Full Statement of South African Communist Party on Attack on Graduation Ceremony in Homs

South African Communist Party Central Committee statement Johannesburg, 8 October 2023

The South African Communist Party Central Committee met from 6 to 8 October, during the 78th anniversary of the World Federation of Trade Unions, which held its first world congress in Paris from 3 to 8 October 1945.

Our message to the South African workers, as we congratulate and express our solidarity with the world’s red trade union federation, is that we need to strengthen class-based anti-imperialist trade unionism in our country more than ever before. In its pronouncements, programmes and practical actions, such a trade unionism demonstrates unwavering commitment to the emancipatory struggle to overthrow capitalist exploitation and forms part of the revolutionary movement.

The SACP’s highest decision-making body in between its national congresses also coincided with the 15th anniversary of the World Decent Work Day, on 7 October 2023. The Central Committee congratulated our ally, Cosatu, for its nationwide campaign on Friday, taking forward the Decent Work Agenda and other workers’ demands. While the Central Committee was in session, other SACP stalwarts participated in the Cosatu-led campaign.

In the context of the two major working-class developments, the SACP reiterates its call for wider unity of the entire progressive trade union movement of our country. In the same vein, we cannot overemphasise the importance of organising the unorganised and raising the levels of trade union density across all sectors.

We congratulate and express our solidarity with the South African Democratic Teachers Union, founded in 1990, as it celebrates its 33rd anniversary.

We welcome the success of the BRICS Summit that South Africa hosted in August. The expansion of BRICS to cover more nation-states and the agreement on exploring alternative trading currency mechanisms, including de-dollarisation, are welcome developments. This is an indicator of an occurring reshuffling in the international balance of forces. The people in BRICS countries need to deepen this direction towards a just and peaceful world. Our role as revolutionaries is to drive the momentum.

Our strategy for the 2024 election is an unwavering commitment, forged in the fires of determination and resolve, to advance the national democratic revolution, to serve the interests of the majority of South Africans. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our Alliance partners, based on nothing less than a demonstrable commitment to reconfigure the Alliance, strengthen it and optimise its collective impact to deepen, defend and complete the national democratic revolution. This is our approach to the 2024 elections.

While we have hammered out some crucial aspects of this Alliance reconfiguration, such as consultation, including in manifesto review and drafting, our engagements continue on the most critical items, such as consensus on the content and direction of our shared strategy for the national democratic revolution, collective leadership of the revolution, and accountability to the Alliance, of those assigned with implementation responsibility in all key centres of power.

The Central Committee directed our structures and members to intensify the struggle for Alliance reconfiguration as our preferred modality for the 2024 election. We will continuously assess progress as we engage in the Alliance reconfiguration process. While we acknowledge the commitment expressed by our Alliance partners to reconfigure and renew the Alliance, we also recognise the primacy to strengthen our own independence and capacity to achieve our historical mission as the Communist Party. We are simultaneously forging a popular left front and building a powerful socialist movement. This is a strategic imperative, not a “Plan B” or an alternative to the Alliance.

Forging a popular left front and building a powerful socialist movement is an unyielding battle cry for the working-class to fight for the achievement of its immediate aims and enforcement of its momentary interests, while pushing vigorously to build capacity for, momentum towards, and elements of socialism in the here and now. This must turn the tide against neoliberal stranglehold on the neck of our economic policy space. It is an insurance for defending, advancing and deepening the national democratic revolution to achieve its true objectives.

We are cognisant that the Alliance reconfiguration process does not occur in a vacuum or in the space where there is no resistance. We will meet those who seek to discredit and defeat this process in the real theatre of class struggle. Our message is clear. Successful outcomes on Alliance reconfiguration will not come from boardroom engagements only but require an intensification of the class struggle at all levels and on all fronts. To forge a popular left front and build a powerful socialist movement is therefore not in contradiction but in perfect alignment with our mission to reconfigure the Alliance.

We are mindful that investing all our energies and hopes in a favourable outcome on Alliance reconfiguration only from within will contradict our principles of analytical alertness, tactical flexibility, and strategic consistency. Our political policy does not lock us in timeless exercises that do not come to fruition. It paves the way for us to contest future elections directly, besides the Alliance or a popular left front and the socialist movement.

Beyond the Alliance engagement process towards the 2024 election, the reconfiguration of the Alliance is therefore still guaranteed as a matter of struggle. If it does not occur from within, then it will occur from without. This shall be our path to reconfigure the Alliance if, eventually, its reconfiguration does not materialise from inside.

Austerity should not be confused with trimming perks for senior officials or ensuring greater value for money by cutting rent-seeking or tackling corruption. Such measures should all be part of normal, prudent public finance management, which we support.

