March 1997
SACP
Programme of action for 1997
A YEAR FOR CONSOLIDATING THE SOCIALIST
PERSPECTIVE
The Central Committee meeting of December 1996 designated this year
as a year for consolidating our socialist perspective.
| What does this mean? |
More than ever, we now say that socialism is not
a distant, second stage, but a reality to be struggled for now. Consolidating
our socialist perspective means: consolidating this perception of the struggle
in the present. It means propagating our socialist point of view within
our alliance, and the broader mass movement. It means struggling, right
now, for elements of socialism.
We should be discussing and developing themes connected with our socialist
vision. Some of these are:
The national democratic state.
- The market: How do we transform it? How do we `roll it back'?
- Alternative forms of ownership, like co-operatives, public sector,
worker funds. - Democratisation - of management, through work place forums, and of
distribution and consumption, through consumer watchdog organisations.
- Internationalism in the new world situation; anti-imperialism; the
position of South Africa, Southern Africa, the southern part of the world
in general. - Gender: deepening our understanding of the link between gender and
class struggles.
| How do we do this? |
There are three things we need to concentrate on: political education,
developing women comrades, and connecting with ANC work in developing ANC
cadres.
We need to work at developing policy, in local and provincial government,
for example.
All these topics should be discussed in all our structures. We should
discuss them outside the Party, too. Our socialist vision is something
we should share with others, to spread a socialist and working class perspective,
and to dispel the idea that the SACP is some kind of conspiracy.
None of this will be possible unless we make the Party self-sufficient
in resources. That means taking the debit campaign forward, raising funds,
collecting levies and membership subscriptions.
The human resources of the Party need to be strengthened, through programmes
of targeted recruitment, and ways of working with people who are not in
the Party, but close to us.
| Our most important fronts for campaigning are in the broader Alliance campaigns. |
- Masakhane weeks or week-ends, where we mobilise members to renovate
schools, clean up neighbourhoods, and so on. - People's forums, to discuss how local budgets will be spent.
- Democratising schools, through democratic school management.
- Mobilising ordinary people in the campaign against crime, through community
police forums. - Democratising management, through work place forums.
- The struggle against evictions in the rural areas.
- Building an effective women's movement.
The Programme of Action gives check-lists, based on all these considerations,
to be used by provinces, branches and individual members.
There are two further suggestions:
Branches should keep in touch with the Cuban doctors in the areas, show
them hospitality where possible, and invite them to tell the branches about
life in Cuba.
Each individual member should sell at least five copies of each issue
of the African Communist and Umsebenzi. Selling Party literature is valuable
in organising in the community and at the work place. It also raises funds.
More
Topics For Discussion
Central Committee Suggestions
The Central Committee adopted the Programme of Action, and identified
more topics that urgently need discussion within all structures of the
Party.
- What kind of organisation are we trying to build? How successful has
our Party-building been, over the past three years? - What specific interventions are we prepared to make in the disussion
about restructuring state assets? Generalities are not enough. - In the same way, generalities about GEAR are not enough. We should
be clear and specific about the interventions we want to make in this debate,
too. Exactly what elements in it do we agree or disagree with? - What do we mean when we speak of patriarchy, and the patriarchal state?
Are the concepts valid for a Marxist party? - What kind of state are we building? The debate opened up in our CC
discussion paper, "Let us not lose sight of our strategic priorities"
is taken forward within the Party and the Alliance.
Who
conspired to kill Chris Hani?
No Amnesty without Full Disclosure
The convicted killers of Chris Hani, Waluz and Derby-Lewis, have
applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In a
statement issued at the end of January, the SACP called on the TRC "not
to approach this particular amnesty application in a routine manner."
The Party has always believed that the murder was
the work of an extensive conspiracy, and insists that the details of this
conspiracy should be fully revealed to the TRC. The statement says, "We
believe that the assassination goes to the heart of the apartheid intelligence
and disinformation machinery. At the very least, full disclosure of all
the facts is imperative. If there is the least doubt that those applying
for amnesty are holding back on information in this matter, amnesty must
not be granted."
The statement warns: "There are those who will certainly try to
throw up smoke and dust in the coming days and weeks ... As the date for
the Waluz/Derby-Lewis amnesty applications approaches, we can expect the
old apartheid intelligence networks to grind into operation, throwing out
all kinds of red herrings."
This statement is in line with a Central Committee decision that the
TRC should ensure a thorough investigation, and that the Head Office secretariat
should monitor all developments, in conjunction with the ANC. The Party
and the ANC have asked the media for help in gathering information about
the murder.
