Amandla! (Power to the People!)

Good evening dear comrades!

National Chairperson of the Communist Partry, USA (CPUSA) Comrade Sam Webb; Esteemed leaders and delegates to the 28th National Convention; Leaders and representatives of sister parties present;Comrades and friends:

Mr George Bush, the President of the USA, has given the U.S. government a very bad name internationally and continues to do so as Iraq continues to bleed.

The CPUSA, the Young Communists League and the ordinary people of the USA can and must make a difference to change this negative image.

One of the main challenges, in our view, facing the CPUSA is to find more new ways of foregrounding working-class struggles, through more campaigns and more heightened public activism.

The CPUSA must also do everything in its power to avert the threatening split in the AFL-CIO. The working class cannot afford the luxury of divisions in its ranks.

We in the South African Communist Party (SACP) however, are confident that the CPUSA will continue to do what we witnessed yesterday and today, namely to utilise the National Convention as a platform for vibrant, critical and constructive debate aimed at sharpening theoretical and practical programmes, in the best interests of the American Working class. Comrades Sam Webb and Jarvis Tyner’s political reports bore testimony to this.

The SACP, in keeping with its duty to foster international working class solidarity, recognizes the importance of bilateral and multi-lateral relationships among communist and socialist parties. Because, it is only when progressive forces internationally forge closer working ties, and engage in mutually beneficial programmes that the working class will advance and make progress.

We are confident that the CPUSA and all the other parties represented here today will take practical measures to meet this historical challenge.

We dare not fail because history will judge us harshly if we do.

We wish the National Convention well in its important deliberations.

Workers Unite! Another World is Possible!

I thank you.

Ben Dikobe Martins, MP
Central Committee

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