ONLY THE EFF GOVERNMENT WILL REALISE THE ASPIRATIONS OF THE FREEDOM CHARTER

Monday, June 26, 2017

The EFF marks the 62nd Anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955. This document, which became the pillar of the aspirations of millions of our people during the liberation struggle against apartheid, has since been betrayed and abandoned by the ANC government. Despite giving a liberal interpretation of the Freedom Charter, the ANC has also failed to implement the key economic demands that are incapsulated in it.

The ANC has failed to realise the clause that says "the people shall occupy land wherever they choose". When the people do this, the ANC sends Red-Ants to violently remove people and destroy their properties. Under the ANC government "restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis" have not been ended. The land has not been "re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger". Majority of properties, in particular commercial property, remains in the hands of former oppressors.

It is a fact that 62 years after the adoption of the Freedom Charter, "the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry" have not been "transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole". Twenty three years after democracy, "all other industry and trade" is not controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people, instead it is driven by selfish and greedy white dominated private capital with no loyalty to South Africa and its people. In addition, the doors of learning remain locked by exorbitant fees and lack of quality accommodation in higher education and training institutions.

Only the EFF, through its Founding Manifesto has given a radical interpretation which is faithful to the true meaning that mobilised the people behind the Freedom Charter during the liberation. There is no doubt that the ANC abandoned the Freedom Charter for neoliberal market oriented policies which avoid the transference of wealth into the hands of the people. The ANC satisfies itself with cosmetic changes effected by failed policies like BEE.

It is also a reality that with the Gupta Capture phenomenon, the people no longer govern. Those who have been elected have sold the people's mandate in exchange for corrupt money and properties in Dubai; essentially, the people do not govern under Zuma's ANC. This means Zuma, with the complicity of the entire ANC has launched the country into a Gupta neocolonialism; where government decisions are done, not by elected representatives of the people, but by a foreign Indian family who are Zuma's business pasterns.

On the 62nd Anniversary of the Freedom Charter we call on our people to reject the ANC government by ensuring that it is voted out of power before they launch the whole South Africa deeper into a Gupta neocolonialism. The EFF is the only political party prepared to realise the true aspirations of the Freedom Charter.

Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 26 June 2017