Former president of apartheid South Africa, Peter W. Botha (left), sits with his neocolonial successor, Nelson Mandela
AZANIA — On October 31, Peter W. Botha, brutal president of the apartheid regime in the territory that is still known today by the colonial name of South Africa, died peacefully in his sleep.
And in a display exemplifying the treacherous, sell-out, anti-African nature of the African petty bourgeoisie, the African National Congress (ANC) government sent condolences to the family of this longstanding enemy of African people, offered a state funeral, and even called for flags throughout the country to be flown at half-mast to honor this guy.
The party’s former leader Nelson Mandela, true to petty bourgeois form, said that Botha helped to pave the way for a “multi-racial democracy.”
Botha, who was president of apartheid South Africa (Occupied Azania) from 1978 to 1989, was known for his brutal ruthlessness and had jailed and tortured thousands of Africans in attempts to maintain the anti-African settler colonial State.
It is obscene that in a time when African petty bourgeois puppets are being brought to international imperialist courts for crimes they committed in the service of their imperialist masters, forces like P. W. Botha are allowed to die peacefully.
In fact, while the Truth and Reconciliation Commission led by Desmond Tutu in Azania saw fit to suspend the ridiculous one-year jail sentence it gave Botha, a number of Africans who fought in the liberation struggle in the territory still languish in prisons today. Some of whom were cadres of the ruling ANC party.
Approximately 80 percent of those brought before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were Africans. In fact the current president of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, Letlapa Mphahlele, still faces the threat of imprisonment as he was Director of Operations for the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) and refused to answer to our oppressors for fighting for liberation.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of those brought before the commission were Africans is an indication of the fact that it worked in the interests of the occupying oppressors.
“…while the Truth and Reconciliation Commission led by Desmond Tutu in Azania saw fit to suspend the ridiculous one-year jail sentence it gave Botha, a number of Africans who fought in the liberation struggle in the territory still languish in prisons today. ”
In addition, reconciliation is not possible without the return of the land and all that has been stolen to the disenfranchised African population.
ANC offer for state funeral for Botha met with opposition
The State’s offer to give Botha a state funeral has been met with much opposition in Azania. The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania has called the offer an insult to African people and an obvious appeasement to white power.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions stated, “His hands were stained with the blood of hundreds who were murdered during the struggle for democracy and liberation under his presidency. The overwhelming majority of South Africans and the people of the world will remember P.W. Botha only with hatred and disgust.”
ANC is black face for same colonial system
The ANC’s praise of Botha comes as no surprise to those who understand who the African National Congress and the petty bourgeois class it represents are. In fact, under the ANC’s rule the conditions for African people in Azania have worsened while the wealth of the white settler population — which still owns 87 percent of the land — has grown.
The ANC serves only as a black face to cover the same colonial system the African masses fought against under apartheid. The so-called “multi-racial democracy” is a neocolonial system that benefits only the white settler population and the treacherous African petty bourgeoisie.
The “rainbow nation” that Azania is frequently called is one that always finds black at the bottom of the rainbow.
While the African petty bourgeoisie has been able to realize its aims and get rich by prostrating itself on bended knees before white power, the African working class and poor peasants can only realize freedom through standing up and completing the International African Revolution. We must unite and liberate our Africa.
Long live the Azanian front of the International African Revolution!
