EFF hits out at media, accusing ‘Stratcom’ of making them look ‘small in numbers’

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) released a statement about their five rallies held over the weekend in Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal.

The statement begins as a love letter to the party’s commander-in-chief, Julius Malema, described as “hardworking, revolutionary, and fire-eater”, but descends into an attack on the South African media, described as “Stratcom”.

Malema spoke to over 80,000 people over the weekend, and addressed all the party’s rallies with “equal energy, determination, and passion”.

“We salute him and call on our fighters to emulate his work,” the statement says.

Turning its attention to “Stratcom”, the statement alleges that a war is being waged against the party by journalists who “refuse to cover our events in an effort to hide the success of the growth of EFF, so as to create an impression that we are small in numbers”.

According to the EFF, the media’s “pens continue to lie, misrepresent, and misinform society” about who the party is.

The statement says the only way to “defeat” the media is through “total commitment, day by day, on the ground”.

READ MORE: EFF given a week to prove ‘apartheid-era Stratcom spies’ allegation

“We must continue to speak to more people in a single day than the whole media combined,” the statement concludes.

Stratcom was a group within the apartheid government that was specifically tasked to create and carry out disinformation campaigns.

The term has since been adopted by the party as a term to refer to the media as a whole, which the party believes is biased against them and serves white interests.

The EFF launched accusations against two journalists last year, Thandeka Gqubule and Anton Harber, after Winnie Madikizela-Mandela mentioned them in an interview, saying they “actually did the job for Stratcom”.

This led to the EFF issuing a statement accusing the two journalists of being Stratcom spies, which led to the party being taken to court, which resulted in an order calling on the party to prove the accusations or withdraw them within a week.

While the EFF said they had simply repeated what Madikizela-Mandela said, Gqubule and Harber believed the party had a case to answer for, particularly since Madikizela-Mandela herself had never actually alleged that they were spies or on the payroll of the apartheid government. She was probably implying that, from her perspective, they had unwittingly been duped into spreading a narrative that suited the apartheid state.

(Background reporting, Vhahangwele Nemakonde)

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