Friends, humans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Mandela, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
So let it be with Mandela. The ignoble Media
Hath told you Mandela was a god.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Mandela answered it.
Here, under leave of his victims and the rest—
For victims are honorable men and women;
So are they all, all honorable men—
Come I to speak in Mandela’s funeral.
He was not my friend, having sworn to murder me.
But the Marxist media says he was a man of peace,
And the Marxist media has enormous power.
He hath chased many South Africans from home
Has taxed the rest for the ANC BEE pockets to fill.
Did this in Mandela seem full of peace?
When that the poor have cried, Mandela hath made deals.
Democracy should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet you all say he was Madiba,
And you all pretend to be honorable men.
You all did see that on the farms and towns
The citizens are murdered in race wars,
AmaBhulu. Was this peace, democracy and freedom for all?
Yet you all say he was a man of peace,
And, sure, you will believe it.
I speak not to disprove what the media spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
My family, my friends, the killed, the murdered, those who live
In fear every single day. This is Mandela’s legacy.
Those who emigrate, those who are raped,
Dismembered, fearful and poor
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds me then to mourn for him?
O judgment! Read his history not his fables,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me.
My heart is in the coffin there, not with Mandela,
But with my dead cousins, comrades and friends.
TAKEN FROM A FACEBOOK PAGE: Posted by Renier Van Loggerenberg
Crime is Crime Corruption is Corruption Murder is Murder Rape is Rape Facts are Facts
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
What Are You Going To Do With Your Mandela Minutes ?
Well, lets see – first I am going to think for 67 minutes about how the retard De Klerk handed over our once great country to a terrorist and his merry band of corrupted misfits!!
This in itself may cause me to drink strong liquor for 67 minutes!!
Then I will pack 67 new rounds of ammunition into my bedside drawer, in the hope that I can take 67 criminal ANC supporters with me when they eventually come for me.
I will increase the already high voltage that goes to my electric fence by 67 watts of power in the hope of frying one of his moronic followers.
Then I will add 67 cans of food to my stash that will keep me and my family alive when the savages are starving in a hell of their own creation.
I will also visit my old pensioner parents for at least 67 minutes, seeing as the only reason we still have an infrastructure in this country is because of them and their generation of hard working white folks! An infrastructure that the ANC is still riding on!
I will also walk my dogs for 67 minutes because they are loyal, loving and deserve my time – unlike Mandela and his misfits!!
I will also spend 67 minutes donating money to poor white families with hungry white children that the ANC has decided they are not willing to help simply because they are white.
Then I will again spend 67 minutes teaching white women how to disable and permanently maim an attacker that has come to rape her in her own house!!
I will also spend 67 minutes on the Internet telling the world what a corrupt and murderous bunch of criminals we have in our government.
Then just to be fair to Mandela I will spend 67 minutes in quite contemplation remembering the innocent people that were brutally murdered by his bombs. What I will never do is spend 67 minutes doing anything that glorifies a terrorist!
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!! You bunch of sycophantic 67 minute morons!! Doing anything to glorify the ANC and its idol would be an egregious error of enormous stupidity that would be a slap in the face of my forefathers that built this country!
Now before you jump on your little horse and attack me do yourself a favor and think about what I have said for 67 minutes.
Oh damn!! I forgot, you need brains to think!!
Monday, July 15, 2013
Mandela Names
Mr Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is sometimes called by other names.
Each name has its own special meaning and story. When you use them you should know what you are saying and why. So here is a brief explanation of each name.
Rolihlahla – This is Mr Mandela’s birth name: it is an isiXhosa name which means “pulling the branch of a tree”, but colloquially it means “troublemaker”. His father gave him this name.
Nelson – This name was given to him on his first day at school by his teacher, Miss Mdingane. Giving African children English names was a custom among Africans in those days and was influenced by British colonials who could not easily, and often would not, pronounce African names. It is unclear why Miss Mdingane chose the name “Nelson” for Mr Mandela.
Madiba – This is the name of the clan of which Mr Mandela is a member. A clan name is much more important than a surname as it refers to the ancestor from which a person is descended. Madiba was the name of a Thembu chief who ruled in the Transkei in the 18th century. It is considered very polite to use someone’s clan name.
Tata – This isiXhosa word means “father” and is a term of endearment that many South Africans use for Mr Mandela. Since he is a father figure to many, they call him Tata regardless of their own age.
Khulu – Mr Mandela is often called “Khulu”, which means great, paramount, grand. The speaker means “Great One” when referring to Mr Mandela in this way. It is also a shortened form of the isiXhosa word “uBawomkhulu” for “grandfather”.
Dalibhunga – This is the name Mr Mandela was given at the age of 16 once he had undergone initiation, the traditional Xhosa rite of passage into manhood. It means “creator or founder of the council” or “convenor of the dialogue”. The correct use of this name when greeting Mr Mandela is “Aaah! Dalibhunga”.
Other names – Of course, Mr Mandela’s family use many terms of endearment for him. His grandchildren use variants of “Grandfather”, like “Granddad” for instance. Mrs Graça Machel frequently uses “Papa”.
Mandela Genealogy
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born July 18, 1918)
Parents
Father: Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Henry (died circa 1927)
Mother: Noqaphi Nosekeni (died 1968)
Mother: Noqaphi Nosekeni (died 1968)
Mr Mandela has been married three times.
He had six children, four girls and two boys.
He had six children, four girls and two boys.
A daughter and two sons passed away: Makaziwe died as an infant in 1948; Madiba Thembekile [Thembi] died in a car accident in 1969 and Makgatho Lewanika died of an AIDS-related illness in 2005.
