Monthly News, Comment & Mobilization Pamphlet Of Azapo — January 2010

THE PRESIDENT’S NEW YEAR MESSAGE—2010
Friends and Compatriots

As the year 2009 recedes and we look forward to the new one, we would be justified to pray for the disappearance of the many adverse factors attending our lives. Chief among them would be the world economic squeeze which has seen to the contraction of our national wealth, the loss of about a million jobs and the intensification of poverty in our country. Being officially the most unequal society in the world, this scale of job losses is the last thing we need.

Mass poverty is by far the most serious enemy our country faces. It is simply not sustainable to have so much grinding poverty coexisting with enormous opulence and conspicuous consumption, bordering on the obscene. To make matters worse, the poverty divide is by and large still along racial lines.

Those who were rich yesterday are still the owners of the wealth of the country today, joined by a few blacks who tend to receive almost all the criticism of the still psychologically oppressed commentators. These are people who have their gaze firmly fixed on the few blacks who own less than 2% of the wealth of the country, as measured by JSE listings, and ignore the 98% still in the hands of the white population.

To these commentators, there is something particularly detestable when black people own something, but perfectly natural or God ordained that whites should own the wealth of the land.

If the issue of mass poverty is not attended to as a matter		 of extreme urgency, this country might descend into chaos sooner than most of us imagine. Obviously, the economic recession we are going through only adds to the difficulties that the poor face.

Severe as it might be, the economic meltdown will pass sooner or later. What is even more frightening in our country, is the acceleration and entrenchment of corruption.

On a daily basis, we are bombarded with corruption stories in Correctional Services or Home Affairs or this or the other province. Corruption is becoming a way of life for many and we are becoming numb and desensitised about its fundamentally evil nature. People talk about it matter-of-factly, without the expected level of shock or revulsion.

In the dawning 2010, let us fight harder against the scourge of corruption. It is much more difficult to grow the economy, create jobs and fight poverty in an environment infested with rampant corruption.

As we have said before in AZAPO, one way of fighting corruption is to appoint people into positions on the basis of merit, qualifications and competence only. Similarly, tenders should be awarded on merit and ability to do the job. Corruption thrives better in offices occupied by incompetent people.

There is a sense in which the appointment of people into positions for which they do not qualify can be regarded as corruption. How do you then fight corruption with incompetent people who were appointed in a corrupt process?		 It is our duty, if we want a good country in which to raise our young into worthy adults, to fight corruption with all our might. A country in which police, prosecutors, magistrates, judges, prison authorities, business people, government officials and others are corrupt, is not a country worth living in. We should never find ourselves in a similar position as Italians in years gone by when their police, judges, politicians and other important people in society were in the pockets of the Mafia.

We are confident that our country will host a successful FIFA World Cup in the dawning year. We trust that we will all enjoy the spectacle and that our guests would find us ready to give them an unforgettable experience.

Together with the rest of humanity, we would urge all countries of the world to ensure that climate change negotiations scheduled for the second half of 2010 are a success, so that the task of saving our planet for posterity can start in earnest.

We wish you all a prosperous and safe 2010!

What Price Reconciliation?

Reconciliation. This is the word we heard more and more in the run-up to 1994 general elections and even more after those elections. These calls were being made even as Almond Nofomela, notorious Vlakplaas askari, was making startling allegations about the activities of the Civil Cooperation Bureau, most notable of which was

The President's New Year Message - 2010

What Price Reconciliation?

Tribute to Cde Lesley Malinga

Cde Joe Variava Honoured

Dennis Brutus, A Combatant to the End

LEST WE FORGET…
Dr Abu Asvat

November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009

Office No. 1900, 19th Floor
Kine Centre
141 Commissioner Str.
JOHANNESBURG
2001

P.O. Box 4230
JOHANNESBURG
2000

Tel: +27 11 331 6430/1/2
Fax: +27 11 331 6433

E-mail: azapo@mail.ngo.za

Website: www.azapo.org.za
 

For The Sake Of Our Country

 

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the unleashing of Aids infected agents from Vlakplaas onto the shebeens of nearby Mamelodi.

