What is the point of posting information if everything gets deleted?
>>>17807064, >>17807069, >>17807072 Top Secret SSA report reveals US link to ANC
“Independent Media, Thabo Makwakwa granted leave to appeal interdict sought by SSA”
https://www.iol.co.za/news/independent-media-thabo-makwakwa-granted-leave-to-appeal-interdict-sought-by-ssa-e8e377e0-e083-409d-80ab-fa52f8079809
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2022
Cape Town - Independent Media, Independent Online and journalist Thabo Makwakwa were granted leave to appeal a judgment by the North Gauteng High Court, which interdicted them from publishing an intelligence report on the alleged activities of the CIA in destabilising the ANC.
The report in question was compiled by the State Security Agency and titled “US interest in ANC party dynamics”. The report was handed to Makwakwa by concerned sources in the SSA in December 2021. The SSA had previously obtained an interdict preventing Independent Media from publishing the report.
Independent Media’s editor-in-chief, Aziz Hartley, said Independent Media, Makwakwa and IOL, all cited as respondents in the original interdict application, were of the professional opinion that it was the media’s right to report on matters that were in the public interest.
“The contents contained in this report are of the utmost importance and interest to the public. Preventing such matters from coming to light is an infringement of media freedom,” said Hartley.
Judge Daisy Molefe, in her ruling granting Independent Media leave to appeal on Thursday, that Independent Media submitted that there are also compelling reasons why leave to appeal should be granted because: (a) there is no definitive judgment on the question as to how journalists should treat classified information leaked to them, and this is of enormous significance for the work of journalists and for the public’s right of access to information; (b) there is no case law which pronounces conclusively on the issues in the appeal, and thus the matter is deserving of further scrutiny by a higher court.
“For these reasons, I am satisfied that leave to appeal the order to the SCA should be granted,” said Molefe
Last week, Molefe made public her judgment that had previously interdicted Independent Media from making the report public.
Hartley said the judgment was a victory for press freedom.
“The judgment is a great victory for Independent Media and media freedom in general. We have always maintained our stance that the matter has been in the public interest. We have been vindicated,” said Hartley.
>The report in question was compiled by the State Security Agency and titled “US interest in ANC party dynamics”. The report was handed to Makwakwa by concerned sources in the SSA in December 2021. The SSA had previously obtained an interdict preventing Independent Media from publishing the report.
“EXLUSIVE: Top Secret SSA report reveals US link to ANC”
https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-star-south-africa-early-edition/20220519/281590949171358
19 May 2022
Below are excerpts.
A “Top secret” report, titled Intelligence Brief: US interest in ANC party dynamics, which was allegedly compiled by the South African State Security Agency (SSA), has revealed how the political office of the embassy of the United States of America in Pretoria is working with some of the top ANC leaders to influence policy direction in South Africa.
The Star’s sister paper, the Daily news is in possession of the highly classified intelligence report dated 5, 2020 (referenced DMS: 10001242724).
The newspaper is today publishing part one of the report which will be followed by part two.
Furthermore, it revealed the US National Security Strategy had mandated US intelligence formations to “identify and assess capabilities, activities, and intentions of state and non-state entities and do develop a deep understanding of the strategic environment and to warn of future developmets”.
“The Political Office of the US Embassy in Tshwane continues to gather information related to the ruling party, which is then sent to the US State Department. This brief confirms that the US Embassy is part of the US intelligence community, and has network of ANC party officials who, wittingly or unwittingly, share privileged information,” read the intelligence report.
According to the SSA report, the US Mission in South Africa has, over the years, created a comprehensive network of contracts and sources, and these sources’ efforts have been successful in acquiring information for US intelligence.
The document also stated there was close co-operation taking place between the US diplomatic community and the US intelligence community in South Africa to guard and enhance US economic and political agendas in targeted countries like South Africa.
“Battle to open ‘CIA spies’ report”
https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/cape-argus/20220520/281483574990742
20 May 2022
Below are excerpts.
The report, the content of which cannot be fully disclosed since the matter will be heard behind closed chambers in Pretoria on Tuesday, was allegedly compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spies based at the US embassy in Pretoria.
It was shared with the SSA before sources leaked it to Cape Argus sister title the Daily News.
SSA deputy director-general Welcome Simelane filed its papers, supported by officials like SSA spokesperson Mava Scott, who had alerted his bosses about the newspaper’s intention to publish parts of the report. The report showed how the US infiltrated the ANC using certain leaders to change policy direction in favour of the US.
‘It implicates certain high-profile South African politicians in cooperating with the US, and specically deals with the US’s involvement in causing conflicts and instabilities in the ANC as the governing party, the functioning thereof, the different factions therein, who belongs to which faction and which members of the ANC pose a threat to US interest in South Africa…
“… the disclosure of which… may seriously compromise the peace and well-being of the people of South Africa, because it may cause civil unrest, as happened during the July 2021 uprising and subsequent loss of life and severe damage to property and infrastructure… damage the relationship between the US and the Republic of South Africa and endanger the lives of the people mentioned in the report,” Simelane’s affidavit stated.
Daily News editor Ayanda Mdluli said the issue was one of public interest and media freedom. He said the document was obtained legitimately.
“If there are certain leaders in the ANC who are working with and have links with the CIA, the people of South Africa have a right to know. The Daily News is acting in the public interest.
When you look at the history of how certain powerful countries have meddled in the affairs of other African states, the results have always been disastrous.
“The battle to expose US interference in the ANC: State Security Agency vs Independent Media”
https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/opinion/the-battle-to-expose-us-interference-in-the-anc-state-security-agency-vs-independent-media-06f465f5-8d53-4a41-bc3f-558e5fd17ff2
Published Nov 5, 2022
Below are excerpts.
For decades, stories have been told about foreign governments conducting clandestine intelligence operations to gain access, spy, and influence the policy direction of other countries.
In the case of South Africa, the United States has been found wanting as an intelligence report about alleged US efforts to gather intelligence about South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party was leaked to Independent Media journalist Thabo Makwakwa.
The report was dated November 5, 2020, titled “Top secret: US interest in ANC party dynamics” and commissioned by the US intelligence operating at the country’s offices in Pretoria.
Historical Background: The emergence of the Secret Report
On December 2021, the Daily News attempted to finally bring to light the involvement of the US government in working with certain prominent ANC leaders to drive the US interests within the ruling party.
This was after a series of engagements between Makwakwa who was investigating the matter, the US embassy, and the South African State Security (SSA) which had received the intelligence report from the US intelligence before it was leaked to Makwakwa and other media houses not linked to Independent Media.
In early December, a highly placed source within the State Security gave Makwakwa the intelligence report and also disclosed that the report had already been leaked to other media outlets.