The CC also decided that the Party should give the Hani family as much
comradely support as possible over this time.
The Central Committee noted that there are signs of a re-grouping of
counter-revolutionary forces, seeking to destabilise, spread disinformation,
drum up anti-Communist hysteria, and infiltrate our Party. The CC decided
that the Political Bureau should monitor this situation, and provinces
should report any developments.
A
Crime Against the Public
Plan to Privatise Mpumalanga Parks
Matthews Hlabane, SACP provincial organiser in Mpumalanga, comments
on the role played by developers, consultants and privileged government
officials in the controversial deal between the Mpumalanga Parks Board
and the Dolphin group of companies.
The agreement between Dolphin and the Mpumalanga
Parks Board has nothing to do with the survival needs of our people. It
is about taking the game reserves away from the public into the hands of
a few.
The terms of the agreement are massively weighted in favour of the Dolphin
Group. They give Dolphin power to exploit attractions, including the Blyed
River Canyon, Bourk's Luck, the Blyed River potholes, and the Pilgrim's
Rest. They do not give the Parks Board the right to adjust any Dolphin
project on environmental grounds.
The agreement commits the Parks Board to try to ensure that the contracts
for tourist sites in Board reserves - like the Aventura Lodges in the Blyed
River Canyon and the Bongani Lodge in the Mthethumusha Reserve - are given
to Dolphin when they run out. Dolphin can then sell these contracts to
subcontractors for its own profit.
If, tourist arrivals drop over a period of three months, and, if the
situation does not improve within a further three months, the agreement
gives Dolphin the right to pay the Board only 7% of its revenue. The Board
is also bound to consult Dolphin before making any internal policy changes
that might affect Dolphin's profit.
In making this bureaucratic agreement, members of the Board have violated
the key principles of democracy: transparency and consultation. The matter
was secret till it was leaked to the press. The process that led to the
deal frog-jumped organisations that express the opinion of our people,
like the Multi-Stakeholder Forum for the Environment, and the Environmental
Council.
The agreement needs to be investigated. The investigation should cover
the role played by members of the Parks Board. All names of officials concerned
should be disclosed. The investigation should also cover the manner in
which the various Tender Boards conduct their activities in Mpumalanga.
Consultants and developers flock into the Province. Their programmes
are sometimes protected and advanced by some of our own comrades. The RDP,
which is supposed to be mass driven, is undermined by this sort of activity.
Some of the developers are members of the opposition. It is in their
interests that the ANC in government should have problems, that ANC councillors
should be divided from the members, and the ANC leadership divorced from
the mass of the people.
After the people had shown they were opposed to the agreement, the MEC
for Environmental Affairs appointed a commission to investigate. The names
of the members of the commission were announced on February 13th 1997,
and, on the same day, the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature gave approval
to the Dolphin scheme. This approval did nothing but legalise the crime
against our people.
The government should reconsider the deal, and ensure that the process
is driven from below. Information should be circulated to all stakeholders
and to the public at large. The process of taking decisions should be taken
in consultation, not behind closed doors.
If the Alliance in Mpumalanga does not challenge the developing bureaucracy,
then it runs a risk of playing into the hands of its adversaries, for bureaucracy
is like AIDS: it will kill our structures.
NEDLAC Negotiations
Deadlocked
COSATU Plans Industrial Action
NEDLAC negotiations between labour, business and government, over
a new law governing basic conditions of employment, have been deadlocked
since August 1966. If the deadlock continues, affiliates of COSATU will
engage in mass campaigns, culminating in a general strike on May 12th.
The basis of the negotiations is the government
Green Paper on employment standards. Labour negotiators have made clear
that they recognised that the Green Paper was progressive, but believed
it did not go far enough.
The COSATU position is based on a mandate from the membership, as expressed
in processes like the Living Wage Policy Conference, the COSATU National
Women's Conference, and various meetings of the Central Executive Committee
and the Executive Committee.
COSATU consulted its affiliates and their members on how to take the
campaign forward. It held bilateral and trilateral meetings with the Ministry
of Labour and business, but no agreement was achieved.
Night work, for example: COSATU maintains that night work begins at
18.00 hours. Employers propose that it should be defined as beginning at
23.00 hours, and they are opposed to a special night allowance. If COSATU
agreed to this, it would mean a major compromise. The employers do not
link night work to availability of transport: if a worker comes off shift
at at time when there is no public transport, how is he or she to get home
safely?
The Executive Committee has agreed on a bottom line in various other
areas.
- Maternity leave. We have demanded six months fully paid, but have now
decided on a minimum demand of six months with four months fully paid.
