NEHAWU wants harsh sanctions against lobby groups, political parties for fueling Trump's disinformation campaign against SA

JOHANNESBURG - The National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) wants harsh sanctions against some lobby groups and political parties for fueling US President Donald Trump’s disinformation campaign against South Africa.

This follows several trips to Washington by AfriForum and Solidarity earlier this year, where they are accused of leading calls for Trump’s administration to punish Pretoria for its race laws, the enactment of the Expropriation Act and SA's foreign policy.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) and Freedom Front Plus are also among political parties that met with Washington officials, in what has caused a massive upset in the country.

NEHAWU, COSATU's biggest affiliate, opened the first day of its international seminar and bargaining conference in the east of Johannesburg on Tuesday.

NEHAWU president, Mike Shingange, said that organisations that talked down South Africa could not be let off the hook.

"We cannot allow for our country to be sanctioned for manufactured lies of white genocide and fictious prosecution of white Afrikaners. To this extent, AfriForum, Solidarity, Freedom Front Plus and the Board of Jewish Deputies and the South African Zionist Federation must be declared enemies of our democratic state and be called to account for their sustained misinformation against our country. That today, what in the past would have been considered treasonous, that you go out of your own country and decamping your own country, has not been punished as a crime against the democratic state is amazing for our path."