In an attempt to verify the document, Makwakwa hit the ground running and enquired with the ANC, US consulate, SSA, and the Presidency.
Also on the same day at 12.28pm Makwakwa addressed an email to Mava Scott from the SSA with the report appended. On December 21, 2021 at 7.58am, having had no response from Scott, Makwakwa followed up via WhatsApp and made two calls to Scott to no answer.
Eventually, Scott contacted Makwakwa and demanded to know who leaked the report. Contrary to what the US had said denying knowledge of the report, Scott stated that this was a classified document and that whoever had leaked the document would be arrested.
Court battle: SSA V Thabo Makwakwa and Independent Media
Following the intensive engagements with all the parties who were made aware that a story would be published on December 23, 2021 - On December 22, 2021, Makwakwa posted a tweet that was “sensitising readers about a shocking leak that was to be published”, the minister launched the urgent, ex parte (without notice to the other side), application and obtained an interim interdict barring publication in the interests of state security.
At 11.20pm Makwakwa was contacted by Advocate Ntopane Mashabela and reported to him that a court interdict had been granted in his absence prohibiting the publication of the report. This was done without notice of the hearing.
Court Hearing: SSA V Makwakwa & the Independent Media
The minister had argued that the report was classified as a secret because it contained allegations regarding the interaction and the nature of the working relationship between the US and SSA, “the disclosure of which can disrupt the effective execution of information or operational planning”.
>>>17824990, >>17824992, >>17824993, >>17824996, >>17825002, >>17825006, >>17825010, >>17825015, >>17825022, >>17825033, >>17825040, >>17825028 A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 1
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
Original Article: How the CIA defeated Apartheid & placed the ANC in power
Date Posted: Thursday 08-Mar-2007
[This is the most important article I found on the web in my more than 5 years on the web. The original discovery was by a military friend of mine overseas. He found the book, and then later, I found this article.
An alert reader in the UK found this. This article is the follow on by Dr Cummings to his book, "The Pied Piper" (1985).
Dr Cummings was a CIA agent in the Middle East. This is an extremely important article and it explains what went on behind the scenes in this country. Jan]
From International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Summer 1995:
by Richard Cummings
Nelson Mandela is the president of South Africa, an event of monumental significance in world history. This great personal triumph is for him a vindication of his struggle. But now that the South African elections are long past, the record must be set straight about what really happened and why. The press has concealed as much as it reported; ideologues of all stripes have rushed around to rationalize their hypocrisies, and American politicians have been spreading around largesse as if the money were their own. That the results were so perfect, historically so symmetrical, is rather remarkable.
But, those with power, or who are connected to it, do not want the facts about the funding of the election to be known because it would reveal a pattern of deception and control, both to influence the outcome and to moderate the African National Congress. And those on the radical left don't want it known that the ANC has compromised itself by joining the list of organizations taking money from the United States, because they think it will hurt the cause of revolution. Everyone involved, across the ideological spectrum, has therefore joined in a kind of game to cloud the minds of outside observers.
Most hypocritical perhaps was the attempt to make a devil out of Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi by characterizing him as the tool of the oppressors and an obstructionist in the transition to democracy. His anomalous situation in post-apartheid South Africa led to suggestions that he was an enemy of democracy, and the cause of dissension that led to violence in an attempt to disrupt the electoral process that black South Africans struggled for decades to achieve. Chairman of the Inkatha Freedom Party and chief minister of KwaZulu, this prince and descendant of Shaka Zulu was then cast in the role of villain and reactionary. But it was not always so.
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 2
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
ANC and the CP
The triumph of Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress in South Africa was, for many years, viewed in certain circles as an extremely undesirable result. During the Cold War, the power of the South African Communist Party in the ANC made the ANC unacceptable as a holder of power in a post-apartheid South Africa. Yet, because apartheid and the white supremacist Nationalist Party were anathema to the rest of Africa, and because white racism fueled the sentiments for communism among the black majority in South Africa, a reliable black alternative to the ANC became essential. As Harry Rositzke, the Central Intelligence Agency station chief in New Delhi from 1957 to 1962, and coordinator of operations against Communist parties abroad from 1962 until his retirement from the CIA in 1970, wrote in 1977: "In Africa, an area of primitive, unstable states, Soviet influence is substantial in Somalia, Guinea, Nigeria, and Angola. The support of black independence movements against the Rhodesian and South African governments may extend that influence. The training of five thousand African students each year in the Soviet and East European universities is a direct investment in the future leadership of a largely illiterate continent."1 Noting the "Chinese competition the Soviets face in … the South Africa liberation movements," Rositzke argued candidly for covert action in the Third World: "Do we try to make a deal with the leftists – covertly at least to start? Do we take any covert political action to ensure the continued supply of chrome from a black Rhodesia that threatens to boycott its sale to the United States if we do not withdraw our investments in South Africa? However unlikely these scenarios, we cannot forecast what will happen in the economic world to threaten our prosperity."2
These concerns led to a policy that did not distinguish between anti-communism and opposition to apartheid. Indeed, they became synonymous in South Africa as that policy came to a head in the Reagan administration. As Gregory Treverton has observed:
"For the Reagan administration, the intended signal was anti-communism. For it, there was nothing incompatible about supporting anti-communism in Angola and anti-apartheid in South Africa."3
United States anti-apartheid policy was always primarily a tool of its anti-communist policy. And that anti-communist policy was directly related to the preservation of American "prosperity" and economic self-interest, as Rositzke explained. To this end, the CIA funneled money into Africa Bureau, a London-based anti-apartheid group headed by the Rev. Michael Scott, an Anglican priest dedicated to ameliorating the harsh apartheid policies of South Africa in South West Africa. Dan Schecter, Michael Ansara, and David Kolodney wrote in 1970, "The United States remains involved in channeling money to various factions within southern-African liberation movements, hoping, of course, to mold them in pro-Western directions."4
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 3
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
Long before the Reagan administration, white liberals in the United States and South Africa understood the threat of communism in South Africa and took action, in concert with the CIA, to undermine that threat, even if this delayed, by necessity, the end of apartheid. And ultimately, Buthelezi became a key figure in that effort.
