 |
| Pallo Jordan |
by Z. Pallo Jordan
Like so many of the landmarks along our long walk to
freedom, September 7th 1992 does not mark a happy occasion. It was day on which
the political and social forces striving to give birth to a democratic South
Africa, clashed head-on with the joint forces of reaction represented by the
tin-pot military strongman, Brigadier Oupa Gqozo and the die-hards of the
apartheid regime. Twenty-eight people were mowed down in a desperate act of
repression.
On the 8th September 1992, then President of the ANC, Comrade
Nelson Mandela’s issued a public statement on the Bhisho Massacre. The message
read in part:
“Each one of the people who lost their lives at Bisho
yesterday, 7th September, was a unique human being. The daughter or the son of
some mother; the father or mother to some child; a person linked to a home, to
a community of relatives and friends who had loved, cherished and nurtured her
or him for many years in the hope of a continuing and shared future.
“Thousands marched full of hope for a better tomorrow.
Dozens did not return.
“Those fateful four minutes of gunfire, which reverberated
through the length and breadth of South Africa, snuffed out those lives as if
they were of no consequence. The staccatto of those automatic weapons added one
more grisly episode to the already bloodstained annals of twentieth century
South Africa.
“The facts of what occurred have been established by the
international media and eyewitnesses representing local and international
agencies whose reputations are beyond reproach. The shootings were unprovoked
and were not preceded by any warning. Lethal force was employed as the first
option of the Ciskei Security Forces in circumstances that did not even
remotely warrant its use.
“We condemn these killings in the strongest possible terms!
“To the bereaved families; to the relatives and friends who
have lost their loved ones we offer our heartfelt condolences. The words of
comfort and sympathy we pronounce can however do nothing to restore the lives
that have been so brutally cut short . We can but hope that these few tokens of
our deep concern will lend them the support to alleviate their sorrow. We mourn
with the communities of the Border region that continue to bleed even while our
country makes its troubled transition from the autocracy of apartheid to
democracy.
“From this day, Bhisho will rank alongside Boipatong on that
roll call of infamy that recounts the past two years of F.W. de Klerk’s
incumbency. The authors of yesterday’s massacre already stand condemned in the
eyes of the nation and the world for their criminal actions.”
Twenty eight people were killed on September 7th 1992, two
years before South Africa’s first democratic elections. 200 more were wounded
in a fusillade that lasted more than 1 minute. The massacre at Bhisho followed
close on the heels of the Boipatong Massacre of 17th June 1992, when armed
assailants organised by the Third Force attacked a small township, killing 45
people and injuring scores. It was later revealed that the attack was an aspect
of “Operation Marion”, a destabilisation campaign run by the generals of
military intelligence to thwart progress to democratic elections. Though Dr
Mangosutho Buthelezi strenuously denied any involvement by his party or
supporters in that murderous incident, at the TRC six members of the IFP
applied for amnesty for their involvement in the Boipatong massacre!
During the centenary year of the ANC, on 16th August 2012,
thirty four mineworkers were killed. Eighteen years into South African
democracy, the first post-democracy state massacre occurred under circumstances
that still need to be unpacked and closely investigated by a judicial enquiry.
The circumstances and the environment in which these two
massacres took place does make them vastly different events. Yet ; who is here so bold as to say the tears shed for those who
died on August 16th 2012 are less bitter than those shed for the fallen of
September 7th 1992?
Who is here so callous as to suggest that the death of a
father, a husband, a brother, a son, a relative, a neighbour – is less painful
because those who fired the shots were employed by a different government?
Who is here, so heartless as to suggest that the lives lost
at Marikana are less valued, less precious, less important than those of the
victims of Boipatong and Bisho?
Who is here so hard-hearted, insensitive and cold as to
suggest that our humanity; the humanity of our community; the humanity of our
people, of all South Africans was not violated when the live ammunition was
fired into a crowd of protesting mineworkers?
Who is here so unfeeling as not to recognise that this
massacre and the blood of the fallen cry out for a thorough and intense
investigation to get to the root causes of this terrible tragedy and to hold to
account those responsible?
