South African Communist Party

Press Alert, 23 April 2025

People’s protests against Zelenskyy’s visit

Wednesday, 23 April 2025: - South African civil and political society will stage protests tomorrow, Thursday 24 April 2025, in Tshwane and Soweto, against the visit of Volodymyr Zelensky from Ukraine. 

The South African Communist Party (SACP), Young Communist League of South Africa, National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU), the Anti-Fascist International South Africa Chapter, and the Zimbabwe Communist Party, unequivocally denounce the upcoming visit of Volodymyr Zelensky from Ukraine to South Africa. We will be mobilising protests and demonstrations in opposition to Zelensky. 

Zelensky today represents a regime that has become a willing proxy for the imperialist North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) — a regime that fuels war, fans the flames of global division and deepens the militarisation of international relations. Under the guise of democracy, his government has banned opposition parties, attacked workers’ rights, criminalised communism and glorified Nazi collaborators. His visit to South Africa is an insult to our people’s proud anti-apartheid and anti-fascist history. In any case, his term has expired and he is an unelected leader as things stand. 

South Africa, a country that has long championed the values of non-alignment, anti-colonialism and global justice, cannot be seen as endorsing a man whose government has openly aligned itself with the most reactionary forces in Europe, including ultra-nationalists who celebrate Nazi-linked groups and whitewash the legacy of fascism.

Africa and South Africa will not be drawn into NATO’s war logic. We demand a multipolar world based on co-operation, not coercion. 

We remind Zelensky: South Africa’s freedom was won not with the help of NATO, but through the solidarity of Cuba, Palestine, the Soviet Union, the global working class and liberation movements across the Global South.

The demonstration in Tshwane will take place as follows: 

Date:            Thursday, 24 April 2025

Time:           11h00

Venue:         Ukrainian Embassy, 398 Marias Street, Pretoria

The demonstration in Soweto, Johannesburg, will take place as follows: 

Date:            Thursday, 24 April 2025

Time:           14h00

Venue:         Walter Sisulu Square, Cnr Klipspruit Valley Road & Union Road, Kliptown, Soweto

For media information, contact: 

Muhammed Desai: Campaign Communication Officer; +27842119988 

Nkosithethile Bonga: SACP Gauteng Spokesperson +27604028540

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Issued by the South African Communist Party,
Founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa.