South Africa: Grassroots activists mourn UnFreedom Day, to mark the hard-fought freedoms still unwon

Friday 26 April , 2013
Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA — Press Statement

UnFreedom Day in Durban

UnFreedom Day, 2012, Durban, Azania (South Africa)

Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA, a democratic and membership based organization, has held its UnFreedom Day event in Durban every year since 2006. This year UnFreedom Day will be held in Durban and in Cape Town.

UnFreedom Day will be mourned at the eThekwini College, Springfield (adjacent to the Kennedy Road shack settlement) in Durban on 28 April 2013 and at the Sweet Home Farm Community Hall in Philippi in Cape Town on 27 April 2013. The event will begin at 09:00 in the morning in both cities.

We wish to acknowledge all the sacrifices made by many South Africans in the name of freedom and all of the gains that have been won. We also wish to salute all the international communities who fought hard with us to defeat apartheid. But we are sure that this is not the real freedom that so many people struggled and had suffered for. We do not want in any way to undermine the struggles of the past or the real gains that have been won. But who can say that they are really free when they must live without land, without homes, without jobs and without dignity? Who can say that they are really free when they do not have the right to organise freely and safely? Who can say that they are really free when women are not safe? Who can say that they are really free when they are being forced out of the city and taken to human dumping grounds in the middle of nowhere?

South Africa: “It is Time for Real Action Against Rape “

8 February 2013  BBC News

There have been further protests in South Africa, over the high incidence of rape in the country. The demonstrations were triggered by the gang rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world, 

with police figures showing that 64,000 cases were reported last year.
Nomsa Maseko reports.

Unemployed People’s Movement Press Statement, Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Thandiswa Qubuda was gang raped in the early hours of the 20th January 2013 at the corner of New Town and E Street in Grahamstown. She is 30 years old and the only one surviving in the family. Both her both parents have died and she was living with her aunt.

She was savagely beaten during the rape and is now permanently brain damaged and lying in hospital. Today at 12 noon the Revered Mzi Dyantyi, family members and the Unemployed People’s Movement held a prayer and anointment in her ward.

The men that were arrested after this rape were granted free bail. The rape case was then dismissed and struck off the role because of the extreme negligence and incompetence of the police. The only charge that is remaining is attempted murder. Witnesses have been subject to serious intimidation by one of the accused. One has been taken to a place of safety after been threatened with death by one of the accused. Another has had to flee to Johannesburg. And yet the accused were given free bail!

ex-Israeli Ambassador to S. Africa counters ‘democratic Israel’ claim: ‘yes, we are apartheid…’

The Times of Israel

As long as there is no Palestinian state and Israel rules over the West Bank, Israel is a de facto apartheid state, a former top Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday, using a highly contentious term usually employed only by radical anti-Israel activists.

Alon Liel, a former Foreign Ministry director-general and ex-ambassador to South Africa, also called on President Barack Obama to stay home if he didn’t intend to warn Israelis about the dangers of an approaching “apartheid cliff.”

“In the situation that exists today, until a Palestinian state is created, we are actually one state. This joint state — in the hope that the status quo is temporary — is an apartheid state,” Liel said at a Jerusalem conference about whether Israel is or could become an apartheid state.

The campaign to boycott apartheid’s sports teams — then (South African) and now (Israeli)

Israel Dropped the Ball on Human Rights, but We Won’t! by Anna Baltzer, National Organizer, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation October 18th, 2012

Last week, more than 100 organizations worldwide — including dozens of US Campaign coalition members — signed onto a letter of support for the first Israeli sports team boycott campaign in the United States, organized by member group Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC). The Israeli basketball team Maccabi-Haifa has been in the United States playing U.S. teams including the Minnesota Timberwolves.

“Stop Playin’ with Apartheid”

When the Timberwolves refused to cancel their game with the Maccabi, almost two dozen activists protested inside the stadium calling on the team to “Stop Playing with Apartheid!” The protestors were ejected from the game for “disruptive and inappropriate messages” (meanwhile, counter-protestors waving Israeli flags were allowed to stay). According to a press release on the MN BBC website, a legal observer and civil rights attorney was assaulted and temporarily arrested by local security and police.

