The Chairpersons Association (CA) this week officially requested the Human Rights Commission to urgently investigate what they termed hate speech by councillors and officials of the Makhado Municipality.

The CA’s request was in reaction to the municipality’s forty fourth Special Council Meeting on April 12 during which they (the municipality) decided to restart the process of renaming the town from Louis Trichardt to Makhado. Immediately after the meeting, councillors as well as officials began to sing the contentious machine gun song "Awulethu Umshini wami". The meeting was called after the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled against the changing of the town’s name to Makhado on March 29 on the basis that sufficient consultation with all stakeholders did not take place.

Motivation for request

In their letter to the Human Rights Commission, the CA asks the Commission to investigate the above matter as well as what they deem to be "collective racism against minority groups where the Council, without any proper debate and without giving any reason, has embarked once again on a process to change the name from Louis Trichardt to Makhado." The letter goes on to state that it seems as if the only reason for changing the name is vengeance and collective discrimination against other cultural and minority groups. The CA motivates their argument by highlighting the chaotic nature of the April 12 Special Council Meeting and the Speakers’ inability to control proceedings. This is explained further in the form of two letters, one which was addressed to the Mayor of the Makhado Municipality and the other to the Speaker, copies of which is supplied to the Commission.

Letters to the Speaker and the Makhado Mayor

In the letters to the Mayor and the Speaker, the CA, amongst others, points out that the municipality’s new consultation process is already flawed "in that the councillors did not apply their mind when deciding that a new process should be followed". The CA further states that by singing the Awulethu Umshini wami song, councillors have already pre-empted and pre-decided the outcome of the new process and that any procedure they follow further in respect to the name change will "merely be lip service and window dressing and will make no difference." Also pointed out in the letters is the fact that those councillors opposing the restarting of the name change process were shouted down by councillors in favour of restarting the process and therefore they were not given a change to critically argue or debate their proposals. On the other hand, a representative of the PAC was given a proper opportunity to state his case that the procedure may restart while saying "up with Makhado and down with Louis Trichardt".

CA warns councillors

In the letters, the CA warned both the Mayor and Speaker that they (the CA) "will not hesitate to challenge the name change in court again, but in this instance they will hold each individual involved responsible, in this process of name change, for all costs and damages incurred." This is in reference to the Makhado Municipality getting of rather "cheaply" during the CA’s Supreme Court of Appeal’s case victory.

Only the Minister of Arts & Culture and the Chairman of the South African Geographical Names Council were ordered to pay the cost of the court case. The municipality was the third respondent in the case, but was not ordered to pay anything.

Process should be stopped immediately

In addition to the letters to the Mayor, Speaker and Human Rights Commission, the CA also sent letters of objection against the new process of changing the name of Louis Trichardt to the Premier of the Limpopo Province, the secretary of the provincial office of the Geographical Place Name Committee, the minister of Arts and Culture, the minister for Provincial and Local Government and even the president of South Africa, Mr Thabo Mbeki. All the letters relayed the same message: "… the process should be stopped immediately." The CA argues that there is no foundation in terms of the United Nations Guidelines and the guidelines in terms of the Geographical Names Council to start such a process again.