“Our alliance is working as if we are still pre-1994. We are no longer pre-1994. Things have changed quite substantially now. I know when we say this‚ people say we want to be deployed. We as communists fought before there was deployment. But this is our government. We have an interest in how power is exercised. We can’t go and campaign as a whole during elections and then a small team sits down or just one person saying this one I take and this one must go. Where did that person get that mandate?
“We do have an interest in deployment because we are not an NGO as the SACP. We have an interest in state power and how it is exercised. We want meaningful consultation. We are not going to do many of the tasks that we are supposed to do with an alliance that is limping. The way the alliance is working is primitive. The three partners (Cosatu‚ Sanco and SACP) must go and convince the big movement (ANC) that it is in our interest to change the way we do things‚” Nzimande said.
He also lamented the divisions among the military veterans of the ANC as these were the people who worked with Hani while he was with uMkhonto Wesizwe.
“We want to appeal to all MK veterans that your division into MKMVA and MK council is not right and it must be fixed. The best way to remember Chris 25 years after his cowardly assassination is to unite the soldiers of uMkhonto. We don’t want factionalism among the soldiers that were members of uMkhonto. Don’t position yourself factionally in the movement. The AK-47 is known for one thing - that its sound and melody is a unifying sound‚ not a divisive one.
“Please help us and unite and become one. Also it should be genuine members who were soldiers of Umkhonto not just 20-year-olds who are called soldiers‚” Nzimande said.
The event is the 25the anniversary of Hani’s assassination. He was killed on April 10 1993. At the time he was the general secretary of the SACP and a member of the national executive committee of the ANC.
Hani had led the joint SACP and ANC military wing‚ uMkhonto weSizwe‚ as its chief of staff and in various other capacities going back to the 1960s in the course of the struggle against apartheid.
Tripartite alliance should be consulted on who’s appointed in government: Nzimande
Image: Mabuti Kali © Sowetan/Sunday World
Members of the tripartite alliance should be consulted on who is appointed in government as they have an interest in how state power is exercised.
This is the view of the general secretary of the SA Communist Party (SACP)‚ Blade Nzimande‚ who spoke during an event commemorating the anniversary of the assassination of Chris Hani at the Thomas Nkobi Memorial Park in Ekurhuleni.
Nzimande said one of the best ways to remember Hani would be to strengthen the alliance and relook at its configuration.
“This alliance is too precious. Also as the SACP‚ and we agree with Sanco and Cosatu‚ we have to go and convince the ANC [that] we need to reconfigure the manner in which the alliance is functioning.
IN FULL: SACP vows to keep blocking freedom for Chris Hani's murderer
“Our alliance is working as if we are still pre-1994. We are no longer pre-1994. Things have changed quite substantially now. I know when we say this‚ people say we want to be deployed. We as communists fought before there was deployment. But this is our government. We have an interest in how power is exercised. We can’t go and campaign as a whole during elections and then a small team sits down or just one person saying this one I take and this one must go. Where did that person get that mandate?
“We do have an interest in deployment because we are not an NGO as the SACP. We have an interest in state power and how it is exercised. We want meaningful consultation. We are not going to do many of the tasks that we are supposed to do with an alliance that is limping. The way the alliance is working is primitive. The three partners (Cosatu‚ Sanco and SACP) must go and convince the big movement (ANC) that it is in our interest to change the way we do things‚” Nzimande said.
He also lamented the divisions among the military veterans of the ANC as these were the people who worked with Hani while he was with uMkhonto Wesizwe.
“We want to appeal to all MK veterans that your division into MKMVA and MK council is not right and it must be fixed. The best way to remember Chris 25 years after his cowardly assassination is to unite the soldiers of uMkhonto. We don’t want factionalism among the soldiers that were members of uMkhonto. Don’t position yourself factionally in the movement. The AK-47 is known for one thing - that its sound and melody is a unifying sound‚ not a divisive one.
“Please help us and unite and become one. Also it should be genuine members who were soldiers of Umkhonto not just 20-year-olds who are called soldiers‚” Nzimande said.
The event is the 25the anniversary of Hani’s assassination. He was killed on April 10 1993. At the time he was the general secretary of the SACP and a member of the national executive committee of the ANC.
Hani had led the joint SACP and ANC military wing‚ uMkhonto weSizwe‚ as its chief of staff and in various other capacities going back to the 1960s in the course of the struggle against apartheid.
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