The leading American liberal politician to first become actively involved in the anti-apartheid movement was then United States Senator Hubert Humphrey (D., Minnesota). In 1960, a press agency, International Features Service, was established, largely to disseminate the thoughts of Senator Humphrey to the people of the Third World, including Africa. International Features was quickly reorganized as a not-for-profit organization, Peace for Freedom, liberally supported with CIA funds through the International Development Foundation and the Price Fund.5 Another organization launched with CIA assistance was the United States-South Africa Leadership Exchange Program (USSALEP) when the African-American Institute, a CIA conduit, agreed to add USSALEP to its existing projects.6 A key functional area of USSALEP was, and is, "flexible independent exchanges, providing opportunities for leaders in any variety of fields to confer with colleagues."7 In 1983, Harris Wofford, later a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, and then, as now, a member of the management committee of USSALEP, stated that Buthelezi deserved support because he had stayed in South Africa, unlike leaders of the ANC, and had not engaged in violence.8 Wofford made it very clear that he was speaking not only for himself, but for his organization. Wofford served as President Kennedy's special representative to Africa from 1962 to 1964 before he became associate director of the Peace Corps. The implication was clear: Buthelezi was with the West, but Mandela, who often espoused pro-South African Communist Party sentiments, was not. And a major non-governmental backer of USSALEP was AMAX, the American mining giant, on whose board have served former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
The Lowenstein Intervention
In 1959, Allard Lowenstein, then a foreign policy aide to Senator Humphrey, traveled to South Africa and South West Africa to gather data on the effects of apartheid in both territories. During the course of this trip, Lowenstein was approached by the CIA in South Africa and requested to smuggle out of South Africa a "Cape colored" student, Hans Beukes, a member of the anti-SWAPO Herero tribe from Rehoboth, South West Africa.9 Beukes would later be accused of subverting SWAPO when it expelled him in 1976.10 Lowenstein would later write Brutal Mandate, a book on his South African experience. A leading American liberal who had served as president of the National Students Association and civil rights activist, Lowenstein was recruited to the CIA in 1962 as an expert on southern Africa.11 From 1962 to 1967, Lowenstein traveled to that part of the continent and had contacts with various southern African personalities, both in Africa and the United States, providing the agency with his assessment of their political leanings, and their reliability.
The ANC had taken up armed struggle on 16 December 1961 with the founding by Nelson Mandela of Umkhonto We Sizwe, "Spear of the Nation," and with its Communist support, was becoming a threat. Mandela was a cult figure of the Left who had enormous appeal. Until his capture, his ability to elude the police had made him a folk hero. In the spring of 1962, Lowenstein was contacted by both the American Committee on Africa and the CIA-supported American Society for African Culture, which were joining forces for a demonstration and protest march on behalf of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and the seven others who had been arrested by the South African police when the ANC underground headquarters was discovered. While the United States did not want Mandela in power, neither did it want him martyred. The arrested leaders were on trial and faced the possibility of the death penalty, which in South Africa was administered by hanging. Because of the organized pressure, Mandela and Sisulu were not executed but sentenced to life in prison, with Mandela remaining on Robben Island as the preeminent figure in the African National Congress. After the day to day operations of the ANC passed to Mandela's far less charismatic law partner, Oliver Tambo, who had fled to Zambia, the ANC was seemingly neutralized without the United States to blame.
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 4
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
Other Choices
The CIA was looking for alternatives to the ANC. To the ANC's left, the CIA directed money to the ultra-black nationalist Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) which had organized the demonstration, from which the ANC abstained, that led to the Sharpeville massacre in the spring of 1960.12 As early as 1961, Mandela had discounted the Pan Africanist Congress because, he asserted, "there is no doubt in my mind that they preached an extreme form of racialism."13 Mandela believed the abandonment of non-violence and the introduction of the use of force to be justified because, "[N]o leader is going out to say we want peaceful discussions because the government is making that kind of talk senseless. Instead of getting a favorable response, the government is more arrogant. The African reaction can only be a show of force." Notes of the secret interview given by Mandela to Patrick O'Donovan were provided to Allard Lowenstein in London by Mary Benson, an anti-apartheid activist.14
To rival Spear of the Nation, which had begun a campaign of sabotage against "the symbols of apartheid" by staging rocket attacks against police stations, the PAC launched Poqo, a mass movement modeled on the Mau Mau in Kenya. Claiming a membership of 150,000, it engaged in acts of terrorism. Although it never achieved the strength of the ANC, it did come back to haunt South African politics by initially refusing to take part in the first one-person, one-vote non-racial elections in the country's history. Having become the CIA's Frankenstein's monster, the Pan Africanist Congress ceased to be an acceptable alternative to Mandela and the ANC, but it continued to pose a sufficient threat to possibly disrupt the electoral process.
Throughout the 1960s, Lowenstein made considerable use of his expertise on revolutionary movements in southern Africa in ways that would have an important impact on U.S. policy. From his vantage point in the intelligence community, he argued for an anti-Communist alternative on the Left, becoming a key figure, in the parlance of the agency, of the "good wing" of the CIA. As a CIA operative once described this element in the agency to Harris Wofford, "If you only knew what we're really doing, the liberals and the leftists, the democratic leftists, what we're supporting around the world, you'd see that we represented the 'good wing' in the CIA."15 And in his pursuit of an anti-Communist left alternative in South Africa, while he acknowledged that the blacks had ample reason to resort to violence, Lowenstein faulted the ANC, as did the agency, on the grounds that it was engaging in armed struggle with support from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, not to mention its alliance with the South African Communist Party.16 In his 1966 [the year South African Prime Minister, HF Verwoerd, was assassinated] swing through southern Africa, Lowenstein conferred with representatives of the ANC in Dar es Salaam, whose headquarters in which they met featured a large portrait of Mao Zedong. When Lowenstein asked them how he could be of help, the black South Africans told him that what they needed was money for arms. They were engaged in armed struggle and wanted weapons, not the limited support Lowenstein had provided in the past, and which China had eclipsed. At this point, Lowenstein concluded that the ANC was unreliable and uncontrollable and therefore totally unacceptable.17 But as the entire Cold War liberal structure began to come apart during the Vietnam war, Lowenstein turned his efforts to getting rid of President Lyndon Johnson and to replacing him with Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D., New York) and to his own political career, winning election to Congress as a Democrat from New York in 1968. He would not return to the South African scene until the late 1970s, when, following a stint as one of President Carter's ambassadors to the United Nations, he traveled extensively in southern Africa at the behest of the CIA and Harry Oppenheimer, scion of the South African DeBeers and Anglo-American gold mining and diamond empire. In the interim, the fruitless search for an alternative political group to the ANC continued as violence escalated in South Africa, and it become increasingly threatened by the possibility of a revolution led by the South African Communist Party and the ANC.
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 5
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
Zulu Rising
During this period the fortunes of Buthelezi began to rise. Although in the pay of the South African government as chief minister of the KwaZulu government, Buthelezi steadfastly refused to permit KwaZulu to be turned into a "homeland." To do so would have constituted an acceptance of the government's apartheid policies. This posture of at least nominal independence, as well as his identification with the mythic Zulu people led Buthelezi to be able to play both sides with consummate skill. He was never a sycophant to the National Party, which had formalized a system of total racial segregation, and which had controlled South Africa since 1948, when the old United Party of Jan Smuts had been defeated. Buthelezi appealed to those who never had any use for white liberals like Helen Suzman, whose Liberal party had been outlawed, and who maintained a life of luxury in the midst of a system she purported to detest. As the cast of "Wait A Minim," the South African musical comedy mocked, "the only thing the liberals hate more than apartheid is the blacks."
