Social tensions in China are taking on an increasingly explosive form. A riot by 10,000 people triggered by a car accident in the city of Chizhou in Anhui province is the latest case to be reported. Around 3 p.m. on June 26, a Toyota sedan hit a teenage student as he was riding a bike. As the student and driver began to argue, three men emerged from the car and along with the driver began to beat up the student.
A group of taxi drivers tried to help the injured student, insisting on compensation from the driver, who is the owner of a local private hospital. In response, the driver ordered his thugs to attack the taxi drivers with knives. He openly boasted that, even if someone was killed, he would get away with the crime by paying a bribe of 300,000 yuan ($US36,000).
Police arrived on the scene but only escorted the driver and his thugs away. Onlookers were left stunned and angry. Many were outraged at the arrogance of the driver and the indifference of the police to ordinary working people. The incident reinforced their daily experience of the contempt of the newly rich and officialdom towards the lives of the poor.
Word of the incident soon spread to the working class suburbs of the city and by 6 p.m. thousands of people surrounded the local police station. They demanded the police hand over the driver and his thugs, who at that stage had not been charged with any offence, and then flipped over, smashed and torched the Toyota sedan and three police cars.
Firefighters who arrived on the scene quickly fled when confronted by the angry crowd. Police stepped in but were beaten back by the protesters hurling rocks and firecrackers. Power was cut off to the police station, windows broken and firecrackers were thrown inside. The protesters looted a nearby supermarket, partly owned by the Toyota driver. Around midnight, the provincial police chief arrived along with 700 paramilitary police officers in full riot gear and dispersed the protest.
In a press conference on June 28, the Chinese foreign ministry acknowledged that a riot had taken place and would be handled in “accordance with the law”. In reality, the police unleashed a reign of terror. Martial law was declared and house-to-house searches were conducted. The police arrested anyone without an ID card, urban residential permit or work permit, especially targeting rural migrant workers.
According to the Xinhua news agency, 10 people have been arrested. The city government issued an emergency statement, declaring that the protest was triggered by “a few illegal elements”—a crude attempt to stir up hostility towards “illegal” rural workers. Rural migrants to cities are required to hold a special permit and are routinely treated as second-class citizens by police and officials.
The angry eruption is a symptom of broad popular sentiment. Chizhou is typical of many Chinese cities in poverty-stricken, interior provinces such as Anhui. Unlike centres of economic boom like Shanghai, Chizhou and its 1.54 million inhabitants have very few opportunities.
The city’s economy is largely based around peasant agriculture and some remaining state-owned enterprises. Rural incomes have stagnated. According to the city government website, only 6,080 of the tens of thousands of laid-off workers have found jobs last year. The official unemployment rate in the city is 4 percent—widely considered to be a gross understatement.
The riot in Chizhou is only one of many spontaneous protests. A similar incident took place last October in Wangzhou city in Sichuan, another interior province. A government official viciously attacked a rural migrant worker who bumped into him in the street triggering a mass protest involving tens of thousands of people.
A recent demonstration reported by Radio Free Asia occurred on July 2 when more than 2,000 villagers stormed a local police station in Sangshang township, Fushan city, in southern Guangdong province. Protesters were demanding the release of four farmers, arrested on June 30 over a land dispute. Authorities sent in 600 police to break up the crowd. One woman was seriously injured and an American researcher filming the clash was arrested.
The land dispute dates back to 1992 when the village administration sold off 12.4 square kilometres of farmland to the neighbouring township behind the backs of farmers. When the township government attempted to claim the land in March, the angry farmers stopped the takeover.
At midnight on May 31, the township government dispatched thousands of police and heavy vehicles to destroy crops sown by the farmers worth some 8 million yuan ($US975,000). To head off a mass protest, the police used two electronic jamming devices to disrupt local telecommunications and set up roadblocks on major transport routes. Now, as many as 200 farmers guard the land day and night, ignoring threats that they would be forcibly removed if they remained.
