Support for Hogan grows

26/03/2009 12:32  - (SA) 

Cape Town - Civil society groups and a Constitutional Court judge have added their voices to growing support for Health Minister Barbara Hogan's stand on the Dalai Lama.

Hogan provoked the ire of the government on Tuesday by saying its denial of a visa to the Tibetan leader under Chinese pressure showed it was "dismissive of human rights", and urging it to apologise.

The Helen Suzman Foundation said in a statement it supported the "principled stance" taken by Hogan.

"The notion of a minister having a different view from Cabinet on a matter is not unprecedented nor is it unacceptable for that opinion to be voiced publicly," the foundation said.

"Any censure or other steps that may be taken against Hogan will be deeply unfortunate."

It said Hogan, who "personally" knew the deep suffering of political intolerance, should be commended for reminding South Africans of some basic tenets of their own history and how the country had a special duty to human rights campaigners globally.

Constitutional Court judge Kate O'Regan on Thursday publicly backed Hogan, SABC radio news reported.

"It is a matter of dismay that human rights does not seem to enter into the picture of some foreign affairs decisions that are made," O'Regan was quoted as saying.

She said that like Hogan, she remembered the years of the 1980s "when South Africa was so fortunate to have friends all over the world assisting our human rights struggle".

Narrow interests

Managing director of the Afrikanerbond Jan Bosman said the refusal of a visa to the Dalai Lama was an example of a government that puts its own narrow interests first with no regard to internationally acceptable norms.

"It must therefore be welcomed that individuals such as Ms Barbara Hogan, Minister of Health, spoke out against this decision," he said.

"The deafening silence by the rest of Cabinet must be seen as condoning this abuse of the most basic of human rights."

The Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum on Thursday released a letter it sent to President Kgalema Motlanthe earlier in the week expressing its "serious concern" about the denial of the visa.

"We raise our voice alongside the many others of our civil society expressing anger and disappointment," said the letter, which was signed by forum chairman, the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba.

"We were... shocked by the decision to block a visit by one of the world's most highly respected and visible spokespersons for religious faith, tolerance and human rights.

"By acting in a way that reflects Beijing's political demands you have weakened our national sovereignty."

The letter asked Motlanthe to "reflect" on the decision.

"As leaders of diverse faiths and communities, we believe South Africa has erred in its judgement."

Peace conference

The Tibetan spiritual leader, along with other Nobel Peace Prize winners, was to have addressed a peace conference aimed at thrashing out ways of using football to fight racism and xenophobia ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

On Wednesday, government spokesperson Themba Maseko said Hogan's comments were "rather unfortunate".

"The comments of the minister of health were rather unfortunate in the sense that this position on the Dalai Lama is an official position of this government."

Maseko repeated government's stance that the Dalai Lama was refused entry because his presence would draw the world's attention away from World Cup preparations.

But he conceded that relations with China also played a role.

- SAPA

source

Mandela: The legend and the Legacy. Part 1

 

It is often said that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, however, this usually means that the other man has been less than fastidious in his choice of hero, or that the “freedom fighter” in question was on the crowd pleasing side.

On the 27th of June, London's Hyde Park will play host to a concert in honour of Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday and we can be assured that it will receive wall to wall coverage by a star struck and worshipping media, who will continue to laud Mandela as one of the greatest, or indeed the greatest, heroes of our time.

No doubt the beaming old man will appear on stage in one of his trademark multi-coloured shirts and cheerily acknowledge the cheers of the adoring crowd, most of whom have been taught to believe in his sainthood since their first days in primary school, which, for many of them, will have occurred around the same time their hero walked free from Robben Island.

The unquestioning belief in Mandela's universally admired saintliness will again be displayed in the press and by the unending line of politicians and dignitaries who will queue up to genuflect before him and sing his praises. It is a brave politician or journalist who would dare to question the godliness of this legend and consummate showman, and hence no such questions will be raised, nor will his much vaunted “achievements” be subjected to any objective scrutiny.
No matter how many speeches are given or how many news articles are written, it is safe to bet that the full truth about Mandela will not be told.

In fact the truth about Mandela is so hidden in mythology and misinformation that most know nothing about him prior to Robben island, and those who do tend to exercise a form of self censorship, designed to bolster the myth whilst consigning uncomfortable facts into the mists of history.
For most people all they know about Mandela, prior to his release in 1990, was that he had spent 27 years in prison and was considered by many on the left at the time (and almost everyone now) to be a political prisoner. However, Mandela was no Aung San Suu Kyi, he was not an innocent, democratically elected leader, imprisoned by an authoritarian government.

Mandela was the terrorist leader of a violent terrorist organisation, the ANC (African National Congress) which was responsible for many thousands of, mostly black, deaths. The ANC's blood spattered history is frequently ignored, but reminders occasionally pop up in the most embarrassing places, indeed as recently as this month the names of Nelson Mandela and most of the ANC remained on the US government's terrorist watch list along with al-Queda, Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers. Of course the forces of political correctness are rushing to amend that embarrassing reminder from the past. However, Mandela's name was not on that list by mistake, he was there because of his Murderous past.

Before I am accused of calumny, it should be noted that Mandela does not seek to hide his past, in his autobiography “the long walk to Freedom” he casually admits “signing off” the 1983 Church Street bombing carried out by the ANC and killing 19 innocent people whilst injuring another 200.

It is true that Mandela approved that massacre and other ANC killings from his prison cell, and there is no evidence that he personally killed anyone but the same could be said about Stalin or Hitler, and the violent history of the ANC, the organisation he led is not in question.
According to the Human Rights Commission it is estimated that during the Apartheid period some 21,000 people were killed, however both the UN Crimes against Humanity commission and South Africa's own Truth and Reconciliation Commission are in agreement that in those 43 years the South African Security forces killed a total of 518 people. The rest, (some 92%) were accounted for by Africans killing Africans, many by means of the notorious and gruesome practice of necklacing whereby a car tyre full of petrol is placed around a victim's neck and set alight. This particularly cruel form of execution was frequently carried out at the behest of the ANC with the enthusiastic support of Mandela's demonic wife Winnie.

