COSATU Media Monitor, 9 December 2009

Hardline trade union boss Zwelinzima Vavi yesterday mooted wage freezes, wage cuts and short time in a bid to save jobs.

Vavi, the general secretary of labour federation Cosatu, and Bobby Godsell, the chairman of Business Leadership SA, issued a joint call to both of their constituencies to consider tough alternatives to retrenchments.

Their proposals follow the loss of about 1 million jobs in the first three quarters this year, as a result of the recession.

The document prepared by Vavi and Godsell conceded that "workers will be concerned that tough economic times should not be used to roll back progress made over recent years, and indeed decades in terms of basic pay and benefits".

However, it said "measures adopted because of particular circumstances must be limited to those circumstances".

Andrew Levy, an independent labour consultant, described the move as "a radical departure" from Cosatu's usual stance. The move was "a very sensible one because in the short term it's a very effective way for companies to cut costs".

And he pointed out that, not only is half a wage better than none, but retrenchments put workers out of the labour force and reduced their opportunities to return when times improve.

Standard Bank's chief economist, Goolam Ballim, said the move was not "a departure from a principle but a pragmatic response to a global cyclical reality". He was referring to the devastating global recession that has destroyed millions of jobs over the past two years.

Jaco Kleynhans, the spokesman for Solidarity, said the trade union was open to those options and had already accepted them in retrenchment negotiations.

The high-profile leaders of business and labour in South Africa made their statement under the auspices of the Millennium Labour Council (MLC), of which they are co-chairmen.

The MLC was established in 2000 to address problems of unemployment and poverty in the country.

Vavi and Godsell asked companies to consider alternatives to retrenchment, including cutting management costs and a review of capital expenditure and dividend payments to shareholders.

Explaining the importance of getting the message across, Godsell said: "Retrenchment is not just one business strategy among many. It is a very serious step; it alters your relationship with your workforce and society. It has serious political, social and economic consequences."

And he highlighted the importance of the occasion. "I'm not aware of a joint appeal being made by business and labour in another economy."

He conceded that the call had come late, but said: "It's been a South African tradition, with people in moments of crisis reaching out to each other and saying: 'We disagree on many things, but here is a set of ideas on which we agree.' Isn't it worthwhile telling the nation?"

Vavi parried questions on other issues, saying they fell beyond the ambit of the document, which represented points of agreement between the two MLC chairmen.

Godsell urged citizens to aim at turning South Africa from a developing to a developed economy. "I think that's an important national goal. It leads to decent work, decent schools, decent hospitals, decent suburbs and decent houses." He said it was important to find a growth path that would provide "decent lives" for 50 million people.

1.2 Vavi and Godsell's jobs plan is too little too late

Edited by Peter DeIonno. With contributions from Samantha Enslin-Payne, Thabiso Mochiko and Ann Crotty, Business Report, 9 December 2009

The announcement yesterday by Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and former Eskom chairman Bobby Godsell, under the auspices of the Millennium Labour Council they co-chair, of a proposal to preserve jobs is akin to closing the barn door once the horse has bolted.

With about a million jobs already lost this year their plan is just far too late.

If further job losses are avoided it is more likely to do with businesses seeing a glimmer of hope on the horizon than a willingness to forsake shareholders' dividends or due to labour agreeing to wage cuts in special circumstances.

These are two of the suggestions that Godsell and Vavi have put forward to keep people in work.

Other suggestions are to cancel or defer management's bonuses, freeze or cut their salaries and slash the cost of running boards. Labour should also consider wage freezes and short time.

Unions are programmed to fight for the best interests of workers and that includes keeping wage increases at the very least in line with the rising cost of living.

Asking workers to take a pay cut or no increase at all is likely to be a hard sell.

The recent experience of the government training lay-off scheme has shown that workers view such initiatives with suspicion, even when their union representatives advise them to participate.

Companies are programmed to make profits and protect shareholders' interests.

With opposite interests, reaching self-sacrificing agreements will prove elusive.

This is not to make light of the job losses that have placed a million people and their dependants in dire straits.

