Cape Town - More than 60 years after the Sharpeville massacre in which 69 protesters were killed after marching against pass laws and fighting for human rights, black people are still living in squalid conditions.
So said EFF national chairperson Veronica Mente yesterday when she addressed hundreds of supporters and residents in Langa who came out to commemorate Human Rights Day.
There were two separate rallies by the EFF and Pan African Congress.
The day, which marked the 62nd anniversary of what is known as the Sharpeville Massacre, saw the PAC members kick-starting the rally with a visit to the Langa cemetery to pay respect to the fallen heroes who died in Langa after protesting the Sharpeville massacre in defiance of a government ban on public meetings.
They ended their march at the Robert Sobukwe Square, where Philip Kgosana and protesters gathered in 1960.
Mente accused the governing party of overseeing the deepening oppression of African people since 1994.
“Black people in the country have no human rights and have no right to dignity that they can claim. It is black people who stay in rat-infested areas and flea-ridden shacks because they have no homes of their own.
“It is black people who shape the queues in public hospitals only to be told there is no medication for their illness. Black children attend dysfunctional schools because the party in government employs unqualified teachers and fails to deliver textbooks. Therefore this day cannot be called a Human Rights Day,” she said.
PAC chairperson Sibusiso Xaba said the significance of the day was that it changed the liberation of the country.
“It moved us from the position where we were protesting to the position of defiance and increased the tempo to a military struggle that carried us through to our transition. We are not at the destination as yet but still en route to finding independence.
“We are still dependent on other nationals for employment and our security is fully owned by other nations, and we don’t own our food production. We cannot be a nation like that, but must be self-reliant as we cannot determine our path when we are fed by our enemies,” he said.
Xaba said the current system was the perpetuation of apartheid, which he said needed transformation, starting with the curriculum of education to decolonise it and the health system.
“Nowhere would you find indigenous people being hired by foreigners but here in Africa. We are resources in our own country, meaning we are still slaves and have not liberated ourselves,” Xaba said.