The brutal reappearance of the deadly necklace in recent weeks is something I shall reluctantly focus upon later.
Given that so much blood was on the hands of his party, and, as such, the newly appointed government, some may conclude that those who praised Madela's mercy and forgiveness, when the Truth and Reconciliation tribunal set up after he came to power, to look into the Apartheid years, did not include a provision for sanctions, were being deliberately naive.

Such nativity is not uncommon when it comes to the adoring reporting of Nelson Madela, and neither is the great leader himself rarely shy of playing up his image of fatherly elder statesman and multi-purpose paragon. However, in truth, the ANC's conscious decision to reject a policy of non-violence, such as that chosen by Gandhi, in their struggle against the white government, had left them, and by extension, their leader, with at least as much blood on their hands as their one time oppressors, and this fact alone prevented them from enacting the revenge which might otherwise have been the case.

As the first post Apartheid president of South Africa it would, be unfair if not ludicrous to judge Mandela entirely on the basis of events before he came to power, and in any event there is many a respected world leader or influential statesman with a blood stained past so in the next part I shall examine Nelson Mandela's achievements, and the events which have occurred in South Africa in the 14 short years since he took power in following the post Apartheid election in 1994.

source : Mandela: The legend and the Legacy. Part 1

100s object to expropriations

03/06/2008 20:15  - (SA) 

Bloemfontein - More than 300 objections to the proposed expropriation bill were handed to the portfolio committee on public works during public hearings in Grasslands on Tuesday .

"These are individual objections I hand over to you by members of the Free State Agriculture," said Dirk van Rensburg, chairman of the farming body's land-reform committee.

On Monday, nearly 900 objections by individuals were handed to the committee during a public hearing in Bethlehem.

According to Free State Agriculture, certain aspects of the bill are unconstitutional.

The Grasslands meeting was attended by farmers, almost half of those attending, and black Bloemspruit residents who claim to be victims of expropriation practices by the Mangaung local municipality.

Free State Democratic Alliance leader Roy Jankielsohn said he was happy to see the number of farmers who attended the meeting and by the input they gave.

However, he was concerned about wrong information contained in advertisements on venues and starting times for the hearings.

A black former plot owner told the committee he and other land owners in the area had "shot themselves in the foot" by electing black officials into power, after describing a "painful" experience of being "ripped off by fellow Africans".

Had lost five farms

A woman, also a former Grasslands plot owner, told the committee that she knew how "the xenophobia people" felt because she was now homeless.

"I have no residential address. People staying where I stayed, they have (a residential address)," she said, adding that she wanted to know how the meeting was going to "reverse it all".

Another woman said she had lost five farms due to the "lack of interest by government officials" and "lack of government action".

Committee chairperson Thandi Tobias urged the former plot owners to discuss their issues with the committee after the hearing.

She said it would be brought to the attention of the proper parliamentary committees.

source

'Govt to blame for attacks'

29/05/2008 15:48  - (SA)

Johannesburg - The government must accept blame for the crisis of violent xenophobic attacks experienced in the country recently, the Congress of SA Trade Unions said on Wednesday.

"Had the government decisively intervened some ten years ago when it became clear that the Zimbabwe situation was deteriorating, the Zimbabweans would not find it necessary to leave their country.

"Cosatu and others warned a long time ago that the political and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe...(would) eventually force everyone to leave the country and be economic refugees (to) everyone in South Africa," Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told a press briefing following a Cosatu central executive committee meeting.

"Our government did the usual denialism and refused to act."

However, the main reason for the unrest was the "appalling levels of unemployment in the country" and this was blamed on government economic policies.

"It is a failure of our country to restructure the economy and have an industrial strategy as well as genuine and agrarian reform that has brought us to this point. That is the issue."

Cosatu also discussed Eskom's proposed tariff hike and rising food prices at its meeting.

Vavi said the union federation remains adamantly opposed to Eskom's 53% tariff hike.

The union federation said it would resort to industrial action should the proposed hike be approved.

"Our section 77 process however remains in place and we have yet to see any movement from Eskom and government to persuade us to abandon our campaign to defend jobs and prevent the poor consumers to pay the price for the mistakes and mismanagement by government and Eskom," Vavi said.

source

Attacks on foreigners dent SA's image

May 12 2008 at 06:14PM

By Paul Simao

A mob attacked a group of immigrants with stones, whips and guns in Alexandra, Johannesburg, killing two people and injuring about 40, police said on Monday.

Twelve people were arrested in connection with the violence late on Sunday, which police said was motivated by a belief that illegal immigrants were responsible for a series of robberies.

"From what we were told it is because of the criminal activity that has been taking place," said Constable Neria Malefetse, a spokesperson for the Johannesburg police.

The rampage rekindled fears that xenophobia was rising in a country known as one of the most welcoming to immigrants and asylum seekers, especially from Africa.

Some of those who were attacked were Zimbabweans, the largest immigrant group in South Africa who are often accused by residents of contributing to the country's high crime rate.

Last month, shacks belonging to Zimbabwean families in another township were looted and set on fire and there have been other attacks on foreigners throughout the country.

For decades Africans have flocked to South Africa, the continent's economic powerhouse, lured by abundant work in its mines, farms and homes and by one of the world's most liberal immigration and refugee policies.

Growing hostility towards this group threatens to damage South Africa's relations with other African countries and handicap its buoyant economy, under strain from rising inflation, a shortage of skills and a power crisis.

Cold shoulder

Many newcomers are being met with a cold shoulder and, in some cases, a clenched fist, according to relief workers and rights activists who have noted an rise in violence against foreign-born residents in the "Rainbow Nation".

"It's clearly something that has got worse this year. These are general attacks on foreigners," said Jack Redden, regional representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Pretoria.

