A sharp increase in fuel prices on Wednesday 6 September will hit the working class and poor hardest. The official reasons for the price hike are rising crude oil costs and the weak Rand. Government tax is also rising. Energy Minister Mamoloko Kubayi claims 4.6 cents a litre will go towards salary increases for petrol station workers.

The reality is rising prices get passed directly onto ordinary people by, for example, increases in taxi fares and food prices.

Fuel Price Hikes Hammer South Africa’s Working Class

Philip Nyalungu

A sharp increase in fuel prices on Wednesday 6 September will hit the working class and poor hardest. Petrol, diesel and paraffin now cost 67c, 44c and 65c more, respectively. This is the fifth fuel increase this year. Economists have warned more will be disastrous.

The official reasons for the price hike are rising crude oil costs and the weak Rand. Government tax is also rising. Energy Minister Mamoloko Kubayi claims 4.6 cents a litre will go towards salary increases for petrol station workers.

The reality is rising prices get passed directly onto ordinary people by, for example, increases in taxi fares and food prices. LP gas, which with paraffin is the main fuels used in poor households, is up 86 cents a kilogram. Rising prices affect jobs, and many workers are vulnerable.

Informal economic activities, like street vending of food, are harmed, also affecting low-paid consumers like taxi drivers and petrol pump attendants. It is not clear how 4.6 cents a litre of petrol tax will supposedly get into the pockets of petrol station workers. If it does, it will just vanish due to rising prices. South African capitalism, enabled by the state machinery, rests upon cheap black labour, and the working class and poor majority continue to suffer. Real freedom remains far off.

Rising prices are part of the ongoing inflation problem in capitalism that keeps reducing real wages. Owners of the means of production, including oil refineries and fuel chains, the banks and the state, have the power to increase prices and devalue currency, and so, increase profits by increasing poverty.

But the victims, workers and their families, lack both economic power and political influence. So long as the economy remains under the control of the bosses and politicians, rather than the broad working class, problems like endless price rises will continue. Only class struggle from below through counter-power, aiming at a better society, based on self-management, collective property and participatory planning, can move us from this track. This requires working class autonomy from the parties and the state.

The Brazilian Anarchist Coordination repudiates the cowardly criminalization of South African fighters and social fighters and their persecution.

The Brazilian Anarchist Coordination repudiates the cowardly criminalization of South African fighters and social fighters and their persecution.
In February 2015, four community members were sentenced to 16 years in prison for participating in a protest in their community. After a brief period of provisional release, two of the four militants were again sent to jail on June 19, 2017.

On February 6, 2016, Papi Tobias, the father of three children and a community leader struggling for housing and social rights in his community, disappeared as he went out to watch a football game at a bar. He was seen leaving a bar in the presence of the local police commander, Jan Scheepers. He is missing until today.

The South African ruling class has often used criminal laws and expeditions from the apartheid era to condemn the black and poor working class and criminalize the activities of militants and social fighters.

As in Brazil (Rafael Braga and many others cases), the ruling class in South Africa uses the justice system and its racist armed apparatus to promote the criminalization of poverty, protest and racism.
The continuity between state terrorism and its apparatuses continues regardless of the government it assumes, in South Africa or in Brazil!
Freedom for Dinah andSipho!
Justicefor Papi!

Ante la represión que se desata contra el pueblo sudafricano, desde Uruguay exigimos justicia y la inmediata libertad para los compañeros de Boiketlong y la inmediata aparición con vida de Papi Tobias.

Hacemos responsable al gobierno de Sudáfrica de la vida e integridad física de los compañeros y exigimos el cese de la represión al movimiento popular sudafricano, que nos recuerdan los años más oscuros del apartheid y de las dictaduras militares que asolaron el Cono Sur de América.

En varias zonas del mundo se incrementa la criminalización de la pobreza y de la protesta mientas avanzan las políticas neoliberales que condenan al hambre y a la desesperación a millones de seres humanos.

En África y en América Latina, la Resistencia vive y se desarrolla en la lucha del pueblo!!

Justicia para los compañeros!!
Abajo la represión!!
Arriba los que luchan!!

RESISTENCIA Y SOLIDARIDAD ROE

Faced with the repression that is unleashed against the South African people, from Uruguay we demand justice and the immediate freedom for the comrades of Boiketlong and the immediate appearance of Papi Tobias alive, of course.

We hold the South African government responsible for the lives and physical integrity of our comrades and demand the cessation of repression of the South African people’s movement, which remind us of the darkest years of apartheid and the military dictatorships that ravaged the Southern Cone of America.

In several areas of the world, the criminalization of poverty and protest is increasing as neo-liberal policies that condemnmillions of human beings to hunger and despair. In Africa and Latin America, the Resistance lives and develops itself in the struggle of the people !!

Justice for our comrades !!
Down with repression !!
Arriba los que luchan!!
RESISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY

(ROE – Resistencia Obrero Estudiantil, Student-Worker Resistance)

About 40 communities from southern Johannesburg have united under the banner of Gauteng Civics. The Gauteng Civics have summonsed the national Minister of Human Settlements, the Gauteng MEC for Human Settlement, Mr Paul Mashatile, and the Mayor of the City of Joburg, Herman Mashaba, to our mass rally on Saturday 19 August to answer our demands for housing and land.

We have many housing problems. These include overcrowding, a growing backlog, an increase in informal settlements and backyard dwellings, evictions and house repossessions, financial discrimination against the "missing middle."The problems are made worse by crime, drugs erratic and unaffordable electricity and water supplies, women and child abuse, mass unemployment and poverty. Working class and poor communities are all marginalized.

Let us unite and hold government to account!!

Provincial and national government representatives have promised that they will build houses and even identify land for this pupose. They have invited communities to participate in verification of the housing waiting lists and registration for houses. But the process has been marked by chaos, administrative bungling, indifference and arrogance by officials. Whilst promising to identify land and build houses, the housing budget has reportedly been slashed. The DA Mayor has argued that he has no budget to meet housing needs.

We have now decided to invite the Minister and Gauteng MEC for Human Settlement as well as Mayor to report back to us collectively as united communities on progress with meeting our demands. We warned them that should they fail to accept our invitation or meet our demands, we will embark on a united roling campaign of mass action.

Attend the Mass Rally on 19 August 2017. For more info contact: Thami 0623090468, Weizy 0813667375, Farouk 0813667375