Upcoming World Festival of Youth and Students to Honor Chavez

With sources from Juventude Rebelde

From December 7th to 13th, Quito Ecuador will host the 18th World Festival of Youth and Students, where the participants will pay homage to Venezuelan late President Hugo Chavez Frias.

Read some fast facts about Ecuador and Quito here.

This was one of the top agreements taken yesterday during the final session of the first international preparatory meeting for the Festival held in Pretoria, South Africa, with the participation of some one hundred delegates from over 40 regional, national and international youth and students organizations.

Basic framework of the festival now established

The IPM, by R. Weldeab via Twitter

Juan Francisco Torres, chair of the Preparatory Committee of the host country, spoke about issues related to logistics and about how Ecuador and particularly its youth activists are getting ready for the meeting. Most of the Festival's locations will be in down town Quito, within about 20 minutes walk.

The delegations also approved the call to the world youth for the festival, as well as the topics for debates, and the slogan "Youth united against imperialism, for peace, solidarity and social transformation."

"In the past and present youth has always played a vital role in the struggle of all societies for progress and social justice. The youth was militantly present in the greatest struggles of the peoples for peace, solidarity and social transformation. In a world where imperialism presents itself as inevitability, the anti-imperialist struggle proves that the youth chooses its own future. The 18th World Festival of Youth and Students, which will take place in Ecuador, is the space for the young women and men of the World to unite their voices against imperialism," the call says.

The causes of Palestine, Western Sahara will also be emphasized at the festival. These issues "form a direct, precise, and clear view of imperialism ambitions and actions of destruction," documents coming out of the meeting agreed, stressing that "the festival shows different forms of struggle and one of which is solidarity against occupation and with peoples’ self-determination."

"Cultural and musical events must also be highlighted," an initial planning document said, noting that "Musical bands and cultural groups from different organizations must be encouraged to attend the festival."

The date and place of the next international preparatory meetings (IPM's) were also agreed on Tuesday: in Spain in June and in India in September.

At the end of the meetings, South Africa— former host of the 17th festival— pasted on the flag of the World Festival of Youth and Students Movement to Ecuador.

Honouring famous revolutionaries

Symbolically, the Youth Festival will also be devoted to Ecuadorian national hero Eloy Alfaro and to Kwame Nkrumah.

José Eloy Alfaro Delgado (June 25, 1842 – January 28, 1912) served as President of Ecuador from 1895 to 1901 and from 1906 to 1911. For his central role in the Liberal Revolution of 1895 and for having fought conservatism for almost 30 years, he is known as the Viejo Luchador.  His principal accomplishments include the introduction of the principle of secularism, constitutional changes allowing freedom of speech, the legalization of civil marriage and divorce, and the right to a free and secular education in Ecuador. 

Eloy Alfaro's memory was honoured in Canada last year with a guest lecture at the University of Ottawa. A statue to the man is also to be erected in Ottawa.

Kwame Nkrumah was the founder and first President of Ghana, and leader of Pan-Africanism, the half-a century movement for the defence of Africa’s independence and unity.  Nkrumah became an international symbol of freedom as the leader of the first black African country to shake off the chains of colonial rule. As midnight struck on March 5, 1957 and the Gold Coast became Ghana, Nkrumah declared: "our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent."  

Deposed some years later in a coup, Nkrumah is still honoured around the world. (Kwantlen University in Vancouver, for example, organizes an international conference on Africa themed around Nkrumah).

OCLAE leader praises choices

In statements to the International News Agency, Ricardo Guardia Lugo, member of the Cuban delegation to the festival, said that Eloy Alfaro hero and Kwame Nkrumah are very well known by Cuban people since they are very close to that countries history.

Guardia is also a member of the National Secretariat of the University Students Federation (FEU), and works with the Continental, Latin American, and Caribbean Students Organization (OCLAE), a regional platform that brings together and represents more than 100 million students.

Lugo spoke about the close friendship which united Ecuadorian Eloy Alfaro and Cuban José Martí. Marti is a national hero of Cuba. He fought for the independence of that island country from Spain during the nineteenth century and won the support of Eloy Alfaro.

Kwame Nkrumah was also the first African president to meet with President Fidel Castro in 1960 at the Hotel Theresa in New York (when both were in the United States to attend the fifteenth session of the UN General Assembly). His country, Ghana, was just a year earlier the first sub-Saharan African country to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Zuma remembers Sharpeville, reflects on South Africa today

Zuma visis with strikers at Marikana
where 34 miners were killed by police last year

Rebel Youth reprints this excerpt from a speech by South African President Jacob Zuma on March 21st 2013, commemorating the Sharpeville Massacre and Human Rights Day, for discussion.


The 1923 Bill of Rights, the African Claims of 1943, the Women's Charter in 1954, the Freedom Charter in 1955 and the ANC's 1988 Constitutional Principles for a Democratic South Africa are our national pride.

These documents, developed by the ruling party the ANC during the struggle for liberation, underline and confirm South Africa's longstanding systematic development of policy affirming human rights. They informed the content of the Constitution of the Republic at the dawn of freedom.

We are particularly proud of the fact that the landmark 1943 Bill of Rights was produced five years ahead of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. South Africa led the world in this regard!

Today is also the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, proclaimed in 1966 in memory of the Sharpeville massacre, by the United Nations through UN resolution 2142...

We mark Human Rights Day 2013 under the theme; "United in advancing socio-economic freedom for all". The purpose is to promote the idea of socio-economic freedom for all South Africans.

It also highlights the advanced nature of our Constitution which recognises more than just political and civil rights.

This was based on the understanding that civil and political rights mean little if they are not accompanied by tangible socio-economic rights. These include the rights to housing, education and health care and the right to favourable working conditions.

While marking the importance of socio-economic rights today, we also highlight the fact that today has a particular significance, as it is a day on which in 1960 the apartheid police shot and killed 69 people and wounded many others in Sharpeville. The liberation movement resolved then, to build a South Africa in which such incidents would never occur when freedom dawned.

This is also the commitment of the democratic government.

Today we re-affirm our determination to build a police service that respects the rights of all. The South African Police this year marks a centenary of its existence. The period since its establishment in 1913 until 1994, is marked by state-sanctioned cruelty and brutality by the policy.

In 1994 the democratic government began to transform the police service into one that is people-centred and which serves all the people of our country. A lot of progress has been made with regards to both transformation and service delivery.

