Statement by Zwelinzima Vavi to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), July 22 2008
Introduction
The following statement constitutes my response to the demand for an apology from the Human Rights Commission. I have fully considered and pondered the request, which I find difficult as I shall explain below.
My response should not be understood as an attempt to demean or undermine the Commission. I want to reiterate what I have repeatedly said: I have utmost respect for the Constitution and the institutions set up to protect the rights of our people. In that vein I respect the South African Human Rights Commission and remain eternally grateful for the work we have done jointly on the conditions of farm workers.
The Human Rights Commission itself, and on occasions in cooperation with COSATU, has done sterling work to expose the continuing abuses of rights of farm workers and recently of foreigners by South Africans. I admire this work and COSATU has in the past issued public statements to support the findings of the commission and to support its work.
It is a sad day for me to be a subject of an enquiry by the Commission that implicitly suggests that I do not respect the Constitution and the Human Rights Commission.
I have dedicated more than thirty years of my life to the struggle to realise a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa. Yet, the democratic breakthrough in 1994 has not concluded the historic mission to eradicate all forms of oppression and many statistics show that persistent gender, racial and class inequalities remain. Unless substantive freedom is achieved the promise of the Constitution will remain a hollow paper reality. It is for that reason that the struggle must continue, though definitely under different conditions.
I believe I have been treated unfairly by the public debate that followed my utterances that are subject of this statement. Moreover, common decency and natural justice demand hearing both sides of the story. In my view, the HRC should have had the courtesy to seek clarity on the statement attributed to me before going public with its demand. The Constitution also confers on me the right to a fair hearing and to justice; it even accords the worst criminal such a right. I feel that that my rights have been trampled upon.
I have been hurt by the controversy, especially by statements made by political analysts and commentators who have launched a relentless attack on my person.
A lynch mob has been unleashed under the guise of protecting the Constitution and unfortunately the conduct of the HRC has given these forces more cause to attack me personally. I feel that my statements have been blown out of proportion and context and I have been painted as a blood-thirsty and unthinking human being.
I shall not compromise the principle to speak out against injustice and to demand that the ordinary men and women have their share of the dividends of democracy.
Personal background and circumstances
I feel that I must share my personal background, not to demonstrate any arrogance but as attempt to drive a point home. I know that this personal background may be a long boring story to some but to me it is about the essence and foundation of my political beliefs. Failure to appreciate this background may cloud judgement and the context of the statements that are subject of discussion today.
I am son of the farm worker and a former mineworker. My mother worked on the farms as a domestic worker. I don't know when I was born, nor do any of my eleven other siblings know exactly their birthday. My father and mother too never knew their birthdays. I grew up in a family when none of us celebrated our birthday because we never knew when we were born. I am the tenth child of a family of five brothers and seven sisters. I would have been the 12th if three other kids had survived to adulthood.
My political conscientisation began at a very early age, from my own experience and from listening to the stories of suffering my parents and elder brothers and sisters went through. When others went to pre-school, I and my brother and sisters were doing chores at the farm without any form of compensation. I think I must have been only five years when this systematic introduction to the farm labourer's working life began. I did that until my family relocated in 1971.
Until this very day, every time my family meet they recount their experiences at the hands of the farmers. They talk of the life of unfair dismissals of our parents and other farm workers. They recount details of the extent of abuse - the beatings, including of the children. They talk of the awful working conditions and poor pay for the parents. They talk about the discrimination and humiliation of young and old alike. They talk about hunger in the midst of plenty that they helped to produce. They talk about the life of evictions.
They told me in detail how my family, during one of these evictions, ended up spending days literally along the side of the roads with my parents sleeping in the open whilst all their kids had to crouch under the horses' cradle in the middle of the cold winter nights. On these occasions my father would every morning walk kilometres away from one farm to the next in search of new employment.
They would tell stories how on one occasion they squatted with my other relatives in the Hanover township and the struggle they would have with the induna whose responsibility was to kick out people who had no permission to visit or stay in the in this township.
My parents were both disciplinarians. They were very proud and had taught us all the values. The most important of these teachings were love for one another. Till today my family of five brothers and seven sisters is revered as one of the most tightly knit families ever known to humankind. With so many children they certainly struggled to clothe, feed and even house us all. But they ensured that there was food on the table for their kids.