This was a time when violence against black township residents was being systematically orchestrated by the same CCB and unleashed with heart-stopping ferocity. Almost everybody came to know of a neighbour, friend or relative who was a victim of the violence. Although black politicians, who were poised to succeed the apartheid regime, knew who was behind the violence, they miraculously chose to refer to the perpetrators as a “Third Force”. Ostensibly, naming the perpetrators by name was going to derail the Rainbow Train to Reconciliation station.

As the negotiations continued, even as the tide of violence against black communities rose and fell with the timing of the CCB, something that was called a “sunset clause” was added to the two minutes of the negotiations. The clause allowed civil servants who had served in senior positions in the apartheid regime to stay on until the first term of the democratically elected government had run its term, also setting the scene for the government of national unity of the time.

All this had been done in the name of Reconciliation. What it also did was it allowed people who had been part of a very corrupt system to stay on and transfer skills to the newcomers. It is not clear what skills were transferred but soon the new civil service started showing signs of corruption which grew as the years rolled on. The new civil servants, most of whom were not quite as smooth as their tutors, quickly showed signs of high living that raised eyebrows. Also believing that heir time had come, they did very little in trying to cover their tracks. So learning corrupt ways from all time masters was one of the consequences of reconciliation.

One of the civil service units of the dying apartheid regime had been the so-called Regional		 Management Councils. There has been press speculation about the amounts that they embezzled but this may never be public knowledge because the reconciliation process meant that they would never have to answer to anyone for the moneys they allegedly embezzled. And it also meant the managers of Vlakplaas would never stand trial for using AIDS as a weapon of war. If there is anybody who must face genocide charges for AIDS deaths in this country it is this group.

Along the way came the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The perpetrators of inhumanities against black people would own up for some of the things they did publicly, and commissioners would pronounce them forgiven. But this did not happen until black people would have appeared before the same commission and wept publicly about things that had been done to them or their relatives, all this done in the full glare of television cameras from all over the world. So with a blush and a tear the reconciliation was supposed to have been sealed. Measly sums of R30 000 were touted as amounts that would help clear the tears and unburden the heavy hearts of black families who had wept their pain for the entire world to see.

Besides the fact that the sum proposed conjured memories of the Biblical thirty pieces of silver, the public weeping took a lot of shine from blacks as a people. After all, the world remembered us for the brave and defiant way in which we faced bullets and the hippos armed with stones and with dustbin lids for armor in the 1976 to 1977 uprisings and the intermittent uprisings that started in September 1984 and took three states of emergencies and secret negotiations to bring to an uneasy end. Did the world not have memories of fatally wounded black youths shouting “Amandla” with their fists in the air even as they were going down. Suddenly we were reduced to a people		 who wept for a mere thirty stena and to induce public hugging and rubbing of backs by professional comforters. So we also lost our dignity and the respect and awe that nations had for us, all in the name of Reconciliation.

The saddest part of our loss has been our hallowed national anthem Nkosi Sikelel’I Afrika. This hymn of Afrika, which many other African countries had adopted or were in the process of adopting as their national anthem, was mutilated. Two verses which carry the prayer essence of the hymn were ripped out and in their place the odious “Die Stem” verse was put in. Some of us who were unfortunate enough to have been forced to read a book called Die Erwe van Onse Vadere, a collection of essays by one C J Langenhoven, as prescribed matric reading text, remember that Die Stem is a poem that was plucked out of that book and turned into an Afrikaner republic anthem. In the outpourings of that book, the author makes it clear that his vadere do not include Makana, Hintsa, Shaka, Dingaan, Moshoeshoe, Sekhukhune, Makhado or Ngungunyane. In the final sentence that says “laat die erwe van ons vadere, die erwe van ons kinders bly”( Let the heritage of our forefathers remain the heritage of our children), it is clear that the heritage of their forefathers includes the land usurped from black people and the slave labour that resulted from it, and that “ons kinders” do not include the descendants of the African Kings named above. Many of us who were participants in the 1976 uprisings, believed the diatribe from Die Erwe added fuel to the fire that was to come in 1976.

It seems like the negotiators of that Codesa deal were just too eager to please and were not sensitive to what a national anthem is supposed to be. A national anthem is supposed to be the carrier of the dreams, hopes and aspirations of a people, and in what way does any part of Die Stem begin to		 address  the aspirations of black people in this country?