Recently, in another confrontation between farmers and Chinese authorities in Shengyou in Hebei province, six farmers were killed and up to 100 others seriously injured. The protest, reported in “Peasant unrest continues in China”, was triggered by a dispute over land expropriated by the local government for a state-owned Guohua Dingzhou power plant.
A villager Niu Zhanzong managed to film the attack before he was knocked down, his camera smashed and his arm broken. “We hope the central government will come and investigate. We believe in the central party, but we don’t believe in the local police,” he said.
The film, however, was posted on the Washington Post website, provoking a nervous response from Beijing, which duly sacked the local Communist Party boss and local mayor. A construction contractor and 21 accomplices have been arrested for the killings.
Since then, the Hong Kong-based newspaper Apple Daily has indicated that the incident may involve the highest levels of Chinese bureaucracy. The man behind the efforts to drive the farmers off their land may well be none other than the son of Li Peng, the former Chinese Premier, who was directly responsible in 1989 for ordering troops to carry out the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Li’s family is notorious for corrupt profiteering in China’s power industry, effectively running some major state-owned plants as their private businesses. Li’s son, Li Xiaopeng, is the manager of the power station believed to behind the expulsion of the farmers.
The possible link between the Li Peng family and the violent attack on Shengyou farmers underscores the fact that, under the banner of market reform, the Chinese bureaucracy at all levels is accumulating private wealth at the expense of ordinary people. The further up the chain one goes, the greater the profits being accumulated.
In the 1990s, Beijing decreed that all provinces raise their own finances through taxes on farmers and small businesses. At the same time, provinces, cities and even townships are engaging in a cutthroat competition for investment and so are engaged in offering huge incentives to potential businesses. The net result is a relentless assault on the living standards of working people, already facing high levels of unemployment and poverty, and the ruthless use of the police to stamp out any sign of opposition.
Source: World Socialist Web
Friday, July 15, 2005
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
South Africa: Police Fire on Peaceful AIDS Protestors
The South African government should immediately investigate the police’s use of rubber bullets and teargas against peaceful HIV/AIDS demonstrators in Eastern Cape on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said today.
In the Eastern Cape city of Queenstown, local members of the Treatment Action Campaign on Tuesday staged a peaceful demonstration to protest lack of progress on access to antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS in the province.
Without warning, police assaulted the protestors and opened fire with rubber bullets and released teargas as people ran away. Forty people were injured and 10 were treated for gunshot wounds, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. None of the protestors was arrested or charged with any crime.
“It’s a shocking irony that people demonstrating for essential medicines should be met with rubber bullets and teargas,” said Jonathan Cohen, researcher with Human Rights Watch’s HIV/AIDS Program. “South Africa should be easing the suffering of people with AIDS, not violently dispersing peaceful demonstrations.”
There is no indication that the actions by the South African police met international standards for the appropriate use of force by police. The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials provides that police shall, as far as possible, use nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms. Whenever the lawful use of force and firearms is unavoidable, police must exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense and the legitimate objective to be achieved, and also minimize damage and injury.
Tuesday’s demonstration followed six months of failed negotiations between AIDS activists and local health authorities about access to antiretroviral treatment for persons with HIV/AIDS. In December, the Eastern Cape Health Department stopped providing treatment to new patients until further notice. The government referred patients already on treatment to Frontier Hospital in Queenstown, but activists say that hospital is treating fewer than 200 of an estimated 2,000 people in need. Since the hospital established a waiting list for treatment, more than 50 patients have died.
South Africa is home to about 5.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS. In November 2003 the government committed to providing 53,000 patients with free antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS by March 2004. Even by March 2005, only about half that number were receiving treatment, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. Human rights organizations have criticized the slow progress of the provision of treatment and the South African government’s lack of commitment to HIV/AIDS treatment programs.
“South African AIDS activists did not resort to violence,” said Cohen. “Instead, their government did.”
Source: Human Rights Watch
In the Eastern Cape city of Queenstown, local members of the Treatment Action Campaign on Tuesday staged a peaceful demonstration to protest lack of progress on access to antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS in the province.
