The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) will discuss at a meeting on Monday how to deal with trade unionist leader Zwelinzima Vavi’s ”kill for Zuma” remarks, a spokesperson said.
”The commissioners are going to meet today [Monday] and of course this one will be high on the agenda,” said SAHRC spokesperson Vincent Moaga, referring to the comments by Vavi on Saturday.
Vavi echoed a statement by African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, who has said its members were ”prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma”.
”Because [ANC president] Jacob Zuma is one of us, and he is one of our leaders, for him, we are prepared to lay our lives (sic) and to shoot and kill,” Vavi said at the funeral of the Police and Prisons’ Civil Rights Union’s vice-president Pretty Shuping on Saturday.
On Wednesday, the commission gave Malema 14 days to retract the remarks he made at a Free State rally on Youth Day on June 16, when he said: ”We are prepared to die for Zuma … we are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma.”
If Malema failed to respond, the commission would take the matter further ”in line with its constitutional mandate”, Moaga said.
Malema has refused to apologise, saying he did not mean the words literally and that the media had distorted his statement.
Moaga said it was too early to say if anyone had laid a complaint against Vavi.
”It is possible that people will phone in today [Monday]; the day has just started,” he said. – Sapa