tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14664754662786911932024-02-19T18:45:34.305+02:00What is Happening in South AfricaCrime is Crime
Corruption is Corruption
Murder is Murder
Rape is Rape
Facts are FactsJazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.comBlogger1208125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-7062965118410027992014-02-27T17:41:00.001+02:002014-02-27T17:42:01.575+02:00Chaos as ANC Disrupts Council<div class="arcticle_text" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
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<span style="background-color: #f4f4f4; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;">CARRIED AWAY: ANC councillor Kuthula Mamba dances with a makeshift AK47 during a rowdy meeting in the Civic Centre yesterday. </span></div>
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ANC councillors chanted slogans, banged on desks and dumped documents on the floor of the city council chamber.</div>
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Their undisciplined actions saw yesterday’s meeting disrupted for hours as they objected to the draft budget.</div>
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It contains increases for rates, water and electricity.</div>
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Speaker Dirk Smit was unable to control the meeting.</div>
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Things became heated as ANC councillors accused the Speaker of ignoring opposition councillors.</div>
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At the centre of the chaos was the 2014/2015 draft budget set to go out for public comment.</div>
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The ANC refused to vote on the budget after Mayor Patricia de Lille presented it to council.</div>
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De Lille said the draft would have an operating budget of about R28 billion and a capital budget of just over R6bn.</div>
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The city was proposing a 6 percent increase in rates, 7.6 percent for electricity, 8 percent for water and sanitation and a 5.9 percent hike for solid waste.</div>
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De Lille said they were smaller than last year’s hikes.</div>
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After hours of what some councillors called “pandemonium”, the draft budget was approved by 132 of the 142 councillors present.</div>
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<b>ANC councillors said they were unable to decide on the draft as they had not had an opportunity to go through the documents.</b></div>
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ANC chief whip Xolani Sotashe said that according to the Municipal Finance Management Act, the yearly budget had to be accompanied by the necessary documents.</div>
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“We have not received any draft resolutions and if the council wants us to apply our minds, then the documents should have been issued to us 72 hours before,” Sotashe said.</div>
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Smit explained that it was a draft budget which would go out for public comment once the council had voted on it.</div>
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He had taken legal advice which said a decision could be made on the draft budget.</div>
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ANC councillors then protested loudly, shouting that correct procedure was being flouted. Smit was unable to bring the meeting to order, leading to an adjournment of nearly two hours.</div>
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Chanting and singing from the ANC benches continued and members later threw the draft budget documents on to the floor in the middle of the chamber.</div>
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Sotashe said Smit had misled the council as he had not sought the advice of the city’s lawyer.</div>
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“We spoke to the lawyer and he said the Speaker did not ask him for legal advice. Mr Speaker we are expressing our disgust.</div>
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“This is not a DA council, this is a multi-party council,” Sotashe said.</div>
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Smit ruled that the meeting would continue despite the ongoing interruptions.</div>
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De Lille appealed to councillors to continue with the business of the day saying “we are bordering on ill-discipline and abusing the rules of council”.</div>
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The meeting eventually carried on without further disruptions, but many DA councillors said the ANC’s actions were part of their electioneering.</div>
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<a href="http://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/chaos-as-anc-disrupts-council-1.1653522#.Uw9azOOSzJF">http://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/chaos-as-anc-disrupts-council-1.1653522#.Uw9azOOSzJF</a><br />
<br />Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-84751436283982039722014-02-26T07:05:00.000+02:002014-02-26T07:05:01.083+02:00Vote ANC & Get A FREE Prostitute!SHOCKING: ANC'S NEW ELECTION CAMPAIGN<br />
<img alt="(PIC) A prostitute commissioned to campaign for the ANC. Gwede Mantashe behind her." src="http://lifestyletabloids.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/1560624_10151845963715978_585074152_n.jpg?w=545" /><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17.764999389648438px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A prostitute commissioned to campaign for the ANC. Gwede Mantashe behind her.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="background-color: white;">It’s BYE-BYE food p</b><b style="background-color: white;">arcels and HELLO free prostitutes. In a desperate attempt to win votes, the ANC has embarked on what can be classified as the world’s most shocking election campaigns yet, by adding sex workers to the equation.</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to an exposé published by a popular Sunday newspaper, this jaw-dropping campaign was officially launched during the January 8 Statement held in Mpumalanga, where an array of prostitutes were whisked from [literally] all corners of Gauteng province to join in umzabalazo.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I have never seen so many short skirts in one place at the same time… It was like watching an episode of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not,” said one very excited Mpumalanga man, who added that after this spectacle, he will definitely be voting for the ANC.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following years of empty promises, fraud, corruption, sexual scandals and the extortion of taxpayers’ money, South Africans have lost all faith in the ruling party, with many confirming that they’ve heard enough and will not be voting ANC into power again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One gatvol township resident went on to say that the only time they get to interact with ANC leaders within their respective community is once every five years during election campaigns. After winning, they disappear and it’s business as usual; lavish living, nepotism, fraud, corruption etc.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In light of this, the ANC is certainly getting nervous. The proliferation of new political parties mushrooming everywhere is also adding to the pressure, the recent one being Desmond Tutu’s gay political party called ‘DRAAMA’ [Democratic Religious Alliance Against Minority Antagonism].</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to well placed sources at Luthuli House, the tinned-fish and Iwisa maize meal food parcel strategy was no longer working for the ANC, therefore the party had to explore other ‘innovative’ ways to garner votes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is alleged that the initial ‘campaign testing stage’ held in Mpumalanga was a resounding success. Well trained ‘ladies of the night’ were given a ‘brief’ to wear the shortest skirts and shorts with no panties underneath and to lift their legs higher than Mount Everest when chanting struggle songs. It is alleged that the “below the belt bulge” was trending amongst comrades at the venue.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Said ANC’s spokesperson, Jackson Mthembu: “According to ANC’s protection of information act, we are not at liberty to discuss our election campaign strategy with the media. Whether we use prostitutes to campaign for us or not is an internal matter and will be treated as such.”</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leading to the elections, it is alleged that a toll free line will be made available for horny South Africans to call in and have raunchy phone sex sessions with the prostitutes. The prostitutes will also make house calls for those looking for a more physical action.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Additionally, insiders claim that male and female prostitutes will be deployed across all voting stations to ensure that all voters are kept ‘entertained’. Due to small penile size issues endemic amongst South African men, the campaign opted to use male prostitutes from Nigeria, Ghana and other West African countries to ensure that female and gay voters are left gasping for more.</span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twitter: <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/L_Tabloids" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">@L_Tabloids</a><br />Facebook: <a href="https://m.facebook.com/LifestyleTabloids" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lifestyle Tabloids</a></span></b></div>
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<b style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://lifestyletabloids.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/shocking-vote-anc-get-a-free-prostitute-ancs-new-election-campaign/">lifestyletabloids.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/shocking-vote-anc-get-a-free-prostitute-ancs-new-election-campaign/</a></b></div>
<br />Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-4527090700381904502014-01-20T06:56:00.001+02:002014-01-20T07:03:02.067+02:00Lost Prison Manuscript Reveals - Nelson Mandela<span style="font-family: Georgia, Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18.899999618530273px;">New light is shed on the president's politics, smoothed over in 'Long Walk to Freedom'</span><br />
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<img alt="BIO-MANDELA-RALLY" src="http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/163447973.jpg" height="265" width="400" /><br />
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This is a story about Nelson Mandela, and it begins on Robben Island in 1974. Prisoner number 466/64 is writing up his life story, working all night and sleeping all day. Finished pages go to trusted comrades who write comments and queries in the margins. The text is then passed to one Laloo Chiba, who transcribes it in ‘microscopic’ letters on to sheets of paper which are later inserted into the binding of notebooks and carried off the island by Mac Maharaj when he is released in 1976.</div>
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Outside, the intrepid Mac turns the microscopic text into a typescript and sends it to London, where it becomes the Higgs boson of literary properties, known to exist but not seen since it passed into the hands of the South African Communist Party, or SACP, in 1977. Years pass; the mystery deepens. Mandela goes from being an obscure South African prisoner to possibly the most famous living human, subject of global adulation and a ghostwritten autobiography that sells 15 million. His cult is such that prints of his hands are sold for thousands, and yet the prison manuscript stays missing. Until last week, when Professor Stephen Ellis of the University of Leiden sent out an email saying: ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve just found in the online archive of the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory.’</div>
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<img alt="ANC president Nelson Mandela is surround" src="http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/120091653.jpg" /></div>
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So yes, the lost manuscript has come back to us and, with it, a range of fascinating questions. <b>Why was it not published earlier?</b> Why did it surface now? And above all, what light does it shed on Mandela’s Awkward Secret, first reported by Professor Ellis in 2011?</div>
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Everyone thought Mandela was a known entity, but he turns out to have <b>led a double life</b>, at least for a time. By day, he was or <b>pretended to be a moderate democrat</b>, fighting to free his people in the name of values all humans held sacred. But by night he donned the cloak and dagger and became a leader of a fanatical sect known for its attachment to the totalitarian Soviet ideal.</div>
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When Ellis first aired this theory, it read like a Cold War thriller, but when Mandela died last month, the African National Congress and the SACP both issued statements confirming that it was true: at the time of his arrest in 1962, Nelson Mandela was a member of the SACP’s innermost central committee.</div>
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<a href="http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/150343179.jpg" style="border: 0px; color: #cc0000; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="BIO-MANDELA-WINNIE-JOE SLOVO" class="alignright" src="http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/150343179.jpg" height="347" style="border: 0px; clear: right; color: transparent; display: inline; float: right; font-size: 0px; height: auto; margin: 0px 0px 24px 14px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="254" /></a>This, then, is why Ellis and I were dizzy with excitement when the prison manuscript turned up last week: here was a<b> rich new source of virgin material</b> to be scanned for the smoking gun, the inside and untold story of Mandela’s secret life as a communist plotter. Alas, the smoking gun was not there. <b>But the prison manuscript does offer insights into the manner in which Mandela’s image has been manipulated over the decades.</b></div>
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It is common cause that the ANC decided in the 1960s to use Mandela as the anti-apartheid movement’s official poster boy. He was the obvious choice, a tall, clean-limbed tribal prince, luminously charismatic, married to the telegenic Winnie, and reduced by cruel circumstance to living martyrdom on a prison island. All you had to do was cleanse him of the communist taint and Bob’s your uncle: four decades down the road, you have the president of the USA getting weepy as he describes Mandela’s lifelong struggle for ‘your freedom, your democracy’. <b>There’s no accounting for taste</b>, but one wonders if Barack Obama would have said that if he’d known his hero batted for the opposition during the Cold War.</div>
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<i>‘I hate all forms of imperialism, and I consider the US brand to be the most loathsome and contemptible.’</i></div>
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<i>‘To a nationalist fighting oppression, dialectical materialism is like a rifle, bomb or missile. Once I understood the principle of dialectical materialism, I embraced it without hesitation.’</i></div>
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<i>Unquestionably, my sympathies lay with Cuba [during the 1962 missile crisis]. The ability of a small state to defend its independence demonstrates in no uncertain terms the superiority of socialism over capitalism.’</i></div>
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Whoa! That’s not Mandela, is it? Well, yes. <b>These quotes come from the prison manuscript, </b>which turns out to be the first draft of <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Long Walk to Freedom</i>, Mandela’s famous 1994 autobiography. Much of the first draft is carried forth into the finished book, but<b> these problematic quotes have vanished</b>, along with several other outbreaks of what can only be described as pro-communist harangue. What happened?</div>
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Our search for an answer must begin with Rick Stengel, a New York journalist who is now President Obama’s undersecretary for public diplomacy. In the 1980s, Stengel did a tour of duty in South Africa, where he exhibited sensitivity to the hardships of black people and enthusiasm for their ANC liberators, surely one of the factors that led to his eventual appointment as Mandela’s ghostwriter.</div>
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Among the raw materials he was given to work with was the prison manuscript, a sprawling 637-page affair with many uneven passages and no clear ending. Stengel proceeded to turn this sow’s ear into <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Long Walk to Freedom</i>, a blockbuster that considerably boosted the Mandela legend and formed the basis for a movie of the same title, now doing boffo box office around the planet.</div>
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In what follows, there is an element of conjecture. Since Mr Stengel is the ghostwriter of record, it seems logical to infer that he made the changes, even if we have no other basis for saying so. Pending clarification, let’s note that Stengel was a New York liberal who would instantly have realised that stridency was undesirable, especially if it sounded a bit Russian. Clearly those lines about the Cuban missile crisis and the evils of Yankee imperialism had to go. Beyond that, the changes are usually quite subtle — <b>a quote dropped here, a shift in emphasis there. </b>Having read both manuscripts several times, I think it’s fair to say that Stengel appears to have cleaned up Mandela’s act in three critical areas.</div>
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<a href="http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/156333126.jpg" style="border: 0px; color: #cc0000; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="TIME's Person of the Year Panel" src="http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/156333126.jpg" height="347" style="border: 0px; color: transparent; font-size: 0px; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="520" /></a><em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Rick Stengal </em></div>
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The first was his premature conversion to violence. Officially, <b>Mandela</b> was a moderate black nationalist, clinging to hope of peaceful change until it was extinguished by the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. But in the prison memoir we find him plotting war as early as 1953, when <b>he sent a comrade on a secret mission to beg guns and money from Red China, in flagrant violation of the ANC’s non-aligned and non-violent stance.</b></div>
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<b>‘I was bitter and felt ever more strongly that SA whites need another Isandlwana,’</b> he explains. Driving around the country, Mandela constantly imagines rural landscapes as battlefields and cities as places where one day soon<b> ‘the sweet air will smell of gunfire, elegant buildings will crash down and streets will be splashed with blood’. These vivid quotes did not make it into the bestseller.</b></div>
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The second area is his endorsement of force against opponents. In April 1958, the ANC called a three-day national strike which drew little or no support and had to be called off in humiliating circumstances. In <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Long Walk</i>, Mandela notes that the strike was completely effective in towns where it was enforced by violence or pickets. ‘I have always resisted such methods,’ he says, but goes on to reason that coercion is acceptable in cases where a dissident minority is blocking a majority. <b>‘A minority should not be able to frustrate the will of the majority,’</b> he concludes.</div>
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But in<b> the prison manuscript, he says the opposite.</b> ‘This is not a question of principle or wishful thinking,’ he says. <b>‘If force will advance [the struggle],<i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">then it must be used whether or not the majority agrees with us</i>.’</b> Pardon my italics, but it’s important to understand what you’re looking at here: the rewrite makes Mandela sound reasonable. The original is Stalinism. Who determines the course of struggle? It is the communist vanguard, imbued with higher wisdoms derived from the gospel of dialectical materialism. And if the majority talks back, they must be smashed. As they were in the final bloody phase of the struggle here. And everywhere else in Planet Soviet.</div>
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The third area of amendment involved errors of even-handedness. I thought I knew South African history, but one section of the prison manuscript surprised me. (The section beginning on page 304, if you must know. <b>The entire book is available at http://specc.ie/longwalkms)</b>. I’d heard of the Alexandra bus boycott of 1957, in which a determined display of people power forced capitalists to withdraw a fare increase. But I was totally ignorant of ANC-led boycotts against Langeberg, a giant food-canning operation, and United Tobacco; both corporations were forced to deal with African unions and grant wage increases.</div>
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Emboldened, the ANC tackled cruel potato farmers, and brought them down too. Soon it was organising consumer boycotts all over the country, and often winning. At the same time, it was behind the ceaseless protests against the pass laws for women while winning stunning victories in the Treason Trial and elsewhere. The cost in ANC lives: zero. ‘To the best of my knowledge,’ writes Mandela, ‘no individuals [meaning political detainees] were isolated, forced to give information, beaten up, tortured, crippled or killed’ prior to December 1961, <b>when the communists started their bombing campaign (see page 302).</b></div>
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Clearly, this could not be allowed to stand. It spoils the plot completely! So Stengel cut it, allowing <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Long Walk </i>to soar towards to its moral epiphany. Provoked beyond endurance by oppression, Mandela convinces the ANC’s timid old guard that it is time to fight back. With their blessing, he goes on to<b> form MK, ‘military wing of the ANC’, which launches a bombing campaign against non-human targets.</b></div>
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If we are to believe Stephen Ellis and Irina Filatova, a Russian historian who has also published on the subject, all of this is doubtful or fabricated. The decision to go to war was actually taken by the Communist party, meeting in a prosperous white suburb, in a marquee where black Africans were outnumbered around two to one by white and Indian intellectuals. ANC president Albert Luthuli did not endorse the move to violence and MK was not the military wing of the ANC at all — it was the sole creation of the Communist party, and everyone involved in its high command was openly or secretly a communist.</div>
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You will find nothing of this in <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Long Walk</i>,<i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </i>of course. Is that Stengel’s fault? I think not. Mandela’s secret was still a secret in the early 1990s, and Stengel was a hired hand, taking instructions from God knows who. I attempted to elicit a comment, but Mr Stengel failed to get back to me. Another man who might be able to shed light on the mystery is Mac Maharaj, the man who smuggled the original out of prison, now a spokesman and adviser in the office of President Zuma. But he didn’t return my calls either.</div>
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We will therefore have to turn to Hollywood to complete this story. I went to see the movie version of <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Long Walk to Freedom </i>armed with a pen and ready to fight yet another rearguard action for Afrikaner honour, only to find myself disarmed by the director Justin Chadwick’s take on the Mandela story. <b>No one really expects movies to be true, and this one certainly isn’t. It’s a fable about a brave man who sticks up for what he believes in and, against all odds, wins in the end.</b> Music swells, titles roll and I must hide the fact that I am moved. (Yes, I am a sucker.)</div>
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Then I borrow an electronic copy of the script and run a search for the word ‘communist’. Two scenes come up. In one, a white policeman jostles Mandela while saying, ‘Ag, everyone knows you’re a bloody communist!’ In another, a white police general appears at the scene of a bombing and says, ‘This is the work of communist terrorists….’ Both cops are clearly intended to be taken as racist buffoons. This is a perfect distillation of the traditional left-liberal position on Mandela. For decades it was gospel. Now, it’s inadvertently funny.</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Rian Malan is affiliated to the Foundation for African Investigative Reporters.<a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9116391/the-mandela-files/">http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9116391/the-mandela-files/</a></em></div>
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Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-17146116546972008562014-01-05T08:55:00.000+02:002014-01-05T09:37:49.241+02:00Margaret Thatcher Never Officially Called for Release of Mandela<h3 class="intro" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Nelson Mandela's name was not raised once in an official meeting between Margaret Thatcher and South Africa's prime minister in 1984, records showed, re-opening the debate into how much she pushed for his release from prison.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">P. W. Botha was invited to talks with the Thatcher at the British prime minister's Chequers country residence to discuss South Africa's policy towards its black population, as the apartheid regime sought to emerge from its international isolation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The record of that meeting, released 30 years later under secrecy rules, showed that Thatcher pressed Botha on the issue of apartheid but Mandela's name did not come up during the official talks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thatcher chose instead to raise the issue during a shorter private discussion the two leaders had beforehand, where no official note-takers were present.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The newly declassified official records show that the British government confirmed that Mandela's imprisonment was raised at a short "tete-a-tete", but that Thatcher made little progress with Botha.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a note about the 40-minute private meeting sent to the Foreign Office on June 2, 1984, Thatcher's advisor John Coles wrote: "The prime minister said afterwards that Mr Botha had stated that it was never possible for South Africa to satisfy international opinion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"She took the opportunity to raise the case of Nelson Mandela.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Mr Botha said he noted the prime minister's remarks, but that he was not able to interfere with the South African judicial process."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But in the broader, four-hour meeting where official minutes were taken, Thatcher omitted the leaders' disagreement over anti-apartheid hero Mandela -- despite prior guidance from the Foreign Office to make the point.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a briefing paper written by the Foreign Office for the prime minister's office ahead of the meeting, it was suggested that Thatcher include Mandela's release from prison as a "point to make".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a statement to the House of Commons, the lower house of parliament, after the meeting, Thatcher said: "On the internal situation in South Africa, I expressed our strongly held views on apartheid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I told Mr Botha of my particular concern at the practice of forced removals (of the black population) and raised the question of the continued detention of Mr Nelson Mandela."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In her 1993 memoir, "The Downing Street Years", Thatcher said that in the meeting with Botha, she raised the case of Mandela, "whose freedom we had persistently sought".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He was finally released "after all the years of pressure, not least from me", she wrote.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The revelations come after the historical approach of the Conservatives -- the party of Thatcher and current Prime Minister David Cameron -- to Mandela's African National Congress party came under scrutiny after the peace icon's death last month.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reminded that <b>Thatcher branded the ANC a "typical terrorist organisation" during a press conference in 1987</b>, a senior Conservative former minister, Norman Tebbit, said: <b>"He was the leader of a political movement which had begun to resort to terrorism."</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cameron has in the past apologised for his party's approach to apartheid-era South Africa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2006, he flew to South Africa to seek forgiveness from Mandela for "the mistakes my party made with the ANC and sanctions in South Africa".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cameron said at the time that Thatcher had been wrong to brand the ANC "terrorists".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2014/01/03/thatcher-never-officially-called-for-release-of-mandela">http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2014/01/03/thatcher-never-officially-called-for-release-of-mandela</a></span></div>
