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We, the United Front in Gauteng, are impressed by the undying resilience, determination and focus showed by students in their Fees Must Fall campaign waged in different campuses across the country. We wish to convey our solidarity and support to the students who have chosen to ignore critics and police brutality and decided to forge ahead with their just call and struggle for free education.

Education is a right. Students at all institutions of learning, from crèche to university, should not pay. It is the state and the capitalist class that must pay. It is time that the dream of free education as enshrined in the Freedom Charter and in the country’s constitution be realised now. If the ANC government could spend millions of rands renovating the president’s Nkandla residence to the benefit of one person, Mr Number 1, it means the money for free education is there. If a private jet can be bought for Mr Number 1 then the demand for free education is legitimate and its realisation can no longer be postponed.

It is our firm belief that the students’ struggle cannot be fought and won by students alone while other sections of our society are spectators. We call on all progressive sections of our society to stand together with the students and help advance their legitimate demands which should have been achieved twenty years ago. We call upon all workers in our country, organised and unorganised, faith-based organisations, civic organisations, parents, academics, teachers, students in colleges and in junior and high schools to rise up in solidarity and advance this demand.

We believe that violence and intimidation will not advance the cause. We cannot condone the burning of facilities. By the time we realise free education there might be few facilities left. Students should protect their struggle from elements who want to derail and undermine their good cause.

We observe that when the government and university managements make it difficult for students to exercise their right to protest but instead try to delegitimise the demand for free education, this invites a negative response. We therefore call on the government and university management to remove private security and state police from the institutions of higher education. They must stop police brutality and attacks on protesting students.  The state’s heavy-handed approach reminds us of the days of apartheid and might result in another massacre similar to June 16, 1976.

We call on Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, who claims to be a communist, to reverse his decision to increase fees in 2017 because it has been roundly rejected. We condemn ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe’s statement that universities must be closed for a month up to six months. Mantashe has never offered any solution to a crisis in his political career. He left the National Union of Mineworkers in a shambles after his term of office as general secretary. Today under his watch the ANC is on the verge of collapsing. He is a symbol of destruction rather than construction.

We call on all sections of our society to take action in support of the students’ struggle for free education for all. We suggest that a national solidarity stay away be called.

Viva #FeesMustFall, #Outsourcing Must Fall

Issued by Gauteng United Front