We are here today to mark one of those terrible moments in
South Africa’s march to democracy, 7th September 1992. In the euphoria that
accompanies much of our celebration of our democracy we too often forget the
price that was exacted from our people before we arrived at 27th April 1994.
In our enthusiasm for the democratic order, for our
Constitution and the democratic institutions we have today, it is all too often
forgotten that those last four years of apartheid, between February 2nd 1990
and 27th April 1994, witnessed some of the worst bloodletting, overt and covert
state sponsored violence South Africa had yet witnessed in a century.
It is absolutely necessary that we remind ourselves of the
character of the much praised “peaceful transition”; it was peaceful only in
part! The sacrifices of the numerous families who lost their loved ones during
those fateful four years demand that we acknowledge that our “peaceful
transition” was peaceful in that the ANC and its armed combatants had declared
a unilateral ceasefire in 1990 and did not once retaliate against the apartheid
state apparatus or its agents for the murders they visited on entire
communities, in Natal, in the Gauteng, in Mpumalanga and in the Free State.
One of the most diabolical aspects of racist repression was the
regime’s ability to outsource that repression to puppet regimes like those of
Matanzima, Oupa Gqozo and other “homeland leaders”.
The massacre at Bisho in September 1992 was one such
instance.
After de Klerk announced the unbanning of the ANC, PAC the
SACP, BCM and other organisations on 2nd February 1990, it was very clear to
all of us in the liberation movement that his actions were inspired both by the
pressure from below in the shape of mass struggles and international isolation,
as well as a hard-nosed realism on the part of the NP leadership who opted to
negotiate to avoid total defeat.
We entered negotiations from a position of political
stalemate.
South Africa’s transition consequently would have two
features. One was the attempt by the then dominant White minority to save what
they could by accommodating some of the demands of the oppressed; the other
would be continuing pressure from below, driven by the people’s own desire to
realise a freedom that was meaningful and that gave real content to democracy.
Within the ranks of the liberation movement itself there was
an ongoing debate about the best tactics to employ. I think comrades will
recall what was then called the “tap, the boat and the Leipzig option” debate –
during which some comrades argued for tactics that treated mass action like a
tap that could be turned on and off, as and when the occasion demanded. Others
at the same time argued that within the NP de Klerk and his supporters were not
necessarily fully in charge, their position was being challenged by
“stand-patters” and for us to rock the boat might well assist these more
intransigent elements amongst them who opposed change. There was the third
point of view that advocated sustained pressure on the de Klerk government on
all fronts, similar to the mass demonstrations in Leipzig and other places that
finally forced Erich Honecker and his colleagues to resign as the government of
the GDR in 1990.
The 80,000 (eighty thousands) who marched on Bisho to demand
the dissolution of the puppet state called the Ciskei and its reincorporation
within the official borders of South Africa were participants in a campaign of
mass action, inspired by the ANC and its allies. We regarded that demonstration
as one of many levers to break the log-jams in the negotiating process and to
maintain popular pressure that was so necessary to compel the de Klerk
government to negotiate in earnest.
The ANC had withdrawn from CODESA in protest against the
Boipatong massacre on 17th June 1992, three months previously. The March on
Bhisho, that resulted in a Massacre was the high-point in a continuing campaign
of mass action. The regime and its surrogates responded to it with bullets!.
The distressing of this moment, in 2012, when we our people
are once again mourning, is that it throws into very sharp relief the
contradictions arising from those two dimensions of our democratic transition.
Because the midwives of democratic South Africa were both
mass pressure and elite accommodation, the property relations of the old South
Africa were carried over into the new. Yes, to be sure, democratic law has
makes it illegal to deny any South African access to or the right to own property
on grounds of race. But those who had in the past acquired their property
precisely on grounds of their race, were allowed to keep it. One could call it
a compromise to the effect that the beneficiaries of racism would keep their
ill-gotten wealth provided they agreed to political democracy.
The outcome has been is that we de-racialised
property-ownership, but at the same time we racialised poverty! What’s more we
racially gendered poverty! Using any index one might want, poverty in South
Africa is a condition suffered by Blacks in general, the Africans in
particular, and is concentrated specifically amongst African women!
