COSATU Media Monitor, Friday 11 December 2009

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – JSE-listed diversified mining company African Rainbow Minerals (Arm) on Thursday announced that it would distribute another R8,9-million in cash to the community for upliftment projects, taking its total in the last three years to R41-million.

Arm said that R7,6-million had been distributed to its broad-based black economic-empowerment trust in 2007 and R24,5-million in 2008.

The three-year-old trust, the company said, had been established as part of its commitment to ensure that "as many of our people as possible participate and benefit from the mining industry".

The company was going ahead with the distribution, "despite the global recession and the challenges facing the mining industry".

The beneficiaries, Arm said, included: five provincial rural upliftment bodies, a women's upliftment trust, a Zionist church trust, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu).

Sadtu and Nehawu unions represented 400 000 workers and other beneficiaries included: entrepreneurs, community leaders, women and youth and owners of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The cash distribution would be used to build schools, ablution facilities, crèches, clinics, hospitals and other community upliftment projects.

2. South Africa

2.1 Malema booed by SACP

By Sibisiso Ngalwa and Xolani Mbanjwa, IOL, 11 December 2009

A furious Julius Malema walked out of the SACP's special congress in Polokwane yesterday - where he was booed by delegates - claiming that the communists were "anti-ANC" and vowing to tell President Jacob Zuma to call them to order.

The drama started when SACP treasurer Phumulo Masualle introduced an eight-member delegation from the ANC's national executive committee to the 1 000 delegates.

Boos greeted the introduction of Billy Masetlha - who has spoken out about disquiet within the ANC of the Cosatu and SACP's bid to promote a socialist agenda - and continued when Malema, who has accused the SACP of wanting to take over the ANC, was introduced.

'We are not here to serve any strong lobby group'

Seated among delegates on the floor, Malema raised his hand to indicate he wanted to speak, but this was not allowed.

Later, after SACP chairman Gwede Mantashe and party boss Blade Nzimande had delivered their reports and delegates were making their way out of the hall for lunch, there was a confrontation between Malema and Mantashe.

Malema went on to the stage and into a huddle with Mantashe. He called Masetlha to join him on the stage. Another ANC NEC member, Tony Yengeni, followed.

A heated argument, with much shaking of heads and pointing of fingers, ensued.

"We were insulted in front of the country. We don't want to run away. I registered an objection but I was refused," Malema was overheard to tell Mantashe.

Malema demanded to be allowed to address delegates, with the media present, to address the hostile reception he had received.

Mantashe insisted he could raise the matter during the next session - which was closed to the media - like any other ordinary delegate.

"I have addressed other conferences, why is the tendency changing when we are here?" Malema asked Mantashe, who responded by saying: "I am not here for the ANC. This is an SACP congress and you can address it later."

Malema did not want to back down, pointing out that the media and international delegates would not be present in the closed session, but Mantashe would not be moved.

Soon after the closed session got under way, Malema walked out, saying he couldn't continue to be there because of the "hostility" towards him.

He accused delegates of being "anti-ANC" and said he would tell Zuma to "address the issue".

He also accused Mantashe and Nzimande of failing to provide leadership.

This latest indication of tension within the alliance was preceded by critical inputs by Nzimande and Mantashe - including references to the firebrand youth league leader - earlier yesterday.

Both leaders attacked Malema for his "buffoonery" and his "political immaturity".

In his political report, Nzimande pulled no punches in attacking an "anti-SACP" tendency within the ANC.

He also accused the ANC Youth League of "opportunistically" using the Freedom Charter to justify its controversial positions.

"The new tendency is opportunistically using historical documents and positions of our movement to try and assert its new positions. For example, an opportunistic use of the clauses of nationalisation in the Freedom Charter and the vulgarisation of the characterisation of our revolution as that seeking to liberate blacks in general and Africans in particular," said Nzimande.

Mantashe, who has been accused by ANC hardliners of being "soft" on the communists, was equally frank and critical of the ruling party, and told delegates they should not submit to being regarded as "second-class" members of the ANC.

Mantashe said: "We must deal with all those who want to relegate us to second-class members. We are not serving in the ANC at the mercy of some members.

"We are not here to serve any strong lobby group.

"Those who claim that we want to take over the ANC want to project us as being entryists."

