Despite the principled position from the members of the ISO-Zimbabwe in defence of Mutero, Rera and Manjongo, the IS Tendency has not moved a finger to prevent the incarceration of these members in the gulag of one of the world's most hated dictatorships.
The principled position of the members of the ISOZ declare boldly that despite Gwisai charging them in a bourgeois court of the dictator Mugabe, they will not testify against him and will do everything in their power to ensure that the secrets and inner party documents that are currently in the hands of the state, are released therefrom, even if it means surrendering organizational material into the private ownership of Gwisai.
Already in the build up to this case, the ISOZ 3 had to endure 4 days in the cells of the dictatorship. Let us be clear, in Zimbabwe today, many activists are disappearing; their families, friends and organizations are looking for them, without success. We fear the worst for them. From the profile of investments in Zimbabwe, it is clear that US imperialism is the dominant player there and the dictatorship is bound hand and foot to it. In the backdrop of support by US imperialism, the Honduras coup was launched, thousands of the FARC rebels were massacred in Colombia. Yet Gwisai, with the support of the International Socialist Tendency, has no problems in handing over 3 members who he has a dispute with.
In the document, The case for revolutionary Socialism, (7 December 2003), by one of the main leaders of the of the IS, Alex Callinicos, himself an ex-Rhodesian, argues that one of the main pillars of the new world movement be based on justice. 'But what is justice?' he asks. He answers: 'it seems to me that the movement is committed to an egalitarian concept of justice'. Just how 'egalitarian' it is, is clearly shown by the use of the courts of a bloody dictatorship to settle inner-party disputes.
In the same document, Callinicos argues that the main vehicle for the way forward are the Social Forums. Well, dear comrades, when the ISOZ was arguing for breaking from the MDC when it was clear that it adopted the programme of the IMF, Callinicos was arguing that they should be patient due to their having the very Gwisai as an MDC member of parliament. When Gwisai was deposed as leader of ISOZ in November last year, he convened a faction meeting to give a cover to him becoming the chair of the Zimbabwe Social Forum (the IS path to not just socialism, but 'revolutionary socialism'). It is as head of the Zimbabwe Social Forum that Gwisai is vice-chair of the land committee that is preparing the 'new' Zimbabwe Constitution. Now, in order to smooth the path of another historic betrayal of the Zimbabwean masses who will still not get their land, where the families of the 20 000 peasants who were massacred by the very Mugabe regime in Matabeleland in 1983, will still not get their land- this time with the blessing of Gwisai, the main leadership of the ISOZ are about to be put in the jails of the bloody dictatorship. Is this what Callinicos means when he talks of the primacy of politics, in his paper , 6 Oct 2008, (Where is the radical left going?), written after the British SWP split into at least 3 parts.
It is true that the middle ground is rapidly giving way to 2 extremes, the radical left and the ultra-right. After Friday, it will be clear for the world working class that the answer to the question: Where is the radical left of the International Socialist Tendency going? The answer: to the ultra-right!
We call on the rank and file of the IS tendency to choose a divergent path from the opportunism of your leadership. Stop the case in the bourgeois courts for a dispute in the ranks of the working class movement, or at least in the movement that purports to be one.
send messages of protest to Gwisai to iso.zim@gmail.com
send messages of support to the rank and file of the ISOZ at sociallabour@gmail.com
Forward to an International Moral Tribune, comprised of irreproachable working class representatives, such as from the families of the 20 000 peasants who were massacred in Matebeleland in 1983, like prisoners of Las Heras, like the Oakland dockers, like the soliders unions in South Africa, like the Huanuni Mineworkers, like the minerworker leaders in the Peruvian jails, to judge those like Gwisai and the IS tendency who hand the heads of the proletarian movement over to the hands of a bloody dictatorship. Such is the real task before revolutionaries!
--
Shaheed Mahomed
African Secretariat
International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction.
with the support of the International Co-ordination Secretariat
1st Floor, Community House
41 Salt River rd
Salt River
South Africa
7925
ph 0822020617
fax 0865486048
workersinternational@gmail.com
web www.workersinternational.org.za
affiliated to the International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction integrated by
Liga Trotskista Internacionalista , (LTI) de Bolivia
Fraccion Trotskista , (FT) de Brasil
Partido Obrero Internactionaista- CI (POI-CI) , de Chile
Communist Workers Group (CWG) New Zealand
Liga Obrera Internacionalista- CI (LOI-CI) Argentina
Liga Trotskista Internacionalista- (LTI)Peru
Humanist Workers for Revolutionary Socialism (HWRS) USA
Workers International Vanguard League (WIVL) South Africa
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