Sunday, 20 February 2005
The Central Committee (CC) of the South African Communist Party (SACP) met in Johannesburg on the 18th and 19th February. Among the issues discussed were the situation in Zimbabwe, progress made in our SACP campaigns, and preparations for our Special Congress (8th - 10th April) and our bilateral meetings with COSATU & AgriSA.
Comrade Raymond Mhlaba
The CC conveys its warmest wishes to our veteran SACP leader and comrade, Raymond Mhlaba. A CC delegation recently visited cde Mhlaba in Port Elizabeth where he is seriously ill. We hope that Oom Ray will soon make a full recovery.
The Zimbabwean crisis
The SACP has been maintaining dynamic contact around the Zimbabwean crisis with our comrades in government, and in the ANC and COSATU. The SACP is also active in the Zimbabwean solidarity movement here in South Africa, and we have been working closely with progressive faith-based organisations and human rights NGOs in this context. We have also had the opportunity to maintain consistent and high-level contact with many of the key formations within Zimbabwe itself.
Flowing out of all this, and out of the CC's discussions, the SACP is advancing the following perspectives around which, we believe, we should endeavour to unite our Alliance and all progressive formations within our country and region.
The crisis within Zimbabwe has assumed an all-round political, social and economic character. All dimensions of the crisis require urgent attention, however, the political impasse that has prevailed since at least 2000 constitutes a serious blockage to any endeavour to address the other dimensions of the crisis in any coherent or sustainable way. The SACP has, therefore, supported President Mbeki?s endeavours to bring the major political protagonists (ZANU PF and MDC) together. The objective of this initiative has been to get these political formations to agree on whatever constitutional and legislative amendments are required, along with other confidence creating measures, for free and fair elections. The logic of this approach is that the parties should reach formal agreement, and should then establish a time-table of implementation towards a run-up to elections.
Our South African government has stated several times that the informal engagements indicated there were real prospects for a bilateral agreement. However, the provisional agreements were never formally endorsed, and the hopeful signs have not been consolidated in practice. In the SACP's view, ZANU PF was always a half-hearted participant in the process. The unilateral declaration by the ZANU PF government of a March election date, outside of any agreement in the Mbeki-facilitated process has, effectively, undermined the process for the moment.
We are now confronted with the reality of a March 31 election.
Whatever the many shortcomings in the present electoral process, we believe that the immediate strategic objective of all of our interventions in the coming weeks must be to encourage, impel and insist upon an opening up of as much democratic space as possible in Zimbabwe. The opening up of such space should, however, not be seen merely in the context of a March 31 election. It is critical that whatever space is conceded remains open as a base upon which to help to stabilise, normalise and progressively transform the Zimbabwean reality after March 31. In other words, it is critical that we do not see March 31 as either the be-all or the end-all in the resolution of the crisis in Zimbabwe.
This point is all the more pertinent given the obvious fact that, in the short space of time that remains, there will not be an effective compliance with the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections. The newly appointed Zimbabwean Independent Electoral Commission, for instance, does not yet even have office premises and it shares its nominal role with two other entities. The voters' roll (in a reportedly chaotic state) was finalised before the IEC came into being. The harassment of opposition politicians continues, with their meetings disrupted by the police. Even the SADC delegation, which according to the guidelines and principles should be in the country 90 days before an election, has yet to be invited. It is, therefore, already too late for an effective and substantive compliance with the SADC protocols. We should also bear in mind that clause 7.1 of that agreement (signed solemnly by all SADC heads of state, including the Zimbabwean president) commits all our governments to implement the protocols ?scrupulously?.
In some quarters, given this reality, there is a call on our government (and the governments of SADC) to get ready to declare March 31 ?null and void? with a view to implementing sanctions ? cutting off the electricity supply is sometimes mentioned. In the view of the SACP, the call for SADC-led sanctions is a high-risk strategy whose outcome, should it be implemented, is extremely unclear. Certainly, the immediate consequence would most likely be to reinforce the most retrograde elements in Zimbabwe, whose political survival has been premised, precisely, on fostering a siege mentality, drumming up a demagogic anti-imperialism that includes accusing other governments and progressive forces in our region of being ?puppets?, and unleashing vicious attacks on their citizenry. We should, of course, not tamely submit to this kind of demagoguery, but we should also always be sure that we know precisely what we are doing. There is, in any case, little evidence for the moment of any inclination to move towards sanctions, not just by the South African government, but also by any of the other SADC governments.
On the other hand, a bland (and less than honest) SADC ?free and fair? declaration after March 31 will also deepen the political impasse in Zimbabwe:
it will encourage ZANU-PF to think that it can steal future elections ;
it will make a nonsense of the seriousness with which SADC takes its own guidelines and principles; and
particularly in the case of SA, it will send a message to our own mass base (and to a global community) that our commitment to democratic principles is ?negotiable?
In this context, the SACP welcomes Pres Mbeki?s positioning last week in regard to the SADC delegation due to go to Zimbabwe (see cde Mbeki?s SATV interview following the State of Nation address). In the first place, he expressed impatience that the delegation was not yet in the country. Secondly, and importantly, he moved away from a model of ?observing? and then ?pronouncing a verdict?, to a much more hands-on version of what the SADC mission should be doing ? playing an active role in ensuring that there is democratic space ahead of the election.
