Foreign Relations of South Africa During Apartheid - Morogoro Conference

Morogoro Conference

Neither the ANC nor the PAC was content with the Lusaka Manifesto. The signatories had not checked with them before laying out the document, and they foresaw the fact that African backing for the struggle would taper. The Manifesto did not truly recognise the significance of the liberation groups in the answer to South Africa's problems and even proposed dissuading them from an armed struggle. Both the ANC and the PAC had started using violent means in the 1960s, with the formation of their military wings.

Disinclined to destroy the support that they did have, however, the ANC and PAC did not explicitly condemn the Manifesto. In 1969, though, the ANC held the inaugural National Consultative Conference in Morogoro, Tanzania, where it ironed out its troubles and anxieties. The result was a decision not to end the armed struggle but, rather, to advance it. Oliver Tambo summed up thus: "Close Ranks! This is the order to our people, our youth, the army, to each Umkhonto we Sizwe militant, to all our many supporters the world over. This is the order to our leaders, to all of us. The order that comes from this conference is 'Close Ranks and Intensify the Armed Struggle!'"

Unlike the independence factions, the South African administration hailed the Lusaka Manifesto's plans for arbitration and détente. This tied in nicely with Prime Minister Vorster's own plan for the reduction of South Africa's seclusion from the rest of the world. He called his "Outward looking" policy. The state also maintained that the preservation of separate development through homelands carried out the Manifesto's insistence on human equality and dignity. The homelands, it argued, were meant eventually to be self-governing, decolonised nations where black people could take part in ballots and be free to live how they wished.

That is not to say that the NP government agreed to the Lusaka Manifesto, however. It rejected the manifesto's backing of liberation movements, although the movements themselves felt the Manifesto was showing a lack of support.