Acts of terror must be condemned unreservedly

As the week began, the United States and the rest of the world suffered the immense shock of a terrorist attack carried out in New York and Washington. Even as we go to print, the numbers of those who died in the carnage are not as yet known.

Truly a great tragedy has befallen the people of the United States. Its enormity is enlarged by the fact that the overwhelming majority of those who have perished are ordinary civilians who were going about their normal daily duties. Whoever is responsible for the acts of terror, for whatever reason, he or she cannot claim that the passengers in the hijacked planes or the people working in the twin towers of the World Trade Centre were involved in planning or conducting acts of war.

The memory is still fresh in our minds of the hundreds of Africans who died when the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked by people who have clearly identified the US government as their enemy. As with those who died in the hijacked planes and in New York, none of these Africans could ever be accused of having been involved in planning or conducting acts of war. They died because those who killed them have little or no regard for human life.

Whatever their cause, those responsible for these mass murders have demeaned that cause and placed themselves in a position in which they cannot be accepted as people who should be treated as genuine representatives of a just cause. Regardless of that cause and its future outcome, it can never be said that the end they pursue justifies the means they have used.

As an organisation, we correctly joined our government and the overwhelming majority of South Africans in condemning the acts of terrorism against the American people without reservation. This is in keeping with a long established tradition of our movement and people. As this movement, we inherited a particular morality of the masses for whose liberation from white minority rule the ANC was formed. Our people have always behaved in a manner that respected life and celebrated human diversity.

Even before the Dutch settlers arrived in the Cape in the 17th century, the indigenous population had contact with Europeans and specifically the Portuguese who sailed around South Africa to reach the East Indies. Some of these were shipwrecked especially along the East Coast of our country. These were accepted by the African communities in the part of our country and absorbed into the population. Later records of similarly stranded European travellers tell a story of the friendship and warm welcome that our people extended to these strangers, believed to have emerged from the waters of the oceans.

Those who made the journey to the East Indies were also welcomed by the Khoi people along the south coast and assisted to stock their ships with food and fresh water. Different as they were in appearance to the indigenous population, this population nevertheless treated the travellers as human beings whose needs had to be met. Even when the Europeans came to settle, once again they were welcomed on the assumption that they had no intention to harm the local population. Once more, our people assisted them to settle, helping to provide them with food.

Conflict only started when these settlers acted in a hostile manner against the people, seizing their cattle and their lands and murdering them to achieve these objectives. This humane attitude towards other human beings was also an established rule of war. When a war was fought, it was not allowed that the defeated army should be massacred and destroyed when it had surrendered and therefore ceased to fight.

When our movement decided to take up arms to fight for the defeat of the apartheid system, the decision was taken that all efforts should be made to avoid the loss of human lives. This posture was maintained throughout the three decades when the conduct of an armed struggle was an important part of the strategy of our movement. Even as our enemy and its friends denounced our movement as terrorist, we took strict measures to avoid the use of terror against the people.

On many occasions, some among our ranks felt tempted to hit the white population, especially in circumstances in which the apartheid forces of repression carried out massacres against unarmed people both in our country and in other countries of Southern Africa. Given the fact that the white population in our country had segregated itself into reserved white areas and led separate lives, it would have been the easiest of operations to conduct a campaign of terror against the white population.

However, at all times, our movement insisted that its armed combatants should carry out no such operation. In instances when a bomb might explode in an area in which there would be civilians, as opposed to members of the apartheid police and defence force, the leadership carefully considered such instances to ensure strict control over its armed cadres and the actions they took.

Accordingly, we were opposed to any attack on so-called soft targets. On the contrary, our enemy did not hesitate to resort to terrorism to defeat our struggle and further entrench white minority domination. As we know, all this was in vain. As this struggle continued, our movement insisted that to resort to terrorism would be to dishonour our struggle and to destroy its morality. It openly stated that it was against the very nature of our movement to show disrespect for human life and to deify the use of force as a means of ordering human relations.

