BLF leader Andile Mngxitama and spokesperson of the party, Lindsay Maasdorp have both tweeted their views on the issue.
Once a prominent member of the Economic Freedom Fighter party, Mngxitama was ejected from it, and the EFF and BLF are rivals they say. But both parties have similar goals and have thrived on anti-white racial animosity.
Your existence is a crime. Hence we say land or death.
— Lindsay Maasdorp (@Lindsay_BLF) September 15, 2018
According to Maasdorp, all South African whites are criminals by virtue of their existence. “It is only through the return of land to blacks without compensation that colonialism can be destroyed and individual acts of racism can be eradicated,” Maasdorp said last year in a press statement.
The party’s spokesperson has been the subject of controversy in the past, particularly for a comment posted on both Facebook and Twitter in 2016, in which he said: “I have aspirations to kill white people, and this must be achieved!”
Maasdorp was suspended by Twitter, but he simply set up a new Twitter account and has continued to publish his views. From his new account, @Linday_BLF he continues tweeting.
BLF is a Black Consciousness, Pan Afrikanist movement, “born through its revolutionary call” on 13 August 2015 and launched on 14 May 2016, the party website notes. It is registered with the South African Independent Electoral Commission as a legal political party.
A few days ago, Black First, Land First spokesperson “Comrade” Maasdorp repeated his party’s slogan to the Citizen, a Johannesburg daily, which is “land or death”.
At the recent land hearings held in parliament, Mngxitama called for section 25 of the Constitution to be scrapped entirely to ensure that all land owned by white people is returned to their black counterparts.
The BLF leader said this section should be replaced with a declaration that all land owned by white people in South Africa was stolen property.
Mngxitama has repeatedly stated that all land occupied by white South Africans should be expropriated.
This makes the party the as extreme as the Economic Freedom Fighters. Both have been accused of hate speech by the South African Human Rights Commision. While the SAHRC has recommended that BLF be prevented from contesting the 2019 elections on the grounds that they have made statements violating the Electoral Act after Maasdorp posted on both Facebook and Twitter that he had “aspirations to kill white people”, the EFF has had no such trouble.
Tomorrow BLF appears at Equality Court, SAHRC wishes BLF banned from contesting 2019 National Elections. we will be o the ballot, our people will #VoteBLF2019. Its time to have a political entity that is the representation of the landless oppressed people. #BLFvsSAHRC
— Lindsay Maasdorp (@Lindsay_BLF) September 19, 2018
According to Mngxitama, the Constitution will not be amended before the 2019 general elections because ANC parliamentarians are now delaying the process after feeling international pressure mounting against the leadership.
He questioned why the ANC and EFF had not used their two-thirds majority in parliament to pass the recently withdrawn Land Expropriation Bill on white land expropriation, but instead opted for the delayed parliamentary process. The Bill was temporarily withdrawn for further “consultations”.
“We are saying these delays are deliberate and a means to give an opportunity to land thieves like AfriForum so that they can have enough room to sabotage the whole process [and commit] to economic terrorism,” Mngxitama explained.
On Good Friday this year, the USA-based leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) met with the leadership of Black First Land First (BLF) in Johannesburg. The delegation of the APSP was led by Omali Yeshitela, while the BLF delegation was represented by Mngxitama.