Speech delivered by the ANCYL President, Julius Malema on the occasion of the Funeral of Cde Thabo 'Skotch' Moeketsi at Vredefort, Free State

Members of the family
Friends and relatives
Comrades and compatriots

Today we dip our banners and pay our last respects to Cde Thabo 'Skotch' Moeketsi, a cadre of the ANC Youth League who led from the front. As we join the family and friends in mourning his passing, we also celebrate his life and the legacy he leaves behind. Wipe your tears and find solace in the knowledge that his life and his achievements have inspired many, not only in the Youth League and the student movement, but across communities he worked with. He was a gallant revolutionary who earned his stripes in the battlefield. His contribution to building our revolutionary movement, the ANC, and his sterling work in the ANC Youth League which led to his election as Provincial Secretary must inspire all of us to redouble our efforts in advancing youth development, a subject that was closest to Cde Skotch's heart.

In paying tribute to a loyal cadre of our movement, we must remain steadfast in advancing our revolutionary agenda, which must place our youth at the pinnacle of our country's development. Fate has dealt us a cruel blow and stole from us a dedicated cadre whose tireless commitment to that agenda gives us the confidence that we are making headway. Indeed, without him we are poorer, yet his achievements must serve as a beacon to guide our forward momentum.

As we roll our sleeves and get down to work in implementing the resolutions of the ANC 52nd National Conference in Polokwane and the ANC Youth League's 23rd National Congress in Nasrec, we must always remember that the creation of a truly liberated society is our ultimate goal, free from poverty, discrimination and any kind of repression, characterised by a nation-state at peace with itself.

The many strides we have taken over the first decade of our freedom have put in place the fundamental building blocks that are necessary to achieve this vision. Indeed, so much more still needs to be done. As we prepare for the next general elections in 2009, we will go back to the drawing board and ask of ourselves the hard questions in relation to how we can accelerate service delivery and achieve our goal to halve poverty by 2014. The efforts to achieve this can only have meaning if we rise above our petty differences and work together in building a South Africa we can all be proud of. We must also intensify the struggle to eliminate the remnants of counter-revolution, which include the DA and a loose coalition of those who want to use state power to block the ANC President's ascendancy to the highest office of the land.

The starting point is reinforcing the unity and cohesion of our movement and instil organisational discipline as a bedrock of all our activities. It can never be acceptable that members of the ANC and the Youth League get involved in criminal activities whether through theft of public monies intended for the poor or stabbing fellow comrades because they believe they are entitled to ANC membership. These are the rotten apples that must be uprooted from our midst without mercy. We must not hesitate to expel from the organisation individuals who rubbish and undermine the ANC's value system and the age-old ethos of organisational discipline. Organisational discipline and internal democracy also means that when one loses an election, everyone must then rally behind the new leadership and continue to contribute in the building of a robust and cohesive revolutionary movement.

The ANC and indeed the Youth League have no place for people who carry sour grapes and create cabals because they believe they are entitled to leadership. These are the very values that comrade Skotch lived by and honoured, which every cadre of our movement is expected to internalise and swear by.

We have said it before and we say it again, Cde Jacob Zuma will not only be the face of the ANC's election campaign in 2009, but will be the next President of South Africa. The political campaign to rubbish his name and destroy his political career will not succeed. It failed in Polokwane, and it will fail again. The actions of the NPA in their relentless pursuit of an innocent man using state resources, while allowing criminals like Mark Thatcher, Agliotti and many others off the hook is a sad indictment on those charged with the responsibility to lead this institution. This case represents an unprecedented attack on the leadership of the ANC, and our responsibility is to defend the ANC and its leadership with everything we have. We remain firm in our determination to unleash every resource at our disposal to obliterate this sham of a case and expose the counter-revolutionary agenda it represents.

The ANC Youth League is a political preparatory school for ANC leaders of tomorrow, a task it has executed diligently without fail throughout its existence. Great leaders of our movement like Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela cut their teeth in the ANC Youth League and rose to become leaders celebrated worldwide. We are determined to continue on that path and write our own history as a latter-day generation of the ANC Youth League. The handing over of the baton by the former leadership of the ANC Youth League at its 23rd National Congress marked a significant moment in the life of the ANCYL.

It marked the emergence of a new generation determined to ensure that the ANC Youth League evolves in line with the aspirations of today's youth, underpinned by programmes and strategies that ensure that the Youth League remains relevant as a political home to South Africa's youth. While generations that came before us were characterised by the saying, "impatient for change," ours must be characterised as drivers for change, leading from the front.

In redefining our strategies within the broader ambit of the ANC's strategy and tactics, we are determined to build an ANC Youth League that not only lives among the youth of our country, but one that advances practical programmes to ensure their development and empowerment. This is a legacy we owe to cadres of our youth movement of Skotch's calibre and we have every intention to live up to that legacy and to ensure that it touches the lives of South Africa's youth in a positive way.

The significance of our programme to reconfigure youth development structures such that their impact in empowering our youth en masse is visible cannot be downplayed. Having assessed the impact of the National Youth Commission, the Provincial Youth Commissions and Umsobomvu Youth Fund, we correctly arrived at a conclusion that the piecemeal approach to youth development does not yield the required result at the required pace. The establishment of the National Youth Development Agency, which will emerge out of the merger of these institutions, is a living reality, which must see the light of the day by the end of 2008. This will see youth development integrated into the mainstream developmental agenda of our country at all levels of government and permeate through every facet of our society.

This is but one aspect of our multi-pronged strategy on youth development, which must ensure that decent jobs for youth becomes a key aspect of our national developmental agenda. If we do not integrate our youth in the economic mainstream as active players, we are doomed and the prospects of sustained economic growth will remain bleak. Alongside this is improving the quality of our education such that our institutions of higher learning are able to produce the skills the economy requires and concerted efforts to address the challenge surrounding scarce skills. Similarly, our advance towards a truly free and compulsory education is unstoppable. Education must become the cornerstone of the type of society we seek to build and no child must be deprived of education because they have no access to resources.

In conclusion, we remain committed to the resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis through effective dialogue. The defeat of the Security Council resolution seeking to impose sanctions on ZANU-PF leaders was a correct move, which would have only served to undermine the negotiation process underway and deepen the political crisis in that country. It is now up to the parties on the negotiation table to find each other in order to find a sustainable solution both to their political and economic problems. Both ZANU-PF and the MDC must realise that time for political posturing is over and the people of Zimbabwe are the biggest casualties of this crisis. They must not behave like they have all the time in the world and allow petty squabbles to overshadow issues of national importance. Behaving like spoilt brats will never deliver any solution, but will serve to advance the agenda of those who do not want to see Zimbabwe succeed. An agreement on their part to time frames for the negotiation process will not only reinforce the credibility of the process, but will also demonstrate to the world their seriousness in resolving the crisis.

Here lies a great man, a revolutionary, a dedicated footsoldier of the movement, a leader who understood that being a leader means being one with the people. Let us honour his memory by picking up his spear from where he left off and advance the struggle to achieve the national democratic revolution. Rest in peace cadre of the revolution, you have done your part and we have learnt great things from you.

Amandla! Matla!