Nicole Denise Richards,
Committee for South African Solidarity (COSAS, Operations Manager 
1837 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley California, USA 94703
beaconhani@gmail.com
+1 510 251 0998 (office) | + 1 669 249 4573 (WhatsApp/cell phone)

International Solidarity Needed to Organize and
Achieve the Demands of the 1955 Freedom Charter in South Africa

Abstract:
	The legal abolition of Apartheid was only the first step in the process of meeting the needs of the majority of South Africa’s black population and the nation of South Africa. As the most advanced industrial nation on the African continent, South Africa has a duty and holds a special responsibility to the indigenous people of Africa as a whole to complete that process.
South Africa, because of its history of racial, tribal and other divisions and due to of the compromises expressly made in 1993 in order for the African National Congress (ANC) to attain political power, has been in a dangerous condition. The transfer of economic power was extremely limited, with the vast majority of the nation’s resources kept in the hands of the very small grouping of national capitalists and international corporations, denying the new government sufficient resources required to reverse the entrenched conditions created by the colonial powers and later the Apartheid government. While more than thirty years have passed since winning the right to vote, the continued control of South African economic development by the dictates of Western “trading partners” and international financial institutions has limited the ability of the government to adequately address meeting the needs of all of the people in meaningful, material terms. 
	The provisions of the Freedom Charter, for which the South African people fought and died, have yet to be achieved. The primary obstacle to South Africa’s advancement and the development of the African continent as a whole is and has been United States and Western European government policies that benefit wealthy international financial interests in the Global North at the expense of the majority of the people of South Africa. 
	The continued advance of South Africa in economic development that is accessible to all her people and to the continent of Africa in general ‑‑ the completion of the struggle to realize the implementation of the 1955 Freedom Charter’s demands – depends on international support, as did the success of the anti-apartheid struggle itself. 
	Committee for South African Solidarity, an independent, all volunteer membership association founded in 1993 in the Bay Area of northern California, USA, has been carrying out a program of building material solidarity between the working people of the U.S. and the people of South Africa and is successfully expanding its reach in both nations, with the aim of supporting the process of bringing about the actual implementation of the 1955 Freedom Charter.

Nicole D. Richards -  Paper/Presentation
	My name is Nicole Richards. I am the Operations Manager for Committee for South African Solidarity (COSAS). COSAS is an all-volunteer, membership organization based in Berkeley, California, founded in 1993, committed to supporting efforts of South African people toward achieving their goals for economic and political freedom for all, fighting for the implementation of the 1955 FREEDOM CHARTER in South Africa and for the benefit of the whole African continent. We have a membership throughout northern California, as well as other parts of the country and members in many areas of South Africa from all strata of society. Our quarterly newsletter, South African BEACON, is distributed in print to all members and on community outreach that COSAS volunteers lead. 
	The continued advance of South Africa in specific and the continent of Africa in general, the completion of the struggle to realize the implementation of the 1955 Freedom Charter’s demands, depends on international support, as did the success of the anti-apartheid struggle itself. 
	The 1955 Freedom Charter was written with the input of tens of thousands of South Africans, facilitated by eight thousand volunteers who took petitions all over the country and even other parts of Africa to collect input from the people about the country at personal risk. The Freedom Charter, then and now, articulates the demands of the people and the principles by which their nation is to be governed, with the goal of providing prosperity for all South Africans, not just the wealthy. This includes: “The People Shall Govern,” “The Land Shall be Shared Among Those who Work it” and “The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth.” 
	In 2017, stalwart freedom fighter Winnie Mandela stated in an interview for a documentary film the following: “To this day, when I sit in parliament, every time I press that blue button, I am constricted with pain ‑‑ did it take so much loss of life, so much blood, in order for me to vote? It cost us so much and continues to cost us so much. We dreamt of a South Africa that was totally free of racialism, a South Africa where everyone would be fed equally, where the youth would be employed and where the scarce resources would have been available for the dreams we instilled in them. The Freedom Charter says that South Africa belongs to all who live in it; that is a South Africa I would have loved to live in one day.” She died in 2018 before that goal had been reached, but continued the fight for these goals until her final days. That fight continues and it can only continue successfully with international support. 
