SA Council of Churches condemns Malema's 'war talk'

On Sunday, Al Jazeera televised an interview with Malema in which he said the opposition "will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun" if the ruling African National Congress (ANC) continued to respond violently to peaceful protests.

In the interview Malema also said: "Part of the revolutionary duty is to fight and we are not ashamed if the need arises for us to take up arms and fight. We will fight. This regime must respond peacefully to our demands and must respond constitutionally to our demands."

SACC General Secretary, Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, said that the organisation took a dim view on "unfortunate war posturing" by Malema on the eve of South Africa's Freedom Day.

"Freedom Day is a reminder of that promise and all South Africans should be celebrating what has been achieved and resolve to work harder for the greater fulfilment of this promise. Mr Malema's war talk is totally out of place in a constitutional democracy and we are appalled that as a significant leader in Parliament, he should even think about war mongering. Such chilling war talk raises further questions of where such arms of war would come from."

Mpumlwana added that Malema was surely posturing to drive a political point.

"However, people living in the pain of civil war know only too well the traumatic pain of war. It was only yesterday that this country was living daily with blood in our streets. Do we have cause to return to that? Decidedly no! We therefore urge our leaders to desist from playing with war language to raise the political temperature in this country," said Mpumlwana. - ANA