SACP STATEMENT ON THE 12 APRIL MOVEMENT AND DEVELOPMENTS IN SWAZILAND

The South African Communist Party greets the peoples' determination and their actions in the epoch of Swaziland's revolutionary crisis.

Our party supports the victory of Swazi popular forces as a victory that will place the political struggle in the region on a new advanced footing. It will mark a sea of change and intensify the basic class contradictions in struggle between reactionary social groupings on the one hand and progressive forces on the other.

It will diminish the dominant influence of backward, colonial, neo-colonial and imperialist forces that are opposed to democracy and create progress for popular, democratic social bloc of political forces in the region.

The collective struggle for freedom, to deepen democracy, sovereignty, justice and social progress will be better served by the overthrow of the Tinkundla system under the leadership of King Mswati.

The regime is preparing to unleash a brutal crackdown on the masses and their demonstrations as a counter-offensive that is central to its overall strategic policy of reaction.

Contrary to its rhetoric about peace and order, the real political content of this policy, is to prohibit the restructuring of the Swazi system of social relations that gives adequate protection to its corporate interests for accumulation.

The SACP calls for the release of all those arrested on Monday night, in a dress rehearsal against the April 12, amongst them several leading activists of Pudemo, Swayoco, the trade union movement and civil society.

More raids were carried out last night and despite glaring fissures in the security apparatus, the regime maintains its scotched earth policy and heavy handedness in dealing with demonstrators.

Roughly all of the regime's 20,000 men police force remains visibly active around hot-spots, across main pathways in the urban centres, near public spaces in a coercive operation of intimidation.

The SACP salutes all workers, youth, women, students and progressive forces, who are not intimidated by Mswati and bandits. We salute all the people who will be confronting this regime and drawing the country closer to achieving a democratic solution to the political crisis.

The People shall defeat the Swazi state's grand plan of dictatorship. The people shall defeat the regime's backwardness and press for the democratic renewal of Swazi society. The people shall achieve real social progress and improve their conditions under a democratic political system

The people shall isolate the conservative reactionary forces and build a peoples democracy

The people shall crush Tinkhundla, roll back injustice, patriarchy and push for overall social, economic and political development. They shall achieve freedom, democracy, peace and social progress. The revolution shall meet the general demands of the people for rights and transform all institutions of repression

The system cannot continue to function in the old way and now is the time for its overthrow and to regenerate new conditions without fascist dictatorship and deal a final blow to the mediocrity of King

The SACP also welcome the landmark birth of the Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) over the past weekend and are deeply encouraged by its political program and its identity with struggles led by the liberation movement in Swaziland, the youth and other progressive formations.

Our party recognises that the formation of a vanguard political party, representing the interests of the working class and the poor in alliance with the liberation movement, the rural masses, is indispensable to unify all anti-capitalist forces behind the struggle to overturn the legacy of the current and the parasitic relationship between the Swazi ruling class and international capital.

We call on all progressive forces internationally to stand in support of peoples demands for democracy and freedom in Swaziland.

Surrender is impossible, forward ever backward never!

Long Live the Swaziland revolution Long live!

Statement issued by the SACP, April 12 2011

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