Don’t use Marikana as a political football

WITHOUT embroiling myself in the bitter and brutal “civil war” in the ANC, I want to raise four matters which did not appear to embarrass the party. The first is an attempt by Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to visit Marikana which backfired. She went there to remind us that the name of Cyril Ramaphosa was central in this massacre and not hers. Her visit lacked foresight.

The misery, flesh, bones and spirits of the deceased Marikana miners cannot be used as a football by any leader or political party.

Let’s say she had been allowed to lay a wreath – was she going to apologise for President Jacob Zuma presiding over a state that killed so many people, the first post-1994 massacre?

Why had she not visited the area before the Zuma and Gupta families appointed her the heir to President Jacob Zuma?

Why has she failed, with the Guptas and the Jacob Zuma Trust, to help the Aurora mineworkers left destitute by Khulubuse Zuma? The same Khulubuse who, after dumping these workers, bought his wife a Maserati.

The SACP did not commemorate this massacre, probably because it is supporting Cyril Ramaphosa, a billionaire, in his quest to be the next president. I do not doubt the capacity of Ramaphosa when compared to Dr Zuma, but I am raising an ideological question about him and the SACP. I am also not condoning the brutal killings of other workers by strikers.

Khulubuse and Ramaphosa have been compromised ideologically. Ramaphosa and Dr Zuma must go together to the Marikana and Aurora mineworkers if they are remorseful.

In the history of the National Union of Mineworkers, only Ramaphosa was not recruited by the SACP of Moses Kotana. Why? The SACP is not the political vanguard of only Cosatu members but of the entire working class.

Secondly, I am sure veterans and stalwarts of the ANC are embarrassed that The New Age of Ruth First, Govan Mbeki and Brian Bunting is owned and used by the Guptas and their proxy, Jimmy Manyi.

For TNA and ANN7 to survive, the public purse must be a “blesser”; hence this media is part of the faction supporting Dr Zuma. TNA was a mouthpiece of the oppressed, then a weapon of disunity in the congress movement.

Thirdly, there was no Zuma faction at the launch of the Ahmed Kathrada memorial site and this year’s remembrance of the United Democratic Front.

Fourthly, Sihle Zikalala was ill-advised to call advocate Thembela Ngcukaitobi a “counter-revolutionary” just for representing a faction opposed to him in the ANC matter in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

Any person who wants to win in court hires a brilliant, experienced and knowledgeable lawyer. SIYANDA MHLONGO

Kwadukuza