Interview with ANC Youth League president
South Africa: 'Democracy Now!'
By Norm Dixon
Peter Mokaba, the fiery president of the African National Congress Youth League, is described by the establishment media as South Africa's radical bogyman threatening the "moderate" ANC leadership's hold on militant township youth. Reports in the Australian media of the events surrounding the assassination of Chris Hani have claimed that Mokaba urged the youth to "overthrow the ANC leadership", that the Youth League is opposed to negotiations, and that Mokaba was prevented from speaking at Hani's funeral because his speech was too radical. A chorus in the press has been that the ANC is losing the support of South Africa's "young lions". Green Left Weekly sought out Peter Mokaba to discover the truth.
Mokaba's introduction to liberation politics, as with so many of his compatriots, came during the student uprisings of 1976. As a student at Hwiti High, he became one of the leaders of the movement. He evaded arrest until November 1977. Charged with public violence, he was acquitted when all 28 state witnesses refused to testify against him.
In 1982, while at university, he was arrested and tried for membership of the ANC, possessing weapons and having undergone military training overseas. He was sentenced to six years on the notorious Robben Island but released on appeal after one year only to be detained on the same charges and sentenced to three years, suspended for five years.
He was unanimously elected president of the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) in 1987 and retained the position in 1990. In 1988 he was again arrested, this time charged with commanding Umkhonto we Sizwe structures in the northern Transvaal. He was again acquitted when state witnesses refused to give evidence. With the unbanning of the ANC in February 1990, Mokaba was appointed interim president of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) after SAYCO decided to dissolve. Mokaba was elected president of the ANCYL in
December 1991.
"The Youth League is not opposed to negotiations. What the Youth League is saying is that the negotiations must deliver democracy now", Mokaba, speaking from Johannesburg on April 22, told Green Left Weekly. He angrily denied claims that he had called for the overthrow of the ANC leadership.
"That can never be true ... We are fervently and very, very strongly behind president Mandela. I personally would not allow anyone who worked towards deposing Mandela [to be part of the ANCYL leadership] ... Everything we are doing is so that Mandela can become the president of this country and de Klerk removed ... We have always regarded ourselves as foot soldiers and we regard Mandela as our commander."
There is no movement of radical youth from the ANC to the anti-negotiations Pan Africanist Congress, he said. "No one is able to rally the youth like [the ANC] can ... We challenge anybody who says that the youth have moved to show us an example ... Which mass manifestation of the PAC has matched that of the ANC in terms of the attendance of the militant youth? ... We have just had the funeral of Comrade Chris Hani. The PAC cannot convince even a fraction of the people that were there of their political positions.
"When [the media] make these allegations about youth going to the PAC, do they think there are such similarities between our policies and those of the PAC that the only difference is on the question of negotiations?
"The support of the youth for the ANC is based on the Freedom Charter. It is not just a loyal support but a convinced support that understands the policies of the ANC, that knows that the whites, as whites, are not our enemies. They know the system that privileges whites is the enemy."
Mokaba was present on the platform at the funeral of popular Communist leader Chris Hani on April 19. The turnout was massive, he said. "Over 300,000 attended. Not all in the stadium — others were outside, at Chris Hani's house, at the funeral site,
and others marching. There was a call over radio to try to stop people flocking to the stadium because the stadium was already overflowing."
Mokaba vehemently denied that he was prevented from speaking at the funeral by the ANC leadership. "Not true! It was myself, the commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Women's League who decided that, because of the volatility of the situation outside the stadium and because the program started late, there should be three addresses only: Mandela representing the whole ANC, Slovo representing the party, and COSATU. Our speeches are now being published and publicised by the ANC."
The ANC estimated that more than 4 million workers stayed away from work on April 19 as a mark of respect for the murdered South African Communist Party general secretary and as a show of support for the ANC-led alliance's call for the date for non-racial constituent assembly elections to be announced.
In a statement released on April 20, the tripartite alliance dismissed as exaggerations the media concentration on incidents of violence and the claims that the ANC could not control its supporters: "Considering the scale of yesterday's events, and bearing in mind the massive popular anger unleashed by the assassination and numerous other acts of provocation, the proceedings were a major achievement by the organisers and the hundreds of thousands of participants".
The alliance congratulated the 14,000 ANC marshals and Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cadres who maintained order at the massive gatherings.
The alliance said that media attempts to focus almost exclusively on violent incidents ignored the huge, countrywide demonstration of militant mass discipline. The media "tried to create the impression that the violence was primarily associated with the supporters of the ANC-led alliance. Statistics from the Human Rights Commission for the period April 10 to April 19 indicate that over 60% of deaths and over 80% of injuries are attributable to the security forces, vigilantes and right-wing elements. Of the remainder, we have reason to believe that many are attributable
to agents provocateur and criminal elements.
"In particular two major massacres have occurred, the killings by the police at Protea police station on April 14, and the Sebokeng massacres [claiming the lives of 19 people] on the eve of the funeral which bear all the hall-marks of a Third Force operation."
Rather than being caused by any lack of control by the ANC over its supporters, these deaths and injuries resulted from the failure of the de Klerk government to control the police, Inkatha hostels, extreme right-wing forces and vigilante operations, the alliance charged.
"De Klerk has totally failed to take action against these forces who continue to kill our people, assassinate our leaders, and who are allowed to brandish weapons in public at marchers often with tragic consequences." At least two marchers were shot dead by neo-Nazi AWB members on April 19.
Peter Mokaba agreed with the ANC's assessment. "The violence was provoked by the police — who we believe had a hand in the killing of comrade Chris Hani. They came to the funeral. That angered the people. In South Africa the youth have a genuine hatred of the police ... The mere sight of the police, and the manner in which they responded to our peaceful actions, provoked the people."
The attempt to portray a split between the ANC and the Youth League was part of a strategy known as "Operation Thunderstorm", which came to light last year, to weaken the ANC, Mokaba told Green Left Weekly.
Operation Thunderstorm is "directed against what they call 'militants and revolutionaries' within the ANC, in an attempt to force a coalition between the ANC and the Nationalist Party, a coalition in which the ANC will be weak. They think 'radicals and hardliners' should be physically eliminated from the ranks of the ANC.
"By so doing they will be cutting the umbilical cord between the ANC and the mass of our people and
then be able to force that coalition onto the ANC. That is why they have killed comrade Chris in the first place ...
"Before they eliminate you, they start with a campaign of vilification. They start with a campaign of defining the ANC as a weak organisation divided between the 'hawks' and the 'doves', the 'militants' and the 'moderates'. That is why Nelson Mandela has come out against that and said that he himself is a radical, he himself is a revolutionary, he himself is a militant, to show the press and everybody that the ANC is not divided along those lines.
"In South Africa there are forces working fervently to provoke racial war in order to defeat the non-racial policies of the ANC", Mokaba added. "De Klerk is not outside that program. He has been funding Inkatha, he has funded many other ethnic organisations in order to keep people apart, and today, with the right wing, they are trying to force a racial war on us. It is the cause of non-racialism that is under threat, and de Klerk is as guilty as Terre'Blanche", the leader of the AWB.
Mandela's speech at Chris Hani's funeral: page 13.