EFF leader Julius Malema.
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has accused former presidents of South Africa of enabling the “white arrogance” that led to a police vehicle being set alight outside Senekal Magistrate’s Court in the Free State where suspects in the murder of farm manager Brendin Horner appeared last week.
The suspects will appear again on Friday, and the EFF will be there to ensure no state property gets damaged again, Malema told Newzroom Afrika host Xoli Mngambi during an interview on Thursday.
“We are not going to Senekal to sympathise with a thug. We are going there to protect our democracy and Constitution which is under threat by racist, terrorist farmers who go and attack a court of law – storm a court of law and chase police around. That’s a declaration of those who are against the state,” he said.
Responding to a warning from former president Kgalema Motlanthe of a possible civil war should the EFF go to Senekal, Malema said: “So be it”, and he further blamed President Cyril Ramaphosa for “white arrogance”.
He said: “We’re in this mess because of people like him [Motlanthe]. We allowed whites to undermine us like that, you think we could listen to people like him? You think we could listen to [Thabo] Mbeki, [Jacob] Zuma, [Nelson] Mandela? We’ll never allow that. This nonsense must come to an end at some point.
“These whites should know that we’re not step-children in this country. This is our country, we too belong here. If going to Senekal will cause a civil war, and if a man exercises his constitutional right that will lead to a civil war, so be it. I’m not talking here from the comfort of my couch, I will be in Senekal myself. I’ll be leading from the front, do what you want to do.
“Why should we be scared of retired soldiers when we were not scared of them when they were soldiers, when they legitimately carried guns to kill black people. We confronted them with stones, let history repeat itself. We’re not going to live in fear here because we think white farmers are former generals, they can go to hell, murderers generals!”
Malema this week met with Police Minister Bheki Cele and, according to the EFF leader, things didn’t go quite well for the minister. The EFF leader said he told Cele that he too had allowed white arrogance because Ramaphosa enabled it.
“I told Bheki Cele that you’re scared of white people. There’s too much white arrogance here, you’ve allowed it…I said to the minister, your president, who’s adopted by a white family, has allowed these people to develop this arrogance and we’re not going to allow him or you through your actions to make white people to be arrogant and want to subject black people to humiliation, because once you humiliate police, you’re humiliating a black state and indirectly, you’re humiliating black people.”
Malema further refused to be drawn into a conversation about farm murders, saying there was no such thing in the law called farm murder.
“We send a message of condolences to all victims of murder in South Africa, including the farm manager. There is nothing in our law called farm murder. Murder is murder, it’s criminality and should be attended to as such.”
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