ANC STATEMENT FOLLOWING THE CIVIL SOCIETY PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY

We note and have no intention of responding to the civil society statement issued today, we non-the-less find it very unfortunate that some leading figures of civil society have all of a sudden found it appropriate to call the ANC structures particularly its NWC a "dubious" structure.

We have also noted with concern statements made by some leaders of civil society that some leaders of the ANC have "questionable moral integrity", and furthermore, the leaders of civil society named these ANC leaders.  We have advised our leaders named in today's civil society press conference to seek legal recourse.  The ANC will give all support to these leaders as they take these legal steps because it is our firm belief that the attacks on their persons is unjustified and borders on defaming their good names.

The ANC stands by the NWC statement on civil society conference as issued yesterday, 02 November 2010.

We want to reiterate that at no stage did our statement indicate a gripe with any formation of civil society. The statement indicated that our biggest concern is directed at COSATU as our ally of having being key to the organisation of the civil society conference that dealt mainly with matters of government.

It is very unfortunate that the organisers of this conference became the prosecutors, the juries and hangman of government performance over the past sixteen (16) years, without affording government an opportunity to state its case either at the conference or before the conference itself.  Our government was therefore found guilty in absentia by union leaders and leaders of civil society.

We were also equally perplexed that COSATU being part of the liberation movement and the Alliance, found it appropriate that it could lead attacks on the liberation movement - the ANC - and our government without affording those that it attacked, its allies, the ANC and the government, at least an opportunity to respond to the criticism so as to show objectivity and maturity if the objective was the advancement and the deepening of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) that all of us pursue. 

It is for the reasons above that our statement yesterday cautioned COSATU that such action might be interpreted as the first sign in a step to implement regime change in South Africa. Our statement also said such interpretation could find expression in what happened in other countries in Africa where labour leaders and civil society formations were key in regime changes in those countries.

We therefore have no intention whatsoever of apologising to anybody on what we have said. In fact, we and our government deserve an apology.

Statement issued by Jackson Mthembu, ANC National Spokesperson, November 3 2010

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