Today we are happy that each year statistics indicate a reduction in serious crimes.

Crimes against women and children remain a serious problem but statistics prove that the perpetrators are being caught and punished. We trust that this will act as a deterrent. For example, in the past financial year, police secured over 363 life sentences, with a conviction rate of over 70% for crimes against women and girls.

At the same time, there have been some regrettable, shocking and unacceptable incidents involving the South African Police Service since the last Human Rights Day commemoration.

These include the Marikana tragedy and other cases of police brutality against suspects. Government has taken action on both.

There is a commission probing the Marikana incident and we will not comment much on it at this stage until the findings. The law is taking its course with regards to the other incidents.

However, these incidents should not make us condemn our entire police service which comprises 200 000 men and women as being brutal.

The overwhelming majority of our police fight crime within the confines and discipline of the Constitution and we applaud them for that.

We urge you today, to continue supporting the police in their work. The police can only continue succeeding in fighting crime if they have the support of communities they serve.

We must support them as well in their efforts to root out rotten apples from their ranks who engage in criminal action including corruption.

To promote a human rights ethos amongst police officials, we have directed that the SAPS Code of Conduct, in which an ethos of human rights is firmly entrenched, be promoted amongst all police officials.

They must live, breathe and personify the police Code of Conduct.

Included in this pledge of excellence, signed by each police official upon attestation, is the promise to do the following:

"to uphold and protect the fundamental rights of every person; act in a manner that is impartial, courteous, honest, respectful, transparent and accountable; exercise the powers conferred in a responsible and controlled manner;

"And work towards preventing any form of corruption and to bring the
perpetrators thereof to justice".

We expect our men and women in blue to live up to that promise.

WFTU meets with South African miners and praises US teachers

South African police have murdered protesting mine workers in demonstrations recently

A high-delegation meeting was held this week in Athens between the World Federation of Trade Unions and the Nation Union of Mine workers of South Africa discussed the situation in South Africa and the mines of Lonmin multinational.

In the discussion NUM was represented by its President, Senzeni Zokwana and Madoda Sambatha, Regional Coordinator for Carletonville. A joint release from the two organizations stated that "the meeting took place in a comradely, sincere and militant spirit" with "an exchange of experiences and a profound debate on the situation of workers in South Africa and around the world."

The trade unionists also discussed the importance of the forthcoming 11th Congress of COSATU and the next Congress of ANC.

The WFTU was represented by George Mavrikos, General Secretary, Mohammed Iqnaibi-of the General Union of Palestinian Workers (Palestine) and Councilor for Middle East issues, and Apostolos Sotiropoulos, Permanent representative of WFTU in UNESCO.

"Through the open, democratic and fraternal discussion, there was agreement between the two delegations" about a number of subjects, they said in the joint release, including:

• Joint initiatives for the rights of miners, the conditions of health and safety, the wages, the labor relations, the social security rights.
• The continuation of the joint comradely effort for COSATU to play a first role in the international level through the lines of the WFTU.
• The joint position of defending the Palestinian People, the Cuban revolution to beat off the imperialist plans.
• Our coordination within the framework of the International Organizations for the benefit of the workers and the unemployed.

In a separate statement also issued recently, the WFTU expressed its solidarity with the teachers on strike in Chicago and demanded the complete satisfaction of their claims. "Education is a social right and not a business," the statement said, adding that "it is a social good. It should serve people's  needs. It needs to be public for all and not to serve the interests of few.

"Teachers around the world are poorly paid and cannot cover their contemporary needs. Labor relations have deteriorated, a large proportion of teachers who work in schools are forced to be satisfied with part-time contracts, are poorly paid and they have no rights," the WFTU added.

The WFTU called on the US and Chicago authorities to meet the demands of striking teachers so that both teachers and pupils to go back to their schools. "The WFTU is extending to you a message of support, solidarity and proletarian internationalism among workers of the world," they said.

The World Federation of Trade Unions was formed in 1945 following the defeat of fascism and building from previous labour internationals and especially the united contribution of working people and labour unions during the Second World War.  Today the WFTU represents 80 million members in 130 countries around the world.

On the South African Miners killings

Athens, August 17, 2012

The World Federation of Trade Unions expresses its deepest condolences to the families of all victims at the outrageous conflict in Lonmin mine in South Africa. We are on the side of the SACP and NUM and we express our solidarity with their efforts to defend the real rights of workers and the freedom of trade union action.

The WFTU condemns the role of employers and the bosses that try to spread discord and hatred among workers. For the WFTU the lives of all workers have the same value no matter what union they belong to.

The WFTU has the fixed firm principle that workers, the working class, poor peasants, indigenous people, the progressive intelligentsia, all together we can build our class unity with final target the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.

YCLSA: Speed-up affirmative action, Democracy for Swaziland

The YCL condemns the granting of loan to the Swaziland Monarchy by SA Government

Swaziland Activist at the 17th World Festival
of Youth and Students. Photo by Mathieu Murphy-Perron

As the Young Communist League of South Africa [Ufasimba] we are very disheartened by the move to grant the Swazi dictator R2.4 billion by the South African government through the Central Bank. This move was done in spite of all calls and lobbying to the South African government form internal and abroad activists and political organizations.

The current state of affairs in Swaziland is one that is characterized by serious lack of good governance and all accepted norms for a democratic state. Yet in spite of all the warnings the South African Central Bank neglected all pre-requirements not to make the payment as it usually does locally by setting macro-economic targets that are not worker friendly and detrimental to the poorest of the poor and largely outside of South Africa’s development needs.

This is the same developmental agenda by the Central bank and National Treasury that serves and promotes the rich, the exploiters, the owners of the means of production and a slap in the face to the of our workers and the poor as it is in Swaziland by serving the King the exploiter, the looter who slaps his subjects in the face with a poverty clap.

The behavior of our Central Bank should be condemned, and it is no different to that of the imperialists across the Atlantic in Bretton Wood institutions! As to why, in spite of all the norms and forms of good accounting principles the Central Bank gave away hard earned taxpayers money to a country long in support of the European Union in SACU and stood to opposed our Republic puzzles us. In fact this behavior is no different to the Tinkundla system in Swaziland by the Central Bank.

As Ufasimba we demand a full explanation from the ministry of Finance because this money could have been used to create youth empowerment programmes in line with our resolutions in the Jobs for Youth Summit and better still South African government could have attached a condition for a democracy in Swaziland.

