EFF leader and MP Julius Malema has blamed the South African government for the violence targeting foreigners.
“The state, being the elder for the whole of society, becomes responsible for all the violence meted against our foreign nationals,” he said in Parliament.
“It was through the state that our people were told that resolution to differences should be through violence. It was under your leadership that when you disagreed with people at Marikana, you killed them because you never believed in peaceful resolution of differences.”
He said that when the EFF had disagreed with the ruling party in Parliament last year, it had also applied violence.
He took President Jacob Zuma’s son Edward to task for his recent comments about foreigners.
“Your own son continues to say these people must be killed. You stand up here and say nothing,” Malema said.
“Your son is such a typical example of a family member you cannot whip into line.”
He also criticised the president for not asking King Goodwill Zwelethini to clarify his remarks about foreigners, after it was apparently misinterpreted by the media.
Malema said the Cubans had taught him that body language spoke volumes, and it was clear that Zuma’s body language while condemning xenophobia today also spoke volumes.
Malema was told he was going over his time, but continued to speak.
He ended by saying: “Let us not kill foreigners. Africa we are one”.
Edward Zuma, who recently expressed his anti-foreigner sentiments, told News24 that he may be the president’s son but his opinions were independent to those of the president.
“The South African Human Rights Commission can arrest me for my comments, it’s fine. I am not the citizen of President Jacob Zuma. I am a citizen of South Africa. My thinking is independent to that of the president,” he said.
“These are my personal views and I am sticking to what I said and I will die with it.
“I am not going to stop telling the truth. The government must stop running away from addressing this issue because these people are expected to go back into their communities and we would have wasted taxpayer’s monies [accommodating them at camps].”
Zuma condemned the recent attacks on foreign nationals in KwaZulu-Natal and said those caught looting or attacking foreign nationals should be dealt with legally.
“What is happening in KwaZulu-Natal is exactly what I was talking about when I said South Africa is sitting on a ticking time bomb.
“People think that I am being xenophobic but I am not, I am just trying to make a point that we have a problem.
“There was a woman that was shot by a foreigner in Umlazi. My question is where did they [foreign nationals] get guns from? And the problem is that the police won’t be able to trace some of these guys [because they do not have legal documents to be in the country].
“All those that are in this country illegally must leave. I do not blame them [South Africans] for being angry but what can government do? Home Affairs and the South African Social Security Agency [Sassa] are taking care of them but South Africans will still be angry.”- News24
Aggrey Rich Sign Macas Jr.
the next one are congolies here in Zambia!