North Korea: Is the ANCYL fuelling North Korean propaganda offensive?

The ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe should take action against his Youth League, if it turns out that they have indeed provided vocal support for the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. The North's state-run news agency KCNA has recently used quotes, ostensibly obtained from the ANC Youth League, for propaganda purposes.

KCNA stated in one such report that:

"The secretary of the African National Congress Youth League of South Africa praised Kim Jong Il as the great guardian who firmly guarantees peace and security of not only the Korean Peninsula but the world with his Songun [‘Military First'] politics." [1]

They have also quoted a "vice-chairman of the [ANC youth] league" saying:

"The stand of the DPRK is just and fair." [2]

The ANC and its Youth League should either distance themselves from these scandalous comments, or they should explain why it is that they are cavorting with despots. Kim Jong-Il's repressive North Korean regime is regarded by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as one of the most oppressive on the planet. Concentration camps house many hundreds of thousands of North Korean adults and children, where they are the victims of fierce state repression, including rape, torture and medical experimentations. The country is a totalitarian dictatorship, with one of the worst human rights records anywhere in the world.

It is outrageous that any South Africans should be lending support to them.

The ANC must make it unequivocally clear whether these are the sorts of views they support, or not. If it turns out that the ANC Youth League are indeed actively supporting the North Korean propaganda offensive, then that also something President Zuma should address, particularly in light of his up-coming trip to South Korea, for the G-20.

Statement issued by Mbali Ntuli, Democratic Alliance Youth Chairperson, November 8 2010

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