SACP+on+12th+Anniversary+of+passing+of+Cde+Joe+Slovo

SACP STATEMENT
=COMMEMORATING THE 12th ANNIVERSARY OF THE PASSING AWAY OF CDE JOE SLOVO.=

The 6th of January 2007 marks the 12th anniversary of the passing away of the former General Secretary and Chairperson of the South African Communist Party, Cde Joe Slovo.

The South African Communist Party takes this opportunity to honour this hero of our struggle and we pay homage to his role in liberating our country out the yoke of apartheid.

We mark this anniversary during a complex period when progressive forces are faced with the mammoth task of defending and reclaiming the revolutionary traditions of our movement, as an essential component of the struggle to deepen the national democratic revolution. We have entered a period where we need to intensify the reaffirmation of the values of selfless leadership, inspiring and drawing confidence from the masses of our people, entrenching and deepening our democracy and most importantly improving the lives of our people as our primary task. All this must be done, like Joe Slovo did, without expectation of any personal gain, favours or undeserved advantage for our leadership or cadres. Similarly we are faced with the challenge of intensifying the struggle against corruption, one of the major threats to our young democracy.

As we remember the sacrifices of leaders like Joe Slovo, we wish to reiterate some of the points we made in our 2007 New Year Message. One of the major challenges for 2007 will be to intensify our struggle against parasitic capitalism in all its manifestations. Parasitic capitalism is a ‘system’ where access to public office becomes an instrument or a stepping stone into business ventures or to access government tenders. The SACP is extremely concerned about the increasing numbers of public representatives who are also involved in business. In order to defend our democracy and the values that have always informed our liberation struggle it is important to make sure that these two activities are separated.

We further reiterate our concern that another scourge that we need to tackle with earnest seriousness is the problem of patronage in public service. The SACP wishes to reiterate its stance that occupation of public office is done in order to serve the people, and not to create patronage networks of loyalty and service to whomever the patron maybe. We need to ensure that all our public officials follow the example set by Cde Slovo himself in his short stint as Minister of Housing – dedication and selfless commitment to changing the housing conditions of our people for the better, without seeking to create in the process an army of personal followers from those who served under him.

As we Commemorate Cde Slovo’s passing away, we are inspired by the sacrifices he made and the values that he stood for. We have made the calls we made above inspired by Cde Slovo’s life and revolutionary morale.

We remember this giant leader of our organization and the liberation movement as a whole, at a year when both the SACP and the ANC will be holding their National Congresses. Cde Slovo’s thoughts on the dynamic link between the National Democratic Revolution and the struggle for Socialism will once serve as one source of reference as the working class in our country marches to ensure that our NDR is not stolen by the rich thus deteriorating into nothing more than one type of a bourgeoisie revolution. Ours was never a struggle to make the few rich whilst the majority of our people remain impoverished.

We will intensify our call for the nationalisation of SASOL and other major wealth generating entities, consistent with the Freedom Charter Declarations, in order to live up to what Cde Slovo committed his life to.

Cde Joe Slovo was a champion of the rights of the poor. He spearheaded in his short tenure as Minister of Housing, a programme of access to credit by the poor so that they are able to access affordable and safe low cost houses. The SACP will continue to carry forward the struggle for access to credit by the majority of our people.

Our struggle has of course been compounded by an increased consumerism that is being deeply entrenched by the commercial sector in our country. The majority of our people are being drowned into debts with the increased and unchecked provision of credit cards and other unsolicited offers of credit. If unchecked this is a ticking time bomb and a bubble waiting to burst.

The response of the Reserve Bank has been nothing but punishment of the workers and the poor for the sins of the predatory credit grantors – the modern mashonisas - middle classes and the well off, by constantly pushing up interest rates. The rampant and uncontrolled increases in the interest rates seek to permanently condemn the poor to abject poverty, whilst leaving the behaviour of the credit grantors unchecked. We would like to reiterate our call to government and the Reserve Bank to focus their energies on comprehensive control mechanisms over the predatory behaviour of the credit grantors, and not punish the workers and the poor with forever rising interest rates.

We will continue to mobilize for the transformation of the financial sector to serve the workers and the poor, especially to take forward our demand for a once-off credit amnesty from the Credit Bureaux.

As we usher in the year 2007, we will in the true spirit of Cde Joe Slovo, intensify our mass campaigns and working class struggles to reclaim what genuinely belongs to our people. The SACP remains convinced that policies are not just made through boardrooms, but must be mass driven. Therefore, through our 2007 Programme of Action, we will intensify working class action on many fronts through taking forward our land campaign, and the struggle to build co-operatives and a progresssive co-operative movement, our campaign on building sustainable livelihoods and our call for a safe, reliable and affordable public transport system.

Long live the memory of Cde Joe Slovo!
Issued by: SACP

CONTACT:


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

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