The banning of a "radical voice" within the ANC has boosted the confidence of right-wing leaders who believe black people have no share in the land, ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema said.
"They are saying South Africa doesn't belong to us. They say so because they know the radical voice of the ANC is banned," Malema told a crowd attending the league's centenary rally in Kliptown in Soweto yesterday.
In reference to recent comments by Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Mulder, Malema said: "We are now told by a rightwinger that we don't belong to this land, this is not our land".
Mulder, the deputy minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, recently said there was sufficient evidence that there were no Bantu-speaking people in the Western Cape and northwestern Cape, which constituted 40% of land in South Africa.
He has since defended his statement, saying he was being misunderstood and that he was merely reacting to arguments that white people had stolen land.
Malema accused the ANC leadership of shying away from putting Mulder in his place. This was despite President Jacob Zuma and ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe having said that Mulder was "trying to rewrite history".
Malema warned that if the leadership of the ANC was not prepared to defend the land, then the "economic freedom fighters" would do so.
Malema, who was earlier introduced as a chief commander of economic freedom, was joined on stage by other youth league leaders, including his deputy, Ronald Lamola, secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa, league spokesman Floyd Shivambu and Gauteng ANC chairman Lebohang Maile.
Malema, Shivambu, Magaqa, Lamola and two other officials were found guilty in November of bringing the ANC into disrepute and of sowing division in the party. They are awaiting the outcome of arguments in mitigation and aggravation of their suspensions, which range from 18 months to five years.
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