DEMOCRATIC Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon has led a chorus of protest calling on President Thabo Mbeki to censure Public Safety Minister Steve Tshwete for a “vitriolic and extreme attack” on the Portuguese community regarding an anti-crime memorandum sent to the President.
Leon described Tshwete’s hard-hitting response to the group’s memorandum, handed over after a 12_000-strong march on Union Buildings in November last year, as “vicious invective against all Portuguese-speaking people in South Africa”.
The memorandum was from “the Portuguese community” protesting crime levels.
Noting that the minister did not address the issue of crime in his five-page reply, Leon said: “Worst of all, Tshwete issues a direct threat to the organisers of the march with the words ‘the masses need to know about your view of their government. We will therefore take the necessary steps to inform them’.”
The Benoni-based organisation – Crime Awareness Campaign – made Tshwete’s letter available to the DA.
Shelley Loe, MPL and DA member for public safety, said the memorandum had been strongly worded but nevertheless was a sincere attempt from ordinary citizens to get answers to the crime situation.
The memorandum had said: “Our government simply does not have the political will to implement the same measures which have been successfully deployed in other countries to combat crime and corruption. Why is the government incapable of enforcing the laws of the country to ensure all the citizens of their constitutional rights of safety and security in their daily lives?” it added.
Tshwete, in his responding letter, said many members of the Portuguese community in the country now had come to South Africa “because they knew that the colour of their skin would entitle them to join the ‘master race’ to participate in the exploitation of the black majority and to enjoy the benefits of white minority domination”.
He said the memorandum showed contempt for the Presidency and noted that the Portuguese community had never spoken out against the criminality of apartheid.
However, Leon said that if Mbeki was sincere about his intention to build on the threads that bind all South Africans, as he stated in his opening address to Parliament this week, he must publicly distance himself from Tshwete’s “divisive and self-defeating remarks”.
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