The News Line: Editorial
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
SOUTH AFRICA: Legacy of the revolution betrayed
THE fighting in Johannesburg and its surrounding black town****ps, over
the past week =96 with more than 23 people being killed, pitched battles
with riot police and more than 300 people arrested =96 is reminiscent of
the era of the apartheid regime, almost 20 years ago.
A week ago, in Alexandra town****p north of Johannesburg, gangs of
youth attacked people they regard as =91foreigners=92, from Zimbabwe,
Congo, Mozambique, Malawi and South Africans who speak minority
languages, like Shangaans and Venda.
Since that time, attacks have spread to town****ps across the Gauteng
region around Johannesburg. People have been driven out, and homes and
shops have been looted.
In addition to the 23 people killed and the scores who have been
injured, more than 13,000 people have fled from where they lived. Many
have sought shelter in churches, community halls and police stations.
Johannesburg=92s Central Methodist Church, where about 1,000 Zimbabweans
had fled, came under attack over the weekend, and riot police were
deployed in the centre of the city.
In the black town****ps the riot police have been in action using
teargas, firing rubber bullets and wielding their riot sticks. There
have been pitched battles between large groups of residents and the
police.
In response to calls for the army to be brought in, National Police
spokeswoman, Sally De Beer, said the police had an =91extremely
cooperative relation****p with [the armed forces], so if we need to
call on them we would not hesitate to so so.=92 She added: =91At the
moment we have deployed four platoons of the National Intervention
Unit.=92
This is the scene in Johannesburg, the centre of the South African
economy, 14 years after the end of apartheid, during which time the
African National Congress (ANC) has been in government.
Even Moeletsi Mbeki, the brother of President Thabo Mbeki has said
that the ANC leader****p is responsible. It has carried out policies
that allow the country=92s huge mineral wealth to provide profits for
apartheid-era owners and fund a new black =91elite=92, while the economic
situation of the black m***** has hardly changed.
The official unemployment rate is about 40 per cent. The poorest
workers, both local people and immigrants from other countries in
southern Africa, are forced to live in squatter camps and informal
settlements. They often do not have basic services like running water,
sewage disposal systems and electricity supplies.
The lack of jobs, homes, utilities and essential health and education
services have been the main issues raised in the fighting in
Johannesburg=92s black town****ps.
The ANC leader****p is responsible for this situation because it
preserved the private owner****p of the banks, mines, factories and
land in the hands of cor****ations and large commercial farmers, who
owned them under the apartheid regime.
The ANC fought against those who demanded the socialist
nationalisation of the banks, major cor****ations and the land.
Confronted with the huge revolutionary upsurge of the black m*****
against the apartheid regime, the ANC leaders engineered a limited
political revolution, that transferred government posts from white
rulers to a majority of black rulers, with rich pickings for those in
government and their friends.
After 14 years of ANC rule, the working class, jobless immigrants and
the poor rural population want jobs, homes and a decent future.
To achieve this they must unite and continue their revolutionary
struggle, which was betrayed by the ANC leader****p, the Stalinist
South African Communist Party (SACP) and top bureaucrats of COSATU
unions, in order to go forward to a workers=92 and farmers=92 government,
that will implement a socialist programme.
To lead this struggle, workers, youth and intellectuals must build a
new revolutionary party, a South African section of the Trotskyist
International Committee of the Fourth International, to lead this
fight in a struggle against the treachery of the ANC and the SACP, and
to build a new leader****p in the COSATU trade unions.
http://www.wrp.org.uk/news/3190
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