Durban – Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema’s comments that whites would not be slaughtered just yet, has landed him in hot water with the Democratic Alliance on Tuesday.
DA national spokeswoman Phumzile Van Damme said in a statement that the party would lodge a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission over comments that Malema made outside the Newcastle Magistrate’s Court on Monday when he addressed supporters.
Malema, who appeared on two charges of violating the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956, told supporters that when whites arrived in the country and dispossessed blacks of their land they had committed a “black genocide”.
“They found peaceful Africans here. They killed them. They slaughtered them like animals. We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now. What we are calling for is the peaceful occupation of the land and we don’t owe anyone an apology for that,” Malema said at the time.
Van Damme said the party had waited 24 hours to offer Malema a chance to apologise for his comments, which she said had no place in South Africa’s democracy.
“These comments violate the most fundamental principles of our hard-won constitutional democracy. Indeed the South Africa which Nelson Mandela dreamed of in 1994 is founded on the values of freedom, equality, dignity, as well as non-racism and non-sexism.”
She said the SA Human Rights Commission now needed to play its part and ensure that there were consequences for such comments.
African News Agency