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Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-66692037042689173032013-12-28T08:52:00.000+02:002013-12-28T08:52:03.274+02:00 144 women raped daily in SA<div style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">JOHANNESBURG - The Medical Research Council has found South Africa still has one of the highest incidents of rape in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The past year has seen some of the most gruesome rapes which included children who were barely a year old and elderly people above the age of 70.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most recent crime statistics show 144 women are raped every day in the country and that amounts to about six every hour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the most recent case in the North West, <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2013/12/27/Suspected-rapist-to-appear-in-court" style="color: #db1010; text-decoration: none;">a youth allegedly raped his 10-year-old neighbour</a> on Christmas Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 19-year-old appeared in the Itsoseng Magistrates Court on Friday, where he was denied bail.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In November, <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2013/11/28/Man-arrested-for-rape-of-6-weeks-baby" style="color: #db1010; text-decoration: none;">a six-week-old baby girl in the Northern Cape was sexually assaulted</a> allegedly by her uncle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The little girl had to undergo several medical procedures following her ordeal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the Limpopo province, police have arrested more than 120 alleged rapists this month alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://ewn.co.za/2013/12/28/144-women-raped-daily-in-SA#">http://ewn.co.za/2013/12/28/144-women-raped-daily-in-SA#</a></span></div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-92170310641810701452013-12-28T08:28:00.003+02:002013-12-28T08:28:49.176+02:00Kwa-Zulu Natal’s Durban Beachfront 1930 – 2013<div style="background-color: black; border: 0px; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1950′s</strong></div>
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<a href="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach1950.jpg" sl-processed="1" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease; border: 0px; color: red; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Beach1950" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-966" src="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach1950.jpg?w=620" style="border: 0px; clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" /></a></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1960′s-1970′s</strong></div>
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<a href="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach1950.jpg" sl-processed="1" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease; border: 0px; color: red; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></a><img alt="Beach1960.70b" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-967" src="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach1960-70b.jpg?w=620" style="clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" /><img alt="Beach1960.70c" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-968" src="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach1960-70c.jpg?w=620" style="clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" /><img alt="Beach1960.70d" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-969" src="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach1960-70d.jpg?w=620" style="clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" /><img alt="Beach1960.70e" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-970" src="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach1960-70e.jpg?w=620" style="clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" /><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2009</strong></em></div>
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<img alt="People celebrate New Years Day on the beach in Durban" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-976" src="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach2011b.jpg?w=620" style="clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" /><a href="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach2011c.jpg" sl-processed="1" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease; border: 0px; color: red; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="People celebrate New Years Day on a beach in Durban" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-977" src="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beach2011c.jpg?w=620" style="border: 0px; clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beachny2013.jpg" sl-processed="1" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease; border: 0px; color: white; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="BeachNY2013" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-979" src="http://melancholymons.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/beachny2013.jpg?w=620" style="border: 0px; clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://melancholymons.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/kwa-zulu-natals-durban-beachfront-1930-2013/">http://melancholymons.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/kwa-zulu-natals-durban-beachfront-1930-2013/</a></span></div>
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Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-15560432312034494462013-12-28T08:02:00.000+02:002013-12-28T08:02:04.048+02:00Utopia in South Africa<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let us pretend that we can achieve "utopia" in South Africa for a minute, that we can see "the light" and solve all our problems. I suppose the first thing required would be to define what that Utopia actually is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I suggest it would be</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) Everyone has a job which pays the equivalent of R30 000 per month in current money</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) Government takes no more than 15% of that salary in taxes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) Everyone has the opportunity to own a sized house supplied with reasonably priced electricity, water and general services such as garbage removal, post etc</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4) Everyone has access to good schools which their children can attend which ensure a solid platform for later success</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5) Everyone can trust that when dealing with law enforcement, everything will be done to bring about justice</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am sure you as readers can fill in other aspects. So I wonder if government has a list like this ? The answer is that they don't. The list they have is based around redistribution of existing wealth, colour demographics and socialist reform.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You might say that this Utopia isn't possible but the sad reality is that it is. A country like Australia has half the number of people and SIX times the GDP of South Africa. Think about what South Africa would look like if we increased our GDP by six fold ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is it that Australia has that South Africa doesn't ? We have better mineral resources, better location with respect to being able to trade with the whole of Africa and Europe. We even have better weather, plenty of fertile ground. In fact the ONLY thing Australia has is a large working middle class.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So how does one go about creating a large working middle class ?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) You educate your people. Follow the Australian model - if you don't have the best teachers - get them into SA on skilled visas to teach. Pay them a premium to be here, but educate the population - there is NO BETTER investment of taxpayers money than this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) Follow the same principle with respect to the police force. Put highly skilled, competent people in charge at all levels. If you can't find them locally, get them into the country with the lure of above average incomes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) Cut government spending. Stop all the departments which do not move you closer to Utopia. Tourism department ? Get rid of it - private business will do it better and more efficiently. There are LOTS of examples. The job of government is to implement utopia - anything which government has to "outsource" should stop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4) Do everything you can to create a JOB - this means reducing union power, cutting taxes, eliminating minimum wages etc. Anglo platinum intends on retrenching 14 000 people. The secret is that when everyone is working, the cost of labour goes UP. This means salaries rise the higher the employment level in SA is. CREATE JOBS by eliminating the things that retard job creation (seems stupid, but that is all there is to it). The better we educate our people the HIGHER their salaries become, AND the more jobs we create the more money we have to go around supporting those less fortunate - like (Zimbabwe!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5) Sad to say it, but we can't afford all the grants we provide at this time. This does not mean eliminate them all, but we need to stop the ones that go to people who could otherwise be working. How to do this ? If you are unemployed I will pay you the "grant" - you need to arrive at work on Monday morning and start building infrastructure - we can build new rail infrastructure at the very least all around SA - that's how they used to do it in the "old days"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So why doesn't government do this ? The simple answer is that South Africa believes that Socialism is the best way to run a country. China which is the "model" everyone follows however has a GDP per capita of $9 100 - even lower than South Africa at $13 300, and yet is viewed as the "model".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I challenge all my socialist friends out there to demonstrate how the Socialist model can ever put us in the position where our GDP per capita is on of the 10 best in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And no, comments like "apartheid must be redressed" or "renaming roads is important to ensure cultural uniformity" won't cut it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Utopia-in-SA-20130318">http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Utopia-in-SA-20130318</a></span></div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-62011260578584098662013-12-28T07:52:00.001+02:002013-12-28T07:52:40.377+02:00The Greatest Scam - South Africa<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, you are probably expecting this article to be about Nkandla, or maybe E-tolls, or maybe it is about that sign language interpreter, but in fact there is a bigger trick going on beneath our noses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So lets start with some basics. Our politicians make promises every election - such as free education, free medical aid etc. Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch and although we "provide" those services they are really paid for through taxes. Simple enough so far.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have a R1 trillion annual budget but only generate R750 billion in taxes. So where does the extra cash come from ? Well our government sells "bonds" - a promise to pay someone back with interest at some future date.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In essence the government borrows money from the future to pay for things now - much like we borrow to buy a house. This would be ok if the money raised by those bonds went into assets such as power stations and roads or we were creating new jobs with it.... But let me not become sidetracked too early.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2013 South Africa has raised R250 billion in bonds increasing our total debt to R1.2 trillion. The budget plans to borrow an additional R497 billion over the next three years which will increase our debt to R1.7 trillion.<b> How are we going to pay this back ?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Government actually has no intention of paying this back... <b>They can't - they spend more than they earn ... </b>All we plan to do is pay back the interest. And so what happens ? The bonds and loans become due and guess what.... we issue MORE bonds to pay for the old bonds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our net debt in 2007/08 was R483 billion... we have TRIPLED it under the current regime to R1.2 trillion and will increase it again to R1.7 trillion over the next three years... think about that.... Borrow R497 billion to pay back R300 billion in interest, and we still have to pay back the principal of R1.7 trillion ! In other words our borrowing has reached the point where the loans are being paid off by more loans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what does it all mean ? It means that<b> we are paying taxes to pay interest</b>. And as the interest rises, we pay more and more of our tax money to paying interest. Or put another way, the proportion of our taxes which goes to paying interest is growing all the time. Future generations will have to pay even MORE tax to cover the interest costs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What it also means is that large amounts of money - interest leaves the country - and does so forever at MUCH greater levels than say e-tolls achieves. And like that family that pays one credit card off with the other, the debt becomes huge. <b>This is how you land up being a Cyprus</b>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frankly this interest machine is sheer genius with respect to shifting wealth from the many poor and middle class people of SA to the wealth elite of the world who own the banks who earn the interest. Biggest SCAM ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So to all my ANC, DA, EFF, AGANG, the Booi's and Mashilo's and the other political aspirants - what ARE you going to be doing about this ? Your answer SHOULD be what we as a country are talking about and debating .... and SHOULD ultimately be what your vote in 2014 is about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PS. The <b>government plan</b> is to .... print more money ... and simply <b>devalue</b> everything you earn. To those defenders of the poor, the unions, the politicians and ordinary citizens ... this is why the poor can never earn enough, the reason why petrol is through the roof, and the reason why e-tolls as a new tax form are being implemented.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-greatest-scam-20131227">http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-greatest-scam-20131227</a></span></div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-43335728833324761422013-12-23T15:38:00.000+02:002013-12-23T15:40:01.961+02:0010 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Nelson Mandela <div style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Mandela’s tribal nickname is “Rolihlahla,” meaning “Troublemaker.”</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other accounts translate Rolihlalhla to mean “to pull a branch from a tree,” which, of course, is something only a troublemaker would do. It was his teacher, Miss Mdingane, who gave him the English name “Nelson,” much to the relief of journalists everywhere when he became famous.</span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Mandela was expelled from university after less than a year.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After finishing boarding school, Mandela headed to Fort Hare Missionary College. Less than 12 months later, he was expelled from college for helping to organize a strike against the white colonial rule of the institution. One might call this foreshadowing.</span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. The United Nations decreed his birthday as Mandela Day.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2009, the U.N. declared Mandela’s birthday, July 18, as Mandela Day to mark his contribution to world freedom. The holiday calls on individuals to donate 67 minutes to doing something for others, reflecting the 67 years that Mandela had been a part of the anti-apartheid movement.</span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. Mandela is often referred to as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mandela was a member of the Thembu, a Xhosa clan, and was often referred to by his clan name, Madiba. It is a sign of the incredible diversity of people and languages in South Africa. The country has 11 different official languages.</span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. Mandela’s father had four wives, and Nelson is one of 13 children.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mandela’s father, a local chief and councellor to the Thembu king, died from tuberculosis when his son was 9. Before that, he fathered 13 children by four wives, four boys and nine girls. After his father’s death, Mandela was put under the guardianship of Jongintaba, the Thembu regent.</span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. Mandela has received more than 250 awards for his accomplishments.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Among these awards is the shared 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk, the last president of the apartheid government of South Africa (he too is widely credited as an instrumental force in ending apartheid). Additionally, Mandela had received more than 50 honorary degrees from international universities worldwide, became the first honorary Canadian citizen in 2001, and received the last Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union.</span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7. Stevie Wonder dedicated his 1985 Oscar for “I Just Called to Say I Love You” to Mandela.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After Stevie accepted his award in honor of Nelson Mandela, the government-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation banned Stevie’s music from the airways. It wasn’t until Mandela was elected in 1994 that Stevie was finally allowed back in South Africa.</span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8. Mandela outlived his two oldest sons.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mandela had six children, but tragically lost his two oldest sons. Thembi died in a car crash at age 25. Mandela was in prison at the time of the death and was unable to attend the funeral. Another son died of AIDS in 2005 at age 54. While Mandela’s administration was criticized for not doing enough to fight the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, he established the Nelson Mandela Foundation in 1999 following his retirement to help fight the spread of AIDS.</span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">9. Mandela ran away from home at age of 19.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When his guardian tried to arrange a marriage, Mandela ran away from home in 1941 and headed to Johannesburg. He began to work as a night watchman at Crown Mines, but was fired after it was discovered that he was the Thembu regent’s runaway.</span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10. Mandela spent his first night after being freed from prison in Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s home.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tutu had his helpers prepare his own favorite meal of chicken curry, rice and green salad, followed by rum raisin ice cream and custard.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3f4549; line-height: 21px;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One thing we need to know about Nelson Mandela is that he had the key in his pocket to get out of jail any time during his sentence. All he needed to do was to renounce terrorism as an instrument of political action. He refused.</span></i></b></span></div>
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<a href="http://afkinsider.com/1772/10-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-nelson-mandela/">afkinsider.com/1772/10-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-nelson-mandela/</a></div>
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Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-5486275944250861152013-12-23T15:24:00.002+02:002013-12-23T15:24:52.614+02:00Mandela and the Mossad<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">How Israel courted Black Africa</span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The unknown story of how Israel secretly trained anti-apartheid activists in 'judo, sabotage and weaponry,' including Nelson Mandela himself.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In all the exhaustive coverage of Nelson Mandela’s death and his equivocal attitude towards the Jewish State, one episode that sheds new light on this relationship has been waiting in Israel's National Archive to be told.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need to go back to the early 1960s. Israel was keen to court the recently decolonized African states and so went out of its way to show solidarity with the latter by consistently voting in UN resolutions condemning the apartheid state and the regime behind it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was not without consequence for the South African Jewish community, who found themselves the recipients of the wrath of Prime Minister Verwoerd and his Foreign Minister Eric Louw, yet it did endear Israel to the anti-apartheid movements. The ANC itself, then led by Oliver Tambo, penned a letter from London to Israel’s President Yitzhak Ben Zvi thanking him for Israel’s actions at the United Nations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Roughly three months before Tambo dispatched this letter, on 11 October, 1962, a letter was sent from what is likely to be a Mossad operative, Y. Ben Ari at Israel’s embassy in Ethiopia to the Israeli Foreign Office Africa desk containing the following information:</span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you may recall, three months ago we discussed the case of a trainee who arrived at the [Israeli] embassy in] Ethiopia by the name of David Mobsari who came from Rhodesia. The aforementioned received training from the Ethiopian [Israeli embassy staff, almost certainly Mossad agents] in judo, sabotage and weaponry.</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He greeted our men with “Shalom”, was familiar with the problems of Jewry and of Israel and gave the impression of being an intellectual. The staff tried to make him into a Zionist.</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It now emerges from photographs that have been published in the press about the arrest in South Africa of the “Black Pimpernel” that the trainee from Rhodesia used an alias, and the two men are one and the same.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before coming to Ethiopia he was in Accra (where he met Nkrumah and his advisors), Lagos and Tanganyika. In Ethiopia he was trained in various kinds of light weaponry (including Israeli). In conversations with him he expressed socialist worldviews, and at times created the impression that he leaned towards communism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He showed an interest in the methods of the Haganah and other Israeli underground movements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In response, 13 days later, the Foreign Ministry confirmed that the 'Black Pimpernel' was in fact Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, who the year before had arranged a nationwide strike and thereafter went into hiding. 'Black Pimpernel' was the code name for Nelson Mandela used by the South African authorities who were hunting him. Curiously they also mention that he was considered by ANC supporters and many others as the most important person in his movement, despite the fact that Albert Luthuli was still the elected president-general of the ANC.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, Nelson Mandela, under an alias, learnt weapons and sabotage techniques from embassy staff who were likely Mossad agents, whilst being gently prompted to become a supporter of the Jewish state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This episode is remarkable for a number of reasons. First of all, Mandela was in no way a lone participant in a covert Israeli training program: Israel had established ties with various movements considered subversive by the South African government. A number of Israeli embassies stationed in Africa provided training, advice and transport vehicles to members of the Pan Africanist Congress, including Potlkako Leballo, the head of its militant Poqo wing. Since the PAC was considered anti-Communist and not aligned with the Soviet Union, they were more attractive for a prospect for Israel to deal with than the ANC. Yet what makes this tentative contact with the pre-incarcerated Mandela so fascinating is his willingness to engage with these Israelis in the first place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The golden era of cooperation between Israel and African liberation movements continued through the 1960s. Golda Meir, as Foreign Minister and ardent admirer of black Africa, called for leniency in the Rivonia trial and for the commutation of any death sentence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Israeli National Archives' public relations office, and the Israeli press in its wake, have been careful to point out Golda Meir's actions and the public face of Israel's support for anti-apartheid activists. While this is an admirable instance of humanitarian activism, however, it hardly tells the whole story. Israel's history with South Africa is marked not only by cultivating relationships with those opposed to apartheid, but also by exacerbating tensions with these very same groups and individuals after the Israel: liberation movements' honeymoon came to an end.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A historian should not hypothesize as to what would have happened had Mandela not been caught and tried by the South African authorities. Nor what would have been the consequences had Israel, following its abandonment by Black Africa in the 1970s, not fostered such warm ties with the Apartheid regime. Yet this episode does go some way in showing that the tensions that now exist were not inescapable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 placed Israel in a quandary. After almost two decades of actively supporting the apartheid regime it had to come to terms with the fact that South Africa was reversing course and was undergoing a transitional phase which would inevitably lead to the end of white rule in the Republic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet Israel's ambassador to South Africa at the time, Zvi Gov-Ari, appeared to be ill-equipped to adjust himself to the new situation. Thus instead of trying to cultivate ties with the recently unbanned ANC, Israel’s representative in Pretoria made the double faux pas of criticizing Mandela, the movement’s de facto leader, while at the same time expressing a preference for Mangosuthu Buthelezi, widely perceived as a black puppet for the Nationalist Government. It is perhaps no wonder that Israel Maisels, a major Jewish and Zionist leader and one of the lead defense attorneys in the Rivonia trial, did not think highly of the ambassador, referring to him as that “bloody stupid fellow” (quoted in Cutting through the Mountain: Interviews with South African Jewish Activists [1997], edited by Immanuel Sutner).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in Israel, the venerable English-language Jerusalem Post, which at that time was doing its best to show how loyal it was to the Likud government, was probably reflecting the government's opinion when it predicted on June 25, 1991 that “if ANC leader Nelson Mandela assumes power in South Africa it will certainly not be a democracy…If he or his like rule South Africa, the country will be an unmitigated totalitarian disaster and an economic basket case." Further underlining its dire predictions, the newspaper declared:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“If full, non-segregated political equality is achieved in South Africa, it will not be the violent ANC, whose membership is 300,000, that will rule. The Zulus and their followers, numbering six million; the three million coloreds (people of mixed blood) who have been alienated by the ANC's Communist ideas; the million Indians, and the five million whites will probably form the ruling coalition one day. Only then is there a chance that South Africa will be both free and prosperous”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No one knows whether Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and his cabinet honestly thought that Mandela had no political future in South Africa, but its persistent backing of the old regime only came to an end with the ascension to power of Yitzhak Rabin and his Labor Party. With the appointment of Dr. Alon Liel, a seasoned diplomat and close ally of Yossi Beilin, one of Israel’s most vociferous critics of the white regime, Israel managed to salvage some of the damage by cultivating ties with the ANC.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process of 1993 provided Israel with an even greater opportunity to reconcile itself with an ANC now in government which was both supportive and thankful for the prospects of a peaceful resolution between the Jewish State and its Palestinian counterpart. Sadly, as the Oslo process fell apart, relations between Israel and the Republic continued to be strained, as they do to this day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With Mandela’s death, Israel once again had the opportunity of mending at least some of the damage it had caused in the past, by sending a top-level delegation which would include at least the head of government or the head of state. It failed, opting instead to send the Knesset's speaker. Unfortunately Israel has shown, more from folly than malice, that it serially misunderstands the new South Africa, and the repercussions will be felt not only in the international diplomatic arena but also by the Jewish community of South Africa itself.</span></div>
