During the early hours of Wednesday, October 8, the Government of Burundi and the main armed rebel group in that country, CNDD-FDD, signed agreements that will enable the latter fully to participate in the transitional processes that will lead to the restoration of democracy in Burundi, about twelve months from now.
At the conclusion of the signing ceremony, both President Ndayizeye and the Legal Representative of the CNDD-FDD, Pierre Nkurunziza, solemnly called on their armed formations to cease all hostilities.
All this marked an important moment in the advance of the people of Burundi, the Great Lakes Region and Africa as a whole, towards peace, stability and democracy.
Accordingly, we must extend a warm word of thanks to President Domitién Ndayizeye and the Government of Burundi, as well as Pierre Nkurunziza and the CNDD-FDD, for the courage and patriotism they demonstrated when they entered into compromises that opened the way to the conclusion of their historic agreement.
The people of Burundi still face the challenge of bringing into the peace process Palipehutu-FNL, the last remaining armed group outside this process. However, this self-exclusion will not impede Burundi's progress towards its renewal.
We are also certain that the combined forces of the government and the rebel movements that have signed ceasefire agreements, will together ensure that, at last, the people of Burundi live in conditions of peace.
The Arusha and Pretoria Agreements entered into by the political and armed formations of Burundi are based on the critically important principle that the people of Burundi must work together to bring peace to their country, achieve national reconciliation, restore democracy, and, together, address the challenges of poverty and underdevelopment, which have been exacerbated by the protracted armed conflict.
The task ahead for the leaders of Burundi is to implement the agreements they have entered into, inspired by their obligation to serve the masses of the people. Our country will do its best to support the people of Burundi both during the transitional period and beyond.
We must also take this occasion once more to salute the members of the South African National Defence Force for the outstanding work they are doing to contribute to the Burundi Peace Process. They have now been joined by sister forces from Ethiopia and Mozambique, together to do the necessary peacekeeping work. We are proud to be working side by side with these fellow African forces to contribute in action to the realisation of the African Renaissance.
Far away from Burundi, at Sun City in our own country, an important meeting will take place over the weekend, just four days after the leaders of Burundi signed their agreement in Pretoria in Tshwane. This is the meeting of the black and white business organisations of our country.
After a long process of negotiations, there will be born at Sun City two new business organisations, the Chambers of Commerce and Industry SA (CHAMSA), and Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), these being the united representatives of the entirety of our nation's business community.
Our business leaders, both black and white, have recognised the reality that they face common challenges. They fully appreciate the fact that they have a direct and immediate interest in the transformation of ours into a non-racial country.
They fully understand that they share a common interest to end poverty and underdevelopment in our country, and promote a better life for all. This is good for business as business, but it is also good for business as corporate citizens who need and benefit from conditions of peace and social cohesion and stability.
Our business leadership has also understood the fact that it will be better able to meet these goals if it acts together in unity, on the basis of agreed principles and programmes. It is to give concrete expression to this understanding that the Chambers of Commerce and Industry SA (CHAMSA), and Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), will be formally launched at Sun City, this weekend.
The formation of these organisations is an indication of the progress our country has made away from its colonial and apartheid past. It is not so long ago that it was difficult to imagine such a development in the business sector, given our history, and its impact on the evolution of our ideas, as well as the gross material inequalities between black and white business.
Since black business was very much at the periphery of our economy, concentrated mainly in the retail sector, and even unable to compete against the white-owned supermarket chains in this sector, it seemed clear that objectively, black and white business could not share the same interests. It therefore seemed obvious that there was no basis for them to come together in common organisations.
This was compounded by the fact that, historically, the business organisations responded differently to the apartheid system. This was exemplified, for instance, by the responses of NAFCOC on the one hand, and the South African Foundation of the apartheid years, on the other.
In the years following the defeat of the apartheid system, levels of optimism about the future among black business people have remained at high levels. Fundamentally, this is for the obvious reason that the national democratic revolution could not but benefit these black business people. Every time they have spoken, at home and abroad, these have communicated positive messages about our country.
On the other hand, some white business people have been fearful of a democratic and non-racial South Africa. These seemed to thrive on any negative news that was broadcast or published. Any reported negative, whether about crime, health, corruption, threats to media freedom, rape, or anything at all, became the very essence of their "perception" about our country. To them, the "miracle" of our transition from white minority domination to democratic rule was too good to be true.
