Dear Mr Lekota: Let's open the arms deal (part 2)

Dear Mr Lekota

After your performance in the Western Cape, it is obvious that you are alive and well, so there is no necessity of asking. Let’s get on with these issues.

Both you and I know very well why we are all here. It is the arms deal, in case you have forgotten. A matter which has caused such strain on our country such as the arms deal cannot be left just like that. In your tour of the country, you have mentioned all things that you claim are wrong, mostly things you are guilty of yourself, but not a word about the arms deal. Why?

This silence is conspicuous. I challenge you and your political ilk: let us open the arms deal. But you cannot agree, can you? The government that you served did everything in its capacity to thwart any comprehensive investigation. You may not like this; however, if we are to talk of justice, we cannot have one man hounded by police and prosecutors while the real culprits are left untouched. Who knows, you might be one of them.

You and I know very well that through the arms deal and probably the Gautrain, government money that could have been used to ease the yoke of unemployment and poverty on our people was instead used to fund the lavish lifestyles of a coterie of leaders who already had enough in their pockets, but could not control their greed, embedded in the capitalist system as a first virtue of success.

If we are also to talk of justice, we cannot leave aside the looting of the money that comes out of the toil of the working class by petty bourgeois and comprador capitalists, to which we have gotten used since 1996, while the very same black South African working class lies on the sidelines as spectators while a few petty bourgeois intellectuals like you and others fight about the spoils of your own revolution.

You complain about suggestions by ANC leaders that, on the matter of president JZ, there should be a political solution (!). How surprising. Don’t you notice that the prosecution of certain pockets related to the arms deal while other aspects are left untouched is in itself a political solution? By the way, I am not arguing here for a political solution.

Political solutions started under your Cabinet. Of course, you Mbeki-ites could not have the temerity to say explicitly that shelving the investigation of the arms deal in its totality was a political solution to protect favourites of the Mbeki administration, and maybe Mbeki himself, from the exposure of what seems to have been a mass looting. To make as if a political solution for the Zuma issue would be a first would be to try to hide the gigantic truth about the non-investigation of the arms deal behind a reed!

As a revolutionary, if you still are, you would understand that all revolutions, if not safely guarded, are bound to degenerate; all those who pose as alternatives often claim to be doing it for the people, but most often the people are neither in the playing fields nor in line to share the spoils.

I wonder why it is that today you pose as a staunch anti-corruptionist. Were you not the one who had not declared to Parliament your business interests until you were caught and apologised? So, how different is Tony Yengeni from you?

I also listened to your speech on Talk Radio 702. What an act! That seemed like nothing but a headline-grabbing factional exercise that had nothing to do with what is best for the ANC, let alone its members. It was but a publicity campaign for your new party.

You alleged that in the ANC: (1) there is no space for debate; (2) members who hold differing views are purged; (3) leaders promote lawlessness; and (4) leaders are corrupt. The issues you raised are by no means new. This is not to say that you suffer from incapacity of original thought, but we have heard them on the media for far too long. All you had to do was repeat them as your own and get yourself on the headlines. Bravo!

Let me respond and show the ingenuity of these issues.

1) The ANC runs a weekly publication where all members — Terror Lekota included — have a right to submit articles for publication. It also runs a quarterly publication, Umrabulo, which is edited by his friend Joel Netshitenzhe. Interestingly, in none of these publications has comrade Terror been refused publication such that he would decide to resort to non-ANC publications to engage the party.

2) Nobody is entitled to deployment by the ANC. No member of the ANC since Polokwane has been suspended or expelled. It is therefore untrue to say people have been purged. Purging is not removing someone from deployment. If you remember, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was fired along with many others under the leadership of Mbeki for holding different views from those of the establishment. Even under Mandela, Pallo
Jordan suffered the same fate, and you have never characterised these as purging, so please spare us the saintly act!

3) Which ANC leader have you had that promoted violence? It has been Malema who has at times been caught wanting. For that matter Malema is not an ANC leader but an ANC Youth League leader, and you know very well that there is nothing else the ANC can do about that except advise him, and then it would depend on whether he takes that advice. By the way, during your time, were you able to tell Mbalula not to say UKZN is Bombay? If not, do you expect this new ANC leadership to perform magic and make youth league leaders listen to them? Where would autonomy be there!

4) Which ANC leader except Tony Yengeni has been found guilty and arrested? Anyway, did Tony not lead with you in the same NEC? Why did you not resign then, in protest against Tony’s presence? Please don’t say things that you never did yourself.

On another matter, did you read my previous letter, or you did not find time in between the many press briefings and rallies? Of course if you couldn’t care to read this one, then until next time …

To be continued