14 December 2010
MEMORANDUM
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE
WORLD FEDERATION OF DEMOCRATIC YOUTH
MR TIAGO VIEIRA
Dear Mr Vieira
AfriForum Youth's participation in the 17th World Festival of Youth and
Students
We present this memorandum to you to explain why AfriForum Youth has decided not to participate in the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students, as well as to bring certain of our concerns to your immediate attention and to make one request.
To date, AfriForum Youth has not been very vocal on our participation in the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students, despite media reports stating that we have "withdrawn" from the festival. We would like to take this opportunity to provide you with our stance on the matter.
As a civil rights movement, established with the purpose to protect the rights of minority groups in South Africa, we are deeply concerned about the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students.
As you would probably know by now, poverty is a major issue in South Africa.
About 40% of our population lives in abject poverty and roughly 70% of the unemployed in this country are people below the age of 35. Because of this, only about 10% of our country can afford to pay the taxes that is needed to fund government spending and to make this country a better place for all who live in it.
Despite this, your festival is costing this country R69-million, of which R29- million was provided by Government from funds that were earmarked to uplift our country and another R40-million was provided by the National Lottery from funds that could also have been used to uplift the people of this country.
During our brief meeting and the debate that was recorded at Urban Brew Studios in Randburg on the 1st of December 2010, it became evident to us that this festival is hosted with the intention of bringing an end to only certain forms of oppression, while on the other hand, condoning other forms of oppression.
This conclusion is based on the fact that you refused to repudiate the brutal murders of innocent white farmers in South Africa and Zimbabwe, as well as the fact that the representative of the ANC Youth League even attempted to justify these murders. In addition, during this debate, you even went as far as to attempt to justify the ANC Youth League's argument that black South Africans have a right to make statements such as: "Kill the whites", while white South Africans do not have the same right.
Ironically and tragically, at the very same time that you were trying to justify the singing of songs in which the murder of white South Africans are being encouraged, another family was brutally murdered on their farm near the town of Lindley in the Free State. Mr Attie Potgieter, his wife Wilma, and their three year-old daughter, Willemien Potgieter, were brutally murdered. Wilma and Willemien were both shot in the back of their heads, executioner style, and Attie was hacked to death with pangas and a garden fork.
In this light, our participation in this festival would amount to an encouragement of the already explosive situation in South Africa. More than two thousand innocent farmers have been killed in South Africa by the so-called "antiimperialists"; and since March 2010, when the President of the ANCYL, Julius Malema, started singing "shoot the Boers", about 100 farmers have been murdered. All of this took place while the WFDY is singing and sipping champagne with the ANCYL.
Lastly, we kindly request that the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students
openly state that, in the interest of peace in this country, the encouragement of
the killing of white South Africans should stop immediately.
Enjoy your festival. We will not enjoy the killing of our people.
Regards
Ernst Roets
National Chairperson
AfriForum Youth
Issued by AfriForum Youth, December 14 2010
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