MKMVA denounces the wanton looting of Covid-19 emergency Solidarity Fund and calls for urgent revolutionary corrective action by the ANC

5 August 2020

The Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) is distraught and angered by the wanton acts of looting and corruption that characterizes the abuse of COVID-19 emergency solidarity funding. Nothing can be more depraved than stealing from the poor, destitute and hungry, and enriching oneself at their cost.

In the instance of the large scale looting that evidently happened with regards to the COVID -19 emergency solidarity funds this is nothing less than acts of murder. Because it means that urgently needed funds are not reaching desperate people who are in many instances already living under the breadline, and who are confronted with the increasing surge of deadly infections from a dangerous killer virus.

The horrible cynicism of, on the one hand digging hundreds of thousands of graves - literally telling our people that we are ready for you to die - and then looting the money that is meant to provide an emergency life-line to the poor and desperately vulnerable, is not only culturally alien, but knows no moral or ethical boundaries.

The disturbing, and apparently large scale, involvement of so-called comrades from the African National Congress in this looting is more than deeply embarrassing, it is diabolical, and contrary to every single principle that the ANC as the pre-eminent liberation movement of South Africa should stand for. Any member of the ANC who makes him or herself guilty of such dastardly acts should be mercilessly exposed and driven out, they do not deserve to be part of our ranks.

We ask ourselves what besets ANC councilors to literally steal food parcels meant for the poorest of the poor, and hoard them at their houses. This is prime evil, and they should be exposed and harshly dealt with! Yet, it is no less evil for big White Monopoly Capital companies to grossly overprice their sanitizing services, and the Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) products that they sell to government, raking in super profits for the cleaning and protection of our schools and other public facilities.

There is an insidious tendency to go for small (mainly black entrepreneurs) and expose their corruption, while the big White Monopoly Companies are allowed to get away scot-free. As MKMVA we are not saying that if smaller entrepreneurs are involved in corruption that they should not be apprehended, but it cannot be that action against them is used to cover up the truly big corruption and (White Monopoly Capital) WMC criminals. Such behavior is corrupt in itself, and should be exposed.

The members of the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA), have since the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in 1961, as members of our People’s Liberation Army, been the most radical and principled members of the ANC. We are truly the vanguard, and sharp point of the spear, of our revolution. Our members are dedicated cadres who were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the liberation of our people, and lay down our lives. Many of our fellow cadres in MK have indeed sacrificed their lives. However, our members have certainly not done so for a society where corruption is rife, and the little bit of daily bread of the poorest of the poor is literally yanked out of their mouths by vultures to feed their insatiable glutinous appetites, and sickening over-the-top conspicuous lifestyles.

The time to choose our words carefully, and to beat around the bush, is long over. We cannot talk in whispers, the only just action for every true revolutionary is to rage with anger, and shout from the mountain top of our indignation as loud as and as clear as we possibly can that this must end, and it must end right now!

Let us spell it out to the vultures and salivating wild dogs, whose ravenous appetite for self-enrichment and self-gratification knows no bounds: We really do not know why you think that you have a so-called right to live in palaces, drive outrageously expensive cars, parade your overfed bodies in the most expensive bling clothing brands, prostitute the daughters of the poor by showering them with money and empty promises and thus destroying our families and our African cultures. We can continue to provide more of these examples of your moral depravity, because you have filled the bitter poisonous chalice that you present to us to drink every day to the brim, but it is not necessary because we (and you) all know what we are talking about.

From whatever your money-mad, crass materialistic, delusional minds conjure up in the sick idea that your entitled to all of this, we in MKMVA warn you that we will not any longer stand by and be spectators of such a nauseating pathetic spectacle. You are making a mockery of our revolution, and our hard fought for rights. Worst of all, you are exploiting our people, and trampling on their goodwill for having trusted in you.

When saying this we are not drawing a soft, and ever moving, line in the sand. We are lifting the banners and spears of our revolution and telling you that we are now once and for all standing up to be counted in defence of the majority of black (and especially African) poor. If you think that you can continue with your business of self-enrichment as usual, you are in for a nasty surprise. You are indeed in for the high jump! Enough is enough!

Having fought selflessly for the liberation of our people, having made huge sacrifices, and faced untold hardships in exile and in the training camps, together with our cadres in the self-defence units in the townships who laid down their lives and fought with stones and petrol bombs against the guns and armored vehicles of the apartheid police and soldiers, most of our members have been ill-treated and disregarded since the advent of our democracy. Most of our members, and their families, are deprived of their most basic needs. They live in poverty, and are denied the dignity and respect they deserve as military veterans. They carry their pain, and the physical and mental wounds, and scars, of how they had put their bodies and souls on the firing line of defending our people, on their own, without hardly any recognition or help.

In fact the arrogant nouveau rich and compradore capitalists arrogantly look down on us, mocking our commitment to the true essence of our liberation struggle, making snide remarks about the MK uniform that we continue to wear with pride, narrowing their shifty eyes and pulling their noses up at the sight and smell of our poverty. Literally spatting at us from their salivating mouths, as they sit and gorge themselves at the overladen banquet tables of White Monopoly Capital (WMC). This they do, while they are only onlyfree, and in fact are able to so grossly abuse their freedom, because of the struggles we have fought and the sacrifices that we have made.

The time had come for us in MKMVA to call out the empty, useless, words that are repetitively mouthed about corruption. We are not fools! We see how protestations of a so-called commitment to fight corruption are being used in factional battles in order to attack and sideline comrades that are opposed to capital (with specific reference to White Monopoly Capital) controlling the ANC, and determining the future of governance in our country. We are certainly not blind to how the mainstream White Monopoly Capital owned media deliberately create a narrative that those who are opposed to the whole sale sell-out of our liberation struggle to capital are demons, while those so-called comrades among us who are compliant, and are lock-stock-and-barrel selling out our revolution, are presented as angels with halos. We are not blinded by their slippery forked tongues - we see them for who they are: ‘Angels’ with horns!

The WMC mainstream media present them as so-called ‘corruption busters’, but in reality they are the incarnation and personification of the worst corruption! When the family members of comrades who resist our Liberation Movement being turned into an servant and agent of WMC, try to make a living as is their constitutional right, it is quickly called corrupt and reported everywhere. However, when literally billions of Rands, of COVID-19 solidarity funds, are ill-earned and miss-spent it is tipsy-toed around with soft words, and described by any synonym but the word corruption!

MKMVA stands aghast at how some comrades among us in the ANC are engaging in this pathetically cynical chess game, of move and counter-move. Creating a stale-mate situation where we are paralyzed to fight corruption, and the truly corrupt are protected, and not be exposed.

Sadly the reality gap of the disjuncture between truth and conjured-up propaganda lies has become a deep and ravenous chasm that sucks the hope and life out of our long suffering communities, and our society in general. We talk about the second pandemic of Gender Based Violence that must be fought with all our might, but we know of powerful men who participate in marches against GBV, but at home they are abusers. Similarly there are those who are corrupt to the core, and only own their leadership positions due to having bought it with huge sums of money, who are presented to us as so-called corruption busters.