Wednesday, March 04, 2015

COSATU NW Urges Members to Attend Reburial of JB Marks and Moses Kotane
3 March 2015

The Congress of South African Trade Unions in the NW congratulates and thanks the ANC government and the Russian government for making sure that the remains of two leaders of our struggle are back home.

In 2005/2006 COSATU in the NW, during the celebrations of the life of the two leaders, and during our provincial congress in 2006,resolved that the two heroes must come back home and that the house the late Kotane must be rebuilt and turned into a workers’ monument and that the NW Province must be renamed after Moses Kotana.

We also resolved that the district which is called Dr KK must be renamed after JB Marks. We lost because there was no proper public hearing with the stakeholders but we are happy that our mission jointly with families has been achieved.

We call on all our members and the rest of the workers to make sure that they attend all the activities, both the memorial services and the funeral that are going take place from this weekend and the coming two weeks. The memorial services are taking place this weekend in all four regions and funeral is starting from the 14th to 22nd March 2015.

We are disappointed only with the dictatorship in the allocation of the numbers of workers and masses who want rebury their leaders who will be allowed to attend. We are told that only the family and VVIPs are allowed to be at the cemetery. We agree, but at stadiums our masses who will be there must be addressed by the alliance national leadership and the families.

In our view the most important people during the funerals are the families and our voters; those are the people who made our country to be what is in today under the leadership of JB Marks and Moses Kotane, so we are appealing to our government not to limit the masses of our people to attend the funerals. Allow people to widen their history of the RSA and the NW.

As we move towards the reburial of our two leaders, we call on the spirit of JB Marks and Moses Kotane to unite the workers, unite COSATU, and unite the ANC and its alliance so they can take up issues of workers seriously. Workers must be respected. Labour brokers must be banned. The ANC government must deal with triple challenges facing the workers in NW in particular the mine workers and farm workers.

Just remind the poor working class that there is still a pain for many us and the family of Moss Phakoe who was gunned down on 14th March 2009 and our leader Moses Kotane will be buried on the 14th March 2015. This sends a clear message to those who killed Moss that one day they will be exposed.

As we were planning memorial for the late Moss with his family we will have a protest match to Rustenburg police station on the 13th March 2015, calling for the SAPS and Justice to tell the public who killed Moss, now that the accused are acquitted. The state says it will not appeal the case due to the serious shortcomings from the side of the state. What we want to know is who killed Moss and why.

We are calling the SAPS to reopen the case and arrest the correct criminals or killers, as they arrested wrong people. The SAPS and NPA must be embarrassed for arresting, prosecuting and sentencing wrong people on such a critical matter.

We hope that the spirit of the late Moses Kotane and JB Marks will continue to unite the province and make sure it roots out corruption, which was one the key issues that the late Moss was killed for exposing.

Workers of the NW province must unite against union-bashing, against the federation of workers, COSATU. Workers must unite to fight against any exploitation of workers in the province.
We are happy that the ANC government led by president Zuma will declare all the burial sites to be heritage sites and that there will time for workers to visit them and read about the late Moses Kotane and JB Marks and the history of all our struggle heroes and heroines.

Workers must attend all the activities in their numbers and celebrate the lives of the two leaders.

More information call COSATU NW Provincial Secretary, Solly Phetoe, [0823044055]

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