Buthelezi, highly intelligent and articulate, played the role of the radical conservative, to the increasing attention of the United States. Capable of appearing fiercely traditional in tribal dress one minute, and handsome and immaculate in a Saville Row suit the next, Buthelezi began to capture the imagination of the power brokers. He not only spoke all the languages of South Africa, he seemed to speak to the economic and political needs of the country, with its astonishing diversity, as well. There was a vacuum and he appeared to be the only player capable of filling it. With Buthelezi and his ideas for a federal republic of South Africa, investment would be safe, and whites and blacks could be placated. Even his appeal to royalty, his professed loyalty to the King of the Zulus, Goodwill Zwelethini (also his nephew), impressed whites who sought modest change in the context of stability, and blacks, for whom royalty had always held a certain attraction as a dimension of African pride. If a black African leader for South Africa could have been created by the Reagan administration, it would have been Buthelezi. With Ronald Reagan in the White House and William Casey at CIA, the "good wing" would be out and the hard line in. There was no such thing as a Left alternative to communism in this ideology, only a Right alternative that was indeed "right." Under Reagan, Buthelezi would fit the mold, as Jonas Savimbi did in Angola, where South Africa and the CIA together aided his efforts against the leftist government, with its pro-Soviet sympathies.
Indeed, conservatives worldwide began to support Buthelezi, with particular support coming, according to a former U.S. "Africa hand," from Germany through such conservative semi-political foundations as the Adenauer Schiftung and the Ebert Schiftung, much in the manner that DCI Casey was able to get other countries such as Saudi Arabia to aid the contras in Nicaragua.18 According to this source, Buthelezi had been promised a "Greater Natal" by hard-line apartheid Prime Minister P.W. Botha, who offered him the possibility of having white areas such as Durban in his power base. With such an increase in his domain, were an election to happen, he would be able to command at least the five percent that was ultimately established as a basis for a seat in the cabinet. Along with white representation in the cabinet, he would be a sufficient force to moderate the polices of a leftist government under Mandela, and block either nationalizations or confiscatory tax policies.19 But before this scenario began to take hold, the liberals gave it one more shot to find an alternative to Mandela and the ANC who would not be so conservative as to alienate the majority of blacks, who might still turn to the far left. At this point in the 1970s, Allard Lowenstein once again entered the scene, with Buthelezi playing to both liberal and conservative factions.
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 6
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
According to South Africa expert Professor William Foltz of Yale University, Buthelezi was being "courted by South African big business and some American corporations" during the 1970s.20 He mentioned AMAX, the mining giant with extensive South African holdings that was also a USSALEP backer through its AMAX Foundation, as one of these. The effort to approach Buthelezi, Foltz explains, was led not by American business interests, but by the liberal part of South African industry, particularly Harry Oppenheimer, whose Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, the charitable arm of Anglo-American, was also backing USSALEP; Helen Suzman; and Clive Menell, chair of Anglovaal Holdings, Ltd., a mining giant. Menell lives across the street from Oppenheimer in South Africa, and entertained Buthelezi in his home in the presence of Professor Foltz. Foltz explains that Buthelezi's refusal to let KwaZulu be a homeland made him attractive to the Oppenheimer crowd, as he could not be seen as a tool of apartheid. Although highly ambitious and sensitive to slights, real or apparent, Buthelezi was regarded by his advocates as a "reasonable and interesting alternative, at least a serious player." So Wofford was right. USSALEP, launched with the CIA's help and passed along to power South African and American corporate interests, could proclaim by 1980 that it "receives no funding, direct or indirect, from the United States, South Africa, or any other government," was now behind Buthelezi, seeing nowhere else to go.
Lowenstein Redux
By the mid 1970s, the exploitation of uranium in South West Africa [now Namibia] had made South Africa's role there a major international issue. The large block of nonwhite Third World countries pressed for South West Africa's independence. In April 1975, Allard Lowenstein attended a key symposium on "The Outlook for Southern Africa," which was backed by the Johnson Foundation. Funded by USSALEP and the Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical company, the meeting was held at the Johnson Wingspread conference facility in Wisconsin. The symposium explored ways to prevent the worst from happening from the point of view of the American, South Africa, and British companies that invested heavily there. South Africa was described as "the Saudi Arabia of minerals," and South West Africa had once again become vitally important to the West because of Britain's dependence upon it for uranium.21 Rio Tinto Zinc, a multinational mining company based in Britain, was exploiting the Rossing mine, the world's largest single source of uranium.
Lowenstein's presentation at the Wingspread symposium was a classic "good wing" analysis. Will we identify with the oppressed people, including those of South Africa? Because Africans were finding that the only way to produce change was through violence, this was playing "into the hands of the Soviet Union and China," who were providing money and training which were, in fact, producing results. Lowenstein asked the rhetorical question and tried to answer it: "Can we influence Africans to accommodate their demands in less violent ways? Only if we pressure for the necessary reforms at an acceptable pace. This means finding ways for South Africa to get out of Namibia and Rhodesia, to permit Black regimes to develop in both states. Instead of 'buffer states' there might emerge on the border of South Africa the appearance of privileged sanctuaries so that the pressure for change within South Africa would be stepped up. As the international dimensions proceed, they are the priority; the domestic ones should follow. Eventually, changes within South Africa will have to occur. If they do not come nonviolently and in a rapid, evolutionary way, they will be forced with sabotage, violence and warfare."22
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 7
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
At the United Nations, he clashed with U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young over U.S. policy in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia. Lowenstein was strongly opposed to Robert Mugabe and wanted a role for white liberals. He also visited South Africa where he held lengthy meetings with young Afrikaner Nationalists. After his U.N. service, Lowenstein came back in from the cold. His involvement with the powerful white liberals of South Africa and his relationship with Frank Carlucci, appointed deputy director of the CIA by President Carter (and who had been stationed in South Africa when Lowenstein traveled there in 1959), enabled him to continue his work in southern Africa in the summer of 1979.
This vitally important trip was financed by Anglo-American, which paid Lowenstein $7,000 for his services, $1,000 to his aide, Mark Childress, and $1,000 to Lowenstein' s secretary. Provided for the summer's expedition were a comfortable house in Johannesburg, with recreational facilities and domestic servants, and full transportation, including return air fares on the Concorde for Lowenstein, Lowenstein's three children and Childress. All of this was arranged by Hank Slack, the American Director of Anglo-American and the former son-in-law of Harry Oppenheimer.23 Lowenstein was working closely with Deputy CIA Director Carlucci, who stated categorically that "Lowenstein would report to me."24 And there was much to report.
