Gauteng Provincial Government Title: Shilowa: Human Rights Day Celebrations
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Date: 21/03/2006 Source: Gauteng Provincial Government Title: Shilowa: Human Rights Day celebrations Address by Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa at the Human Rights Day celebrations in Sharpeville Members of the Executive Council, Executive mayors, Members of the mayoral committee and other local, Government leaders, Chief Justice Pius Langa, Leaders of civil society organisations, Families of the victims of the Sharpeville massacre, Distinguished guests, Comrades and friends, The people of Gauteng, Allow me first and foremost to lower our banners in memory of Duma Khumalo, one of the Sharpeville six who passed away on the eve of local government elections after he collapsed at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) workshop. He remained committed to the end. Our condolences go to his family and comrades. We are here today to once more honour the memory of those who were killed by the apartheid police here in Sharpeville on 21 March 1960, as well as the countless others who made the ultimate sacrifice in our struggle for freedom in our country. We pay tribute to the men and women, who left their homes on that fateful morning to participate in a peaceful protest against the hated pass laws. Their names are enshrined at the Sharpeville monument so that generations to come can honour and pay tribute to them. Just as we must not forget those who lost their lives in struggling for our freedom, we must also not forget the impact of apartheid discrimination and injustice against which they fought. An important pillar of apartheid's vision of racist domination and control was the system of influx control. This system sought to make African people foreigners in the country of their birth and banish them to the poverty stricken Bantustans, which were apartheid's reservoirs of cheap labour. Only a select few with special permission were allowed to come to urban areas to work in the factories, mines and kitchens of apartheid's rulers. The pass laws aimed to force all African people to carry a dompas so that their movement could be controlled by the apartheid state. Pass raids were a daily occurrence with brutal police assaults on ordinary people in the privacy of their own homes and in public places. Innocent people, young and old were treated like dogs, brutalised and thrown into jail on the whim of the apartheid police. The brave Sharpeville residents who took to the streets in March 1960 were therefore responding to systematic humiliation and oppression to which black people in general and African people in particular were subjected under apartheid. They were following on a proud history of resistance against oppression. In response to plans to extend the pass laws to African women, women in particular had been at the forefront of anti-pass protests including notably, the protest march of over 20 000 women to the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 9 August 1956. This year we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of that heroic march. The Sharpeville massacre was one of South Africa's darkest moments unleashing further waves of oppression including the banning of the liberation movement. However, our people's determination to be free, to restore their birthright and their dignity could not be defeated. As we celebrate Human Rights Day today, we are therefore also celebrating the creation of a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa. This year we are also celebrating the 10th anniversary of the adoption of our democratic constitution on 8 May 1996. Together with the first democratic elections in 1994, the adoption of our new constitution symbolised our decisive triumph against the indignity and oppression of apartheid and was an historic breakthrough in our struggle for a democratic order in our country. Our new Constitution was a concrete expression of the fact that our people's suffering and sacrifices had not been in vain. To borrow from the words of freedom fighter Solomon Mahlangu, their blood had indeed nourished the tree that would bear the fruits of freedom. The human rights enshrined in our constitution are some of the fruits of freedom of which Mahlangu spoke. It represented the unity and national consensus that had begun to heal the hatred and the divisions of apartheid; it represented the people's contract for the future and a weapon in our continued struggle to roll back the legacy of apartheid and build a better life for all. The adoption of our democratic Constitution was therefore not the end of our democratic mission. Instead it represented the beginning of a new phase in the struggle to make a living reality of the political and socioeconomic rights, which our people had lived and died for. The ‘age of hope’ of which our president has spoken is a testimony to the fact that our democracy has made enormous strides in giving effect to our people's constitutional rights and the values of human dignity, equality and freedom, which it upholds. We recently emerged from a successful local government election in which our people exercised one of their fundamental constitutional rights - the right to vote. I want to thank all of you who participated in the election proving wrong many of the analysts who said you would stay away from the polls. By doing so you have helped to deepen democracy and strengthen local government. Your challenge now is to work with your elected leaders at ward, municipal and district level to build better communities where you live. Our congratulations go to all the newly elected mayors and other office bearers in Gauteng. As the provincial government we are ready to work closely with you to build the capacity of local government, to grow your local economies and to achieve our common goals of halving poverty and unemployment by 2014 and making Gauteng a globally competitive city region. I also want to thank the dozens of thousands of Gauteng residents who participated in the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) process in Gauteng. The process was led by civil society representatives and government and involved ordinary people in reviewing democracy governance and the economy in our province and our country. Gauteng has completed its report and has forwarded it to the national APRM secretariat so that it can be taken into account in the development of the country report. We will be making available summaries of the Gauteng report to the public. The process also highlighted the need to further strengthen civil society organisations so that they are in a stronger position to conduct this self assessment process in future. The progress we have made in building Gauteng as an economic engine of the country and the continent is central to address the issues of poverty, underdevelopment and inequality. Expanded economic opportunities are at the heart of the realisation of our people's dignity and human rights. Some of the economic achievements include: * We achieved a growth rate of 5,6 percent at the end of 2004 * Unemployment dropped from 30,4 percent in September 2001 to 22,8 percent in September 2005 * Almost half of all employees pay in the country is in Gauteng, with over one third of all household expenditure * Gauteng attracts over half of the seven million international tourists that come to South Africa, bringing jobs and economic opportunities for our people * Over 40 percent of all creative enterprises are found in Gauteng including our pride and joy Tsotsi which was a product of Gauteng. In April last year, we adopted a Gauteng Growth and Development Strategy (GGDS), which aims to grow the economy to eight percent by 2014. We will spend close to R8 billion to implement this strategy over the next three years. This will run alongside the implementation of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), national government's strategy to catalyse growth and job creation. Beyond accelerating economic growth these strategies aim for shared growth so that more previously disadvantaged individuals especially black people and women benefit from more jobs, business and other economic opportunities. Gauteng's economic growth so far is due to our deliberate efforts to invest in strategic economic infrastructure which has in turn attracted greater private sector investment, stimulating the growth of enterprises and creating economic opportunities and jobs. One example is in the cradle of Humankind World Heritage site where we invested in new facilities, roads and bulk infrastructure to stimulate the area as a tourist attraction. The number of tourist attractions including many small businesses has increased from 68 in 2001 to 275 in 2005 employing about 4 500 permanent and casual workers in the area. About 70 000 people come to visit the area every week bringing about R7,5 million into circulation in the area. Similar initiatives to stimulate economic growth and create jobs include the Innovation Hub in Tshwane, the Kliptown Renewal Project, the Automotive Industry Development Centre, the Dinokeng Game Reserve, the Johannesburg International Airport industrial development zone and the Gautrain. Gautrain alone will bring massive investment into our province stimulating economic growth while forming the backbone of an integrated transport system which will include bus, rail and taxis. In April last year we launched the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller (GEP), which has already assisted over 400 small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) to make them more profitable and trained 1000 entrepreneurs. Over 80 percent of those assisted are owned by historically disadvantaged people, including 41 percent owned by women. The promotion of economic opportunities for youth and women will be a key focus in the years ahead. GEP will next year ensure that 20 percent of its funding goes to support youth lead job creation activities and will in the coming year support the establishment of youth and women led cooperatives in Gauteng's six regions, including Sedibeng.