The arrival of democracy has opened the path to
property-acquisition and capital accumulation to a small minority of Africans who
have since become capitalists engaged in mining, agriculture, secondary
industry, finance management and banking. But it has left un-changed the large
pockets of poverty that compel thousands of other Africans to descend into the
bowls of the earth to extract the minerals that go to enrich a few.
The system of “bantu homelands” stood at the centre of a
migrant labour system devised in 1905 specifically to produce and reproduce an
easily exploitable labour force from amongst landless peasants forced to join
the working class. After 1948, when the NP first won a majority in Parliament,
the system was further refined by delegating a number of policing functions to
“homeland governments”, four of whom even opted for the cynical “independence”
that the NP foisted on them.
From the inception of mining in this country, the Eastern
Cape, like many of our impoverished rural areas and those of South Africa’s
immediate neighbours, have annually supplied thousands of men to work on the
mines. We need not detain ourselves here recounting the palling,
concentration-camp-like conditions under which African mineworkers were forced
to live and work.
Our campaigns to improve the lot of the African miners
declaimed to our country and to the world, that :
- · It is a crime to place the African peasant in circumstances compelling him to seek work on the mines!
- · It is a crime to monitor, control and oppress African miners with dompasses and permits;
- · It is crime to house African miners in unhealthy compounds under prison-like conditions!
- · It is a crime to pay African miners starvation wages while mining corporations and bosses got rich;
What words shall we pronounce today?
What words can express the criminality of actually shooting
African miners during a protest ??!!
The massacre here at Bhisho, on 7th September 1992 was an
unprovoked act of repression perpetrated by a desperate puppet regime, run by a
drunken maniac and sustained by mercenaries and a repressive police force.
How will future generations account for this first
post-democracy massacre?
How do we, as the militants of the liberation movement that
brought this country democracy; that helped craft a much-envied democratic Constitution;
that has created the Constitutional framework enabling thousands of those previously
held down beneath an iron ceiling to become socially mobile; that transformed
South Africa into a land of hope by casting open the doors of opportunity for
millions :
What meaning do we read in this post-democratic massacre??
How do we account for this post democracy state massacre?
If ever there was a moment for us all to take stock, it is
now!
Marikana is a terrible tragedy as the first post democracy
massacre, but we can also turn it into a moment for collective introspection as
a nation. I consider this one of those moments of that represent a crisis of
conscience: A crisis of conscience especially for the liberation movement, but
also for South African democracy.
It raises serious questions about the quality of our police
service that in 2012, it responds to public manifestations with live
ammunition.
It raises serious questions about the quality of our
democratic state that, after eighteen years, we have not been able to train our
police service to handle crown control other than by repressive means.
It raises serious questions, especially after the death of
Andries Tatane at the hands of the police, about the standing orders on public
order policing within the SAPS.
On coming into office in 1994, the democratic government set
about reforming what had in the past been a repressive apparatus into a police
service. We demilitarised the Police as one means of re-orienting them to
serving the people of the country. Perhaps such reform has not proceeded far
enough? Or have they been arrested too soon by the exigencies of the present?
Notwithstanding the unfavourable international economic
climate, the democratic government has kept the ship of the South African state
on course. It is only those who are wilfully blind who can deny that our government
has delivered a democracy dividend to the people of this country.
- The democratic government has restored and given rights to a host of communities, defined by faith and by chosen lifestyle.
- Since 1994, the democratic government has delivered new housing units at a rate of over 1000 units per day.
- The democratic government has multiplied the number of South Africans who cook with electricity by 130%
- The democratic government has multiplied the number of South Africans who have clean running water in their homes by 71%
- The democratic government has multiplied the number of South Africans who have access to schooling
- The democratic government has brought health and social services to all South Africans.
These are undeniable successes!
Our un-deniable successes, I think, have led to an attitude
of complacency and postures within the movement itself of “let’s go along, to
get along” . Or worse yet “let’s go along, to get ahead”.
We have in the past observed the leadership of the ANC, in
and out of government; go along quietly as the denialism of a President played
havoc with the health and the lives of millions!