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.564411">http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.564411</a>Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-19542202552743892462013-12-23T15:07:00.002+02:002013-12-23T15:07:32.019+02:00"THE BLACK PIMPERNEL"<h2 class="headline" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: georgia; font-size: 26px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Archive reveals Israel's Mossad trained Mandela</h2>
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Israeli Mossad agents operating in Ethiopia in 1962 unwittingly trained Nelson Mandela in hand-to-hand combat, weaponry and sabotage, according to a document released by Israel's state archives.</h3>
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A letter from a Mossad official to the foreign ministry, dated October 11, 1962 titled "THE BLACK PIMPERNEL" and released to the public on Sunday, recalls a conversation in which "we discussed a trainee in Ethiopia named David Mobasari, from Rhodesia".</div>
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"The aforementioned was trained by the Ethiopians in Judo, sabotage and weapons," the letter read.</div>
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"The Black Pimpernel" was the nickname given at the time to Mandela, the revered anti-apartheid hero and former ANC leader who died this month, while he was on the run from white South Africa during the liberation struggle.</div>
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According to Haaretz newspaper, which first reported the story, the term "Ethiopians" was probably a code name for Israeli Mossad agents working in Ethiopia.</div>
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"He greeted our men with (Hebrew salutation) 'Shalom', was familiar with the problems of (Jewish diaspora) and Israel and created the impression of an educated man," the letter read.</div>
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"The Ethiopians tried to make him a Zionist."</div>
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"It now emerges from photographs in newspapers on the arrest of the Black Pimpernel in South Africa that the trainee from Rhodesia was using a pseudonym, and the two are actually the same person," the letter read.</div>
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According to the letter, Mandela took an interest in the methods of the Hagana and Jewish militias that existed before Israel's creation in 1948.</div>
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The Nelson Mandela Foundation, however, said in a statement that "it has not located any evidence in Nelson Mandela's private archive (which includes his 1962 diary and notebook) that he interacted with an Israeli operative during his tour of African countries in that year".</div>
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Mandela "received military training from Algerian freedom fighters in Morocco and from the Ethiopian Riot Battalion at Kolfe outside Addis Ababa, before returning to South Africa in July 1962," the foundation said.</div>
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"In 2009 the Nelson Mandela Foundation's senior researcher travelled to Ethiopia and interviewed the surviving men who assisted in Mandela's training -- no evidence emerged of an Israeli connection," it added.</div>
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was chastised at home for not going to Mandela's funeral because of "high costs", with a parliamentary delegation attending instead.</div>
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Israel was one of South Africa's closest allies when Pretoria, which had imprisoned Mandela, was facing UN-led sanctions in the late 1970s.</div>
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<a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2013/12/23/archive-reveals-israel-s-mossad-trained-mandela">http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2013/12/23/archive-reveals-israel-s-mossad-trained-mandela</a></div>
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Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-47173468848630300132013-12-22T12:03:00.000+02:002013-12-22T12:03:12.079+02:00Our Unity Is As Fake As..... <div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.2em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thamsanqa “Bompi” Jantjie, the fake sign language interpreter, is us and we are him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He is a perfect metaphor for what our country and society is, like a mirror reflecting back on us, and we don’t like what we see.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many will ask indignantly: why defile the memory of the great Nelson Mandela with this staggering incompetence? Why procure the services of a man suffering from schizophrenia who clearly has no grasp of the task at hand? Many have already noted how Bompi has turned our nation into a global laughing stock. But we must return to the mirror.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is now consensus that Jantjie’s interpretation for the duration of the memorial service was meaningless. He also broke all protocols and ethics sign language practitioners are expected to observe. But this was not his first gig; he had been there before and believes himself to be a <a href="http://www.citypress.co.za/news/fake-interpreter-i-am-a-champion-of-sign-language/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #cf171f; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“champion of sign language”</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jantjie appears to be delusional, with an amazing capacity to delude others too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is, after all, <b>South Africa, a country that seems to be built on a fairy tale – an enduring lie in which all believe.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jantjie’s fong-kong signing tells us something about the fake ideals we hold dear as a people. We are a nation that believes in the dignity and equality of all, and this is enshrined in our Constitution. However, in reality, <b>South Africa is the number one country in the world when it comes to inequality.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Millions of South Africans live in shockingly squalid conditions without hope of escaping from the indignity of poverty. To keep them alive, <b>we throw grants at them. </b>We proclaim to be one thing, but in reality we are another.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are a country which, like Jantjie’s self-declared skills, takes pride in <b>being champions of the world when it comes to social cohesion and working through conflict. </b>The model that ostensibly ended apartheid, that of dialogue and compromise, has been exported globally. <b>The truth is that the only social cohesion we experience is at big rugby matches when blacks are allowed to pretend that we are one nation united in all important matters.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After the game, we all return to our respective segregated lives marked by racialised differences, poverty for blacks on the one hand and wealth for whites on the other. Our unity is as fake as “Bompi’s” signing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jantjie says he heard voices and saw angels. This brings to mind a tender consortium at work. If you are lucky enough to be among the group of blacks working to apply for a tender, you could think you were hearing voices and communicating with the other world. The determination to win the tender defies any rational consideration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Faces suggest a trance, as though voices are imploring them insistently to “go on, go on, there is a whole Eldorado waiting for you at the end of the rainbow”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps the biggest lesson here is<b> the belief that we are a democracy</b>, and therefore governed by the Athenian adage that democracy is “the rule of the people for the people by the people”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This idea suggests that every five years when we vote we are exercising this right of self-rule through delegation of our powers as citizens. Like Jantjie’s spirited, albeit meaningless, flapping of hands,<b> the truth is simply that our democracy is not about people’s power but about surrendering power to 400 parliamentarians who are permitted, by laws they have made, not to listen to about 50 million of us.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s what makes such reprehensible laws as the e-tolls possible. Basically, democracy is meaningless; it’s a mere empty performance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Bompi” is a self-declared schizophrenic; the memorial service itself displayed many schizophrenic moments. A few years ago we booed Thabo Mbeki in Polokwane and cheered Jacob Zuma – now we are cheering Mbeki and booing Zuma. Ironically, the last president of apartheid and a man accused of atrocities and war crimes,<b> FW de Klerk, gets an approving applause from those who still suffer from the legacy of apartheid.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That we have lost all coordinates was demonstrated in the cheering of the imperialist Barack “Mr Drones” Obama, and with equal approval, we cheer the anti-imperialist, Robert Mugabe. Confusion reigns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are a deluded nation, believing ourselves to be that which we are not. We wallow in deep incompetence and the state can be said to be on autopilot, with the head of state being a man at sea about the affairs and interests of his nation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We watch with disbelief the scurrying around the president by ministers of the security cluster as they explain Nkandlagate. Like our mirror, Thamsanqa Jantjie, we are “alone in a dangerous situation”, seeing visions and hearing voices.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need to extricate ourselves from this cloud of delusion and save ourselves and the country.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like Jantjie, we need help – and urgently.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.citypress.co.za/columnists/unity-fake-jantjies-sign-language/">www.citypress.co.za/columnists/unity-fake-jantjies-sign-language/</a></span></div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-29547179631242399852013-12-21T09:53:00.004+02:002013-12-21T09:53:51.737+02:00The ANC before the collapse of Communism<div class="sub_font_detail">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">James Myburgh</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">18 December 2013</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">James Myburgh on what Frelimo's actions in Mozambique between 1974 and 1977 tell us about the character of the liberation movement in exile</span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Introduction</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the key themes in the racially-minded Western commentary on Nelson Mandela's passing has been the United Kingdom and United States governments were wrong to believe, in the 1980s and before, that the African National Congress was a Marxist-Leninist organisation. In the <i>Daily Beast,</i> for instance, Peter Beinart <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/05/don-t-sanitize-nelson-mandela-he-s-honored-now-but-was-hated-then.html">wrote that</a> the "the ANC was a genuine, multiracial movement for [liberal] democracy." In the <i>Guardian</i> Chris McGreal<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/08/world-leaders-hypocrisy-mandela">suggested that</a> the Western powers had been hoodwinked by Pretoria into believing that the ANC was a communist organisation.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Essentially what these authors are doing is taking the results of the largely liberal democratic negotiated settlement in the mid-1990s, which took place after the fall of the Soviet Union, and then projecting it back in time to a period before. This despite the fact that there is no serious scholar of the ANC-in-exile (or of today for that matter) who would argue that the liberation movement was not profoundly influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideology or that the fall of the Berlin wall did not come as a huge shock to its cadres. ANC and SACP leaders of that period are themselves quite open about this.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To say this influence was important, and is enduring, opens the door to a number of other misconceptions however. Western intellectuals, of left and right, tend to view communism through the framework of the Eastern European experience and class struggle.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If one wants a tangible sense of the sort of agenda the ANC could have pursued in South Africa had it been able to seize unfettered power before the collapse of Communism the obvious place to look is at Frelimo's actions on taking power in Mozambique in the mid-1970s.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ANC/SACP and Frelimo were, at that time, fraternal organisations and essentially shared a common ideology and programme of action. They also both had a multi-racial leadership. Given that Mozambique had a substantial white population before independence this also puts the test the ANC's <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/letters/2013/11/06/letter-da-heritage-contrived">much-vaunted</a> historical commitment to "non-racialism".</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, much of what happened in that crucial 1974 to 1977 period in Mozambique has vanished down the memory hole. The commonly accepted view in the progressive Western media is that the white population of Mozambique essentially upped and left in a fit of pique - maliciously sabotaging the economy as they went.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As <i>The Guardian</i> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/27/mozambique-africa-energy-resources-bonanza">put it</a> in a 2012 article: "When the Portuguese pulled out hastily in the mid-1970s, they did so with spite, sabotaging vehicles and pouring concrete down wells, lift shafts and toilets, leaving the country in disarray." Lydia Polgreen the <i>New York Times'</i> South African correspondent <a href="https://twitter.com/lpolgreen/status/235755362299572226">tweeted</a> in August 2012 that "When the Portuguese left Mozambique in 1975, they smashed the place to bits. Now they are back, hats in hand."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The economic failures of the Mozambican government are thus generally put down to such "sabotage" and the South African government's destabilisation efforts.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is however a rich vein of material on that period in declassified US diplomatic cables between 1974 and 1976 that were re-publicised after Wikileaks incorporated them into their searchable <a href="https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/about/">archive</a>. These document, contemporaneously, Frelimo's rise to power.</span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The transition in Mozambique</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frelimo had been founded in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1962. Up until 1974 it had waged a relatively unsuccessful military struggle mostly in the North of the country and one which had never seriously threatened to defeat the Portuguese military. However, in April 1974 there was a military coup in Portugal which, when joined with civilian resistance, put an end to the 48-year-old Estado Novo dictatorship.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In its preliminary response on April 27 1974 to news of the coup Frelimo's executive committee declared, in language that would be familiar to South Africans, that the "enemy of the Mozambican people is not the Portuguese people, themselves victims of fascism, but the Portuguese colonial system." They also affirmed that the "definition of a Mozambican has nothing to do with skin colour or racial, ethnic, religious or any other origins." It emphasised too that it was not a "racialist organisation and it is not waging a racialist war."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following the coup a group of white leftists, the "Democrats of Mozambique" gained control over most news media in Mozambique, and played an important role over the next few months in facilitating Frelimo's ascent to power. In a cable on May 30 1974 Hendrick van Oss, the outgoing US Consul General in Lourenco Marques, noted how "aside from hopefully suggesting that Frelimo leadership really consists of nice guy social democrats truly committed to multiracialism in which white Mozambicans can prosper, the press downplays continued Frelimo attacks on civilians in Beira-Vila Pery area and at times casts doubt on their existence." The new line taken by this media was that Frelimo was the "only authentic representative of the Mozambican ‘people' and power should be transferred as expeditiously as possible. In process, opposing views are increasingly submerged or vilified as contaminated with ‘fascism'."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He added that it was discouraging to see "the old European ‘opposition' of Mozambique, now that it has reached the seat of power after years of hard and sometimes courageous opposition to the Salazar-Caetano regime, proving itself almost as smug and paternalistic as were its predecessors." He added that their view of the nature and programme of Frelimo seem based "mainly on wishful thinking."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The mood amongst most ordinary whites was however was far less sanguine. In a separate cable on the same day Van Oss noted "For eleven years, life in Lourenco Marques has gone on placidly while guerrilla warfare was being waged 1000 miles to the north. Political developments since the coup of April 25 have accomplished in one month what eleven years of guerrilla activity could not bring about. Lourenco Marques is no longer serene; there are unmistakeable signs that the nerves of large portion of white population are beginning to give way."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Van Oss wrote that there was an atmosphere of unrest in the capital which had led many businessmen, teachers, technicians, and other Portuguese - who have spent all or much of their lives in Mozambique - to begin to seriously "contemplate leaving the country and seeking a fresh start elsewhere. Many have already made plans to send their families out, and while exodus has not yet reached panic proportions, outgoing international flights are beginning to be jammed; Tap flights to Lisbon and passenger ships are reportedly booked solid through end of year."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most significantly, he added, "confidence in the metropole has been severely shaken by recent events, and by statements of vice president of junta, general Costa Gomes and Minister for interterritorial coordination, de Almeida Santos, during recent visits here. Many are convinced that the new provisional government of Portugal is now engaged in ‘operation scuttle' and is trying to unload its African territories as quickly as possible, regardless of consequences in the territories themselves as regards safety of minorities, welfare of persons who formerly fought against Frelimo, inter-tribal strife, economic decline, etc., etc."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a cable a few days later, dated June 3 1974, in which he reviewed the situation ahead of his departure, Van Oss observed that "after ten years of armed struggle with very little concrete gain to show for it (except in realm of psychological warfare), Frelimo is about to open negotiations with the Portuguese and appears on verge of getting virtually everything it wants." He stated that the Portuguese will to fight was seeping away and independence would probably come within two years, perhaps even one.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three months later an agreement was struck between Portugal and Frelimo for the handover of power. A cable from the US Embassy in Lisbon dated August 19 1974 reported that according to Foreign Minister Mario Soares Frelimo were "adamant in insisting that elections should follow not precede grant of independence." However, whether Frelimo was in fact representative of the majority of Mozambicans was immaterial. Soares reportedly believed that a swift transfer of power, largely on Frelimo's terms, was the only way in which the war could be ended, good relations retained between Portugal and a future Mozambican government, and the "continued presence of white Portuguese" would be welcomed.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On August 23 1974 the Lisbon Embassy reported that, according to Portugal's ambassador to the UN, Frelimo and the Government of Portugal were close to an agreement. A provisional government would be formed under a high commissioner appointed by the Portuguese and Prime Minister by Frelimo. Two thirds of the cabinet would be chosen by Frelimo. Full independence would be granted on June 25 1975.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the remaining sticking points was that the Portuguese government wanted the agreement, when made public, to state that "post-June 25 government will be selected by ‘democratic means'." The cable noted that the "Portuguese are fully aware that Frelimo will opt for one-party state after June 25, but GOP needs reference to democratic procedures as face-saving gesture."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On September 7 1974 the Frelimo delegation led by its President, Samora Machel, and the Portuguese government announced that they had reached an agreement, largely on the terms mentioned above. Among the tasks of the transitional government were to safeguard public order and the safety of persons and property and to guarantee the principle "of non-discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, religion or sex." The agreement stated that:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The Portuguese state and the Mozambique liberation front under- take to act jointly in order to eliminate all vestiges of colonialism and to create true racial harmony. In this context the Mozambique liberation front reaffirms its policy of non-discrimination, according to which the quality of Mozambican is not defined by skin colour, but by voluntary identification with the aspirations of the Mozambican nation. On the other hand special agreements will define the status of Portuguese citizens resident in Mozambique and of Mozambican citizens resident in Portugal on reciprocal basis."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The agreement contained no nod towards "democratic procedures" as the Portuguese had wanted.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a statement issued the day after the announcement Machel condemned those who opposed the accord. "To the white population essentially made up of honest workers we repeat what we have always said: our struggle is your struggle, it is the struggle against exploitation, the struggle to build a new country, to establish the peoples democratic power... These reactionary forces are thus endangering the vast possibilities of our working together to create true racial harmony in our country."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">News of the deal triggered a brief and abortive five-day uprising by a large section of the white population of Lourenco Marques- under the banner of the Free Mozambique Movement. In a cable dated September 17 1974, analysing the failed rebellion, the new US Consul General in Lourenco Marques, Peter Walker, stated that an "Initial three days when FMM was in full control and Africans were fearful of their actions was followed by black back-lash and looting directed at white population, resulting in serious civil disturbances" in which some 70 blacks and 20 whites died. This was "caused primarily by reaction by African population to two days and nights of terror on part of white bands and to what they considered attempt by reactionary whites... to thwart transfer of power to Frelimo and ‘the people'."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the start of the uprising Portuguese radio had, according to an earlier cable, broadcast a "message to population of Mozambique issued by armed forces chief of staff Costa Gomes" in which he had assured the white population that the "Lusaka accord safeguarded both persons and their legitimate interests, and that there could be no justification for alarmism or precipitate reactions."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On September 26 1974 the new transitional government - led by Prime Minister Joaquim Chissano - took office in order to prepare the way for independence. Machel made a speech outlining Frelimo's programme of action. He stated that Frelimo, as the representative of the Mozambican people, would set about "dismantling the political, administrative, cultural, financial, economic, educational, juridical and other aspects of the old colonial state and replacing it with appropriate structures for ‘peoples democratic power'."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Walker commented in his report on the speech that "ideologically Machel's programme is almost puritanical in its militant mixture of African Socialism and purist Communism."</span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Machel's return to Mozambique</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In May 1975 Machel, who had remained in Tanzania through the transitional period, embarked on his "long march to Lourenco Marques" ahead of Independence Day on June 25. At the mass rally held on May 22 in Dar es Salaam to bid farewell to him ahead of his journey to the Mozambican capital Machel stated that the private practice of medicine would be abolished at independence and the struggle for the total liberation of Africa would continue, with the focus now on Rhodesia. Machel also stressed that "individualism" and "exploitation" would be abolished in the new Mozambique.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a cable on June 10 1975 Walker reported that the news media in Mozambique had given extensive coverage to the Frelimo President's speeches as he barnstormed around the country following his return on May 24. Among the themes, noted by Walker, were attacks on religious organisations, claims that Islam and the Catholic Church supported colonialism, which was responsible for the exploitation of man-by-man, and that those abandoning the country were "racist, reactionary, colonialist."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Walker commented that "although some of Machel's themes are reasonable, he comes across on the radio as a wild demagogue bent on stirring up the emotions and prejudices he is trying to quell. Strong, provocative language he uses and strident delivery has speeded up exodus of the non-black population."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a cable a couple of days later Walker noted that Machel had given a speech at the Cabora Basa dam, lambasting the project as part of an imperialist plot, and which had frightened the French and German technicians there. Walker noted that Machel's speeches "continue to alarm non-black population and if anything are becoming more strident and provocative. Result is added impetus to exodus of whites which is now in full swing."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Symbolically the new regime moved quickly to physically erase all traces of Mozambique's colonial history. In its report on the Independence Day celebrations on June 25 1975 <i>Sechaba:</i> <i>Official organ of the African National Congress </i>noted how, in Lourenco Marques, "most city streets, named after Portuguese ‘heroes' or ‘important dates' in Portuguese history, will have their names changed soon. Already missing from the capital's broad, flag-festooned boulevards are dozens of statues erected in colonial days to honour such Portuguese colonisers of old as Lourenco Marques and Vasco da Gama, who brought the first Portuguese presence to Mozambique in 1498. Only the pedestals remain in place, while the stately stone and iron images of Lourenco Marques, who founded the city in 1545, Vasco da Gama and others stand in disarray in a junkyard."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his speech on his inauguration Machel declared that the "People's Republic of Mozambique will build a prosperous and independent advanced economy, ensuring the control over its natural resources for the benefit of masses and progressively applying the just principle of: to each one according to his work and from everyone according to his ability." He added that the People's Republic would have "political and administrative structures designed to apply the principle of the People's Democratic Power, in which democratically appointed representatives of the working masses will exercise power at all levels."