Assassination sparks outrage
ON the morning of April 10, Chris Hani, Secretary General of the South
African Communist Party and member of the executive committee of the
ANC, was executed in front of his house in the Johannesburg suburb of
Germinston. Links have been established between the assassin - who
International Viewpoint #245 May 1993 of interviews with enterprise heads, point to a continuing wave of layoffs. For example, Volkswagen of South Africa, one of the biggest employers in the Eastern Cape region, foresees a 25% reducclaims to be a member of a neo-Nazi group — and the leadership of the
Conservative Party.
Chris Hani was elected commander of MK (the armed wing of the
ANC) in 1987, and became the symbol' of the armed struggle against the apartheid regime. His death has inflamed the South African townships - where he was very popular, particularly among the most downtrodden youth.
SIRO PETRUZZELLA — April 16, 1993
T
HE British financial daily The
Financial Times has given a good explanation for the white South African Establishment's formal condemnation of the assassination: "Mr. Hani was the undisputed leader of the township youth, of the unempoyed and angry youth. No other leader of the ANC could present compromises as victories with such ease; no other leader could argue for peace by presenting it as a kind of struggle — in short, rallying radicalized youth behind the project of a negotiated solution. This is what makes
Hani's death such a great tragedy."2
The assassination has provoked even greater protest than last year's massacre in
Boipatong — which led to the ANC leaving the negotiating table and the beginning has changed since that time?
There seems to be no end to the economic recession. The Central Statistical
Service (CSS) of Pretoria confirmed on
February 11 that 1992 was a very dark year indeed. The Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) declined by 2.1%. This is added to two previous years of decline — in 1990 and 1991 GDP fell by 0.5% and 0.9% respectively. The 2.1% drop in GDP reflects a serious deepening of the economic crisis, whose social repercussions are more like those of a depression, especially since the countryside has been severely hit.4
The traditional mining sector, still very important for the South African economy, has suffered serious setbacks. On March 9, two big mining groups, De Beers Consolidated Mining Limited (De Beers) and De
Beers Centenary (Centenary), announced their results for 1992: profits of the two companies are down by 35% and dividends will be 29% lower. These results belie the predictions made by De Beers last August of a drop of 26%6
In the manufacturing and commercial sectors the picture isn't exactly rosy either. Looking at the indistrial and commercial performance of the main South African corporation, Anglo-American Corporation (which also controls De Beers), we see that the Anglo American Industrial Corporation (Amic), announced on March 5 a 12% fall in profits for shareholders for 1992 compared to 1991.7 Amic has to deal with a high level of debt and had to reduce
Predictions for 1993, which originally foresaw a growth rate of 0.5%, are now being revised downwards. The Econometrix group foresees a zero growth rate and the ABSA bankers group foresees yet another year of negative growth (-0.5%).
The first indicators for the month of January, shows that there has been a 8.6% drop in sales of new automobiles and a 7% drop in retail sales. In other words, South Africa does not seemed poised to emerge from the crisis — a crisis which has also affected a significant part of the white
The living conditions of a majority of the Black population remain extremely difficult, and hopes of finding a job are still very low. According to a report published by the University of Port Elizabeth, 6% of the total workforce in Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage (Eastern Cape) lost their jobs between January 1990 and August 1992. And this is an economically privileged region.
Predictions for 1993, based on a series tion in its workforce, leading to the loss of 2300 jobs. And many more examples of this type can be found.
Negotiations for a "political transition" have started again. Once again, they could only be re-started after a concession from the liberation movement, the AN above all.
The key document behind there-start of the negotiations process was published last November by the National Executive Committee of the ANC, with the title "Negotiations: a strategic perspective". The new element of this document is the proposal to establish a government of national unity once elections for the new constituent assembly have taken place. This government would contain all those parties who obtain a significant number of votes (around 5 or 10%) for a fairly long period — 5 years is the length proposed by some.
Among the reasons cited to justify this approach, two seem to be the most important. In the first place, there should be stability during the transition period to prevent the destabilization of the country by "anti-democratic" forces. Here, the ANC refers to those sectors, among others the army and the police but also those outside the State apparatus, who have an interest in undermining the policies of the new government.
In the second place, the ANC has demonstrated its willingness to involve all "significant" political forces in the process of "dismantling apartheid", building a parliamentary democracy and of "national reconstruction".
This view is far from unanimous in the ranks of the ANC. It has been the object of
1. Chris Hani was seen as a representative of the radical fringe of the internal leadership of the ANC, even if he has been a supporter of the path of a negotiated solution and the "government of national unity" option.
2. "Signs of resilience in a fragile society", Financial Times, April 13, 1993.
3. See "Que veut négocier De Klerk?", La Brèche #495, September 11, 1992.
4. Marches Tropicaux, March 5, 1993, p. 649
5. Marchés Tropicaux, March 19, 1993, p. 744
6. See La Brèche #495, September 11, 1992. It should be recalled that at the time this announcement by De Beers provoked a mini-crash of the Johannesburg stock market, a fall of 155 points over two days.