There are still retrenchments under way and if even a few thousand jobs can be saved then this effort is not wasted. But the question is: why has it taken these two a year to come up with these proposals?

1.3 Saccawu tackles racism in its sectors

By Florence de Vries, Business Report, 9 December 2009

Retail giant Pick n Pay is the fourth company to be accused of "racist practices" this year by members of the SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers' Union (Saccawu) who work for the companies.

Saccawu spokesman Mike Abrahams said the union was "concerned about similar allegations" at supermarket group Shoprite, pharmacy chain Dis-Chem and leisure group Sun International.

Abrahams said the union was still waiting to hear from officials working in these companies about its members' experiences "perceived as racist at the workplace".

The union was planning industrial action against Pick n Pay following the group's alleged reluctance in "adequately responding to a long, drawn-out dispute with Saccawu over a range of racist practices".

The Labour Court in Braamfontein yesterday postponed Saccawu's challenge against the interdict that Pick n Pay brought to prevent the union from taking industrial action against it. The matter will be heard today.

Saccawu said on Monday that its complaints against Pick n Pay included inconsistency in its application of discipline, with a bias against black employees and Saccawu members.

The union alleged that some managers were racist and Pick n Pay had failed to discipline them. There were also discrepancies in income between black and white employees occupying the same positions or doing work of similar value.

White employees earned more, Saccawu said. It further alleged that "racial comments" against black employees had been made by Pick n Pay's chief executive Nick Badminton.

Former Pick n Pay chairman Raymond Ackerman described Saccawu's accusations as "a slap across the face" as he had spent more than half his life fighting racism.

"I am disgusted with this. We've tried for years to meet with Saccawu but they've chosen to take us on just before Christmas in the worst economy possible," he said, adding that Saccawu had gone against the principles of true unionism in what was "obviously a political attack".

Pick n Pay spokeswoman Tamra Veley, who is also representing the group's chief executive, rejected the racism allegations as being factually incorrect. She said some of the allegations referred back to statements that Saccawu said were allegedly made as long as 10 years ago.

"Saccawu will not tell us why, if these statements were in fact made, it has taken over a decade to raise it with us. We reject the allegations outright."

In an attempt to address the concerns of Saccawu, Pick n Pay has on four separate occasions proposed that an independent commission of inquiry be conducted, which Saccawu has rejected on each occasion.

A recent "racism dispute" led to Cosatu signing a memorandum of understanding with the management of Sun International, in which the company agreed to dismiss "racist" security staff.

The memorandum led to two employees at Sun City being suspended and one being dismissed after a racially offensive CD was played at a function where staff were strip-searched after being accused of theft.

Sun International's management acknowledged last week that some Sun City employees had not been treated with respect and said strong action would be taken against those responsible.

Dis-Chem operations director Brian Epstein said the union had "just started having talks about the alleged allegations, but nothing came of it".

Abrahams said levels of racism lingered in the sectors it organised. Saccawu is represented in the hospitality, wholesale and retail sectors with over 150 000 members nationally.

According to Abrahams, the group is also organised within Massmart, Edcon, Woolworths, Shoprite, JD Group, Lewis, Pep, Foschini and Spar.

1.4 Unions slam mining firms over deaths

By KEA' MODIMOENG, Times Live, 8 December 2009

Mining companies use unsafe working conditions and fatalities as a new "form of retrenchments" and cutting down on the labour force.

These were accusations levelled by National union of Mine workers spokesman Lesiba Seshoka in response to the latest death of a mine worker at Gold Fields' Driefontein mine, west of Johannesburg.

Gold Fields, the world's fourth biggest gold producer, said yesterday one of the two miners who went missing after four earthquakes on Monday had been found dead.

Seshoka said of the second miner who was still missing: "Our guess is that he has also died because there is no way you can survive underground for over 48 hours with no air, water or food."

According to NUM, 152 mine workers have died at the country's mines this year.

Seshoka said it was "stupid" of mine bosses to regard the decline in the number of fatalities this year from 168 last year as an improvement.