	Coupled with the determined many-decades-long struggle of South African people against apartheid, the abolition of the apartheid system was facilitated in the 1980s by a strong movement of international support made up of students, labor union leaders and members, church people, business people and many academic institutions in the United States and Western Europe and other nations who refused to continue to support that unjust and murderous regime and engaged in an international divestment campaign. This materially hurt the Apartheid regime. However, the turning point in the struggle to defeat the apartheid regime began when 50,000 Cubans came to Angola in the years between 1975 and 1991, and the Cuban defeat of the apartheid forces in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988 was one of the final blows that turned the tide. 
	We will never forget that sacrifice for international proletarian solidarity by the Cuban people and the leadership of Commandante Fidel Castro. It was Cuba that Mandela visited first upon his release from prison to personally thank Comrade Fidel and the people of Cuba. 
	What is most important to understand now is that while political leadership was won, and the legal system of Apartheid was defeated, and in 1994 the people of South Africa had the right to vote — and vote they did — the economic ownership of industry and finance was still in the hands of the wealthy few who could afford to abandon the apartheid system of racial divisions, as long as they could maintain economic apartheid and control of the resources.
While more than thirty years have passed since winning the right to vote, the continued control of South African economic development by the dictates of Western “trading partners” and international financial institutions has limited the ability of the government to adequately address meeting the needs of all of the people in meaningful, material terms.
	As Winnie Mandela said, “Without economic power, freedom is worthless." Defeating their power to maintain that control is the basis of the continuing struggle to win the fundamental economic changes required for real majority rule – through material, ongoing, international solidarity. This lesson was missed or forgotten by most the Anti-apartheid groups in the U.S. who disbanded their efforts once Mandela was elected, falsely concluding their job was done. The goal is not yet won.
	South Africa holds enormous mineral wealth sought by other advanced industrial nations such as gold, platinum, palladium, chromium, uranium and diamonds. South Africa generates more wealth than almost any other country in Africa. Yet the wealth generated by sales and trade has not provided the majority of the population of South Africa with a prosperous existence, despite the fact that the labor of South Africa’s workers is the main source of that wealth. Instead, most of that wealth and development has gone to benefit only a very small sector of the population of South Africa, and a tiny grouping of internationally wealthy corporations, banks and individuals. In the diamond and gold mines, workers make meager wages producing billions of dollars in profits for DeBeers, headquartered in London. In 2022, 55% of profit from the mining sector left South Africa and went to corporations like Glencore and Anglo American, which amounted to $15.7 billion. At the same time, 50.2% of South Africa’s youth remain unemployed – that is 20.9 million young people.
	The draining of wealth has left over 55% of South Africans living in poverty. Millions of South Africans still live without regular electricity, access to clean water, modern sanitation, adequate medical care, food, clothing and education; or live in “informal settlements”, meaning shanty towns.
	The resources are there. With just $6.5 billion, extreme poverty for 25 million South Africans could be ended. According to the World Bank, implementing the Sustainable Development Goals in South Africa would cost approximately $254 billion to $329 billion. These goals are achievable if the funds remain within South Africa. Due to the lack of control of the nation’s resources, the government’s ability to address the provisions of the Freedom Charter in meaningful material terms has been obstructed by the forces of international capital. 
	The continued advance of South Africa in specific and Africa in general, the completion of the effort to realize the implementation of the Freedom Charter’s provisions — and perhaps even the very survival of South Africa’s formally majoritarian government itself — depends upon the active support of working people throughout North America and the rest of the world, and acts undertaken by fraternal organizations in those nations.	