His surviving children are Pumla Makaziwe [Maki], Zenani and Zindziswa [Zindzi]
Marriage
1944 Married Evelyn Ntoko Mase (born 1922, died April 30, 2004) – Divorced March 19, 1958
June 14, 1958 Married Winifred Nomzamo Zanyiwe Madikizela (born 1936) – Divorced March 19, 1996
July 18, 1998 Married Graça Machel (born 1945)
Children
With Evelyn Mase
1. Madiba Thembekile Mandela (born 1945, died July 13, 1969 aged 24)
2. Makaziwe Mandela (died 1948 aged nine months)
3. Magkatho Lewanika Mandela (born 1950, died January 6, 2005 aged 55)
4. Pumla Makaziwe Mandela (born 1954)
2. Makaziwe Mandela (died 1948 aged nine months)
3. Magkatho Lewanika Mandela (born 1950, died January 6, 2005 aged 55)
4. Pumla Makaziwe Mandela (born 1954)
With Winnie Mandela
5. Zenani Dlamini (born 1959)
6. Zindzi Mandela (born 1960)
6. Zindzi Mandela (born 1960)
Grandchildren
1. Ndileka Mandela [1965—F—Thembi]
2. Nandi Mandela [1968—F—Thembi]
3. Mandla Mandela [1974—M—Makgatho]
4. Ndaba Mandela [1983—M—Makgatho]
5. Mbuso Mandela [1991—M—Makgatho]
6. Andile Mandela [1993—M—Makgatho]
7. Tukwini Mandela [1974—F—Makaziwe]
8. Dumani Mandela[1976—M—Makaziwe]
9. Kweku Mandela [1985—M—Makaziwe]
10. Zaziwe Manaway [1977—F—Zenani]
11. Zamaswazi Dlamini [1979—F—Zenani]
12. Zinhle Dlamini [1980—M—Zenani]
13. Zozuko Dlamini [1992—M—Zenani]
14. Zoleka Mandela [1980—F—Zindzi]
15. Zondwa Mandela [1985—M—Zindzi]
16. Bambatha Mandela [1989—M—Zindzi]
17. Zwelabo Mandela [1992—M—Zindzi]
2. Nandi Mandela [1968—F—Thembi]
3. Mandla Mandela [1974—M—Makgatho]
4. Ndaba Mandela [1983—M—Makgatho]
5. Mbuso Mandela [1991—M—Makgatho]
6. Andile Mandela [1993—M—Makgatho]
7. Tukwini Mandela [1974—F—Makaziwe]
8. Dumani Mandela[1976—M—Makaziwe]
9. Kweku Mandela [1985—M—Makaziwe]
10. Zaziwe Manaway [1977—F—Zenani]
11. Zamaswazi Dlamini [1979—F—Zenani]
12. Zinhle Dlamini [1980—M—Zenani]
13. Zozuko Dlamini [1992—M—Zenani]
14. Zoleka Mandela [1980—F—Zindzi]
15. Zondwa Mandela [1985—M—Zindzi]
16. Bambatha Mandela [1989—M—Zindzi]
17. Zwelabo Mandela [1992—M—Zindzi]
Great-grandchildren
1. Ziyanda Manaway [2000—M—Zaziwe]
2. Zipokhazi Manaway [2009—F—Zaziwe]
3. Zenani Mandela [1997–2010—F—Zoleka ]
4. Zwelami Mandela [2003—M—Zoleka]
5. Zamakhosi Obiri [2008—F—Zamaswazi]
6. Thembela Mandela [1984—M—Ndileka]
7. Pumla Mandela [1993—F—Ndileka]
8. Hlanganani Mandela [1986—M—Nandi]
9. Zazi Kazimla Vitalia Mandela [2010—F—Zondwa]
10. Lewanika Ngubencuka Mandela [2010—M—Ndaba]
11. Zenawe Zibuyile Mandela [2011–2011—M—Zoleka]
12. Qheya II Zanethemba Mandela [2011—M—Mandla]
13. Ziwelene Linge Mandela [2011—M—Zondwa]
14. Zenkosi John Brunson Manaway [2012—M—Zaziwe]
2. Zipokhazi Manaway [2009—F—Zaziwe]
3. Zenani Mandela [1997–2010—F—Zoleka ]
4. Zwelami Mandela [2003—M—Zoleka]
5. Zamakhosi Obiri [2008—F—Zamaswazi]
6. Thembela Mandela [1984—M—Ndileka]
7. Pumla Mandela [1993—F—Ndileka]
8. Hlanganani Mandela [1986—M—Nandi]
9. Zazi Kazimla Vitalia Mandela [2010—F—Zondwa]
10. Lewanika Ngubencuka Mandela [2010—M—Ndaba]
11. Zenawe Zibuyile Mandela [2011–2011—M—Zoleka]
12. Qheya II Zanethemba Mandela [2011—M—Mandla]
13. Ziwelene Linge Mandela [2011—M—Zondwa]
14. Zenkosi John Brunson Manaway [2012—M—Zaziwe]
Mandela's Trials and Prison Time Line
Prison numbers
- 7 November 1962: 19476/62 – Pretoria Local Prison
- 1963: 11657/63 – Pretoria Local Prison. When he returned to Pretoria after a short spell on Robben Island
- June 1964: 466/64 – Robben Island
- March 1982: 220/82 – Pollsmoor Prison
- 7 December 1988: 1335/88 – Victor Verster Prison
Trials and prison chronology
2 December 1952: Nelson Mandela is convicted with 19 others for his role in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and sentenced to nine months' hard labour, suspended for two years
21 March 1960: Sixty-nine peaceful protesters are killed by police at Sharpeville
8 April 1960: Apartheid regime bans the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)
29 March 1961: Mandela is acquitted with 27 remaining accused in the four-and-a-half year Treason Trial. Immediately goes underground
11 January 1962: Leaves the country for military training and to gather support for the newly formed armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto weSizwe
23 July 1962: Returns to South Africa via Botswana
5 August 1962: Arrested at a roadblock near Howick, KwaZulu-Natal
7 November 1962: Sentenced to five years for incitement and leaving the country illegally. Begins serving his sentence at Pretoria Local Prison and is assigned the prisoner number 19476/62
27 May 1963: Transferred to Robben Island Prison
12 June 1963: Transferred to Pretoria Local Prison
9 October 1963: Appears, for the first time, with 10 others in the Palace of Justice in Pretoria. They become the accused in the Rivonia Trial. The case is remanded to 29 October
Accused:
Nelson Mandela
Walter Sisulu
Govan Mbeki
Ahmed Kathrada
Raymond Mhlaba
Denis Goldberg
Elias Motsoaledi
Rusty Bernstein
Bob Hepple
Andrew Mlangeni
James Kantor
Nelson Mandela
Walter Sisulu
Govan Mbeki
Ahmed Kathrada
Raymond Mhlaba
Denis Goldberg
Elias Motsoaledi
Rusty Bernstein
Bob Hepple
Andrew Mlangeni
James Kantor
29 October 1963: The defence applies for the quashing of the indictment alleging 199 acts of sabotage
30 October 1963: Prosecutor Percy Yutar announces that Bob Hepple would become a state witness. He is released and skips the country. The indictment against the 10 others is quashed. They are immediately rearrested
1 November 1963: Justice De Wet refuses bail to Kantor and Bernstein. The case is remanded to 12 November
12 November 1963: Yutar presents a new indictment splitting the sabotage charges into two parts. The case is remanded to 25 November
25 November 1963: The 199 alleged acts of sabotage are reduced to 193. The defence applies to have the new indictment quashed
26 November 1963: Justice De Wet dismisses the application to have the indictment quashed
27 November 1963: The trial is remanded to 3 December, after Kantor’s new defence requests time to prepare
3 December 1963: The 10 accused plead not guilty to sabotage in the Rivonia Trial
20 April 1964: Mandela makes his famous Speech from the Dock, in which he says he is “prepared to die” for a democratic South Africa
