Plan to dissolve MK veterans body meets stiff resistance

The ANC’s plan to disband the uMkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association has been met with strong resistance by some members of the association who believe that the decision was arbitrary and uncalled for.

The party’s subcommittee on peace and stability recommended that both the association and its rival MK Council must disband and a new nonfactional structure be established.

The subcommittee was mandated by the ANC’s 54th national conference in December last year which resolved that it should attend to the enmity between the two bodies with a view to merge them into one structure.

Yesterday, both the veterans’ association and MK Council made presentations to the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) at Luthuli House in Johannesburg about how they felt about the idea to merge.

Both groups confirmed to The Citizen that they had a meeting with the NWC which was expected to decide on the matter and then take the issue to the national executive committee (NEC), the ANC’s highest decision-making body between conferences.

The association’s chairperson Kebby Maphatsoe yesterday confirmed that they had just come back from the NWC gathering to make representation around the disbandment.

He said his association was opposed to the peace and stability subcommittee’s recommendation that they must disband.

“Comrades are not in favour of the disbandment, we are not convinced with the reasoning put forward for the proposed disbandment of MKMVA,” Maphatsoe said. “We don’t want to comment further because the NWC and the NEC are going to engage on this issue, let’s wait for them to decide. We don’t know what the NWC will recommend.”

Under Maphatsoe’s leadership, the association was seen as siding with the Jacob Zuma faction and frequently defended him from critics who demanded his resignation.

Maphatsoe was accused of recruiting youth that he allegedly turned into military veterans despite many of them aged about 30 years with no combat experience.

On the other hand, an MK Council source said they were in favour of the MKMVA disbandment. He said the council leaders such as its chairperson, General Siphiwe Nyanda and his deputy, Thabang Makwetla, recognised the fact that the MK Council was not an ANC constitutional structure and that the veterans’ association was a recognised structure.

The council avoided making public statements that would jeopardise the merger or unity talks.

The source said: “They [MK Council] cannot talk about this matter because the issue is before the NWC, they don’t want to jeopardise the unity process.

“Even Kebby [Maphatsoe] and his people were told not to make any media or public statements around this issue, but he continues to talk because the MKMVA wants to rubbish this process.

“We welcome the recommendation that both MKMVA and MK Council must be dissolved and that senior veterans of MK [uMkhonto weSizwe] and the NEC must oversee the election of a new single structure. The future MK veterans structure must reflect the former MK detachments that were established in exile.”

The process would not end with the establishment of a MK veterans structure, but ensuring that the right and former members of MK benefited from the military pensions from the Department of Defence and Military veterans.

“The department wants to clean the veterans’ database because it is contaminated with non-MK people who were brought in by Kebby himself,” said the source.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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