South Africa End the de facto State of Emergency in Themelihle by TCC, R2K, UF, DLF

The Thembelihle Crisis Committee, the United Front (UF), the Right to Know (R2K) Campaign 
and the Democratic Left Front call on all people of good conscience in South Africa to 
endorse the call for an end to the security siege of Thembelihle. Since the 25th of 
February 2015, Thembelihle has faced a de facto State of Emergency at the hands of the 
South African Police Services (SAPS) and other security agents. This undeclared, 
unofficial State of Emergency in Thembelihle is an attack on all our constitutionally 
guaranteed rights to and freedoms to organise, associate and freely express ourselves. We 
call for urgent action to put pressure on the SAPS to end the siege. We call for the 
creation of conducive conditions for free, open and democratic political activity in which 
the people of Thembelihle may express and exercise their right to protest, and have their 
demands for a decent life of dignity met.

We call for concrete and active solidarity with the people of Thembelihle. We call on all 
to join tomorrow's Mass Solidarity Meeting (1st April 2015) to end the siege in Thembelihe 
which will held from 5pm at the "Park Station" community meeting area in Thembelihle.

For many years, the Thembelihle informal settlement (adjacent to Lenasia south-west of 
Johannesburg) has been a site of unyielding struggles for basic services of housing, 
water, sanitation and electricity. These are basic needs promised by our country's 
constitution. Yet with every struggle the ANC government has never bothered to meet the 
demands of this community. Instead, it has increasingly opted to use the police as its 
response.

Since the 25th of February, Thembelihle has seen widespread deployment of heavily armed 
SAPS members and other security agents to patrol the township. In effect, Thembelihle is 
living through an undeclared, and therefore illegal State of Emergency due to the SAPS-led 
security operation with many local leaders in hiding as a result causing incalculable harm 
and trauma to them and their families. Gatherings of more than three people are broken up 
and there is harassment of individual activists.

On 25th February 2015, 36 people were arrested with a further 36 arrested a few days 
later. Of these 17 have been charged and the others released. The 17 facing charges have 
been granted R1,000 bail each. The DLF has contributed money to bail out two. For the 
second set of people arrested, R2K Gauteng contributed bail for 4 of them. Another two 
have been bailed by their families. There are still six who need bail money. Another six 
have been denied bail and remain in custody due to their being in South Africa 'illegally'.

All these underline the fact that the Thembelihle crisis is a national emergency. The TCC, 
the UF, R2K and the DLF firmly believe that the Thembelihle siege represents one of the 
most severe cases demonstrating that the ANC government is now prepared to use repression 
and police brutality to stamp out social protest. cases of systematic and sustained police 
repression against public protest in our post-apartheid democratic South Africa. This is 
part of the ruling elite's increasing securotisation of political, social and economic 
demands of the mass of the people that it has proved incapable and unwilling to resolve. 
As stated above, the Thembelihle siege goes against everything in a democratic society 
promised by the 1996 Constitution.

The TCC, UF, R2K and DLF also call on the public to make donations to set up a Legal 
Defence Fund to raise money for bail and other legal costs immediately for the Thembelihle 
comrades in custody and other activists who are facing and will face similar repression 
and action from the police. Donations may be made to this account:
o Account holder: The Right 2 Know
o Bank: Standard Bank
o Account Number: 07 022 865 5
o Branch Code: 020909
o Reference: Thembelihle Legal Defence

Needless to say, this de facto State of Emergency has effectively removed attention away 
from the service delivery and housing process, and has turned political demands into a 
security question.

End the siege of Thembelihle!

FOR COMMENTS, CONTACT:
Siphiwe Segodi - Thembelihle Crisis Committee - 072 655 4177
Mzwonke Mayekiso - United Front Organiser - 074 991 6202
Godfrey Phiri - R2K National Working Group - 078 733 1236
Rehad Desai - Democratic Left Front - 0839979204
Related Link: 
https://unitedfrontsa.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/press-statement-end-the-de-facto-state-of-emergency-in-themelihle/

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/28045

(en) Anarkismo.net: Ireland, Belfast rallies in solidarity with massacre against striking miners in South Africa by WSM- Belfast

Around 50 people attended a lunch time vigil today organised by the Belfast Trade and
District Council. A range of political organisations and unions attended including the
Independent Workers Union, the WSM* and Organise!* During the rally one speaker from the
council also referred to the police being workers too. This will provide little comfort to
working people on the receiving end of state violence and terror. As our comrades from the
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front note, ?The role of the police is to repress and silence
the working class and poor. This problem cannot be fixed by commissions or enquiries ? as
some people think. Ask the family of Andries Tatane. It cannot be changed by elections.
Remember: Sharpeville 1960, Soweto 1976, Uitenhague 1985, Michael Makhabane in 2000, SAMWU
workers in 2009, Andries Tatane in 2011 ? Marikana 2012. At least 25 protestors and
strikers were killed from 2000, before Marikana.?

