Gauteng MEC for Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation, Lebogang Maile has described the acts of the right wingers who defaced signs bearing Madiba’s name as an attempt ‘’to throw scorn at our achievements of reconciliation, peace and nation building’’.
Maile was responding to reports that a group of right wingers decided to remove President Mandela’s name and replaced it with that of Clive Derby-Lewis who is currently serving a life sentence for his participation in the murder of former General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Chris Hani.
‘’This is the work of a tiny minority who are desperate to provoke the tendencies we successfully defeated in the period leading to the democratic breakthrough in 1994. We must reject this conduct and continue to work tirelessly as a nation to defend the values upon which we founded the new nation as enshrined in the Constitution.
“Chris Hani is one of the outstanding icons of liberation and to use names of people who participated in his brutal slaying is to hail insults at the victims of a system declared by the United Nations as a crime against humanity; a system Chris Hani dedicated his life to defeating. We have successfully defeated this system and we must not allow anyone to take our focus away from the on going process of re-building our country,’’ – said Maile.
For media inquiries please contact:
Emmanuel Mdawu
Cell: 082 848 1452
E-mail: emmanuel.mdawu@gauteng.gov.za
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government
