/ 18 June 2003

Leon accuses Mbeki of race-based politics

Under President Thabo Mbeki’s watch, South Africa had moved from the politics of the rainbow nation and reconciliation to the politics of race-labelling and race-baiting — including over the arms deal, Zimbabwe and HIV/Aids, argued official opposition leader Tony Leon on Wednesday.

Responding to the president — who launched his budget vote debate in the National Assembly on Wednesday afternoon — the Democratic Alliance (DA) leader said Mbeki “must start to lead by example. For when the leader of this country uses racism in order to silence his political opponents, he re-ignited the fires of hatred and despair that South Africa has worked so hard to extinguish”.

Citing former Rand Daily Mail editor Allister Sparks’s book Beyond the Miracle, Leon quoted the president as saying recently: “The reason Zimbabwe is such a preoccupation here, in the UK in the US and in Sweden, is because white people died and white people were deprived of their property… all they say is Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe.”

Leon said it was certainly true that “some people, both black and white, have viewed events in Zimbabwe through a racist lens … but if that explains why some people are making a noise, it does not tell us why the president himself is so quiet”.

“Why is he quiet about Africans, black and white, who are being dispossessed of their property. Why is he quiet about the black leader of the opposition in Zimbabwe [Morgan Tsvangirai] who is deprived of his liberty [jailed on a charge of treason]?”

“Why is he so quiet when it was reported in the latest edition of African Confidential that your minister of foreign affairs [Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma] said of … Tsvangirai: ‘Let him take his medicine’?” asked Leon.

Referring to HIV/Aids, Leon said this was not a black and white issue — “it is a matter of life and death”. Altogether 35 000 South African children died in 2001 because Mbeki “refused to give them the nevirapine that would have saved their lives at the cost of a few rand”.

In addition Mbeki “flamed” — which Leon defined as a barrage of inflammatory, hostile or derogatory messages — those who questioned the African National Congress government’s “corrupt arms deal and his possible involvement in editing the auditor general’s report”.

Rather than addressing the evidence, charged Leon, the president claimed that those who have questioned the government’s conduct are “determined to prove everything in the anti-African stereotype”.

Mbeki did not refer to HIV/Aids directly on Wednesday or to the arms deal. He referred fleetingly to Zimbabwe by saying of the instability there: “I am certain that the people of Zimbabwe will find a solution to their problems.”

Referring to South Africa’s capacity as chair of the African Union, Mbeki said South Africa had been called to attend to important matters of peace and security on the continent “always working with other leaders as well as regional structures”. – I-Net Bridge