Imperialism knows no constraint. The devastating ecological and climate crises are caused by a predatory capitalist system that is endangering the very existence of humanity.

Post apartheid capitalism is leaving a trail of inequality, hunger, poverty and misery. The wealthy elite and the bosses – white and black – refuse to concede a single inch to the urgent needs of the majority. They view even the most basic reforms as a potential threat to their profit margins. The ANC government now consistently echoes these views. Every progressive programme, strategy and intention is either abandoned or rejected by the government in the face of the brutal logic of managing a capitalist state. The ANC government has refused to confront capital and white privilege and instead become an enabler of white monopoly capital and their junior BEE partners. This is the source of the political crises facing our country.

From the 13 – 14 December 2014 in Johannesburg 350 delegates from around the country representing a diverse range of trade unions, social movements, popular organisations, faith-based organisations, NGOs and anti-capitalist formations assembled to lay the foundation of a united movement of the poor majority to challenge the system that has made South Africa the most unequal country on earth.

The cry of the Preparatory Assembly of the United Front is KWANELE, KWANELE, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, GENOEG IS GENOEG.

Our call from this historic assembly that has broken new grounds is for our people to unite in the year of the United Front. Our task is to build solidarity in struggle in Southern African and internationally. We are internationalists.

We are setting out on a journey to rise to the grave challenges of our times and unite the struggles of our people: workers, unemployed, women and youth to amplify them so as to shake and revolutionise this country.

We are confident that our actions will reverberate throughout Southern Africa and will inevitably echo across the continent.

While basing ourselves on the heroic movements of the past, on the struggles to make programmes like the Freedom Charter and others a material force, the United Front is going to the people; it is unfolding a process of popular assemblies to collect the demands of our people, to listen and to build a front that is of the people, for the people and by the people. The United Front will unite the working classes, rural and urban in struggle and in which women and youth will be in the forefront.

With a great sense of urgency we have come together as the United Front and are uniting our separate and often fragmented efforts, to build solidarity, restore confidence and hope amongst the masses of this country. The building of working class and popular power lies at the heart of our initiative.

The United Front is a front of mass action and struggle. Across the country people in communities, workplaces, townships and villages are mobilising against poverty, inequality and corruption. Our role is to unite and co-ordinate these struggles.
As activists of the United Front, we view our first and main task to build movements that mobilise to fight corruption, looting of public resources, failing service delivery, increasingly unaccountable governance, violence against women, children and LGBTQI people, police brutality, and anti-poor/pro-rich economic policies (“neo-liberalism”); We will resist retrenchments, cut-offs, evictions, collapse of our education and health systems and the retribalisation of the countryside

Our goal is to strive for the deepening of democracy and the building of people’s power in social, economic and political spheres where collective needs and interests of the people as a whole come before profits and other elite interests;

We call on the workers, the unemployed, women and youth, shack-dwellers, back yarders, farm workers, landless and the dispossessed, to organise, mobilise and build the united front in every corner of the country.

The core social base, engine and locomotive of the UF should be exploited, oppressed and marginalized people – primarily employed workers, informal/atypical workers and the unemployed in both urban and rural areas, as well as women and youth.

Mass organisations of the oppressed and exploited should be the main organisational expression of affiliation to the UF. These include trade unions, social movements, civics, women’s organisations, student and youth organisations, and other membership-based organisations of the mass of the people.

All those who agree and accept the vision, aims, mission, principles, programme. duties and obligations of the UF will be allowed to join our Front.

As a campaigning and fighting movement, the united front will be unfolding campaigns around the following themes: work, land & food, environment, decent public services (especially housing, education, health, water & sanitation) and violence against women, children the LGBTI community. To this end the United Front will establish several working groups to unite organisations and struggles in these areas, elaborating campaign and mobilisng strategies. Between now and the official launch of the United Front we are going to unite in struggle against the national austerity budget, particularly on the issues affecting poor communities on February 25. We will organize a day of mass action on March 21 in defence of human rights, freedom of expression and the right to organize and against police brutality.

We give notice to Judge Farlam that the United Front will be watching for the outcomes of the Marikana Commission of Inquiry. We demand nothing less than justice for Marikana!

The Preparatory Assembly has put in place a National Working Committee to oversee the implementation of its decisions and specifically to prepare for the official launch of the United Front on the 25-27 April 2015. They include:

1. Andrew Chirwa
2. Bandile Mdlalose
3. Brian Ashley
4. Cynthia Machaba
5. Dinga Sikwebu
6. John Appolis
7. Kwezilomsa Mbandazayo
8. Mazibuko Jara
9. Reverend James Fatuse
10. Ronnie Kasrils
11. Vuyiseka Dubula
12. Zackie Achmat
13. Zanoxolo Wayile

Provincial representatives
Eastern Cape: Lungile Mxube
Free State: Thokozile Sefumba
Gauteng: Siyabonga Mbuqe
KwaZulu-Natal: Gcina Makoba
Limpopo: Michael Rasikhinya
Mpumalanga: Elvis Komane
Northern Cape: Patrick Dondolo
North West: Shaheen Khan
Western Cape: Abraham Agulhas

An injury to one is an injury to all.
Aluta Continua

Posted 15 December 2014

For Enquiries: Numsa National Spokesperson – Castro Ngobese – 083 627 5197

* http://www.numsa.org.za/article/declaration-preparatory-assembly-united-front/

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 Press Statement – “we are visible.”

