Violence Against Us

Comrade Oupa Mbhele is a full-time organiser for SATAWU in Gauteng. Last Tuesday during a demonstration in Johannesburg by the striking contract cleaners organised by SATAWU a policeman shot Comrade Oupa four times at close range, obviously trying to kill him. Since then the comrade has been in a serious condition in hospital. See the SATAWU and COSATU announcements in the one linked document below. The Johannesburg Central Branch of the SACP, mother body of the Communist University, holds its AGMs, BGMs and other meetings at the same SATAWU regional office where Cde Oupa is based. We must wish him a speedy recovery and that the murderous trigger-happy cop be arrested and charged. The liberal Allister Sparks wants people to believe that it is the revolutionaries who gratuitously generate violence. He would probably report the above act of attempted murder in the “passive voice”, as: “man shot in strike violence”, or something like that. No. A criminal shot Cde Oupa - a criminal in a police uniform. A “Devil On The Cross” as the great Ngugi might say. Two days before Oupa Mbhele was shot, Zobaphi “Jobe” Sithole was shot dead in Meadowlands, while loading his vehicle in preparation for a journey to Pietermaritzburg to support Jacob Zuma at his trial. Comrade Sithole was Chairperson of the Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust Fund Gauteng. His funeral service will be on Sunday. See the linked notice below. How would Sparks spin that one? He is quiet. The fact is that capitalism is full of violence and aggression. If you doubt it, take the example of the SACCAWU strike where the familiar friendly workers who help us find things in supermarkets are facing a private army of intimidators led by old-regime characters, namely the so-called “Red Ants”. See SACCAWU’s powerful statement linked below. The Cuban Five were anti-terrorists who were locked up in the USA while actual known terrorists walk free in that country, honoured and embraced by the likes of the Bush brothers, George and Jeb. The South African part of the worldwide campaign for the release of the Cuban Five will be launched by the three nobalas of the alliance on Tuesday at 11h00 at the Women’s Jail, Constitution Hill. See the linked notice below. Please be there to support this event if you can. The violence of the Israeli colonialists against the practically defenceless people of Gaza is unprecedented in its cruelty. The peoples’ enemies like to call Israel a state and even a democracy. The European Union backs up the colonists. Allister Sparks might defend their actions. One-eyed journalists don’t recognise violence when it is done by the oppressors, but they shout and scream when even so much as a stone is thrown by a boy at one of the oppressors’ tanks or bulldozers. Read Patrick Cockburn’s report of that terrible situation, linked below. Click on these links: SATAWU Gauteng organiser Oupa Mbhele shot four times (243 words) FoJZ, Funeral service of Zobaphi Jobe Sithole 11 Sept 2006 (Notice) SACCAWU strikers on Shoprite collusion with Red Ants (687 words) Free the Cuban Five Campaign launch, Con Hill, 12 Sept 2006 (Notice) Gaza is Dying, Patrick Cockburn, Counterpunch (1243 words)