MEDIA STATEMENT REGARDING THE INTENSIFICATION OF THE #FREEJACOBZUMA CAMPAIGN, AND RELATED DEVELOPMENTS

Date: Wednesday, 4 August 2021

Following the President's failure or/and refusal to address the demands we had given him to release President Zuma, and a call that all the legal targeting and persecution that he has endured must end forthwith, we will now be embarking on several key programs of action, which will be peaceful and within the confines of the law.

The failure of President Ramaphosa to respond to our petition, seeking to address the underlying socio-economic reasons for the tragic violence and looting of the past few weeks, is not a matter that can be left unchallenged.

For a democratically elected President, who has been deployed in the highest office of our country by the people’s Liberation Movement, the African National Congress (ANC), that derives its legitimacy from being representative of the will of the people, to conduct himself in this arrogant manner is unconscionable. We have therefore instructed our attorneys to proceed with legal action against the President on the basis of dereliction of duty, and unfitness to hold office.

As the #FreeJacobZuma campaign, we reject with contempt the deliberate attempts to link our campaign to the violence and looting that took place over the past few weeks. The unfounded allegations that are leveled at the campaign are scapegoating of the worst kind by leaders, and a government, trying to escape their responsibility for having failed to address the legitimate and immediate needs and demands of South Africans, in particular poor black Africans, whose daily life is invalidated by the most basic needs, and thus the resultant consequences that shook our country and the world.

We must also give thanks and appreciation to the international media which exposed what took place in the country as nothing more but a historical socio-economic crisis that has been brewing and waiting to explode. This is as a result of the fundamental inequality gap across race and gender in spite of the 1994 democratic breakthrough. Hence, rightfully so, the President had to back-peddle on his ethnic mobilization and insurrection comments, which inadvertently gave rise to the conflicts between people of Indian descent and the African majority.

Fortunately, despite his ill-conceived actions, the President failed to divide the entire nation along ethnic lines.

It is evident that it was President Ramaphosa’s fundamentally wrong characterization of the terrible unrest and demonstration of desperation by increasingly hopeless poor people that led to the preventable genocide that led the Indian community in Phoenix to mistakably believe that it had carte blanche to arm itself, and go on a killing spree of innocent “Zulu" people. No different to the "concomitant actions" comments in 2012, that led to the Marikana massacre.

The comments such as “planned insurrection”, “concomitant action" and “ethnic mobilization” indicate that the President is totally out of touch with the harsh realities of our country, and the legitimate needs and demands of our people.

As the key beneficiary of the Faustian Pact at CODESA, it is time that President Ramaphosa is made to listen to the demands of the majority of poor black Africans. We will not rest until the President and his administration hear the voices of the betrayed poor, and adequately respond to their demands for Radical Economic Transformation (RET), which is conveniently demonized by those who continue to benefit from this inhumane economic system.

Under the circumstances, the #FreeJacobZuma campaign will now embark on further peaceful and lawful protest action. In all of these actions, and the intensification of the campaign for the immediate release of President Zuma, the need for Radical Economic Transformation (RET) will be inseparable and fundamental. The resultant campaigns and protest actions that we will embark on will at all times be peaceful, and within the confines of the law.

Our immediate response, and protest action, will be on Tuesday, the 10th of August, in Pietermaritzburg, when President Zuma is due to appear again in the Pietermaritzburg High Court for the fatally flawed and compromised, so-called ‘arms-deal’ trial. The #FreeJacobZuma campaign is mobilizing for a strong presence and message to be delivered that President Zuma must be released forthwith, and that the Radical Economic Transformation (RET) demands contained in our petition to President Ramaphosa must be addressed immediately.

Under all circumstances this mobilization, to give further prominence to our demands, will be peaceful and lawful. It will also reflect the broad mass based support for the campaign. This will be followed up by further peaceful, and lawful, protest action that will ultimately culminate in community based rolling mass action throughout the country.

In addition to this growing campaign to release President Zuma, we announce herewith that the #FreeJacobZuma campaign will take the following - serious but well-considered - step in response to the entirely inadequate, and in fact criminal, manner in which President Ramaphosa, the responsible members of his National Executive (Cabinet), and the government in general, responded to the events of violence and looting of the past weeks.

We are of the firm belief that there exists a solid prima facie case of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against this administration. Very cognizant of the monetary power and support that President Ramaphosa has, from both domestic and international capital, who paid close to a billion Rand to ensure that he wins the 2017 ANC Conference in NASREC by any means necessary. This is the same unrepentant system, institutions and people who funded colonial and apartheid leaders, and continues to exploit and oppress the black African majority.

The #FreeJacobZuma campaign will thus lodge a case for investigation and prosecution with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, The Netherlands, under the Rome Statute.

The accused are:

-  President CYRIL RAMAPHOSA (Accused No 1);

-  THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE (CABINET) OF SOUTH AFRICA (Accused No 2);

-  Speaker of the National Assembly, Ms. THANDI MODISE (Accused No 3);

-  Chair of the National Council of Provinces, Mr. AMOS MASONDO (Accused No 4);

-  PARLIAMENT OF SOUTH AFRICA (Accused No 5);

-  Minister of Defense and Military Veterans, Ms. NOSIVIWE MAPISA NQAKULA (Accused No 6);

-  Minister of Police, Mr. BHEKI CELE (Accused N0 7);

-  Chief of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF), Lieutenant-General RUDZANI MAPHWANYA (Accused No 8);

-  Chief of the South African Army, Lieutenant-General LAWRENCE KHULEKANI MBATA (Accused No 9);

-  National Commissioner of the South African Police Service (SAPS), General KHEHLA SITHOLE (Accused No 10).

Among several reasons for proceeding to institute charges against President Ramaphosa, and the other accused, in terms of Article 5 of the Rome Statute, is the ethnic (racist) mobilization that President Ramaphosa indulged in, and the resultant causal link to the Phoenix massacre, where more than 200 people lost their lives (the final count of this racist driven massacre is still to be announced). Furthermore, that President Ramaphosa violated Section 201 (3) of the South African Constitution, with regards to the manner in which the 25 000 SANDF troops were deployed.

A detailed charge sheet, that will be lodged with the ICC, is in the process of being prepared by our legal team. Once the case had been lodged with the ICC, the full charge sheet will be made public.

The #FreeJacobZuma campaign reiterate our conviction that the continuing imprisonment of President Zuma is illegal, and that he is now the first political prisoner since the advent of democracy on the 27th of April 1994.

Our unequivocal demand remains that President Zuma must be released forthwith. We also remain convinced that the implementation of Radical Economic Transformation (RET), as contained in the critical socio-economic demands that had been presented to President Ramaphosa (and which he so arrogantly refused to receive), is essential to bring peace and stability to our country. The acts of looting, criminal as they may be, have demonstrated that there can never be peace and stability without equality.

As we have stated in our statement of the 16th of July 2021, our campaign to #FreeJacobZuma, and for these critical demands to be implemented, will not cease until our objective to achieve a truly liberated and economically empowered country is achieved.

We must also declare that the arrest of President Jacob Zuma serves as a generational mission to members of the #FreeJacobZuma Campaign to now openly defy the 1994 concessions which perpetuate the apartheid economy.

For us, this moment, this incarceration of President Jacob Zuma, represents the most critical political event since 1994, as it has inspired us to fully expose the facade of the ‘Mandela Rainbow Nation’ that has been sold to our people. The international community is now fully aware that apartheid has not fully ended, but has been reproduced legally and constitutionally aided and abetted by its biggest beneficiary; President Ramaphosa.