Address of the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, to the
Special Sitting of the Senate of the Republic of Chile: Valparaiso, June 8, 2005 Mr.
President of the Senate, Mr President of the Chamber of Deputies, Honourable
Members of the National Congress Ladies and Gentlemen: The geographers
have told us that 9212 kilometres separate our two capital cities of Tshwane/Pretoria
and Santiago de Chile. But they also tell us that the ancient European cities
of Athens and Rome, famed for many achievements and extraordinary contributions
to human civilisation, are nearer to us than is our sister capital city, Santiago
de Chile - the one separated from our capital by 7059km, and the other by 7675km. Spanish
Madrid of the Conquistadores and Cervantes, the creator of the outstanding anti-hero,
Don Quijote, is but a mere 8054km away from our capital city. Even distant
Moscow, known for the icy winters of the North and the creative dreams of great
writers such as Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky,
Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Anna Akhmatova, is at 9101km, closer to us than Santiago
de Chile. Polish Warsaw that brings back memories of the heroic uprising
of the Jewish people against the Nazi genocidaires, is but a mere 8695km away
from our own capital city. To reach Santiago de Chile, close to the western
shores of the great Pacific, and Valparaiso on the Pacific, we left Africa from
Cape Town, the southern-most city on the eastern shores of the vast Atlantic Ocean.
Even in the mind's eye we can see that the Mediterranean waters that separate
us from the European cities we have mentioned, are but a great intercontinental
lake compared to the oceans that separate and help to define our countries. You
will ask why I come to this important representative assembly of the will of the
people of Chile to speak to you about geographic distances among the capital cities
of the world. And I will answer that I have spoken thus because I want to
say that the actuality of the geographic distance between Tshwane/Pretoria and
Santiago de Chile disguises the fact that historical circumstance has in time
past and in future time, determined that the South African heartbeat must keep
pace with the beat of the hearts of the people of Chile. Not so long ago,
our people were obliged to make great sacrifices to respond to the apartheid crime
against humanity. As many died on our streets and in the jails of the oppressors,
tourists from Europe and elsewhere in the world, as well as others who did not
have the will or the possibility to see the reality of our agony, came to our
country to enjoy themselves or seek commercial profit. We thought then,
that none should visit apartheid South Africa and perhaps inadvertently communicate
the wrong message that apartheid South Africa was a normal member of the community
of nations. We spoke out as loudly as we could saying - isolate and do not visit
apartheid South Africa! And still those who would not hear came, their visits
falsely communicating a message of normality in our country, even as a racist
tyranny expressed its brutal might by shooting down the patriots of our land in
cold blood. It was obvious that we had run out of native word images to
communicate our rage. What others who came from beyond our shores did by ignoring
our pleas, said to us that we had to take exceptional measures to express our
outrage. At a loss for the right native words to communicate the simple
message that those who have ears to hear, let them hear and those who have eyes
to see, let them see, we did not turn to those geographically closer to us, like
those born and raised in the great cities of Europe we have mentioned. Instead,
he called upon a great son of the Chilean people, Pablo Neruda, to give us the
words we sought among ourselves and could not find. One after the other,
our voices recited the famous words written by Pablo Neruda, and well known to
you, which he entitled - "Explico algunas cosas". (I am explaining a
few Things.) "Generales traidores; Mirad mi casa muerta, Miras
España rota: Pero de cada casa muerta sale metal ardiendo en vez
de flores, pero de cada hueco de España sale España pero
de cada niño muerto sale un fusil con ojos, pero de cada crimen nacen
balas que os hallarán un dia el sitio del corazón. Preguntaréis
por qué su poesía no nos habla del sueño, de las hojas de
los grandes volcanes de su país natal? Venid a ver la sangre por las
calles. venid a ver la sangre por las calles, venid a ver la sangre por
las calles !" ("Treacherous generals: see my dead house, look
at broken Spain: from every house burning metal flows instead of flowers, from
every socket of Spain Spain emerges and from every dead child a rifle with
eyes, and from every crime bullets are born which will one day find the
bull's eye of your hearts. And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry speak