A boycott of Apartheid South Africa’s sports teams proved to be a particularly effective tool in the struggle to end oppression there. At the time, South African teams that had not taken a public stance against apartheid would not be invited by any self-respecting tournament or venue. It should be no different with Apartheid Israel today.

In the same way that South African teams were, almost all Israeli sports teams are cynically used as ambassadors of an apartheid state. Additionally, Maccabi is sponsored by Ya’akov Shahar, chairman of Mayer’s Cars and Trucks Ltd., the official importer to Israel of Volvo. Both companies are heavily involved in the Israeli occupation, as documented by Who Profits?, an Israeli research project. Israeli sports teams like Maccabi are also notorious for racism and racial discrimination against Palestinians.

As the activists in Minnesota stated: “Love Basketball; Hate Apartheid.”

The Palestinian call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) first made its way into U.S. basketball discourse when the US Campaign learned that legendary player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar canceled participation in an Israeli film festival following Israel’s killing of twelve unarmed Palestinian refugees attempting to exercise their internationally-recognized right of return.

It’s time to slam dunk Israeli Apartheid!

For more information on this and related campaigns, see:  http://endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=3293

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For background on the international boycott of South African apartheid’s sports, see this video documentary clip, and the articles which follow:

South Africa: Protestors Force Israeli Products Off Shelves

By Francis Hweshe, West Cape News (Cape Town), 2 October 2012

The move by Wellness Warehouse came after protests in Cape Town.

Human rights activists in Cape Town have cautiously welcomed a decision by upmarket retailer Wellness Warehouse to pull products from an Israel-based company from its shelves.

The move by Wellness Warehouse came after protests on the weekend by the University of Cape Town Palestinian Solidarity Forum (UCT PSF) and lobby group Open Shuhad Street (OSS) outside the store on Kloof Street.

The approximately 40 protestors demanded that products from AHAVA Cosmetics products be removed from the store.

According to the activists AHAVA Cosmetics has become “a key target” of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. They allege the company has violated the Department of Trade and Industry’s recent notice preventing the false labelling of Israeli products manufactured by companies in the Occupied Palestine Territories.

They said AHAVA products were being mislabelled as ‘Made in Israel’ instead of ‘Made in Occupied Palestinian Territories’.

South Africa strikes spill into transport sector

The unrest has forced three leading platinum producers to halt mining operations on the richest deposits in the world

By Sibongile Khumalo, Agence France-Presse
JOHANNESBURG, 25/09/2012

South Africa is struggling to quell a wave of strikes that have crippled the key mining sector and now threaten to spark fuel and food shortages, as transport workers became the latest to go on strike Tuesday.

Unions representing an estimated 28,000 truckers said poor pay and conditions had prompted them to launch the latest in a rash of sometimes deadly strikes that threaten to spook investors and curb growth in the emerging nation.

Drivers are seeking a 12-percent wage increase for 2013 and 2014, more than the rate of inflation, which stands at 5.0 percent.

Last week President Jacob Zuma said stoppages in the mining sector in the past nine months had cost the economy close to 4.5 billion rand ($534 million, 415 million euros).

Firms in the transport and mining sectors on Tuesday tried to end the standoffs at the negotiating table, although progress appeared to be slow.

Road Freight Association spokesperson Magretia Brown said no deal had yet been reached with transport workers, but talks were ongoing.

Meanwhile Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) workers, who have been on a wildcat strike which is now on its second week, held their first day of talks.

The strike has shut down operations at the world’s top platinum producer.

“We expect Anglo American to come with something on the table and if they are unable to do that, the strike will continue and it will be the start of the (formal) strike,” said Gaddhafi Mdoda, a workers representative.