Without warning, police assaulted the protestors and opened fire with rubber bullets and released teargas as people ran away. Forty people were injured and 10 were treated for gunshot wounds, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. None of the protestors was arrested or charged with any crime.
“It’s a shocking irony that people demonstrating for essential medicines should be met with rubber bullets and teargas,” said Jonathan Cohen, researcher with Human Rights Watch’s HIV/AIDS Program. “South Africa should be easing the suffering of people with AIDS, not violently dispersing peaceful demonstrations.”
There is no indication that the actions by the South African police met international standards for the appropriate use of force by police. The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials provides that police shall, as far as possible, use nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms. Whenever the lawful use of force and firearms is unavoidable, police must exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense and the legitimate objective to be achieved, and also minimize damage and injury.
Tuesday’s demonstration followed six months of failed negotiations between AIDS activists and local health authorities about access to antiretroviral treatment for persons with HIV/AIDS. In December, the Eastern Cape Health Department stopped providing treatment to new patients until further notice. The government referred patients already on treatment to Frontier Hospital in Queenstown, but activists say that hospital is treating fewer than 200 of an estimated 2,000 people in need. Since the hospital established a waiting list for treatment, more than 50 patients have died.
South Africa is home to about 5.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS. In November 2003 the government committed to providing 53,000 patients with free antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS by March 2004. Even by March 2005, only about half that number were receiving treatment, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. Human rights organizations have criticized the slow progress of the provision of treatment and the South African government’s lack of commitment to HIV/AIDS treatment programs.
“South African AIDS activists did not resort to violence,” said Cohen. “Instead, their government did.”
Source: Human Rights Watch
South Africa: Police Fire on Peaceful AIDS Protestors
The South African government should immediately investigate the police’s use of rubber bullets and teargas against peaceful HIV/AIDS demonstrators in Eastern Cape on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said today.
In the Eastern Cape city of Queenstown, local members of the Treatment Action Campaign on Tuesday staged a peaceful demonstration to protest lack of progress on access to antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS in the province.
Without warning, police assaulted the protestors and opened fire with rubber bullets and released teargas as people ran away. Forty people were injured and 10 were treated for gunshot wounds, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. None of the protestors was arrested or charged with any crime.
“It’s a shocking irony that people demonstrating for essential medicines should be met with rubber bullets and teargas,” said Jonathan Cohen, researcher with Human Rights Watch’s HIV/AIDS Program. “South Africa should be easing the suffering of people with AIDS, not violently dispersing peaceful demonstrations.”
There is no indication that the actions by the South African police met international standards for the appropriate use of force by police. The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials provides that police shall, as far as possible, use nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms. Whenever the lawful use of force and firearms is unavoidable, police must exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense and the legitimate objective to be achieved, and also minimize damage and injury.
Tuesday’s demonstration followed six months of failed negotiations between AIDS activists and local health authorities about access to antiretroviral treatment for persons with HIV/AIDS. In December, the Eastern Cape Health Department stopped providing treatment to new patients until further notice. The government referred patients already on treatment to Frontier Hospital in Queenstown, but activists say that hospital is treating fewer than 200 of an estimated 2,000 people in need. Since the hospital established a waiting list for treatment, more than 50 patients have died.
South Africa is home to about 5.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS. In November 2003 the government committed to providing 53,000 patients with free antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS by March 2004. Even by March 2005, only about half that number were receiving treatment, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. Human rights organizations have criticized the slow progress of the provision of treatment and the South African government’s lack of commitment to HIV/AIDS treatment programs.
“South African AIDS activists did not resort to violence,” said Cohen. “Instead, their government did.”
Source: Human Rights Watch
In the Eastern Cape city of Queenstown, local members of the Treatment Action Campaign on Tuesday staged a peaceful demonstration to protest lack of progress on access to antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS in the province.
Without warning, police assaulted the protestors and opened fire with rubber bullets and released teargas as people ran away. Forty people were injured and 10 were treated for gunshot wounds, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. None of the protestors was arrested or charged with any crime.