My home was also home for all other farm workers. Men and women without a place to sleep used to be directed to my parents' house by other farm workers. It used to be an unwritten rule that there is always food left in the pots in case a stranger arrives. My mother and sisters tell of many nights when they used to wake up to prepare food for hungry strangers who knocked at midnight. They told of stories of having to provide blankets for these men to sleep and share our small farmhouse.
Even when we eventually relocated to the township, my parents carried on this tradition. Neighbours and strangers alike used to spend hours and hours at our four-roomed matchbox house. Until today those neighbours talk about the warmth and love and the moments they spent with them drinking tea and coffee and eating whatever we would have struggled to put on the table.
When we moved to Sada Township, which is 33 kilometres from Queenstown, we moved from slavery only to apartheid neglect and oppression. Sada was an area carefully selected by the apartheid officials to relocate largely farm workers evicted from farms mainly in the Middleburg and the Karoo region of the Northern Cape. It was also a place of banishment for the political prisoners who were arrested in the wave of massive repression following the Sharpeville massacre and released in the 1970s.
Sada Township is dusty, like most residential areas of the African communities that are the face of poverty, repression and state neglect. Some of its residents until today are still condemned to the humiliation of the bucket system. Streets are hardly maintained. The street lights either non-existent or no longer in working order.
Unemployment is the order of the day. The few, mainly clothing and textile, factories closed when the Bantustan of Ciskei collapsed, indicating the failure of the industrial strategy of the Lennox Sebe regime that could only attract sweatshops from Taiwan to relocate there and survive on state support in the form of low taxes and cheap labour.
Sada Township was eventually incorporated into the then Ciskei government in 1980 without any consultation with the residents.
Political consciousness and involvement
My political consciousness flew directly from my own experiences as a young child and from the tales my parents and older brothers and sisters told me about their deprivations in the farms and, in the case of my father, earlier in the mines.
Very early I heard about Nelson Mandela and his incarceration. This was however only talked about on rare occasions with whispering voices. Farmers did not even allow their workers to read newspapers. My mother could read a bit of Afrikaans; my father was never at school. But those papers had to be hidden and only read inside closed doors in the safety and privacy of their home.
I recall today how on occasions other farm workers would join my parents and talk about Mandela and Makana Nxele. Their talk was a mixture of fear over what they regarded as the God-like power of the white men but also an appreciation of the guts of people they regarded highly but who continued to suffer, in the case of Mandela, or who died, in the case of Makana Nxele who drowned whilst fleeing from Robben Island.
These workers were hardly educated. They resented the white men's power over them. They hated them for their abuse and exploitation. Yet they spoke in glowing terms of their might. They would listen to radio and gramophone records and read newspapers with accompanying praise for the might of the white men.
I grew up hating the farm bosses. I had deep resentment for what I personally had to go through, what I saw my parents going through at my early age, and what I heard about through their stories. I knew that something needed to be done about this situation.
Still, I knew little about history. I knew nothing about the coming to power of the National Party in 1948 at this stage and the apartheid they introduced. I did not know about the great struggles of the ANC leaders, in particular their defiance campaigns. I heard the stories of the defeat of the African people from the invading armies of the Boers. I heard about Nongqawuse and the poverty that afflicted the Xhosa nation thereafter. I heard them speaking about Hintsa and the head that was removed and taken to Britain. I learnt these and many other stories about the wars of dispossession.
When we relocated to Sada Township I came across ANC and PAC activists who were banished to the township following their release from incarceration in the early 1970s. It was through interaction with them that I came to know more about Nelson Mandela, OR Tambo, Robert Sobukwe and other struggle heroes. I learnt about the ANC and the PAC struggles including the defiance campaign, the treason trial of 1956, the Sharpeville massacre, the repression that followed, leading to their arrest and the Freedom Charter, while from others I learned why PAC was created in 1959.
When the 1976 uprisings occurred I still did not belong to any organisation. That fever did not reach my township, even though I heard my parents talk about it. I had no very strong sense of attachment to these events. My political consciousness was rather still low. I did not feel the pain in the same way I felt when other massacres occurred later in my political life. It was a combination of age and ignorance.
It was only with the killing of Steve Biko in 1977 that my blood really boiled and I felt pain and deep anger. I could for the first time make a connection between the life in the farms and the white minority regime. I knew that there was apartheid. I knew that there was colonialism and the wars of dispossession, that the struggles of King Hintsa and Sandile were indeed against colonialism and apartheid.