They convinced themselves that sooner rather than later, the country would descend into a calamitous and violent collapse. Companies maintained higher liquidity levels than were normal in other countries, keen to keep high cash reserves in case they had to run. To escape the impending catastrophe, some resettled elsewhere in the world. Some of these business people seemed to think that they had a duty actively to communicate to the rest of the world the most negative messages about our country they could think of.
In this situation, it was inevitable that the historically black or white business organisations would understand that they were separated by a wide gulf with regard to their assessment of contemporary South Africa, with regard to whether we faced a future of hope or not, and with regard to the projection and vision of our future. The possibility for them to come together, to unite in action and act in unity, did not exist.
But what will happen at Sun City will communicate the important message, practically, that our country, and not only our business community, has, in the last nine years, taken giant steps forward towards realising the objective shared by the overwhelming majority of our people, of building a South Africa that truly belongs to all who live in it, black and white.
The birth of CHAMSA and BUSA will both signify that we have indeed progressed, as well as provide the national corporate sector with the institutions it needs to take us further forward in our quest to build a new South Africa.
These organisations will help us together successfully to:
In 1993, the Tutsi-dominated army of Burundi overthrew the democratically elected government led by Hutu President Ndadaye, and killed him. This marked the beginning of the military struggle that has led to the death of 300,000 baRundi and the transformation of thousands more into refugees and displaced people.
For many years, it seemed impossible that this war could come to an end, except through the defeat of one side by the other. It seemed impossible that the great divide could ever be bridged, defined as it was by the violent overthrow of an elected government and the death of the chosen leader of the majority of the people of Burundi.
But in the early morning hours last Wednesday, in Pretoria, the Burundi belligerents signed an agreement that will enable them to work together in the context of their own people's contract, to lead all the people of Burundi towards a shared future of national reconciliation, peace, democracy and prosperity.
What happened in Pretoria and what will happen at Sun City, are part of the same powerful African movement of renewal that is bringing the people of our continent, within and among countries, together, to ensure that Africa truly claims the 21st as the African Century.
Contrary to these positive developments, the future of many of our workers seems to be threatened by the strength of the Rand. The mining and the clothing and textile industries, in particular, seem to have taken the lead in promising serious job losses as a result of the appreciation of the exchange value of our currency.
On September 30, the fund manager of Here Be Dragons, Peter Major, was quoted as saying:
"Everyone is screaming about the strong Rand, but this country has run its finances better than anyone else, and that's how we've ended up with a strong currency. All this is the fundamentals coming home to roost - we were undervalued for 10 years, and the US was overvalued."
He went on to say that much of the outcry about the stronger Rand was undermined by the fact that the South African mining companies are now benefiting from a higher dollar gold price than they were in 2001, while the Rand is now trading around 50 cents stronger than its 2001 R7,50:$1 average.
A recent report by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu says the average cash cost of production in the South African gold mining industry is $222/oz. The (Mining) Industry Overview 2000 says that total production costs in gold mining in our country stood at $240/oz, "making it the world's lowest cost major producer." In the same year, the cash operating profits/ metric ton of the gold-mining industry were R64,71, with the average dollar/oz price averaging $279,13, and the exchange rate at about R7:$1.
As ANC TODAY went to print, the dollar gold price was just over $370/oz, almost $100 higher than it was in 2000. With this gap between costs and gross revenues, in dollar terms, the gold mining companies will have to explain more clearly and convincingly why the stronger Rand obliges them to retrench workers.
A 2002 Internet article (minesite.com) on one of the gold companies that have decided to retrench workers, allegedly because of the strength of the Rand, says that in the last quarter of that year, the production costs of this company were $186/oz. In this situation it is quite possible that the issue of the strengthening of the Rand is being used to hide other problems that have arisen because of bad management.
We had hoped that, at least, the corporate citizens who are proposing or acting to bring despair to thousands of our working people and their families, through retrenchments, allegedly because of the strength of the Rand, would have had the decency to discuss this serious matter with our government, before they made their announcements.
Apart from anything else, this would have demonstrated that they too have joined the people's contract to build a better future for all our people, black and white, to help move our country away from its terrible past.
We wish the people of Burundi and the business people of our country success as they work together, each in their specific sectors and regions, to give birth to a new Africa of joy and hope for the ordinary people. The vision they share, however different their histories and circumstances, is what will determine the future of our countries and continent.
