"WHAT is happening? I came back as a defeated soldier. And what is worse I had to be subjected to humiliating searches by young white policemen almost half my age. I left the country to fight the government and bring about a non-racial and democratic South Africa. Nothing has changed except that the movement and the government are talking. We did not fight to live next to white people. We did not fight to have them open their restaurants and hotels to us. The fight was about power and the right to vote" (Jacob Yako, a soldier in the ANC's armed wing, quoted in Sunday Star, April 28, 1991).
This quote sums up the growing despair and frustration that is being felt by many activists at the worsening balance of forces between the popular mass movement and the Pretoria regime.
MARK HARPERT
YEAR ago, at the beginning
A of 1990, the country was in the grip of mass euphoria. The unbanning of political organizations, the release of Nelson
Mandela and other political prisoners and the government's move away from harsh repression restored confidence to workers, township communities and the youth.
waves of struggles
New and popular mobilizations broke out. Strikes resulted in more work days being lost in 1990 than in any other year. Rent boycotts spread to more townships and an unprecedented number of protest marches and demonstrations occurred. Even the bantustans, previously pacified by terrifying scales of repression, exploded.
Yet, 12 months later, the mood has changed dramatically. Euphoria is being replaced by demoralization. The violence sweeping the industrial heartland of the
Witwatersrand and different parts of Natal is taking a heavy toll. In the first four months of 1991, 600 people were killed.
In the first week of May, 136 were brutally killed in the escalating violence.
Alongside this, the deepening economic of recession is resulting in thousands workers being retrenched and a decline in living standards. In the mining industry alone 50,000 jobs were lost in 1990. This year it is estimated that the number will be even greater. Similar figures have been estimated for the steel industry.
Since February 2, 1990, and the initiation of negotiations, the government of
FW De Klerk has been trying to seize the political initiative in order to bring about a political settlement which will bring stability to the country.
The reform of apartheid now being proposed by the government is aimed at winning broader legitimacy for the state through the cooption of the black middle class. Up until recently the reforms introduced by the National Party government have always been too little and too late to win any support amongst any significant layer of the oppressed people.
But by unbanning political organizations, freeing Mandela and other political prisoners as well as opening up discussions with the ANC on creating a peaceful climate for negotiations, De Klerk has made the political running. His February announced that the remaining pillars of apartheid, namely the Land Act, the Group Areas Act and the Population Act will be removed, has done much to ease the international pressure on the regime.
Other pieces of legislation will be amended to take out references to "race" and at the end of April the government announced that the Internal Security Act would be amended and softened.
A controlled transition
By undertaking the reform of apartheid from above and without the participation of the oppressed people, the government is attempting to keep control of the transition from apartheid in a way that does not threaten the interests of the white population. White communities are to be given control of their areas through a process of decentralizing under the mask of "maintaining dards". Local councils will be able to control the influx of "new" people to example, the Residential Environment Bill will continue the artificial protection which white areas have enjoyed under the Group Areas Act. Other bills will give state officials vast powers to determine where blacks may farm, where townships can be established and leave black tenants at the mercy of the landowner.
One should not of course underestimate the impact that the repeal of the apartheid laws will have on international opinion and on the higher paid black workers and middle class blacks. Many have already begun to move out of the townships and buy property in white areas. The government has announced that it is willing to make unused white farms available to black farmers. But this is on such a small scale that it will in no way redress the present situation where 13% of the population own 87% of the land.
Old inequalities will remain
Since the repeal of these apartheid laws will not coincide with a substantial programme of wealth distribution and radical agrarian reform, none of the social, economic and structural inequalities which are the historical legacy of apartheid will be affected. The majority of black people will remain trapped in the ghettoes of the townships, squatter camps, and the homelands. Capital will remain almost exclusively in the hands of the whites or put more specifically in the six main conglomerates who account for over 80% of the Johannesburg Exchange. In other words capitalism in South Africa will be reproduced as racial capitalism. Apartheid of the statute books will be replaced by the apartheid of the so-called "free market".
The De Klerk reforms have all met with widespread international resulted in the EEC lifting investment and some trade sanctions against the SA government and a flood of invitations to De Klerk to visit European capitals. It has also led to the SA government being able to announce that it will be opening a number of new diplomatic offices in nine African countries and in Eastern Europe. This has all occurred against the active lobbying of the ANC.
In an attempt to regain the initiative from the government, the ANC leadership has called for an All-Party Conference to discuss the constitutional principles for a new constitution and to discuss the process of transition. The ANC is demanding that the government cannot be referee and pay that it should set up an interm gos. 19 player in the constitutional negotiations, May 27, 1991 • #207 International Viewpoint
SOUTH AFRICA ernment with the ANC and perhaps other forces which would oversee the calling of a constituent assembly.
