Kasrils slams Lekota over Israel trip

Ronnie Kasrils has lambasted his former comrade and fellow cabinet minister Mosiuoa Lekota for accepting a free trip to Israel. File picture: Ross Jansen

Ronnie Kasrils has lambasted his former comrade and fellow cabinet minister Mosiuoa Lekota for accepting a free trip to Israel. File picture: Ross Jansen

Published Sep 19, 2015

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Johannesburg - Ronnie Kasrils has lambasted his former comrade and fellow cabinet minister Mosiuoa Lekota for accepting a free trip to Israel.

In a letter penned this week, and seen by the Saturday Star, Kasrils expressed his displeasure with Lekota for taking part in the trip.

“I am deeply disappointed that after my attempts to dissuade you from going to Israel at the invitation of the Israeli government and Zionist supporters, you undertook the trip,” the letter read.

Lekota was among five opposition leaders including the IFP’s Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Bantu Holomisa of the UDM, Pieter Mulder of the Freedom Front Plus and the African Christian Democratic Party’s Kenneth Meshoe.

The leaders claimed their visit to Israel was a “study tour”. They left the country earlier this month and returned last Friday.

“You accepted the free flight and accommodation from a racist and apartheid-style state that has dispossessed the Palestinians of their land and their rights and carries out merciless and continuous aggression against them in violation of international law, human rights and innumerable UN resolutions,” the letter read.

Kasrils likened Lekota’s trip to an overseas delegation visiting South Africa during the apartheid era when the United Democratic Front, which Lekota led, was calling for a boycott and isolation.

He asked Lekota to consult with the Palestinian civil society and solidarity groups instead of claiming the Palestinian Ambassador to South Africa supported the visit.

“I warned you the Palestinian Authority (PA) was increasingly being regarded as on a par with South Africa’s Bantustan collaborators and that you should not merely accept the Ambassador’s views without wider consultation,” an angry Kasrils said.

“To have accepted an all-expenses paid invite from Zionist Israeli sources places your visit in the disgraceful category of strike-breakers and sweethearts of a regime that Dr (Hendrik) Verwoerd, of all people, had stated in 1961 was ‘like South Africa, … an apartheid state’.”

Kasrils, who served as the intelligence minister under former president Thabo Mbeki, said Lekota’s visit was “an insult to those striving for freedom and justice for Palestine.”

“I urge you to think again and engage in a discourse with those who can put you straight on this issue,” he wrote.

“It is not a question of being even-handed in consideration of two equal sides but standing with a colonially oppressed people who have been robbed of their land and rights and are savagely repressed.”

Both Lekota and Kasrils failed to return SMSes sent to them by the Saturday Star.

Saturday Star

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