The Times
*Don't create scapegoats: Mantashe * *Sapa, The Times, Johannesburg, 7 June 2011*The ANC Youth League was creating a "scapegoat" by alleging that some ANC leaders were plotting to disturb its elective congress, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Tuesday.
"When a leader says the conference is going to be disrupted... that leader is creating an environment for disrupting the conference, creating a scapegoat upfront," he told reporters in Johannesburg.
ANCYL president Julius Malema reportedly claimed at a recent provincial league meeting that senior ANC leaders were out to "destroy" him.
He claimed leaders held "high-level meetings" and planned to disrupt the league's elective congress in Midrand next week.
"Painful as it is that those that we have supported, those that we have committed our lives to defend, those that we sang songs about, today they can sit proudly and plot our downfall and the disruption of our congress," Independent Online quoted Malema as saying.
However, Mantashe said the league leadership was responsible for the smooth running of its own congress.
"If it's disrupted, that youth league leadership will have to account for that disruption because it has the prime responsibility to ensure that it's not disrupted... we don't create scapegoats for responsibility. The youth league has a responsibility to run a decent conference as an organisation," he said.
The ANC would have a delegation attending the gathering in a "supportive role".
Mantashe said the league's leadership could not "outsource" the responsibility to hold a decent, smooth event.
"Who planned for the disruption of the Mangaung conference? We saw bums outside there, everything. Was there a leader of the ANC who ordered them to take off their trousers?" Mantashe said.
He was referring to the ANCYL's last elective conference in Bloemfontein, which had to be aborted. When the meeting was reconvened, Malema was elected president.
*From: http://www.timeslive.co.za/Politics/article1106048.ece/Dont-create-scapegoats--Mantashe*
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