"What has been really worrying is the violence that is attached to them."

It is unclear whether the rising cost of living and other economic jitters directly contribute to the violence.

Fear of crime is generally given as the cause of attacks on foreigners, who are often blamed for murders, rapes and carjackings.

Immigrants say they are frequently the victims of crimes and their complaints are beginning to get attention.

Nigeria's Senate last month considered a motion condemning attacks on its citizens in South Africa.

Zimbabwean rights activists accuse police of harassing immigrants and turning a blind eye when criminals prey on them.

An estimated three million Zimbabweans have fled to South Africa as a result of the economic crisis back home.

South Africa has acknowledged its concern about rising xenophobia within its borders and says it is taking steps to tackle the problem.

source

Land bill faces legal challenge

May 15 2008 8:10AM

Michael Hamlyn

Cape Town - AfriForum, a pressure group allied to the right wing Freedom Front Plus, is threatening to take the expropriation bill to the constitutional court, because, they say, it breaches rights to property, the right to access to the courts, and to just administrative action.

Kallie Kriel its chief executive said on Wednesday: "The fact that in terms of the bill, the state will have the right to expropriate any property, at an amount which the state will determine itself, while the courts will only have the right to review the expropriation process followed, in effect amounts to the legalised theft of property by the state."

The bill will also undermine the authority and independence of the courts, he said.

In a letter to the portfolio committee on public works, which is shepherding the bill through parliament, Kriel said that the bill's attempt to take away the courts' authority to rule on the expropriation amount, contravenes article 25(2)(b) of the constitution.

He said that in his opinion, it is even more absurd to note that the bill would empower the state to expropriate any item or property (such as a house or car) in order to give it to someone who does not have such an item or property already, and on top of that will also be able to determine the price paid for it itself, as long as the "correct procedures" are followed.

- I-Net Bridge

 

Source

Left In The Dark

RW Johnson, National Post
Published: Monday, March 03, 2008

In the last few days of January, South Africa's steadily escalating power crisis -- there have been increasing electricity outages nationwide for the last few years --finally came to a head when power cuts not only closed businesses and offices across the country but led to the complete closure of all the country's mines. Ever since the discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1886, this country's economy has been based first and foremost on its prodigious mineral wealth. Never, in all that time, had the mines had to shut for lack of power. Nothing could have brought home more starkly the crisis the country now faces. Eskom, the state electricity monopoly quickly announced that the country should not seek any new foreign investment projects till 2013 since there would be no power to run them. Foreign tourists were marooned on top of Table Mountain for a cold night because the cable cars lacked the power to get them back down. Business confidence plummeted. White emigration began to rise again sharply and everywhere one hears tales of capital flight. The Rand has fallen by over 14%.

Government ministers rushed to insist that the crisis would be managed, that there was no need to panic and the Minister for Energy even told Parliament that one solution would be for everyone to go to bed earlier. But economists hurriedly revised this year's growth rate down from 5% to 2% or less and Eskom warned everyone that even with power rationing there would be continued power cuts until at lest 2013.

Yet when the African National Congress (ANC) came to power in 1994 Eskom was the world's seventh-largest electricity utility, providing the world's cheapest electricity and with a 40% capacity reserve. The government treated cheap electricity almost as a human right and supplied it to many black areas that had never had it before. In 1998, an official white paper warned that new power stations needed to be built if there were not to be power cuts by 2007. The government not only ignored the warning but also imposed a formal ban on the building of new power stations for six years in order to encourage private power utilities to tender. Many came and looked, but realizing that they were expected to provide power at rock-bottom prices while giving away quite a bit of their equity in black empowerment deals not a single one tendered. Meanwhile, Eskom, under its new black management, got rid of large numbers of senior, skilled whites, brought in affirmative action replacements, saw standards of maintenance and technical competence plummet and then multiplied its problems by deciding to sell off its huge coal stockpiles and to privilege small black coal producers in future procurement. Thus, it emerged, when the mines were finally shut down Eskom was operating at 25% less than capacity because of coal shortages, the low quality of coal supplied and the fact that much of it was mere coal dust which, in rain, turned into incombustible mud.

The ANC's embarrassment is considerable for, despite all its avowals that it would not make the same mistakes seen elsewhere in independent Africa, it has done exactly that -- the failure of governance is huge, unmistakable, undeniable. There has been the usual desperate search to see how the crisis can somehow be blamed on apartheid, but the great unmentionable fact, present in every mind, is that under white rule there were no power cuts.

An even greater embarrassment now lies ahead. Last year the head of FIFA, soccer's international governing body, warned angrily that South Africa, which is slated to host the World Cup in 2010, had to strengthen its pitiful soccer team, since it was hard to imagine a successful tourney without a home team capable of keeping fans interested. But the power crisis throws even that in the shade. Can the new soccer stadia possibly be completed in time with the continual power cuts?

If the government were honest it would admit that it cannot promise to stage a decent World Cup in 2010 and ask that its hosting duties be postponed until 2014 or 2018 instead. Such a public confession of failure is, however, politically and psychologically impossible. After all, when South Africa was not awarded the 2006 World Cup, President Thabo Mbeki bitterly labelled it "the globalization of apartheid." Even now the government insists, as an article of faith, that 2010 will be a resounding success, "because all the stadiums will have back-up generators."

FIFA, we are told, is "closely monitoring" the situation, but it is now clear that if the World Cup is held in South Africa in 2010, it will occur in a country where most services work only spasmodically. Even now one faces non-working traffic lights, street lights, escalators, lifts, ATMs, shop and garage tills -- let alone lights, hot water and cooked meals -- on a daily basis. Moreover, Chevron has announced the shutting down of its refinery here since it cannot operate without a guaranteed and continuous power supply, and other continuous process industries are in the same plight.

