SACP STATEMENT ON HUMAN RIGHTS DAY AND RECENT INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
The SACP joined millions of other South Africans in commemorating Human Rights Day throughout the country on 21 March 2011. The SACP also fully embraces government's theme in celebrating the 2011 Human Rights Day, ‘Working together, to promote human dignity for all'. This is an important theme, during the year in which government and our country as a whole has embraced President Zuma's call for job creation to be placed at the centre of our national priorities in 2011.
The 2011 theme on promoting human dignity is not only important for South Africa, but for the world as a whole, especially in the wake of mass protests and uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. The SACP has generally welcomed these people's uprisings as an expression of taking forward the democratic revolutions in these countries and the promotion of human dignity.
It is therefore important that as we celebrate our national Human Rights Day, we also use this as an occasion to express our solidarity with the legitimate struggles for democracy in other parts of the world. We ourselves, in our struggle against apartheid, we benefitted immensely from the solidarity of the global anti-apartheid movement. We owe it to ourselves to and to our own history, to use such occassions to recommit ourselves to international solidarity.
Decent work and sustainable livelihoods must be at the centre of promoting human dignity
The SACP reiterates its belief that decent work and sustainable incomes and livelihoods are central to promoting human dignity. As we celebrate human rights day and the human rights month, the SACP commits to intensify its struggles and support for the transformation of the current economic growth path, towards a new, more inclusive, growth path that will benefit especially the workers and the poor of our country.
The SACP also wishes to strongly support COSATU on the need to defend and consolidate the hard won workers's rigthts in our country. We condemn consistent attempts by business to blame our economic woes on their so-called ‘labour inflexibility' of South Africa's labour market.
It is not workers' rights that are a source of our economic problems, but it is the greed of the capitalist system. We will therefore strongly resist any attempts to offload the capitalist crisis onto the meagre wages of the workers of our country. Workers' rights are human rights!
In fact it is the capitalist class that has been in the forefront of eroding the hard-won workers' rights in our country through retrenchments, casualisation, outsourcing and labour broking. All these measures are precisely aimed at undermining the many progressive laws that protect workers in our country.
It is our fervent belief that the promotion of human dignity shall remain hollow unless we transform our economy to provide decent work and sustainable livelihoods for all. Socio-economic rights must be at the centre of human rights!
It is for this reason that we need to move decisively to implement a new growth path for our country.
Solidarity with legitimate struggles world-wide to protect and promote human dignity
Some of the current international developments are of central importance in the struggle to promote human dignity globally.
We here wish to make the following observations:
On the relationship of University of Johannesburg and Ben Gurion University
The SACP has noted the partnership between the University of Johannesburg and Ben Gurion University of Israel dating back to August 2009 when the universities signed an academic co-operation and staff exchange agreement, concerning water purification and micro-algal biotechnology research.
The SACP understands that the partnership is to be considered for renewal with the deadline being the 1st of April 2011.
The SACP calls on the University to do the right thing and terminate this relationship, given Ben Gurion University close association with the Israeli government in the suppression and brutalities agains the Palestinian people in their legitimate quest for freedom and independence. Ben Gurion can therefore be regarded as an accomplice in Israel's gross violation of human rights, military actions and its violation of the human dignity of the Palestinian people.
On Swaziland
The SACP has noted the recent protests in Swaziland led by the workers, who for some time have not been paid their salaries. It is important that the people of Swaziland are continuously supported and encouraged to broaden the scope of their struggle for democracy and opening up of democratic spaces in that country.
It is urgent that the ban on political activity is uplifted in Swaziland. The people of Swaziland must be allowed to determine their destiny by electing leaders of their choice and choosing appropriate economic policy packages to address the growing levels of poverty, rising unemployment and the HIV/AIDS pandemic that is threatening to tear the country apart.
The SACP calls on both SADC and the AU to exert the requisite pressure, consistent with their founding principles, to demand of Swaziland to speedily move towards democratisation in that country. The harassment of political activists must cease with immediate effect and a transitional programme must be adopted towards holding free and fair elections in Swaziland.
On Libya
The SACP has noted the adoption of the UN resolution to impose a no fly zone in Libya. We regard this resolution as extremely unfortunate as it goes against a commitment to resolve global crises without military intervention. The SACP regards this decision as being inconsistent as no similar measures have not been undertaken in relation to the Bahrain.
It would appear world leaders have allowed their irritations with Colonel Moammar Gadhafi to cloud their judgement.
The protests in Libya started indeed as part and parcel of ongoing popular revolts for increased democratic space and participatory democracy. Indeed as the SACP we support these legitimate mass struggles for democracy in Libya, and we strongly condemn the bombing of civilians by the Libyan army. No genuine revolution can ever justify such slaughter and brutality against its people.
The situation has now deteritorated in Libya, characterised by a counter-offensive by armed groups, thus threatenig to turn this into a bloody and protracted civil war.
Whilst we note that the AU, and indeed our own government, supported the United Nations resolution on Libya, including the creation of the no-fly zone, we must however guard against unwittingly aiding the imperialist lust for Libyan oil. The SACP condemns this imperialist military intervention and prefers that the people of Libya must be allowed space to determine their own future without any foreign imperialist intervention.
Whilst as the SACP we also support the President's call on Human Rights Day that there must be no attempts at regime change in Libya and that civilian life has to be protected, it is our firm believe that in voting for this resolution in the security council our government should also have fully considered the dangers of military intervention that may be used by imperialist forces to exploit such attacks for their own ends, and the extent to which this is consistent with our preferred route of dialogue
The SACP therefore calls upon the AU to earnestly speed up the process of engagement with Libya for an urgent solution to resolve this political impasse. The SACP supports the calls for an immediate cessation of all armed activity in that country, including a halt to bombings by the US and its allies, the Libyan government attacks on unarmed civilians and for the political processes, including the AU process, to be given a chance to resolve the problems in Libya.
Military interventions of this nature have generally not yielded positive results as we have seen in Afghanistan and Iraq..
However in commemoration of our Human Rights Day, the SACP will continue to support legitimate struggle for democracy, including the Libyan people's wishes for democratisation in that country.
Statement issued by the SACP, March 21 2011
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