11 June 1964: All except Bernstein and Kantor are convicted of sabotage
12 June 1964: Mandela and seven others are sentenced to life imprisonment
12 June 1964: All except Goldberg are sent to Robben Island to serve their sentences. Goldberg, as the only white person convicted in the trial, is held in Pretoria Central Prison. Mandela is assigned the prisoner number 466/64
24 September 1968: Mandela’s mother Nosekeni dies. He is forbidden from attending her funeral
13 July 1969: Mandela’s eldest son, Thembekile, is killed in a car accident. He is forbidden from attending his funeral
31 March 1982: Mandela, Sisulu, Mhlaba and Mlangeni, and later Kathrada, are transferred to Pollsmoor Prison. Mandela is assigned the prisoner number 220/82
10 February 1985: Rejects President PW Botha's offers to release him and other political prisoners if he renounces violence
28 February 1985: Goldberg, who has been held apart from his comrades for more than 20 years, accepts the offer and is released
3 November 1985: Is admitted to the Volks Hospital in Cape Town for prostate surgery
23 November 1985: Is discharged from the Volks Hospital and held in a cell alone at Pollsmoor Prison, from where he begins communicating with the government about eventual talks with the ANC
16 May 1986: Meets with an Eminent Persons Group from the Commonwealth Group of Nations
20 July 1986: Holds his first meeting with Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee about talks between the government and the ANC
5 November 1987: Govan Mbeki is released from Robben Island
12 August 1988: Is admitted to Tygerberg Hospital, where he is diagnosed with tuberculosis
31 August 1988: Is transferred to Constantiaberg MediClinic to continue his treatment
7 December 1988: Is transferred to Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, where he is held in the house formerly occupied by a warder. Mandela is assigned the prisoner number 1335/88
5 July 1989: Meets PW Botha in his office in Cape Town
15 October 1989: Sisulu, Kathrada, Motsoaledi, Mlangeni and Mhlaba are released, along with Oscar Mpetha and PAC prisoner Jeff Masemola
13 December 1989: Meets President FW de Klerk at his office in Cape Town
2 February 1990: At the opening of Parliament, De Klerk announces the unbanning of all political organisations, including the ANC
10 February 1990: Meets De Klerk and is informed he will be released the next day in Johannesburg. Mandela objects, saying he wants to walk through the gates of Victor Verster Prison, and asks for two weeks for ANC to prepare. De Klerk refuses the extension but agrees to release him at Victor Verster
10 February 1990: De Klerk announces at a press conference that Nelson Mandela will be released the next day
11 February 1990: Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison
11 February 1990: He addresses thousands of well-wishers gathered on the Grand Parade, from the balcony of the City Hall in Cape Town. Spends the night at Bishopscourt, the official residence of the Archbishop of Cape Town
12 February 1990: Holds a press conference in the garden of Bishopscourt. Flies to Johannesburg
12 February 1990: Spends the night in Northriding, at the home of a supporter, Sally Rowney
13 February 1990: Flies to FNB Stadium in Soweto for a welcome home rally
13 February 1990: Spends his first night in decades at his family home, at 8115 Orlando West, Soweto
Mandela's Prison Time Line
Prison timeline with Nelson Mandela's prison numbers
5 August 1962: Arrested
7 November 1962: Sentenced to five years for leaving the country without a passport and incitement. Begins serving his sentence at the Pretoria Local Prison
Prisoner number: 19476/62
Prisoner number: 19476/62
27 May 1963: Is transferred to Robben Island
12 June 1963: Is transferred back to Pretoria Local Prison
Prisoner number: 11657/63
Prisoner number: 11657/63
11 June 1964: Is convicted of sabotage with Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Raymond Mhlaba, Govan Mbeki, Elias Motsoaledi, Denis Goldberg and Andrew Mlangeni
12 June 1964: Is sentenced to life imprisonment with Sisulu, Kathrada, Mhlaba, Mbeki, Motsoaledi, Goldberg and Mlangeni
13 June 1964: Arrives on Robben Island with Sisulu, Kathrada, Mhlaba, Mbeki, Motsoaledi and Mlangeni. Goldberg is sent to Pretoria as he is white
Prisoner number: 466/64
Prisoner number: 466/64
31 March 1982: Is transferred to Pollsmoor Prison with Sisulu, Mhlaba and Mlangeni. They are joined by Kathrada in October
Prisoner number: 220/82
Prisoner number: 220/82
28 February 1985: Goldberg is released
5 November 1987: Mbeki is released from Robben Island
12 August 1988: Is taken to Tygerberg Hospital where TB is diagnosed
31 August 1988: Is transferred to Constantiaberg MediClinic
7 December 1988: Is transferred to Victor Verster Prison
Prisoner number: 1335/88
Prisoner number: 1335/88
15 October 1989: Sisulu, Kathrada, Mhlaba, Motsoaledi and Mlangeni are released with Oscar Mpetha and Jeff Masemola
11 February 1990: Madiba is released from Victor Verster Prison
Nkandla The Tip Of The Iceberg For ZumaVille
As the scandal still simmers around President Jacob Zuma’s R200 million-plus Nkandla home, news has broken that the nearby R2 billion “Zumaville” development is to go ahead.
The Nkandla-Mlalazi Smart Growth Centre, as it is formally known, will be at least half-funded by the state. It will reportedly include a school, libraries, a sport centre with tennis courts, housing, communal gardens, modern residential units, a shopping mall, a college, banking facilities and other amenities.
The Zumaville development is to be built in an area surrounding Nkandla. The mega-project is led by a rural development organisation Zuma chairs, Masibambisane Rural Development Trust, co-headed by a cousin of Zuma’s, Sibusiso “Deebo” Mzobe.
Mzobe is informally known by some as the “mayor of Zumaville” because he is in charge of developing Zuma’s home town of Nkandla.
Mzobe was married in May at a traditional wedding reportedly attended by 8 000 guests, including Zuma.
The Sunday Times reported that the chief of the area, Vela Shange, had given approval for the “Zumaville” development to go ahead.