There is a big sense in which we have lost out on Nkosi Sikelel’ I Afrika, because all those African countries who had adopted Nkosi, have quietly dropped it and fashioned other national anthems. How do you show respect for the heritage whose direct beneficiaries have no pride in? We should not then wonder when our African brothers consider us half-wits and proceed to treat us that way.

All these things have added up to create a black man who has no anchor, and we should not be surprised to see a reversion to the non-white character that predates the dawn of black consciousness. All of us may have noticed black petrol attendants, bar-tenders, waiters and even tellers who fall over themselves to attend white patrons who arrive long after a long queue of black clients had formed. After all in the new South Africa “ Dumedisa Basa” is the motive force that drives the Reconciliation merry-go-around. But this crowd is beaten hands down by a generation of non-whites which has grown up to call their fathers “garden boys” and their mothers “kitchen girls”, and do it in joyous song for that matter.

REMEMBERING A FEARLESS CADRE: A TRIBUTE TO CDE LESLEY MALINGA, 1952-2009

Reflecting on his own life, the Bolshevik Novelist and Commissar, Nikolai Ovstrovsky, wrote thus:

“Man’s dearest possession is life and since it is given to him but once-he must so live as not to be besmeared by the shame of a cowardly existence and trivial past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in the world-the liberation of mankind".

On the morning of the 28 November 2009, a fearless heart ceased to throb, a gallant

For The Sake Of Our Country


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spirit ceased to breath. A proud man, who refused to be besmeared by the shame of a cowardly existence and trivial past. A man whose entire being was devoted to the nothing else, but the liberation of his fellow man. That giant of a man was Cde.Lesley Malinga.

Born on the 12 of April, 1952 in the oldest section of the Galeshewe Township, Number Two. He joined the BCM 38 years ago at the tender age of 19 and served AZAPO and the BCM at various levels. He helped found the first AZAPO branch in Kimberley and was instrumental in the co-ordination of the underground activities of its armed wing, the Azanian National Liberation Army.

At the time of his passing, he was an AZAPO Councillor in the Sol Plaatjie Municipality in Kimberley, the provincial Head of AZAPO’s Secretariat for Local Government and Housing and a member of AZAPO’s Central Committee. An indefatigable community activist, who didn’t hesitate to take up issues on behalf of various sections of the black community, regardless of their political or religious affiliation.

Within AZAPO and the BCM, he was not just revered for his discipline and dependability, but was also known for his passionate abhorrence for perfidy and the fact that, he was always the first to volunteer his services when the lives of the AZAPO leadership and membership were in danger.

In his 38 years of service to AZAPO and the BCM, not once was he ever involved or implicated in any activities that were calculated to undermine the discipline or inner-party unity of AZAPO or any of its structures. It is therefore no embellishment to say that, Cde.Malinga was the personification of revolutionary honesty.

Many in AZAPO and the BCM, have come to respect, admire and sometimes fear him because he was a straight talking cadre, who actively fought against liberalism, factionalism,		 rumour mongering and back biting. So committed to AZAPO was Cde.Malinga that he wouldn’t think twice about ending a long standing personal relationship if he thought such a relationship was militating against his belief in Black Consciousness and Socialism.

For him, no task was ever too great or small. All tasks were equally important. He accepted orders without question and executed them with tact and diligence. For most of his youth and adult life he knew nothing else but the struggle for black dignity and socialism.

In life, he never referred to himself as a cadre or revolutionary; however, through his 38 years of unbroken service to the Azanian Revolution, he defined himself as such. We can now confidently confer upon him the honour of model cadre. And like Ovstrovsky, he had only one life and dear as it was to him, he unreservedly dedicated it to the liberation of mankind.

Today, we can proudly declare that, Cde. Malinga was indeed one of our finest cadres. A bold, industrious and truthful cadre of the Azanian Revolution.

Son of the soil, you have made your humble contribution and in time, the sun shall kiss the horizon and you shall be in a position to assume your honourable place along a glittering galaxy of BC heroes like Onkgopotse Tiro, Bantu Biko, Mthuli Shezi, Muntu Myeza, Mzwandile Mcoseli, Thami Mcerwa, Thabang Motlolisi, Lekau Moyaha, Mokete Masetle and many others. So, you may rest now; for we shall continue the struggle for the dignity of black people. Rest fearless cadre! Rest.

KNOW YOUR Veterans...

