Youth told to walk away from Malema

Bad planning led to ANC Youth League president Julius Malema abandoning two of his four public appearances aimed at drumming up support for this week's economic freedom march.

Calls for young people to snub his march are also growing.

The SA Youth Council, Young Communist League, student body Sasco and Azapo joined Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande in condemning the planned march and the way in which Malema and the youth league's top brass were mobilising residents and young people.

The Young Communist League's national secretary, Buti Manamela, said his organisation was "not interested in events staged to make certain political statements", and Azapo urged the young to stay away from the march to the JSE, Chamber of Mines and Union Buildings - scheduled for Thursday and Friday - and instead channel their energies into passing their matric exams, which start today.

The league said the march was aimed at giving a voice to unemployed and underemployed youth, landless people, the homeless, shack-dwellers and those who aspired to have access to quality education and decent livelihoods.

Malema yesterday attended a community meeting at Bantu Bonke township, near Vereeniging. Earlier he was at a service at the Ratanda Methodist Church in Heidelberg, at which church leaders asked him not to use the platform they had given him to push his political agenda because they were "politically neutral".

ANC Youth League spokesman Floyd Shivambu did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.

But a member of Malema's inner circle said the youth leader cancelled a community meeting in Meyerton, a stronghold of the DA, and a visit to a chesa nyama (braai outlet) in Sebokeng, south of Johannesburg, because of "poor planning by youth league regions".

Poor attendances in Meyerton and Sebokeng prompted him to go home instead, the official said.

Malema is under pressure to garner support ahead of the march as his standing in the ANC hangs in the balance. The ANC has hauled him before a disciplinary committee for bringing the party into disrepute and sowing division.

At Bantu Bonke, a defiant Malema told about 500 residents that they must not allow a mining company that recently discovered minerals in the area to bully them into moving.

"We heard that they want you to move from here, saying that Anglo owns this place, saying that there must be an alternative plan because there is a discovery of some minerals here.

"The mineral that they have discovered, it must also be your mineral, and if there is going to be mining here, you must be bought, you must not be removed because this is your land.

"You're sitting on top of richness, and that richness must benefit you. So this thing that every time they discover a mineral resource, they shift people, it must come to an end.

"When they discover minerals, they must ask you how best they are going to mine here to benefit you. Not to just [move] you and say you are going to get other houses and even those houses they are going to give you, they are not proper houses," he said.

Malema said the residents must use the march to demand better housing, access to basic services, free education and jobs.

Last week, Mthethwa took a veiled swipe at Malema for exploiting people's "hearts and needs".

"Don't listen to those who think they will march to Pretoria and things will change overnight, because they are dangerous," said Mthethwa.

Speaking in Diepsloot on Saturday, Malema attacked Mthethwa and Nzimande, and without mentioning them by name said: "The ministers say, 'Don't be part of the march because we will collapse the ANC.' After speaking that nonsense they go to their comfortable homes. They speak from prepared speeches and when they arrive home, they have forgotten what they said."

In Bantu Bonke, Malema said residents should join the march to reclaim ownership of their land.

"There are plots here they are owned by boers, but when they came here they did not come with the land . They found us here," he said.