- Hours of work. In the past we demanded a 40-hour week with immediate
effect. Now we are prepared to accept a phased introduction, with time
frames for achievement. - Sunday pay. Labour argues that double pay should be retained, and extended
to all workers. Government has no special provision, and business prefers
flexible arrangements, such as the averaging of working time over long
periods. - Child labour. COSATU maintains that age 16 should be a threshold. Government
proposes 15 years. - Variation of standards. This means "flexibility", that is,
doing away with firm standards altogether.
COSATU's position over variations is that standards laid down by law
should be varied only through bargaining councils, and should always be
upwards, that is, in favour of the workers. Government proposed that variations
should be done through collective or individual agreement, though collective
agreements override individual agreements.
Variations can happen through the Minister, on the advice of the Employment
Standards Commission, or at the request of employers. COSATU says this
gives too wide a power to the minister, and could push labour standards
down, particularly for unorganised workers.
Variation can undermine labour standards, and reverse the hard-won rights
of workers. COSATU head of negotiations Khumbula Ndaba says: "It is
important that we put up a fight on this area, lest we lose all our rights."
The COSATU programme of mobilisation began in late February with shop
steward meetings, and will continue with pickets, marches, demonstrations
and rallies in industrial areas and major centres. This activity will culminate
in the general strike on May 12th.
The decision to call a strike is reversible, depending on the progress
of negotiations. The COSATU Central Executive Committee will meet on April
7th-10th, evaluate progress, and decide whether to call off the strike
or go ahead with it.
DEBATE
Letters to the Editor
Solidarity, Friendship, From United States Socialists ...
(The writer of this letter is a health worker from the US, who recently
visited South Africa.)
Dear Comrade
On the wall of the SACP office in Kingwilliamstown there is a clipping
from the African Communist, showing Chris Hani with Angela Davis in 1991.
It quotes Angela: "We'll be watching you. You cannot let us down."
I would like to think my visit of the last several months was an extension
of this "watching", by our socialist movement in the United States,
of your indomitable movement for democracy and socialism. The entire world
is watching South Africa - we believe you will lead the way towards a renewed
world socialist movement.
I want to especially thank the SACP Head Office staff, the Eastern Cape
region (particularly the SACP organisations in Port Elizabeth, Umtata and
Kingwilliamstown), the Western Cape, Gauteng and Free State regions for
making my visit especially enriching.
Venceremos!
Marilyn Albert
Committees of Correspondence
USA
... And from Germany
Dear Comrade
I have just finished reading the booklet, The Red Flag in South Africa,
which made me want to know more about the position of the SACP in today's
South Africa.
In spite of the collapse of Communist-oriented political systems in
Eastern Europe, I stick to my Marxist-Leninist beliefs, and still think
that socialism is the future.
I would like to get into contact with comrades in South Africa, and
correspond with them in English. I would appreciate it if you will publish
my request and my address in Umsebenzi.
For a Communist future!
Wolfgang Kaiser
Altenburgstr. 29
81243 Munchen
Germany.
Self-Employed
Women workers
Are They All on Their Own?
Women in self-help economic projects are achieving a certain level
of economic independence, and are now less powerless than before. Jack
Matlala, in the Northern Province, argues that they need support from organs
of civil society and government.
For decades, women have remained in villages, supporting
their families by subsistence activities, while menfolk migrate to urban
areas in search of work in the mines and factories.
Gender stereotypes, racial discrimination, and class bias have marginalised
these women from the labour market. Consequently, they are forced to work
in self-created niches of employment.
After the April 1994 breakthrough, masses of people joined the RDP and
Masekhane (Let's Build Together) campaigns.
Among many projects linked to the campaigns is a bread-making project
at Moletji (Matamanyane village), where a collective of women produces,
distributes, and markets bread across a number of rural villages. A similar
project is the Tshisaulu Community Project, where a group of unemployed
Party cadres came together and mobilised a local community to build a clinic
and a creche.
These are not isolated cases; they typify the everyday life of thousands
of self-employed workers around the poverty-stricken villages and cities
of our country. These are workers who do not have access to bank credit,
seldom get support from organised industry and services, and certainly
have no access to modern technology. All they have is their hands, and
a determination to be economically active.
We haven't given sufficient support or attention to self-employed women
workers. Like all workers in the world, they are vulnerable to exploitative
forces that viciously torment and control their lives. Let us note that
they may represent an important component of our revolution.
Theirs is a struggle to survive and support their families. To do that,
they need support. Some realise that they can mobilise support through
association around common interests, a realistic viewpoint which should
be encouraged.