He said NUM has always argued for the introduction of seismic monitoring systems in South African mines as most of the accidents were caused by rock falls.

"Mine managers are more concerned with walking around wearing beautiful suits and calculators in their pockets to count cash, hence we start viewing these mine deaths as a new retrenchment strategy," he said.

Seshoka also lashed out at the National Prosecuting Authority and the Human Rights Commission.

"The NPA's attitude is very strange because we don't know why it's taking them so long to prosecute these mine bosses for workers' deaths.

"This shows that they spend more time in their offices playing Solitaire computer games and not thinking about helping the poor mine workers."

Trade union Solidarity spokesman Jaco Kleynhans warned that mining safety had to be increased "sharply" over the festive season "because this time of year was notorious for its more slack safety measures."

2. South Africa

2.1 Cosatu threatens strike over Eskom price hike

Business Report, 8 December 2009

South Africa's labour federation Cosatu could strike against plans by state-owned utility Eskom to raise electricity prices by 35 percent a year for the next three years, the union's head said on Tuesday.

A steep electricity price increase has stoked fears of more job-losses and inflation as it could lead some industrial majors to shut parts of their operations. South Africa, which emerged from its first recession in 17 years in the fourth quarter, saw its economy lose close to a million jobs this year.

Eskom says it needs a tariff increase to help raise money to pay for a R385 billion power expansion programme. Last week the utility reduced its proposal for an increase to 35 percent from 45 percent after widespread criticism from labour, government and business circles.

Eskom has said it would also rely on borrowing from capital markets and government loans to fund its expansion programme.

"It (35 percent tariff hike ) will spell a disaster, it will make the situation we are talking to now about job-losses much worse," Cosatu's General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said.

"We will make our submission, we will engage and we have said it very clear it's not something that we will be prepared to take lying down and if there is a need we are prepared to mobilise the society."

Asked by Reuters if he meant Cosatu would go on strike to prevent the new tariffs from being implemented, he said: "Yes".

President Jacob Zuma last week raised the prospect of more job losses as the global economic downturn continues to have an impact.

Vavi and former Eskom chairman Bobby Godsell also spoke on measures needed for preserving current jobs and avoiding retrenchments at a business and labour forum.

Both urged businesses to consider other cost-cutting measures before retrenching workers.

"Whilst the cost of workers' wages is likely to be a significant cost in most businesses, it is not the only area where cost reductions can be effected," Godsell said.

"Two major areas which require at least equal review are those of capital expenditure and shareholder returns in form of dividends," added Godsell, who co-chairs a labour council with Cosatu's Vavi. – Reuters

2.2 ANC hails 'peacemaker' Zuma

IOL, 9 December 2009

The African National Congress on Tuesday welcomed the findings of the latest TNS survey indicating President Jacob Zuma's growing popularity in the country.

The survey found that Zuma's approval rating increased to 58 percent in November.

In a statement, the ANC also congratulated Zuma on receiving the Order of the Eagle of Zambia, that country's highest award to its freedom fighters.

"Not only has President Zuma distinguished himself as a leader within ANC structures, he has been recognised as a peacemaker in Africa," the party said.

A TNS spokesperson said Zuma's increased popularity was thought to be a consequence of his visit to Zimbabwe in August and the establishment of a task team in that country. - Sapa

2.3 Open warfare in the alliance

Stanley Uys, Politicsweb, 08 December 2009

The long-simmering turbulence in ANC politics over the Tripartite Alliance finally has spilled over into open warfare - heralding the beginning of the end of the Alliance (ANC, Cosatu, SACP). Predictions of the collapse of the Alliance have been made in these columns, and strongly denied. Now a call to arms has been sounded not by the ANC, but by Cosatu/SACP themselves. They suggest that a campaign, led by ANC "conservatives and materialists," to dislodge them from the Alliance is already fairly far advanced (see here).

A no-holds-barred struggle between Cosatu/SACP and ANC "conservatives", if carried through to the end, would shake South Africa, whatever the outcome. It would define not only who holds power, but what course the country's economics would take - Left, orthodox, or modified orthodox. As for the "minorities" (whites, coloureds, Indians), an orthodox (or modified orthodox) probably would be a majority wish; but whether any outcome - Left or "conservative" - would give them a significant share of power is doubtful.

