Learn your history: Steenhuisen to MK Party after it opposes Ukraine visa waiver

'Joe Modise took the real MK for training in Odesa, which is in Ukraine'

Agriculture minister and DA leader John Steenhuisen says the MK Party is pretending to be the real uMkhonto weSizwe 'when you know nothing about the real MK and its contribution to this country'. File image.
Agriculture minister and DA leader John Steenhuisen says the MK Party is pretending to be the real uMkhonto weSizwe 'when you know nothing about the real MK and its contribution to this country'. File image.
Image: PER-ANDERS PETTERSSON/GETTY IMAGES

DA leader John Steenhuisen has called into question MK party members' understanding of the history behind “the real uMkhonto we Sizwe”, the ANC's armed wing.

Steenhuisen was responding during the National Assembly plenary session on Tuesday to the MK Party's opposition to South Africa and Ukraine introducing visa-free travel between the countries. 

He urged the MK Party to learn its history, citing the historic connection between uMkhonto we Sizwe and Ukraine.

“Clearly, you're learning your history from the wrong places; don't believe everything Ubaba ka Duduzane [MK Party leader Jacob Zuma] tells you. The real uMkhonto we Sizwe, you would know that Joe Modise took them for training in Odesa, which is in Ukraine,” Steenhuisen said. “Go and understand your history before you come here and pretend to be uMkhonto we Sizwe when you know nothing about the real MK and its contribution to this country.”

While the Presidency hasn't signed off the no-visa arrangement, MK party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said South Africa should not form relationships with Ukraine.

“Whether concluded or not, the MK Party is of the firm view that South Africa should avoid intensification of any bilateral diplomatic relationship with Ukraine, because Ukraine is not an independent and autonomous country,” Ndhlela said.

He said Ukraine under its current leadership is an imperialist project of the West and is fighting a proxy war on behalf of the West.

He said South Africa therefore cannot build any sensible relationship with a “puppet state and country whose sole mandate is to destabilise Eastern Europe, and Russia in particular, on behalf of the neocolonial and imperialist West”.

“This so-called agreement with Ukraine is aimed at facilitating an influx and quasi-evacuation of defeated right-wing Ukrainians to South Africa by the racist, pro-white, imperialist DA.”

The DA reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring the agreement is signed.

It said Ukraine had always been an ally in the fight against the systemic disenfranchisement of South Africa’s black majority by the apartheid government.

“The move to grant visa-free access to Ukrainian diplomats, officials, and servicemen and women is a long overdue recognition of this country’s immense contribution to the fall of the apartheid state,” said DA MP Ryan Smith.


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