What we are opposed to, and both denounce and reject, is austerity. Among others, austerity involves cutting government service delivery and development expenditure, including redistributive programmes, and withdrawing from advancing any real economic stimulus. This is done to enforce preordained fiscal ratios deemed by the neoliberal playbook to be universally applicable no matter under all circumstances.

For instance, in its letter dated 31 August 2023, the National Treasury says national departments, public entities and provinces must stop all new personnel recruitment and infrastructure development immediately. The letter expects full implementation of other austere measures by 31 March 2024. We reject this ‘Don’t care attitude’ towards the plight of our people with the contempt it deserves.

As we speak, there are terminally ill patients on long waiting-lists because of shortages of medical doctors, specialists, other healthcare professionals, facilities and equipment in many of our public clinics and hospitals. Other patients may even die before their appointment dates. The under-resourced public clinics and hospitals have to take care of an overwhelming majority of our population.

Meanwhile, those who enforce austerity, do so knowing that they will go to the oligopolistic private clinics and hospitals when they need healthcare. The private healthcare sector is dominated by the “Group of Three” oligopolies – Mediclinic, Life Healthcare, and Netcare. It excludes the workers and poor who do not have money to pay. The exorbitant oligopolies along with the remainder of the private healthcare sector look after a tiny minority. Yet they claim the lion’s share of our national healthcare spending, medical aid funds being the case in point.

The Central Committee attached great importance to the imperative to advance full implementation of the National Health Insurance, to ensure quality healthcare for all. We expect the National Council of Province to pass the NHI Bill.

Ramping up public investment in healthcare infrastructure and equipment, and in training more medical doctors, specialists and other healthcare professionals is an immediate priority. Ensuring availability of medicines and advancing a state pharmaceutical company are as critical, as opposed to austerity.

The public education sector experiences the same problems as the public healthcare sector. Similarly, it also needs immediate public investment attention.

Furthermore, in most parts of our country the state of infrastructure, including water, sewerage, sanitation and roads, leaves much to be desired. Yet the letter by the National Treasury says it is taking the same austerity measures to municipalities.

Directly through the Minister of Finance, the National Treasury was actively involved in the last public service co-ordinating bargaining council process. But they did not budget to honour the agreement, while on 28 February 2022 the Constitutional Court ruled that the state could enter into a collective bargaining agreement after calculating the costs and committing to funding it. Now in the letter the National Treasury says national government departments, public entities, and provinces must cut their already adopted budgets for other priorities to foot the bill. This is unfair and completely unacceptable.

The SACP calls for:

1. Decisive measures to address failures to spend conditional grants to deliver government services and public goods to the people. In the previous financial year, the underspending amounted to no less than R15 billion, also affecting infrastructure development and maintenance.

2. The National Treasury to find new money to fund the public service bargaining wage settlement.

3. The government to draw down on funds the Reserve Bank’s Gold and Foreign Exchange Contingency Reserve Account owes to it, to fund the expected fiscal shortfall: if the funds are reserved for storms and if we are indeed on the edge of a fiscal cliff as the National Treasury claims, then this is a storm.

4. Taxing income from wealth and trading financial assets, removing tax brackets for high income earners and corporate select tax breaks. South Africa is a highly unequal society – a greater amount of tax at the top is imperative.

5. A wealth tax and a rollback of the recent corporate income tax reduction.

6. Prescribed investment, including community reinvestment type regulations and

various levies.

7. Clamping down on illicit financial flows.

8. A resource windfall tax, and stronger mined minerals verification to clamp down

on mis-invoicing, illicit activity and associated state revenue leakage.

9. Review of the mineral royalties’ regime to give practical effect to the principle

that the mineral wealth of our country belongs to the people as a whole.

10. A state-owned bank, as a step towards a developmental state banking sector.

The SACP is strongly opposed to a VAT increase.

The Central Committee attached great importance to the SACP’s Red October Campaign 2023 theme – Put people first, fight the rising-cost-of-living crisis. We are calling for decisive measures to tackle the rising costs of living, including the food poverty that affects millions of South Africans in urban and rural areas.

A caring social development policy with a social safety net is critical to mitigate the impact of the persistent high levels of poverty and unemployment, which mostly affect black people, women and youth.

A popular left front should emerge out of popular mobilisation and campaigning. It should not be seen as first the cobbling together of a variety of formations at leadership level that variously proclaim themselves “left” or “socialist”, and then only launching a programme of mobilisation and action afterwards. Forging a popular left movement must be grounded in a network of active struggle – “feeling the stones to cross the river”.

As part of the first practical steps to advance the network of active struggle immediately following the Central Committee plenary, the SACP is calling for joint action with trade union federations and other progressive worker organisations opposed to austerity and other neoliberal policies. This should first target the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, which outlines the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and adjustments. Together, we need to intensify the struggle against austerity and neoliberal policies ahead of the Budget Speech and the Budget to be tabled in February 2024.