[Read George Palmer's letter to Jacob Zuma here - Editor]

Cosatu/SACP say they are accused of trying to "hijack" the Alliance with the ultimate intention of imposing socialism on it; that the "conservatives" want "regime change" in South Africa, and are targeting President Jacob Zuma (mainly because he has been intimidated by, and been too "permissive" to, the Left); and also Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe (who is also chairman of the SACP). The "conservatives" allegedly want to sweep out the entire six-member top leadership of the current "ANC" and install anti-Left structures in the party.

A successful anti-Cosatu/SACP coup would dismantle the Tripartite Alliance (ANC, Cosatu, SACP), and ANC "conservatives" would recapture the party and its "soul." Cosatu/SACP have been spurred into action, it appears, by the realisation that the longer the silent war continues, the more they will lose ground. Accordingly, they have formalised the approaching struggle in the Alliance (rules of engagement are unlikely - just a free-for-all). It is, therefore, Cosatu/SACP who have thrown down the gauntlet publicly, in the midst of a surge towards capturing the Tripartite Alliance and control of the state.

The Cosatu/SACP accusations are sufficiently detailed to disclose what they think is the "conservative" strategy and who the main players are: that a "realignment" has taken place in the ANC's 85-member National Executive Committee (implying a blurring of who supports whom); that a "new tendency" has emerged - to whip up a "rooi gevaar" (communist danger) and unleash anti-trade union rhetoric; and that the "conservatives" have secured assistance from black (BEE) millionaires to enable them to dispense "patronage" liberally (cash and jobs), particularly among the youth.

Cosatu/SACP have hung the label "conservative" around the neck of their opponents, although the challenge to them is understood to be much more widely based. Also, the Young Communist League in Gauteng has more to reveal: it says the ANC is trying to split the Gauteng YCL/SACP from the national YCL/SACP with a promise of launching a post-Polokwane and "pseudo-COPE left and calling it the "democratic Left." (COPE broke away from the ANC to form a new party, and has been lying surprisingly low, as if awaiting a call on what to do next).

The Gauteng YCL says the ANC strategy is to launch "a plot to derail this giant movement of our people (National Liberation Movement) into the hands of parasitic capitalists in an axis of established capital and corrupt government officials." Jobs and resources will be promised to unemployed comrades and patronage extended by "unleashing money." Some of this money will come from BEE deals and government tenders. The Gauteng YCL warns comrades to watch out for "full combat."

The national SACP predicts "rabble-rousing of sectors in distress, not least among an often alienated youth sector." Among those involved are "ambitious business people and politicians, using corruption and patronage." What the Cosatu/SACP are saying is that the black youth in South Africa are volatile and the "conservatives" are buying their support. The SACP admits the dividing lines between Alliance factions are less clear now than they were at Polokwane in 2007.

While Cosatu/SACP claim the "conservatives" are a "tiny minority" in the ANC, they admit that they will have to be fully mobilised to repel it and that they do not have "enough outright left-wing allies in the NEC and NWC" (the smaller, inner National Working Committee).

A final Alliance showdown, according to Cosatu/SACP (who are joined at the hip now) is set for 2012 when an ANC national congress re-elects Zuma as ANC president or replaces him with a new president. Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi fears a repeat of the Polokwane conference (December 2007, when Thabo Mbeki was ousted as ANC president) and another "bitter battle for leadership." If the "conservatives" become so powerful that they threaten to reverse "the gains made at Polokwane," Cosatu will not keep quiet. In various asides like this one Cosatu/SACP confess to their own vulnerabilities.

The turmoil in Black politics will not be confined, however, to ANC "conservatives" versus Cosatu/SACP, which is first and foremost a power struggle. But Moeletsi Mbeki (Thabo's brother) warns that beyond this struggle lies an even fiercer one which a "conservative" ANC government (if success - and allied to a black elite) would have to face.

