Build+Active,+Safe,+Healthy+Communities,+SACP+2008+New+Year+Message

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 * SACP 2008 New Year Message, 31 December 2007**

=The Year to Build Active, Sustainable, Safe and Healthy Communities=

The SACP takes this opportunity to wish all South Africans, especially the workers and the poor, a peaceful and restful holiday and a happy 2008. Our last Central Committee identified the main tasks for South Africa in 2008 as that of building active, safe and healthy communities, as part of the overall struggle to fight against poverty, crime, corruption, moral degeneration and to build healthy communities.

In his closing address to the 52nd National Conference of the ANC, the newly elected President, Cde Jacob Zuma, called for, amongst other things, the rebuilding of street committees to be at the forefront in the struggle to fight crime in South African society. The SACP warmly embraces this call, as it is in line with our own commitment for 2008 to be a year to build people’s and community power to advance the developmental goals of our country, including the important fight against crime. We call upon all South Africans to embrace the call for street-level and community mobilization to fight crime and build safer communities.

The SACP calls upon all our people, especially the working class, to use the year 2008 as a launching pad to reclaim our streets from criminals and criminality, and reclaim each and every rural village, township, town and city from criminals. It is only united action at street and community level that will free us from the scourge of criminality.

In addition the street committees must act as a nucleus for an all-round offensive to fight crime against women and children, both in the family and in the broader community.

The street committees must however not be seen as substitutes to community policing forums (CPFs), but must act to strengthen and consolidate these, as well as perform other broader community development tasks. Our message is simply that fighting crime should not be seen as the sole responsibility of government, nor should it be reduced to a technocratic and bureaucratic task.

The SACP further calls upon our people to use street committees and community forums as a basis for rebuilding organs of people’s power to spearhead a mass-based movement to drive a developmental agenda to create jobs, fight poverty, and defeat the scourge of HIV/AIDS. From the experiences of all our campaigns, the SACP is convinced that it is only people’s power at community level that will best act to buttress government efforts towards addressing our many developmental needs.

We therefore call upon our communities to mobilize themselves to ensure that there is local economic development aimed at benefitting the workers and the poor; building community power to ensure that tenders at local government level are to the benefit of the people as a whole; to ensure that we broaden Black Economic Empowerment to benefit the mass of the workers and the poor; and to take forward the campaign for healthy living styles and for an affordable and sustainable public health system.

The SACP also calls upon our people to join us in intensifying our campaign for a sustainable and affordable health care system. To take forward this campaign the SACP will also use 2008 to launch a campaign for the private health care sector to respond to the basic needs of all our people by ensuring that emergency cases are stabilized at the nearest health institutions, irrespective of whether these are public or private, and irrespective of whether the casualties have medical aid or not.

The SACP firmly believes that it is only an organized people, at street and community level, that can best liberate itself from poverty, unemployment, the HIV/AIDS scourge, crime, disease, and all other ills that face South African society.

Let 2008 be the year of intensified community mobilization!


 * A happy 2008!**


 * Issued by the SACP.**
 * Malesela Maleka, SACP Spokesperson**

By e-mail

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