__Lowenstein first consulted with Theo-Ben Gurirab of SWAPO, at SWAPO headquarters in New York City, then departed for South Africa. There he held meetings with Buthelezi, Harry Oppenheimer, Helen Suzman, South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha, and P.W. Botha, the South African Prime Minister. He also met with Mandela, still incarcerated on Robben Island.25 Richard Moose, Carter's Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, told Sam Adams, formerly of CIA, that Lowenstein was talking to "a lot of opposition groups."26 What Lowenstein was doing was laying the groundwork for a flexible American policy in South Africa, in alliance with the wealthy South African white liberals and the "verlicht" Afrikaner Nationalists, to dismantle the structure of apartheid without Marxist revolution. Lowenstein's role in this venture was cut short when he was shot to death in 1980 by Dennis Sweeney, a former recruit in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, but the legacy of his involvement remained a potent one. Carlucci, who admired Lowenstein and was greatly influenced by him, shared Lowenstein's assessment that the problems of South Africa could be "worked out."__27 And Buthelezi had good reason to believe that he was, at the very least, part of the solution and not the problem.
U.S. Aid
With the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980, United States and South African intelligence (BOSS, the South African CIA) increased cooperation on behalf of Jonas Savimbi in Angola. The CIA authorized $15 million for Savimbi's UNITA.28 In South Africa, with German money coming to him, Buthelezi was fast becoming the darling of American conservatives, including Jeane Kirkpatrick, Reagan's Ambassador to the United Nations, as a "sound anti-Communist alternative."29 The Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal took up his cause. But, according to Professor Foltz, there was a significant split in the Reagan administration. Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Chester Crocker [later became director of MINORCO], was "opposed to Buthelezi" and "playing a much more complicated game."30 Foltz explains that Crocker thought it wise "not to see any single person as the answer."31 Foltz also credits the British Ambassador to South Africa at that time, Sir Robin Renwick, as being "highly skillful" in his efforts to prevent violence and bring about a peaceful solution in South Africa. (Renwick is generally acknowledged with having obtained Mandela's release from prison, a task made easier by the fact that his government had not imposed sanctions on South Africa, thereby giving it some leverage with the white regime in Pretoria.) But he argues that the "whole situation was sliding rapidly" and that the "logic" of the Reagan administration's policy was "coming apart."32
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 8
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
The support of American industrial interests for Buthelezi began to diminish when it appeared that he might not be able to deliver in the face of enormous public support for Mandela. The final push, Foltz explains, was the 1986 U.S. sanctions legislation, which altered the situation irrevocably. Now a legend among American blacks as a symbol of the triumph through struggle over apartheid, Nelson Mandela could no longer be shunted aside. The ANC had become the ultimate force in South Africa, and Buthelezi, with his base limited to the Zulus, was without a national organization capable of overcoming it. But, with financial support still coming to him from Germany, Buthelezi was, according to Foltz, able to retain the services of the powerful Washington public relations firm, Black, Manafort. Buthelezi and his people continued to use the rhetoric of the Cold War, "not about the ANC but the ANC and the Communists."33 But the mining companies were no longer interested and Buthelezi's support was limited to "the fast buck people in Natal."34 And while Buthelezi might, at one point, have been able to get the 5 percent needed for a cabinet position, the "old Africa hand" argued (incorrectly, it turned out) that Buthelezi would be "hard pressed" to carry the Zulu vote. Because the young Zulus are now more urban than rural, and identify increasingly with the ANC, he maintained, Buthelezi' s power base was substantially eroded, notwithstanding continued German support and support from private American conservative groups.35 Foltz puts it more forcefully: "He [Buthelezi] is playing a destructive and scandalous role now."36 But who was actually paying for that role and, in effect, funding the bloodbath that lasted until Inkatha reentered the elections?
Reenter the United States-South Africa Leadership Exchange Program (USSALEP), by now no longer stating that it does not receive funds from any government directly or indirectly, but indicating overtly that it is funded, in part, by the United States Agency for International Development (AID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). In its 1992 Program Update, in a short note entitled "Transition to Democracy Project," USSALEP proclaims:
The $8,000,000 cooperative agreement, under which subgrants of $4.8 million for the African National Congress (ANC) and $2.6 million for the Inkatha Freedom Party was to be disbursed by September 30, 1992, was extended for an additional 15 months in order to utilize the full amount obligated by USAID. The purpose of the project is to build administration capacity within the ANC and the IFP organizations to enable them to participate more effectively in the negotiations leading to a new constitution and democratic government. Due to the very stringent disbursement conditions (which, for example, eliminated the category of salaries as a permissible expenditure category under the original budgets), coupled with administrative/absorptive capacity limitations of the sub-grantees, only approximately 45 percent of the $7.4 million could be expended during the originally scheduled, 13-month project life.
The monies disbursed to date have been used to: (i) acquire or rent office space to house central and regional staff, (ii) purchase and install computer hardware and software and train personnel needed to establish effective management information systems, and (iii) pay for sundry travel, consulting and workshop expenses relating to the above and to the formulation of policy options and negotiation positions.
USAID and USSALEP are presently in discussion with the subgrantees to identify new areas of expenditure not previously included in their budget proposals. Among those being considered is the critical one encompassing peace initiatives.37
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 9
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
Hired as project manager of the Transition to Democracy Project was Stanley Kahn, a South African sociology professor on the faculty of both the universities of Witwatersrand and Cape Town. Kahn had served as executive director of the Funda Centre in Diepkloof, Soweto and was the recipient of a USSALEP Alan Pifer Fellowship to visit the United States to "survey the contribution of community colleges to adult education."38 Kahn was later promoted to Director of USSALEP South Africa.