Nzimande accused youth leaders of playing to the gallery - projecting themselves as fighting for the marginalised poor.

"It is the nature of the still rudimentary class axis at play here, that should send out early danger signals.

"None of this means that we should simply abandon those involved in this tentative class-axis...

"Likewise, the great majority of young militants who have flirted with this style of long nights of long knives in bottom-baring conferences, with symbolic coffins for rivals, are not beyond constructive engagement," said Nzimande.

It was at the chaotic ANC youth league national congress - which elected Malema - in Mangaung last year that warring factions exposed their backsides and carried mock-coffins to taunt their rivals.

2.2 Malema storms out after bitter clash with SACP

Karima Brown, Business Day, 11 December 2009

ATTEMPTS by the enfant terrible of South African politics, Julius Malema, to grandstand at the South African Communist Party (SACP) conference in Polokwane backfired yesterday.

He stormed out, furious that he could not address delegates from the podium.

Malema, the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League president, was booed on arrival.

The fallout is another test for President Jacob Zuma , due to speak at the conference tomorrow, and may force him to rebuke Malema or take the SACP to task for unbecoming behaviour towards a leader of an allied organisation.

Malema, a guest at the conference, berated SACP chairman Gwede Mantashe, who is also secretary-general of the ANC, for not coming to his aid. He arrived at the gathering accompanied by ANC national executive committee members Billy Masetlha and Tony Yengeni.

Masetlha recently led the charge against the left in the ANC, and warned of a communist takeover.

“We have been abused here,” Malema told Mantashe in front of journalists.

“ We were insulted in front of the cameras.”

He told journalists he was “humiliated” and felt insulted by the SACP, which he said characteri sed him as part of a “capitalist agenda”. An upset Malema said he would raise the matter with Zuma, complaining that the conduct of SACP delegates was “hostile” and “anti-ANC”.

He also issued a veiled threat to SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande, saying that the youth league’s constituents, many of whom are in tertiary institutions, could “howl twice as loud” if needed. Nzimande is higher education and training minister.

Malema’s outburst followed a blistering attack on the youth league by Nzimande, when he delivered his political report.

Nzimande warned of anticommunist efforts by small factions within the ANC and the emergence of a new “class axis between sections of business and marginalised, alienated and unemployed black youth”.

“The material glue of this axis is the politics of patronage, of messiahs, and its tentative ideological form is a demagogic African chauvinism.”

Nzimande’s political report warned that this tendency was often clothed in militant rhetoric and portrayed as radical when in fact it was “right-wing”.

He said there were worrying characteristics that needed to be nipped in the bud. These included the “demagogic appeal to ordinary people’s baser instincts” of male chauvinism, paramilitary solutions to social problems and racialised identity politics.

“While it is easy to dismiss this buffoonery of some of the leading lieutenants, we should not underestimate the resources made available to them, ” Nzimande said in reference to an anticommunist tendency the SACP had identified in the ANC after its Polokwane conference in 2007.

Malema’s dressing down comes amid a furious war of words between him and SACP leaders, including its deputy secretary, Jeremy Cronin, over the vexed question of nationalisation. Cronin said last night he hoped that “Malema had learnt his lesson”, and would use the incident to reflect on how he engaged with serious issues.

2.3 Nzimande opens fire on ANC Youth League

By NKULULEKO NCANA, Times Live, 11 December 2009

SA Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande poured scorn on the ANC Youth League and accused its leaders of being opportunistic in their call for the nationalisation of the mines.

In what has been taken to be a frontal assault on the league's president, Julius Malema, Nzimande warned in his report to the SACP special congress in Polokwane, Limpopo, against "a faction of parasites" who use their political power and connections for private gain.

In his report, Nzimande said the call to nationalise the mines by the youth league was as a result of "desperate conditions of [black economic empowerment]" caused by the economic recession.

"The new tendency is opportunistically using the historical documents and position of our movement to try and assert its new positions; [for example], an opportunistic use of the clauses on nationalisation in the Freedom Charter, and the vulgarisation of the characterisation of our revolution as seeking to liberate blacks in general and Africans in particular," his report said.

"What, in fact, appears as an articulation of the progressive clauses of the Freedom Charter is immediately betrayed by the naked class interests of trying to use the state to bail out dependent BEE capital."

