SOUTH AFRICA: ANC youth leader Julius Malema expels a BBC journalist at news conference in Johannesburg

Record ID: 456098

  • Title: SOUTH AFRICA: ANC youth leader Julius Malema expels a BBC journalist at news conference in Johannesburg
  • Date: 9th April 2010
  • Summary: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, (APRIL 8, 2010) (REUTERS) NEWS CONFERENCE UNDERWAY ANC YOUTH LEAGUE FLAG (SOUNDBITE) (English) JULIUS MALEMA, ANC YOUTH LEAGUE PRESIDENT, SAYING: "Zimbabwe has been very successful, they have managed to give indigenous people lots of land from the minority. More than 350 000, indigenous people today own land and they are doing very well in agriculture, and they are producing for themselves and for the Zimbabweans in general, so we think that the land reform has been done successfully." MEDIA SEATED DURING NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) JULIUS MALEMA, ANC YOUTH LEAGUE PRESIDENT, SAYING: "There's everything about the Zimbabweans, let them go back and go and fight there, even when the ANC was underground in exile, we had our internal underground forces fighting for freedom, and we have never spoken from .....Exile,....you see (referring to the BBC journalist)...Let me tell you...You, this is a building of a revolutionary party, and you know nothing about the revolution, ....So here, wait here, you behave or you jump...(laughter from the media)....Dont't laugh...Chief can you get security to remove this thing here...If you are not going to behave, we are going to call security to take you out. This is not a newsroom this, this is a revolutionary house, and you don't come here with that tendency...don't come here with that white tendency, not here, you can do it somewhere else not here, if you have a tendency of undermining blacks where you work, you are in the wrong place. Here you are in the wrong place and you can go out, you can go out. Rubbish is what you have covered in that trouser, that is rubbish, that which you have covered in this trouser is rubbish...OK. You are a small boy, you can't do anything......come out...go out...bastard, go out, you bloody agent........(BBC Reporter leaves). MEDEA SEATED (SOUNDBITE) (English) JULIUS MALEMA, ANC YOUTH LEAGUE PRESIDENT, SAYING: "So Terre'blanche is not a hero, and Terre'blanche we have not caused his murder. Our hands do not have blood, we have never killed anybody. Those workers, the death of Terre'blanche must help all of us to open our eyes, and develop keen interest of what our people subjected to on daily basis in the farms." ANC YOUTH LEAGUE FLAG
  • Embargoed: 24th April 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Africa
  • Country: South Africa
  • Topics: Communications,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAE3Y3TDZGFQPXEWBH48UHXV4O9
  • Story Text: The firebrand youth leader of South Africa's ruling party made clear on Thursday (April 8) he will not be silenced, demanding Zimbabwe-style land seizures from white farmers and vowing to keep singing a controversial song.
    "Zimbabwe has been very successful, they have managed to give indigenous people lots of land from the minority," Youth League leader Julius Malema said.
    Under pressure after the murder of white supremacist Eugene Terre'blanche stoked fears of racial strife, the African National Congress told members on Wednesday to avoid inflammatory songs and comment.
    Malema said he would accede to the demand to drop the phrase "Kill the Boer" from the song which dates from the era of the struggle against apartheid, but keep singing the rest of it. Boer is the Afrikaans word for a farmer.
    Malema attacked the media, saying that they always mis-report important issues like the land issues. He then ordered a BBC reporter to leave the news conference after accusing him of being disorderly.
    "Chief can you get security to remove this thing here? ...If you have a tendency of undermining blacks where you work, you are in the wrong place... You are a small boy, you can't do anything. Go out...bastard, go out, you bloody agent," Malema said to the journalist before he left the room.
    The ruling ANC has ordered its youth leader and other structures to stop inflammatory comments after he was accused of stoking racial tension before the murder of white supremacist Eugene Terre'blanche, local media said.
    Terre'blanche's Afrikaner Resistance Movement and mainstream opposition parties have linked the killing to sentiment fuelled by Julius Malema and his singing of a song from the era of the struggle against apartheid with the words "Kill the Boer".
    The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has rejected any link between the song and the murder, but President Jacob Zuma has appealed for calm two months before South Africa is due to host the soccer World Cup.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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