Chris Barron

What do you mean by saying you're not calling for the slaughter of white people yet? I mean exactly that. That at some point you might call for the slaughter of white people? No, I’m not responsible for your interpretation. I never said that, I will never say that. We will never drive whites into the sea. We need them. So why do you say that? Because I can. Isn’t it incitement? It’s not incitement, it’s political free speech. We’re not going to have a situation where whites become sensitive and because of their sensitivity we must suppress free political speech. We don’t need crybabies here. I’m not calling for the slaughter of white people. Black people were slaughtered in a genocide during the wars of dispossession . . . Can you hold whites today responsible for that? They are responsible. But you’re not calling for them to be slaughtered yet? I’m calling for the land question to be resolved peacefully. If it is not it will leave no room but for violence. So they won’t be slaughtered as long as they hand over their land? There must be a resolution of the land [question] to avoid the possibility of violence. This must be done in a manner which will not cause instability, not cause economic disaster and not cause loss of life. So you’re not threatening a race war? No, I will never do that. Is this your way of promoting interracial harmony? I’m not in the business of promoting those things. I’m in the business of returning the land to the people. Doesn’t most of the land belong to the state? I’m not talking about unoccupied land. We are calling for the transfer of occupied and unoccupied land into the hands of the people. What happens if a white farmer doesn’t want to hand over his land? We need to amend the constitution and have the power to expropriate the land without compensation And until then? We will continue to put pressure on the state through the occupation of unoccupied land, until it comes up with a mechanism to solve the issue. Do you support students wearing T-shirts and waving slogans saying ‘f*** whites’, ‘kill whites’? No, that’s madness. That is not our policy, we don’t support that. What is your agenda with the student protests? Our agenda is that there must be free education, peaceful protest. So you don’t support the violence? I don’t. The police are provoking our people. The police are violent. They are the ones instigating this violence. What is your connection with the EFF Students’ Command? They report to us. We are aware of their activities and we support them wholeheartedly. Do you give them instructions? No. From time to time they come and say: “We have shut down so many universities, so many people have been arrested and need financial support and legal representatives.” And we encourage them to continue the fight for free education. Is it your agenda to shut down universities? Our agenda is free education, no shutdown. We want the poor masses to have access to tertiary education. Hasn’t the government committed to free education for the poor? That is not enough. When you say free education for the poor and not for everyone else you are leaving it to some admin people to decide who is poor and who is not poor. Is your agenda to create anarchy? Call it anything you want. To us it resembles what happened during apartheid. There is nothing anarchic about it. Burning buildings, libraries, computer labs . . . ? That is a sideshow. The main focus is on #FeesMustFall. There are isolated incidents [by] agents provocateurs. Wearing red? We will never be ashamed of them, that’s why we are bailing them, getting them lawyers. Why don’t you stop them from burning buildings and libraries? I can’t stop people I never instructed to do this. All I can do is condemn it. But you say the EFF Students’ Command answers to you? It’s not the EFF Students’ Command that burns libraries. You have no evidence. Is it your agenda to use #FeesMustFall to bring the ANC to its knees? My agenda is to collapse the ANC. We want them on their knees, we want them out of the game. Using #FeesMustFall? We use free education, we use RDP houses, lack of service delivery, unemployment Do you want the ANC to come crawling to you to allow universities to resume? I don’t want them crawling to me, but it’s not a secret I want to be a government of South Africa. It’s why we contest elections. To win power.