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Volume 12, No. 16, 2 May 2013 |
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Red Readers Corner Once again the Bolivarian Socialist Revolution and the heroic people of the Republic of Venezuela have triumphed over adversity |
By Phatse Justice Piitso
We take the opportunity to join the progressive movement and the people of the world to congratulate the Bolivarian socialist revolution, the heroic people of the socialist republic of Venezuela and our newly elected President, Cde Nicolas Maduro, for the successful national elections. The results of the elections are a living testimony that the Bolivarian socialist revolution of our America derives its existence from the foundations of our democratic principles.
The momentous victory by the revolutionary forces of Bolivar represents the highest form of expression and appreciation of the leadership of their Commander in Chief and the leader of the revolution Cde President Hugo Chavez. The people of Venezuela have reaffirmed the legacy of the leader of their revolution Hugo Chavez against the wishes and the interests of the US led imperialism. He died for the noble cause of the struggles for the liberation of the working class throughout the world.
The Bolivarian socialist revolution has defeated the most highly sponsored political movement by the US imperialism in the world. Therefore the victory of the popular will of the people of Venezuela is the victory against imperialism and colonialism. The people have defeated a US sponsored counter revolution from the heart of their motherland.
The successful victory of the Bolivarian socialist revolution has added the necessary impetus to the working class movement across the world to take forward the momentum of our struggles against the imperialist oppression and exploitation. The triumph of our revolutionary forces is indeed a giant leap forward to our struggles for the liberation of our people in the former colonies and semi colonies. It is indeed a triumph of our revolution against adversity.
Our beautiful Bolivarian socialist revolution has indeed proven to the world that in the cause of the revolutionary struggles of the working class, great revolutions always bring great men to the forefront and therefore unearth talents beyond the imagination of man. The US led imperialism has never imagined that a humbled revolution can produce out of an ordinary son of the working class, out of a bus driver, an outstanding and the most revolutionary leader of the calibre of President Nicolas Maduro.
It is also worrisome that the US is instigating its garrison of counter revolution to reject the outcomes of such a fair and democratic elections. This attempt to reject legitimate democratic process constitute a major thread to the peace and security of the people of Venezuela and the region.
Imperialism and colonialism is much worried by the success of the struggles of our people in the former colonies and semi colonies. The strength and the organisation of the working class is increasingly shaking the foundations of imperialism.
The US led imperialism will never come to terms that the working class in Venezuela under the leadership of President Maduro is leading the most powerful revolutionary socialist movement of the 21th century at its doorsteps. The Latin American region is becoming the pinnacle of the world wide struggles against imperialism and colonial domination.
The heroic people of the Latin America are following the giant footprints of their revolutionary leader and the father of their wars of independence Simon Bolivar. He was a great leader who led relentless struggles for the independence of the whole of latin America against Spanish imperialism and colonialism.
The are inspired by the most revolutionary and exemplary leadership of the slave people whose struggles led to the declaration of the first independent slave republic of Haiti.It is inspiring to mention that it was the revolution of Haiti under the leadership of President Alexandre Petion, which assisted Simon Bolivar with the military and financial resources that defeated the Spanish colonialism in the region.
Immediately after the defeat of the US sponsored puppet government through popular elections in 1998, the newly elected President, Cde Hugo Chavez, declared the socialist character of the Bolivarian socialist republic of Venezuela. The reason why this formidable socialist revolution is named after the visionary leader of the struggles of the people of Latin America, Simon Bolivar.
Cde Hugo Chavez was inspired by the heroic struggles of the people of Haiti who declared the first slave independent republic in the history of mankind. He stood to the true traditions that liberated Latin America from Spanish colonialsm.
The Bolivarian Alliance for the people of our America is the first formidable block of emerging countries of the former colonies and semi colonies to have declared the socialist character of their revolution after the collapse of the socialism in the Soviet Union and the communist states of the Eastern Europe. It is a regional organization that has achieved tremendous success to integrate the social, political and the economic terrain of the region based on revolutionary socialist principles.
