Mr Hansie Louw, Leader of the ACDP Western Cape reacted to media reports that the ACDP and the ID joined forces to negotiate more positions in the City of Cape Town. He said, "I believe that a person in a marriage should not tolerate abusive behaviour from a partner, but confront it and deal with it or eventually flee from it for the benefit of both partners. I also believe that this rule should also apply in a partnership or agreement in the political arena.

We want what is best for Cape Town and the people of Cape Town." We want a fair representation of numbers of senior positions for the ACDP, but we will not allow an abusive or prescriptive behaviour from partners. More positions (one more - we are not greedy) will enable us to serve the community better.

We will not be bullied by any one party. We have had meetings with the ID, the multi-party forum and with the DA. We are committed to multi-party government in the City - we are committed to the FF+, the UDM, the UP.

We will consider new parties as well provided that we can agree on rules of engagement. We are also committed to a stable Cape Town working for all its people. We initially (March 2006) approached the ANC for their involvement as well in a Multi Party government. They were not interested at that time.
 

NDP Challenges Harper to Support New UN Initiative - Stephen Harper remains silent on the suffering of civilians in Darfur, a week after the government of Sudan announced its consent to a UN heavy support package of up to 3,000 troops for the troubled region.

At a press conference today, three NDP MPs - Foreign Affairs Critic Alexa McDonough, Defence Critic Dawn Black, and the vice-chair for the all-party commission for the prevention of genocide, Paul Dewar - challenged the government to use the occasion of the Armenian genocide commemoration to announce its strategy to support a renewed peace-support mission in Darfur.

"Darfur's is a story that sounds far too similar to the experience of Armenians, of the European Jews, of many Native Americans, of the Rwandan Tutsi," said the MPs in their press conference. "If we do not act with conviction around Darfur, then soon we will reconvene to establish another day of commemoration for the suffering of yet another innocent people."
 

ACDP MP and spokesperson on Justice matters, Steven Swart today joined other MP’s and members of the public in placing flowers outside parliament in memory of murdered Sheldean Human, and all other child victims of crime in South Africa.

“The ACDP supports this initiative not only to honour Sheldean, but also to highlight the plight of thousands of other children that are victims of crime and go missing every year in South Africa, (such as 6 year-old Sikumozo Cenga missing for three years), said Swart.

“Whilst we appreciate additional resources being allocated to the police and criminal justice sector, the government is clearly failing in its primary role of protecting its citizens, particularly the most vulnerable - women and children. It must be held accountable for its dismal failure and should declare the combating of crime its number one priority.
 

When we were about to finalise the drafting of our new Constitution in the Constitutional Assembly in 1996, one of the last outstanding clauses to be finalised was the education clause. The major dispute between the ANC and the National Party (supported by a whole range of other Afrikaner political and civil society organisations) was around medium of instruction and the question of single-medium schools.

I am re-connecting with this matter prompted in the main by both the ongoing debate about Bok van Blerk’s song ‘De la Rey’, as well as the response by the leader of the Freedom Front Plus, Dr. Pieter Mulder to President Thabo Mbeki’s 2007 State of the Nation Address. Amongst other things, Dr. Pieter Mulder said:

“They (Afrikaners) react to the ANC attack on Afrikaans schools. Afrikaans schools have long been mixed with brown and black children attending. The attack is therefore aimed at Afrikaans and not race. Where a school becomes a parallel medium school, it is only a short time before the school becomes a single medium English school.

There are only two Afrikaans single medium schools left in Mpumalanga. The Minister personally intervened and forced one, Ermelo Hoerskool, to become parallel medium. Does the government have any idea what the reaction in the Afrikaans community is to this?
 

Reclaiming and Defending the Revolutionary Values and Traditions of Our Movement - The SACP Augmented Central Committee of November 2006 described the year 2007 as, amongst other things, the Policy Year. This is because this is a year that two of our Alliance formations will be holding very important gatherings, the ANC National Policy Conference in June 2007, the SACP’s 12th Congress in July, and indeed the ANC National Conference in December.

These will be taking place in the wake of the successful COSATU Congress in September 2006 which took some far-reaching resolutions that in some ways have already set the stage for the congresses of the other Alliance partners.

The SACP has also correctly insisted that these events should not just be seen as once-off events after every five year cycle of congresses, but should be taken as important milestones in the ongoing struggles to defend, consolidate and deepen the national democratic revolution (NDR). Therefore these events should be preceded and accompanied by intensified internal debates and activism within each and between our formations.

As one of the ways through which to highlight the necessity for intensified debates during this year, it is important to briefly engage with an important piece recently written by ANC NEC member, Cde Joel Netshitenzhe, in the ANC political journal Umrabulo (No. 27, November 2006), titled “Of cats, factions and a revolution”.
 

It is without doubt that the ascendancy of South Africa this year on the 1st of January in the Security Council of the United Nations had raised some hopes and expectations in the developing world in terms of the additional voice albeit powerful to that multi-lateral institution of global peace and conflict resolutions, this is the case notwithstanding the ephemeral nature of our occupation of that seat of preponderance.

South Africa is perceived as one of the leading third world countries on issues of global peace, democracy and a firm believer in every countries self determination and that (whilst contestable at times) every sovereign state must resolve its own internal problems unless otherwise demonstrably to the insufficient capacity to do so or in the case where such are magnifying as to destabilize other countries thereby tempering with world peace.

We have been very loud in Middle East turmoil’s in particular about the US role which is partisan and complicit to the volatility which had plunged citizenry in that Region to permanent uncertainty. We have equally been involved in many African conflict resolutions as a country and through multilateral institution in the continent, African Union, and we have been involved even in other parts of the world, at times asked to broker peace like in Sri Lanka (Tamil Tigers) and the other conflict in European soil between the Sinn Fein and the Protestants.

Our ambassador will have to, within the short space of time succeed to push important resolutions both for global peace and self determination for states still facing oppressions of whatever form.