IN a surprise turn of events, Limpopo premier Cassel Mathale praised President Jacob Zuma during a Human Rights Day commemoration at the Mashashane sports ground outside Polokwane yesterday.

Mathale shouted Zuma's name at the beginning of his speech. The premier told more than 3,000 people who attended the event that he loved Zuma, but the crowd shouted its disapproval at this statement.

The crowd said they did not want Zuma.

Mathale is a known political ally and friend of fired ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.

Mathale said the Human Rights Day commemoration would lose its meaning if people in the province still had no clean running water in their yards, no proper houses, no proper health-care facilities, no social security, no proper road networks or free education.

"Human rights cannot be separated from the right to job opportunities and development. We have passed a stage where human rights were only limited to physical or emotional treatment of our people.

"From that experience we as the ANC-led government will make sure that our people are liberated from the traps of poverty and underdevelopment,' said Mathale.

The premier also used the Human Rights Day commemoration to educate the province's domestics and farmworkers about their rights.

"The rights of domestics and people working on the province's farms were still being violated, 17 years into democracy," he said.

"We as government have the responsibility to educate them about their rights and to ensure that those rights are adhered to by their bosses.

"We should also mention that every person who lives within the borders of our country has fundamental rights.

"But the fact that hundreds and thousands of fellow Africans, including women and children, were still being kept in refugee camps means that more still needs to be done to create a situation where human rights are promoted and respected," Mathale said.

Limpopo Human Rights Commission chairman Joseph Malatji called on everyone to respect the rights of others but said "these rights have to go hand-in-glove with responsibilities".