Remembering Marikana, 7 years on
Today mark 7th Anniversary of the Marikana Massacre that saw 34 workers killed in the country deadliest post-apartheid wage strike. The mineworkers and their families have yet to see real justice. Only eight police officers, including Major General William Mpembe, in his capacity as former North West deputy police commissioner, have been charged for crimes related to the massacre. The eight have been charged for the deaths of three striking mineworkers and two police officers who were killed on 13 August 2012 and for failing to disclose a death in police custody and for lying to the Farlam Commission.
Thirty-four mineworkers were shot and killed on 16 August 2012. The police oversight body, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), determined that all of these deaths were caused by police actions. Despite being in possession of dockets since 2017, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has, as yet, failed to prosecute anyone for the deaths on 16 August 2012.
Today the COSATU bureaucracy can no longer speak on behalf of the workers. Each time their role as agent of the bourgeoisie becomes clearer. They have sold out the workers of Marikana. It is the working class conquering its own democracy which must sweep away the servile leaders, accomplices and executors of the capitalist slave schemes. Only then will the workers be able to conquer the long-awaited and longed-for unity of their ranks and Justice.
Down with the collaborationist bureaucracy! Out the Ministry of Labor, the state, the employers and their politicians of our organizations! Out the statutes and organic bodies of the bureaucracy and their state-ized unions! That the delegates go to collect the union quota around the workplaces in the factories and establishments! For recallable leaders and delegates elected in the grassroots assembly, which would be dispensed of when the assembly so decides or believes it necessary! Let the leaders, once their term is over, return to work!
Today we must put end to the government of Ramaphosa and the parliament where evil plots are combined at the backs of and against the poor people and all laws are voted against the workers, all of which are previously concocted in the embassies of the dominant powers between the CEOS of the AngloAmerican and other imperialist gangs, and the local bourgeoisie.
We must conquer a program of revolutionary action to unify the ranks of the workers and prepare a superior fight against Ramaphosa, the ANC, the imperialist pirates and the infamous regime of the capitalists!
Against the power of those at the top, the power of the exploited must be upheld. The demands that unify us are those that were raised in each of the mobilizations that shook South Africa on the 16th August 2012. The time has come to unite them in a single list of demands and to organize and prepare a struggle superior to that which we have already starred in. It is about strengthening all those enormous energies deployed by the exploited in all these years of battles against the bourgeoisie and the state of the oppressors and showing them a path to victory.
For a 12,500 Rand minimum living wage, mobile according to inflation index! Jobs for all the unemployed! Enough of temporary hired workers! Equal pay for equal work! All workers must be registered and belong in permanent staff, and receive a wage under collective agreement! Opening accounting books of all companies! For the workers’ control of the mining industry, with a workers' directory in each state companies, mining companies, and all the key branches of the economy!
To conquer bread, jobs, wages; land, housing; cheap credit for the ruined middle classes: Out with imperialism! Out with the IMF!
Expropriation without compensation and under workers' control of the transnationals, the Anglo-American, the mines, the land and the banks!
For a single state bank under workers' control; for a foreign trade monopoly! There is the money for granting cheap credits to the small merchants and ruined peasants! There is the money for public, free and high quality education and health! There's the money to develop people’s housing and a public works plan! Full debt forgiveness for the poor people!
Only the working class expropriating both imperialism and the new black bourgeoisie can guarantee an emergency worker's plan and thus remove suffering from the masses.
To do so, the working class must arm themselves, set up the Workers 'and People's Councils, the committees of ordinary soldiers, the workers' and popular militias, to expropriate the bourgeoisie and destroy its power.
Down with Ramaphosa and the Reconciliation regime!
Down with the labor reform! Salary of 12,500 Rand as demanded by Marikana miners! Reduction of the working day! Decent work for all! Free water for all the poor people!
Expropriation without compensation and under workers control of all the properties and lands of the transnationals and the imperialist bankers and their partners of the local bourgeoisie!
The true struggle for the socialist revolution is in the embryo bodies of dual power of the masses, which are emerging in Southern Africa. The struggle for proletarian internationalism of the South African workers is side by side with the revolutionary masses who are fighting today in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Sudan; those who are resisting in Syria and in Palestine; those who are fighting in the imperialist countries like the Black Vests of France.
#NeverAgain #RememberMarikana #JusticeForMarikana
For a Worker's and Socialist Black Republic in Marikana South Africa
Workers International League (WIL) - Zimbabwe |