The attendence of Sinn Fein politicians at the rally also needs to be challenged given
their close relationship with the ANC/Communist Party of South Africa whose officials
frequently attend functions in West Belfast. While apartheid may have been overthrown, it
is clear that little has changed for the majority black working class. South Africa
remains one of the most unequal country in the world. The amount of poverty is excessive.
In every township there are shacks with no sanitation and electricity. Unemployment is
hovering around 40%. Economic inequality is matched with political inequality. Everywhere
activists are facing serious repression from the police and from local party structures.

Below is a statement released by anarchist organisations in South Africa

ANC Throws Off Its Mask! Workers Murdered!

Joint statement on the Marikana Massacre issued by the Tokologo Anarchist Collective,
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front and Inkululeko Wits Anarchist Collective.

The Constitution promises political rights and equality. It is quite clear that the bosses
and politicians do exactly as they wish. They walk on the faces of the people. This is
shown by the police killings of strikers at Lonmin?s Marikana mine.

Capitalists and politicians guilty! Stop police brutality.

No justice, no peace. No Zuma, no Malema, no LONMIN!

WHOSE RIGHTS?

People! We must face the facts. The ANC government and the big capitalists run the show.
The system makes the rich and powerful richer and more powerful.

The workers and the poor suffer. We have no protection. You work, but you do not survive.
Food prices are going up. ESKOM is going up. We must pay? With what? But when we struggle,
we get shot.

ANC/ STATE + BOSSES/ CORPORATIONS = ALLIES

The state uses brutal force against the majority. We are marching, raising our grievances.
This is our right. We must struggle to live. So, we fight against all elites: those who
control government and those who control companies (like Lonmin).

But our voices are silenced with bullets.

While we do not agree uncritically with all the actions of the workers at Marikana, we are
always with the working class and poor against the state and capitalists.

ANCYL = ANC = MARIKANA MASSACRE

The ANC promised to change the system. Instead, it became part of the system. Complaining
against the National Party?s (NP?s) oppression, the ANC took office. The NP murdered
workers. But now the ANC murders workers.

The ANCYL has no grounds to pretend to condemn the police killings (see its Statement 17
August 2012). The ANCYL is part and parcel of the ruling ANC regime.

Malema and other expelled ANCYL leaders also want to use these events to get reinstated
into the ANC ? to get rich or lie trying. But the ANC?s hands are dripping with blood.

The past and present ANCYL leaders (like all ANC leaders) want more money, not more
freedom for the people.

CAPITALISM NO THANKS!

Capitalism is a system of brutality and exploitation, of suffering. The black, Coloured
and Indian working class suffers from the legacy of apartheid national oppression and from
daily capitalist and police repression. (And even the white working class is exploited and
oppressed).

COLLECTIVISE, NOT NATIONALISE

ANCYL uses the ANC murders to bang the drum again for ?the nationalisation of mines and
other strategic sectors of the economy.? But Marikana shows the true nature of the state/
government, no matter what party: a bloodthirsty killing machine for the rich black and
white ruling class.

Real workers? control of the economy does not mean private corporations (privatisation) or
state corporations (nationalisation). It must mean real people?s democratic control of the
economy through worker and community committees, serving people?s needs.

POLICE CANNOT BE CHANGED

The role of the police is to repress and silence the working class and poor. This problem
cannot be fixed by commissions or enquiries ? as some people think. Ask the family of
Andries Tatane. It cannot be changed by elections. Remember: Sharpeville 1960, Soweto
1976, Uitenhague 1985, Michael Makhabane in 2000, SAMWU workers in 2009, Andries Tatane in
2011 ? Marikana 2012. At least 25 protestors and strikers were killed from 2000, before
Marikana.

PEOPLES POWER NOT ELECTIONS & PARTIES

Look at Marikana. Elections do not change the system. Joining the government and becoming
a politician is no solution. Replacing Jacob Zuma with another ANC leader is no solution.
A new political party ? even a ?left? or ?workers? party ? is no solution. All the
political parties are no solution.

UNIONS: WAKE UP!

