“We will remove this governmen

ANC Youth League president Julius Malema attends a mining conference in Johannesburg, Tuesday, 7 September 2010.In punting nationalisation of the South African mines, Malema, a guest speaker at the conference, said white men continued to get richer while black women, particularly rural women continued to get poorer. Picture: Werner Beukes/SAPA

“We will remove this government through the barrel of a gun.” Malema

Juju has warned the ANC that, should it continue to respond violently to peaceful protests, the EFF will “remove this government through the barrel of a gun.”

“We will remove this governmen

ANC Youth League president Julius Malema attends a mining conference in Johannesburg, Tuesday, 7 September 2010.In punting nationalisation of the South African mines, Malema, a guest speaker at the conference, said white men continued to get richer while black women, particularly rural women continued to get poorer. Picture: Werner Beukes/SAPA

In an episode of Talk to AL Jazeera – the 28-minute interview premieres on Al Jazeera English this coming Sunday, 24 April 2016 at 19:30 GMT / 21:30 CAT – Malema told the programme’s interviewer, Jonah Hull: “We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun;” referring to what Malema calls the ANC’s violent response to peaceful EFF protests.

As the interview got going, Hull asked Juju how far he’d be willing to go in his “war” against Zuma and the ANC, and reminded him that back in 2014 the EFF threatened to make Gauteng ungovernable.

“We will fight,” you said. “We have the capability to mobilise our people and fight physically,” Hull said. “That’s not befitting of a government in waiting, is it?”

“We know for a fact that Gauteng ANC rigged elections here,” Malema replied.

“We know for a fact that they lost Johannesburg and they lost Gauteng. But we still accepted it. But they must know that we are not going to do that this year. We are not going to accept. Part of the revolutionary duty is to fight and we are not ashamed if the need arise for us to take up arms and fight. We will fight.”

“This regime must respond peacefully to our demands, must respond constitutionally to our demands. And if they are going to respond violently – like they did in the township of Alexandra, just outside Johannesburg, when people said these results do not reflect the outcome of our votes, they sent the army to go and intimidate our people – we are not going to stand back. Zuma is not going to use the army to intimidate us. We are not scared of the army. We are not scared to fight. We will fight.”

Hull then pushed Malema to clarify what he had said: “When you say you are willing to take up arms, that’s what you mean?”

“Literally. Against the government?” 

To which Malema responded: “Yeah, literally. I mean it literally. We are not scared. We are not going to have a government that disrespects us.”

“And on what basis, under which circumstances?” Hull asked.

“If they respond violently to our peaceful protest,” Malema answered.

“We are a very peaceful organisation. We fight our battles through peaceful means, through the courts, through parliament, through mass moblisation. We do that peacefully. But at times, government gets tempted to respond to such with violence. They beat us up in parliament and they send soldiers to places like Alexandra where people are protesting. We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun,” Malema added.

Malema previously denied that president Jacob Zuma was his sole concern.

 “We are not waged in a war against Zuma and the ANC. We are waging a war against white monopoly capital. Zuma is not our enemy. The ANC is not our enemy. They are standing in our way to crushing white monopoly capital, which has stolen our land, which controls the wealth of our country. As we are in the process of crushing the white monopoly capital, there will be some of those irritations that we have to deal with. Zuma represents such an irritation; the ANC represents such an irritation.”