In an illuminating article (November 29), Moeletsi wrote that South Africa now is "entering a new phase of conflict - between the black political elite and the masses over how to distribute state revenue between them. This struggle is commonly referred to as a struggle over service delivery which, in a limited way, it is."

Moeletsi says BEE simply "transformed (politicians) into multi-millionaires without having had to lift a finger." South Africa's largest companies...realised that conflict between the black political elite and black masses was inevitable and would probably be even fiercer than the struggle between the black masses and Afrikaner nationalism (so they ‘moved their head offices and their primary listings to London')...BEE must be abolished if we are not to tear the country apart."

Meanwhile, in preparation for the approaching contest with the "conservatives", Cosatu says (with insulting condescension) that it will launch "a massive drive to politicise workers so that we do not make a mistake of swelling the ranks with workers who have low political consciousness and who are generally politically unreliable."

Although Cosatu has some 21 affiliated unions, with a total membership of 1.8 million, it is unknown how many unionists would want to confront an ANC that presents itself as traditionalist. Also, some other unions, not affiliated to Cosatu, are hostile to it or wary of it. (The SACP claims a membership of 96,000 (paid-up?).

Interestingly, while the SACP admits to a "bad clash" with the ANCYL, it wants to make peace with it again (because the ANCYL is close to Zuma and may be a swing factor in the infighting?).

The most outspoken of the various documents doing the rounds was the one issued by Cosatu and published in these columns on November 30 (here). It sent a clear signal that Cosatu and the SACP will swim or sink together. Cosatu confirms that it must give the SACP maximum political support, but is dismayed that only 40 percent of the SACP's 96,000 members (paid up?) come from the industrial proletariat. (Another vulnerability?).

The pending infighting will also turn a spotlight on whether the Alliance was ever viable. It is a three-legged creature and each creature is different. As a political front against apartheid, the Alliance could serve a purpose, but not once the struggle had been won and the appropriation of power to the ANC ensured.

Paul Trewhela offers illuminating comment: "I expect the term ‘Alliance' became current in exile in the late Sixties as reflecting mutual help between ANC and SACP, as two banned and largely exiled organisations, especially after the ANC opened ordinary membership to all races (i.e. mainly SACP members) at the Morogoro conference in 1968. Cosatu was formed only in December 1985, in an SACP/ANC drive to recapture leadership from the more libertarian workerist ‘inzile' (internal) currents that had led the trade union revival.

"No ‘Alliance' with COSATU was possible before then. Unbanning the SACP and the ANC brought back the exiles, who very quickly imposed SACP/ANC control on the unions by a process of Gleichschaltung which drove out and marginalised the ‘inzile' workerists. I notice that recent SACP and YCL statements refer critically to their opponents in the ANC as ‘Africanists', as if to associate them with the PAC breakaway of 1958/59. "So, as I see it, the ‘Triple Alliance" did not always exist, and it will not always exist. But it suits some people to imply that it always did exist".

The contradictory nature of the Alliance is self-evident. Cosatu acknowledges "there was no unifying ideology or politics between those who imposed change in Polokwane except dissatisfaction with the previous leadership." A fellow commentator, Dr Leopold Scholtz, notes: "The problem, as I see it, is that the ANC as a ‘liberation movement' takes the view that power is its permanent due and that the opposition is simply tolerated for as long as it does not constitute any danger to the government." This applies to Cosatu/SACP, and also, it might be noted, to South Africa's minorities (whites, coloureds, Indians).

Defining the post-Polokwane "ANC" is elusive. The unknown factor at the time is both the composition and extent of the ANC. Having labelled their "ANC" opponents as "conservatives" Cosatu/SACP need to mobilise mass support to win the ensuing struggle. There is possibly a direct way of doing this: by majority vote in the NEC. Cosatu/SACP claim there is a "new tendency" in the in the NEC, but enough votes to outvote the Left?