The Nkandla-Mlalazi Smart Growth Centre is to be built in an area surrounding Nkandla. Picture: Doctor Ngcobo
Independent Newspapers
This came after residents of Shange’s area initially protested that they were not willing to vacate their homes and did not want family grave sites moved to clear space for the various developments.
But Mzobe told the Sunday Times that Shange had given his blessing.
Zuma has in the past denied that his home town had been unfairly advantaged by the project.
Responding to questions in the National Assembly in September, Zuma said he saw no reason why Nkandla should be “punished” because he happened to come from there.
“Should they be punished because they are neighbours to Zuma? I don’t think that is the correct approach.
“Developing that area does not trouble me, it makes me very proud.” But the development has raised the ire of various opponents.
“It is clear that Zuma will derive great benefit from the project in his personal capacity,” AfriForum chief executive Ernst Roets said.
He said the public protector had been asked to probe the matter because the circumstances amounted to an abuse of power by Zuma.
“The president is wearing three hats,” Roets said. “He is the head of the executive authority of government; he is chairman of Masibambisane, the government’s partner in this matter; and as a citizen with a personal interest in Nkandla, he is also a beneficiary.”
DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko previously asked in Parliament how the president could justify spending money in an area “just 3.2km from your homestead” when other impoverished parts of KwaZulu-Natal were left without basic services.
She said within a 100km radius, villages such as Ebizimali and Eqhudeni lacked water and electricity.
Zuma responded by naming 23 poor districts nationwide which had been identified by the government as recipients of upliftment programmes.
“Development goes where it goes at a given time,” he said.
He denied he had instructed the government to give priority to the development project of the new town.
“Government is doing a lot more throughout the country, even beyond the few districts I have mentioned. It is a pity that only Nkandla seems to generate interest,” said Zuma.
Last August, Mazibuko said she would formally ask the chairman of the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), Themba Godi, to investigate why the government had decided to spend so much money on a single village when the money could have been spread across many impoverished rural areas in KZN.
On Sunday, the DA’s representative on Scopa, Dion George, criticised Mzobe’s involvement in another alleged scandal, a R1bn food-for-the-poor development.
Speaking to the Cape Argus last night, George said both the more-recent food matter, as well as “Zumaville”, would be the subject of investigations by the DA’s team on Scopa, “with a view to them both being discussed formally and publicly at Scopa”.
Last October, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela announced that her office would investigate “Zumaville"
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Blast From The Past
OPEN LETTER 14 January 1999
[Blast from the Past: OPEN LETTER 14 January 1999, to a president, about a president & a prime-minister]
The President of the USA (Bill Clinton)
The White House
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr President
In South African newspapers you are reported to have said in a speech at the White House that the present South African President, Nelson Mandela, had taught you not to hate your political enemies. Mandela is said to have told you that he harboured no grudge against his enemies who "cast him into jail". And you, in the speech concerned, said that your (present) crisis could be compared to Mandela's suffering in jail.
You seem to be under some misapprehension about the circumstances of Mandela's incarceration and the crimes for which he was sentenced to imprisonment, otherwise you may not be desirous to identify with him. And you evidently have been given a distorted idea of how the African National Congress (ANC) under direction of its leader, Nelson Mandela, is vengeantly ( infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person) acting against their political enemies and opponents.
Your remark about Mandela's having been "cast into jail" creates a wrong impression. Mr President, he was not "cast into jail": he was charged for acts of sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Judge President of the then Transvaal Division of the South African Supreme Court after a protacted hearing in which he had had representation and every opportunity to defend himself. He, however, refused to take the oath and testify, and could consequently not be taken under cross-examination. Finding him guilty, the Judge said that he had been wrongly charged for acts of sabotage instead of for treason, in which case the sentence would not have been imprisonment but the death penalty. The trial was attended by journalists, jurists and others from all over the world. None could find fault with the proceedings and the findings of the Court.
Even The Rand Daily Mail, the most outspoken liberal newspaper at the time in South Africa, and in many ways a supporter of Mandela and the ANC, wrote about the sentences passed by the judge, “The sentences pronounced by Judge De Wet at the close of the Rivonia trial are both wise and just. The law is best served when there is firmness tinged with mercy, and this was the case yesterday. The sentences could not have been less severe than those imposed. The men found guilty had planned sabotage on a wide scale and had conspired for armed revolution. As the judge pointed out yesterday, the crime of which they were found guilty was really high treason. The death penalty would have been justified.”
These are the facts of history. Sentencing Mandela to imprisonment instead of letting him be hanged was an act of mercy on the part of his political enemies. Mandela has, therefore, every reason to be grateful and not the least reason to harbour a grudge against them. He owes his life to them. You will agree that this puts a completely different complexion on your statement that "he was cast into jail".
This is by no means all of which Mandela should be grateful for. In the time of PW Botha's prime ministership in the 'eighties Mandela was moved from the Robben Island prison to the Pollsmoor prison near Cape Town, where he received VIP treatment. PW Botha was in this way making the first instalments in Mandela's release on the pretext that he would not wish "an old man to die in prison".
From Pollsmoor prison Mandela was moved to the residence of a senior officer on the staff of the Prisons Department in the town of Paarl in the Western Cape. There he had every convenience at his disposal to play a political rôle, including the use of a fax machine. And he was attended to day and night by a white policeman.
After a carefully orchestrated campaign inside and outside South Africa he was released by the FW de Klerk government to a stage-managed reception in Cape Town, receiving prime coverage from the South African Broadcasting Corporation and providing him with a launching pad for political initiatives. Thereafter the De Klerk government in a treasonable series of acts started peace negotiations with the ANC and moved on to draw up a new constitution on the basis of one man, one vote in an undivided South Africa, which in essence meant surrendering to the ANC and enabling Mandela to become the president of South Africa.
The essence of this political move was spelt out by Paul Johnson, well-known British intellectual, in The Spectator in April 1994. "South Africa under F W de Klerk", he said, "Made a suicidal leap to universal suffrage". He predicted that within ten years the country could be the theatre of Africa's endless civil wars. "In any case it would become an industrial rubble heap, beastly, bloody and bankrupt (...) There is not the slightest hope that it (South Africa) will continue to exist on a system of universal suffrage - it is one of the most divided societies on earth: racially, ethnically, linguistically, as well as economically".
This is De Klerk's achievement. You may recall that you at one stage telephoned him and told him that you "marvelled" at what he was achieving in pushing South Africa along this disastrous course.
Some ten months later (February 1995) The Spectator published another article on South Africa in which its readers were told, "A country ravaged by crime and corruption, with plummeting standards and a people condemned to a sordid and brutal life". The article describes the ANC government as "corrupt and incompetent". This is Nelson Mandela's government.
