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Zim road is a no-go, says SACP
25/03/2007 23:03 - (SA)
Mpumelelo Mkhabela
Johannesburg - SA Communist Party leader Blade Nzimande has warned of a possible emergence of features in South Africa similar to those that led to repression in Zimbabwe.
While condemning the recent torture of opposition leaders by the Zanu-PF government, Nzimande also said there was a need to prevent it from happening in South Africa.
"If we don't study the situation carefully, we may find similar features in our own country which are beginning to mature that may lead us to the same situation."
He was speaking at the SACP Western Cape provincial congress on Saturday.
"Everyone who criticises Mugabe has become a Blairite, agents of imperialism and racist."
Veiled attack
The labelling of critics by Mugabe showed the "danger of a former liberation movement ascending to state power and the organisation becoming an appendage of state power".
In a thinly veiled attack on the African National Congress, he described this phenomenon as "government-alisation" - a word he chose carefully because he did not want to use a word similar to that used by his deputy, Jeremy Cronin.
Cronin once referred to the stifling of critical views within the ANC as "Zanufication" to suggest there were emerging Zanu-PF tendencies.
Nzimande said: "Today Mugabe is a big anti-imperialist, but he was collaborating with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) in the 1990s.
"We must study these developments to safeguard our own revolution.
"When we begin to see these features, we must begin to worry and challenge them.
"One of the struggles we need to wage is against corruption."
Nzimande said he found it "curious" that black business was starting to discuss succession within the ANC.
"They are not doing this innocently, but to ensure that their class interests are secured," he said.
While empowering black people was important, the black economic empowerment strategy that was being pursued was not solving the "class problem".
He said that socialism, as advocated by the SACP, sought to resolve this.
'ANC is our movement'
Nzimande said the party should guard against fighting factionalist battles within alliance partners, the Congress of SA Trade Unions and the ANC.
Instead, they should partner them.
"We must build the ANC. We are not cousins or step-brothers. The ANC is our movement.
"We are not going anywhere out of the ANC. If people are tired (of us), they must leave the ANC and we will remain there," he said.
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