The "conservatives" have their own cards to play. There is resentment within the ANC at the way the SACP sends its cadres into the legislatures as "ANC" (it never contests a seat in its own name), but requires them to give their first loyalty to the SACP. The "conservatives" might well try to stir up old nationalist/Africanist emotions and unleash an almost uncontrollable new mood in black politics. Physically risky, but effective. Entrenched patronage networks could also be wielded to their advantage.

2.4 Motsepe backs nationalisation of mines

Mail&Guardian online, 8 December 2009

Businessman Patrice Motsepe would back nationalising the country's mines if it was in the country's best interests, SABC radio reported on Tuesday.

"My belief has always been, if nationalisation is what is in the best interests of South Africa, I'll support it, whether it'snationalisation, or whether it's socialism -- if the policies are what will improve, uplift and create a better lifestyle, better living conditions..." the billionaire and executive chairperson of African Rainbow Minerals said at a handover of a rural upliftment project in Limpopo.

African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema recently made the call for mines to be put in the state's hands, raising the ire of opposition parties and organised business.

The National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) called for Motsepe's wealth to be nationalised last month after the Sunday Times "Rich List" showed that Motsepe was the richest South African with R14.2bn.

'Jealousy'

But ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe slammed the calls, putting it down to jealousy.

The mining magnate made the Forbes world's billionaire list last year at $2.4-billion, $0.1-billion short of talkshow queen Oprah Winfrey.

Motsepe has built $875-million mining conglomerate, African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), with interests in a wide swathe of minerals: precious metals (platinum and its cousins), nickel, chrome, iron, manganese and coal, according to Forbes.

He is seen to have benefited from government's black economic empowerment (BEE) laws, which mandate that companies be at least 26% black-owned in order to get a government mining license.

Motsepe recently turned down the opportunity to become Sanlam's chairperson, due to "his extensive business commitments and obligations". He has previously denied any political ambitions saying: "the day I go into politics, people must take me to a doctor and say he has lost it". - Sapa

2.5 Return to Zambia, like a return home for the ANC - Zuma

His Excellency South African President Jacob Zuma delivers the Oliver Tambo Memorial Lecture, Zambia, December 8 2009

Your Excellency and dear brother, President Banda,
University of Zambia Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen Simukanga,
Zambian President Rupiah Banda,
First President Kenneth Kaunda
Members of the Academic Community, Business, Labour and Students,
Distinguished Guests,

I am extremely honoured and privileged to deliver this Inaugural Oliver Reginald Tambo Memorial Lecture today.

At the outset, let me express our deepest gratitude for the warm reception and hospitality provided to us by the President and Mrs Banda as well as the Zambian people.

As my delegation would attest, this State Visit has been an emotional one for us. We have returned to the home of the African National Congress.

We are back here as a nation that has attained freedom and democracy, which is now working hard to rebuild that which apartheid and colonialism sought to destroy over many decades.

Fellow Africans,

I am deeply overwhelmed by the honour that has just been bestowed on me by the University of Zambia, of the Honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

This is first honorary degree that I have received outside of South Africa. It is important to me that it is bestowed by Zambia, which was responsible for part of my people's education.

I am a product of people's education. I owe everything I know to the ordinary people of my village in Nkandla, to South Africans from all walks of life in and outside of the struggle, and to people I have met in many countries of the world.

I continue to learn even today.

I cannot claim education from any classroom, it has made me who I am. That is why I continue to humble myself before the people, as I have deep respect for them, and will always continue to be a part of them.

I thank you most profusely Honourable Chancellor, the Senate and the entire university community for this humbling honour.

Your Excellency Mr President,

The struggle for freedom from colonization and oppression has produced outstanding revolutionaries and consummate activists.

Your own struggle against colonialism here in Zambia was to give birth to many heroes and heroines, including our icon and father, the first President of Zambia, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, on the basis of whose legacy you built your thriving democracy today.

Our visit has reminded us of the fact that President Kenneth Kaunda refused to be intimidated when he was harassed for harbouring liberation movements including the ANC.

He refused to chase us away. He refused to make Oliver Tambo and his people wanderers. He stood by us through thick and thin, and so did the wonderful people of Zambia.

