KANYAMAZANE – The memorial lecture meant to honour struggle stalwarts, Joe Slovo and Jimmy Mohlala, nearly turned into a bloodbath at the local community hall when warring factions of the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP), got into a serious scuffle.
The drama unfolded on Friday when the leadership of the SACP was called into a meeting by the ANC Regional Executive Committee (REC), to discuss speakers for the lecture.
Secretary of the SACP of Phillip
Hadebe district and host for the lecture, Mr Bobert Nkosi said,
“In the meeting that we attended with the REC, they indicated their dissatisfaction with both speakers, Dr Mathews Phosa and SACP provincial secretary, Mr Bonakele Majuba. They informed us that wouldn’t be a part of it all. They rightly told us that both speakers were anti the premier, Mr DD Mabuza.”
Nkosi said the ANC’s behaviour on Sunday did not come as a surprise as it had been warned that if it insisted on continuing to feature the two speakers, “something would happen”.
Members of the SACP were beaten by those of the national party, and Nkosi said they were going to investigate the matter.
“While we were busy with accreditations and registrations, some ANC members arrived as they had been invited. They then pushed the gate and that’s when things started going wrong. We are sure that our members were attacked by ANC members and we know the people who did that because as the Alliance of the ANC, we know one another within the organisation,” he concluded.
Mpumalanga News tried several times to contact the ANC’s regional secretary,
Mr Phazamisa Mathe to get its side of the story, but efforts proved fruitless.
