Mbeki calls for an end to military regimes
Regional, Politics, 1/10/2000

As the African National Congress observed its 88th anniversary Saturday, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa said the greatest problem that plagued the African continent over the past century has been discrimination on the basis of color.

In an address to thousands of people at Thohoyondou in the Northern Province, Mbeki said the solution to this centuries old problem constitutes a challenge both to all Africans and to the rest of humanity.

The challenge facing the 21st Century is the solution of the problem of the color line. As the leaders of the African peoples and the peoples of African origin met in London a century ago, the peoples they represented, except those in the Ethiopia, Liberia, Haiti and the United States, were still in bondage.

He said a century later, the political circumstances of the black people have changed radically and after major struggles everywhere, political liberation has been achieved.

"Where she was colonized and oppressed in 1900, Africa in 2000 is free. And yet the problem of the color line, loudly and correctly proclaimed in 1900, has not been resolved. The complete emancipation of the peoples of Africa the heart of the problem of the color line has not yet been achieved," he said.

He said the people of Africa continue to be immersed in poverty, millions of Africans continue to lose their lives as a result of preventable diseases, including AIDS, millions of families cannot feed themselves because they have no jobs, no land they can till and have no possibility to live in conditions of freedom because they continue to allow tyrannical regimes to retain power.

The ANC was founded in 1912 in response to the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, which ignored the wishes of the majority of the people of South Africa.

For 30 years from 1960 to 1990, the ANC was declared a banned organization and was forced to operate underground.

Its leadership was either jailed or forced to live in exile. When the ban was lifted on the ANC in February 1990 and its leadership released from prison, the organization engaged in protracted negotiations with the South African government to map out a new constitution and create a climate for the country's first democratic elections.

It came to power after the April 1994 all-race polls and its majority was confirmed in the national elections on 2 June 1999.

The party has a long history of fighting white domination and has committed itself to building a new South Africa through the Reconstruction and Development Program.

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