‘NOBODY CARES’: FRUSTRATED MILITARY VETERANS CAMP AT LUTHULI HOUSE

While the ANC and the country’s deputy president are set to meet with them on Thursday, Dyodyo said they wanted to meet the entire top leadership in one meeting

FILE: The former soldiers represent members of the ANC’s own liberation army uMkhonto weSizwe - the PAC’s Apla and Azania’s Azanla members. Picture: Reinart Toerien/Eyewitness News.

Tshidi Madia 

JOHANNESBURG - Frustrated military veterans said they had no choice but to camp at the African National Congress (ANC)’s headquarters after they demanded a meeting with leaders of the governing party.

While the ANC has since evacuated its offices, it said its deputy president David Mabuza - who heads up the presidential task team on issues relating to military veterans - would meet with the group on Thursday.

The former soldiers represent members of the ANC’s own liberation army uMkhonto weSizwe - the PAC’s Apla and Azania’s Azanla members.

The demonstration follows a march to Pretoria over the welfare of former veterans last year, where government committed to attending to their issues.

The ANC, when asked about former veterans who slept at its offices while waiting to meet party leaders, speaks of a breach that took place but for these individuals who once laid their lives on the line in the name of freedom, this is purely an act of desperation.

They’ve told Eyewitness News promises to attend to their living conditions, employment, housing and medical care remained just that.

And instead of marching back to Pretoria where the country’s seat of power lies, they have decided to go to the governing party’s headquarters, which is the ANC’s centre of power.

Thanduxolo Dyodyo, who slept at Luthuli House, shares his frustrations with Eyewitness News: “My child dropped out of university because the ANC could not pay, these things are very frustrating, It has come to a point where we become prisoners of hope because we’re told these things are going to be sorted out. At the end of the day, there is nobody who cares.”

While the ANC and the country’s deputy president are set to meet with them on Thursday, Dyodyo said they wanted to meet the entire top leadership in one meeting.