The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) believes it is being attacked in the media by ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe.

In a statement on Friday, the ANCYL said it was "concerned and very disturbed by the media statements and articulations" of Motlanthe carried in the Mail&Guardian and City Press.

"The deputy president continues without mandate to attack the ANC Youth League leadership in the media, despite our commitment that we will constantly engage with him and the ANC on the resolutions and positions of the Youth League," said spokesman Floyd Shavambu.

In the City Press last week, Motlanthe said recent attacks on the judiciary were being made by people "predicated by ignorance" and that the utterances of individuals were being confused with party policy and positions. He did not name the ANCYL, referring instead to recent statements by
the Congress of South African Students (Cosas), who suggested that judges were drunks, and the South African Students' Congress (Sasco)which said deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke was drunk when he made a statement interpreted by the league to be anti-ANC.

The Mail&Guardian reported Motlanthe as saying that he had told the ANCYL it had to take responsibility for its statements and should not copy the 1976 generation, which faced police in a language protest which led to deaths and exiles of young students.

ANC spokeswoman Jessie Duarte said the party was not going to comment but that the ANCYL had the right to raise their concerns at an ANC meeting on Monday. "If there are problems the Youth League has every right to do so, but we are not going to engage in this in the media," she said.

The ANCYL was vocal in its support for ANC president Jacob Zuma when Zuma was tried and then acquitted of rape.

Its newly-elected president Julius Malema later had to explain to the South African Human Rights Commission why he publicly stated that its members were "prepared to die for Zuma, we are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma".

Shavambu said Motlanthe was presented as a "paragon of political correctness, who is beyond reproach", even though they had told him about their concerns about his public statements.

The ANCYL said it was shocked that he "went in public to defy the decision of the ANC national executive committee on his deployment to Cabinet". In the Mail&Guardian, Motlanthe commented that he initially did not want to become an MP, a role he was given to facilitate the changing administration next year. They said he did not discuss his statements that the ANCYL was reckless within ANC structures, as he had promised in the media, "which
seem to be his hotline".

He reiterated a view that the corruption case against Zuma was political. "A political case in our understanding can only require a political solution, and not some highly questionable criminal justice system, which has persecuted our President for more than seven years. "So going around affirming the independence of the criminal justice system on the case of the ANC president is worrisome," the league said.

"We are waiting patiently to understand the intentions and agenda of the deputy president on attacking the Youth League in the media."