Mbeki blames apartheid

2004-03-28 21:35

Bakenberg - President Thabo Mbeki on Sunday named a list of National Party leaders he blamed for South Africa's current problems of unemployment, crime and lack of sanitation.

Mbeki said FW de Klerk, PW Botha, John Vorster and Hendrik Verwoerd, instead of visiting impoverished black areas, had sent the police to kill ANC.

"They never came here, the only thing they did, they sent the police here to shoot us," Mbeki told a packed Bakenberg stadium, about 30km outside Mokopane in Limpopo.

"They had a big army, many weapons, many ships... we had nothing.

"But with all those weapons they are no longer the government of our country."

Mbeki said: "Those are the people who left many problems to us to resolve.

Mbeki was accompanied by several provincial MECs, senior ANC officials and Limpopo Premier Ngoako Ramathlodi, who will leave that office after the elections.

When Mbeki arrived at the Bakenberg stadium he was welcomed by loud cheers and shouts of "ANC, ANC".

At some stage during Mbeki's walk around the stadium the crowd pushed a fence flat just to shake his hand. Young children were also crushed against the fence.

Mbeki rearranged the set-up at the stadium to allow people pressed against the fence to come inside, sit on the pitch and listen to him speak.

He climbed onto the back of a 4x4 bakkie, before addressing the rally.

Mbeki said the people of Bakenberg area should allow other political parties to come and campaign in their area, but ask where were they before 1994.

"They were not there," Mbeki said.

Mbeki is in Limpopo canvassing votes for the ANC for next month's national elections.

- SAPA