COSATU Today 11 December 2009

The ANC YL has condemned the heckling Of ANC Youth League President by some delegates at the SACP National Special Congress. ANC YL President Julius Malema was invited by the SACP and attended the Special Congress on behalf of the ANC YL. The ANC YL finds it totally unacceptable and politically immature that some delegates at the Communist Party Congress would find it suitable to heckle and howl leadership of the Alliance. The Communist Party is logically expected to provide leadership on critical issues and engage on ideological debates, and not heckle. The Communist Party should be concerned that it harbours within its ranks, people who derive pleasure from heckling and howling leaders of the revolutionary Congress Alliance.

The ANC Youth League is not an enemy of the SACP, and actually shares most strategic objectives with the Communist Party. Heckling of the leadership of the ANC YL portrays a wrong picture that there are strategic differences, whilst we are all in pursuit of the National Democratic Revolution and attaining the objectives of the Freedom Charter. The ANC YL will continue to engage with the South African Communist Party on various ideological and political debates, including on the Nationalisation of Mines and other strategic sectors of the South African economy.

ANC YL President Julius Malema will during his address to the National Press Club on Tuesday, the 15^th of December 2009 in Sheraton Hotel at 10H00 respond to the manner in which some delegates heckled and howled at the Communist Party Special National Congress.

1.2 COSATU calls for commission of enquiry on racism in North West

Local Secretary, Madito wa ga Molebalwa, NW Local Secretary, 11 December 2009

COSATU’s Moses Kotane Local aggrieved by the decision taken by the North West Director of Public Prosecutions to withdraw charges against the owner of Falcon Security Company, Ben Burger, who was accused of insulting former president Nelson Mandela in a CD played during a Potjiekos competition at Sun City.

It is clear that in this country’s justice system the poor will remain victims of circumstances and that the rich will always get off scot free, specifically when coming to the corrupt and racist acts that they commit.

COSATU does not accept the reasons given out in - that there is no evidence that the CD that insulted our former President Comrade Nelson Mandela, that it does not belong to Burger and that there is totally no evidence that he is the one who played it.

COSATU calls for intensive investigation into this matter and further demands that the matter be re-opened with immediate effect.

The working class federation COSATU will not at any time be apologetic in saying that our justice system undoubtly leaves much to be desired when coming to matters in which white racists are involved, more so in this province. It therefore calls on the Minister of Justice and the President of the country to appoint a commission of enquiry on all racial matters raised by workers in the North West, including farm workers’ killings and cases of workers who were brutally assaulted by white bullies at Bakgatla Resorts in the Moses Kotane arrear in December last year as nothing has been done on those matters to date.

COSATU is going to mobilize its members and the community to engage on rolling mass actions to both Sun City Police Station, Mogwase Police Station and Mogwase Court to raise its dissatisfaction to decisions taken by those who seem to be in the pockets of these racists, as it is indeed clear that the police and the courts are all out to deal with workers’ cases in a corrupt way. For example:-

Workers were assaulted by whites in the presence of the police on 24^th of December 2008 at Bakgatla Resorts – No arrests to date even if those matters were reported.
Marietta Le Roux’s case was thrown out of court even though there is enough evidence that she indeed insulted and belittled poor employees by saying that they smell like baboons.
Police arrested and attacked and shot innocent workers on 3^rd of December 2009 at Sun Village and nothing has been done to date.
Ben Burger’s case was today withdrawn by the court citing lousy reasons for that.

COSATU will not be deterred or derailed from its mandate of fighting both corruption and racism by the powers that be and their biased decisions.

1.3 NUMSA welcomes Motsepe’s contribution on nationalisation debate

Castro Ngobese, NUMSA Spokesperson, 11 December 2009

NUMSA has welcomed Patrice Motsepe’s contribution to the public discourse on a matter which seeks to restore the country's wealth to the people as a whole.

Numsa believes that the ANC led Alliance must now fast track the implementation of a framework within which nationalization premised on the socialization of the economic heights of the economy can be executed, the speedy implementation of an industrial strategy that would propel a developmental state to serve the needs and aspirations of the poor in our country in accordance with the Freedom Charter and alter monetary and fiscal policy such that the creation of employment and decent work could be at the centre of what the state does.

Numsa thinks that there is sufficient consensus on nationalisation within the Alliance for the ANC NEC to move beyond denial of this historically correct policy of the movement into the mechanics that would propel nationalization into action.

For Numsa nationalization was never just about the acquisition of the mines into public hands BUT as the Freedom Charter says: ‘the national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole; all other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the well-being of the people’.