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In <a href="https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1975LOUREN00708_b.html">a cable</a> dated July 1 1975, the US Consulate in Lorenco Marques that under the new constitution of the People's Republic of Mozambique (PRM) Machel had "virtually absolute powers" as President. "Machel is also president of Frelimo, Mozambique's only party, and the constitution enshrines the principle that the government is an instrument of Frelimo by specifically stating that the president of Frelimo is also the president of PRM. The constitution gives the president the power to appoint or dismiss anyone of importance."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In its commentary on the new constitution and newly installed government the cable stated that "Mozambique's political system is totalitarian; the government is stacked toward one-man rule; and the ideology is more communist (Maoist) than African Socialist." On the new 19-man leadership of the PRM it noted that "about four-fifths come from region south of Beira; three are white; two are Goan; two are mulattoes; and twelve are black."</span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nationalisation</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a seminal <a href="https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1975LOUREN00797_b.html">speech</a>, on July 24 1975 at Machava Stadium, Machel declared - according to a cable from Walker - that "capitalism is doomed" and that the "Portuguese destroyed or scorned Mozambican culture. Portuguese culture is now foreign to Mozambique." Machel also attacked "Whites who marry blacks and vice versa" who "think inter-racial marriage proves they are non-racist. They are wrong. Their attitude is racist. Marriage is very private matter. Although exploiter has no colour, it is fact that most of Mozambique's economy is in white hands."</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Machel then announced that the "land belongs to the people" and would be "controlled by the state." From now on no-one would receive rent from the land. "Houses built on land, however, will continue to be private property."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From henceforth too there would also be no more private education. "Private teachers have no place in Mozambique. State will take over all private and missionary schools. There may be shortage of teachers for two or three years, but teachers who remain will serve real interests of Mozambican people."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Machel also announced that the "Private law practice will cease" and there would be no more private medicine. "Private doctors only served the few, charging exorbitant fees. Those who do not want to work for state are free to leave Mozambique. All hospitals, including those formerly run by missionaries, henceforth belong to state. Government will levy tax to pay for medical services." The state would also take over all mortuaries.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to Walker on the day following the speech, "Frelimo soldiers implemented some of Machel's policy decisions by sealing private law and medical offices, occupying private clinics, and posting guards outside mortuaries and private schools."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Walker commented in his dispatch that as in past speeches:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Machel's protestations that Frelimo policies and objectives are non-racist were not convincing to many whites. Machel's speaking technique is to play hypothetical role before audience and role most frequently played is that of white Portuguese oppressor and exploiter. His references to whites were regularly translated as ‘mulungo', pejorative Ronga name for white. Evidence suggests, therefore, that Machel has intense hatred for Portuguese, if not all whites, and that he would just as soon see them all go even if Mozambique's development is set back. Perhaps because of his own humiliation by the Catholic Church and medical profession, his sudden sharp actions against these groups have flavour of personal vendetta. Result will be further loss to Mozambique of badly needed educated people. Numerous Mozambican-born Portuguese, many of whom were strongly pro-Frelimo until very recently, have told us they are planning to leave. If exodus continues, idea and fact of multi-racial society in the new Mozambique may soon become a dead letter."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At this point the white population of Mozambique was down to about 80 000 individuals (from an estimated 250 000 in the early 1970s). However, despite the ongoing exodus, and the clear damage being done to the economy, there was no pull back by Machel in either his rhetoric or his actions.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In an October 2 report on a September 25 Machel speech the US Consulate's Public Affairs Officer, William Jacobsen, noted that the Mozambican President had blamed the recent across-the-board decline in productivity on the "economic sabotage" of the capitalists "instead of addressing the real causes which include but are not limited to the exodus of technicians, fear of South African merchants to ship goods through Mozambique facilities, general confusion in the transportation and material handling sector, refusal of Africans to harvest crops, and his own rhetoric which has brought investment to a standstill and exacerbated all of the above."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In <a href="https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1975LOUREN01146_b.html">a report</a> on Mozambique four months after independence, dated October 26 1975, Jacobsen described how Frelimo had managed to consolidate power - even as the economy continued to unravel. He wrote: "one has to hand it to any government able to organize and clamp down on its nine million citizens the way [Frelimo] has done, considering Mozambique's size, diversity of ethnic groups and languages, illiteracy rate and lack of communications infrastructure." In this dynamising groups (DGs) had played a key role. "The function in virtually every firm, neighbourhood, school, market or other institution in the country." Despite some troubles the "ubiquitous DGs have been an effective instrument for controlling, indoctrinating and keeping tabs on Mozambicans -- from the Rovuma to Maputo."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He also noted that "Real or imagined opponents of ‘the revolutionary process in course' have been summarily [declared persona non grata] or jailed, usually without charges. Mozambicans of all hues are careful what they say in public. Anyone can be denounced at regular meetings of DG's, or even by someone hailing a Frelimo soldier."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In turn, the jails were bulging. "Some blacks and whites have been in jail literally for months without being charged and without knowing if or when their cases will be brought up. Latest infusion is Jehovah's Witnesses picked up in course of government's anti-religion campaign." The legal system meanwhile had evaporated following Machel's abolition of private legal practice. And following the abolition of private medical practice and the mission hospitals there were only 40 qualified doctors left in the country.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"If people weren't skittish enough," Jacobsen continued, the "announcement of decree creating security police (SNASP) with virtually unchecked powers to arrest, detain, and confiscate, answerable only to president Machel himself, was enough to send them around the bend. Everyone here remembers the Portuguese PIDE and a cursory reading of the SNASP decree's provisions shows that a crime is virtually anything SNASP says is a crime."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile the regime's anti-religion campaign had been picking up steam ever since the missions were nationalised. "Most likely Machel and Mozambican leaders view religion as only organized force capable of opposing regimentation of society according to Frelimo doctrine." This campaign had "resulted in the flight of protestant missionaries and Catholic nuns, public harassment of the faithful, jailing of religious leaders and their adherents, and generally replacing the fear of God with the fear of government (some Catholic Churches report a drop in attendance at mass of up to 70 percent)."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A cult of personality had grown up around Machel whose face was plastered on every wall and newspaper in Mozambique. "Nationalized radio inserts political commentary into regular programming and distorts the news. Mozambique's two newspapers hardly deserve the name. All media beat the drums for the government and publish official announcements."</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the attitude towards whites Jacobsen noted that "despite Frelimo claims of wanting to build anti-racial (sic) society, government's actions since independence have convinced most whites to hedge their bets by opting for Portuguese citizenship. Portuguese embassy estimates that of 80,000 remaining, only 10,000 chose Mozambican citizenship." The most decisive factor in this was the "combination of doctors leaving for good, plummeting standards of medical care... and uncertainty about country's willingness to allow Mozambican citizens to leave national territory. General exodus of whites continues."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jacobson further reported that the declining economic trend had continued:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Most important factors are the continuing flight of technicians, liquidity and credit crisis, high inflation, rising costs, increasing government intervention, and shortage of foreign exchange. In the present climate nobody is investing in Mozambique. Labour productivity is still down. Even the amount of windfall good payments received due to sending mine workers to South Africa was reduced as the free market price of gold dropped. Lourenco Marques harbour which in the pre-independence period had thirty ships loading and unloading general cargo -- with more waiting in the stream -- now is lucky to have ten, as South African shippers continue to divert goods to their own ports. As a result of farmers liquidating their investments, there are shortages of meat, poultry and dairy products in the cities. Waiting in lines in becoming an accepted way of life. Unemployment in the cities is becoming a serious problem. The [Mozambican government] has launched a campaign to return people to the countryside, where all will have the opportunity to share in building communal villages, touted as the instrument to end all of Mozambique's problems."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On January 22 1976 US chargé d'affaires Johnnie Carson reported on the growing tensions between the GPRM (Government of the People's Republic of Mozambique) and the Government of Portugal. This was after a failed Communist coup in Portugal in November the previous year. Carson noted that the "most aggravating issue" between the two governments "concerns the arrest and detention without trial of a growing number of Portuguese citizens. We estimate that in excess of 800 Portuguese are being held for crimes ranging from alleged economic sabotage to being former PIDE/DGS agents. They are being held both in prisons and rural ideological re-education and rehabilitation camps. Most of those arrested have been denied consular access."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his cable dated February 4 1976 Carson reported on a four hour long Machel speech inaugurating Mozambique's Heroes Day on the anniversary of the assassination of Frelimo president Eduardo Mondlane, the day before. In his address Machel announced the "nationalization of all privately owned buildings, declared that all future rents will be paid to government, decreed that all Mozambique workers would have to contribute one day's wages a month to cause of African liberation and changed the name of Lourenco Marques to Maputo." </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Carson noted that:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Currently there are approximately 50,000 to 60,000 Portuguese nationals left in Mozambique, most in Maputo (Lourenco Marques) area. We have reliable information (from travel and airline personnel that approximately 15,000 to 20,000 of these people are scheduled to leave between June and August when their civil service contracts expire. Large number of remaining 30,000 Portuguese are regarded as fence sitters, i.e. those who have opted out for Portuguese citizenship but are still trying to make a go of it here. Machel's nationalization of private residences, offices and commercial buildings will undoubtedly push them off their perches and accelerate their exodus. The Portuguese consul indicated that only 10,000 Portuguese whites opted for Mozambican citizenship, many of these are now reconsidering, and in six months to a year most European Portuguese will have departed."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He added: "One certain fact is that Mozambique's staggering economy is not likely to be helped by Machel's speech. Production in all agricultural areas is already plummeting, factory output is shrinking, traffic at the ports is down by 40 per cent, and there are growing signs that South African exporters and importers have lost confidence in Mozambique's railways and ports. As the situation becomes increasingly difficult, Mozambique can ill afford to lose the remaining technicians who keep the factories, businesses and railways and ports running."</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Presidential proclamation as issued on February 5 was not quite so sweeping however - apparently Machel had departed from the prepared text of his speech and announced the nationalisation of all private property off-the-cuff - as it allowed each family to keep only one permanent residence, and one seaside or country abode. However, "All buildings, part of buildings, commercial or residential which are rented are immediately nationalised" and all "incomplete and unoccupied buildings revert to the state".</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Carson reported that the African community greeted the nationalisations warmly as they expected to benefit from them. The Portuguese community however was "wearing a long face" and lines in front of the Portuguese consulate were three times longer than usual the following morning. A number of "Portuguese technicians have remarked to Embassy Officials that they plan to throw in the towel as soon as possible."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On February 11 1976 Carson reported that in his February 11 address to the Frelimo Central Committee 8<sup>th</sup>session Machel accused some of his comrades of backsliding from the collectivist ethic of the movement. He "lashed out at the danger of individualism in Mozambique society. Individualism, he said, is a form of capitalism: It is evil; it has no place in Mozambique; and, it must be contained and liquidated."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his speech at the conclusion of the Central Committee meeting Machel defended his nationalisation policies. In a cable, dated March 2 1976, Carson wrote that the Mozambican President had then turned to the "mass exodus of people (he never used the word Portuguese) from Mozambique, Machel compared them to the refugees who fled Cuba after Castro, mainland China after Mao, Russia after 1918 and Portugal after the collapse of Caetano. After all progressive revolutionary regimes take power in the name of the people, he said, the reactionaries flee. In Mozambique, only the exploiters were leaving: the big land owners, the doctors who were more interested in money than medicine, the lawyers who could not distinguish between justice and misery, and the land speculators. And they are leaving because ‘they refuse to assume, to live and to participate in the battle for a new society'."</span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mozambique one-year after independence</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Through August 1976 the newly appointed US ambassador to Mozambique Willard De Pree cabled to Washington DC a series of assessments of the situation in that country one-year after independence. In a cable dated August 12 1976 he said that the government was in firm control over the country. Despite rumours of tribal dissatisfaction in the north of the country the three clandestine groups that had emerged since independence posed little threat to the regime. He noted however a June 26 raid on the Mozambican village of Mapai by a force made up of disaffected Mozambicans (both black and white). This force, he commented, "though small, could prove a hit-and-run nuisance to the government of Mozambique along the Rhodesian border."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a report on the economy, cabled on August 19 1976, De Pree wrote that "Mozambique's first year of independence has been marked by a sharp decline in the economy. Almost all indicators are down; agricultural export production is down by 40-60 percent, and port earnings by at least 25 percent, and per capita GDP by an estimated 20 to 30 percent to below $200."</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most important cause of this downturn, he observed, "has been the exodus of the Portuguese, who comprised the bulk of the skilled workers and managerial talent." "The Portuguese population, once estimated at 250,000 (overlaid on an indigenous population of 9 million), had dropped by independence to about 110,000. By the end of 1976 no more than 15,000 are expected to remain (many think no more than half that number.)"</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The effect of this exodus on the "cities and the monetised sector of the economy has been pervasive. Almost every firm, and many services and government agencies, report losses of key staff from 50 to 70 percent, with sharp drops in productivity. Attempts to find qualified Mozambican replacements have been largely unsuccessful. Production and marketing of Mozambique's major export crops (cashews, cotton, sugar and tea) have dropped as white plantation owners, middle-men and managers leave. Since the Portuguese paid most of the individual and business taxes, their departure has also resulted in a sharp drop in government tax revenue."</span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The causes of the economic collapse and the "non-racialism" of Frelimo</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is quite clear from these cables that the collapse of the Mozambican economy was precipitated by the flight of much of its skilled population combined with Machel's Marxist-Leninist rhetoric and Frelimo's nationalisation measures. Furthermore, this initial collapse occurred while Frelimo was in complete command of the country and well before the civil war took root.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to the cables the Vorster administration in South Africa <a href="https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974STATE173197_b.html">had not opposed</a> Frelimo's ascent to power, though they were concerned about the communist influences on the new regime. The Rhodesian security services launched Renamo in 1976 - in response to Frelimo's military support for Zanla - and it only became a real military threat to the Mozambican regime after it was taken under the wing of the South African military post-1980. The US diplomatic cables also do not seem to put much weight on Frelimo's propagandistic efforts to transfer blame for the economic collapse they had precipitated on "sabotage."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the themes that emerges from the cables is how Samora Machel persistently vilified the white population even as he proclaimed his organisation's commitment to non-racialism. In one, exceedingly narrow sense, Frelimo was non-racial in that it had a multi-racial leadership and membership throughout this period. Indeed, according to one of De Pree's cables, Machel leant heavily on "a small group of Marxist-orientated Mulattos and Goans in formulating policy."</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, the policies this leadership pursued were quite incompatible with the continued survival of the white/Portuguese population of that country. Far from moderating Machel's extreme racial-Marxist-Leninism it was precisely these minority members of the Frelimo leadership who pushed the most radical revolutionary nationalist line; and who were said, according to De Pree, to be responsible for writing most of Frelimo's nationalist and Marxist-orientated party documents. By contrast it was Joaquim Chissano who was consistently reported by the cables to have pushed for a more moderate approach.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is clear that Machel and those around him deliberately sought to engineer the flight of the whites/Portuguese from Mozambique; and that this was persisted with despite the damaging economic effects becoming apparent from very early on. In a cable on August 26 1977 De Pree noted that "The departure of the Europeans was not entirely unforeseen or unwelcome. Many in the Frelimo hierarchy were of the opinion that departure of most of the European residents was ‘good riddance,' others felt that the African population would never be able to realize its potential as long as the Europeans remained."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This view was confirmed by a document prepared for Frelimo's third congress in February 1977 -later published in the SACP's journal <i>The African Communist</i> - which listed seven theses for the building of people's democracy. In the second thesis it defined the "colonial bourgeoisie" as an "enemy" and an "exploiting class" whose penetration (along with certain other groups) "in the apparatus of the state and the economy and above all their situation as internal representatives of imperialism make them highly dangerous."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The document boasted how its nationalisation measures, amongst others, had dealt a devastating blow to this "class enemy" and "permitted us to consolidate power, accelerate the disintegration of the colonial bourgeoisie, block the growth of the internal bourgeoisie, disorganise it and demoralise it."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frelimo's actions against the whites/Portuguese of Mozambique conform, in certain respects, to Raphael Lemkin's original 1944 definition of "genocide" (before it simply came to mean ethnic mass murder). According to Lemkin genocide constituted "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups."</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Such was the success of the measures to disintegrate the "colonial bourgeoisie" that the white/Portuguese population of Mozambique was reduced from 250 000 to 15 000 within a couple of years. And, of course, by seizing the property of those who had departed Frelimo ensured that they could not and would not return.</span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frelimo and the ANC</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a useful corrective to the distorting effects of (post-1994) hindsight to remember that in the 1970s the ANC/SACP and Frelimo were, ideologically speaking, like peas-in-a-pod. Frelimo's actions on coming to power were consistent with <i>inter alia</i> the SACP's hugely influential 1962 programme, the <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71656?oid=476938&sn=Detail&pid=71616"><i>Road to South African Freedom</i></a>. This had declared that in the <i>first</i> "National Democratic" stage of the revolution vital sections of the economy would be placed in state hands; the mines, banks and large industries nationalised; a planned economy implemented; and, "a vigorous and vigilant dictatorship" maintained by "the people against the former dominating and exploiting classes."</span></span><br />
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<img height="415" src="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/media_stream/politicsweb/1/484328/images/Frelimo=ANC.png" style="float: left; margin: 5px;" width="262" /><span style="background-color: white;">At the time Frelimo and the ANC regarded themselves as almost indistinguishable from each other. A report on Machel's accession to power in June 1975 in <i>Sechaba </i>(Aug-Sep 1975)<i></i>stated that when ANC President Oliver Tambo "arrived at Lourenco Marques airport from Lusaka to attend the independence celebrations, he was met by a crowd, mostly women, carrying a huge banner bearing the legend: FRELIMO EQUALS ANC!" This was a sentiment the publication wholeheartedly endorsed, not least by publishing a graphic with that slogan.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">In turn Frelimo's actions on taking power were regarded by the ANC as a model to be followed in South Africa when their time came. Frelimo's Fourth Thesis for building a people's democracy stated that "Without a revolutionary Party and without revolutionary ideology it is impossible for the revolution to advance. This presumes the transformation of FRELIMO into a vanguard Party of the worker-peasant alliance, a Party armed with the scientific ideology of the proletariat." At its congress Frelimo duly declared itself a Marxist-Leninist organisation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Speaking on behalf of the ANC delegation at this congress Oliver Tambo said that "Mozambique under the leadership and guidance of Frelimo was a dynamising force for political, social and economic change in Southern Africa. Frelimo's own example will provide a basis for the establishment of a new South Africa." This was a statement that was apparently greeted with a "prolonged ovation from the assembled delegates and observers." (<i>Sechaba</i> 3<sup>rd</sup> Quarter 1977).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Indeed, the ANC leadership was so inspired by Frelimo's example that in 1979 it <a href="http://www.armsdeal-vpo.co.za/special_items/profiles/mbeki_bagcarrier.html">seriously contemplated</a> also openly declaring itself a Marxist-Leninist organisation, but was only dissuaded from doing so by Thabo Mbeki.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b>Conclusion</b><b></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">In the mid-1980s the ANC/SACP remained committed to the wholesale nationalisation of the economy, following the seizure of power, <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/docs/anctoday/2007/at33.htm">as well as to the</a> disintegration of "the classes and strata that constituted the white population including depriving them of their democratic rights and property, and destroying the organisations they had created." This was never an agenda that any white government - no matter how liberal or enlightened - could ever willingly accede to, which explains in part, the liberation movement's commitment to overthrowing the regime by force.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It was only in the early 1990s after the collapse of Communism and the withering away of Soviet power that the liberation movement abandoned wholesale nationalisation as an instrument of policy; and only in 1993 that it came around to accepting a Bill of Rights that would meaningfully protect the rights of individuals from the white minority (or anyone else for that matter). It is completely anachronistic then to project these positions, taken very late in the day, back into the mid-1980s.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">One of Nelson Mandela's great achievements following his release from prison was precisely that he had the insight to recognise the necessity of moving the ANC away from many of its most noxious ideological commitments of the exiled period, and the authority to take the movement with him. Equally, much of South Africa's current predicament can be put down to the fact that this process was never fully completed, and many of those commitments were progressively reasserted, albeit in attenuated form, as Thabo Mbeki took over the ANC from 1996 onwards.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Some lessons were also learnt from Frelimo's tactical mistakes in the mid-1970s by the Southern African liberation movements. A <i>Washington Post</i> article dated May 6, 1980 reported that "Machel was reliably reported to have warned [newly-elected Zimbabwe President] Mugabe on several occasions not to follow Mozambique's post-independence economic policies." This certainly informed Mugabe's <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=164016&sn=Detail">rhetoric of reconciliation</a> on coming to power, which stood in marked contrast to Machel's demonization of the white population of Mozambique in 1974 and 1975. Again, the ANC's similar rhetoric during the initial transfer of power - between late 1993 and late 1995 -would also have been informed by this shared historical experience.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">One of the most common misconceptions in Western commentary on South Africa is that the SACP somehow won the ANC away from African nationalism towards non-racialism. In reality, however, Marxist-Leninism both initiated and later combined with African nationalism to form a revolutionary racial nationalism. Africa's productive ethnic and racial minorities were conflated with the "exploiting classes" of Marxist-Leninism and defined as a "counter-revolutionary" element within society after liberation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">In the same way that individuals from bourgeois backgrounds could join the Communist Parties of Europe an exemption was provided to those individuals from minority groups who committed themselves totally to the cause of national liberation. But, as the Frelimo example illustrates, such individuals - in their eagerness to prove their commitment to the cause - tended to radicalise the racial nationalism of the liberation movements not moderate it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It's characteristic of this type of racial nationalism that it is quite incapable of acknowledging the contribution of the skills and expertise of racial minorities towards the common good, or of the basic interdependency between minority and majority. Ultimately, as in Zimbabwe post-1999, economic considerations are subordinated to ideological ones. South Africa's future depends almost completely on whether it will be able to avoid succumbing to this same destructive itch.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i>This article was published with the assistance of the </i><a href="http://www.africa.fnst-freiheit.org/" target="_blank"><i>Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit</i></a><i> (FNF). The views presented in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FNF.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><i><a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=484328&sn=Detail&pid=71616">www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=484328&sn=Detail&pid=71616</a></i></span></div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-47699940858680499052013-12-21T09:39:00.000+02:002013-12-21T09:39:08.113+02:00Scarce Skills in South Africa<h1 style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: 16pt;">Sunday, 7 July 2013</span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Read This and Weep</span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The South African Labour Department has published a pamphlet entitled “<a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/downloads/documents/useful-documents/skills-development-act/Scarce%20skills%20pamphlet_pamphlet.pdf"> <span style="color: blue;">Scarce Skills</span></a>”.</span></div>
