http://www.sacp.org.za , mailto:international@sacp.org.za

The SACP expresses its profound gratitude to the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), its leadership and militants for creating such excellent conditions and convening the 14th Meeting of ICWP here in Beirut, Lebanon.

We also want to appreciate the vote confidence displayed by the sizable number of parties that have taken efforts (under extreme and difficult conditions of crisis and the instability in the region) to come to Beirut - and therefore express their solidarity with the host-nation Lebanon, and by taking part in this process - thereby also expressing their solidarity with the people of the entire Middle East region, who face deep and profound consequences of the systemic crisis of capitalism and naked imperialist militarism on a unprecedented level. The role of imperialism together with the undemocratic Gulf monarchies and others in the Syria and with their sights set on Iran, poses a huge crisis not only for the region but the entire world.

From the onset, we want to express our profound solidarity with the parties of the region, their people's and the struggles waged against the daily machinations of imperialism, as it tries to impose itself and seek to redraw the geo-political character of the region according to its own designs. We are confident that the people's of this region will triumph and overcome the current situations they find themselves in today.

We particularly, we wish to register our deepest anger at apartheid Israel's continued illegal war against Palestinian peoples and Gaza in particular. Once again, Israeli jets and missiles have been pounding Gaza. In 2008, ‘Operation Cast Lead’ led to almost 1,500 deaths - the majority of them civilians, despite all the claims made about ‘surgical strikes’ against terrorist targets. The Gaza Strip is one of the most impoverished and densely populated areas in the world and it is absolutely impossible to separate ‘terrorist facilities’ from the residential areas that surround them. With all the sophisticated weapons at the Israelis’ disposal, the majority of causalities in the current campaign are also women, children, and the old. Not that this concerns the militarists at the head of the Israel state. Gaza is once again being collectively punished, as it has been not only through the previous onslaught but through the blockade which has crippled its economy, hampered efforts to rebuild following the devastation of 2008, and kept the population at near starvation levels.

Also, over the years, we have come to note and understand that at every opportunity to reinforce a rightwing majority and rule in Knesset, Zionist forces in Israel start a war on the eve of elections as a campaign to whip up emotions and stir up Zionist sentiments in Israel. With the elections set for January 2013, Netanyahu and his rightwing forces found it within their wisdom to wage an illegal war, as they have done in the past, against the Palestinians and therefore cause irreparable and untold damage on Palestinian territories, further terrorize the population, seize Palestinian lands for establishment and encroachment of Israeli-settlements.

This 14th ICWP meeting must emerge from here with much more than a strong statement denouncing the apartheid Israel's war against Palestinian people's, but should elaborate a sustain international programme throughout next year (2013), which should target Zionist Israel, its interests across the world through supporting efforts such as Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS), consider mounting mobilization and actions for the expulsion of and/or cessation of diplomatic ties with Israel and other measures were applicable, which must bring pressure to bear on apartheid Israel through an a coordinated international campaign. Our parties, together with allies and progressive anti-imperialist forces must take these measures to a higher level in the coming period.

The SACP shares much of the views of many parties expressed here regarding imperialist offensive against the people and their organizations. The offensive and attacks have manifested in various ways and taken an even more vicious character. In the context of South Africa, the 100-year old African National Congress (ANC), which will convene for its 53rd Conference in December 2013, has come under vicious attacks from imperialism and its proxies both in South Africa and abroad . The Tripartite Alliance which consists of the ANC, the South African Communst Party and COSATU - the progressive trade union federation, has since the 2007 52nd ANC Conference, which ushered in comrade Jacob Zuma as president, and subsequently reorientated policy towards addressing the interests of the majority, after almost 8 years of neoliberal experimentation, confronted (... and continues to confront) a series of provocations, undermining and downright counter-revolutionary agitation.This offensive against the national liberation movement broadly, is meant to create a situation of chaos, violence and confusion, that would allow a favourable climate to launch and open offensive against the South African NDR and thereby reverse the gains of democracy in South Africa and rollback, if not nub efforts towards radical socio-economic transformation coming period.

It is our view that, imperialism has come to the conclusion that the ANC must be destroyed and therefore, the trajectory of change underway in South Africa must thwarted and hollowed out. This emerges from among others, the growing role of influence and significance of democratic South Africa on the continent and as part of an emerging potential international counter-weight to imperialism. This role and stature, of South Africa in the region and beyond poses a particular threat to imperialism, if it continues with a trajectory which gradually claws back ground and reasserts the goals of national liberation movements in the region.

We have confirmed at our recently held 13th Congress, that the Party will continue to support the ANC led Alliance as the most potent force in the hands of our people to transform their quality of life and transform the social-economic relations in favour of the majority. This, we appreciate will also be a protracted process, uneven and indeed contested by various forces, including those who seek to orientate the ANC differently as an instrument for personal accumulation, through a compradorial, rent-seeking and politically connected networks. These perspectives are captured in our Political Programme - the South African Road to Socialism (SARS) and are a further elaboration of the long held positions of our Party developed over many years of struggle.

It is for this reason and others, we argue, we should understand the provocative actions of international monopoly capital and imperialism which takes on various forms across the landscape of the political-economic, cultural and related terrains. After almost centuries of colonialism- apartheid and recent neoliberal experimentation, democratic and progressive South African trajectory, was always going to be contested. The antithesis to this, the SACP characterizes as a struggle to undo the legacy of colonialism of special type (CST- trajectory) while simultaneously creating conditions to advance, deepen and consolidate the national democratic revolution - which we consider as the most direct route to socialism in our conditions.

The 13th Congress of the SACP correctly outlined these in the Political Programme, the South African Road to Socialism (SARS), when it articulate; "The struggle for socialism against imperialist barbarism is an international struggle. But, there is no single road to socialism. The working class and progressive forces in each country must develop their own strategic approach, their own national road to socialism" (pg. 5)

We also want to crystalize the ongoing crises that are unfolding on the continent which will require our continued analysis, study and further development. During the past few weeks, the imperialist inspired and directed crisis unfolded in the eastern of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and has all the hallmarks of past meddling and dabbling of imperialism and its proxies. The role of Rwandan is not innocent in this debacle and as such confirms our long held views of the it being a stooge of imperialism and extension of the designs of imperialism in the Great Lakes region. The Sudanese Communist Party can also attest to the dangerous situation developing in the Abyei region which will devastating consequences for the people's of both Sudan and South Sudan.

Similarly, the attempts by imperialism to seek to reinsert itself in west Africa via the peacekeeping initiative led by ECOWAS of in Mali (which the majority of Malians have rejected), is but a pretext to regain ground after grounded was lost in other parts of the region. The continuing constitutional debacle in Tunisia, is also hampering progressive and left forces there to reassert democratic rights and other, which under threat from the religious fundamentalists. These comrades are but part of overall strategy of imperialism in crisis and thus very dangerous. This requires as we correctly observed in the title and slogan of the 14th ICWP meeting, the strengthening of the struggles against escalating imperialist aggressiveness, for satisfying peoples’ socio-economic-democratic rights and aspirations, for socialism!

Socialism is the future!


Christopher CT Matlhako