"People don't have food and water and are dying. Everything has been totally destroyed. Each and every country of the world must assist the people of Mozambique," he said.

Madisha is the president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and was in Vancouver to address the convention of the British Columbia Teachers Federation. Madisha is also president of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union, the third largest union in COSATU and a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party.

"Countries with enormous wealth should have been there much earlier. We expected a lot of assistance from the United States and Canada, as the people in Mozambique have lost everything. Aid from the United States and the United Kingdom arrived very late, and in insignificant amounts," he pointed out.

Madisha contrasted the limited aid given to Mozambique with the enormous military resources deployed by the imperialists, such as for the intervention in Kosova.

The union leader said the floods killed 29 people in South Africa's Mpumalanga and Northern provinces. However, all assistance must go to Mozambique," he stressed. "South Africa is able to deal with the flooding at home and is the main country aiding Mozambique."

South Africa has so far rescued 12,000 people in Mozambique, and has sent food, he said. "The floods have made it impossible at the moment to do anything else except to rescue people. Minefields laid during many years of civil war aggravate the situation."

The imperialist powers' failure to act decisively to aid the people of Mozambique "is a continuation of their 'don't care' attitude," Madisha argued. "This should be payback time—when the rich countries give back what they've taken from Africa. Mozambique's massive debt owed to the World Bank and the IMF should be canceled."  
 

Unemployment remains high

"Privatization is leading to massive retrenchments [layoffs]," he said. "There needs to be a moratorium on retrenchments. COSATU is also demanding that insolvency laws be amended because when companies become insolvent, the company owners' interests are taken care of but not the workers. Workers can be robbed of wages owed and pensions."

In 1998 the unions participated in a "jobs summit," where representatives of corporations, unions, and the government "came together to say the big problem is unemployment," he said. "We proposed a job creation fund into which every worker would contribute one day's wages. The government hasn't done its part to implement summit resolutions or the massive public works program it promised following the overthrow of the racist apartheid government.

"The economic problems have not yet been dealt with," Madisha argued. "We no longer have racial oppression in South Africa. Instead, our worst enemy is economic oppression, particularly affecting women."

Madisha said apartheid not only "oppressed blacks but also damaged white workers, who saw themselves as removed from the day-to-day struggle of working people. White workers are no longer shielded as they were under apartheid, and now see themselves as part and parcel of the working class. The unions used to be divided along racial lines, but that's changing," he said. "In the mines, textile mills, and the civil service, our fights are converging. Now, there is more of a tendency for all workers to see themselves as part of one class."  
 
 
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