April, 29th 2015

With the excuses of xenophobia, the bourgeoisie seek to divide and attack us

Enough! A single class a single fight!
For a self defense committee in all the unions to defend ourselves from the fascist bands!

The Workers International League-WIL and the Fighting Committee of Marikana denounce that with the excuse of "xenophobia" vigilante gangs armed by rich black bosses, paid and sent directly by the imperialist transnational, attacked the poorest working-class neighborhoods in South Africa as in Alexandria in Johannesburg and Durban city. They took the lives of nearly a dozen migrant workers in recent days. Thousands of refugees have already moved to camps where they are crammed awaiting deportation as outcasts. They want to terrorize, chase and discipline the most exploited sectors of black Africa under the lash of Anglo American and other transnational so the workers do not dare to stand up and fight against what they suffered daily while the imperialist companies looted millions at the expense of the exploited bones.

We denounce xenophobia is a counterrevolutionary response to the struggles and strikes of the working class in Marikana, Zimbabwe and throughout South Africa.
In the miners' strike of Marikana in 2012 and 2014 it was clear that the imperialist transnational bring slave workers from all the countries of southern Africa, such as Namibia, Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Somalia, and even South Africa. In this huge fight all slaves came together to confront their enemies: the Anglo American, the native bourgeoisie lackey of imperialism and the Stalinist bureaucracy of COSATU – the strike breakers supporters to any anti-worker governments in the continent. They knew how to set up their own bodies, the rank and file assemblies, the strike pickets and self-defense bodies as an example of how to fight.
In South Africa, one class stood up to fight imperialism. The colonists drew national borders. But from Central to South of Africa there is only one nation: the workers slaves brought to work for the transnational companies, the fields of white, and the houses of the capitalists. It is the Bantu nation that struggles to be freed from the imperialist oppression.

Against the unity held in the fight where the internationalist worker movement in South Africa fought against the ANC-COSATU-CP regime, the xenophobic gangs stand up, they are armed by the black rich bosses, paid and organized by the imperialist transnational companies.

With the verse of "xenophobia", the transnational companies organized their paramilitary gangs to control the working class of South Africa which is breaking in each step with the contention walls that the ANC-COSATU-PC regime imposed on the masses to continue the regime of Apartheid of Pretoria. The millions of slaves in Bantu nation know that the union bureaucracy of COSATU does not represent them and in order to get their most needed demands, the workers have to sweep away with the sellers out from within the labor movement as the workers of Marikana did, setting up self-defense committees and expelling the NUM-COSATU bureaucracy. As a response to this mass uprising in the region, the imperialist sent the Zulu bourgeoisie to organize fascist gangs against the most militant of the labor movement, so that this movement does not extend over the rest of the region and to discipline the labor movement under the lash of their masters, the imperialist transnational companies.

The bourgeoisie knows that its life is in danger, so a Marikana situation cannot be repeated because it made to shake imperialism. The mine workers set up their bodies of workers' power and put on danger the rule of imperialism in the region. This is the way to generalize across the continent in the same struggle.
We must fight as the mine workers of Marikana again, but this time throughout South Africa!

We must call to up self-defense committees of all the trade unions and workers' organizations to defend and smash the fascist gangs paid by Anglo American, its managers with the native black lackeyed governments and its police forces! Today these bands attack our brothers, immigrant workers who do the worst jobs here in South Africa as in the mines. The workers from the Bantu nation like Zimbabwe, Botswana and Lesotho, treat us as their reservoir of slave labor. We are a single class, a single power and one nation: the black nation, the Bantu nation!

Zulu King, who wields the slavers white machete, is nothing but a black boss of imperialist companies says "We ask immigrants to return from where they came". He holds campaigning that "foreigners take the jobs away from South Africans".  Enough! We must tell the truth: We must expel the real "illegal" "immigrants" who steal our jobs and wealth: the Anglo American, the mining conmpanies and imperialism! This government of starvation and seller out of ANC is the ones that guaranteed a new apartheid regime against the working class and the exploited, just under the command of the rich blacks, as this King Zulu, those true servers of the white slavers to whom were left land, control of banks and the caste of army officers Pretoria. ANC government is a government of rich black men -junior partners, managers and foremen of the imperialist transnational companies.

It is time that we, the workers of Marikana, make a call to unify the struggle with the workers who are being brutally attacked because we are a single class facing the same enemy: the Anglo American.

It is time that the working class throughout South Africa imposes a workers' solution to the catastrophe that the exploiters and plunderers made.
For a congress of all unions across South Africa, with delegates voted in basgrassroote assemblies. From Congo to Cape Town with thousands of unemployed committees to coordinate and centralize the fight. Without the unity in the struggle of the employed and unemployed workers, it is impossible to conquer salaries and decent work. The unemployed, the industrial reserve army, the vast majority of the exploited which is not part of the unions, is vital for the capitalists and transnational companies need them disciplined to use them to pressure and lower salaries. It is necessary to organize unemployed committees in all unions around the south of Africa to fight now!
From AMCU –the mine union that have conquered in our struggle- we call the metallurgical workers, farm workers, the textile workers in struggle of Zimbabwe, those who are breaking with COSATU to a big rank and file mandated Worker Congress of South Africa and throughout the region to unify the ranks of the working class.
A congress with rank and file delegates without treacherous union bureaucrats, without submitting to the political parties of the bosses or the lackey governments which are arming the paramilitary gangs in order to set up a great national fighting organization and from South Africa, to start fighting for the general strike in the region, showing who actually make the country work and creates the wealth in our countries.
This decisive battle will place in the streets the full weight of the labor movement, the main class in society, that is what the union leaders are preventing us and are more and more linking our fate to the one of the exploiters and in this way the fascist gangs are standing up. Enough! We must break with this submission imposed by our leaders! No more union bureaucrats at the service of the bourgeoisie either black or white! Enough of dividing us!

We need to unite our ranks to carry out a single struggle for all our demands:
Enough of rich black in a sea of slaves! Enough with governments of Zuma, Mugabe and other lackeys of imperialism! Enough with the transnational companies that rob us of our wealth! Out Imperialism from Africa!

For a unified fight throughout South Africa!
Against unemployment we must fight now for: Decent work for all! Sliding scale of wages and hours of work! All hands available to produce! Reduction of working hours, shift of 6 hours day for all, another shift in all the factories and workplaces!
100% salary payment to the unemployed workers until they get a new job! For a plan of public works and tax to the ones owing great fortunes, to build hospitals, schools and decent housing, so there is work for all!

The crisis is here. Let the capitalists, bankers, transnational companies and corrupt politicians pay the crisis!
To conquer bread, work, decent wages, housing, and decent health system, we must expropriate without compensation and under workers' control to the multinational companies, bankers and owners of the land, starting with the Anglo American!
We are all workers of Marikana, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi ... the Bantu Republic!
We are not the black rich who defend the pockets of white patterns, in a sea of ​​slaves in Africa!
We are not Obama, the head of the Anglo US imperialist pirates, the greatest murderers of workers and the oppressed peoples of the world!
Workers from the tormented African do not have nation, we are bound by the shackles of slavery.
We are one class, one power and one nation: the black nation, the nation Bantu!
For a Federation of Black Republics without bankers, transnational or slave patterns

Workers International League – FLTI, Zimbabwe
Fighting Committee of Marikana