“It’s a shocking irony that people demonstrating for essential medicines should be met with rubber bullets and teargas,” said Jonathan Cohen, researcher with Human Rights Watch’s HIV/AIDS Program. “South Africa should be easing the suffering of people with AIDS, not violently dispersing peaceful demonstrations.”
There is no indication that the actions by the South African police met international standards for the appropriate use of force by police. The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials provides that police shall, as far as possible, use nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms. Whenever the lawful use of force and firearms is unavoidable, police must exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense and the legitimate objective to be achieved, and also minimize damage and injury.
Tuesday’s demonstration followed six months of failed negotiations between AIDS activists and local health authorities about access to antiretroviral treatment for persons with HIV/AIDS. In December, the Eastern Cape Health Department stopped providing treatment to new patients until further notice. The government referred patients already on treatment to Frontier Hospital in Queenstown, but activists say that hospital is treating fewer than 200 of an estimated 2,000 people in need. Since the hospital established a waiting list for treatment, more than 50 patients have died.
South Africa is home to about 5.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS. In November 2003 the government committed to providing 53,000 patients with free antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS by March 2004. Even by March 2005, only about half that number were receiving treatment, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. Human rights organizations have criticized the slow progress of the provision of treatment and the South African government’s lack of commitment to HIV/AIDS treatment programs.
“South African AIDS activists did not resort to violence,” said Cohen. “Instead, their government did.”
Source: Human Rights Watch
Friday, July 1, 2005
South African strike against unemployment and poverty
Hundreds of thousands of workers took part in a national one-day strike June 27 called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) against unemployment and poverty. Some 30,000 people marched through Johannesburg, a similar number in Cape Town and tens of thousands in other cities throughout the country.
According to figures from employers’ organizations some 80 percent of gold miners joined the action, 70 percent of coal miners and 50 percent in the diamond and platinum sector. There were large contingents of textile workers on the marches as over 40,000 have lost their jobs since January 2003. DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen were only able to carry out limited production, whilst the steel and engineering sector reported that large plants were closed with 20 percent of the industry affected.
Official unemployment stands at 26 percent, but if those who no longer bother to seek work because of the lack of prospects are included the figure is 41 percent. This is double the figure of 10 years ago. A quarter of workers in the formal sector and two thirds of workers in the informal sector, domestic and agricultural work earn less than US$150 a month. Approximately 4 million people out of a population of 44 million are living in extreme poverty, defined as less than US$1 a day.
The situation is made worse by the fact that some 5.3 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with up to 500,000 people in need of immediate medication. Less than 1 percent of these are covered by the government’s antiretroviral treatment plan.
As well as the unemployment, poverty and AIDS situation, some 2-3 million people are without adequate housing. The government’s lack of response has prompted a growing number of protest demonstrations in the suburbs of the main cities.
Despite this worsening social disaster, President Thabo Mbeki has made clear that he intends to proceed with policies demanded by the financial elite and big business sector.
He recently sacked Deputy President Jacob Zuma, a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle who is popular with the African National Congress (ANC) youth movement and the South African Communist Party (SACP). In Zuma’s place he has appointed Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, whose appointment has been welcomed by business interests. As minerals and energy minister, she was responsible for introducing free-market measures that have cost tens of thousands of jobs already in mining with even more to go. She is identified with the business wing of the party and is well thought of by the mining interests such as Anglo, Harmony and De Beers.
The ANC is due to discuss a new economic policy document at its national general council next week. “Some of the things suggested in the economics paper came as a shock to many ANC people,” said Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan. Speaking to the South African Mail and Guardian he said: “There will probably be very heated debate about it.”
The proposals involve waiving the minimum wage for young workers and making it easier for employers to sack them. Companies employing less than 200 workers would be exempted from some labour laws. This would exempt the vast majority of smaller firms. The ANC youth league complained that the proposals introduced “cheap labour by the back door.” The SACP said that the proposals “overwhelmingly represent an attack on existing worker rights.”