We once again extend our gratitude for that unique solidarity and friendship.

Your Excellency, the emotion I personally felt today is only similar to one I felt during another time in history.

This was when all of us who were exiled here and had found a home in Lusaka, has to return to our country in 1990.

President Kaunda gave us a military aircraft to return to South Africa, as he said he wanted us to go home as "respectable leaders".

This meant that despite President Kaunda's legendary generosity and ever warm heart, he never trusted our South African Airways airline then, but he no doubt does now!

I am certain that many in the audience do remember our faces. You also remember those who lost their lives and loved ones in the struggle for the liberation of our country.

We count among these, Zambian citizens as well as soldiers who had taken upon themselves that they would not rest until our country and its people were free.

They all understood that a free South Africa meant freedom and economic development for the entire continent. For this, they paid the ultimate price.

I am even more certain that all of us gathered here are familiar with the name OR Tambo, to whom this Memorial Lecture is dedicated.

This South African patriot was a worker, a scientist, a teacher and a leader, a father and a humanist who dedicated his entire life to the struggle for the liberation of his people.

Although he would spend days and weeks traveling the world to mobilize the international community against apartheid, he would always return to Lusaka, the ANC Head Quarters and the home away from home that he had found for all of us.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In South Africa we are blessed with an array of leaders who have left indelible footprints in the annals of the struggle for freedom and democracy. We count among these Alfred Nzo, Joe Slovo, Joe Modise, Chris Hani, Moses Mabhida, Yusuf Dadoo, Billy Nair and Duma Nokwe.

Amongst these leaders, Comrade Oliver Reginald Tambo, the longest ever serving president of the African National Congress from 1969 to 1991, stands as tall and unbreakable in life as in death.

Oliver Tambo was, is and will continue to be the pride of the ANC. I know of no part of his life that was spent outside the service to the people, led by the people's movement, the ANC.

He spent all his adult life serving in the struggle against apartheid.

''O R'', as he was popularly known by his peers, was born on 27th October 1917 in a rural town of Bizana, in eastern Mpondoland in what was then the Cape Province (now Eastern Cape).

He studied at Fort Hare University where he was expelled before completing his Honours' degree in Science.

Comrade OR then moved to Johannesburg where he teamed up with Nelson Mandela to establish the first ever legal office by black Africans right at the city centre.

He then threw himself body and soul into the ANC. He was among the founding members of the ANC Youth League in 1944, and became its first National Secretary.

Together with Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Ashby Mda, Anton Lembede, Dr William Nkomo, Dr C.M. Majombozi and others - they were instrumental in the transformation of the ANC.

They changed it from a liberal-constitutionalist organisation into a radical national liberation movement and the democratic force that it is today.

I mention this background to demonstrate that Comrade Tambo was one of the pioneers and shapers of the ANC as we know it today.

He was certainly the strategist and architect of many things that brought freedom closer to our people.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is often said of the first President of Independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah that he is a reminder not of what Africa is, but what Africa should become.

Like Nkrumah, for many years Oliver Tambo carried the torch as a symbol of what a free and democratic South Africa should be like.

We are indeed privileged and proud to have inherited the leadership of the African National Congress which OR so capably led during the most trying time in its history.

This is the time when most of our leaders, including Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela, were imprisoned. The ANC was a banned organization. Its armed wing, Mkhonto wesizwe was involved in combat and sabotage operations.

Townships were burning, comrades were dying in detention, apartheid forces planting bombs even beyond South Africa's borders.

We were hunted and persecuted beyond our borders. We had become strangers in our own land.

As a people we were desperate and bleeding, we were hungry and angry. Yet, we knew that victory was certain, simply because Oliver Tambo said so!

Oliver Tambo remained a glue that held the many facets of the ANC together, believing that without unity, South Africa indeed Africa had no future.

Because Comrade Tambo so epitomized hope that our country could be better, today his name is instantly recognizable and associated with the reconstruction and development that we embarked on soon after liberation.

In no small measure, one of our most important gateways, the OR Tambo International
airport, is named after him, as do other host of institutions and localities.

