New socialist party to be launched
2013-03-20 16:04
Johannesburg - A new political party, the Workers and
Socialist Party (WASP) will be unveiled on Thursday.
The announcement would be made at press conference in
Tshwane, the WASP spokesperson Mamatlwe Sebei said in a statement on Wednesday.
He said it was fitting to launch the party on Human
Rights Day.
"It reeks of utter hypocrisy for this government to
organise events to celebrate Human Rights Day in the wake of Marikana,"
Sebei said.
"The government should use Human Rights Day to admit
its complicity in the crime of Marikana, apologise before the nation, and
resign. That is why we have chosen Sharpeville Day for the launch of the...
party."
He said they would raise the banner for a "new kind
of politics".
"WASP will be a party that stands for genuine
democratic socialism and the interests of the majority. That it is an
initiative by the mineworkers, the backbone of the working class, is deeply
embarrassing for the ANC," Sebei said.
"They can no longer claim to represent working class
South Africans. And workers are getting organised in opposition to the ANC to
hammer that point home."
Marikana inquiry
On 16 August, 34 striking Lonmin mineworkers were shot
dead and 78 were injured when police opened fire while trying to disperse a
group, which had gathered on a hill near the mine, in Marikana. Ten people,
including two police officers and two security guards, were killed near the
mine in the preceding week.
Sebei said delegations from mineworkers’ strike
committees, struggling communities, trade unions, and other supporters of WASP,
would outline the party's core policies, principles and future plans at the
press briefing.
Joe Higgins, a Socialist Party MP from Ireland, was
invited to speak at the launch.
"Working class people in Ireland strongly supported
the long and bitter struggle against the evil apartheid regime in South Africa
and we felt uplifted when the heroic struggle and sacrifice of the black masses
ended that regime," Higgins said in the statement.
"Now we share the deep disappointment that the ANC
has betrayed the hopes of the people of South Africa, and continues with
capitalist exploitation rather than the liberation which the people fought
for."
- SAPA