7. Marches Tropicaux, March 12, 1993, p. 714.
8. Marchés Tropicaux, March 5, 1993, p. 649
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International Viewpoint #245 May 1993 lively discussions in the different sections of the ANC, the Communist Party and the other major ANC ally, COSATU, the main union federation. But this wave of internal protest has not led to the formation of an alternative current with its own programmatic expression and concrete proposals. This has made it easier to win back those who have expressed their doubts and disagreements with the central leadership of the ANC.10
On the other hand, for many rank and file activists, especially among the youngest layers, the tide of compromises is more and more difficult to accept — a sentiment now being expressed in the current explosion of protest following Hani's assassina-
Rank and file ANC activists, along with all those who will probably vote for the ANC in the next elections, have very specific wishes and demands: the massive building of housing; the setting up of an exclusion-free educational system; access to land for all those want to work it; the establishment of a universally accessible healthcare system, and so forth
These combined social and democratic demands come up against the inherited socio-economic structure of apartheid. They are a historic part of the Freedom Charter - the ANC platform since 1955 — and have thus embedded themselves in the collective consciousness.
For its part the De Klerk government is playing deaf. At the beginning of March, the minister of finances, Derek Keys, presented his economic model for a new South Africa. This 5-year economic plan is very similar to a classic International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, with a few adjustments in the area of the social costs of the restructuring - imposed in large measure by the existence of a strong union movement in the country.
As such, the programme proposes a big reduction in State expenditure, which is supposed to go from 26.8% of GDP in 1992 to 20.1% in 1997 — which must also apply to the nationalized sector, which is quite large in South Africa." In addition, it proposes to reduce the highest level of corporate taxation from 48% to 40% and the highest level of personal taxation from 43% to 40%. These fiscal measures are combined with a 4% increase of the Value Added Tax (VAT), an indirect tax, from 10% to 14%.12
This fiscal operation redistributes the tax bill to the detriment of the poorest South Africans - the Blacks. According to the plan, the proposed measures should allow for a strengthening of "savings" — in other words, it will increase the holdings of the wealthy — which is supposed to be the condition for a revival of investment.
An increase in the purchasing power of the Black masses does not seem to be, for the IMF and its South African disciples, a condition for the revival of the economy, through the strengthening of demand.
The second pre-condition for a revival, according to the same experts, is a lowering of real wages. The plan proposes that the maximum increase of real wages should not surpass 0.75%! Throughout 1992, the maintenance of buying power for the workers of an enterprise was seen as a victory by the unions. On the one hand the maintenance of purchasing power is very rare; on the other, the pressure of unemployment is such that this "gain" alone appears very great indeed
The government plan foresees, as a second step, a greater liberalization of imports through a 9% reduction of import taxes, from 27% to 18%. This will decrease fiscal inputs from customs sources and will open up the South African market to western exporters.
We are already familiar with the social and economic consequences of this kind of neo-liberal project for the majority of the population in "Third World" countries. Given the expectations of the oppressed population of South Africa - expressed in the past through the Freedom Charter — it is entirely legitimate to wonder if a power-sharing arrangement with De Klerk's National Party would advance the work of putting in place a programme of "reconstruction of the country" which would respond to the needs of the majority of the South African population.
This question will be in the centre of the social and political debate, if the scenario of a national unity government is played out.
For the moment, South Africa is experiencing a wave of protest which ranks among the most widespread in its history. It is clear that this protest expresses much more than the mourning and anger provoked by the assassination of Chris Hani.
On April 14 alone, the first day of national mourning, more than 90% of South African workers did not go to work. More than one and a half million people marched in the streets to express their discontent faced with a deteriorating social and economic situation, faced with a negotiations process which is not producing any tangible results, and faced with an assassination which is seen as the physical elimination of the political figure who incarnated the hope of an improvement in living conditions for the majority of Blacks.
As such, even if Chris Hani had become a defender of the "government of national unity" option, a large part of the demonstrators did not hesitate to express their disenchantment with the idea of sharing power with a government in which they have no confidence whatsoever. 13
Indeed, have the "forces of order" not hesitated to fire on the demonstrators during peaceful demonstrations such as that of April 14? The police fired without warning on the crowd that surrounded the fortified police station in Soweto - killing at least 4 people, including the general secretary of the Soweto ANC branch, and injuring some 250 others. 14 The global balance sheet of dead and injured for April 14 is 17 dead and more than 400 injured. 15
The leadership of the AN has announced that the movement of strikes and other actions would continue if the government did not agree to soon fix a date for the first elections based on universal sufferage, and for the setting up of the executive transition councils which constitute the first step of the period of the interim administration. 16
Its goal is clear: force the government to make concessions around a series of demands linked to the negotiations process. The ANC does not seem to want to build a structured movement which would modify the current relationship of forces; it wants to give De Klerk a certain margin for manoeuvre. Experience has shown that this orientation has not always produced the expected results
On the other hand, the difficulties the ANC leadership has had containing mass anger reflects the distance that exists between, on the one hand, the social needs of the population and the fact that they are not expressed in a way that "takes into account" the "constraints of the negotiations" and, on the other hand, a social and political orientation straightjacketed by the negotiations framework.
The path of negotiations is paved with many difficulties and traps. *
9. SouthScan, February 19, 1993
10. For example, Harry Gwala, ANC leader in Natal, after having publicly expressed his disagreement with the leadership's decision, re-joined the ranks.
11. Business Day, March 10, 1993; SouthScan, February 26, 1993.
12. The reduction in the rate of taxation of enterprises, as well as the increase in the VAT are already in the 1993-94 budget which was presented by the minister of finances, Derek Keys, on March 17.
13. During these demonstrations, one could see placards with the slogan: "We will liberate our country with the AK47". Even Nelson Mandela, whose popularity and legitimacy in the rank and file of the liberation movement are without doubt, was jeered during the Soweto rally of April 14 when he referred to messages of sympathy sent by the National Party.
14. Financial Times, April 15, 1993.
15. Le Monde, April 16, 1993
16. Journal de Genève, April 15, 1993.
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