Publications
Partners
A high-ranking MK official has absolved Nyanda of any wrongdoing, painting him as the picture of brothers in arms
Retired SA National Defence Force (SANDF) major-general Enoch Mashoala has defended former Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) chief and former communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda, who some former MK members have accused of corruption and wrongdoing.
City Press last week reported on a video doing the rounds in MK circles, showing a discussion during a recent MK conference preparatory meeting chaired by Mashoala’s team in Durban City Hall in KwaZulu-Natal, where a person in the audience accused some of the former MK generals, including Nyanda, of pursuing self-interests once they got high seats in the SANDF, while leaving their lower-ranking former MK colleagues to suffer without a livelihood.
Read: Battle of generals vs foot soldiers
The planned MK national elective conference, which was scheduled to start on Thursday and end on Sunday, became the first casualty of the ANC as Luthuli House announced that all party events were suspended until further notice, owing to fears of the Covid-19 coronavirus.
The “all-inclusive” conference was aimed at uniting two former MK groups – the MK National Council and MK Military Veterans’ Association (MKMVA) – following a longstanding turf battle over the leadership of the ANC’s former liberation soldiers.
Mashoala, also a member of the MK National Council, told City Press on Friday that the Durban incident was “unfortunate, ill-disciplined behaviour, and staged.
To start with, our going there was to give a report back to the comrades regarding the work done in preparation for the coming all-inclusive conference for former MK members.
“However, the meeting was left to degenerate and become a platform for insults, especially to me and the former minister.”
He said the allegations levelled against the former MK generals were “unfounded” and “clearly exposed, firstly, the lack of understanding of the contributions made by the likes of Nyanda, particularly in respect of the transformation in the SANDF”.
“There was no appreciation of the many interventions he made as chief of SANDF. For example, he ordered that a group of former MK members [about 30], who were dismissed, be reinstated.
“Secondly, realising that former MK members were underranked, he commissioned a reranking of those members, with the army alone having 700 applications at the SA Air Force, SA Navy and SA Military Health Service.”
Mashoala said that reranking was done only for former MK soldiers, and no former statutory members participated in that process. Sadly, he said, those who were responsible recommended only 334 members, bar one who had already left the system.
“How do you then blame Nyanda for that? His track record in the struggle speaks for itself, hence he was appointed as the last chief of staff of MK. Those who choose to insult him don’t have any profile in the MK, and their behaviour exhibits the same,” said Mashoala.
Meanwhile, in Gauteng’s Sedibeng region, the MK National Council appeared to be crumbling this week as regional secretary Oupa Modikoe withdrew his participation in the structure.
In a letter to the Sedibeng MKMVA on Wednesday, Modikoe said his decision was “with immediate effect, in the name of unity of MK community in the region”.
He said he would be joining the local MKMVA.
Speaking to City Press, Modikoe said unity of the ANC’s former soldiers was paramount, especially after the ANC’s national conference resolution in Nasrec in 2017 that the MK community heal its divisions and work together in an inclusive manner.
He said he was awaiting formal feedback after escalating his decision to the provincial and national structures of the MK National Council.
The council had some 15 members in the region, he said, describing the number as minimal.
Modikoe left for exile to gain military training in support of the ANC’s anti-apartheid struggle in 1992. He served as coordinator for the ANC’s political school in Sedibeng for a decade.
He is also a retired member of the SANDF’s military intelligence.
 |
| ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
