SACP GAUTENG PROVINCE VOWS TO FIGHT THE NEO-FASCIST CAPTURE OF STRUGGLE ICON SOLOMON MAHLANGU BY ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS (EFF)

The SACP Gauteng Province strongly condemns the EFF's "campaign of blatant theft" that always targets and focuses on literally stealing revolutionary items, practices, and perspectives of the ANC, SACP, COSATU and SANCO Alliance.

The EFF's "campaign of theft" has irrefutably run its course. They have been stealing and have stolen, just to mention a few:

- The ANC Youth League's slogan of economic freedom in our lifetime.

- The SACP and COSATU' s red colours representing the blood and sweat of the proletariat.

- The SACP Financial Sector Campaign targeting financial monopoly capital.

- The ANC led Alliance Campaign of Land and Agrarian Reform with their "stick and plastic" invasion and occupation of land.

- SASCO's campaign against colonial symbols on campuses, language transformation and free higher education agenda.

- The ANC led Alliance songs, chanting of slogans and many other revolutionary customs.

They continue to suffer from poverty of philosophy, innovation of revolutionary ideas and creativity.

Sheer theft and cheap electioneering

Currently this EFF "campaign of theft" is now exhausted. They have thus unleashed it to cash-in on the living revolutionary legacy of struggle icons and martyrs that have nothing in common with the EFF.

Just yesterday the EFF held an electioneering activity disguised as the commemoration of the revolutionary living legacy of Solomon Mahlangu in Mamelodi, City of Tshwane.

Solomon Mahlangu shared nothing in common with the EFF including his outlook, ideological and revolutionary values.

At the time of his guillotine by the brutal apartheid state, he was committed to the revolutionary and unifying strategic perspective of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) which the EFF does not share.

The NDR is foregrounded on the principles of non-racialism, non-sexism, unity and prosperity. There is therefore nothing in common between the EFF and Solomon Mahlangu to be celebrated by the EFF.

It is sheer opportunism to therefore pretend to celebrate in death what was not shared in real life then and even now.

This act of sheer thuggery and criminal conduct merely turns the EFF into "freedom fighters of fortune" seeking to extract political and financial gains from the living legacy of Solomon Mahlangu.

Contempt and disrespect of Solomon Mahlangu's family

We are deeply concerned that the EFF inflicted a pain of double tragedy and guillotine on Solomon Mahlangu by treating his family with contempt.

It is extremely shocking and ridiculous that the EFF can celebrate the living legacy of a revolutionary whose family they treat with so much contempt and disrespect. This would certainly have hurt Solomon Mahlangu in the same way that those who hanged him did. The EFF's court victory against the family and the subsequent commemoration was just yet another moment of guillotine inflicting further pain in the same way as the hand that finally hanged Solomon Mahlangu.

As widely reported, when Solomon Mahlangu's mother visited him in prison, and he saw his mother in tears in the presence of police, he remarked boldly asked his mother, " Why are you crying in front of these dogs."

Flowing from this, it is clear that people that brings pain and humiliation to the Mahlangu family and make them cry, such as the EFF's laughable court victory against the family on Friday, would have earned Solomon Mahlangu's wrath.

Rightwing attack of the principle of rule of law in North Gauteng High Court.

We also noted that the North Gauteng High Court is fast earning itself a reputation of being the seat-bed and place of humiliation for the families of our revolutionary martyrs and heroes.

Strangely, these attacks are directed against the heroes and martyrs of our struggle who died for freedom and therefore the founding pillars of our constitutional democracy.

We have seen just in this April month, marking the anniversary of the cold blooded murder of Solomon Mahlangu and Chris Hani, the same court made two extremely controversial decisions that deeply hurt the families of our martyrs.

In the first case, Judge Basson granted the Mahlangu family an interdict against the EFF thus stopping them from commemorating the legacy of Solomon Mahlangu without the consent of the family.

This was later overturned by the same Judge Basson who claimed to be initially satisfied with the interdict application by the family. In overturning his own decision, Judge Basson used the technicality that the family should have served one of the many lawyers of the EFF unknown to the family.

In the second case, the same Judge Nicoline Janse van Nieuwenhuizen who heard the Janusz Walus's first court appearance in Boksburg Magistrate in 1993 is now the same Judge who granted an order that Janusz Walus be released on parole. The same Judge again refused to grant an appeal against her own court order granting parole. It is reported that this very same Judge was showing irritations against the appeal, whilst it was all smiles and warmest attitude to the murderer's legal team.

In both cases, the two families of our struggle icons and martyrs were humiliated by the same North Gauteng High Court in the same month that their loved ones were mustered and hanged in cold blood. 

Whilst we respect the principle of the rule of law, we note that the Judges in the North Gauteng High Court and considering their overall conduct, posture and attitude, are casting aspersions on the principle of the rule of law and the objective application of the principles of our law.

These Judges seem to be hell-bent and sparing nothing of their effort to undermine the profound principles of our legal jurisprudence. We will not join them in denigrating and attacking the core values of our democratic system.

We will work with the families of our martyrs and ANC-led Alliance partners to challenge this clearly politically charged decisions consistently made by certain Judges in the North Gauteng High Court.

In the true spirit of Solomon Mahalangu and Chris Hani, we will uphold the principle of the rule of law as the foundation and corner stone of our justice system and constitutional democracy.

We say this fully aware that the judiciary still has a long to go in giving practical, concrete and meaningful expression to the letter and spirit of our country's most advanced and world renowned constitution.

We will work with our Alliance partners to deepen, advance and defend the living legacy of our martyrs, revolutionaries and heroes against any attempts at their capture by "persons of fortune".

We will also intensify the fight for the radical transformation of the judiciary against elements of the past.

We are fully aware that the past continue to live in one form or another in the new.

We are fully conscious and aware that elements and remnants of the past will in one way or another continue to be a pricking thorn in the flesh of the new and this applies to our judiciary as well.

Statement issued by Jacob Mamabolo, SACP Gauteng Provincial Secretary, 17 April 2016