A-Infos (en) South Africa, Zabalaza* #6 - PROTESTS THE MURDER OF CIPO-RFM ACTIVISTS, SUPPORT ZANDILE MBARANE, CLASS-WAR PRISONER! +

ABC-SA PROTESTS THE MURDER OF CIPO-RFM ACTIVISTS
The Anarchist Black Cross (southern Africa), a member collective
of the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (ZACF), held a
protest against the Mexican government on Saturday March 19 as
part of the Anti-War Coalition's contribution to the international
anti-imperialist day of action marking the 2nd anniversary of the
mass-murder by Coalition forces of Iraqi draftees.
    The ABC (SA)'s Anti-Repression Network, the Anti-War
Coalition and the Freedom of Expression Institute were among
more than 100 signatories of a protest petition that was sent to
Mexico's ambassador to South Africa, M de Maria y Campos,
protesting the murders by death-squads of 27 members of the
Indigenous Popular Council of Oaxaca - Ricardo Flores Magon
(CIPO-RFM), numerous attacks on CIPO-RFM autonomous
municipalities and the shutting down of their community radio sta-
tion.
    The CIPO-RF embraces well over 1,000 members in 24
autonomous villages in Oaxaca state, southern Mexico. It is
named after Oaxacan anarchist revolutionary Ricardo Flores
Magon who was murdered in the American prison of Fort
Leavenworth in 1922, a martyr to anti-imperialism if ever there was
one. CIPO-RFM has close fraternal ties with the Zapatistas'
indigenous councils and autonomous municipalities in neighbour-
ing Chiapas state.
     Although it is an unarmed formation that uses passive resist-
ance tactics, CIPO-RFM has come under severe repression from
death-squads, apparently backed by the neo-liberal Mexican state
under President Vicente Fox. This state is acting as the instru-
ment of destructive US imperialist policy in Central America and
has filled its jails with almost 400 political prisoners, many jailed for
life for "crimes" of resistance to Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas (FTAA-ALCA).
     March 21 was called by the CIPO-RFM as an international day
of protest against the killings by the death-squads that serve US-
Mexican elite interests against the peasantry, working class and
the poor. Given the prior plans for the anti-war march on March 19
and given the common American imperialist source of both the
Mexican and Iraqi people's pain, we combined our protest with
those of our comrades in the social movements.
     The ABC (SA)'s action also recalled the centenary of the ABC,
founded in Tsarist-occupied Poland in 1905 during the uprising of
that year, and now with an operational presence in some 64 coun-
tries across the globe. The ABC and its fellow centenarian organ-
isation, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), have demon-
strated a militant libertarian longevity that has far outlasted any of
the facile "communist" internationals that were mere fronts for
nationalist foreign policies.
     As an African anarchist delegate to Zapatista-held Chiapas in
1996 and a personal acquaintance of CIPO-RFM delegate Raul
Gatica, who is in hiding in fear of his life, I appeal to the interna-
tional anarchist community to shame the Mexican government into
calling the dogs off our vulnerable comrades in Oaxaca.
                                             - Michael Schmidt, ABC (SA)
                                                    www.zabalaza.net/abc

 Southern
  African
Anarchism
   Onlin
   www.zabalaza.net
Links to local groups, education
material, email discussion lists,
PDF leaflets for you to distribute
             etc. etc.
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   T-SHIRT - R30
             Front Says:
Freedom for All: Power to no one and
 to Everyone. To each, power over
    her/his own life and no other
             Back Says:
      Everything for Everyone!
             (with ZACF)
--------------------------------------------------
    The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (ZACF) is an organisation
of revolutionaries from the southern regions of Africa who identify with the
communist tradition within Anarchism. The federation is organised around
the principles of theoretical and tactical unity, collective responsibility and
federalism. Our activities include study and theoretical development, anar-
chist agitation and propaganda, and participation within the class struggle.
    As anarchist-communists, we struggle for a classless, stateless and non-
hierarchical society. We envision an international confederation of directly
democratic, self-managed communities and workplaces; a society where all
markets, exchange value systems and divisions of labour have been abol-
ished and the means of production, distribution and communication are
socialised in order to allow for the satisfaction of the needs of everyone,
adhering to the communist principle: "From each according to ability, to each
according to need."
--------------------------------------------------------


