The Cape Town Press Club was brought to a temporary “freeze” on Friday, when Julius Malema decided to give FW de Klerk and Cyril Ramaphosa the cold shoulder. Parliament was left on the rocks during Thursday’s SONA session, as the EFF put proceedings on ice for more than 90 minutes with their disruptions.
Julius Malema at the Cape Town Press Club
Exhaustive ice-related puns aside, Julius Malema was back on form during the gathering held earlier this morning. The EFF leader took another swipe at FW de Klerk, accusing him of being a murderer for the role he played in apartheid-era crimes. De Klerk helped negotiated a transition to democracy in the 1990s, but his legacy will always be associated to his time with the National Party.
Julius Malema on FW de Klerk and President Ramaphosa #malema #MalemaOnSONA #MalemaAtThePressClubSA pic.twitter.com/J0T7o6mY61
— @ThePressClubSA (@thepressclubsa) February 14, 2020
Cyril Ramaphosa “is an ice boy” for FW de Klerk
However, Juju was also unhappy with Cyril Ramaphosa. He wasn’t impressed by the SONA speech, saying it presented no new ideas. He also slammed what he saw as “backtracking” on land expropriation, before labelling the president as de Klerk’s “ice boy” – a derogatory term for a servant of someone more powerful.
“On the Expropriation of Land, Cyril and the ANC have delayed the process of restoring the dignity of our people, only to propose legislation that does not fundamentally change Section 25 of the Constitution. We will remain landless because the government wants to compensate those who inherited our stolen land.”
“The government of the day is too afraid of white people. It is because the government of the day allows white to control all strategic sectors of our economy. This fear of whites, is exactly what makes a former liberation movement defend a mass murderer and apartheid apologist like De Klerk. Ramaphosa is his ice boy.”
Earlier Malema said Ramaphosa is “ice boy of De Klerk” that is why they think they can disrespect us like before 1994. Referring to calls for “murderer to leave the NA last night” @SABCNewsOnline
— Zalene Merrington (@ZaleneM) February 14, 2020
What FW de Klerk said about apartheid
FW de Klerk has attended several SONAs previous to Thursday, and has never faced the sort of protests that were brought against him last night. But anger over his legitimacy as a guest in Parliament was raised following an interview he did with SABC this week, denying that apartheid “was a crime”. This irked the EFF and Julius Malema, and it was these words that really set them off:
“I don’t fully agree with that it was evil, and I am not justifying apartheid in anyway. It did hurt people, and I’ve apologised for that, but there’s a difference in calling something like genocide a crime. Apartheid cannot be, and that is why I am saying this: It can never be compared with genocide, there was never genocide.”
FW de Klerk to SABC on apartheid