When the Soweto fever finally reached my region at the end of 1976 and in the beginning of 1977, firstly at Nkwanca high school in Queenstown, I had in a way long been waiting for it. But I belonged to no organisation until 1980 after the Congress of South African Students was formed in 1979.
Finally in 1978 I participated in my first act of defiance when I joined a march of the high school students from Mhlotshana High School. I can never tell how good a feeling I had for participating in the march. That is when I escaped live ammunition, teargas, arrests and beatings, when I saw others captured being subjected to torture and senseless beatings.
Since that day, I have been an activist throughout my life. I became a member and a leader of the Congress of South African Students and participated in many of its activities. I was a founder member of the Youth Congress in my township and went on to participate in its structures and activities. I was a founder member of the civic movement. I participated in both underground and UDF activities. I have helped create or strengthen these formations throughout my life even when I moved to other parts of the country.
My association with the workers in fact began during this period - my high school life. I organised workers in my township and formed part of the volunteer group to organise workers in Queenstown through the South African Allied Workers Union - SAAWU.
Throughout this period both the Ciskei police and the security branch of Queenstown detained me countless times. Torture and beatings were the order of the day for most of the times when I was detained.
When I had my formal job in 1984, as a clerk in the uranium plant of a gold mine in what was then called Vaal Reefs No. 8 shaft, it was therefore natural that I would utilise my years of training as a youth and student activist to advance the cause. And since then I have been a steward and occupied other leadership positions in my union - the National Union of Mineworkers. I was the first chairperson of the newly formed COSATU local in Klerksdorp in 1986.
I was dismissed from the mines following the historic 21 days mineworkers' legal strike. There was a thin line between legal and illegal strikes in those days. I became the union organiser and was elected regional secretary of COSATU in October 1988 for the then Western Transvaal Region. I have been the national organiser of COSATU, the deputy general secretary and, since 1999, the General Secretary.
In October I will be celebrating 20 years of unbroken service to COSATU as an elected official and 22 years since my first election as the chairperson of a local. If you count the years I started organising workers into unions in 1981 I have been serving them for 27 years of my 46 years of life. My involvement in a broader liberation movement dates back to 1978, which is now some 30 years of my 46 years of life. This means I was around 16 years when I became an activist.
I have been hurt by a lot of ill-informed people who at every corner and without any provocation question the bona fides and track records of those with whom they disagree. Their aim is to silence them and create an environment to have their views dismissed as immature and lacking in knowledge of the challenges we faced yesterday and still face today.
The nature of the struggle for national liberation
Throughout all this period, starting from the time when I was a child labourer around the age of five, I came to understand that workers, black people and women were faced with daunting challenges of changing their lot from the life of near-slavery.
Through my own practical experience, I know the symbiotic relationship between national, class and gender oppression. I know till today that you cannot separate the struggles of workers from those of black people and women. This is one and the same struggle with different dimensions.
I belong to the ANC and the SACP, whilst being a leader of COSATU, precisely because I understand the link between these three forms of oppression that created conditions for a national grievance to exist and for a revolution to be necessary.
Part of this awareness led to me being in the forefront of attempts to educate workers to join the ANC and SACP and to be active in all formations where they live, such as the civic organisations, hospital boards and school governing bodies.
COSATU forms part of the strategic Tripartite Alliance with the ANC and the SACP to liberate black people in general and African people in particular from the yoke of apartheid oppression.
I know that the ANC's primary task is to unite all democrats who are genuinely committed to building a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa. I subscribe to the view that there is an ongoing national democratic revolution led by the ANC.
The ANC, SACP and COSATU have collectively and individually and, in collaboration with many other organisations, fought for the liberation of our people.
I am a firm believer in all the demands of the Freedom Charter, including the demand that "All National Groups shall have equal Rights, All shall be equal before the law and all shall enjoy Human Rights!"
Under the able leadership of the ANC and the rest of the liberation movement of which COSATU is part and in which COSATU played a very important role, the people used every means at their disposal to fight the apartheid regime and colonialism of a special type - from mass struggles, the underground and the armed struggle to international solidarity.
