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- The ANC Veterans' League said it was available should former president Jacob Zuma need persuasion to appear before the state capture inquiry.
- The veterans' league had a national executive committee meeting last week in which it discussed a number of issues.
- The league said ANC members should co-operate with the inquiry in line with the party's directives.
ANC Veterans' League president Snuki Zikalala has said it was prepared to help persuade former president Jacob Zuma to appear in front of the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture.
"I don't know how much more persuasion he needs, but if there's a need, the veterans are prepared to go and have tea with him and ask him politely," he told News24.
On Friday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Zuma might yet be persuaded to appear in front of the commission, and that he viewed this as a process.
In a statement last week, Zuma said he believed there would be a conflict of interest if he appeared before Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo who has a child with a sister of one of Zuma's wives.
ALSO READ | Ramaphosa: Zuma could yet be persuaded to change his mind about Zondo Commission
The veterans - who are aligned with Ramaphosa's leadership - issued a statement on Monday following their national executive meeting, saying it supported the implementation of the ANC's 2017 conference resolution that party members charged with corruption should step aside.
According to the statement:
They expressed their support for the ANC position that its members should "co-operate fully with the commission", but did not mention Zuma by name. Zikalala said this was "deliberate, and not to divide the ANCVL".
The veterans, however, said they would invite Zuma, as well as former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe to a series of unity and renewal workshops, and a conference. They undertook to organise this at their last meeting in November.
The statement does not give any date for these, which will be organised together with the office of the secretary-general of the ANC, the ANC Women's League and the National Youth Task Team.
The veterans said they "will not tolerate factionalism and will at all times sharply and positively raise issues that affect the moral standing of our glorious movement in society, and ensure that we restore trust in the ANC".
"We dare not fail those who contributed immensely to our struggle for liberation. This is for the sake of our future."
Meanwhile the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association said in a statement issued by spokesperson Carl Niehaus that the Constitutional Court ruling which said he should appear before the Zondo Commision took away "his right to remain silent and not incriminate himself".
The court previously ruled that Zuma did not have a right to remain silent but he had the privilege not to incriminate himself, "but it must be informed by sufficient grounds".
Niehaus said the MKMVA would visit Zuma on Thursday at lunch time, as part of its programme of "visiting the older generation of comrades of MK".
Zuma, as its patron-in-chief, is the first person MKMVA would be visiting.
The visit is also part of a decision in which the MKMVA NEC would visit Zuma "and pledge our support to him in the face of the constant attacks that he is being subjected to," according to a statement. "There is no doubt in our minds that President Zuma is deliberately targeted, and treated extremely badly."
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