By Staff Reporter
SOUTH African opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema criticized Cyril Ramaphosa and regional organizations, the AU and SADC, for failing to address President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s oppressive rule, which has instilled fear among his political opponents in Zimbabwe.
Malema made these remarks during his party’s 10th-anniversary celebrations in Johannesburg.
Malema said both the AU and SADC have become exclusive clubs of elites that neglect the numerous challenges affecting the African population.
“African Union is a meeting of friends who do not even call each other to order,”
“They can meet with a dictator who has just killed his people and do not even mention it. So, we can’t allow the African Union to continue working the way it is working.
“We are talking here about SADC; we have a problem in Zimbabwe.
“These members of SADC don’t call the government of Zimbabwe to order because it is a group of brothers. That government is violating people there,” Malema said.
Malema also said Zimbabwe’s stringent laws are obstructing Mnangagwa’s opponents from conducting their meetings.
“No one in SADC has raised his voice to say what is this,” he said.
“So, we cannot have these regional bodies and the continental body including Pan African Parliament by the way which are not biting on countries that are engaged in wrong activities.
“What is wrong with President Ramaphosa calling President Mnangagwa to order; it would be coming from a good place.
“They are all brothers; they are all Africans, they all speak, we assume for the interest of Africans.
“So, we can’t have a situation where we have regional bodies, continental bodies that become a meeting of the elites without concrete solutions to the problems confronting the people of Africa.” he said.
His remarks come in the wake of SADC’s inability to make a decisive stance on Zimbabwe’s contentious August elections, which were deemed fraudulent by both SADC and international election observer missions.
