No one can lay claim to ANC - YCL

2010-09-20 21:01

Durban - No single individual could lay claim to the ANC as it belonged to capitalists and communists alike, said Young Communist League national secretary Buti Manamela on Monday.

"The ANC belongs to all of us. There is no single individual who can lay claim of ownership of the ANC and we will at all times make sure that everybody - irrespective of whether they are communists, capitalists or nationalists - finds the ANC as a home for them," he said, speaking on the sidelines of the ANC's national general council in Durban.

Manamela welcomed ANC president Jacob Zuma's political report in which he expressed concern about people in the movement who claimed to be "anti-communist" and "anti-nationalist".

"There has been some subtle mobilisation of people on the basis of whether they are communist or not and we find that extremely disruptive.

"A lot of people have invested their time, money, resources and lots of them, even their lives, into having the ANC where it is today and some of those who were in the forefront were communists so now that we are in the Garden of Eden people want to isolate communists and I don’t think that should happen," Manamela said.

Loyalty

The league was also pleased with Zuma highlighting the importance of the branch in his report. Zuma reminded ANC leaders that their loyalty must always lie with the ordinary member of the party.

"There is no individual more powerful than the structures of the ANC or the alliance. And we hope that most of those things would be followed up by structures of the alliance, structures of the ANC," Manamela said.

The YCL secretary was recently shouted down at an ANCYL gathering as he attempted to deliver a message of support for the ANC's youth wing.

This was largely seen as revenge for the booing of the league president Julius Malema at an SA Communist Party conference last year.

Manamela said the incident was "water under the bridge".

"We hope that those doing it for self satisfaction are now satisfied and there would no longer be such acts between the ANCYL and the YCL.

"We are hoping for better engagement after the NGC," he said. He further welcomed Zuma's comments on the recent happenings at youth league provincial conferences - many were marred by factional battles, ill-discipline and even violence.

"We as the YCL were also worried about things happening in the ANCYL where conferences were disrupted and all of that because all those things may ultimately come into the YCL. We are quite happy with the president's leadership on that."

Zuma took a hard line on discipline in his report on Monday, singling out the youth league in particular and calling for a return of "revolutionary discipline".

- SAPA