Zuma blames 'wrong forces'
Johannesburg – Antagonistic forces are hampering the creation of the society the ANC’s liberation fighters once envisaged, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday.
“You might even find yourself moving with the wrong forces without realising it,” he told delegates at the 5 th Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association conference in Boksburg.
He referred to “forces with antagonistically contradictory interests both domestically and globally”.
A thorough assessment of the state of the revolution was necessary in order for the 105-year-old liberation party to resolve problems facing it and the country.
Zuma said he had flu and his voice was hoarse.
A few national executive committee members distanced themselves from the conference a day before it began. They included MKMVA chairperson Kebby Maphatsoe’s deputy, the general secretary and his deputy. Former senior leaders of the liberation army who tried to join the conference, but then changed their minds, said it would be a fruitless exercise.
“Former commanders, commissars and combatants of the MK must always be in a position to understand and articulate the South African context of this uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight,” said Zuma.
He said the contradictions the authors of The Communist Manifesto , Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, had highlighted were still evident in present-day South Africa.
“We have seen in the recent past the sporadic emergence of civil society groupings mobilised on the basis of hostile opinions against the ANC and its leadership.”
Unfortunately, some had fallen into the trap and joined these groupings to appear intellectually and morally superior, he said. This comment appeared to be directed at members of the tripartite alliance.
SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila was seen at protests by Save South Africa, which had been calling for Zuma to step down as the head of state. Other SACP members and Cosatu had made similar calls.
The MKMVA conference is expected to elect new office bearers and a national executive committee at the weekend.