The YCL will continue to give solidarity to the Swazi people in their struggle for Democracy. We further call for the unbanning of all political parties, release of all political prisoners and the return of all those in exile.

Issued by the YCL head office


YCL South Africa Alarmed by the slow rate of affirmative action

The Young Communist League of South Africa [Ufasimba] notes with shock the annual report of the 11th Commission on employment equity. The report reveals that affirmative action is moving at a slow pace and top management jobs are still occupied by whites.

Black people account for 86% of the economically active people but of that 86% only 12, 7% hold top management positions and 17, 6% holding senior management positions. It also shows that whites still hold 73, 1% of top management level positions. Whites are also favorites for new top management positions as they account for 59% of new recruits.

The YCL during its Jobs for Youth Summit noted the concerns over the slow pace of changing the ownership patterns in our economy. As it is now, most of the economic sectors rely on BEE Charters which only commits industries to not more than 30% black ownership. This has serious implications for both the economic and political stability of our country as it continues to exclude the majority from the mainstream economy. Action needs to be done in advocating for policy changes that should result in turning the situation around.

The YCL is shocked and disappointed at these statistics and also at the slow pace of affirmative action. Currently affirmative action has benefited Indian and white woman and not the intended recipients which are young people from previously disadvantaged communities, the working class and the poor. We call on both our government and all socio-economic partners to immediately implement drastic changes to interrupt the status quo.

Issued by the YCL head office

YOUTH FESTIVAL DELEGATES WELCOMED WITH FIREWORKS

By Johan Boyden

DEC. 13 - The opening ceremonies of the World Festival of Youth and Students wrapped up with a bang, as fireworks exploded over a large sports stadium in a township outside Pretoria. Delegates had just heard President Zuma welcome them to South Africa, and the leader of the African National Congress Youth League called for free public education and putting the economy under the people's control.

Some delegations are still in arrival. The opening gates and registration are a flurry of activity as youth people from all over Africa, but also Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America enter the Festival looking tired but excited.

At the Festival grounds, around the Tshwane University of Technology and the Tshwane Fair grounds, there are some logistical challenges, but a great mood of friendship and solidarity as young people from diverse backgrounds and different ideologies gather.

A word picture for readers is not adequate.

Picture a street closed from traffic flowing with young people of all nationalities and peoples, some draped with national flags, others wearing sports jackets in their country's colours, or just casual shorts and t‑shirts. Suddenly a group of South African youth, about fifteen, appear from around the corner of the building in a quick‑step run. Their fists are in the air and their voices fill the space with a powerful yet beautiful struggle song in one of South Africa's many national languages.

The delegation gets larger and their chants echo off the big festival hall buildings. Young people join in and follow them. Then another delegation appears with a giant banner - Our country will never again be a colony, it proclaims. The chanting and singing grows. In the background are giant, red, Vietnamese flags.

The South African sunshine is slipping away and bold thunderstorms appear on a horizon of small rolling hills with a beige dried grass. The rain falls and people rush indoors. Turning into a large hall, young people are seated behind a main podium discussing peace, sovereignty and social transformation in their respective countries. The current speaker from Bahrain is declaring the need to break with US imperialism in the Middle East with a series of lengthy but powerful slogans.

There are problems with translation and the delegates are hungry because the food has not yet arrived, but people are excited. Everyone has stories of new countries they have just met, what they have told them, gifts exchanged.

The rain has ended and back out on the street a bus has stopped. Suddenly Latin American music blares as the delegates get off and a dance party appears in the street, joined by a crowd of small South African children dancing with the delegates. As the music fades the scene seems to almost blur in the heat, but the diversity and energy of this tremendous event, the largest anti-imperialist gathering of youth and students in the world, becomes clear.

The delegations from Africa are the largest. There are big groups from Angola, Zimbabwe, Libya, Algeria, and South Africa, but also smaller delegations from countries like Senegal, Mozambique, and Egypt. There are also sizable delegations from Sri Lanka, India, the Democratic Republic of Korea, Spain, France, Brazil, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Forty young delegates are attending from Canada, including youth activists from the Canadian Federation of Students, the Québec solidaire political party, numerous local student organizations, several locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Palestine solidarity activists, queer youth, young Métis and First Nations delegates, Québequoise youth and the Young Communist League of Canada.

In the opening ceremonies the All‑Canada delegation proudly marched behind a banner demanding that a better Canada is possible, and with flags from Québec, Aboriginal nations including the red Mohawk Unity Flag, and the Canadian flag.

We are learning that the young people all over the world do not accept the miserable future offered them by capitalism and imperialism. They yearn for a new world and a different social order, that puts people first. They are from Spain, talking about the strikes and protests. Iraqi Kurds, talking about ending the occupation and the fight for peace. They are U.S. delegates who denounce their country's foreign policy. They are from Nepal and talking about the struggle to defeat the monarchy and now win democracy and for socialism.

People's Voice will feature interviews from the festival in subsequent issues. Already young socialists and communists from diverse countries such as Palestine, Western Sahara, the United Arab Emirates, Hungry, Paraguay and Vietnam have been interviewed about struggles in their country.

Final declaration of the 17th WFYS

We the delegates to the 17^th Festival of Student and Youth, gathered from 126 countries, more than 15000 in numbers, have met under the theme “Let’s Defeat Imperialism for a World of Peace, Solidarity and Social Transformation” on the shore of the majestic, dynamic and vibrant South Africa. Here we have fought for decades, side by side, from all walks of life to bring down the tyranny of the Apartheid system, fostered to increase the hold of Imperialism on our people. We fought with the people of South Africa and today we meet here to further our struggle against all injustices and discriminations.

We meet in South Africa on the eve of the Centenary of the Liberation movement the ANC, in 2012. We do this to take stock with our comrades on how far they have come in building a non –racial, non –sexist, democratic and prosperous Society, fighting with every fiber in their beings to defeat imperialism in all its forms. We have come to celebrate the hosting of the festival in South Africa, aware of the magnificent role played by its movement to bring about democracy to South Africa, aware that the ANC YL was amongst the founding members of the Festival movement and the 1^st African President of WFDY. We have come here to pay tribute to the contribution of Andile Yawa and all the festival veterans for giving to us a tool for Solidarity, brotherhood and an agent for change through the festival movement. We have dedicated this festival to the struggle and legacy of 2 heroes, who have made it possible for us to speak about Solidarity and World Peace: Commander Fidel Castro and Madiba Nelson Mandela. We thank them for their tireless spirits.