	The United States government, attempting to interfere with the domestic affairs of South Africa, issued a declaration on 7 February stating that U.S. aid to HIV/AIDS programs, renewable energy investments and other programs the U.S. had funded, would halt – overnight. The reasons the U.S. cited, was South Africa’s plan to redistribute land to black farmers who had lost their lands under Apartheid, including lands being left fallow by speculators seeking increased value for profit; as well as South Africa’s having brought charges at the International Court of Justice alleging Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people. At the same time, in May this year, the U.S. announced a special refugee resettlement program for what the U.S. government characterized as “persecuted” white Afrikaner farmers, welcoming them to the U.S., after canceling U.S. refugee resettlement programs for all other groups, such as people from Afghanistan who worked for the U.S. government during the Afghanistan war. 
	South Africa is not backing down in the face of the U.S. attacks. South Africa has been building alliances with other nations in Africa and beyond, that are now growing stronger and more resolute than ever – to assist each other in pursuing sustainable development through mutually beneficial alliances within the Global South. The alliances face punishment from the U.S. through attacks and acts of hostility, but they are growing in determination and ability.
	COSAS is organizing in the U.S. – as Jose Marti called it, in the belly of the beast – as this is where the world’s largest corporations and banks are headquartered, and the U.S. government continues to wield its military and financial force against any nation not bowing to their demands.
	 With the vast quantity of misinformation, lies, or mere silence in the U.S. mainstream media about what is going on in the rest of the world, the U.S. population in general is becoming more and more isolated from the truth of both the positive developments being accomplished in the Global South, and the true nature of the effects of their own government’s policies and actions on the peoples of other nations. The need to continue to educate and mobilize people into programs of international solidarity from within the U.S. is urgent. 
	When COSAS was formed in 1993, we saw as our first point of address to counter the false narratives set forth in established media throughout the U.S. and the rest of Western Europe about the true nature of political, economic and social changes taking place in South Africa and on the African continent. That continues to be our primary mission.
	COSAS organizes forums and produces its own publication, South African BEACON, in order to publicize current facts and historical lessons, and generate both analysis of what stands in the way of the new South Africa realizing the principles and standards as defined within the Freedom Charter of 1955, and what actions may be taken in the positive toward achieving the organization’s goals.
	In 2009 we launched our “Solidarity Campaign for South Africa,” involving collections of school supplies and books and their direct shipment to areas of urgent need. South African members, many of whom are teachers and principals of low-income schools, make requests for supplies. To date COSAS has organized seven completely donated shipments of over 120,000 lbs of supplies to over 30 low-income schools led by teachers and principals who are members of COSAS, located throughout South Africa. We have done this with the support of Rotary Clubs, businesses, educators, churches, and individuals here in the U.S. and in South Africa. We are forging deeper relations with school principals, teachers and those concerned with education in both South Africa and the U.S., who also provide articles for BEACON as contributing writers, to tell of obstacles and developments in implementing the Freedom Charter provision: “The doors of learning and culture shall be open!”
	Over the last year, eighteen schools in South Africa have said they urgently need computers and laptops, and supplies to repair roofs and install modern sanitation systems. We have begun forming a Self-Help Mutual Benefits committee made up of members in South Africa and in the U.S. to develop the ways and means of gaining the donations of these supplies and equipment domestically in South Africa and through that further demonstrate how to organize communities and bring people from different economic strata in South Africa together in pursuit of the Freedom Charter goals. 
	COSAS also conducts special presentations and educational sessions to publicize the history of the struggle in South Africa and recent developments. COSAS has hosted numerous South African freedom fighters and government officials over the years, to hear them speak of their experiences and what’s happening in Africa today.
	COSAS will continue to organize international solidarity with the people of South Africa to fight for the implementation of the Freedom Charter. We want to see an end to the poverty in South Africa, an end to the poverty and exploitation in all of Africa, an end to the poverty around the world. We will continue to carry on and recruit to that fight for freedom until we win. 
	And I want to take this opportunity, standing here in your beautiful country, to thank Cuba for the selfless sacrifice your people made on the continent of Africa and to thank you for the continued acts of international solidarity Cuba carries out to this day, even while suffering under the brutal, illegal and inhumane blockade by the U.S. government.
	Thank you.