29 December 2013
Moni family members present;
SACP National Treasurer Comrade Joyce Moloi-Moropa, Second Deputy General Secretary Comrade Solly Mapaila, other Central Committee and Provincial Executive Committee members present;
Leaders from alliance partners present,
ANC Deputy Secretary General Comrade Jessie Duarte;
COSATU Deputy and Acting General Secretary Comrade Bheki Ntshalintshali;
National Union of Mineworkers Comrade Peter Bailey;
South African National Civics Organisation Comrade Lucas Qhakaza;
Leaders from the leagues of the ANC and the Young Communist League present, National Secretary Comrade Buti Manamela;
Comrades and friends,
Allow me for and on behalf of the SACP to express our sincere condolences to the wife of Comrade Crosby Moni, Nokwakha, daughters Nonkosi and Bongeka, sons Manyano, Nkqubela, Bonga and to the entire Moni family, as well as to Comrade Crosby’s colleagues and comrades in our Alliance, to fellow Members of Parliament, to the workers, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and to the working class as a whole.
We must admit as the SACP that we are truly saddened by the loss of Comrade (Cde) Crosby, but we will be comforted by his sterling contribution in our struggle as a trade unionist who was an action oriented ANC cadre and communist. There is a lot we can learn from cde Crosby in all the roles he has played as an embodiment of our Alliance.
Cde Crosby served as a member and worker leader in the NUM and progressive trade union federation COSATU, in which he played an outstanding role. He was an ANC and progressive civic movement activist. He anchored all these trade union and mass revolutionary roles in communist activism in which he was a firm believer in Marxist-Leninist theory, principles and guidance.
After he left the NUM in 2009 as its Vice President Cde Crosby worked for the SACP as one of our full-time Central Committee members, and he served our Party with distinction. In 2011 he honoured a people’s call to serve in Parliament, but he continued to be deployed as our Central Committee Member in Party work.
Cde Crosby was a very humble and modest leader, but with enormous experience and insight into our struggles and issues.
A trade unionist
Cde Crosby understood that the SACP was not an extension of trade unions, and that trade unions were not political parties. He understood both the relationship and distinction between the two.
Cde Crosby was a founder member of the NUM and he rose through the ranks of the union as a Shaft Steward, Regional Chairperson and Vice President.
In honour of cde Crosby:
Let us strengthen trade unions to fight against capitalist restructuring of the workplace to weaken the working class.
Let us continue our fight against labour brokers, which must be banned, and against casualisation.
Let us go back to the basics of trade union organisation, enhance service to members, and intensify shop steward training and member political education.
Whilst trade unions must engage in broader political issues, they are not political parties and must ensure that they first and foremost are strong in the workplace and serve members’ interests.
The SACP has called for organisational renewal of COSATU and its affiliates led by their Presidents with focus on improved service and workplace organisation.
Defeat the Chiluba phenomenon!
Let us treasure the memory of cde Crosby’s struggles by:
Defeating the emerging Frederick Chiluba phenomenon from inside our federation which cde Crosby was concerned about. The Chiluba phenomenon turns trade unions into a party political platform for some of its leaders, not the working class, and constitutes an attempt at weakening the national liberation movement and progressive trade unions. This agenda is deeply anti-communist, and, an old trick of the enemy, it seeks to alienate workers from the Communist Party.
The Chiluba phenomenon is a dangerous political experiment by reckless leadership which is financially secure, but which can destroy workers’ livelihoods by dividing and weakening unions, and dumping workers after attaining power.
The Chiluba phenomenon won’t succeed, as our ANC-SACP cadres have a duty to lead an assault on this political deviation, in honour of cde Crosby.
An ANC cadre
Cde Crosby was a loyal member of the ANC to the end, serving previously in its Provincial Executive Committee and as Deputy Provincial Chairperson in Mpumalanga Province. He was prepared to serve in all key sites of struggle.
The best we can do for cde Crosby is to mobilise for an overwhelming victory for the ANC with an increased majority in the forthcoming 2014 elections. The ANC is our best hope to defend and advance both workers and broader working class gains, among others workers’ rights, housing, education, health, social security and welfare, as well as other social wage advances and other fundamental transformation imperatives.
In honour of cde Crosby the SACP will convene workers’ forums in the run up to elections to take forward these and other issues that are in the deepest interests of workers and the broader working class.
As we mobilise for an overwhelming ANC victory we must beware of large, although not all, sections of the media that are not and will not tell the people about our achievements. Their stories are predominantly negative against the ANC, and deliberately ignore, if not selectively reporting, about the achievements of the ANC-led government.
Among the achievements that are not reported upon is that the President Zuma led administration has increased life expectancy by four years, as opposed to the many lives we lost because of the scandalous HIV/AIDS denialism in the past. During the reign of this denialism, we were told big English words: “a virus can’t cause a syndrome”, etc.
Above all, a communist cadre to the end!
As the SACP we will intensify the struggle against capitalism. The working class struggle is in all key sites of power, in the economy, community, workplace, ideological terrain, internationally, and in and outside of the state, combining our mass and attained state power. There is no contradiction for the working class and communists to be in all key sites of power. Such presence instead shows the revolutionary maturity of the working class as the principal motive force of our national democratic revolution.
Long live the memory of cde Crosby, long live!
Issued by SACP Media and Communications
Contact:
Alex Mashilo – Spokesperson
Mobile: 082 9200 308
Email: alexmashilo.sacp@gmail.com