The Marikana unions, NUM and AMCU, have fallen into the trap set by the ruling class
politicians and bosses. They fought each other, instead of fighting the real enemy. Unity
is strength: do not be divided and ruled. Workers of the world unite! Working class of all
countries and races unite! End the alliance! COSATU should have no links with the
bloodstained ANC.

ANARCHISM = COUNTER POWER

It is time to replace the capitalist / state system with Counter Power by the people. This
means that we want workers?/ community control of the economy, from below. We want
democratic and direct self-management of industry by the workers in the workplaces; we
want self- government of communities by those living in them. We want to collectively
decide on how we run our lives. We refuse to live according to the rules determined by
bosses and politicians, who use the police to shoot us like dogs when we disobey.

ONE SOLUTION: WORKING CLASS DEMOCRACY !

WE NEED YOU! DON?T VOTE, MOBILISE!

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/23687
=================================
* Anarchist organizations

a-infos-en@ainfos.ca

Britain, North London Solidarity Federation striking miners shot dead in South Africa

police repression South Africa energy & mining strikes Lonmin ---- North London Solidarity
Federation reproduce a powerful statement by Ayanda Kota - a member of the militant South
African shack dwellers organisation, Abahlali baseMjondolo, in protest at the murder of 45
striking miners by the South African police force and the role played by the ruling ANC
party (once presided over by Nelson Mandela) in allegedly facilitating the police to carry
out such acts of violence. ---- If you wish to express your anger at this, consider
phoning the South African embassy in London at 0207-451-7299 and emailing them at
london.general@dirco.gov.za . ---- For more phone numbers and emails, consider searching
google for other relevant phone numbers and email adresses, including those belonging to
the ruling ANC party.

Statement begins:

8 August 2012 (originally posted at http://abahlali.org/node/9035)

The Marikana Mine Worker's Massacre ? a Massive Escalation in the War on the Poor

It?s now two days after the brutal, heartless and merciless cold blood bath of 45 Marikana
mine workers by the South African Police Services. This was a massacre!

South Africa is the most unequal country in the world. The amount of poverty is excessive.
In every township there are shacks with no sanitation and electricity. Unemployment is
hovering around 40%. Economic inequality is matched with political inequality. Everywhere
activists are facing serious repression from the police and from local party structures.

Mining has been central to the history of repression in South Africa. Mining made Sandton
to be Sandton and the Bantustans of the Eastern Cape to be the desolate places that they
still are. Mining in South Africa also made the elites in England rich by exploiting
workers in South Africa. You cannot understand why the rural Eastern Cape is poor without
understanding why Sandton and the City of London are rich.

Mining has been in the news in South Africa recently. Malema, a corrupt and authoritarian
demagogue who represents a faction of the BEE elite, has been demanding nationalisation.
Progressive forces inside and outside of the alliance oppose Malema because he represents
the most predatory faction of the elite and is looking for a massive bail out for his
friends who own unprofitable mines. What we stand for is the socialisation, under workers'
control, of the mines. We also stand for reparations for the hundred years of exploitation.

Things are starting to change but not for the better. Khulubuse Zuma, the president?s
nephew and Zondwa Mandela, the former president?s grandchild, and many others with close
family ties to politicians have become mining tycoons overnight. China has joined the
bandwagon as well, plundering our resources.

Frans Baleni, the General of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) earns R105 000 a
month. NUM has become a route into high office in government and even to places on the
boards of the mining companies. The union is rapidly losing all credibility on the mines.
It is clear that it is now co-opted into the system and is part of the structures of
control. It is the police that take NUM to address the workers. Baleni's betrayal of the
workers has made him a very rich man ? a rich man who condemns and tries to suppress the
struggles of the poor. It is no surprise that workers are rejecting NUM, trying to build
an alternative union or acting on their own without any union representing them. The
workers are right to chase the NUM leaders away from their strikes.

The Marikana Mine is the richest platinum mine in the world and yet its workers live in
shacks. Most of the slain workers are rock drillers, the most difficult and dangerous work
in the mine. They do the most dangerous work in the mine and yet they earn only R4 000 a
month. Through the blood and sweat in the mines they do not only produce wealth that is
alienated from them, they also produce the fat cats, which wine and dine on naked bodies
and call that sushi.

The workers who occupied the hill came from many places including Swaziland and
Mozambique. But most of them came from the rural Eastern Cape, from the former Bantustans
where people live their lives as a living death under the chiefs, without work, without
land and without hope. Every Rand that they win back from the capitalists is another Rand
coming to the poorest part of the country. The part of the country that has been most
devastated by the mines over the last century. We celebrate every Rand that the workers
have taken back from the capitalists and fully support their demand of a salary of R12 500
a month. Will Baleni or Nzimande or Zuma accept R4 000 a month? If not why should anyone else?