It was on this basis, for instance, that we condemned the use of the "necklace" and called on our people not to resort to this barbaric form of struggle. It came as no surprise that, subsequently, it was revealed that the use of the "necklace" had in fact been introduced by agents of the apartheid security forces as part of their determined effort to suppress the sustained mass uprising that spelt defeat for the apartheid system.

None can question the fact that the apartheid system represented a fundamental challenge to all humanity since it was, as determined by the international community, a crime against this humanity. Even those who opposed us internationally could not argue that ours was not a just cause.

Had we resorted to terrorism, there would have been some understanding that in the context of the massacre of the children of Soweto and other massacres afterwards, including the killings that took place even as we were engaged in negotiations with the apartheid regime, it was to be expected that some would lose patience and resort to hitting back indiscriminately.

The point we make here is that despite the unquestionable justice of our cause and despite the nobility of the end we sought, of a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa, we remained steadfast in our conviction that not all means were permissible to bring about this result.

Clearly, there are many issues in various parts of the world that demand a just resolution. Not least among these is the restoration of the rights of the people of Palestine. Like others, this issue has to be addressed with the greatest urgency, starting with an end to the months-long conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis which has already resulted in the death of over 700 people and imposed immense suffering, especially on the Palestinians.

There have been some in our country who correctly opposed and spoke out against the phenomenon of gangsterism and drugs. Again, there can be no doubt that this phenomenon corrodes the very fabric of our society and condemns thousands of people to a life of misery. All of us therefore have an obligation to fight and defeat the gangsters and to wipe out the trade in narcotics.

However, we do not and will not accept that because the struggle against gangsters and drug abuse is correct and just, it is permissible for anybody to resort to a campaign of bombs and assassination. The argument cannot be defended that the end justifies the means.

We have inherited a society that is deeply afflicted by violence. Many in our midst have no respect for human life. On many occasions the majority of our people are shocked by the callous brutality of acts of murder that occur in various parts of our country, including the rape and murder of women and children, the elderly, white farmers and farm workers. Many among us correctly characterise these murderous acts as being deeply offensive to African culture and tradition. They represent a phenomenon to which we are not accustomed and to which we will never get accustomed. They do great damage to our pride and dignity as a people. They convey the wrong and insulting message that as a people we are savage and barbaric.

It is obvious that we must sustain the strongest possible offensive to wipe out the violence that continues to afflict our society, to guarantee the safety and security of all our citizens.

Our country has also abolished the death penalty. As a movement we firmly support this position, in the belief that the state itself should have no right to take human life and thus perpetuate the notion that it is allowed from human beings to kill others, except in circumstances of a declared war and of self defence.

By the time it is possible to do an accurate count, it is clear that what will emerge in the United States is the terrible tragedy of thousands of innocent people who have lost their lives. All human beings everywhere, including ourselves, will surely be engulfed by a deep sense of shame that human society is still capable of producing people who can deliberately plan and execute a crime as heinous as the crime that was perpetrated in the United States earlier this week.

As we share the grief of the bereaved and seek to comfort those who are maimed, this we must say, that as a civilised people we condemn this act of terrorism unreservedly and will do everything we can, to ensure that our own society does not give birth to the ugly and repugnant formations that committed wilful mass murder in New York and Washington.

WCAR in review

Challenging conference produces broad agenda for action

South Africa should take pride in its contribution to the success of the World Conference against Racism, having put Africa and the developing world high on the international agenda. Reviewing the achievements of "an enormously challenging conference", Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad said this week that South Africa had justified the confidence of the United Nations and international community.

"There is no doubt the lessons of our own experience in finding negotiated solutions where most observers saw only irresolvable conflict served the conference well and helped produce a declaration which will prove to have historical importance," he said.

The adoption in the declaration of the approach favoured by South Africa, which puts development at the forefront of efforts to create a world without racism and other forms of discrimination, would be of immense importance for Africa and the developing world.

This was evident in how the debate on reparations evolved. The conference acknowledged that slavery and the slave trade were a crime against humanity. The conference declaration went on to call on all states to be aware of the moral obligation to take appropriate and effective measures to halt and reverse the lasting consequences of these practices, urging international financial and development institutions to give greater priority and to allocate appropriate funding for programmes addressing the development challenges of the affected states and societies.

