[DEBATE] : 2008 New Year Message from Jubilee South Africa

Thu Dec 27 13:49:16 GMT 2007

2008 New Year Message from Jubilee South Africa

In the course of ushering in our good wishes to the people of the world and all the friends of Jubilee South Africa, near and far, and also in the spirit of our continuing political optimism that the cause of the people is just and will surely register continuing successes in the days to come, let us begin by acknowledging the Christmas greetings we have received from Jubilee South and all the supporters of Jubilee South all over the world. Further, we should indicate that in our regular support for all the Faith Movements of the world, we take note of the similar festivals that have recently been enjoyed by those of our friends of the Muslim faith and others of different faiths that come from India, and the Far East. We are content with the understanding that all humans, regardless of their faiths and creeds, are committed to the building of a new world, a world of free men and women, who have rid themselves of the scourge that is brought into the lives of all of us by political and economic systems built on the oppression and the exploitation of man by man, on the enslavement of humans by others. 

Jubilee South Africa wishes to send its greetings for the New Year to all our friends in this country, in Southern Africa, on the continent, in the South, and in the North. We note with happiness that the court action which we brought against 23 multinational corporations in 2002 has begun to make progress. By the middle of this year we shall know if we have been able to stop in its tracks the attempt by the corporations to appeal its case to the Supreme Court, or – as we have been advised – the plaintiffs will probably be able to align all their residual issues and be required to lodge quantified claims before the New York District Courts. Indeed, every effort should be made by all of us to mobilize the heaviest attack yet on the corporations so as to make it difficult for them to regroup and recover the ground they are losing daily. To be sure, all the sections of the international Apartheid Debt and Reparations Committee should mobilize at full strength and not pause now until a knockout blow is delivered in the interests of poor people everywhere. 

Indeed, the programmatic work of Jubilee South Africa is currently being reassessed in its entirety. In its December seminar on Debt and Finance the national collective of JSA has disaggregated the following sectors to our national program – Apartheid Debt, which is a historical component of the sovereign debt bequeathed to all in our nation by those rulers whose political writ ran out in 1994; Apartheid-caused Debt, which is the historical debt bequeathed to the nations of the SADC region by the same iniquitous system; Debt and Social Services, which is the economic deprivation of the poor and working people of our land by the system of finance capital in the period of neoliberal globalisation; Private and Personal Debt, which is the burden cast upon the shoulders of every woman, man, and child among the oppressed by the self-same system; a process of Reparations which all the above determines in favour of the working people. A specific determination was made on the question of Ecological Debt: the working people of our land, urban workers, peasant farmers, landless peasants, mine ravaged workers and ex-workers, dam affected communities, and others do not owe the rich, the big corporations, and our imperial overlords anything. They owe us! At a global level, the North owes the South. The demands for reparations cover all these issues. Programmatically, this is the groundwork that constitutes the program for the regrouping of Jubilee South Africa. 

Finally, we salute all our friends! We hold hands with our allies!! We despise our adversaries!!!

The struggle continues.

Issued by the National Executive Committee, Jubilee South Africa, Room 401-402, 4th floor, 123 Pritchard Street, Johannesburg, South Africa; tel.: (27) (11) 336-9190, fax: (27) (011) 336-9196.

For further information please contact MP Giyose, National Chairperson, Jubilee South Africa: (27) (082)-350-0361.

27 December 2007