The new struggles to advance a socialist revolution in the Latin America has ushered in a new and unprecedented world political situation in the aftermath of the cold war. It is in this this region where the working class struggles have made decisive advances to conquer state power, liquidate imperialism and at the same time continue to consolidate the victories of their Bolivarian socialist revolution of our 21th century.
The Bolivarian socialist revolution has become the epicenter of struggles against the US led neoliberal economic policies throughout the world. Most of the regional governments have opted for the socialist model of economic ownership through nationalization of the key sectors of their economy. The Bolivarian Alliance for the people of the America is preparing its people to embrace the reconstruction of a new society based on values of socialist democratic principles.
Most of the governments in the region are consolidating a regional economic integration model based on the vision of social welfare, bartering and mutual economic aid. They are encouraging a state centered trade model driven by the principle of solidarity instead of the monopolistic US neoliberal framework.
The Bolivarian socialist revolution is posing a challenge to the US economic domination in the American hemisphere. The community of over 33 Latin American and Caribbean states has formed a new economic alliance the exclusion of the dominant US empire. The organization of the American states( OAS) is no more a hegemonic power over the complex socio economic relations of the region.
The Bolivarian socialist revolution underway in the Latin America is a symbol of hope to the working class movement throughout the world. The prospects and possibilities of a new socialist block after the collapse of the Soviet Union are taking shape in the Latin America. We appreciate this revolutionary offspring of the Cuban revolution. The Bolivarian revolution is a symbol of hope to all humanity.
Phatse Justice Piitso is the former Ambassador to the republic of Cuba and the former provincial secretary of the SACP writing this article on his personal capacity.
Numsa and the NDP: Setting the record straight
By Cedric Gina
As they say one of the most dangerous actions in politics is to switch lanes without putting on an indicator. In the last two weeks, the leadership of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has been vilified and called names for announcing the union's reservations about the National Development Plan (NDP). Our union has been characterised as "spoilers", "acting as a sore thumb" while the leadership is described as "populists" and "demagogues" that suffer from a disease called "an infantile disorder". In this mud throwing and trading of swear words, little has been said about the substantive issues that Numsa have raised about the unlikelihood of the policies in the NDP to effectively deal with often-quoted challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
More worrying is how in the aftermath of the adoption of the NDP at the African National Congress' (ANC) 53rd national congress in Mangaung, there is refusal to critically look at the NDP although it is a known fact that in the run-up to the organisation's policy conference in July 2012 some of the ANC's discussion documents raised serious and vexing questions on South Africa's proposed long-term socio-economic development plan. More astonishing is how after Mangaung the NDP is now presented as a Holy Grail immune from critical evaluation, although the actual ANC national conference resolution describes the plan as "a living and dynamic document".
The paper on The Second Transition prepared for the ANC's July 2012 national policy conference raised a number of questions about the NDP and called for engagement of the plan. It questioned whether the shying away on the part of the National Planning Commission (NPC) from the concept of a "developmental state" and the commission's talk about a "capable state" were signs of an ideological and conceptual disagreement or not. The discussion paper also noted "a certain sense of timidity in dealing with some of the matters of economic debate over the last few years". To break from this timidity, the ANC discussion document raised the following questions about certain proposals in the NDP:
- Is the main problem with the functioning of our labour markets high wages and difficulties in firing workers as suggested, or should we also not address the huge
differences in pay between workers and management and executives (including in
the public sector) and ongoing discrimination in the labour markets?
- What about our weak public labour market information system, especially for young people?
- How do the comprehensive NDP proposals around a low carbon economy, an inclusive and integrated rural economy and infrastructure development relate to industrial policy?
