Message of Support to the ANC January 8th Statement by COSATU President, Sidumo Dlamini, COSATU President, 12 January 2013

We congratulate the ANC for a successful Congress and the leadership which emerged from the historic Mangaung conference.

We want to urge this leadership never to allow the media or anyone to set you against each other, they have tried this before and they are still trying and they must fail in their manoeuvre to divide you.

We can see that their intention is to weaken and undermine this newly elected leadership by elevating and co-opting their leaders.

We are happy that so far you have seen through the trick and have managed the process very well and those who tried to undermine you remain disappointed and defeated.

The workers of this country want to see a united leadership of our movement. As COSATU we will work to ensure that the leadership and the movement as a whole remain solid!

The workers of this country have high hopes that moving forward the ANC working with COSATU and other alliance partners will have a focused programme to address the existing high levels of exploitation in the South African work places.

One of the existing symbols and hard hitting mechanisms   of exploitation in our country is Labour Brokers. Workers hate labour brokers with passion - we will never stop to call for a total ban of these parasites who feed on the blood of workers.

Labour brokers cannot coexist with the desire of the movement to achieve decent work. There is no other way out except to gazette a total ban against these blood sucking exploiters. We want a law which will Ban Labour Brokers!

The strikes we see in the Western Cape by farm workers and in other sectors of the economy is a statement by the workers that enough is enough! It is an open call for an end to exploitation.

We are confident that our glorious movement will remain guided by a perspective which says that "in our country - more than in any other part of the oppressed world - it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole.

It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy.

To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy and does not represent even the shadow of liberation.

Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a very real way bound up with economic emancipation.

We have suffered more than just national humiliation. Our people are deprived of their due in the country's wealth; their skills have been suppressed and poverty and starvation has been their life experience.

The correction of these centuries-old economic injustices lies at the very core of our national aspirations.

We do not understand the complexities which will face a people's government during the transformation period nor the enormity of the problems of meeting economic needs of the mass of the oppressed people.

But one thing is certain - in our land this cannot be effectively tackled unless the basic wealth and the basic resources are at the disposal of the people as a whole and are not manipulated by sections or individuals be they White or Black."

As COSATU we will be working with the ANC leadership and all structures to take up campaigns focusing on the redistribution of wealth to the people as a whole.

We want to work with the ANC and all alliance formations to ensure that this phase of our revolution is characterised by decisive action to effect economic transformation and democratic consolidation. 

As we mark the centenary of the 1913 Land Act we want to see the land being redistributed to the working class and the poor. The willing buyer willing seller mechanism has failed. Our government must use the constitution decisively to force a process of qualitative land redistribution before it is too late.

We want everyone to know that as COSATU we are fully behind this leadership and we want you to succeed and you will succeed!

In instances where we are not happy about certain things we will raise such issues directly with the relevant structures of the movement and we hope our movement will engage us meaningfully.

This is our ANC and we will work to strengthen rather than to weaken it because we know and understand the negative implications of a weak ANC for our people.

This decade of organisational renewal must also include a focus on constructing a functional and effective ANC -led alliance which has both the capacity and authority to drive transformation for economic freedom.

As COSATU we stand here ready to work with the ANC in order to ensure that the resolutions from Mangaung are translated into implementable government programme which will be monitored by the Alliance as whole.

Let every deployed cadre in all strategic centres of power know that we want the freedom charter to become a reality!

Let every government minister and bureaucrat know that we expect to see total commitment in translating Mangaung resolutions into tangible gains for our people from working class communities.

Let every deployee read, comprehend, implement and defend Mangaung resolutions wherever they are deployed. 

As COSATU we will be everywhere to ensure this happens!

Amandla!

Issued by COSATU, January 12 2013

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