It is at moments such as these that the mettle of our
leadership and the quality of our movement are tested.
Those among us who want to close their eyes to reality might
not like facing up to the widely held perception that we live in an environment
of corruption.
A widely perception that this corruption is sustained and
encouraged by a pervasive attitude of connivance and impunity.
A widely perception that the ANC, as a movement and as a
government, is very permissive about corruption.
A widely perception the ANC is permissive because some of
its own leaders and members are implicated in such corruption.
We have seen what denialism, on the part of the ANC and its
leadership, led to in the past.
Over the past eight years have seen the escalation of local
protests over perceived delivery failures and corruption at local government
level. It might well be that many of these protests are fuelled by rising
expectations: There can be no doubt that in many instances this has led to ANC
councillors losing legitimacy among the people. It is only a matter of time
before that loss of legitimacy percolates upwards – to the provincial and
national leadership.
The successes the democratic government has registered over
the past eighteen years are the direct result of the strategic vision our
movement has pursued over the years. It was that strategic vision that had
enabled the ANC to raise itself from the near-dismemberment immediately after
Rivonia, and over some years attain the status of effective leader of all the
democratic forces of the country during CODESA.
It was that strategic vision that took us from the doldrums
of Bhisho in September 1992, to April 1994.
The strategy that our movement had devised and tested in the
crucible of struggle, over decades, was to mobilise all those who could be
mobilised against the common enemy. The strategy of our movement was to isolate
the main enemy. And, we did this by winning to our side all those political and
social forces who sought change in earnest. There were also those whom we could
not organise. If it was possible, we sought to neutralise such forces rather
than drive them into active opposition.
Can any of us claim that our movement is applying such a
strategy today?
It is true that we left twenty eight of our fallen in Bhisho
on that bitter September day. But it was Oupa Gqozo, the collaborationist
stratum he led, the de Klerk government, the third force they claimed they
could not control, who were defeated on that day. On 21st September it was
announced that CODESA would resume. The movement was able to return to CODESA
II having extracted firm commitments to negotiate in good faith from de Klerk.
How do we assess the he outcomes produced by the actions of
the ANC and the government it leads? They are not creating/promoting a widening
network along which the ANC’s influence radiates. They have rather led to
increasing isolation as the sphere of influence of the movement shrinks. The
credibility of the ANC today is probably the lowest it has been since 1990! The
ANC leadership has been stripped of its dignity! The best advice one can offer
our movement, which seems caught in a hole is: “Stop digging!”
How we emerge from this terrible tragedy will depend on how
seriously we take and address the challenges it has placed before us.
I commend the speed with which President Zuma acted. It
demonstrates the determination of the government to get at the truth that the
President appointed a Judicial Commission of Inquiry within days of the
shootings. The government has also assisted bereaved families with burial costs
and offered counselling and comfort. All highly commendable! As commendable as
the appointment of the commission is, its primary concern will be to establish
legal matters of fact relating to the specific events of that fateful day,
August 16th. We are confident that the Judicial Commission of Inquiry will
conduct its investigations with the appropriate rigour and uncover all the
relevant facts.
But Marikana is symptomatic of a much deeper malaise. The
all too easy recourse to lethal violence on the part of the Police tells its
own terrifying tale. Besieged by new forms of violent crime, often perpetrated
by criminals armed with military hardware, the South African Police Service has
been exhorted to meet fire with fire many times by more than one minister and
National Police Commissioner. This might have had the unfortunate consequence
of encouraging the use of lethal force.
The sources of the tensions that led to bloodshed on August
16th are far deeper than the specific events that unfolded that day. I want to
use this platform to call upon the leadership of the Congress of South African
Trade Unions (COSATU) to convene a Workers’ Commission of Inquiry into the
Marikana tragedy. COSATU should invite the other two union federations to
participate in such a Workers” Commission. If international participation is
possible that too could be harnessed. Such a Workers Commission should
investigate, amongst other things, the return to South Africa’s mining industry
of the “native labour touts”, who pitted workers against each other yester
year. The “outsourcing” of recruitment through labour brokers was prevalent in
Marikana. Labour brokers and their presence have played a notorious role in
piling up the dry tinder of conflict. A Workers Commisiion should also shed
light on the manner in which the mining industry is evading its responsibilities
to its work force who live in shanty-towns around the mines. This industry,
built by the robber baron Randlords and corporate giants who battened on the
apartheid system, some claim, should today be subsidised with the tax rands of
ordinary workers to encourage it to create jobs!
