Issued by: NorthWest Communication Service
Let me commence my speech by recalling with pride the heroic struggles of the masses of our people under the leadership of our forefathers against the forces of colonialism and European Imperialism.
I wish to salute our Great Kings who took the lead, in their different ways, to fight the evil forces that sought to enslave our people and subject them under one of the worst tyrannies the world has seen.
Shaka, Dingaan, Makana, Kreli, Sekhukhuni, Khama, Moroka, Moshoeshoe and Bambata. The pioneering spirit and patriotism of our Great Kings is the forebear of the struggle that the masses of our people have waged against the evil forces of apartheid and minority rule.
Their names will always hold pride of place in the record about the history of the struggle for political, social and economic emancipation.
Let me also pay tribute to our leaders of yester year who also, under their leadership, the black people united, for the first time, to address the invasion of their land and the denial of their existence by the colonial settler imperialist forces of Great Britain and the Dutch.
I mention with pride and humility John Dube, Isaka Pixleg ka Seme, John T Jabavu, Selope Thema, Walter Rubusana and Sol T Plaatjie. Although they did not live to see the fruits of their struggles, they left us the legacy which was to take the fight from where they had left off.
And that was the unity of the oppressed, without which our liberty would not have been achieved. They left us the African National Congress.
However, the history of the struggle for the liberation of the majority of the people of our country cannot be complete without the acknowledgement of the role and successes of the young people in that struggle.
It has always been the young people who brought in fresh ideas and galvanized our leaders into more focused and purposeful ways to engage the enemy forces. When the enemy intensified its programme of institutionalized oppression to crush the forces of liberation, it was always the youth element of the democratic movement who protested at the seeming helplessness of the leadership and took the cudgels on behalf of the masses.
If the victory of the Nationalist Party in the elections of 1948 marked the beginning of the process of the systematic institunalization of the robbery of the land of our ancestors, then the formation of the African National Congress YOUTH League in 1949 marks the beginning of the era of the youth in the fight against oppression.
The formation of the Youth League under the leadership of Comrades Walter Sisulu, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, Oliver Reginald Tambo, Anton Lembede, J P Mda and Nthato Harrison Motlana was as a result of the realization by the youthful element in our democratic movement that the forces of liberation would not be complete unless the youth assumed their rightful places at the forefront of the struggle.
It was the sterling work of these great leaders from the ranks of the youth, who grabbed the moribund African National Congress by the scruff of its neck to radicalize its strategies and adopt programmes of action which would hurt the forces of apartheid.
When our leaders were either imprisoned or were killed in battle against the forces of evil, it has always been the youth who rose to the occasion to pick up the fallen spear and engage the enemy.
It is the likes of Chris Hani, Barney Molokwane and Onkgopotse Abram Tiro whose names come to the fore.
Later the uprising of 16 June 1976 which forced world attention to focus on the oppression of the children of South Africa through inferior education and the refusal of the regime to give children of the oppressed masses access to proper education.
It was the brave determination of the children of 1976 and their massacre by the evil regime of J B Voster and Jimmy Kryger which marked a turning point in the entire history of the struggle.
It was this determination to rid the country of oppression that saw many of them killed, imprisoned or forced to leave the country to continue the fight on a different terrain.
13 year old Hector Peterson is the very symbol of that determination. It is the brave determination of the children of 76 who refused to live under a regime which killed them in the streets but at the same time continued to get rich at the expense of their parents.
They left the country to join Umkhonto we Sizwe, Azanian National Liberation Army and the Azanian PEoples Liberation Army. I quote here Siphiwe Nyanda, Gabriel Tokyo Sexwale, Ngwako Ramatlhodi and Zakes Tolo.
I should mention here with great pride those who fell on the battlefield Solomon Mahlangu, JErry Mosolodi and others.
The majority of the other young people remained in the country to continue the struggle by rendering the organs of oppression unworkable.
Under the banner of the United Democratic Front and Azanian People's Organisation they mobilised the people behind the unity of purpose which characterised the struggle in the 80's.
In its reply, the regime imposed a perpetual state of emergency, imprisoned them, banished them to remote areas, killed some of them with hit-squads and used its homeland surrogate governments to try to break this unity.
Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Philip Goniwe are the best-known victims of these secret Gestapo. But we do not know the more than 20 000 others who died on the killing fields of KwaZulu-Natal, Katlehong, Thokoza, Vosloorus and the Vaal Triangle.
These were ordinary people who were killed for the simple reason that they were black. Those sons and daughters of the soil never relented but fought on all fronts including lobbying the international community to support our just cause.
The Frontline States, the organisation of African Unity, the non-aligned movement and the United NAtions were part of the campaign to rid the world of racial tyranny.
The students and the youth of those years joined the struggle against apartheid. The youth of today should take a lesson from those comrades. The ANC is experiencing unnecessary problems about comrades who join its branches with aims of being elected to positions of chairpersons or secretaries. They think these positions are positions which guarantee them the leadership of the movement one day.
Some of them fight for positions of publicity secretaries because they want to see themselves on television.
