Issued by: African National Congress
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION AND PUBLICITY
Speech by Dumisani Makhaye, ANC NEC Member, at the ANC Lower South Coast 4th Regional Conference, in Port Shepstone.
Date: 28 June 1998.
The Chairperson, Members of the Provincial Executive Committee, Members of the Regional Executive Committee, Members of our Allies in the SACP and Cosatu, Members of the Women's and Youth Leagues, The Chiefs and Headmen, Fellow Delegates.
There are comrades who ought to be in this 4th regional conference. Among such comrades are veteran George Mbhele, Khipha Nyawose and Fresh Gcaba. Unfortunately, they are no more because the evil hand of assassins decreed that they shall not be in this conference. Some of them were killed after we attained our freedom.
The Lower South Coast occupies a strategic place in our endeavour to turn the province of KwaZulu into a harbour of peace, democracy and development. There are about a million people in this region. It also occupies an important point in the strategy of the forces of darkness who long for the old days of apartheid and bantustan dictatorship. It is for this reason that the Ugu region has been, perhaps more than any other region, been subjected to intense political violence.
Shobashobane and many other areas of this region fall within that enemy strategy. Perhaps it is precisely because of our personal bitter experience of knowing how it feels like to lose the dear ones in political violence of which your neighbours and, sometimes even members of your family, are perpetrators simply because the forces of apartheid have paid them.
It is for this reason that if we destroy political violence in this region root and branch, so shall we completely destroy violence in the province. Let me thank comrades in this region who even though they suffered so much because of political violence, nevertheless warmly embraced the ANC peace efforts.
The ANC is the only embodiment of peace, democracy and development. We are the only party with the will and capacity to bring a Better Life for All. The ANC cannot carry out this task if it does not become a ruling party in KwaZulu Natal and receive an overwhelming majority nationally. Indeed, if we do not succeed in this task, all the achievements we have so far registered will be reversed.
We will go back to the states of emergency, we will again be killed and be secretly buried in shallow graves, biological and chemical warfare will continue against black people. In short, apartheid in its crudest form will be re-introduced. It is therefore for the sake of our lives that we must win the 1999 elections in KwaZulu Natal and win decisively nationally.
The choice is ours. It will depend on how we sharpen the calibre of our cadres and the type of leadership we elect to lead us to a Better Life for All. It will depend whether we are capable of merging with our people while not shirking our responsibility to lead. It will depend on how we cement the ANC Tripartite Alliance of the ANC, SACP and Cosatu. We must tell people the truth about our successes and failures.
The people will understand us because we are the only party of the people. It is encouraging that COSATU has promised to donate R2 million to the ANC election campaign.
We are the loyal servants of our people. We have achieved a lot including in the uGu region even although we are not in control of it.
Houses that were burnt down on Christmas Day in 1995 by the IFP leadership when they killed and maimed dozens of our people, have now been rebuilt and repaired. Some IFP warlords like Sipho Ngcobo are today behind bars where they are going to rot to death. The rebuilding of these houses was not done by the IFP-led Government of KwaZulu Natal even though the national government handed it a sum of R100 m to assist communities that suffered under political violence. That money is being delivered to people who were never victims of political violence to buy their votes. We can talk about the delivery of clean running water to more than 2-m people, including people of KwaCele in this region by the National Government. We can talk about community access roads and clinics. R1 billion has been set aside to create jobs.
The Presidential job summit will be held very soon.
The IFP has already bored our people by trying to explain all its failures to the lack of funds. That is a lie! The IFP government has received about R60 Billion in the last for years. The problem is that the IFP has neither the will nor the capacity to deliver to our people.
As we disperse from this conference, all of you must go out to our people to assist them with the attainment of the green I. D. books. You will not be able to vote without a green I.D. book.
This time the ANC in KwaZulu Natal will ensure that we do not enter elections under the same conditions that pertained in 1994. We will not enter elections under conditions that guarantee that the ANC will never win. Certain things must happen now. We must prepare for a conducive climate under which the people of KwaZulu Natal must enjoy the same rights like any other citizen of South Africa to vote for her or his party of choice without let or hindrance. The letter and spirit of the constitution must be adhered to by all political parties, including the IFP.
But can we honestly expect to achieve that conducive climate when Assistant Commissioner Schoeman is still heading the police in this area? When the police officers that are implicated in the Shobashobane Massacre are still operating here? When Commissioner Chris Serfontein, who has flatly refused to meet with the ANC, is still heading the SAPS in KwaZulu Natal? When there is that Tim McNally in the Office of the Attorney General? When our courts, including the KwaZulu Natal Bench, are refusing to be part of a new South Africa? That cannot happen.
It is precisely for this reason that the ANC Provincial leadership is preparing for mass action to oust these incumbents so that there can be both democratic transformation and free and fair elections.
For more info, contact Dumisani Makhaye at 082 5519192.