20 August 2004

Young lions of the African Century

The day before the publication of this edition of ANC TODAY, I had the privilege to address the 22nd National Congress of the ANC Youth League. It was indeed very moving to spend some time with the almost 4000 delegates attending the Congress.

Here were gathered in equal number the young women and men on whom the future of our country depends. As we arrived at the conference venue, we could not but notice the fact of the youth of the Youth League delegates gathered at Nasrec, Johannesburg. It was inspiring to look at their young faces, and knowing why they had convened at Nasrec, understand fully that with them as our leaders, our country and people are assured of a bright future.

These young leaders are and will be meeting at Nasrec in conditions of peace in our country. To achieve this peace, other young people in our country, their earlier peers, lost their lives fighting for freedom and peace. As they meet, they know that they face no threat of the violence that tragically devours the lives of innocent people from Haiti to the Sudan, from the DRC to Palestine and Israel, from Nepal to the Cote d'Ivoire and Pakistan.

They are and will be meeting to discuss what their organisation, the ANC Youth League, other progressive youth organisations, our youth as a whole, the ANC and the rest of the progressive movement, and their Government, should do to realise the dream of a better life for the youth of our country, and all our people. They will not and are not discussing what they should do to end political violence in our country, because the sacrifices made by other young people helped to rid our country of the scourge of political violence.

It stood out as a great blessing that there is none in our country who has the possibility to use criminal political violence to deprive our country and people of the priceless human beings gathered at Nasrec as delegates to the 22nd National Congress of the ANC Youth League.

There is none who has the possibility to visit on these young people and the rest of our youth the death of thousands of young people we experienced as the apartheid system delivered its dying kicks, and which our people had experienced during the long years of colonial and apartheid rule.

All this came to mind because less than a week before the 22nd National Congress of the ANC Youth League convened at Nasrec, there had been yet another bloody incident, to the north of our country and region, that will forever remain as a blot on the African conscience, and a stern warning to all of us to remain permanently on guard for peace. A horrendous massacre took place at a refugee camp in Gatumba, Burundi during the night of Friday, August 13. The refugees were from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They had fled from the conflict that had taken place earlier this year in Eastern Congo. They belonged to the Banyamulenge ethnic group, which is related to the Tutsi population of Rwanda.

The killers came in the dark of night. They attacked a Burundi army camp located nearby, charged with the responsibility to protect the refugees. This was to stop these soldiers intervening as the murderers did their dirty work of murdering in cold blood well over 150 children, women and men as they slept.

The killers came in the night and hacked to death perfectly innocent people who were already suffering because violent conflict in their country had turned them into refugees. They poured petrol on the shacks in which the people lived and set them alight. Many of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition. Those who tried to run away were shot down in cold blood.

With cold and deliberate intent, they did not touch even one of the other refugees who stayed in other shacks a mere few metres away, but belonged to other Congolese ethnic groups.

The only fault of the dead was that they were Banyamulenge. A mindless and criminal hatred drove the killers to carry out an unpardonable crime against humanity. What they hated was the fact that the Banyamulenge were Banyamulenge. The murderers viewed the mere fact that the Banyamulenge exist as human beings as unacceptable.

They therefore took it upon themselves to commit cold-blooded murder, to ensure that the Banyamulenge cease to exist. Led by Adolf Hitler, the Nazis had taken the same decision with regard to the Jewish people, and systematically embarked on the Holocaust intended to annihilate an entire people.

Half-a-century later, other criminals, this time on our continent, carried out a genocide that claimed the lives of a million Rwandans in a mere 100 days. Hitler's African successors argued that the Tutsis of Rwanda, ethnically related to the Banyamulenge of the DRC, were "cockroaches" that did not deserve to live and therefore had to be exterminated.

There is an armed group in Burundi called the Palipehutu-FNL. This group, whose leader passionately presents himself as a born-again Christian, has refused to lay down arms and join the Burundi peace process. As the Barundi have courageously engaged the process to bring peace to their country, preparing for democratic elections, Palipehutu-FNL has taken the conscious decision that it will not join the peace process.

In action, it has made the unequivocal statement that it is determined to continue killing other Barundi, utterly contemptuous of the people's heartfelt desire for peace, and unmoved by the fact that 300,000 people have died in a decade-long conflict. Active in the vicinity of the capital city, in Bujumbura Rural, Palipehutu-FNL has unashamedly carried out operations that make the statement that this organisation, wrongly described as a Front for National Liberation, has nothing to do with the national liberation of the Barundi, and everything to do with the commission of violent crimes against the people of Burundi.

Perhaps it should have not come as a surprise that, by its own admission, Palipehutu-FNL was involved in the Gatumba massacre of Friday, August 13. This armed group has become so accustomed to the shedding of innocent blood that it made bold to make the statement that it was responsible for the Gatumba massacre. It went further to say that it had no fear of retribution for its crimes, because it was certain that it had become untouchable.

