the wider, and critical struggle of our era, to secure an acceptance and actualisation of the proposition that while capital might be owned privately, yet there must be an institutionalised system of social accountability for the owners of capital.

In this context, it may very well be that the success of our strategy for black economic empowerment will address not only the objective of the creation of a non-racial South Africa.

It might also be relevant to the creation of the system according to which the owners of capital would, willingly, understand and accept the idea that business success can no longer be measured solely by reference to profit.

According to this thesis, to which we must subscribe, success must also be measured with reference to a system of social accountability for capital which reflects its impact both on human existence and the quality of that existence.

In a lecture given earlier this year, Swedish Government minister, Pierre Schorri said:

“The winners (of globalisation) are a global elite – companies, countries and people, accumulating enormous powers and riches.”

“The trend is probably strongest within business: today five companies control more than 50 percent of the global market in branches such as the automotive industry, aerospace, electricity and electronics. Five corporations control more than 40 percent of the global market in oil, personal computers and the media.”

“The same concentration of wealth and power is taking place among nations. The UNDP’s latest report demonstrates how 15 countries are growing explosively fast, and very much benefiting from globalisation. But the facts and figures also show how more than a 100 countries have become poorer than they were 10 to 15 years ago.”

Add to this the decisive impact that the movement of large quantities of short-term capital has had on especially the economies of developing countries, and the conclusion becomes inescapable that a totally unregulated global market, cannot be in the interest even of world-wide sustainable economic growth and development.

Remarkably, the prominent financial capitalist George Sores, has expressed similar concerns, proceeding from a different base.

In an article entitled “The Capitalist Threat” (The Atlantic Monthly: February 1997), he writes as follows:

“By taking the conditions of supply and demand as given and checking government intervention the ultimate evil laissez-faire ideology has effectively banished income of wealth redistribution. Wealth does accumulate in the hands of its owners, and if there is no mechanism for redistribution, the inequities can become intolerable. The laissez-faire argument against income redistribution invokes the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. There is something wrong with making the survival of the fittest a guiding principle of civilised society. Co-operation is as much a part of the (economic) system as competition, and the slogan “survival of the fittest” distorts this fact. There is something contradictory in banishing the state from the economy while at the same time enshrining it as the ultimate source of authority in international relations. Guided by the principle of the survival of the fittest, states are increasingly preoccupied with their competitiveness and unwilling to make any sacrifices for the common good. Our global society lacks the institutions and mechanisms necessary for its preservation, but there is no political will to bring them into existence. I blame the prevailing attitude, which holds that the unhampered pursuit of self-interest will bring about an eventual international equilibrium. I believe this confidence is misplaced.”

The kernel of Soros’ argument is that the situation cannot be sustained in which the future of humanity is surrendered to a so called free market, with government denied the right to intervene in the ordering of economies.

In remarks to the Economic Club of New York, on September 12, 1996, David Rockefeller, member of one of the leading capitalist families of the United States, also expressed his concern about these matters.

Here is some of what he said:

“We (leaders of the business and financial community) must accept the fact that we have responsibilities that are broader than simply running our businesses in an efficient, profitable and ethical manner. We have entered a “New Age” in which our society is in the process of fundamentally transforming the way we live, how we govern ourselves and how we do business. It is in our interest that business play an active role in that transformation process, by reviving his collective sense of corporate social responsibility, a practice that seems to have fallen out of favour in the more competitive, more pressured, some would say “more ruthless” business environment of the latter years of this century.”

Mr Rockefeller continues:

“At the very time government’s role in economic affairs, as urged by all of us, is being scaled back both here and abroad, business appears unwilling to “step up” its commitment to anything but corporate profits … in my opinion, the joy of positive achievement in business should transcend the profit motive. Accomplishing goals that are important for society as well as ourselves, building something that has permanence and value beyond personal or strictly corporate objectives should be at least as important as the imperative of the bottom line. I believe that business leaders must make decisions that positively affect, not only their balance sheets and income statements, but also the needs of their workers and the broader community.”

For his part, George Soros argues that it is necessary that the necessary regulatory mechanisms be established, in part to address the accelerating uneven distribution of wealth and income which accompanies the process of globalisation, within the context of the pursuit of the common good.

We make a similar point when we say that the critical issues raised by the fact that the fate of the world economy is increasingly being decided by a few dozen corporate boards, driven solely by the profit motive and bound by no system of social accountability, require urgent attention and the establishment of the “institutions and mechanisms” to ensure the achievement of a better life for all, which both David Rockefeller and George Soros call for.

According to the UNDP’s “Human Development Report 1977”, the corporate spies of General Motors as well as those of Ford Motor Company exceed our Gross Domestic Product.

This report also says “of the world’s 100 largest economies, 30 are mega- corporations. The 350 largest corporations now account for 40% of global trade…”

We cite all these figures to make the point that the challenge of transformation requires that we address also this important question of capital and society and refuse to be seduced by the false arguments of the free marketeers who would have human society surrender to the economic processes about which such eminent business people as David Rockefeller and George Soros have sounded the alarm.

The fast sphere of social life to which we would like to refer, as an example of what we must do to achieve the reconstruction and development of our country, is the area of human resources development.

It is a matter of common cause among the overwhelming majority of our people that the production of educated and skilled people, is one of the central elements which would enable us to achieve the sustained reconstruction and development which is the very raison d’etre of the democratic revolution.

In the end what we have to produce in this important area is:

a system of education in the schools which directs the young towards competence and excellence in mathematics, the natural and computer sciences, engineering, management and accountancy; high skills levels among the working people, especially in those areas required for modern economic activity; the necessary pool of educators capable of helping us to achieve the two objectives; generally expanding the cadre of intellectuals in all academic disciplines, with special emphasis on the black component; and increasing the national research effort both quantitatively and qualitatively, with the necessary balance between pure and applied research.

To achieve all this will require that the country makes a serious and determined effort focused on institutional transformation and the integration of the work being done in the schools, colleges, technicons, universities, institutes, science councils and the private sector.

Yet those who are committed to the maintenance of white privilege are still engaged in manoeuvres designed to block the deracialisation of our educational institutions, thus directly contributing to delaying the fundamental work that must be done to modernise our entire system of human resource development.

As a movement, we also have a responsibility to influence our intelligentsia in all its echelons, especially its progressive detachments, to understand their place and role during the current phase of the democratic revolution.

On many occasions during the last three years, these detachments, among whom we include the students especially in the institutions of higher education, have seemed alienated from the continuing democratic struggle and driven both by a self-serving anarchist activism, focused on appropriating resources and advantage for themselves at all costs, or struck by a numbed paralysis, characterised by a refusal to participate in the process of setting the country’s agenda for change.

Thus they have served either to strengthen the positions of conservative management and ideology in the educational institutions or to leave the flied clear for almost exclusive occupation by the white liberals and their black cohorts.

In reality, the progressive sections of our intelligentsia should be in the front-line of the struggle for the reconstruction and development of our country.

Among other things, they should be carrying out important work to inform especially the masses of the black people about the objective reality within which we have to implement our transformation programmes.

Equally, they should be engaging the white minority to explain the decisive importance of the fundamental non-racial and non-sexist renewal of our society to stability, progress and the success of the democratic settlement.

Similarly and critically, they should be at the centre of the offensive to lay down the policy foundation on which the new South Africa will be built, involved in the struggle to remove the obstacles obstructing the successful and efficient implementation of our programmes and engaged in the process of empowering the masses of our people to participate in the process of governance.

More generally, we must ensure the growth and development of a modern and properly prepared intelligentsia to guarantee the success of our historic objective of the fundamental social transformation of our country and its reconstruction and development.

These are only some of the challenges of transformation that confront us. What they underline is the fact that any notion that the revolution ended with the elections of 1994 is both false and dangerous.

Further than this, these challenges also speak to the point that our movement, the ANC, will require a leadership of such high calibre as will be able to respond correctly to the “new age” into which democratic South Africa was born.

A Moral Renewal

In this article to which we have already referred, George Soros argues that in an earlier epoch, “people were guided by a set of moral principles that found expression in behaviour outside the scope of the market mechanism.”

He then proceeds to make the observation that “as the market has extended its sway, the fiction that people act on the basis of a given set of non-market values had become increasingly more difficult to maintain. Advertising, marketing, even packaging, aim at shaping people’s preferences rather than, as laissez-faire theory holds, merely responding to them”.

He then makes this important observation about modern society:

“Unsure of what they stand for, people increasingly rely on money as the criterion of value. What is more expensive is considered better. The value of a work of art can be judged by the prices it fetches. People deserve respect and admiration because they are rich. What used to be a medium of exchange has usurped the place of fundamental values, reversing the relationship postulated by economic theory. What used to be professions have turned into businesses. The cult of success has replaced a belief in principles. Society has lost its anchor.”

None of us can deny that this describes our own society, in which many are driven by the “unhampered pursuit of self-interest” and among whom what used to be a medium of exchange (money), has forcefully taken the place of fundamental values.

For a long time our country suffered under an illegitimate system of governance and therefore a regime of laws and organs of state which enjoyed no moral authority in the eyes of the majority of the people, including the oppressor population itself.

This meant that society was thus bereft of the beneficial impact of a state accepted by all the people which, while enforcing a particular social order, simultaneously upholds and perpetuates an accepted system of social norms, covering private and public behaviour, which endow it with the authority that guarantees the consent of the governed.

In this situation, our “society lost its anchor”. The wall of fundamental moral values which deters the individual from committing wrong acts collapsed. The state itself exemplified the collapse of morality in the conduct of human affairs and could not but reach the citizen to follow suit.

In these circumstances, it was inevitable that a philosophy represented by such notions as “each one for himself” and the devil take the hindmost”, “the survival of the fittest” and “the unhampered pursuit of self-interest” would take hold.

The evolution of the capitalist system in our country put on the highest pedestal the promotion of the material interest of the white minority. In contradistinction, it treated the black person as having no value outside of his or her role as an instrument for the advancement of these interests.

The drove home the point to both black and white that “people deserve respect and admiration because they are rich” – regardless of how they acquire, maintain and expand those riches.

If we have learnt nothing else during these past three years, we have grown to appreciate the extent of the corrosion of the moral fibre of our society.

It is out of the great human tragedy which marked the period of colonial and apartheid domination in our country, superimposed on and integrated within the universal impact of the modern market mechanism, of which George Soros speaks, that we have inherited what we see on the surface of human activity in our country, including:

the corruption of public servants by the private sector; the low love level of tax morality; white collar crime and the subversion of business ethics; venality, theft and fraud within the public sector; corruption in the criminal justice system; the uninhibited commitment to unbridled self-gratification which underlies such crimes as rape and child abuse; disrespect for human life and the inviolability of the individual person and the easy resort to the use of force in the ordering of inter-personal relations; the acceptance of robbery and theft as a means of personal enrichments and advancement; mendacity in the conduct of public affairs; contempt for the law and the state; and the virtual collapse among the Africans of a system of social behaviour informed by the precepts of humanism which, historically, have informed African culture.

It is possible that as a revolutionary movement and over the last three years, we have not fully understood the centrality and decisive importance of the moral renewal of our country to the success of our objective of creating a people-centred, humane and caring society.

Later in this Report, we will reflect on this matter as it has affected our own organisation and the broad democratic movement.

During the last three years, to address the population at large and restore to the public mind and our national life the concept of the pursuit of the common good, we have initiated some campaigns or sought to popularise particular concepts. In this instance, among others, I refer to:

the Masakhane campaign, intended to mobilise the people to participate in the process of their own upliftment; “Don’t do Crime”, directed at creating a national atmosphere hostile to the commission of crime; “Arrive Alive”, launched to reduce the unacceptably high level of road accidents and deaths: the call to a New Patriotism, intended to weld our country into a cohesive force for its reconstruction and development; and the advance towards an African Renaissance, which would integrate our processes of fundamental change within the all-African process of all round rebirth and renewal.

At best, we can only describe the results of these and similar, more localised campaigns, as mixed. This points to the critical need for the entirety of our movement consistently and correctly to engage the challenge of the moral renewal of our society.

In this context, and to ensure that we prepare ourselves for a protracted struggle, we must understand the extraordinary complexity of the task of achieving the spiritual as opposed to the material rebirth of our society.

The enormity of this challenge has also been highlighted by the proceedings as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Among other things, these have illustrated:

the dept of dehumanisation of the apartheid security forces; the unwillingness of white society in general, including white politicians, business, the judiciary, the media and the church, to explain its involvement in the maintenance and perpetuation of the apartheid system and therefore its lack of readiness to make its own voluntary contribution to the creation of a truly non-racial and non-sexist democracy; the determination of the old apartheid establishment to maintain its capacity to resort to extra-constitutional means to regain its lots positions of dominance; and, the difficulty of sensitising the white minority to the simmering anger of the black majority, and the latter, to the persisting fear of the future among the former.

As part of our own contribution to the difficult and complex process of the renewal of our society, which includes telling the truth about the acts of inhumanity that occurred during the course of our struggle, we have co-operated and continue to co-operate fully, with the TRC.

In our presentations to the Commission, we have not held anything back with regard to any activities carried out by the structures of our movement as well as cadres, members and supporters who acted within the context of the programmes of the movement. Accordingly our leadership took a deliberated decision to apply for amnesty openly to assume collective and individual responsibility for the legitimate actions undertaken, and even the mistakes committed, by ANC cadres in the course of our struggle.

On the other hand, the leaders of the apartheid system, who perpetrated a vile crime against humanity, have treated both the TRC and the country as a whole with utter contempt.

By their actions they have made the point very clear that they neither regret the evil they visited on our country nor are they willing to commit themselves to a political culture informed by respect for human dignity.

Driven by their old arrogance which derived from attachment to ideas of racial superiority and their capacity to impose their will on the people through resort to terrorism, they have not hesitated to seek to discredit the TRC.

One of their latest gambits is to work for the further persecution of very same leaders of our movement whom they imprisoned, tortured and drove into exile, by challenging the decision of the TRC to grant these leaders amnesty.

Life therefore poses the question whether these architects and spawns of apartheid can make any contribution of any kind to the moral renewal which our country so desperately needs.

What this says is that we will have to travel a difficult road before we can truly unite the majority of our people, without regard to race, colour and gender, around a common patriotism, one of whose critical elements must be the establishment of a caring society.

To achieve this objective will also require significant and sustained progress in changing the material conditions of life of all our people for the better, continuously reducing the racial gender and geographic disparities, impacting positively on the hearts and minds of our people to elevate their sense of community as opposed to the selfishly individual and increasing our capacity to catch, charge, convict and imprison the law-breakers.

But beyond this, it will be important that all influential forces in our country, including political parties, religious, business, trade union, women, youth, student, professional cultural, media and other organisations and various personalities, such as the traditional and other leaders and creative workers, including sports people, should join in a common offensive to create a new moral base that will inform the rebirth of our nation.

This will not happen spontaneously.

For it to come about, requires that we, who are the vanguard of the movement for the birth of a new South Africa, should understand and discharge our responsibility in a manner consistent with our appreciation of the fact that the better future will not make itself.

It will be realised because we, as a truly revolutionary movement, recognise and act on the critical importance of the moral renewal of our society, as a central and inalienable part of the reconstruction and development of our country.

This means that we must work seriously and consistently genuinely to inspire our people with the New Patriotism for which we have already called.

But as we have said earlier none of the objectives we have so far spoken of in this Political Report can be achieved fully, outside of the context of an African Renaissance.

An African Renaissance

We must therefore discuss the central and complex question of our relations with the rest of our Continent and our view of what needs to happen within this part of the world to which our destiny is tied.

The peoples of Africa share a common destiny. Each country is constrained in its ability to achieve peace, stability, sustained development and a better life for the people, except in the context of the attainment of these objectives in other sister African countries as well.

Accordingly, it is objectively in our interest to encourage the realisation of these goals on our Continent, at the same time as we pursue their attainment in our own country.

We speak of a continent which, while it led in the very evolution of human life and was a leading centre of learning, technology and the arts in ancient times, has experienced various traumatic epochs, each one of which has pushed her peoples deeper into poverty and backwardness.

We refer here to the three periods of:

slavery, which robbed the continent of millions of her healthiest and most productive inhabitants; imperialism and colonialism, which resulted in the rape of raw materials, the destruction of traditional agriculture and domestic food security, and the integration of Africa into the world economy as a subservient participant and, neo-colonialism, which perpetuated this economic system, while creating the possibility for the emergence of new national elites in the independent states, themselves destined to join the dominant imperialist forces in oppressing and exploiting the masses of the people.

During this latter period, our continent has experienced:

unstable political systems in which one-party states and military rule have occupied pride of place, leading to conflict, civil wars, genocide and the emergence of millions of displaced and refugee populations; the formation of predatory elites that have thrived on the basis of the looting of national wealth and the entrenchment of corruption; the growth of the international debt burden to the extent that, in some countries, combined with unfavourable terms of trade, it makes negative growth in national income inevitable: and, actual declines in the standard of living and quality of life for hundreds of millions of Africans.

It is quite clear that for us, as a movement, basing ourselves on our own ideological and political orientation, which visualises the creation of a people-centred society, all this describes a situation we could never accept both for ourselves and for our sister African peoples

It is in this context that we have put forward the perspective of an African Renaissance.

The word “renaissance” means rebirth, renewal, springing up anew. Therefore, when we speak of an African Renaissance, we speak of the rebirth and renewal of our continent.

This idea is not new to the struggles of the peoples of our continent for genuine emancipation. It has been propagated by other activists for liberation before, drawn from many countries.

But it has been suggested that when this perspective was advanced in earlier periods, the conditions did not exist for its realisation.

Accordingly, what is new about it today is that the conditions exist for the process to begin, or to be enhanced, throughout the continent, leading to the transformation of the idea from a dream dreamt by visionaries to a practical programme of action for revolutionaries.

What, then, are these conditions! These are:

the completion of the continental process of the liquidation of the colonial system, realised as a result of the liberation of South Africa; the recognition of the bankruptcy of neo-colonialism by the masses of the people throughout the continent, including the majority of the middle strata; the weakening of the struggle among the major powers for the domination of the continent, as a consequence of the end of the Cold War; and the acceleration of the process of globalisation.

Among other thins the emergence of these conditions means that:

popular political centres for fundamental transformation exist in various parts of the continent, especially in those countries that had to wage protracted struggles against colonialism and white minority domination, as well as those where there has been a genuinely popular struggle against neo-colonialism; the major powers feel a reduced need for them to put their own clients in positions of power, to achieve their strategic goal of carving our spheres of influence in the context of an ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism; and, markets can no longer be secured by the political seizure of countries or the use of extra-economic means, obliging multi-national corporations, regardless of nationality, to compete for market shares even on our continent.

There are, of course, other enabling factors that help to reinforce the tendency towards the fundamental renewal of the continent, which require further examination.

However, the principal aims of the African Renaissance are, in may respects, obvious. They include:

the establishment of democratic political systems to ensure the accomplishment of the goal that “the people shall govern”; ensuring that these systems take into account African specifics so that, while being truly democratic and protective of human rights, they are nevertheless designed in ways which really ensure that political means can be used to address the competing interests of different social groups in each country; establishing the institutions and procedures which would enable the continent collectively to deal with questions of democracy, peace and stability; achieving sustainable economic development which results in the continuous improvement of the standards of living and the quality of life of the masses of the people; qualitatively changing Africa’s place in the world economy, so that it is free of the yoke of the international debt burden and no longer a supplier of raw materials and an importer of food and manufactured goods; a rediscovery of Africa’s creative past to recapture the peoples’ cultures, encourage artistic creativity and restore popular involvement in both accessing and advancing science and technology; advancing in practical ways, the objective of African Unity; and, strengthening the genuine independence of African countries and the continent in our relations with the major powers, and enhancing our collective role in the determination of the global system of governance in all fields, including politics, the economy, security, information and intellectual property, the environment and science and technology.

These goals can only be achieved through a genuinely popular and protracted struggle involving not only governments and political parties, but the people themselves in all their formations.

Such a popular movement for the fundamental renewal of Africa would also have to take into account the multi-faceted reality that:

it would be engaged in an extremely complex struggle which would be opposed by forces of reaction from both within and without the continent; it would achieve both forward movement and suffer occasional setbacks; the continental offensive can only be sustained if the active populations of all countries are confident that none of the countries of the continent, regardless of the extent of their contribution to the Renaissance, seeks to impose itself or the rest as a new imperialist power; and, the forces for change have to be built up and consolidated within each country, without ignoring or underestimating this imperative and the potential for an increasingly co-ordinated trans-national offensive for the mutually beneficial renewal of the continent.

From all this, it is clear that the achievement of the historically vital African Renaissance requires that the people of our continent should adopt a realistic programme of action that will actually move Africa towards its real rebirth.

Accordingly, ways have to be found to ensure that:

the OAU reorients itself so that in its work, it focuses on the strategic objective of the African Renaissance; political organisations and governments in all African countries are mobilised to act in furtherance of this objective; the masses in all African countries and their organisations are similarly mobilised and drawn into action; attention is paid to the intelligentsia, the professionals, trade unions, business people, the religious and traditional leaders, cultural workers, the youth and women, the media, and so on, to bring them into the popular struggle for Africa’s rebirth; links are built across Africa’s borders among all social sectors to increase the levels of co-operation and integration; steps are taken to ensure that both Africa and the rest of the world define the new (21st) century as “the African Century”, in furtherance of the objective of the mobilisation of the peoples of the world to support the offensive for the African Renaissance; and, work is done to persuade the rest of the world, including such important, institutions as the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, NAFTA, the EU, ASEAN, MECOSUR and others, to the point of view that we share the strategic view with them that it is obligatory that we all support the vision of an African Renaissance and that they should lend support to this process, guided by what the peoples of Africa themselves want.

A major and historic challenge faces our movement to play its role further to elaborate the vision of African Renaissance and to ensure that our country makes its due contribution to the rebirth of our continent.

Our experience over the last three years of work on our own continent confirms the urgent need to make progress towards this rebirth.

The peoples of our continent have continued to rejoice in the emergence of a democratic South Africa for which they had fought. They expect of liberated South Africa that we will make a significant contribution to the common African struggle for peace and development.

Accordingly, we have been and are involved in these processes through the OAU the Commonwealth and on a bilateral basis. This has involved such countries as Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Sudan, Morocco, Lesotho and Swaziland.

Furthermore, during this period, economic relations between ourselves and the rest of our continent have grown rapidly, confirming the importance of these relations to our own economic growth and development.

Significant progress has also been made towards closer regional co-operation within the SADC. In the period ahead of us, even faster progress should be achieved in this regard.

It is however also clear that more work will have to be done to strengthen the relations and the process of interaction among the political parties and formations both within our region and further afield on the continent to strengthen our collective capacity to address the common challenge that face us.

Our relations with the sister African peoples have developed very well during the last three years, informed by the principles of solidarity and mutually beneficial co-operation.

Nevertheless we will have to work harder to give further concrete meaning to these all-round relations at the bilateral level and in the context of the SADC and the OAU.

This, too, will make an important contribution to the renewal of our continent, a matter made more pressing by the rapid advance of the process of globalisation.

Challenge of Globalisation

During the past three years, our country has been called upon to make its own contributions to address various issues on the international agenda.

As a result of this, we played an important role in the renegotiating of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the adoption of the Treaty providing for the prohibition of anti-personnel land mines.

At the same time, we were elected President of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and one of the Vice-Presidents of the UN General Assembly. We serve in the senior committees of the World Trade Organisation while we also co-chair the UN Aids Programme.

From next year we will be called upon to lead the Non-Aligned Movement and host the Commonwealth Heads of Government the year after.

We mention all these to indicate the increasingly important role we are expected to play within the global community.

It is therefore important that we discuss the process of globalisation, understand it correctly, assess its impact on us and begin to define our response to this defining social phenomenon.

The driving force of the process of globalisation is the economy and the advances in science and technology. Today’s world economy is characterised by the emergence of a global market represented by the movement of capital, goods and services to all parts of the world, unrestrained by national boundaries or differences in political systems.

The continuing technological revolution in information and communication is further expediting the development of this global market and entrenching it as a permanent feature of human existence.

Earlier in this Report, we referred to the impact this process of globalisation is having with regard to the concentration and centralisation of capital in fewer and fewer private hands, the concentration of wealth in a few countries and the widening of the gap in wealth and income within and between countries.

Let us return to the lecture delivered by the Swedish minister, Pierre Schorri, Here is some of what he had to say;

“Globalisation, in all its aspects, is a process with a Janus face: one side is bright and beautiful and the other unwanted and ugly.. Globalisation is not driven by solidarity and compassion. And it often causes the opposite – division and injustice. We do not need to look far to see how the gaps are widening, between – and within – countries… How big the gap is becoming, the UNDP report demonstrated with this image: if you want to balance the richest and poorest people on this globe, you would end up with 358 people in the one bowl of the scale and 45 percent of the world’s population in the other… Something has gone wrong, very much wrong. Total global income has increased six fold since 1960. But more than half of the world’s population – three billion people – have to support themselves on less than 2 dollars a day.”

For the purpose of this Report, we would like to make some remarks on a few additional and important issues.

One of these is that the process of globalisation is an inherent mode of existence of capital. It is therefore neither the invention of some reactionary cabal that sits somewhere in the world nor can it be stopped.

Neither can the attendant information and communication revolution be stopped, nor would this be desirable.

The second of these is that the process of globalisation inevitably impacts on the sovereignty of states, with states losing some of their sovereignty to an evolving system of international governance.

The very mobility of capital and the globalisation of the capital and other markets, make it impossible for countries, for instance, to decide national economic policy without regard to the likely, response of these markets.

Our own experience in the last three years and those of other countries, such as Mexico and others in Asia, confirm the correctness of this observation.

But, of course, the impact of this reduction of sovereignty is not evenly spread among the countries of the world but varies according to the economic strength of the various countries.

The third of these remarks is that contrary to the ideological claims that are made in favour of the “free market”, the reality is that the process of the intervention in and the regulation of the world market is growing space. This is represented most prominently by the WTO, whose decisions are binding on countries. The developments gripping the member states of the European Union as they prepare for the introduction of the European Monetary Union point precisely to the growing importance of political interventions to regulate the functioning of the economy.

The last of our remarks relates to the fact that as consciousness grows about the inter-dependence of the nations on our planet, so do all major decisions that derive from the system of governance become subject to international review and become dependent for their success on approval and support by an international constituency.

There are many lessons we should draw from these and other factors that accompany the process of globalisation.

One of these is that we should abandon the idealist doctrine of exceptionalism, according to which many within the ranks of the democratic movement wish to treat South Africa as a unique entity, which can exist outside the context of and contrary to the tendencies which characterise the evolution of human society.

In reality, what we have to do is ensure that our country integrates itself within a world community that is evolving under the impact of a process of globalisation as well as determine the ways by which we can impact on this process to advance the interests of our broad masses.

To try subtract ourselves from these processes would spell disaster.

The second of these lessons is that we must fight to compensate the loss of sovereignty especially by the countries of the Third World by strengthening our collective and institutionalised capacity to influence the decisions that will emerge from the system of international governance.

This requires that we engage in struggle:

for the democratisation of the international institutions of governance; for cohesion among the countries of the Third World in order effectively to use their collective strength to bargain with the major powers; for the insertion into the world agenda of the concerns already expressed in this Report, about the growing disparity between the rich and the poor and the unacceptability of the exclusion of the goal of a better life for all in the functioning of the global market; and, therefore for the establishment of the “institutions and mechanisms” spoken of by George Soros which would enable the international community to address these agenda items.

It must be clear from all this that, as a movement, we confront a major challenge to make our own contribution to the birth of the new world order, which perhaps contrary to all logic that derives from the balance of power, must focus on addressing the needs and concerns of the powerless, in particular.

The pursuit of this difficult but important objective emphasises the need for us, as a movement and a country, to construct our own system of international relations not in a haphazard manner, but in a way that will help us successfully to address all the concerns we have expressed in this Report.

Our International Relations

Our relations with the rest of the world have developed very well over the last three years. We have been able to break out of the comprehensive international isolation imposed on our country as a result of the pursuit by the previous regime of the apartheid crime against humanity.

During this period, we have also succeeded to resolve such difficult problems in our international affairs as our relations with the People’s Republic of China, the “Armscor case” in the United States of America and the arrears we owed as a country to the United Nations.

We have also played our part in helping to resolve some of the problems that have afflicted our continent, including those in such countries as Lesotho, Mozambique and the former Zaire.

We can say this without fear of contradiction that we have assumed our rightful place as a sovereign state within all spheres on international activity, including politics and diplomacy, the economy, peace and security, science, technology and knowledges and crime prevention and combating.

Our foreign policy is informed by the objectives we have set ourselves of reconstruction and development. We are aware of the fact that these cannot be fully achieved unless we position ourselves correctly within the international community of nations.

Similarly, the realisation of these objectives domestically requires that we try to promote them internationally, without seeking to compromise the sovereignty of any state or people.

Furthermore, we pursue our foreign policy in the context of a dynamic global order which is influenced by many forces and factors, including the process of globalisation which we have already discussed.

Accordingly, for us to achieve our objectives, it is necessary that we act according to a properly thought-out strategic framework and a time frame, but also with sufficient flexibility to enable us to respond correctly to the ever-changing world environment,

This strategic framework has already begun to emerge out of our activities of the last three years. Let us now deal with its main elements.

One of these is the further enhancement of the process of regional co-operation and integration affecting the SADC countries. this is critical to the all-round success of all our countries, whose interdependence emphasises the point that as countries of this region, we truly share a common destiny.

Much of the institutional framework relevant to this process is already in place. Further, the will to promote our co-operation exists through the region. However, it is important that additional measures are adopted to promote this co-operation more energetically and comprehensively.

Clearly, our position as Current Chairperson of SADC imposes a special obligation on us to encourage this approach. This will necessitate that all the relevant organs of state elaborate new proposals to meet this challenge, including the conclusion of the negotiations on the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).

We have already dealt with the issue of the African Renaissance which will impact fundamentally on our Africa policy.

Another important pillar of our foreign policy is the building of strong, all-round South-South relations. Great possibilities exist further to promote development among the countries of the South through greater interaction among themselves, affecting all spheres of human activity.

