Red Alert:

A stalwart of the Party and martyr of our struggle for the triumph of a people’s power

Speech at the funeral of Comrade Phillip Dlamini

The SACP expresses its message of heartfelt condolences to the family of Comrade Phillip Dlamini. It is on the family that the sore loss we share weights heavier.  As the SACP, we were greatly saddened by the cowardly murder of ubaba Dlamini. His killing has starkly highlighted the increasing complexity of the new challenges that our revolution is facing and changing character of the strategic opponents of the ultimate victory of our people.

We still have a long way to go towards achieving our longstanding historical mission to transform our country and meet the material and cultural needs of the people as a whole.  But, as the murder to Comrade Dlamini shows, we are no longer as united as we were during the struggle to overthrow colonial oppression and its last stage of apartheid. More and more it is becoming clearer that we are no longer sharing a common destination – there are others who believe that they have arrived.

They no longer value the importance of unity of common purpose among the principal motive forces of our struggle. They are defining a new historical mission which is incompatible with the DNA of our movement. All they want are positions of leadership in our movement. As soon as they ascend to organisational power, all their actions coalesce on exploiting those positions to achieve personal advancement, enrich themselves and their fellow acquaintances with who they have established connections.

In order to maintain a grip on power, their actions involve corrupting internal processes and dispensing patronage. This through asserting and capturing control over the allocation of resources, in particular tenders, deployments and other work opportunities in and associated with the state and its institutions.

What form of unity is possible with such individuals? No principled unity is possible with them!! We are calling for unity, but not unprincipled unity. The unity we are calling for is a principled one.

What we need is to distinguish between those who are committed to the genuine objectives of our struggle, and those who are interested in capturing our movement and in the name of all of us pursue their selfish interests. We must mount a decisive struggle against the latter because their conception of our struggle and our movement is corrupted.

Consequently, their mode of operation, at the macro level, is geared toward manipulating our basic wealth and resources as a nation in pursuit of their private interests. Therefore not only do they harbour a corrupted worldview but they have themselves been corrupted. They are pursuing a corrupt agenda.

In the place of the purposeful unity of the principal motive forces of our struggle to complete the national liberation of our people and achieve social emancipation, politically corrupted elements are concerned about establishing new alliances – that is connections with various sections of capital by which to realise their private interests.

In the process, corporate capture of such individuals and rent-seeking are now a rising phenomenon. The tendency has no choice but to react negatively towards our alliance. It is engaging in all sort of manoeuvres to marginalise other alliance partners, consequently the alliance and in general the people as a whole and their communities.

If not combatted, corruption, patronage, corporate-state capture and rent-seeking will develop into a cancer that will eat and kill our movement from within.

It is in this context that today we have lost ubaba Dlamini from assault and from a bullet fired by an alleged hitman. Comrade Dlamini, a stalwart of our struggle, has become the first casualty since our April 1994 democratic breakthrough and since Comrade Johannes Nkosi in 1933 to be killed by mercenaries at a meeting of the Communist Party.

Comrade Dlamini, who was on pension, was killed for fighting for the truth to prevail. He was killed at a meeting for a people’s democracy for struggling for a people’s democracy. His revolutionary spirit must not be allowed to die. We must continue where he left by intensifying the struggle he fought until we secure victory and defend it successfully.

But ours, as was his – and the two are one and the same – is a peaceful struggle.

Our struggle is not an agenda of the corrupted relying on reactionary and counter-revolutionary violence including spilling the blood of others in order to thrive. Our struggle is a revolutionary process to safe life and ensure that it is led in peace and prosperity and without exploitation by others. 

As the SACP, we are therefore calling for peace and democratic defence of our people.

We reiterate our call to the authorities to investigate the cowardly murder of Comrade Dlamini. We want to get to the bottom of matter in all its dimensions. All those who were involved in all stages of the barbaric murder of Comrade Dlamini from planning to execution must be exposed. They must be held accountable by means of successful prosecution and maximum sentences.

Our call for peace is not a call to passivity on the part of our structures and members.

On the contrary, it is a call to action to complement and safeguard investigations by the authorities. It is a call to take proactive steps to protect the lives of our members and defend our communities. It is a call to strengthen street and block committees, community policing forums and patrol systems. Ours is a call to ensure increased safety and strengthening of security around our Party and community meetings. It is a call to be vigilant against murderers and their handlers.

Comrade Dlamini was killed advancing the struggle for democracy, the struggle for complete liberation, the struggle for universal social emancipation. Our relationship with him did not and must not end with him alone. As our shared loss shows, our relationship with him has always been a relationship with his family as a whole. We shared him with the family. We lost him together. The family must therefore not find itself alone in the difficult time it has been forced by his killing.

We therefore urge our provincial, district and branch structures to continue their support to the family, to ensure that it is properly structured and continuously strengthened. The Party must together with the family traverse the road to ensure that the truth prevails. As the Central Committee, on behalf of the SACP as a whole and its entire membership, we will support you, our structures, in discharging the responsibilities towards the family of ubabaDlamini.

In memory of Comrade Dlamini, let us unite the working class, our communities and our movement for the triumph of a people’s power – this he died fighting for!!

Comrade Solly Mapaila is SACP 2nd Deputy General Secretary.

This article first appeared in the SACP’s online journal, Umsebenzi Online.