The EFF Officials led by its leader Julius Malema cutting the cake at the EFF 11th anniversary rally in Northern Cape.
EFF leader Julius Malema has questioned why the ANC is not opting for a progressive coalition with the EFF, the Umkhonto weSizwe party (MKP) and other progressive forces, which would form a 70% majority in Parliament to fight against the 29% moonshot pact, a coalition he describes as a fight against black people.
Malema was speaking during the 11th anniversary celebration of the party yesterday, which was held at the AR Abass sports ground in Kimberley, Northern Cape.
“Let black people unite,” he said, adding that they had been only 12% in the previous administration, but now – with the addition of the MKP – they were 27%.
READ: Malema declares EFF a lifeline for the poor, says SA without the red berets is doomed
He praised this achievement of black people who worked well with the EFF.
Malema emphasised that the red berets’ celebration marked 11 years of persecution and assault on both the organisation and its individual leaders.
He acknowledged the insults it had endured and its difficult journey, but said that it had grown into a formidable party present throughout South Africa.
“It doesn’t exist only during elections; it exists in the daily lives of our people in our communities,” he said.
Malema pointed out that Kimberley was underdeveloped to the extent that no one could believe that it had once formed the foundation of a better economy for the country.
He said:
The economy of South Africa started in Kimberley, when they discovered diamonds. They finished the diamonds and finished Kimberley; today there’s nothing left in Kimberley.
He accused former prime minister of the Cape Colony, Cecil John Rhodes, of writing laws which had forbidden black people to own the wealth of South Africa.
Rhodes, he said, had stated that blacks should not own the land because it came with minerals and industry.
He noted that this had occurred not only in South Africa but across Africa, emphasising the need for black solidarity, as the entire continent had been exploited by colonialists.
He stated that he had predicted, when forming the EFF, that former governing party the ANC would “die a natural death” and this was now being witnessed in the Northern Cape, where its support was less than 50%.
Malema, who accused Northern Cape Premier Zamani Saul of being a thief, said that he was also “breathing through the wound”, following the election results, because he did not have total control.
He accused Saul of being a spy and a sellout, claiming that he had promised the Freedom Front Plus that he would give them Orania, which would belong to Afrikaners alone. “He’ll never see that; it will never happen. Orania belongs to us,” said Malema.
He promised to build RDP houses in the town when his party took over power both in the province and nationally and sent its people to live there.
Malema accused the ANC of selling land through Saul, whom he claimed liked the official blue lights given to government officials. He suggested that Saul had been given them for “kissing the boers with yellow teeth”.
He said:
The Northern Cape is our land; it belongs to us. No one will sell the Northern Cape, not to the boers, nor to the colonisers. The Northern Cape will be returned to the hands of Africans.
He declared that the ANC had killed its own people in Marikana, referring to the infamous massacre in 2012, during which the SA Police Service killed 34 miners during a six-week wildcat strike at the Lonmin platinum mine near Rustenburg.
“We didn’t only cry; we went to mobilise and organise. That’s why there’s the EFF,” he said.
He added that after people had been killed in Marikana, people could no longer sit back and watch. Instead, the mineworkers had told him to form a political party, as they were tired of the ANC.
Yamkeleka Manjeya
www.news24.com