This will require of us that we pay detailed attention to this matter, to identify the specific areas of co-operation and jointly with the major countries of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, in the first instance, to agree on common programmes of action focused on these specific areas of co-operation.

It is also vitally important that we work towards the situation in which the countries of the South do indeed speak with one voice on the principal international questions. This is especially important in the light of the process of globalisation which we have already discussed, which process is led and dominated by the countries of the North.

The bargaining power which the developing countries need, will be greatly enhanced if they are able to present a united front as they seek to make an impact on the process of globalisation to address the needs of our countries and people.

Clearly, the forthcoming Summit Meeting of Heads of State and Government of Non-Aligned Countries will play an important role in advancing this perspective of greater South-South co-operation and cohesion. It will therefore again be necessary that all the relevant organs of government should with immediate effect, take the necessary measures to ensure that this Summit Meeting lives up to its expectations.

The fact that we are hosting this Summit, combined with our current presidency of UNCTAD and our hosting next year of “Africa Telecoms”, underline our own responsibilities to the countries of the South. We must do everything to ensure that we do not disappoint the expectations of these sister countries and peoples.

Yet another important element of our foreign relations is the strengthening of our links with the countries of the North, among which we include Russia and Japan, still our most important international economic partners with regard to trade, investment and technology transfers.

These countries have also extended significant amounts of development assistance to us to help us immediately to address the needs of our people while we strengthen our own domestic capacity to meet these needs.

Consistent with the importance we attach to our relations with the countries of the North, we have among other things, established Bi-National Commissions with some of them, to ensure the co-ordinated development of these relations.

We must continue to develop these relations, given the fact that the countries of the North will continue to be our important economic partners and given the reality that we have to interact with these countries as part of the process of addressing the key International issues of the day, including the challenges of globalisation.

It is also clear that we will need the fullest co-operation of the developed countries of the North to achieve our objective of an African Renaissance.

Certainly, we have to persuade them that this Renaissance is in their interest and that, as they pursue their legitimate interests in Africa, they should simultaneously contribute positively to the creation of the conditions that will lead to Africa’s rebirth.

The Scandinavian countries played a critical and special role in our struggle for liberation. To this day, the ordinary peoples of these countries continue to feel a strong sense of solidarity with our own people.

This last element we would like to mention with regard to our international relations is the need for us to pay particular attention to the Multi-lateral governmental organisations.

As we have already indicated, it is clear that simultaneously as the process of globalisation grows apace, so does the system of international governance also grow stronger. We have no doubt that this tendency will strengthen rather than weaken.

Already many instruments and institutions exist expressive of this expanding system of international governance. Increasingly as the information society gets more entrenched the non-governmental sector is also increasingly making its impact on this system.

Of critical importance to the future of this system, is its democratisation. This would enable the developing countries to put on the world agenda the issues of concern to our peoples and to participate more effectively in fashioning the new world order.

It would also enable us to impact on the existing organisations, to help change their structures and their ethos to ensure that they address a more equitable agenda based, critically, on ensuring a better life for all the peoples of the world, and not merely those who already occupy positions of privilege.

An important weakness in our international work that has emerged over the last three years is the fact that as a political movement we have failed to sustain the level of contact and interaction with other political formations which we had developed in the past.

The programme of action in the development of our international relations that we have spoken of also requires that we, as a political movement, should also interact with our counterparts elsewhere in the world, to advance the perspectives we have ourselves worked out that bear on the fundamental transformation of our own country.

In this context we must take important decisions about the relations we should establish or maintain with existing international organisations of political parties.

Of particular importance, in this regard, is the Socialist International, in which we have had observer status for many years and which has been consistently inviting us to join as a full member, joining many other parties in our region and continent who are members of this organisation.

As we consider this matter, we must also bear in mind the fact that we also maintain good relations with political parties of other ideological persuasions and should recognise the importance of these parties to the success of our reconstruction and development perspectives both democratically and internationally.

However we resolve this matter, it is critically important that we act with greater vigour to strengthen our relations with other political parties and movements in all parts of the world, to help advance the goals shared by all right thinking people throughout the world.

What this and other challenges within our own country require is a strong, united and properly oriented ANC, operating as part and in the vanguard of a similarly strong, united and properly oriented progressive movement.

We must therefore now deal with the central question of the state of organisation of our own movement and other related matters which stand at the centre of our capacity to carry out the tasks contained in the Report, our Strategy and Tactics document and the decisions we will take during this Conference.

The Progressive Movement

The achievement of everything we have said in this Report depends on our ability to remain loyal to the purposes that have kept our movement together and actively involved in the struggle for national liberation for eight-and-a-half decades.

Remarkably, it would seem that our very victory over white minority rule has created the basis for some among us to take advantage of the new political opportunities the people’s triumph has created, to work for the weakening and destruction of this very movement, the ANC.

Our movement not only won us our historic success, but also on its shoulders the only possibility our country has to realise its reconstruction and development, and our people, a better life.

We say this because a number of negative features within the ANC and the broad democratic movement have emerged during the last three years. We have an inescapable responsibility to attend to these matters frankly and decisively in defence of both our movement and our revolution.

One of these negative features is the emergence of careerism within our ranks. Many among our members see their membership of the ANC as a means to advance their personal ambitions to attain positions of power and access to resources for their own individual gratification.

Accordingly, they work to manipulate the movement to create the conditions for their success.

During the last three years, this has created such problems as division within the movement, conflicts based on differences among individuals, the encouragement of rank indiscipline leading to the undermining of our organisational integrity, conflict within communities and the demoralisation of some of the best cadres of our organisation.

Inevitably, this has also created the possibility for the opponents of our movement and our revolutionary perspectives to intensify their own offensive to promote their objectives which are opposed to our goal of creating a better life for all.

In reality, during the last three years, we have found it difficult to deal with such careerists in a decisive manner. We, ourselves, have therefore allowed the space to emerge for these opportunists to pursue their counter-revolutionary goals, to the detriment of our movement and struggle.

During this period, we have also been faced with various instances of corruption involving our own members, including those who occupy positions of authority by virtue of the victory of the democratic revolution.

These have sought either to steal public resources or to export financial tributes from the people in return for services to which the people are entitled and which those in authority are legally and morally obliged to provide.

This is not surprising in the light of what we have already said in this Report about the entrenchment of corruption in our society in general and the consequent desperate desire to accumulate wealth in the shortest possible period of time.

And yet, what should characterise the people we draw into our ranks should be precisely this, that there are those among our people, who are appalled by this corruption and are motivated to create the kind of society that would be dedicated to rooting out this disease.

Clearly, we have to take all necessary measures to purge ourselves of such members and organise ourselves in a way that will make it difficult for corrupt elements to gain entry into our movement.

We have also seen the emergence of elitism among some of our members. Notions have surfaced of entitlement to decision-making positions, which have led to a break in the sustained interaction between some of our leaders, on one hand, and our organisation and people, on the other.

Clearly, one of the critical problems we have to contend with is that necessarily, we have acquired many members who have no experience of struggle.

Thus they see our movement for national liberation as a mere political party which participates in elections at the conclusion of which it places its members in remunerated positions of authority.

Many among these think the 1994 elections marked the end of the struggle and have very little understanding of the challenges of fundamental social transformation, some of which this Report has sought to identify.

What we have said is not intended to argue against the recruitment of new members. Rather, it emphasises the central importance of the proper preparation of as many of our members as possible to become genuine cadres of a movement for national liberation that is still engaged in struggle to accomplish its historic mission.

It is therefore important that we pay the closest possible attention to the continuous political education of our members, to ensure that they become real members of our organisation, and not mere card-carriers.

This process of preparation of these members must also include ensuring that they actually engage in practical work to promote the cause for which we stand, as well as conduct themselves in ways which do not bring disrepute to the movement.

We also need to assist the Youth League to ensure that it brings up the youth in the traditions of the movement and in a manner that will enable these young people to assume their positions of leadership when the time comes, being clear about their own responsibilities to society.

Our experience of the last three years tells us that for us to carry out these tasks successfully, will require that we attend to the question of the better deployment of especially our most experienced cadres as well as ensuring that our Headquarters and our Police and Organising Departments, in particular, are properly staffed.

We must also drill this into the consciousness of all our members and structures that all of us have a responsibility to raise the funds that we need to continue our work.

With regard to the matter of the better deployment of our cadres, we must ensure that we achieve the proper balance among the various demands on our pool of cadres, which includes the local provincial and national legislatures and governments, the ANC structures at all these levels, the public service and the economy.

Our starting points as we tackle the task of further strengthening the ANC must be based on the recognition of the fact that the fundamental social transformation of our country cannot happen without the people who understand and are committed to bringing this transformation about.

In other words, to discharge this revolutionary tasks ahead of us, we need battalions of revolutionaries who are as ready to serve the people as have been the generations of cadres that preceded them.

Nevertheless, in spite of everything we have said, it is also true that over the last three years, our organisation in its various echelons, has conducted itself well, succeeding to maintain a level of cohesion and the necessary sense of direction to enable us to keep the revolution on course.

The ANC also has an important and continuing responsibility to lead the Revolutionary Alliances and the rest of the democratic movement.

During the last three years, we have not succeeded as well as we should have to carry out this task. Consequently, both the Alliance and the democratic movement as a whole have been characterised both by a tendency towards division and a reaffirmation of its cohesion.

Part of this derived from the fact that the Alliance and the rest of the movement had to deal with the entirely new situation of the defeat of the apartheid regime and our assumption of political power.

It has proved difficult for all sectors within our political camp properly to define their role in this phase of our struggle for the defence and consolidation of our revolutionary gains and the reconstruction and development of our country.

Equally, we have not as yet evolved a stable and satisfactory system of interaction among the various echelons of the movement, to ensure, for instance, that initiatives taken at the level of governance are properly canvassed within the movement as a whole, or that actions undertaken by the trade union movement are similarly discussed.

Efforts have been made during the last three years to address all these new problems. However, it is true that we have as yet not found the lasting solutions we need. Conference must therefore discuss these matters with all the seriousness they deserve.

We will now make some remarks about some of the issues that must impact on that discussion without, in any way, seeking to present an exhaustive analysis.

For a number of decades and certainly during the period of its illegality, the SACP operated in a manner that facilitated the coincidence of theory and practice with regard to the acceptance by the entire national democratic movement of the fundament notion of the ANC’s leadership of this movement, which includes the SACP.

This also entailed various elements such as the acceptance of the independence of these two organisations, recognition of the fact that each has a legitimate right and obligation to define its own historic mission and acceptance of an obligation to resort to processes internal to the alliance to resolve such disputes as might arise between its members.

Various instances have arisen during the last three years when there has been a departure from these positions, leading to the emergence of some tension between the two organisations and within the democratic movement as a whole

With regard to this relationship, we must accept that new answers must be found to the new questions that life has posed and will continue to pose. Accordingly, there is no need to take fright when differences emerge, especially as we must be aware that complex as the questions are, so will be the answers.

One of these complex questions derives from the fact that as much as we, the SACP is a political formation which has a responsibility to itself to mobilise for its own popular support and to establish its own identity in the public mind, with its own vision and political programme.

How this relates to the issues of the SACP’s membership of the Progressive Alliance and the ANC’s leadership of this Alliance are precisely the difficult questions that have to be answered.

The SACP itself continues to grapple with the issue of its own historic mission, given the collapse of socialism in the European countries and the changes taking place in China and Cuba.

Obviously, this is not merely a theoretical issue. It impacts directly on what the SACP does from day to day to advance the political perspective unique to itself as a political party.

Where questions remain to be answered as to what socialism is, and what steps, would be taken to bring it about, so long will the difficulty remain of defining the relationship between ourselves and the SACP in the current period.

Nevertheless, this continues to be true that the forces which, for decades, constituted our broad movement for national liberation, including the trade unions, have not as yet completed their work given the reality that our country continues to be defined by its past of racial fragmentation and domination.

Over the decades, including the last three years the, SACP has proved itself to be our steadfast ally in the struggle to end white minority domination and its legacy, and to create a genuinely non-racial society.

It is on the basis of this common commitment that we, the ANC, look forward to the further strengthening of our relations with the SACP to promote this common objective of the national democratic movement.

Throughout our history, the progressive trade union movement has been part of our movement for national liberation this had to be so because the black working class was also oppressed as part of the black people, with its class interests refracted through the prism of national oppression, as was the case in all other colonies.

In time, its political interests were articulated and represented by the ANC as the leader of the liberation movement.

Again for many decades, many of the leaders of the progressive trade union movement were drawn from the ANC and the SACP, enabling this combination to act as the political representative of both the organised and unorganised black and progressive workers.

During the years of illegality for both these political formations, and as the progressive trade union movement recovered from the period of extreme repression, it had no possibility fully to access some elements of this tradition and the organised representatives of that experience.

One of the consequences of this was that, for the first time since the days of the ICU, the progressive trade union movement evolved its own political leadership as opposed to accepting a political leadership drawn from political formations representative of the views and aspirations of the members of the unions.

It is one of the great strengths of our broad movement that many of these leaders were subsequently drawn into the ranks of the ANC because this leader of our liberation movement championed a cause which found a ready response among workers who, daily and directly, experienced the effect of national oppression.

Regardless of this, some of these leaders have never been able to find a home within the political organisations of the national democratic movement. Effectively, they have therefore treated the trade union movement as an alternative political formation through which they would pursue both their trade union and political aspirations.

The particular historical circumstance of the formation of a political leadership corps, representative of a particular section of our society, has manifested itself in the last three years at various moments and in various ways, with COSATU doing more than represent the mere trade union interests of its members.

Some of what we must have learnt over the last three years is that our victory over the apartheid regime created the possibility for some among the trade union political leadership to assert this leadership role, separate and apart from and in some instances, in contradiction with the rest of the political leadership of our broad democratic movement.

Necessarily the questions arise in our own country, as they have done in other countries before – what are the unique political interests of that section of the working class which is organised into unions, which result in the adoption of a complex of political demands and the birth of a unique trade union political leadership, respectively separate and different from the demands and the leadership of political formations which would normally represent these workers in the sphere of political.

Workers correctly combine in trade unions around the question of their direct material interests. Thus, the grassroots level of leadership of any trade union is composed of shop stewards, whose daily activity focuses on wages, conditions of work and interaction on the shop-floor, without regard to the political allegiances of either the workers or his management.

Naturally, this particular focus is correctly reproduced at higher levels of any trade union.

Accordingly, such political leadership as the unions evolve, will in good measure be distinguished as a distinct echelon by its exclusive dedication to the advancement of these material interests, which process is rendered political by the extension of the historic mandate of a trade union leadership beyond the shop-floor, to the political sphere, in all its elements.

The simplest of analyses will show how, in the last three years, the leadership of the trade unions has sought to play this political role, resulting in an inevitable and sometimes strident conflict and contest between itself and the rest of the leadership of the democratic movement.

But the question must be answered as to why, it certain instances, the positions and activity of this trade union political leadership result in an inevitable conflict with the leadership of the rest of the democratic movement.

If we deal only with the Revolutionary Alliance, we can say that the answer to this question derives from the reality that neither the ANC nor the SACP can act as the political representatives solely and merely of the progressive, organised and employed section of the working class, which sections of the working class the political leadership of the unions can justifiably and correctly claim to represent.

The ANC represents the people as a whole, and the African working masses in particular. The SACP would see itself as representing the working class in general, and the African workers in particular, whether organised and employed or not.

This encapsulates the objective basis for the differences among the different formations which constitute the Revolutionary Alliance and provides the general framework which enables us to understand and resolve some of the differences within this Alliance we have experienced over the last three years.

Objectively, the employed and organised workers in our country occupy a particular social position which is different from the social position occupied by the unemployed.

With regard to the latter, they are in a relatively privileged position.

Because of its place in social production and its organised strength, this section of the working class has the possibility and the duty to itself.

To fight to advance its own interests; to bargain for itself, in opposition to the demands of all other sectors of society, including the unemployed and the non-unionised; and, to battle for the hegemony of its interests, regardless of what the progressive political movements might consider as being “in the interest of the national democratic movement.”

From this it must follow that the unique intervention in the political sphere of any political leadership emanating exclusively from this employed and organised sector of our working class, will necessarily focus on the promotion of the interests of what, in relation to the unemployed and the employed but non-unionised, are those of the relatively privileged.

Conference must discuss the impact of this on the cohesion of the Revolutionary Alliance.

Consequently, we must deal with the complex question of the interconnection between the role of the interests of their members, and the role of these unions as an important component part of the progressive movement for the fundamental social transformation of our society.

Our experience over the last three years demonstrates that the two do not necessarily mean the same thing.

Further, this experience during the last three years also shows that negative tendencies have emerged with regard to the maintenance and consolidation of the rest of the mass democratic movement outside of our revolutionary alliance.

Part of the problem has emanated from the weakening of the links between the ANC and the organisations that are part of this mass movement, including those representing the youth and students, the NGO’s and CBO’s, sports people and cultural workers, the religious communities, traditional leaders and so on.

As indicated earlier in this Report, another important factor has been that many of these organisations have not succeeded to define their role during the current phase of our struggle. Many of these have therefore degenerated into nothing more than special interest groups, whose task is to access the limited pool of public resources to advance their own interests.

In pursuit of this goal, many have taken pride in assuming positions of militant opposition to the very government they put in power, solely for the purpose of advancing their own self-interest, completely detached from the overall and global objectives which the progressive movement as a whole must seek to achieve.

We must admit that much of what we are describing has occurred as a result of the weakness and inactivity of our own movement.

Accordingly, we will succeed to reverse these negative tendencies only to the extent that we overcome our own weaknesses and take very seriously our role as the leader of the democratic movement as a whole.

We must, once more, emphasise the decisive importance of the need to improve our communication with our members and supporters, with the broad democratic movement and with the people at large.

This is not a task, that can or will be discharged by the established mass media which, in the main, pursues an agenda predicated on sustained opposition to our movement.

We must therefore attend to the publication of our own media of communication, including such simple means as leaflets delivered door-to-door, direct communication with the people through organisational work carried out by each one of our members in their localities, and the creative exploitation of all other opportunities to get our message across to the people.

And again we would like to make the point that our task of the fundamental social transformation of our society cannot succeed without the daily and properly directed involvement of the activists of the democratic movement and the masses of the people as a whole.

These must consciously advance this process, defend our gains and repel the offensive of those who seek to preserve as much of the apartheid inheritance as possible.

In sum, our experience of the last three years tells us that the demobilisation of the formations of the broad democratic movement as well as the people themselves, spells defeat for our revolutionary offensive.

The correctness of this message has been demonstrated to us on all occasions in the last three years when we have initiated processes of real change. It will become even clearer in the period ahead of us as we further deepen the process of fundamental social transformation, as we must.

Elections 1999

In about 16 months from now, the people of our country will be called upon once more to elect the national and provincial governments of their choice.

These elections, will, for us, represents an important part of our continuing struggle for genuine national and social emancipation. Clearly, they will present us with a harder contest than the one we had to engage in in 1994.

The majority of the opposition political formations will seek to combine their efforts to reduce the support we obtained in the 1994, 1995 and 1996 elections.

They will seek this result in order to create the situation in which not only are we weakened and themselves strengthened, but also in which we are unable to govern effectively without their consent.

This must ring alarm bells among us, because this means that the objective that will be pursued by the forces opposed to the radical non-racial and non-sexists renewal of our society will be to deny us the popular mandate to carry out such a programme.

We must also bear this in mind that these opposition forces, to whom a genuinely non-racial society poses a threat will not hesitate to use anything within their means to achieve their objectives.

These, the architects and contingent beneficiaries of the system of apartheid, shamelessly present themselves as the real representatives of democracy.

According to their lying propaganda, our movement, whose members and supporters sacrificed their lives to bring about democracy, are no more than corrupt latent or actual autocrats.

Accordingly, they advance the absurd notion that the strength of our movement is a threat to democracy. Thus do these, who fought against democracy, get frightened by the democratic process and its results, to the extent that they will not hesitate to subvert and compromise the democratic process itself – all in the interests of democracy, as they have and will continue to argue!

Their pathetic call, expressed in a cacophony of shrill voices, is – defeat the ANC at all costs!

But for us, the 1999 elections constitute a clarion call to action:

to defend and expand the frontiers of democracy; to renew the people’s mandate for social transformation and, to inflict a fresh defeat on the forces that represent the apartheid past of racial division and oppression, sexist oppression, systemic corruption and white minority privilege and domination.

To achieve these objectives, we must emerge from this Conference.

a united movement; with a clear understanding of the objectives and policies of our movement by the entire leadership present here; with a definite programme of action which all of us must implement; with an unequivocal commitment by this leadership to spare no effort to ensure the implementation of this programme; and, with a national leadership that enjoys our confidence and support as an organisation and is capable of leading our movement and country through the challenging period ahead of us.

Conclusion

We have just gone through an eventful three years of the new South Africa.

The levels of stability and apparent normality we have managed to achieve during these first years of democracy have helped to disguise both the giant steps forward we have taken towards transformation and the historic challenges we continue to face.

Already in the New Year, we will have to contend with such important issues as:

the report and the outcome of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; the Medium Term Expenditure Framework; the establishment of the Commission for the Promotion of Language, Cultural and Religious Rights; the intensification of the struggle against HIV/AIDS. the jobs Summit the challenge of black economic empowerment; the conclusion of our agreement with the European Union and the negotiations to replace the Lome Convention; the challenges of the African Renaissance; the follow-up to our bid for the 2004 Olympics; the hosting of the Non-Aligned Summit the African Games and Africa Telecommunications ’98. the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China; and, the restructuring of the United Nations.

There is much that lies ahead, which is both complex and exciting.

At the centre of it all lies the fundamental challenge for us to remain faithful to our revolutionary goals, to ensure that we have a movement structured in a manner that can ensure the realisation of these goals and a cadre that will ensure that we do indeed advance the ambitious but necessary goals we have set for ourselves.

History will never repeat for us this moment of time and opportunity when so many of us are granted the privilege to participate in the creation of a new world.

Positioned at the historic high tide of the process of the renewal of our society and the world, we, who are accustomed to act at the cutting point of change, must behave as the forward point of the spear of change, drawing courage from an eighty-five-year history which says to us that as much as we have never failed, so must it be that we organise ourselves for success.

It is most appropriate that it is at our 50th National Conference that we are able to make these remarks and that it is at this point that my generation, which did what it could, hands over the baton to our successors.

These leaders, whom you must elect democratically, hopefully uninfluenced by demagogy, selfish promotion and self-serving media advertising in favour of some among us, will continue a struggle which we, ourselves, inherited from a people hungry for genuine emancipation and ready to follow and support a leadership genuinely committed to serve the cause of the people.

Surely, these leaders must have the tested ability to lead our country and people through the uncharted waters of the historical period ahead of us.

No reason exists which would permit us as a movement and you, the delegates entrusted with the historic responsibility to take our movement into the next century and millennium, to gamble on this outcome, by placing at the head of our revolutionary march, a cadre of leaders which would be unable correctly to handle the complex issues of social development which today’s world has placed on the agenda of the evolution of human society, including our own.

Confident that you will discharge your responsibilities with the same revolutionary commitment and sense of responsibility to our country and people which all previous conferences of our movement have demonstrated throughout the eighty-five years of the life of the ANC, I am honoured to commend this Report to this, the 50th National Conference of the ANC and to surrender our common future into your hands.

The struggle continues!

Victory is certain!

Amandla ngawethu!

Matle ke arona!

Frederick Douglass: 'If there is no struggle, there is no progress', West India Emancipation speech - 1857

3 August, 1857, Canandaigua, New York, USA

The general sentiment of mankind is that a man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others, and this sentiment is just. For a man who does not value freedom for himself will never value it for others, or put himself to any inconvenience to gain it for others. Such a man, the world says, may lie down until he has sense enough to stand up. It is useless and cruel to put a man on his legs, if the next moment his head is to be brought against a curbstone.

A man of that type will never lay the world under any obligation to him, but will be a moral pauper, a drag on the wheels of society, and if he too be identified with a peculiar variety of the race he will entail disgrace upon his race as well as upon himself. The world in which we live is very accommodating to all sorts of people. It will cooperate with them in any measure which they propose; it will help those who earnestly help themselves, and will hinder those who hinder themselves. It is very polite, and never offers its services unasked. Its favors to individuals are measured by an unerring principle in this—viz., respect those who respect themselves, and despise those who despise themselves. It is not within the power of unaided human nature to persevere in pitying a people who are insensible to their own wrongs and indifferent to the attainment of their own rights. The poet was as true to common sense as to poetry when he said,

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.

When O’Connell, with all Ireland at his back, was supposed to be contending for the just rights and liberties of Ireland, the sympathies of mankind were with him, and even his enemies were compelled to respect his patriotism. Kossuth, fighting for Hungary with his pen long after she had fallen by the sword, commanded the sympathy and support of the liberal world till his own hopes died out. The Turks, while they fought bravely for themselves and scourged and drove back the invading legions of Russia, shared the admiration of mankind. They were standing up for their own rights against an arrogant and powerful enemy; but as soon as they let out their fighting to the Allies, admiration gave way to contempt. These are not the maxims and teachings of a coldhearted world. Christianity itself teaches that man shall provide for his own house. This covers the whole ground of nations as well as individuals. Nations no more than individuals can innocently be improvident. They should provide for all wants—mental, moral and religious—and against all evils to which they are liable as nations. In the great struggle now progressing for the freedom and elevation of our people, we should be found at work with all our might, resolved that no man or set of men shall be more abundant in labors, according to the measure of our ability, than ourselves.

I know, my friends, that in some quarters the efforts of colored people meet with very little encouragement. We may fight, but we must fight like the Sepoys of India, under white officers. This class of Abolitionists don’t like colored celebrations, they don’t like colored conventions, they don’t like colored antislavery fairs for the support of colored newspapers. They don’t like any demonstrations whatever in which colored men take a leading part. They talk of the proud Anglo-Saxon blood as flippantly as those who profess to believe in the natural inferiority of races. Your humble speaker has been branded as an ingrate, because he has ventured to stand up on his own and to plead our common cause as a colored man, rather than as a Garrisonian. I hold it to be no part of gratitude to allow our white friends to do all the work, while we merely hold their coats. Opposition of the sort now referred to is partisan position, and we need not mind it. The white people at large will not largely be influenced by it. They will see and appreciate all honest efforts on our part to improve our condition as a people.

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

Hence, my friends, every mother who, like Margaret Garner, plunges a knife into the bosom of her infant to save it from the hell of our Christian slavery, should be held and honored as a benefactress. Every fugitive from slavery who, like the noble William Thomas at Wilkes Barre, prefers to perish in a river made red by his own blood to submission to the hell hounds who were hunting and shooting him should be esteemed as a glorious martyr, worthy to be held in grateful memory by our people. The fugitive Horace, at Mechanicsburgh, Ohio, the other day, who taught the slave catchers from Kentucky that it was safer to arrest white men than to arrest him, did a most excellent service to our cause. Parker and his noble band of fifteen at Christiana, who defended themselves from the kidnappers with prayers and pistols, are entitled to the honor of making the first successful resistance to the Fugitive Slave Bill. But for that resistance, and the rescue of Jerry and Shadrack, the man hunters would have hunted our hills and valleys here with the same freedom with which they now hunt their own dismal swamps.

There was an important lesson in the conduct of that noble Krooman in New York the other day, who, supposing that the American Christians were about to enslave him, betook himself to the masthead and with knife in hand said he would cut his throat before he would be made a slave. Joseph Cinque, on the deck of the Amistad, did that which should make his name dear to us. He bore nature’s burning protest against slavery. Madison Washington who struck down his oppressor on the deck of the Creole, is more worthy to be remembered than the colored man who shot Pitcairn at Bunker Hill.

My friends, you will observe that I have taken a wide range, and you think it is about time that I should answer the special objection to this celebration. I think so too. This, then, is the truth concerning the inauguration of freedom in the British West Indies. Abolition was the act of the British government. The motive which led the government to act no doubt was mainly a philanthropic one, entitled to our highest admiration and gratitude. The national religion, the justice and humanity cried out in thunderous indignation against the foul abomination, and the government yielded to the storm. Nevertheless a share of the credit of the result falls justly to the slaves themselves. “Though slaves, they were rebellious slaves.” They bore themselves well. They did not hug their chains, but according to their opportunities, swelled the general protest against oppression. What Wilberforce was endeavoring to win from the British senate by his magic eloquence the slaves themselves were endeavoring to gain by outbreaks and violence. The combined action of one and the other wrought out the final result. While one showed that slavery was wrong, the other showed that it was dangerous as well as wrong. Mr. Wilberforce, peace man though he was, and a model of piety, availed himself of this element to strengthen his case before the British Parliament, and warned the British government of the danger of continuing slavery in the West Indies. There is no doubt that the fear of the consequences, acting with a sense of the moral evil of slavery, led to its abolition. The spirit of freedom was abroad in the Islands. Insurrection for freedom kept the planters in a constant state of alarm and trepidation. A standing army was necessary to keep the slaves in their chains. This state of facts could not be without weight in deciding the question of freedom in these countries.

I am aware that the rebellious disposition of the slaves was said to arise out of the discussion which the Abolitionists were carrying on at home, and it is not necessary to refute this alleged explanation. All that I contend for is this: that the slaves of the West Indies did fight for their freedom, and that the fact of their discontent was known in England, and that it assisted in bringing about that state of public opinion which finally resulted in their emancipation. And if this be true, the objection is answered.

Again, I am aware that the insurrectionary movements of the slaves were held by many to be prejudicial to their cause. This is said now of such movements at the South. The answer is that abolition followed close on the heels of insurrection in the West Indies, and Virginia was never nearer emancipation than when General Turner kindled the fires of insurrection at Southampton.

Sir, I have now more than filled up the measure of my time. I thank you for the patient attention given to what I have had to say. I have aimed, as I said at the beginning, to express a few thoughts having some relation to the great interest of freedom both in this country and in the British West Indies, and I have said all that I mean to say, and the time will not permit me to say more.

