SACP+Statement+on+current+developments+within+COSATU

Thursday, August 17 2006
=SACP Statement on current developments within COSATU=

The SACP is deeply disturbed by the baseless distortions and all manner of unfounded speculations currently being run in the media, especially by Independent newspapers, about our positions regarding developments in COSATU and in the SACP. What is of serious concern to us is that most of what is being written in the media is being done without any attempt whatsoever to contact the SACP and seek its responses to all these matters.

It is in the interests of our alliance, our country and, need we say it, of the media itself to make an effort in seeking our views before they go to print on such matters. Otherwise this is an attempt to create a climate of siege and internal crises within our organisations. We categorically wish to state that there is no crisis whatsoever.

Firstly, we wish to state it categorically that our General Secretary’s //Red Alert// column in this week’s //Umsebenzi Online// was not referring to any individual in COSATU, but analysing a trend of business unionism that COSATU itself has spoken about on numerous occasions before. To try and put faces on this trend and attribute that to our General Secretary is sensationalism of the worst order. We regard this as part of media’s attempts to sow divisions and suspicions within the ranks of the working class, and we must not allow the COSATU Congress, or SACP work to be diverted by all this.

Furthermore, the SACP wishes to dismiss with the contempt it deserves suggestions that some of our officials are being targetted for removal from their positions at our next congress by virtue of some concocted suppositions as to where they stand in relation to matters affecting the Deputy President of the ANC. The SACP wishes to reiterate its stance, as articulated in our August 2006 Central Committee statement, that there are absolutely no divisions on our stances regarding our principled support for the Deputy President of the ANC, Cde Jacob Zuma.

The SACP also wishes to reaffirm its complete confidence in all its elected national office-bearers. It is a blatant fabrication that some of these officials are targeted for removal at the next Congress of the SACP. Our next Congress, as per the last Central Committee decision, will only be held sometime in July 2007 in the Eastern Cape. We have not started with nomination processes for leadership and any speculation in this regard is mere sensationalist reporting.

The SACP also wishes to warn the working class in our country that the sensationalist reporting about the security and surveillance of senior leaders of our organisations is meant to create an environment of siege within our organisations, whose sole purpose is to give space to the enemies of the working class to sow divisions and suspicions within our ranks. This is clearly the work of the very same faceless sources giving false information and slandering the leadership of the working class, especially in the run up to the COSATU Congress.

The SACP remains firm in its principled commitment to the unity of our alliance, and each of its components, and shall not allow itself to be distracted from this.

SACP Spokesperson Tel: 011 339 3621 Fax: 011 339 4244 Cell: 082 226 1802 Email: malesela@sacp.org.za Website: [|www.sacp.org.za]**
 * Issued by: SACP**
 * CONTACT:**
 * Malesela Maleka

560 words