UMKHONTO WE SIZWE MILITARY VETERANS ASSOCIATION (MKMVA) CONDEMNS THE FAKE NEWS PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY TIMES AND SAYS HANDS OFF DR. DLAMINI ZUMA

Issued: Sunday, 29 October 2017

The Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) has noted with dismay and utter disgust the front page article entitled: “Gangster Republic” that the Sunday Times published today. With this piece of low-down sewer ‘journalism’ the Sunday Times (it should actually more appropriately be called the Sunday Slimes, and from henceforth this is exactly what we will call it), has managed to outdo even its own rock-bottom sub-zero ethical standards.

The Sunday Slimes has now joined the worst of journalism in their proverbial FAKE NEWS pigsty, wallowing in the mud of embedded advocacy journalism, fabricated news and downright lies. In their eagerness to serve their White Monopoly Capital owners and paymasters the editor and journalists have destroyed the once proud Sunday Times, and turned it into a tabloid rag that specialises in smear campaigns and fake news. Its reputation is in tatters, and it is reduced to being a pawn in White  Monopoly Capital’s campaign of mass deception to keep our people poor and under economic subjugation.

The Sunday Slimes has been running a biased anti Dr. Dlamini Zuma smear campaign for a considerable period now. It is instructive to recall the fake news that they published about Dr. Dlamini Zuma having a home at the President’s private residence in Nkandla, and how they have derisively tried to reduce her identity to being the ‘ex-wife’ of the President. This utter rubbish that they published they were forced to retract and to apologise for, after Dr. Dlamini Zuma lodged a complaint with the Press Ombudsman.

Throwing all journalistic ethics and caution to the wind the Sunday Slimes has chosen to impose themselves onto the ANC Presidential contestation and to promote one particular candidate. They blatantly jump to the defence of this candidate at every possible opportunity. Simultaneously they run a vicious fake news campaign against Dr. Dlamini Zuma, whom they evidently want to prevent at all costs from being elected as the President of the African National Congress.

Their opposition to Dr. Dlamini Zuma is driven by the fear of their White Monopoly Capital (WMC) masters that she will successfully implement Radical Economic Transformation, and bring an end to their control of the South African economy and their concomitant exploitation of the black majority (especially Africans).

Just last week we have warned that we were aware that vicious attacks against Dr.  Dlamini Zuma, and others that are associated with her ANC presidential campaign, have commenced. At the time we noted that this smear campaign had already started in the social media, and warned that further negative campaigns have been planned and were about to be launched, also through the mainstream media. With this front page fake news article of the Sunday Slimes that has now come to pass.

A careful read of today’s Sunday Slimes article reveals not a single fact or verification of the wild allegations that are being made. The sole verifiable piece of ‘evidence’ that is presented is a photograph of Adriano Mazotti with Dr. Dlamini Zuma. This photograph is disingenuously presented as ‘evidence’ of Dr. Dlamini Zuma’s ‘close relationship’ with Mazotti, while the photograph actually proves absolutely nothing beyond that it had been taken.

Similarly to hundreds (if not thousands) of photos that Dr. Dlamini Zuma takes, as a public figure, with the many people who approach her on a daily basis to be photographed with. In the era of social media these photographs often get posted, re-posted and tweeted and re-tweeted numerous times with Dr. Dlamini Zuma not having any control over how they are used. All reasonable persons know that such photographs are not evidence of any relationship/association (not even to talk of a perverse flight of the imagination that it proves a ‘close relationship’!). The reality is that beyond this photo this smear article is not based on a single verifiable fact, it is solely conjured up out of corridor gossip and cheap propagandistic conjecture.

In the inside pages of the Sunday Slimes they proceed with the very same smear  campaign, claiming that the Gedleyihlekisa ANC Branch, where Dr. Dlamini Zuma is a member, had rejected her as presidential candidate, and of course they do not fail to emphasise that the branch supposedly favours Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. This despite of the fact that the ANC Ethekweni Regional Executive Council had dissolved the branch (a decision which was upheld by the ANC KZN Provincial Working Committee [PWC]), and that it does not even qualify to hold a Branch General Meeting (BGM), nor to send any delegate to the ANC National Elective Conference in December.

The Sunday Slimes tries to create the impression that the branch had been dissolved because of their purported rejection of Dr. Dlamini Zuma. The facts are that the branch had been dissolved because of organisational chaos, and having failed to campaign for the ANC during last year’s Local Government elections. At the time of the decision by the KZN Ethekweni REC to dissolve the branch, the REC had not even known that there was any intention not to back Dr. Dlamini Zuma by some individuals associated with a faction of this now defunct branch.

Yet, the Sunday Slimes sees it fit to quote the former (now non-existing) so-called ‘Branch Secretary’ of this dissolved branch extensively about his purported support for Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. Although there was, and could be no link between the purported support for Ramaphosa and the branch having been dissolved for organisational reasons, the Sunday Slimes persists in trying manipulate the facts in order to create the impression of such a link. Once again fake news is literally being manufactured in the service of their deliberate smear campaign against Dr. Dlamini Zuma.

There can be no doubt that this intensified smear campaign has been carefully timed in order to coincide with the many ANC Branch General Meetings (BGM’s) that are being held today. Clearly the intention of the Sunday Slimes is to try and influence the outcome of these BGM’s with the fake news that they published. We have no doubt that they will fail dismally. The branch members of the ANC are cadres with great political insight and consciousness. The Sunday Slimes must not insult our intelligence. The members of the ANC can see right through their dirty tricks and sleazy smear efforts.

MKMVA concurs with the media statement that the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) issued last night that Dr. Dlamini Zuma has absolutely nothing to hide. She is a person of the highest integrity, and has served her country and the African continent with distinction in various Executive Positions, both as a long standing member of the National Executive (Cabinet) in South Africa and Chairperson of the AU Commission.

The ANC presidential campaign of Dr. Dlamini Zuma is a people’s campaign that places the needs and interests of our people first. She is deeply concerned about the untenable and growing gap between the few (primarily white) rich and the majority of (primarily African) poor and exploited South Africans, and she knows that this is an untenable situation. That is why her campaign slogan is: RADICAL ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION NOW OR NEVER.