Kwame Nkrumah: 'At long last, the battle has ended!' Independence Day - 1957

6 March 1957, Acra, Ghana

At long last, the battle has ended! And thus, Ghana, your beloved country is free forever!

And yet again, I want to take the opportunity to thank the people of this country; the youth, the farmers, the women who have so nobly fought and won the battle.

Also, I want to thank the valiant ex-servicemen who have so cooperated with me in this mighty task of freeing our country from foreign rule and imperialism.

And, as I pointed out… from now on, today, we must change our attitudes and our minds. We must realize that from now on we are no longer a colonial but free and independent people.

But also, as I pointed out, that also entails hard work. That new Africa is ready to fight his own battles and show that after all the black man is capable of managing his own affairs.

We are going to demonstrate to the world, to the other nations, that we are prepared to lay our foundation – our own African personality.

As I said to the Assembly a few minutes ago, I made a point that we are going to create our own Africa personality and identity. It is the only way we can show the world that we are ready for our own battles.

But today, may I call upon you all, that on this great day that let us all remember that nothing can be done unless it has the support of God.

We have won the battle and again rededicate ourselves … OUR INDEPENDENCE IS MEANINGLESS UNLESS IT IS LINKED UP WITH THE TOTAL LIBERATION OF AFRICA.

Let us now, fellow Ghanaians, let us now ask for God’s blessing for only two seconds, and in your thousands and millions.

I want to ask you to pause for only one minute and give thanks to Almighty God for having led us through our difficulties, imprisonments, hardships and sufferings, to have brought us to our end of troubles today. One minute silence.

Ghana is free forever! And here I will ask the band to play the Ghana National Anthem.

Reshaping Ghana’s destiny, I am depending on the millions of the country, and the chiefs and the people, to help me to reshape the destiny of this country. We are prepared to pick it up and make it a nation that will be respected by every nation in the world.

We know we’re going to have difficult beginnings, but again, I am relying on your support…. I am relying upon your hard work.

Seeing you in this… It doesn’t matter how far my eyes go, I can see that you are here in your millions. And my last warning to you is that you are to stand firm behind us so that we can prove to the world that when the African is given a chance, he can show the world that he is somebody!

We have awakened. We will not sleep anymore. Today, from now one, there is a new African in the world!”

Malcolm X: 'The most disrespected person in America, is the black woman', Speech to women - 1964

22 May 1962, Los Angeles, California, USA

\Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? To such extent you bleach, to get like the white man. Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don’t want to be around each other? No… Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.

We don’t steal, we don’t gamble, we don’t lie and we don’t cheat.

You can’t get into a whiskey bottle without getting past a government seal. You can’t buy a deck of cards without getting past a government seal. Here the white man makes the whiskey then puts you in jail for getting drunk. He sells you the cards and the dice and puts you in jail when he catches you using them.

The most disrespected person in America, is the black woman. The most un-protected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America, is the black woman. And as Muslims, the honorable Elijah Muhammed teaches us to respect, our women, and to protect our women. And the only time a Muslim gets real violent, is when someone goes to molest his woman. We will kill you, for our women I’m making it plain yes, we will kill you for our women. We believe that if the white man, will do whatever is necessary, to see that his woman get respect and protection, then you and I will never be recognized as men. Until we stand up like men and pays the same penalty over the head of anyone, who puts his filthy hands out, to put it in a direction of our women.

Kwame Nkrumah: 'Our capital flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system of Western economy', inaugural ceremony of the OAU Conference - 1953

24 May 1953, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

At the first gathering of African Heads of State, to which I had the honour of playing host, there were representatives of eight independent States only. Today, five years later, we meet as the representatives of no less than thirty-two States, the guests of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie, the First, and the Government and people of Ethiopia. To His Imperial Majesty, I wish to express, on behalf of the Government and people of Ghana my deep appreciation for a most cordial welcome and generous hospitality.

The increase in our number in this short space of time is open testimony to the indomitable and irresistible surge of our peoples for independence. It is also a token of the revolutionary speed of world events in the latter half of this century. In the task which is before us of unifying our continent we must fall in with that pace or be left behind. The task cannot be attached in the tempo of any other age than our own. To fall behind the unprecedented momentum of actions and events in our time will be to court failure and our own undoing.

A whole continent has imposed a mandate upon us to lay the foundation of our Union at this Conference. It is our responsibility to execute this mandate by creating here and now the formula upon which the requisite superstructure may be erected.

On this continent it has not taken us long to discover that the struggle against colonialism does not end with the attainment of national independence. Independence is only the prelude to a new and more involved struggle for the right to conduct our own economic and social affairs; to construct our society according to our aspirations, unhampered by crushing and humiliating neo-colonialist controls and interference.

From the start we have been threatened with frustration where rapid change is imperative and with instability where sustained effort and ordered rule are indispensable.

No sporadic act nor pious resolution can resolve our present problems. Nothing will be of avail, except the united act of a united Africa. We have already reached, the stage where we must unite or sink into that condition which has made Latin America the unwilling and distressed prey of imperialism after one and a half centuries of political independence.

As a continent we have emerged into independence in a different age, with imperialism grown stronger, more ruthless and experienced, and more dangerous in its international associations. Our economic advancement demands the end of colonialist and neo-colonialist domination in Africa.

But just as we understood that the shaping of our national destinies required of each of us our political independence and bent all our strength to this attainment, so we must recognise that our economic independence resides in our African union and requires the same concentration upon the political achievement.

The unity of our continent, no less than our separate independence, will be delayed if, indeed, we do not lose it, by hobnobbing with colonialism. African Unity is, above all, a political kingdom which can only be gained by political means. The social and economic development of Africa will come only within the political kingdom, not the other way around. The United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, were the political decisions of revolutionary peoples before they became mighty realities of social power and material wealth.

How, except by our united efforts, will the richest and still enslaved parts of our continent be freed from colonial occupation and become available to us for the total development of our continent? Every step in the decolonisation of our continent has brought greater resistance in those areas where colonial garrisons are available to colonialism.

This is the great design of the imperialist interests that buttress colonialism and neo-colonialism, and we would be deceiving ourselves in the most cruel way were we to regard their individual actions as separate and unrelated. When Portugal violates Senegal’s border, when Verwoed allocated one-seventh of South Africa’s budget to military and police, when France builds as part of her defence policy an interventionist force that can intervene, more especially in French-speaking Africa, when Welensky talks of Southern Rhodesia joining South Africa, it is all part of a carefully calculated pattern working towards a single end: the continued enslavement of our still dependent brothers and an onslaught upon the independence of our sovereign African States.

Do we have any other weapon against this design but our unity? Is not our unity essential to guard our own freedom as well as to win freedom for our oppressed brothers, the Freedom Fighters?

Is it not unity alone that can weld us into an effective force, capable of creating our own progress and making our valuable contribution to world peace? Which independent African State will claim that its financial structure and banking institutions are fully harnessed to its national development? Which will claim that its material resources and human energies are available for its own national aspirations? Which will disclaim a substantial measure of disappointment and disillusionment in its agricultural and urban
development?

In independent Africa we are already re-experiencing the instability and frustration which existed under colonial rule. We are fast learning that political independence is not enough to rid us of the consequences of colonial rule.

The movement of the masses of the people of Africa for freedom from that kind of rule was not only a revolt against the conditions which it imposed.

Our people supported us in our fight for independence because they believed that African Governments could cure the ills of the past in a way which could never be accomplished under colonial rule. If, therefore, now that we are independent we allow the same conditions to exist that existed in colonial days, all the resentment which overthrew colonialism will be mobilised against us.

The resources are there. It is for us to marshal them in the active service of our people. Unless we do this by our concerted efforts, within the framework of our combined planning, we shall not progress at the tempo demanded by today’s events and the mood of our people. The symptoms of our troubles will grow, and the troubles themselves become chronic. It will then be too late even for Pan-African Unity to secure for us stability and tranquillity in our labours for a continent of social justice and material well-being. Unless we establish African Unity now, we who are sitting here today shall tomorrow be the victims and martyrs of neo-colonialism.

There is evidence on every side that the imperialists have not withdrawn from our affairs. There are times, as in the Congo, when their interference is manifest. But generally it is covered up under the clothing of many agencies, which meddle in our domestic affairs, to foment dissension within our borders and to create an atmosphere of tension and political instability. As long as we do not do away with the root causes of discontent, we lend aid to these neo-colonialist forces, and shall become our own executioners. We cannot ignore the teachings of history.

Our continent is probably the richest in the world for minerals and industrial and agricultural primary materials. From the Congo alone, Western firms exported copper, rubber, cotton, and other goods to the value of 2, 773 billion dollars in the ten years between 1945 and 1955, and from South Africa, Western gold mining companies have drawn a profit, in the four years, between 1947 to 1951, of 814 billion dollars.

Our continent certainly exceeds all the others in potential hydroelectric power, which some experts assess as 42 percent of the world’s total. What need is there for us to remain hewers for the industrialised areas of the world?

It is said, of course, that we have no capital, no industrial skill, no communications and no internal markets, and that we cannot even agree among ourselves how best to utilise our resources.

Yet all the stock exchanges in the world are preoccupied with Africa’s gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ores. Our capital flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system of Western economy. Fifty-two percent of the gold in Fort Knox at this moment, where the U. S. A. stores its bullion, is believed to have originated from our shores. Africa provides more than 60 percent of the world’s gold. A great deal of the uranium for nuclear power, of copper for electronics, of titanium for supersonic projectiles, of iron and steel for heavy industries, of other minerals and raw materials for lighter industries – the basic economic might of the foreign Powers – come from our continent. Experts have estimated that the Congo basin alone can produce enough food crops to satisfy the requirements of nearly half the population of the whole world.

For centuries Africa has been the milk cow of the Western world. It was our continent that helped the Western world to build up its accumulated wealth.

It is true that we are now throwing off the yoke of colonialism as
fast as we can, but our success in this direction is equally matched
by an intense effort on the part of imperialism to continue the
exploitation of our resources by creating divisions among us.

When the colonies of the American Continent sought to free themselves
from imperialism in the 18th century there was no threat of
neo-colonialism in the sense in which we know it today. The American
States were therefore free to form and fashion the unity which was
best suited to their needs and to frame a constitution to hold their
unity together without any form of interference from external sources.
We, however, are having to grapple with outside interventions. How
much more, then do we need to come together in the African unity that
alone can save us from the clutches of neo-colonialism.

We have the resources. It was colonialism in the first place that
prevented us from accumulating the effective capital; but we ourselves
have failed to make full use of our power in independence to mobilise
our resources for the most effective take-off into thorough going
economic and social development. We have been too busy nursing our
separate States to understand fully the basic need of our union,
rooted in common purpose, common planning and common endeavour. A
union that ignores these fundamental necessities will be but a shame.
It is only by uniting our productive capacity and the resultant
production that we can amass capital. And once we start, the momentum
will increase. With capital controlled by our own banks, harnessed to
our own true industrial and agricultural development, we shall make
our advance. We shall accumulate machinery and establish steel works,
iron foundries and factories; we shall link the various States of our
continent with communications; we shall astound the world with our
hydroelectric power; we shall drain marshes and swamps, clear infested
areas, feed the under-nourished, and rid our people of parasites and
disease. It is within the possibility of science and technology to
make even the Sahara bloom into a vast field with verdant vegetation
for agricultural and industrial developments. We shall harness the
radio, television, giant printing presses to lift our people from the
dark recesses of illiteracy.

A decade ago, these would have been visionary words, the fantasies of
an idle dreamer. But this is the age in which science has transcended
the limits of the material world, and technology has invaded the
silences of nature. Time and space have been reduced to unimportant
abstractions. Giant machines make roads, clear forests, dig dams,
layout aerodromes; monster trucks and planes distribute goods; huge
laboratories manufacture drugs; complicated geological surveys are
made; mighty power stations are built; colossal factories erected –
all at an incredible speed. The world is no longer moving through bush
paths or on camels and donkeys.

We cannot afford to pace our needs, our development, our security to
the gait of camels and donkeys. We cannot afford not to cut down the
overgrown bush of outmoded attitudes that obstruct our path to the
modern open road of the widest and earliest achievement of economic
independence and the raising up of the lives of our people to the
highest level.

Even for other continents lacking tile resources of Africa, this is
the age that sees the end of human want. For us it is a simple matter
of grasping with certainty our heritage by using the political might
of unity. All we need to do is to develop with our united strength the
enormous resources of our continent. A United Africa will provide a
stable field of foreign investment, which will encourage as long as it
does not behave inimically to our African interests. For such
investment would add by its enterprises to the development of the
national economy, employment and training of our people, and will be
welcome to Africa. In dealing with a united Africa, investors will no
longer have to weigh with concern the risks of negotiating with
governments in one period which may not exist in the very next period.
Instead of dealing or negotiating with so many separate States at a
time they will be dealing with one united government pursuing a
harmonized continental policy.

What is the alternative to this? If we falter at this stage, and let
time pass for neo-colonialism to consolidate its position on this
continent, what will be the fate of our people who have put their
trust in us? What will be the fate of our freedom fighters? What will
be the fate of other African Territories that are not yet free?

Unless we can establish great industrial complexes in Africa – which
we can only do in united Africa – we must have our peasantry to the
mercy of foreign cash crop markets, and face the same unrest which
overthrew the colonialists? What use to the farmer is education and
mechanisation, what use is even capital for development; unless we can
ensure for him and a fair price and ready market? What has the
peasant, worker and farmer gained from political independence, unless
we can ensure for him a fair return for his labour and a higher
standard of living?

Unless we can establish great industrial complexes in Africa, what
have the urban worker, and all those peasants on overcrowded land
gained from political independence? If they are to remain unemployed
or in unskilled occupation, what will avail them the better facilities
for education, technical training, energy and ambition which
independence enables us to provide?

There is hardly any African State without frontier problem with its
adjacent neighbours. It would be futile for me to enumerate them
because they are already familiar to us all. But let me suggest to
Your Excellences, that this fatal relic of colonialism will drive us
to war against one another as our unplanned and uncoordinated
industrial development expands, just as happened in Europe. Unless we
succeed in arresting the danger through mutual understanding on
fundamental issues and through African Unity, which will render
existing boundaries obsolete and superfluous, we shall have fought in
vain for independence. Only African Unity can heal this festering sore
of boundary disputes between our various States. Your Excellencies, the
remedy for these ills is ready to our hand. It stares us in the face
at every customs barrier, it shouts to us from every African heart. By
creating a true political union of all the independent States of
Africa, we can tackle hopefully every emergency, every enemy and every
complexity. This is not because we are a race of superman, but because
we have emerged in the age of science and technology in which poverty,
ignorance and disease are no longer the masters, but the retreating
foes of mankind. We have emerged in the age of socialized planning,
when production and distribution are not governed by chaos, greed and
self-interest, but by social needs. Together with the rest of mankind,
we have awakened from Utopian dreams to pursue practical blueprints
for progress and social justice.

Above all, we have emerged at a time when a continental land mass like
Africa with its population approaching three hundred million are
necessary to the economic capitalization and profitability of modern
productive methods and techniques. Not one of us working singly and
individually can successfully attain the fullest development.
Certainly, in the circumstances, it will not be possible to give
adequate assistance to sister States trying, against the most
difficult conditions, to improve their economic and social structures.
Only a united Africa functioning under a Union Government can
forcefully mobilize the material and moral resources of our separate
countries and apply them efficiently and energetically to bring a
rapid change in the conditions of our people.

If we do not approach the problems in Africa with a common front and a
common purpose, we shall be haggling and wrangling among ourselves
until we are colonized again and become the tolls of a far greater
colonialism than we suffered hitherto.

Unite we must. Without necessarily sacrificing our sovereignties, big
or small, we can, here and now, forge a political union based on
Defence, Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy, and a common Citizenship, an
African currency, an African Monetary Zone and an African Central
Bank. We must unite in order to achieve the full liberation of our
continent. We need a common Defence system with an African High
Command to ensure the stability and security of Africa.

We have been charged with this sacred task by our own people, and we
cannot betray their trust by failing them. We will be mocking the
hopes of our people if we show the slightest hesitation or delay by
tackling realistically this question of African Unity.

The supply of arms or other military aid to the colonial oppressors in
Africa must be regarded not only as aid in the vanquishment of the
freedom fighters battling for their African independence, but as an
act of aggression against the whole of Africa. How can we meet this
aggression except by the full weight of our united strength?

Many of us have made non-alignment an article of faith on this
continent. We have no wish, and no intention of being drawn into the
Cold War. But with the present weakness and insecurity of our States
in the context of world politics, the search for bases and spheres of
influence brings the Cold War into Africa with its danger of nuclear
warfare. Africa should be declared a nuclear-free zone and freed from
cold war exigencies. But we cannot make this demand mandatory unless
we support it from a position of strength to be found only in our
unity.

Instead, many Independent African States are involved by military
pacts with the former colonial powers. The stability and security
which such devices seek to establish are illusory, for the
metropolitan Powers seize the opportunity to support their
neo-colonialist controls by direct military involvement. We have seen
how the neo-colonialists use their bases to entrench themselves and
attack neighbouring independent States. Such bases are centers of
tension and potential danger spots of military conflict. They threaten
the security not only of the country in which they are situated but of
neighbouring countries as well. How can we hope to make Africa a
nuclear-free zone and independent of cold war pressure with such
military involvement on our continent? Only by counter-balancing a
common defence force with a common defence policy based upon our
desire for an Africa untrammelled by foreign dictation or military and
nuclear presence. This will require an all-embracing African High
Command, especially if the military pacts with the imperialists are to
be renounced. It is the only way we can break these direct links
between the colonialism of the past and the neo-colonialism which
disrupts us today.

We do not want nor do we visualize an African High Command in the
terms of the power politics that now rule a great part of the world,
but as an essential and indispensable instrument for ensuring
stability and security in Africa.

We need a unified economic planning for Africa. Until the economic
power of Africa is in our hands, the masses can have no real concern
and no real interest for safeguarding our security, for ensuring the
stability of our regimes, and for bending their strength to the
fulfilment of our ends. With our united resources, energies and
talents we have the means, as soon as we show the will, to transform
the economic structures of our individual States from poverty to that
of wealth, from, inequality to the satisfaction of popular needs. Only
on a continental basis shall we be able to plan the proper utilisation
of all our resources for the full development of our continent.

How else will we retain our own capital for our development? How else
will we establish an internal market for our own industries? By
belonging to different economic zones, how will we break down the
currency and trading barriers between African States, and how will the
economically stronger amongst us be able to assist the weaker and less
developed States?

It is important to remember that independent financing and independent
development cannot take place without an independent currency. A
currency system that is backed by the resources of a foreign State is
ipso facto subject to the trade and financial arrangements of that
foreign country.

Because we have so many customs and currency barriers as a result of
being subject to the different currency systems of foreign powers,
this has served to widen the gap between us in Africa. How, for
example, can related communities and families trade with, and support
one another successfully, if they find themselves divided by national
boundaries and currency restrictions? The only alternative open to
them in these circumstances, is to use smuggled currency and enrich
national and international racketeers and crooks who prey upon our
financial and economic difficulties.

No independent African State today by itself has a chance to follow an
independent course of economic development, and many of us who have
tried to do this have been almost ruined or have had to return to the
fold of the former colonial rulers. This position will not change
unless we have unified policy working at the continental level. The
first step towards our cohesive economy would be a unified monetary
zone, with, initially, an agreed common parity for our currencies. To
facilitate this arrangement, Ghana would change to a decimal system.
When we find that the arrangement of a fixed common parity is working
successfully, there would seem to be no reason for not instituting one
common currency and a single bank of issue. With a common currency
from one common bank of issue we should be able to stand erect on our
own feet because such an arrangement would be fully backed by the
combined national products of the States composing the union. After
all, the purchasing power of money depends on productivity and the
productive exploitation of the natural, human and physical resources
of the nation.

While we are assuring our stability by a common defence system, and
our economy is being orientated beyond foreign control by a Common
currency, Monetary Zone and Central Bank of Issue, we can investigate
the resources of our continent. We can begin to ascertain whether in
reality we are the richest, and not, as we have been taught to
believe, the poorest among the continents. We can determine whether we
possess the largest potential in hydroelectric power, and whether we
can harness it and other sources of energy to our own industries. We
can proceed to plan our industrialization on a continental scale, and
to build up a common market for nearly three hundred million people.

Common Continental Planning for the Industrial and Agricultural
development of Africa is a vital necessity.

So many blessings must flow from our unity; so many disasters must
follow on our continued disunity, that our failure to unite today will
not be attributed by posterity only to faulty reasoning and lack of
courage, but to our capitulation before the forces of imperialism.

The hour of history which has brought us to this assembly is a
revolutionary hour. It is the hour of decision. For the first time,
the economic imperialism which menaces us is itself challenged by the
irresistible will of our people.

The masses of the people of Africa are crying for unity. The people of
Africa call for a breaking down of boundaries that keep them apart.
They demand an end to the border disputes between sister African
States – disputes that arise out of the artificial barriers that
divided us. It was colonialism’s purpose that left us with our border
irredentism that rejected our ethnic and cultural fusion.

Our people call for unity so that they may not lose their patrimony in
the perpetual service of neo-colonialism. In their fervent push for
unity, they understand that only its realization will give full
meaning to their freedom and our African independence.

It is this popular determination that must move us on to a Union of
Independent African States. In delay lies danger to our well-being, to
tour very existence as free States. It has been suggested that our
approach of unity should be gradual, that it should go piece-meal.
This point of view conceives of Africa as a static entity with
“frozen” problems which can be eliminated one by one and when all have
been cleared then we can come together and say: “Now all is well. Let
us unite”. This view takes no account of the impact of external
pressures. Nor does it take cognizance of the danger that delay can
deepen our isolations and exclusiveness; that it can enlarge our
differences and set us drifting further and further apart into the net
of neo-colonialism, so that our union will become nothing but a fading
hope, and the great design of Africa’s full redemption will be lost,
perhaps, forever.

The view is also expressed that our difficulties could be resolved
simply by a greater collaboration through cooperative association in
our inter-territorial relationships. This way of looking at our
problems denies a proper conception of their inter-relationship and
mutuality. It denies faith in a future for African advancement, in
African independence. It betrays a sense of solution only in continued
reliance upon external sources through bilateral agreements for
economic and other forms of aid.

The fact is that although we have been cooperating and associating
with one another in various fields of common endeavour even before
colonial times, this has not given us the continental identity and the
political and economic force which would help us to deal effectively
with the complicated problems confronting us in Africa today. As far
as foreign aid is concerned, a United Africa would be in a more
favourable position to attract assistance from foreign sources. There
is the far more compelling advantage which this arrangement offers, in
that aid will come from anywhere to Africa because our bargaining
power would become infinitely greater. We shall no longer be dependent
upon aid from restricted sources. We shall have the world to choose
from.

What are we looking for in Africa? Are we looking for Charters,
conceived in the light of the United Nations example? A type of United
Nations organisation whose decisions are framed on the basis of
resolutions that in our experience have sometimes been ignored by
member States? Where groupings are formed and pressures develop in
accordance with the interest of the group concerned? Or is it intended
that Africa should be turned into a lose organization of States on the
model of the organization of the American States, in which the weaker
States within it can be at the mercy of the stronger or more powerful
ones politically or economically or at the mercy of some powerful
outside nations or group of nations? Is this the kind of association
we want for ourselves in the United Africa we all speak of with such
feeling and emotion?

Your Excellences, permit me to ask: is this the kind of framework we
desire for our United Africa? And arrangement which in future could
permit Ghana or Nigeria or the Sudan, or Liberia, or Egypt or Ethiopia
for example, to use pressure, which either superior economic or
political influence gives, to dictate the flow and the direction of
trade from, say, Burundi or Togo or Nyasaland to Mozambique?

We all want a United Africa, united not only in our concept of what
unity can connote, but united in our common desire to move forward
together and dealing with all the problems that can best be solved
only on a continental basis.

When the first Congress of the United States met many years ago at
Philadelphia, one of the delegates sounded the first chore of unity by
declaring that they had met in a “state of nature” in other words,
they were not at Philadelphia as Virginians, or Pennsylvanians, but
simply as Americans. This reference to themselves as Americans was in
those days a new and strange experience. May I dare to assert equally
on this occasion, Your Excellences that we meet here today not as
Ghanaians, Guineans, Egyptians, Algerians, Moroccans, Malians,
Liberians, Congolese or Nigerians but as Africans. Africans united in
our resolve to remain here until we have agreed on the basic
principles of a new compact of unity among ourselves which guarantees
for us and future a new arrangement of continental government.

If we succeed in establishing a new set of principles as the basis of
a new Charter or Statute for the establishment of a Continental Unity
of Africa and the creation of social and political progress for our
people then, in my view, this Conference should mark the end of our
various groupings and regional blocs. But if we fail and let this
grand and historic opportunity slip by then we should give way to
greater dissension and division among us for which the people of
Africa will never forgive us. And the popular and progressive forces
and movements within Africa will condemn us. I am sure therefore that
we should not fail them.

I have spoken at some length, Your Excellences, because it is
necessary for us all to explain not only to one another present here
but also to our people who have entrusted to us the fate and destiny
of Africa. We must therefore not leave this place until we have set up
effective machinery for achieving African Unity. To this end, I now
propose for your consideration the following:

As a first step, Your Excellences, a Declaration of Principles uniting
and binding us together and to which we must all faithful and loyally
adhere, and laying the foundations of unity should be set down. And
there should also be a formal declaration that all the Independent
African States here and now agree to the establishment of a Union of
African States.

As a second and urgent step for the realization of the unification of
Africa, an All-Africa Committee of Foreign Ministers be set up now,
and that before we rise from this Conference a day should be fixed for
them to meet.

This Committee should establish on behalf of the Heads of our
Governments, a permanent body of officials and experts to work out a
machinery for the Union Government of Africa. This body of officials
and experts should be made up of two of the brains from each
Independent African State. The various Charters of the existing
groupings and other relevant document could also be submitted to the
officials and experts. A praesidium consisting of the Head of the
Governments of the Independent African States should be called upon to
meet and adopt a Constitution and others recommendations that will
launch the Union Government of Africa.

We must also decide on allocation where this body of officials and
experts will work as the new Headquarters or Capital of our Union
Government. Some central place in Africa might be the fairest
suggestion either at Bangui in the Central African Republic or
Leopoldville in Congo. My colleagues may have other proposals. The
Committee of Foreign Ministers, officials and experts should be
empowered to establish:

1. A Commission to frame a Constitution for a Union Government of
African States;
2. A Commission to work out a continent-wide plan for a unified or
common economic and industrial programme for Africa; this plan should
include proposals for setting up:
• A Common Market for Africa
• An African currency
• African Monetary Zone
• African Central Bank, and
• Continental Communications System;
3. A Commission to draw up details for a Common Foreign Policy and Diplomacy;
4. A Commission to produce plans for a Common System of Defence;
5. A Commission to make proposals for Common African Citizenship.
These Commissions will report to the Committee of Foreign Ministers
who should, in turn, submit within six months of this Conference their
recommendations to the Praesidium. The Praesidium meeting in
Conference at the Union Headquarters will consider and approve the
recommendations of the Committee of Foreign Ministers.

In order to provide funds immediately for the work of the permanent
officials and experts of the Headquarters of the Union, I suggest that
a special Committed be set up now to work a budget for this.

Your Excellences, with these steps, I submit, we shall be irrevocably
committed to the road which will bring us to a Union Government of
Africa. Only a united Africa with central political direction can
successfully give effective material and moral support to our Freedom
Fighters in Southern Rhodesia, Angola, Mozambique, South-West Africa,
Bechuanaland, Swaziland, Basutoland, Portuguese Guinea, etc., and of
course South Africa.”

Leigh Sales: 'it is sickening to see this constant situation where powerful people and institutions exploit less powerful people', Sydney Media Club - 2021

Kennedy Awards, Sydney Media Club

Leigh Sales

17 March 2021, M Bar, Sydney, Australia

We are seeing women say that they have had enough. They have had enough of people in power using the system to enshrine their power and keep women as less powerful. But I also feel that that is fitting in a broader context about awareness of power generally, because I feel like every single night when I’m hosting 7.30, that I see stories in which people in power are exploiting or taking advantage of people with less power.

In many cases, people that they have been paid to care for, or have expressly said that they promise to serve and I see it all the time, every night on the show. I feel like I’m constantly asking myself this question ‘did something change in this country?’ Did something change, that the standard for behaviour now is not ‘I have to do the right thing’ or ‘I have to do what I promised I said I would do’, but instead ‘how much can I get away with?’

I think that, from what I hear people say on 7.30 Australians are sick of this kind of situation.

They’re sick of banks gouging their accounts with fees and charges while somehow missing large scale money laundering, that’s funnelling millions of dollars overseas to terrorism or child exploitation.

They’re sick of highly profitable nursing homes taking money from families, and then neglecting or abusing mum or dad.

They’re sick of financial advisors who promise to take people’s life savings and help them pay for their retirement, knowing the entire time that they’re fleecing them.

I think the unemployed, students, pensioners were pretty sick of being harassed by a powerful government department to repay debt that they never actually even owed in the first place.

People are tired of private health insurance constantly upping fees, then you go to a specialist and they go ‘oh sorry it’s not covered by private health’.

They’re sick of telecommunications companies that promised the world when you sign up for the Internet, and then when you’re having a problem with it and it won’t work, they won’t pick up their phone to answer your call in any kind of timely fashion.

They’re sick of rich multinational companies underpaying their workers and then not even having the common courtesy to ring people when those workers are killed on the job.

They’re sick of priests abusing children in their care, or scoutmasters. They’re sick of the priests who cover up for those kinds of priests.

They’re sick of 59-year-old teachers who rape 15-year-old students.

They’re sick of government after government telling people that they’ll close the gap on Indigenous life expectancy and then decade after decade it stubbornly remains at about 20 years. You have 20 years less life in Australia, apparently, if you’re Indigenous.

They’re sick of politicians acting like public money is their own private fund and giving development deals to their mates or grants to their political allies and in the worst cases are taking kickbacks to line their own pockets.

They’re sick of film producers, who have won life’s lotto and yet still treat young actors like they should be molested and manipulated.