Kahn may be a fine fellow, but it still sounds a lot like "walking around money." And if salaries were being paid to ANC and Inkatha, who was getting the money? Mandela? Buthelezi? And if these groups were getting the money, who decided that more than twice as much should go to the ANC as to Inkatha? Notably, Harris Wofford continued to serve on the Board and Council of USSALEP, which dispensed the funds from the AID budget that Wofford voted for as a senator. His past legal practice has involved major clients in Africa. Apart from this seeming conflict of interest, American taxpayers should be concerned that their money was being used to influence the outcome of an election in a foreign country, however overt this funding might now be. Most of the old players are still there: Harry Oppenheimer, who funds USSALEP through the Anglo-American & DeBeers Chairman's Fund; Clive Menell, chairman of Anglovaal Holdings, Ltd. (contributor and Board and Council member), and an old Buthelezi backer; and Hank Slack, now president and CEO of MINORCO [Part of Anglo-American} in London (contributor and Board and Council member), as well as all the major industrial concerns, American, international and South African, that control the vast mining' interests of South Africa and the rest of its economy. The result of all of this funding of the competing parties? R.W. Johnson, a native of South Africa and a fellow in politics at Magdalen College, Oxford, on leave from Oxford to write about current South Africa and also to serve as national co-director of the Launching Democracy project, a public information service for all South African political parties, sponsored by the Institute for Multi-Party Democracy (one wonders about the source of its funding), observed:
Some of the killing is political: currently the largest set of victims are Inkatha officials killed by the ANC, though the most publicized recent killing was that of Chris Hani, the SACP (Communist) leader, by the white Right [scapegoat]. The Azanian People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, carries out anti-white atrocities from time to time, and, of course, Inkatha takes its vengeance on the ANC with fair regularity.39
As the whites were panicking, a state of emergency was declared in KwaZulu because of the inability of Mandela, Buthelezi, King Goodwill Zwelethini, and de Klerk to come to an agreement on how to resolve the impasse and get Inkatha back into the election process.40 Buthelezi denounced what he described as "a lengthy Machiavellian manipulation commenced, right at the start of our negotiations, with attempts to marginalize our Inkatha Freedom Party."41 If he was referring to the inequitable distribution of the U.S. AID money between the ANC and Inkatha, he certainly made up the difference from the Germans. And how effective giving money to the ANC will be in wooing it from its South African Communist Party ally remains to be seen. Mandela insists the ANC is not Communist, but that it remains loyal to its oldest ally and friend.42 Moreover, the relisting as a USSALEP sponsor of the African American Institute, a CIA conduit in the past that helped launch USSALEP, also means that CIA money still, in all probability, flows covertly to certain organizations in South Africa. The most likely candidate for U.S. assistance was the CIA's old client, the Pan Africanist Congress (whose overt support the ANC would never accept), to keep it in the electoral process and then accept the results. But the amount of money given to the Pan Africanist Congress has surely been miniscule, given its lack of a function at this point of history. The purpose was not to get it votes, but to keep it quiet.
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 10
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
Educating Voters
After the supposed failure of former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger (now an international business consultant) and former British Foreign Minister Lord Carrington (who has served on the board of Rio Tinto Zinc, which controls the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia) to bring Buthelezi into the elections, all seemed to be lost.43 But an amazing last minute reprieve was finally achieved, and the elections went forward in the midst of bombings by white extremists. Helping the Independent Election Commission to supervise them to make sure they were "fair" was the South African Fair Elections Fund (SAFE), funded largely by American interests and headed up by the liberal Kennedy loyalist, Theodore Sorensen, who had $7 million at his disposal for "voter education." According to Ian Williams of the New York Observer, "many of those involved in SAFE haven't concealed their hopes for an ANC landslide."44 And while Williams reported AID's funding of both the ANC and Inkatha, he neglected to mention USSALEP, the éminence grise of the whole sordid business. But even with AID funding much of the election, and SAFE providing additional assistance to assure the right kind of acceptable "left" victory, Ronald Brown, President Bill Clinton's man at the Department of Commerce, announced $140 million in aid to South Africa.
__A good portion of this will find its way into the pockets of North Carolina academics and their institutions, Duke, Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State. They are participating in the $350 million South African research and manufacturing center to be built in Muizenberg, a suburb of Cape Town. The project has the backing of the ANC.__45 This may help explain why conservative, anti-Communist Senator Jesse Helms (Rep., North Carolina) has failed to denounce the U.S. AID funding of the Communist-backed ANC – he makes an unlikely pair with Harris Wofford. Actually, the only institution that should cry fraud is North Carolina's predominantly black university, Northern Carolina A&T;, Jesse Jackson's alma mater, which has mysteriously been excluded from the AID boondoggle.
The ANC and Buthelezi both shouted "fraud" as the election came to a close. The one party that began to pick up surprising support in the election's final hours was the old bastion of white supremacy, the National Party. It appealed to the "colored" vote, those of mixed race who tend to be better educated and own property, and to conservative blacks. F.W. de Klerk, holding black babies, managed to remind South Africans of every color that "majority rule" on the African continent can be less than paradise. Rwanda, Somalia, Angola, Zaire, and the Sudan are shattering reminders of the chaos so often associated with post-colonial "liberation." He managed to do the impossible: prevent the ANC from getting the two thirds seats in parliament it needed to ram through an economic agenda that is supported by the South African Communist Party. In four years, de Klerk's party will be in a position to form a coalition with Inkatha, not unlike the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance in Namibia (formed with Allard Lowenstein's support and assistance), which also managed to prevent the prevailing revolutionary group, SWAPO, from getting the two thirds it needed to nationalize the mineral wealth.
Once again, white American liberals have failed to appreciate the innate conservatism of some black Africans, and their willingness to work with whites, even their former oppressors, out of fear that they might lose their property to a "revolutionary" regime, even one financed by the U.S. government and supported by Jesse Helms and Harris Wofford, the "Odd Couple" of American politics. If a post-Mandela ANC splits apart, as some South Africans have predicted, and with the South African Communist Party marginalized, a National/Inkatha Party could well become a real force in South Africa. There is a certain logic to this; the Boers and the Zulus have always had a common enemy: the British and their English-speaking South African allies in the mining industries. But the Boers and Zulus, both pro-business, pose no threat to the great companies and families that have controlled the South African economy since the Boer war.
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 11
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
Mandela's Democratic Moves
Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela has made all the right noises, from the point of view of his American supporters. He pledged not to confiscate the property of whites and not to tax in a way that will discourage foreign investment and profit. He also made it clear that he will not tolerate disorder; after the election he urged everyone to go back to work and back to school. Mandela did not spend all those years in prison to preside over a country in chaos and anarchy. Like Buthelezi, who is actually a close friend of his, Mandela is a descendant of African royalty. If the ANC and Inkatha have accepted U.S. dollars, as they have, from the Americans who caused the perpetuation of apartheid for Cold War reasons, there is more than enough irony in this to justify their actions. Mandela has started to resemble his predecessor in African liberation, Jomo Kenyatta. Kenyatta had been jailed for a very long time on charges of being a Mau Mau terrorist, and then was released in time to stop a violent revolution. Kenyatta suppressed his opposition and allowed the whites to keep control over the Kenyan economy. But Alec Erwin, a white Communist ANC candidate, declared that there "was nothing sacrosanct" about limiting the budget deficit to 6 percent of the GNP, as the IMF had required the ANC to pledge prior to granting a loan. If the ANC could stop mentioning this IMF requirement as part of the ANC's program, clearly more was necessary to make sure the worst did not happen.46
The Voters' Choice
The election results, which all the parties long ago accepted as "free and fair," produced some surprises, with the ANC polling 62.5 percent, less than the 67 percent required for control over the constitution, but more than enough to control patronage and 12 cabinet seats. De Klerk and the National Party (NP), which won control of the Western Cape, got over 20 percent, enough votes to allow de Klerk to be one of the two executive vice presidents and to gain four cabinet seats. The NP probably got a higher percentage of the black vote than did the Pan Africanist Congress, a relic of Cold War history, which received scant support in the election. Also disappearing into oblivion was the Democratic Party (DP), which was nothing more than the reconstituted old Liberal Party that Allard Lowenstein had backed. Once banned by the primitive white racist South African government, and later reinvented as the Progressive Party with the help of Harry Oppenheimer, the DP was basically the personal vehicle of Helen Suzman, who spent as much effort fighting the ANC as she did apartheid.
