South African workers say "no" to Israeli apartheid
Media Conference, COSATU House, 3 February 2009, 11am
In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by COSATU to strengthen the campaign in South Africa for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Apartheid Israel.
The pledge by SATAWU members in Durban reflects the commitment by South African workers to refuse to support oppression and exploitation across the globe. Last year, Durban dock workers had refused to offload a shipment of arms that had arrived from China and was destined for Zimbabwe to prop up the Mugabe regime and to intensify the repression against the Zimbabwean people. Now, says SATAWU's General Secretary Randall Howard, the union’s members are committing themselves to not handling Israeli goods.
SATAWU's action on Sunday will be part of a proud history of worker resistance against apartheid. In 1963, just four years after the Anti-Apartheid Movement was formed, Danish dock workers refused to offload a ship with South African goods. When the ship docked in Sweden, Swedish workers followed suit. Dock workers in Liverpool and, later, in the San Francisco Bay Area also refused to offload South African goods. South Africans, and the South African working class in particular, will remain forever grateful to those workers who determinedly opposed apartheid and decided that they would support the anti-apartheid struggle with their actions.
Last week, Western Australian members of the Maritime Union of Australia resolved to support the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and have called for a boycott of all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel.
This is the legacy and the tradition that South African dock workers have inherited, and it is a legacy they are determined to honour, by ensuring that South African ports of entry will not be used as transit points for goods bound for or emanating from certain dictatorial and oppressive states such as Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Israel.
COSATU, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Young Communist League and a range of other organisations salute the principled position taken by these workers. We also take this opportunity to salute the millions of workers all over the world who have openly condemned and taken decisive steps to isolate apartheid Israel, a step that should send shockwaves to its arrogant patrons in the United States who foot the bill for Israel’s killing machine. We call on other workers and unions to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.
CEIA-SC Solidarity Statement
The following message was sent to the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU):
The Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid-Southern California (www.ceia-sc.org) wishes to voice its enthusiastic support of the members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) in Durban for taking the lead in the struggle to defeat apartheid in the State of Israel by being the first group of workers to refuse to offload a ship coming from Israel and carrying Israeli goods.
These brave workers lived under, and struggled against, apartheid in South Africa. As such, they know firsthand the brutalities and dehumanization of the apartheid system. They also know how important international solidarity was in the struggle to defeat apartheid in South Africa.
By taking this action the workers of SATAWU are boldly standing against racism and oppression, and telling the world that apartheid will no longer be tolerated as an acceptable way to govern. South Africa is leading the global struggle against Israeli apartheid, telling Israel that unless it ends the ruthless apartheid system it imposes on the Palestinian people, within 1948 Israel as well as the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, it will be treated as a pariah state, and will be boycotted by the rest of the world.
To achieve justice for all in Palestine CEIA-SC calls for:
-Immediate and unconditional end of the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, dismantling of all settlements, and return of land and water resources.
-Immediate dismantling of the Apartheid Wall and full compensation for the suffering of the Palestinian people.
-Immediate implementation of Palestinian Right-of-Return to original homes and properties.
-Return of stolen land and restitution for 60 years of suffering.
-Establishment of a single, secular, pluralistic and democratic state with laws based on citizenship, not ethnicity or religion, in the whole region of historic Palestine, with full political and civil rights for all.
In solidarity,
The Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid-Southern California