Even the Australian Cricket team let down the ordinary Australian fan with cheating and ball-tampering. You can’t even trust as an Australian that you won’t be made a fool of by the Australian cricket team.

I mean, this is night after night on 7.30 that we have these stories and I just think it is sickening to see this constant situation where powerful people and institutions exploit less powerful people.

And I think from what the public says to me on the street, that they are sick of people coming on my show, when they get found out and saying, ‘oh, I’m so sorry, I had no idea this was happening – can’t take any more questions about it, because we’ve commissioned a report into it’. And then that report, when it comes through, sits in a bottom drawer, gathering dust and the same thing happens again and then they commission another report. It’s well past time that this kind of thing needs to change

What do a lot of these stories that I’ve mentioned have in common? Who holds the levers of power, mostly, in this country? In boardrooms? In CEO suites? In the media? In governments? In cabinet? It’s men.

And we are not doing a good enough job in this country, as you will see, any night when you watch 7.30, of looking after the least powerful members of our society.

John Lewis: 'We will not and cannot be patient', March on Washington - 1963

28 August 1963, Washington DC, USA

We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of. For hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here. For they are receiving starvation wages, or no wages at all. While we stand here, there are sharecroppers in the Delta of Mississippi who are out in the fields working for less than three dollars a day, twelve hours a day. While we stand here there are students in jail on trumped-up charges. Our brother James Farmer, along with many others, is also in jail. We come here today with a great sense of misgiving.

It is true that we support the administration’s civil rights bill. We support it with great reservations, however. Unless Title III is put in this bill, there is nothing to protect the young children and old women who must face police dogs and fire hoses in the South while they engage in peaceful demonstrations. In its present form, this bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, who must live in constant fear of a police state. It will not protect the hundreds and thousands of people that have been arrested on trumped charges. What about the three young men, SNCC field secretaries in Americus, Georgia, who face the death penalty for engaging in peaceful protest?

As it stands now, the voting section of this bill will not help the thousands of black people who want to vote. It will not help the citizens of Mississippi, of Alabama and Georgia, who are qualified to vote, but lack a sixth-grade education. “One man, one vote” is the African cry. It is ours too. It must be ours!

We must have legislation that will protect the Mississippi sharecropper who is put off of his farm because he dares to register to vote. We need a bill that will provide for the homeless and starving people of this nation. We need a bill that will ensure the equality of a maid who earns five dollars a week in a home of a family whose total income is $100,000 a year. We must have a good FEPC bill.

My friends, let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution. By and large, American politics is dominated by politicians who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic, and social exploitation. There are exceptions, of course. We salute those. But what political leader can stand up and say, “My party is the party of principles”? For the party of Kennedy is also the party of Eastland. The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington?

Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham? Where is the political party that will protect the citizens of Albany, Georgia? Do you know that in Albany, Georgia, nine of our leaders have been indicted, not by the Dixiecrats, but by the federal government for peaceful protest? But what did the federal government do when Albany’s deputy sheriff beat Attorney C.B. King and left him half-dead? What did the federal government do when local police officials kicked and assaulted the pregnant wife of Slater King, and she lost her baby?

To those who have said, “Be patient and wait,” we have long said that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now! We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again. And then you holler, “Be patient.” How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now. We do not want to go to jail. But we will go to jail if this is the price we must pay for love, brotherhood, and true peace.

I appeal to all of you to get into this great revolution that is sweeping this nation. Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete. We must get in this revolution and complete the revolution. For in the Delta in Mississippi, in southwest Georgia, in the Black Belt of Alabama, in Harlem, in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and all over this nation, the black masses are on the march for jobs and freedom.

They’re talking about slow down and stop. We will not stop. All of the forces of Eastland, Barnett, Wallace, and Thurmond will not stop this revolution. If we do not get meaningful legislation out of this Congress, the time will come when we will not confine our marching to Washington. We will march through the South; through the streets of Jackson, through the streets of Danville, through the streets of Cambridge, through the streets of Birmingham. But we will march with the spirit of love and with the spirit of dignity that we have shown here today. By the force of our demands, our determination, and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in the image of God and democracy. We must say: “Wake up America! Wake up!” For we cannot stop, and we will not and cannot be patient.

Colin Powell: - 'This council placed the burden on Iraq to comply', Evidence of WMD to UN - 2003

5 February 2003, United Nations HQ, New York City, New York, USA

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr President, Mr Secretary General, distinguished colleagues, I would like to begin by expressing my thanks for the special effort that each of you made to be here today.

This is important day for us all as we review the situation with respect to Iraq and its disarmament obligations under UN security council resolution 1441.

Last November 8, this council passed resolution 1441 by a unanimous vote. The purpose of that resolution was to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had already been found guilty of material breach of its obligations, stretching back over 16 previous resolutions and 12 years.

Resolution 1441 was not dealing with an innocent party, but a regime this council has repeatedly convicted over the years. Resolution 1441 gave Iraq one last chance, one last chance to come into compliance or to face serious consequences. No council member present in voting on that day had any illusions about the nature and intent of the resolution or what serious consequences meant if Iraq did not comply.

And to assist in its disarmament, we called on Iraq to cooperate with returning inspectors from Unmovic and IAEA.

We laid down tough standards for Iraq to meet to allow the inspectors to do their job.

This council placed the burden on Iraq to comply and disarm and not on the inspectors to find that which Iraq has gone out of its way to conceal for so long. Inspectors are inspectors; they are not detectives.

I asked for this session today for two purposes: First, to support the core assessments made by Dr Blix and Dr El-Baradei. As Dr Blix reported to this council on January 27: "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it."

And as Dr El-Baradei reported, Iraq's declaration of December 7: "Did not provide any new information relevant to certain questions that have been outstanding since 1998."

My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as well as Iraq's involvement in terrorism, which is also the subject of resolution 1441 and other earlier resolutions.

I might add at this point that we are providing all relevant information we can to the inspection teams for them to do their work.

The material I will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are U.S. sources. And some are those of other countries.

Some of the sources are technical, such as intercepted telephone conversations and photos taken by satellites. Other sources are people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to.

I cannot tell you everything that we know. But what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling.

What you will see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior. The facts on Iraqis' behavior - Iraq's behavior demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort - no effort - to disarm as required by the international community. Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction.

Let me begin by playing a tape for you. What you're about to hear is a conversation that my government monitored. It takes place on November 26 of last year, on the day before United Nations teams resumed inspections in Iraq.

The conversation involves two senior officers, a colonel and a brigadier general, from Iraq's elite military unit, the Republican Guard.

(BEGIN AUDIO TAPE) Speaking in Arabic.

(END AUDIO TAPE) POWELL: Let me pause and review some of the key elements of this conversation that you just heard between these two officers.

First, they acknowledge that our colleague, Mohamed ElBaradei, is coming, and they know what he's coming for, and they know he's coming the next day. He's coming to look for things that are prohibited. He is expecting these gentlemen to cooperate with him and not hide things.

But they're worried. "We have this modified vehicle. What do we say if one of them sees it?" What is their concern? Their concern is that it's something they should not have, something that should not be seen.

The general is incredulous: "You didn't get a modified. You don't have one of those, do you?" "I have one." "Which, from where?" "From the workshop, from the al-Kindi company?" "What?" "From al-Kindi." "I'll come to see you in the morning. I'm worried. You all have something left." "We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left." Note what he says: "We evacuated everything." We didn't destroy it. We didn't line it up for inspection. We didn't turn it into the inspectors. We evacuated it to make sure it was not around when the inspectors showed up.

"I will come to you tomorrow." The al-Kindi company: This is a company that is well known to have been involved in prohibited weapons systems activity.

Let me play another tape for you. As you will recall, the inspectors found 12 empty chemical warheads on January 16. On January 20, four days later, Iraq promised the inspectors it would search for more. You will now hear an officer from Republican Guard headquarters issuing an instruction to an officer in the field. Their conversation took place just last week on January 30.
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(BEGIN AUDIO TAPE) Speaking in Arabic.

(END AUDIO TAPE) POWELL: Let me pause again and review the elements of this message.

"They're inspecting the ammunition you have, yes." "Yes." "For the possibility there are forbidden ammo." "For the possibility there is by chance forbidden ammo?" "Yes." "And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there." Remember the first message, evacuated.

This is all part of a system of hiding things and moving things out of the way and making sure they have left nothing behind.

If you go a little further into this message, and you see the specific instructions from headquarters: "After you have carried out what is contained in this message, destroy the message because I don't want anyone to see this message." "OK, OK." Why? Why?

This message would have verified to the inspectors that they have been trying to turn over things. They were looking for things. But they don't want that message seen, because they were trying to clean up the area to leave no evidence behind of the presence of weapons of mass destruction. And they can claim that nothing was there. And the inspectors can look all they want, and they will find nothing.

This effort to hide things from the inspectors is not one or two isolated events, quite the contrary. This is part and parcel of a policy of evasion and deception that goes back 12 years, a policy set at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime.

We know that Saddam Hussein has what is called quote, "a higher committee for monitoring the inspections teams," unquote. Think about that. Iraq has a high-level committee to monitor the inspectors who were sent in to monitor Iraq's disarmament.

Not to cooperate with them, not to assist them, but to spy on them and keep them from doing their jobs.

The committee reports directly to Saddam Hussein. It is headed by Iraq's vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan. Its members include Saddam Hussein's son Qusay.

This committee also includes Lieutenant General Amir al-Saadi, an adviser to Saddam. In case that name isn't immediately familiar to you, General Saadi has been the Iraqi regime's primary point of contact for Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. It was General Saadi who last fall publicly pledged that Iraq was prepared to cooperate unconditionally with inspectors. Quite the contrary, Saadi's job is not to cooperate, it is to deceive; not to disarm, but to undermine the inspectors; not to support them, but to frustrate them and to make sure they learn nothing.

We have learned a lot about the work of this special committee. We learned that just prior to the return of inspectors last November the regime had decided to resume what we heard called, quote, "the old game of cat and mouse," unquote.

For example, let me focus on the now famous declaration that Iraq submitted to this council on December 7. Iraq never had any intention of complying with this council's mandate.

Instead, Iraq planned to use the declaration, overwhelm us and to overwhelm the inspectors with useless information about Iraq's permitted weapons so that we would not have time to pursue Iraq's prohibited weapons. Iraq's goal was to give us, in this room, to give those us on this council the false impression that the inspection process was working.

You saw the result. Dr. Blix pronounced the 12,200-page declaration, rich in volume, but poor in information and practically devoid of new evidence.

Could any member of this council honestly rise in defense of this false declaration? Everything we have seen and heard indicates that, instead of cooperating actively with the inspectors to ensure the success of their mission, Saddam Hussein and his regime are busy doing all they possibly can to ensure that inspectors succeed in finding absolutely nothing.

My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources.

Orders were issued to Iraq's security organizations, as well as to Saddam Hussein's own office, to hide all correspondence with the Organization of Military Industrialization.

This is the organization that oversees Iraq's weapons of mass destruction activities. Make sure there are no documents left which could connect you to the OMI.

We know that Saddam's son, Qusay, ordered the removal of all prohibited weapons from Saddam's numerous palace complexes. We know that Iraqi government officials, members of the ruling Baath Party and scientists have hidden prohibited items in their homes. Other key files from military and scientific establishments have been placed in cars that are being driven around the countryside by Iraqi intelligence agents to avoid detection.

Thanks to intelligence they were provided, the inspectors recently found dramatic confirmation of these reports. When they searched the home of an Iraqi nuclear scientist, they uncovered roughly 2,000 pages of documents. You see them here being brought out of the home and placed in U.N. hands. Some of the material is classified and related to Iraq's nuclear program.

Tell me, answer me, are the inspectors to search the house of every government official, every Baath Party member and every scientist in the country to find the truth, to get the information they need, to satisfy the demands of our council? Our sources tell us that, in some cases, the hard drives of computers at Iraqi weapons facilities were replaced. Who took the hard drives? Where did they go? What's being hidden? Why? There's only one answer to the why: to deceive, to hide, to keep from the inspectors.

Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving, not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction to keep them from being found by inspectors.

While we were here in this council chamber debating Resolution 1441 last fall, we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was disbursing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq. Most of the launchers and warheads have been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to four weeks to escape detection.

We also have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities.

Let me say a word about satellite images before I show a couple. The photos that I am about to show you are sometimes hard for the average person to interpret, hard for me. The painstaking work of photo analysis takes experts with years and years of experience, poring for hours and hours over light tables. But as I show you these images, I will try to capture and explain what they mean, what they indicate to our imagery specialists.

Let's look at one. This one is about a weapons munition facility, a facility that holds ammunition at a place called Taji (ph). This is one of about 65 such facilities in Iraq. We know that this one has housed chemical munitions. In fact, this is where the Iraqis recently came up with the additional four chemical weapon shells.

Here, you see 15 munitions bunkers in yellow and red outlines. The four that are in red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers.

How do I know that? How can I say that? Let me give you a closer look. Look at the image on the left. On the left is a close-up of one of the four chemical bunkers. The two arrows indicate the presence of sure signs that the bunkers are storing chemical munitions. The arrow at the top that says security points to a facility that is the signature item for this kind of bunker. Inside that facility are special guards and special equipment to monitor any leakage that might come out of the bunker.

The truck you also see is a signature item. It's a decontamination vehicle in case something goes wrong.

This is characteristic of those four bunkers. The special security facility and the decontamination vehicle will be in the area, if not at any one of them or one of the other, it is moving around those four, and it moves as it needed to move, as people are working in the different bunkers.

Now look at the picture on the right. You are now looking at two of those sanitized bunkers. The signature vehicles are gone, the tents are gone, it's been cleaned up, and it was done on the 22nd of December, as the U.N. inspection team is arriving, and you can see the inspection vehicles arriving in the lower portion of the picture on the right.

The bunkers are clean when the inspectors get there. They found nothing.

This sequence of events raises the worrisome suspicion that Iraq had been tipped off to the forthcoming inspections at Taji (ph). As it did throughout the 1990s, we know that Iraq today is actively using its considerable intelligence capabilities to hide its illicit activities. From our sources, we know that inspectors are under constant surveillance by an army of Iraqi intelligence operatives. Iraq is relentlessly attempting to tap all of their communications, both voice and electronics.

I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that United Kingdom distributed yesterday, which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities.

In this next example, you will see the type of concealment activity Iraq has undertaken in response to the resumption of inspections. Indeed, in November 2002, just when the inspections were about to resume this type of activity spiked. Here are three examples.

At this ballistic missile site, on November 10, we saw a cargo truck preparing to move ballistic missile components. At this biological weapons related facility, on November 25, just two days before inspections resumed, this truck caravan appeared, something we almost never see at this facility, and we monitor it carefully and regularly.

At this ballistic missile facility, again, two days before inspections began, five large cargo trucks appeared along with the truck-mounted crane to move missiles. We saw this kind of house cleaning at close to 30 sites.

Days after this activity, the vehicles and the equipment that I've just highlighted disappear and the site returns to patterns of normalcy. We don't know precisely what Iraq was moving, but the inspectors already knew about these sites, so Iraq knew that they would be coming.

We must ask ourselves: Why would Iraq suddenly move equipment of this nature before inspections if they were anxious to demonstrate what they had or did not have? Remember the first intercept in which two Iraqis talked about the need to hide a modified vehicle from the inspectors. Where did Iraq take all of this equipment? Why wasn't it presented to the inspectors? Iraq also has refused to permit any U-2 reconnaissance flights that would give the inspectors a better sense of what's being moved before, during and after inspectors.

This refusal to allow this kind of reconnaissance is in direct, specific violation of operative paragraph seven of our Resolution 1441.

Saddam Hussein and his regime are not just trying to conceal weapons, they're also trying to hide people. You know the basic facts. Iraq has not complied with its obligation to allow immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted and private access to all officials and other persons as required by Resolution 1441.

The regime only allows interviews with inspectors in the presence of an Iraqi official, a minder. The official Iraqi organization charged with facilitating inspections announced, announced publicly and announced ominously that, quote, "Nobody is ready to leave Iraq to be interviewed." Iraqi Vice President Ramadan accused the inspectors of conducting espionage, a veiled threat that anyone cooperating with U.N. inspectors was committing treason.

Iraq did not meet its obligations under 1441 to provide a comprehensive list of scientists associated with its weapons of mass destruction programs. Iraq's list was out of date and contained only about 500 names, despite the fact that UNSCOM had earlier put together a list of about 3,500 names.

Let me just tell you what a number of human sources have told us.

Saddam Hussein has directly participated in the effort to prevent interviews. In early December, Saddam Hussein had all Iraqi scientists warned of the serious consequences that they and their families would face if they revealed any sensitive information to the inspectors. They were forced to sign documents acknowledging that divulging information is punishable by death.

Saddam Hussein also said that scientists should be told not to agree to leave Iraq; anyone who agreed to be interviewed outside Iraq would be treated as a spy. This violates 1441.

In mid-November, just before the inspectors returned, Iraqi experts were ordered to report to the headquarters of the special security organization to receive counterintelligence training. The training focused on evasion methods, interrogation resistance techniques, and how to mislead inspectors.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries.

For example, in mid-December weapons experts at one facility were replaced by Iraqi intelligence agents who were to deceive inspectors about the work that was being done there.

On orders from Saddam Hussein, Iraqi officials issued a false death certificate for one scientist, and he was sent into hiding.

In the middle of January, experts at one facility that was related to weapons of mass destruction, those experts had been ordered to stay home from work to avoid the inspectors. Workers from other Iraqi military facilities not engaged in elicit weapons projects were to replace the workers who'd been sent home. A dozen experts have been placed under house arrest, not in their own houses, but as a group at one of Saddam Hussein's guest houses. It goes on and on and on.

As the examples I have just presented show, the information and intelligence we have gathered point to an active and systematic effort on the part of the Iraqi regime to keep key materials and people from the inspectors in direct violation of Resolution 1441. The pattern is not just one of reluctant cooperation, nor is it merely a lack of cooperation. What we see is a deliberate campaign to prevent any meaningful inspection work.

My colleagues, operative paragraph four of U.N. Resolution 1441, which we lingered over so long last fall, clearly states that false statements and omissions in the declaration and a failure by Iraq at any time to comply with and cooperate fully in the implementation of this resolution shall constitute - the facts speak for themselves - shall constitute a further material breach of its obligation.

We wrote it this way to give Iraq an early test - to give Iraq an early test. Would they give an honest declaration and would they early on indicate a willingness to cooperate with the inspectors? It was designed to be an early test.

They failed that test. By this standard, the standard of this operative paragraph, I believe that Iraq is now in further material breach of its obligations. I believe this conclusion is irrefutable and undeniable.

Iraq has now placed itself in danger of the serious consequences called for in U.N. Resolution 1441. And this body places itself in danger of irrelevance if it allows Iraq to continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately.

The issue before us is not how much time we are willing to give the inspectors to be frustrated by Iraqi obstruction. But how much longer are we willing to put up with Iraq's noncompliance before we, as a council, we, as the United Nations, say: "Enough. Enough." The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world. Let me now turn to those deadly weapons programs and describe why they are real and present dangers to the region and to the world.

First, biological weapons. We have talked frequently here about biological weapons. By way of introduction and history, I think there are just three quick points I need to make.

First, you will recall that it took UNSCOM four long and frustrating years to pry - to pry - an admission out of Iraq that it had biological weapons.

Second, when Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit about this amount - this is just about the amount of a teaspoon - less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope.

Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material.

And that is my third point. And it is key. The Iraqis have never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had and we know they had. They have never accounted for all the organic material used to make them. And they have not accounted for many of the weapons filled with these agents such as there are 400 bombs. This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true. This is all well-documented.

Dr. Blix told this council that Iraq has provided little evidence to verify anthrax production and no convincing evidence of its destruction. It should come as no shock then, that since Saddam Hussein forced out the last inspectors in 1998, we have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these weapons.

One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.

Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eyewitness accounts. We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails.

The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War.

Although Iraq's mobile production program began in the mid-1990s, U.N. inspectors at the time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation came later, in the year 2000.

The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. Twelve technicians died from exposure to biological agents.

He reported that when UNSCOM was in country and inspecting, the biological weapons agent production always began on Thursdays at midnight because Iraq thought UNSCOM would not inspect on the Muslim Holy Day, Thursday night through Friday. He added that this was important because the units could not be broken down in the middle of a production run, which had to be completed by Friday evening before the inspectors might arrive again.

This defector is currently hiding in another country with the certain knowledge that Saddam Hussein will kill him if he finds him. His eyewitness account of these mobile production facilities has been corroborated by other sources.

A second source, an Iraqi civil engineer in a position to know the details of the program, confirmed the existence of transportable facilities moving on trailers.

A third source, also in a position to know, reported in summer 2002 that Iraq had manufactured mobile production systems mounted on road trailer units and on rail cars.

Finally, a fourth source, an Iraqi major, who defected, confirmed that Iraq has mobile biological research laboratories, in addition to the production facilities I mentioned earlier.

We have diagrammed what our sources reported about these mobile facilities. Here you see both truck and rail car-mounted mobile factories. The description our sources gave us of the technical features required by such facilities are highly detailed and extremely accurate. As these drawings based on their description show, we know what the fermenters look like, we know what the tanks, pumps, compressors and other parts look like. We know how they fit together. We know how they work. And we know a great deal about the platforms on which they are mounted.

As shown in this diagram, these factories can be concealed easily, either by moving ordinary-looking trucks and rail cars along Iraq's thousands of miles of highway or track, or by parking them in a garage or warehouse or somewhere in Iraq's extensive system of underground tunnels and bunkers.

We know that Iraq has at lest seven of these mobile biological agent factories. The truck-mounted ones have at least two or three trucks each. That means that the mobile production facilities are very few, perhaps 18 trucks that we know of-there may be more-but perhaps 18 that we know of. Just imagine trying to find 18 trucks among the thousands and thousands of trucks that travel the roads of Iraq every single day.

It took the inspectors four years to find out that Iraq was making biological agents. How long do you think it will take the inspectors to find even one of these 18 trucks without Iraq coming forward, as they are supposed to, with the information about these kinds of capabilities? Ladies and gentlemen, these are sophisticated facilities. For example, they can produce anthrax and botulinum toxin. In fact, they can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. And dry agent of this type is the most lethal form for human beings.

By 1998, UN experts agreed that the Iraqis had perfected drying techniques for their biological weapons programmes. Now, Iraq has incorporated this drying expertise into these mobile production facilities.

We know from Iraq's past admissions that it has successfully weaponised not only anthrax, but also other biological agents, including botulinum toxin, aflatoxin and ricin.

But Iraq's research efforts did not stop there. Saddam Hussein has investigated dozens of biological agents causing diseases such as gas gangrene, plague, typhus, tetanus, cholera, camelpox and hemorrhagic fever, and he also has the wherewithal to develop smallpox.

The Iraqi regime has also developed ways to disburse lethal biological agents, widely and discriminately into the water supply, into the air. For example, Iraq had a programme to modify aerial fuel tanks for Mirage jets. This video of an Iraqi test flight obtained by Unscom some years ago shows an Iraqi F-1 Mirage jet aircraft. Note the spray coming from beneath the Mirage; that is 2,000 litres of simulated anthrax that a jet is spraying.

In 1995, an Iraqi military officer, Mujahid Sali Abdul Latif (ph), told inspectors that Iraq intended the spray tanks to be mounted onto a MiG-21 that had been converted into an unmanned aerial vehicle, or a UAV. UAVs outfitted with spray tanks constitute an ideal method for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons.

Iraq admitted to producing four spray tanks. But to this day, it has provided no credible evidence that they were destroyed, evidence that was required by the international community.

There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling.

Unmovic already laid out much of this, and it is documented for all of us to read in Unscom's 1999 report on the subject.

Let me set the stage with three key points that all of us need to keep in mind: First, Saddam Hussein has used these horrific weapons on another country and on his own people. In fact, in the history of chemical warfare, no country has had more battlefield experience with chemical weapons since World War I than Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Second, as with biological weapons, Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. If we consider just one category of missing weaponry - 6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war - Unmovic says the amount of chemical agent in them would be in the order of 1,000 tons. These quantities of chemical weapons are now unaccounted for.

Dr. Blix has quipped that, quote, "Mustard gas is not (inaudible). You are supposed to know what you did with it."

We believe Saddam Hussein knows what he did with it, and he has not come clean with the international community. We have evidence these weapons existed. What we don't have is evidence from Iraq that they have been destroyed or where they are. That is what we are still waiting for.

Third point, Iraq's record on chemical weapons is replete with lies. It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons.

The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamal, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law. Unscom also gained forensic evidence that Iraq had produced VX and put it into weapons for delivery.

Yet, to this day, Iraq denies it had ever weaponised VX. And on January 27, Unmovic told this council that it has information that conflicts with the Iraqi account of its VX programme.

We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry. To all outward appearances, even to experts, the infrastructure looks like an ordinary civilian operation. Illicit and legitimate production can go on simultaneously; or, on a dime, this dual-use infrastructure can turn from clandestine to commercial and then back again.

These inspections would be unlikely, any inspections of such facilities would be unlikely to turn up anything prohibited, especially if there is any warning that the inspections are coming. Call it ingenuous or evil genius, but the Iraqis deliberately designed their chemical weapons programmes to be inspected. It is infrastructure with a built-in ally.

Under the guise of dual-use infrastructure, Iraq has undertaken an effort to reconstitute facilities that were closely associated with its past programme to develop and produce chemical weapons.

For example, Iraq has rebuilt key portions of the Tariq (ph) state establishment. Tariq includes facilities designed specifically for Iraq's chemical weapons programme and employs key figures from past programmes.

That's the production end of Saddam's chemical weapons business. What about the delivery end? I'm going to show you a small part of a chemical complex called al-Moussaid (ph), a site that Iraq has used for at least three years to transship chemical weapons from production facilities out to the field.

In May 2002, our satellites photographed the unusual activity in this picture. Here we see cargo vehicles are again at this transshipment point, and we can see that they are accompanied by a decontamination vehicle associated with biological or chemical weapons activity.

What makes this picture significant is that we have a human source who has corroborated that movement of chemical weapons occurred at this site at that time. So it's not just the photo, and it's not an individual seeing the photo. It's the photo and then the knowledge of an individual being brought together to make the case.

This photograph of the site taken two months later in July shows not only the previous site, which is the figure in the middle at the top with the bulldozer sign near it, it shows that this previous site, as well as all of the other sites around the site, have been fully bulldozed and graded. The topsoil has been removed. The Iraqis literally removed the crust of the earth from large portions of this site in order to conceal chemical weapons evidence that would be there from years of chemical weapons activity.

To support its deadly biological and chemical weapons programmes, Iraq procures needed items from around the world using an extensive clandestine network. What we know comes largely from intercepted communications and human sources who are in a position to know the facts.

Iraq's procurement efforts include equipment that can filter and separate micro-organisms and toxins involved in biological weapons, equipment that can be used to concentrate the agent, growth media that can be used to continue producing anthrax and botulinum toxin, sterilization equipment for laboratories, glass-lined reactors and specialty pumps that can handle corrosive chemical weapons agents and precursors, large amounts of vinyl chloride, a precursor for nerve and blister agents, and other chemicals such as sodium sulfide, an important mustard agent precursor.

Now, of course, Iraq will argue that these items can also be used for legitimate purposes. But if that is true, why do we have to learn about them by intercepting communications and risking the lives of human agents? With Iraq's well documented history on biological and chemical weapons, why should any of us give Iraq the benefit of the doubt? I don't, and I don't think you will either after you hear this next intercept.

Just a few weeks ago, we intercepted communications between two commanders in Iraq's Second Republican Guard Corps. One commander is going to be giving an instruction to the other. You will hear as this unfolds that what he wants to communicate to the other guy, he wants to make sure the other guy hears clearly, to the point of repeating it so that it gets written down and completely understood. Listen.
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(BEGIN AUDIO TAPE) Speaking in foreign language.

(END AUDIO TAPE) POWELL: Let's review a few selected items of this conversation. Two officers talking to each other on the radio want to make sure that nothing is misunderstood:

"Remove. Remove."

The expression, the expression, "I got it."

"Nerve agents. Nerve agents. Wherever it comes up."

"Got it."

"Wherever it comes up."

"In the wireless instructions, in the instructions."

"Correction. No. In the wireless instructions."

"Wireless. I got it."

Why does he repeat it that way? Why is he so forceful in making sure this is understood? And why did he focus on wireless instructions? Because the senior officer is concerned that somebody might be listening.

Well, somebody was.

"Nerve agents. Stop talking about it. They are listening to us. Don't give any evidence that we have these horrible agents." Well, we know that they do. And this kind of conversation confirms it.

Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.

Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan.

Let me remind you that, of the 122 millimetre chemical warheads, that the UN inspectors found recently, this discovery could very well be, as has been noted, the tip of the submerged iceberg. The question before us, all my friends, is when will we see the rest of the submerged iceberg?

Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them again, against his neighbours and against his own people.

And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorised his field commanders to use them. He wouldn't be passing out the orders if he didn't have the weapons or the intent to use them.

We also have sources who tell us that, since the 1980s, Saddam's regime has been experimenting on human beings to perfect its biological or chemical weapons.

A source said that 1,600 death row prisoners were transferred in 1995 to a special unit for such experiments. An eyewitness saw prisoners tied down to beds, experiments conducted on them, blood oozing around the victim's mouths and autopsies performed to confirm the effects on the prisoners. Saddam Hussein's humanity - inhumanity has no limits.

Let me turn now to nuclear weapons. We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons programme.

On the contrary, we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons.

To fully appreciate the challenge that we face today, remember that, in 1991, the inspectors searched Iraq's primary nuclear weapons facilities for the first time. And they found nothing to conclude that Iraq had a nuclear weapons programme.

But based on defector information in May of 1991, Saddam Hussein's lie was exposed. In truth, Saddam Hussein had a massive clandestine nuclear weapons programme that covered several different techniques to enrich uranium, including electromagnetic isotope separation, gas centrifuge, and gas diffusion. We estimate that this illicit programme cost the Iraqis several billion dollars.

