Let me set the record straight about remarks I made at the funeral of the late 2nd Vice President of POPRCU, Pretty Nomhle Singonzo-Shuping, held on Saturday the 21 June 2008.
Let me affirm once more: For our revolution, and for millions of people I have not seen and will never come across, in defence of my comrades who are victims of unfair treatment and injustice or who are targeted so that they and the revolution is weakened, I am prepared so make the supreme sacrifice. I am prepared to lay down my own life. I know that I share that commitment with millions of other comrades who fought for change and who now know their responsibilities to that revolution.
Trying to situate the comments, which are essentially a tribute to Pretty Nomhle Singonzo-Shuping in a narrow "rule of the law" paradigm does nothing except to grab ill informed news headlines. This is highly unfortunate. For the record, the Human Rights Commission has not contacted us to get any explanation. Consequently we are not aware of any deadline that I have been given to apologise.
I spoke about Pretty Nomhle Singonzo-Shuping's love for her organisations POPCRU and COSATU. I explained to the mourners that she, as a revolutionary, fought for and was prepared to lay down her life for thousands and millions of people she has not even met. I went further to say she was prepared to shoot and kill in defence of the revolution and for her comrades.
I pledged to her that we too are prepared to do the same in her defence and in defence of one another and in defence or our revolution. I told the mourners that in defence of her we too were prepared to shoot and kill. I went further to explain the meaning of the word comrade which is a much deeper than even the relationship we have with families.
I went further to say yes, for one another and for our leaders we are prepared to lay down our lives! Yes for our revolution we are prepared to shoot and kill. I singled out Jacob Zuma to make an example. I said because Jacob Zuma is one of us and is one of our leaders, for him and for our revolution we are prepared to lay down our lives and for him we are prepared to shoot and kill.
This is the context of the so-called "kill for Zuma statements" that we are now being called to withdraw. The statements I made were deliberately put out of context in order to drive a debate at the public level with a clear political agenda. That political agenda I believe is to isolate our leaders for systematic attack so that eventually when they fall one by one, no one, including their very own organisations, will come to their defence.
It is highly regrettably that some of the so-called political analysts have chosen to express opinions and joined the queue of liberals in my condemnation without bothering to check first. To just jump on the bandwagon of condemnation on the basis of selective reporting by SABC [see here] and others which chose to cut off the context of the remarks in order to situate it wrongly and then expect me to apologise is to expect too much.
Equally, trying to twist the statement to sound like a lack of commitment to our constitution, the rule of law, basic freedoms, order, discipline, etc is mischievous in the extreme.
Statement issued by Congress of South African Trade Unions General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, June 23 2008
