#LandExpropriation: Magashule warns Mbeki to toe the line on party decisions
ANC secretary general Ace Magashule has taken a jibe at former president Thabo Mbeki, saying that, as a "loyal member of the ANC", he should respect, abide by and toe the line on the party's decisions on land.
Magashule was speaking in Parys in the Free State on Wednesday where the ANC handed over a refurbished home to Mananki Seipei, the mother of slain child activist Stompie Seipei.
Seipei was found murdered in 1989, after he was kidnapped by members of the late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's bodyguards, who belonged to the Mandela United Football Club. The teenage boy was accused of being an apartheid spy.
The ANC promised Seipei's mother a home when the nation mourned Madikizela-Mandela's death last year.
Magashule used the handover ceremony to hit back at Mbeki's harsh criticism of the ANC's December conference resolution to expropriate land without compensation.
A 30-page document released under the Thabo Mbeki Foundation's letterhead was leaked on social media and it claimed that the ANC's major change in land policy was inconsistent with its non-racialism principles.
The document stated that the ANC had failed to explain an important policy change to "address a historical injustice to expropriate without compensation from one national group for the benefit of another national group".
"The question is what should be done to acquire the required land without communicating a wrong principle that such land acquisition is being conducted because sections of our population must surrender land they own to others who are allegedly properly South African, whereas such land owners are, in effect, not accepted by government as being fully South African, enjoying equal rights with all other South Africans, black and white?" the document asked.
While Magashule acknowledged to people gathered outside Seipei's home that the 106-year-old liberation movement respected its members' rights to articulate their views, he hit out at Mbeki for his views.
"The ANC, when it has taken decisions at the highest body - a national conference - it binds all members," Magashule said.
"In between national conferences, the highest decision-making body is the national executive committee and it has taken such a decision to say amend [the Constitution]... Why are we scared to change the laws?"
Ha pointed out that the ANC's decisions were binding on all "loyal members and anyone who called themselves supporters" of the ANC.
Listing previous watershed conferences held by the party including those in Stellenbosch, Mahikeng, Polokwane and Nasrec, Magashule said all decisions taken were respected.
"From conference, to the national executive committee, to province, to region, to branch, you and I must toe the line," he said.