Nonetheless, Iraq continued to tell the IAEA that it had no nuclear weapons programme. If Saddam had not been stopped, Iraq could have produced a nuclear bomb by 1993, years earlier than most worse-case assessments that had been made before the war.

In 1995, as a result of another defector, we find out that, after his invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein had initiated a crash programme to build a crude nuclear weapon in violation of Iraq's UN obligations.

Saddam Hussein already possesses two out of the three key components needed to build a nuclear bomb. He has a cadre of nuclear scientists with the expertise, and he has a bomb design.

Since 1998, his efforts to reconstitute his nuclear programme have been focused on acquiring the third and last component, sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear explosion. To make the fissile material, he needs to develop an ability to enrich uranium.

Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed.

These tubes are controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group precisely because they can be used as centrifuges for enriching uranium. By now, just about everyone has heard of these tubes, and we all know that there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes are for.

Most US experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher.

Let me tell you what is not controversial about these tubes. First, all the experts who have analyzed the tubes in our possession agree that they can be adapted for centrifuge use. Second, Iraq had no business buying them for any purpose. They are banned for Iraq.

I am no expert on centrifuge tubes, but just as an old Army trooper, I can tell you a couple of things: First, it strikes me as quite odd that these tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds US requirements for comparable rockets.

Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don't think so.

Second, we actually have examined tubes from several different batches that were seized clandestinely before they reached Baghdad. What we notice in these different batches is a progression to higher and higher levels of specification, including, in the latest batch, an anodised coating on extremely smooth inner and outer surfaces. Why would they continue refining the specifications, go to all that trouble for something that, if it was a rocket, would soon be blown into shrapnel when it went off? The high tolerance aluminum tubes are only part of the story. We also have intelligence from multiple sources that Iraq is attempting to acquire magnets and high-speed balancing machines; both items can be used in a gas centrifuge programme to enrich uranium.

In 1999 and 2000, Iraqi officials negotiated with firms in Romania, India, Russia and Slovenia for the purchase of a magnet production plant. Iraq wanted the plant to produce magnets weighing 20 to 30 grams. That's the same weight as the magnets used in Iraq's gas centrifuge programme before the Gulf War. This incident linked with the tubes is another indicator of Iraq's attempt to reconstitute its nuclear weapons programme.

Intercepted communications from mid-2000 through last summer show that Iraq front companies sought to buy machines that can be used to balance gas centrifuge rotors. One of these companies also had been involved in a failed effort in 2001 to smuggle aluminum tubes into Iraq.

People will continue to debate this issue, but there is no doubt in my mind, these elicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons programme, the ability to produce fissile material. He also has been busy trying to maintain the other key parts of his nuclear programme, particularly his cadre of key nuclear scientists.

It is noteworthy that, over the last 18 months, Saddam Hussein has paid increasing personal attention to Iraqi's top nuclear scientists, a group that the governmental-controlled press calls openly, his nuclear mujahedeen. He regularly exhorts them and praises their progress. Progress toward what end? Long ago, the Security Council, this council, required Iraq to halt all nuclear activities of any kind.

Let me talk now about the systems Iraq is developing to deliver weapons of mass destruction, in particular Iraq's ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs.

First, missiles. We all remember that before the Gulf War Saddam Hussein's goal was missiles that flew not just hundreds, but thousands of kilometers. He wanted to strike not only his neighbours, but also nations far beyond his borders.

While inspectors destroyed most of the prohibited ballistic missiles, numerous intelligence reports over the past decade, from sources inside Iraq, indicate that Saddam Hussein retains a covert force of up to a few dozen Scud variant ballistic missiles. These are missiles with a range of 650 to 900 kilometres.

We know from intelligence and Iraq's own admissions that Iraq's alleged permitted ballistic missiles, the al-Samud II (ph) and the al-Fatah (ph), violate the 150-kilometer limit established by this council in Resolution 687. These are prohibited systems.

Unmovic has also reported that Iraq has illegally important 380 SA-2 (ph) rocket engines. These are likely for use in the al-Samud II (ph). Their import was illegal on three counts. Resolution 687 prohibited all military shipments into Iraq. Unscom specifically prohibited use of these engines in surface-to-surface missiles. And finally, as we have just noted, they are for a system that exceeds the 150-kilometer range limit.

Worst of all, some of these engines were acquired as late as December - after this council passed Resolution 1441.

What I want you to know today is that Iraq has programmes that are intended to produce ballistic missiles that fly 1,000 kilometers. One programme is pursuing a liquid fuel missile that would be able to fly more than 1,200 kilometers. And you can see from this map, as well as I can, who will be in danger of these missiles.

As part of this effort, another little piece of evidence, Iraq has built an engine test stand that is larger than anything it has ever had. Notice the dramatic difference in size between the test stand on the left, the old one, and the new one on the right. Note the large exhaust vent. This is where the flame from the engine comes out. The exhaust on the right test stand is five times longer than the one on the left. The one on the left was used for short-range missile. The one on the right is clearly intended for long-range missiles that can fly 1,200 kilometers.

This photograph was taken in April of 2002. Since then, the test stand has been finished and a roof has been put over it so it will be harder for satellites to see what's going on underneath the test stand.

Saddam Hussein's intentions have never changed. He is not developing the missiles for self-defense. These are missiles that Iraq wants in order to project power, to threaten, and to deliver chemical, biological and, if we let him, nuclear warheads.

Now, unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs.

Iraq has been working on a variety of UAVs for more than a decade. This is just illustrative of what a UAV would look like. This effort has included attempts to modify for unmanned flight the MiG-21 and with greater success an aircraft called the L-29. However, Iraq is now concentrating not on these airplanes, but on developing and testing smaller UAVs, such as this.

UAVs are well suited for dispensing chemical and biological weapons.

There is ample evidence that Iraq has dedicated much effort to developing and testing spray devices that could be adapted for UAVs. And of the little that Saddam Hussein told us about UAVs, he has not told the truth. One of these lies is graphically and indisputably demonstrated by intelligence we collected on June 27, last year.

According to Iraq's December 7 declaration, its UAVs have a range of only 80 kilometers. But we detected one of Iraq's newest UAVs in a test flight that went 500 kilometers nonstop on autopilot in the race track pattern depicted here.

Not only is this test well in excess of the 150 kilometers that the United Nations permits, the test was left out of Iraq's December 7th declaration. The UAV was flown around and around and around in a circle. And so, that its 80 kilometer limit really was 500 kilometers unrefueled and on autopilot, violative of all of its obligations under 1441.

The linkages over the past 10 years between Iraq's UAV programme and biological and chemical warfare agents are of deep concern to us. Iraq could use these small UAVs which have a wingspan of only a few meters to deliver biological agents to its neighbours or if transported, to other countries, including the United States.

My friends, the information I have presented to you about these terrible weapons and about Iraq's continued flaunting of its obligations under Security Council Resolution 1441 links to a subject I now want to spend a little bit of time on. And that has to do with terrorism.

Our concern is not just about these elicit weapons. It's the way that these elicit weapons can be connected to terrorists and terrorist organizations that have no compunction about using such devices against innocent people around the world.

Iraq and terrorism go back decades. Baghdad trains Palestine Liberation Front members in small arms and explosives. Saddam uses the Arab Liberation Front to funnel money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers in order to prolong the intifada. And it's no secret that Saddam's own intelligence service was involved in dozens of attacks or attempted assassinations in the 1990s.

But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organisations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbours a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associated collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants.

Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialities and one of the specialities of this camp is poisons. When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training centre camp. And this camp is located in north-eastern Iraq.

You see a picture of this camp.

The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch - image a pinch of salt - less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote, there is no cure. It is fatal.

Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq. But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organisation, Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000 this agent offered al-Qaida safe haven in the region. After we swept al-Qaida from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.

Zarqawi's activities are not confined to this small corner of north-east Iraq. He travelled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day.

During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These al-Qaida affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.

Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not credible. Last year an al-Qaida associate bragged that the situation in Iraq was, quote, "good," that Baghdad could be transited quickly.

We know these affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because they remain even today in regular contact with his direct subordinates, including the poison cell plotters, and they are involved in moving more than money and material.

Last year, two suspected al-Qaida operatives were arrested crossing from Iraq into Saudi Arabia. They were linked to associates of the Baghdad cell, and one of them received training in Afghanistan on how to use cyanide. From his terrorist network in Iraq, Zarqawi can direct his network in the Middle East and beyond.

We, in the United States, all of us at the State Department, and the Agency for International Development - we all lost a dear friend with the cold-blooded murder of Mr. Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan last October, a despicable act was committed that day. The assassination of an individual whose sole mission was to assist the people of Jordan. The captured assassin says his cell received money and weapons from Zarqawi for that murder.

After the attack, an associate of the assassin left Jordan to go to Iraq to obtain weapons and explosives for further operations. Iraqi officials protest that they are not aware of the whereabouts of Zarqawi or of any of his associates. Again, these protests are not credible. We know of Zarqawi's activities in Baghdad. I described them earlier.

And now let me add one other fact. We asked a friendly security service to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi and providing information about him and his close associates. This service contacted Iraqi officials twice, and we passed details that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad. Zarqawi still remains at large to come and go.

As my colleagues around this table and as the citizens they represent in Europe know, Zarqawi's terrorism is not confined to the Middle East. Zarqawi and his network have plotted terrorist actions against countries, including France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany and Russia.

According to detainee Abuwatia (ph), who graduated from Zarqawi's terrorist camp in Afghanistan, tasks at least nine North African extremists from 2001 to travel to Europe to conduct poison and explosive attacks.
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Since last year, members of this network have been apprehended in France, Britain, Spain and Italy. By our last count, 116 operatives connected to this global web have been arrested.

The chart you are seeing shows the network in Europe. We know about this European network, and we know about its links to Zarqawi, because the detainee who provided the information about the targets also provided the names of members of the network.

Three of those he identified by name were arrested in France last December. In the apartments of the terrorists, authorities found circuits for explosive devices and a list of ingredients to make toxins.

The detainee who helped piece this together says the plot also targeted Britain. Later evidence, again, proved him right. When the British unearthed a cell there just last month, one British police officer was murdered during the disruption of the cell.

We also know that Zarqawi's colleagues have been active in the Pankisi Gorge, Georgia and in Chechnya, Russia. The plotting to which they are linked is not mere chatter. Members of Zarqawi's network say their goal was to kill Russians with toxins.

We are not surprised that Iraq is harbouring Zarqawi and his subordinates. This understanding builds on decades long experience with respect to ties between Iraq and al-Qaida.

Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an al-Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that al-Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early al-Qaida ties were forged by secret, high-level intelligence service contacts with al-Qaida, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with al-Qaida.

We know members of both organisations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security service tells us, that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum, and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service.

Saddam became more interested as he saw al-Qaida's appalling attacks. A detained al-Qaida member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist al-Qaida after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by al-Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.

Iraqis continued to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector, one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to al-Qaida members on document forgery.

From the late 1990s until 2001, the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison to the al-Qaida organisation.

Some believe, some claim these contacts do not amount to much. They say Saddam Hussein's secular tyranny and al-Qaida's religious tyranny do not mix. I am not comforted by this thought. Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al-Qaida together, enough so al-Qaida could learn how to build more sophisticated bombs and learn how to forge documents, and enough so that al-Qaida could turn to Iraq for help in acquiring expertise on weapons of mass destruction.

And the record of Saddam Hussein's cooperation with other Islamist terrorist organisations is clear. Hamas, for example, opened an office in Baghdad in 1999, and Iraq has hosted conferences attended by Palestine Islamic Jihad. These groups are at the forefront of sponsoring suicide attacks against Israel.

Al-Qaida continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. As with the story of Zarqawi and his network, I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to al-Qaida.

Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story. I will relate it to you now as he, himself, described it.

This senior al-Qaida terrorist was responsible for one of al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan.

His information comes first-hand from his personal involvement at senior levels of al-Qaida. He says bin Laden and his top deputy in Afghanistan, deceased al-Qaida leader Muhammad Atif (ph), did not believe that al-Qaida labs in Afghanistan were capable enough to manufacture these chemical or biological agents. They needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of Afghanistan for help. Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq.

The support that (inaudible) describes included Iraq offering chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qaida associates beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant known as Abu Abdula Al-Iraqi (ph) had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gases. Abdula Al-Iraqi (ph) characterised the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful.

As I said at the outset, none of this should come as a surprise to any of us. Terrorism has been a tool used by Saddam for decades. Saddam was a supporter of terrorism long before these terrorist networks had a name. And this support continues. The nexus of poisons and terror is new. The nexus of Iraq and terror is old. The combination is lethal.

With this track record, Iraqi denials of supporting terrorism take the place alongside the other Iraqi denials of weapons of mass destruction. It is all a web of lies.

When we confront a regime that harbours ambitions for regional domination, hides weapons of mass destruction and provides haven and active support for terrorists, we are not confronting the past, we are confronting the present. And unless we act, we are confronting an even more frightening future.

My friends, this has been a long and a detailed presentation. And I thank you for your patience. But there is one more subject that I would like to touch on briefly. And it should be a subject of deep and continuing concern to this council, Saddam Hussein's violations of human rights.

Underlying all that I have said, underlying all the facts and the patterns of behaviour that I have identified as Saddam Hussein's contempt for the will of this council, his contempt for the truth and most damning of all, his utter contempt for human life. Saddam Hussein's use of mustard and nerve gas against the Kurds in 1988 was one of the 20th century's most horrible atrocities; 5,000 men, women and children died.

His campaign against the Kurds from 1987 to '89 included mass summary executions, disappearances, arbitrary jailing, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of some 2,000 villages. He has also conducted ethnic cleansing against the shia Iraqis and the Marsh Arabs whose culture has flourished for more than a millennium. Saddam Hussein's police state ruthlessly eliminates anyone who dares to dissent. Iraq has more forced disappearance cases than any other country, tens of thousands of people reported missing in the past decade.

Nothing points more clearly to Saddam Hussein's dangerous intentions and the threat he poses to all of us than his calculated cruelty to his own citizens and to his neighbours. Clearly, Saddam Hussein and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him.

For more than 20 years, by word and by deed Saddam Hussein has pursued his ambition to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East using the only means he knows, intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his way. For Saddam Hussein, possession of the world's most deadly weapons is the ultimate trump card, the one he must hold to fulfil his ambition.

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression, given what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist associations and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time and the place and in the manner of his choosing at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond?

The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world.

My colleagues, over three months ago this council recognised that Iraq continued to pose a threat to international peace and security, and that Iraq had been and remained in material breach of its disarmament obligations. Today Iraq still poses a threat and Iraq still remains in material breach.

Indeed, by its failure to seize on its one last opportunity to come clean and disarm, Iraq has put itself in deeper material breach and closer to the day when it will face serious consequences for its continued defiance of this council.

My colleagues, we have an obligation to our citizens, we have an obligation to this body to see that our resolutions are complied with. We wrote 1441 not in order to go to war, we wrote 1441 to try to preserve the peace. We wrote 1441 to give Iraq one last chance. Iraq is not so far taking that one last chance.

We must not shrink from whatever is ahead of us. We must not fail in our duty and our responsibility to the citizens of the countries that are represented by this body.

Thank you, Mr President.

Bernie Sanders: 'I know where I came from!', campaign speech - 2019

19 March 2019, New York City, NY, USA

If I might, as I return here to Brooklyn, let me take a moment to become personal.

As we launch this campaign for president, you deserve to know where I come from – because family history heavily influences the values that we develop as adults.

I was born and raised a few miles away from here, in a three-and-a-half room rent-controlled apartment. My father was a paint salesman who worked hard his entire life, but never made much money. My mother raised my brother and me.

I learned a great deal about immigration as a child because my father came to this country from Poland at the age of 17, without a nickel in his pocket. He came to escape the crushing poverty that existed in his community, and to escape widespread anti-Semitism. And, it was a good thing that he left Poland when he did because virtually his entire family there was wiped out by Nazi barbarism.

I am not going to tell you that I grew up in a home of desperate poverty. That would not be true. But what I will tell you is that coming from a lower middle class family I will never forget how money – or really lack of money – was always a point of stress in our home. My mother’s dream was that someday our family would move out of that rent-controlled apartment to a home of our own. That dream was never fulfilled. She died young while we were still living in that rent-controlled apartment.

My experience as a kid, living in a family that struggled economically, powerfully influenced my life and my values. Unlike Donald Trump, who shut down the government and left 800,000 federal employees without income to pay the bills, I know what it’s like to be in a family that lives paycheck to paycheck.

Now it’s true: I did not have a father who gave me millions of dollars to build luxury skyscrapers, casinos and country clubs. I did not come from a family that gave me a $200,000 allowance every year beginning at the age of 3. As I recall, my allowance was 25 cents a week.

But I had something more valuable: I had the role model of a father who had unbelievable courage in journeying across an ocean, with no money in his pocket, to start a new and better life.

I did not come from a family of privilege that prepared me to entertain people on television by telling workers: “You’re fired.” I came from a family who knew all too well the frightening power employers can have over everyday workers.

I did not come from a politically connected family whose multinational corporation got special tax breaks and subsidies. I came from a family where my parents paid their taxes and understood the important role that government plays in a democracy.

I did not come from a family that could afford to send my brother and me to an elite boarding school. In fact, I was educated in high quality public schools here in Brooklyn and began the first year of my college life on this very campus. I should also mention that my brother graduated from Brooklyn College.

Having attended an excellent public college that was then virtually tuition free and living in a rent-controlled apartment, I can assure you that my family believed that government in a democratic society had a very important role to play in protecting working families.

I did not come from a family that taught me to build a corporate empire through housing discrimination. I protested housing discrimination, was arrested for protesting school segregation, and attended Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington for jobs and freedom.

Mohammed VI (read by Nasser Bourita): 'We will shape the Africa we want to bequeath to our children', Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union - 2018

1 July 2018, Nouakchott, Mauritania

Ladies and Gentlemen, Today, to be African is to live in a land that is, in many areas, a breeding ground for expertise and talent – one that will make it possible to move resolutely forward and accelerate the pace of progress through a rational use of our resources. In this respect, the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area - AfCFTA - provides an exceptional framework through which to boost our trade relations. It paves the way for the anchoring of our economic development in an integrated space by enabling over a billion consumers to hone Africa's competitive edge. The institutional and financial reform process boldly started by my brother, His Excellency President Paul Kagame, will put our continent on the path towards significant, lasting and irreversible change. This endeavour reflects real awareness, which tells us the time has come to build efficient institutions equipped with the best possible governance mechanisms. These institutions are the tools we need to reverse the spiral of poverty and ensure Africa’s emergence, every step of the way. Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, We all know this: the current dynamic cannot really conceal an unpleasant reality. Far too many obstacles and difficulties are still undermining efforts that will lead to the emergence of Africa. One of the major hurdles is endemic corruption – a scourge that is eating away at our societies and that our Summit has rightly made its main theme. Corruption is not just a moral or ethical issue. It has an economic cost as well. It puts a strain on the purchasing power of citizens, especially the poorest segments of society. In some sectors of activity, it represents 10% of the cost of production. Corruption perverts the tenets of democracy and undermines the rule of law. It affects the quality of life and promotes organized crime, insecurity and terrorism. Everywhere we can see positive signs and sustained efforts to curb this scourge. The measures taken are bearing fruit: notable progress is palpable. In the relentless fight against corruption, some African countries - and their number is quite significant - are outperforming others, including some among the most developed nations. These are models which incite us to take the same path. The institutional reforms undertaken within the African Union will also contribute to the emergence of an anti-corruption culture. Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Kingdom of Morocco has realized the devastating effects of corruption and has decided to spare no effort to overcome this scourge. After ratifying the United Nations Convention against Corruption in 2007, the Kingdom of Morocco developed its institutional and legal arsenal, thus aligning its legislation with international standards. To streamline and channel efforts properly, in 2015 the Kingdom of Morocco adopted a National Strategy against Corruption and set up the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which is tasked with implementing the strategy. Spanning a 10-year period, the strategy aims to reverse the trend in a palpable, irreversible way by 2025, bolster citizens’ trust, promote integrity, improve the business environment and enhance the Kingdom’s international standing. Having become a constitutional body, the National Authority for probity and the prevention and combat of corruption has recently seen its powers extended and its mission as a watchdog enhanced. In accordance with the new legislation, it will strengthen the multidimensional action carried out concomitantly in this field by the government, the judiciary and the said authority. Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Africa of today is different from the Africa of yesterday. The fight against this scourge requires the coordination of experiences and the pooling of expertise, building on a common vision shared by all stakeholders. Under no circumstances should this drive become a new form of dominance and pressure. The Africa of enclaves and trading posts is no more. Corruption is not specific to Africa. Corruption is not a typically African scourge. It is a universal phenomenon. It exists in the countries of the South as well as in those of the North and it may well have an adverse impact on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals agreed by the international community. I am delighted there is collective awareness and clear determination in this regard. They will make it possible to stem the phenomenon. Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Corruption is not inevitable in Africa. The fight against this scourge should be made a priority because corruption is the biggest obstacle to economic and social advancement and to the development of our young people. The well-being of our peoples hinges on prevention and on fostering a sense of responsibility in all actors in our societies. This major project requires sincere political commitment: it is possible to tackle corruption through sustained efforts on the part of government authorities and through the necessary civic engagement. In order to stay the course in this fight and to make sure the current institutional reforms are successful, regular consultation will be necessary. This is the course of action to which everyone will subscribe and which will give our organization the authority it needs. To this end, we must match words with deeds at each one of our meetings. I am sure His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari will leave his mark on the upcoming phase. I know how determined he is and also how capable he is of convincing and uniting people in order to create the necessary momentum to root out corrupt practices at all levels. By winning this battle, we will shape the Africa we want to bequeath to our children: a prosperous, solidarity-based Africa that is at peace with itself. Thank you.

George Galloway: 'You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported', defence to US Senate - 2005

17 May 2005, Washington DC, USA

Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.

I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.

You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realise played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.

Now you refer at length to a company named in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?

Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could not possibly be documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.

But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Haliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

Arthur Calwell: 'We oppose the Government’s decision to send 800 men to fight in Vietnam', Drum Beat speech - 1964

4 May 1965, Canberra, Australia

The great speechwriter, Graham Freudenberg, who wrote for Whitlam and Hawke, nominated this speech with Calwell as the best speech of his career.

The Government’s decision to send the First Battalion of the Australian Regular Army to Vietnam is, without question, one of the most significant events in the history of this Commonwealth. Why I believe this will be explained in the course of my speech. Therefore, it is a matter for regret that the Prime Minister’s announcement was made in the atmosphere that prevailed around the precincts of this Parliament last Thursday. When one recalls that even two hours before the Prime Minister rose to make his statement it was being said on his behalf that there was no certainty that any statement would be made at all, it can hardly be said that the Government’s handling of the matter was designed to inspire confidence or trust.

However, I do not wish to dwell on that unhappy episode. The matter before us is far too important to allow anything to obscure or confuse the basic issue before us. The over-riding issue which this Parliament has to deal with at all times is the nation’s security. All our words, all our policies, all our actions, must be judged ultimately by this one crucial test: What best promotes our national security, what best guarantees our national survival? It is this test which the Labor Party has applied to the Government’s decision. We have, of course, asked ourselves other related questions, but basically the issue remains one of Australia’s security. Therefore, on behalf of all my colleagues of Her Majesty’s Opposition, I say that we oppose the Government’s decision to send 800 men to fight in Vietnam. We oppose it firmly and completely.

We regret the necessity that has come about. We regret that as a result of the Government’s action it has come about. It is not our desire, when servicemen are about to be sent to distant battlefields, and when war, cruel, costly and interminable, stares us in the face, that the nation should be divided. But it is the Government which has brought this tragic situation about and we will not shirk our responsibilities in stating the views we think serve Australia best. Our responsibility, like that of the Government, is great but, come what may, we will do our duty as we see it and know it to be towards the people of Australia and our children’s children. Therefore, I say, we oppose this decision firmly and completely.

We do not think it is a wise decision. We do not think it is a timely decision. We do not think it is a right decision. We do not think it will help the fight against Communism. On the contrary, we believe it will harm that fight in the long term. We do not believe it will promote the welfare of the people of Vietnam. On the contrary, we believe it will prolong and deepen the suffering of that unhappy people so that Australia’s very name may become a term of reproach among them. We do not believe that it represents a wise or even intelligent response to the challenge of Chinese power. On the contrary, we believe it mistakes entirely the nature of that power, and that it materially assists China in her subversive aims. Indeed, we cannot conceive a decision by this Government more likely to promote the long term interests of China in Asia and the Pacific. We of the Labor Party do not believe that this decision serves, or is consistent with, the immediate strategic interests of Australia. On the contrary, we believe that, by sending one quarter of our pitifully small effective military strength to distant Vietnam, this Government dangerously denudes Australia and its immediate strategic environs of effective defence power. Thus, for all these and other reasons, we believe we have no choice but to oppose this decision in the name of Australia and of Australia’s security.

I propose to show that the Government’s decision rests on three false assumptions: An erroneous view of the nature of the war in Vietnam; a failure to understand the nature of the Communist challenge; and a false notion as to the interests of America and her allies. No debate on the Government’s decision can proceed, or even begin, unless we make an attempt to understand the nature of the war in Vietnam. Indeed, this is the crux of the matter; for unless we understand the nature of the war, we cannot understand what Australia’s correct role in it should be.

The Government takes the grotesquely over-simplified position that this is a straightforward case of aggression from North Vietnam against an independent South Vietnam. In the Government’s view, such internal subversion as there may be in South Vietnam is directed and operated from the North; that is to say, the Communist insurgents – the Vietcong – are merely the agents of the North, recruited in the North, trained in the North, instructed by the North, supplied from the North and infiltrated from the North.

The Government then takes this theory a little further by cleverly pointing to the undoubted fact that just as Communist North Vietnam lies north of South Vietnam, so Communist China lies north of North Vietnam. Thus, according to this simplified, not to say simple, theory, everything falls into place and the whole operation becomes, in the Prime Minister’s words ”part of a thrust by Communist China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans”. And by this reasoning, the very map of Asia itself becomes a kind of conspiracy of geography against Australia.

But is this picture of Chinese military aggression thrusting down inexorably through Indo China, Malaysia and Indonesia to Australia a true or realistic one? Does it state the true nature of the Chinese threat? Does it speak the truth of the actual situation in Vietnam? Does it tell the truth about the relation between China and North Vietnam? I believe it does not. I propose to show that it does not. If it is not true, then the Government is basing its entire policy on false premises, and I can imagine no greater threat to the security of this nation than that.

Let us first examine the case of South Vietnam itself. It is a gross and misleading over-simplification to depict this war in simple terms of military aggression from the North. That there has long been, and still is, aggression from the North and subversion inspired from the North, I do not for one moment deny. But the war in South Vietnam, the war to which we are sending this one battalion as a beginning in our commitment, is also a civil war and it is a guerrilla war. The great majority of the Vietcong are South Vietnamese. The object of the Vietcong in the war – this guerrilla war – is to avoid as far as possible direct entanglement with massed troops in order that by infiltration, subversion and terrorism, they may control villages, hamlets, outposts and small communities wherever these are most vulnerable. This, like all civil wars and all guerilla wars, has been accompanied by unusual savagery. This war has a savagery and a record of atrocities, with savage inhumanity daily perpetrated by both sides, all of its own. We cannot condemn the atrocities of the one without condemning those of the other. We of the Labor Party abhor and condemn both, as we condemn all atrocities. I repeat: The war in South Vietnam is a civil war, aided and abetted by the North Vietnamese Government, but neither created nor principally maintained by it. To call it simply “foreign aggression” as the Prime Minister does, and as his colleagues do, is to misrepresent the facts and, thereby, confuse the issue with which we must ultimately come to terms.

The people of Vietnam may, therefore, be divided into three kinds: Those who support the present Government and are actively anti-Communist; those who are Communist and of whom the Vietcong are actively and openly engaged in subversion; and those who are indifferent. I have not the slightest doubt that the overwhelming majority of the ordinary people of Vietnam fall into the last category. They watch uncomprehendingly the ebb and flow of this frightful war around them, and as each day threatens some new horror, they become even more uncomprehending. And because this is so, our policy of creating a democatic anti-Communist South Vietnam has failed. That failure can possibly be reversed, but it cannot be reversed by military means alone. Ten years ago, anti-Communism was fairly strong in Vietnam. For some years, the late President Ngo Dinh Diem did represent and organise resistance against Communism. When he had support, he was brought here, feted, and seated in honour on the very floor of this chamber. When his regime, becoming increasingly corrupt and irrelevant to the needs of the people, lost that support, he was murdered. Not a word of regret, of sorrow or sympathy was said by members of the Australian Government in memory of him whom they once hailed as the saviour of his country, though, indeed some of the Government extremist supporters outside this Parliament charged President Kennedy with having approved his murder, and Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, among others, with actually planning it.

What support has the present Government, the eighth or ninth regime since the murder of Diem 18 months ago? It has no basis of popular support, It presumably has the support of the Army, or the ruling junta of the Army. It will fall and be replaced when it loses the support of the ruling junta, or when that junta itself is replaced by another. That has happened eight or nine times in the past year and a half. The Americans have supported four of the governments of South Vietnam and have opposed the other four. There is not one jot or tittle of evidence to support the belief that is being sedulously fostered in this country that the local population cares one iota whether it happens again eight or nine times in the coming 18 months. The Government of South Vietnam does not base itself on popular support. Yet this is the Government at whose request, and in whose support, we are to commit a battalion of Australian fighting men. And we are told we are doing this in the name of the free and independent Government and people of South Vietnam. I do not believe it, and neither does anybody else who considers the matter with any degree of intelligence.

