PRESS RELEASE: S.African civil society rejects Obama visit to SA (protests, rallies and pickets planned)

PRESS RELEASE: S. African civil society rejects Obama visit to SA (protests, rallies and pickets expected)

Palestine solidarity organization, BDS South Africa, joins South Africa's largest trade union confederation COSATU and its affiliates including NEHAWU, POPCRU, NUMSA and others, as well as the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the Friends of Cuba Society (FOCUS), the South African Communist Party (SACP), the Young Communist League of South Africa (YCL), the South African Students Congress (SASCO), the South African Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the South African Muslim Lawyers Association (MLA) in rejecting the upcoming visit of Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America (USA), to our democratic country, South Africa.

Our rejection is based on the USA's arrogant, selfish and oppressive foreign policies, treatment of workers and international trade relations that are rooted in war mongering, neo-liberal super-exploitation, colonial racism and the disregard and destruction of the environment, thus making the realisation of a just and peaceful world impossible.

The coming of President Barack Obama to South Africa is the first ever since he was elected head of state. The USA under his leadership has escalated its assault on human rights, militarisation of international relations and continuing guzzling of world resources at the expense of the environment and oppressed peoples of the world.

The USA is deeply implicated in the oppression of the people of Western Sahara, the only remaining colonised country on the African continent, colonised by Morocco. And to this day, the release of the Cuban Five and a continuing baseless embargo against the country and peoples of Cuba still seems unmovable issues of commitment for the USA. The call for the release of the Cuban Five has been an important international campaign supported even by Nobel Prize winners who released a document calling on their freedom; Zhores Alferov (Nobel Prize for Physics, 2000), Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize, 1984), Nadine Gordimer (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1991), Rigoberta Menchú (Nobel Peace Prize, 1992), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Nobel Peace Prize, 1980), Wole Soyinka (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1986), José Saramago (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1996), Günter Grass (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1999).

The criminal Israeli occupation of Palestine and Israel's apartheid policies, has only been made possible by the USA’s financial, military, diplomatic and political support for the racist Israeli regime. This is expressed primarily through the USA's open support and military donations to Israel that amount to billions of dollars every year – with USA aid to Israel being more than USA aid to Africa, Latin America and Asia combined. In addition, and on an international and diplomatic level, the USA has for years been single handedly blocking any progress and is totally divorced and isolated from the consensus of the international community with regard to Israel's illegal settlements, Palestine's UN Statehood bid and several other issues related to Palestine-Israel. In fact, the USA is the most frequent user of the UN veto: it has used its veto power over 40 times to defend Israel. As South Africans, we painfully recall how the USA supported and used its veto power to defend Apartheid South Africa, particularly from UN resolutions imposing economic and military sanctions. The USA, under President Regan and others, supported Apartheid South Africa and was on the wrong side of history. Why does the USA not learn from its history, and be on the right side of history, this time, by supporting the Palestinian struggle for liberation and specifically the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel campaign?

Finally, the USA's policies on the environment, specifically the fact that it is one of the largest contributors to global warming, yet to this day continues to refuse the observing and singing of the Kyoto protocol, is simply unacceptable.

Progressive forces in South Africa have consistently been raising these issues and many others regarding the role of the USA in the global community. We categorically make it known, that the visit of the USA President to South Africa is an un-welcomed visit that will be protested, picketed and resisted by all justice and peace-loving peoples of this country. Friendship with South Africa must be based on values of justice, freedom and equality and these the USA has offended, undermined and ridiculed through its actions in the global arena in general and in the third world in particular.

1. The championing and maintenance by the USA in the militarisation of international relations. It is a well-known fact that the USA approaches conflicts in the world through inciting, encouraging as well and championing war, primarily driven by its business interests often masqueraded in the language of defense of human rights, for example in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The militarisation of international relations is, in the main, exemplified by institutions like Africom, NATO, and the continuing double standards around nuclear disarmament that the USA preaches when it comes to countries in the South, whilst holding one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world and continuing to collaborate on nuclear weaponry with the oppressive State of Israel.

2. The USA’s active support and defence of colonial and oppressive regimes. This is the one aspect of USA foreign policy that most exposes its hypocritical character where regimes that support its interest are never opposed; instead they are supported and maintained through, amongst other things, the USA's war machinery. Chief amongst these regimes is Israel, which continues to serve as the USA’s front-line state in the Middle-East, Israel is a country that no peace-loving country should support due to its racist apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. Another example, is the USA’s support to Morocco, that is oppressing and colonially occupying Western Sahara. And, increasingly the USA support of oppressive regimes in Latin America, like the one in Colombia.

3. The unjustifiable blockade on Cuba and unfair imprisonment of the Cuban 5.

4. The continued greed in the guzzling of world resources by the USA, epitomized by its encouragement and support of its multinational companies, like Walmart, that are anti-worker and have no regard for the environment, human rights, progressive labour laws etc.

5. The USA’s role in maintaining the underdevelopment of the African continent and its imperialistic trade relations with African countries.