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The South African Communist Party (SACP) denounces the hosting of the so-called “World Movement for Democracy’s 12th Global Assembly” in South Africa from 20 to 22 November 2024 organised under the guise of commemorating 30 years of South Africa’s democracy and celebrating democratic resilience and innovation. Formed in 1999 with significant backing from the United States, primarily through the imperialist regime’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the network called the “World Movement for Democracy” is regarded by many progressive and revolutionary working-class movements across the world as inherently part of the apparatus aligned with the United States’ foreign policy interests, as opposed to genuine democratic principles. The imperialist United States-funded NED is embedded in a wider agenda that includes machinations against national democratic sovereignty of different nations. This agenda is often hidden under events objectives such as “building greater unity of effort to counter the challenges facing democracy around the world today”. 

The NED is notorious for being a tool used to advance the imperialist agenda of counter-revolution, spearheaded for decades by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) across various global regions. The CIA’s widely published history of undermining genuine struggles for liberation, including our own struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression, exposes the sinister intentions behind NED co-ordinated “global assemblies”. The NED was formed in 1983 under the direction of the United States government to carry forward a part of the CIA’s counter-revolutionary activities in targeted countries and national democracies through the so-called “soft power”. 

Cloaked in the language of democracy, the NED is notorious for co-ordinating and channelling resources and other forms of support for collaborators who are available to the highest bidders as part of the political economy of their activities and events they are engaged in. This agenda involves interference in the national democratic processes of countries in which targeted governing parties refuse to bow to imperialist dictates. It is this same imperialist-funded NED that sits at the heart of the so-called World Movement for Democracy’s 12th Global Assembly, serving as its Secretariat and disguised as support for democracy.

The SACP reminds the world of the widely documented notorious role played by both the CIA and the NED in subverting legitimate governments and instigating destabilisation of national democratic processes in targeted countries under the pretext of promoting democratic ideals. From orchestrating coups in South America, to supporting puppet regimes in different global regions, the United States through its repressive and manipulative apparatus has relentlessly pursued the imperialist goal of global dominance. 

The CIA has been implicated in countless regime-change operations in different global regions and countering our South African liberation struggle, with the imperialist regime of the United States labelling our just struggle as a terrorist programme. We will not forget that the United States regime listed a number of our liberation struggle stalwarts as terrorists. President Nelson Mandela was included in the United States “list of terrorists” before he became our country’s first ever democratically elected President in April 1994. 

As if that were not enough, the United States maintained Mandela’s name on its “terrorist list” for years, even after he became South Africa’s President following our hard-won democratic breakthrough in April 1994. Listing those fighting for national democratic sovereignty and self-determination and their movements as “terrorists” and embarking on counter-revolutionary activities against them is part of what the imperialist United States regime calls a “world movement for democracy”. The imperialist regime pursues this agenda through its repressive and manipulative apparatuses, such as the CIA, the NED and embedded media outlets. 

The activities of various components of the imperialist United States apparatus, such as the NED, are known to include interference in the internal affairs of other nations under the guise of supporting democracy. This includes funding conformist or right-wing opposition groups. It was one of the factors at play in recent elections, including post-election destabilisation, in different global regions, Southern Africa and South America included.  

Progressive forces in South Africa and worldwide, especially revolutionary forces, must remain vigilant. Gatherings, events and other activities buttressed by imperialist forces and resources, regardless of the glowing facade they are cloaked in, are far from innocent in their essence. 

Issued by the South African Communist Party