The Prime Minister points to increasing support from North Vietnam as being a totally new factor in the situation. I agree that the pace of North Vietnamese aggression – and that is the only term for it – has increased, though estimates as to its extent vary considerably. The Prime Minister speaks of 10,000 infiltrators last year. The American White Paper on the subject put the figure at 4,000-odd certain, and 3,000 more estimated – at the outside 7,300. And yet I am bound to say that the evidence of that White Paper does not seem to bear out its own assertions. The thesis of the White Paper was that the war in Vietnam could be fully explained in terms of Northern aggression. Yet the report of the International Control Commission, quoted in the White Paper, listed, as having been captured from the Vietcong between 1962 and 1964, three rifles of Chinese origin, 46 of Russian origin, 40 sub-machine guns and 26 rifles of Czech origin, and 26 weapons of all kinds of North Vietnamese origin. Other weapons are in proportion. All this for a force of some estimated 100,000 men who have waged war successfully for years against 500,000 troops.

Now this does not seem to me to support the theory that in past years the efforts of the Vietcong were mainly dependent on supplies from the North. And even if we accept the view that Northern support has substantially increased in recent months, it cannot lend any credence to the belief that the Vietcong effort will collapse if this new, increased support is cut off. The more the Government relies on the theory of increased Northern support, as a basis for its actions, the more difficulty it must have in explaining away the successes of the Vietcong in the past when, as it maintains, Northern support was comparatively small. If it believes that it is simply a question of aggression from the North, and that all will be solved when that aggression is stopped, then it is deluding itself, and is trying to delude the Australian people as well.

Against the background of these facts, we can judge the true significance of the Australian commitment. The Government will try, indeed it has already tried, to project a picture in which once the aggressive invaders from the North are halted, our men will be engaged in the exercise of picking off the Vietcong, themselves invaders from the North and stranded from their bases and isolated from their supplies. But it will not be like that at all. Our men will be fighting the largely indigenous Vietcong in their own home territory. They will be fighting in the midst of a largely indifferent, if not resentful, and frightened population. They will be fighting at the request of, and in support, and presumably, under the direction of an unstable, inefficient, partially corrupt military regime which lacks even the semblance of being, or becoming, democratically based. But, it will be said, even if this is true, that there are far larger considerations. China must be stopped, the United States must not be humiliated in Asia. I agree wholeheartedly with both those propositions.

But this also I must say: Our present course is playing right into China’s hands, and our present policy will, if not changed, surely and inexorably lead to American humiliation in Asia. Communist China will use every means at her disposal to increase her power and influence. But her existing military machine is not well adapted to that objective. It is not so at this moment and it may not be so for the next ten years. Therefore, she chooses other means. Yet we have preferred to look at China mainly in terms of a military threat and thus have neglected to use other, far more effective weapons at our disposal, or, because of our preoccupation with the military threat, we have used those weapons badly and clumsily. We talk about the lesson of Munich as if we had never learnt a single lesson since 1938.

Preoccupied with the fear of a military Munich, we have suffered a score of moral Dunkirks. Preoccupied with the military threat of Chinese Communism, we have channelled the great bulk of our aid to Asia towards military expenditure. Preoccupied with the idea of monolithic, imperialistic Communism, we have channelled our support to those military regimes which were loudest in their professions of anti-Communism, no matter how reactionary, unpopular or corrupt they may have been. Preoccupied with fear of Communist revolution, we have supported and sought to support those who would prevent any sort of revolution, even when inevitable; and even when most needful. Preoccupied with so-called Western interests, we have never successfully supported nationalism as the mighty force it is against Communism. We have supported nationalism only when it supported the West, and we have thereby pushed nationalism towards Communism. Preoccupied with the universality of our own Christian beliefs, we have never tried to understand the power of the other great world religions against Communism.

Each of those preoccupations has worked for our defeat in Vietnam, and is working for our defeat in Asia, Africa and South America. And herein lies one of the greatest dangers of the Government’s decision on large-scale military commitments. It blinds and obscures the real nature of the problem of Communist expansion. It lends support and encouragement to those who see the problem in purely military terms, and whose policies would, if ever adopted, lead to disaster. Here is the real risk of the world nuclear war feared by the Minister for External Affairs (Mr. Hasluck). In his speech to the South East Asia Treaty Organisation yesterday he said the third world war could break out tomorrow in South Vietnam. If the idea of military containment is unsuccessful, as I believe it will surely prove in the long term, as it has already in the short term, it will contribute to that spirit of defeatism and impotence in the face of Communism. That is the greatest enemy we have to fear.

We are not impotent in the fight against Communism. We are not powerless against China, if we realise that the true nature of the threat from China is not military invasion but political subversion. And that threat, if we believe for one moment in our own professions, and in our own principles, we can fight and beat. But to exhaust our resources in the bottomless pit of jungle warfare, in a war in which we have not even defined our purpose honestly, or explained what we would accept as victory, is the very height of folly and the very depths of despair.

Humiliation for America could come in one of two ways – either by outright defeat, which is unlikely, or by her becoming interminably bogged down in the awful morass of this war, as France was for ten years. That situation would in turn lead to one of two things – withdrawal through despair, or all out war, through despair. Both these would be equally disastrous. What would be the objective of an all out war? It could only be the destruction of the North Vietnamese regime. And what would that create? It would create a vacuum. America can destroy the regime, but it cannot conquer and hold North Vietnam, and into that vacuum China would undoubtedly move. Thus, if that happened, we would have replaced a nationalistic communist regime – in a country with a thousand years history of hostility towards China – with actual Chinese occupation, and either we would have to accept this disaster or face the even greater disaster of all out war with China.

This is the terrible prospect which people like the Prime Minister of Britain, the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Prime Minister of Canada and Pope Paul have seen, and which they are trying to avert. They all are true friends of the United States of America, and they do not want to see America humiliated. That is why they have called for negotiations – negotiations while the United States remains in a position of comparative strength, negotiations while she is in a position to influence terms. Yet at the very time when the great weight of Western opinion calls for a pause, Australia says there must be no pause for reflection, no pause for reconsideration. The role of Australia should have been to support the call for negotiations and help those who were working towards them. Nobody underestimates the difficulties and dangers of negotiation. That is why we understood and sympathised with American efforts to secure a stronger base for negotiations.

By its decision, the Australian Government has withdrawn unilaterally from the ranks of the negotiators, if indeed it was ever concerned about them. Our contribution will be negligible, militarily. But we have reduced ourselves to impotence in the field of diplomacy. We should have been active in the field of diplomacy for a long time. But we have done nothing in that field of affairs. It is true that President Johnson’s cautious call for ” unconditional negotiations ” at Baltimore has been rejected by Hanoi and Peking. But if we accept the Prime Minister’s assurance that the decision to send a battalion to Vietnam was taken “several weeks ago “, then that rejection had nothing to do with the Government’s decision. For on the Prime Minister’s own claim, the decision was made before both the President’s offer and its rejection by the Communists.

This goes far to explain the Prime Minister’s abrupt and brutal denunciation of the principle of negotiations three weeks ago. It explains his elaborate attempts to refute the bishops. Australia’s aim should have been to help end the war, not to extend it. We have now lost all power to help end it. Instead, we have declared our intention to extend it, insofar as lies in our power. We have committed ourselves to the propositions that Communism can be defeated by military means alone and that it is the function of European troops to impose the will of the West upon Asia. These are dangerous, delusive and disastrous propositions. The Prime Minister pays lip service to President Johnson’s call for a massive aid programme, financed by all the industrialised nations, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But it is clear that the right honorable gentleman’s real thinking, and that of his Government, run only along the narrow groove of a military response.

The dispatch of a battalion of Australian troops to South Vietnam is the outcome of that thinking. By this decision, we set our face towards war as the correct means of opposing Communism, and declare against the social, economic and political revolution that alone can effectively combat Communism. The key to the future of IndoChina is the Mekong River delta and valley. The Communists understand this well. But imagine the thundering reply we could give to Communism if, under the auspices of the United Nations, we were to join in a vastly increased programme for the reclamation and development of the Mekong. The work has started, and it goes on, despite the war. But how much more could be done if we were really determined to turn our resources from war to peace. This surely is the key to the door of hope which President Johnson spoke of in his Baltimore speech. But this Government has closed the door and thrown away the key.

I cannot refrain from making an observation about Australia’s trade with China. It is obvious that the Government’s decision, and particularly the grounds upon which the Government justifies its decision, raise in a particularly acute form the moral issue connected with this trade. The Government justifies its action on the ground of Chinese expansionist aggression. And yet this same Government is willing to continue and expand trade in strategic materials with China. We are selling wheat, wool and steel to China. The wheat is used to feed the armies of China. The wool is used to clothe the armies of China. The steel is used to equip the armies of China. Yet the Government which is willing to encourage this trade is the same Government which now sends Australian troops, in the words of the Prime Minister, to prevent ” the downward thrust of China “. The Government may be able to square its conscience on this matter, but this is logically and morally impossible.

Finally, there is the question of Australia’s immediate strategic concern. It is only a few weeks since both the Prime Minister and the Minister for External Affairs spoke of the need for priorities, and they both made it plain that our first priority was the defence of Malaysia. A short time ago, the Government informed the United Kingdom and the Malaysian Governments that it was not possible to spare another battalion from our already strained resources. Now they have found a battalion for service in Vietnam. Thus, our troops are involved on several fronts. We are the only country in the world fighting on two fronts in South East Asia. America is committed to Vietnam. Britain is committed to Malaysia. Australia, with its limited resources, with its meagre defences, has obligations in Vietnam, Malaya, Borneo and New Guinea. The commitments are apparently without end, in size and in number.

How long will it be before we are drawing upon our conscript youth to service these growing and endless requirements? Does the Government now say that conscripts will not be sent? If so, has it completely forgotten what it said about conscription last year? The basis of that decision was that the new conscripts would be completely integrated in the Regular Army. The voluntary system was brought abruptly to an end. If the Government now says that conscripts will not be sent, this means that the 1st Battalion is never to be reinforced, replaced or replenished. If this is not so, then the Government must have a new policy on the use of conscripts – a policy not yet announced. Or, if it has not changed its policy, the Government means that the 1st Battalion is not to be reinforced, replaced or replenished from the resources of the existing Regular Army. Which is it to be? There is now a commitment of 800. As the war drags on, who is to say that this will not rise to 8,000, and that these will not be drawn from our voteless, conscripted 20 year olds? And where are the troops from America’s other allies? It is plain that Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Japan, for example, do not see things with the clear-cut precision of the Australian Government.

I cannot close without addressing a word directly to our fighting men who are now by this decision, committed to the chances of war: Our hearts and prayers are with you. Our minds and reason cannot support those who have made the decision to send you to this war, and we shall do our best to have that decision reversed. But we shall do our duty to the utmost in supporting you to do your duty. In terms of everything that an army in the field requires, we shall never deny you the aid and support that it is your right to expect in the service of your country. To the members of the Government, I say only this: If, by the process of misrepresentation of our motives, in which you are so expert, you try to further divide this nation for political purposes, yours will be a dreadful responsibility, and you will have taken a course which you will live to regret.

And may I, through you, Mr. Speaker, address this message to the members of my own Party – my colleagues here in this Parliament, and that vast band of Labor men and women outside: The course we have agreed to take today is fraught with difficulty. I cannot promise you that easy popularity can be bought in times like these; nor are we looking for it. We are doing our duty as we see it. When the drums beat and the trumpets sound, the voice of reason and right can be heard in the land only with difficulty. But if we are to have the courage of our convictions, then we must do our best to make that voice heard. I offer you the probability that you will be traduced, that your motives will be misrepresented, that your patriotism will be impugned, that your courage will be called into question. But I also offer you the sure and certain knowledge that we will be vindicated; that generations to come will record with gratitude that when a reckless Government willfully endangered the security of this nation, the voice of the Australian Labor Party was heard, strong and clear, on the side of sanity and in the cause of humanity, and in the interests of Australia’s security.

Let me sum up. We believe that America must not be humiliated and must not be forced to withdraw. But we are convinced that sooner or later the dispute in Vietnam must be settled through the councils of the United Nations. If it is necessary to back with a peace force the authority of the United Nations, we would support Australian participation to the hilt. But we believe that the military involvement in the present form decided on by the Australian Government represents a threat to Australia’s standing in Asia, to our power for good in Asia and above all to the security of this nation.

Donald Trump: 'So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue', rally speech before Capitol riot - 2021

6 January 2021, Washington DC, USA

Well, thank you very much. This is incredible.

Media will not show the magnitude of this crowd. Even I, when I turned on today, I looked, and I saw thousands of people here. But you don't see hundreds of thousands of people behind you because they don't want to show that.

We have hundreds of thousands of people here and I just want them to be recognized by the fake news media. Turn your cameras please and show what's really happening out here because these people are not going to take it any longer. They're not going to take it any longer. Go ahead. Turn your cameras, please. Would you show? They came from all over the world, actually, but they came from all over our country.

I just really want to see what they do. I just want to see how they covered. I've never seen anything like it. But it would be really great if we could be covered fairly by the media. The media is the biggest problem we have as far as I'm concerned, single biggest problem. The fake news and the Big tech.

Big tech is now coming into their own. We beat them four years ago. We surprised them. We took them by surprise and this year they rigged an election. They rigged it like they've never rigged an election before. And by the way, last night they didn't do a bad job either if you notice.

I'm honest. And I just, again, I want to thank you. It's just a great honor to have this kind of crowd and to be before you and hundreds of thousands of American patriots who are committed to the honesty of our elections and the integrity of our glorious republic.

All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they're doing. And stolen by the fake news media. That's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved.

Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal. Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election.

You know, I say, sometimes jokingly, but there's no joke about it: I've been in two elections. I won them both and the second one, I won much bigger than the first. OK. Almost 75 million people voted for our campaign, the most of any incumbent president by far in the history of our country, 12 million more people than four years ago.

And I was told by the real pollsters — we do have real pollsters — they know that we were going to do well and we were going to win. What I was told, if I went from 63 million, which we had four years ago, to 66 million, there was no chance of losing. Well, we didn't go to 66, we went to 75 million, and they say we lost. We didn't lose.

And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It's a disgrace. There's never been anything like that. You could take third-world countries. Just take a look. Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we've been going through in this country. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace.

Even when you look at last night. They're all running around like chickens with their heads cut off with boxes. Nobody knows what the hell is going on. There's never been anything like this.

We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen, I'm not going to let it happen.

(Audience chants: "Fight for Trump.")

Thank you.

And I'd love to have if those tens of thousands of people would be allowed. The military, the secret service. And we want to thank you and the police law enforcement. Great. You're doing a great job. But I'd love it if they could be allowed to come up here with us. Is that possible? Can you just let him come up, please?

And Rudy, you did a great job. He's got guts. You know what? He's got guts, unlike a lot of people in the Republican Party. He's got guts. He fights, he fights.

And I'll tell you. Thank you very much, John. Fantastic job. I watched. That's a tough act to follow, those two. John is one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country, and he looked at this and he said, "What an absolute disgrace that this can be happening to our Constitution."

And he looked at Mike Pence, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so.

Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.

States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.

And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen.

Many of you have traveled from all across the nation to be here, and I want to thank you for the extraordinary love. That's what it is. There's never been a movement like this, ever, ever. For the extraordinary love for this amazing country, and this amazing movement, thank you.

(Audience chants: "We love Trump.")

By the way, this goes all the way back past the Washington Monument. You believe this? Look at this. That is. Unfortunately gave, they gave the press the prime seats. I can't stand that.

No. But you look at that behind. I wish they'd flip those cameras and look behind you. That is the most amazing sight. When they make a mistake, you get to see it on television. Amazing. Amazing. All the way back.

And don't worry, we will not take the name off the Washington Monument. We will not cancel culture.

You know they wanted to get rid of the Jefferson Memorial. Either take it down or just put somebody else in there. I don't think that's going to happen. It damn well better not. Although, with this administration, if this happens, it could happen. You'll see some really bad things happen.

They'll knock out Lincoln too, by the way. They've been taking his statue down. But then we signed a little law. You hurt our monuments, you hurt our heroes, you go to jail for 10 years, and everything stopped. You notice that? It stopped. It all stopped.

And they could use Rudy back in New York City. Rudy. They could use you. Your city's going to hell. They want Rudy Giuliani back in New York. We'll get a little younger version of Rudy. Is that OK, Rudy?

We're gathered together in the heart of our nation's capital for one very, very basic and simple reason: To save our democracy.

You know most candidates on election evening and, of course, this thing goes on so long. They still don't have any idea what the votes are. We still have congressional seats under review. They have no idea. They've totally lost control. They've used the pandemic as a way of defrauding the people in a proper election.

But you know, you know, when you see this and when you see what's happening. Number one, they all say, "Sir, we'll never let it happen again." I said, "That's good. But what about eight weeks ago?" You know they try and get you to go.

They said, "Sir, in four years, you're guaranteed." I said: "I'm not interested right now. Do me a favor, go back eight weeks. I want to go back eight weeks. Let's go back eight weeks."

We want to go back and we want to get this right because we're going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed and we're not going to stand for that.

For years, Democrats have gotten away with election fraud and weak Republicans. And that's what they are. There's so many weak Republicans. And we have great ones. Jim Jordan and some of these guys, they're out there fighting. The House guys are fighting. But it's, it's incredible.

Many of the Republicans, I helped them get in, I helped them get elected. I helped Mitch get elected. I helped. I could name 24 of them, let's say, I won't bore you with it. And then all of a sudden you have something like this. It's like, "Oh gee, maybe I'll talk to the president sometime later." No, it's amazing.

They're weak Republicans, they're pathetic Republicans and that's what happens.

If this happened to the Democrats, there'd be hell all over the country going on. There'd be hell all over the country. But just remember this: You're stronger, you're smarter, you've got more going than anybody. And they try and demean everybody having to do with us. And you're the real people, you're the people that built this nation. You're not the people that tore down our nation.

The weak Republicans, and that's it. I really believe it. I think I'm going to use the term, the weak Republicans. You've got a lot of them. And you got a lot of great ones. But you got a lot of weak ones. They've turned a blind eye, even as Democrats enacted policies that chipped away our jobs, weakened our military, threw open our borders and put America last.

Did you see the other day where Joe Biden said, I want to get rid of the America First policy? What's that all about? Get rid of. How do you say I want to get rid of America First? Even if you're going to do it, don't talk about it, right? Unbelievable what we have to go through. What we have to go through.

And you have to get your people to fight. And if they don't fight, we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don't fight. You primary them. We're going to. We're going to let you know who they are. I can already tell you, frankly.

But this year, using the pretext of the China virus and the scam of mail-in ballots, Democrats attempted the most brazen and outrageous election theft and there's never been anything like this. So pure theft in American history. Everybody knows it.

That election, our election was over at 10 o'clock in the evening. We're leading Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, by hundreds of thousands of votes.

And then late in the evening, or early in the morning, boom, these explosions of bull****.

And all of a sudden. All of a sudden it started to happen.

(Audience chants: "Bull****.")

Don't forget when Romney got beat. Romney, hey. Did you see his? I wonder if he enjoyed his flight in last night. But when Romney got beaten, you know, he stands up like you're more typical, "Well, I'd like to congratulate the victor." The victor? Who is the victor, Mitt? "I'd like to congratulate." They don't go and look at the facts. No, I don't know. He got, he got slaughtered. Probably, maybe it was OK, maybe it was. But that's what happened.

But we look at the facts and our election was so corrupt that in the history of this country we've never seen anything like it. You can go all the way back.

You know, America is blessed with elections. All over the world they talk about our elections. You know what the world says about us now? They said, we don't have free and fair elections.

And you know what else? We don't have a free and fair press. Our media is not free, it's not fair. It suppresses thought, it suppresses speech and it's become the enemy of the people. It's become the enemy of the people. It's the biggest problem we have in this country.

No third-world countries would even attempt to do what we caught them doing. And you'll hear about that in just a few minutes.

Republicans are, Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It's like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we're going to have to fight much harder.

And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.

Now, it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you, we're going to walk down, we're going to walk down.

Anyone you want, but I think right here, we're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.

Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.

I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.

Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections. But whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country. Our country has been under siege for a long time. Far longer than this four-year period. We've set it on a much greater course. So much, and we, I thought, you know, four more years. I thought it would be easy.

We've created the greatest economy in history. We rebuilt our military. We get you the biggest tax cuts in history. Right? We got you the biggest regulation cuts. There's no president, whether it's four years, eight years or in one case more, got anywhere near the regulation cuts.

Used to take 20 years to get a highway approved, now we're down to two. I want to get it down to one, but we're down to two. And it may get rejected for environmental or safety reasons, but we got it down to safety.

We created Space Force, We, we, we. Look at what we did. Our military has been totally rebuilt. So we create Space Force which, by and of itself, is a major achievement for an administration. And with us it's one of so many different things.

Right to Try. Everybody know about Right to Try. We did things that nobody ever thought possible. We took care of our vets, our vets. The VA now has the highest rating, 91%. The highest rating that it's had from the beginning, 91% approval rating. Always, you watch the VA, it was on television every night, people living in a horrible, horrible manner. We got that done. We got accountability done. We got it so that now in the VA, you don't have to wait for four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, four months to see a doctor. If you can't get a doctor, you go outside, you get the doctor. You have it taken care of and we pay the doctor.

And we've not only made life wonderful for so many people, we've saved tremendous amounts of money, far secondarily, but we've saved a lot of money. And now we have the right to fire bad people in the VA. We had 9,000 people that treated our veterans horribly. In primetime, they would not have treated our veterans badly. But they treated our veterans horribly.

And we have what's called the account, VA Accountability Act. And the accountability says if we see somebody in there that doesn't treat our vets well or they steal, they rob, they do things badly, we say: "Joe you're fired. Get out of here." Before you couldn't do that. You couldn't do that before.

So we've taken care of things, we've done things like nobody's ever thought possible. And that's part of the reason that many people don't like us, because we've done too much.

But we've done it quickly and we were going to sit home and watch a big victory and everybody had us down for a victory. It was going to be great and now we're out here fighting. I said to somebody, I was going to take a few days and relax after our big electoral victory. 10 o'clock it was over. But I was going to take a few days.

And I can say this. Since our election, I believe, which was such a catastrophe, when I watch. And even these guys knew what happened. They know what happened. They're saying: "Wow, Pennsylvania's insurmountable. Wow, Wisconsin." Look at the big leads we had, right. Even though the press said we would lose Wisconsin by 17 points. Even though the press said, Ohio's going to be close, we set a record; Florida's going to be close, we set a record; Texas is going to be close, Texas is going to be close, we set a record.

And we set a record with Hispanic, with the Black community, we set a record with everybody.

Today we see a very important event though. Because right over there, right there, we see the event going to take place. And I'm going to be watching. Because history is going to be made. We're going to see whether or not we have great and courageous leaders, or whether or not we have leaders that should be ashamed of themselves throughout history, throughout eternity they'll be ashamed.

And you know what? If they do the wrong thing, we should never, ever forget that they did. Never forget. We should never ever forget.

With only three of the seven states in question, we win the presidency of the United States. And by the way, it's much more important today than it was 24 hours ago, because I don't. I spoke to David Perdue, what a great person, and Kelly Loeffler, two great people, but it was a setup.

And you know, I said, "We have no backline anymore." The only backline, the only line of demarcation, the only line that we have is the veto of the president of the United States. So this is now, what we're doing, a far more important election than it was two days ago.

I want to thank the more than 140 members of the House. Those are warriors. They're over there working like you've never seen before. Studying, talking, actually going all the way back, studying the roots of the Constitution, because they know we have the right to send a bad vote that was illegally gotten.

They gave these people bad things to vote for and they voted because what did they know? And then when they found out a few weeks later, again, it took them four years to devise this screen.

And the only unhappy person in the United States, single most unhappy, is Hillary Clinton. Because she said: "Why didn't you do this for me four years ago? Why didn't you do this for me four years ago? Change the votes, 10,000 in Michigan. You could have changed the whole thing." But she's not too happy. You know, you don't see her anymore. What happened? Where's Hillary? Where is she?

But I want to thank all of those congressmen and women. I also want to thank our 13, most courageous members of the U.S. Senate. Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Ron Johnson, Senator Josh Hawley, Kelly Loeffler.

And Kelly Loeffler, I'll tell you, she has been, she's been so great. She worked so hard. So let's give her and David a little special hand because it was rigged against them. Let's give her and David.

Kelly Loeffler, David Purdue. They fought a good race. They never had a shot. That equipment should never have been allowed to be used, and I was telling these people don't let him use this stuff.

Marsha Blackburn, terrific person. Mike Braun, Indiana. Steve Daines, great guy. Bill Hagerty, John Kennedy, James Lankford, Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, the coach, and Roger Marshall. We want to thank them. Senators that stepped up, we want to thank them.

I actually think though, it takes, again, more courage not to step up, and I think a lot of those people are going to find that out and you better start looking at your leadership, because your leadership has led you down the tubes.

You know, we don't want to give $2,000 to people. We want to give them $600. Oh, great. How does that play politically? Pretty good? And this has nothing to do with politics, but how does it play politically?

China destroyed these people. We didn't destroy. China destroy them, totally destroyed them. We want to give them $600 and they just wouldn't change.

I said give them $2,000, we'll pay it back. We'll pay it back fast. You already owe 26 trillion, give them a couple of bucks. Let them live. Give them a couple of bucks. And some of the people here disagree with me on that, but I just say, "Look, you've got to let people live."

And how does that play though? OK. Number one, it's the right thing to do. But how does that play politically? I think it's the primary reason, one of the primary reasons, the other was just pure cheating. That was the primary, super primary reason. But you can't do that, you got to use your head.

As you know, the media has constantly asserted the outrageous lie that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Have you ever seen these people? While there is no evidence of fraud. Oh, really? Well, I'm going to read you pages. I hope you don't get bored listening to it. Promise? Don't get bored listening to it, all those hundreds of thousands of people back there. Move them up, please, yeah.

All they, all these people, don't get bored, don't get angry at me because you're going to get bored because it's so much.

The American people do not believe the corrupt, fake news anymore. They have ruined their reputation. But you know, it used to be that they'd argue with me. I'd fight. So I'd fight, they'd fight, I'd fight, they'd fight. Pop pop. You'd believe me, you'd believe them. Somebody comes out. You know, they had their point of view, I had my point of view, but you'd have an argument.

Now what they do is they go silent. It's called suppression and that's what happens in a communist country. That's what they do, they suppress. You don't fight with them anymore. Unless it's a bad story. They have a little bad story about me, they make it 10 times worse and it's a major headline.

But Hunter Biden, they don't talk about him. What happened to Hunter? Where's Hunter? Where's Hunter? They don't talk about him. They'll watch, all the sets will go off. Well, they can't do that because they get good ratings. Their ratings are too good. Now, where's Hunter? You know.

And how come Joe is allowed to give a billion dollars of money to get rid of the prosecutor in Ukraine? How does that happen? I'd ask you that question. How does that happen? Can you imagine if I said that? If I said that it would be a whole different ballgame.

And how come Hunter gets three and a half million dollars from the mayor of Moscow's wife, and gets hundreds of thousands of dollars to sit on an energy board, even though he admits he has no knowledge of energy? And millions of dollars up front.

And how come they go into China and they leave with billions of dollars to manage. "Have you managed money before?" "No, I haven't." "Oh, that's good. Here's about 3 billion." No, they don't talk about that.

No, we have a corrupt media. They've gone silent. They've gone dead. I now realize how good it was if you go back 10 years, I realized how good, even though I didn't necessarily love them, I realized how good. It was like a cleansing motion, right?

But we don't have that anymore. We don't have a fair media anymore. It's suppression. And you have to be very careful with that and they've lost all credibility in this country.

We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we've been forced to believe.

Over the past several weeks, we've amassed overwhelming evidence about a fake election. This is the presidential election. Last night was a little bit better because of the fact that we had a lot of eyes watching one specific state, but they cheated like hell anyway.

You have one of the dumbest governors in the United States. And you know when I endorsed him, and I didn't know this guy, at the request of David Perdue, he said, "Friend of mine's running for governor." "What's his name?" And you know the rest. He was in fourth place, fifth place. I don't know, he was, he was doing poorly. I endorse him, he went like a rocket ship and he won.

And then I had to beat Stacey Abrams with this guy, Brian Kemp. I had to beat Stacey Abrams. And I had to beat Oprah, used to be a friend of mine. You know, I was on her last show, her last week, she picked the five outstanding people. I don't think she thinks that any more. Once I ran for president, I didn't notice there were too many calls coming in from Oprah. Believe it or not, she used to like me. But I was one of the five outstanding people.

And I had a campaign against Michelle Obama and Barack Hussein Obama, against Stacey.

And I had Brian Kemp, who weighs 130 pounds. He said he played offensive line in football. I'm trying to figure that out. I'm still trying to figure that out. He said that the other night, "I was an offensive lineman." I'm saying: "Really? That must have been a very small team." But I look at that and I look at what's happened and he turned out to be a disaster. This stuff happens.

You know, look, I'm not happy with the Supreme Court. They love to rule against me. I picked three people. I fought like hell for them. One in particular, I fought. They all said, "Sir, cut him loose." He's killing the senators. You know, very loyal senators, they're very loyal people, "Sir, cut him loose, he's killing us, sir, cut him loose." I must have gotten half of the senators.

I said: "No, I can't do that, it's unfair to him and it's unfair to the family. He didn't do anything wrong." They made up stories, they're all made-up stories. He didn't do anything wrong. "Cut him loose, sir." I said, "No, I won't do that. We got him through." And you know what, they couldn't give a damn. They couldn't give a damn. Let him rule the right way.

But it almost seems that they're all going out of their way to hurt all of us and to hurt our country. To hurt our country.

You know, I read a story in one of the newspapers recently how I control the three Supreme Court justices. I control them. They're puppets.

I read it about Bill Barr, that he's my personal attorney. That he'll do anything for me. And I said, "You know, it really is genius." Because what they do is that, and it makes it really impossible for them to ever give you a victory, because all of a sudden Bill Barr changed. If you hadn't noticed. I like Bill Barr, but he changed, because he didn't want to be considered my personal attorney.

And the Supreme Court, they rule against me so much. You know why? Because the story is — I haven't spoken to any of them, any of them, since virtually they got in — but the story is that they're my puppets. Right? That they're puppets.

And now the only way they can get out of that because they hate that it's not good in the social circuit. And the only way they get out is to rule against Trump. So let's rule against Trump. And they do that. So I want to congratulate them.

But it shows you the media's genius. In fact, probably if I was the media, I'd do it the same way. I hate to say it. But we got to get them straightened out.