Today Saturday, 13^th December 2014, in Johannesburg at the Preparatory Assembly of the United Front (UF) that was convened by NUMSA.

The conference room resounded with songs, slogans and amandlas as the NUMSA president (Andrew Chirwa) welcomed the unions, popular organisations, the social movements, the religious community and the students to the gathering of the UF whose task is it to shape the platform of action before the UF is launched in early 2015.

What was also encouraging was the special welcome by the Deputy General Secretary of NUMSA, Karl Cloete to the newly formed National Land and Rural Movement.

As part of the opening address to the People’s Assembly Irvin Jim, general secretary of NUMSA, in his speech made the following comments:
“We cannot afford to fail- we have no choice but to destroy all that oppress and exploit us

We have we go to the most remote rural areas and towns so that we mobilise the working class and the poverty.
There is no chance to win back the ANC alliance to what its main task was- to take forward the Freedom Charter!

In December 2013 the NUMSA became convinced that the chance to move the Alliance was remote.”

In the panel discussion, speakers from TAC, Social Justice Campaign, Equal Education Campaign, Johannesburg Gay Pride, CSAAWU, Democracy from Below and AMCU – the call for basic services, human dignity and land became a common theme.

The various commissions that met to develop the platform of action, the goals and the objectives also called for greater linkages between the rural and urban poor and proposed as one of its main objectives the:

“Building the sustained unity of vision, unity of struggles, and the unity of action between all sections of the oppressed and exploited in the work place, in the communities and villages and, primarily, the employed workers, informalised workers and the employed in both rural and urban areas.”

The land and agrarian question and the rights of farm workers an end to patriarchy and the rule of traditional authorities were some of the demands made at the Assembly.

Seven from the TCOE and the newly elected leadership of Inyanda National Land Movement participated in the Preparatory Assembly of the United.

14^th December 2014.

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 United Front People’s Assembly

12 December 2014

The NUMSA December 2013 Special National Congress gave a mandate for the NUMSA national leadership to unite trade unions, rural and urban social movements, faith-based organisations, women’s and youth organisations and other popular formations in action to fight rising corruption, unemployment, deepening inequality and poverty as advanced by the neo-liberal policies of the ANC government.

In just a few months in several urban and rural regions around the country interim structures of the United Front have been launched or have convened. It all started with united action in March 2014 when Numsa, with its United Front allies, led an overwhelmingly successful S77 national strike against youth unemployment when it took workers and communities to the streets in protest again the Youth Wage Subsidy billed as the Employment Incentive Tax Act.

Our responsibility is nothing less than to rekindle the mass movement of the 1980s, which brought apartheid to an end. We recognise that the conscious forces of radical political, social and economic transformation are still weak and fragmented, but believe that regrouping working class, rural movements, community organisations, movements of students, youth and women as well as social movements can restore hope in collective solutions and solidarity to the crises we currently face.

The United Front People’s Assembly will take place, this weekend Saturday 13 December 2014-Sunday 14 December 2014, at Southern Sun OR Tambo (opposite OR Tambo International Airport), Kempton Park, Gauteng province.

The People’s Assembly will be attended by close to 300 delegates, drawn from United Front’s structures across the country; trade unions; youth and student formations; faith-based organisations; rural formations; civic and community organisations; social movements and progressive academics. It will receive a detailed report on the work of United Front structures on the ground, across the country.

The following leaders are expected to address the People’s Assembly – Numsa’s President, Andrew Chirwa; General Secretary Irvin Jim; Deputy General Secretary Karl Cloete; TAC’s Zackie Achmat; Prishani Naidoo; and Ronnie Kasrils. They will address the task and issues confronting the working class and the poor in the current period under the neoliberal ANC government trajectory. The Assembly will also hear from a range of organisations on the current social struggles and campaigns around education, health; sanitation, housing, electricity, the rural poor and the struggles of workers on farms and on the platinum belt.

Furthermore, the People’s Assembly will agree on guiding principles and minimum campaign programme for the period ahead. It will elect a Working Committee (WC) of the United Front that will drive and coordinate the work of the Front towards the National United Front Launch in April 2015.

The details are as follows:

DATE: Saturday 13 December 2014
TIME: 10H00am
VENUE: Southern Sun OR Tambo, Kempton Park

Members of the media are hereby invited to attend and report.

Contact:
Castro Ngobese
National Spokesperson – 083 627 5197

* http://www.numsa.org.za/article/united-front-peoples-assembly/

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