by Lebo Nkatazo
05/04/2010 00:00:00
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and ANC Youth League president Julius Malema have discussed the murder of South African white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche during talks in Harare. Mugabe met Malema -- who was concluding a four-day visit to the country as a guest of Zanu PF -- at State House for over two hours on Monday.
With reporters present, Mugabe spoke to Malema at length about Zimbabwe’s land reform programme and what he said was Britain’s failure to honour its obligations to white farmers whose properties were seized for resettlement.
Mugabe also praised South Africa as an unstinting ally against what he said was a global crusade by “imperialists” to remove his government through economic sabotage and propaganda.
Then the Zimbabwean leader, who returned from a trip to Senegal on Sunday, turned to Terreblanche’s murder, asking Malema: “I hear they are trying to blame you?”
[Exactly what I noticed. The murder of Eugene Terreblanche was a dispute over back wages. No one has suggested that the 'farm workers' were spurred on by any song, that they even had a radio, or that Julius Malema is in any way involved. So why is the DA so quick to try and make political hay out of this, without any direct evidence? - MrK]
Before Malema could answer, Mugabe’s press secretary George Charamba stepped in and asked reporters to leave the room.
South Africa’s pro-white opposition Democratic Alliance has sought to draw a link between Terreblanche’s murder, apparently by two farm workers he refused to pay, with Malema’s insistence on singing a liberation song "Dubul' ibhunu", which means "shoot the Boer".
DA MP Juanita Terblanche said: "This happened in a province where racial tension in the rural farming community increasingly is being fuelled by irresponsible racist utterances by .... Julius Malema and the North West COSATU Secretary, Solly Pheto.
"An attack of this nature can be regarded as an attack on the diverse components of the South African democracy. The DA calls for people to remain calm and on the ANC to strongly condemn racist utterances which has become synonymous with Malema and his ilk.”
[The DA would not be the DA if they would draw a connection to the rightlessness many South Africans in places like Ventersdorp still experience. Or would point out that even though only 9-17 white farmers were killed in Zimbabwe during the entire land reform process, in South Africa, which still maintains apartheid era land dispensation, over 3,200 white farmers have been killed. Something else President Mugabe can take credit for. - MrK]
The ANC Youth League has rejected the accusations, with Malema set to make his first public comments on the matter on his return to South Africa later Monday.
Terreblanche was killed as he slept on his bed at his farm outside the town of Ventersdorp, North West Province.
Police said the 69-year-old was beaten to death by two farm workers after a dispute over unpaid wages.
President Jacob Zuma has appealed for calm, saying the killing should not incite racial hatred.
Terreblanche, who campaigned for a separate white homeland, came to prominence in the early 1980s as the champion of a tiny minority determined to stop the process that was bringing apartheid to an end.
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