UCT witch-hunt built on false claims about Lex Libertas

The think tank and advocacy group, Lex Libertas, today rejected calls for the suspension of Advocate Mark Oppenheimer and Mr David Ansara, CEO of the Free Market Foundation, from the Council of the University of Cape Town (UCT). It described the campaign against them as a witch-hunt, based on grossly false and defamatory claims about the organisation.

In a letter to the Chair of Council published on 15 October, UCT Alumni for Palestine demanded the suspension of both Council members. Their alleged offence is that they participated in the White Cross Project conference in Washington, D.C., which Lex Libertas hosted in September.

'This is a witch-hunt, plain and simple,' said Dr Ernst Roets, Executive Director of Lex Libertas. 'Two persons are being targeted, not for anything they did at UCT, but for the company they keep and the views they express. That is guilt by association and suppression of freedom of expression, and it should have no place at a university.'

The letter makes several claims about Lex Libertas that are false and defamatory:

• • It claims that Lex Libertas advocates 'minority rule'. Lex Libertas has never suggested anything to this effect. It argues for decentralisation and higher levels of self-governance for all peoples of South Africa, so that no community rules over another.
• • It claims that 'minority persecution' is a 'rewording of "white genocide"'. Lex Libertas does not use the term 'genocide'. It has consistently and deliberately described the situation as the persecution of minorities. The White Cross Project Campaign Report published during the White Cross Project explains this position at length.
• • It claims that Lex Libertas calls for sanctions against South Africa. Lex Libertas does not call for sanctions against the country. It does, however, welcome action taken against corrupt officials and persons who incite violence.
• • It likens self-governance to the Bantustan system of the apartheid era. Self-governance by consent, as practised in Switzerland, South Tyrol and many other places across the globe, is the opposite of a system imposed by the state.
• • It describes the conference as part of a 'white supremacist' movement and accuses the two men of 'potentially seditious behaviour'. Both claims are baseless and extremely malicious.

'These people have published grossly false and defamatory claims about Lex Libertas, and they are now using those claims to harm others,' Roets said. 'Our documents are public. Anyone who reads them will see that the letter misrepresents almost everything it touches.'

Judge Mahomed Navsa also recommended the disqualification of Oppenheimer and the suspension of Ansara over an earlier podcast interview and a repost on X. 'The pattern is clear,' Roets said. 'Persons who hold the wrong views are not debated. They are removed.'

Lex Libertas calls on the Council of UCT to reject these demands and to uphold the freedom of association and expression its members are entitled to.

Lex Libertas is a think tank and advocacy group working towards a viable political dispensation in South Africa, based on the principles of freedom, decentralisation, and self-governance.

• Click hear to read the Lex Libertas White Cross Project Campaign Report.