COSATU was obliged to call the strike and protest marches because of the mounting anger among South African workers and youth. Their aim was to let off steam and to prevent serious opposition to the ANC government’s free-market programme from emerging. COSATU has already shown its willingness to collaborate with the ANC leadership, despite its public façade of protesting. According to the South African Broadcasting Corporation, COSATU officials met with Mlambo-Ngcuka before the strike and indicated their willingness to call off future actions in response to more negotiations, but said it was too short notice to stop the recent action from going ahead.
Both COSATU and the SACP have been allied to the ANC since the days of the anti-apartheid struggle and have been loyal supporters of the government since it came to power. They have no alternative perspective to that of the government and have been partners in drawing up and implementing the very policies against which they are now protesting. Insofar as they have differences with the government, it is that they want a more nationalist approach to economic policy. COSATU is demanding that shops sell 75 percent locally made products and wants the government to put pressure on business to save jobs and buy local goods. A major plank of its campaign is for “safeguard measures to protect industries under threat from Chinese imports.” This kind of economic nationalism would pit South African workers against Chinese workers and working people internationally.
In his address to the demonstrators, COSATU Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi appealed to the ANC Freedom Charter, the fiftieth anniversary of which had been celebrated the previous day. He pointed out that the Charter promised work and security for all and that the country’s wealth would be shared by all the people of South Africa. Instead, he said, 11 years after majority rule was established there was growing inequality and a tiny minority still controls the country’s wealth.
He did not point out that the same charter, which was signed at Kliptown near Soweto in 1955, guaranteed the freedom to the very capitalist businesses that are sacking workers. Unemployment and poverty are the consequences of the capitalist programme that COSATU and the SACP have supported for half a century. The measures of amelioration that they hoped would be introduced by an ANC government depended on the existence of a relatively isolated national economy, in which certain reforms could be implemented. But the globalized economy has undermined the possibility of implementing national reformist programmes. Just across the border in Zimbabwe there is a very harsh example of what isolation from the world market means these days—an isolation imposed by the Western powers. In Zimbabwe 80 percent of the population is working in what is euphemistically called the informal sector. Hunger is rife and AIDS is spreading unchecked. In their different ways, Zimbabwe and South Africa express the total bankruptcy of the nationalist agenda.
Media reports and employers’ organisations have played down the response to the strike, but considering COSATU’s record of calling such token protests whilst remaining in an alliance with the ANC government, the turnout was large and reflects the growing anger of working people at the worsening position facing the mass of the population since the end of apartheid.
But the protesters need to make a serious assessment of the record and political perspective of the ANC. There is increasing talk of a split within the ANC between the business wing and the working class. This reflects the extreme tensions that are developing as the government implements its pro-business policies. But working people would no be better served by a left-wing split from the ANC, since the perspective of such a group would still be that of the capitalist programme on which the ANC was originally founded. What is needed is an entirely different perspective based on socialist internationalism.
Source: World Socialist Web Site
According to figures from employers’ organizations some 80 percent of gold miners joined the action, 70 percent of coal miners and 50 percent in the diamond and platinum sector. There were large contingents of textile workers on the marches as over 40,000 have lost their jobs since January 2003. DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen were only able to carry out limited production, whilst the steel and engineering sector reported that large plants were closed with 20 percent of the industry affected.
Official unemployment stands at 26 percent, but if those who no longer bother to seek work because of the lack of prospects are included the figure is 41 percent. This is double the figure of 10 years ago. A quarter of workers in the formal sector and two thirds of workers in the informal sector, domestic and agricultural work earn less than US$150 a month. Approximately 4 million people out of a population of 44 million are living in extreme poverty, defined as less than US$1 a day.
The situation is made worse by the fact that some 5.3 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with up to 500,000 people in need of immediate medication. Less than 1 percent of these are covered by the government’s antiretroviral treatment plan.
As well as the unemployment, poverty and AIDS situation, some 2-3 million people are without adequate housing. The government’s lack of response has prompted a growing number of protest demonstrations in the suburbs of the main cities.