We welcome into this just struggle like-minded women, youth, student and other sectoral organisations, as well as foundations, NGOs, community-based organisations and professionals in their own right.

For technical capacity, we also welcome into the fold research think tanks and advocacy organisations that have made findings against austerity and other neoliberal policy measures.

This movement should make it a priority to fight for a review of the entire macroeconomic framework, including monetary policy and the role of the Reserve Bank.

In terms of the constitution, the Reserve Bank must exercise its powers and functions in the interest of balanced and sustainable growth in the republic. The Reserve Bank has failed to deliver on this constitutional mandate and must be held accountable.

It is strangle-holding the economy through a restrictive monetary policy. In the context of a significant imported inflation, the Reserve Bank has hiked interest rates ten times since November 2021. It has increased the repurchase rate by 475 basis points, which now stands at 8.25 per cent. But this is the rate at which the Reserve Bank lends to commercial banks. The interest rate hikes brought the prime lending rate to 11.75 per cent. This is the minimum the commercial banks lend to the people – they lend the majority at the prime interest rate plus. It negatively impacts everybody who relies on borrowing as they cannot afford to buy homes and other essential needs 100 per cent cash at a stroke.

Interest rate hikes are part of the rising cost-of-living drivers and have forced millions of families to redirect more household spending towards interest rates, away from essential needs. Every time the Reserve Bank increased interest rates, it automatically pushed millions of households deeper into debt without those affected even taking an additional loan.

The recent utterances by the Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago, claiming that interest rate increases do not affect the working and unemployed poor are unfathomable, to say the least.

Interest rate hikes have both direct and indirect impacts on the working and unemployed poor.

Higher interest rates make it more expensive to buy a home. This is especially challenging for low-paid wage workers and families who already struggle with housing affordability. As rising mortgage rates exclude them from the housing market or increase monthly housing costs, many of the affected families find themselves living in squatter camps or evicted by the commercial banks from their homes.

Interest rate hikes increase the cost of capital and debt service cost. This discourages borrowing by those who wish to start co-operatives, SMEs, or expand their existing productive capacity. If higher interest rates lead to reduced consumer spending due to increased debt burdens, this can have a negative impact on the overall economy, including retrenchments. It is part of the factors responsible for economic stagnation and a high unemployment rate in South Africa. Now the country has a population of approximately 12 million active and discouraged work-seekers. This badly affects the unemployed and poor, and government revenue.

Rising interest rates can also lead to labour market tightening and discourage employment creation. Amid sustained high unemployment, the whole scenario also curtails workers’ bargaining power for their share of value from production income. This contributes to high rates of exploitation, especially among low and semi-skilled workers.

Interest rate hikes can, and do, exacerbate income inequality. Wealthier individuals who have significant investments in stocks, bonds, or other financial assets may benefit from higher interest rates, while low-income workers and the poor are more likely to be burdened by increased borrowing costs.

Industrial policy adequately funded can go a long way in helping to turn around the South African economy through industrialisation and boosting state revenue. Both fiscal and monetary policies should adequately support industrial policy, which must be strengthened to achieve the desired results.

Therefore, the negative average growth in the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework for economic development and industrialisation up to the 2025/2026 financial year must therefore be reviewed.

Public infrastructure development, maintenance and upgrading are crucial in supporting the economy. This should include roads and rail, and cover the entire logistics network, resolve the electricity supply under-capacity crisis urgently, and expand the country’s water infrastructure. The underdeveloped rural areas need greater attention in this regard.

Equally important, land redistribution to realise transformation goals and drive an inclusive growth path will go a long way in boosting state revenue and contributing to employment creation.

The National Skills Fund and Sector Education and Training Authorities have a great role to play in advancing skills development and a skills revolution. We need improved performance and outcomes, including on expenditure of the skills development funds.

The solution to gender inequalities must above all else be in the interests of women, girls and non-binary gendered people. It must tackle both class and racial disparities, with greater emphasis on working-class and poor women.

Special attention to black women is required, integrating the elimination of both class and racial inequalities within the struggle for gender equality. Black women endured the triple oppression of patriarchal domination, racial oppression and class super- exploitation. The legacy of this triple oppression is persistent, as statistics on unemployment, poverty and inequality show.

Guaranteeing women’s reproductive rights is essential, as, among others, the ability of women to give birth is a fundamental part of society sustaining itself and perpetuating its own existence. The full recognition of these rights is a focal point in the SACP’s ongoing campaigning now.

We will campaign on the ground for the right of women to be fully in charge of their reproductive decisions and the responsibility of the state to respect and support this right. This includes sanitary dignity and choices regarding contraception, pregnancy health services, birthing and breastfeeding, as well as maternity rights, childcare rights and menopausal rights.