That struggle is continuing. It did not end on 27 April 1994 or when the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa was adopted by the new parliament. I recognise that the Constitution is the supreme law of our country. It provides rights and obligations to all South Africans. The rights in the Bill of Rights were fought for by millions of freedom-loving South Africans. Many of them died in the dusty streets of our townships and rural areas. Some died in exile and many families have not seen even their graves. Many died in detention and others were hanged. Many carry today many physical scars from heartless torture in the apartheid prisons. Many carry emotional scars that no one can heal - they will take these to their graves.
I participated in all these struggles. I too carry physical and emotional scars from our past. My left leg is full of plastic burn wounds and my right ear can hardly hear from torture and police beatings. I too will take to my grave these scars.
A Luta Continua - The Struggle Continues
The transitional period in essence started in 1989 when apartheid rulers to all intents and purposes lost their control in the face of the defiance campaign that forced the scrapping of the apartheid laws. This was followed by the release of some political prisoners and the unbanning of the ANC, SACP and others. But it does not represent some miracle, as others have suggested. There was no miracle! This all was a product of our gains as the people that came through hard struggles.
I am aware that the Constitution represents what many regard as freedom and symbolises the return of the dignity of black people. I have absolute respect for all the Chapter 9 institution including the South African Human Rights Commission. These are all important instruments of our democracy without which our country would have not developed a culture of human rights and constitutional order.
I was an active participant in the drafting of the Constitution. I have been an active participant in many processes to write laws to take forward its vision and principles, in my capacity as General Secretary and, earlier, as Deputy General Secretary, Organiser and Regional Secretary of COSATU.
But the 27 April 1994 breakthrough did not mean an end of struggle. We have a new Constitution that contains a Bill of Rights. We have a new flag, a national anthem as well as a plethora of new laws that help us to transform our society. But we still have a long way to go before we can proclaim an end of struggle.
As long as one out of four African workers experiences racial discrimination at work, as exposed by COSATU's survey of workers conducted in November 2005, the struggle to build a non-racial society continues. As long as the country still faces threats of destabilisation from the fringe ultra-right, some of whom are today on trial for treason for plotting counter revolutionary activities against the democratically elected state, the need to defend our revolution remains relevant, just as the struggle to build a united South Africa continues.
As long as the country, due to a combination of factors, remains a patriarchal society, despite gallanft efforts to defeat sexism and women oppression, the struggle to build a non-sexist South Africa continues. As long as workers not only face brutal exploitation but remain oppressed with their rights violated on a daily basis from the mainly white capitalists and farmers, the struggle for the return of dignity to black people and workers will continue.
I am very fond of the 1969 ANC Morogoro Conference Strategy and Tactics document, which I have quoted over and over again in my work as the General Secretary. My emphases are underlined in the quote below:
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.
This point about a continuing struggle was emphatically driven home at the recent 52nd national conference of the ANC. In its opening paragraph, the declaration reads:
South Africa has entered its Second Decade of Freedom with the strengthening of democracy and acceleration of the programme to improve the quality of life of all the people. Steadily, the dark night of white minority political domination is receding into a distant memory.
Yet we are only at the beginning of a long journey to a truly united, democratic and prosperous South Africa in which the value of all citizens is measured by their humanity, without regard to race, gender and social status.
My emphasis is again the underlined sentence.
The ANC Strategy and Tactics document consistently talks about the continuing National Democratic Revolution. This is a protracted struggle that cannot afford to have intervals or breaks. Revolution is a process for a fundamental change and deep and radical transformation of our society to build a truly non-racial, non-sexist, united and prosperous South Africa.
The Human Rights Commission itself, on occasions in cooperation with COSATU, has done sterling work to expose the continuing abuses of rights of farm workers and recently of foreigners by South Africans. I admire this work and COSATU has in the past issued public statements to support the findings of the commission and to support its work.
The attacks on COSATU and on my person
I have been hurt in the wake of the controversy of the subject matter I am addressing in this statement by many so-called political analysts and commentators who have launched a relentless attack on my person, informed by the following factors.
- The role COSATU has played before in the destruction of the apartheid system. COSATU played no small part in the liberation struggle. I am under no illusion that in some quarters I am hated for being part of the leadership of this giant, militant and fighting workers' organisation. All my predecessors were ridiculed and attacked. Right-wing elements in our society tried to eliminate the founding General Secretary of COSATU and subjected him to untold all kinds of pressures.