This position of the ANC has been endorsed by the SACP and COSATU while forces to the left of the ANC have rejected the idea of an All-Party Conference. Organizations like the Pan-
Africanist Congress (PAC), the Azanian
Peoples' Organization (AZAPO), and the
Workers Organization Socialist
Action (WOSA) believe to a lesser or greater extent that the government, which supports the idea of an All-Party Conference, will force the other parties to accept certain constitutional principles which will protect the interests of the white minority and act as a major restriction on what type of constitution could be formulated by a constituent assembly.
Up to now the government has opposed the idea of a constituent assembly knowing full well that in a democratic election it will lose control over the process of determining a new constitution for the country. If a constitutional framework is agreed by the parties of the All-Party Conference then the government will have little to fear from a constituent assembly.
In a shift in attitude the ANC has recognized that it needs to build a relationship with the other organizations in the libera20 tion movement in order to strengthen its position in the negotiations with the govInternational Viewpoint #207 • May 27, 1991
= ernment. With this in mind the leaderships of the AN and PAC met in early February in Harare, Zimbabwe, to discuss the setting up of a Patriotic Front. The meeting agreed to call a conference of all forces who support the demand for a constituent assembly in Cape Town in
A fear that is expressed in the AZAPO and WOSA camps — they were not invited to the Harare summit - is that the two main liberation organizations were working out a line on the role and structure of the Patriotic Front that other organizations would simply have to accept. What was of particular concern to them was that the Patriotic Front was being connected with demands for an interim government and an All-Party Conference which are not acceptable to everybody. There was also a fear that the conception of the Front being discussed in Harare was that of a forum for the leaders of the main organizations rather than of a mass organization built at local, regional and national level, and under rank-and-file
The violent conflict that has been going on in Natal over the past few years has spread to the townships of West and East Rand in and around Johannesburg. This is the heartland of South African industry and of the industrial working class.
The regime and the mass media have
HOW LONG
been quick to characterize the violence that is wreaking havoc on the Reef as a tribal, black on black conflict.
Attempt to obscure roots of
This is an attempt to obscure the real roots of the violence and the sinister forces behind it. While it is true that communal violence and pogroms are the order of the day, that ethnic antagonisms have reached exploding point and that interorganizational intolerance has reached new heights, government-aligned forces have carefully exploited existing divisions and orchestrated what is now taking place. Whether it is in Natal or the East and West Rand (the Transvaal region and around structures or aligned organizations have led attacks on the people with the active support of the security forces.
Whether it is the murderous attacks on black people in the stations, trains, taxis, or the mob attacks on hostels, squatter camps or township residences, the consequence has been to dramatically increase existing tensions, terrorize people and exhaust their capacity to defend and orga-
It is no accident that state security forces, using vigilante groups often closely connected to the townships' community
Jail sentence for Winnie Mandela
WINNIE MANDELA has just been sentenced to six years in prison for taking part in 1988 in the kidnapping of a young boy and for complicity in the beatings and stabbings that led to his death. This is obviously not going to make life any
SOUTH AFRICA
In reply the government made it clear that it had no intention of sacking the two ministers and attacked the ANC for threatening to break off talks. It called for a conference on violence, which was rejected by the AN leadership as an inadequate simpler for the African National Congress and its leadership. Efforts by the latter to explain that it is all a plot by the South African regime could carry little conviction, given the controversies surrounding Winnie Mandela. While Mrs.
Mandela has her unconditional supporters, many militants consider that she has already done the movement enough harm: a few weeks ago she was defeated in the election to the presidency of the ANC's Women's League. Even in 1988, at the time of the events brought up in the trial, it was not hard to find people in the leading circles of the UDF and COSATU who felt that things had
The government has used the trial to put the ANC on the spot. But it does not seem likely that it will be overjoyed by the heavy sentence at a time when it is trying to smooth over its problems with the ANC and go forward with the negotiations. Beyond the simple facts, this affair also expresses the ANC's long term contradictions and problems, which also have bearing on its present political
The notorious Mandela Football Club which kidnapped Stompie Mokhetsi in
December 1988 was something halfway between a bodyguard and a gang. Such an "institution" in the heart of Soweto was something quite other than the devotion of the ANC militants who risked their lives in real militant activities.
Winnie Mandela's personality was promoted in and by the media not only in order to protect her and the movement, but also through sectarianism and triumphalism. The theme of the "Mother of the Nation" corresponded to that period in the history of the ANC when it wanted to be recognized as the sole and exclusive representative of the mass movement.
