MK fighters smoke peace pipe
ANC recommends they mend fences
The spat which has been playing out in public between the ANC’s former army leaders has now been laid to rest.
The leaders had been split between Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) and the MK National Council.
The ANC’s national executive committee has recommend the two structures find common ground for the sake of “unity”.
The MKMVA, a once staunch supporter of former president Jacob Zuma, is singing a different tune now that Cyril Ramaphosa is the governing party president.
They had openly backed Ramaphosa’s main rival, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who narrowly lost the presidency race at the December elective conference.
“We have been saying as MKMVA that we don’t understand why when we are so few, we are divided and what is it that is dividing us as MKMVA community,” said MKMVA leader Kebby Maphatsoe.
The MKMVA and the MK National Council have over the past year been taking jabs at each other over their legitimacy, prompting some members of the MK National Council to abandon the MKMVA conference in June last year.
Zuma had endorsed the conference in Boksburg, but others at the party’s headquarters wanted a more representative structure. Maphatsoe has on various platforms criticised the existence of the MK National Council, labelling it a “parallel structure”.
He has further lambasted senior leaders including Paul Mashatile for addressing the MK National Council assembly, claiming such attendances were divisive.
“You may be surprised, when we meet in meetings, you will never see those differences… we are comrades, we are one family,” Maphatsoe told Sowetan. “So our priority is to ensure that the welfare of our comrades must be addressed as a matter of urgency, and therefore we cannot be divided as MKMVA and MK National Council.”
Meanwhile, spokesperson for the MK National Council, Ike Moere, said although unity was sacrosanct for the former soldiers, common ground was still a hurdle between them.
“I don’t want to enter into a public spat with comrade Kebby Maphatsoe, but the fact of the matter is that the organisations of military veterans are unable to constructively emerge as a united force and serve a purpose they are meant to serve,” said Moere.
He, however, welcomed the decision by the ANC sub-committee on peace and stability to urgently form a joint task team to take the MKMVA and the MK National Council to a representative conference after elections, stating that they would cooperate with Maphatsoe despite their differences.
According to the constitution of the ANC, the MKMVA is the only recognised structure between the two.