WATCH: Malema tells Eldorado Park residents all races were ‘oppressed the same’ under apartheid (video)

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema drew on shared historic oppression to highlight a need for unity in his address to Eldorado Park residents on Wednesday.

The EFF leader was speaking to a crowd of residents in the Soweto suburb during a leg of the party’s manifesto town hall meetings, where he also accused police of perpetuating crime in the area.

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WATCH: ‘We have no problem with white people’ − Malema (VIDEO)

Products of oppression

“Eldorado Park, we all know, is part of all the racist areas that were created by a racist Group Areas Act that said coloureds must go this side, Africans this side, Indians this side,” Malema, decked casually in a black shirt and tracksuit with a red EFF cap, gestured to the crowd.

“They wanted to divide us and not allow us to see ourselves as one thing. They did so in the 50s and they said ‘you are coloured, I’m an African, he’s an Indian’. But we are all oppressed.

“Why when we are different, we are oppressed the same? So it means standing here, it’s not an African, it’s a coloured, because ‘coloured’ means oppressed. ‘Black’ means oppressed. ‘Indian’ means oppressed, and we are all the products of oppression and we must never see each other through the colour of our skin. We must see ourselves through the conditions we live in.

“My children and your children are born into unemployment.”

Criminals ‘work with police’ in Eldorado Park

“We are for everyone as the EFF. We just don’t want racists [and] we don’t like drug lords,” Malema added.

“The drug lords here in Eldorado Park work with [Police Minister] Bheki Cele’s police. They distribute drugs through the police vans and they are protected by the police.”

This drew cheers of affirmation from the crowd.

“We have established a special unit for the first time under Metro Police, under the EFF MMC [Public Safety MMC Mgcini Tshwaku], a special task-force that goes around fighting dangerous criminals.

“It was here last night where we are fighting toe for toe against drug lords where we went to liberate a lady that was kidnapped. Two weeks, police could not find that person.”

ALSO READ: Shock over pupil stabbing at Eldorado Park school

He said the MMC was with the taskforce on the ground at the time the woman was rescued.

“We are going to fight criminals here in Eldorado Park, in Orange Farm, in Sebokeng, in Soweto, Mamelodi, and everywhere in Gauteng because criminals have taken over our towns and our townships. We need to reclaim those places.”

Malema also called for the establishment of sports ground in townships so that children could have an alternative to drugs.