ANC Limpopo Statement on Apartheid-style threats to democratic organising

It has been brought to our attention that there is a group of individuals claiming to be state intelligence officials interrogating our ANC and ANCYL members and supporters in Limpopo ‘suspected' to have funded transportation costs for ANCYL members who have been attending the solidarity support to the ANCYL leadership in Johannesburg.

Consistent with the ANC's democratic culture, we believe the ANCYL is acting within its right as a League of the African National Congress, to organize and raise funds for its activities, in order to provide disciplined and principled support to its national leadership. For this reason, the fundraisers and funders of the ANCYL across the country should be protected against this apparent abusive practice of turning state security institutions onto perceived political opponents.

We take any form of abuse of state security institutions as a serious threat not only to the ANC's democratic traditions, but also our hard-won South African democracy. If this alleged practice of abusing state security organs is not defeated, it will be used against popular organizations carrying out democratic organizing.

We therefore call on ANC members and society at large to defend the ANCYL's constitutionally entrenched right to organize.

We call upon our own ANC structures and individuals who funded the ANCYL transportation not to co-operate with these individuals who purport to be state security officials. It is their Constitutional right (as fundraisers and funders) to make donations toward democratic organizing. No amount of state-sponsored intimidation should deter them from supporting democratic organizing. 

We also wish to re-state our condemnation of the attacks on journalists and banning of the T-shirts bearing the face our ANC President Jacob Zuma.

Statement issued by ANC Limpopo Provincial Spokesperson, David Masondo, September 9 2011

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