Dear Comrades,

It is with a great deal of pain that I submit my resignation as a member of the SACP. I joined the Party in 1989 and returned home to South Africa after a brief period in exile full of hope for the future of our country.

While I retain that sense of optimism, the role that I once thought the Party could play, of leading us to socialism, I now believe is one the SACP under its current leadership and with its present orientation, cannot play.

What has driven me to this conclusion? Many things. In the first instance, the period post the Rustenberg (11th) Congress was one in which a number of tendencies emerged in the SACP that were previously foreign to it.

Purges of leaders with illustrious track records, the crude analysis that depicted part of the ANC as being a bourgeois project (the so-called 1996 class project), the failures of basic governance over the SACPs own finances and that of moneys entrusted to it in its associated institutions, all played a role in dampening my sense of optimism about the role of the Party.

The response of the SACP to the matters relating to the then Deputy President of the ANC, Comrade Jacob Zuma, however, were the most alarming.

Instead of providing leadership that united the liberation movement, the SACP plunged headfirst into dividing itself, the ANC, COSATU and the movement in general.

Promoting crass conspiracy theories, accusing fellow comrades of all manner of heinous crimes, including being complicit in the assassination of our former General Secretary, Comrade Chris Hani, with not even a single shred of evidence, made me realise that the Party actually contained the seedbed of the counter-revolution, intent on wrecking the gains of the liberation movement.

I tried to address these challenges by writing a paper that raised these political issues. Instead of being engaged politically, I was suspended from the SACP without a hearing.

When one considers that paper, it was no more robust in its criticisms of the SACP and its leadership than any criticism made by current leaders of the Party against the then ANC leadership and current government.

Despite this, I was disciplined while these comrades were lauded for their purported intellectual courage. I believe that it requires more courage to be self-critical and no courage at all to criticise others.

I realised that there was one rule for the self-selected leadership core of the Party and another for those who dare criticise it. This became more apparent as events unfolded around the saga of the alleged donation of R500 000.00 that the now-infamous Charles Modise claimed that he made to the SACP and had caused to be handed to the General Secretary of the Party, Blade Nzimande.

I never once made any allegation against the General Secretary: Modise did. All I did was report the matter to the SACP. For the record, I never coerced Mr. Modise or counselled him to take any action such as reporting this to the SAPS. In fact, I did no more than to suggest that he should take legal advice on the matter and not to rush in to any hasty decisions.

It appears that he did not heed my advice. For him to now suggest (more than a year later and for the first time) that this matter has anything to do with the trial of Comrade Jacob Zuma is simply incredible.

What was disturbing about this matter and my purported suspension was the complete lack of any procedural, administrative or natural justice in dealing with them. Despite my submission of reports to the SACP structures, these were never dealt with.

Despite all the correspondence I entered in to with the Party, this was never even replied to once by the SACP. The only engagement with me has been through the media, where I have been consistently attacked and vilified by some structures and leaders of the Party.

All my requests for protection by the SACP against these attacks were ignored. In the process of attempting to take disciplinary action against me, the representatives of the Party has consistently supplied what can only be described as trumped up charges. These do not even warrant a response they are so ludicrous.

Yet I have cooperated with the Chair of the Disciplinary Committee, who I must say has acted fairly. But proper details of the alleged charges have never been produced.  There will be some who will trumpet my resignation as an indicative of my reluctance to face the impending disciplinary hearing.

On the contrary, I would - under normal circumstances, meaning circumstances where I would have felt confident of receiving a fair hearing - have welcomed the opportunity to air this matter. However I fear that during that process it would become inevitable that I would be obliged to reveal or cause to be revealed many aspects of the present leadership of the Party which would be extremely damaging to the Party and perhaps even irretrievably so.

Despite my extreme disappointment at the under-development of the Party into its present form, I refuse to be the instrument of further damage to it.

Over the last few days, various structures and leaders of the SACP have referred to me as a counter-revolutionary, as an agent of the apartheid regime and as a collaborator with the bourgeoisie.

Whatever my faults and weaknesses, I have always been a loyal member of the SACP, the ANC and an official of a COSATU union and I have worked tirelessly to build the Party and these organisation.

That comrades would stoop so low to cover up the failures and weaknesses of the Party and its leadership by blaming me for the indiscretions of others, is the last straw. I can only conclude that the Party leadership in office is so tainted as to be a threat to the NDR.

It has pained me that while the SACP has championed the rights of other leaders of the ANC and SACP, in my case this same leadership has actually taken these rights away. Again, when I have requested protection from the SACP, this has been denied me.

I am however grateful to those members of the Party who have regularly called me to indicate their support for me and to sympathise with me for the way I have been treated.

But these calls of support and sympathy have in the main been made in a manner which I can only describe as furtive, as though people have been intimidated and are fearful of being seen to be associated with the issues which I have laid bare or which I represent. I fear that history is replete with examples of what happens when good men and women remain silent ...

For the record I remain committed to the aims of the SACP and to the ideal of a socialist society. I am convinced however, that the current leadership of the SACP can never build that future, nor does it have any desire to do so.

It has displayed a singular level of factionalism and reactionary behaviour as to make it the very antithesis of what a communist party should be. When and if the SACP is led by comrades serious about the revolution, transformation and committed to democracy and a socialist program, I will be ready to rejoin it.

Phillip Dexter

September 9 2008

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