A.N.C. ambassador visits

Press, 17 May 1984, Page 8

A.N.C. ambassador visits

Eddie Funde is a persuasive advocate for the African National Congress. In self-imposed exile from his homeland of South Africa, he has devoted himself to spreading the message of the A.N.C. and the South-West Africa People’s Organisation. The chief representative of the congress to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, Mr Funde is in New Zealand to tell people about the political situation in South Africa.

His message is that of the black African nationalists who are committed to the overthrow of the South African Government and the establishment of majority rule. It was time people in Australia and New Zealand heard from the majority in South Africa, Mr Funde said yesterday. “The people in this region hear their information from ambassadors and consulates of the racist South African regime. I want to inform, to counter the propaganda of that regime.” On this visit to New Zealand Mr Funde has meL anii-apartheid groups, trad^ (

unions and the news media to publicise his office in Sydney. He was appointed as the A.N.C. representative in Sydney when the Australian Labour Government said it would allow representatives of the A.N.C. and S.W.A.P.O. into Australia to inform the Australian people. Mr Funde took up his appointment in December and was invited to New Zealand by the Federation of Labour to speak at its

recent conference. While in New Zealand he has spoken at public meetings in Wellington and Auckland and met officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His suggestion for an A.N.C. representative in New Zealand met with a cool response. Mr Funde found this reluctance difficult to understand.

“When we become the government they will have to deal with us. It will be the same people,” he said. Independence and majority rule will come, Mr Funde believes.

“There are two ways I would return to South Africa at present. One is to go back and fight, the other after independence.” As a member of the outlawed A.N.C., Mr Funde cannot return to his country without being arrested. “I can do more in my present role,” he said. “This is the job I have been given.” Independence would come within his lifetime, Mr Funde said. He was adamant that neither he nor the A.N.C. could he labelled as terrorist.

“For 50 years we tried every means of peaceful struggle until finally we had to answer the violence of the regime that wanted to suppress us with violence. “The United Nations has legitimised our armed struggle, saying every means of fighting should be used against apartheid. “Our armed struggle is directed against the military and industrial complex of the State and against the administrative structures of racist South Africa,” he said.

The attack last year on the South African Air Force headquarters building at Pretoria was an example of action against a military installation. Mr Funde was born in Soweto 40 years ago. He became active in the A.N.C. through the Work Camps Association and, since slipping across the border a day ahead of the South African police, has worked for the A.N.C. in Lusaka and Sweden. Before taking up his position as unofficial ambassador to Australia he was the head of congress’s youth division."