A Workers’ Commission should also be tasked with
investigating the shockingly high levels of violence in our society. An aspect
of this violence is the high incidence of private gun ownership in this
country. The close correlation between high levels of gun ownership and
gun-related crime is now well established. The best way to curb gun related
crimes is to move towards a gun-free society. The police service in a gun-free
society will have less need to carry firearms.
Madam Premier,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Comrades and friends,
Does it sit easily with the membership of the ANC? Does it
sit easily with the millions of ANC supporters here at home, and in the world
at large that during its centennial year, the government, led by the ANC
presided over the first post-democracy state massacre?
How do we explain to the shade of Uncle J.B. Marks that
today it is bullets fired from the automatic weapons of our democratic police
service that are creating widows and orphans in the villages of the eastern
Cape, of Lesotho, of the north-west province?
Who will explain to the martyrs of Bhisho that the Police
service of the democracy for which they laid down their lives, also fires live
ammunition at demonstrators?
The tensions that erupted in the ongoing strike that led to
the events of August 16th are in many respects the result of the compromises
the movement made to attain the beach-head of democracy in 1994. And, make no
mistake, attaining the beachhead of democracy was vitally important and a
significant victory! But it also persuaded us to substitute BEE for wealth
redistribution. And when we find that inadequate we substitute it with BEEE!
Yes, we persuaded ourselves to be content with less than what we had fought
for, because that beachhead gave us much more than what we had had.
What has unfortunately also been most misunderstood is
Madiba’s call for and his own efforts to promote reconciliation. His call that
we leave the past behind us to build the future together has been misconstrued
to suggest that no wrong was committed in the past. To suggest that
reconciliation demanded no palpable acts of redress.
In another context, back in 1999, I raised the question:
Will our Black captains of industry behave like the Randlords who incited the
Anglo-Boer War and were ultimately responsible for the atrocities of the
Concentration Camps? Or will they behave like the latter-day White monopolists
who mouthed liberal sentiments, voted for the UP while they profited handsomely
from collaborating with apartheid? Or would pioneer a new path of corporate responsibility
by promoting better healthier industrial relations, the skilling and decent
remuneration of workers?
Regrettably, it would appear the emergent Black capitalist
class are have bought into and are being incorporated into the culture of White
monopoly capital. How culpable are they in this tragedy??
It might be unpleasant, but the current ANC leadership and
the government it leads must accept that it is probably presiding over the
years of the ANC’s most profound post-democracy crisis. That poses the matter
of the quality of the movement’s leadership at this moment.
Every movement for political transformation has arrived at
this moment of truth sooner or later. During the French Revolution it came on
the 18th Brumaire, when a young artillery officer, named Napoleon Bonaparte
fired grapeshot into the crowd in Paris, The young officer rose to become
Consul, that is military dictator, of France, and ultimately raised himself to
Emperor! During the Russian Revolution that moment arrived at Kronstadt, when
units of the Red Army suppressed a longstanding stronghold of the revolution.
Has that moment arrived for South Africa in the shape of
Marikana?
Let Marikana be the moment to once again take hold of the
movement of our people and steer it towards the sound and sober strategies of
the past.
The elective conference that the ANC will hold at the end of
this year must rise to the challenge of producing a leadership corps that has
the moral will, the moral courage and moral standing to take on task of cleaning
the Augean stables of corruption!
The elective conference of the ANC must rise to the
challenge of producing a leadership corps that will restore the credibility of
the movement amongst supporters, its friends and even amongst its opponents.
The elective conference of the ANC must rise to the
challenge of producing a leadership corps that will restore the movement’s
reputation and record of compassion.
Only by correcting itself in that manner will the ANC regain
the confidence of the democratic forces of this country and take us all on a
higher trajectory to a better life for all our people!
Thank You.