What is revealing is that while De Klerk was treacherously steering the country towards this national misery, newspapers reported: "Britain fights fervently for FW in UN debate". And later: "Brits full of praise for FW as architect of peaceful change". And eventually: "Brits bear De Klerk, their hero, on their hands". Only an Afrikaner who is a traitor to his own people would be regarded by Brits as their hero. And De Klerk became the hero of Brits by letting loose the man who, according to Judge De Wet, should have been hanged for high treason.
You may sense the degree of loathing on the part of Afrikaners like myself, who had a father who fought, was wounded and kept a prisoner-of-war on St Helena Island by the British for more than two years while they devastated the country and caused the death of over 22 000 children under the age of 16 years and who, a few generations thereafter sees De Klerk being treated as a hero by Brits for having "irreversibly" destroyed White South Africa (as in foolish vanity he said his aim was).
As Mr Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Britain, said in January 1998 that the British "never forget the past even when addressing the future", so we naturally also do not forget the past - also the recent past when the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP) had their headquarters in London from where with British moral and other support they conducted their terrorism against South Africa.
In the period September 1984 to August 1989 no fewer than 1770 schools were destroyed or extensively damaged, as were 7187 private homes of Blacks, 10318 buses, 152 trains, 12188 private vehicles, 1265 shops and factories, 60 post offices, 47 churches and 30 health clinics. And, what is even worse, there were 300 cold-blooded murders by the barbarous necklace method and 372 deaths of people trapped in homes set alight by terrorist gangs.
These were the means employed in "the struggle" to bring to power, under Mandela, a Communist-controlled organisation, which Peter Younghusband, in the London Daily Mail in November 1994, described as follows, "The ANC never was worth much as a liberation movement - and apart from a few random urban terrorist acts, its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, was equally worth little as a fighting force (...) the ANC very conveniently sat in exile waiting for the world to bring the White regime to its knees". And, he said, Mandela is unable to run the country, and he and the ANC is steadily reducing South Africa to yet another Third World plodder.
It is one thing to say that Mandela bears his political enemies no grudge, but it is another thing to judge him by what he does, by what he allows, and by what he neglects to do. To consider this one must see it in its historical perspective. When Mandela and his Communist cohorts at their Rivonia hide-out (Lilliesleaf Farm) were planning bloody revolution in the early 'sixties, the Afrikaner Nationalist Government (ANG) was under the leadership of Dr HF Verwoerd. And it was under the direction of Dr Verwoerd that this Communist conspiracy to violently overthrow the South African government was stamped out, Mandela and his collaborators landing in jail and the organisation of the Communist Party of South Africa being destroyed shortly thereafter through the efficient action of the security police in infiltrating the Communist cells.
Verwoerd frustrated and humiliatingly defeated Mandela's plans. And for Mandela there is consequently one political enemy not to be forgiven for saving South Africa from a bloody Communist revolution. That is Hendrik Verwoerd. He and his ghost are haunting those who are destroying the results of his unequalled successful statecraft.
Verwoerd was not only the man under whose direction a Communist-led revolution was prevented. He also became the towering South African statesman of this century, and he was equal, if not superior, to any of his contemporaries in the Western World, a statement that may be evaluated on the ground of his achievements in the face of international enmity from the Anglo-American block, the Communist block and the Afro-Asian block.
He not only secured South Africa's survival against this many-sided onslaught: he, more-over lifted the country to a level of stability, well-being and prosperity seldom, if ever equalled in history anywhere under similar circumstances.
To support this remark let me call opponents and enemies of Verwoerd to testify in this regard. Jan Botha, an outspoken liberal, in his book, Verwoerd is dead, refers to "the threats from the United Nations and the arms boycott by the United States and Britain". Then he writes:
"By the time he died, Dr Verwoerd had built his own monument which was there for all to see: the Republic of South Africa. The White people had been forged together in unity, the country was militarily strong and resilient, the police and security forces were effectively dealing with all attempts at subversion and infiltration, the country's economy was dynamic, expanding and had become largely self-sufficient.
"... in the history of South Africa his name will live for ever as the leader who, when his country was threatened with internal disorders and with economic sanctions, boycotts and open aggression from overseas, stood as a symbol of defiance, and the will and determination to survive".
He not only frustrated the objectives of the great power blocks, but he also defeated the ANC's plans to create internal disorder.
That Jan Botha's was not a lone voice, can be shown by quotations from other sources. Paul Barrow in The Statist shortly before Verwoerd was assassinated on 6 September 1966 by the Communist Tsafendas wrote, "At the rate at which South Africa is now expanding, the term 'miracle' is likely to be appropriate to its development in the next few years".
And on 31 July 1966 the unofficial mouthpiece of the South African liberal establishment The Rand Daily Mail, wrote:
"At the age of nearly 65 Dr Verwoerd has reached the peak of a remarkable career. No other South African prime minister has ever been in such a powerful position in the country. He is at the head of a massive majority after a resounding victory at the polls. The nation is suffering from a surfeit of prosperity and he can command almost unlimited funds for all that he needs at present in the way of military defence. He can claim that South Africa is a shining example of peace in a troubled continent, if only because overwhelming domestic power can always command peace. Finally, as if that were not enough, he can face the session with the knowledge that, short of an unthinkable show of force by people whom South Africans are rapidly being taught to regard as their enemies, he can snap his fingers at the United Nations. Thanks to the recent judgment of the Hague Court he can afford to condescend to the world body, graciously remaining a member as long as it suits him".These are the achievements of the man against whose memory a vendetta is being conducted under the direction of Mandela and his comrades. His name was ordered to be removed from the Verwoerd Building, the Verwoerd Dam, the Verwoerd Hospital, and under Mandela's leadership his statue at the Free State provincial headquarters was pulled down in an act bristling with hatred and vengeance.
Of course, Verwoerd as leader of the Afrikaners being a symbol of his people, the attacks on him have been indirect attacks on the Afrikaners themselves, so that Mandela's followers - never rebuked - felt free to shout: "Kill a farmer, kill a Boer", instigating the killing of hundreds of Afrikaner farmers and their families, 431 in 1997 and 104 from 1 January to 31 August 1998 in 590 attacks.