The ANC-led government should recognise these enterprising collective
initiatives. More than that, we should provide a strategy that co-ordinates
all existing role-players, addressing the needs of women in production,
directing financial, and other, resources needed for the success of this
sector.
This should be a focus of the Masakhane campaign. If women are empowered,
their capacity to take part in economic growth is increased, and their
contribution to national development is maximised.
Our strategy should be multi-pronged at all levels. Various departments
should be urged to support community-based initiatives.
At present, the banking system in South Africa does not extend credit
to poor, illiterate and self-employed women workers. This we need to change.
The government has a task to intervene. In India, the Women's Co-operative
Bank (Manila Sahakari) was registered in 1974. This is the sort of creative
initiative we need to consider.
Our commitment to the RDP is drawn from our experience in struggle which
was, and still is, nourished by our confidence in people-driven initiatives.
REGIONAL
FOCUS
WESTERN CAPE |
Building the Working Class
The Western Cape Provincial Executive Committee has developed a programme
for 1997, based on cadre development (particularly the development of women
cadres) and promoting unity of the working class in the province, by strengthening
organisations that represent the working class.
The Party plans to intervene on key issues affecting the province, including
the Olympic bid, developing an industrial policy biased towards the working
class, and working to ensure that the issue of the moving of Parliament
does not affect the province detrimentally.
FREE STATE |
Cuban Doctors and plans for a Community of Health
Workers
The SACP plans to co-operate with NEHAWU in building a community of
health workers throughout the province.
In Welkom, the Party recently had a meeting with five Cuban doctors
working at the GRH Goldfields Regional Hospital outside Thabong. The doctors
live in hospital accommodation, for which they pay R500 a month, and there
is there is no transport into town apart from the hospital transport.
The SACP plans to hold further meetings, and to help relieve the Cubans'
isolation by putting them in touch with other doctors, and other health
workers in general, in the Free State.
NORTH-WEST |
SACP Praises Matric Results
The SACP Provincial Executive Committee in the North-West has expressed
pride in the provincial matriculation results, and the fact that there
were no exam leaks, or delays with the issuing of results.
The PEC statement congratulates the provincial MEC for Education, Sport
and Recreation "for a job well done," SADTU for "establishing
a culture of learning and teaching," and COSAS, for "ensuring
responsible student leadership."
The PEC believes that a socialist future can be built only on the basis
of a well-educated and productive working class.
The decision to call a strike is reversible, depending on the progress
of negotiations. The COSATU Central Executive Committee will meet on April
7th-10th, evaluate progress, and decide whether to call off the strike
or go ahead with it.
DEATH OF DENG XIAOPING SACP sends messageThis is an extract from the message the SACP sent to Comrade Jian Zemin, "Comrade Deng Xiaoping was a courageous Communist, who understood "As South African Communists, we are pleased that Comrade Deng |
Threat
to Press Freedom In Britian
Demand is going up for the London Morning Star, the world's only
English-language socialist daily paper, but the big monopolies are squeezing
it out of the distribution network. Editor John Haylett reports.
The Morning Star is menaced by the growing monopolisation
of newspaper distribution by the big proprietors, notably Richard Murdoch.
The system that once guaranteed distribution to local wholesalers by
rail has been disrupted by the big boys. They cancelled the rail contracts,
and have developed their own delivery network by road, forcing smaller
titles, including the Morning Star, ethnic minority papers, religious publications
and other small-circulation papers, to negotiate carriage on those networks.
Where space or time is squeezed, the small titles come off worst. Too
often, they are dropped. Independent wholesalers and local newsagents have
also been hit.
The Morning Star has been instrumental in setting up a Committee for
Diversity and Pluralism, which has won support from MPs of all political
persuasions, trade unions, newsagents, religious and other bodies. It is
organising a petition to the European Parliament, asking for abuses of
monopoly power to be investigated.
Our goal is a guaranteed distribution system, as exists in other European
countries. Democracy is incomplete without the availabiliy of all points
of view.
Sudan
& Zaire: The return of National Democratic Alliances
This is the first part of a two-part article. In the next issue we
will look at the main actors leading the new struggle, whom they are struggling
against as well as the existing and potential role of South Africa in the
region
Despite decades of brutal oppression and inhumanity suffered under
the combined weight of dictators, greedy capitalists and western imperialists,
the people of Sudan and Zaire are gradually reclaiming the offensive. What
we are witnessing now is much more than regionalised armed rebellion, historically
held hostage to the divide and rule tactics of successive dictatorial regimes
backed by imperialist interests.
