Mantashe: no abandoning of land reform

Speaking at the launch the ANC's centenary book "Unity in Diversity: 100 Years of ANC Leadership", Mantashe stressed that transformation should be an ongoing topic as it was of historic importance to the liberation movement.

Mantashe quoted the ANC's second president, Sefako Makgatho, who said: "We ask for no special favours from the government. This is the land of our fathers." Statements like this, Mantashe said, helped force the movement to "refuse to remove the land question out of the agenda for transformation", as, he added this means that "we will be betraying what was the immediate challenge after the formation of the African National Congress."

Business Report says that Mantashe commented on Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder's controversial statement in Parliament last week that black "Bantu-speaking" people had no historical claim to 40 percent of the country. Mantashe said the first war of resistance was fought in 1659 by the Koi and the San people. Mulder, he said, was trying to rewrite history. "He (Mulder) believes the genocide that followed that war left no Koi and San people... He believes there were no people left," Mantashe said.

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