Nzimande warned that "this new tendency" had it roots in "Kebble-ism" - a term Nzimande used to describe rogue business people handing out money to corrupt elements in the ANC in return for political favours.

"Some of this largesse helped elements within our movement to emerge as capitalists in their own right. They, in turn, imitated the behaviour of their patrons, using the largesse and favours to build up a network of cheerleaders and political supporters to safeguard their positions within the movement," Nzimande said.

On a day of high drama, when Malema publicly slated what he said was ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe's lack of leadership, after Mantashe failed to denounce delegates for heckling him, Nzimande turned up the heat.

"The great majority of young militants who have flirted with this style of long nights of long knives in bottom-baring conferences, with symbolic coffins for rivals, are not beyond constructive engagement," he said.

This was in reference to the ANC Youth League's violent national conference last year at which Malema was elected league president. The conference was abandoned but reconvened several months later.

The tirade continued.

"Together, led by the ANC and its broad movement, let us ensure that the noble task of black emancipation is not captured by a faction of parasites who use and abuse their political connections for their own private accumulation.

"Let us defeat javelin throwers and 'tenderpreneurs'. Let us defeat fronters, go-betweens, compradors who parade their blackness only in order to advance their own private interests by doing the bidding of their masters - well-entrenched monopoly," Nzimande said in his report.

Malema rebuked Nzimande for calling him a "tenderpreneur".

2.4 Patriotic duty is all that unifies workers

By Terry Bell, Business Report, 11 December 2009

As we head towards the end of the year with the economic crisis continuing to bite and with various political currents swirling about in a frantic search for some way out of what looks increasingly like a vortex, confusion abounds. Although the day-to-day battles on bread and butter issues continue, the labour movement is not immune.

Considerable ferment exists within a number of unions; many commentators, as well as many union members, also seem perplexed by recent developments.

This is small wonder, given the apparently strange alliances being forged, the seeming abandonment of long-held trade union principles and the casual use and misuse of political labels.

Eyebrows certainly rose when Patrice Motsepe, purportedly one of the country's richest capitalists, came out this week in apparent support of the call by ANC Youth League president Julius Malema for the nationalisation of the mines. Motsepe, a mining magnate and major funder of the recent Cosatu congress, reportedly said he would support "nationalisation or socialism, whatever was for the good of the country".

It was a statement that gladdened the hearts of that faction within the ANC that has long argued that emerging "black capital" should be regarded as the "patriotic bourgeoisie". This is in line with the doctrine followed by Mao Zedong in China, where an alliance was forged between the largely peasant-based Communist Party and "comrade capitalists".

It also accords with the concept advanced by the SACP of creating socialism in one country, a concept developed by the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and which is the antithesis of the internationalism preached by the two most quoted icons of the SACP, Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

To further complicate matters, Malema has stated that he is a "Marxist-Leninist", a label more usually claimed - and never accurately defined - by the likes of Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and other SACP members, including trade unionists.

But Vavi this week emerged alongside the liberal face of South African capital, Bobby Godsell, the former Eskom chairman, to advance a job-saving plan, including short-time working and wage freezes.

Since the labour movement - and the SACP - has traditionally stated that economic crises, such as the one we are now facing, are the responsibility of capital and workers should not be made to pay for them, this seems, at first sight, as something of a turnaround.

But it is not, as even a cursory glance at the 36-year history of the modern South African labour movement shows.

This was also illustrated in the joint Millennium Labour Council (MLC) statement by Vavi and Godsell: "Modern South African labour relations were born during the most bitter period of the political struggle to end apartheid. Business and labour were able, during this difficult period, to find ways of defending their interests and exercising their power that were consistent with political change."

Their statement continued: "There is no reason renewed leadership cannot be expected from these same actors".

It was a clear illustration that capital and organised labour are two sides of the same capitalist coin and has again opened up a debate that raged throughout the early years of the labour movement as "workerists" and "charterists", who included the SACP, argued their positions.

Most workerists opposed the formation of a full-time union bureaucracy with wages and perks unrelated to those of union members. They argued that when unions produced a layer of bureaucrats - professional intermediaries between bosses and workers - this leadership layer owed their continued existence to the survival of capitalism.

It followed then, that at times of severe crisis, with mounting unemployment and the stability of the social and economic order threatened, the bureaucracy would show its true colours: it would act to retain the capitalist system rather than encourage its radical transformation.

