The state would not allow anybody to impose minority views through extra-legal and unconstitutional means, including some traditional leaders who were threatening bloodshed because they were opposed to a controversial new land right bill, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.
Reacting to this week’s bomb blasts in Gauteng, the president noted that since the democratic elections in 1994, there were those in South Africa who occasionally made threats that if their demands were not met, they would resort to force to dictate to the country to carry out their wishes.
In a hard-hitting letter in the online publication, ANC Today, Mbeki said: ”The matter must however be made abundantly clear that the democratic order will not submit to threats of this kind.”
Referring to the Communal Land Rights Bill which had been published for public comment and discussion, he said this followed an earlier national and inclusive consultation process.
Once tabled in Parliament, the public would still be able to make further representations. Despite this, and instead of making constructive proposals as they may see fit, a recent meeting of some traditional leaders once more resorted to the kind of threat that lead to the criminal actions that were witnessed in Soweto and Bronkhorstspruit, he said.
The leaders, while calling for the bill to be withdrawn and scrapped, said it was likely to be the cause of bloodshed in rural areas and it would promote faction fighting.
Mbeki condemned what he described as the ”open threat against the lives of innocent South Africans” made by ”people who belong among the constitutional and legal structures of our system of governance”.
He noted that those who occupied positions in these structures were, like others in other public institutions, maintained through the public purse.
”They, too, like everybody else serving in our system of governance, have an obligation to protect our constitutional and legal order and to contribute to the safety and security of all our citizens as well as our country’s stability.
”Instead, they have taken it upon themselves to obstruct the process of democratic consultation and to block the prospect of land reform … by threatening that people will be killed if such land reform is carried out in a manner provided for by such legislation …”
Mbeki warned that if anybody tried to use force to subvert the implementation of the legislation, ”the law will take its course without fear or favour”.
”It would be expected that the traditional leaders, who are part of our system of governance, would assist our law enforcement agencies fully and without reservation.”
The government would not allow anybody to arrogate the right to themselves to reverse the victory of peace ”our country and people achieved at a high cost in terms of loss in human lives and injury to very many”.
Another objective of the liberation struggle was to end the division of South Africans into hostile and mutually antagonistic racial and ethnic groups.
”However, it is clear that there is still a small minority in our society, which yearns for a return to the days of antagonistic racial and ethnic divisions that once tore our country apart.”
Mbeki repeated that the overwhelming majority of South Africans, both black and white, rejected this perspective and would not be forced to accept it through bombing campaigns or threats of bloodshed.
On this weeks bomb blasts, the president repeated comments he made during a press conference in Cape Town on Wednesday. – Sapa