By Norm Dixon
JOHANNESBURG — Thabo Mbeki, head of the African National Congress Department of Internal Affairs, has appealed for continued international solidarity with the people of South Africa and the ANC. Addressing a meeting here of the Socialist International's Committee on Africa, Mbeki said that without solidarity throughout the world, the democratic movement in South Africa would not be where it is today.
Mbeki told delegates attending the March 5 meeting in Johannesburg's Carlton Hotel, "By 1989, this regime could see that it could no longer hang on to its power. That's when the ANC began official contacts with the South African government ... That change in the position of the regime was the result of the struggle that all of us waged. It was the result of the effect of sanctions, of international isolation, it was the result of the struggle that was waged within the country."
The greatest danger to democracy at the moment, Mbeki said, was that free and fair elections could be made impossible by violence. The decision by sections of the right-wing Freedom Alliance to register "provisionally" for the April elections may reduce the chances of violence, he added. However, supporters of South Africa's struggle for democracy "must expect that there are some people in the country who don't want democracy, who don't want change".
Right-wing forces may resort to violence to stop the elections. Mbeki appealed to the international solidarity movement to assist in applying pressure on these forces.
"We have been together in this struggle to end this system of apartheid. We are on the verge of ending the political expression of that system. There is a great commitment among an overwhelming majority of our people to produce a genuine democracy, to produce a political system that will genuinely respect fundamental human rights", Mbeki assured delegates.
"The question of the emancipation of women needs to be central to the creation of that democratic society", Mbeki continued. "Therefore we have taken some exceptional measures to ensure that this issue is addressed. For instance as far as our candidates for parliament are concerned, a third of those candidates will be women. We can't speak of a genuinely democratic South Africa [if] this subject of the emancipation of women is not addressed with the seriousness it needs."
Mbeki reminded the ANC's international supporters that "a political settlement would in the end not survive if the issue of the poverty of millions of our people is not addressed. We have over 40% of the population unemployed. If you see centre of Johannesburg, or go to the northern suburbs where a lot of white South Africans stay, you get the impression of a wealthy, developed country.
"And yet, if you look behind that you will find, for instance, the infant mortality rate in South Africa is higher than in Botswana or Zimbabwe. The reason for that, of course, is this dire poverty that affects millions of people. As part of this process of change in South Africa, we will have to change the economy."
Mbeki said that he hoped the ANC could continue to rely on its supporters in the developed world to support these necessary economic changes. "The developed world needs to recognise that we have here a dual economy that cannot just be classified in terms of aggregate statistics. We cannot be classified, as we are now, as an upper-middle income country ... because those that are wealthy are so wealthy that statistically they pull up everybody when there are people actually dying of hunger."
Development aid from the wealthy European countries was still desperately needed, Mbeki said, appealing to the several major social democratic opposition parties represented at the gathering.
Mbeki also appealed for continued international support for an end to the terrible war that is crippling Angola, and support for attempts to bring peace to Mozambique.