SACP applauds African mission to end war, slams Poland

The ANC’s alliance partner, the South African Communist Party (SACP), has commended President Cyril Ramaphosa and the African mission for their attempt to find a peaceful resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila also lashed out at Poland for the ill-treatment of a group of South Africans, including some presidential security personnel and journalists, who accompanied the president last weekend.

SACP accuses Poland of sabotage

South African observers such as political analyst Professor Ntsikelelo Breakfast attributed Poland’s attitude to South Africa’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or to adopt the Western viewpoint in the conflict.

“As the SACP, we fully support the effort by Africa to seek an end to the conflict in Ukraine by peaceful diplomatic means,” Mapaila said.

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He described the more than 24 hours’ delay of the media and security personnel as “unpleasant experiences” they encountered in Poland and called it a sabotage by Polish authorities.

“The sabotage in Poland reminded us about the assassin, Janusz Waluś, who killed the SACP general secretary Chris Hani on 10 April, 1993.

“To this day, the assassin enjoys widespread racist celebration in Poland as a hero,” he said.

“In frustrating the South African delegation of the African peace mission, Polish authorities should be viewed to have been acting in the context of the United States-led imperialist manoeuvres to block efforts aimed at securing a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine.”

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He said a part of this agenda in South Africa became clearly visible recently in the baseless, but well calculated, allegations by Reuben Brigety, who is US ambassador to South Africa.

“The United States ambassador hysterically alleged that South Africa supplied weapons to Russia in December 2022 from Simon’s Town amid the war in Ukraine,” Mapaila said.

‘Imperial interests’

He accused the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western former colonial powers of being at the centre of the European Union and having provoked the conflict in Ukraine “in pursuit of their imperialist interests”.

“Through what they transformed into their intergovernmental organisation of military aggression in other global regions, their United States-dominated Nato [North Atlantic Treaty Organisation], they embarked on an eastward expansion aimed not only at Russia but, ultimately, at China,” he said.

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“The United States and its automatic European Nato allies want totalitarian control of global natural resources and the world economy to rescue their imperialist hegemony from the crises it now increasingly faces.

“As part of their military-politico-economic strategy, they actively supported the coup that took place in Ukraine in 2014.”