Maravi

KK is our father - Zuma

KK is our father - Zuma
By Chibaula Silwamba in Mangaung, South Africa
Tue 10 Jan. 2012, 13:55 CAT

KENNETH Kaunda is our father, says South African President Jacob Zuma. And President Zuma said South Africa's ruling African National Congress will combat unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Addressing thousands of ANC members and supporters at the party's 100th anniversary at Free State Stadium on Sunday, President Zuma, who is also ANC president, paid tribute to Zambians, other Africans and progressive movements around the world that helped South Africans fight the apartheid regime.

"The people of Zambia, through their independence movement and mass organisations, received and assisted our movement even prior to their independence. We acknowledge the presence of our father, president Kenneth Kaunda in these celebrations," said President Zuma as the crowd cheered the 87-year-old former president.

He recalled that many ANC members died during the struggle.

"Our freedom was definitely not free. It was achieved through the blood, sweat and tears of many selfless revolutionaries and cadres of our movement," said President Zuma, 69, who rose through the ANC ranks during and after the liberation struggle and became Republican President in 2009.

"As we mark the ANC Centenary, this is the right moment to pause and ponder the future of South Africa and of the ANC over the next one hundred years."

He said South Africans must this year renew their determination to build a South Africa founded on the principles of the Freedom Charter and democratic Constitution.

"We must bring new energy and new ideas into the kind of society we want to build over the next few decades," he said.

"As the ANC prepares for its Policy Conference in June and its 53rd National Conference in December 2012, we call on all South Africans to join a national dialogue on the future of the country. This debate should be based on our common commitment to build a caring society that is truly non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, prosperous and united in its diversity."

President Zuma said the ANC had identified the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality as needing attention. He said, principally, African women and youth continue to carry a disproportionate burden of the three challenges.

"In 2012 we will take urgent and practical steps to revitalise the grassroots structures of the movement. We will take urgent and practical steps to once again place the ANC at the forefront of the progressive forces for change. We will take urgent and practical steps to fast-track the development of cadres - new and old," President Zuma said.

"We will take urgent and practical steps to ensure that our programme of transforming our country is accelerated and taken to new heights."

At the time the ANC faces internal wrangles that risk affecting its unity, President Zuma said the party would "stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline".

ANC Youth League fire brand leader, Julius Malema, who is currently suspended, has led calls to have Zuma replaced as ANC president.

Malema was suspended on ill-discipline charges but appealed against the five-year penalty and was present at the high table. He received applause from supporters in the terraces when he attended the celebrations and whenever his face was shown on large screens placed around the stadium.

Malema's supporters, chanting "Juju! Juju! Juju!" attempted to boo President Zuma when he arrived but the head of state's backers outnumbered them and drowned their shouts.

At the start of the programme, ANC chairperson Baleke Mbete repeatedly called for silence, and urged the security to stop some people from making noise, while warning to flash out the people chanting.

"We will not allow you to disrupt our centenary celebrations," warned Mbete.

The ‘culprits' were suspected to be from the pro-Malema camp.

Some wore t-shirts with messages of solidarity for the 30-year-old youth leader and repeatedly shouted: "We are 100 per cent behind our president Julius Malema".

But President Zuma asserted: "We will take urgent and practical steps to restore the core values, stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline."

President Zuma also said the ANC would take urgent and practical steps to place education and skills development at the centre of the transformation and development agenda.

He pledged that the ANC would take steps to deepen its contribution to the renewal of the African continent and the progressive forces in the world.

"On this, January 8, 2012, we make a clarion call to all South Africans to work with us to make the dream of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa a reality in our lifetime," President Zuma said.

"We call on all the progressive forces in our continent to work tirelessly for the regeneration, renewal and renaissance of Africa in our lifetime. We call on all progressive people in the world to spare no energy and effort in fighting for a better Africa and more humane world."

He said the ANC was a child of Bloemfontein Mangaung and had this year returned to the area, its mother, older, stronger and wiser with more members.

"The 1942 ANC conference passed a resolution that the ANC should have a million members by the time it celebrated its centenary. It is my pleasure to announce that we have achieved this goal. The total number of ANC members is 1,027,389 members in good standing," said President Zuma.

ANC, the liberation movement that was headquartered in Lusaka for many years until the early 1990s, formed government in 1994 when its leader Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president at the end of the brutal apartheid rule.

The ANC, initially called the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), was founded on January 8, 1912 in Bloemfontein now called Mangaung in Free State Province to increase the rights of the black South African population.

Several heads of state and government, former presidents and other prominent people from across the world attended the centenary celebrations on Sunday.

Labels: INDEPENDENCE, JACOB ZUMA, JULIUS MALEMA, KENNETH KAUNDA, LIBERATION, ZAMBIA

posted by MrK @ 7:26 PM