ANCYL 'imprisoned' - Mpumalanga branch

2012-02-05 18:58

Johannesburg - The ANCYL has been assaulted and "imprisoned" by its own members, the league's Mpumalanga branch said on Sunday.

"Never had a revolutionary youth movement had to conduct its organisational autonomy under such difficult conditions. It is imprisoned," Mpumalanga African National Congress Youth League secretary Clarence Maseko said in a statement.

He was reacting to the ANC disciplinary appeals committee's decision to reject the attempts by ANCYL leader Julius Malema, his spokesperson Floyd Shivambu and four others to have their suspension from the party overturned.

Since the ANC announced their punishment in November last year, the league had seen "open hostility to its leadership [and] crude attempts to kill it [from] within", Maseko said.

Maseko said the ANCYL had "waged battles" at the mother body since its inception and existed to bring attention to weaknesses in the party.

"The ANCYL is to a youth revolutionary what war-time is to an army. Once entrusted with a responsibility to lead it, you are not called to peace, comfort and enjoyment, but to hard work, struggle and sweat, there is no turning back," he said.

He said the ANCYL's autonomy was based on the political perspective of the ANC, but the league's policies and programmes were determined by its membership in accordance with its own constitution.

Maseko said there had been a "brutal and satanic" attempt by a "terror brigade" to discredit Mpumalanga ANCYL chairperson and Gert Sibande municipality mayor Kgotso Motloung.

He claimed this was because Motloung had refused an instruction to vote against Julius Malema at the league's national conference last year. Malema was re-elected youth league leader at the event.

"We are now calling on the national leadership of the ANC to intervene in the province before they wake up to a harsh reality that the organisation no longer exists as result of these and other issues."

- SAPA