- The role COSATU has played in the 14 years of democracy. We have tried to position ourselves as the voice of the most marginalised in our society. We have championed the cause of the poor. We are a conscience for our young democracy. We are a reliable friend of the ANC and the SACP. We are friends not only of the workers and the poor within our borders but outside them. We are held in high esteem by fellow unionists everywhere else in the world. But there is a price to pay for this. Right-wing elements resent this. Conservative and liberals, some within our liberation movement, do not appreciate the role we have played.
- The role COSATU played in the run-up to the Polokwane national conference of the ANC. In the context of the politics of the alliance, including marginalisation of the alliance from policy formulation, the use of state institutions, the use of patronage to build a culture of sycophancy, the new wave of materialism and accumulation, corruption etc., it was natural and predictable that COSATU would position itself at the side of those who sought change in the leadership of the ANC. We did so because we believed that our revolution was at a crossroads and possibly en route to Zanufication. There is a price to pay for this.
- COSATU's role in protecting the rights of Jacob Zuma and building a broad coalition of forces that rallied behind him. I will return to this subject later.
- My personal involvement and my leadership style of forthrightness and brutal honesty in addressing contentious issues. It is in my nature to confront difficult situations when many instinctively seek to run away from what may be controversies or ruffling feathers.
I have listened with shock to radio shows when some callers have a go at me. Political opponents of the organisation I lead have taken turns in condemning me without offering me any opportunity to explain the remarks I made.
I understood these attacks in the context of the five points above. Many political opponents would not waste any opportunity to take pot-shots at me and COSATU at any available opportunity.
In the radio talk shows to which I have referred I listened to comrades I know having a go at me. I have seen petitions being signed with my name mentioned as representing a threat to our Constitution and the rule of law. I have read many articles on the matter.
All my life I have walked in the shadow of death. This includes today. On occasions I receive death threats on my cell phone and in my office. I have been followed by unmarked cars or cars with untraceable number plates. Dead dogs have been thrown in my house yard. People have come to my house in search of me, leaving behind threatening gestures. This has happened on occasions throughout out the democratic era.
Yet I have not reported this once to formal structures of the police and intelligence services. I could not because I have come to know of political projects in the high offices of intelligence personnel assigned to spread untruths about me and to spy on my activities. I have in a way lost confidence and basic trust in some of the institutions that I have reason to believe have been manipulated to serve personal political ambitions instead of the interests of society. I know this is not just a matter of my personal feelings. Indeed, the entire leadership of the Federation decided to employ private security to protect me. It is a state of mind that permeates the movement.
It is strange that in the normal democracy those who fought for democracy are suddenly feeling unsafe and do not trust the institutions created to protect all citizens of the country. But this is a reality of the divisions of the past 14 years.
Response to the Demand for Apology
My response to the demand for an apology is two-fold. First I would like to state the principle of taking up arms in defence of, or advancing, the revolution. Second, I shall deal with the factual content of my utterances and the media's role in blowing the statement out of context and proportion.
In any revolution taking up arms is always a possibility, either to advance the revolution when no other avenue is available or to defend it. Whenever the revolution comes under armed attack it goes without saying that it is a revolutionary's duty to take up arms to defend the revolution. Revolutionaries are not blood-thirsty but understand the necessity, when conditions dictate, to lay down one's life in the noble cause for social justice. Personally I prefer peaceful conflict resolution, but when necessity dictates otherwise I will not hesitate to participate in the struggle, whatever the consequences.
Third, under armed attack, all citizens have an inalienable right to self-defence. I have been a victim of sustained attacks and live with death threats constantly. I have also come to believe that there is an orchestrated campaign against me, including in the institutions of the state like the intelligence service. I have lost faith in some of these institutions and have taken the decision not to report these death threats. For that reason I will not renounce my right to self defence. This is not a call for lawlessness but to restate the principle that every citizen has a right to self-defence.
Against this background, does this mean the climate in contemporary South Africa calls for armed action? To that my answer is a resounding no! In my speech I was not agitating that we should now take up arms because we have exhausted peaceful attainment of our goals. I was merely stating a principle that comrades should be ready to defend one another and when necessary that may involve killing. I understand that the word ‘killing' jars some peoples' sensibility and that I regret. This does not however detract from the general principle that taking up arms is always a possibility, but not under the current conditions.
Second I now turn to the facts of the matter and the role of the media in misinterpreting my statement.
