At the launch of the Economic Freedom Fighters
Economic Freedom Fighters' leader Julius Malema made said in a letter published on Politicsweb this week that ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa's warning of a return of the "boers" into power as a campaigning tool shows his hypocrisy.
He said the term during the struggle referred to the repressive, violent and racist apartheid system, but that Ramaphosa used the term to "hoodwink and mislead".
ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa urged residents in Seshogo, Limpopo, to vote to prevent the "boers" from "coming back to control us", the Star reported on Monday.
He later said he had used the word to refer to the apartheid regime and that it was unfortunate his statement had caused offence.
Malema said the country should reject Ramaphosa's hypocrisy because he was a "new boer".
"To this day the workers have not been given R12 500, and Cyril Ramaphosa is benefiting from the blood and sweat of these workers as a director of London Mine [Lonmin]," he wrote in his letter.
He was referring to the R12 500 a month basic salary demanded by workers at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine during their strike in August last year. In the ensuing unrest, 44 people were killed – 34 in a clash with police on August 16; and 10 people, including two policemen and two security guards, in the preceding week.
The dominant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union lowered its wage increase demand this week.
'Hypocrisy'
Malema said Ramaphosa had underestimated the political understanding and intellligence of people in Seshogo, Limpopo and South Africa as a whole.
"The people of South Africa are not fools who will be frightened by such sentiments, because they know that today the real enemy for economic freedom, or even all sorts of freedom are people like Cyril Ramaphosa, amabhuna amnyama [a black boer]," he said. "The characteristics that defined the 'boers' are the same characteristics that define Cyril Ramaphosa today."
Apartheid was "racial capitalism", he said, which subjugated blacks and Africans. "South African capitalism is like cappuccino, where the darker version of it is on top, while the white essence and deeper version of it is the majority and core of what cappuccino is," he said.
"South Africa's capitalism uses few blacks to justify its continued existence and exploitation of the people of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa is part of those who are fronted by white monopoly capital to continue exploiting South Africans in the same way they were exploited under apartheid."
Malema said the only alternative was to vote for the EFF, which, according to him, would emancipate the masses from exploitation and oppression.
"EFF government will not prevent workers who demand R12 500 per month salary; instead, we will make sure that such is the minimum wage for all workers," he said in the letter. – Additional reporting by Sapa