63 years after the beginning of the WFYS’ Movement was initiated in Prague, we highlight the important role that the Socialist camp has played in the support of this top event of the anti-imperialist youth. The location of the WFYS itself is a statement of solidarity with the struggle of its people. The WFYS is an expression of the struggle against imperialism and the struggle against the exploitation of man by man. Of particular importance is the contribution of Socialist Cuba, not only because it has hosted the festival twice, but also because by doing so in 1997 it helped the Festival movement to be re-launched despite the difficulties of the international anti-imperialist and working class’ movements in the 1990’s. We congratulate WFDY on its 65^th anniversary for its contribution to the struggle for peace, justice and the Festival movement, in this year that we celebrate also the 65 years of the peoples’ victory against Nazi Fascism.

As the anti-imperialist movement of the youth and of the people developed its struggle, the imperialists also seek to consolidate their forces and to fortify their structures. They use all mechanisms in their hands such as NATO, AFRICOM, EU, IMF, WB, WTO and all ways of intervention such as blockades, sanctions, embargos, conflicts, military intervention, wars and occupations against sovereign states and progressive movements. The new strategic concept “NATO 2020”, decided in Lisbon earlier this year incorporates all the changes made in its structure of the previous years (12 new member-states, utilization of the “Partnership for Peace” in its plans), changes its position towards contesting imperialist forces like Russia, signing agreements with them; it reinforces the cooperation with EU, proving it as an imperialist organism for the creation and education of military corps, acting against “extremism” inside and outside of the member’s borders, targeting firstly all those struggling to defend the rights of the peoples and the youth against imperialism. Under these circumstances, the attack against anti-imperialist forces is intensified, with particular expression in anti-communist measures.

The crisis of the capitalist system is inherent to the deepening of its inner contradictions, unveiling its historical incapacity to achieve progress for mankind. This crisis provides the ground for emerging imperialist forces that in the past have either clashed with the USA or EU, or have been their allies, to use the different timing in the manifestation of the crisis to increase their influence in the imperialist pyramid, to hold a bigger piece in the capitalist struggle for markets and exploitation. It is not a result of the administration models of the economy or the corruption of the system; it is now expressed all around the capitalist world in both neoliberal and social-democrat led countries. We are in a phase of deepening of the crisis; the recuperation in the following years will be minuscule: the rights of the youth will continue to be attacked at social, economical and cultural level every day. It demonstrates the historical limits and the failure of the capitalist system to answer to the peoples’ needs and aspirations; it highlights the need for the creation of a society and a mode of development that will strive to fulfill the youth’s and the peoples’ needs and rights.

The youth generations’ human rights and liberties are violated categorically in every corner of the planet. The “capitalist globalization”, the system of exploitation and control of the people and resources is pushing masses of young people into the margins of society. They are the first victims of the social inequalities at all levels. The 212 million of people unemployed, in a world that precarious, temporary occupation is the rule, are a proof of this. Only between 2007 and 2009 increased 34 million. Due to the economic crisis, even more jobs were lost, condemning more people to misery and poverty. We struggle against the elimination of the majority of labor rights, especially those of young workers who suffer more the effects of unemployment. An entire generation of young people is being transformed in a generation without rights.

We highlight the role of young women in the struggle for their emancipation as part of the general struggle against imperialism. Women, who are even more strongly attacked by the imperialist policies, deserve our appreciation and full support to end all abuses and discriminations existing in our world as part of our combat to defeat imperialism.

The “external debts and deficits” that have become a reality for many countries are results of the policies followed by the capitalist forces in all countries independently of their position in the correlation of forces. They reflect the unequal development and the division of work in the capitalist system. They are utilized so that the dominant class in both loaner and loaning countries becomes more potent while the people suffer from the load of the crisis on their backs. In the international imperialist system there is no place for equal and respectful relationships between the states and the peoples, it is another proof of the need for revolutionary social transformation of the system that bears inequality and misery.

The imperialist profit drive and unbridled exploitation of the planet's natural resources follows the logic of destruction and is the main threat to the environment and to the future of the planet. The environmental issue is taking on an alarming dimension due to the production of Genetically Modified (GM) organisms, which are jeopardizing humankind's future. Water all around the globe is being more and more a target to the exploitative nature of capitalism and is being used as a strategic and political weapon by imperialism. Imperialism’s strategy is to pass the responsibilities for the environmental problems onto the people, individualizing what are presented as solutions in order to increase even further the big companies’ profits through the so called “green” products.

Imperialist warmongering policies produce such crises as refugees, millions of people who are compelled to leave their homes, lands, jobs and families. We strongly condemn the imperialist economic policies, interventions and occupations that have produced millions of immigrants, we uptake the struggle in the defense of the rights of the immigrants in work, education, social services. No human being can be illegal.

Imperialist policies attack the full development of education and of the young people, preventing them from accessing a free and quality education that is a school of freedom and commitment with peace. We defend and struggle for education as a public and social good, a universal human right, which gratuity must be ensured by the state. We reject the intentions of privatization that several public institutions of different levels are being victims of. We demand the withdrawal of education from the agreements of the WTO – education is not commodity!

The increase in use of drugs in young people is a dangerous phenomenon that proves the decay of the capitalist system. Millions of young people live with AIDS, mostly in Africa and Asia. The big pharmaceutical trusts monopolize the production and distribution of needed medicine are profiting from pandemics instead of providing the means of treatment. Children are being abused and forced into military operations, prostitution, and drug trafficking; the number of street children is increasing.

Despite this offense the progressive and peace loving forces have been resisting, conquering important victories and growing stronger. The struggle for peace has been very important along the years and with these recent actions we try to raise the consciousness of the youth masses and focus the struggle against the enemy of peace, imperialism. The fight at national level plays a central role in the fight against the specific measures affecting the youth. We highlight the importance of the victories achieved by the struggles of the students, workers, peasants, indigenous and women’s movements in times as these. We underline the importance of several electoral victories and other positive results of progressive parties and coalitions

Africa, many years after the attainment of political independence still remains a political and economic playground for America and its allies. HIV/AIDS still remains a life threatening challenge promising to wipe out the entire African race, alongside Malaria and other imperialist manufactured diseases. A child dies every three seconds from AIDS and extreme poverty. We condemn the unjust sanctions against Eritrea and call for the bilateral solving of the conflict with Ethiopia without any external intervention. The growing US presence in Africa through AFRICOM, used as its military expansionist project in Africa, has allowed the Americans to pose serious military threats to African countries. We denounce the setting up of military bases in the name of AFRICOM and demand Botswana to immediately remove them as they pose a perpetual security threat to SADC countries and we support that people’s struggle to achieve democracy. We condemn the deliberate funding of civil society and opposition parties in Africa by the West to bring about regime change agenda’s guised in the name of ‘development”. 