On 21 July 2008 I was assigned by the Federation to speak on its behalf at the funeral of the 2nd Vice President of POPCRU - Pretty Nomhle Singonzo-Shuping. She was a senior member of the Federation and a member of its Central Executive Committee. I have known her for some time and the attached speech is the address that fully explains her role in the struggle of workers. I also hand over the DVD that has the full speech I made at the funeral.
In an off cuff remark I made the statement that is printed verbatim below:
Unscripted remarks at funeral of Pretty Singonzo-Shuping.
(The preceding paragraph of the prepared text is as follows:
"They have always demonstrated unconditional and pure love toward their comrades. They have provided support to one another and indeed to all of us who at times needed a mother's love and support in the face of tribulations of life and death. I want to thank them for the support they have provided to this family as well as to other families who faced similar situations in the past. I know they will continue to do this to many others in future.")
Transcribed from the video as follows:
"Just to follow Julius Malema's words for a moment.
"We call ourselves, and we call each other, comrades. And to us that has a very, very, special meaning that in many circumstances is not properly appreciated by people who are not part of our movement.
"We know Pretty where she is. She would have laid her own life for all of us, including for millions of other people that she had never seen in her life.
"We too are prepared, or would be prepared to lay our own lives, for her. For her, we are prepared to kill.
"In defence, in defence of one another, because we love one another so dearly and so truly, we are prepared to kill and to lay our own lives for one another.
"So yes, because Jacob Zuma is one of us and he is one of our leaders, and for him, we are prepared to lay our own lives, and to shoot, and kill.
"We know that he feels exactly the same way about us, because to us revolution and the freedom of our people could not be sold for anything else, including our own lives. And others, who have not been part of that tradition, that history, would not know what the meaning of ‘comrade' is.
"They would go around and shout in the rooftops and say whatever they want to say.
"But we know that those words to us, the word ‘comrade', and we called Pretty our comrade, have very special meaning to all of us." (End of unscripted remarks)
(Returns to prepared text as follows: "Comrade Pretty departs at a time when workers are facing daunting challenges...")
My explanation of the remarks
I was speaking about Pretty Nomhle Singonzo-Shuping. This was a tribute and a salute to a fellow revolutionary. I spoke about, and sought to explain, the true meaning of the word comrade about which the first underlined sentence needs no further explanation. A comrade is more than just a loyal friend. It is more than just a brother and or sister. It is a person you expect to literally cover your back when the enemies of the revolution close in and pounce. It is basically a shield at your back, front and all sides. It is someone you would be prepared to lay down your own life to protect in the course of advancing the revolution.
I have explained what the revolution means to me and others. For the purpose of further emphasis, let me repeat that revolution is a process intended to bring about fundamental change and thoroughgoing process of radical transformation. Revolution is far more than just attainment of a right to vote. It goes way beyond that. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are just but one of the advances of the revolution. When I spoke about a willingness to lay down our lives for our revolution I essentially at the same time speak of the willingness to die for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the rule of law.
I understand that some people feel uncomfortable with the use of words ‘kill'". I do appreciate that use of kill is a strong word. At the same time I wish to explain that willingness to lay down one's life does not mean that like a sheep one is prepared to stand in front of a bullet and get killed just to fulfil the literal meaning of the word. If anyone gets attacked that person has a natural right to self-defence and regrettably self-defence means that in the process you may kill. The intention is not to kill but to advance and defend the gains of the revolution.
Our revolution, even in the height of the armed struggle, was never about just killing innocent people, yet people died to advance the objectives of the revolution and in self-defence and in defence of other comrades.
Recently President Nelson Mandela, in the context of celebrations of his 90th birthday, has been quoted over and over making a commitment to die for the ideals of the struggle and the revolution.
Revolutionary theory versus liberalism
The broader political divisions in society largely inform the reaction to my remarks. The divisions between the revolutionaries involved in a struggle for fundamental change of all aspects of our society and the liberals who might hate apartheid but who would not commit to the radical change needed to address its legacy in all aspects of human life.
Liberals exist across the political spectrum. They are involved in a struggle to impose their hegemony in our society using everything at their disposal, including ownership and control of the media. They believe that democracy represents narrowly the right to vote and multi-party democracy. In this view, the struggle was limited to the fight for freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. We have common ground in that I also believe in these issues, but to me democracy goes much further than just these basic freedoms.