Talk then was of worker control; the current debates are now starting to use Argentina as an example. There, when the initial crisis struck in 2001, factories threatened with closure or mass lay-offs were seized by the employees, who continued to operate them as worker co-operatives.

This has continued to happen and there are now about 200 enterprises in Argentina that operate "without bosses". The most famous of these is the former Zenon ceramics plant, first seized in December 2001 and in which 470 workers now earn their livings.

The plant operates under the name Fasinpat, a Spanish acronym for "Factory Without Bosses". This year, the takeover by the worker co-operative was legally recognised although the government seems wary of extending the precedent to other enterprises taken over by workers.

"There is no appetite for that here at the moment," says Manene Samela, the general secretary of the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu). But he also points out that the MLC statement contained only suggested alternatives to retrenchments; labour would demand the fullest quid pro quo from the bosses.

The position of the three federations represented by the MLC is that workers should not have to forgo pay and pay rises without "real commitments" from employers, including cuts or a freeze on dividends and bonuses and the freezing of managerial posts.

Yesterday there were suggestions from Nactu and Federation of Unions of SA affiliates that "obscene levels" of pay to many company directors should be the first step in any "no retrenchments" plan.

Only Khulile Nkushubana, the general secretary of the Confederation of SA Workers' Unions, which is not represented at the MLC, dismissed the proposals out of hand. He said: "We should support worker co-operatives rather than short-time working and wage freezes."

But all are united in the call to patriotic duty, something that would have both Marx and Lenin spinning in their tombs.

2.5 Mantashe: ANC at the centre

News24, 10 December 2009

Johannesburg - The ANC must remain the political centre of the ruling alliance, party secretary-general and South African Communist Party chairperson Gwede Mantashe said on Thursday.

"Any notion of liquidating the components of the alliance into a single structure will change the concept of an alliance and replace it with an organisation," Mantashe said in an address for delivery at the SACP national congress in Polokwane.

Mantashe said at the party's last alliance summit - between the ANC, SACP, the Congress of SA Trade Unions and the South African National Civic Organisation - a draft programme to "operationalise" the alliance as the political centre was returned for re-working.

At an alliance summit last year, it was agreed that the alliance was the political centre, which was translated in various ways by the structures of the organisations.

"In the majority of cases it was interpreted as meaning that the decision-making power of the ANC is transferred to the alliance as the political centre," Mantashe said.

'Top secret document'

The Sunday newspaper City Press reported that the "top secret lobbying document" put forward by Cosatu leaders suggested that policies and deployment should be determined by the alliance and not the ANC alone.

According to the article, the ANC had rejected the document "Draft alliance programme of action for fundamental transformation of society".

The document reportedly stated that: "A qualitative shift in our politics and practice will entail a functioning alliance that determines strategy and deployment jointly."

The document called for the creation of a structure to "manage the day-to-day affairs of the alliance", and which was likely to parallel the ANC's national working committee.

'Tactical mistake'

Mantashe on Thursday said the draft programme took the issue of the political centre "another step forward".

"This is a tactical mistake that must be thought through carefully if we are not going to push the alliance to the brink," he said.

"An alliance is an association formed for mutual benefit among allies."

The alliance was based on principles including that of "independent partners" with the right to debate matters and take decisions. Its partners had to seek to influence each other and influence other partners and the "historic leadership role of the ANC must be reaffirmed ".

Therefore, the resolutions taken at the SACP congress were not going to be subjected to an alliance review process, rather it would be used to influence the other partners.

"The alliance cannot operate like a structure, hence decisions are taken by consensus," said Mantashe.

"Communists are expected to be leading the efforts of keeping the alliance united and not be seen as reckless in dealing with the ANC in particular."

He condemned "hurling insults and seeking to attack comrades in person" as a sign of "political immaturity" which did not have a place in the SACP.

'Racists becoming more confident'

He urged SACP members not to play into the hands of those who claimed that "there is a threat of a communist take-over" of the ANC by proclaiming our own" at ruling party conferences.

The issue of SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande being deployed to Parliament was raised by Mantashe. He said the challenge centred not on Nzimande's deployment, but on strengthening the leadership of the communist party.

He said the party should "confront the reality" that racists were becoming more confident in South Africa.