In the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya in the 'sixties only 39 White farmers were killed and in the terrorist war against Rhodesia only 300 were killed in the course of 14 years. Among those who have had as their battle cry "Kill a farmer, Kill a Boer" is Peter Mokaba, promoted by Mandela to Deputy Minister. Other appointments of identified Communists as Ministers and Deputy Ministers tell the same story, highlighted by the appointment of the Communist Mboweni as President of the SA Reserve Bank in a move to further impoverish Afrikaners in the name of "affirmative action". These are ways in which Mandela has been allowing his grudge against the Afrikaners, as his political enemies, to be exploited, while he goes around pretending that he has no grievance against his enemies.
Even more unmistakable are his appointments to the so-called Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the way in which this commission has conducted its business. It was packed by him with enemies and opponents of the former government. The two Afrikaners, De Jager and Malan, who were included among the 15 other, were in different ways opponents of the previous government. However, De Jager resigned in disappointment, if not disgust, and Malan eventually showed his dissension from the majority by writing a minority report on the Commission's findings.
This commission appointed by Mandela has little to do with truth and nothing with reconciliation.
It is a hybridization between the Nuremberg trials of German war leaders and Stalin's Moscow Show Trials of the nineteen thirties. Its prime objective was to place Afrikaners on the bench of the accused to be prosecuted, tried and convicted by their enemies, and to treat the ANC terrorists on a completely different basis, which resulted in some amazing events.
In flagrant violation of the provisions of the relevant act it, for example, granted amnesty to a bunch of 37 top level ANC leaders for crimes associated with political motives, without specifying the various acts, which is in conflict with the requirements of the law. In this group there are among others, Thabo Mbeki,Leader of the ANC, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nzo, Minister of Justice Omar and Minister of Defence Modise. Although this decision has been nullified by a judicial verdict, nothing has been done to rectify the situation.
In such cases, the Commission's concern was not seeking and revealing the truth, but suppressing and stifling it - a procedure that would not have been countenanced when it concerned Afrikaners of the Security services who fought against the terrorists. They were paraded as criminals who individually under severe pressure had to confess in detail for whatever amnesty was asked for.
In these various ways Mandela created outlets for his grudges against the Afrikaners -- the very people whose representatives saved him from the gallows and later gave him all the help to become the President of South Africa.
Against this background it is dismaying to read that this man has every reason to hate his enemies, yet does not think of retribution! And while allowing a vendetta to be conducted against the Afrikaners, he is presiding over the decay of this country, which the Afrikaners wrestled from the wilderness, fought wars for against imperial powers and, under Dr Verwoerd, was developing into the industrial giant of Africa.
Where under Verwoerd, "the nation was suffering from a surfeit of prosperity", and South Africa "was a shining example of peace on a troubled continent", under Mandela the nation is suffering from a surfeit of poverty and the country has become the crime capital of the world - 137 reported rapes, 63 murders, 73 attempted murders, 176 robberies, 670 housebreakings and 35 highjackings on an average every day of the year. It is common cause that a government that cannot secure the lives and properties of its civilians is unfit to rule.
"South Africa", read a newspaper report on 29 November 1998, "occupies the first or second spot in all forms of crime on the world list for crime, and it is the young people and the homeless who pay the price". Of the thousands who passed the matric examinations in 1998 less than one in 10 will get a job in the formal sector. In the four years of ANC government the national debt more than doubled - from R194 billion ($34 billion) In 1994 to over R400 billion ($70 billion) presently, the interest on which accounts for 21 per cent of the budget.
In the same period the South African rand lost 80 per cent of its value. And in the first ten months of 1998 more than 2,8 million man-days were lost to a wave of industrial strikes.
This is a picture of the country which under Verwoerd had the second highest economic growth rate in the world (7,9% per year), an average inflation rate of 2 per cent, was accommodating new labour in the formal sector at 73,6 per cent per year, and enabled the living standards of Blacks in the industrial sector to rise at 5,3 per cent per year as against those of Whites at 3,9 per cent per year. The Financial Mail published a special survey entitled "The fabulous years: 1961-66". And as the previously mentioned Jan Botha wrote, Verwoerd "had launched the greatest programme of socio-economic upliftment for the non-Whites that South Africa had ever seen".
This, Verwoerd achieved in the face of fierce diplomatic and economic opposition from the United States, Britain, Soviet Russia and others. Mandela, on the other hand, has the blessing and support of these powers, yet under his hand the country is disintegrating and has sunk to a state of lawlessness, joblessness and futurelessness unprecedented in South African history.
Yet, Mandela is not struggling to emulate Verwoerd, but to denigrate him and his people.
Perhaps you will reconsider your emotional identification with Mandela in the light of historical truth.
Yours sincerely
J A MARAIS
LEADER OF THE HNP
[Blast from the Past: OPEN LETTER 14 January 1999, to a president, about a president & a prime-minister]
The President of the USA (Bill Clinton)
The White House
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr President
In South African newspapers you are reported to have said in a speech at the White House that the present South African President, Nelson Mandela, had taught you not to hate your political enemies. Mandela is said to have told you that he harboured no grudge against his enemies who "cast him into jail". And you, in the speech concerned, said that your (present) crisis could be compared to Mandela's suffering in jail.
You seem to be under some misapprehension about the circumstances of Mandela's incarceration and the crimes for which he was sentenced to imprisonment, otherwise you may not be desirous to identify with him. And you evidently have been given a distorted idea of how the African National Congress (ANC) under direction of its leader, Nelson Mandela, is vengeantly ( infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person) acting against their political enemies and opponents.
Your remark about Mandela's having been "cast into jail" creates a wrong impression. Mr President, he was not "cast into jail": he was charged for acts of sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Judge President of the then Transvaal Division of the South African Supreme Court after a protacted hearing in which he had had representation and every opportunity to defend himself. He, however, refused to take the oath and testify, and could consequently not be taken under cross-examination. Finding him guilty, the Judge said that he had been wrongly charged for acts of sabotage instead of for treason, in which case the sentence would not have been imprisonment but the death penalty. The trial was attended by journalists, jurists and others from all over the world. None could find fault with the proceedings and the findings of the Court.
Even The Rand Daily Mail, the most outspoken liberal newspaper at the time in South Africa, and in many ways a supporter of Mandela and the ANC, wrote about the sentences passed by the judge, “The sentences pronounced by Judge De Wet at the close of the Rivonia trial are both wise and just. The law is best served when there is firmness tinged with mercy, and this was the case yesterday. The sentences could not have been less severe than those imposed. The men found guilty had planned sabotage on a wide scale and had conspired for armed revolution. As the judge pointed out yesterday, the crime of which they were found guilty was really high treason. The death penalty would have been justified.”