Despite this worsening social disaster, President Thabo Mbeki has made clear that he intends to proceed with policies demanded by the financial elite and big business sector.
He recently sacked Deputy President Jacob Zuma, a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle who is popular with the African National Congress (ANC) youth movement and the South African Communist Party (SACP). In Zuma’s place he has appointed Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, whose appointment has been welcomed by business interests. As minerals and energy minister, she was responsible for introducing free-market measures that have cost tens of thousands of jobs already in mining with even more to go. She is identified with the business wing of the party and is well thought of by the mining interests such as Anglo, Harmony and De Beers.
The ANC is due to discuss a new economic policy document at its national general council next week. “Some of the things suggested in the economics paper came as a shock to many ANC people,” said Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan. Speaking to the South African Mail and Guardian he said: “There will probably be very heated debate about it.”
The proposals involve waiving the minimum wage for young workers and making it easier for employers to sack them. Companies employing less than 200 workers would be exempted from some labour laws. This would exempt the vast majority of smaller firms. The ANC youth league complained that the proposals introduced “cheap labour by the back door.” The SACP said that the proposals “overwhelmingly represent an attack on existing worker rights.”
COSATU was obliged to call the strike and protest marches because of the mounting anger among South African workers and youth. Their aim was to let off steam and to prevent serious opposition to the ANC government’s free-market programme from emerging. COSATU has already shown its willingness to collaborate with the ANC leadership, despite its public façade of protesting. According to the South African Broadcasting Corporation, COSATU officials met with Mlambo-Ngcuka before the strike and indicated their willingness to call off future actions in response to more negotiations, but said it was too short notice to stop the recent action from going ahead.
Both COSATU and the SACP have been allied to the ANC since the days of the anti-apartheid struggle and have been loyal supporters of the government since it came to power. They have no alternative perspective to that of the government and have been partners in drawing up and implementing the very policies against which they are now protesting. Insofar as they have differences with the government, it is that they want a more nationalist approach to economic policy. COSATU is demanding that shops sell 75 percent locally made products and wants the government to put pressure on business to save jobs and buy local goods. A major plank of its campaign is for “safeguard measures to protect industries under threat from Chinese imports.” This kind of economic nationalism would pit South African workers against Chinese workers and working people internationally.
In his address to the demonstrators, COSATU Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi appealed to the ANC Freedom Charter, the fiftieth anniversary of which had been celebrated the previous day. He pointed out that the Charter promised work and security for all and that the country’s wealth would be shared by all the people of South Africa. Instead, he said, 11 years after majority rule was established there was growing inequality and a tiny minority still controls the country’s wealth.
He did not point out that the same charter, which was signed at Kliptown near Soweto in 1955, guaranteed the freedom to the very capitalist businesses that are sacking workers. Unemployment and poverty are the consequences of the capitalist programme that COSATU and the SACP have supported for half a century. The measures of amelioration that they hoped would be introduced by an ANC government depended on the existence of a relatively isolated national economy, in which certain reforms could be implemented. But the globalized economy has undermined the possibility of implementing national reformist programmes. Just across the border in Zimbabwe there is a very harsh example of what isolation from the world market means these days—an isolation imposed by the Western powers. In Zimbabwe 80 percent of the population is working in what is euphemistically called the informal sector. Hunger is rife and AIDS is spreading unchecked. In their different ways, Zimbabwe and South Africa express the total bankruptcy of the nationalist agenda.
Media reports and employers’ organisations have played down the response to the strike, but considering COSATU’s record of calling such token protests whilst remaining in an alliance with the ANC government, the turnout was large and reflects the growing anger of working people at the worsening position facing the mass of the population since the end of apartheid.
But the protesters need to make a serious assessment of the record and political perspective of the ANC. There is increasing talk of a split within the ANC between the business wing and the working class. This reflects the extreme tensions that are developing as the government implements its pro-business policies. But working people would no be better served by a left-wing split from the ANC, since the perspective of such a group would still be that of the capitalist programme on which the ANC was originally founded. What is needed is an entirely different perspective based on socialist internationalism.
Source: World Socialist Web Site
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