To the liberals, market policy will, if unfettered, deliver jobs and on its own address the crises of poverty and inequalities. To me, this is not democracy; it is a barbaric system that will condemn the majority to a lifetime of unemployment, poverty and inequalities that will grow and not narrow.
The overwhelming majority of South Africans fought for freedom. Like me, or even worse, they suffered at the hands of apartheid and its security apparatus. Their guiding policy document is the Freedom Charter.
Democracy is nothing if it does not give citizens a real opportunity to shape their destiny by participating in all processes of change, including formulation of policy. I am a firm believer in participatory democracy. I believe that democracy is not limited to holding a ballot paper in four- or five-year intervals and throwing it in the ballot box, whilst the economic power relationship of ownership condemns the majority to a life-long struggle against unemployment and poverty.
Democracy to me means fighting hard to fundamentally transform economic relations to empower the workers, women, youth and the elderly in society so that they too can share in the country's wealth. I believe a state must lead a struggle of the people to reclaim the wealth of the country so that the current situation where a small, mainly white elite, continues to benefit from the economic resources can come to an end.
This I believe makes me and millions of others revolutionaries, who are committed to sacrificing their own lives for these freedoms. I was prepared to die fighting for these freedoms not because, as the racist white minority would like all to believe, that with other black South African I attach no value to my life and the lives of others. On the contrary, the willingness to make supreme sacrifice is a value I learnt from years of political education and agitation by all leaders of the revolution. To the liberals talk of dying is frightening and is a full horror. To me it is not. Rather, it is the love I have for my country, for the Constitution, for other revolutionaries and the people as a whole.
What did the statement and commitment did not say
The statement does not represent an assault on the Constitution of South Africa. It is not intended to be an attack on the Constitution. I still have to see any argument that convinces me that the statement in full represents an attack on the Constitution or seeks to undermine constitutional democracy.
The statement is not an attack on the rule of law either. Nothing in the statement could be read or interpreted as an attack on the rule of law, as some have argued, or advocating violence.
Just as the statement does not call upon people to ignore and undermine the Constitution, read within its proper context, it also does not represent an intention to incite persons to commit criminal acts. Rather it communicates the solidarity that ‘comrades' have for one another and their commitment to advancing freedom and democracy, and supporting one another in the course.
Amongst other statements that I have seen is the declaration drafted by Kader Asmal, the former Minister of Education and former member of the National Executive Committee member of the ANC.
Kader Asmal, and the people that have been led to believe that the Constitution is under attack from me, as stated in their declaration, are clearly misinformed and sensationalist.
Below I have printed the introduction to the petition:
Declaration
"Against the injunction to kill and in defence of the Constitution we must live for
"We, the undersigned, take note of recent threats to kill uttered by a youth leader and a trade union federation official in the context of cases presently before the Constitutional Court."
I singled out this to demonstrate the extent of the damage caused by refusal and failure to check facts before damaging comments are made.
The statement is has nothing to do with cases "presently before the Constitutional Court". The problem with some political commentators is that because they have presumed Jacob Zuma guilty of all the allegations levelled against him, they always move from the point of view that all others, like them, also believe he is guilty. Every statement we make then gets situated and analysed from this mindset that says because Jacob Zuma is guilty, the key responsibility they have is to beat everyone into line so that the guilty party (Jacob Zuma) proceeds to go into prison where he must serve his 15 years sentence like his "friend" Shabir Shaik who was found guilty of fraud and other sins.
Every time we protest his innocence and insist that he is innocent until proven guilty the more they shout to infer his guilt. Every time we make a point that he must be treated fairly and that it is wrong to subject someone to public media trial for so many years without taking the matter to court, the more some want to make him an exception.
It is clear that I was speaking about Pretty Nomhle Singonzo-Shuping and in an attempt to explain how I understood the statement made by Julius Malema I dropped in Jacob Zuma's name to make an example. It may have been an error to do so amongst a grouping in our country. In some quarters Jacob Zuma is more like the red rag that bull fighters uses to get the bulls frenzied. To them Jacob Zuma or his name is the red rag at which the bulls charge at sight.
In my statement there is no talk of any matter subject to the Constitutional Court or any court. There is only praise of a fellow fighter who passed on.
