Johannesburg - National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel on Wednesday stood by his critical letter to government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi.
“One of the battles we have is a battle against forgetting,” he told the South African National Editors' Forum in Johannesburg.
“The Constitution we have was not forced down the throats of freedom fighters by the apartheid regime.”
The Constitution was based on principles established by former ANC president Oliver Tambo, as well as the Freedom Charter.
“For me, the Freedom Charter is older than what I am... It doesn't deviate from the opening statement that South Africa belongs to all... We will fight side by side... When something impedes that liberty I will take up the fight again.
“Someone has to sound the wake-up call.”
Manuel hit out at Manyi over his comments on coloured people, branding him a “worst-order racist” in an open letter to the Cape Times, published on Wednesday.
He added: “I have a sense that your racism has infiltrated the highest echelons of government.”
Manuel is chairperson of the national executive committee sent to the Western Cape to help the ANC regroup ahead of local government elections, after losing the province to the DA in 2009.
In his letter, he said he would “do battle” to ensure Parliament did not pass amendments to the Employment Equity Act drafted on Manyi's watch, if they violated the non-racial spirit of the Constitution.
“I want to draw your attention to the fact that your statements about 'an over-concentration of coloureds' are against the letter and spirit of the South African Constitution, as well as being against the values espoused by the Black Management Forum since its inception,” Manuel wrote.
Manyi, then the director-general of labour, said in a show broadcast on KykNet's Robinson Regstreeks in March 2010 that there was an “over-supply” of coloured people in the Western Cape. - Sapa