The second chamber of South Africa’s Parliament, the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), was to meet later on Tuesday to pass a resolution that backtracks on one passed by the chamber last week — “which regrets the refusal of the president to address the serious crime of rape in our country and to acknowledge the suffering of women and children who are attacked on a daily basis”.
The motion, moved by Democratic Alliance MP Juanita Terblanche on October 26, noted that on Monday October 18, a 60-year-old resident of Potchefstroom was raped and had to wait for two hours before she was examined by a district surgeon.
Her motion — agreed to by members of all parties — condemned this and other acts of violence against women and children, and included the paragraph referring to President Thabo Mbeki, which is now being withdrawn.
In the National Assembly on Tuesday afternoon, DA whip Mike Ellis said the ruling African National Congress “has placed itself in an embarrassing position”.
He proposed that the National Assembly support the statement contained in the NCOP motion and “congratulates the NCOP for passing the motion”.
“Now President Mbeki is doing his impersonation of a very heavy-handed [former apartheid-era president] PW Botha and is demanding that the NCOP retract the motion. Ever-obedient, the ANC is convening a special plenary of the House while on its outreach programme in KwaZulu-Natal, so that they can comply with the president’s demand.”
Governing-party whip Andries Nel asked Ellis if he could substantiate the claim that the president had intervened. His words were: “Can the Member [of Parliament] substantiate that the president demanded that?”
Ellis said, however, Mbeki “has allegedly threatened not to attend Friday’s sitting of the NCOP, where he is due to address them, unless that House retracts. And so, once again, the victims of rape and sexual violence are betrayed by the ANC as it scrambles to correct a ‘slip’ it made because its members were not paying attention”.
Two weeks ago, Mbeki declined to debate the issue of the connection between the spread of HIV/Aids and rape — accusing his detractors of being motivated by racism.
The chief whip of the NCOP — an ANC member — has put forward a resolution that amends the original motion. It deletes the reference to the president and substitutes the wording that the council “condemns the horrific rape and subsequent neglect of some rape victims in the strongest possible terms”.
In an act of praise of South Africa’s ruler, it proposes that the NCOP “believes the results of the 2004 elections are testimony to the people’s support and confidence that the South African government led by President Mbeki is on the right path and will further enhance the quality of the lives of our people.
It also seeks to reaffirm “the unwavering support and confidence of the House [the NCOP] in the leadership of the president of the republic, Mr Thabo Mbeki”. — I-Net Bridge