ANC KZN secretary general Super Zuma.
The ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal leadership has appointed its own teams to investigate the killing of its councillors, saying the current violence may be following a “similar pattern” to the state-sponsored “black-on-black” violence of the 1980s and 1990s.
Addressing a media briefing in Durban earlier today, ANC KwaZulu-Natal secretary general Super Zuma said they had appointed two teams from the provincial executive committee in response to the deaths.
One team would investigate the causes of the killings, including that of the ANC Youth League’s former secretary general, Sindiso Magaqa. Magaqa died on Monday after being shot in an ambush with two other Umzimkhulu municipal councillors in July.
The second team would move around the province’s troubled regions and conduct political education to preach tolerance and deal with the “hatred” among ANC members.
Zuma said that although some of the recent killings could be attributed to tensions within the ANC, the investigation would “look more broadly” to see if the kind of “sponsored” violence that racked the province in the 1980s and 1990s had reappeared.
“During the apartheid era, all of us were thinking that this was black-on-black violence between the parties. Later on we discovered that in the process there were sponsors of the violence … look at the pattern, the manner in which people are being killed,” Zuma said.
‘’Let’s broaden our thinking and broaden this investigation. We are not saying that this is what’s happening. We are saying looking at the pattern; we might be facing a similar situation.’’
He added: “The focus right now is that it is issues in the ANC [that are causing the killings]. We accept that, but the pattern of what is happening is not just violence; it is assassinations by highly trained people.”
Zuma said that despite the killings, the province’s regions were preparing for meetings ahead of the party’s December elective conference.
He said the membership audits had been completed in the Ukhahlamba, KwaDukuza and Emalahleni regions, which would now hold branch general meetings to elect their conference delegates.
The KwaZulu-Natal ANC’s provincial executive committee, which met over the weekend, called on its members to “provide political support to all regions and ensure that all regional conferences are credible and legitimate”.
Zuma said they would continue to investigate complaints of membership fraud in the Abaqulusi and Lower South Coast regions and that any bogus members that were detected would be removed from the membership rolls. Those implicated in running fraudulent processes would be brought before the party disciplinary committee.
He said that of the three regions whose powers had been suspended, only the Lower South Coast region had appealed and the ANC national working committee was currently hearing the appeal.
Zuma said that Magaqa had been a “loyal” ANC member who had not been intending to leave the party, as claimed earlier by his former youth league colleague, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema.
“We know he had refused several times to leave the ANC, even when a carrot of a big position was dangled before him,” Zuma said.