"Organisations like AfriForum are becoming bolder in fighting for the racist cause," he charged, adding that there was a real risk of some reacting in the "extreme" to this.

"Both affirmative action and the BEE [Black Economic Empowerment] are under siege and progressive forces are not as forthcoming as they should. This is one area that needs our urgent attention as the movement."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2.6 Stand up to ANC, Mantashe tells SACP

Sibusiso Ngalwa and Xolani Mbanjwa, IOL, 10 December 2009

SA Communist Party chairman Gwede Mantashe has taken the fight to the ANC, of which he is the secretary general, telling his communist colleagues not to allow themselves to be relegated to second-class members in the ruling party.

Speaking at the opening of the SACP's special congress in Polokwane, Limpopo, on Thursday morning, he said: "We are not serving in the ANC at the mercy of some members. We are not here to serve any strong lobby group. We must make the difference."

He told communists not to become "pseudo communists" who sit on the periphery of debate in the alliance, and criticised ANC Youth League president Julius Malema as "politically immature" for insulting Jeremy Cronin, the SACP deputy general secretary.

"When people call Jeremy a white messiah... We must... elevate the debate, that is our duty," he said.

2.7 The SACP is not pursuing an entryist agenda – Mantashe

Politicsweb, Gwede Mantashe SACP Chairperson Opening Address, 10 December 2009,

Two and a half years ago Communists and the Alliance partner representatives gathered in the Nelson Mandela Metropalitan University to do a detailed analysis of the political situation in our country and chart the way forward for the party. At the time there were few challenges that we had to deal with: -

Within the party structures there was a visible body that argued for the SACP standing for elections independently of the ANC.
Alliance relations could be described in simple terms that there was general hostility and a strong drive to break the alliance.
As a result Communists and COSATU were pushed to the periphery and their voice almost muzzled.

We then resolved to build a campaigning party. The Medium Term Vision was based on the understanding that communists must be in all centres of power. At the time it was understood that communist set themselves an objective of contesting ideologically wherever they found themselves. This was a serious task of ensuring that communist earn their place everywhere they are deployed.

Our understanding of revolutionary discipline is that Communist must be modest and prudent. They must distinguish themselves as hard working and continuing to struggle. When contestation emerges pettiness must be left to non-communists who will manufacture some of facts that they use to discredit communists. We must always appreciate that such acts are ideological and are intended to protect class interests of those who own property and wealth, the bourgeois class.

The source of tension is our publicly stated intension, as stated in the appeal in the inaugural congress of the Communist Party in 1921; the call "to all South African workers, organised and unorganised, white and black, to join in promoting the overthrow of the capitalist system, the outlawry of the capitalist class, and the establishment of a commonwealth of workers throughout the world." At the time the party pledged to be "the revolutionary vanguard of the labour army of South Africa and fight for the end of futile reformism" (African Communist fourth quarter, 1981 ).

These words ring clear in the ears of those who have the sole ambition of personal accumulation and wealth. Those who are driven by greed and are prepared to access wealth in whatever way, will even see corrupt practices as justifiable ways of enhancing BEE. We must fight corruption in whatever form it manifest itself, appreciate that it has no colour and deal with determination to fight back by those whose interests are threatened by our campaigns. Our theoretical framework has moved on, accepting that the liberation of black majority is critical for the space to build socialism. Our commitment to the National Democratic Revolution remains unwavering, as the shortest route to socialism.

The Communist Party has accepted the leadership of the ANC during the National Democratic Revolution phase of our revolution. We moved away from seeing the ANC as just a bourgeois congress. Communists contributed in shaping the ANC into a revolutionary liberation movement that abandoned its loyalty to the British crown and became anti-imperialist. All the members of the Party are expected to be active members of the ANC. In the ANC structures we must resist all attempts to relegate us into second class members who serve at the mercy of other members.

We must not be apologetic for being communists because we are put under pressure that we get elected to positions in the ANC to serve strong lobbies. There is an expectation that we will be the hardest working cadres of our movement in line with the reputation earned by our predecessors. This will distinguish us as not being entryist in our approach, where we wait in the wings and seize the opportunity to take over the ANC.

Those who claim that there is a threat of a communist takeover in the ANC want to project us as being engaged in entryism. We must never play into their hands by proclaiming our own communist candidates in ANC elective conferences. Communist in the ANC are not communist members of the ANC, they are members of the ANC. When we campaign for them we must do so because they deserve to be elected through their hard work.

