Johannesburg - EFF leader Julius Malema has defended their calls for former president FW de Klerk not to be at Parliament saying he had showed South Africans a middle finger and showed no regrets for
apartheid.
Speaking at the Press Club of South Africa in Cape Town, Malema said De Klerk recently regarded apartheid as not a crime against humanity, in a television interview, because he undermined President Cyril Ramaphosa, whom he described as his “ice boy”.
“Our actions yesterday (Thursday) were provoked by him saying apartheid was not a crime against humanity. To us he does not have regrets. Now he has got his ice boy as a president and thinks he can undermine us because he controls Cyril,” he said.
Malema charged that Ramaphosa and De Klerk have a relationship from the 1970s. “We are not to allow Cyril’s proximity to them to allow them to undermine us. He can see there is no leadership in this country. It’s his boys.”
He questioned why De Klerk had not said the things he said during the era of former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. “He has no files on them. He has never managed them. None of his forces managed them,” he said, adding he managed Ramaphosa hence he had no respect for him.
Hours after Malema’s address the FW de Klerk Foundation issued a statement saying it was ironic that he launched a vitriolic attack on the former president.
“In a way, an attack by Julius Malema and the EFF is the sincerest form of
compliment. We have seen this kind before: Those who wear colour-coded uniforms, who use bully-boy tactics to disrupt democratic processes, who whip up race hatred and call their
leaders Fuhrer or Duce or Commander in Chief,” the foundation said.
Malema also said there was nothing new in Ramaphosa’s Sona. “We continued to hear his dreams of building a new city, even though today he is the same man selling our independence and our state-entities, surrendering all capacity to capital.”
He also charged that Ramaphosa’s only solution to the collapse of SOEs was a misplaced faith in the private sector.
“The state will now allow our municipalities to enter into exploitative
contracts with Independent Power Producers, and more of these contracts which have seen Eskom operate at a loss for the benefit of Cyril and Pravin’s (Gordhan) friends will be signed.”
He reiterated that Gordhan was at the centre of the collapse of SOEs and capture of the country by white-monopoly capital.