IFP CAUCUS - PARLIAMENT: CAPE TOWN: 13 June 2007

As directed by me, the Parliamentary Caucus of the Inkatha Freedom Party met last evening (June 12, 2007) to discuss recent Press statements which attributed certain controversial statements as being the personal views of the Chief Whip of the IFP, Mr J H van der Merwe MP.

The Caucus had previously reacted to the content of the Press statements alone without having the benefit of being able to fully study all the relevant material pertaining to the matter or being able to discuss the issue with Mr van der Merwe personally.

It is common knowledge that personal documentation relating to various preparatory notes compiled by Mr van der Merwe for his doctoral thesis was inadvertently released to the media. Requests to the media for the material to be withdrawn and not to be published were ignored by some publications.

The documentation was, last evening, studied by the Caucus in its entirety. We were entirely assured that, read in context, Mr van der Merwe was merely posing random thoughts and opinions in the form of a discussion document about his subject matter in the early stage of the preparation of his academic treatise.

We are satisfied that the subject matter, however controversial in part, did not imply the serious connotation attributed by certain publications. Mr van der Merwe's explanation that some of the points raised in his document were not his personal views but academic postulations was accepted.

Mr van der Merwe is pursuing his own course of action in attempting to obtain the publications concerned to issue retractions.

As far as the IFP is concerned, the matter is now closed.