Speaking on Saturday at a function of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces at Sun City in North West, former President Thabo Mbeki said that the ANC had not received "one cent" or "one bullet" from slain Libyan strongman Colonel Muammar Gaddafi during the struggle against apartheid. This, said Mbeki, was because the ANC had Joe Slovo, who was Jewish, as one of its leaders – according to a report in the SUNDAY TIMES.
Mbeki, who referred to "disinformation" about the reason South Africa and the African Union opposed Nato's "regime change" mission in Libya, said: "The incontrovertible fact is that during this whole [struggle] period, Libya did not give the ANC even one cent, did not train even one of our military combatants and did not supply us with even one bullet.
"This is because Gaddafi's Libya made the determination that the ANC was little more than an instrument of Zionist Israel, because we had among our leaders such outstanding patriots as the late Joe Slovo.
"Libya came to extend assistance to the ANC after 1990, when it realised that the ANC was a genuine representative of the overwhelming majority of our people," said Mbeki.
Mbeki said the lie about Libyan aid was spread to create the impression that African countries and the AU were beholden to Gaddafi because he had bankrolled them with petro-dollars.
"Similarly the false assertion has been made that the AU depended on Libyan money to ensure its survival. This is yet another fabrication," he said.
Mbeki was speaking under the theme "International law and the future of Africa." He criticised the United Nations Security Council for being used as an instrument to undermine Africa. He said this was against the right to self-determination and international law.
He singled out US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy as the real drivers behind the regime change in Libya.
Mbeki warned of attempts to re-colonise Africa by world powers using their might to determine the future of Africa. "It seems obvious that a few powerful countries seek to turn the Security Council into an instrument in their hands, to be used by them to pursue their selfish interests, determined to behave according to the principle and practice that 'might is right'," he said.
He urged the legal fraternity to use its "considerable talents" to join the struggle to defend Africa's right to "freely determine its political status and freely pursue its economic, social and cultural development".
