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Tell Bush to go to hell: SACP on terror claims
By CHRISTELLE DU TOIT
JOHANNESBURG – “Tell the Bush government to go to hell.”
This was the response of the SA Communist Party (SACP) to allegations by the US that two South African men, Junaid Docrat and his cousin Farhad Ahmed Docra, are financing al-Qaeda activities.
The SACP said the US had no right to “arbitrarily” label the Docrats as terrorists, and in so doing undermine the sovereignty of South Africa.
The SA government was more diplomatic in their much-anticipated response to the saga.
Reacting to the US’s call that the men should be listed by the UN as terror suspects, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini- Zuma ordered yesterday that the process be put on hold by SA’s representatives to the UN.
She said: “The matter needs to be discussed further in bilaterals with the US authorities.”
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad explained: “We want to make sure that anybody that goes on the list is on there for a good reason, because the consequences are so very serious.”
A listing on the UN’s list of terror suspects could lead to the Docrats’ assets being frozen, and prevent them from doing business or travelling overseas.
The SACP said yesterday: “It is the same Republican government that labelled the ANC as a terrorist organisation, and fully supported the apartheid regime.”
Unless the US can provide “credible evidence” to back up the terror allegations, the SACP calls on the SA government “and the millions of peace-loving South Africans to tell the Bush government to go to hell”.
The Docrats have maintained they are innocent, and emphasise that “our legal system is based upon the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty”.
In the absence of details from the US on the reasons they are requesting the terror listing, the Docrats did not want to comment.
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