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Dividing COSATU is counter-revolutionary, says Nzimande Agency Staff, SAPA, Business Day, 6 January 2015 The "multi-pronged offensive" to divide the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is counter-revolutionary," the South African Communist Party (SACP) said on Tuesday. "This is why as the SACP we strongly condemn all activities aimed at dividing and weakening COSATU and our alliance," SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said at a 20th anniversary commemoration of Joe Slovo's death, at the Avalon Cemetery in Soweto, according to a copy of his speech. Slovo was SACP national chairman, and an African National Congress (ANC) national executive committee member. He served in the first democratic Cabinet as housing minister. He died on January 6 1995. Mr Nzimande said the strategy to divide COSATU, including attempts to separate it from the tripartite alliance with the SACP and ANC, represented a "classic imperialist strategy" to defeat revolutionary movements. "In developing countries where there has been some relatively significant trade union movement, the imperialist strategy has been to drive a wedge between the national liberation movements and the trade union movement. "This is what has been attempted in Zambia and Zimbabwe in our region." He said the initiative led by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) fitted into the same imperialist strategy to try and dislodge the ANC-led alliance from power. NUMSA resolved at its special national congress in 2013 not to support the ANC or any political party in the 2014 national election and called for COSATU to leave the alliance. It called for a united front that advocated for a workers' party. NUMSA was expelled from COSATU in November. Mr Nzimande said there was already a "worrying phenomenon" negating trade union solidarity, replacing it with competition and eroding the federation's unity. He called on party members to honour Slovo's legacy by serving the people unconditionally. "As South African communists, let us honour comrade Joe Slovo by committing to serve our people without expecting any special favours for ourselves," he said. "In honour of comrade Slovo, let all our ANC municipal councillors commit to serve and service our communities, and hold quarterly report-back ward meetings in our communities." Sapa From: http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/politics/2015/01/06/dividing-COSATU-counter -revolutionary-says-nzimande -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
