Hamba Kahle Ncumisa Kondlo

The Communist University is sorry to be carrying the sad news of the death of our well-loved and respected SACP Deputy National Chairperson, Cde Ncumisa Kondlo. For a fuller and official statement from the Party please click on the first link below.

Zimbabwe’s “harmonised” elections take place this coming Saturday, 29 March 2008. “Harmonised” means that the local, Parliamentary, and Presidential elections will all happen on the same day.

It is clear that the Zimbabwean people support Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC but the election is quite likely be stolen or mutilated in some way. The MDC has given details of the ways in which the steal is being arranged in front of people’s eyes, which are quite convincing.

Simba Makoni is a spoiler candidate. No such candidate who enters the field at the last minute with no mass organisation whatsoever can be regarded as anything else but a spoiler.

Robert Mugabe is the visible peak of a vicious oligarchy, which may or may not have its client relationships sufficiently well organised to deliver a siginificant vote.

There are plenty of international media people in Harare. They should have been giving us an idea of the support that the MDC has, and what Mugabe has. Instead they have tended to waste time parading the spoiler candidate Makoni up and down like a show animal, which actually has nowhere to go other than back to the Zanu-PF stable.

An exception to the rule is Tracy McVeigh of the Observer (London). She has given a good round-up of things as they stand, with the genuine feel of proper journalistic leg-work about it. See the second link below. Let’s hope that the rest stand up to the comparison in due course.

In Sunday’s post, we said that, apart from the Cubans, there were “many other indispensable components of the struggle.” But, we said, “it was the Cuban military offensive that was decisive, immediate, and irresistible in that crucial moment. For this, and for the blood that they shed and the loved ones that they lost, South Africa owes the Cubans everything.”

A Russian person, somebody we respect, queried this. So let’s get things straight. The ANC comrades in the 1970s already had a tender song that went: “Soviet people, lovely people”. There is nothing to compare with the appreciation that our comrades have for the mighty Soviet Union as it was, without which the victorious phase of our struggle could probably not even have begun. The Soviet Union’s contribution included the incomparable October Revolution, the formation of the Communist International, and the Soviet victory over the Nazi fascists, even before their huge material, educational and diplomatic assistance to our particular liberation movement is taken into account. At Cuito Cuanavale the Cubans could have done very little without the arms that they had got from the Soviet Union, which was still in existence at the time.

We owe the Soviet everything. We owe the Cubans everything. There are others to whom we owe everything. This is the nature of solidarity. In that bank you are going to overdraw many times over.

Cuito Cuanavale was the Cuban’s moment, and it was the climactic moment. This does not diminish our appreciation of the Russians, but nothing can be taken away from the Cubans. See Ronnie Kasrils’ article, published in yesterday’s Sunday Independent, the third link below.

To follow up on the recent YCL statement on the matter that, the fourth linked item is the Wits SRC’s response to the election of Saki Macozoma to the Wits University Council. The statement contains important details that were not in the other statement. See the fourth link.

The Communist University convenes not today, but next week, to open discussion of the forthcoming SACP Special Congress. We will make use of the resolution from the 12th Congress on The Party and State Power (linked below). Any further material that may be forthcoming will be sent out during the week.

Click on these links:

On the passing away of Cde Ncumisa Kondlo, SACP Media Release (614 words)

How Mugabe's faithful became the opposition, Tracy McVeigh, Observer (2149 words)

Turning point at Cuito Cuanavale, Ronnie Kasrils, Sunday Independent (2036 words)

Saki Macozoma’s election flawed and undemocratic, Wits SRC (460 words)

SACP 12th National Congress, 2007, Party and State Power (722 words)

Events Diary