Mandela indicated that he would consider offering cabinet posts to representatives of parties which polled less than the required 5 percent, a carrot to the Pan Africanist Congress if they agreed to behave themselves. Inkatha received over 10 percent, enough to put Buthelezi in the cabinet and give Inkatha a total of four cabinet seats – a result his critics said was impossible. His total was augmented, and de Klerk's reduced, by the fact that some white Afrikaners voted for Buthelezi on the national level and the NP on the provincial level to bolster black opposition to the ANC. The white separatist Freedom Front ended up with about 3 percent, indicating that the white racist call for a boycott of the elections was only marginally successful. Together, these three provided an opposition bloc of over one-third of the voters, not counting those who boycotted the election.47 Buthelezi, whose Inkatha also carried KwaZulu/Natal, which his critics claimed he would never be able to do, summed up: "I'm grateful that up to now, in spite of all the skullduggery and the cheating, so far it has not flared up into any conflict or violence."48
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 12
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
And it is not likely to. Buthelezi is now the Home Minister, which puts him in charge of internal affairs and makes him the boss of Sidney Mufamadi, the black chief of police who is also a member of the central committee of the South African Communist Party. The late Joe Slovo, South African Communist Party chairman, was head of Housing and Welfare before his death. Joe Modise, the black commander of Spear of the Nation, is Minister of Defense (albeit assisted by the existing chief of staff, General Georg Meyring, a white Afrikaner, who remained in his post); after the change in government Derek Keyes, de Klerk's white Afrikaner Minister of Finance continued to run the economy from the same position. Mandela's selection of the ANC's Thabo Mbeki as the other executive vice president left the able Cyril Ramaphosa out of the cabinet and the government entirely, although he remains as the chairman of the ANC, in which capacity he is in charge of drafting the new constitution. Mandela's incredible balancing act made it possible, overall, for there to be something for almost everyone, at which the CIA probably heaved a considerable sigh of relief.49 With the Cold War over, the view seems to be who cares if a couple of Communists clank around in the South African government as long as things are basically under control?
A Carat a Day…
The Goldsmith Commission, which had investigated the role of the police in the violence prior to the elections, subsequently looked ahead to 1999, when the "real" elections will take place. There will be a need for new leaders who comprehend the serious economic problems of the country, as perceived by the International Monetary Fund. USSALEP no doubt stands ready to provide these leaders. The only question is whether the United States government will continue to finance their campaigns.
But while the pundits debate the first year of the Mandela era, DeBeers continues to control 80 percent of the world's diamond trade, "with 50 percent of these diamonds by value coming from the company's own mines in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia."50 Jonathan M.E. Oppenheimer, Harry Oppenheimer's grandson, the son of Nicholas F. Oppenheimer of Johannesburg, deputy chairman of the great mining giants, the Anglo-American Group and DeBeers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., the latter founded by Cecil Rhodes with the backing of the Rothschilds, represents the next generation of Oppenheimers as he continues his work as a management trainee at N.M. Rothschild & Sons in London.51 Politicians may come and go, but as the DeBeers ad claims on television, "a diamond is forever."
“A Diamond Is Forever: Mandela Triumphs, Buthelezi and de Klerk Survive, and ANC on the U.S. Payroll” – Part 13
http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
http://web.archive.org/web/20080320232050/http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=11102&
Funny Peculiar Postscript
Subsequently, reports came of widespread election fraud in KwaZulu Natal where Inkatha won its "victory." In some areas, more votes were counted than the census recorded people living there. Nevertheless, the ANC did not seriously challenge the results. Key ANC candidates who were not elected on the national or provincial levels were rewarded with big jobs in either Mandela's government in Pretoria or in the Inkatha-dominated government of KwaZulu/Natal. Reporting for Newsday from South Africa in May 1994, Dele Olojede wrote:
[T]he great South African political settlement is fait accompli. Mandela is in Pretoria, where Buthelezi will serve as his home affairs minister in charge of federal relations with provinces. In the Natal provincial capital of Pietermaritzburg Friday night, Inkatha Chairman Frank Mdlalose was duly sworn in as premier at the inaugural session of the provincial legislature. His candidacy was unopposed. The ANC accepted three of 10 positions in Mdlalose's cabinet. And when Zulu King Goodwill Zwelethini swept into the chambers, the ANC bench jumped up along with everyone else to shout, in salute, "Wena ndlovu!" ("You're the elephant.")
Or the donkey.
Richard Daley, the legendary major of Chicago, would have approved totally. That AID money wasn't wasted at all. King Goodwill expressed confidence that, now, peace would surely reign in "my kingdom."52
>She [Priscilla Clapp] is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“U.S. and Japan - Assisting Myanmar's Development, Democratization, Priscilla Clapp” [Apr 2, 2015] - https://youtu.be/rEKfLPtBn8s
“Securing a Democratic Future for Myanmar” – author, Priscilla A. Clapp for Council on Foreign Relations
https://www.cfr.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2016/03/CSR75_Clapp_Myanmar.pdf
March 2016
Foreword
Myanmar is undergoing a historic transition, ushering in a new civilian government after decades of military rule. November 2015 elections resulted in a decisive victory for the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi. In a country long characterized by human rights abuses, authoritarian rule, and Chinese domination, Myanmar now has a chance to chart a new course, one of its own making. While the electoral process and transition period thus far have been lauded for their transparency and cooperative nature, the country has a long road ahead in securing its burgeoning democracy and sustaining a path of political and economic development.
In this Council Special Report, Priscilla A. Clapp, senior advisor to the United States Institute of Peace and former chief of mission for the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar, recounts the major challenges ahead for Myanmar and outlines how the United States and other countries, international institutions, and international donors can and should support Myanmar’s transition… and do all it can to prevent rampant violence against the Rohingya minority group as well as between armed ethnic groups in the country’s east.