The strikers see the NUM leaders as traitors. They delinked from the NUM because they saw
that they needed to delink from the alliance of capitalists and tendepreners that run the
ANC. The decision to delink was very courageous! We will have to delink in every sector if
we are going to build a real movement for change.

Workers under the tripartite alliance are being sundered from socialism; they are only
being encouraged to vote for the ruling party. Nothing is being done to fuse social
consciousness in their struggle. They are encouraged to participate in sensational
politics, the politics of who should lead and who should be removed. They are encouraged
to see communities and workers that organise independently as their enemies.

It is easy to decide not to decide. It is much harder to make a decision pregnant with
risk and promise. For miners to delink from the likes of Baleni and tripartite alliance
was a courageous decision. They understand that courage is an important element of all
struggles. They understand that there is no quick fix in the struggle for a just society,
a society that will respect and uphold the rights of workers and nature, a society that
will be ruled on the principle of each according to his needs. This society is based on
each according to his political connections with the elite that has captured the ANC and
its alliance partners.

If the strikers were protesting under the banner of the tripartite alliance they wouldn?t
have been slaughtered. COSATU strikes have often been violent but their members are not
shot like animals. In fact the campaigns to support Zuma in his rape and corruption trials
were full of threats of violence and yet Zuma supporters were not gunned down.

Before the miners occupied the hill they made a vow that no bullet will deter them. They
were willing to fight and die to get a fair share of the wealth of this mine for
themselves and their families. What this demonstrates is that these were people who were
aware of the risks that their decisions entailed, who thought about such risks carefully,
guided by their conscience and concluded that they were willing to face the consequences
that could arise.

Hellen Keller's words ring true ?There is no such thing as a complete security, and if
there was what fun would life be. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only
through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired,
and success". She adds ?To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in
the presence of fate and adversity is strength undefeatable.?

The immense courage of the miners that gathered on Nkaneng hill was tremendous. They were
prepared to take a real stand. They were prepared to face real risks. We do not see this
courage amongst the left. In fact most of the left has abandoned real struggle in real
communities for meetings and conferences and emails. The left has become something that
NGOs run. It is about bussing poor black people into meetings that they have no control
over and that are very far removed from the realities of our real struggles. It is about
educating the poor and not about fighting with the poor. When real struggles happen in
places like the shack settlements of Zakheleni, eTwatwa or Kennedy Road most of the left
is not there. But when there is a big conference they are all there.

The ANC government has killed workers for demanding a salary increment from a notoriously
exploitative and very, very rich company. The workers earn only R4000 per month doing the
most dangerous work. The ANC president and cabinet ministers earn not less that R2 million
per year. And on top of that there is corruption everywhere. Our politicians are part of
the global elite. The lowest ANC deployee earns not less than R20 000 excluding benefits.

The Marikana mine workers lived in shacks with their families. The president of the ANC
has recently built a mansion in his homestead, a mansion that cost tax payers not less
than R200 million.

It is the ANC government that shoots and kills protesters when they are fighting for the
assertion of their humanity. They recently killed Andries Tatane. They have killed at
least 25 others on protests since 2000. If you are poor and black your life counts for
nothing to the ANC.

What lesson can be learnt from the Marikana mine workers' massacre? The ruthlessness of
this government does not diminish but on contrary increases with the number of workers and
unemployed who starve. They are criminalising our struggles and militarising their police.
It is clear that anyone who organises outside of the ANC, in communities or in the
workplace, will face serious and violent repression from the party and the police.

The NUM and the SACP have made it very clear which side that they are on. By supporting
the massacre and calling for further repression against the workers they have made it
quite clear that they are on the side of the ruthless alliance between capital and the
politicians. They have declared, very clearly, that they support the war on the poor.
Their reactions to the massacre are a total disgrace. No credible left formation in South
Africa or anywhere in the world can work with the NUM or SACP again. The decision of the
miners at Marikana to delink from the corrupt and ruthless politics of the alliance has
been vindicated.

Things will not get better but will get worse. When the elite?s power is threatened they
will respond with more and more violence. War has been declared on the poor and on anyone
organising outside of the control of the ANC. We are our own liberators. We must organise
and continue to build outside the ANC. We must face the realities of the situation that we
confront clearly and courageously. Many more of us will be jailed and killed in the years
to come.

What they have done can never be forgotten nor forgiven.

Ayanda Kota
=============================
* Anarcho-syndicalists

Bron : a-infos-en@ainfos.ca