"The fundamental issue is restoration of dignity and the expression of a commitment on the part of those nations that benefited to make a contribution in partnership with Africa and the developing world to eradicating the legacy of slavery and colonialism through for instance support for the Millennium Partnership for African Recovery Plan (MAP)," he said.

While the world's media focused on two issues - the Middle East and reparations for slavery and colonialism - the conference itself and its legacy are much broader.

"For the first time, all the victims have spoken on the record. Never again can the international community say of any group or people that we do not know of the racism, discrimination, xenophobia or other forms of intolerance that they suffer. The conference puts on the agenda of every country and every international and multilateral agency the challenge of eradicating the suffering to which the conference bore testimony," he said.

The outcome reinforced the belief that it was not necessary for the United States and Israel to leave the conference early. "But we also believe and hope that they will throw their weight behind the Declaration and play their part in helping the world meet the challenges of implementing it", he said.

The South African government were under no illusions that the problems of the Middle East could be resolved at the conference. "The Declaration nevertheless managed to capture the principled positions of all parties concerned. Although it was adopted with reservations, the very fact that we were able to arrive at some formulations acceptable to everyone reflects the spirit of tolerance engendered by the conference," Pahad said.

Together with the rest of the world, South Africans were now faced with the challenge of implementation.

" We would encourage the media to keep the conference and its Declaration before the South African public - and in particular to focus on and interrogate and debate the challenges of implementation that it brings. That would help us as a nation to advance still further along the road to our goal of a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society," he said.

MORE INFORMATION:

• SA World Conference against Racism site
• Closing statement by WCAR President Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, 7 September 2001

Farm workers

Step towards a better life for rural employees

A "realistic and modest" minimum wage for farm workers can help alleviate poverty, protect jobs and allow South Africa's agricultural sector to grow, according to a report released this week for public comment. The result of an investigation by the Department of Labour, the report says such a minimum wage could improve the conditions of the most vulnerable workers.

The report found South Africa's almost one million farm workers remain largely voiceless and subject to feudal relations: "Nowhere is the inequality in power relations between employer and employee so starkly etched as in the farming sector." This echoes the findings of an investigation, released earlier this year, into the conditions of domestic workers.

Farm workers and their families live in conditions of absolute and relative poverty, according to the report. Children living on farms are more likely to be stunted and underweight than any other children. Farm workers have the lowest rate of literacy in the country and over a third do not live in formal dwellings. The average monthly wage of R544 masks the large gap between the best and worst wages.

The report proposes a minimum wage of between R400-R750 a month depending on the capacity of farms to pay. Detailed research was conducted to identify which farming areas were more or less profitable, and magisterial districts were divided on this basis into four categories each with their own wage level.

As with the proposals on minimum wage levels for domestic workers, the report's suggestions are subject to public and stakeholder comment before finalisation. When adopted these will represent the minimum legal wage for such categories of workers, not the maximum nor government recommended wage level.

The report also considers payment in kind as an integral part of remuneration of most farm workers. While it does not recommend abolishing payment in kind, it suggests it should not exceed 20 percent of the cash wage. It will only be allowed as a deduction if farmers provide accommodation of a certain standard and food.

Proposals are also made to amend the existing basic conditions of employment to respond better to the needs of farm work. These relate to sick leave, working time, night work, termination of employment and provisions for small and new employers.

The report is an appropriate sequel to the adoption in May of a joint vision statement by government, organised agriculture and labour which committed the parties to ensure a skilled workforce in a safe and secure environment under good living conditions to ensure a competitive agricultural sector. Releasing this week's report, Labour minister Membathisi Mdladlana said the farming sector needed to move away from its painful past and allow all South Africans to reap the fruits of our new democracy. "Giving farm workers a better life will lead to a better and more secure future for all," he said.

MORE INFORMATION:

• Investigation into working conditions in the agricultural sector, September 2001
• Vision for labour relations in agriculture, May 2001
• 'Minimum wage proposals offer relief to vulnerable sector', ANC Today, Vol 1 No 25

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