Z ACF CONTACT DETAIL
         ZACF FEDERATION
              SECRETARY
Post: Postnet Suite 116, Private Bag X42,
Braamfontein, 2017, Johannesburg
Email: zabfed@zabalaza.net
Phone: 0881220416 (leave message)
 (also for Zabalaza Books publishing, and
      ZACF township Action Groups)
---------------------------------------------------
       ZACF INTERNATIONAL
             SECRETARY
Post: Postnet Suite 153, Private Bag X42,
Braamfontein, 2017, Johannesburg, South
Africa
Email: international@zabalaza.net
 (also for Bikisha Media project, and the
 Anarchist Black Cross prisoner support)

-----------------------------------------------
OTHER AFRICAN CONTACTS
       AWARENESS LEAGUE
 Post: P.O. Box 1920, Enugu, Enugu
            State, Nigeria
  Email: danwomeh@hotmail.com
ANTI-CAPITALIST CONVERGENCE
             OF KENYA
  Email: acck@another-world.com
   Email: kenyask8@yahoo.com
-------------------------------------------------------------
SUPPORT ZANDILE MBARANE, CLASS-WAR PRISONER!
(Anti-Eviction Campaign, Western Cape)
    Zandile Mbarane is an activist from Mandela Park,
Khayelitsha. That community has, since 1999, been faced with
massive eviction battles, orchestrated by both banks and gov-
ernment, working together in a partnership called Servcon.
Since the early 1990s, in fact, Mandela Park has been a site of
housing struggle, since here housing for poor people was
financed by banks on a for-profit basis. The result of the evic-
tions was that from 1999 onwards, whole streets started being
cleared of people - particularly pensioners, the disabled and sin-
gle parents, of which Zandile is one. From the end of 2001
onwards, the people of Mandela Park fought back, re-occupying
houses and moving people back into Mandela Park from the
areas they have been evicted to.
    The success of this struggle led to a campaign of police
harassment and repression, which peaked in the end of 2002 /
start of 2003. Besides arrests of those deemed to be 'trespass-
ing' in the houses they reoccupied, the state marked 'leaders' of
the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Campaign for harassment.
These included Max Ntanyana, who was arrested in September
2002 and released with insane bail conditions that banned him
from attending meetings, meeting with evicted persons (in other
words, ordinary residents of Mandela Park), etc. Later that year
Max was accused of breaking his bail conditions, and then had
to operate 'underground', till one night in February 2003 he was
snatched from outside his house by men in an unmarked car
with darkened windows.
    Now remember, this is a community with a long history of
struggle, dating back to the days of Apartheid. These kind of
tactics of 'disappearance' were used in the 1980s, and some-
 imes the activists 'disappeared' and were never seen again. So
people responded - one of them Zandile. They who had point-
ed Max out, and detained that person. It turns out that this was
an undercover police officer, and activists were then able to
force the police to reveal where Max was.
    The consequences for Zandile and three other activists
were, however, severe: they were arrested in pre-dawn raids
and charged with kidnapping. Their trial lasted two years, due
to the difficulty in finding lawyers and other factors. For various
complicated reasons, Zandile Mbarane has been the only per-
son convicted and sentenced in this trial - she was sentenced to
10 months in jail in February 2005. She now needs our support.
Her family is left supporting her two children, and every week
they must pay for four taxis each way to go and visit her in jail.
So, ja, can you circulate this info around and maybe we can do
some kind of collection for Zandile? Then, her postal address
is:
                      Z a n d i l e Mbarane
                      P r i s o n e r Number: 205587870
                      P o l l s m o o r Admissions Centre
                      P r i v a t e Bag X4
                      To k a i
                      7966
                      S o u t h Africa

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