We further condemn the ICC for its apparent onslaught of African leaders as well as all the media campaigns promoted by imperialism to destabilize the region. We stand in solidarity with the people and youth of Swaziland and demand the release of all political prisoners. We strongly condemn the continued military occupation of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco and request the respect of the Saharawi people right to self-determination and independence. The Moroccan government should immediately put an end to the blockade of the occupied territories of Western Sahara and allow entry into the territory to international observers and independent media. We denounce and condemn all forms of human rights violations including persecutions, arbitrary detentions, disappearances and irregular trials etc., committed by the Moroccan authorities against the Saharawi civilians and demand the release of all political detainees and the disband of the wall dividing the territory. 

We further make a clarion call for the immediate lifting of economic sanctions on Zimbabwe that have continued to cause untold pain and suffering on their people which are also a catalyst for their regime change agenda in Zimbabwe. We are in solidarity with the revolutionaries in Africa, and urge them be steadfast against imperial tendencies. 

We welcome the second phase of the African people’s struggle, the struggle for economic independence through indigenization, nationalization or any other form of empowerment to its people. 

We congratulate the people of Angola for the reconstruction process that is being implemented in the country. We empathize with West African countries in crises, coups and political instability, caused by imperial infiltration, and call for an urgent resolution and retention of political stability. 

We call for the stop of the violations of human rights in Sudan, especially in Darfur and we call for peace in the country, as well as freedom for labor organizations. Despite that, we condemn any sort of imperialist intervention against Sudan. The crisis in Cote d'Ivoire, Niger and Guinea, and the problems in Nigeria are instructive in the assessment of the current political landscape in West Africa. We also condemn the involvement of imperialist allies in the assassinations of heads of state in Burkina Faso, among others. Also, pressures from Europe and the US has forced the signing of exploitive contracts on mineral resources (as also happens in Western Sahara by the EU), as this has ruined and impoverished most countries, denying them the ability of local investment and causing a runaway youth, in search of better living conditions resulting in massive loss of life during the emigration.

The Asia-Pacific region has remained one of the explosive areas in the world, a springboard of military provocation and armed conflicts as well as of arms build-up and interference that have seriously threatened peace and security in Asia and the world. The present developments in this region have proved that the US and the NATO having more common imperialist strategies for Asia-Pacific Region. They are pursuing to establish new political-military groupings in order to extend the sphere of military activities covering the whole area of Asia and the Pacific. 

The growing US military presence in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, the US-Israeli strategic alliance, and the growing military cooperation with reactionary regimes in the Gulf poses a serious threat to peace, stability and security in the region. 

In South Asia, imperialist intervention has deepened, particularly due to US intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The so called Af-Pak strategy of the US to pursue its utterly selfish interests has only resulted in serious political instabilities in the region, not to mention the brutal killings and loss of lives and property faced by the common people of people of South Asia due to the blatant aggression of US imperialism. 

We express our support for the people and youth of Iran in their struggle against the repressive, anti-communist and undemocratic regime, which should be overcome by the people without any sort of imperialist intervention, which is for us unacceptable. We denounce the huge US military presence in the Korean Peninsula and demand that the Armistice Agreement of 1953 should be replaced with a comprehensive peace agreement. We call upon the young people of the world to join the international solidarity campaign in support with Korean people and youth in their just cause for the national reunification under the banner of the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration, and for building a prosperous, powerful and socialist country. 

We condemn the deployment of US troops in Philippines and its role fighting the national revolutionary forces. We stand in solidarity with the struggles of the young people of Bangladesh. We express our solidarity towards the people and youth of Nepal in their struggle for a new federal democratic republic. We demand the return of all Bhutanese refuges to their country with respect and dignity. 

We support the struggle of the Burmese people for the restoration of democracy and for the release of all political prisoners as we welcome the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. We express support for Sri Lanka’s progressive movement’s struggle for national unity. We salute the Vietnamese youth and people in their struggle for national independence and socialism, at a time when the 65th anniversary of the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (now Socialist Republic of Vietnam) is celebrated, and we express our solidarity towards the Vietnamese victims of the US’ Agent Orange / Dioxin in their struggle for justice.

In Latin America and the Caribbean the progressive forces have given important steps in the struggle against the interests of imperialism and its free trade policies. These steps are expressed in the integration mechanisms in the region as the ALBA-TCP, UNASUR, MERCOSUR and the future creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States; it is our goal an equitative distribution of the resources of the continent with fiscal measures over the big monopolies, which allow us to recover from more than 500 years of exploitation and underdevelopment. 

We denounce the imperialist policies of interventions of USA through the deployment of military bases and missions in the region, as happens in Panama, Colombia and Haiti and the reactivation of the 4ht Fleet, which goal is to reinforce the attack against the Citizen Revolution in Ecuador, the Plurinational Revolution in Bolivia, the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and particularly the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, since they represent a historical and revolutionary alternative to the capitalist system. 

We further denounce other mecanisms of interference as terrorism and drug dealing because they have a direct impact on peoples like the Mexican. We stand in solidarity with the Colombian people, victim of constant political murderers imposed by imperialists, as we also express our rejection of the usage of the canal of Panama for interventional geoestrategic, with the transit of war and nuclear armament. We support the struggle of the people of Puerto Rico for its full self determination and we are in solidarity with the harsh situation of Haiti, victim of colonialism. 

We strongly condemn the coup d’etats that took place in Honduras and Ecuador, aiming at the desestabilization of the progressive processes in the region and we recognize the role played by the members of WFDY in both countries resisting and struggling. We demand justice for the assassination of comrade Edwin Perez, Secretary General of the Communist Youth of Ecuador, and we condemn the unfair persecution that has been targetting the people of Mapuchi in Chile. 