The Cup will be held in the midst of South Africa's winter, when night temperatures in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Bloemfontein can all fall to near freezing. What is clear is that the government is constitutionally incapable of facing reality, so Sepp Blatter, the current head of FIFA will have to decide, whether to go ahead or move the tournament. Blatter owes his election as FIFA president to the African bloc, which elected him on a promise of bringing the World Cup to Africa, so he too has incentive to ignore reality. All things considered, then, a great ship is steering straight for the rocks with both the captain and the pilot insisting no danger lies ahead. The disaster which threatens deserves only one adjective: titanic. - RW Johnson is emeritus fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Southern Africa correspondent for The Sunday Times.

STATE OF THE NATION

Sunday Times (2/3/2008) — 03/03/2008

Mondli Makhanya, Editor.
From the world’s most optimistic nation to a state of depression
I'd like to deal with the rather gloomy mood our country is in. The big question is, how did we find ourselves in this situation where a country whose citizens were among the world’s most optimistic, finds itself in a state of depression, with the world increasingly doubting its viability as a prosperous democracy.

There is compendium of reasons. Crime is the biggest one. It is a big dark cloud hanging over us and could be our undoing. For a long time the South African government sent out a very definite message that it did not care about the safety of its citizenry. Instead of empathising and rallying us all to action, government leaders insisted on telling us that it was not as bad as we made it out to be. By the time the state heard the nation’s wails, so many had lost hope. And lives and limbs and sanity.

'Most corruptible politician'
Then we had the run-up to Polokwane, when the resurrection of South Africa's clumsiest and possibly most corruptible politician became a reality. The past 18 months also saw the unhinging of President Thabo Mbeki, who proved a more and more dangerous man with each deranged decision he took, and each whacky statement he made. We then had our most senior policeman confirming and reconfirming that he rather enjoyed the company of Mafia types and societal scum.

No sense of urgency as the dream slips away
Post-Polokwane, the behaviour of the triumphant ANC bloc has not helped. By the looks of things, some in the party want to ditch any pretence that this is a participatory democracy - an illusion that we could at least hold onto during Mbeki's leadership of the ANC. And, to crown it all, we were reduced to the status of a tropical outpost by the massive power blackouts that hurt the economy and made our lives a misery. As if that were not enough, there has been the spate of racist incidents, which reminded us that apartheid was too deep and sophisticated to be wished away by an enthusiastic archbishop. So, yes, it is a bad place we find ourselves in. We are watching the dream slip through our fingers, and there seems to be no sense of urgency among our leaders about rescuing it.

South Africa in the relegation zone
Elsewhere in this newspaper there is a report about a piece that scenario painter Clem Sunter has written for Leadership magazine's next edition. In it he warns of dire consequences if we do not quickly reverse our political and economic and social decline. 'The country is now in the relegation zone and faces possible ejection into the economic mire of the second division. And this could happen quicker than we think,' he says. We need to revisit the dream and establish where we went wrong - and just how exactly we get ourselves back on track. What was our intention for the character of our republic when we set out on this journey? What was contained in that pact that we signed with each other and ourselves that April day in 1994?

Making an icon of a man with massive moral deficit
We know that we wanted to create a civilised nonracial republic that would put people first, value good governance, and be ambitious about its place in the community of nations. We need to ask ourselves why, in recent years, so much effort has gone into soiling this pact. And why the supposedly 'people-centred' state is so badly failing the people - and no one is held accountable for it.

There is a need to get to the reasons why public morality has been ditched as one of the defining characteristics of our republic. The ANC sent out a strong message in this regard when it propelled to icon status a man with a massive moral deficit, and reconfirmed it by electing on to its executive dozens of highly dubious individuals. The start of our 15th year in 2008 would be a good time to renew our vows and recommit to the rebuilding this dream. There is so much enthusiasm and energy among ordinary South Africans who want to make this republic work. They now just need to be led.

SA following Zim, warns Minto

Louise Luttig, Beeld

Auckland - If the South African government doesn't change its economic policy to meet the needs of the country's unemployed masses and the poor, it will follow the path of Zimbabwe.

This is the warning of John Minto, leader of the anti-Springbok Tour movement and a political activist in New Zealand.

Minto says he has decided to decline his nomination for the Companion of OR Tambo award put to him by a government official in November last year, as he could not associate him with the award.

However, Mukoni Ratshitanga, a spokesperson for President Thabo Mbeki, said on Tuesday that Minto had not been nominated for any of South Africa's orders.

A 2005 documentary on New Zealand's top 100 history makers listed him as No 89.

In an interview, Minto said he was deeply dismayed at the African National Congress's following of the free-market economy, which is mainly based on profit, and has not met the needs of the poor and the unemployed.

Open letter to Mbeki

Millions of South Africans are worse off than in the days of apartheid, or, at best, their already poor situation has remained the same.

In response, he has written an open letter to President Thabo Mbeki explaining his reasons. The contents have been covered extensively in the media.

According to Minto, the ANC government received a mandate in 1994 to improve the lives and circumstances of all in the country, something for which he and many others fought bitterly, and has failed miserably.

Minto acknowledged that he had never been to South Africa, but had an intense interest in what was happening in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

He also had contact with many organisations there and followed events on the internet.

He said the South African government was making the same mistake as Zimbabwe did 20 years ago when they adopted a free-market economy.

Playing the race card

And, when it did not work in Zimbabwe and the poor started to show their frustration, President Mugabe played the race card, and blamed the whites for the country's problems, with tragic consequences.

Minto said the ANC would do the same.

Instead, the South African government should take control of the infrastructure, such as electricity and water, and govern it to improve the circumstances of each man, woman and child, not only those who were able to pay for it. Minto said he put it to President Mandela's delegation when Mandela visited New Zealand in 1992, that they should learn from the mistakes of New Zealand, which also adopted free-market principles, and which he believed did not benefit all in society.

He was aware of state-owned Eskom's inability to meet the electricity demands, but saw that as a management problem and not the result of government policy.

He did not believe Jacob Zuma, with his leftist support base, would make a difference, said Minto, as it was all rhetoric and no policy.

