The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) was not responding to any form of pressure in condemning the Young Communist League (YCL) for calling President Thabo Mbeki a dictator, the league said on Monday.
”The ANC did not pressure us to issue a statement condemning the YCL,” the organisation said in a statement.
ANCYL was responding to weekend reports by the City Press that its president, Fikile Mbalula, initially resisted calls by Smuts Ngonyama and other ANC leaders to condemn the YCL.
”The league is perturbed by reports carried by the City Press.
”These reports are malicious and devoid of any truth, and only seek to trivialise important issues raised by the ANCYL in this regard.”
The ANCYL said it had not hesitated in the past to voice its differences with the YCL ”on matters that affect our movement”.
”It is therefore incorrect to insinuate that the ANCYL was responding to any form of pressure in condemning the name-calling that has come to characterise latter-day engagements within the alliance.”
The youth league believed that allowing crucial debates to degenerate to mudslinging and name-calling detracted the leaders from the critical task of engaging in pressing national issues.
”In calling for rational engagement within the tripartite alliance, we stated that we believe that leaders of the ANC, South African Communist Party and Congress of South African Trade Unions should at all times take caution when debating matters of difference, because the alliance is larger than all of us, and that personalising differences only harms the cause of the alliance.”
The league said it was rather unfortunate that the City Press chose to ”sensationalise such an important matter rather than appreciate our call for a robust engagement characterised by maturity in our approach to differences within the ANC and the alliance”.
As a leader and a political home to South Africa’s youth, the league did not need anybody’s permission to think and engage on issues, it said.
”It is in this regard that we find the undertones of the City Press article insulting”. — Sapa