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<img alt="Scarce Skills in South Africa" height="68" src="http://www.southafricanewstoday.com/images/labourbanner770.gif.jpg" width="640" /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It bears testimony to the failure of the ANC – Cosatu – SA Communist Party alliance to create a suitable education system and healthy environment for business and therefore job creation in this country.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It also testifies to their mismanagement of the macro economy, so that the salaries of lower-end paid workers are inadequate to support useful life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The intended readers of the brochure are job seekers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The introduction notes that jobs are scarce and encourages people to study for scarce skills. It defines a scarce skill as “a qualification or job for which there are too little [sic.] people in South Africa doing the job.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">A section entitled “What Jobs are Scarce?” makes interesting reading. All areas of the economy are short of skilled personnel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Managers of all descriptions are scarce, including chief executives, general managers and legislators; specialist managers; construction, distribution and production / operations managers, IT managers; events, hospitality, retail and services managers, and so on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Professionals are required by the hundred in every field: arts and media, accountants, auditors, actuaries, human resources, information and organization, sales and marketing, public relations, architects, surveyors, engineers, school teachers, scientists, midwifery and nursing, business system analysts and programmers, database and systems managers, solicitors and so forth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Then there are shortages of technicians and trade workers in agriculture, medicine and science, building, engineering, telecommunications, manufacturing and process, fabrication, automotive industry, panelbeaters, bricklayers, carpenters and joiners, glaziers, plumbers, electricians, electronics, food trades, health and welfare support, hospitality, defence force, fire departments, sports and fitness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There are similar lists of scarce skills in the areas of clerical and administrative workers, sales workers, machinery operators and drivers, stationary plant operators, mobile plant operators, vehicle drivers, store persons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Here the brochure becomes worrying.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">In a country with 40% unemployment (that’s about 12 million unemployed) there is a lack of elementary workers skilled in laundry work, construction and mining, factory process, farming, forestry, gardening, freight handlers and shelf packers, deck and fishing hands, handypersons [sic.], motor vehicle parts and accessories fitters, printing assistants and table servers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">In other words, there is a shortage of manual labourers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">But then, what do you expect in a country where the education system is on life support? Only 60% of children finish high school (most of them with worthless matric certificates), just 10% of schools have functional libraries and only 15% of people who enter university go on to graduate?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Besides, who wants to slave away in a forest or factory when you can sign up for a social grant and live on cigarettes and alcohol?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">And why strive to get qualifications when those that have more significant skills can barely pay the rent with their salaries?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">And why stick around South Africa when qualified managers, professionals, technicians, managers and other top class personnel can get much more money by emigrating to countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom etc.?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Be afraid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.southafricanewstoday.com/Scarce-Skills-in-South-Africa.html">http://www.southafricanewstoday.com/Scarce-Skills-in-South-Africa.html</a></span></div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-77215222767272923452013-12-20T17:37:00.003+02:002013-12-20T17:37:53.433+02:00The True Legacy of the Terrorist Nelson Mandela<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">By Mike Smith</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">16th of December 2013</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It was 1996, the ANC and Nelson Mandela was in power for two years already, when my 8 year old daughter came home from school one day and told me they learned about the “Hero and freedom fighter” Nelson Mandela… </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“Oh”, I said…”How interesting my dear. And what exactly did they teach you?” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">She proceeded to tell me what a wonderful man Nelson Mandela was. How he saved South Africa from a bloodbath, how forgiving he was towards the whites who imprisoned him “…for nothing, Daddy, for nothing!” she said with tears in her eyes. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">To me it was clear that the one-sided ANC Marxist agenda and propaganda was pushed in our schools to indoctrinate the minds of our youth. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It was also around that time that I lost all hope for reconciliation in South Africa, because of the ANC introducing anti-white racist policies such as Affirmative Action, Black Economic Empowerment, Quotas in sport and university entrance, etc. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Nevertheless, I sat my daughter down and explained the REAL Nelson Mandela and his demonic legacy to her and contrary to what the teachers tried to brainwash her with…I told her the truth…Mandela was no saint. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela’s death on the 5th of December 2013</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">On his death bed </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/10455433/Nelson-Mandela-cannot-speak-says-Winnie.html" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">Mandela had 22 doctors looking after him around the clock</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> , keeping the life support systems going. He finally officially died @ 20h50 on the 5th of December 2013, St. Niklaus Eve, known in The Netherlands and Belgium as “Patjesavond” (gift evening) when children put their shoes next to the fire place and receive gifts. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The date is quite significant seeing that St. Niklaus (official day 6th of Dec) apart from being the patron saint of honorable professions such as pharmacists and seafarers, was also the patron saint of the Lumpen Proletariat, namely thieves, prostitutes, prisoners, beggars, etc. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">His burial 10 days after his death on the 15th of December is the day before an official holiday in South Africa. The 16th of December is currently known as “Reconciliation Day”. During the Apartheid years it was known as “The Day of the Vow” in commemoration of the 470 pioneer Voortrekkers who defeated a 10,000 strong Zulu army on the banks of the Ncome River (Blood River) in 1838. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The pioneer Voortrekkers took a Vow onto the Almighty that if He would save them that day that they would celebrate the day as a Sabbath and teach their children for generations to come to do the same. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The day was never celebrated as a day of victory, rather as a day thankful for survival. Till this day I honour that vow, teach my daughter and celebrate it as a sacred day. Whenever I am in Pretoria, I make it a point of visiting the Voortrekker Monument. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Day of the Vow was hijacked by the ANC and renamed the Day of Reconciliation. Mandela’s Burial the day before will ensure that for years to come people in South Africa will “celebrate” “Mandela Day” and “Reconciliation Day” next to each other. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela the saint</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Over the years we have seen how Nelson Mandela was elevated to saintly status by the liberal media and politicians of the world. He hardly died or the chorus of liberal voices fawning and weeping over this Marxist terrorist rang out to the world. Many countries including the French flew their flags at half mast and in South Africa a national day of mourning was declared. But why? What did Mandela do that he deserved such recognition? </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela the Nobel Peace Prize winner</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Liberals and Mandela supporters like to point out that Nelson Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for the supposed peace he brought to South Africa. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Truth is that he SHARED the prize with then President F.W. de Klerk for a supposed negotiated settlement of which the outcome was already determined by the South African National Intelligence Agency, The British MI6 and the Anglo American Mining fraternity worrying about their gold and platinum mining interests. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Hollywood film “End Game” documents this quite clearly so does veteran author Allister Sparks in his book “Tommorrow is another country: The inside story of South Africa’s road to change”.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">There you can read how Consolidated Gold Fields of London facilitated and sponsored the meetings between the Afrikaner Nationalists and the ANC to hand the country over to a band of Marxist Terrorist scum. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The liberal legacy of Mandela</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">When you put the above question (What did Mandela actually do?) to bleeding heart liberals you will hear them praise Mandela for being a wonderful man. A hero who prevented a civil war and a bloodbath. A forgiving man who forgave the evil whites their sins for putting him in prison for 27 years. They will often quote Mandela receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for that. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The True legacy of Mandela</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">David James Smith in his book “The Young Mandela” revealed Mandela as a wife beater and a womanizer. His first wife Evelyn divorced him because of it. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">As a law student at Wits University, Mandela failed his final exams three times and blamed it on racist whites. Instead of getting a degree he received only a diploma and set up an attorney office with his mate Oliver Tambo. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Nelson Mandela, Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela was first arrested for high treason and sabotage in 1956, but acquitted in 1961. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In 1961, Nelson Mandela, together with the South African Communist Party founded the military wing of the ANC uMkonto we Sizwe (Spear of the nation) , an extreme terrorist organisation inside a terrorist organisation and started a terrorist and sabotage campaign against South Africans. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In the British “The Daily Mail” Peter Lewis wrote: </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“He instigated the military wing of the ANC and became its commander in chief, although he had never fired a shot. He organised military training and went to Ethiopia to be taught it himself. He became, in short, a terrorist.” </strong><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/%E2%80%9Dhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-1288343/Womaniser-terrorist--portrait-young-Mandela-YOUNG-MANDELA-BY-DAVID-JAMES-SMITH.html#ixzz2mgTk99NF" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">Womaniser, terrorist, a portrait of the young Mandela</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Nelson Mandela enjoyed this terrorist status until 2008 when he was taken off the US terrorist watch list. </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/05/nelson-mandela-terrorist_n_4394392.html" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">Nelson Mandela Was On The U.S. Terrorist Watch List Until 2008</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The truth is that Mandela visited several Communist countries such as Russia, Cuba, Algeria, Ethiopia and East Germany where he received Marxist terrorist training and he later returned to visit these countries again to raise and obtain funds and organize terrorist paramilitary training and weapons to be smuggled into South Africa. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It was all written down in much detail in his diary also found at Rivonia. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In 1962, Mandela was arrested for leaving and entering the country without a passport. On 11 July 1963, police raided Liliesleaf Farm and uncovered the diabolical plot Mandela had installed for South Africa and its people called “Operation Mayibuye” (A Zulu word meaning, let it return, as in let the country return to the blacks). </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela was then put on trial in what became known as the “Rivonia trial.” At the time, Nelson Mandela, was already in prison serving a five year sentence for incitement of strikes and leaving the country without a passport. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">He used to live at Lilliesleaf Farm disguised as a gardener and going by a false name of David Motsamayi (meaning "the walker"). </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Operation Mayibuye</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The shocking details of this evil plot the brainchild of Arthur Goldreich, came out during the trial and are extremely well documented in the book “Rivonia Unmasked” – Lauritz Strydom. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The goal of Operation Mayibuye was to unleash 7000 armed and trained Marxist terrorist onto the country, who would then recruit more members and launch sabotage and terror campaigns murdering millions of South Africans including blacks suspected of being collaborators or informers to the white government. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The country would then be plunged into chaos and under these conditions several communist countries would invade South Africa. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Rivonia Trial</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">During the Rivonia trial Mandela was tried together with the other conspirators for acts of sabotage.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The specifics of the charges to which Mandela admitted complicity involved conspiring with the African National Congress and South African Communist Party to the use of explosives to destroy water, electrical, and gas utilities in the Republic of South Africa. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The charge sheet at the trail listed 193 acts of sabotage in total. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">They were charged with the preparation and manufacture of explosives, according to evidence submitted, it included 210,000 hand grenades, 48,000 anti-personnel mines, 1,500 time devices, 144 tons of ammonium nitrate, 21.6 tons of aluminum powder and a ton of black powder. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The campaign of sabotage against the government was already in full swing and included attacks on government posts, machines, power facilities, crop burning in various places, setting off pipe bombs at the Bantu Advisory Council, the Bata shoe factory, an Indian businessman’s house and the offices of an Afrikaans Newspaper, die Nataller. (pg56) </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela the Communist liar at the Rivonia trial</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">When he was put in the dock, Mandela refused to take the oath. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela denied being a communist despite a handwritten document in his own writing that was submitted, </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“How to be a good Communist”.</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">He claimed it was just notes written by “a friend” who tried to convert him to communism. Mandela couldn’t name the friend. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Traitors and informers, said Mandela in this document, should be ruthlessly eliminated. He advocated cutting off their noses, pour encourager les autres, like the Marxist terrorists did in Algeria. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela repeatedly denied that he was a Communist. Yet recently the South African Communist Party (SACP) admitted that Mandela was indeed one of them and a high ranking one as well.</span><a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/africa/item/17128-south-african-communist-party-admits-mandela-s-leadership-role" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">South African Communist Party Admits Mandela’s Leadership Role</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In fact, Dr Anthea Jeffery in her book “People’s War: New light on the struggle for South Africa” states on page 509: </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“As Mark Gevisser has recorded in his biography of Thabo Mbeki, of the people elected on to the national executive committee of the ANC at its Morogoro conference in Tanzania in 1969, only one was a non-communist. Of the national executive committee members chosen at the ANC’s Kabwe conference in Zambia in 1985, only five were not members of the SACP. After the ANC’s Durban conference in 1991, of the 50 members elected to the national executive committee, at least 37 were believed to be members of the SACP, while of the 40 ex-officio representatives at least five were identified as SACP members.”</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“Later the same year, Chris Hani, General Secretary of the SACP (and simultaneously a prominent ANC leader), said, “We in the Communist Party have participated and built the ANC. We have made the ANC what it is today and the ANC is our organization.” </strong><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Up until the burial of Nelson Mandela on the 15th of December 2013, the ANC was and still is a Marxist terrorist organization in a Troika or “Tripartite Alliance” with the SACP and the Marxist Trade Unionists COSATU. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Was the Rivonia Trial a fair trial?</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Rivonia trial (1963-1964) was open to the scrutiny and criticism of the media of the world and highly regarded as a fair trial…this could not be said of Communist countries such as Cuba, Russia or East Germany at the time where people who opposed the government would simply disappear or be shot in the back of the head without a trial. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela should have been tried for High Treason that carried the death penalty. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">On page 89 of “Rivonia Unmasked” it says “The State had elected, 'for reasons which need not be detailed here', to indict the accused on counts of sabotage; but in reality, Dr Yutar declared, the case was a classical instance of high treason.” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Dr. Yutar, for some or other reason decided that high treason would have been too difficult to prove and rather pursued the lesser charges of sabotage, etc. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In Rivonia unmasked, Dr. Yutar said himself that the documents seized and produced as evidence was enough to get a conviction. He also had more than 200 people he could call as witnesses. Yutar also said that the munitions and weapons found were enough to blow up a city the size of Johannesburg. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela and his co-conspirators were sent to life imprisonment by Judge Quartus de Wet, judge-president of the high court of the Transvaal. A judge, according to George Bizos on live television during the Mandela mourning period who once sent someone to death and it later came out that the person was innocent, and was not a “hanging judge”. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Nevertheless, the judge said that they were actually guilty of high treason for which the punishment would have been the death penalty (by hanging) , but because the state prosecutor, Percy Yutar did not prosecute them for high treason, rather the four lesser charges of sabotage, conspiracy to commit sabotage, recruiting and training terrorists and soliciting funds from communist countries for a terrorist onslaught against the country, they got life in prison. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Was Mandela fairly opposing the government of the time? </strong><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It has to be remembered that these Rivonia men were not sentenced for opposing the government policy of Apartheid. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The official opposition, the United Party under the liberal Sir De Villiers Graaff and many other law abiding citizens bitterly opposed the policy of Apartheid. That was not illegal. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">What was illegal was the planting of bombs and indiscriminately blowing up innocent people and children. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Sir De Villiers Graaff in parliament complimented the judge for his verdict and expressed his only regret that the terrorists at the Rivonia trial were not charged with treason and hanged. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Was Nelson Mandela a “Political Prisoner”?</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela spent 18 years on Robben Island, then Polsmoor prison and from 1988 in a comfortable house complete with swimming pool on the prison grounds of Victor Verster prison for acts of terrorism and planning to overthrow the government with a violent Communist Revolution that would have killed millions of people. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">All together he was in prison for 27 years. Many people saw Nelson Mandela as a “Political Prisoner”, but Amnesty International never recognized him as such because the group "rejects the proposal to recognize as prisoners of conscience people who use or advocate the use of force." </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Truth is, Mandela was a common criminal and terrorist, not a political prisoner. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela’s Release from prison</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">President F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and the SACP on 2 February 1990 and Mandela was released unconditionally on 11th of February 1990. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">He could have been out five years earlier. In February 1985 President P.W. Botha offered Mandela his freedom on condition that he 'unconditionally rejected violence as a political weapon'. Mandela refused. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The violence before and after Mandela’s release from his prison on Robben Island and later his house on the Victor Verster prison grounds, Mandela still orchestrated and conducted the terrorist campaign (Operation Vula) in South Africa. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It has to be remembered that he could get free visits and his wife could sleep over at his prison house. In his Autobiography, “A long walk to freedom” he said that he “signed off” the 1983 Church street bombing in Pretoria. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Nelson Mandela and his organization uMkhonto we Siswe were responsible for horrific bombs such as the one in 1985 at Amanzimtoti in Natal where they planted a bomb in a rubbish bin at a shopping centre indiscriminately killing 5 and injuring 40 people. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In 1986 the ANC terrorist Robert Mcbride exploded a bomb at the McGoo’s Bar on the Durban beachfront, killing 3 civilians and injuring 69. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">They also exploded bombs at court building, the Ellis Park Rugby stadium and several Wimpy fast food outlets where more civilians were killed or injured. From 1985-1987 The ANC also placed 57 landmines on farm roads blowing up 25 people, many were black farm labourers. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">South African police statistics indicate that, in the period 1976 to 1986, approximately 130 deaths were attributed to the Umkhonto we Sizwe. Of these, about thirty were members of various security forces and one hundred were civilians. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Of the civilians, 40 were white and 60 black. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%202.pdf" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">Volume Two of the TRC hearings</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that at the ANC training camps in Angola and Tanzania torture of their own people was "routine" and was official policy – as were executions "without due process" particularly in the period of 1979–1989. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The ANC also launched a virtual civil war against the Inkatha Freedom Party. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Between 1985 and 1989, 5,000 civilians were killed in fighting between the two parties. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In the book “People’s War” by Dr Anthea Jeffrey, it states that between 1984 and 1994, 20500 mostly black people died in the violence instigated and started by the ANC Communist agitators. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It was a terror campaign of horific “necklace” murders and throwing people off moving trains or hacking them to death with pangas. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela the failed and useless politician</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The ANC became the ruling party in 1994 and Nelson Mandela the first apparent democratically elected president. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In the book, “South Africa’s brave new world” by R.W. Johnson he states in Chapter Three how the ANC had high ideals to build a Communist “Eastern Germany in Africa” and how they would under the RDP programme build a million houses and create five million jobs. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Not a single RDP target was achieved and the programme ditched two years later. A complete failure for Mandela. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela failed to deal with the ever increasing AIDS problem and failed to convince EU leaders about trade with South Africa. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The country was in a grip of violence and a crime wave was sweeping through South Africa, but Mandela was seen posing with the Spice Girls or Rev. Jesse Jackson or telling the Israelis and Irish how they should copy the SA “miracle”. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela blocked an official inquiry to the Shell House Massacre where the ANC shot at peaceful Zulu demonstrators from the rooftop of their head quarters with AK 47’s killing 53 and 173 were injured. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">He told the public that he gave the order to “defend Shell House if attacked, even if you have to kill people.” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Nelson Mandela basically told the public that if they wanted to explore that line of enquiry they would have to arrest him for mass murder. Who was going to arrest a living god? </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Meanwhile his wife Winnie was stealing large sums of money from the ANC Social Welfare Department and a $100,000 Pakistani donation to the ANC Women’s league. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">At political meetings, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki would chair the cabinet meetings, not Mandela and Mandela would often get up and leave the meeting before the end. