Issued by: Office of the President
On behalf of the Government of National Unity and the People of South Africa, I would like to express my horror and outrage at the acts of violence and human rights violations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
We would like to urge all parties in the conflict to demonstrate restraint and to observe internationally accepted rules concerning the protection of human rights.
The Government of National Unity wholeheartedly supports the United Nations peacekeeping forces and other international efforts to find a lasting solution to this terrible conflict.
I am heption, more especially among the victims of the barbarism that is taking place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that the international community is unable to act decisively in defence of human life. Defence for basic human freedoms is what has held the international community of nations together, more especially since the defeat of Nazism.
As a country that is emerging from one of the most cruel forms of racial discrimination and oppression, we are particularly concerned and express indignation at what is clearly ethnically motivated aggression.
The Government of South Africa would therefore support decisive action to stop the carnage in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Nelson Mandela
22 July 1995