The autonomy which Winnie Mandela and her entourage enjoyed is also a sign of the lack of democracy in the UDF. The rank-and-file activists had no idea of the real debates going on at the top or about the clan battles. The "Stompie" affair brought a number of aspects of the functioning of the
ANC and the behaviour of some leading lights to the surface. Subsequently other scandals, such as the revolts and repression in the camps in Angola, confirmed the diagnosis. Of course, the ANC's present difficulties cannot only be explained by such tales. But the state of the mass movement in 1990 at the time of the sudden opening of negotiations was not wholly unrelated to the way in which it had been led during the 1980s.
The whole climate around this trial has deepened the impression. First there was the sudden disappearance of witnesses, and then the effort of the defence lawyers to explain that the affair had originated in an attempt to "protect" youth who had become used to engaging in homosexual practices with a pastor in a nearby parish. This curious coup de théatre by the defence team was accompanied by demonstrations by a few ANC activists outside the doors of the court with placards condemning homosexuality. The media impact of this was disastrous and the South African gay movement circulated a resolution condemning these actions which was published in several of the country's left-wing publications - Peter Blumer. * councillors and the Inkatha Freedom Party (the right wing Zulu-based movement led by Gatsha Buthelezi) have shifted their campaign of low intensity war from Natal to the townships of the Rand
The security establishment realize that the government cannot succeed with its reform strategy unless the capacity for resistance by the black working class movement is substantially weakened. The government and the security forces are not sufficiently assured that the ANC leadership is prepared to or capable of disciplinthe radical township youth, the workers and the unemployed to accept a which will not address the huge social inequality that divides the majority of whites
Such has been the scale and devastation of the violence that the ANC called an emergency National Executive meeting especially to address the violence. Following a series of massacres from Sebokeng to Daveyton and Alexandra, the ANC leadership has come under intense pressure to formulate a response to the carnage taking place.
The meeting resulted in a strongly worded ultimatum being delivered to the government. This ultimatum called on the government to take a number of measures to address the violence, including the sacking of the minister of defence Magnus Malan and the minister of police, Adriaan Vlok. If the government failed to take these demands seriously, the ANC said it would break off constitutional negotiations. The meeting also undertook to support the building of defence committees in the townships and squatter response to their ultimatum. Just days before the expiry of the ultimatum De Klerk held meetings with both Buthelezi and Mandela. Following these meetings the government declared a ban on the carrying of "traditional/cultural" weapons — one of the demands contained in the ultimatum.
It seems from the favourable statements following his meeting with De Klerk that Mandela is willing to compromise on some of the demands in the ultimatum.
Lack of alternative to negotiations
This seems to reflect the fact that the ANC has little option but to continue with constitutional negotiations. What alternative to the negotiations can the ANC put forward? In reality, its political life is dependent on reaching a successful outcome to the negotiations with the government. In this respect their current stance could lead to further problems for the NEC given the fact that the compromise worked out with the government might spur even more criticism by those in the ANC who still resist its negotiating strate-
The ANC's ultimatum comes in the wake of accusations from its supporters in the black townships that they are being defenceless against the Township residents are demanding the building of defence committees that will protect them from the violent attacks by Inkatha-supporting hostel dwellers. It also comes in the context of the forthcoming national conference where the ANC's executive leadership is going to come under scrutiny. Given the level of criticism directed at it at the ANC consultative conference last December, it is not surprising that the Executive is taking a hard line with the government. It would be foolish for it to ignore its militant base in the townships which will have strong representation in the conference.
Great confusion prevails in the ANC/ SACP/COSATU bloc. There is no clear idea on what tactics to follow or what alliances to make. In Port Elizabeth, for example, there has been a heated debate over whether to make electoral alliances with liberals and the bourgeois Democratic Party. In the Transvaal, Moses Mayekiso, now a member of the Communist between the local ANC-controlled associations and the Central Witwatersrand Metropolitan Chamber, the regional structure which retains urban racial segregations (Weekly Mail, Johannesburg, April
21
The violence on the Reef has spawned May 27, 1991 • #207 International Viewpoint
SOUTH AFRICA the rapid growth of Inkatha. Just as the security forces have used Inkatha to weaken the mass popular movement so Inkatha has used the support of the state forces to build itself up into a major player that cannot be ignored in the negotiating process. Caught in the middle of a war, many hostel workers who were not members of Inkatha have been forced to join the organization to protect themselves from the counter-attacks on the hostels from residents bearing the brunt of the violence. undisciplined behaviour of lumpen elements of unemployed youth acting in the name of this or attacked Zulu speaking people, has driven hostel dwellers and Zulu speakers into the arms of Inkatha.
