The killing of at least 18 African workers at Lonmin Platinum Mine in Marikana, South Africa, on August 16 was not an accident, but a state-authorized mass murder carried out by the South African police.
The police entered the area where the miners were striking, armed to the teeth with automatic rifles, helicopters, horses, armored vehicles and tear gas. Clearly, their purpose was to put down the people’s legitimate rights to struggle in their own interests.
The police did as they have always done, using violence to put down any independent worker struggle that is not sanctioned by the ruling class party, which this time is the African National Congress (ANC).
It is irrelevant that some workers were demonstrating with machetes or sticks, or that there was a turf war between rival unions.
All kinds of fairytales about the democratic “new” South Africa have been put forth by the world corporate media, which have caused many people to hold a romanticized view of South Africa—an ignorance of convenience given the history of police violence in that country.
We should understand these killings as a public manifestation of the ANC and other petty bourgeoisie forces’ loss of ability to control—politically and organizationally—the masses of workers and the growing will to resist by the African workers in occupied South Africa.
ANC South Africa is the heir of the apartheid state and carries the legacy of the genocidal apartheid state. It is anti- African workers and anti- poor people.
This outrageous mass murder exposes the African petty bourgeoisie’s own disbelief in the electoral process to solve the problems of the people.
They did not use ballot boxes to solve their dispute with the miners–they came prepared to use violence to quell the legitimate struggle of the people.
This repugnant massacre is living proof that we as African workers cannot rely on the electoral process in order to advance our interests.
A growing sector of colonized workers have come to the conclusion that nothing has changed for the people.
In July 2012 in Lyden, Guyana, four African workers were killed by police who opened gunfire against the masses demonstrating against an 800 percent rise in the cost of electricity.
In November 2010, several dozen African workers were killed in Kinshasa by police-issue automatic rifles while demonstrating against electoral fraud. Video of this murder is on Youtube for the world to see how the African petty bourgeoisie respond to the people’s political and social demands.
It simply is not possible to have parasitic capitalist rule without violence against the people, just as it is not possible to imagine African petty bourgeoisie rule under parasitic capitalism without violence against the people.
All strategies must be put on the table in our fight for genuine national economic, social and political emancipation around the world.
The true problem is neocolonial order.
Our resources, which are produced in Marikani, are under foreign British ownership.
Our people are unable to lead decent lives as workers because the bourgeoisie determines the wages and the costs of the products, food and houses we need in order to survive.
The ANC economy is based on satisfying the needs of the minority of the African petty bourgeoisie and of the imperialist bourgeoisie.
The sellout alliance of the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party has meant failure to nationalize the mines but has maintained settler colonialism.
In short, parasitic capitalism is the issue we need to deal with if we want to stop the violence against the people.
Jacob Zuma’s “call for inquiry” is nothing but a cover-up for the murderous acts of its government.
Zuma, who was a key chief of ANC police in the years of struggle against the apartheid regime, knows more than anybody the role of the State in South Africa.
It is the arms of the imperialist order in South Africa.
From the ANC freedom charter in the 1950s to the Truth and Reconciliation Agreement between the African petty bourgeoisie and the white settler and imperialist rulers: neither destruction of the murderous apartheid state nor social transformation was ever acquired, but only a simple transfer of administrative power to the ANC at the expense of the masses of our people.
Since the 1980s, the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” has grown wider under the ANC regime than under the white settler regime.
African Internationalism is the revolutionary conclusion
We need a revolutionary conclusion to the 500 years of parasitic capitalism that has made white oppressor nations richer and more technologically developed at our expense.
Every single struggle we are in, whether it is short term or long term, we must win the people to understand the fundamental interests of African workers.
Workers in Guyana, Congo and elsewhere can only be served by fighting for African Internationalism.
We conclude that the governmental power of the workers is One Africa, One Nation and One State!
There is no alternative; everything else is status quo.
Everything else is locking ourselves in the past using the social forces of the past.
It is not just the apartheid ruling class that was an outdated and ultra-backward social system, but the African petty bourgeoisie is also a social force of the past.
Anything built on parasitic capitalism is only good for the bins of history.
The future belongs to the forces of life: the African working class and its ally, the poor peasantry.
This is the revolutionary alliance that everyone must join by destroying the treacherous and murderous alliance of the white bourgeoisie and African petty bourgeoisie.
We call on all African workers in South Africa to get organized under the banner of the African Socialist International and to transform South Africa into a really genuine front of African revolution.
African Internationalism is the final assault on all wrong philosophies and ideologies, which only serve to keep the African petty bourgeoisie in place. We need to bury all of them.
We have already buried direct white power some fifty years ago. It is time now to bury white power in black face.
It is the people’s time; it is the people’s power!
We want nothing less than State power in the hands of the people.
The power of more than one billion African people around the world must be united under the banner of the African Socialist International.
End all police violence against African workers around the world!
Governmental power in the hands of workers!
From Lyden, Guyana, to Marikana, South Africa, we demand decent living wages for all African miners, as determined by the African Socialist International!
