S.African youth leader stronger after rebuke: paper
Date 2010/5/24 9:58:09 | Topic: South Africa
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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Outspoken South African ANC youth leader Julius Malema has emerged stronger after his rebuke by President Jacob Zuma and the ruling ANC party, he was quoted as saying in The Sunday Times newspaper.
Malema, 29, faced a disciplinary hearing after defying a call from Zuma to stop singing apartheid era racial songs and undermining the government's mediation efforts in Zimbabwe.
The paper said Malema changed the lyrics of a controversial song at a provincial youth conference in Kwazulu Natal, replacing the lyrics "shoot the boer" with "kiss the boer, kiss the farmer", and he pledged support for Zuma.
Malema had defied calls from Zuma to cease making inflammatory, and racially tinged comments.
He was made to pay a fine of 10,000 rand to a youth development project and ordered to attend anger management classes.
"I come out of this disciplinary process as a (supporter) of our movement who is not bitter at all, but better, bigger and bolder," Malema told cheering supporters.
Malema, whose relationship with Zuma appeared strained after he publicly questioned Zuma's censure, said he would not "gossip" about Zuma as had been suggested within ANC.
"I want to remain an ANC member until I die," he said.
Malema reiterated his support for President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-FP's land seizure of farms owned by white Zimbabweans, describing the move as "a courageous and militant land reform programme," the paper said.
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