By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The uMkhonto weSizwe Liberation War Veterans (MKLWV) national convenor Dan Hatto has been elected unopposed as the new chairperson of the veterans’ league.
The veterans league held the inaugural elective conference in Imvelo Safari Resort, Bloemfontein.
The new body was formed after the mother body disbanded the uMkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) in June 2021. The decision was in part to resolve deep-seated factionalism and to unite the MKMVA with its rival structure, the MK National Council (MKNC).
The newly elected MKLWV leadership is as follows:
Chairperson: Dan Hatto
Deputy Chairperson: Xolani Don
Secretary-General: Mncedisi Mthethwa
Deputy Secretary-General: Mandilakhe Dilima
National Commissar: Thami Ntenteni
Treasurer General: Thandi Mashoala
Umzana: Tosca Tyibilika
Former President Thabo Mbeki delivered a keynote address on Day 2 of the MKLWV Conference, warning of counter-revolutionary forces.
He said, the counter-revolutionaries had wrongly predicted that the ANC would cease to exist after the 2021 local government elections.
“It was said that people were angry that the ANC had allowed the Constitutional Court to sentence Jacob Zuma, and he was going to go to jail … that was a complete lie; it was the counter-revolutionary testing its strength to see if they can destabilise the country. It then acted to cause that whole mayhem,” said Mbeki.
Mbeki also cited Eskom as a clear example of counter-revolutionary sabotage, explaining that internal monitoring systems warning of dwindling coal supplies were deliberately ignored from November 2007.
This engineered neglect triggered the January 2008 load-shedding crisis, after which an emergency was declared, bypassing procurement rules and immediately inflating coal prices, undermining the state through calculated institutional failure.