Outraged, a few days ago, on August 17, the Annual SADC Summit Meeting, attended by all the Heads of State and Government on the Community and held in Mauritius, issued a Communiqué in which it "condemned the recent massacre in the refugee camp of Gatumba in Burundi."

Meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the following day, August 18, the 22nd Summit Meeting of the Great Lakes Regional Peace Initiative on Burundi, also discussed the Gatumba massacre. It recalled an earlier decision taken on June 5 in which it urged the Peace and Security Council of the African Union to take appropriate action against Palipehutu-FNL because of its stubborn refusal to join the Burundi peace process.

At this August 18th meeting, and having considered the Gatumba massacre, the Great Lakes Regional Peace Initiative on Burundi took a further and important step forward with regard to Palipehutu-FNL. It said:

"In the light of recent incidents (viz the Gatumba massacre), and the refusal of the Palipehutu-FNL to desist from violence and to actively join the peace process, the Summit resolved to declare Palipehutu-FNL a Terrorist Organisation, and urged the African Union and the United Nations Security Council to support this decision, and for the relevant UN Security Council conventions and protocols on the combating of terrorism to apply in this regard."

As requested by the Great Lakes Regional Peace Initiative on Burundi, and responding to the Gatumba Massacre, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union issued its own Communiqué on the situation in Burundi on August 17. It reiterated its "appeal to all Member States to implement the decision of the 21st Summit of the Regional Initiative to impose, with immediate effect, restrictions on the movements of the leaders and members of the Palipehutu/FNL."

It went further and "stressed the urgent need to neutralise the negative forces in the DRC and in the Great Lakes Region by taking steps to put an end to their criminal activities, and requested the Chairperson of the (AU) Commission to initiate without delay consultations with all the countries of the region, as well as with the United Nations and the other concerned actors, with a view to submitting to it proposals on the measures that should be taken to accomplish that objective."

The decision of the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) correctly draws attention to the continued existence in the Great Lakes Region of other genocidal death squads similar to Palipehutu-FNL, and the need to defeat and suppress these "negative forces". These include those who committed genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

Hopefully, both the AU PSC and the UN Security Council will urgently consider the request of the Regional Peace Initiative on Burundi to declare and act against Palipehutu-FNL as a Terrorist Organisation. Similarly, the International Criminal Court should investigate the Gatumba massacre and prosecute those responsible for this high crime.

These institutions, the one African, and the others global in their jurisdiction, must act on the recommendation to punish those responsible for the Gatumba massacre. They must also act to give hope to our youth and the youth of Africa that the generations that currently have the privilege to determine the future of our country, our continent and the world are truly determined to hand over to all future generations a continent at peace with itself.

They have to apprehend and neutralise the negative forces, including the mercenaries, which think that they can derive some benefit from the death of the innocents. They have a responsibility to contribute to the great efforts of the African masses to create the space and the conditions for them to build a better and humane life for themselves.

Members of the ANC Youth League are meeting and will continue to meet at Nasrec to discuss what they should do to build that better and humane life for our youth and people, as well as the youth and people of our continent, the African Diaspora and the rest of the world.

The challenges they face are not different from the challenges that face all of us as a people. They confront the challenge to make their own contribution to the further entrenchment and consolidation of democracy in our country, to ensure that we remain loyal to the injunction that the people shall govern.

They have a responsibility to participate in the process of giving life and meaning to our commitment to the people's contract to create jobs, fight and eradicate poverty and create a better life for all.

They have a task to help ensure that we build a truly non-racial and non-sexist society. As a token of their seriousness in this regard, the ANC youth ensured equal representation of men and women in the composition of the branch delegations at their National Congress. In this regard, they have given a lead to their own mother organisation, the ANC, and the rest of our country's democratic movement.

The National Congress of the Youth League will also make yet another important contribution to the national effort to construct the new South Africa by indicating what our country should do to address the challenges of the upliftment and empowerment of our youth. Our movement and government will have to pay close attention to these decisions and ensure that we respond to the aspirations and views of our youth in a serious, meaningful and practical manner.

Almost 60 years ago, in September 1944, shortly after the establishment of the Youth League, the newspaper, 'Bantu World', published an article entitled "Congress on the March", written by one of the great heroes of our struggle and the first President of the ANC Youth League, Anton Lembede. He said:

"The African National Congress is a fundamental feature of a stage in the evolutionary process of the African people - a stage when the Africans have become conscious of their glorious past, of their fierce present-day struggle for survival and of the great role they can play in, and the substantial contribution they can make to the progress of mankind in the future. This is the African Spirit - the spirit which is being interpreted and applied by the ANC."

All those privileged to observe the 22nd National Congress of the ANC Youth League at work will not hesitate to confirm what Anton Lembede said, that in our youth we have a new generation that will make a substantial contribution to the progress of humankind in the future. Long live the Young Lions of the African Century!

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