16 December 2014
On this day, 16 December 1961, our national liberation movement headed by the African National Congress (ANC) in alliance with the South African Communist Party (SACP) launched the people`s liberation army, Umkhonto weSizwe (MK). The SACP would like to take the opportunity offered by this Reconciliation Day, 16 December 2014, to salute the 53rd Anniversary of the founding of MK, and to express revolutionary solidarity with the MK Veterans Association. This 53rd Anniversary of the founding of MK coincides with the 1st Anniversary of the death of its first Commander-in-Chief, Comrade Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela who passed away last December, 2013.
President Mandela led our democratic revolutionary movement with outstanding performance. He will be most remembered for his sterling leadership, among others in taking forward our transformation programme including nation building and reconciliation in the post-1994 period. This was one of the most challenging tasks given that our 1994 democratic breakthrough did not come only from the negotiations which were held in the early 1990s and was by no means the outcome of a peaceful environment.
The colonisers who established the system of national oppression on the foundations of imperialism, racist and sexist capitalist exploitation, unleashed terror against anyone they viewed as a barrier to profit maximisation and the accumulation of wealth on a private basis. Many activists who joined the struggle against this regime suffered life threatening injuries and major disabilities. To this day there are still many unaccounted comrades who disappeared in the process.
Our people lost countless lives to killings engineered and co-ordinated by successive colonial regimes as well as their collaborators. The SACP wishes to send its deepest condolences and sincere solidarity to all the families, friends and comrades of the victims. On 10 April 1993 our struggle for national liberation and socialism in particular lost one of its finest revolutionaries, Comrade Chris Hani, a leader of the ANC, the SACP and the MK.
Hani was assassinated by Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz Walus who later applied for amnesty but remain to this day unrepentant despite their sentences commuted from the capital punishment which we abolished to life imprisonment. These convicted murderers are however still not prepared to disclose all the details about Hani`s killing. The SACP wishes to reiterate the fundamental principle that true reconciliation depends first and foremost at least on full disclosure of the truth as well as remorse.
This is in line with the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which did not grant amnesty to Hani`s assassins. Reconciliation is not a one-way street to the benefit of the perpetrators only while the victims or their families, friends and organisations are unfairly pressed to forgive the injustices that they have suffered. The SACP is appealing to all South Africans to embrace the spirit of true reconciliation. This is what President Mandela stood for.
Meanwhile big capital has heaped up massive profits amounting to trillions of Rand. Part of this money has been exported from our country through imperialist surplus extraction, capital flight, de-listing and dual-listing, as well as through illicit transfers. Along with unrepentant racists, big capital has been the most unforgiving section in our country against innocent people, particularly the working class and the poor. The trillions of Rand that have been acquired from profit both during the colonial-apartheid era and after 1994 are not being invested back in the economy to create jobs. The SACP is calling on big capital to end this investment strike! The Party has no option but to intensify its Financial Sector Campaign including prescribed assets, the taxation of liquid capital above a defined ceiling and capital controls.
Issued by the SACP
Contact:
Alex Mashilo - National Spokesperson
Mobile: 082 9200 308
Office: 011 339 3621/2
Twitter: @2SACP
Website: www.sacp.org.za