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">On page 65 R.W. Johnson writes about why Mandela never resisted Mbeki. </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“Mandela was old, knew nothing of economics or government and respected Mbeki’s expertise”.</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">On page 73 R.W. Johnson writes, </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“Mandela, after all, had admitted that he “hadn’t a clue about economics.” </strong><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela loved his telephone. He would get up early and start calling cabinet ministers at 05h00 in the morning or even foreign dignitaries. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">He made spur of the moment decisions like on his 100 Days Plan shortly after his inauguration…Mandela had declared that all children under 6, and their mothers, were to receive free medical care, though there was no advanced planning for this, no extra money, or even warning was given to clinics and hospitals. This resulted in chaos, as huge numbers of mothers and children swamped the available facilities. Due to the lack of medical staff the medical services in especially the rural areas collapsed and many people died…all thanks to Nelson Mandela. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">His scheme in 1995 that 4 million school children should receive free food led to massive widespread fraud and theft and the whole scheme collapsed…along with schooling in the Eastern Cape (his home province) in general. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">His solution to the violence in Kwazulu-Natal between the ANC and the IFP was that the IFP should all join the ANC. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">He made an unconstitutional threat that if the IFP continued to resist the ANC he would cut off all funding to the most populace province in the country. He had to retract it later. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">When he fired his wife Winnie from government, he failed to read the constitution and thus had to reappoint her and later dismiss her again. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In 1998 on his 80th birthday </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/134691.stm" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">Nelson Mandela decided to give a gift to South Africa and free 9000 criminals from prison</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> . </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Most of them were back inside within three months after they stole, raped and murdered to their heart’s content. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">When he pulled a publicity stunt and had tea with Betsie Verwoerd, widow of H.F. Verwoerd, in Orania, he showed his tactlessness when he told her, “I feel like I am in Soweto”. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Standing next to president Bill Clinton in 1998, Mandela the great statesman, denounced the USA over Iran and Cuba and told it “to go jump in the lake” if they wanted to criticize his friendship with dictator Ghadafi …and president Clinton was smiling and clapping… </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela certainly knew how to choose his friends. Ghadafi, Castro, Yasser Arafat and the utterly corrupt president Suharto of Indonesia were only a few of his terrorist sponsoring buddies. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela also showed what a champion of free speech he was during the TRC hearings when Genl. Bantu Holomisa outed how several high ranking ANC leaders accepted bribes from Casino mogul Sol Kerzner. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela first lied and denied it, but eventually admitted to accepting a R2million bribe from Kerzner, but refused to apologise to Holomisa for calling him a liar. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela was furious at the ANC women’s league for supporting Holomisa and ordered that all its funds be cut off except for regional official’s salaries. It was a blatant unconstitutional suppression of free speech. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The whole TRC became a farce after that. The ANC were shocked by Holomisa’s testimony and announced that ANC members could only tell the commission things which had already been cleared with the ANC. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Astonishingly Desmond Tutu and Alex Boraine who were heading the TRC, accepted this. That is how committed the ANC was and is to free speech. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Nevertheless, Mandela accepted further bribes from Kerzner to put pressure on and call off Christo Nel from prosecuting Kerzner. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mandela was a racist, not a reconciliatory saint</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">When the New South Africa dawned in 1994 South Africans of all colours had high hopes about a truly non racial South Africa, burying hatchets and building a wonderful country and democracy together. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It soon dawned within the next two years to be a pie in the sky dream and all hopes went out the porthole of a sinking ship when the ANC , under the presidency of Mandela, not only carried on with racial classification on official government forms, but also introduced racial policies such as Affirmative Action, Black Economic Empowerment and quotas in university entrance and sport. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Today, twenty years after Mandela took the presidency of South Africa, these policies of AA and BEE are well and truly alive and being exacerbated. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Did Mandela prevent a bloodbath?</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">A few days ago I sat across the lunch table from a German businessman. I could not help but to notice his copper armband with the 46664 number stamped on it. Mandela’s prison number. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I asked him how many times he has been to South Africa and what his business interest were. It turned out that he has a business in South Africa Working with ACSA (Airports Company of South Africa) wrapping suitcases in clingfoil to prevent theft at South African airports. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I asked him why he wore the arm band and why he adored Mandela. He told me: “Because Mandela prevented a bloodbath and it could have turned out much differently…” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“For whom?”, I asked </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“Does it matter?” he asked. “Main thing is that he prevented a bloodbath…” he continued. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I told him that at the time, South Africa had one of the ten strongest armies in the world and certainly the strongest on the African continent. According to the official International Atomic Energy Agency South Africa had seven nuclear weapons. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">According to the Jewish author Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in his book “The unspoken alliance: Israel’s secret relationship with Apartheid South Africa”, South Africa had about 20 nuclear weapons. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">On top of that, South Africa had chemical and biological weapons. I asked him again…"For whom would it have turned out to be a bloodbath?" </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">As could be expected…silence. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I asked him what the worst thing for his business in SA could be…He just looked at me puzzled… I said when there was no theft at the airports he would be without business. Crime pays. It is in his own interest that crime in South Africa carries on. So he as a foreign businessman feels zero for the country and its people. Main thing is that he makes a profit. The same can be said from ADT or Chubb. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Future of South Africa</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The first question to ask is what happened to those nuclear weapons? Where are they today? The second question is to ask where are the minds that created the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons? They probably emigrated and are working as scientist and engineers all over the world. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">What is their allegiance to South Africa today? </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">However, the weapons can be dismantled, but the knowledge cannot be undone. The third question is: “Did Mandela prevent a bloodbath or did he just postpone it?” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Looking at the daily resentment towards the ANC not just from the whites but also from the blacks who booed Jacob Zuma off the stage at Mandela’s farewell party, one can see a general discontentment towards the corrupt ANC. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">A person like me who was born and have lived in South Africa for 40 years can see these things coming a mile away. A bloody, racial, civil war is inevitable. Mandela just postponed the date. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“When Mandela dies we will kill you whites like flies”</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> – Mzukizi Gaba (ANC)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://mikesmithspoliticalcommentary.blogspot.se/2013/12/the-true-legacy-of-terrorist-nelson.html">http://mikesmithspoliticalcommentary.blogspot.se/2013/12/the-true-legacy-of-terrorist-nelson.html</a></span>Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-7403603142771728242013-12-20T17:35:00.001+02:002013-12-20T17:35:41.747+02:00Do Revered Leaders Have To Be Saints?<h3 class="intro" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b>The Big Interview: </b>At a time when our president has let it be known that he wants "muck-raking" journalists kept out of his personal life, it is perhaps surprising to hear that people at the Nelson Mandela Foundation went out of their way to show the author of a new biography of Madiba documents that suggest that he might have beaten his first wife.</h3>
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"Mandela's life story has been told many times," David James Smith told me when we spoke a few nights ago. "The story is so well known, I really didn't expect to find sworn statements about domestic violence."</div>
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Mandela the wife-batterer? The idea seems ludicrous. And yet that is precisely what his first wife, Evelyn Mase, alleged when she filed for divorce in May 1956, going so far as to claim that at one point he tried to strangle her.</div>
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Smith is careful to note that Mase's allegations were not tested in court, and also that Mandela has let it be known that, if they had been, he would have denied them. Still, Smith clearly believes there is something to Mase's claims.</div>
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"She identifies her neighbours as potential witnesses," he told me, "which tends to corroborate her story. She has also repeated it to others over the years. And Mandela himself has admitted that on one occasion he used some force to wrestle a poker away from her."</div>
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There will be those who distrust Smith's project and will be put off by the relish he appears to take in stripping some of the gilding off the image we have of Mandela.</div>
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Why, they will ask, should an old man who has given so much to his country and to the world be subjected to the indignity of accusations that he choked his wife, that he messed around with his secretary, and that he fathered children out of wedlock?</div>
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It is these anomalies, the gaps between Mandela-the-icon and Mandela-the-man, that most interest Smith.</div>
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"I think there was a time when this country needed Mandela to be untouchable, to be saintly," he said, suggesting that, on some level, we allowed ourselves to be misled.</div>
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Perhaps this is true. But it is perhaps also true that, with the obvious and important exception of his first wife's allegations of domestic abuse, the dirt Smith dishes doesn't shock Smith's readers as much as his publishers might think it should.</div>
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Is it really surprising and shocking that powerful, charismatic men have affairs? Not really.</div>
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Is it really surprising and shocking that powerful, charismatic men are ambitious; that they are not always strangers to self-regard; that their actions, as important as they are to their followers, are not inspired only by altruism; or that their loved ones sometimes find them cold and distracted and emotionally unavailable?</div>
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No, no, and no.</div>
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Ultimately, though, it is not the salacious details, most of which come from a period in his life that Madiba himself once described as having been "thoroughly immoral", that make Young Mandela work.</div>
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These are interesting and, individually and collectively, they produce an idea of Mandela that is more human and more plausible than his canonisation has allowed.</div>
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More important than the details of the scuttlebutt, though, are three lessons that South Africans, who live with the idea that their democracy is a "miracle", might come away with after reading Smith's compelling book.</div>
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The first is that truly great leaders don't have to be saints. The second is that to expect saintly politicians is to demand the impossible and to deny the inevitable.</div>
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It is the third idea that is the most radical of all: we don't need saintly leaders.</div>
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What we need are leaders who are decent, hard-working and brave; leaders who learn from their mistakes; who understand their followers but are not hostage to them. As Smith shows, Mandela has always been these things. And more.</div>
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And yet the question begs for an answer: did Mandela really beat up his first wife?</div>
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Though noting that the allegations were not tested in court, Smith believes that he probably did.</div>
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"His life at the time was unbelievably pressurised and unstable," he told me. "He might have cracked."</div>
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Smith might very well be right. And yet I can't help noticing Madiba's stated intention of denying the allegations.</div>
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Neither can I help wondering if Mase and her lawyers exaggerated their claims to strengthen their hand during the divorce proceedings.</div>
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Likely as not, this is wishful thinking on my part, a symptom of my prejudices and my resistance to thinking about Mandela in these terms.</div>
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Maybe it's no more than sentimental weakness, but I've decided to suspend judgement.</div>
<ul style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin: inherit; overflow: auto; padding: 0px 0px 20px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="background-image: none; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; list-style: square; margin: 0px; padding: 3px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Altbeker is the author of Fruit of a Poisoned Tree: A true story of murder and the miscarriage of justice</li>
</ul>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article651453.ece/Do-revered-leaders-have-to-be-saints">http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article651453.ece/Do-revered-leaders-have-to-be-saints</a></span></span></div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-91022047016497733442013-12-19T18:12:00.001+02:002013-12-19T18:12:16.862+02:00Nelson Mandela Died In June<h2 class="title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Oswald, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Family Finally Admits</h2>
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<span class="meta_date" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 3px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">December 15, 2013</span> </div>
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<span style="color: #555555; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Nelson Mandela’s funeral was planned a year ago. The Nelson Mandela family has finally admitted that Nelson Mandela is dead by announcing on December 5th (2013) that the former leader of South Africa is no longer with us. The charade began in <b>June of 2013,</b> and Guardian Express has maintained Mandela has been deceased since we were informed of his passing in June via one of our reporters embedded in South Africa. That reporter had received a text message from her close friend who works for the South African News which stated that <b>Mandela had died the night prior. </b>Since June, The Guardian Express has come under attack; first from a “denial of service” attack which shut the site down on and off for three days right after we published the news that Mandela had died. That denial of service attack was traced back to South Africa.</span></div>
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The Guardian Express was also attacked by people denying that the Nelson Mandela family was carrying on a charade. However, we stood by and continue to stand by our account that Mandela was declared permanently brain dead with total organ failure in June of 2013. Now, today, the family has finally decided to give up their charade.</div>
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We sent an additional reporter to South Africa who returned with <b>an audio recording of two top government officials confirming the fact that Mandela was totally brain dead and was declared so on June 11. </b></div>
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However, his family <b>refused to turn off the life support machines hooked up to his body</b>. Thus, the family could keep him artificially “alive.” </div>
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<b>Their motive? To settle a huge lawsuit against Mandela’s estate.</b></div>
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<b>It was revealed that Mandela’s family was suing him for control of his estate and since it is impossible to sue a dead person, it seems Mandela had to be kept “alive” with machines until a resolution could be found for the lawsuit. </b>Thus far, there is no word on whether that lawsuit had been settled, but there are already many speculations in the press that this announcement today will begin the battles over the Mandela estate afresh.</div>
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The Mandela daughters and granddaughters have shown a good deal of greed when it comes to Mandela’s legacy. It has been reported that their fighting over his money got so bad that Mandela “lost faith” in his daughters and worried that their concern over money was overshadowing their concern for family harmony.</div>
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The Mandela funeral was planned a year in advance, according to reports. The funeral date is set for December 14 and there is a comprehensive schedule of events leading up to that date. Stay tuned to Guardian Express for complete funeral coverage. The Mandela family has finally given up their charade which they have been carrying on since June and have admitted the former South African leader is dead.</div>
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<a href="http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/nelson-mandela-died-june-family-finally-admits/#">http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/nelson-mandela-died-june-family-finally-admits/#</a></div>
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Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-42701826968799880552013-12-19T18:07:00.000+02:002013-12-19T18:07:08.874+02:00Nelson's Cell<img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1493205_581106628629198_1667667325_n.jpg" />Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-29852364782744725842013-12-15T06:11:00.006+02:002013-12-15T06:11:53.624+02:00Why Nelson Mandela Never Forgave Winnie<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Extracted from Knowing Mandela by John Carlin</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="goog_46825038"></span><span id="goog_46825039"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a>Nelson Mandela passed away Thursday night. John Carlin in his new book ‘Knowing Mandela,’ reveals why he never forgave the former wife who has visited his bedside.</strong></div>
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TWO weeks before Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in February 1990 I went to see his wife, Winnie, at her home in Diepkloof Extension, the posh neighbourhood of Soweto where the handful of black people who had contrived to make a little money resided. It was known as Baverly Hills to Soweto’s other presidents.</div>
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Winnie’s home, funded by foreign benefactors, was a two-floor, three-bedroom house with a garden and a small swimming pool. The height of extravagance by black standards, it would have more or less met the aspirations of the average white, middle-class South African.</div>
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Zindzi, Winnie’s slim and attractive second daughter, was 29 but looked younger in a yellow T-shirt and denim dungarees. It was 9.30 a.m. and she was in the kitchen frying eggs. She invited me in and started chatting as if we were old friends. The truth was that I had not scheduled an interview with Winnie. I had just dropped in to try my luck. But Zindzi saw nothing wrong in me giving it a shot.</div>
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Mum, she said, was still upstairs and would probably be a while. As I hovered about waiting (and, as it turned out, waiting, and waiting friends of Zindzi wandered in for coffee and a chat. Completing the South African middle-class picture, a small, wizened maid in blue overalls padded inscrutably around.</div>
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Finally, Winnie made her entrance, Taller than I had expected, very much the grande dame, she displayed neither surprise nor irritation at my presence in her home. When I said I would like to interview her, she responded with a sigh, a knowing smile and a glance at her watch. I said all I would need was half an hour. She thought a moment, shrugged her shoulders and said: “OK. But you will have to give me a little time.” She still had to put the finishing touches to her morning toilette.</div>
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The picture presented to me by mother, daughter, friends and cleaning lady was of a domesticity so stable and relaxed that, had I not been better informed, I would never have imagined the depths of trauma that lucked beneath.</div>
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Winnie had been continually persecuted by agents of the apartheid state during the 1970s and 1980s; she had borne the anguish of hearing her two small daughters screaming as the police broke into her home and carted her off to jail; she had spent more than a year in solitary confinement. Trusting that her confused and stricken children would be cared for by friends; she had been banished and placed under house arrest far away. But she was back, her circumstances altered dramatically for the better now that Mandela’s release was imminent.</div>
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One hour after her first entrance, she majestically reappeared, Cleopatra still needed her morning coffee, and motioned me to wait in her study while she withdrew into the kitchen. I had five minutes to take in the surroundings.</div>
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On a bookshelf there was a row of framed family portraits, a Christmas card and a birthday card. Only a month had passed since Christmas, but nearly four since Winnie had turned 53. I could not resist taking a closer look.</div>
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I opened the Christmas card, which was enormous, and immediately recognised Nelson Mandela’s large, spidery handwriting. “Darling, I love you. Madiba,” It said. Madiba was the tribal name by which he liked to be known to those close to him. On the birthday card he had written the same words.</div>
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If I had not known better I might have imagined the cards had been sent by an infatuated teenager. Once we began our interview. Winnie took on just such a role, playing the tremulous bride-to-be, convincing me she was in a state of nervous excitement at the prospect of rekindling her life’s great love.</div>
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Close up she had, like her husband, the charisma of the vastly self-confident, and there was a coquettish, eye-fluttering sensuality about her. It was not hard to imagine how the young woman who met Mandela one rainy evening in 1957 had struck him, as he would later confess, like a thunderbolt.</div>
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The Mandela the world saw wore a mask that disguised his private feelings, presenting himself as a fearless hero, immune to ordinary human weakness. His effectiveness as a leader hung, he believed, on keeping that public mask from cracking. Winnie offered the greatest test to his resolve. During the following years the mask cracked only twice. She was the cause both times.</div>
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The first was in May 1991. She had just been convicted at Johannesburg’s Rand Supreme Court of assault and accessory to kidnapping a 14-year-old black boy called Stomple Moeketsi, whom her driver had subsequently murdered. Winnie had been led to believe, falsely as it turned out, that the boy had been working as a spy for the apartheid state.</div>
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Winnie and Mandela walked together down the steps of the grand court building. Once again the actress, she swaggered to the street, right fist raised in triumph. It was not clear what she could possibly have been celebrating, except perhaps the perplexing straight off to jail and would remain free pending an appeal.</div>
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Mandela had a different grasp of the situation. His face was grey, his eyes were downcast.</div>
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The second and last time was nearly a year later. The setting was an evening press conference hastily summoned at the drab headquarters of the ANC. He shuffled into the room, sat down at a table and read from a piece of paper, beginning by paying tribute to his wife.</div>
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“During the two decades I spent on Robben Island she was an indispensable pillar of support and comfort… My love for her remains undiminished.” There was a general intake of breath. Then he continued: “We have mutually agreed that a separation would be the best for each of us… I part from my wife with no recriminations. I embrace her with all the love and affection I have nursed for her inside and outside prison from the moment I first met her.”</div>
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He rose to his feet. “Ladies and gentlemen. I hope you ‘ll appreciate the pain I have gone through and I now end this interview.”</div>
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He exited the room, head-bowed, amid total silence.</div>
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Mandela’s love for Winnie had been, like many great loves, a kind of madness, all the more so in his case as it was founded more on a fantasy that he had kept alive for 27 years in prison than on the brief time they had actually spent together. The demands of his political life before he was imprisoned were such that they had next to no experience of married life, as Winnie herself would confess to me that morning.</div>
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“I have never lived with Mandela,” she said. “I have never known what it was to have a close family where you sat around the table with husband and children. I have no such dear memories. When I gave birth to my children he was never there, even though he was not in jail at the time.”</div>
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It seemed that Winnie, who was 22 to his 38 when they met, had cast a spell on him. Or maybe he cast a spell on himself, needing to reconstruct those fleeting memories of her into a fantasy of tranquility where he sought refuge from the loneliness of prison life.</div>
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His letters to her from Robben Island revealed romantic, sensual side to his nature that no one but Winnie then knew. He recalled “the electric current” that “flushed” through his blood as he looked at her photograph and imagined their caresses.</div>
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The truth was that Winnie had had several lovers during Mandela’s long absence. In the months before his release, she had been having an affair with Dali Mpofu, a lawyer 30 years her junior and a member of her defence team. She carried on with the affair after Mandela left prison. ANC members close to Mandela knew that was going on, as they did about her frequent bouts of drunkenness. I tried asking them why they did not talk to Mandela about her waywardness, but I was always met by frosty stares. Winnie became a taboo subject within the ANC during the two years after Mandela left prison. Confronting him with the truth was a step too far for the freedom fighters of the ANC.</div>
