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Still fighting for power for African workers in South Africa

South Africa’s colonial legacy

South Africa was conquered and occupied by the Boers, of Dutch origin, and the British, for whom South Africa was a pillar of the worldwide British empire.

In the 1880s the notorious British colonizer Cecil Rhodes found diamonds, gold and other resources in South Africa, making millions of dollars for himself and for England. Rhodes brought in the first machine guns to massively kill African people who were resisting the occupation. It was not unusual for Rhodes and his troops to gun down in a single afternoon 5,000 Africans who were defending their people. After the slaughter, Rhodes was known to celebrate with champagne and festive dinners.

Boers

Gold Miners, Johannesburg, 1935

Cecil Rhodes

Apartheid—based on Jim Crow—imposed on South Africa

Modeled on Jim Crow laws in the United States, British South Africa set up the apartheid system, a brutal expression of colonialism that provided wealth, property and political power for white settlers over the Africans, who were forced to live in separate areas, had no rights and were kept in impoverished, slave-like conditions on their own land.

African showing pass book

Johannesburg, 1978

Durban, 1978

PAC formed for African liberation

The Pan Africanist Congress was founded in Soweto as a revolutionary party on April 6, 1959 by the heroic Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. The formation of PAC was in response to the adoption by the African National Congress of its “Freedom Charter” that abandoned the belief that Africa belongs to African people, not to the colonial settlers and interests.

The “Freedom Charter” stated that South Africa “belongs to all who live in it, black and white,” thereby liquidating the anti-colonial struggle of African people to regain their stolen land.

In response to the betrayal of the Freedom Charter, members of the youth wing of ANC broke away, forming the Pan Africanist Congress on the principle that African people are the rightful owners of Africa and that the struggle is one for national liberation.

The politics of the Freedom Charter continue to guide the current ANC government’s policies of upholding the colonial infrastructure politically and economically, and maintaining white power and the oppression of African people in South Africa. Today the conditions of the masses of African people are worse than under apartheid.

It was the leadership of the PAC based in the masses of the people that led the anti-colonial struggle against the South African government and brought worldwide attention and support for liberation in South Africa.

PAC—a leading force

In 1960 PAC organized the mass protests against the notorious pass laws of South Africa. The pass laws forced African people to carry official identification with them at all times. It was a criminal offense to be unable to produce a pass when called to do so by the police.

Mass anti-pass law demonstrations were held in cities throughout the country, including in Sharpeville where 7,000 Africans surrounded the police station, offering themselves up for arrest because they refused to carry their passes. The police opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators, killing at least 69 people and injuring 180, including children.

The PAC was instrumental in the mass African response to the Sharpeville Massacre, which included protests, strikes and open rebellions. The atrocities of Sharpeville and the leadership of PAC galvanized Africans in Azania and people throughout the world to support the liberation of Southern Africa.

PAC was the first liberation movement to launch the armed struggle against the apartheid regime. The leadership of PAC was responsible for the 1976 Student Uprising and inspired the formation of the Black Consciousness Movement under the leadership of Steve Biko.

Conditions today worse in Azania

In 1994, in the face of the powerful movement of African people and pressure from their supporters around the world, U.S.-backed South African rulers were forced to turn over the government to Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, while maintaining colonial white power control of the economy.

In the 13 years since ANC has come to power, the vision of a liberated South Africa has been thwarted and the conditions for African working people have deteriorated. Mandela, Mbeki and the ANC represent neocolonialism; white power carried out by the African elite.

Today, 96 percent of farmland is still owned by white people. Rural unemployment for African people is 70 percent. More than a third of Africans live on less than $2 a day, although South Africa is considered to be a wealthy “developed” country.

PAC continues to struggle

The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania has kept the struggle alive by continuing to fight for power and land in the hands of the masses of African people in South Africa.

Since 1994 the PAC has exposed how the regime of the African National Congress continues to serve the interests of Western colonial powers under the guise of African leadership.

As Uhuru Tours speaker Mfanelo Skwatsha, the Executive Secretary of the PAC stated, “People are complaining about the ANC-led government. They are no longer happy with the ruling party.”

PAC’s current programs

The mission of PAC is to unite and rally African people into one national front on the basis of Pan Africanism and socialism, committed to self-determination and the absolute destruction of white supremacy and all forms of domination.

PAC’s programs today include such crucial campaigns as the Advocacy and Policy Development program which fights for the return of land to African people as its rightful owners, the building of African unity and the establishment of the United Socialist African State.

The Community Building Project works to stop land evictions of African people. The Pan Africanist Labor Forum (PALF) fights for the unionization of African workers and builds African working class consciousness.

Other programs of the PAC include the Azanian People’s Liberation Army Veteran’s Association.

The Pan Africanist Student Movement struggles for free education in universities and colleges, builds the African national consciousness of African students, the Pan Africanist Women’s Organization and the Pan Africanist Youth Congress.

Currently the PAC is gearing up to run candidates for the South African elections in 2009.

Conclusion

PAC is a revolutionary party that seeks fundamental change of the social structure in Africa. Their policies flow from the logic of the African situation and from the fundamental long-term interests of the vast African millions.