Malema supporters 'threaten stability'

2011-09-02 18:00

Johannesburg - Militant supporters of ANC Youth League president Julius Malema could destabilise Southern Africa, the Communist Party of Swaziland said on Friday.

"One of the dangers of the current situation... is the rise of... movements that ride on the mobilisation of the unemployed, disempowered and ill-educated masses," general secretary Kenneth Kunene said in a statement.

He was responding to violence in Johannesburg's CBD on Tuesday, when Malema supporters threw bottles and bricks at police and journalists outside ANC headquarters Luthuli House.

Kunene said the African National Congress and SA Communist Party had become targets for attack by "a growing ultra-nationalist right wing that has hijacked the language of liberation and revolution".

He compared the situation in Southern Africa with that in Europe prior to the outbreak of the World War II.

Fascism and its newer guises were not confined to Europe, and the conditions in Southern Africa now were ripe for these ideologies to manifest themselves.

"This lumpen proletariat, [lacking] political awareness is readily brought into action in support of populist leaders, whose main loyalties lie with a narrow oligarchic class that has its eyes on political power and the wealth of the country."

Kunene pledged the party's continuing support for the ANC alliance.

Malema was brought before the party's disciplinary committee on charges of bringing the ANC into disrepute and sowing divisions in ANC ranks.

He recently said the ANCYL would send a team to Botswana to consolidate local opposition parties and to help bring about regime change, as it believed the government there was "in full co-operation with imperialists" and undermining the "African agenda".

Charged with him are ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu, deputy president Ronald Lamola, treasurer general Pule Mabe, secretary general Sindiso Magaqa and deputy secretary general Kenetswe Masenogi.

All except Shivambu would appear before the committee on Friday. His disciplinary hearing had been postponed to a later date.

- SAPA