Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the Council -
1) notes that the month of August represents a number of key political activities and links in a long chain of events that crystallised the fight against apartheid oppression in South Africa;
2) also notes that central to these events was a major strike in 1946 by over 100 000 African mineworkers on the Rand Goldfields who took on the mighty apartheid forces to protest against apartheid settlement and the blatant violation of their rights by the apartheid government;
3) further notes that police, sanctioned by the Smuts government, opened fire and hundreds of these workers were killed and injured;
4) acknowledges that the month of August also represents the crystallisation of the fight against gender oppression and the discrimination against women in South Africa, when the late President of the ANC Women's League, Comrade Lilian Ngoyi, and cadres such as Comrade Helen Joseph, Comrade Sophia Williams and Comrade Rahima Moosa led a women's march to Pretoria on 9 August 1956, protesting against the pass laws and chanting "Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo';
5) recognises that it was also in this month that a letter bomb killed revolutionary and anti-apartheid activist Comrade Ruth First in her Maputo office; and
6) takes this opportunity to salute and pay tribute to these revolutionary cadres of our movement for the sacrifices to stand in the frontline trenches of the fight for freedom in our country.
Motion agreed to in accordance with section 65 of the Constitution.