Nat fan hauled over coals by DA

02 October 2015 - 02:06 By Jan-Jan Joubert

Outspoken MP Dianne Kohler Barnard will be hauled before the DA's federal legal commission after she shared comments supportive of apartheid-era president PW Botha on Facebook. On September 15, Barnard shared the following post by Durban journalist Paul Kirk: "And so the new head of the Hawks - found to be without integrity and [to be] dishonest by the High Court - has suspended ace detective Johan Booysen for a typing error. This is a bloody circus."Please come back PW Botha - you were far more honest than any of these ANC rogues and you provided far better services to the public - we had a functioning education system, [a] functioning health system and the police did not murder miners on behalf of government toadies as they do now."Shortly afterwards, Kohler Barnard removed the post and has since apologised."I apologise unreservedly for sharing a post on FB in the midst of which the author praised PW Botha. I erased it immediately I realised," she said.But DA leader Mmusi Maimane has referred the issue to the party's federal legal commission. An internal disciplinary process against Kohler Barnard, the DA spokeswoman on police, will follow."We don't support any views which welcome PW Botha, we certainly don't associate ourselves with a perpetrator of evil against South Africans," said Maimane.Kohler Barnard and the DA were attacked heavily on social media yesterday.Former DA leader Helen Zille tweeted: "Please withdraw that post and apologise unconditionally. It is indefensible, even if you missed the PW Botha bit."ANC parliamentary spokesman Moloto Mothapo insisted the DA should fire the MP, whom he described as an apartheid advocate."The ANC in Parliament is outraged, but not surprised, by yet another DA public representative's shameless racism and nostalgic endorsement of the apartheid-era rule," said Mothapo."Racism and white supremacy form the core DNA of the DA. The DA's senior MP's tacit endorsement of the return of apartheid rule, which dehumanised, oppressed and murdered black people, once again justifies the endemic mistrust most of our people have of the DA as a party of apartheid longing for minority rule."DA spokeswoman Phumzile van Damme said PW Botha was a tyrant who oversaw the torture and murder of "thousands of South Africans."She said that was why DA stalwarts such as Helen Suzman and Zille had fought apartheid, adding that the DA was committed to building one nation...

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