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His impeccably courteous public persona acted as a coat of armour protecting the sorrowing man within. But there came a point when Mandela could deceive himself, or the public, no longer. Details of the affair with Mpofu were made luridly public in a newspaper report two weeks before the separation announcement.</div>
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The article was a devastating, irrefutable expose of Winnie’s affair. It was based on a letter she had written to Mpofu that revealed he had recently had a child with a woman whom she referred to as “a white hag.” Winnie accused Mpofu of “running around f***** at the slightest emotional excuse … Before I am through with you, you are going to learn a bit of honesty and sincerity and know what betrayal of one’s love means to a woman … Remember always how much you have hurt and humiliated me … I keep telling you the situation is deteriorating at home, you are not bothered because you are satisfying yourself every night with a woman. I won’t be your bloody fool, Dali.”</div>
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In private, Mandela had already endured quite enough conjugal torture. I learnt of one especially hurtful episode from a friend of Mandela some years later. Not long after the end of her trial, Winnie was due to fly to America on ANC-related business. She wanted to take Mpofu with her, and Mandela said she should not, Winnie agreed not to, but went with him anyway. Mandela phoned her at her hotel room in New York, and Mpofu answered the phone.</div>
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On the face of it, Mandela was a man more sinned against than sinning, but he did not see it that way. It was his belief that the original sin was to have put his political cause before his family.</div>
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Despite everything, Mandela believed when he left prison that he would find a way to reconcile political and family life. Some years after his separation from Winnie, I interviewed his close friend Amina Cashalia, who had known him since before he met Winnie.” His one great wish,” she told me, “was that he would come out of prison, and have a family life again with his wife and the children. Because he’s a great family man and I think he really wanted that more than anything else and he couldn’t have it.”</div>
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His fallout with Winnie only deepened the catastrophe, contaminating his relationships with other family members, among them his daughter Zindzi. She was a far more complicated character than I had imagined when I chatted with her cheerfully in her mother’s kitchen over fried eggs. At that very moment, in late January 1990, her current lover, the father of her third child, was in a prison cell. Five days later he hanged himself.</div>
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Zindzi was very much her mother’s daughter, inheriting her capacity to dissemble as well as her strength of personality. The unhappiness and sheer chaos that she would endure in her own private life, a mirror of her mother’s, found expression in a succession of tense episodes with her father after he was set free.</div>
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One of them took place before friends and family on the day of her marriage to the father of her fourth child, six months after her parents’ separation. It was a glittering occasion at Johannesburg’s swankiest hotel, with Zindzi radiant in a magnificent pearl and sequin bridal dress. It seemed to be a joyous celebration; in truth, it provided further evidence of the Mandela family’s dysfunctions.</div>
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One of the guests seated near the top table was Helen Suzman, the white liberal politician and good friend of Mandela. She told me that he went through the ceremonial motions with all the propriety one would have expected. He joined in the cutting of the wedding cake and played his part when the time came to give his speech, declaring, “She’s not mine now,” as fathers are supposed to do. He did not, however, mention Winnie in the speech. When he sat down, he looked silent and cheerless.</div>
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Maybe he had had time to reflect in the intervening six months on the depth of Winnie’s betrayal. For more details had emerged of her love affairs and of the crimes of the gang of young men “Winnie’s boys,” as they were known in Soweto – who played the role of both bodyguards and courtly retinue. They had killed at least three young black men, beaten up Winnie’s perceived enemies and raped ;young girls.</div>
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Whether Mandela chose to realise it at the time, he was the reason that Winnie never ended up going to jail. Some years later, the minister of justice and the chief of national intelligence admitted to me that they had conveyed a message to the relevant members of the judiciary to show Winnie leniency.</div>
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Mandela’s mental and emotional wellbeing were essential to the success of the negotiations between the government and the ANC; for him to bow out of the process could have had catastrophic consequences for the country as a whole. Jailing Winnie would be too grave a risk.</div>
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Bizarrely, one of the guests at Zindzi’s wedding, prominently positioned near the top table, was the “white hag” Winnie had derided in her letter to Mpofu, and she was sitting next to a man I know to be another former lover of Winnie’s.</div>
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It also would have been difficult for Mandela to miss the menacing glances Winnie cast towards the “hag” although I hope he missed the moment when Winnie brushed past her and hissed at her former lover: “Go on! Take her ! Take her!”</div>
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When the band struck up and the newly married couple got up to dance, Mandela, who had been standing up, turned his back on Winnie and returned stiffly to the top table. Grim-faced for the rest of the night, he treated Winnie as if she did not exist. At one point, Suzman passed him a note. “Smile, Nelson,” it said.</div>
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In October 1994, five months after Mandela had become president, I spoke to a friend of his, one of the few people in whom he confided the details of his marital difficulties. The friend leant over to me and said: “It’s amazing. He has forgiven all his political enemies, but he cannot forgive her.”</div>
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During their divorce proceedings a year and a half later, he made his feelings towards Winnie public at the Rand Supreme Court, where he had accompanied and supported Winnie during her trial in 1991.</div>
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As his lawyer would tell me later, he was arbitrarily generous about sharing his estate, giving Winnie what was more than fair. But he made his feelings bluntly known in the divorce hearing. Standing a few feet away from her, he addressed the judge, saying: “Can I put it simply, my lord? If the entire universe tried to persuade me to reconcile with the defendant. I would not … I am determined to get rid of this marriage.”</div>
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He did not shirk from describing before the court the disappointment and misery of married life after he returned from prison. Winnie, he explained, did not share his bed once in the two years after their reunion. “I was the loneliest man,” he said.</div>
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The Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough wrote about the “terrible notions of duty” that boost the public figure but can stunt the private man. It is impossible to avoid concluding that Mandela was far less at ease in private than in public life. In the harsh world of South African politics he had his bearing; in the family sphere he often seemed baffled and lost.</div>
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Happily for his country, one did not drain energy from the other. Thanks to a kind of self-imposed apartheid of the mind, personal anguish and the political drive inhabited separate compartments and ran along parallel lines.</div>
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As out of control as she could be in her personal affairs, she possessed a lucid political intelligence and a mature understanding of where her husband’s priorities lay, even if she was deluded in attributing some of his qualities to herself.</div>
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“When you lead the kind of life we lead, if you are involved in a revolutionary situation, you cease to think in terms of self,” she said. “The question of personal feelings and reactions dues not even arise, because you are in a position where you think solely in terms of the nation, the people who have come first all your life.”</div>
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<a href="http://www.maravipost.com/life-and-style/people/5079-why-nelson-mandela-never-forgave-ex-wife,-winnie.html">http://www.maravipost.com/life-and-style/people/5079-why-nelson-mandela-never-forgave-ex-wife,-winnie.html</a></div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-86609812520172648182013-12-13T08:15:00.001+02:002013-12-13T08:15:21.525+02:00Zuma Asked To Resign From Public Office<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The letter, published on the Transformation Christian Network website, also states </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that toxic and amoral environment (in SA) "must surely have something to do with the </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">manner in which you assumed office, by trampling down on all semblance of the rule </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of law, and corrupting agencies of state".</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a remarkable letter from one of the stalwarts of the anti-apartheid struggle SA </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">president Jacob Zuma has been asked to resign. The letter by Revd Canon Barney </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pityana says SA is "in shambles, and the quality of life of millions of ordinary South </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Africans is deteriorating".</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear Mr Zuma</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AN OPEN LETTER ON THE STATE OF THE NATIONANC</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I write this letter with a simple request: that you resign from all public office, especially that of President and Head of State of the Republic of South Africa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am, of course, aware that you have been re-elected President of the African National Congress, the majority party in our National Assembly. I am also aware that, in terms of our electoral system, that allows the ANC to present you as a candidate to the National Assembly and use their majority therein to put you in office, without much ado. It would also appear that by its recent vote the African National Congress has expressed confidence in your leadership. You can then understand that I am taking an extraordinary step, and I can assure you one that has been carefully considered, in asking for your resignation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our country is in shambles, and the quality of life of millions of ordinary South Africans is deteriorating. Confidence in our country, and its economic and political system, is at an all-time low. There is reason to believe that ordinary South Africans have no trust in your integrity as a leader, or in your ability to lead and guide a modern constitutional democracy that we aspire to become. That, notwithstanding the fact that our Constitution puts very minimal requirements for qualification as a public representative including the highly esteemed office of President and Head of State, and Head of the Executive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is clear, at the very least, is that the President must have the means and the inclination to promote and defend the Constitution, and uphold the well being of all South Africans. I have reason to believe that, notwithstanding the confidence that your party has placed on you, you have demonstrated that you no longer qualify for this high office on any of the counts stated above.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As President and Head of State you should take responsibility for the lamentable state in which our society finds itself. This prevailing toxic and amoral environment must surely have something to do with the manner in which you assumed office, by trampling down on all semblance of the rule of law, and corrupting agencies of state. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are constantly reminded of the truth of Shakespeare's words: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall" (Measure for Measure II.2) The result is that we are in a Macbethian world where there is absence from the moral landscape of this dear land of ours any sense of positive good, any sense of personal involvement in virtue, loyalty, restraint. As a result we are in the morass of paralysis of moral power as a society. I believe that we are justified in exclaiming with Marcellus in Hamlet 1.iv "something is rotten in the state of Denmark." And so we say "All is not well."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As citizens we need not ask of our President and Head of State any more than the practice of virtue. To live a virtuous life is to express the goodness of and the possibilities for good in human living. These have at times been expressed as the cardinal virtues: temperance, courage, prudence and justice. For that the leader must lead by example, be a person of common wisdom, and understand the environment of her/his operations enough to serve the people and be driven by a desire to govern well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is no place in this for exploiting the high office for personal gain or benefit, or using state resources to buy loyalty, or to elevate party or family above the public good. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without this radical prescription of service our democracy is hollow, becomes a dictatorship of the Party, until the next elections when the voters once again get coaxed to vote for The Party! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The personal attributes of a leader are an important assurance that our democracy is in good hands: excellence in virtue, truth, trust, wisdom, insight, discernment, and sound judgment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That cesspit of a-morality is to be found in the prevalence of rape in all its brutal forms, in the disregard for loyalty – how does one explain that a close friend of Anene Booysen 's brother in Bredasdorp is one of the suspects of her murder. You yourself know only too well that a daughter of a close friend and comrade of yours accused you of rape! Though, happily, you were acquitted of the charge, the stench of disloyalty and taking advantage of unequal relations remains. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">South Africans live in fear, they are angry; they are poor (and getting poorer) and burdened by debt. What could be alleviating poverty, like social grants and social housing, is failing in practice because the poor have what is due to them pocketed by corrupt officials, and instead suffer the indignity of living life as beggars in their own land. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whether it be from marauding criminal gangs, or crime syndicates that appear to operate with some impunity, or the elderly terrified of their own grandchildren, or neighbours who cannot be trusted, or girl schoolchildren who are at the mercy of their teachers who may rape or abuse them, or corruption and theft from public resources by government ministers and public servants, or failure to meet the basic requirements of schooling most notably school textbooks not being delivered on time, or citizens who die in our hospitals because there are no doctors , or no medicines, or the thousands who dies on our roads, or protesters like Andries Tatane in Ficksburg, or the Marikana 46, or those murdered by the Cato Manor police death squad in extra-judicial murder, South Africans live in fear. Are we effectively in a police state? This situation is the direct result of the failure of public policy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Besides the social and moral breakdown that engulfs our society, the economic woes for ordinary South Africans are not abating. Social inequality has widened since the end of apartheid – and that is something to be ashamed of. The extent of escalating unemployment in our country is surely nothing to be proud of, and poverty that has become endemic, almost irreversible, that haunts our every being cannot be gainsaid. The gaping disparities between rich and poor is a sad indictment on a party that has been in government since the onset of our constitutional democracy. The inadequacy of policy is attested to by the succession of downgrades by rating agencies, and the despair of the poor expresses itself in incessant demonstrations throughout the length and breadth of our country.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">South Africans are angry, and they have every reason to be so. There is evidence that your party and government no longer have the intelligence, ideas or initiative to take bold, radical and necessary steps to arrest this slide into oblivion. Besides just being without the intelligence to change the course of history, evidently your Party and government do not even have the inclination preoccupied as it is by a relentless programme of self-enrichment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not even the otherwise promising National Planning Commission Report will solve the challenges we face because it is too little too late, lacks specificity and is without urgency or determination. Yes, we also have the promise of a multi-billion rand infrastructure development spend that is bound to end up in failure no less than the ignoble defence procurement debacle, based on the prevailing rector of corruption in government. Why, because there are already signs that this initiative has become the target of looters and thieves, many of whom with the full knowledge of the political elite in your party and government. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This failure of government is also to be seen in the lamentable e.toll saga, in the handling of the farmworkers demands and essential decision-making in the highest office in the land: the appointments of the Chief Justice, of the Head of the NPA, in government by demands rather than by policy and principle, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The picture that emerges is one of lack of leadership that is courageous about things that matter. Yes, we see it in the majority of appointments you make that, with notable exceptions, are lackluster and mediocre. These include appointments to cabinet, Provincial Premiers, and even political appointments to diplomatic service, and a gradual erosion of the independence of significant institutions like the judiciary by blatant political interference. These are nothing but an insult to the intelligence of South Africans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Notwithstanding all this, there is a sense that this country is without an imaginative, transformative chief executive. Instead, where serious matters, as in the outrageous use of state resources to build extensions to your private home amounting to some R206m (if we accept Minister Thiulas Nxesi's assurances, which no reasonable South African should!), you indulge us in the art of equivocation. Is it true that every room in the Nkandla Zuma Estate has been paid for by the Zuma family? Or is it that every room now occupied by the member of your family has been so paid for? You and your ministers so often address us with this double sense of the absurd, and obscured meaning to cover the truth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is widespread use of state resources as a piggy-bank to meet the demands of your office or for electioneering or other forms of state patronage. Ministers like Tina Joemat-Peterson seem to labour under the belief that it is the responsibility of their office to make the resources of their offices to be available to the President at his beck and call. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What about the Guptas, citizens of India who have managed to ingratiate themselves and wormed themselves into the very heart of this nation. The benefits are obvious: they get to summon ministers to their compound and issue instructions; they manipulate the cricket governing council with disastrous results; and the paper they publish has access to large resources from state agencies for which no other newspaper was ever invited to tender. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, we are in the midst of a new Infogate Scandal! It can only be in a 'banana republic' where foreign elements can succeed so easily. I wonder where else is that happening, and what about the security of the state? That would definitely never happen in India.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the centre of this is a President who lacks the basic intelligence (I do not mean school knowledge or certificates), who is without the means to inspire South Africans to feats of passion for their country and to appeal to their best humanity. I mean being smart and imaginative, and being endowed with ideas and principles on which quality leadership is based. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our problem as a country begins by our having as head of state someone devoid of "the king-becoming graces' to establish "virtuous rule". It therefore sounds very hollow when you protest that as President you deserve respect. I wholeheartedly agree that the office of Head of State must be held with respect. But I submit that you are the author of your own misfortune. There is hardly any evidence that you are treating your high office with the due respect you expect of others; to bestow on the highest office in the land dignitas and gravitas is your duty. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No wonder that there was a time that international observers were overly concerned about the unfinished business of criminal investigations against you, and of course, that little matter you are so proud of, your many wives and innumerable progeny – as one with potency to sow his wild oats with gay abandon. In your language this is about your culture. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Besides there are far too many occasions of gratuitous disregard for the law and the constitution, and unflattering mention in cartoon media, and often your name features in associations with activities that suggest corruption. South Africans have very little reason to hold their President in awe or respect. On top of that the President makes promises he never keeps, and does not even think he owes anybody an explanation. What happened to the gentleman's ethic, "my word is my bond"! Truth, while never absolute, must be the badge of good leadership.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My counsel to your friends and comrades who seek to protect your reputation by marching onto the Gallery and intimidate the owner of the gallery and the artist of The Spear, or those who are offended on your behalf by the Lady justice cartoon by Zapiro, or the Secretary General of the ANC who summons the Chairman of Nedbank, or the Chief Executive of First Rand for a telling off about the re-branding campaign of the FNB; or the offence caused to some by the decision by AmPlats to restructure its business operations and the threats it was subjected to; or the threats by the General Secretary of the Communist Party and his Stalinist Taliban to legislate respect for the President – none of that would be necessary if you yourself held your high office with a modicum of respect.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Besides these social ills we remain a divided society. We are not just divided by class and wealth (although that is true), or by race, or by gender as the pandemic of violence and brutality against women is the signature tune of our country to our shame; but most alarmingly, the ugly spectre of ethnicity and tribalism that has been accentuated during your Presidency needs to be nipped in the bud. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clearly, you are not the President to campaign against this malady, nor are you interested in operating above the tribal fray as other Presidents have done. Social cohesion clearly is not on your agenda. I do not mean just occasionally dressing down some opposition politician, or pointing fingers at "clever blacks", or outrage at some indecent racist incidents. I do not even mean a badly organized Social Cohesion Conference or the discredited Moral Regeneration Movement. I mean a coordinated programme of government utilizing the instruments of state and institutions supporting democracy, like the Human Rights Commission, to drive a national strategy of social cohesion. Even universities, once the bastions of civilized life as WEB du Bois puts it, producing an intellectual corps for society that is critical, and independent, are now fast becoming reduced to apologists of failed government policies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a critical observer of government and the African National Congress under your leadership, I note that the tenor of government and party is fast drifting towards the conservative, authoritarian, reactionary organization, presiding over a kleptocratic state; and that is intolerant of South Africans expressing themselves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When leaders and governments know that they no longer rule with the consent of the ruled, and without their participation in their democracy they get to be afraid of even their shadows. It often takes on the persona of a playground bullyboy whenever it is unable to answer some pretty sharp critical questions about the conduct of government, and about the prevalence of crime and corruption in South Africa, or about false promises. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ANC is getting to take on a semblance of a mafia organization, a Big Brother that syndicates hard dealings against others, isolates and silences critical voices, and uses state patronage to neutralize and marginalize others. One can observe the makings of a totalitarian, fascist regime.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am reminded proudly that it was not always like that. There has been much over time that South Africans can be very proud of. I can think of Josiah Gumede challenging John Dube for the leadership of the NNC in the 1920s where, as Peter Limb puts it in his magisterial study of THE ANC'S EARLY YEARS, the ANC had become miserable and "getting lost in mist and sea of selfishness" (does that not sound familiar?). Dube, it was judged, had become conservative, and associated with ethnic nationalism. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What we miss today is that radical urgency that Josiah Gumede introduced into NNC politics, that uncompromising commitment to shape the destiny of the oppressed. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead we get a party and President preoccupied with ethnic culturalism, and that has no idea about turning the tide of the economic life of the people of this country. There have been other examples as well which led to the ascendancy of Chief Albert Luthuli, and the removal of the likes of AB Xuma and James Moroka. Nowadays a conservative, reactionary tribal leadership is celebrated and lionised but never censured as it continues to keep a Machiavellian stranglehold and power over the organisation. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ANC is being held captive by reactionary, corrupt forces. The ANC is in danger of being reduced to a tribal club with hangers-on who seek patronage and a hand in the politics of theft.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is exactly such a tribalist sentiment that has caused the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to drive relentlessly a piece of legislation like the Traditional Courts Bill whose constitutionality is suspect, but which more importantly, clearly undermines the advances this nation has made with regard to the rights of women, and it threatens to introduce a layer of criminal justice that parallels that established by the law of the land. In a land where some 50% of the population is made up of young people and women a leadership is required that trusts the instincts of young people and that radically eschews all forms of sexism and disregard for women. A not dissimilar sentiment especially in the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development must explain the abortive Secrecy Bill, and the secret revival of the National Keypoints Act is surely part of this culture of secrecy.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Besides, our country needs a President who understands democracy, especially that a constitutional democracy functions with checks and balances; that power is always exercised under check, and never in an arbitrary manner. The Head of State must be comfortable with the powers of the Constitutional Court and never to threaten at every turn to subject them to review, and to know that good governance flourishes with the oversight of parliament, and of independent organs of state, and that opposition parties are loyal opposition and patriotic and mandated by voters to champion particular positions in the public sphere. Opposition is of no mere nuisance value. It is the lifeblood of democracy. Some of your utterances suggest that you just do not get it.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am raising my voice comprehensively now after having promised in 2009 that I shall hold my peace, and give your government a fair chance to perform. I had warned that much of your "victories" in the run-up to Polokwane and thereafter were merely pyrrhic victories. They would yet come to haunt you, I reasoned. Indeed, they have. But now any political analyst will warn that we are on a drift to a totalitarian state, twisted by a security machinery into silence and worse. Those of us who still have voice are obliged to warn against the prevailing trend. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One way of addressing this confidence deficit would be for the President and all public representatives to be subjected to a probity test, to declare for public scrutiny their tax affairs, and all matters of conflict of interest. It is also not asking too much to expect that all public officers, including civil servants must express confidence in the system they preside over by sending their children to state schools, and to utilize public health facilities. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This must surely include all public sector unions like NEHAWU and SADTU. Leadership matters. Leadership must be accountable and must be exemplary, and must be inspirational. That is where you fail.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please spare us another five years under your leadership. Spare yourself any further embarrassment of ineffectual leadership. You will be judged harshly by future generations. I ask you solemnly, resign.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yours sincerely</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />BP</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<i>Who is Barney Pityana?</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<img alt="Zuma asked to resign from public office" src="http://www.sapromo.com/media/k2/items/cache/9ceda37e8dd02e290ba6ca0c349431b8_M.jpg" /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<i><br />He was in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape and attended the University of Fort Hare near Alice, also in the Eastern Cape. He was one of the founding members of the South African Students' Organisation of the Black Consciousness Movement with Steve Biko and a member of the African National Congress Youth League (long before the days of idiots like Malema – Ed.)</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<i>He was suspended from university for challenging the authority of the Afrikaans teachers and the apartheid principles of the then "Bantu education". He did eceive a degree from the University of South Africa in 1976 but was barred from practicing law in Port Elizabeth by the apartheid government who also banned him from public activity.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<i>In 1978 he went into exile, studying theology at King's College London and training for the ministry Ripon College Cuddesdon in Oxford. Thereafter he served as an Anglican curate in Milton Keynes and as a vicar in Birmingham. From 1988 to 1992 he was Director of the Programme to Combat Racism at the World Council of Churches in Geneva.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<i>Pityana returned to South Africa in 1993, following the end of apartheid. He continued working in theology and human rights, completing a PhD in Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town in 1995. He was appointed a member of the South African Human Rights Commission in 1995, and served as chairman of the commission from 1995 to 2001. He also served on the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights at the Organisation of African Unity in 1997. Professor Pityana became Vice-Chancellor and Principal for the University of South Africa in 2001 and held the position for nine years.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://www.sapromo.com/news/item/1560-zuma-asked-to-resign-from-public-office">http://www.sapromo.com/news/item/1560-zuma-asked-to-resign-from-public-office</a></i></div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-12481907303094896312013-12-10T12:42:00.000+02:002013-12-10T12:42:31.223+02:00Mandela's Death Raises Leadership Questions<h3 class="intro">