South African Police Halt Peaceful Strikers’ March

September 16, 2012

Mineworkers in South Africa are demanding better pay and working conditions. On September 12, 2012 unrest spread further throughout the platinum and gold sectors. by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

SA police halt peaceful strikers’ march

By DENIS FARRELL, Associated Press

RUSTENBURG, South Africa (AP) — South African police halted a peaceful march by striking miners without violence Sunday, a day after firing rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse illegal protesters.

Officers barricaded a main road into Rustenburg, northwest of Johannesburg, and persuaded some 500 miners that their march was illegal and that they should go home.

Sunday’s protesters from Anglo American Platinum mines wanted to march to Rustenburg police station to demand an end to the violence against strikers. Some carried sticks but there were none of the machetes, spears and clubs that have marked previous protests for higher wages.

On Saturday police raided hostels at Lonmin platinum mine and collected homemade weapons. They fired rubber bullets and tear gas to force people into their homes. It was the first police action since officers killed 34 miners on Aug. 16 in state violence that shocked the nation.

The strikes have shut down one gold and six platinum mines, destabilizing the country’s critical mining sector.

Saturday’s show of force follows a government vow to halt illegal protests and disarm strikers.

South Africa: Class Struggle, State Repression, and the tarnished myth of “the people’s” ANC

The Marikana Massacre and The South African State’s Low Intensity War Against The People

by Vishwas Satgar, Defending Popular Democracy

On Thursday, August 16, police officers fired into the crowd with automatic weapons. When it was over, 34 miners lay dead. Here, police check the bodies of dead mineworkers.

The massacre of the Marikana/Lonmin workers has inserted itself within South Africa’s national consciousness, not so much through the analysis, commentary and reporting in its wake.  Instead, it has been the power of the visual images of police armed with awesome fire power gunning down these workers, together with images of bodies lying defeated and lifeless, that has aroused a national outcry and wave of condemnation. These images  have also engendered international protest actions outside South African embassies. In themselves these images communicate a politics about ‘official state power’. It is bereft of moral concern, de-humanised, brutal and at odds with international human rights standards; in these ways it is no different from  apartheid era  state sponsored violence and technologies of oppressive rule.  Moreover, the images of police officers walking through the Marikana/Lonmin killing field, with a sense of professional accomplishment in its aftermath, starkly portrays a scary reality: the triumph of  South Africa’s state in its brutal conquest of its enemies, its citizens.

At the same time, the pain and suffering of the gunned down workers has became the pain of a nation and the world; this has happened even without the ANC government declaring we must not apportion blame but mourn the dead. In a world steeped in possessive individualism and greed, the brutal Marikana/Lonmin massacre reminds us of a universal connection; our common humanity.  However, while this modern human connection and sense of empathy is important, it is also superficial.  This is brought home by a simple truth: the pain of the Marikana/Lonmin workers is only our pain in their martyrdom. They had to perish for all of us to realise how deep social injustice has become inscribed in the everyday lives of post-apartheid South Africa’s workers and the poor. The low wage, super exploitation model of South African mining, socially engineered during apartheid, is alive and well, and thriving. It is condoned by the post-apartheid state. This is the tragic irony of what we have become as the much vaunted ‘Rainbow nation’.

South Africa: “We are Living in a Democratic Prison”

Marikana shows that we are Living in a Democratic Prison

by Bandile Mdlalose

South Africa has the most beautiful Constitution amongst all countries. Its
beauty is well documented and respected. But we are living in a Democratic
Prison.We must acknowledge the fight of Doctor Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and the
community struggles of the 1980s, the youth of 1976 and the workers of 1973.
The struggles of the past defeated the White Boers and brought us democracy
with all these beautiful rights on paper. We have so many documented rights,
like the right to housing and to protest. But every day our rights are
violated by the Black Boers. They vowed to protect our rights but the vow was
a fake vow.Instead of supporting the people’s struggles so that we can make democracy
real and make our rights real they are sending out their securities and police
to evict the poor, to lock us out of the cities and to smash our struggles.
Instead of working with the people to transform the society they are
repressing the people to protect the unequal society that they took charge of
1994.

