Hands off our SG! MKMVA denounces attacks on the Secretary General of the ANC, Comrade Ace Magashule, and pledges to defend him
1 April 2019
The Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) is angered by the baseless propagandistic attacks that are being launched against the Secretary General of the African National Congress, comrade Ace Magashule. These attacks have been going on for years, and have increased significantly in intensity and vitriol after comrade Magashule was elected the Secretary General of the ANC at the ANC’s 54th National Conference at NASREC. This Stratcom like propaganda campaign has apparently now reached a crescendo with the fake news book published by Pieter Louis Myburgh, which the Sunday Times and the City Press - those notorious peddlers of fake news - yesterday promoted with screaming headlines.
It is no coincidence that this propaganda campaign is now intensifying barely two months before election day on the 8th of May 2019. MKMVA agrees with the media statement of our Mother body, the ANC, that this is a well-calculated attack not only on the person of our Secretary General, but in fact on the Office of the Secretary General (SGO), which is the administrative engine room of the ANC, and critical for our election campaign efforts. The ultimate intention is to undermine the ANC’s election campaign, and thus, the Secretary General, as the CEO of the ANC, is the main target.
In addition to the intention to damage the ANC’s election campaign, MKMVA is of the belief that comrade Ace Magashule is also being singled out for attack because of his strong and uncompromising support for Radical Economic Transformation (RET) in general, and specifically for the speedy and full implementation of the pro RET Resolutions of the 54th National Conference of the ANC, with regards to the expropriation of land without compensation and the nationalization of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).
We applaud comrade Magashule for his consistent and fearless championing of Radical Economic Transformation, and his commitment that the black poor (especially Africans) must be empowered through a fundamental and radical restructuring of the South Africa economy - especially the radical transformation of our banking and financial institutions that will bring an end to the power of White Monopoly Capital (WMC) to trample on and exploit the majority black of South Africans. Evidently this courageous and principled revolutionary stance of our Secretary General has turned him into the number one target and enemy of White Monopoly Capital, and the mainstream media that they own and use as their propagandistic battering rams against true revolutionaries.
While MKMVA welcomes the strong media statement that the ANC issued yesterday condemning the latest, and intensified, attacks on comrade Magashule, we also need to point out that this kind of response and support should already have come much earlier. We are of the opinion that this denouncement of the interference of WMC and their propaganda mouthpieces in the internal affairs of the ANC and whom we democratically elect as our leaders, should have been stronger and more unambiguous at an earlier stage.
If this was done earlier, WMC and their lackeys would not have felt that they have the space and ‘right’ to reach the current levels of arrogance and audacity! MKMVA agrees with the ANC when it stated in their statement yesterday, that “our good nature is taken advantage of”. Together with our Mother body we say that we are growing weary. Really this has gone too far: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
MKMVA will not in any way whatsoever tolerate any interference by White Monopoly Capital in the internal democratic processes of the African National Congress. Arrogant and prescriptive calls by WMC, their mainstream media or any other reactionary, that the Secretary General of the ANC should be suspended, or even removed, will not be tolerated.
MKMVA represents all MK ex-combatants who have been in the frontline of the struggle against apartheid. Our members have placed their very bodies and lives on the line in the struggle for the full liberation of all South Africans, we will not now sit back and watch our revolution being attacked and compromised by anyone who think they can prescribe to the ANC who must be our leaders.
Anyone who thinks they can try to do so will have to contend with us, and will have to face the full force of our resistance to such anti-revolutionary arrogance. Obviously we will resist any such interference within the parameters of the Constitution, and at all times we will act within the boundaries of the law. However, the fact that we are law-abiding citizens must not mislead anyone about our resolve to resist with all the power at our disposal any attempted interference in the internal democratic processes of the ANC, and to defend our Secretary General, comrade Ace Magashule, to the fullest.
In the coming days MKMVA will deliberate about all the legal avenues that are available to us, both inside the ANC and in general within the whole of South African society, to protect and defend the Secretary General of the ANC. We will carry out the unequivocal message: HANDS OFF OUR SG! This we will do in defense of the ANC’s inalienable democratic right to determine who we elect as our leaders, without any interference from reactionary forces who have never had the interests of the majority of black South Africans at heart.
This stance of MKMVA is in line with our revolutionary duty, and always outspoken commitment, to defend the ANC and our leaders.
MKMVA is an integral and inalienable part of the ANC’s election campaign. As such our members are integrated within every regional, provincial and national election campaign structure of the ANC, and we will work tirelessly within those structures for unity, the protection of all our ANC leaders, and a resounding ANC victory at the polls on the 8th of May. We once again call on all registered throughout the length and breath of our country to bring out their votes for the ANC.
Issued by Carl Niehaus, MKMVA NEC Member and National Spokesperson, 1 April 2019