of dreams and leaves and the great volcanoes of his native land? Come and
see the blood in the streets. Come and see the blood in the streets. Come
and see the blood in the streets!") To address those who would not
respond to what we said in our own native words, we used as our own, the word
of a Chilean fellow-combatant for liberty and said - "Venid a ver la sangre
por las calles." Pablo Neruda has spoken of the blood on the streets
of the country of the Conquistadores. As they laid waste to the ancient civilisations
of the Inca and the Maya and the Mapuche, the conquistas would not have known
that the curse of the blood of the innocents of the Americas would visit them
many centuries later, as witnessed by a Chilean descendant who was implacably
opposed to all oppression and tyranny. But he too, as he wrote, "Venid
a ver la sangre por las calles", could not have foreseen that a few decades
later, a successor to the heroic heritage of the Mapuche, Salvador Allende, would
shed his blood and lose his life at the Moneda Palace in Santiago de Chile. He
would not have known that many years later, it would be from the same Madrid where
he had seen blood in the streets that he would, at a distance, see blood flow
in the streets of his own native land. We too did not know the fate that
awaited us at the hands of the racist tyrants, that would tell us that to express
our revulsion at the slaughter of the innocent, and mobilise our people and the
peoples of the world to oppose and defeat the apartheid crime against humanity,
we would borrow the mighty words of a Chilean poet and patriot. But we did. We
came closer still to the Chilean people when even during their own difficult years
as they suffered under a military dictatorship, with many of them driven into
exile as we were, they nevertheless stood up wherever they were and joined the
international struggle to end the apartheid system. That defined the people of
this land as fellow combatants for the liberation of South Africa. What
you did inspired us too, even as we continued to confront our own monsters, also
to stand and add our voice to the sacred call for the liberation of the people
of Chile from the military dictatorship. And because Chilean and South African
eyes were filled with rage from seeing burning metal, from witnessing the innocent
eyes of dead children; because they had enough of smelling the stench of blood
in the streets; because their minds craved for poetry that spoke of hopes that
could be fulfilled and dreams that had to be realised, these courageous peoples
at both ends of the Atlantic - constituted as workers, intellectuals, women, youth
and political activists - ensured that freedom and democracy became a living reality
in our countries. As our freedom approached, we had to decide how it would
be that the formerly oppressed and the former oppressors could live together in
peace in a liberated South Africa. To answer this question, once more we turned
to Chile to give us the lead. We had come to know that despite all the
pain and anger, the suffering and torment occasioned by repression, by the absence
of democracy and respect for human and peoples' rights, the people of Chile had
given to the world a true gift of reconciliation. And so it came about
that once more we turned to the Chilean people to learn what we could do to heal
the wounds of the past, to forgive without forgetting, to create the stability
we needed to be able to build a new and humane South Africa. You gave us the gift
of your Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which we reproduced in our own country
to contain the demons that might have turned our country apart. Undoubtedly, in
both our countries, the legacy that should live forever is the stunning generosity
of those who bore the brunt of brutal repression and oppression. In the
past eleven years many of our fellow citizens and some around the world, even
those with agnostic inclinations, described our transition to democracy, including
the processes of reconciliation, as a miracle. We erred by not telling them that
- we learnt from our fellow combatants for justice! We learned from Chile! Today,
we have come to Chile - its capital city 9212 kilometres away from our own - because
there are many more things we can still share and learn from each other, so that
the extraordinary human efforts that evoked the biblical image of a miracle should
further inspire us as we address the challenges of poverty, underdevelopment and
marginalisation. I am pleased to report to this august assembly that we
have agreed with your outstanding son, President Ricardo Lagos and the government
he leads, that we should do everything possible to strengthen the bonds of friendship
and solidarity formed during the difficult years when it would have been very
easy to ignore each other's suffering and each other's struggle. Our countries
share many things. We are both major producers of minerals and agricultural products.