He hoped South Africans did not get sucked in by such rhetoric.

Mandela's legacy

If the ANC did not drastically change its policy, the country would follow Zimbabwe, he said.

Minto believed it was only the legacy of Nelson Mandela that ensured the ANC of its huge support.

He believed that if Mandela was no longer there, and economic policies remained unchanged, the country was facing a destructive outcome.

Minto intends to visit South Africa later this year to get to know the country and its people firsthand, and to meet with the many organisations with whom he has had contact.

CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS OF FIRST MAGNITUDE

Paul Trewhela
The ANC as prime suspect in arms deal corruption

It is clear that South Africa has now fallen into a constitutional crisis of first magnitude, the most dangerous since the re-constitution of the state in 1994. The new National Working Committee of the African National Congress, which was appointed last week by the National Executive Committee elected at Polokwane in December, last week also appointed a committee of its own members to investigate arms deal corruption. This will not wash. From information that has come to light so far, the prime suspect in arms deal corruption is the ANC itself. It seems most likely that the ANC itself, as the party of government under President Nelson Mandela in the late 1990s – but effectively under the control of then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki – arranged the arms deal as the means of funding its campaign in the general election of June 1999. The ANC won that election with an increased majority, Mbeki replacing Mandela as State President. The means by which it won that election appears to have been a criminal fraud on the nation.

Party benefit at the expense of the nation
The ANC as government bought goods from foreign suppliers that the armed forces did not want and now cannot afford to use properly. The means by which it did so was at taxpayers’ expense and to the loss of other funding priorities, for years past and for years to come. As charged in hearings of the parliamentary Select Committee on Public Accounts on 11 October 2000 by Laloo Chiba MP, a member of the High Command of the ANC military wing during the trial of Mandela and Mbeki’s father and others in 1963-64, and then their fellow-prisoner on Robben Island for 18 years: ‘The South African nation is being defrauded!’ [See "‘South Africa is being defrauded!' – ANC MP" (3 January 2008)] and ‘Things fall apart’ (10 January)]. Debts were incurred to the account of the South African people as a whole, with a rake-off going to the ANC as a party: that appears to be the bottom line. Huge corruption costs to the benefit of the ANC as a party and to individual politicians and state officials were structured into the inflated cost of these weapons purchases, while the arms suppliers were paid through massive loans to the South African state from foreign banks, to be repaid (principal and interest) over years to come.

The nation’s future mortgaged for a party election
The future of South Africa was mortgaged for an election funding scam. Foreign weapons firms, banks and governments were the beneficiaries. South Africa ’s people – above all, the poor, who have lost the services they might have had – were the losers. This was not a ‘victimless’ crime. At the same time, the whole political process was corrupted. Words and deeds became separated from each other, much more than tends normally to happen in politics. Boorish, thuggish, autocratic behaviour increasingly replaced ordinary parliamentary norms. Tony Yengeni, the ANC politician and parliamentary official who brazenly broke up the Scopa investigation was sent to prison six years later because of arms deal corruption, having earlier been the chairman of the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee for Defence that had helped fix the deal in the first place. Yengeni was then elected to the NEC in December and appointed to the NWC in January, along with another recipient of arms deal bribes who has been appointed to the party committee which is supposed to investigate the whole scam! This scandal degenerates to farce. [See ‘Yengeni, Schreiner and the ethics of the ANC’ (14 January 2008 )]. The farce corrupts the democratic process. All that the ANC claims to stand for as it approaches the centenary of its founding is rendered risible, worthy only of a sneer. It is very dangerous.

The ANC is not above the Constitution
The new ANC president Jacob Zuma has been charged in court with corruption, racketeering, money laundering and fraud in connection with the arms deal. Mbeki, the outgoing party president, and continuing President of the country, should be investigated as to his leadership of the ANC at the time of the arms deal and his chairing of the Cabinet committee which approved it. His grouping in the ANC was responsible for the increasingly boorish, thuggish and autocratic behaviour which led the great majority of ordinary ANC members throughout the country to throw them out of office from the party last month. The clean sweep of almost the entire Mbeki cabal at Polokwane was a necessary but very far from a sufficient step for disinfecting the corruption poison. Whatever might have been thought at Polokwane, the ANC cannot investigate itself on this matter. South Africa has a constitution, set in place in 1994, which the ANC helped to fashion. The ANC cannot now justify a claim to override the Constitution, in its own self-interest, as if the law of South Africa was of no account and did not apply to it.

Judicial process or an ANC putsch
There is now an important constituency in the ANC, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions that is arguing that they should override the Constitution. [See ‘J’Accuse! Cosatu considering a putsch?’ (3 January 2008)]. ANC policies which were decided by majority vote at Polokwane would require, if implemented, that South Africa’s judicial process be set aside, in the interest of negating Zuma’s prosecution. This is a recipe for mayhem, violence, potential civil war and the collapse of South Africa into yet another African basket case and failed state, the most terrible failure of all. That is clearly the warning by two of the country’s most eminent jurists who defended Nelson Mandela and his colleagues in the Rivonia Trial, retired Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson and Advocate George Bizos. [See ‘Chaskalson and Bizos alarm at tone of Zuma debate’ (5 January 2008)].