Brazilian activists in solidarity with Lonmin mine workers in South Africa

Centro Brasileiro de Solidariedade aos Povos (CEBRASPO) (The Brazilian Center of Solidarity with the Peoples) repudiates massacre of miners in South Africa

The Brazilian Center of Solidarity with the Peoples vehemently repudiates the cowardly murder of the mine workers of platinum company Lonmin PLC, in Marikana in northwest South Africa, on strike for better wages and rights. The brutal massacre occurred on Thursday, August 16, at the time the workers were protesting. The police mounted a siege against workers with rifles, shooting and killing dozens of people. To date, 36 deaths have been confirmed. According to the South African Ministry of Police, there could be an increase in the number of fatalities, since “a lot of people got hurt.”

Hundreds of miners participated in the protest. Some media has described what happened as “confrontational.” Actually, what happened was not a confrontation but a massacre, because police forces with heavy weapons fired on striking workers as they rallied for fair treatment, armed only with sticks and rocks. The fascist character of the oppressive, violent and murderous state has been exposed. The vicious apparatus of apartheid continues to work in South Africa, with this continuation of the history of class hatred against hardworking black people.

What happened in South Africa is shocking in its barbarism and cowardice, in denying workers the right to express themselves and to fight for dignity and respect for their rights.  It is  a form of fascism. Such cowardly massacres have occurred in various parts of the world and people are responding to this by increasing their resistance against the capitalist system, now in its deepest crisis.

Against the country’s policy of apartheid!
Down with fascism!
Defeat the repression against workers in struggle around the world!

CEBRASPO
Brazilian Center of Solidarity with the Peoples
http://www.cebraspo.org.br

August 17, 2012.

New Zealand: Solidarity with South African Mine Workers

Global Peace & Justice Auckland Media Release: Picketing South Africa 20 years on…

17 August 2012

For the first time in 20 years New Zealanders will picket a South African
government institution in Auckland tomorrow in protest at yesterday’s killing
of striking mine-workers by South African police.

The appalling scenes where up to 18 workers were shot dead are reminiscent of
the darkest days of apartheid – the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 and the
murder of black school children in Soweto in June 1976 come immediately to
mind.

The precise details of the killings are unclear but irrespective of this the
blame lies squarely with the ANC government which has been in power for 18
years while conditions have become worse for most South Africans.

The mineworkers strike and the struggle for decent housing, health, incomes
and education are the same struggles the ANC once supported but have turned
their backs on since gaining power.

They have betrayed the core principles of the historic “Freedom Charter” and
instead followed free-market economic policies which has meant little change
in the lives of the poorest South Africans while a wealthy elite, which
includes a few black faces now, has become obscenely rich.

Race-based apartheid has been replaced with economic apartheid.

New Zealanders didn’t protest on the streets to pave the way for a small
number of black millionaires to be created at the expense of the majority.

Last year in a withering attack on the ANC Bishop Desmond Tutu said the ANC
government was in some ways worse than the old apartheid regime and told South
African President Jacob Zuma that the day would come when people would pray
for the defeat of the ANC.

For many that day can’t come soon enough.

The picket will be held outside the new South African consulate in Auckland at
1 Kimberley Road, Epsom, Auckland from 2pm tomorrow, Saturday 18th August.

Included on the picket line will be some veterans of the anti-apartheid
struggle.

John Minto
GPJA Spokesperson
Ph (09) 8463173 (H)
Mob 0220850161
johnminto@orcon.net.nz

Anger Over Mine Massacre in South Africa

The police chief says that cops were forced to shoot the 34 striking miners after a series of violent protests at one of the world’s largest platinum-producing mines.

South African Mine Strike turns into a massacre

A series of violent protests, at one of the world’s largest platinum-producing mines, led to several deaths and injuries after a shoot-out involving the police and striking mine workers.The strike by Lonmin’s Marikana mine, in the North Western province of South Africa, gained support of the young and old.