We express our solidarity towards the struggles of the young people of the Caribbean. We express our solidarity with the struggles of the aboriginal and first people’s for full self determination. We know the youth of Canada and USA stand in friendship with the peoples of the world, not war and imperialism that their Governments promote. We condemn the unfair economical, financial and commercial blockade imposed against the Cuban people for more than 50 years in what is a clear violation of the International Law as well as we demand from the USA government the immediate release of the five Cuban unjustly imprisoned in their jails for more than 12 years.

The last years have confirmed the European Union as an imperialist tool that supports and promotes measures of exploitation of the peoples and youth, intervening both outside and in its member states, many times under the alleged defense of the “human rights” that itself fails to respect. The recent “austerity measures” that the National Governments have agreed upon with the EU to be implemented, with the pretext of the capitalist crisis, demanding sacrifices by the workers while the monopolies (banks and big corporations) are receiving billions to ensure their profits, as well as the measures imposed by the governments to the peoples are proof of our analysis. 

However the peoples’ resistance has had big expression in Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, with young workers playing an important role. In Education, there’s been a general trend of imposing class barriers and privatizing throughout all Europe, with particularly strong expression in the “Bologna Process” and its implementation in each country. 

Important struggles at Higher and Secondary Education level have been taking place in most of the countries to resist the general offense against the right to education. Side by side with the attack at social level, the attacks against the democratic rights, in general, and anti-communism, in particular, have been increasing rapidly, with a growing persecution of communist parties and youth organizations in many European countries, with particular expression in Eastern Europe with cases as the ones happened in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia with the ban (or attempt) of communist organizations and the rise and promotion of neo fascist forces. 

As background to the crisis, the xenophobic measures guided by the “European fortress” doctrine of the EU have been promoting the persecution of immigrants as justification to the social problems that arise from the profit-only orientated policies of the national governments, in a process with big implications in countries as France, Germany and Italy. 

We stand against the change of borders continuing in the Balkans with the so called “independence” of Kosovo, which became a huge military base for NATO and USA. We further express our solidarity with the people and youth of Cyprus, Greek and Turkish Cypriot, against the Turkish occupation, highlighting the big efforts made since the election of Dimitris Christophias as President of the Republic and our commitment to the bicommunal bizonal federation with one citizenship, one international identity and one sovereignty as the fair solution for the end of the occupation.

We express our solidarity with the students and youth of Palestine, Iraq and Arab countries’ resistance and support the persistence of Palestine in the resistance against the blockade and oppression. We denounce the racist inhumane practices of the Zionist Israel, with the policies of killing, expelling and settlements in Palestine, especially in Jerusalem, and in various occupied Arab Lands. We also demand an end to the Israeli occupation, removal of settlements and the wall of apartheid and we support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, according to UN resolutions, requesting the UN and the countries of the world to recognize the Palestinian state immediately. We denounce the war and blockade against Gaza and demand its breakdown and that the Zionist war criminals are persecuted; we also request to re-instate the UN resolution that equalizes Zionism with racism. We call for the immediate release of all Palestinian and Arab prisoners detained in Israeli and US prisons. 

We denounce the occupation of Iraq and support the right of the Iraqi people for resistance and demand the immediate withdrawal of the occupation forces out of it. We support the sovereignty, security, stability and unity of Iraq. We denounce the terrorism in all of its forms as well as the US secret military operations in the region. We express our solidarity towards Syria against the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan and denounce the “Syria Accountability Law” approved by the USA Congress. 

We also support the struggles of the Lebanese youth to complete the liberation of Sheba and Kfarshoba from the Israeli occupation and denounce the Israeli war of 2006 that lead to 1300 Lebanese victims. We denounce external interferences in the internal issues of Lebanon. We support the national dialogue of Yemen and emphasize the security and unity of Yemen. We demand the withdrawal of Spain from Cebta and Mellilla. We support the Egyptian youth and the youth of the Gulf States in their struggle to implement democratic rights, principles of justice and equality and we express solidarity with them against repressive laws and for labor rights. We also ask to treat the causes of immigration from Africa to Europe through Northern African countries. We support the struggles of the Arab youth for economic integration and demand the immediate dismantle of the Israeli nuclear arsenal.

The 17^th WFYS is held during the UN International Year on Youth. As happened in 1985, once again the WFYS is, so far, the biggest youth event of this year. More importantly, the WFYS is the most relevant activity, because it most clearly raises the real problems of the youth. Unlike many other activities and the actual framework of UN Year on Youth, in this Festival the youth of the world finds the biggest stage for denouncing the problems and offenses that they suffer from imperialism and its agents.

We, the youth and students of the world gathered in this historical festival, raised our voices against all the illnesses) generated by imperialism, which is undergoing its greatest global crisis. The imperialist world order is driving humanity to the verge of a global confrontation, with the ever-present danger of a nuclear war, through its hegemonic policy that will determine the present and the future of mankind.

It is time to continue the struggle for youth development and our economic, social and cultural values and not those of a decadent system they are trying to impose on us. We shall build a future of justice, equality, peace, hope and joy for humanity. The future of a new stage of history is in our hands and it depends on the peoples, working masses and world youth and their power of transformation, to build a world of peace and solidarity, where the power and the produced wealth will belong to the peoples and the youth of the world.

We thank the people of South Africa for welcoming us to their country and celebrating with us the opportunity to see South Africa change. We commit to you that we the youth of the world will never let our guard down in pursuance of a world free of imperialism. Let us start getting ready for the 18^th World Festival of Youth and Students!

South African unions suspend strike action after offer rise

Tuesday 07 September 2010

by Tom Mellen

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Public-sector staff have returned to work in South Africa after their unions decided to suspend a 20-day strike for three weeks while members consider a draft agreement.

Hospitals and schools reopened and are expected to be operating as usual from today.

Strikers have repeatedly taken to the streets and braved rubber bullets and water cannons over the last three weeks to press their demand for an 8.6 per cent pay rise, more than double the inflation rate, plus a 1,000 rand-a-month (£90) housing allowance.

President Jacob Zuma's ANC administration had signed a 7 per cent and 700 rand (£63) offer which it was threatening to implement unilaterally.

But the 1.3 million strikers, who are not compensated for missed work days by their unions, didn't budge an inch.

And with the strike costing the developing country an estimated 1 billion rand (£89.7m) a day, the ANC swiftly upped its offer to 7.5 per cent - plus 800 rand (£72) for housing.

