Mr Zumah, Former President , South Africa
EMBATTLED former South African President, Jacob Zuma has urged all black people in the country to form a joint front to “complete the struggle for liberation and transformation and land expropriation,” saying after the defeat of apartheid there is still colonialism to be fought.
“I know that when I say this, there are those going to accuse me of racism. From whom was the land taken away? Wasn’t it stolen from black people? Who is without land in South Africa? Is it not a black person?
“There is nothing wrong about telling the truth, that as black people, who are the majority, we are subjected to poverty as we are not in charge of the economy,” media reports reaching Johannesburg from Pietermaritzburg at the weekend quoted him as saying.
Zuma was dressing hundreds of his supporters outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court which is trying him for corruption, after his case was adjourned to May 20 next year.
The adjournment was to give the prosecution team time to file a responding affidavit opposing Zuma’s application for the permanent stay of prosecution.
French arms company, Thales, which is jointly charged with Zuma has also applied for the case to be struck off.
The Saturday Star broadsheet reported that the former President gave his supporters a history of how the continent was colonised and said that “Europeans met in Germany and conspired to move to Africa to subdivide the continent among themselves, and they call the pieces of land colonies, taking everything, including political power, economic power and land.
The paper reported him as saying that there were companies that were exporting the Africa economy under company law, taking gold, diamonds and everything from underground with impunity because of the laws that were passed “without us.”
Mr. Zuma told the gathering that freedom fighters made a mistake by only decolonising politics and leaving other things still colonised, the paper reported.
Despite the arms deal-related corruption charges levelled against him, which his supporters attribute to the ANC’s internal witch-hunt, Zuma said that he would continue to vote for the ANC.
“Never stop voting for the ANC because it is the one thing that led to the liberation struggle in this country,” the Saturday Star quoted him as saying.
FROM ALBERTO MARIO NORETTI, JOHANNESBURG
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