If they are elected to those so-called "top positions" they prove not to be capable of leading. They blunder because they thought they are more capable than others. They confuse membership on the ground when it is proven they are not even capable of releasing a press statement on behalf of the organisation.
These comrades give us problems because the PEC or Shell HOUSE is always called to diffuse tensions on the ground which were not necessary in the first place. When one joins an organisation, one does so on the basis of its ideals and principles; you do so in order to contribute to the betterment of the lives of our people.
This is how the masses of our people conducted themselves in the 70,s and 80,s.
One tendency of certain individuals today is to think that they are custodians of the struggle. They think they own the ANC and therefore it depends on them who joins it. There are many people who were once members of the Christian Democratic Party who have left the party because they no longer wanted to be associated with a discredited party.
When they wanted to join branches of the democratic movement some comrades have refused them admission or have made their lives difficult by calling them opportunists.
They ask them where they have been when we were fighting the regime.
Members of the UDF never acted this way. The membership of the MDM was always open to anyone. We were joined by disgruntled policemen, civil servants, chiefs, and people who had collaborated with the regime but had seen the light.
We did not refuse anyone membership on the basis of how long they have been in the struggle or by whom they were once employed. Our organisation had membership from across the spectrum.
Opportunism has got nothing to do with your history of employment. Our organisations were infiltrated by people who had joined them for many years, but their intensions were defeated by the unity of the masses of our people.
Many of them were caught, some of them came out to confess and apologise when they realised our struggle was a just cause. Some of them have left the organisation to form their own or join other parties. If a person joins the organisation because they are opportunists, they join the wrong party because they will be found out and will never hold positions.
The ANC is not an organisation for self enrichment; it is an organisation for the upliftment of all our people. The class of 76 placed great respect on our elders, especially the chiefs and traditional leaders. When they allowed themselves to be used by apartheid we told them to stay out of politics. Some listened but many did not want to listen.
We are aware there are certain chiefs and traditional leaders who wanted to join the democratic movement after the fall of apartheid. We thank them for that. But we are saying chiefs should not involve themselves in politics because their status is not consistent with politics.
If a traditional leader is a member of a political structure, he will not be able to tolerate a commoner to call him to order or to a disciplinary committee. In politics we are all equal.
A branch in which a chief is a member will not be dynamic bacause people will be afraid to say certain things which a chief might not like. Such a chief will want to control the structure because of his status. The Chief is a unifying factor in the tribe and politics are divisive.
The apartheid government and its surrogate homeland governments have controlled traditional leaders in the past, and some of these chiefs enjoyed this control because they were paid to keep blacks in line. But these chiefs forgot that the day would come when those political parties which they consorted with would lose power.
We are therefore telling the chiefs today that political parties are never permanent on the seat of power. The day that party you flirt with looses power, you also lose respect in the eyes of your people.
The unity of our people forced the regime to release our imprisoned leaders, to allow those who left the country to return and to negotiate with our leaders. It was through their efforts that we were able to have the elections of April 1994 and democracy.
PURPOSE OF THE RALLY
The purpose for this rally today is to do three things. It is firstly to commemorate.
We commemorate today the murder of hundreds upon hundreds of the children whose crime was to take to the streets in protest against inferior apartheid education and the enslavement of the majority of the people.
We recognise that it was their right to protest and their action was part of the right of the oppressed to fight against the evil of apartheid.
Secondly, we are gathered here today to celebrate the victory of good over evil. Without their taking to the streets on that day, our struggle would probably not have seen the mass mobilisation and uprising of the years thereafter that which brought about the fall of the NAtionalist Party.
We need to celebrate this victory because as a result of their determination we are able to stand here today to speak as a free, non-sexist, non-racial and democratic country. Although on a party-political basis the mobilisation of our masses was done under the banner of the African National Congress, and the ANC is the ruling party today, the victory we celebrate is not the victory of the ANC alone, but of the whole of South Africa.
The liberation was not the liberation of the oppressed alone, but it is also the liberation of the oppressor from fear.
We welcome the Nationalist Party into this new era. We welcome the Pan Africanist Congress as our brothers-in-arms. We welcome also the United Christian Democratic Party, the Afrikaner Volksfront, the Freedom Front and Inkhatha if they are here.
The third purpose of the rally is to rededicate ourselves not only to the protection of the political gains of last year's elections, but also to the struggle for the economic empowerment of the people.
We are aware that people do not eat politics. Political freedom is only the beginning of the struggle to liberate our people from economic backwardness, low wages, inferior education, lack of housing, water and electricity.
We want the youth of today to join the government of national unity under the leadership of African National Congress to make the programme of reconstruction and development a success.
Just like the youth of 1976 mobilized the entire country around the struggle for political freedom, the youth of today should mobilise around the RDP to make South Africa a better place to live in.
We urge today's youth to rally around the theme: "Youth for Jobs, Education and Housing for All" Recognizing that the majority of our youth live in rural villages and farms, we want to place the emphasis of our rededication on addressing the plight of those children who live on farms.
While the majority of our youth is able to address problems facing them today, problems of jobs, education, housing, electricity and water, there are thousands of children living on the farms whose existence under conditions of slavery make a mockery of our liberation.
