Plan to dissolve MK veterans
RESISTANCE: BUT RIVAL MK COUNCIL KEEN FOR TALKS
An ANC committee tasked with merging council, military
and then take the issue to the national executive committee (NEC), the ANC’s highest decision-making body between conferences.
The association’s chairperson Kebby Maphatsoe yesterday confirmed that they had just come back from the NWC gathering to make representation around the disbandment.
He said his association was opposed to the peace and stability subcommittee’s recommendation that they must disband.
“Comrades are not in favour of the disbandment, we are not convinced with the reasoning put forward for the proposed disbandment of MKMVA,” Maphatsoe said. “We don’t want to comment further because the NWC and the NEC are going to engage on this issue, let’s wait for them to decide. We don’t know what the NWC will recommend.”
Under Maphatsoe’s leadership, the association was seen as siding with the Jacob Zuma faction and frequently defended him from critics who demanded for his resignation.
Maphatsoe was accused of recruiting youth that he allegedly turned into military veterans despite many of them aged about 30 years with no combat experience.
On the other hand, an MK Council source said they were in favour of the MKMVA disbandment. He said the council leaders such as its chairperson, General Siphiwe Nyanda and his deputy, Thabang Makwetla, recognised the fact that MK Council was not an ANC’s constitutional structure and that the veterans’ association was a recognised structure. The council avoided making public statements that would jeopardise the merger or unity talks.
The source said: “They [MK Council] cannot talk about this matter because the issue is before the NWC, they don’t want to jeopardise the unity process.
“Even Kebby [Maphatsoe] and his people were told not to make any media or public statements around this issue, but he continues to talk because the MKMVA wants to rubbish this process.
“We welcome the recommendation that both MKMVA and MK Council must be dissolved and that senior veterans of MK [uMkhonto weSizwe] and the NEC must oversee the election of a new single structure. The future MK veterans structure must reflect the former MK detachments that were established in exile.”
The process would not end with the establishment of a MK veterans structure, but ensuring that the right and former members of MK benefited from the military pensions from the Department of Defence and Military veterans. “The department wants to clean the veterans’ database because it is contaminated with nonMK people who were brought in by Kebby himself,” said the source. –