Carl Niehaus tells Mbalula not to be so excitable

Following remarks by ANC head of elections Fikile Mbalula that Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) spokesperson Carl Niehaus was not representing the ANC when he criticised former president Kgalema Motlanthe and apologised for his remarks, Niehaus has tried to clarify that he’s been misunderstood.

In statement on Friday, Niehaus tried to lay the blame for what he characterised as confusion on the work of “white monopoly capital media” with an agenda against the ANC.

He suggested that Mbalula had not been fully apprised of the facts when he told the media that Niehaus had been representing “his own jacket” when he apologised, reportedly on behalf of the ANC, at a special imbizo on land called by King Goodwill Zwelithini to discuss proposals to dissolve the Ingonyama Trust, of which the king is the sole trustee.

Niehaus claimed at the gathering that he was speaking as an ANC member and slammed the recommendations by Motlanthe’s parliamentary high-level panel that the act should be repealed.

Niehaus had said that Motlanthe’s “attack on traditional leaders was entirely unjustified”, including a description of them as “tin-pot dictators”.

At Luthuli House on Thursday, Mbalulu said Niehaus’ apology had not been on behalf of the ANC.

In response on Friday, Niehaus advised Motlanthe never to “shoot from the hip, nor ‘erupt like a volcano’, to use the colourful imagery that comrade Fikile Mbalula is so partial to…”

He advised Mbalula to follow the “golden rule” of giving himself “enough time, and respect yourself and your fellow comrade enough, to acquaint yourself fully with what he or she said before you comment”.

“In doing so one can avoid becoming an inadvertent tool of division and destruction in our beloved Movement. This is the comradely advice that I would like to give to my younger brother in the struggle, comrade Fikile Mbalula.”

He said Mbalula would not have “allowed himself to be excited and mislead [sic] by journalists of the mainstream media who are in the employ of White Monopoly Capital, into launching an entirely unwarranted attack on me” if he had read Niehaus’ full speech.

“They will note that I have not claimed to speak with a mandate on behalf of the ANC or MKMVA. Nor did I attack/criticise the ANC’s position concerning the Ingonyama Trust.”

Niehaus said he had merely been “at pains to clarify that the ANC has not taken any formal position with regards to the Inkonyama [sic] Trust, nor on the recommendations of the High Level Panel on the Assessment of Key Legislation and the Acceleration of Fundamental Change. This I did because as the Imbizo progressed it became clear to me that a very wrong and highly damaging perception was gaining ground that the ANC was negatively disposed to the Ingonyama Trust, and had accepted the recommendations of the High Level Panel – neither of which are correct.”

His statement added that his apology for Motlanthe’s remarks had been intended as from him personally, and not on behalf of the ANC.

“I did express my dismay with the very unfortunate remarks of comrade Kgalema Motlante when he had said that traditional leaders behave like ‘tin-pot dictators’, and personally apologised. I did so because I believe that these remarks were ill-conceived and poisons [sic] the atmosphere in which the ANC, Bayete and his Amakhosi have to engage as a matter of urgency with regards to the expropriation of land without compensation in general, and in this context specifically the Inkonyama Trust.”

He then pleaded with Motlanthe and the ANC to apologise officially “in order to clean up the entirely unnecessary poisonous atmosphere that that these remarks have created, and to clear the air for a process of constructive engagement between the ANC and traditional leaders”.

He ended by calling for the ANC to expropriate “land still owned by whites to its rightful black (primarily African) owners, from whom it was stolen by white colonists”, describing any focus on tribal land under the control of black people as a “diversion”.

“It is the deliberate intention of the current white owners of the land to create and orchestrate this situation. It is the duty of the ANC, as the leader of society, to do everything possible to avoid this from happening.”