Publications
Partners
Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans' Association (MKMVA) spokesperson Carl Niehaus has hit back at the ANC's head of elections, Fikile Mbalula, describing him as a "somewhat volatile" member of the ANC leadership.
Niehaus said in a statement that Mbalula had unnecessarily caused controversy around his attendance at a special imbizo called by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini this week.
Mbalula lashed out at Niehaus on Thursday, saying he was representing his "own jacket" and "erupted like a volcano" when he took to the stage at the imbizo and apologised for former president Kgalema Motlanthe's comments. In May the former president likened traditional leaders to "tin-pot dictators" because of the power they wielded over land.
READ: Mbalula rips Carl Niehaus apart for speaking on behalf of ANC at Zulu imbizo
In a statement issued on Friday Niehaus said Mbalula must learn not "to allow journalists with their own anti-ANC agendas to excite" him.
"This is the comradely advice that I would like to give to my younger brother in the struggle, comrade Fikile Mbalula. I do so respecting him as my leader by virtue of his membership of the national executive committee of the ANC, and acknowledging him as a talented, though somewhat volatile, member of the ANC leadership collective," Niehaus said.
He clarified that he never claimed to be speaking on behalf of the ANC or MKMVA at the event. He said instead he had found it necessary to clarify that the ANC had never accepted recommendations of the high-level parliamentary panel led by Motlanthe for the Ingonyama Trust to be dissolved.
ANC treading cautiously
"I did express my dismay with the very unfortunate remarks of comrade Kgalema Motlanthe when he said that traditional leaders behave like 'tin-pot dictators' and personally apologised.
"I did so because I believe that these remarks were ill-conceived and poison the atmosphere in which the ANC, Bayete (the king) and his amakhosi have to engage as a matter of urgency with regards to the expropriation of land without compensation in general, and in this context specifically to the Ingonyama Trust," Niehaus said.
The ANC has adopted a cautious approach on the controversial matter, saying it has formulated no view that is either in favour of or against calls for the Ingonyama Trust Act to be repealed.
READ MORE: EFF, Contralesa defend Zulu King's special land imbizo
Niehaus said focus should be on the return to black people of the more than 70% of land still owned by whites. He claimed that the bickering between black Africans was a "deliberate intention of the current white owners of the land".
"It is a diversion, and very wrong, to concentrate on the small pockets of land (less than 30%), currently owned, and under the control of black South Africans, including the Ingonyama Trust."
He also said it was a waste of "valuable time, resources and goodwill for black South Africans to bicker among themselves and lose focus [on] the critical challenge which must be speedy and effective expropriation of white-owned land without compensation".