A statement released by the Cosatu union federation saluted the "heroic workers who sacrificed days' wages and remained united in order to push the employer to move from its original position." The state had "failed to crush the strike and finally succumbed to the demand by labour to withdraw" the signed 7 per cent agreement, it said.

"This is a victory in the history of public service negotiations where the employer was forced to reopen negotiations," Cosatu declared, adding that the action had also succeeded in "placing the needs of the poor and social issues such as health, education and a social safety net at the top of the national agenda."

It went on to stress that the public-sector unions' decision to suspend the action "does not mean that they have accepted the government's latest wage offer."

Reports in local media suggest that union officials will have a tough time drumming up support for the draft agreement.

The City Press newspaper said that rank-and-file members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) chased union officials out of a meeting in Soweto when they heard that the strike had been suspended.

NEHAWU member Ndiitwani Ramarumo was quoted as saying: "Members are angry and they want to protest by going to the national office to burn their membership cards."

SACP on strikes

Contact – Provincial Secretary: Jacob Mamabolo (082 884 1868)
Provincial Spokesperson: Pat Ntsobi (072 671 4258)

Gauteng SACP Press Statement, 25 August 2010


Gauteng SACP in support of the Public Service strike

The SACP in Gauteng is fully behind the public service strike and is convinced that the demands of the workers are legitimate. We have thus far taken it upon ourselves to mobilize the rest of civil society and our communities to understand and support this action.

We have however been taken aback by the intransigence of the employer by misleading the public, insinuating that there is a new offer on the table. Such actions only harden attitudes and militate against rules of engagement as provided for in collective bargaining processes. We call upon the employer to desist from such amateurish tendencies and return to the bargaining table with a better offer as soon as possible, for a speedy resolution of this strike.

We are equally dismayed by the brutal and repressive measures employed by the police in dealing with the striking workers. We have noted with concern that Gauteng law enforcement agencies are the most brutal compared to the rest of the provinces during this period. We condemn such brutality as it only plunges the country into chaos. We therefore call upon authorities, in particular the MEC for Safety in Gauteng to make a decisive intervention to restrain the police.

In the same breath, we condemn in all strongest sense any acts of violence and intimidation attributed to the striking workers as it undermines the legitimacy of our action. We call for maximum discipline amongst the workers. We finally call upon the employer to meet the demands of the workers and that can only be achieved at the negotiating table not through the media platform.


Issued by the SACP Gauteng Province

Contact – Provincial Secretary: Jacob Mamabolo (082 884 1868)

Provincial Spokesperson: Pat Ntsobi (072 671 4258)

SASCO:Demand more pay – demand an end to capitalism!

18 August 2010

We support, unreservedly, the COSATU led public service strike. It is about time that the working class demands to be compensated for its worth by the capitalist state. It is not only mischievous but irresponsible for government to continue to offer peanuts to workers whilst often lazy public representatives continue to rake hundreds of thousands in undeserved salaries.

It is a shame that workers continue to stay in shacks and cannot afford basic necessities whilst some Ministers stay in expensive hotels at the taxpayer’s expense. We call on government not only to increase the salaries of workers but to considerably decrease salaries earned by Ministers, Director Generals, including those in the Presidency. The elite cannot continue to feed on the carcass of a poor nation so as to live as though oblivious of the untold suffering endured by the working class.

Our government should also increase corporate tax in order to ensure that the profits raked by businesses at the expense of workers are directed to the national fiscus and are used to reproduce and develop the nation. We call on COSATU and its affiliates not only to direct this protest at increasing wages but to mount a campaign against capitalism and its stratification. We further call upon the minister of Public administration to stop behaving like a CEO of a profit thirsty company and give workers what is due to them.

We also call on workers to remember that after the protest is over, they should be ready to redouble their efforts to ensure that whatever services were lost are made up for.

For details Contact:
Mbulelo Mandlana (President)
071 879 3408

Chris Hani; My Life: An autobiography written in 1991

Chris Hani, born on 28 June 1942, in Cofimvaba, Transkei. General-Secretary of the SACP since December 1991 and ANC NEC member since 1974. Matriculated at Lovedale, 1958; Universities Rhodes and Fort Hare - 1959/61, BA Latin and English. Joined ANC Youth League 1957. Active in Eastern and Western Cape ANC before leaving SA in 1962. Commissar in the Luthuli Detachment joint ANC/ZAPU military campaign 1967, escaped to Botswana, returned from Botswana to Zambia 1968, infiltrated SA in 1973 and then based in Lesotho. Left Maseru for Lusaka in 1982 after several unsuccessful assassination attempts. Commissar and Deputy Commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe, armed wing of ANC. Chief of Staff, MK 1987. The following brief autobiographical account was written by comrade Chris Hani in February 1991: I was born in a small rural town in the Transkei called Cofimvaba. This town is almost 200 kilometres from East London. I am the fifth child in a family of six. Only three of us are still surviving, the other three died in their infancy. My mother is completely illiterate and my father semi-literate. My father was a migrant worker in the mines in the Transvaal, but he subsequently became an unskilled worker in the building industry. Life was quite harsh for us and we went through some hard times as our mother had to supplement the family budget through subsistence farming; had to bring us up with very little assistance from my father who was always away working for the white capitalists. I had to walk twenty kilometres to school every five days and then walk the same distance to church every Sunday. At the age of eight I was already an altar boy in the Catholic church and was quite devout. After finishing my primary school education I had a burning desire to become a priest but this was vetoed by my father. In 1954, while I was doing my secondary education, the apartheid regime introduced Bantu Educaiton which was desighend to indoctrinate Black pupils to accept and recognise the supremacy of the white man over the blacks in all spheres. This angered and outraged us and paved the way for my involvement in the struggle. The arraignment for Treason of the ANC leaders in 1956 convinced me to join the ANC and participate in the struggle for freedom. In 1957 I made up my mind and joined the ANC Youth League. I was fifteen then, and since politics was proscribed at African schools our activities were clandestine. In 1959 I went over to university at Fort Hare where I became openly involved in the struggle, as Fort Hare was a liberal campus. It was here that I got exposed to Marxist ideas and the scope and nature of the racist capitalist system. My conversion to Marxism also deepended my non-racial perspective. My early Catholicism led to my fascination with Latin studies and English literature. These studies in these two course were gobbled up by me and I became an ardent lover of English, Latin and Greek literature, both modern and classical. My studies of literature futher strengthened my hatred of all forms of oppression, persecution and obscurantism. The action of tyrants as portrayed in various literary works also made me hate tyranny and institutionalised oppression. In 1961 I joined the underground South African Communist Party as I realised that national liberation, though essential, would not bring about total economic liberation. My decision to join the Party was influenced by such greats of our struggle like Govan Mbeki, Braam Fischer, JB Marks, Moses Kotane, Ray Simons, etc. In 1962, having recognised the intranisgence of the racist regime, I joined the fledgling MK. This was the beginning of my long road in the armed struggle in which there have been three abortive assassination attempts against me personally. The armed struggle, which we never regarded as exclusive, as we combined it with other forms of struggle, has brought about the present crisis of apartheid. In 1967 I fought together with Zipra forces in Zimbabwe as political commissar. In 1974 I went back to South Africa to build the underground and I subsequently left for Lesotho where I operated underground and contributed in the building of the ANC underground inside our country. The four pillars underpinning our struggle have brought about the present crisis of the apartheid regime. The racist regime has reluctantly recognised the legitimacy of our struggle by agreeing to sit down with us to discuss how to begin the negotiations process. In the current political situation, the decision by our organisation to suspend armed action is correct and is an important contribution in maintaining the momentum of negotiation. Chris Hani February 1991

