Ironically, the Young Communist League has made a call for the former President, Mr. Thabo Mbeki to be charged with genocide for his “acute diplomacy”, regarding that a syndrome does not cause a virus and vice versa. Given the situation at hand, I find this call very irresponsible. The reason I say this is because, YCL is affiliated to SACP which forms part of the alliance that is currently in power and has been in power since taking over of the new governance in 1994. From a distance, one might not be wrong to say, if this motion was to be declared valid, then the same alliance is declaring itself incompetent for governance. Thabo Mbeki for one, being a former President of the state, was given the authority which was pronounced by the manifesto of alliance and also the National Working Committee of the ANC.
Since the National Working Committee kept quite when Mbeki made that statement in the national assembly, what are the prospects? Being that as it may, it is common that there is a Parliamentary Committee on Public Health, which to a large extent, the former and late Minister of Health Ms Manto Tshablala-Msimang was part of, she would be the rightful person to point fingers at. The former president was merely making those statements from a literal understanding of a lay man; however, he has perpetrated a lot of controversy around the HIV/AIDS issue. Another issue which I would like to bring to your attention is about the current President who was also ironically acquitted before even appearing at the court of law, he was a solid part of the administration. I have said on several occasions that, the youth organizations and formations should focus merely on issues affecting the youth. I don’t wish to be misquoted on this issue by saying “issues that affect the youth directly” however the point is, if there was a need for the former president to be charged, why couldn’t it be a calling by the National Working Committee? Which to me appointed the former president to run the political administration of the state. Of course HIV/AIDS is a burning issue specifically amongst the youth, and both youth organizations should focus on identifying strategic methods on how their peers can employ HIV/AIDS prevention.
The call for the assassination of Mbeki has been outstanding for a long time. Malema in one of his “popularity contests” had always quoted Mbeki and his people. But when one tries to analyze the situation; one can see from a distance that within the ANC there are a series of sub-factions and camps that work towards the same mission, although the good channels of communication are being “rubbished”. But now that it is clear that there is no unity within the party, given the current state of affairs regarding who is going to survive cadre Gwede Mantashe, I am convinced that there are people within the ANC who call the shots and identify the channels thus ANC belongs to individuals not to people. The Freedom Charter has now become a myth; people of this country should just forget about the charter because it’s non existent. Furthermore, the so called clinical expert rose to the occasion following the foot steps of the Young Communist League to say that someone must be held responsible for denying the existence of HIV/AIDS. As much as my memory serves me, the former president has never said in his speech that the disease does not exist, what he was not sure about was whether is was possible for an “opportunistic disease” to perpetrate the existence of a virus and eventually become full blown. It is just that people fail to acknowledge the level of diplomacy that the former president has always deployed in his speeches, whether an HIV/ AIDS speech or any other debate.
In his 15 years of leadership, since the establishment of the new democratic dispensation, ANC has achieved a lot through his diplomacy. But because the same people want to attach their own sentimental conspiracies and political correctness on his style of power discharge, which is the reason why they will always attach illegitimate concerns over him. Last but not least, I wish to respect and compliment Buti Manamela’s call for him to be charged with genocide, much as I understand what the “communist” stands for. But the fact is, in your experiment; add a communist rule to a capitalist rule, what end product can one anticipate? This equates to a total robust debate, because there is no catalyst to neutralize the equation. That is one reason that within the alliance, there will always be unending commotions, one person blaming one another.
