Economic Freedom Fighters leaders Julius Malema and Leigh-Ann Mathys represented their party in paying their last respects to late Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe at his house on Monday. The party’s official account shared the pictures on social media with captions.
“The CIC @Julius_S_Malema together with TG @LeighMathys visited Mama Grace Mugabe in Harare, Zimbabwe today to offer EFF condolences on the passing of our Hero & Icon Robert Mugabe. #Gushungu #EFFAtBlueRoofThe EFF leadership, led by CIC @Julius_S_Malema also had lunch with the Mugabe family on their visit to pay respects & pass condolences. We reiterate our heartfelt and revolutionary condolences on the passing of our Hero & Pan-Africanist Robert Mugabe. #EFFAtBlueRoof #Gushungu.”
Mugabe passed on earlier this month at a hospital in Singapore after battling cancer, according to President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Last week, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said it planned to take action against Malema for his “social media utterances” in which he extensively quoted Mugabe following his passing.
The body was referring to tweets from Malema consisting of an EFF-branded slide show of quotes from Mugabe, including one which read: “The only white man you can trust is a dead white man.” This caused outrage and calls for intervention from the SAHRC.
Other quotes included: “What we hate is not the colour of their skin but the evil that emanates from them”; “It may be necessary to use methods other than constitutional ones”; and “Our party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy.”
READ MORE: Malema causes outrage with Mugabe’s advice to ‘only trust a dead white man’
Amid mounting outrage, Malema took to Twitter to share a screenshot showing that someone had reported the tweet, and that Twitter “could not identify any violations of the Twitter rules”. He shared this along with the caption “Stratcom”, which was once an apartheid-era unit tasked with spreading misinformation and is now used which by the EFF and others as a term for members of the media that they see as enemies.
The quote was indeed said by Mugabe and was included in a list of his “most eccentric quotes” in UK publication The Independent, which also quotes the late liberation icon-turned-dictator as infamously saying homosexuals are “worse than dogs and pigs”.
EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi ignored requests for comment.
Read more: Mnangagwa reveals cause of Mugabe’s death
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