Members of the NWC arms deal committee
The NWC and its arms deal committee now have central responsibility for preventing this outcome. With the exception of one of its eight members (retired General Siphiwe Nyanda, head of the South African National Defence Force at the time of the arms deal), none of the arms deal committee appears to have been contaminated by the deal. Kgalema Motlanthe, the new deputy president of the ANC, a former trade unionist and a Sotho-speaker, distanced himself from the actions of the Mbeki government on several occasions in the years before the conference at Polokwane. As ANC secretary general he was very civil and collegial when Chiba’s colleague in the Scopa hearings, Andrew Feinstein, resigned as an ANC MP in August 2001, following the bruising Feinstein had received from Mbeki’s then rottweiler (and now Zuma supporter and NWC member), the jailed fraudster, former ANC Chief Whip and previous chairman of the Defence Committee, Yengeni. Two other leading members of the arms deal committee, Cyril Ramaphosa and Mathews Phosa, were run out of politics in April 2001 by Mbeki’s Safety and Security Minister, the late Steve Tshwete, with trumped-up charges of ‘conspiracy’ and a police probe, in order to bolster Mbeki's grip on government . (The third accused ‘conspirator’, Tokyo Sexwale – Feinstein’s former boss and confidante when he was premier of Gauteng province – emerged as the principal kingmaker of the Zuma victory and is a member of the NWC, though not the arms deal committee). There are enough clear heads and clean hands on the arms deal committee for it to make vital decisions, which will have significant bearing on how the ANC carries itself into the country’s general elections in 2009, or sooner; and how well or ill it serves the country.

Legacy of Skweyiya and Motsuenyane Commissions
The arms deal committee must first become clear in what ways it does and does not have continuity with two previous commissions of inquiry appointed by the ANC to investigate its own past misdemeanours, the Skweyiya (1992) and Motsuenyane (1993) commissions. In the years immediately following the unbanning of the ANC and the return of the exiles, these two commissions took evidence from ANC members and former members about human rights abuses committed in exile, principally by the ANC Security Department, the secret police division of the ANC’s Department of Intelligence and Security. (Zuma was head of Military Intelligence, with a separate area of authority). Put together, the investigations of these two commissions were relatively thorough and complemented the findings of Amnesty International (‘South Africa: Torture, ill-treatment and executions in African National Congress camps’, London , December 1992. AI Index: AFR 53/27/92). Victims were able to give evidence and perpetrators were named. The ventilation of these abuses by the ANC itself went some way to meeting the demands of victims who had called for an international commission of inquiry, and provided one of the immediate preconditions for the convening of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission when the ANC became the government in 1994.

Rationale of the ANC commissions of inquiry
Several criticisms have been made before and after the work of the Skweyiya and Motsuenyane commissions, and of the TRC. A significant number of victims of human rights abuses by the ANC in exile refused to give evidence to all three commissions because they did not have confidence that they would receive justice and that their persecutors would be punished. It is true that no punishments were or could be inflicted by any of these commissions. In the case of the TRC, it had the statutory authority to issue amnesty from prosecution in court, if it concluded that a perpetrator had made full disclosure for a ‘politically motivated’ crime (an elastic concept). A very wide range of murderers and torturers from both the apartheid state and the ANC Security apparatus emerged unscathed from these commissions, to enjoy further careers of one kind or another, and/or pension entitlement. There is some bitterness and recrimination about this, partly justified but partly missing the point.

The necessity, limitations and value of the TRC
The main point is that the ANC did admit publicly through these commissions to its own previous guilt. This did not take place with Swapo of Namibia or Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe, a huge advantage for South Africa in terms of decency, openness and respect for the moral law. The TRC was a necessity because the alternative was mutual slaughter. The apartheid state was intact and undefeated at the time of the unbanning of the ANC in February 1990, while the ANC’s troops in Umkhonto weSizwe had been withdrawn from Angola to Zambia and Tanzania under the Crocker Accords of 1988 – far from any border with South Africa, and in a mood of great dissatisfaction in both countries. The fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War (including the Cold War in Africa) permitted a relatively peaceful resolution of the ending of apartheid in South Africa, in which a deal was struck between the two sides. The basis of the deal was that there would be no settling of accounts with the other side. The TRC gave expression to this basic deal between the ANC and the former ruling National Party. It permitted truth to come to light, victims to be heard, perpetrators to be named and shamed, but it excluded a punishing of the guilty (provided they conformed to the conditions for amnesty). No more than that could have been achieved, without precipitating future violence.

Electoral logic of ANC commissions of inquiry
The Skweyiya and the Motsuenyane Commissions, preceding the TRC, had a further logic. The bulk of the abuses they investigated had taken place in the ANC in exile, in Angola, Zambia, Tanzania and some other African countries. The ‘inziles’ – the internal leaders of the ANC, who had fought the battles of the United Democratic Front, the trade unions and the civic associations within South Africa, or had been in prison – knew nothing of the details of what their exile comrades had done in exile. Yet the security forces of the apartheid state, whether its security police or its Directorate of Military Intelligence, did have very extensive and detailed knowledge, since they had penetrated the ANC in exile right up to the top, the Security Department in particular. Once the ANC was legalised, the inziles demanded the setting up of the Skweyiya and Motsuenyane Commissions by the ANC itself, as a means of finding out for themselves what had really happened in exile. They argued in the NEC that without this knowledge the ANC could not realistically confront the NP, as the former party of government in the apartheid era, in a general election. ANC candidates guilty of human rights abuses in exile would be liable to exposure, compromising the party. There was a crucial difference between both these commissions and the NWC arms deal committee, however: though appointed by the ANC, no ANC politician sat on either of the former, an essential condition of their integrity.

Roles of Mandela and Mbeki contrasted
In each debate on this issue, Mandela sided with the inziles, who carried the day. Characteristically, Anthony Sampson gave no attention to this subject in his hagiographic Mandela: The Authorised Biography (HarperCollins, London, 1999), even though Mandela's role was hugely to his credit. In October 1998, when Mbeki and his exile comrades tried to get the final report of the TRC suppressed, since they regarded it as too critical, Mandela once again sided with the revelation of abuses. The report appeared. (On this conflict of approaches between Mandela and Mbeki, see Mark Gevisser, Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, 2007. p.710-712. For a step-by-step account, see also Alex Boraine, A Country Unmasked: Inside South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, OUP, 2000).