These are the facts of history. Sentencing Mandela to imprisonment instead of letting him be hanged was an act of mercy on the part of his political enemies. Mandela has, therefore, every reason to be grateful and not the least reason to harbour a grudge against them. He owes his life to them. You will agree that this puts a completely different complexion on your statement that "he was cast into jail".
This is by no means all of which Mandela should be grateful for. In the time of PW Botha's prime ministership in the 'eighties Mandela was moved from the Robben Island prison to the Pollsmoor prison near Cape Town, where he received VIP treatment. PW Botha was in this way making the first instalments in Mandela's release on the pretext that he would not wish "an old man to die in prison".
From Pollsmoor prison Mandela was moved to the residence of a senior officer on the staff of the Prisons Department in the town of Paarl in the Western Cape. There he had every convenience at his disposal to play a political rôle, including the use of a fax machine. And he was attended to day and night by a white policeman.
After a carefully orchestrated campaign inside and outside South Africa he was released by the FW de Klerk government to a stage-managed reception in Cape Town, receiving prime coverage from the South African Broadcasting Corporation and providing him with a launching pad for political initiatives. Thereafter the De Klerk government in a treasonable series of acts started peace negotiations with the ANC and moved on to draw up a new constitution on the basis of one man, one vote in an undivided South Africa, which in essence meant surrendering to the ANC and enabling Mandela to become the president of South Africa.
The essence of this political move was spelt out by Paul Johnson, well-known British intellectual, in The Spectator in April 1994. "South Africa under F W de Klerk", he said, "Made a suicidal leap to universal suffrage". He predicted that within ten years the country could be the theatre of Africa's endless civil wars. "In any case it would become an industrial rubble heap, beastly, bloody and bankrupt (...) There is not the slightest hope that it (South Africa) will continue to exist on a system of universal suffrage - it is one of the most divided societies on earth: racially, ethnically, linguistically, as well as economically".
This is De Klerk's achievement. You may recall that you at one stage telephoned him and told him that you "marvelled" at what he was achieving in pushing South Africa along this disastrous course.
Some ten months later (February 1995) The Spectator published another article on South Africa in which its readers were told, "A country ravaged by crime and corruption, with plummeting standards and a people condemned to a sordid and brutal life". The article describes the ANC government as "corrupt and incompetent". This is Nelson Mandela's government.
What is revealing is that while De Klerk was treacherously steering the country towards this national misery, newspapers reported: "Britain fights fervently for FW in UN debate". And later: "Brits full of praise for FW as architect of peaceful change". And eventually: "Brits bear De Klerk, their hero, on their hands". Only an Afrikaner who is a traitor to his own people would be regarded by Brits as their hero. And De Klerk became the hero of Brits by letting loose the man who, according to Judge De Wet, should have been hanged for high treason.
You may sense the degree of loathing on the part of Afrikaners like myself, who had a father who fought, was wounded and kept a prisoner-of-war on St Helena Island by the British for more than two years while they devastated the country and caused the death of over 22 000 children under the age of 16 years and who, a few generations thereafter sees De Klerk being treated as a hero by Brits for having "irreversibly" destroyed White South Africa (as in foolish vanity he said his aim was).
As Mr Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Britain, said in January 1998 that the British "never forget the past even when addressing the future", so we naturally also do not forget the past - also the recent past when the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP) had their headquarters in London from where with British moral and other support they conducted their terrorism against South Africa.
In the period September 1984 to August 1989 no fewer than 1770 schools were destroyed or extensively damaged, as were 7187 private homes of Blacks, 10318 buses, 152 trains, 12188 private vehicles, 1265 shops and factories, 60 post offices, 47 churches and 30 health clinics. And, what is even worse, there were 300 cold-blooded murders by the barbarous necklace method and 372 deaths of people trapped in homes set alight by terrorist gangs.
These were the means employed in "the struggle" to bring to power, under Mandela, a Communist-controlled organisation, which Peter Younghusband, in the London Daily Mail in November 1994, described as follows, "The ANC never was worth much as a liberation movement - and apart from a few random urban terrorist acts, its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, was equally worth little as a fighting force (...) the ANC very conveniently sat in exile waiting for the world to bring the White regime to its knees". And, he said, Mandela is unable to run the country, and he and the ANC is steadily reducing South Africa to yet another Third World plodder.
It is one thing to say that Mandela bears his political enemies no grudge, but it is another thing to judge him by what he does, by what he allows, and by what he neglects to do. To consider this one must see it in its historical perspective. When Mandela and his Communist cohorts at their Rivonia hide-out (Lilliesleaf Farm) were planning bloody revolution in the early 'sixties, the Afrikaner Nationalist Government (ANG) was under the leadership of Dr HF Verwoerd. And it was under the direction of Dr Verwoerd that this Communist conspiracy to violently overthrow the South African government was stamped out, Mandela and his collaborators landing in jail and the organisation of the Communist Party of South Africa being destroyed shortly thereafter through the efficient action of the security police in infiltrating the Communist cells.
Verwoerd frustrated and humiliatingly defeated Mandela's plans. And for Mandela there is consequently one political enemy not to be forgiven for saving South Africa from a bloody Communist revolution. That is Hendrik Verwoerd. He and his ghost are haunting those who are destroying the results of his unequalled successful statecraft.
Verwoerd was not only the man under whose direction a Communist-led revolution was prevented. He also became the towering South African statesman of this century, and he was equal, if not superior, to any of his contemporaries in the Western World, a statement that may be evaluated on the ground of his achievements in the face of international enmity from the Anglo-American block, the Communist block and the Afro-Asian block.
He not only secured South Africa's survival against this many-sided onslaught: he, more-over lifted the country to a level of stability, well-being and prosperity seldom, if ever equalled in history anywhere under similar circumstances.
To support this remark let me call opponents and enemies of Verwoerd to testify in this regard. Jan Botha, an outspoken liberal, in his book, Verwoerd is dead, refers to "the threats from the United Nations and the arms boycott by the United States and Britain". Then he writes:
"By the time he died, Dr Verwoerd had built his own monument which was there for all to see: the Republic of South Africa. The White people had been forged together in unity, the country was militarily strong and resilient, the police and security forces were effectively dealing with all attempts at subversion and infiltration, the country's economy was dynamic, expanding and had become largely self-sufficient.
"... in the history of South Africa his name will live for ever as the leader who, when his country was threatened with internal disorders and with economic sanctions, boycotts and open aggression from overseas, stood as a symbol of defiance, and the will and determination to survive".
He not only frustrated the objectives of the great power blocks, but he also defeated the ANC's plans to create internal disorder.