Numsa also calls on the South African state to nationalise the South African Reserve bank so that it may serve a developmental agenda that creates jobs and decent work to lift our people out of poverty and misery imposed by capitalism.

The union is confident and certain that the SACP Special Congress underway in Polokwane will lead our society to achieve the nationalisation and socialisation of key and strategic sectors of the South African economy. A better life for all will evade us unless we become bold like a Chavez or Morales of this world.

1.4 Rural communities disadvantaged by KZN Community Service Medical Officer placements for 2010

Marije Versteeg, Project ManagerRural Health Advocacy Project, 11 December 2009

The unequal allocation of Community Service Medical Officers to rural hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal comes as a great setback for some of the most rural communities in KZN and presents a major hurdle for the implementation of the new treatment guidelines announced by President Zuma on World AIDS Day.

An analysis of the list published on the KZN Department of Health (DoH) website of the placements of Community Service Medical Officers (CSMOs) for 2010 http://www.kznhealth.gov.za/mo2010.pdf shows that seven rural hospitals in the province will not receive any CSMOs at all in 2010. The majority of these are in some of the most rural and underserved areas of the province. These include Nkandla Hospital, Ceza Hospital, Ekombe Hospital, Estcourt Hospital, Mbongolwane Hospital, Nkonjeni Hospital, and Rietvlei Hospital.

An expressed objective of community service was to ensure improved delivery of health care to all citizens of South Africa, and to address the inequity and maldistribution of human resources for health. This opportunity is lost if placements are repeatedly made in a manner that exclude rural and underserved areas.

In addition to the seven hospitals excluded, there are also rural hospitals that have been allocated only one or two CSMOs despite their major staffing problems. Many of these rural hospitals have had vacant posts frozen, and are unable to fill posts for 2010 because of financial constraints. They will therefore remain chronically understaffed with little relief from community service, and the rural-urban inequity will be perpetuated by the 2010 CSMO placements.

The placement of more CSMOs would have assisted these rural hospitals greatly in reversing falling standards of care and initiating more patients on ARV Treatment in order to meet the HIV&AIDS and STI Strategic Plan (NSP) guidelines of 80% treatment coverage among all those in need. Of particular concern will be the rural hospitals’ ability to respond to President Zuma’s call on World AIDS Day (WAD) to “work hard to ensure that systems are in place by the 31st of March.” As the president announced in his WAD speech in Pretoria on the 1st of December 2009, “any citizen should be able to move into any health centre and ask for counselling, testing and even treatment if needed.” Even in the case of nurse-initiated treatment, doctors still need to be available for support, complex cases and regular patient evaluations.

The figures on the KZN DoH website reveal that of the total of 205 candidates listed, 79 (40%) have been allocated to regional (urban) hospitals. A further 50 CSMOs (25%) have been allocated to urban district and regional hospitals which already receive interns for two years (Interns cannot be placed in rural hospitals as they need to be supervised by specialists). The balance of 66 (32%) CSMOs are spread across the remaining 35 rural district hospitals in the province.

2. International

2.1 SA delegations departs for Gaza march

Dr. Firoz Osman, Secretary-General, Media Review Network, 11 December 2009

A delegation of South Africans from different faith groups, trade unionists, professionals, activists and ordinary citizens will depart for Gaza, Palestine, via Egypt on December 27^th.

They will join other international groups in Cairo, from where they will cross the Rafah border into Gaza in show solidarity with an isolated people under siege for years.

December 27^th marks the day that the racist Zionist entity Israel invaded the Gaza Strip, a tiny 360 square kilometre, densely populated area of 1, 5 million people squashed within sealed borders.

The majority of the Gaza population are refugees who fled the Zionist military massacres in Al Magdal (Ashkelon) and Nagd (Sderot). These Palestinian towns were flattened and its entire population ethnically cleansed.

The Palestinians today are totally blockaded with no access to food, electricity, water, medicines, building materials or other means of livelihood. As a result, 60% of the children are malnourished (they comprise of 50% of the population), unemployment is 80%, and hospitals, clinics and schools are non-functional, under staffed & under equipped

The unprotected Palestinian men, women and children, endured 22 days of massive, indiscriminate aerial bombings, including white phosphorus, illegal in international law. Over 1400 innocent Palestinians were killed, thousands of homes destroyed and Israel today is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The world witnessed the inhumane atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinians, and they still suffer under the suffocating siege in the full glare of a helpless international community to provide humanitarian aid.

The Gaza Freedom march is an endeavour to highlight the plight of the long-suffering Palestinians, to express our solidarity, to strengthen their resolve to continue their resistance against oppression and injustice, and to appeal to the world to lift the horrendous siege.

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