Alternatives facing the arms deal committee
These are the precedents immediately available to the arms deal committee. It can with courage proceed without fear or favour to disclosure of the ANC’s own corruption abuses, as a prelude to the entire affair being placed before the courts. Or it can wreck South Africa ’s Constitution, the judicial system, civil peace, the economy and trust between the races by placing the interests of party above the state, and the interests of a small number of guilty men and women above the interests of the whole. The committee must choose. It can follow Mandela’s precedent, or Mbeki’s. Ramaphosa, one of the leading ‘inziles’, who is on the arms deal committee, played a major role within the NEC alongside Mandela in support for the Skweyiya and Motsuenyane commissions, and for the TRC (including publication of its report). So did one of the leading exiles, Pallo Jordan, a member of the NWC though not a member of the arms deal committee. Jordan lacked any power base in exile, but felt on his own flesh the sharp claws of the ANC Security Department (Imbokodo, the boulder that crushes) when he was held its prisoner for six weeks in Lusaka in 1982, for arbitrary ideological reasons.

Pallo Jordan’s ironic comparison
Judge Albie Sachs of the Constitutional Court, an ANC activist of many decades, has vividly described the ‘seminal’ meeting of the NEC in August 1993 – a ‘passionate meeting, sharp, uncomfortable’ – which accepted the proposal to set up the TRC. At this critical moment for South Africa and the ANC, there were forceful arguments against the proposal. Jordan’s words at that meeting had tremendous moral importance for the future of the country. He should use them again in the NWC over the coming weeks, substituting only the words ‘corruption’ and ‘arms deal’ in place of the issue facing the NEC at that time, ‘torture’. As Jordan sharply and ironically reminded his colleagues at that NEC meeting in 1993: ‘Comrades, I’ve learnt something very interesting today. There is such a thing as regime torture [read: corruption], and there is ANC torture [read: corruption], and regime torture is bad and ANC torture is good; thank you for enlightening me!’ (Sachs’s account is cited in Boraine, A Country Unmasked, pp.258-259).

Schizophrenic stance on criminal justice system
Today the omens are not good. The NWC made a major attack on the judiciary in a statement issued today, following its first meeting yesterday at Luthuli House, the ANC headquarters, in Johannesburg. Its stance is schizophrenic. On the one hand, the NWC stated that that it had ‘discussed transformation and the need to restore the integrity of law enforcement units and the entire criminal justice system’. Contrary to affirming and strengthening the criminal justice system, as Chaskalson and Bizos have urged, it expressed itself ‘shocked’ that Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke on the occasion of his 60th birthday had shown ‘disdain’ for the delegates to the conference at Polokwane, a matter that the NEC said ‘highlights the difficulty that many within the judiciary appear to have in shedding their historical leanings and political orientation.’ This is the language of the goons of the ANC Security Department in Lusaka, when they imprisoned Pallo Jordan on the grounds that ‘Leli intellectual lase Merika liijwayela kabi’ - ‘This American intellectual is not showing respect’. (See ‘Jacob Zuma, the ANC and the administration of justice', 30 December 2007). It is the wide open highway to dictatorship and chaos.

Heading for the abyss
Even worse is the subsequent paragraph, in which the NWC states: ‘The sudden withdrawal of charges against Scorpions Gauteng head Gerrie Nel raises a number of questions. The manner in which this case has been handled suggests that South Africa has a long way to go to achieve equality before the law. It strengthens suspicions that those who occupied positions in agencies of the former apartheid government can act with impunity while the offensive against cadres of the democratic movement is intensified. This brings into sharp relief the transformation of state agencies.’ Equality before the law! This verbiage avoids any comment about the NWC fraudster, Yengeni, or the NWC recipient of foreign arms deal largesse, General Nyanda, both present at the meeting which issued these disgraceful, pro-corruption threats. No comment either about the National Police Commissioner and (resigned) president of Interpol, ANC comrade Jackie Selebi, submerged up to the crown of his head in charges of corruption. No mention either of the foul secret at the centre of this ship of fools: the corrupt funding of the ANC itself. With leaders like these, South Africa is heading for the abyss

Power cuts enrage South Africans

Jan 16 2008 09:18 PM

Johannesburg - Power cuts are endangering motorists at traffic
intersections, inflicting heavy losses on businesses and infuriating
South Africans already disillusioned by leaders embroiled in
corruption cases.

State-owned utility Eskom is planning to spend R300bn to boost
power capacity in the continent's biggest economy over the next
five years but South Africans plagued by rolling blackouts are losing
patience.

The country's electricity reserves have been eroded by several
years of strong economic growth, a doubling of users and delayed
construction of power plants. Power cuts rippled across South Africa
a year ago, blacking out parts of major cities.

South Africa's power woes have raised political temperatures in the
past, with critics accusing the government of failing to address the
energy crunch plaguing Africa's biggest economy as it gears up to
host the soccer World Cup in 2010.

Economist Mike Schussler says South Africa has paid a heavy price
because of the outages. "We already think it's in the hundreds of
millions of rand," he said.

Eskom has now imposed new cuts, which have also affected the
crucial mining industry.

Eskom's spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
But the outages were a hot topic on a radio talk show which asked
callers if South Africa had become a banana republic.

Bianca Uys, 33, is troubled in many ways. The manager of a pizza
restaurant has watched profits drop by about 50%. Driving home
alone at night can be dangerous for women during the best of times
- South Africa suffers from one of the world's worst rates of violent
crime, including rape.

Traffic intersections, known as robots, are pitch dark at night, with
no signals to guide helpless motorists. "It's not safe for a woman. I
get stuck at the robot," she said.

Frustrations were already widespread before the lights went off.

South Africans have just learned that prosecutors will charge their
national police chief, Jackie Selebi, with corruption, fraud, money
laundering and racketeering. Selebi has been given an extended
leave of absence.

Jacob Zuma, newly elected leader of the ruling African National
Congress, will go on trial in August on charges of corruption, fraud,
money laundering and racketeering.

"The general feeling is very negative. It's a cocktail of coverups
among leaders," Zaid Surtee, who owns an ice cream shop at the
posh Sandton City mall, told Reuters.