Today, for the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our Constitution, and for the sake of our children, we lay out the case for the entire world to hear. You want to hear it?

(Audience responds: "Yeah")

In every single swing state, local officials, state officials, almost all Democrats, made illegal and unconstitutional changes to election procedures without the mandated approvals by the state legislatures.

That these changes paved a way for fraud on a scale never seen before. I think we go a long way outside of our country when I say that.

So, just in a nutshell, you can't make a change or voting for a federal election unless the state legislature approves it. No judge can do it. Nobody can do it. Only a legislature.

So as an example, in Pennsylvania, or whatever, you have a Republican legislature, you have a Democrat mayor, and you have a lot of Democrats all over the place. They go to the legislature. The legislature laughs at them, says we're not going to do that. They say, thank you very much and they go and make the changes themselves, they do it anyway. And that's totally illegal. That's totally illegal. You can't do that.

In Pennsylvania, the Democrat secretary of state and the Democrat state Supreme Court justices illegally abolished the signature verification requirements just 11 days prior to the election.

So think of what they did. No longer is there signature verification. Oh, that's OK. We want voter ID by the way. But no longer is there a signature verification. Eleven days before the election they say we don't want it. You know why they don't want to? Because they want to cheat. That's the only reason.

Who would even think of that? We don't want to verify a signature?

There were over 205,000 more ballots counted in Pennsylvania. Think of this, you had 205,000 more ballots than you had voters. That means you had two. Where did they come from? You know where they came from? Somebody's imagination, whatever they needed.

So in Pennsylvania, you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters. And the number is actually much greater than that now. That was as of a week ago. And this is a mathematical impossibility unless you want to say it's a total fraud.

So Pennsylvania was defrauded. Over 8,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were cast by people whose names and dates of birth match individuals who died in 2020 and prior to the election. Think of that. Dead people, lots of dead people, thousands. And some dead people actually requested an application. That bothers me even more.

Not only are they voting, they want an application to vote. One of them was 29 years ago, died. It's incredible. Over 14,000 ballots were cast by out-of-state voters, so these are voters that don't live in this state.

And by the way, these numbers are what they call outcome-determinative, meaning these numbers far surpass. I lost by a very little bit. These numbers are massive, massive.

More than 10,000 votes in Pennsylvania were illegally counted, even though they were received after Election Day. In other words, they were received after Election Day. Let's count them anyway.

And what they did in many cases is, they did fraud. They took the date and they moved it back so that it no longer is after Election Day. And more than 60,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were reported received back. They got back before they were ever supposedly mailed out. In other words, you got the ballot back before you mailed it, which is also logically and logistically impossible, right?

Think of that one. You got the ballot back. Let's send the ballots. Oh, they've already been sent. But we got the ballot back before they were sent. I don't think that's too good, right?

Twenty-five thousand ballots in Pennsylvania were requested by nursing home residents, all in a single giant batch, not legal, indicating an enormous, illegal ballot harvesting operation. You're not allowed to do it, it's against the law.

The day before the election, the state of Pennsylvania reported the number of absentee ballots that had been sent out. Yet this number was suddenly and drastically increased by 400,000 people. It was increased, nobody knows where it came from, by 400,000 ballots, one day after the election.

It remains totally unexplained. They said, "Well, ah, we can't figure that." Now, that's many, many times what it would take to overthrow the state. Just that one element. Four hundred thousand ballots appeared from nowhere right after the election.

By the way, Pennsylvania has now seen all of this. They didn't know because it was so quick. They had a vote. They voted. But now they see all this stuff, it's all come to light. Doesn't happen that fast. And they want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.

(Audience chants: "Send it back.")

And many people in Congress want it sent back.

And think of what you're doing. Let's say you don't do it. Somebody says, "Well, we have to obey the Constitution." And you are, because you're protecting our country and you're protecting the Constitution. So you are.

But think of what happens. Let's say they're stiffs and they're stupid people, and they say, well, we really have no choice. Even though Pennsylvania and other states want to redo their votes. They want to see the numbers. They already have the numbers. Go very quickly. And they want to redo their legislature because many of these votes were taken, as I said, because it wasn't approved by their legislature. You know, that, in itself, is legal. And then you have the scam, and that's all of the things that we're talking about.

But think of this. If you don't do that, that means you will have a president of the United States for four years, with his wonderful son. You will have a president who lost all of these states. Or you will have a president, to put it another way, who was voted on by a bunch of stupid people who lost all of these states.

You will have an illegitimate president. That's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen.

These are the facts that you won't hear from the fake news media. It's all part of the suppression effort. They don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about it. In fact, when I started talking about that, I guarantee you, a lot of the television sets and a lot of those cameras went off. And that's a lot of cameras back there. But a lot of them went off.

But these are the things you don't hear about. You don't hear what you just heard. I'm going to go over a few more states. But you don't hear it by the people who want to deceive you and demoralize you and control you. Big tech, media.

Just like the suppression polls that said we're going lose Wisconsin by 17 points. Well, we won Wisconsin. They don't have it that way because they lost just by a little sliver. But they had me down the day before, Washington Post/ABC poll, down 17 points.

I called up a real pollster. I said, "What is that?" "Sir, that's called a suppression poll. I think you're going to win Wisconsin, sir."

I said, "But why don't they make it four or five points?" Because then people vote. But when you're down 17, they say, "Hey, I'm not going to waste my time. I love the president, but there's no way."

Despite that, despite that, we won Wisconsin. It's going to see. I mean, you'll see. But that's called suppression because a lot of people when they see that. It's very interesting. This pollster said, "Sir, if you're down three, four, or five people vote. When you go down 17, they say, 'Let's save. Let's go and have dinner and let's watch the presidential defeat tonight on television, darling.'"

And just like the radical left tries to blacklist you on social media. Every time I put out a tweet, that's, even if it's totally correct, totally correct, I get a flag. I get a flag.

And they also don't let you get out. You know, on Twitter, it's very hard to come onto my account. It's very hard to get out a message. They don't let the message get out nearly like they should. But I've had many people say, "I can't get on your Twitter." I don't care about Twitter. Twitter's bad news. They're all bad news.

But you know what, if you want to, if you want to get out a message and if you want to go through Big tech, social media, they are really, if you're a conservative, if you're a Republican, if you have a big voice, I guess they call it shadow banned, right? Shadow banned. They shadow ban you, and it should be illegal.

I've been telling these Republicans, get rid of Section 230. And for some reason, Mitch and the group, they don't want to put it in there and they don't realize that that's going to be the end of the Republican Party as we know it, but it's never going to be the end of us. Never. Let them get out. Let, let the weak ones get out. This is a time for strength.

They also want to indoctrinate your children in school by teaching them things that aren't so. They want to indoctrinate your children. It's all part of the comprehensive assault on our democracy, and the American people are finally standing up and saying no. This crowd is, again, a testament to it.

I did no advertising, I did nothing. You do have some groups that are big supporters. I want to thank that, Amy, and everybody. We have some incredible supporters, incredible. But we didn't do anything. This just happened. Two months ago, we had a massive crowd come down to Washington. I said, "What are they there for?" "Sir, they're there for you."

We have nothing to do with it. These groups are for, they're forming all over the United States. And we got to remember, in a year from now, you're going to start working on Congress and we got to get rid of the weak Congress, people, the ones that aren't any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world. We got to get rid of them. We got to get rid.

You know, she never wants a soldier brought home — I brought a lot of our soldiers home. I don't know, somewhat like it. They're in countries that nobody even knows the name, nobody knows where they are. They're dying. They're great, but they're dying. They're losing their arms, their legs, their face. I brought them back home, largely back home. Afghanistan, Iraq.

Remember, I used to say in the old days: "Don't go in Iraq. But if you go in, keep the oil." We didn't keep the oil. So stupid. So stupid these people. And Iraq has billions and billions of dollars now in the bank. And what did we do? We got nothing. We never get. But we do actually, we kept the oil here or we get, we did good.

We got rid of the ISIS caliphate. We got rid of plenty of different things that everybody knows and the rebuilding of our military in three years. People said it couldn't be done. And it was all made in the USA, all made in the USA, best equipment in the world.

In Wisconsin, corrupt Democrat-run cities deployed more than 500 illegal, unmanned, unsecured drop boxes, which collected a minimum of 91,000 unlawful votes. It was razor-thin, the loss. This one thing alone is much more than we would need. But there are many things.

They have these lockboxes. And, you know, they'd pick them up and they disappear for two days. People would say where's that box? They disappeared. Nobody even knew where the hell it was.

In addition, over 170,000 absentee votes were counted in Wisconsin without a valid absentee ballot application. So they had a vote, but they had no application, and that's illegal in Wisconsin. Meaning those votes were blatantly done in opposition to state law and they came 100% from Democrat areas such as Milwaukee and Madison, 100%.

In Madison, 17,000 votes were deposited in so-called human drop boxes. You know what that is, right? Where operatives stuff thousands of unsecured ballots into duffle bags on park benches across the city, in complete defiance of cease-and-desist letters from state legislature.

Your state legislatures said don't do it. They're the only ones that can approve it. They gave tens of thousands of votes. They came in in duffle bags. Where the hell did they come from?

According to eyewitness testimony, Postal Service workers in Wisconsin were also instructed to illegally backdate approximately 100,000 ballots. The margin of difference in Wisconsin was less than 20,000 votes. Each one of these things alone wins us the state. Great state. We love the state. We won the state.

In Georgia, your secretary of state who, I can't believe this guy's a Republican. He loves recording telephone conversations. You know, that was? I thought it was a great conversation personally. So did a lot of other. People love that conversation because it says what's going on.

These people are crooked. They're 100%, in my opinion, one of the most corrupt, between your governor and your secretary of state. And now you have it again last night. Just take a look at what happened. What a mess.

And the Democrat Party operatives entered into an illegal and unconstitution — unconstitutional settlement agreement that drastically weakened signature verification and other election security procedures.

Stacey Abrams. She took them to lunch. And I beat her two years ago with a bad candidate, Brian Kemp. But they took, the Democrats took the Republicans to lunch because the secretary of state had no clue what the hell was happening. Unless he did have a clue. That's interesting. Maybe he was with the other side.

But we've been trying to get verifications of signatures in Fulton County, they won't let us do it. The only reason they won't is because we'll find things in the hundreds of thousands. Why wouldn't they let us verify signatures in Fulton County, which is known for being very corrupt. They won't do it. They go to some other county where you would live.

I said, "That's not the problem." The problem is Fulton County, home of Stacey Abrams. She did a good job, I congratulate her. But it was done in such a way that we can't let this stuff happen. We won't have a country if it happens.

As a result, Georgia's absentee ballot rejection rate was more than 10 times lower than previous levels because the criteria was so off.

Forty-eight counties in Georgia, with thousands and thousands of votes, rejected zero ballots. There wasn't one ballot. In other words, in a year in which more mail-in ballots were sent than ever before, and more people were voting by mail for the first time, the rejection rate was drastically lower than it had ever been before.

The only way this can be explained is if tens of thousands of illegitimate votes were added to the tally. That's the only way you could explain it.

By the way, you're talking about tens of thousands. If Georgia had merely rejected the same number of unlawful ballots as in other years, they should have been approximately 45,000 ballots rejected. Far more than what we needed to win, just over 11,000. They should find those votes. They should absolutely find that. Just over 11,000 votes, that's all we need. They defrauded us out of a win in Georgia, and we're not going to forget it.

There's only one reason the Democrats could possibly want to eliminate signature matching, opposed voter ID, and stop citizenship confirmation. "Are you a citizenship?" You're not allowed to ask that question, because they want to steal the election.

The radical left knows exactly what they're doing. They're ruthless and it's time that somebody did something about it. And Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories.

In Fulton County, Republican poll watchers were ejected, in some cases, physically from the room under the false pretense of a pipe burst. Water main burst, everybody leave. Which we now know was a total lie.

Then election officials pull boxes, Democrats, and suitcases of ballots out from under a table. You all saw it on television, totally fraudulent. And illegally scanned them for nearly two hours, totally unsupervised. Tens of thousands of votes. This act coincided with a mysterious vote dump of up to 100,000 votes for Joe Biden, almost none for Trump. Oh, that sounds fair. That was at 1:34 a.m.

The Georgia secretary of state and pathetic governor of Georgia, have reached, although he says I'm a great president. You know, I sort of maybe have to change. He said the other day, "Yes, I do. I disagree with president, but he's been a great president." Good, thanks. Thank you very much.

Because of him and others, you have Brian Kemp. Vote him the hell out of office, please. Well, his rates are so low. You know, his approval rating now, I think it just reached a record low.

They've rejected five separate appeals for an independent and comprehensive audit of signatures in Fulton County. Even without an audit, the number of fraudulent ballots that we've identified across the state is staggering.

Over 10,300 ballots in Georgia were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Georgia residents who died in 2020 and prior to the election.

More than 2,500 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match incarcerated felons in Georgia prison. People who are not allowed to vote.

More than 4,500 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who do not appear on the state's own voter rolls.

Over 18,000 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who registered to vote using an address listed as vacant, according to the Postal Service.

At least 88,000 ballots in Georgia were cast by people whose registrations were illegally backdated.

Sixty-six thousand votes, each one of these is far more than we need. Sixty-six thousand votes in Georgia were cast by individuals under the legal voting age.

And at least 15,000 ballots were cast by individuals who moved out of the state prior to November 3 election. They say they moved right back. They moved right back. Oh, they moved out, they moved right back. OK. They missed Georgia that much. I do. I love Georgia, but it's a corrupt system.

Despite all of this, the margin in Georgia is only 11,779 votes.

Each and every one of these issues is enough to give us a victory in Georgia, a big beautiful victory. Make no mistake, this election was stolen from you, from me and from the country.

And not a single swing state has conducted a comprehensive audit to remove the illegal ballots. This should absolutely occur in every single contested state before the election is certified.

In the state of Arizona, over 36,000 ballots were illegally cast by non-citizens. Two thousand ballots were returned with no address. More than 22,000 ballots were returned before they were ever supposedly mailed out. They returned, but we haven't mailed them yet.

Eleven thousand six hundred more ballots and votes were counted, more than there were actual voters. You see that? So you have more votes again than you have voters.

One hundred and fifty thousand people registered in Maricopa County after the registration deadline. One hundred and three thousand ballots in the county were sent for electronic adjudication with no Republican observers.

In Clark County, Nevada, the accuracy settings on signature verification machines were purposely lowered before they were used to count over 130,000 ballots.

If you signed your name as Santa Claus, it would go through.

There were also more than 42,000 double votes in Nevada. Over 150,000 people were hurt so badly by what took place. And 1,500 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Nevada residents who died in 2020 prior to November 3 election. More than 8,000 votes were cast by individuals who had no address and probably didn't live there.

The margin in Nevada is down at a very low number, any of these things would have taken care of the situation. We would have won Nevada, also. Every one of these we're going over, we win.

In Michigan, quickly, the secretary of state, a real great one, flooded the state with unsolicited mail-in ballot applications sent to every person on the rolls in direct violation of state law.

More than 17,000 Michigan ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match people who were deceased.

In Wayne County, that's a great one. That's Detroit. One hundred and seventy-four thousand ballots were counted without being tied to an actual registered voter. Nobody knows where they came from.

Also, in Wayne County, poll watchers observed canvassers rescanning batches of ballots over and over again, up to three or four or five times.

In Detroit, turnout was 139% of registered voters. Think of that. So you had 139% of the people in Detroit voting. This is in Michigan. Detroit, Michigan.

A career employee of the Detroit, City of Detroit, testified under penalty of perjury that she witnessed city workers coaching voters to vote straight Democrat while accompanying them to watch who they voted for. When a Republican came in, they wouldn't talk to him.

The same worker was instructed not to ask for any voter ID and not to attempt to validate any signatures if they were Democrats. She also told to illegally, and was told, backdate ballots received after the deadline and reports that thousands and thousands of ballots were improperly backdated. That's Michigan.

Four witnesses have testified under penalty of perjury that after officials in Detroit announced the last votes had been counted, tens of thousands of additional ballots arrived without required envelopes. Every single one was for a Democrat. I got no votes.

At 6:31 a.m. in the early morning hours after voting had ended, Michigan suddenly reported 147,000 votes. An astounding 94% went to Joe Biden, who campaigned brilliantly from his basement. Only a couple of percentage points went to Trump.

Such gigantic and one-sided vote dumps were only observed in a few swing states and they were observed in the states where it was necessary.

You know what's interesting? President Obama beat Biden in every state other than the swing states where Biden killed them, but the swing states were the ones that mattered.

They're always just enough to push Joe Biden barely into the lead. We were ahead by a lot and within a number of hours we were losing by a little.

In addition, there is the highly troubling matter of Dominion Voting Systems. In one Michigan county alone, 6,000 votes were switched from Trump to Biden and the same systems are used in the majority of states in our country.

Senator William Ligon, a great gentleman, chairman of Georgia's senate judiciary subcommittee. Senator Ligon, highly respected, on elections has written a letter describing his concerns with Dominion in Georgia.

He wrote, and I quote, The Dominion Voting Machines employed in Fulton County had an astronomical and astounding 93.67% error rate. It's only wrong 93% of the time in the scanning of ballots requiring a review panel to adjudicate or determine the voter's interest in over 106,000 ballots out of a total of 113,000.

Think of it. You go in and you vote and then they tell people who you supposed to be voting for. They make up whatever they want. Nobody's ever even heard.

They adjudicate your vote. They say, Well, we don't think Trump wants to vote for Trump. We think he wants to vote for Biden. Put it down for Biden.

The national average for such an error rate is far less than 1% and yet you're at 93%. The source of this astronomical error rate must be identified to determine if these machines were set up or destroyed to allow for a third party to disregard the actual ballot cast by the registered voter.

The letter continues. There is clear evidence that tens of thousands of votes were switched from President Trump to former Vice President Biden in several counties in Georgia.

For example, in Bibb County, President Trump was reported to have 29,391 votes at 9:11 p.m. Eastern time, while simultaneously Vice President Joe Biden was reported to have 17,213. Minutes later, just minutes, at the next update, these vote numbers switched with President Trump going way down to 17,000 and Biden going way up to 29,391. And that was very quick, a 12,000 vote switch all in Mr. Biden's favor.

So, I mean, I could go on and on about this fraud that took place in every state, and all of these legislatures want this back. I don't want to do it to you because I love you and it's freezing out here. But I could just go on forever. I can tell you this.

(Audience chants: "We love you.")

So when you hear, when you hear, while there is no evidence to prove any wrongdoing, this is the most fraudulent thing anybody has, this is a criminal enterprise. This is a criminal enterprise. And the press will say, and I'm sure they won't put any of that on there, because that's no good. And you ever see, while there is no evidence to back President Trump's assertion.

I could go on for another hour reading this stuff to you and telling you about it. There's never been anything like it.

Think about it. Detroit had more votes than it had voters. Pennsylvania had 205,000 more votes than it had more. But you don't have to go any. Between that, I think that's almost better than dead people if you think, right? More votes than they had voters. And many other states also.

It's a disgrace that the United States of America, tens of millions of people, are allowed to go vote without so much as even showing identification.

In no state is there any question or effort made to verify the identity, citizenship, residency or eligibility of the votes cast.

The Republicans have to get tougher. You're not going to have a Republican Party if you don't get tougher. They want to play so straight. They want to play so, sir, yes, the United States. The Constitution doesn't allow me to send them back to the States. Well, I say, yes it does, because the Constitution says you have to protect our country and you have to protect our Constitution, and you can't vote on fraud. And fraud breaks up everything, doesn't it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules.

So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope he doesn't listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he's listening to.

It is also widely understood that the voter rolls are crammed full of non-citizens, felons and people who have moved out of state and individuals who are otherwise ineligible to vote. Yet Democrats oppose every effort to clean up their voter rolls. They don't want to clean them up. They're loaded.

And how many people here know other people, that when there are hundreds of thousands and then millions of ballots got sent out, got three, four, five, six, and I heard one, who got seven ballots. And then they say you didn't quite make it, sir.

We won in a landslide. This was a landslide. They said it's not American to challenge the election. This the most corrupt election in the history, maybe of the world.

You know, you could go third-world countries, but I don't think they had hundreds of thousands of votes and they don't have voters for them. I mean no matter where you go, nobody would think this.

In fact, it's so egregious, it's so bad that a lot of people don't even believe it. It's so crazy that people don't even believe it. It can't be true. So they don't believe it.

This is not just a matter of domestic politics — this is a matter of national security.

So today, in addition to challenging the certification of the election, I'm calling on Congress and the state legislatures to quickly pass sweeping election reforms, and you better do it before we have no country left.

Today is not the end, it's just the beginning.

With your help over the last four years, we built the greatest political movement in the history of our country and nobody even challenges that.

I say that over and over, and I never get challenged by the fakeness, and they challenge almost everything we say.

But our fight against the big donors, big media, big tech, and others is just getting started. This is the greatest in history. There's never been a movement like that.

You look back there all the way to the Washington Monument. It's hard to believe.

We must stop the steal and then we must ensure that such outrageous election fraud never happens again, can never be allowed to happen again.

But we're going forward. We'll take care of going forward. We've got to take care of going back. Don't let them talk. OK, well, we promised. I've had a lot of people. Sir, you're at 96% for four years. I said I'm not interested right now. I'm interested in right there.

With your help, we will finally pass powerful requirements for voter ID. You need an ID to cash a check. You need an ID to go to a bank, to buy alcohol, to drive a car. Every person should need to show an ID in order to cast your most important thing, a vote.

We will also require proof of American citizenship in order to vote in American elections. We just had a good victory in court on that one, actually.

We will ban ballot harvesting and prohibit the use of unsecured drop boxes to commit rampant fraud. These drop boxes are fraudulent. Therefore, they get disapp — they disappear, and then all of a sudden they show up. It's fraudulent.

We will stop the practice of universal unsolicited mail-in balloting.

We will clean up the voter rolls that ensure that every single person who casts a vote is a citizen of our country, a resident of the state in which they vote and their vote is cast in a lawful and honest manner.

We will restore the vital civic tradition of in-person voting on Election Day so that voters can be fully informed when they make their choice.

We will finally hold big tech accountable. And if these people had courage and guts, they would get rid of Section 230, something that no other company, no other person in America, in the world has.

All of these tech monopolies are going to abuse their power and interfere in our elections, and it has to be stopped. And the Republicans have to get a lot tougher, and so should the Democrats. They should be regulated, investigated, and brought to justice under the fullest extent of the law. They're totally breaking the law.

Together, we will drain the Washington swamp and we will clean up the corruption in our nation's capital. We have done a big job on it, but you think it's easy. It's a dirty business. It's a dirty business. You have a lot of bad people out there.

Despite everything we've been through, looking out all over this country and seeing fantastic crowds. Although this, I think, is our all-time record. I think you have 250,000 people. 250,000.

Looking out at all the amazing patriots here today, I have never been more confident in our nation's future. Well, I have to say, we have to be a little bit careful. That's a nice statement, but we have to be a little careful with that statement.

If we allow this group of people to illegally take over our country because it's illegal when the votes are illegal when the way they got there is illegal when the states that vote are given false and fraudulent information.

We are the greatest country on Earth and we are headed and were headed in the right direction.

You know, the wall is built. We're doing record numbers at the wall. Now, they want to take down the wall. Let's let everyone flow in. Let's let everybody flow in. We did a great job in the wall. Remember, the wall, they said it could never be done. One of the largest infrastructure projects we've ever had in this country, and it's had a tremendous impact, that we got rid of catch and release. We got rid of all of this stuff that we had to live with.

But now, the caravans, I think Biden's getting in, the caravans are forming again. They want to come in again and rip off our country. Can't let it happen.

As this enormous crowd shows, we have truth and justice on our side. We have a deep and enduring love for America in our hearts. We love our country.

We have overwhelming pride in this great country and we have it deep in our souls. Together, we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Our brightest days are before us. Our greatest achievements, still away.

I think one of our great achievements will be election security. Because nobody until I came along had any idea how corrupt our elections were.

And again, most people would stand there at 9 o'clock in the evening and say I want to thank you very much, and they go off to some other life. But I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.

And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans, for our movement, for our children, and for our beloved country.

And I say this despite all that's happened. The best is yet to come.

So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we're going to the Capitol, and we're going to try and give.

The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.

So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

I want to thank you all. God bless you and God Bless America.

Thank you all for being here. This is incredible. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Mitch McConnell: -'President Trump is practically and morally responsible', Acquittal of Trump, Second Impeachment - 2021

14 February 2021, Washington DC, USA

January 6th was a disgrace.

American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.

Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President.

They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he'd lost an election.

Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty.

The House accused the former President of, quote, 'incitement.' That is a specific term from the criminal law.

Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.

The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President.

And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.

The issue is not only the President's intemperate language on January 6th.

It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged 'trial by combat.'

It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-President.

I defended the President's right to bring any complaints to our legal system. The legal system spoke. The Electoral College spoke. As I stood up and said clearly at the time, the election was settled.

But that reality just opened a new chapter of even wilder and more unfounded claims.

The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.

Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally.

This was different.

This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters' decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.

The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began.

Whatever our ex-President claims he thought might happen that day... whatever reaction he says he meant to produce... by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world.

A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.

It was obvious that only President Trump could end this.

Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration.

But the President did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn't take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored.

Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election!

Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger... even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters... the President sent a further tweet attacking his Vice President.

Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence.

Later, even when the President did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later.

And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.

In recent weeks, our ex-President's associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism.

Anyone who decries his awful behavior is accused of insulting millions of voters.

That is an absurd deflection.

74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did.

And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it.

One person did.

I have made my view of this episode very plain.

But our system of government gave the Senate a specific task. The Constitution gives us a particular role.

This body is not invited to act as the nation's overarching moral tribunal.

We are not free to work backward from whether the accused party might personally deserve some kind of punishment.

Justice Joseph Story was our nation's first great constitutional scholar. As he explained nearly 200 years ago, the process of impeachment and conviction is a narrow tool for a narrow purpose.

Story explained this limited tool exists to "secure the state against gross official misdemeanors." That is, to protect the country from government officers.

If President Trump were still in office, I would have carefully considered whether the House managers proved their specific charge.

By the strict criminal standard, the President's speech probably was not incitement.

However, in the context of impeachment, the Senate might have decided this was acceptable shorthand for the reckless actions that preceded the riot.

But in this case, that question is moot. Because former President Trump is constitutionally not eligible for conviction.

There is no doubt this is a very close question. Donald Trump was the President when the House voted, though not when the House chose to deliver the papers.

Brilliant scholars argue both sides of the jurisdictional question. The text is legitimately ambiguous. I respect my colleagues who have reached either conclusion.

But after intense reflection, I believe the best constitutional reading shows that Article II, Section 4 exhausts the set of persons who can legitimately be impeached, tried, or convicted. The President, Vice President, and civil officers.

We have no power to convict and disqualify a former officeholder who is now a private citizen.

Here is Article II, Section 4:
"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Now, everyone basically agrees that the second half of that sentence exhausts the legitimate grounds for conviction.

The debates around the Constitution's framing make that clear. Congress cannot convict for reasons besides those.

It therefore follows that the list of persons in that same sentence is also exhaustive. There is no reason why one list would be exhaustive but the other would not.

Article II, Section 4 must limit both why impeachment and conviction can occur... and to whom.

If this provision does not limit the impeachment and conviction powers, then it has no limits at all.

The House's 'sole power of Impeachment' and the Senate's 'sole Power to try all Impeachments' would create an unlimited circular logic, empowering Congress to ban any private citizen from federal office.

This is an incredible claim. But it is the argument the House Managers seemed to make. One Manager said the House and Senate have 'absolute, unqualified... jurisdictional power.'

That was very honest. Because there is no limiting principle in the constitutional text that would empower the Senate to convict former officers that would not also let them convict and disqualify any private citizen.

An absurd end result to which no one subscribes.

Article II, Section 4 must have force. It tells us the President, Vice President, and civil officers may be impeached and convicted. Donald Trump is no longer the president.

Likewise, the provision states that officers subject to impeachment and conviction 'shall be removed from Office' if convicted.

Shall.

As Justice Story explained, 'the Senate, [upon] conviction, [is] bound, in all cases, to enter a judgment of removal from office.' Removal is mandatory upon conviction.

Clearly, he explained, that mandatory sentence cannot be applied to somebody who has left office.

The entire process revolves around removal. If removal becomes impossible, conviction becomes insensible.

In one light, it certainly does seem counterintuitive that an officeholder can elude Senate conviction by resignation or expiration of term.

But this just underscores that impeachment was never meant to be the final forum for American justice.

Impeachment, conviction, and removal are a specific intra-governmental safety valve. It is not the criminal justice system, where individual accountability is the paramount goal.

Indeed, Justice Story specifically reminded that while former officials were not eligible for impeachment or conviction, they were "still liable to be tried and punished in the ordinary tribunals of justice."

We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former Presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.

I believe the Senate was right not to grab power the Constitution does not give us.

And the Senate was right not to entertain some light-speed sham process to try to outrun the loss of jurisdiction.

It took both sides more than a week just to produce their pre-trial briefs. Speaker Pelosi's own scheduling decisions conceded what President Biden publicly confirmed: A Senate verdict before Inauguration Day was never possible.

This has been a dispiriting time. But the Senate has done our duty. The framers' firewall held up again.

On January 6th, we returned to our posts and certified the election, uncowed.

And since then, we resisted the clamor to defy our own constitutional guardrails in hot pursuit of a particular outcome.

We refused to continue a cycle of recklessness by straining our own constitutional boundaries in response.

The Senate's decision does not condone anything that happened on or before that terrible day.

It simply shows that Senators did what the former President failed to do:

We put our constitutional duty first.

