SACP Castro Pilusa District Congress Declaration
3 March 2015
We, the delegates of the 6th congress of Castro Pilusa District in Limpopo, representing more than 6 423 SACP members; have met over the weekend 28 February and 1 March 2015 under the theme: "Building Working Class Power for Solidarity Economy". We are drawn from 97 SACP branches across the length and breadth of our district and from the ranks of the Young Communist League of South Africa.
We were inspired by the attendance and messages of support delivered by leaders of the revolutionary alliance in our district led by the peoples` most glorious movement, the African National Congress (ANC), Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) and other formations the Mass Democratic Movement.
Our Provincial Executive Committee presented important Party policy documents and discussion papers respectively, the South African Road to Socialism, Going to the Roots, The class and the national struggle, and Organisational Renewal.
Our Congress coincided with the arrival of the mortal remains of communist stalwarts and the liberation heroes, Moses Mauane Kotane and John Beaver (JB) Marks from Moscow, Russia. We join the families of the martyrs and the leadership of the revolutionary alliance in welcoming the remains of these gallant leaders of our struggle national liberation and socialism.
Our congress took place in the year we celebrate 60 years of the Freedom Charter and 21 years of our April 1994 democratic breakthrough. Our task is to deepen the gains we have since achieved and place the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) on a second, more radical phase towards the realisation of the goals of the Freedom Charter. We reaffirm our Party`s strategic perspective that the achievement of the goals of the Freedom Charter will lay the indispensable basis for an advance to socialism.
We declare we shall take responsibility of the NDR by building a working class hegemony in all sites of power and influence. This includes the public sector, municipalities and all other key organs of the state. We will continue to organise the working class as the main motive force of the NDR.
Our revolution faces three interrelated contradictions as enshrined in the legacy of Colonialism of a Special Type, namely class, national and gender contradictions. The class struggle and national question will not succeed without simultaneously escalating the struggle for the women emancipation and gender equality.
Our congress convened at the time when the global capitalist crisis is imposing ever greater misery on the majority of the world`s population and ever greater destruction of the natural world on which human civilisation depends. It is a crisis that underlines the imperative of abolishing capitalism and replacing it with socialism, a system based on meeting social needs and on a sustainable relationship with nature.
Congress adopted resolutions which will guide our course of revolutionary action towards achieving the objectives of "The South African Road to Socialism". Our Congress was undoubtedly marked by both vibrant and robust political and policy debate and we emerge from the congress more resolute and united than ever before.
A common thread throughout the duration of our congress was the need for communists to take active responsibility for our revolution. We are not, and we shall not be armchair revolutionaries by observing the struggle from a comfortable distance, unlike the populists and demagogues and their parties. We shall wage the class struggle wherever the class struggle is against exploitation and all forms of oppression.
We resolved on the following key interventions based on our commissions:
- Strengthen the collaborative and collective work with the Alliance Structures in the District so as to embark on common campaigns that will transform the lives of the people. In particular prepare the Party and the Alliance for the upcoming Local Government Elections in 2016.
- We support the move by Demarcation Board to review and realign municipal boundaries in Castro Pilusa to ensure their financial viability, sustainability and enhanced service delivery and shall guard the process carefully to ensure that workers don`t become victims of such mergers with job losses
- Urge our government to advance the tenets of the Freedom Charter unapologetically as part of the Second Phase of the NDR with particular focus on job creation, land, education, health, industrialisation and resolving energy crisis and most importantly, transforming and transferring ownership and control in the commanding heights of the economy to the people as a whole and thus eliminate with private monopoly.
- Support and lead all international efforts to free Cde Amos Mbezi, Mario Masuku and all political prisoners in Swaziland to usher in a democratic breakthrough in that country.
- We acknowledged and salute the international pressure that led to Obama to release the Cuban Five and calls for speedy lifting of the economic embargo on Cuba by the self-declared policeman of the world, the U.S. - which has also clandestinely augmented their focus on interference in Cuba with renewed destabilisation of the Bolivarian People`s Revolution in Venezuela.
- We pledge an un-ending solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine and thousands in West Africa afflicted by Ebola.
- We are also making a clarion call to the government of Nigeria and the A.U to ensure immediate release of the girls abducted by Boko-Haram.
The Congress unanimously expressed confidence in the following collective of seasoned cadres to lead the District in the next two years:
- District Secretary - Cde. Chuene Malebana
- District Deputy Secretary - Cde Lawrence Shilabye
- District Chairperson - Cde Desmond Mahopo
- District Deputy Chairperson - Cde Dan Mosena
- District Treasurer - Cde Nakedi Seakamela
As provided for by the constitution, 15 additional members were also unanimously elected into the District Executive Committee.
We declare once more that:
Socialism is the future; Build it now!
We are not waiting for that future - we are actively building that future, here and now.
Amandla!!
Issued by the SACP Castro Pilusa District, Limpopo Province
Contact:
District Secretary - Chuene Malebana
Mobile: 082 522 0388
