Lekota+talks+to+North+West+about+Khutsong,+S+Times



=Lekota tries to calm Khutsong tensions=

Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 12 February 2006

 * MOIPONE MALEFANE and NDIVHUHO MAFELA**

ANC national chairman Mosioua Lekota met the North West provincial leadership of his party and the South African Communist Party yesterday in a desperate bid to diffuse hostilities between Khutsong residents and local ANC officials.

Campaigning for local government elections has come to a virtual halt in the township in the face of residents’ anger at the government’s decision to incorporate the area into North West province.

On Wednesday an ANC election campaign rally at a Khutsong Stadium was disrupted when about 150 SACP members apparently threw stones at people attending the event.

One SACP protester was wounded when an ANC activist allegedly fired shots at a crowd of protesting SACP members.

Relations between the ANC and residents have soured to the extent that the ANC has been “forbidden” to put up election campaign posters by residents threatening further violence if campaigning takes place.

The residents are angry at the government’s decision to redraw the provincial boundary between Gauteng and North West, a move that puts Khutsong township under the control of Mafikeng.

Since the announcement of the re-demarcation of borders late last year, the area has experienced sporadic violent protests by residents and SACP members.

Yesterday Lekota travelled to Rustenburg where he met local ANC and SACP leaders to discuss how the ANC could canvass in the troubled township.

The ANC had also extended an invitation to the SACP arm in Gauteng to attend the meeting, but the Sunday Times has been reliably informed that the Gauteng SACP snubbed the meeting.

It is understood that the SACP at national level and in Gauteng differ with the party’s North West wing on the Khutsong issue.

The SACP’s West Rand district secretary, Nkosipendule Kolisile, said he had been informed about the meeting by the ANC in North West, but could not attend because his Gauteng and national leadership had not given permission for him to attend.

“I do not know what the agenda is about, but I suspect it is about the volatile situation in Merafong [Khutsong’s parent municipality] where political parties cannot campaign,” he said yesterday.

A meeting last year between ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe and the SACP failed to resolve the conflict.

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 * From: http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=ST6A166882