Cde Joe Variava

In December of 2009, Wits University presented Dr Joe Variava with an Honorary Doctor of Medicine. This is what they say about the man in their

 Graduation Ceremony brochure:

“ Yosuf “Joe” Variava is perhaps best known within the academic community for the ‘Steve Biko court case which he led against the South African Medical and Dental Council in 1985. Joined by other renowned Wits academics, including Philip Tobias and Trefor Jenkins, the group succeeded in restoring some faith and confidence in the medical profession by having the errant ‘Biko doctor’ struck off the medical roll. The official case reference [Veriava and other v President, South African Medical and Dental Council, and other, November 1985] defines Professor Variava as a person who lays the ethical and moral foundations on which others may build. He is a person who is able to stir the conscience and mobilise the support of giants like Tobias and Jenkins, some one who has the courage to challenge and rock the very foundations of his own profession. The Biko case, while noteworthy and triumphant in its own right, was but one of many moral and ethical victories in a campaign that started at least a decade earlier, with Variava, a junior medical consultant at Coronation Hospital and a member of the Wits academic staff, regularly confronting the Director of the formidable, arbitrary and vindictive Transvaal Provincial Hospital Administration.

Himself a victim of differentiated salary and other conditions of service that were applied to ‘non-white’ Joe established groupings such as the Doctors’. Support Committee, but it mostly in his personal capacity that he confronted the authorities, invariably risking his own position, and on several occasions compromising opportunities for promotion. Whether campaigning for equal conditions of service for equally-qualified professionals, equal opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate students, desegregated facilities for patients, or the right to publish revealing facts on disparate hospital conditions, he was always at the forefront. As such,		 he has served the Faculty, the University and the country in the pursuit of dignity and justice for 30 years, and there can be few people in our midst who have done as much to move this institution and its various medical campuses forward in the quest for equity and transformation.

Behind the academic scenes Joe was also politically active in positions such as Secretary for Health of the Azanian People Organisation, and he played a vital role in providing health services to disadvantaged and disempowered local and remote communities, from Kliptown and Alexandra to Brandfort and Potgietersrust. These activities gained him recognition by the populist Sowetan newspaper and Drum magazine, while simultaneously putting the hospital administration on alert for any infringements that would give them cause for his dismissal. However, Joe always ensured that his patients had been treated, his students taught, his clinical duties fulfilled.

His profile as a highly-regarded clinician and an activist undaunted by apartheid officialdom and its menacing organs resulted in Joe being called on repeatedly by lawyers in the late seventies and early eighties to examine detainees and provide evidence of abuse and torture. This he did with unwavering honesty and objectivity, again ignoring the risk to his own freedom and professional career. His involvement with detainees led to the establishment of the Parents’ Support Ground and a medical panel that gave further voice and some opposition to the plight of detainees and the circumstances under which they were held. As a consequence of these and other activities that involved parents, notably the protection of children engaged in the schools boycott in 1980, Joe was detained for five months during which he was assaulted and prolonged solitary confinement, while also having to deal with the news of his father’s unexpected death.

For The Sake Of Our Country


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At Faculty level Professor Variava has been a driving force behind the establishment of standing committee such as the Equal Opportunities, Racial and Sexual Harassment Advisory, and Professional and Ethical Standards committee. More important, however, were his roles in the Faculty’s submission to the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, and the Faculty’s subsequent Internal Reconciliation Commission. These initiatives speak to another aspect of Joe’s make-up, his commitment not only to rights and justice, but also to peace and reconciliation. A consistent and renowned characteristic of this man of profound integrity remains to always engage and respect colleagues (even through times when they were undoubtedly less than worthy of that respect) and not to bear grudges or harbour resentment. In return he enjoys the respect of those who work with and for him, and it is clearly apparent that when he speaks out in an assembly such as the Senate on matter of principle, ethics and equity, colleagues listen and are usually persuaded by his rational and balanced arguments.

Joe’s contributions to the rights of patients, doctors and students, and his victories over the injustices of academic and hospital apartheid, between 1970 through even into the nineties, are identified in Advocate Jules Browde’s Report on the Faculty’s Internal Reconciliation Commission. These include leading roles in:

The development of an ethical policy for the management of hunger strikers (essential preventing the police from removing striking prisoners from the hospital)

The formal establishment of the Coronation and J G Strijdom hospitals as a multiracial hospital complex following the disastrous transfer of the latter hospital to the white ‘Own Affairs’ department in an attempt to exclude other races, and 		Support for a group of Baragwanath doctors in their case against the Province after they had been denied jobs for refusing to apologise to the Director of Hospital Service for a critical letter published in the South African Medical Journal.

