(ZIMBABWE GUARDIAN) Malema shocked by Zuma's comments

Malema shocked by Zuma's comments
By: Sapa-TZG
Posted: Monday, April 12, 2010 4:44 am

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema sits with newly elected Limpopo youth league leader Frans Moswane, right, and Malema's national deputy president, Andile Lungisa Picture: ELIJAR MUSHIANA

AFRICAN National Congress YOUTH League President Julius Malema has defended his support for President Mugabe and Zanu-PFand said he was ''shocked'' at the public rebuke he received from South African President Jacob Zuma, saying even former ANC leader Thabo Mbeki never behaved in such a manner.

Speaking at the end of the two-day ANC Youth League provincial conference in Makhado, Limpopo, Malema said President Zuma should have addressed him in private, rather than go public with his criticism.

''...I was shocked by what happened . . . even president Mbeki, having differed with the youth league and the youth league taking such firm radical positions against him, I have never seen him doing that before,'' Malema said.

Zuma called a press conference to publicly chastise Malema after the youth leader chased a BBC reporter Jonah Fisher from the an ANC news briefing for continuously disrupting him as he spoke.

Zuma also criticized Malema for his comments about the MDC-T party which he labelled a 'Mickey Mouse' party that should not fight its wars in Sandton (South Africa), but in Mashonaland and Matabeleland in Zimbabwe.

Zuma said the youth league was not ''an independent body'', and also criticised Malema's defiance of the court's instruction to stop singing the ''Shoot the Boer'' song.

The ANCYL criticized President Zuma for hypocrisy saying he sings a song called "Mshini wami" also known as Awuleth' (Bring me my machine gun). The song is a popular Zulu language "struggle song" used formerly by members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC during the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa.

In October 2006, the song was made available as a ringtone by Zuma's defence fund through its website.

The ANCYL also says Boers in South Africa sing an anti-British song "De La Rey" written and performed by Bok van Blerk -- a South African musician who sings in Afrikaans.

Malema said he was surprised that the president had taken offence at his visit to Zimbabwe. He said that when he and the youth league delegation left South Africa, Zuma had told them to send his greetings to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Malema said: ''I didn't sneak out of the country. President Zuma, when I was going to Zimbabwe, said I must pass his regards to (President) Mugabe. I did that. We had blessings from President Zuma to go to Zimbabwe.

'' ... From where I am sitting, I was never told the youth league must never, ever relate with Zanu-PF Youth or Zanu-PF.''

Malema publicly endorsed President Mugabe and Zanu-PF leadership and said the ANC had nothing in common with the MDC-T party.

Malema said the youth league would engage President Zuma on his comments.

''The president has the responsibility to rein all of us in and say whatever he wants to say, but we are there in the structures. We will engage him," Malema said.

Malema said he would honour the ANC's call not to sing the controversial anti-Boer song by modifying it and using the words ''shoot the coward''.

"I still want to know in a meeting what we did wrong," he said. "I have not done anything to undermine the ANC."

He said he was prepared to face any action taken against him.