Your Excellency Ambassador L. Brent Bozell III, Ambassador of the United States of America;

Other honoured US citizens present with us here;

Honourable Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga,

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Ambassadors and High Commissioners,

Friends, ladies and gentlemen:

First of all, I am privileged to take this opportunity sincerely to thank Your Excellency, esteemed Ambassador Bozell, for giving me the opportunity to make a few remarks at this important event convened to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of Independence of the United States of America.

As the US Revolutionary War of Independence raged between 1775 and 1783, what is called the First Frontier War in our country took place during the same period, between 1779 and 1781.

What else was common between these two Wars, separated from each other by the great expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, was the fact that they both involved confrontation with the then British government.

And indeed, we can say that that was the end of any commonality between the US and ourselves here at the southern tip of Africa.

This is because even before the British had accepted defeat, the US insurgents declared independence on 4 July 1776, 250 years ago.

In our case, in the end there were nine (9) Frontier Wars, covering an entire century, followed by similar proceedings for well over another century.

It was only 215 years after the outbreak of that First Frontier War, in 1994, that we too could claim our Independence.

It was during many of these intervening years that, happily, we formed great bonds with the sister people of the United States and derived great benefit from the Independence won in 1776 through struggle.

You can imagine the situation during those years when the apartheid machinery of oppression seemed invincible, but during which we as young activists against apartheid rule gained enormous strength, inspiration and encouragement from the famous words we recited, quoting the US Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” and also,

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”

We cited these statements because we were convinced that they directly applied to our own situation.

I can also say the same about the famous words spoken by President Abe Lincoln in his 1863 Gettysburg Address when he said:

“…this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Fortunately, there were very many among the American people who understood the famous words I have just read in the same way we understood them, relative to our national condition as it then was.

These American patriots, men and women, black and white, therefore took the principled decision that they could not stand and watch as we in South Africa engaged in struggle to abolish a Government destructive of the ends spelt out in the US Declaration of Independence and confirmed in the Gettysburg Address delivered after the issuance of the historic Emancipation Proclamation.

One outstanding example of what these US patriots did in this regard, was the adoption by the US Congress of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986, which even survived a Presidential veto.

It was exactly this kind of decisive action in support of the very founding principles of the United States which made the US one of the architects of our country’s liberation from apartheid and racial domination.

That historic fact was also firmly underlined and exemplified by the relations of friendship, solidarity and cooperation which were established by the two Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, Chief Albert Luthuli, President of the African National Congress, and the Rev Martin Luther King Jr.

We were very pleased that after our liberation in 1994, both the US government and the people as a whole deliberately sought to build on this very solid foundation of friendship and solidarity to work hand-in-hand with us build the democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa defined in our own Declaration of Independence, our Constitution.

I recall that the prime mover for the establishment of our liberation movement, the African National Congress, Pixley ka Izaka Seme, went to school in the US in 1898 and graduated at Columbia University, New York in 1906.

I recall also that our very first black woman university graduate and later leader, Charlotte Maxeke, qualified at Wilberforce University, Ohio, in 1903, with the famous W.E.B. du Bois having been one of her teachers.

I have no doubt that these ancestors of ours rejoin the millions of our people today to say congratulations and best wishes to the Government and sister people of the United States as they celebrate their historic 250th Anniversary of Independence, confident that both peoples will use this happy occasion to recall that for some generations, they have together sought to build relations of friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation.

I am honoured to convey warm 250th birthday greetings to yourself, Ambassador Bozell, and your colleagues at the US Embassy and the Consulates in our country, as well as humbly request that you convey the same to the President, Government and people of the United States of America.

Thank you.