We believe that this kind of approach should also inform the post-March 31st situation. As for the March 31 elections themselves, we believe that the following steps should be undertaken:
if, as is almost certain, there is non-compliance with the SADC protocols, then this should be said, unambiguously, with the areas of non-compliance clearly noted;
where there have been some democratic reforms, some space conceded , then these too must be acknowledged and presented as potential building blocks (not just for a future election) ? but for an ongoing process of all-round democratisation.
SADC itself should as soon as possible, and transparently, indicate the extent to which its own protocol on free, fair and democratic elections is being observed and implemented in Zimbabwe
SADC must commit itself to an ongoing engagement ? amongst other things, taking forward cde Mbeki?s important initiatives in bringing together the two main parties to agree on constitutional reforms, legislative reforms, confidence building measures, and time frames for future free and fair elections within a reasonably short time. This endeavour will not have become irrelevant because of March 31, on the contrary, its relevance will likely be all the greater.
None of this will bear fruit unless there is sustained peer-group SADC pressure and popular mobilisation, especially upon the ruling party in Zimbabwe, whose intransigence remains the immediate cause of the political impasse.
In this context, the SACP welcomes COSATU?s important initiatives, among them its engagement with its allies in the region within the framework of the Southern African Trade Union Coordinating Council (SATUCC). The mobilisation of organised workers throughout our region, in solidarity with their counterparts in Zimbabwe and for democratisation and against all human rights abuses, is a very important development. The SACP agrees with COSATU that all solidarity actions in the coming weeks should keep the spot-light firmly focused on the crisis in Zimbabwe. There will be those in our region who will try to present these solidarity actions as regionally ?oppositionist?, even ?insurrectionist?, they will hope to turn workers in every national setting against their own governments, and they will endeavour to engineer a closing of ranks of Southern African governments against workers, which will only strengthen obduracy in Harare. We must prevent this sleight of hand. The solidarity actions must, therefore, support the important SADC principles and guidelines, and they must help to energise and galvanise regional governments to carry out their duties in Zimbabwe, without fear or favour, in terms of their own protocols.
In the coming days and weeks, the SACP will intensify its engagements with its alliance partners and all progressive and solidarity formations in our country. We will be supporting solidarity demonstrations and other forms of mobilisation against human rights abuses and anti-democratic measures in Zimbabwe.
SACP campaigns
The Central Committee also received reports and discussed the various ongoing SACP campaigns ? the financial sector campaign, the land and agrarian reform campaign, and our general work around building sustainable livelihoods and co-ops.
Important progress is being made in all of these fronts, and the CC noted with approval that our grass-roots activism and the issues we have been taking up around micro-credit, credit bureaux and land reform, have opened up a series of important engagements with a wide variety of formations, from traditional leaders to NAFCOC to faith-based formations. In all of these, and other, cases we have found that the leadership that the Party is providing around key transformational issues is appreciated. We commit ourselves to deepening these interactions.
In the context of our Land and Agrarian Reform campaign, AgriSA has agreed to a high-level meeting with the SACP for early March. The Central Committee discussed the perspectives that we would be taking to this meeting. In particular, we will seek to secure AgriSA?s commitment to a national land summit, an end to farm evictions, at least until such time as evictions are fully discussed at the summit, and a condemnation of all acts of violence on farms.
The CC welcomed President Mbeki?s state of nation announcement that government will be undertaking a national survey of the so-called ?second economy?. The SACP believes that such a survey should not be narrowly economistic in its approach. We believe that we need to understand with much greater complexity the cultural, social and economic dynamics at play in townships, informal settlements, rural villages and, indeed, on the streets of our cities and towns. While learning more about the marginalisation, and the range of historical deprivations that afflict workers and the poor, we should also study the reality of the so-called ?second economy? with an appreciation for its resilience, its productivity, its values of solidarity and, without romanticising this reality, with an understanding of how it acts as a countervailing capacity and shock-absorber in the face of an often dysfunctional ?first? economy. The SACP is concerned that, sometimes, our well-intentioned interventions into the so-called ?second? economy are excessively top-down and technocratic, and amount, in effect, to an increased exposure to a brutal profit-maximising, labour-exploiting formal sector.
In this general context, and to take further our grass-roots campaigns, the SACP will be launching its ?Know Your Neighbourhood? campaign at our Special Congress to be held in Durban on the 8-10th April.
Special Congress
A major focus of the CC was preparations for the Party??s Special Congress. The CC discussed & adopted discussion documents for the Special Congress which focus on:
Class struggles in the National Democratic Revolution: The Political Economy of Transition in South Africa (1994-2004)
Our medium-term vision: the kind of cadre & Party we are building
Consolidating our campaigns & mass work
The Special Congress will be attended by more than 650 delegates representing the 30,000 activist members of our Party. The overall Congress objective is to consolidate our class analysis of the first decade of freedom, including challenges in the second decade of freedom for the working class.
SACP-COSATU Bilateral
The CC noted preparations for an SACP-COSATU Bilateral which will be held before the SACP Special Congress. In this bilateral we aim to exchange our perspectives and views on our respective (class) analysis of the first decade of freedom, and the challenges facing the working class as we enter the second decade of freedom. The bilateral will also seek to harmonise our 10-year visions, as well as our programmes of action for this year. Of particular importance in this regard will also be to work towards harmonising our international work, particularly in the Southern African region, and identify the tasks of the working class in the region.
Contact
Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara (surname Jara)
Head of the Office of the General Secretary
South African Communist Party
Tel - 011 339 3621, Fax - 011 339 4244/6880
Cell - 083 651 0271
Email - mazibuko@sacp.org.za (office), mazibuko@mail.ngo.za (alternate)
Website - www.sacp.org.za