Former president Thabo Mbeki on Sunday challenged
South Africa’s leadership to ask if they are living up to Nelson
Mandela’s standards, in a pointed public challenge to his ANC comrades.</h3>
<h3 class="intro">
<img alt="" height="253" src="http://www.timeslive.co.za/Feeds/2013/12/07/1076756_894518.jpg/ALTERNATES/crop_630x400/1076756_894518.jpg" width="400" /> </h3>
<b>Mbeki </b>— who succeed Mandela as president in 1999 and was ultimately
ousted by Jacob Zuma in a party coup — questioned whether current
leaders were living up to Mandela’s values.<br />
<br />
“I think to celebrate his life properly we need to ask ourselves a
question about the quality of leadership,” Mbeki told a prayer gathering
at the Oxford Shul synagogue in Johannesburg.<br />
<br />
“To say: ’to what extent are we measuring up to the standard they
(Nelson Mandela and his generation) set in terms of the quality of
leadership?’” <br />
<br />
The leadership of the ruling African National Congress,
previously headed by Mandela and Mbeki, has come under increasing fire
over claims of nepotism and corruption.<br />
<br />
The ANC under Zuma is preparing for national elections next year even
as he faces accusations of <b>using $20 million worth of taxpayer money on
upgrading his private residence.</b><br />
<br />
Mbeki said the remaining task of transforming South Africa into a
truly free, fair and equal society was “in many respects more difficult
than the struggle to end the system of apartheid”.<br />
<br />
“Surely that must mean that therefore this challenge of leadership
becomes much more important, much more complex in the context of what
needs to be done,” he added.<br />
<br />
Mbeki, South Africa’s president until Zuma took over in 2008, said
<b>South Africans must examine their loyalty</b> to the values that Nelson
Mandela and his generation had espoused.<br />
<br />
“Are we in whatever echelon of our society, whatever we are doing in
politics, in business, in unions, in civil society ... <b>do we have the
quality of leadership </b>such as was exemplified by Mandela and others,
sufficient to respond to the challenges we face?” he said.<br />
<br />
“As we celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela this becomes a central
task, that we reflect on what needs to be done to sustain his legacy, to
ensure that we do not betray what he and others sacrificed for, what he
and others stood for.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2013/12/08/mandela-s-death-raises-leadership-questions-mbeki">http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2013/12/08/mandela-s-death-raises-leadership-questions-mbeki</a>Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-17071572983343304662013-12-10T12:24:00.003+02:002013-12-10T12:24:55.956+02:00Who From Around The World<h2 class="headline">
Who is coming to South Africa for the Mandela memorial......</h2>
<h2 class="headline">
<img alt="" height="253" src="http://www.timeslive.co.za/Feeds/ipad_images/2013/12/09/ttp15bigread10-09-12-2013-16-12-09-545-.jpg/ALTERNATES/crop_630x400/TTP15BIGREAD10-09-12-2013-16-12-09-545-.jpg" width="400" /> </h2>
<h2 class="headline">
<span style="font-size: small;">A projection of the face of former South African President Nelson
Mandela and his clan name Madiba is projected onto the face of Table
Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.</span></h2>
<div class="headline">
<span style="font-size: small;">More than 100 heads of state and government -- current
and past -- as well as scores of celebrities and heads of international
organisations have confirmed their presence at a memorial ceremony for
former South African president Nelson Mandela, who died last week aged
95.</span></div>
<div class="intro">
<br /></div>
<div class="intro">
"By noon today, 9th December 2013, 91 heads of state and 10 former
heads of state confirmed they will attend the memorial at FNB
Stadium" on Tuesday, Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane
told the SAPA news agency.</div>
<div class="intro">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
Only Britain's Prince Charles has so far announced
his presence at the funeral itself, to be held Sunday in the
southern village of Qunu where Mandela spent his childhood.</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
The following are among those who have confirmed
their presence at Tuesday's event:</div>
<div align="left">
<br /></div>
<div align="left">
<strong>Leaders</strong>
</div>
<ul>
<li>US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. Three
predecessors, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton,
along with Secretary of State and former first lady Hillary
Clinton, will also be present.</li>
<li>French President Francois Hollande, accompanied by his
predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.</li>
<li>British Prime Minister David Cameron</li>
<li>Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff</li>
<li>President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmud Abbas</li>
<li>Cuban President Raul Castro</li>
<li>Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan</li>
<li>Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara</li>
<li>Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper</li>
<li>Afghan President Hamid Karzai</li>
<li>Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki</li>
<li>Indian President Pranab Mukherjee</li>
<li>German President Joachim Gauck</li>
<li>Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati</li>
<li>Chinese Vice President Liu Yuanchao</li>
<li>Bangladeshi President Abdul Hamid</li>
<li>Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain</li>
<li>Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa</li>
<li>Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</li>
</ul>
<div align="left">
<strong>Royals</strong>
</div>
<ul>
<li>British Prince Charles</li>
<li>The King of the Netherlands Willem-Alexander</li>
<li>Crown Prince of Denmark Frederik</li>
<li>Crown Prince Haakon of Norway</li>
<li>Saudi Prince and Second Deputy Prime Minister Muqrin bin
Abdulaziz Al-Saud</li>
<li>Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito</li>
</ul>
<div align="left">
<strong>International organisations</strong>
</div>
<ul>
<li>United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon</li>
<li>Chair of the African Union Commission Nkosazana Dlamini
Zuma</li>
<li>European Union President Herman van Rompuy</li>
<li>Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former Finnish
president Martti Ahtisaari, Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi and
ex-Irish president Mary Robinson will represent the group called
The Elders, founded by Mandela in 2007.</li>
</ul>
<div align="left">
<strong>Celebrities</strong>
</div>
<ul>
<li>US talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey, singer and activist Bono,
British singer Peter Gabriel and British magnate Richard Branson
are among the stars attending the ceremony.</li>
</ul>
<div align="left">
<strong>The absent</strong>
</div>
<ul>
<li>The Dalai Lama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
father of the Cuban revolution Fidel Castro.</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2013/12/09/who-is-coming-to-south-africa-for-the-mandela-memorial">Times Live</a><br />
<h2 class="headline">
</h2>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-85698826364794754862013-12-10T11:34:00.002+02:002013-12-10T11:34:19.388+02:00Mandela V Zuma<br />
<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<img alt="Tainted: President Jacob Zuma is the embodiment of how the African National Congress, the oldest liberation movement in the world, has rotted from within" class="blkBorder" height="400" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/12/07/article-2519690-19EBC65B00000578-397_306x423.jpg" width="289" /> </div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">By </span><br />
<h1 id="ext-gen79">
STEPHEN ROBINSON</h1>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Yesterday, I telephoned an old friend
in Johannesburg to commiserate with her about the death of Nelson
Mandela. What depressed her, she said, was not so much the passing of
her 95-year-old political hero, but having to watch his successor
announce it to the world.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">‘To
see Jacob Zuma standing there in front of the TV cameras made me feel
sick,’ she said. ‘He is the absolute opposite of everything Mandela
believed in and lived for.’</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">As
the world watches the Mandela obsequies being played out, a preening
President Zuma will be the awful spectre at the wake, escorting
presidents, prime ministers and princes around the ceremonies.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">He
is the embodiment of how the African National Congress, the oldest
liberation movement in the world, has rotted from within and abandoned
its founding principles as the defender of the poor and powerless black
majority.</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Tainted: President Jacob Zuma is the embodiment </span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">of how the African
National Congress, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">the oldest liberation movement in the </span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">world, has
rotted from within.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">On the very day
that Mandela died, a crisis was approaching in a long-running scandal
about £14.5 million of state money used to upgrade Zuma’s private home
in a dirt-poor part of rural Zululand.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<img class="irc_mut" height="253" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQhbJhi6mnk0lyGAslWa4V5EBzYeSqfLjjOFR_iSrA_zyP-p-Ba" style="margin-top: 39px;" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;"> Nkandla - before.</span><br />
<br />
<img class="irc_mut" height="213" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRUOoGVg6vfzFZ8bhRwRAMSN-YharS_xrmOYwFMmM62CfV0OG4blQ" style="margin-top: 65px;" width="400" /><br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;"> Nkandla - after.</span><br />
<img class="irc_mut" height="225" id="irc_mi" src="http://www.sabc.co.za/wps/wcm/connect/0dd2cd004e562776a588b7f251b4e4e2/NkandlaMap%2B%281%29.jpg?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=0dd2cd004e562776a588b7f251b4e4e2" style="margin-top: 84px;" width="400" /><br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">After
colluding with Zuma in keeping an official report into the project
secret, the ANC this week gave in to pressure and said South Africans do
indeed have the right to know how their money was spent.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">It
is likely that the <b>opposition in Parliament </b>will make <b>token efforts t</b>o
impeach Zuma, but equally certain that because the public is so inured
to corruption, he will be re-elected president in next year’s elections.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Not
that Zuma is alone in funnelling state money for his own benefit. <b>Today
in South Africa, no road is built, no hole dug, no airport terminal
extended without the payment of kickbacks</b> to the politically
well-connected.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">In life,
Mandela — who, as a foreign correspondent, I watched walk free from
prison near Cape Town on February 11, 1990 — held his nation together. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Today the country faces uncertainty. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said
this week: ‘What is going to happen to us now our father has died?’ </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">True,
Mandela was scarcely well for the past five years or so, but that did
not matter, for his very presence — weak as he was — served as a
restraining force against those who might push too far against the
ideals of the transition to democracy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">When
he lived, he was a symbol of hope, and a warning of what might have
been had the last white President F.W. de Klerk not had the courage to
free him, and had Mandela lacked the grace to reciprocate with peace and
reconciliation.</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br /><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">In a conscious disavowal of Mandela’s
pleas for non-violence and non-racialism, <b>Zuma peppers political rallies
with performances of an old ANC guerrilla song, Bring Me My Machine
Gun. </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">This is a man who was <b>acquitted on rape charges </b>after explaining to
the judge that the alleged victim was wearing a short skirt: ‘<i>In Zulu
culture, you cannot leave a woman if she is ready.’ </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">When
it was pointed out that the woman was known to be HIV positive and that
Zuma had not used a condom, he famously explained that he had taken the
precaution of showering after the act.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Since Mandela retired as president in 1999,<b> South Africa has plunged down </b>the international rankings of good governance. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="clear">
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">A
recent survey found that very nearly <b>half the South Africans who
required a service from a government official in the past year had been
required to pay a bribe.</b> If township dwellers want a water pipe extended
to their home, they have to grease palms. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">In
the Johannesburg suburbs, the police set up road blocks next to
cashpoint machines so motorists can readily get money for the bribes to
avoid having to waste hours at the police station on trumped-up driving
charges.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">These hazards may
seem relatively trivial. We are talking about Africa, after all, not
some immaculately democratic Swiss canton. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">And,
for sure, most South Africans still feel an overpowering sense of
relief that their just departed leader steered the ship of state away
from racial warfare when he was released from prison nearly 24 years
ago. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="clear">
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Yet
still, the downward trajectory is disturbing. And the great fear, now
that Mandela is no longer there, is that <b>South Africa could spiral ever
more rapidly into decline.</b> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">We
in Europe must take our share of blame for the country’s embedded
corruption. Much of it was established as far back as 1998, when our
defence companies offered tens of millions of pounds in bribes to secure
contracts as the South African government under Mandela sought to
upgrade its weapons capacity.</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The foreign arms companies polluted
the South African political well, and ever since it has been getting
more and more toxic. The result of this rampant corruption is that South
Africans — especially the young — are increasingly rejecting the
political process. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Matters
are not helped by the fact that there are no jobs for millions of young
South Africans who complain the ANC now entrenches for the black elite
what apartheid did for whites. It is true that the old apartheid state
was corrupt. Sanctions, and the secrecy they impose on all manner of
trading deals, are always a great boon to the corrupt officials looking
for a backhander.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">It was
also, as we know, brutally repressive. I lived in South Africa for much
of the Eighties, and I’ll never forget the police commander who was
asked by a foreign journalist whether it was strictly necessary for his
men to fire live rounds at protesting school children who were hurling
bricks.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">‘When they throw
rubber rocks at us, my men will fire rubber bullets at them,’ the
commander replied, as though the journalist was just a little bit dim.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">What
is so depressing today is how much of that abhorrent apartheid mind-set
has survived the transition to black majority rule. The South African
police always used to be brutal in apartheid days. </span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Today, they are not
only brutal — they are corrupt from top to bottom.</span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Compelling
evidence is now emerging that 34 striking miners killed last year at
the Marikana platinum mine in the north of the country were actually the
victims of a pre-planned police ambush. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">In
the worst traditions of South Africa in the apartheid era, this
grotesque police massacre was obscured from public view as long as
possible by the authorities. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">According to a recent survey, <b>the two least respected groups in South Africa are the police and the judiciary. </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">When
criminals are caught and charged, the wealthy can find a way to bribe
the police and prosecutors to ensure they never go to court.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">For years, South Africans have fretted about their country after Mandela, and worried what the future will bring. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">When
Mandela walked free from jail, white South Africans worried the country
could be convulsed by mayhem. They thought, or at least they claimed to
think, that black South Africans would indulge themselves in an orgy of
tribal violence, pitching tribes such as the Zulu and Xhosa against
each other.</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br /><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">It did not happen then, and will not happen now. South Africa will not descend into total chaos; it will not ‘collapse’. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">But even under a man with the skill, charm, and steel of Mandela, <b>the country came perilously close to disaster. </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>And
it is impossible to see how it can do anything but become more
dangerous, more corrupt, and more impoverished under the shabby
leadership of a ‘100 per cent Zulu boy’.</b></span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2519690/When-Mandela-freed-hes-plunging-South-Africa-violence.html">dailymail</a></div>
</div>
</div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-65196792549297622682013-12-09T13:53:00.002+02:002013-12-09T13:53:25.761+02:00Beyond Mourning<div class="text parbase section">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="drop-capped">L</span>ONDON—In Johannesburg a few months
ago, I asked a young, black, and politically savvy South African
journalist how his newspaper would cover Nelson Mandela's death. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">He
shook his head: He dearly wished not to have to cover it at all. "I just
hope I'm not in the office that day. I just hope I'm away, maybe in a
different country."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span><div class="section authorbox">
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span><div class="text parbase section">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">He knew, of course, what Mandela's death would bring: a moment of
national reckoning, an assessment of "what have we achieved" in the
years since Mandela's release from prison in 1990 and his inauguration
as South Africa's first black president in 1994. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I told the young man
that what was written in the wake of Mandela's death would probably
reveal less about the man and more about his country. He agreed: That's
exactly what he didn't want to have to face.</span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span><div class="text parbase section">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And that’s exactly what has happened. As my journalist colleague
predicted, <b>the world’s sudden focus on Mandela's life has already begun
to cast South Africa’s current leaders in an unflattering light. </b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Mandela looms like a one-man Mount Rushmore over his successors," David
Smith <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/06/nelson-mandela-death-what-now-south-africa" target="_blank">wrote</a> for the <em>Guardian</em>, "throwing their flaws into sharp relief." </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The <em>Economist</em>, more bluntly, <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/12/daily-chart-6" target="_blank">points out</a>
that <span style="color: red;"><b>"misguided governance, low-quality education, skills shortages and
massive unemployment levels of around 40%" have made the black
population of South Africa "more disadvantaged today than when Nelson
Mandela was still behind bars."</b></span></span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span><div class="text parbase section">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This may only be the beginning. After all, without Mandela, the
African National Congress—the party he first joined in 1943 and that he
led to electoral victory half a century later—<b>will quickly lose whatever
remains of its revolutionary magic. </b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Without Mandela, the ANC can no
longer pretend to be a party, as he once put it, with a "noble cause":
It is simply the party of power. Although South African democracy is
extraordinarily healthy in many senses—its media, judiciary, and civil
society function well—ANC candidates have until now won most national,
and regional, elections by enormous margins. That means that people join
the party in large numbers to get jobs, to get contracts, to get ahead.</span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span><div class="text parbase section">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In this narrow sense, the ANC now functions like the Chinese
Communist Party: The most important political debates in South Africa
take place within its ranks and at its congresses. Actual electoral
contests matter much less. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The consequences of 20 years of mostly
one-party rule are the same for South Africa as they are in China:
ANC-owned companies enjoy privileged access to state contracts, <b>ANC
politicians have been involved in complex cases of corruption,
businesses often succeed or fail because of their political contacts and
not because of their merit.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b> </b> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Without real political competition, ANC
politicians are not motivated to reform a state that still doles out
patronage to black insiders, just as the apartheid state once reserved
its jobs and contracts for whites. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While in Johannesburg, I met a
politician from the Democratic Alliance, the ANC’s most serious rival.
He explained, convincingly, how his party has made big changes in the
Western Cape, where it runs the regional government. But no one yet
believes the party can win a national vote.</span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span><div class="text parbase section">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There are reasons why the ANC continues to win elections,
legitimately, even while failing to deliver much in the way of economic
growth to its supporters. So far, <b>rival parties have failed to capture
the national imagination,</b> even if some have done well in some regions. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So far, the ANC has persuaded black voters that they would be
"outsiders," even traitors, if they voted for others. But Mandela's
aura—the patina of history and glamour he lent to the party—were also
part of the explanation. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">During its last elections, in 2009, one South
African journalist wrote that it felt as though the ANC were still
"overseen by a pantheon of deities, including Mandela."</span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span><div class="text parbase section">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">During the long months of Mandela's illness, many in South Africa
almost seemed offended by the idea that his death would bring some kind
of radical change. He had, after all, been out of politics for a long
time, and his greatest achievement—the peaceful transition to democratic
rule—is not under threat. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But although it might be uncomfortable, his
death should cause South Africans to look critically at the state he
helped create and, above all, at the ANC, the party he led. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If South
Africans really want to honor Mandela’s memory, they should deepen South
Africa’s democracy, and vote for somebody else.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/12/nelson_mandela_and_the_anc_south_africa_needs_new_leaders.html">http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/12/nelson_mandela_and_the_anc_south_africa_needs_new_leaders.html</a> </span></span><br />
</div>
Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1466475466278691193.post-42009906171627452792013-12-09T10:07:00.001+02:002013-12-09T10:08:25.957+02:00Perceptions....<img alt="Image Title" height="252" src="http://www.timeslive.co.za/incoming/2013/12/09/queen.jpg/ALTERNATES/crop_630x400/Queen.jpg" width="400" />Jazziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08323019662712418667noreply@blogger.com0