Durban - Criminals had hijacked the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, hiding behind its flag while terrorising internal opponents, said SACP leaders, including its boss, Blade Nzimande, in Durban on Wednesday.
Nzimande urged party members to reclaim the SACP and root out criminal elements.
Nzimande was in Inchanga to pay tribute to local party members who died in a shooting which left two dead and four others wounded at the weekend. He was accompanied by eThekwini mayor James Nxumalo, the provincial chairman, deputy mayor and party deputy provincial chairwoman Nomvuzo Shabalala, provincial secretary Themba Mthembu and Cosatu provincial secretary Edwin Mkhize. There were no ANC provincial or eThekwini regional leaders present.
The criminals who were hiding behind ANC colours should be revealed, Nzimande said.
“We should request the ANC to not allow people to hide behind its flag to commit crime. The ANC is not an organisation of criminals and murderers.”
An SACP community meeting in Nxumalo’s home village, Inchanga, turned violent on Sunday and left Philip Dlamini and Handsome Hlatshwayo, 38, dead. Dlamini, 68, a local resident, had attended the meeting. Hlatshwayo was killed after he and another four men, who had arrived in a silver Mercedes, had been accused of being hit men sent by an ANC faction to attack SACP members in the meeting.
ANC provincial secretary Super Zuma said on Wednesday the party had no knowledge of whether people who had attacked the SACP members were connected to the ANC.
“Whether they were ANC members or not, what happened there was wrong. We still need to establish the identity of the attackers before concluding that they belong to the ANC,” he said.
In a statement on Wednesday, The SACP said it would not be intimidated and would continue with its campaign to convene community gatherings in anticipation of the coming local government elections.
At Dlamini’s low-cost house in Fredville, Nzimande told the family, including Dlamini’s widow Ntombizethu and sister-in-law Maria, that as he had died at an SACP meeting, the party would cover funeral expenses. He said the funeral service would be held at the soccer field where he was killed.
About 150 SACP members were gathered at the house, singing songs encouraging the family to remain strong and pledging support.
Although tension in Inchanga emanated from last year’s ANC eThekwini regional conference which left Nxumalo’s supporters aggrieved after his defeat, Nzimande said he would not comment on the conference as he was in Inchanga as an SACP leader.
Nzimande said he had had to abandon the ANC conference in Pretoria to attend to the situation in Inchanga.
He had heard that the Sunday meeting had been to discuss the sidelining of SACP members from the ANC nomination meeting. The ANC held the nomination meeting at a nearby community hall, without Nxumalo’s supporters.
He said SACP members should use Dlamini’s death to fight for their place in ANC activities.
“We are members of the ANC, and the ANC is ours. The ANC would never survive without the communists. Those who are trying to use the ANC to sideline the SACP will fail. This is not the first time they have failed. Others, who had been saying they don’t want the SACP in the ANC since we were formed in 1921, are six feet underground,” he said.
Nzimande said SACP members should form committees to defend their communities.
Mkhize said there was a new tendency in the ANC in the province to invite members through SMSes to attend nomination meetings in order to sideline other members, who shared a different view. He said this happened across the province.
“Dlamini’s life has been contributed in saving the ANC. The national alliance leadership should come down to deal with this and restore order, peace, observation of internal democratic processes.”
Political analyst Xolani Dube of the Xubera Institute said members of the ANC were resolving to secure lucrative positions in government.
“If people see their leaders living the high life, not because of their education but because of political position, they would also fight to be in the same position.
“People want to have what James (Nxumalo) is having. People want to have what Jacob Zuma is having because they see that it is possible to have it as long as you are in a political position,” he said.
The Mercury