WASHINGTON, D.C.—On October 5, 2012, the Washington DC Party Unit led a militant picket-demonstration in front of the “South African” embassy for more than an hour, denouncing the African National Congress (ANC) regime for the cowardly massacre of more than 30 Marikana miners on August 16, 2012 by the trigger-happy “South African” police under their leadership.
Our strategy worked well.
We first occupied the front entrance chanting “Zuma, Zuma you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” followed by “The ANC is a sell-out government.”
No sooner than comrade Ousainou blasted these chants on the bullhorn, out came two Africans as embassy security, asking us if we were from “South Africa.”
We gave a militant answer: “No, we are from Africa and to us there is no such country as “South Africa.” We call that land AZANIA.”
The African brother tried to intimidate us by claiming the sidewalk was private property of the embassy, but we continued to chant as we walked back into the embassy.
Comrades Ayesha and Aaron took turns to chant down Zuma and the sell-out ANC, while Sister Victoria Oneal captured the scenes on camera.
Moments after the encounter with the two African security guards, a white man came out to us with an air of arrogance to accomplish what he thought the African security guards could not.
Interestingly, the African guards stood across the sidewalk while talking to us, but this “Boer” came across the sidewalk and demanded that we move because, according to him, we were trespassing on private property.
Rude awakening
He was in for a rude awakening. He didn’t know who he was dealing with.
We challenged him on his assumption that we were trespassing and he retorted that “I am only warning you.”
Comrade Aaron, who is a lawyer, intervened and demolished his accusations of trespassing.
Suddenly, the police arrived and the cop and the “Boer” exchanged pleasantries and he disappeared into the building.
Meanwhile, our chants attracted spectators in the surrounding embassies.
After the “Boer” left, the cop came to us to establish standard operating procedures by asking several questions.
This is the Uhuru Movement; we stood our ground and exposed this foul social system of capitalism and the stooge Zuma administration.
We declared our position that our presence at the embassy is beyond solidarity with the workers, and that instead, we represent the U.S front of the African revolution.
Therefore, if African workers are attacked anywhere on Earth, we make it our own business to stand in their defense.
After we chased the “Boer” away and got the attention of some of the African workers in the embassy by chanting “Izwe Lethu I Africa” (The land is ours), we decided to move the protest to Connecticut Avenue in front of the Intel building.
The sight of our forces reminded pedestrians and motorists alike of the “anti-apartheid” era, when that corner was a site of daily protest against the Botha and DeKlerk tyrannical regimes, only to have the ANC rival the tyranny of the apartheid regimes.
Motorists honked their horns with clenched fists in agreement with our chants.
The dastardly attack against the African workers in Marikana is where the basic subsistence for Africans has gotten worse under the post-apartheid neocolonial presidencies of Jacob Zuma, Thabo Mbeki and Nelson Madela, which are all ANC administrations.
According to eye-witness reports corroborated by subsequent investigations, the workers were in the position of surrendering when these “jack-booted thugs” opened fire on the miners, killing over 30 and maiming many more.
These police actions, reminiscent of the heyday of apartheid, clearly exposed the class interests of the ANC, which is to maintain the exploitation of the workers at all costs, and to keep the ANC neocolonialist government in power.
We must complete the revolution that such giants as Mangaliso Sobukwe started, but was aborted by the rise of the ANC, the darling of the imperialist west.
AFRICAN WORKERS UNITE TO OVERTURN THE NEOCOLONIAL STATE!
TOUCH ONE TOUCH ALL!
ONE AFRICA! ONE NATION!