Since our last National congress the Alliance relations have improved with the engagement among the partners having been stepped up. There is no hostility despite the attempts to project any disagreement on any issue as division within the alliance. In the May 2008 alliance summit there was agreement that the alliance is the political centre. This has been translated in many ways by our structures. In the majority of cases it was interpreted as meaning that decision making power of the ANC is transferred to the alliance as the political centre.

In the last alliance summit the draft programme that was sent back for redrafting took this thinking another step forward by wanting to operationalise this alliance political centre. This is a tactical mistake that must be thought through carefully if we are not going to push the alliance to the brink. Any notion of liquidating the components of the alliance into a single structure will change the concept of an alliance and replace it with an organisation. An alliance is an association formed for mutual benefit among allies. In our case it is based on the following principles: -

It is an alliance of independent partners who have the right to debate issues and take decisions.
The alliance partners must seek to influence each other and influenced by the other partners.
The historic leadership role of the ANC must be reaffirmed.

In our case resolutions of this congress are not going to be subjected to an alliance review process. We will use them in influencing the other alliance partners. The alliance cannot operate like a structure, hence decisions are taken by consensus. Communist are expected to be leading the efforts of keeping the alliance united and not be seen as reckless in dealing with the ANC in particular. Hurling insults and seeking to attack comrades in person is a sign of political immaturity which is not expected to have space in the SACP.

The much talked about issue in the run-up to this congress has been the deployment of the General Secretary to parliament and ultimately to the cabinet. My views on the question of amending the constitution are known that my preference would have been the adoption of a congress resolution and defer the constitutional amendments to the 13th national congress. That view was defeated in the Central Committee and I can therefore not pursue it. But the challenge facing the party is not a Blade deployment issue. It is the party being a victim of its own success in implementing the Medium Term Vision of deploying her cadres to all centres of power.

We are sitting with a situation where all the National Office Bearers are not full time in the party. The challenge therefore is how to ensure that the party improves its fulltime capacity to do party work. This cannot be a function of the party being absent in government where the highest concentration of political power is. We must consider restructuring the secretariat by creating full time positions of the Organising and Administration secretaries. This will create the constitutional structure called the secretariat.

We must still apply our minds to the reality that the National Office Bearers never meet. To explain it away through difficulties to get them together is not sufficient. These meetings must be scheduled and be reported upon if comrades do not make time for them. It will make a big difference even we meet once a month. We need the party today more than ever before. Class contradictions within our movement are going to be more intensive as we move ahead. We must strengthen our leadership structures and make the party more effective.

We must confront the reality of racists becoming more confident in society. Organisations like Afri-forum are becoming bolder in fighting for the racist cause. The risk of some of our comrades becoming more extreme in their reaction is real. Both affirmative action and the BEE are under siege and progressive forces are not as forthcoming as they should. This is one area that needs our urgent attention as the movement.

We wish all the delegates successful deliberations that will make this Mid-Term Congress a resounding success.

This mid term congress of the SACP is declared officially opened.

2.8 National Health Insurance under threat: SACP

Business Report, 10 December 2009

The proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) was under threat, the SA Communist Party said on Thursday in its political report presented to its Second Special National Congress.

"Powerful capitalist interests in the private health sector, in alliance with some in our own broader movement who have business interests in the sector are already involved in intense behind the scenes lobbying for either a total abandonment of the idea of an NHI or to try and build a watered down version of the NHI...," the report read.

Public private partnerships must be subjected to the "discipline of our development agenda" rather than being subjected to the logic of the capitalist market, the party said.

"A new area that the SACP will have to focus upon is how the defeated agenda of privatisation of the late 1990s continues to seek to resurrect itself through new ways of subjecting the state to the interests of an unfettered free market and its narrow BEE [Black Economic Empowerment] tentacles.

"One such form is that of the increasing use of Public Private Partnerships to imprison the state within the logic of private capital."

The SACP said private interests in the health sector were "seriously exploring" ways of capturing the NHI scheme through these partnerships.

This was being done through "seeking to entice government’s planned investment into the public health system through the rebuilding of hospitals and clinics via such private arrangements".

These partnerships would see public hospitals built with private sector money "where the state is locked into being a tenant for decades, paying for the use of such buildings".