Every time his staff opens up the glass case covering fancy flavours
on offer, the ice cream goes soft and there is no chance of recovery
because of the cuts. "This is ridiculous. Nobody has any idea if
Eskom is doing anything about this."

Markets have factored in the allegations hovering around Zuma and
Selebi, as well as the power problems, said Esther Law, emerging
market strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland in London. "They are
adding to negative sentiment," she told Reuters.

The world's biggest miner BHP Billiton - South Africa's single largest
power consumer - said the cuts have hit its three massive
aluminium smelters.

"It does affect our production, but we normally don't disclose the
impact," BHP spokesperson Bronwyn Wilkinson said.

"All three of our smelters have been affected this week on a daily
basis, and they have been affected frequently since load shedding
began late last year."

Jewellry store owner Mohammed Ravat was more forthcoming
about his losses as his employees strained to work through
receipts under poor lighting.

"We can't go on like this. You need to look into the diamond clearly,
to show the customers," he said.

Sure we believe you, Mr President

Primarashni Gower

As I lay face down next to my husband, David, with our hands and feet tied up, I thanked him for six years of marriage and three children. My knees felt like jelly and I had the urge to lose my dinner.

Despite pleading with Thabang* not to harm my family, I feared he would still shoot my three-year-old son, who was sleeping on the bed, and my mother and my five-year-old twins, whom I could see.

Thabang, still wielding his silver gun, told his friend Jabu* where to find our bank cards while he dialled a number on his cellphone. "Where is your plasma TV? Where is your laptop? Where are your fucking firearms?" he barked. "Give me the correct PIN numbers or my friend who is staying behind will kill you!"

On repeating for the third time that we did not have firearms and that we had an LCD TV, he demanded to know the size of it. While Jabu went to locate it, Thabang conveyed to his contact on the phone that the LCD TV was 37 inches, not 40, and that there was a desktop computer.

He enquired whether his contact was interested in our black Peugeot 206 convertible and blue Toyota Verso, and provided the registration details.

Stamping on David's back and kicking at him, he demanded that David say hello to his contact as he bashed the phone against his ear.

They had stripped my fingers of my wedding rings earlier on, and at gunpoint I had led Thabang to the cupboard containing valuable jewellery, cameras and cash. As compensation for not having firearms, I had pointed out my cellphone and digital camera, as well as the valuable jewellery.

I was terrified that they would rape my daughters, my mother and even me. While Thabang raided my cupboard, I figured that if he raped me, I would not scream or put up a big struggle; I did not want David to try to rescue me -- we could all be killed. I prepared myself psychologically to be raped and knew that I could access the AZT anti-HIV cocktail at one of the private hospitals nearby. Many women survive rape in this country. Luckily, Thabang did not touch me.

The robbers had struck as David drove into our property on his return from the gym. After punching him and beating him up with the gun, they had demanded that he unlock the garage door and lead them into the house. Faced with the choice of being shot dead or complying, David grudgingly went for the latter choice, detesting the fact that, either way, his family was at risk.

"Do your vehicles have trackers and have you pressed the panic button?" asked Thabang as he continued to talk to his friend on the cellphone. He howled with laughter when we said no. This young-looking robber was on a tight deadline -- he had Jabu collect most of the items on his list, leaving behind three old TVs but taking our computer hard drive with my memory stick in it.

These career criminals in their latex gloves and red takkies then drove off to Soweto in our cars, leaving behind messed-up lives, no fingerprints and our burning desire to kill them.

However, you see, we have a government that believes that crime is a mere fallacy and that the foolish citizenry complains for nothing. So, technically, Thabang and Jabu do not physically exist in the eyes of President Thabo Mbeki and his honorable Minister of Safety and Security, Charles Nqakula. They exist merely in my imagination and that of other victims, while the country theoretically celebrates having the most liberal Constitution in the world. A Constitution that, in reality, favours criminals.

How do you bring a spiralling crime problem under control if, in your head, it does not exist and things are just dandy in this sunny country? You just continue living in your high-security residence with several bodyguards, wishing the media would just shut the hell up and that the whiners would leave the country. And if you bullshit the people on the ground about the difference your government has made, maybe you will get to be president of the ruling party again -- or even serve a third term as president of the country.

Can Mbeki see that things have fallen apart, as criminals run riot? Is he not concerned about the shameful legacy he will leave behind for allowing this country to plunge into anarchy? Does he have any self-respect?

I used to be scornful towards people who fled the country due to crime. I saw them as traitors. Now I understand their desire for safe, peaceful lives. I want my children to have the safety and security to make mud cakes in the garden without any fear of being harmed by robbers.

I want to continue with my dream job and not pack off to some strange country and start a job on the bottom of the corporate ladder. I don't want to learn to use a gun, but if I had one, I would kill to protect my family.

Our miracle nation is dying because of crime, and there is no doubt that race relations are being damaged. Our rainbow nation is under threat.

Mbeki could save the last shred of his dignity by turning around the situation: he could introduce capital punishment for criminals involved in armed robbery, rape and murder. He could make the tackling of crime a priority. He could declare a state of emergency and call the army in to help him regain control of the country from the criminals to whom he has lost it.

And he could plough resources into the existing national DNA criminal intelligence database and relax restrictions to allow for all South Africans' information to be processed and entered on to the database. This will make it easy for criminals to be traced.

If only he would.

All of these actions would take the fear out of the hearts of crime victims who, like me, would like to continue living in this country. Instead, we're now considering selling our spacious property and could move into a poky little townhouse complex that supposedly has more security.

And, like many other crime victims, we're considering whether it is worthwhile to buy another property when this country is already in the stinky sewers when one considers how crime is handled. Maybe we should keep money in the kitty for when things get really bad and we need to flee for our lives.

Maybe, like many others, we should wait to see who becomes the next president -- and what the consequences are -- before we reinvest our hard-earned money in this country.

Maybe I deserve the government I've got. I voted for it.

* The names of the criminals are real