ANC bosses as guilty as Comrade Thabo Mbeki

BY SINGLING out Thabo Mbeki for the mess in both the government and the ANC, your lead comment and the invective by Fikile Mbalula (April 14) excuse the leadership of the ANC and the media, but hide the colossal shortcomings of the 1994 dispensation.

BY SINGLING out Thabo Mbeki for the mess in both the government and the ANC, your lead comment and the invective by Fikile Mbalula (April 14) excuse the leadership of the ANC and the media, but hide the colossal shortcomings of the 1994 dispensation.

The ANC elected Thabo Mbeki. It has members with depth of experience, "discipline", supposedly principled persons and so should have a highly developed moral sense. If they had courageously faced bullets and beatings in the past, Mbeki could not have been that frightening.

Comrades - if this means anything - had the duty and responsibility to reprimand their elected chief comrade. They had plenty of opportunity in private, Parliament and the NEC to bring him in line with the interests and objectives of their movement and the country.

But they remained quiet, even smiled at him, as [the picture of] Mbalula shows, and showered praises while denouncing the public outcry against Mbeki on many issues as "counter-revolutionary".

They were silent when Mbeki continued with his Aids "denialism" and dastardly actions; when Mbeki fired Jacob Zuma as deputy president in a case of blatant unfair dismissal; when Mbeki gallivanted and left the ship of state rudderless; when he hobnobbed with pariahs like Robert Mugabe and Omar al-Bashir; when he abused power and put the country on the road to a banana republic.

That finally the ANC recalled him - a drastic and unconstitutional act - shows that it had the power to call him to order. The entire top echelon of the ANC, including the Zuma-ites, is thus legally and morally responsible for the Mbeki debacle; they are collectively guilty of dereliction of duty, negligence and other crimes associated with Mbeki.

The ANC invoked "collective responsibility" at the TRC to excuse individual members for their crimes; they must go through this stew now.

The media cover for his co-accused if they concentrate only on Mbeki, as your editorial does. The Constitution, making parties supreme, has fallen into the hands of democratic centralists; so whoever is supreme within the ANC monopolises the spoils.

Zuma will make the Zum'bies bow to him for showers of blessings and booty as they did to his ironic mentor, Mbeki, a true scion of a Soviet-inspired party. - Meshack Mabogoane, KwaThema