Celebrate the legacy of Nelson Mandela

Celebrate the legacy of Nelson Mandela: Intensify the class struggles on all fronts!

Blade Nzimande, General Secretary

Over the last two weeks, South Africa, especially the progressive forces, celebrated two very important events. On 2nd 2010 February we celebrated 20 years of the unbanning of the ANC, SACP and other components of the national liberation movement, and on the 11th February the release of Nelson Mandela from the apartheid prisons. The celebration of the unbanning of our organizations and Nelson Mandela was not a tribute to the 'generosity' of the apartheid regime, but honouring the massive sacrifices of millions of South Africans in their selfless struggles against the apartheid regime. The release of Mandela marked a high point in the determined struggles of our people dislodge the apartheid regime as an important step towards the creation of a democratic South Africa.

The celebration of the release of Nelson Mandela from prison also marked one of the most important victories for the international anti-apartheid movement and, to a large extent, also marked the victory of anti-imperialist forces against tyranny and oppression worldwide. The South African Communist Party (SACP) also wishes to use this occasion to salute all our people and the international(ist) progressive forces in their role towards the defeat of one of the most evil forces on earth, which was bent on promoting and consolidating a neo-fascist project of racial oppression and class exploitation of a white minority over a black majority in the latter's country of birth and origin.

Remnants of the elements of the beneficiaries of the apartheid order, including elements of the current opposition forces in the current democratic dispensation and their backers in mainstream bourgeois media, have tried very hard to try and present these two major developments as an outcome of the generosity of the leaders of the apartheid regime. Having dismally failed in this exercise, including their attempts to rubbish President Zuma's State of the Nation Address, these forces are now resorting to some of the worst tactics of trying to discredit and undermine the very democratic institutions they claim to be defending. Yesterday's walkout from parliament by the Democratic Alliance and Cope is actually an expression of how these forces have lost their strategic sense of direction and expression of their frustrations in the failure of their attempts to exploit our democratic institutions for their narrow party political gains.

The walk-out by both Cope and the Democratic Alliance in parliament is also an expression of how these forces seek to use parliament for their narrow and highly sectarian interests, and thus their failure to do so exposing their political bankruptcy and some of the worst forms of political opportunism. It is in this desperation that Cope has also exposed itself as a parasite and political extension of the narrow right-wing and often racist interests of the Democratic Alliance.

The more the frustrations of the DA and COPE are exposed, the more the naked class interests of these forces are exposed.

The opportunism of the opposition parties also manifest themselves in their attempts to praise Nelson Mandela, not out of genuine recognitition of his role in the liberation struggle, but in order to try and opportunistically use his image and legacy to condemn the ANC, its alliance partners and the national liberation struggle as a whole. It is an attempt to try and appropriate the image of Madiba to advance their narrow class interests.

It is for all the above reasons that as the SACP we have correctly and consistently argued that the global 'iconic' status of Madiba must never, ever be allowed to bury Madiba the revolutionary - whose principled commitment to the liberation of the black majority and his fight against all forms of colonialism, discrimination and chauvinism must be at all times highlighted and defended.

In our tribute to Madiba, the SACP also highlighted the fact that Madiba was not only a leader of the ANC and its alliance partners, but that he at all times genuinely remained a loyal friend of South African communists. It is on his consistent and principled defence of the ANC alliance with the communists that Madiba will stand out as a true friend of South African communists. For instance, shortly after his meeting with PW Botha in prison on 5 July 1989, in which the latter sought to offer Mandela his freedom if he distanced himself from the communists, that he had the following profound statement to make:

"No dedicated ANC member will ever heed the call to break with the SACP. We regard such a demand (from PW Botha) as a purely divisive (apartheid's) government strategy. It is in fact a call on us to commit suicide. Which man of honour will ever desert a life-long friend among his people? Which opponent will ever trust such a treacherous freedom fighter? Yet this is what the (apartheid) government is in effect asking us to do; to desert our faithful allies. We will not fall into that trap".

This is also a pointed lesson to those within our own ranks whose sole mission is to try and attempt to push the communists out of the ANC.

For us as South African communists, we need to, at all times, defend Madiba the revolutionary! In practice this requires that we also intensify working class struggles in all key sites of power as part of winning our key strategic objectives as contained in our medium term vision; to build working class hegemony in all key sites of power.

It is therefore of utmost importance that much as we celebrate the iconic Madiba, we consistently push for preserving, honouring and integrity of Madiba as a revolutionary. It is for this reason that for the SACP Madiba shall always remain a revolutionary, whose making was shaped by the revolutionary struggles as led by the ANC. This requires the intensification of class struggles on all fronts of terrains of struggle. The intensification of such class struggles must also mean that, in memory of Madiba, we intensify our class struggle on all fronts, including the confrontation of those within our own ranks, who are using access to state power to advance their narrow economic class interests.

We must also deepen the class struggle in order to celebrate true values of what Madiba stood for; selflessness and commitment to people as a with a view of rolling back the capitalist system and its corrupting values of dog eat dog. To us this is the only way we can protect the legacy of someone like Madiba and the integrity of our revolution.

Long live Madiba long live!

Asikhulume!!