This development has been encouraged by the Community Councillors, who have joined Inkatha en masse. Facing severe pressure from the community organizations to resign from their positions, they have decided to adopt the mantle of Inkatha as protection. The councillors, with the resources of the positions they occupy as well as from the illicit deals and corruption they are involved in, are the main sponsors of the huge and profitable gunrunning operations that criss-cross the country. Violence isolates union from
The violence has served to isolate the trade unions from the hostel workers and is causing growing division and tension on the shop floor. This was reflected in the poor attendance at May Day celebrations in the Johannesburg area. In Orlando, Soweto, at the main event organized by COSATU and the SACP, the stadium was less than a quarter full. On the way home from this rally workers attacked by people wearing red headbands, setting off a week of violence that left over 136 people dead.
The response of the trade union movement, particularly the main confederation COSATU, which is closely tied to the ANC and SACP, to the violence and the waged by the bosses on their members has been constrained by their support for a negotiated settlement.
In preparation for its fourth conference in July a discussion is taking place among COSATU affiliates around the role trade unions will play in a post-apartheid South Africa. While the debate has concentrated on whether leaders of unions can also hold leading positions in political organizations, an equally important debate is the one on the relationship between the unions and employers. There is a growing school of opinion in the COSATU leadership, based on the research and analysis of the influential Economic Trends Group, that holds that the union movement must 22 move away from "militant abstentionism" to reconstruction accords with employers International Viewpoint #207 • May 27, 1991 and worker participation.
At the root of this new thinking is the belief that the road to socialism is not only going to be a long one, but will go through the regulation of the capitalist economy, not its destruction.
An expression of this new thinking and "realism" took place at the recent congress of the 270,000-strong National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Faced with the prospect of capital's reorganization of the mining industry, which will result in thousands of jobs being cut, the union is proposing the organization of a conference with the Chamber of Mines and the government to discuss the future of the mining industry. This conference would lead to a joint accord on the reconstruction of the industry and would herald the era of worker participation in the reconstruction of the South African economy. At the same conference, the NUM moved away from its hard line on the nationalization of the mines, a policy inherited from the ANC Freedom Charter, which the NUM adopted four years ago, citing the disastrous balance extensive nationalization in Africa and Eastern Europe.
Idea of social contract mooted
At a recent workshop on economic restructuring organized by the COSATUaffiliated engineering union, NUMSA, the idea of the unions entering into a social contract with the government and the employers was mooted. Unions, it was said, must take a lead in working for economic growth. The implications of this were summed up by Karl Von Holdt, editor of the South African Labour Bulletin, who commented that: "it is true that if workers and trade unions start to take responsibility for economic growth and development, they will have to strive for greater productivity and less industrial action" (SALB, March 1991, pp. 15/16).
Since the February 1 joint mobilizations for a constituent assembly, there has been little mass mobilization around this or any other issue
The ANC Women's League called for mass action to protest the violence in the first week of May, but in most parts of the country support was very weak
When the April 30 deadline for the release of all political prisoners and the return of exiles passed with many prisoners still in jail and many exiles still abroad, the ANC Youth League staged demonstrations and occupied embassies and government offices. Political prisoners have started hunger strikes. But this movement is very fragmented.
Part of the problem is that the mass democratic organizations have moved to the sidelines since the unbanning of the ANC, PAC and SACP. been redeployed into building structures of the ANC. In March this year, the ANC leadership pushed successfully for the UDF, a front of organizations under ANC hegemony that played a key role in the popular upsurge in 1985-87, to
There is a definite feeling among acti vists that mass mobilization is not being encouraged and is only resorted to as a tactic to push negotiations along.
The perspective of rebuilding the mass movement and empowering the organizations of civil society - the civics, youth organizations and so on — has been left behind.
It is clear that the violence has led to a weakening of the popular movement. The search by the mainstream of the mass movement for a negotiated settlement is further disarming the masses from being able to develop a strategy to counter the state's offensive. The balance of forces is swinging gradually in favour of the government and the bosses. The ANC and COSATU conferences later this year will show how far this process has gone. *
"We must decide what
USSR ers in Donetsk that founded the ITM in October 1990.
The delegates were supposed to report the decisions of the congress to their collectives. But in this a lot depended on the capacities of the delegates and their motivation. I went to my mine, Tomskaya, and told the miners that I had been elected to the Union's Executive Bureau. I asked if