African Communist, No. 131 http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.0001.9976.000.131.1992 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org African Communist, No. 131 Alternative title African Communist Author/Creator South African Communist Party Publisher South African Communist Party (Johannesburg) Date 1992 Resource type Magazines (Periodicals) Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1992 Description Editorial Notes; The Strategic Debate: Palio Jordan, Blade Nzimande, Harry Gwala, Raymond Suttner, Jeremy Cronin, ANC Youth League, ANC NEC; International; Civil Society; Book Review; Letters. Format extent 79 (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.0001.9976.000.131.1992 http://www.aluka.org STAEI DEBA: Repne to Jo Slv* paper S * STAEI DEBA: Repne to Jo Slv* paper S * on neotato staege anustlue Contents 1 EDITORIAL NOTES Unfit to govern 3 COVER STORY: THE STRATEGIC DEBATE Contributions by: Pallo Jordan Page 7 Blade Nzimande Page 16 Harry Gwala Page 24 Raymond Suttner Page 29 Jeremy Cronin Page 38 ANC Youth League Page 45 ANC NEC Page 48 54 INTERNATIONAL Negotiations in El Salvador: An interview with the FMLN 60 CIVILSOCIETY Unity and disunity - by Skenjana Roji 64 BOOK REVIEW Lionel Forman and the national question - by Brian Bunting 73 LETTERS Pik Botha and the 'peace dove'; Not all Marxists are Communists; Let the debate continue The Afncan Corn Published quartedy as a form for Marxist-Leninist thought by the South African Communist Party No. 131 - Fourth Quarler 1992 ISSN 0001-9976 EDITORIAL NOTES Unfit to go' 'ern At the beginning of this year the ANC-led tripartite alliance called for Constituent Assembly elections in 1992. In fact, we could easily have had South Africa's first oneperson one-vote elections by now. Good progress towards this goal was being made in the CODESA negotiations in the first months of this year. It was precisely this progress that began to frighten De Klerk. The progress was all the more frightening because the regime's secret opinion polls were showing that Inkatha's ability to win a significant number of black votes was limited, and dropping all the time. Since an NP/IFP alliance was not going to win an election, De Klerk increasingly felt he needed more time to build a National Party that could win black votes in its own right. This meant delaying progress towards elections. And so the regime deadlocked CODESA 2. Today De Klerk must be sorely wishing that he hadn't deadlocked! Since CODESA 2, rather than improving, his own personal popularity and that of his National Party have deteriorated rapidly and decisively. The NP's black recruitment campaign has largely fizzled out. Each week brings fresh evidence of deepseated government corruption and dirty operations. One scandal triggers another. The former security branch of the SA Police is leaking stories about the SADF Military Intelligence, and, in turn, MI is exposing the police. Colonel Joe Verster, former managing director of the CCB, does his best to implicate General Magnus Malan, ex-Minister of Defence, and now Minster of Water Affairs and Forestry, in complicity over the David Webster assassination. Convicted doublemurderer and MI agent Ferdi Barnard tries to implicate the regime's top negotiator, Roelf Meyer, in his own underworld of drug-dealers, pimps and prostitutes. And so the muck continues to bubble to the surface. It is every agent, dirty tricks operative and securocrat for him- and herself as the wheels of the apartheid machine start to fall off. The more De Klerik puts off elections for a African Communist4th Quarter 1992 * Page 1 EDITORIAL NOTES Constituent Assembly, the deeper he will be in trouble. So far we have only had a glimpse of the rot in government. Not only is this regime undemocratic, unrepresentative and therefore illegitimate, it now stands exposed as corrupt and deceitful. These people are simply not fit to rule! So how do we now go forward? Do we simply continue a war of attrition, knowing that, at this rate, the regime in three or five or six years time will be even deeper in crisis? Is it in the interests of our liberation movement, and of our people at large to simply continue regardless? If this is the only option we are left, then clearly we will exercise that option without fear. But is it the best or even the only option? This was the question which SACP general secretary Chris Hani recently asked in a keynote address to the Black Management Forum: "Although we have improved our position strategically over the last year, quite dramatically, do we continue the COWBOYS A war of attrition indefinitely?" Answering his own question, Hani said: "We believe that it is absolutely imperative that we now move very rapidly towards a negotiated political settlement, with elections for a Constituent Assembly next year.. .We need the certainty of an election date. And we need then to build the rest around such a firm date." The SACP believes that the overwhelming number of South Africans, from all walks of LNO CROOKS: Two down - how many more to go? life, and across a wide spectrum of political opinion, now support the call for elections next year. "This will go a long way to introducing some purpose and direction," as Hani puts it, "into what is now a very dangerous and drifting situation." WE DEMAND: ELECTIONS FOR A CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY IN 1993! A Page 2 9 African Communist/4th Quarter 1992 EDITORIAL NOTES: STRATEGIC DEBATE Negotiations: The strategic debate Joe Slovo's intervention, "Negotiations: What room for compromises?" (The African Communist, 3rd Quarter 1992), has started a major debate within the ranks of the national liberation movement. Indeed, the debate has broadened out well beyond the movement, and it has even been taken up internationally. In this issue of The African Communist we print some of the interventions that have been made in the ensuing debate. To manycomrades, as well as to outside observers there are, perhaps, African Communist/4th Quarter 1992 * Page 3 EDITORIAL NOTES: STRATEGIC DEBATE things which are confusing about this debate. One issue that worries some is the spectacle of ANC and SACP leaders publicly debating with each other, sometimes in a heated, polemical way. On this question we believe no apology or bashfulness is required. The strategic questions that are being debated affect all of our futures. It is, surely, patronising to believe that our activists or the people at large must be fed with a pre-digested line from the top. The debate belongs to the people of South Africa, and not to small committees in head offices. That does not mean, of course, that leaders should not give leadership. Nor does it mean that unity of strategic purpose is not absolutely desirable. But a false unity, a unity that is simply papered-over differences, a dead unity, a dogmatic unity is no unity at all. But what Is the debate about? One common version of the debate is that it is simply a debate between those in favour and those opposed to some kind of power-sharing for a limited period, defined by a "sunset clause". You are supposed to be either for or against. But the debate is, of course, a lot more complex than this. Anyone trying to read this simple debate (for or against power-sharing) into the papers published here will indeed become confused. One of the things that makes this debate complex is that there are a number of areas where different comrades are saying very similar things, but where there are mutual suspicions that the apparent agreements are only apparent. Our strategic objectives For instance, Slovo and his most outspoken critics all agree that the fundamental objectives of our struggle have not, and must not be Page 4 * African Communist/4th Quarter 1992 SITE OF STRUGGLE: ANC and government altered. But, while Slovo explicitly argues this, his critics believe that he and the ANC Negotiations Commission are, in practice, watering down these objectives. The critics believe that in the interests of negotiating tactics, our fund amental strategic objectives are being altered. By contrast, those closer to Slovo, believe that it is the critics who are tending to confuse tactics and strategic goals, but this time in the other direction. The critics, they argue, are turning longer-term strategic objectives (like the complete destruction of apartheid) into immediate tactical options. EDITORIAL NOTES: STRATEGIC DEBATE negetlatlurs at CODESA 2 earlier this year Are one or the other set of suspicions justified? On this.. .THE READER MUST DECIDE. The place of negotiations in eur strategy Both Slovo and Jordan, for instance, actually say almost identical things on the place of negotiations within our overall strategy.