The role of the Media in creation sensationalism
Only the SABC attended the funeral from the media. Their coverage was selective and only quoted a section of my statement, with the clear intention of sensationalising it. The SABC reported the statement at 14:00 on 21 June 2008 as follows:
"The Congress of South African Trade Unions' General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, has echoed the ANC's Youth League leader Julius Malema's sentiments that they are prepared to sacrifice their own lives for ANC President Jacob Zuma."
This type of reporting is not only mischievous but also dangerous. The statement is deliberately under-reported in order to feed into frenzy about Jacob Zuma in the context, as I have explained above, that any reference to Zuma is seen as provocative in some quarters. It was not explained to the public that the statement was essentially a tribute to Pretty Nomhle Singonzo-Shuping. The context of the revolution and comrades was completely taken out of the statement. It was presented as a "kill for Zuma" statement in a manner that would be seen to be related to his court appearances.
SAPA was not at the funeral where the statement was made, but leached onto the sensational report of the SABC. SAPA's report stated at 15:55 on the same day (21 June 2008):
"COSATU secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi on Saturday echoed the "kill for Zuma" remarks made by the ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema.
‘So yes, because (ANC President) Jacob Zuma is one of us, and he one of our leaders, for him, we are prepared to lay our lives (sic) and to shoot and kill". He said to applause and cheering."
The rest of the print media then used these two reports and by 22 June every other newspaper was on the case, with the South African Human Rights Commission, the Democratic Alliance and Independent Democrats all issuing statements of concern and others laying charges in the police station.
I believe that if I had not used the example of Jacob Zuma many of the people who have been shouting their lungs out would not have found any problem with the statement. If I had replaced the name of Jacob Zuma with that of President Thabo Mbeki or President Nelson Mandela, many who felt offended would have had a completely different response to the statements.
Let me emphasise the problem to many is that in addressing the mourners about Singonzo-Shuping I made the mistake to some of making Jacob Zuma the example as one of the leaders and one of the comrades. To these people this then invoked their fear that we intend to mobilise people to kill if Jacob Zuma ever gets sent to prison for what they have already assumed he is guilty of.
Unfair process indeed
Natural justice demands that no-one shall be condemned without a hearing. This underpins the very basis of a fair and impartial trial. All my life has been spent in defence of workers who were always condemned at very high cost to their welfare and well-being.
I have taken note of the statements by Dr Blade Nzimande calling for the publishing of the SAHRC procedures. I have also taken note of the SAHRC letter to him responding to his concerns. I do believe that the Human Rights Commission's response to the media frenzy in a way undermined my own right to a fair process. The 14 days deadlines it issued was putting the cart before the horse. As a human rights commission it should have insisted on getting the other side of the story before jumping to comment in a manner that is tantamount to passing judgement by demanding an apology.
Before it gave me an adequate opportunity to be heard, the commission in effect pronounced on the matter. How can it then be impartial as it is required to be in terms of Section 181 (2) of the Constitution? How can it act fairly? My rights in this regard are fully reserved and I suggest that it retracts this pronouncement forthwith.
I believe that the Human Rights Commission may have been hijacked by the liberal press, some of which had in the past collaborated with those hell bent on abusing their positions to abuse the rights of Jacob Zuma amongst others.
Granted, the South African Human Rights Commission only issued the final statement after I had issued a clarifying statement. But still it refused to listen to facts and was in a hurry to issue a deadline to satisfy those making a frenzy. In the process the Human Rights Commission created conditions for it to be defied, which is quite regrettable.
I believe that the Human Rights Commission should have immediately issued a statement to note the press reports and demand a meeting with me to clarify the statement. Then, if my explanation did not carry conviction, I would have been given a deadline to apologise.
Lessons for the future
After many years of damaging acrimonious debates and public spats, one of the lessons we learnt in the Alliance is never to issue a condemnation of another Alliance leader without picking up a phone and talking to the other leader who is alleged to have commit a mistake or made wrong statements.
South African society must learn from this. Never condemn anybody without checking facts first. It is wrong to do so.
Conclusion
My respect for the South African Human Rights Commission has been stated over and over in this period of controversy. I remain of the view that the SAHRC has a very important role to play. I support fully its mandate and I have cooperated fully with the processes out of respect of the work of the commission. I would hate to have been party to any process whose end result would be to undermine the authority and standing of the commission in our society.
I hope this statement and my answers to any of the Commission's questions will set the record straight and help close this chapter.
Issued by COSATU July 22 2008
