South Africa
South Africa: Victory for BDS campaign as university cuts Israel ties
University of Johannesburg terminates relationship with Israeli institution
By the Coalition for a free Palestine
March 24, 2011 -- The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) led Coalition for a free Palestine (CFP) welcomes the March 23 decision by the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to terminate its relationship with the Israeli institution, Ben Gurion University.
The termination translates into the first South African institutional boycott of an Israeli institution and is a watershed moment in the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel campaign. This resonates with us in South Africa, as we are aware of the importance of international solidarity and realise the role that it played in dismantling South African apartheid.
Libya and the London School of Economics: When civil-societyism fronts for barbarism
Gaddafi's son Saif addressing the London School of Economics in 2010.
By Patrick Bond
March 14, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- If Muammar Gaddafi’s wicked son Saif is to be believed, we will soon be witnessing “rivers of blood” in Benghazi to shame even the Middle East’s most murderous tyrants, worse even than Israel’s massacre of 1400 Gaza residents two years ago and its 2006 invasion of Lebanon (although probably shy of the US army’s depopulation of Iraq by what The Lancet medical journal estimated to be a million dead civilians courtesy of oil-crazed Washington’s 2003 invasion).
The regime’s attacks on its citizenry, Saif warned the BBC and Sky News on March 13, will intensify in coming days: “This is our country, we will never, ever give up and we will never, ever surrender. This is our country. We fight here in Libya, we die here in Libya.”
Give Israel the South African treatment
“I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, the description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would be a description of what is happening in South Africa” - Archbishop Desmond Tutu, New York 1989.
By Antony Loewenstein & Moammar Mashni
March 6, 2011-- Green Left Weekly -- When Desmond Tutu made this comment, the South African apartheid regime was still in power. In 1994, after 45 years of racial segregation, the apartheid era was officially over. When watershed moments like this occur, multiple factors can be attributed. But history is clear that one of the many reasons this tyranny finally succumbed was an international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS).
The ‘mubaraking’ of Gaddafi, Maliki, Mugabe and others
By Patrick Bond
February 27, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The late South African anti-apartheid poet-activist Dennis Brutus occasionally used “Seattle”, the name of a city in the northwestern United States, as a verb. We should “seattle Copenhagen”, he said in late 2009, to prevent the global North from doing a climate deal in their interests, against Africa’s.
South Africa: The ANC government’s ‘talk left, walk right’ climate policy
By Patrick Bond
February 2, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- It’s worth downloading a copy of the South African government’s new National Climate Change Response Green Paper (http://www.climateresponse.co.za) to prepare for the local deluge of technical and political debate for the next round of UN climate talks that Durban will host in eight months’ time.
El capitalismo climático gana en Cancún -- todos los demás pierden
Por Patrick Bond, Cancún
12 de diciembre -- Bolpress/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- La clausura el 11 de diciembre de la 16 Conferencia de las Partes –la cumbre global del clima– en Cancún fue mostrada por la mayoría de los participantes y periodistas de los medios dominantes como una victoria, un ‘paso adelante’. El jefe negociador del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU., Todd Stern, alardeó: “El año pasado las ideas fueron esquemáticas y no se aprobaron, ahora se han elaborado y se han aprobado”.
South Africa: `COSATU has waged titanic battles' -- COSATU marks its 25th anniversary
Workers celebrate COSATU’s 25th anniversary. Picture: Gallo Images.
The following speeches, by COSATU's president and general secretary, were delivered at a ceremony in Johannesburg on December 3, 2010, to celebrate the Congress of South African Trade Unions' 25th anniversary.
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By Sidumo Dlamini, COSATU president
December 3, 2010 -- Cyril Ramaphosa was prophetic when he declared that “a giant has arisen!” That giant has grown from 130,000 members when it was launched to well over 2 million paid up members today.
While still barely walking, the young giant launched itself into titanic battles against employers and the apartheid regime. In his speech at the launch, founding COSATU president Elijah Barayi gave apartheid ruler P.W. Botha a six-month deadline to do away with passes. Indeed Botha succumbed and the hated pass laws that had humiliated millions for decades were scrapped. Today we carry proper identity documents.
South Africa: First national Conference of the Democratic Left called
A call to the 1st national Conference of the Democratic Left