The seas also provide us with food and jobs. We face the common challenge to eradicate
poverty and underdevelopment in our countries and bridge the enormous disparities
that separate the wealthy from the poor in our societies. We are trading
nations, dependent for the welfare of the masses of our peoples on mutually beneficial
interactions and trade with all countries of the world. We also have the shared
responsibility to protect the Antarctic Continent threatened as it is by the menace
of global warming, which threatens all of us with disastrous consequences. All
these factors point to the imperative for us to intensify our bilateral cooperation
in all fields, not least of all the direct contact between our respective peoples
through tourism, sport, educational and cultural exchanges. Responding
to this, we have agreed with the President and Government of the Republic of Chile
to ensure as a matter of urgency that we strengthen our mechanisms for cooperation,
to respond together to the task to pursue the goal of a better life for both our
peoples. This will be done. Inspired by your achievements in reconciliation,
democracy and economic development, and driven by our own determination to be
true to the egalitarian social conscience of our forebears and the traditions
of our struggle, we are pleased to report to you, Honourable Members of the National
Congress of Chile, that since our liberation 11 years ago, we have made visible
progress towards changing the lives of our people for the better. We are certain
that by improving and intensifying our cooperation, we will achieve even faster
progress towards achieving the goal of a better life for all. This has
been achieved on a solid foundation of democracy, human rights, human dignity
and justice because the better life our people seek cannot be mortgaged to autocracy
and authoritarianism. Indeed, this esteemed gathering of the representatives
of the citizens of Chile, communicates the message that to propel our society
forward, we must at all times, respect the will of the people. Coming from
a continent that has been marginalised for centuries, we are very encouraged and
strengthened to be among you, Chileans, because our countries are united and have
a common agenda to work for a just and equitable global order, central to which
is respect for the voices of all nations in the ordering of world affairs, especially
during this period of globalisation. Accordingly, I am confident we will
work together to achieve effective and significant reform of the United Nations.
In addition, our representatives have worked and will continue to work together
to achieve an early conclusion to the Doha Development Round of the WTO. We
will also continue to collaborate to advance South-South co-operation, especially
ensuring more focussed and closer relations between our regional bodies. We are
indeed encouraged by the recent developments in your region that led to the establishment
of the South American Community of Nations. We are confident that this important
body will soon play the role it should in global affairs. We were greatly
encouraged by the Summit Meeting last month between the countries of South America
and those of the Arab world and trust that there will be similar engagements with
the African Union. It is our hope that the strengthening of these relations will,
among other things, contribute to the resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian question,
which remains a major threat to peace in the Middle East and the world. As
you are aware, the African Union has launched its development programme, the New
Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which has embarked on a number of
processes towards the regeneration of Africa by ensuring the sustainable development
of all our countries. As is self-evident from the name, this programme is
predicated on partnerships, among the African countries themselves, between the
African countries and other countries and regions of the South and between Africa
and the developed countries of the North. Clearly, despite the separation
of more than 9 000 kilometres and the separation occasioned by the vast, turbulent
and cold Atlantic Ocean, it is natural that we partner Chile and the South American
Community of Nations as, together, we respond to the desires and aspirations of
our peoples and confront the challenges posed by contemporary human society. Our
shared history demonstrates that the actuality of the geographic distance between
Tshwane/Pretoria and Santiago de Chile disguises the fact that historical circumstance
has in time past and in future time, determined that the South African and the
African heartbeat must keep pace with the beat of the hearts of the people of
Chile and those of South America. Relevant to this relationship between
us, in his poem, "The Watersong Ends", Pablo Neruda said: "For
my part and yours, we comply; we share our hopes and winters
we go on
loving love and in our blunt way we bury the liars and live among the truth-tellers." Esteemed
Presidents of the Chilean Houses of Parliament and Honourable Members; None
among us from South Africa, who are privileged to be here today, have a sense
that more than 9 000 kilometres separate us, because in Chile, we actually feel
at home. I thank you most sincerely for inviting us to visit the Chilean National
Congress and to share a few thoughts with you. I thank you for your attention. Enquiries:
David Hlabane 082 561 9428. Issued by The Presidency Private Bag X1000 PRETORIA 0001
|