The South African Federation of Trade Unions turned down an invitation to the congress of the South African Communist Party. SACP is an ally of the ruling African National Congress. SAFTU says SACP is as guilty as the Jacob Zuma government in implementing a neoliberal programme that is anti-poor, anti-working class, pro-capitalist and anti-socialist.

Unless South Africans stand up to reclaim the right to determine their own destiny, they are in danger of watching our beloved country becoming a predatory state. The hyenas are gathering.

‘Without mass power, we must all forget about liberating ourselves from the shackles of capitalism and apartheid,’ writes Zwelinzima Vavi, in a memorial lecture for Chris Hani, the South African activist assassinated in 1993.

cc. Underlining South African labour’s support for the people of Gaza in an 8 February address to a Cape Town rally, Zwelinzima Vavi of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) highlights the need for growing global solidarity in standing up to Israeli oppression. The COSATU general secretary salutes the efforts of groups both within South Africa and beyond in refusing to facilitate the movement of Israeli goods, and stresses the role of international isolation in bringing down another directly comparable example of brute political force in the shape of South Africa’s erstwhile apartheid regime.