17 August 2012 Abahlali baseMjondolo Press statement Solidarity with Mine Workers at Marikana Platinum Abahlali baseMjondolo are deeply shocked by the murderous cruelty of the South African police,…

17 August 2012

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press statement

Solidarity with Mine Workers at Marikana Platinum

Abahlali baseMjondolo are deeply shocked by the murderous cruelty of the South

African police, and those that give the police their orders, at the Marikana

Platinum Mine in the North West. The killing of more than 40 mine workers

yesterday by the SAPS is immoral and brings great disgrace on our country.

There were other ways and much better ways to handle the situation. Yesterday

will always be remembered as a dark day in the long history of oppression in

South Africa.

We wish to express our solidarity to all the families of the workers that have

been killed and injured. We share your sorrow. You are not alone. We carry our

pain together. Your children may not grow knowing their fathers but they will

not grow alone. We have to care for each other and stand together as we

struggle for a world that puts human beings first and treats all human beings

equally. We wish to express our solidarity to all struggling workers. We face

the same system that makes some people rich and others poor. We face the same

government that refuses to recognise our humanity, which tries to force us to

the margins of society and which represses us when we resist.

The ANC have shown no regard for the people of this country. They are putting

us in transit camps and trying to keep us in bantustans. They are leaving us

to burn in our shacks every winter. They are beating us in the police

stations. They are shooting us in the streets. Millions of us cannot find

work. A government that kills its citizens is immoral and must be opposed by

everyone. A government that kills its citizens has lost all moral right to

govern. What happened yesterday is no different from the killings of the

apartheid government. This is no different to the Sharpeville massacre in 1960

which claimed 69 lives. It is no different to the Boipotong massacre in 1992

which claimed 45 lives.

Millions of people have suffered in their shacks and millions have suffered

with work and without work year after year. Some shack dwellers are also

workers and sometimes shack dwellers are too poor to be workers. But we have

all suffered enough at the hands of the police, at the hands of politicians

and at the hands of the rich. It has always been our call that real freedom

and democracy are still a dream for the poor and the working class. All we see

is politicians enriching themselves by stealing public funds that are meant to

better people’s lives. All we see is that the new government keeps on with

many of the worst policies of the old government. All we see is that our

struggles are criminalised and repressed. The progressive middle classes are

struggling to defend the freedom and democracy that they received in 1994. We

are still struggling for freedom and democracy to come.

More than twenty five people have been killed by the police during protests

since 2000. Tebogo Mkhonza in Harrismith, Monica Ngcobo in Umlazi and Andries

Tatane in Ficksburg are just three of the people that have been murdered in

the streets by the police. Activists have been tortured and assassinated. Our

movement, like the Landless People’s Movement and the Unemployed People’s

Movement, has been attacked in the night by armed men representing the ruling

party. For months after our movement was attacked in the Kennedy Road

settlement in Durban in 2009 the homes of our leading members were openly

destroyed every weekend while the police refused to intervene. Last year Nigel

Gumede, the Head of Housing in eThekwini, publicly said that the ANC was at

war with our movement and threatened to kill S’bu Zikode. Senior people in the

ANC have set a clear tone for the rest to follow. Poor people have been

encouraged to attack and kill each other in the name of ethnicity and

nationality. It is time to say enough. It is time to say no more. It is high

time that all progressive forces join hands to curb this carnage. It is high

time that all progressive forces join hands in a struggle for real justice and

real democracy.

We have to recognise that there is a war against the poor in this country. We

did not want this war but it has come to us. Today no one can deny that a war

is being fought against the poor. The red ants and the police are not here to

serve the people. They are here to drive the poor out of the cities, contain

us in the human dumping grounds and repress our struggles. We have to stop

pretending that the politicians are our comrades when they have chosen to make

themselves our enemies. We have to fight the war that has come to us. And we

have to fight it in a way that puts human dignity and the equality of all

people at the start of our struggle and at the heart of our struggle.

We are aware of the dangers of the South African politic when struggling

citizens demand real freedom and democracy. Activists are living under serious

threats all over the country. We are aware of the time bomb that the shack

dwellers in this country are sitting on. We have always warned, from the time

when we first started to organise, that the anger of the poor can go in many

directions. The dangers that we face can come from how people respond to

oppression as well as from oppression itself.

There is more protest in South Africa than in anywhere in the world. But the

government takes no notice of the people. It responds by militarising the

police. It responds by talking about third forces. The local party structures

send out armed men in the night. The government wants to make the anger of the

people criminal and treasonous. It works behind the scenes to support the

armed men that invade our homes and threaten us and our families. We have to

accept that this government does not care about us. We do not count to it.

When we ask to be heard we are treated as criminals and traitors.

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape will march to the National

parliament in Cape Town at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon together with comrades

from other organisations. In Durban we will hold conversations with different

structures of our movement and our comrades in other organisations, as well as

the churches, to plan a way forward. Global Peace and Justice Auckland in New

Zealand will be marching to the South African embassy in Auckland at 1

Kimberly Road at 2pm today. Our comrades in Cape Town and New Zealand march

with our solidarity.

We all have to stand together. A war has come to us and we must fight it in a

way that makes sure that we never turn into our enemies. We must fight this

war in a way that puts humanity against brutality and never in a way that puts

one brutality against another. Once your struggle starts to make you like your

enemies everything is lost. A politic of war has come to us. We have no choice

but to resist. But we must resist with our own politic which is a militant

people's politic that starts and ends by honouring the dignity of all people.

Contact:

S’bu Zikode +27 83 5470474

Zodwa Nsibande +27 71 1834388

Abahlali office +27 31 3046420

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http://www.abahlali.org