The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has written to the African National Congress (ANC) to complain about the ”leaking and twisting” of discussions at its lekgotla (meeting) over the weekend.
Cosatu disapproved of the use of the media, by some, to fight internal battles, spokesperson Patrick Craven said on Thursday.
A delegation reportedly threatened to walk out of the meeting after ANC national executive committee member Jabu Moleketi instructed Cosatu to abandon attempts to turn the ruling party into a socialist party.
”Cosatu reaffirms its strong condemnation of this counter-revolutionary practise and in particular the way in which those who leaked the information deliberately misinformed the public,” Craven said in a statement.
Debates on differences will always be part of any alliance, but the use of the media in a deliberate political ploy will only distort the kind of robust interaction necessary and put everyone on the defensive.
”It robs all parties involved of an equal chance to engage in a public discourse.”
Craven said ANC leaders, like anyone else, have the right to disagree with Cosatu positions and to argue their case.
The issue at the lekgotla was over how this was done. President Thabo Mbeki had himself noted that labels and insults do not promote comradely debates.
Denying that Cosatu is trying to turn the ANC into a socialist organisation, Craven said the ANC is a liberation movement that has communists, socialists and capitalists within its ranks.
”It remains our standard practice not to engage in debates instigated by anonymous sources and not to dignify this practice of leaking and twisting information with comments,” he said.
It is doing so in this instance, however, because the information is in the public domain.
Condemning the vote
Meanwhile, Cosatu on Thursday said that South Africa should have condemned Burma’s military regime and supported a call for sanctions against it.
It joined others who have criticised the country using its inaugural vote at the United Nations Security Council earlier in January to vote against a resolution demanding an end to human rights abuses in Burma.
The government explained its vote by saying that the matter fell outside the mandate of the Security Council and properly belonged to the UN Human Rights Council.
It said it was voting the way it did to point out procedural problems.
Over the weekend, the African National Congress (ANC) lekgotla (meeting) endorsed the government’s position.
Cosatu, one of the ANC’s alliance partners, joined Archbishop Desmond Tutu, several opposition parties and others in condemning the vote.
Cosatu cited several examples of ”flagrant contravention of human rights as well as international and domestic law” in Burma.
”Cosatu will continue to work closely with the International Trade Union Confederation to end the [Burma] regime’s use of forced labour and its brutal suppression of human rights, and will campaign in solidarity with the people of the country in their struggle to bring about genuine democratic transformation,” the federation said. — Sapa