THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS DENOUNCES THE FAKE NEWS FRONT PAGE PROPAGANDA PUBLISHED TODAY BY THE SUNDAY TIMES AND CITY PRESS, AND SAY HANDS OFF OUR SG!
The president together with the entire leadership Of the African National Congress (ANC), especially his fellow Top Six comrades, have been leading the renewal of the ANC, as well as broader South African society. As the ANC we have openly acknowledged where we have made mistakes and have set ourselves the task of resurrecting the ANC. We have therefore taken it on the chin, when the media and other opponents of the ANC have deliberately sought to attack certain leaders of the ANC, and spread doubt about the unity of purpose of the leadership. However, the maturity the ANC has exhibited is not being reciprocated. rather it seems that our good nature is taken advantage Of. And, as the ANC and the leadership we are growing weary.
The latest salvo, is a clearly well coordinated, media attack in today’s Sunday Times and City Press on Our Secretary General, comrade Ace Magashule, The front page stories in both the Sunday Times and City Press which are almost identical in content, and even have whole paragraphs with exactly the same wording, are based on a typical Stratcom style fake-news book by Pieter-Louis Myburgh, with the sensationallst and ridiculously propagandistic title, 'Gangster State - unravelling Ace Magashule's Web Of Capture'.
Myburgh has since 2016 been disseminating lies about the Secretary General, so we see this book as a culmination of all those lies.
These fake news Stories, and the dubious book that they are based on, are timed for publication barely a month before our national elections, in order to try and inflict the maximum damage against the Secretary General of the ANC. It is evidently the opening propaganda salvo, in a carefully planned Stratcom operation to unfold in the coming days and weeks against comrade Magashule and the ANC, using the launch of Myburgh's book today, and the lies that it peddles, as the basis for a vicious character assassination campaign.
It is no co-incidence that the Sunday Times and City Press are used as the propaganda instruments to launch this campaign. Both newspapers have been competing with each other about which one can be the most notorious peddler of fake news. Both have a so been involved in vitriolic and sustained propaganda campaigns against comrade Ace Magashule and other ANC politicians, with them having been proved time after time to have published blatant lies. The Sunday Times is actually on record to have admitted that they have published fake news Stories, as part of specific political machinations, these included that there was no SARS rogue unit and the lies that they published about the Cato Manor killings which they admitted was -politically manipulated" to mention only two examples among many. We have no doubt that in due course it will be revealed who the Masters are that they serve, but there can be no doubt that they are following a carefully scripted anti-liberation and anti-black agenda.
This Sunday's continuation of front page lies by these two embarrassing rags should not be given any credibility by responding to their baseless allegations, and the ANC will certainly not do so. However, we cannot help but to express our incredulity with the pathetic lie that comrade Magashule had embellished his struggle credentials. How on earth does someone who is one of the most well-known liberation fighters and public figures in South Africa, and whose career spans over decades, even begin to do that, when every one of his well-known steps have been open to public scrutiny? Clearly this is ever so much nonsense!
The ANC sees this highly personalized and vicious attack on our Secretary General as a direct and well-calculated attack not on y on the person of the Secretary General, but in fact on the Office Of the Secretary General (SGO), which is the administrative engine room Of the ANC, and as such critical for our election campaign efforts. Evidently the Secretary General of the ANC, as the CEO of the ANC, is the main target. These attacks are aimed at undermining the ANC's election campaign, and weakening the ANC in general. It should also not be seen in isolation from other propaganda attacks that have been launched against many leaders of the ANC across the length and breath of the country (with those on the ANC Candidate list specifically being targeted), as well as the proliferation of allegations also leveled against the other National Office Bearers (Top Six) of the ANC.
The African National Congress rejects today’s vicious attack on our Secretary General, as well as all the other lies, fake news and propaganda attacks that we are being subjected to, with the utter contempt that these deserve. The ANC says: HANDS OFF OUR SG!
Under the capable leadership of our Secretary General, our NEC leadership collective and our elections campaign structures, we will in the next 36 days, that lead up to the elections on the 8th Of May, intensify our campaign and secure a resounding election Victory for the ANC. A victory for the ANC is ultimately a victory for the Radical Economic Transformation (RET) and renewal of South Africa, as well as the hopes and aspirations of the majority of poor black (especially African) South Africans, and that is exactly why reactionary forces who want to perpetuate the continuation of the white monopoly control of our economy will not leave any stone unturned to attack our SG the ANC. However, the ANC is resolute in our commitment to the full liberation of all South Africans, also their economic liberation, and no-one most definitely not Stratcom authors and journalists, will stand in our way.
The ANC calls on all South Africans to see this current spate of propaganda attacks in the context of increasingly desperate attempts to prevent the ANC from once again achieving a resounding victory at the polls. The answer is for every registered voter to bring out their votes for the ANC, and we call on all freedom and truth loving South Africans to do exactly that!
Issued by the African National Congress, 31 March 2019
