DEFIANT ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema again sang the controversial “Kill the Boer” struggle song and vowed not to allow the country to be “run by journalists” in an address to a Human Rights Day gathering at the weekend.

“If you are not careful of journalists, they will bring down the government. We will never allow this country to be run by journalists,” he said in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, on Saturday.

He was speaking after President Jacob Zuma on Friday said reports of spying on journalists by government officials was “totally unacceptable”.

Zuma was concerned about government officials allegedly digging into the personal bank accounts of a Johannesburg investigative reporter. He was referring to a group of senior reporters having lodged a complaint against ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu last week.

Shivambu allegedly threatened to expose details of their personal lives when they refused to publish his allegations of money laundering against City Press reporter Dumisane Lubisi.

Human Rights Day celebrations were more sedate, although no less emotional, in Nelson Mandela Bay yesterday, where the Langa Massacre Memorial Park in Uitenhage was officially opened. It is the site where 36 people were shot dead by police on March 21, 1985, while they marched to a funeral in KwaNobuhle.

This year’s Human Rights Day marked the 25th anniversary of the Uitenhage shootings as well as the 50th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 people were killed by police when 300 demonstrators marched against pass laws in the township.

Eastern Cape Premier Noxolo Kiviet and Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Zanoxolo Wayile joined victims’ families and the survivors of the 1985 Langa shooting in Maduna Road by paying their respects to those who lost their lives.

Kiviet said the opening of the park was a sign of hope for the families whose members had been killed. “This is a sign South Africa will never go back to the days of apartheid. I know this day brings a lot of pain to victims’ families, but at least now we can educate our children about the fallen heroes,” she said.

Wayile said the park would be part of a national heritage site.

“The Langa massacre demonstrates our region played an important role in the struggle against apartheid. This is to show they (the victims) did not die in vain. We recognise them and their role in the struggle,” said Wayile.

Survivor Zixolisile Masiti, who was shot in the stomach and hip by the police, said he was happy about the memorial park.

“I remember that day as if it were yesterday. We were a crowd attending a funeral. We went via Maduna Road, where two police vehicles were waiting for us. We were singing struggle songs and the next thing I heard gunshots and some of the people were falling down.

“I was hit in the stomach and hip. I pretended to be dead for a while. The next thing I knew I woke up in Livingstone Hospital with others who had been attending the funeral,” Masiti said.

Yvonne Kama, whose son Sonwabo was 14 years old when he was shot dead by police, said: “Every day I wonder what my son could have become. I constantly have headaches because of thinking too much. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the pain of losing my son.”

In another part of Uitenhage, Cope held its own celebrations at the Central Stadium in Magennis Street where party president Mosioua Lekota charmed crowds of supporters with a speech about the significance of the day.

At Sharpeville, near Vereeniging in Gauteng, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe used Human Rights Day celebrations to call for an end to the violent public protests which have dogged the country in recent months.

“The people of Langa and Sharpeville did not voice protests by burning libraries and looting public facilities,” he said. “On the contrary, they left their passes at home and marched peacefully to the police stations to hand themselves over for arrest.”

Since the beginning of the year some parts of the country have been gripped by violent clashes between police and communities demanding services like clean water, housing and electricity.

However, opposition parties said the ANC was the main threat to human rights in the country.

“Our constitutional rights are threatened by greed, cronyism, corruption and power abuse,” said DA leader Helen Zille.

“Our right to live free from fear is threatened by hate speech that incites violence and the government’s hired thugs who think they are above the law.”

Zille said these threats were not from outside forces and had nothing to do with the legacy of the past. “They are recent threats to our human rights. And they come from the ruling party itself,” she said.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said a radical economic transformation was needed to avert a “social explosion” which South Africa managed to avert with the Convention for a Democratic South Africa in the 1990s.

Additional reporting by Sapa