The fact that this rally could never have been held where they live, is evidence enough of the fact they are not yet free. The fact that they were not able to come here and enjoy with other children, is evidence that the economy is not in the hands of black people. It is evidence that a lot of land which was stolen from black people is being used by those who stole it to continue to enslave a big part of our child population.
NUTRITION
Farms are supposed to be places where food is grown in abundance, and they are places from which we obtain our food, but for the majority of children living on farms the reality is quite the opposite : hunger chronic malnutrition si their daily bread.
Yet their parents work whole days and weekends to produce the food which make the farmers and their families rich.
SOLUTIONS
The African National Congress has always been aware that malnutrition is most likely to result in poor academic performance which is one of the reasons why high iliteracy rates are in rural areas where the majority of malnourished children live.
The strategy of the government was to formulate and implement a national policy and programme of action which includes supplementary feeding schemes for malnourished children in pre-schools and primary schools including schools in farm areas.
The department of Education and Culture in this province is doing all in its power to unite the different departments to replace the current racially-based fragmented system. The aim is to redress the previous imbalances in the allocation of resources.
Farm schools are also included in this integration process. Farmowners should be reminded that the land which they occupy is African land, it should not be used for the purpose of the oppression of our children. N child of schoolgoing age should be allowed or made to work on the farms.
No child should be prevented from attending school Where schools are far from the place where this child lives, the farmer should provide transport for the purpose of taking this child to and from school.
The farm produce should not all just be sold to make the farmer rich, but adequate food should be given to the parents and the children.
May I, Mr MC and Ladies and Gentlemen, make a special plea to all the people in the province.
When you drive on the platteland and you come across bare-foot children on their way to school, shivering in the cold winter conditions, please spare a thought for them and give them a lift.
EDUCATION
The unequal and fragmented nature of the apartheid education system has led to the neglect of the human potential of the country, with serious consequences for personal, social and economic development.
The educational system classified children in terms of racial, ethnic and gender lines with the result that the majority of children were classified at the bottom of the list in terms of access to educational resources.
While those children who by virtue of their colour live in cities and towns and therefore have access to quality education and are well subsidised, the majority of other children, by virtue of being black, live in poor rural areas and do not have good schools and good education.
Farm children form a large part of this group. Not all of them attend school and if they do the schools are poorly built and are situated far away from where they live.
The schools are overcrowded and lack appropriately qualified teachers. There are no pre-schools.
CHILD ABUSE - DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
The struggle against oppression has brought us a Constitution which guarantees all of us basic human rights.
There are people although they are able to enforce their own rights they fail to respect the Constitutional rights of their own children. These parents subject their children to various forms of abuse. They assault them with open hands, with fists, with heels of their shoes, they burn them with cigarettes, some hit them with electric cords and various other objects.
One wonders whether these parents regret for having brought their children into this world. Many children, some of them below the age of five, are admitted daily in our hospital with bad wounds.
SEXUAL ABUSE
There is another form of perversion that certain parents and relatives visit upon small children, and this is sexual abuse.
One wonders what devil would go into the head of an adult who goes out to rape a child. Anyone who rapes a child is the worst criminal and is not fit to be part of a civilized society.
Domestic and criminal violence against children should not be allowed to continue to be part of family life. The Child Protection Unit of the South African Police Services should be beefed up with extra personnel and child psychologists. The society should work together with the police to eradicate this evil for once and for all.
Parents, neighbours, teachers, playmates and civil society should be part of the collective effort to root out the criminals who prey on defenceless toddlers and small children.
Public Prosecutors, Magistrates and judges should do their bit in the courts to make it difficult for a person accused of a crime against children to get bail, because in the majority of such cases, the accused person is related to the victim or is a neighbour.
HOMELESS CHILDREN
There are over 10 000 children living and working in the streets in South Africa. But why would a child who is hardly ten years old leave his/her home and choose to sleep in corridors and public toilets?
Factors which force a child to abandon his/her home include the high incidence of broken families, domestic violence and abuse, neglect and being thrown out by a parent or guardian and poverty.
90% of street children are African and coloured boys. They live in extreme poverty, are vulnerable to alcoholism and drug abuse, crime and violence. Both boys and girls are easily drawn into child prostitution by unscrupulous adults. Any strategy to address the plight of homeless children should not be the responsibility of government alone. It is the responsibility of all of us.
CHALLENGE
When the youth of yesteryear refused to sit on the sidelines while their parents were being economically and socially margi- nalized by the powers of evil, they said we are the leaders of tomorrow.
The biggest challenge that is today facing the leaders of tomorrow is the promotion of a culture of human rights : to eradicate domestic and criminal violence against defenceless children; to help the government to tackle the plight of children who live on farms; to improve the situation with regard to nutrition, health services, clean water, proper sanitation and basic education for all, to promote the culture of the payment of services and to promote democracy by voting in the elections of 1 Nov 1995.
The Youth Commission is the vehicle to meeting these challenges. The government will do its part to make democracy work by listening to the voice of the youth. The government will continue to promote the RDP with special emphasis on economic growth and social and distributive justice, the creation of jobs and the creation of conditions which allow maximum access to educational institutions.