The ANC discussion document was not afraid to ask these questions as it was glaring that the NDP skirted issues of ownership including in strategic sectors such as mining, finance and telecommunications. While the ANC argued that the NDP proposed continuity and built on the foundations of the last 18 years, its document asked: whether simply more of the same will help us to transform the economy so as to address the challenges of unemployment, poverty, inequality and growth? The ANC discussion document even acknowledged the export orientation of the NDP towards "higher value goods or niche markets (agriculture and agro-processing, mining, business services, white goods and appliances, niches in clothing and footwear and other mid-skill manufacturing) as well as global services such as business services and tourism" as opposed to inward industrialisation. The ANC was also unashamedly explicit about the contradictions between the NDP and the State Involvement in the Mining Sector (SIMS) report. "(T)he NDP is rather skeptical about the potential for mineral beneficiation as well as of labour intensive manufacturing, because of our high cost structure, labour costs and management acumen for large scale labour-intensive manufacturing projects" (p.39).
This is what the ANC special national executive committee (NEC) held on 27 February 2012 raised and it is exactly these very same points that Numsa has sought to amplify and raise. The central committee meeting of Numsa held on 04-08 March 2013 was not the first meeting that the union discussed and pronounced on the NDP. As a union we have a history of critical engagement with the NPC and the NDP.
- Numsa was one of the sponsors of a special resolution at the Congress of South African Trade Unions' (Cosatu) 10th national congress in September 2009 on the Green Paper on the National Planning Commission (NPC). The resolution we sponsored called for an alignment of the commission with the perspective on the NPC developed at the ANC's 52nd national conference held in Polokwane in 2007 and with outcomes of the Tripartite Alliance's economic summit that took place in October 2008.
- After the release of its Diagnostic Report, Numsa's central committee in its meeting in December 2011 went out publicly to welcome the NPC diagnosis of South Africa's challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. The central committee disagreed with the NPC explanation of why over the 17-year period the democratic order has failed to resolve the identified challenges. The central committee said that "the symptoms are then treated as problems in themselves, instead of them being expressions of an underlying economic relation that persistently generates them". We also felt that there was no critical evaluation of policies pursued since 1994 and that what the report termed "policy lapses" were nothing else but policy errors.
- In May 2012 and the time of discussions on the Draft National Development Plan, Numsa issued at a public colloquium held at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) two discussions documents on the plan where the union raised its doubts about some of the instruments that the NDP proposed to use to achieve its noble objectives. We again felt that the plan was not honest enough in its explanation of why the investment rate should have been so low in the post-apartheid period nor on how conditions would be changed so that a higher level are achieved between now and 2030. The two discussion documents were loaded onto Numsa's website and a call was made for comments to the two documents.
- Numsa as an independent affiliate of Cosatu submitted its position on the Draft NDP to the NPC after Kuben Naidoo from the commission's secretariat addressed the union's central committee in August 2012 at the Vincent Mabuyakhulu Conference Centre (VMCC).
So it is not as if Numsa, its central committee and leadership woke up on 07 March 2013; and just started criticising the NDP. We have been consistent in our criticism of the NDP. It is unfortunate that some amongst us did not even bother to hear what we have been saying since 2009.
The only new thing that March 2013 Numsa central committee meeting added was to point to the similarity between the proposals in the NDP and Democratic Alliance (DA) policies. We have also put this comparison in public for scrutiny. We know that our conclusion between the NDP and DA policies is hard. As our central committee statement said, as members of the Tripartite Alliance this discovery was equally "painful" and "extremely disturbing" to us. But as it has been said before; "Theory is grey, my friend, but the tree of life is ever green". It is concrete facts and evidence - not sentiment - that ultimately guides our politics and actions. It is on the basis of these facts and evidence - not insults, swear words and character assassinations - that we wish to debate others and be robustly engaged. The ANC and its leadership must tell us what changed between the time they issued the national conference discussion document in February 2012 and the sitting of the conference in Mangaung in December 2012. They must inform us how the concerns on the NDP that they raised as the leadership of the movement have been addressed. Failure to do so will be tantamount to switching lanes without putting on an indicator; a kind of action that is bound to lead to disarray and accidents.
From our side and as a mature organisation, we will be the first to admit and humbly retract whatever is shown as incorrect in our assertions on the NDP. We are also in support of the call by the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) for an urgent Tripartite Alliance Summit on the NDP. There is a lot that binds us. Let's not allow the NDP to divide us!
Gina is the president of Numsa and works for BHP Billiton in Richards Bay.
