EFF press statement on parliament and other political issues
On the 7 May more than 1 million South Africans cast their votes, some for the first time, in favor of the agenda of economic freedom. This agenda is summed up in a stipulation in section 26 of the EFF Founding Manifesto that:
"The EFF is a radical, leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement with an internationalist outlook anchored by popular grassroots formations and struggles. The EFF will be the vanguard of community and workers' struggles and will always be on the side of the people. The EFF will, with determination and consistency, associate with the protest movement in South Africa and will also join in struggles that defy unjust laws."
The EFF is in parliament because of the protest and grassroots movements, most of all because of Marikana. EFF is in parliament because it speaks the truth and it is determined and consistent with the objectives of the revolution. Marikana is the home of the African Revolution and the EFF, it is the birth place of the new economic emancipation movement.
As many would know, yesterday the first generation of EFF members of parliament walked out of the second sitting of the debate on the State of the Nation Address. These members of parliament did so because the Commander in Chief rightly said that "the ANC government killed people people in Marikana" and the preceding officer of parliament ruled that this statement is unparliamentary. Meaning the South African parliament deems it unparliamentary to attribute the killing of 34 mineworkers in Marikana to the ruling party in government: the ANC.
No member of the EFF will ever withdraw such a diagnosis. When there is a reduction of crime by the SAPS, the ANC takes responsibility and claims this victory as theirs, they claim it as an ANC achievement.
Equally, when the police kill Andries Tatane, the Relela and Mothutlung residents, ANC as the government of the day must take responsibility. It is not a matter of freedom of speech as it is a matter of fact; an ANC led government preceded over the killing of 34 workers who were striking for a minimum wage of R12,500 in Marikana.
The EFF is therefore unapologetic when it says ANC killed workers in Marikana, because it did; just like the apartheid government led by the Nationalist Party did in Sharpeville in 1960 and Soweto in 1976. The ANC must live with this reality, own up to it like it does each act of its government and know that the red colors in the opposition benches represent the those fallen voices of mineworkers in Marikana.
Marikana represents a new chapter in this country. Marikana is the voice that ANC has become the enemy of the people. It is the testimony of the poor that there is no revolution in the ANC, neither is there love of black people. If the interests of white monopoly capital are threatened, the people know, ANC will kill to protect them. ANC is the government of murderers; the killers who massacred workers in Marikana.
We shall never recognize the ruling of them preceding officer because she is intimately part of the killer party, the number one murderer.
Thandi Modise was the premier of the North West when the Marikana workers were slaughtered by her ANC. Her ruling is a determination to resist the moral poverty that EFF is exposing about her leadership; in her province, when she government it as an ANC collective, it is her police that murdered workers who were asking for a livi wage of R12, 500.
Thandi Modise's argument that we must wait for the Farlam Commission before we make pronouncements is equally disingenuous. Would she have waited for apartheid courts and commissions before calling Sharpeville a massacre and attributing it to the government of the day? No, the commission is not investigating whether there was a massacre or not. Or whether the police did it, because we all saw they did.
The Commission is investigating whether these police were right in doing so. No where in the document on the TERMS OF REFERENCE OF THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO THE TRAGIC INCIDENTS AT OR NEAR THE AREA COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE MARIKANA MINE IN RUSTENBURG, NORTH WEST PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA do the words massacre of the acronym ANC appear.
In essence to use the commission was irrelevant and as illegitimate as the preceding officers' vested interest in the ruling. Because to rule in our favor would actually be an admittance on her part that she presided over the killing of workers through the state police, as she was premier of North West.
The EFF therefore reiterates without any fear of contradiction that the ANC killed workers in Marikana. We are a radical organisation that does not recognize unjust laws. We reject, with the disgust it deserves the ruling of Thandi Modise; the preceding officer, former premier of North West and failed ANC leader, that we must withdraw a truth about Marikana. This truth makes us as EFF, we shall never betray it: ANC, the ANC of Thandi Modise killed workers in Marikana.
Thandi Modise and her ANC are free to do whatever they deem fit, EFF will not be told by the ANC how to oppose it, fight its oppression of our people, it be in parliament, in ballots or on the streets. We are not employed by the ANC, we are employed by the people. If they want to expel us and undermine the people's will that we should be in parliament, they can go on. Our revolution is on the grounds, the very grounds of Marikana.
ON THE CALLING OF BLACKS A COMMODITY
It is noteworthy that part of parliamentary discussions yesterday was a characterization of the leader of the Democratic Alliance as a commodity by an ANC member. This was objected by the EFF because EFF will never stand the abuse and suppression of black people wherever they are. THE preceding officer ruled in favor of the EFF, stating that calling Musi Maimane a commodity perpetuates the stereotype that black people are inferior.
The people of South Africa must know that it is the EFF, and not the DA that stood to protect a black person's indignity even if they be in the DA. This must demonstrate that EFF is not limited to its members in articulating the African Revolution and that is why it is government in waiting.
ON HLAUDI MOTSOENENG AND THE SABC
EFF notes with deep concern the continued ways in which the SABC suppresses the coverage of its key events. We are aware that there was an instruction not to cover the EFF on June 16 this year. Hlaudi Motsoeneng also issued an instruction that EFF its in parliament must not be televised in the news.
The EFF is still in consultation with its lawyers on how to take forward the findings of the Public Protector because the Hlaudi Motsoeneng who is an ANC security guard continues to suppress EFF in favor of ANC. The hope is that he meets the same destination that was met by Pansy Tlakula.
In addition, it is regrettable that not only is he messing up the Public Broadcaster, now he has taken action against the advancement of women emancipation. Motsoeneng has agreed to take a woman as a gift, a whole leader at the helm of so important an institution of the democratic state. It cannot be that women are seen and exchanged as gifts, essentially there is no difference between Hlaudi Motsoeneng and Boko Haram. Like Boko Haram, Motsoeneng does not respect women, their choice and treats them like objects in a pursuit to satisfy narrow personal interests.
The questions should be asked where are organisation like ANCWL when the poor women of Venda need them the most.
CONCLUSION
In his response to parliament, Jacob Zuma after not saying nothing, says he can predict what other people are going to say before they speak. He must know that the reading is mutual because EFF had already predicated what he was going to say. as we do about what we say.
He further said that people must not be personal when they debate as it degenerates constructive dialogue. Yet all members of the ANC in parliament were constantly personal on the EFF and on Musi Maimane. We can only hope that he was directing this comment to his own members.
Statement issued by Julius Malema, Economic Freedom Fighters' Commander in Chief, June 20 2014
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