Using science and technology should form part of the imperative to give effect to women’s reproductive rights and to emancipate girls and women.

The SACP is deeply concerned about the high teenage pregnancy rate. A large number of these pregnancies result from statutory rape. Society and the state must develop measures to prevent teenage pregnancy and ensure that statutory rape is not swept under the carpet – all rapists must be held accountable.

We reject the notion that working-class and poor girls and women should depend on charity handouts for sanitary dignity and menstrual hygiene. The state, through fiscal and social policies, must take full responsibility for the provision of sanitary towels and ensure other appropriate policies and services to support women’s reproductive cycles and life.

All this must be an integral part of the struggle against patriarchy and social emancipation. It should enable women to be involved in societal activities without hindrance.

The so-called general election that took place in Swaziland, where political parties are banned and there is no freedom of association, among others, are automatically not free and not fair. The question of whether the so-called election held last week on 29 September in Swaziland was credible therefore does not even arise.

The SACP pledges its solidarity with the people of Swaziland who are struggling for democracy, including those who are in exile in South Africa because of repressive activities by the monarchic despot under whose autocracy the so-called election took place. The South African government must protect the Swazi exiles.

The election held in Zimbabwe in August took place under a toxic interaction of domestic and international conditions that made them leave much to be desired. These include activities that have coalesced over the years in curtailing the democratic space, and the unilateral sanctions imposed by the imperialist regimes of the United States and its Western European allies. There cannot be free and fair elections in Zimbabwe while these two conditions and their destructive legacy continue.

Using unequal power relations, military might, weaponised unilateral sanctions and other machinations of subversion and regime change, the imperialist regimes of the United States and Western Europe intransigently curtail African countries’ independence and national self-determination.

Establishing the African Union was important, but that is not enough without an African continental revolutionary movement.

Our immediate task as Africans is to unite, build and strengthen Africa’s anti- neocolonial and anti-imperialist continental liberation and emancipatory movement. To take forward this imperative and advance the Second Phase of the African Revolution, in due course the SACP will reignite the African Left Networking Forum.

We are calling for an end to the war in Sudan. We call for peace in the region.

The Central Committee reiterated our solidarity with the people of Western Sahara against occupation by Morocco and South Cameroon against an extermination campaign by the state.

In Niger, Central African Republic and Burkina Faso in particular, the people embarked on popular uprisings supported by their militaries against French neocolonialism.

The SACP resolutely stands with the people in the Central African region and West Africa, in addition against other imperialist states and forces.

We caution ECOWAS and the African Union from interventions that benefit imperialist interests and cause intra-African conflicts.

SACP is strongly opposed to all imperialist machinations, including unilateral sanctions and economic blockades, combined with mass media propaganda, to attack and cripple the economies of the targeted countries. The imperialists use this as part of their regime change agenda, including to determine election outcomes through the negative impact of the unilateral sanctions and blockades.

The Central Committee strongly denounced the apartheid Israeli regime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for instructing the Palestinian people in Gaza to leave their homes and land. Netanyahu said this on Saturday, after Israel started shelling Gaza, a Palestinian enclave between Egypt and Israel.

We stand firmly with the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian people have embarked on an armed struggle, like us in South Africa when we formed uMkhonto weSizwe as part of our struggle to end colonial and apartheid oppression, economic exploitation and land dispossession. Western imperialist aligned media call the Palestinian’s armed struggle activities “completely unprovoked”. They say the Palestinians, referring to Hamas, “infiltrated Israel”. This is gibberish, as Israel is the aggressor. For 75 years since the apartheid Israeli settler state was formed and expanded on Palestinian lands, it has conducted ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, unleashing pogroms on Palestinian people, constantly violating their human rights, and depriving them of their right to self- determination, among others.

We express our solidarity with the Palestinian people in their just struggle for the freedom of historical Palestine and national self-determination.

The Central Committee reiterated our solidarity with the people of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela against imperialist aggression and destabilisation.

We call for an immediate and unconditional lifting of the criminal economic and financial blockade and unilateral sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela and for the release of the Venezuelan diplomat, Alex Nain Saab Morán, by the imperialist regime of the United States.

The United States, which occupies the Cuban territory of Guantanamo Bay, must end the foreign occupation immediately and unconditionally.

The SACP joins the united Syrian Communist Party and Syrian people in condemning the terrorist attack that targeted a graduation ceremony at a Military College in the western Syrian city of Homs. The attack resulted in at least 89 people killed on Friday, including five children and 31 women, while over 250 people sustained injuries. It is clear the attack, in which a drone laden with explosives was used, is backed by international forces, probably imperialist regimes. The SACP reiterates its call for the apartheid Israeli regime to end its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights immediately and unconditionally.