But Comrade Tambo's legacy lives beyond that. It is in the blood, the heart and soul of the ANC. It is manifest in our daily endeavours to create a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa of which all of us can be proud.

Comrade Tambo's greatest bequest to the South African nation is his universalism, the incredible ability to see more that unifies us as peoples of the world than that which divides us.

Through his efforts, nations of the world knew of the plight of oppressed South Africa and threw their lot behind anti-apartheid campaigns, resulting in the most uniformly applied economic sanctions against any one country.

He convinced the peoples of the world, through the United Nations and other platforms that apartheid was an affront to all freedom loving nations, that it was indeed a crime against humanity.

Assisted by African governments, Comrade OR was able to establish ANC missions in Egypt, Ghana, Morocco and in London. From these small beginnings, under his stewardship the ANC acquired missions in a total of 27 countries by 1990.

These included all the permanent members of the UN Security Council, with the exception
of China, two missions in Asia and one in Australasia.

A visionary that Tambo was, he looked beyond apartheid and its demise and understood that our freedom should liberate even the former oppressors themselves.

Apart from Nelson Mandela, Tambo remains the greatest symbol of our reconciliation policies. For him, there was no Coloured or Indian, Zulu or Afrikaner, but a people united in the quest for a free South Africa.

OR Tambo emphasized above everything else. For him, unity and coherence of the ANC was sacrosanct. If the ANC was a broad church, then Tambo fitted the role of the pastor like no other.

Because of him, today South Africa is a new nation, a united people founded on the fundamental principles of human dignity, democracy and equal rights for all.

From Comrade OR we also inherited the ability not just to listen, but to decode every point made during debates and discussion so as to enable people to reach consensus.

I know of no other organisation that thrives and values debate and consensus as a democratic principle than the African National Congress. We treasure that legacy that was bequeathed to us by OR.

Your Excellency, in OR Tambo we had a leader who was able to chart the way forward towards a negotiated settlement, while many were still finding it difficult to accept that there would be no dramatic seizure of power.

From the time he sent former President Thabo Mbeki and myself to open dialogue with our oppressors to the onset of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, OR Tambo's leadership and counsel were invaluable.

At every stage of our Movement, OR's hand could be discerned: from the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners to the unbanning of the ANC, SACP, PAC, AZAPO and others, from the Mass Democratic Movement of the 1980s to the watershed first democratic elections in 1994.

From the Harare Declaration to the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, we are infinitely indebted to Oliver Tambo.

We are a united and democratic nation today whose vibrancy and unity in diversity is hailed around the world because President Tambo taught us to be proponents of the common vision of justice and peace.

He taught us to be the defenders of the rights of the child, the man, the woman and the beast of the forest to live, to be free and to prosper.

As we consolidate OR Tambo's memory, we know that he would not be content merely with freedom and democracy.

He would urge us to continue on this mission of a fundamental transformation and to work for the prosperity of the peoples of both Zambia and South Africa.

He would urge us to rebuild that which apartheid and colonialism sought to destroy over many decades.

In 1993 at Oliver Tambo's funeral on the eve of South Africa's first democratic elections, President Nelson Mandela, like the throngs of our people who had snaked their way to FNB Stadium in Soweto, refused to accept his passing:

He stated: "Oliver Tambo has not died because the ideals of freedom, human dignity and a colour-blind respect for every individual cannot perish".

We owe a reconstructed, united and prosperous Africa to Tambo. We owe it to Kenneth Kaunda and to all the illustrious founding fathers of a liberated Africa.

Let us, in honour of Oliver Tambo and all fallen African icons, work harder than ever before, to rebuild that which apartheid and colonialism sought to destroy over many decades.

I thank you.

Mluleki Mntungwa (Communications Officer)

COSATU ICT Unit

1-5 Leyds Cnr Biccard Street

Braamfontein

2007

P.O.Box 1019

Johannesburg

2000

South Africa

Tel: +27 11 339-4911/24

Fax: +27 11 339-5080/6940

E-Mail: mlu...@cosatu.org.za

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