PAC leader appeals to ‘coloured’ community to fight for land

The Western Cape Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) leader and former treasurer who is now the South African Military Veterans Association (SAMVA) chairperson, Bantubonke Nduna has called for coloured communities to associate with the party especially to support political demands for land as well as compensation for human rights abuses committed by the former apartheid government.

Nduna was one of the guest speakers at the PAC’s commemoration in Langa on Wednesday of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960.

“It is a pity that I do not see coloured people amongst us here today. It concerns me… I wish that they realize that their Khoisan forefathers became the first to be robbed of land and their cattle stock by the colonisers, before they used them as slaves.

“I also appeal for you to demand financial compensation from the British government through the South African authorities for the large number of coloureds whom they gunned down with Bushmen (Khoisan people) in 1837.

“It is not just that particular massacre but also the gunning down of Xhosa King Hintsa after his arrest in 1835 and the removal of his skull to be kept as a trophy in Britain.

“Hintsa’s head should be returned back to the country for its proper burial too.

“We must ensure that the South African government embassy in Britain and the British offices in the country get shutdown until these demands are properly met.

“You have got to be cognisant of these issues if you are to deal with the land problems and such demands must be met before the oncoming 2019 general elections,” he told a gathering of more than 100 of the party’s supporters.

Kweti Mkaliphi one of several remaining party stalwarts appealed for the PAC and its alliance members to be seriously united and strive to achieve more than ten parliamentary seats after the 2019 elections.

This was echoed by Songezo Booi of the Pan Africanist Student Movement Association (PASMA) who lamented problems of factionalism in the party and disunity amongst its members.

Owen Khathazile, the Pan Africanist Movement (PAM) deputy secretary opposed the ANC government’s land expropriation without compensation policy and insisted that they instead opt for land restoration.

“We are opposed of the phrase because it means that you are also endorsing the unjust laws of the apartheid government.

“When the land robbed from us as Africans, the regime of the time also established its own unjust laws, so the term expropriation simultaneously express that you also accept the colonial laws.

“That also means you refer to this land of our own to be belonging to the whites. According to our own and standing point restoration of land is about taking anything where it does not belong and return it back to its rightful owner.

Accompanying Inkululeko ngoku (freedom now) chants was a demonstration of extra-ordinary military drills by the ex-soldiers of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA), the disbanded military wing of the party.