Countdown

Starting with the first of three e-mails sent to the Communist University, a very detailed and vivid account is given by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (Informal Economy Desk) of the torture of the ZCTU leaders including the systematic breaking of hands. It is linked below. The third e-mail is a response by the SACTU veteran Ron Press to the article in Friday’s Business Report by Terry Bell. Comrade Ron was a witness and a participant in meetings that resulted in the successful dissolution of SACTU in favour of COSATU. See the link below for this important document. The second e-mail is a press release from COSATU announcing that the commission set up to investigate some matters, not specified, has come to its conclusion and been disbanded, with thanks. The commission’s decisions or recommendations are also not given. What do we make of it? As a communist university, the right course is probably to take careful note of what the press release says, and then to stay alert for further details, statements, and actions. The meaning of this commission will probably become clear at the Congress, which is both the first and also the last main opportunity to resolve COSATU’s leadership issues at the National Office Bearer level. Two newspaper reports, one in the Saturday Star and the other in the Business Day’s Weekender, appear to show that journalists are becoming more sensitive to what is at stake at COSATU’s 9th Congress beginning in Midrand on Monday, September 18th, as well as at the Jacob Zuma hearing, which re-commences in Pietermaritzburg on the 20th, the third day of the COSATU Congress. Linda Daniels and Moshoeshoe Monare argue that the question of which candidates will prevail at the COSATU Congress is no longer crucial, or that it has already, in effect, been decided. Karima Brown and Vukani Mde, referring to the relationship between Jacob Zuma and the working class, begin to spell out the likely trajectory of development under a Zuma administration and a Zuma-led ANC supported by the SACP and COSATU. They mention much better health services, free education for all, an anti-imperialist foreign policy, and more intervention in the economy, to some extent in partnership with South African capital, but no longer benchmarked to imperial “FDI” (foreign direct investment). COSATU’s Secretariat Report is the main report to Congress. The Secretariat Report for the 9th Congress is Book 1 in the documentation, although it was the last to be released and printed. The link below takes you to a page from which this document may be downloaded as a Word document. It is 159 pages long but well structured into Political (p.2), Organisational (p. 25), Socio-Economic (p.87) and International (p.147) sections. These are the same categories used to divide up the Congress Resolutions. The organisational report, in particular, will help people who are unfamiliar with the 21 affiliated member unions of the COSATU federation. The full final Congress Programme (still subject to possible alteration under the stresses of live conditions) is also linked below. Click on these links: Social Unrest and Twisted Justice, ZCTU Informal Economy Desk (728 words) Statement on meeting of COSATU Affiliates and the Commission (153 words) E-mail from Ron Press re Terry Bell, SACTU and COSATU (253 words) Foes set for re-election, Daniels, Monare, The Star (760 words) Zuma backers demand pound of flesh, Brown, Mde, Weekender (1015 words) Secretariat Report to the COSATU Ninth National Congress (Download, 986KB) COSATU Ninth National Congress Final Programme (Programme)