These and other achievements have won Joe an Indicator Human Rights Award, an award from the South African Medical and Dental Practitioners group, the Benjamin Pogrud Medical from Wits, the Alligarh Gold Medal, and importantly, in eventual recognition for his contributions to the Gauteng Province and its health system, he recently received the MEC’s Award for Service Excellence. The University recognised his clinical abilities and superb leadership skills by appointing him as Academic Head of the internationally-renowned Department of Internal Medicine. However at this time we would be failing in our duty were we not to also recognise his unwavering commitment and dedication to the human, moral, ethical and transformational aspirations of Wits and the communities it serves. Honoris causa is translated as ‘by reason of honour’ – Joe Variava has honoured Wits by his contributions over thirty years, it is appropriate for us to now honour him.
We salute you Cde Joe, you have been a true servant of the people and lived up to your oath.
FOR DENNIS BRUTUS, A COMBATANT TO THE END.

AZAPO joins millions of comrades and fighters for democracy for all, in mourning the passing away of Dennis Brutus- poet and freedom- fighter extra-ordinary.

Ever since AZAPO connected with Dennis, abroad, and past 1994, here at home, he has with humility accepted our invitations to speak on our platforms. The last engagement was at Khotso House in 2009.

He spoke in his inimitative manner, exhibiting his than		 world-renowned steadfastness on issues such as poverty, the G8, the pathetic failures of the past 1994 “Democratic” governments in South Africa regarding the amelioration of the still poor and suffering masses of our people. He spoke, as usual, on the side of the poor, still disadvantaged, uneducated black communities- those who have not benefited from the so-called “Freedom”

AZAPO admired Dennis Brutus for his simplicity, despite his accolades from his worldwide achievements and successes – a true man of all seasons, a man of the people. Unfortunately, to loss of country, the various governments of post 1994 South Africa seemed to have no space for this man! A man denied by fate from being President of our country! A man who could have been a minister, but was not anointed, a man who was in fact, a permanently seatless member of parliament. A rare individual who, on principle, refused a presidential award of honours! Very few people would do that!

Dennis Brutus encapsulates the characteristic stubbornness of black people against all odds. His entire life was typical of that black anger. He defied racism, oppression, segregation and elitism. He could easily have chosen a life of comfort, ex all over South Africa to –day by the many who pose as “representatives” of the masses. Dennis Brutus was simply beyond being bought or bribed. He was indeed the epitome of stubborn Hope! He was stubborn Hope itself!

In September 1977, Dennis Brutus read poems at a meeting of the United Nations Special Committee on Africa, together with a then unknown poet of the Black Consciousness Movement. He showed no airs about his illustrious personal. In 1984, in Europe, at a Horizonte Arts Festival. He joined writers on the fringe, instead of appearing in the main festival. It 		was yet one other time when he ignored his status of greatness.

AZAPO bids Dennis Brutus a peaceful journey. It consoles his family for the loss of a father, grandfather and great-grandfather. His loss is felt in South Africa, America and the entire world where the trampled are still struggling. Sooner, rather than later, AZAPO hopes that a monument to this great son of the soil will be erected in his honours. The country deserves the monument. Dennis Brutus built in his Honour.

An AZAPO government would certainly commit itself to honour Dennis Brutus everlastingly.

LEST WE FORGET…

Dr Abu Baker ‘Hurley’ Asvat

In January 1989, a senseless, criminal act ended the life of one of South Africa’s most selfless medical doctors this country has known.

As we all know, he was AZAPO’s Secretary for Health and his community work extended to many provinces in this country.
What he did for the needy in our communities is sorely missed to this day.

This year marks the 21st anniversary of that killing. Two people were charged and convicted for the crime, but a lot of us are convinced that the real villains behind this killing are still at large.

In fact, we know that there are some powerful people in this country who have the details of this act, who are just sitting back and hoping that the truth will not out.

They are wrong. They will be snuffed out one day for their complicity in this assassination and they shall be brought to book.

We owe that to Hurley, Zohra and the children.

For The Sake Of Our Country