These agreements could also extend to the private supply of drugs, the provision of private health personnel "under the guise of private sector support to the NHI".

"It is indeed possible that elements of the capitalist class are also considering similar arrangements in the building of schools, rural development infrastructure, and other planned government investment into infrastructure.

"It is for instance of no surprise that the DA [Democratic Alliance] has reacted negatively against the withdrawal of labour broking by the ministry of police, as labour broking in itself constitutes an important method of holding the state hostage in its transformation agenda," the report read.

A key challenge for the alliance in the post-Polokwane period was maintaining the independence of each alliance partner -- the African National Congress, the SA Communist Party, the Congress of SA Trade Unions and the SA National Civics Organisation.

This had to be achieved while working toward "an inclusive transformative project whose primary objective is to address the needs of the majority of the people of our country, the workers and the poor".

Another challenge for the party was building a developmental state.

"... not in an oppositionist manner, but as part of the overall thrust of the goals of the ANC-led alliance."

The communist party welcomed the establishment of the national planning commission but urged its delegates to elaborate at the congress on how this body should function.

The report also welcomed Alliance Summit commitments to review macro-economic policy including a review of the mandate of the SA Reserve Bank.

"This marks a significant and positive departure from the neo-liberal economic perspectives that had dominated our economic policy since 1996." – Sapa

2.9 What ever happened to true Communism, Socialism

by Mahlolisa Utloa, City Press, 9 December 2009

ONE had expected that calls by certain individuals in the tripartite alliance for the nationalisation of mines and wealth of mining moguls Patrice Motsepe and Tokyo Sexwale would have at the least garnered support from the SA Communist Party that purports to be the home of proponents of Marxism-Leninism.

To the contrary, the nationalisation issue came from the unexpected sources and received the backing of equally unanticipated but probable forces of the ANC Youth League, labour federation Cosatu and the National Union of Metalworkers SA (Numsa).

Nowhere in the above organizations’ constitutions will one find communism and capitalism, nationalisation and privatisation, but strangely the noise and support come from their members and not where it was expected from, the SACP, which is guided by the principles of Marxism-Leninism.

For Gwede Mantashe, chairperson of the SACP, to stand up and shout at the top of his voice saying people who are calling for nationalisation and socialisation of the wealth of the mining magnates smack of blatant opportunism and betrayal of the highest order, is uncalled for, rude and confusing considering his standing in the red movement.

Mantashe, a deployee of the SACP in government should have at least hailed and supported his comrades in the Youth League, Cosatu and Numsa.

In addition, it was bizarre for Jeremy Cronin, the SACP deputy secretary-general, to launch a veiled but clear attack on the Youth League president, Julius Malema, when the latter made the call for nationalisation.

It was even worse when the man who is supposed to be leading from the front, the SACP secretary-general Blade Nzimande, especially in light of these calls being made at the height of Red October, remain deafeningly silent.

(Karl) Marx, (Friedrich) Engel and (Vladimir) Lenin must all be turning in disgust from their graves.

One can be excused for saying that in South Africa we no longer have Communists but commies with a small “c”, as Cope’s spokesperson Phillip Dexter recently confessed.

In addition, one deserves to be pardoned for postulating that the present-day commies are only obsessed with “bling”, which can only be accessed through the use of the ANC as a conduit, as Cronin once said when his fellow comrades wanted their beloved party to contest election on its own.

Since being strategically deployed to advance the aims of the Communists in government, Nzimande in particular appears to have lost the Communist compass. He failed to take advantage of the workers’ “spontaneous upsurge”, to steal from Lenin, that happened recently during the strike season, and rally the proletariat against the evil system of capitalism.

Instead, he was preoccupied with things that got a lot to do with capitalism than Communism and socialism.

The SACP, because of political expediency of its pseudo-communist and self-centred leaders is fast being transformed into an (un)democratic party of social reform.

One needs to look no further than its begging of banks, themselves cornerstones of capitalism, to be considerate when dispensing loans to the poor.

In light of this, it is important for genuine Communists still in the party to robustly debate “What is to be done? Burning questions of our movement”, as Lenin once wrote.

In the absence of genuine Communists organisations, the ANC Youth League and Cosatu will continue to occupy centre-stage, which isn’t any of their business.