That Jan Botha's was not a lone voice, can be shown by quotations from other sources. Paul Barrow in The Statist shortly before Verwoerd was assassinated on 6 September 1966 by the Communist Tsafendas wrote, "At the rate at which South Africa is now expanding, the term 'miracle' is likely to be appropriate to its development in the next few years".
And on 31 July 1966 the unofficial mouthpiece of the South African liberal establishment The Rand Daily Mail, wrote:
"At the age of nearly 65 Dr Verwoerd has reached the peak of a remarkable career. No other South African prime minister has ever been in such a powerful position in the country. He is at the head of a massive majority after a resounding victory at the polls. The nation is suffering from a surfeit of prosperity and he can command almost unlimited funds for all that he needs at present in the way of military defence. He can claim that South Africa is a shining example of peace in a troubled continent, if only because overwhelming domestic power can always command peace. Finally, as if that were not enough, he can face the session with the knowledge that, short of an unthinkable show of force by people whom South Africans are rapidly being taught to regard as their enemies, he can snap his fingers at the United Nations. Thanks to the recent judgment of the Hague Court he can afford to condescend to the world body, graciously remaining a member as long as it suits him".These are the achievements of the man against whose memory a vendetta is being conducted under the direction of Mandela and his comrades. His name was ordered to be removed from the Verwoerd Building, the Verwoerd Dam, the Verwoerd Hospital, and under Mandela's leadership his statue at the Free State provincial headquarters was pulled down in an act bristling with hatred and vengeance.
Of course, Verwoerd as leader of the Afrikaners being a symbol of his people, the attacks on him have been indirect attacks on the Afrikaners themselves, so that Mandela's followers - never rebuked - felt free to shout: "Kill a farmer, kill a Boer", instigating the killing of hundreds of Afrikaner farmers and their families, 431 in 1997 and 104 from 1 January to 31 August 1998 in 590 attacks.
In the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya in the 'sixties only 39 White farmers were killed and in the terrorist war against Rhodesia only 300 were killed in the course of 14 years. Among those who have had as their battle cry "Kill a farmer, Kill a Boer" is Peter Mokaba, promoted by Mandela to Deputy Minister. Other appointments of identified Communists as Ministers and Deputy Ministers tell the same story, highlighted by the appointment of the Communist Mboweni as President of the SA Reserve Bank in a move to further impoverish Afrikaners in the name of "affirmative action". These are ways in which Mandela has been allowing his grudge against the Afrikaners, as his political enemies, to be exploited, while he goes around pretending that he has no grievance against his enemies.
Even more unmistakable are his appointments to the so-called Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the way in which this commission has conducted its business. It was packed by him with enemies and opponents of the former government. The two Afrikaners, De Jager and Malan, who were included among the 15 other, were in different ways opponents of the previous government. However, De Jager resigned in disappointment, if not disgust, and Malan eventually showed his dissension from the majority by writing a minority report on the Commission's findings.
This commission appointed by Mandela has little to do with truth and nothing with reconciliation.
It is a hybridization between the Nuremberg trials of German war leaders and Stalin's Moscow Show Trials of the nineteen thirties. Its prime objective was to place Afrikaners on the bench of the accused to be prosecuted, tried and convicted by their enemies, and to treat the ANC terrorists on a completely different basis, which resulted in some amazing events.
In flagrant violation of the provisions of the relevant act it, for example, granted amnesty to a bunch of 37 top level ANC leaders for crimes associated with political motives, without specifying the various acts, which is in conflict with the requirements of the law. In this group there are among others, Thabo Mbeki,Leader of the ANC, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nzo, Minister of Justice Omar and Minister of Defence Modise. Although this decision has been nullified by a judicial verdict, nothing has been done to rectify the situation.
In such cases, the Commission's concern was not seeking and revealing the truth, but suppressing and stifling it - a procedure that would not have been countenanced when it concerned Afrikaners of the Security services who fought against the terrorists. They were paraded as criminals who individually under severe pressure had to confess in detail for whatever amnesty was asked for.
In these various ways Mandela created outlets for his grudges against the Afrikaners -- the very people whose representatives saved him from the gallows and later gave him all the help to become the President of South Africa.
Against this background it is dismaying to read that this man has every reason to hate his enemies, yet does not think of retribution! And while allowing a vendetta to be conducted against the Afrikaners, he is presiding over the decay of this country, which the Afrikaners wrestled from the wilderness, fought wars for against imperial powers and, under Dr Verwoerd, was developing into the industrial giant of Africa.
Where under Verwoerd, "the nation was suffering from a surfeit of prosperity", and South Africa "was a shining example of peace on a troubled continent", under Mandela the nation is suffering from a surfeit of poverty and the country has become the crime capital of the world - 137 reported rapes, 63 murders, 73 attempted murders, 176 robberies, 670 housebreakings and 35 highjackings on an average every day of the year. It is common cause that a government that cannot secure the lives and properties of its civilians is unfit to rule.
"South Africa", read a newspaper report on 29 November 1998, "occupies the first or second spot in all forms of crime on the world list for crime, and it is the young people and the homeless who pay the price". Of the thousands who passed the matric examinations in 1998 less than one in 10 will get a job in the formal sector. In the four years of ANC government the national debt more than doubled - from R194 billion ($34 billion) In 1994 to over R400 billion ($70 billion) presently, the interest on which accounts for 21 per cent of the budget.
In the same period the South African rand lost 80 per cent of its value. And in the first ten months of 1998 more than 2,8 million man-days were lost to a wave of industrial strikes.
This is a picture of the country which under Verwoerd had the second highest economic growth rate in the world (7,9% per year), an average inflation rate of 2 per cent, was accommodating new labour in the formal sector at 73,6 per cent per year, and enabled the living standards of Blacks in the industrial sector to rise at 5,3 per cent per year as against those of Whites at 3,9 per cent per year. The Financial Mail published a special survey entitled "The fabulous years: 1961-66". And as the previously mentioned Jan Botha wrote, Verwoerd "had launched the greatest programme of socio-economic upliftment for the non-Whites that South Africa had ever seen".
This, Verwoerd achieved in the face of fierce diplomatic and economic opposition from the United States, Britain, Soviet Russia and others. Mandela, on the other hand, has the blessing and support of these powers, yet under his hand the country is disintegrating and has sunk to a state of lawlessness, joblessness and futurelessness unprecedented in South African history.
Yet, Mandela is not struggling to emulate Verwoerd, but to denigrate him and his people.
Perhaps you will reconsider your emotional identification with Mandela in the light of historical truth.
Yours sincerely
J A MARAIS
LEADER OF THE HNP
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