South Africa:
Forty-nine organisations endorse "Red October"
The South African Communist Party's Red October Campaign has received wide-ranging support from progressive South African organisations. To date, 49 organisations have formally endorsed the demands of the Campaign. These include the ANC (African National Congress), non-government, youth and landless people's organisations, trade unions and churches. In summary, the Campaign demands are: 1. Acceleration and consolidation of land and agrarian reform in favour of, and access to, ownership and control of productive land by the workers and the poor 2. Access to basic services and rights by the workers and the poor in farms and rural areas 3. A National Land Summit By endorsing the Campaign demands, all these progressive forces are clear that South Africa needs a complete review of the land reform policy framework which must start with a national and comprehensive land audit. "We agree with the SACP", says a statement issued by the Council of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), "We support the SACP demands." "This is a struggle for the transformation of the lives of the rural poor. We have to free farm workers from the poverty, insecurity and even violence that is still the everyday reality for thousands of them." "COSATU wishes the SACP well in its campaign and pledge to everything possible to mobilise support and achieve their aims", the statement concluded. The Communist Party is also pleased that the ANC "supports the broad objectives of the campaign" and its call "on all other social partners, including organised agriculture, to constructively engage in the struggle to fundamentally redress the legacy of apartheid and improve the lives of the rural poor". It is such a broad front of organisations which can win access to farms, rural communities and any other place where farm workers and rural people live and work to organise, assist and mobilise them against evictions, abuse and for their own interests. The widespread support which the SACP campaign for land and agrarian reform has already drawn across the country is indicative of the dissatisfaction that exists among the overwhelming majority of our people with the content, pace and progress of land reform, and underscores the urgent need for speeding up the pace and progress of land reform based on an extensive overhaul of the land reform legislative and policy framework. This widespread support for the campaign is a clear message to organised agriculture that our people are fed up with resistance to land and agrarian reform which has contributed significantly to slow the pace and progress of land reform. A full list of the 49 organisations endorsing the Communist Party's "Red October" campaign can be found at http://www.sacp.org.za/pr/2004/pr1103.html