• Contact us at: info[at]workersinternational.info

image_pdfimage_print

The crisis in Numsa: The lessons and the way forward

The crisis in Numsa:

The lessons and the way forward

We, the members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), firmly commit ourselves to a United South Africa, free of oppression and economic exploitation”

This proud and defiant statement opens the Preamble to the Numsa Constitution, which goes on to assert “that this can only be achieved under the leadership of an organised and united working class”.

The Preamble lists the conditions under which this struggle can be successful, including:

(a) fight and oppose all forms of discrimination” in the trade union, the workplace and society.

(c) ensure that all levels of the union are democratically structured and controlled by the members themselves through elected worker committees.”

(d) encourage democratic worker leadership and organisation in our factories and in all spheres of society.” (“Preamble to the Constitution” at: https://numsa.org.za/numsa-constitution/)

And yet, it seems that this crucial trade union has fallen under the control of a dictatorial and corrupt special-interest clique. Union activists claim that this clique imposes its authority in flagrant breach of the principles expressed in the Preamble to the Union’s Constitution. Continue reading

Ukraine is a warning to workers everywhere

Comrade Leonardt, a trade-unionist and socialist in Namibia, asked a few days ago for an explanation for the crisis and war in Ukraine.

He speaks for millions of people all over the world, who have been increasingly horrified by the growing savagery of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is right to denounce this appalling brutality on the part of the Russian government and it is right, as many people are now doing, drop their daily routines and make a great effort to support the millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing their country.

But it is not enough. We have to do our best to understand the driving forces behind this crisis situation, which is a warning to everybody in the world.

The mounting crisis points to a central feature of world politics, economy and diplomacy: the growing rivalry between the established “Western” (or “First World”, to use that repulsive and misleading term) powers and the rising economic, diplomatic and military powers of Russia and China.

Continue reading

Report on Political Parties Liaison Committee by WRP Namibia

WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY (WRP)

TO REBUILD THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

A party duly registered in terms of the Electoral laws of the Republic of Namibia

Fax: 088641065 Tel: 061-260647 4479 Dodge Avenue Khomasdal jacobusjosob@gmail.com / ericabeukes@yahoo.co.uk

10 November 2021.

REPORT ON PLC MEETING AT THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION

On 9 November, yesterday, the Political Parties Liaison Committee (PLC) met at the Electoral Commission of Namibia to discuss amongst others, “the way forward”.

“… The Electoral Commission has noted with great concern that most political parties do not comply” with the provisions of the Electoral Act regarding annual audited statements and statements of liabilities and assets. Only one party has submitted statements. Continue reading

Financial appeal from our Namibian comrades

For many years now, the Namibian Workers Advice Centre has been run from the Windhoek home of Erica and Hewat Beukes.
They have been forced to fight a legal battle over many years to defend the premises against legal and financial chicanery. Many homeowners in Namibia have suffered from this evil, but in the case of Erica and Hewat Beukes a further element has been state and political attempts to silence and paralyse their campaigning work.
In the course of the struggle, for example, their access to electricity and water has been illegally cut off.
Now they are involved in a legal appeal which could secure their title to the premises. They need to raise money to finance the technical costs of the court case.
Their detailed request for support is below. Please help with as much as you can. Continue reading

ADDENDUM TO 10 JUNE 2021 STATEMENT RE: MAGISTRATE UNCHEN KONJORE’s INTIMIDATION, THREATS AND COERCION BY THE JUDICIARY AND THE GOVERNMENT ATTORNEY

WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY (WRP)

TO REBUILD THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

A party duly registered in terms of the Electoral laws of the Republic of Namibia

Fax: 088641065 Tel: 061-260647 4479 Dodge Avenue Khomasdal jacobusjosob@gmail.com / ericabeukes@yahoo.co.uk

12 JUNE 2021

ADDENDUM TO 10 JUNE 2021 STATEMENT RE: MAGISTRATE UNCHEN KONJORE’s INTIMIDATION, THREATS AND COERCION BY THE JUDICIARY AND THE GOVERNMENT ATTORNEY

Some definitions: “An “affidavit” is a written statement that is considered made under oath. It is only valid when made voluntarily and without coercion.”written statement of facts voluntarily made by an affiant under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law.

TRUTH has its own ways. In April/May 1989, three Lubango dungeon prisoners were confronted with two choices to make. One, to repeat lies in front of a video camera and return to Namibia. Two, to refuse repeating lies in front of a video camera and be killed. They chose the latter. They are Tshuutheni Tshithigona, Gerhard Tjozongoro and Kleopas Namushinga. “ Samson Ndeikwila. Continue reading

Open Statement by the WRP(Namibia)

WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY (WRP)TO REBUILD THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

A party duly registered in terms of the Electoral laws of the Republic of Namibia

Fax: 088641065 Tel: 061-260647 4479 Dodge Avenue Khomasdal jacobusjosob@gmail.com / ericabeukes@yahoo.co.uk

 OPEN STATEMENT   10 JUNE 2021  

AND TO: THE MAGISTRATES COMMISSION

THE CHIEF JUSTICE

THE GOVERNMENT ATTORNEY

THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE

In April 2021 magistrate Unchen Konjory swore in a management committee for the Karas Region. SWAPO counsellors had abdicated their statutory duty to facilitate the election of the said committee.

