ZIMBABWE INDEPENDENT

18
Zimbabwe independent august 1 to 7, 2014
africa news
ANC and EFF’s war of words escalates
EEF leader Julius Malema
A SPeCIAL forces base in the Libyan city of
Benghazi has been seized by militias, fighters
and officials say.
The site was captured by Islamist-led
militias after days of fighting in the eastern
city, officials said.
Meanwhile, Italy has offered to help extinguish
a huge blaze that has engulfed the
biggest fuel depot in the Libyan capital,
Tripoli.
Libya has been gripped by instability
since the 2011 uprising, with swathes of the
country controlled by militias.
“We have withdrawn from the [Benghazi]
army base after heavy shelling," Special
Forces officer Fadel al-hassi told reporters
on Tuesday.
The fighters also confirmed in a statement
that they had taken control of the base.
On Monday, officials said that at least 38
people had been killed in clashes between
troops loyal to the Libyan government and
Islamist fighters in Benghazi.
At least 97 people have also been killed in
fighting between rival militias battling for
control of Tripoli© s main airport in the past
week.
The government has blamed clashes between
the armed groups for starting the
fire at the Tripoli fuel depot, and preventing
firefighters from putting out the blaze.
The depot is about 10km (six miles) from
Tripoli on the road to the international
airport.
The government has been unable to disarm
the numerous armed groups controlling
large parts of the country, which are
behind Libya© s worst violence since the
The war of words between the ANC and
the economic Freedom Fighters escalated
on Tuesday, with the governing party accusing
the eFF of using the same “paramilitary”
tactics as the German fascist dictator
Adolf hitler to mobilise support.
The ANC also accused the eFF of adopting
the same cynical position as the DA to
oppose any of its proposals as a way to delegitimise
and weaken it and, ultimately,
dislodge it from power.
These propensities, the governing party
said, were part of the “massive change”
in Parliamentary politics it had witnessed
since the May elections.
“South Africa has also witnessed the entering
of a fascist movement into our parliamentary
politics. This movement used
uniforms (of maids and miners) to mobilise
in the same way that hitler used brown
shirts in the 1930s,” ANC secretary-general
Gwede Mantashe said on Tuesday, at the
post-lekgotla media briefing in Joburg.
eFF members clashed last week with
the police in the Gauteng legislature when
their protest march over the banning of
their MPLs wearing red overalls with party
Libya militias seize Benghazi special forces base
2011 uprising that toppled Col Muammar
Gaddafi.
It has led some Western governments
to urge their nationals to leave and withdraw
foreign staff from their embassies in
Tripoli. — BBC Online.
France evacuates nationals from Libya
FrANCe temporarily closed its embassy
in Libya on Wednesday and is evacuating
its nationals there due to the worsening
security situation, the French Foreign
Ministry said.
“We have taken all necessary measures
to allow those French nationals who so
wish to leave the country temporarily,”
the ministry said in a statement, not detailing
the number of nationals involved.
The French embassy in Tripoli has
temporarily closed, it said, adding that
diplomatic activities would continue to
be conducted from Paris for now.
A French diplomatic source said 40
French nationals, including the ambassador,
had been evacuated by ship along
with seven British nationals.
They are aboard a warship bound for
the southern French port of Toulon, the
French foreign ministry said.
On Sunday, the US evacuated its embassy
in Tripoli, citing a “real risk” because
of the fighting.
Together with France, Germany and
the UK, it advised its nationals in Libya to
leave immediately.
The UN announced this week it was
pulling its staff out.
France and the UK played an important
role in enforcing a no-fly zone in
Libya in 2011, when rebels toppled longtime
leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was
captured and killed.
France had on Sunday already called on
all French nationals to leave Libya, which
in the last two weeks has descended into
its deadliest violence since the 2011 war
that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. BBC Online
— reuters.
insignia turned violent. Dozens of eFF
members, led by their commander, Julius
Malema, stormed the legislature.
Mantashe said this behaviour was part
of a disturbing, growing trend.
“The worrying factor in this regard is
the eFF’s use of anarchy and destruction
as their modus operandi. It fits into the paramilitary
content of their strategy, which
shows early signs of a rebel movement
designed and calculated to undermine
democracy and state institutions,” Mantashe
said.
Malema hit back, branding Mantashe “a
joke” for comparing the eFF to the paramilitary,
Nazi Germany of hitler.
“We don’t take that (accusation) seriously,
because whatever Mantashe says,
he remains a joke. We won’t respond to
him because there is no political basis
in what he thinks is political analysis,”
Malema responded.
“When people can’t fault you on issues,
they engage in character assassination.
We are happy that they are not presenting
any counter-arguments.”
Mantashe had also suggested that the
DA and the eFF were colluding to wantonly
oppose the ANC without considering
the governing party’s proposals.
“Whether the proposal makes sense or
not, both the DA and the eFF have taken
a position of adamant and dogmatic opposition
to any proposal of the ANC. Indeed,
their interest is the same — that of
delegitimising and weakening the ANC
as a liberation movement — and with the
intention of dislodging it,” Mantashe said.
This tendency was part of a growing
trend to undermine the ANC, he added.
Malema denied that his party was in
agreement with the DA.
“It’s not true. That’s a lie. The DA agrees
with them on the NDP (National Development
Plan) and we disagree.
“There is no single thing that the eFF
and the DA agree on. It’s only the neoliberal
policies that the ANC and DA agree.
If there are any parties that go to bed together,
it’s the ANC and the DA,” Malema
said.
Part of the DA’s strategy included taking
every decision by the ANC to litigation
to make it difficult for the legitimate government
to govern.
Mantashe said the ANC would, “in
countering and dealing with these gutter
politics”, not be stooping to these low
levels.
DA national spokesman Marius redelinghuys
denied the ANC’s accusations.
“We are a pragmatic opposition that
opposes that which is not in the best interest
of the society and celebrate that
which is,” he said. — iol news.
Rwanda seeks life
for army officer
accused of attack plots
MILITAry prosecution lawyers in rwanda
on Wednesday sought a life sentence for an
ex-officer accused of plotting attacks on
the state, who was extradited from Uganda
despite being a refugee.
Joel Mutabazi, a former member of the
presidential guard protecting rwandan
President Paul Kagame, fled the country
in 2011 but was extradited by Ugandan authorities
last year, despite criticism from
rights groups.
Mutabazi, whose trial opened in January,
was indicted on charges of “terrorism,
setting up an armed group, spreading
rumours with the intention of inciting the
public to rise up against the state, murder,
crimes against the state and illegal possession
of a firearm”. “All these are serious
crimes, and for this we request a life sentence”,
army prosecutor Faustin Nzakamwita
told the military court in the capital
Kigali.
Mutabazi has pleaded not guilty, said
his trial was illegal and that his life was in
danger. he has refused to testify in court.
Police have accused him and 15 other coaccused
of being linked to a string of grenade
attacks carried out in rwanda, as part
of the dissident rwanda National Congress
(rNC), in collaboration with the Democratic
Forces for the Liberation of rwanda
(FDLr). The rNC, based between South
Africa and the United States, is headed by
defectors from Kagame© s ruling party.
The FDLr are the Democratic republic of
the Congo-based descendants of the ethnic
hutu militia who carried out rwanda’s
1994 genocide. The UN refugee agency and
human rights Watch strongly criticised
Mutabazi’s transfer to rwanda. — The Star.
Joel Mutabazi, a former member of the Rwandan presidential guard.