“You seek to distort the history of the DPF”

The leader of the Dabalorivhuwa Patriotic Front (DPF), Tshifhiwa Samuel Makhale, lashed out at the Limpopo Mirror for mentioning the name of the party without first consulting with it. Makhale accused the newspaper of projecting a false image of the party and its leaders.

The name of the DPF was briefly mentioned in an article about the Venda Pension Fund saga a fortnight ago. The only reference to the party was this:

“The disgruntled former members of the fund initially banded together and even started an own political party in 1998, the Dabalorivhuwa Patriotic Front (DPF). Their pleas for compensation, however, were ignored for many years.”

Makhale responded more than a week after the article was published, accusing the journalists of being morally unacceptable and engaging in “illegal” behaviour. He said the Mirror reflected a “biased version of our involvement in (the) Venda pension matter, that seeks to distort our history for the benefit of those who dream about (the) DPF vanishing into thin air.”

The newspaper was told to contact Makhale urgently, “…failure of which we will see what to do.”

From a second letter it seems as if the DPF leader did not wait that long and lodged a complaint with the Press Ombudsman. “…unfortunately, that office took me out of context because his response does not augur well with my complaint,” he writes.

“To me, the way you structured the story on Venda Civil pension, seems to insinuate extinction of the organisation, and that the Group you referred to in your story, has now taken over the mission of pursuing Venda civil Pensions. Beside this kind of insinuation, you were so smart in behaving as if those who are running DPF, are no more in this world of living, so that there is no need to hear their side of the same story,” Makhale writes.

A letter was sent to Mr Makhale asking him to elaborate on what he perceives as factual inaccuracies in the article. The following excerpt was sent to him, which emanates from the DPF’s own website, when that was still active:

“We started as a Pension Forum known as Dabalorivhuwa Pension Forum and later transformed into a Political Party because of some reasons prevailing at the time and our main focus before the formation of this party was Venda Civil Pensions. Some documents about this issue will be made available on this website as time goes on because it is a long history. Right now the case is with the ACHPR.”

The reply again did not sit well with Makhale. “I am responding for the last time because I came to realize that when one tries to engage with people who hate you then you will never reach common ground,” he replied. “If you can't see what went wrong in your story then let us leave it there,” he ended his letter.

News - Date: 23 November 2018

Anton van Zyl

Anton van Zyl has been with the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror since 1990. He graduated from the Rand Afrikaans University (now University of Johannesburg) and obtained a BA Communications degree. He is a founder member of the Association of Independent Publishers.

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