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South African Miners Fired on by Police

Al Jazeera English |  16 August 2012
At least 12 people have been killed when police opened fire on miners staging a protest at a platinum mine in South Africa, according to the Reuters news agency.
South African police opened fire and dispersed a crowd of striking miners at the Lonmin mine in the North West province on Thursday after issuing an order to the protesters to lay down their machetes and sticks.

South African police slaughter striking miners after stand-off

18 dead at British-owned platinum mine as authorities lose patience with rival factions in industrial dispute

Alex Duval Smith , Tom Bawden, The Independent

Cape Town, Friday 17 August 2012

A South African platinum mine turned into something akin to a war zone yesterday when an attempt by riot police to break up a week-old dispute by workers resulted in the deaths of up to 18 people.

Fighting between miners from rival unions had already claimed 10 lives over the past week near the Marikana mine near Rustenburg, about 100 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg. Two of those killed were police officers who were hacked to death on Monday.

The leaders of two trade unions at Marikana – the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which has been dominant at the mine for 30 years, and the Association of Mining and Construction Union (Amcu) – blamed the London-listed mine owner Lonmin for the trouble.

Lesiba Seshoka, an NUM spokesman, said that the company had attempted to break the NUM’s dominance by granting a pay rise to a small group of rock drillers. “The company undermined the bargaining process by unilaterally offering an allowance to rock-drill operators outside the bargaining process,” he said.

Nine killed in S.Africa mine union violence

By Ed Stoddard and Sherilee Lakmidas, Reuters, Monday,  August 13, 2012

JOHANNESBURG – Nine people including two policemen have been killed in clashes between labour unions at a South African mine operated by world no. 3 platinum producer Lonmin , by far the deadliest spate of violence in a turf war rocking the sector.

Lonmin said the situation was “volatile” at its Western Platinum mine, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. The plant was operating at reduced capacity and was under heavy police guard.

Police told Reuters two policemen died after a machete attack by a mob near the mine. Another officer was badly injured and police in turn shot dead three protestors.

“We came under attack. The suspects took our weapons. A shootout ensued and during that incident three suspects were fatally injured,” spokesman Lindela Mashigo told Reuters.

The mine is part of Lonmin’s Marikana operations, which produced 1.3 million ounces of platinum group metals in 2011. Company officials could not say how much production had been lost but they are expected to update the market later this week.

In London, Lonmin shares were down more than 1.5 percent.

Local community and class struggles in South Africa pose challenges to revolutionaries

Protest and Repression in South Africa

from Counterpunch by PATRICK BOND, July 17, 2012

Durban, South Africa.

The recent surge of unconnected community protests across South Africa confirms the country’s profound social, economic and environmental contradictions. But if activists fall before a new hail of police bullets, or if they lack an overarching political strategy, won’t their demonstrations simply pop up and quickly fall back down again – deserving the curse-words ‘popcorn protests’ – as they run out of steam, or worse, get channelled by opportunists into a new round of xenophobic attacks?

It’s been a hot winter, and we’re just halfway through July (the Centre for Civil Society’s Social Protest Observatory keeps tabs: http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za). Consider evidence from just the past two weeks, for example, in Johannesburg’s distant Orange Farm township south of Soweto, where residents rose up against city councillors and national electricity officials because of the unaffordable $250 installation charged for hated prepayment (i.e. self-disconnection) meters, not to mention a 130% increase in electricity prices since 2008.

Nearby, in Boksburg’s Holomisa shack settlement, 50 activists were arrested after blocking roads with burning tyres. Likewise, in the port city of East London’s Egoli township, house allocation controversies led to a brief uprising, and down the coast, high-profile Port Elizabeth road barricade protests again broke out over failing services in Walmer township.

Near the Botswana border close to Northwest Province’s Morokweng village, a dozen residents angry about inadequate state services were arrested for arson, public violence and malicious damage to school property, following months of frustrated non-violent protest; while in the provincial capital of Mahikeng, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate began an investigation into a death on July 4: “The deceased was allegedly shot and run over by a police vehicle during a service delivery protest in the area.”