Franklin D. Roosevelt & Winston Churchill: 'How can we light our trees', joint Christmas address - 1941

24 December 1941, Washington DC. USA

Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the U.S. Christmas Speech 1941

But how would our spirits be lifted to do this without the mourning we still feel from Pearl Harbor? We need help. How can we light our trees? How can we give our gifts? How can we meet and worship with love and with uplifted spirit and heart in a world at war, a world of fighting and suffering and death? How can we pause, even for a day, even for Christmas Day, in our urgent labor of arming a decent humanity against the enemies which beset it? How can we put the world aside, as men and women put the world aside in peaceful years, to rejoice in the birth of Christ These are natural—inevitable—questions in every part of the world which is resisting the evil thing. And even as we ask these questions, we know the answer.

There is another preparation demanded of this Nation beyond and beside the preparation of weapons and materials of war. There is demanded also of us the preparation of our hearts; the arming of our hearts. And when we make ready our hearts for the labor and the suffering and the ultimate victory which lie ahead, then we observe Christmas Day—with all of its memories and all of its meanings—as we should. Looking into the days to come, I have set aside a day of prayer, and in that Proclamation I have said.

The year 1941 has brought upon our Nation a war of aggression by powers dominated by arrogant rulers whose selfish purpose is to destroy free institutions. They would thereby take from the freedom-loving peoples of the earth the hard-won liberties gained over many centuries.

The new year of 1942 calls for the courage and the resolution of old and young to help to win a world struggle in order that we may preserve all we hold dear.
We are confident in our devotion to country, in our love of freedom, in our inheritance of courage. But our strength, as the strength of all men everywhere, is of greater avail as God upholds us.

Therefore, I… do hereby appoint the first day of the year 1942 as a day of prayer, of asking forgiveness for our shortcomings of the past, of consecration to the tasks of the present, of asking God’s help in days to come. We need His guidance that this people may be humble in spirit but strong in the conviction of the right; steadfast to endure sacrifice, and brave to achieve a victory of liberty and peace. Our strongest weapon in this war is that conviction of the dignity and brotherhood of man which Christmas Day signifies more than any other day or any other symbol.

Speech of Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of UK

I spend this anniversary and festival far from my country, far from my family, yet I cannot truthfully say that I feel far from home. Whether it be the ties of blood on my mother’s side, or the friendships I have developed here over many years of active life, or the commanding sentiment of comradeship in the common cause of great peoples who speak the same language, who kneel at the same altars and, to a very large extent, pursue the same ideals, I cannot feel myself a stranger here in the centre and at the summit of the United States. I feel a sense of unity and fraternal association which, added to the kindliness of your welcome, convinces me that I have a right to sit at your fireside and share your Christmas joys.

This is a strange Christmas Eve. Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, armed with the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance upon each other. Ill would it be for us this Christmastide if we were not sure that no greed for the land or wealth of any other people, no vulgar ambition, no morbid lust for material gain at the expense of others, had led us to the field. Here, in the midst of war, raging and roaring over all the lands and seas, creeping nearer to our hearts and homes, here, amid all the tumult, we have tonight the peace of the spirit in each cottage home and in every generous heart. Therefore we may cast aside for this night at least the cares and dangers which beset us, and make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of storm. Here, then, for one night only, each home throughout the English-speaking world should be a brightly-lighted island of happiness and peace.

Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.

And so, in God’s mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.

Christopher Wray: 'China is engaged in a whole-of-state effort to become the world’s only superpower', Hudson Institute address - 2020

7 July 2020, video presentation, Washington DC, USA

Good morning. I realize it’s challenging, particularly under the current circumstances, to put on an event like this, so I’m grateful to the Hudson Institute for hosting us today.

The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China. It’s a threat to our economic security—and by extension, to our national security.

As National Security Advisor O’Brien said in his recent remarks, we cannot close our eyes and ears to what China is doing—and today, in light of the importance of this threat, I will provide more detail on the Chinese threat than the FBI has ever presented in an open forum. This threat is so significant that the attorney general and secretary of state will also be addressing a lot of these issues in the next few weeks. But if you think these issues are just an intelligence issue, or a government problem, or a nuisance largely just for big corporations who can take care of themselves—you could not be more wrong.

It’s the people of the United States who are the victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.

If you are an American adult, it is more likely than not that China has stolen your personal data.

In 2017, the Chinese military conspired to hack Equifax and made off with the sensitive personal information of 150 million Americans—we’re talking nearly half of the American population and most American adults—and as I’ll discuss in a few moments, this was hardly a standalone incident.

Our data isn’t the only thing at stake here—so are our health, our livelihoods, and our security.

We’ve now reached the point where the FBI is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours. Of the nearly 5,000 active FBI counterintelligence cases currently underway across the country, almost half are related to China. And at this very moment, China is working to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 research.

But before I go on, let me be clear: This is not about the Chinese people, and it’s certainly not about Chinese Americans. Every year, the United States welcomes more than 100,000 Chinese students and researchers into this country. For generations, people have journeyed from China to the United States to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their families—and our society is better for their contributions. So, when I speak of the threat from China, I mean the government of China and the Chinese Communist Party.

The Chinese Regime and the Scope of Its Ambitions

To understand this threat and how we must act to respond to it, the American people should remember three things.

First: We need to be clear-eyed about the scope of the Chinese government’s ambition. China—the Chinese Communist Party—believes it is in a generational fight to surpass our country in economic and technological leadership.

That is sobering enough. But it’s waging this fight not through legitimate innovation, not through fair and lawful competition, and not by giving their citizens the freedom of thought and speech and creativity that we treasure here in the United States. Instead, China is engaged in a whole-of-state effort to become the world’s only superpower by any means necessary.

A Diverse and Multi-Layered Approach

The second thing the American people need to understand is that China uses a diverse range of sophisticated techniques—everything from cyber intrusions to corrupting trusted insiders. They’ve even engaged in outright physical theft. And they’ve pioneered an expansive approach to stealing innovation through a wide range of actors—including not just Chinese intelligence services but state-owned enterprises, ostensibly private companies, certain kinds of graduate students and researchers, and a whole variety of other actors working on their behalf.

Economic Espionage

To achieve its goals and surpass America, China recognizes it needs to make leaps in cutting-edge technologies. But the sad fact is that instead of engaging in the hard slog of innovation, China often steals American intellectual property and then uses it to compete against the very American companies it victimized—in effect, cheating twice over. They’re targeting research on everything from military equipment to wind turbines to rice and corn seeds.

Through its talent recruitment programs, like the so-called Thousand Talents Program, the Chinese government tries to entice scientists to secretly bring our knowledge and innovation back to China—even if that means stealing proprietary information or violating our export controls and conflict-of-interest rules.

Take the case of scientist Hongjin Tan, for example, a Chinese national and American lawful permanent resident. He applied to China’s Thousand Talents Program and stole more than $1 billion—that’s with a “b”—worth of trade secrets from his former employer, an Oklahoma-based petroleum company, and got caught. A few months ago, he was convicted and sent to prison.

Or there’s the case of Shan Shi, a Texas-based scientist, also sentenced to prison earlier this year. Shi stole trade secrets regarding syntactic foam, an important naval technology used in submarines. Shi, too, had applied to China’s Thousand Talents Program, and specifically pledged to “digest” and “absorb” the relevant technology in the United States. He did this on behalf of Chinese state-owned enterprises, which ultimately planned to put the American company out of business and take over the market.

In one of the more galling and egregious aspects of the scheme, the conspirators actually patented in China the very manufacturing process they’d stolen, and then offered their victim American company a joint venture using its own stolen technology. We’re talking about an American company that spent years and millions of dollars developing that technology, and China couldn’t replicate it—so, instead, it paid to have it stolen.

And just two weeks ago, Hao Zhang was convicted of economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, and conspiracy for stealing proprietary information about wireless devices from two U.S. companies. One of those companies had spent over 20 years developing the technology Zhang stole.

These cases were among more than a thousand investigations the FBI has into China’s actual and attempted theft of American technology—which is to say nothing of over a thousand more ongoing counterintelligence investigations of other kinds related to China. We’re conducting these kinds of investigations in all 56 of our field offices. And over the past decade, we’ve seen economic espionage cases with a link to China increase by approximately 1,300 percent.

The stakes could not be higher, and the potential economic harm to American businesses and the economy as a whole almost defies calculation.

Clandestine Efforts

As National Security Advisor O’Brien discussed in his June remarks, the Chinese government is also making liberal use of hacking to steal our corporate and personal data—and they’re using both military and non-state hackers to do it. The Equifax intrusion I mentioned just a few moments ago, which led to the indictment of Chinese military personnel, was hardly the only time China stole the sensitive personal information of huge numbers of the American public.

For example, did any of you have health insurance through Anthem or one of its associated insurers? In 2015, China’s hackers stole the personal data of 80 million of that company’s current and former customers.

Or maybe you’re a federal employee—or you used to be one, or you applied for a government job once, or a family member or roommate did. Well, in 2014, China’s hackers stole more than 21 million records from OPM, the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management.

Why are they doing this? First, China has made becoming an artificial intelligence world leader a priority, and these kinds of thefts feed right into China’s development of artificial intelligence tools.

Compounding the threat, the data China stole is of obvious value as they attempt to identify people for secret intelligence gathering. On that front, China is using social media platforms—the same ones Americans use to stay connected or find jobs—to identify people with access to our government’s sensitive information and then target those people to try to steal it.

Just to pick one example, a Chinese intelligence officer posing as a headhunter on a popular social media platform recently offered an American citizen a sizeable sum of money in exchange for so-called “consulting” services. That sounds benign enough until you realize those “consulting” services were related to sensitive information the American target had access to as a U.S. military intelligence specialist.

Now that particular tale has a happy ending: The American citizen did the right thing and reported the suspicious contact, and the FBI, working together with our armed forces, took it from there. I wish I could say that all such incidents ended that way.

Threats to Academia

It’s a troublingly similar story in academia.

Through talent recruitment programs like the Thousand Talents Program I mentioned just a few moments ago, China pays scientists at American universities to secretly bring our knowledge and innovation back to China—including valuable, federally funded research. To put it bluntly, this means American taxpayers are effectively footing the bill for China’s own technological development. China then leverages its ill-gotten gains to undercut U.S. research institutions and companies, blunting our nation’s advancement and costing American jobs. And we are seeing more and more of these cases.

In May alone, we arrested both Qing Wang, a former researcher with the Cleveland Clinic who worked on molecular medicine and the genetics of cardiovascular disease, and Simon Saw-Teong Ang, a University of Arkansas scientist doing research for NASA. Both of these guys were allegedly committing fraud by concealing their participation in Chinese talent recruitment programs while accepting millions of dollars in American federal grant funding.

That same month, former Emory University professor Xiao-Jiang Li pled guilty to filing a false tax return for failing to report the income he’d received through China’s Thousand Talents Program. Our investigation found that while Li was researching Huntington’s disease at Emory, he was also pocketing half a million unreported dollars from China.

In a similar vein, Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, was indicted just last month for making false statements to federal authorities about his Thousand Talents participation. The United States has alleged that Lieber concealed from both Harvard and the NIH his position as a strategic scientist at a Chinese university—and the fact that the Chinese government was paying him, through the Wuhan Institute of Technology, a $50,000 monthly stipend, more than $150,000 in living expenses, and more than $1.5 million to establish a laboratory back in China.

Malign Foreign Influence

There’s more. Another tool China and the Chinese Communist Party use to manipulate Americans is what we call malign foreign influence.

Now, traditional foreign influence is a normal, legal diplomatic activity typically conducted through diplomatic channels. But malign foreign influence efforts are subversive, undeclared, criminal, or coercive attempts to sway our government’s policies, distort our country’s public discourse, and undermine confidence in our democratic processes and values.

China is engaged in a highly sophisticated malign foreign influence campaign, and its methods include bribery, blackmail, and covert deals. Chinese diplomats also use both open, naked economic pressure and seemingly independent middlemen to push China’s preferences on American officials.

Just take one all-too-common illustration: Let’s say China gets wind that some American official is planning to travel to Taiwan—think a governor, a state senator, a member of Congress. China does not want that to happen, because that travel might appear to legitimize Taiwanese independence from China—and legitimizing Taiwan would, of course, be contrary to China’s “One China” policy.

So what does China do? Well, China has leverage over the American official’s constituents—American companies, academics, and members of the media all have legitimate and understandable reasons to want access to Chinese partners and markets. And because of the authoritarian nature of the Chinese Communist Party, China has immense power over those same partners and markets. So, China will sometimes start by trying to influence the American official overtly and directly. China might openly warn that if the American official goes ahead and takes that trip to Taiwan, China will take it out on a company from that official’s home state by withholding the company’s license to manufacture in China. That could be economically ruinous for the company, would directly pressure the American official to alter his travel plans, and the official would know that China was trying to influence him.

That would be bad enough. But the Chinese Communist Party often doesn’t stop there; it can’t stop there if it wants to stay in power—so it uses its leverage even more perniciously. If China’s more direct, overt influence campaign doesn’t do the trick, they sometimes turn to indirect, covert, deceptive influence efforts.

To continue with the illustration of the American official with travel plans that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t like, China will work relentlessly to identify the people closest to that official—the people that official trusts most. China will then work to influence those people to act on China’s behalf as middlemen to influence the official. The co-opted middlemen may then whisper in the official’s ear and try to sway the official’s travel plans or public positions on Chinese policy. These intermediaries, of course, aren’t telling the American official that they’re Chinese Communist Party pawns—and worse still, some of these intermediaries may not even realize they’re being used as pawns, because they, too, have been deceived.

Ultimately, China doesn’t hesitate to use smoke, mirrors, and misdirection to influence Americans.

Similarly, China often pushes academics and journalists to self-censor if they want to travel into China. And we’ve seen the Chinese Communist Party pressure American media and sporting giants to ignore or suppress criticism of China’s ambitions regarding Hong Kong or Taiwan. This kind of thing is happening over and over, across the United States.

And I will note that the pandemic has unfortunately not stopped any of this—in fact, we have heard from federal, state, and even local officials that Chinese diplomats are aggressively urging support for China’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Yes, this is happening at both the federal and state levels. Not that long ago, we had a state senator who was recently even asked to introduce a resolution supporting China’s response to the pandemic.

The punchline is this: All of these seemingly inconsequential pressures add up to a policymaking environment in which Americans find themselves held over a barrel by the Chinese Communist Party.

Threats to the Rule of Law

All the while, China’s government and Communist Party have brazenly violated well-settled norms and the rule of law.

Since 2014, Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping has spearheaded a program known as “Fox Hunt.” Now, China describes Fox Hunt as some kind of international anti-corruption campaign—it is not. Instead, Fox Hunt is a sweeping bid by General Secretary Xi to target Chinese nationals whom he sees as threats and who live outside China, across the world. We’re talking about political rivals, dissidents, and critics seeking to expose China’s extensive human rights violations.

Hundreds of the Fox Hunt victims that they target live right here in the United States, and many are American citizens or green card holders. The Chinese government wants to force them to return to China, and China’s tactics to accomplish that are shocking. For example, when it couldn’t locate one Fox Hunt target, the Chinese government sent an emissary to visit the target’s family here in the United States. The message they said to pass on? The target had two options: return to China promptly, or commit suicide. And what happens when Fox Hunt targets refuse to return to China? In the past, their family members both here in the United States and in China have been threatened and coerced, and those back in China have even been arrested for leverage.

I’ll take this opportunity to note that if you believe the Chinese government is targeting you—that you’re a potential Fox Hunt victim—please reach out to your local FBI field office.

Exploiting Our Openness

Understanding how a nation could engage in these tactics brings me to the third thing the American people need to remember: that China has a fundamentally different system than ours—and it’s doing all it can to exploit the openness of ours while taking advantage of its own closed system.

Many of the distinctions that mean a lot here in the United States are blurry or almost nonexistent in China—I’m talking about distinctions between the government and the Chinese Communist Party, between the civilian and military sectors, and between the state and the “private” sector.

For one thing, an awful lot of large Chinese businesses are state-owned enterprises—literally owned by the government, and thus the Party. And even if they aren’t, China’s laws allow its government to compel any Chinese company to provide any information it requests—including American citizens’ data.

On top of that, Chinese companies of any real size are legally required to have Communist Party “cells” inside them to keep them in line. Even more alarmingly, Communist Party cells have reportedly been established in some American companies operating in China as a cost of doing business there.

These kinds of features should give U.S. companies pause when they consider working with Chinese corporations like Huawei—and should give all Americans pause, too, when relying on such a company’s devices and networks. As the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, Huawei has broad access to much that American companies do in China. It’s also been charged in the United States with racketeering conspiracy and has, as alleged in the indictment, repeatedly stolen intellectual property from U.S. companies, obstructed justice, and lied to the U.S. government and its commercial partners, including banks.

The allegations are clear: Huawei is a serial intellectual property thief, with a pattern and practice of disregarding both the rule of law and the rights of its victims. I have to tell you, it certainly caught my attention to read a recent article describing the words of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, about the company’s mindset. At a Huawei research and development center, he reportedly told employees that to ensure the company’s survival, they need to—and I quote—“surge forward, killing as you go, to blaze us a trail of blood.” He’s also reportedly told employees that Huawei has entered, to quote, “a state of war.” I certainly hope he couldn’t have meant that literally, but it’s hardly an encouraging tone, given the company’s repeated criminal behavior.

In our modern world, there is perhaps no more ominous prospect than a hostile foreign government’s ability to compromise our country’s infrastructure and devices. If Chinese companies like Huawei are given unfettered access to our telecommunications infrastructure, they could collect any of your information that traverses their devices or networks. Worse still: They’d have no choice but to hand it over to the Chinese government if asked—the privacy and due process protections that are sacrosanct in the United States are simply non-existent in China.

Responding Effectively to the Threat

The Chinese government is engaged in a broad, diverse campaign of theft and malign influence, and it can execute that campaign with authoritarian efficiency. They’re calculating. They’re persistent. They’re patient. And they’re not subject to the righteous constraints of an open, democratic society or the rule of law.

China, as led by the Chinese Communist Party, is going to continue to try to misappropriate our ideas, influence our policymakers, manipulate our public opinion, and steal our data. They will use an all-tools and all-sectors approach—and that demands our own all-tools and all-sectors approach in response.

Our folks at the FBI are working their tails off every day to protect our nation’s companies, our universities, our computer networks, and our ideas and innovation. To do that, we’re using a broad set of techniques—from our traditional law enforcement authorities to our intelligence capabilities.

And I will briefly note that we’re having real success. With the help of our many foreign partners, we’ve arrested targets all over the globe. Our investigations and the resulting prosecutions have exposed the tradecraft and techniques the Chinese use, raising awareness of the threat and our industries’ defenses. They also show our resolve and our ability to attribute these crimes to those responsible. It’s one thing to make assertions—but in our justice system, when a person, or a corporation, is investigated and then charged with a crime, we have to prove the truth of the allegation beyond a reasonable doubt. The truth matters—and so, these criminal indictments matter. And we’ve seen how our criminal indictments have rallied other nations to our cause—which is crucial to persuading the Chinese government to change its behavior.

We’re also working more closely than ever with partner agencies here in the U.S. and our partners abroad. We can’t do it on our own; we need a whole-of-society response. That’s why we in the intelligence and law enforcement communities are working harder than ever to give companies, universities, and the American people themselves the information they need to make their own informed decisions and protect their most valuable assets.

Confronting this threat effectively does not mean we shouldn’t do business with the Chinese. It does not mean we shouldn’t host Chinese visitors. It does not mean we shouldn’t welcome Chinese students or coexist with China on the world stage. But it does mean that when China violates our criminal laws and international norms, we are not going to tolerate it, much less enable it. The FBI and our partners throughout the U.S. government will hold China accountable and protect our nation’s innovation, ideas, and way of life—with the help and vigilance of the American people.

Thank you for having me here today.

Micheál Martin, 'We can’t afford to “wait and see” – the disease is not waiting', Taoiseach address to nation - 2020

7 August 2020, Dublin, Ireland

No part of our society was untouched as we entered a period of huge uncertainty, worry and vulnerability.

Through the incredible work of our frontline workers and the shared commitment of the Irish people we stopped the rapid spread of the virus. We flattened the curve.

As a society and as individuals we have accepted restrictions which we would never even consider in normal times.

These restrictions have themselves had a profound impact on our social, economic, cultural and personal lives.

But no one should doubt for a single moment that they have been justified or lose sight of how devastating this virus can be.

2,324 men and women on our island have so far lost their lives and many more are still recovering.

And this would have been much, much worse without the restrictions which we have all accepted, and the sacrifices that we have all made since March.

I understand the increasing impatience which many people are feeling.

There is a huge desire to get back to normal life.To celebrate with our loved ones. To meet and properly interact with new people.

To really participate in and enjoy our culture.To travel.

However we all need to understand that this virus is still a deep and urgent threat. It is merciless. And it is unrelenting.

While we have succeeded in reopening significant parts of our society, this process of reopening is not simple. It won’t be a case of just moving forward step by step.

Like every other country, we will have setbacks. Every day we watch and read about new examples of countries and regions which thought they had defeated the virus but which are now dealing with new outbreaks.

We have now seen an increase in cases in our own country. We are still doing very well by international standards, but over the past week there have been a number of localised clusters which are a serious concern.

I want to be very clear this evening in reaffirming that the Government is determined to do everything possible to prevent a return to the widespread transmission of the virus.

But the Government cannot do it alone. Each and every one of us, as equal citizens, face an equal threat and hold an equal responsibility to do our best to continue to help limit the spread.

We have more information now than we did at the start of this pandemic. We now know how Covid-19 attacks by stealth and we know how fast it moves.

So, we have to be decisive. We can’t afford to “wait and see” – the disease is not waiting.

We must protect public health to the greatest extent possible.

Everything else is secondary to that, and if this requires difficult decisions then so be it.

We have already postponed key parts of the reopening plan and this evening, in response to the increased spread of the disease in counties Kildare, Laois and Offaly, and acting on the very clear advice of public health officials, the Government has decided to introduce a number of limited restrictions within those three counties for a period of two weeks, from midnight tonight.

In these three counties, everyone should restrict their movements to within their own county except for the purposes of work and for other essential journeys.

Those who can work from home should do so, and we are asking employers to facilitate their employees in every way possible, for these two weeks, to do that.

Restaurants and pubs serving food should close except for takeaway services, deliveries and limited outdoor dining.

Discretionary indoor recreation and entertainment venues such as cinemas, theatres, museums, galleries, bingo halls and other indoor recreational, sports, dance and cultural outlets will be closed.

Visitations to prisons, acute hospitals and nursing homes in these areas will be suspended except on compassionate grounds.

Retail can remain open but with strict adherence to public health guidance including the wearing of facemasks.

Childcare and schools that are open can remain open and the preparations for school re-opening will continue.

Outdoor amenities including playgrounds can remain open, again with appropriate social distancing advice.

Households in these counties are asked to restrict visitors to their homes to no more than six people from no more than three households.

Outdoor gatherings should be limited to 15 for organised activities. Non-contact sport training can take place outdoors in groups no larger than 15. Contact sports should cease for the next fortnight, except for training for professional and elite athletes.

People will be able to travel through these counties en route to other destinations in the normal way.

Testing remains a key weapon in our armoury. That is why Government, working with employers and employee representatives have also moved to ramp up testing in affected sectors within the region.

Any business premise that requires to be closed on public health grounds will be closed. And will not reopen until public health officials are satisfied that it no longer poses a threat.

Full details of the list of restrictions are available on Gov.ie

We know that we could go further in terms of restrictions, but we are conscious that as we move forward through this pandemic our responses need to be more nuanced and more sustainable. We also believe that the vast majority of people understand that we are in this together and they will do as they are asked.

I am also asking everyone else in the country to do two things.

Firstly, do not travel to these counties unless for the purposes of work or essential care for a relative.

Secondly, please pause and reflect on what else you can do, what your friends and family can do, and what your colleagues can do, to slow the spread of this disease. The simple rules are the most effective:
• Wash your hands.
• Observe good cough and sneeze etiquette.
• Limit your social interactions.
• Wear face coverings, on public transport, in shops and shopping centres, and in all indoor settings where social distancing is difficult
• Maintain social distancing.
• Support those businesses that are adhering to the public health advice and steer clear of those who are not.
• Know the symptoms and contact your GP if you have even the slightest concern


While the burden of this evening’s decision falls heaviest on our people in Kildare, Laois and Offaly, the message needs to be heard and understood by everyone across the country.

There is nothing inevitable about progress in keeping this disease under control.

It requires constant vigilance. And it requires everyone to continue putting the virus under pressure.

Success in this effort will achieve two important objectives:
• We will ensure that our children and young people can return to school as normal.It is essential for their own development and it is essential for our society
• We will also ensure that those parts of our economy that are open, can stay open


Some 35 years ago John Hume, whose passing we all mourned this week, campaigned under the slogan ‘Solidarity is Strength’.

That spirit has perhaps never been more important than today.We are all responsible for each other.

By acting responsibly and following the advice, each of us will protect all of us.

Le Céile.

Go raibh maith agaibh.

Amy Klobuchar: 'I think the American people see through this raw use of political power', Judiciary Committee hearing - 2020

27 September 2020, Washington DC, USA

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I sit in a position on this committee where I often follow Senator Cruz and I often have to throw out my entire plan for what I was going to say because of what he said. But I have never had an experience quite like this one. I could choose to start by taking on his interpretation of history because of the fact that the only other time that we have had a justice die this close to an election was when Abraham Lincoln—a wise wise leader—was president. What did he do?

He waited until after the election.

What is unique in your words, Senator Cruz, about this situation? People are voting right now. Democracy is happening right now and we in this room are supposed to be stewards of this democracy. What else is unique in your words about this situation? It is the precedent that was set just a few years ago by the very people sitting here, by the very leader who is still the leader of the Republican Party.

He said this—Mitch McConnell—the American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. Those are the facts that you live with. But to me, none of those arguments even compare to what I just heard and what I must respond to. Our democracy, what’s happening right now.

What this President said yesterday and Joe Biden has said he will abide by the results of this election. It is this president, President Trump who refuses to commit to make sure there is a peaceful transfer of power after the election if he is not re-elected. Instead, as he has done for months, just yesterday, he again worked to undermine confidence in our election.

He has repeatedly told people, the citizens of this country that it’s not safe to vote by mail. That there’s something wrong with it, except for in Florida where he has voted by mail. This is what he says almost every single day. And to have the chairman of this committee lead this discussion on this solemn day, when tomorrow the first woman in the history of the nation will lie in state and raise the fact that yes, this may end up in court and then to hear you, Senator Cruz talk about how this is because of some war game that you’re talking about that I’ve never even heard about that this can end up in court.

Well, guess what, I will not concede that this is going to end up in court. You know why? Because the people are voting in droves right now. They are voting all over this country because President Trump is behind in states, in red states that no one even thought he could be behind in. Why? Because the people of this country are fighting back because they know what’s on the line. Do I think this is a tragic death at this moment? Yes, it’s tragic because we lost this woman who is an icon way ahead of her time, someone who opened doors for women at a time when so many insisted on keeping them shut.

Well, we are not keeping our democracy shut this year. This was a woman who would never as Senator Durbin explained would not take no for an answer. She literally applied for law school when there were no women hardly in her law school, when she had to go to a dinner with the dean of Harvard Law School. And he had each woman explain why they were allowing a man to be taking this seat, taking the chair of a man and taking it away from a man.

She then goes on to Columbia and graduates, number one in her class. She then comes up with theories that no one had even conjured up before to argue that women should have equal protection under the law. And when they say a man should argue it, she goes and does it herself. And she wins five out of six times setting landmark law for this country.

She then goes to the Supreme Court, is respected across the land, becomes a cultural icon with her own hashtag—Notorious RBG—in her 80s. She never gave up and I am not going to give up on this democracy. Despite these false lies about the Democratic candidate for president. It is President Trump who chose to clear out peaceful protesters and wave a Bible in front of a church.

It is President Trump who after Charlottesville said there are two sides. Well, there’s not two sides when one side is the Ku Klux Klan. It is President Trump who has put out there that military and soldiers should be at the voting places in a pure attempt to suppress the vote. So don’t go telling the people this committee who know better, who is the divisive person, who is the one that has been inciting violence in this election.

And even if they don’t believe us in this room, the American people have seen through it. That’s why just today you saw nearly 500 military leaders join together—former military leaders—and civilian national security leaders, Republicans, Democrats and independents to say that they did not support this president, because they were afraid of what was happening to our country and our democracy.

So this hearing that we are about to have is about that very democracy. And so I don’t think people really care about the fights we’ve had about this before. I think we missed a really important ingredient in what I’ve been hearing my colleagues say from across the aisle and that is people are voting right now.

They are voting on health care right now. The fact that we have a court case out of Texas that is coming up for oral argument on November 10th, in which yes, pre existing conditions are on the line because the argument was made that the whole Affordable Care Act should be thrown out. You cannot just fix that when you haven’t been able to even take up the Heroes Act to do something about the pandemic. Yet, in fact, we see that we’ve got time to ram through a Supreme Court hearing in two weeks instead of spending those two weeks to actually take up the Heroes Act and hope the people of this country.

What else is on the line? Well, civil rights is on the line when you look at the decisions and all the money that has flowed into our politics from the outside as a result of this current court’s decision that is dominated by nominees put forward by Republican presidents.

Women’s rights. Oh, yeah, they are on the line and as those fires were blazing on the West Coast of our country, even the right to regulate our environment and do something to protect our air and water, that is on the line. So this hearing will not be divorced from what is happening right now because this president has put it right in the middle of a political campaign.

That’s his choice, not our choice.

So, I don’t see this as theater as you describe, Senator Cruz. I see this as the real world. I see this deeply personally because I know that we have a President in place that knew that this virus was deadly. He knew that it was airborne and yet my family, we were just trying to clean off the surfaces all the time and wash our hands. And then my husband ends up in the hospital with COVID on oxygen because this President didn’t share with us the information he had at the time. All of that is going to be on the line.

So we will look at this nominee and we will look carefully at this nominee that is our job, but we cannot get away from the fact that the process that puts her before us will be one that is not respecting the democracy that we are supposed to cherish.

So I just—I have listened to this for too long and I think the American people see through this raw use of political power. That is why they’re voting in droves. So if you think you can get away from this just by trying to get this nominee through and no one’s going to notice what she stands for or what her views are and how that’s going to play into decisions that are made that affect people’s lives. They already know. They’re voting now.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.