Durban - Premier Willies Mchunu has come under criticism from opposition parties following comments he made about South Africans of Indian descent, at the provincial legislature on Thursday.
Mchunu allegedly said South Africans of Indian descent were not part of South Africa.
The premier’s alleged remarks were made during a debate on Heritage Day celebrations.
Voice clips the Daily News listened to of a man thought to be Mchunu say the ANC never marginalised Indians and worked well with members of the Natal Indian Congress.
“We grew up together with the Natal Indian Congress We struggled together, we opposed together anything that seeks to promote one race against all others. Now you do not represent a democratic value and a democratic principle. You represent that small minority which sat in Parliament and represented its own grouping.”
In another clip, the man says history shows that Indians were brought to South African shores, “but you claim land for them as if there were no people who were removed from that land before those (Indians) were put in there”.
He adds: “If you came here from Europe or India or anywhere else, they found people here who were on this land.”
Mchunu dismissed the allegations as twisted race baiting and scaremongering, saying he had been working in the struggle with Indians for more than 40 years. He said it suited the DA’s political purpose to create animosity between Indians and Africans because “they are taking a hammering in the by-election campaign in Chatsworth”.
The ANC said the DA was creating distortions by circulating a selective clip of Mchunu addressing the legislature on Thursday.
“The ANC has a long history in the Indian communities and working with Indian activists. The DA’s history is of collaboration in the apartheid system while Africans, Indians, coloureds and democratic whites were in the trenches with the ANC fighting for the freedom of all The assurance from the ANC is that our future as Africans, Indians, coloureds and whites is together as one nation,” it said.
ANC provincial spokesperson Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu said: “The ANC’s principle is that all the people who were dispossessed of their land must get it back. The premier was clear on that, but I don’t know where or how these alleged anti-Indian remarks came from.”
DA MPLs Sharon Hoosen and Dr Imran Keeka, and party provincial leader Zwakele Mncwango called for Mchunu to publicly apologise for his utterances.
Keeka said Simelane-Zulu did not understand what had happened at the legislature. “Sharon (Hoosen) spoke about indentured Indians and the oppressive laws that suppressed the Indians and took away their livelihood.
“How the premier presented himself was uncalled for,” he said.
Mncwango said the “tirade” was ignited by his party’s request to Mchunu, to protect the heritage of the province’s subsistence fishermen and the seine netting community.
Mncwango said the DA regarded Mchunu’s utterance as an insult to Indians, who stood in the fight against apartheid and who suffered as a result of the Group Areas Act and other measures, which saw their livelihood as subsistence fisherman continually under threat.
Human settlements MEC Ravi Pillay rubbished the DA’s claim, labelling it dangerous and irresponsible. “The premier was commenting on a point the DA made about fishermen, and he at no point said what the DA is alleging. They want to instill fear in people, and this is opportunistic,” he said.