The judiciary and the government attorney then combined to reverse the process. They attempted to bully the magistrate into submission to reverse the process as an admission of her incompetence.

The magistrate refused.

The full savage legacy of the SWAPO Lubango regime then kicked in. Continue reading

Belarus: Free union leaders and activists

In the last couple of months, Belarus has experienced rigged elections, mass protests, and severe violence carried out by the security forces.

Union leaders, members of the Belarusian Independent Trade Union (BITU), have been arrested and imprisoned for participating in protests and strike action.

Belarus: Free union leaders and activists.

At the center of these events is the JSC Belaruskali potash fertilizer site.  Dozens of activists and strike committee members at Belaruskali have been prosecuted, threatened, fined and deprived of benefits at work for their activities. BITU vice chair Siarhei Charkasau and three of his comrades, Pavel Puchenia, Yury Korzun and Anatol Bokun are in prison now. One sentence has followed the other while they were still serving their sentence.

BITU and IndustriALL are demanding an end to the persecution of employees of Belaruskali for their participation in the strike, and also those who continue to “work to rule” at Belaruskali. They are demanding an immediate release of the BITU leader and jailed activists.

Please take a moment to support the online campaign – click here.

And please share this message with your friends, family and fellow union members.

Eric Lee

Political training in South Africa under “lockdown”

SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS PARTY

We are born of class struggle, in the fight to demolish the capitalist system that insists on the continued exploitation of most of society by a few humans. We seek to educate, agitate, mobilise and organize the working class into our political organisation.

The working class must fulfil our historic mission: to defeat imperialism and capitalism, establish a Socialist South Africa, Africa and World, as a prelude to advancing to a truly free and classless society: to a Communist South Africa, Africa and World!”  (SRWP homepage)

It turns out that political organising and education can take place a lot more effectively than some comrades feared online, even during “lockdown” when physical gatherings of any size are impossible within the state’s arrangements for dealing with Covid-19. Some of the resources which have assisted imperialism to step up exploitation across the globe, such as computer technology and modern communications, are also tools in the hands of the workers’ movement.

At time of writing, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party of South Africa (SRWP) has just contributed to members’ political education online with two talks on Marx and the early beginnings of capitalism by SRWP Deputy General Secretary Dr. Vashna Jagarnath and a session with Vijay Prashad of Transcontinental: Institute for Social Research and Chief Editor of LeftWord Books.

Vijay Prashad’s contribution on “CoronaShock & Imperialism” on 23 April 2020 is the one I would like to discuss here. It can be viewed on the SRWP Facebook page, so I urge the reader to do that, and I will make no systematic attempt to summarise his contribution here. It contained a number of important and useful observations. Continue reading

Comments on some contributions to a discussion on the significance of the Coronavirus pandemic and the way forward

Comments have been requested on a number of texts (see below Ed.) which have arisen in left-wing, socialist and Marxist circles in response to the Coronavirus crisis and the background of chronic economic and environmental crisis. 

Both Cde Shaheen Khan in South Africa and the “Public Reading Rooms” comrades in the UK make a number of serious analytical points in describing the current situation. Shaheen (1) writes: The capitalist system is in deep crisis and the rule of the capitalist class on a global scale is in jeopardy”.  No Going Back describes the coronavirus crisis and the feeble economic recovery from the 2008 banking crisis as arising from “the structural limits of the entire system of social reproduction”. (This latter document also adds that “The wanton destruction of nature by capital creates the perfect conditions for the emergence and spread of pandemics”). All three documents present proposals for a fresh impulse from the socialist movement and the working class to respond to these accumulating crises.

Both Shaheen and No Going Back emphasise the international and systemic character of the crisis. “As the pandemic spreads across the globe, the global health emergency is rapidly evolving into a crisis of the entire existing world social order”, says Shaheen (1). “The pandemic is global; it cannot be stopped in one country” says No Going Back. 

This is why Shaheen (1) says: “The task in the days, weeks and months ahead is to build a conscious socialist leadership throughout the world”. (This assertion is missing for some reason in Shaheen [2]). No Going Back calls for “The convocation of a Zimmerwald conference – which united the anti-war left in 1915 – for our times, to unify all those prepared to fight for a fundamental change in society; who understand the necessity of renewing the left’s strategic and theoretical framework as well as going beyond its existing organisational forms.” Continue reading

New Issue 13 Die Werker out now!

The latest issue (Oct 2019) of Die Werker

Inside this issue:
Onslaught on the working class.
Transnamib will not listen.
The Workers Advice Centre (WAC) was instructed by Namibian workers to conduct three foundational investigations. It summarises the most Demonstrative facts of the semi- colonial dilemmas and atrocities.
Unresolved contradictions come to bite again.
Namibia Fishermen United Association to: working class organisations, the judges of Namibia – petition.
Electronic voting system proven a national scam.
Greetings to the SWANU on its 60th anniversary.