Resources Speeches and Statements

Speech By President Nelson Mandela at a Banquet in Honour of Julius Nyerere, Johannesburg, 17 October 1997

Master of Ceremonies; Mwalimu Julius Nyerere; Mr Nicky Oppenheimer; Honoured guests;

It is a great pleasure to share in this occasion honouring one of Africa's great patriots.

It is a humbling experience to recall the contribution that Mwalimu Nyerere has made to the liberation of our continent, and to freedom in South Africa.

This is the freedom fighter who heard Chief Luthuli's appeal and joined Trevor Huddleston in launching the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain in 1959; a leader whose decisive intervention at the Commonwealth Conference after the Sharpeville Massacre led to the exclusion of apartheid South Africa.

I had the personal privilege of meeting him many years ago, in 1962, when I visited Tanzania seeking help as we embarked on the armed struggle. Then, as now, I was struck by his lucid thoughts; his burning desire for justice everywhere; and his commitment to Africa's interests.

After the independence of Tanzania, Mwalimu, as its head of state, continued to play an important role in the struggle for justice and democracy not only in Africa, but throughout the world.

The people of Tanzania gave unstinting support to the liberation of South Africa. They gave recognition of the most practical kind to the principle that our freedom and theirs were interdependent.

Today, as free nations we have…

Continue reading

Speech by Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere at the Opening Ceremony of the Second Meeting of the Council of Representatives at the U.N. Trusteeship Council in New York on the 21st September 1998

Council of Representatives of the South Centre. We are honoured by the presence of our distinguished guests -President Mandela and Minister Al Atas, whom I warmly welcome and thank for finding some time in their very busy schedules to be able to be with us here.

During the next two years the Council will be exploring in detail the work accomplished and the experience gained during the last three years and it will chart the future course of the Centre. At this opening session, and in the presence of our distinguished leaders from South, I would like to stress the political and practical significance of the South Centre.

Today, we in the South live and operate in an external economic and political environment which profoundly affects and limits our situation and our choices and economic and social environment is not .'God given". It is "man made", and those who design it and run it happen to be the powerful from the North.

We from the South have little say, if any regarding this external setting, its rules and the application of these rules. We have very little, if any, influence on its operation and its management. Our position has not been helped by the pronounced weakening of the United Nations rote and voice in the economic sphere, and the general erosion of…

Continue reading

Madam Speaker and, I think I may say, Comrade President and Comrade Vice President, ladies and gentlemen. I have told you already how I felt when you asked me to come and talk here. And then I got the message that you were coming. Of course, I am happy you are here, but what do I say in your presence in this House? This is not my first time here. I have been here before and I have thanked you, but I must thank you again. For me to come here to this Chamber and address you is a dream which you have helped me to make true. How could any one of us have thought that it would be possible for me or people of my type to come to this country and speak from a forum like this? So, Mr. President, and all your colleagues, I say thank you very much for making this possible.

J.K.Nyerere, Cape Town 16th October 1997 - Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere:-

Now, as for sharing my thoughts with you: my thoughts, unfortunately, don't change, so a lot of what I am going to say some of you will have heard before, but some of you have not. I am going to say two things about Africa. One, that Africa south of the Sahara is an isolated region of the world. That's the first thing I want to say. The second thing I want to say is that Africa south of the Sahara is not what it is believed to be because Africa is now changing. So let me see if I can share those thoughts with you in a very short period.

Africa south of the Sahara is an isolated region of the world. During the…

Continue reading

Farewell Speech by the President, Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, at the Diamond Jubilee Hill Par es Salaam: 4th November 1985. During the long period during which I have had the good fortune to lead our country, I have made very many speeches to Tanzanians. Today, in my last speech as President of the United Republic, I have only one extra thing to say.

To every one of you individually, to all people organised together in villages, in cooperatives, in professions, in voluntary organisations contributing to our development, to all honest workers in Government and Parastatals - to everybody - I say thank you very much.

Since we began to govern ourselves I have been the leader, first of Tanganyika, and then of the United Republic of Tanzania. Time and again you have re-elected me and thus expressed your continued confidence in my ability to do the job you needed done. And in the last few weeks you have paid many tributes to my work as President of our country. You have forgiven, even if perhaps you have not forgotten, my many mistakes of commission and commission.

Continue reading

My Lord Mayor, Your Excellencies, My Lords, Aldermen, Sheriffs, Ladies and Gentlemen.
First of all, I want to congratulate you on your Swahili performance. And secondly I want to thank you for your warm welcome and the nice things you have said about myself and my country in your own speech.

At the conclusion of my speech in the Guildhall in 1975, I said that Tanzania was too poor not to pay its debts. In the face of my country's large overdue external payments a considerable proportion of which are due to the United Kingdom I repeat: that statement. But the experience of trying to do business with a chaotic world during the past ten years means that I can no longer stop there.

Tanzania is an underdeveloped country in a poor and underdeveloped continent. During the 1960s most cf Africa's newly independent countries including Tanzania made a promising start in economic progress. In the 1970s, and especially the last half of the decade, we ran into difficulty; the 1980s have so far been a period of economic disaster. Almost every African country is in trouble regardless of its political or economic ideology.

Continue reading

Mr. Speaker; Honourable Members of Parliament.

Today, as it is the last time I shall be addressing this House, I propose to look at some of the things which we have done since I was first entrusted with the task of leading our independent country. 1 want to look at these in the context of the objectives we set ourselves in 1961, 1962, and 1964. I wish, through you, to offer an account to the people who have so consistently re-elected me to lead this country. And I wish to indicate my own provisional assessment of those national achievements and problems which I shall be passing to my successor to deal with in cooperation with the next Parliament.

The single most important task - both for myself and for the people of this country - which I set out in my Inaugural Address in December 1962 was that of buiIding a united nation on the basis of human equality and dignity. When I addressed the United Nations a year before, 1 also promised that the basis of our nation's actions would be an honest attempt to honour the dignity and equality of man - nationally and internationally. And the theme of unity was my central point when I again addressed Parliament on 25th April 1964, asking for the ratification of the Agreement to unite the two independent countries of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

Continue reading

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is my duty and my pleasure to welcome this meeting, and every one of you, to Tanzania and to Arusha. I suspect that some of you may have found that your accommodation gives you too frequent a reminder that this meeting is being held in an under-developed country. I want to assure you that we tried hard! I hope, however, that you will not find your rooms or the facilities so unsatisfactory that you cannot do your work properly. I also hope that there will be an opportunity Tor you to see something of Tanzania. We have a lovely country, and we would like you to enjoy your stay here as well as to serve your countries and the whole Third World.

The Agenda of your Conference is very long; it deals with very important matters. Many technical questions are involved, in which details and percentages can mean the difference between the usefulness or otherwise of a proposal or suggested negotiating position. And these details are the reality of working for a New International Economic Order; unless careful attention is given to them (especially by those entrusted with negotiating power) the Third World demands are mere rhetoric.

Continue reading