After an emergency summit in Cape Town yesterday MDM representatives said the action would climax on September 6, polling day, and called for a month-long consumer boycott starting on September 13. They said the action was aimed at bringing about the abolition of the Labour Relations Act, the repeal of apartheid laws, the lifting of the State of Emergency and the dissolution of the tri-cameral parliament. The announcement – after the two-hour summit at the Bishopscourt residence of Archbishop Desmond Tutu – was made hours after police raided the Congress of South African Trade Union’s Johannesburg head· quarters. Nationwide shop and factory floor action, ranging from sit-ins to demonstrations and overtime bans, is expected to take place today by workers protesting against the LRA.
The week’s programme will climax in ”two days of peaceful national protest” against the elections on September 5 and 6. Cosatu’s second vice-president, John Gomomo, said he estimated be¬ tween 85 and 90 percent of the federation’s 1,5-million members would ”fully engage” in taking action. Cyril Ramaphosa, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, said he expected mineworkers to respond to the call in various ways. The Stand for the Truth campaign in the Western Cape was asking church leaders to spend September 6 fasting and praying ”for the ending of unjust rule”, said Tutu. A vigil in Cape Town’s St George’s Cathedral has been planned.
The call on people to ”withdraw their buying power” from September 13 forms part of a campaign against the LRA, enabling the ”broader community” to show its support. Guidelines for the action were proffered by Cosatu vice-president Sidney Mafumadi who said the action was aimed at ”those who have the right to vote and who have said nothing about our not having that right”. It is planned to extend until October 13, but this will depend on the situation around the country. Specific details of action to be taken in the next week, leading up to the October 7 Conference for a Democratic Future, would be announced by organisations later.
According to a statement yesterday from Nactu, a day of countrywide protest action is being planned for next Wednesday. The Nactu statement was released after police prevented a press conference, called by Nactu, Africanist and black consciousness groups to launch the campaign in Johannesburg. Ina statement yesterday, Nactu said the decision to declare September 6 a ”national day of protest” followed consultations earlier this week. At last weekend’s summit, it was decided that the different groups would meet to decide on a programme of action for election day.
According to the Nactu statement, the summit unanimously agreed that
- Workers would protest at plant level on September 1.
- Month of national action would be launched against companies in central business districts on September 13.
Nactu, the BCM and Africanist organisations are also calling for September 12 to be observed as a day of non-violent resistance. A representative said: ”This will also serve as a tribute to Steve Biko”, who died in detention on September 12 1977. Reading from a prepared statement, MDM representative Murphy Morobe said the Cape Town me ting had dealt with reports on ”successful action” taken under the defiance campaign banner as well as the state’s attempts to ”smear and distort our struggle.
”Anyone with access to a full and 1 true picture of the campaign is able to see that the fundamentally violent nature of the regime has asserted itself in its own response to our campaign. ”A violent campaign is not in our interests: political discipline is a key factor in our struggle. ”The regime’s elections are in them· selves disruptive: calling an election automatically results in a boycott in most communities and we are not interested enough in tricameral election to want or need to disrupt them.”
When police stayed away from peaceful protests there was no violence, Morobe said. There was also concern at evidence that police were using agents provocateur “to spark violence and give them an excuse to deal with dissent in the only way they know”. – Gaye Davies and Cassandra Moodley
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