As was historically the case in most of Africa, much of the repression
was a direct result of Cold War rivalries. Sudanese regimes (under Nimeiri,
Mahdi & Bashir) have, at different times, been seen as bulwarks against
communism and buffers against radical African nationalism. On the other
hand, Zaire's megalomaniac dictator, Mobuto, has been given a blank cheque
by western imperialists to pursue an internal and regional campaign of
terror in order to preserve the interests of capital and stamp out the
so-called scourge of communism in Central Africa.
Recent changes in global political economy though, have seen the playing
out of inter-imperialist competition to retain political influence and
economic control. In Sudan we see the USA opportunistically supporting
'democracy' now that the long-running 'fundamentalist' Islamic regime no
longer serves its interests. Likewise, in Zaire and surrounding countries
such as Rwanda, the Belgians and French desperately cling onto reactionary
forces for fear of losing their slice of the imperialist pie.
It has been in the midst of these imperialist 'games' that the mass of
Sudanese and Zairean people have begun to forge a collective challenge
to both external intervention and internal autocracy. Recent events in
both Sudan and Zaire point to the formation of broad national democratic
alliances in an ongoing effort to reclaim both national sovereignty and
a popular, democratic government. It is these alliances that are now bringing
together mass-based opposition forces with armed formations in a concerted
struggle to forge a viable challenge to neo-colonialism and imperialist
control.
Having experienced the severe repression meted out by successive dictators
(Nimeiri, Mobuto, Bashir) and western imperialists (Britain, Belgium, France,
USA), the message coming from the people of Sudan and Zaire is clear: we
have had enough.
Embili
maSwati! Viva PUDEMO!
Report from the Front Line
A PUDEMO comrade writes:
There was rejoicing in Swaziland when, after three weeks of the general
strike, the magistrate in charge of the case released the imprisoned leaders
of the Swaziland Federation
of Trade Unions (SFTU) and the People's United Democratic Movement
(PUDEMO).
The leaders were imprisoned under a dubious law: the so-called `Public
Order' law, passed on the eve of the strike. There is no bail, those arrested
were tortured, and they faced a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
They included SFTU President Richard Khumalo, Vice-President Themba
Msibi, General Secretary Jan Sithole, and Assistant General Secretary Jabulani
Nxumalo. Some had begun a hunger strike.
In spite of harassment, the people of Swaziland are holding strong in
their struggle for democracy. The sugar belt and the pulp industry have
all but shut down. Internal pressure is building momentum. PUDEMO, as leader
of the Swaziland Democratic Alliance, has pledged to continue with rolling
mass action as long as democracy is denied to the Swazi people.
We welcome the support and solidarity of COSATU and the SACP, and the
positive role played by President Mandela in seeking negotiations to resolve
the crisis.
We call on all progressive organisations internationally to join forces
with the Swaziland Solidarity Committee in Johannesburg. (Telephone: 011
339 3621/2. Fax: 011 339 6880 (ask for Sipho).
Cosatu
Solidarity with Swaziland Workers
COSATU has consistently supported the struggle for trade union rights,
led by the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions, and has extended solidarity:
media coverage; missions to Swaziland; pickets at the Swaziland High Commission
in Pretoria; and opening a web site on the Internet to seek international
solidarity with the SFTU.
Through the Southern African Trade Union Co-ordinating Council (SATUCC),
COSATU was part of a call to President Mandela, as President of SADC, to
intervene.
COSATU was part of the SATUCC mission to Swaziland on February 13th-14th
1997. The delegation's assessment was that the pressures on the Swazi government
had not been sufficient.
The SATUCC Secretary General has announced March 3rd 1997 as a day of
solidarity with the SFTU. He has called for action at border gates and
Swaziland High Commissions: including blockades, protest marches, pickets,
and workers' refusing to handle Swaziland goods. COSATU has called on members
and supporters to ensure a total shut-down of all Swazi borders on March
3rd. These plans will go ahead, though the leaders have been released.
These have been the central demands of the SFTU, and of the Swaziland
Democratic Alliance:
- Unconditional release of all SFTU leaders unlawfully arrested. Though
they were released on February 26th, the other demands still remain. - Immediate repeal of all legislation preventing the free exercise of
trade union rights, and new legislation to normalise the operation of trade
unions, in line with ILO conventions. - Immediate repeal of the 1973 decree outlawing democracy and opposition
parties. - A transparent and representative National Convention to agree constitutional
reform and to lead the process of democratic transformation.
The Swaziland government has accused COSATU of interfering in its internal
affairs. We reject such accusations. Solidarity knows no borders. We cannot
allow human rights to be abused, and workers' fights to be undermined.
The Swaziland government has ratified core ILO conventions, and we expect
it to uphold those same conventions.
