Contribution of the South African Communist Party (SACP) at the Extra-Ordinary Teleconference of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties (IMCWP) 10 -11 December, 2021

The South Africa Communist Parties (SACP) is grateful for the opportunity to attend and contribute at this extra-ordinary teleconference virtual meeting of the International Communist and Workers Parties (IMCWP) of the world.

As such we would like to extend our appreciation to the Communist Parties of Greece (KKE) and Turkey (TKP) for all the efforts that been undertaken to make this meeting a success, under these difficult conditions on the ongoing pandemic. Putting together this kind of platform is not easy and requires many facets of organising and other resources to make a success. Therefore, we appreciate these efforts.

The conditions of the pandemic have madeit impossible for us to meet in our traditional face-to-face manner. However, with the participation of many of the parties and workers organisations across the world, we’ve persisted to at least create a platform to meet and share ideas and programmes that should advance our struggles – both in the here and now and into the future.

The world situation has over the last few years become very precarious for the majority of the peoples’ of the world, especially the marginalised and poor. Capitalism has once-more shown – beyond any shadow of a doubt, it’s incapacity, nor the conviction to confront these challenges and solve them in the best interests of the popular majority. Capitalism is (and has been) incapable of resolving the huge problems that confront the world – even today. In this period, capitalists enterprises have continued to rake in huge profits at the expense of the many fatalityexperienced as result of the pandemic across the world.

For capitalism it is ‘profits before people’!

Third World nations and the majority of the poor in the ‘developed world’, have borne the brunt of the consequences of the pandemic. In the Third World, the majority of their populations have not had access to vaccines as the ‘developed nations’ acquired over and above that was required and still hoarding the rest. The ‘developed world’ has restricted others from manufacturing and developing vaccines – particularly from the Third World through they’re insistence on patents and intellectual property rights.

Biden is supposedly hosting a ‘democracy summit’ in this period. However, a few key questions would have to asked and answered in this regard. Quiet clearly, Biden and the US continue to think they are the custodians of ‘democracy’. Biden and the US have the audacity to subvert the multilateral institutions – such as the United Nations (UN) tasked with these matters and take it upon itself to instruct and teach the rest of the world about ‘democracy’.

US unilateralism and hegemony knows no boundaries.

This makes the call for multilateralism even more imperative.

The continued militarisation and weaponization of international relations is cause for concern for the majority. On the continent (Africa) the US-France and allies have continued to fuel instability and supporting dictators and coups, which prevent further democratisation of these societies. Indeed, US imperialism is responsible for global instability, deprivation and denuding of democracy. It supports regime change, authoritarian regimes, imposes illegal and unilateral sanctions, has dropped bombs and destroyed infrastructures and killing millions of people and is the worst violator of human rights by far.

The facts are there for all to see.

Our current situation reflects the deepening dangers of imperialism and its intensified offensive against the peoples’. Both NATO and US militarism are the greatest threats to humanity today and as such should be challenged.

In the midst of all of this, the people have continued to wage sustained struggles, and this is evidenced by the major electoral successes in Latin American and consolidation of strategic networks with China – particularly on the African continent. Despite the many challenges, democratic South Africa, which has witnessed severe strikes and looting in July, accepts itsimportant role on the continent in respect of making vaccines accessible to everyone.

For us, this call of decommodification and production of vaccines against Covid19 and its variants by others outside the ‘developed world’, is very important. This has in the recent past demonstrated the worst forms of racist behaviour from the ‘developed nations’, where they blocked flights from southern Africa for no particular reason, only because South African scientists discovered and reported the Omicron variant early on.

These comrades, we believe constitute the basis for our continued working together and joint actions on these matters.

One such campaign should be the campaign around patents and intellectual property, particularly in health. We cannot leave any issue regarding public health to the ‘good will’ of profit-seeking monopolies and the competitions between them. Taking into account and valuing the actions of solidarity and cooperation, initiatives and efforts developed by some countries, as communist and parties of the world, we should be jointly campaigning around these matters – as matter of urgency.

We express our solidarity with struggling peoples of Western Sahara, as the last remaining colony on the continent.

We express our unreserved solidarity with the struggling peoples of Palestine against the Zionist Israeli regime.

We support the governments’ and peoples’ of socialist Cuba, the Bolivarian Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Chile, progressives in Brazil against Bolsonaro, elsewhere were the people are waging relentless struggles for their rights.

We support and express our solidarity with the peoples and their formations fight for democracy in Eswatini.

We will continue to contribute and work towards this international platform to be meaningful for of us. The destruction of capitalism and construction of socialism – a new society and egalitarian system, free from exploitation, are ideals for which we will struggle today and tomorrow!

Socialism is the future!