Mercia Andrews — This article seeks to respond to the questions: where is the South African Left, what has happened to it, and why has it become so fragmented and marginal?
Democratic Left Front (South Africa)
Democratic Left Front salutes the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa special national congress
By the Democratic Left Front, South Africa
Hugo Chavez's funeral, March 8, 2013.
[Below are statements issued by left and progressive organisations in Africa. More will be posted as they come to hand.]
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Taking forward the revolutionary life and symbolism of hugo Rafael Chavez Frias
March 10, 2013 -- The Democratic Left Front (DLF) of South Africa joins the millions of poor and working people and their mass movements in Venezuela, the Caribbean, Latin America and across the world who celebrate the revolutionary and emancipatory life and symbolism of Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías. Since his tragic passing away on March 5, our hearts have drawn inspiration and courage from his example and symbolism.
As the 9 million people who attended his funeral on March 8 showed, Chavez represented and personified immense hope and possibility: hope for the wretched of the Earth, hope and faith in the ability of the mass of exploited and oppressed people to self-organise and challenge inordinate power relations in society, and thereby be their own liberators, and realistic hope in the possibility of constructing a socialist alternative to the barbarism of capitalism.
This elderly couple has been
forced to live for years in this former outhouse (toilet) on a farm near
Rawsonville. The husband worked on the farm for approximately 20 years
until 2010, when he stopped working due to ill health. ©2011 Marcus Bleasdale/VII for Human Rights Watch.
By Mercia Andrews
January 13, 2013 -- International Viewpoint -- The protests and mobilisation that started in the small town of De Doorns on November 6, 2012, galvanised the anger of farm dwellers against decades of discontent at extreme exploitation and oppression that persist on farms, in rural towns and South Africa's agricultural sector.
The Democratic Left Front's Vishwas Satgar interviewed on the Real News Network, August 31, 2012. Transcript below DLF statement. More at The Real News.
STOP PRESS, September 2, 2012 -- Following national and international outrage, South African prosecutors have provisionally dropped murder charges against 270 miners whose 34 colleagues were massacred by police. Acting national director of prosecutions for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Nomgcobo Jiba said that after having sought an explanation from the department's lead prosecutors, she had taken the decision to review the charge.
A final decision would be taken on the charges after a series of investigations into the shootings had delivered their findings. The workers have been held in custody since they were arrested on the day of the shooting -- August 16 -- at Lonmin's mine in Marikana, northwest of Johannesburg. Courts will start releasing them after police verify their addresses. The first batch of at least 140 miners is due to be freed on September 3 while the rest should go home on September 6.