IF THE LEADERSHIP OF THE ANC NEEDS HELP TO STOP THE VIOLENCE BEING PERPETRATED BY ITS CONSTITUENTS ON THE CITIZENS OF CAPE TOWN IT NEED LOOK NO FURTHER THAN THE NATIONAL PEACE ACCORD OF WHICH THE ANC WAS A SIGNATORY IN 1991

In my previous political life, prior to 1994 in particular, I spent a lot of time researching and witnessing the horror of political violence first-hand throughout South Africa. I have carried burned and battered babies out of razed settlements whose scorched eyelids gave a sign of future lives without sight. I have attended too many funerals of lives cut short because of political intolerance.

While working for the Inkatha Freedom Party I conducted research into political violence and served as part of the collective which drafted the National Peace Accord. Thereafter I served on the National Peace Secretariat establishing so-called "peace committees" (where required) and at CODESA I was a member of the Technical Team on Violence.

To this day I serve as a Trustee of the National Peace Accord Trust which provides psycho-social interventions for ex-combatants from all pre-1994 political formations. Men and women involved in acts of violence way back then need help to this day. Many still relive the horror of barbaric actions day and night. Their family lives are unstable. I wonder in the years to come whether the youths brandishing iron bars in Cape Town this week will feel remorse about bashing up women old enough to be their mothers and stealing from them?

You learn a lot when you listen to the experiences of these men and women who faithfully served their political leaders decades ago. There is no doubt that they are traumatised by their behaviour as political "warriors" in the killing and maiming. Therapy continues to reveal how they are haunted by their actions and seek forgiveness in many ways. Some express bitterness that former comrades-in-arms (specifically ANC, Inkatha, APLA) are now high ranking politicians and others rich businessmen who no longer live in the townships where they once fought side by side. They feel used and abused.

I sketch this background as a way of explaining that I do know a little bit about the use of violence for political gain and the manipulation and mobilisation of the "Lumpenproletariat".

Fast forward to 2013 I now live in a city in which persons identified as supporters of the ANC Alliance are threatening to make "ungovernable".

Pre-1994 the ANC tried to make South Africa "ungovernable" which mercifully did not happen but 20 plus years later the same old tactic of dealing with their enemies is being deployed - this time not Inkatha or the PAC or AZAPO but the Democratic Alliance.

It all has a chilling, familiar, echo for me as one watches television reportage of protesters organised by ANC Alliance members running amok in the centre of Cape Town.

Pre-1994 much of the so-called "black-on-black" violence was, for the most part, clandestinely organised. Attack and counter-attack between supporters of the ANC and Inkatha erupted and then both sides blamed each other for the carnage and the then pro-ANC media mostly blamed Inkatha and that was that. The fact that many thousands of ANC Umkhonto we Sizwe veterans and ANC/UDF "self-defence units" operatives have since emerged to claim pensions and other social support for their combat services gives some context to the scale of the warfare mounted in those days.

And now in November 2013 we have a President of our country who sits by silently and watches when the DA Premier of the Western Cape is heckled by ANC supporters at a state function paid for by taxpayers and hijacked as an ANC political rally. We have ANC supporters openly warning Premier Helen Zille of physical harm and that she should be "careful" when entering informal settlements around Cape Town.

I therefore want to know what the ANC is going to do about the terror and mayhem being unleashed on the City of Cape Town in its name.

Weasel words from ANC leaders condemning the violence are not enough and they know it. Same old tactic used by the ANC and Inkatha et al pre-1994. I recall the leaders of all parties in those days denying personal involvement, naturally, but nevertheless acknowledging that their "people are angry".

And now we hear, yet again, that "the people are angry". When people are made "angry" other people get hurt and their property destroyed. That's the reality. It is easy to make people "angry" and mobilise them for political gain. It happens all over the world where there is poverty and inequality.

The ANC mobs of feral rampaging youths in Cape Town this week are being used like "useful idiots".  

When will we see President Jacob Zuma and the Western Cape leadership of the ANC enter the very areas where the ANC leadership of the violent protests have threatened to harm Premier Zille and make it abundantly clear that they will have the full force of the law rein down on them if they don't stop their seditious actions?

When will the President tell them the truth about why his ANC National Government and the DA Provincial Government led by Premier Zille cannot overnight provide them with the housing and other services they are demanding?

If the leadership of the ANC don't go there and if they don't stop the violence and efforts to "make the city and province ungovernable" (a stated intention of the local Cape Town ANC leaders involved and reported extensively in the media) then citizens can come to the obvious conclusion that they support this behaviour.

If the ANC needs help in doing this because it has lost control of its constituents in these and other Cape Town communities, there are many who can help them. I am offering my services and I am sure the National Peace Accord Trust will join with other organisations and facilitators of peace and reconciliation and negotiation to seek constructive dialogue. We don't have to start a process de novo, we have the example of the National Peace Accord upon which to base a way forward.

President Zuma and the ANC leadership can, for instance, sit down with other political parties, representatives of commerce and industry and faith-based leaderships in the Western Cape and, like what we did when we crafted the National Peace Accord, reaffirm a code of conduct for political parties and organisations.

Is the ANC prepared to give effect now to the National Peace Accord it signed in 1991?

Chapter 2 "Code of Conduct for Political Parties and Organisations" clause 2.4 states:

"All political parties and organisations shall respect and give effect to the obligation to refrain from incitement to violence or hatred. In pursuit hereof no language calculated or likely to incite violence or hatred, including that directed against any political party or personality, nor any wilfully false allegation, shall be used at any political meeting, nor shall pamphlets, posters or other written material containing such language be prepared or circulated, whether in the name of any party, or anonymously".

Will the ANC give effect to another clause which states: "All political parties and organisations shall actively contribute to the creation of a climate of democratic tolerance by: publicly and repeatedly condemning political violence and encouraging among their followers an understanding of the importance of democratic pluralism and a culture of political tolerance..."?

The National Peace Accord sets out a way in which peace agreements can be enforced but this time matters are quite simple: it is only the ANC which is unleashing mobs into the streets of Cape Town and there are concerned citizens who want to promote and protect multi-party democracy in our land and ensure good governance and the safety and security of its citizens -- if the ANC will let us.

Suzanne Vos is a former Inkatha Freedom Party MP and former SABC board member. She served on the executive of the National Peace Accord, as a member of the National Peace Secretariat and as a member of the Technical Team on Violence at CODESA.

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