Acknowledgments
I owe a large debt of gratitude to the many people who have given me the grist and inspiration for this report, both directly and indirectly, as events in Myanmar have unfolded over the past year. I am especially grateful to my advisory committee: Chairman Richard H. Solomon, Suzanne DiMaggio, Aung Din, Christopher R. Hill, Joshua Kurlantzick, Jamie F. Metzl, J. J. Ong, Rena M. Pederson, Thomas R. Pickering, Robert R. Rotberg, R. Michael Schiffer, Amanda W. Schnetzer, Vikram Singh, Tina Singhsacha, George Soros, David I. Steinberg, and David Tegenfeldt.
I am particularly grateful to the director of the Center for Preventive Action (CPA) at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Paul B. Stares, and Assistant Director Helia Ighani, for their enduring patience and wise guidance throughout the process. CFR’s Senior Vice President and Director of Studies, James M. Lindsay, helped immensely to refine and clarify my arguments. I am also grateful to Patricia Dorff, Eli Dvorkin, and Elizabeth Dana of CFR’s Publications Department for their concise editing and helpful suggestions, as well as to Jake Meth in CFR’s Communications Department for his suggestions on how to market the report.
This publication was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The statements made and views expressed herein are solely my own.
Introduction
A new chapter in Myanmar’s political evolution opened on November 8, 2015, when voters in parliamentary elections delivered a resounding victory to the democratic opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD).1 Holding a majority of the seats in the parliament, the NLD was able to choose the next president, one of two vice presidents, and top civilian leaders in both the legislative and executive branches of the next government.
“Pandor to lead SA delegation to US-Africa Leaders Summit instead of President Ramaphosa, due to his ‘busy schedule’”
https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/pandor-to-lead-sa-delegation-to-us-africa-leaders-summit-instead-of-president-ramaphosa-due-to-his-busy-schedule-d9cef322-21f4-420e-b3f6-b7e67fb44590
MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2022
Cape Town - Minister Naledi Pandor, head of the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco), will lead the South African delegation to the second US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington DC from December 13-15, in place of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
According to a statement issued by Dirco on Monday, Ramaphosa is unable to attend the summit owing to his busy schedule.
On Thursday last week, the Presidency confirmed that Ramaphosa will not be attending the summit that will be hosted by US President Joe Biden.
The last US-Africa Leaders Summit was convened in 2014 under former president Barrack Obama.
Forty-nine African states and the chairperson of the AU Commission are expected to participate in the summit.
The renewal of the US-Africa Leaders Summit follows President Biden’s intervention during the 34th summit of the AU, in February last year, where he underscored the US “commitment and readiness to partner with the continent in taking the relations to new heights”.
The Leaders Summit will discuss three topics, namely “Partnering on Agenda 2063”, “Multilateral Partnerships with Africa to Meet Global Challenges”, and “Promoting Food Security and Food Systems Resilience”.
Minister Pandor will deliver remarks on the first topic, that is “Partnering on Agenda 2063”.
On Tuesday, December 13, the following events will take place:
• The African and Diaspora Young Leaders Forum, which will be held under the theme “Amplifying Voices: Building Partnerships that Last”.
• The Peace, Security and Governance Forum, under the theme “Delivering Democracy and Security Dividends”.
• A discussion on Conservation, Climate Adaptation, and a Just Energy Transition, under the theme “Building Our Green Energy Together”.
Wednesday, December 14, will start with the “US-Africa Business Breakfast meeting, followed by the inauguration of the US-Africa Business Forum and discussions on various topics, which include “Charting the Course: The Future of US-Africa Trade Investment Relations”; “Growing Agribusiness: Partnerships to strengthen Food Security and Value Chain”; and “Advancing Digital Connectivity: Partnerships to Enable Inclusive Growth Through Technology“.
Biden will deliver a keynote address at the Business Forum on December 14.
The delegation comprises Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Ebrahim Patel and senior officials from the departments of higher education; science and innovation; defence and military veterans; and health.
“Apart from attending and participating in the above-mentioned events, I will also have bilateral meetings with some of my counterparts and leading captains of industry,” Pandor said.
An independent panel chaired by retired Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo recently found that Ramaphosa has a case to answer in relation to the Phala Phala Farmgate scandal.
U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit underway in Washington - https://youtu.be/Uo_sAjA6ye4
“Our administration will be guided not by what we can do for Africa but what we can do with Africa - Vice President Kamala Harris”
https://www.iol.co.za/news/world/our-administration-will-be-guided-not-by-what-we-can-do-for-africa-but-what-we-can-do-with-africa-vice-president-kamala-harris-243668dc-afcf-4eaf-b5b3-7ec23fc66540
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022
Speaking at the African and Diaspora Young Leaders’ Forum at the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit, US Vice President Kamala Harris has announced a host of new investments into Africa’s youth development.
Harris announced a new investment of $100 million “which we will expand networking for African youth alumni and connect them with social impact and business investors”.
Speaking at the young leaders’ forum on Tuesday Harris said the Biden administration will invest their time and energy to fortify partnerships across Africa.
“Africa cannot help but be in the future business. I strongly believe that the creativity and ingenuity of Africa’s young leaders will help us shape the future of the world, and that their ideas — your ideas — and innovations and initiatives will benefit the entire world.”
Harris said that within the next two years, the Biden administration would have invested more than $1 billion in education and youth programming in Africa, which will allow the administration to further its partnership with African academic institutions and the private sector on education and research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Harris said that the investment will allow the administration to expand its signature programme for African youth, the Young African Leaders’ Initiative, also known at YALI.
The YALI programme sees fellows travel to colleges and universities in the United States for six weeks to study. They also study business, civic engagement, or public management.
“We also developed YALI Regional Leadership Centres to provide a similar experience at higher education institutions in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa. Through these experiences, these leaders join a continent-wide network of young leaders.”
Harris added that currently more than 640 000 young Africans participate in the YALI network.
She further said that this week, the United States Export-Import Bank will be entering into a new memoranda of understanding with entities in Sub-Saharan Africa whereby the US will provide more than $1 billion to finance American commercial investment in Africa.
“This, we know and believe, will create jobs and opportunities in various sectors, and in particular, the renewable energy sector, in agriculture, water and sanitation, and infrastructure.
“In addition, we will launch The African Women’s Trade and Investment Initiative, a new programme which will help women across Africa participate in e-commerce, and access financing and export markets.”
Harris said the US government will also re-launch the African Women Entrepreneurship Programme to provide micro-financing to women to support their ambitions and their aspirations.
According to Harris, President Joe Biden will also sign an executive order to create the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States.
“This council will provide advice and recommendations to the president to strengthen the ties between the people of Africa and the people of America.”
Harris said that throughout history, in moments of uncertainty and change, the world has often turned to young people to help lead the way forward. Now is no different.
“So to Africa’s young leaders, I say: I am an optimist about what lies ahead for Africa and, by extension, for the world because of you — because of your energy, your ambition, and your ability to transform seemingly intractable problems into opportunities. Simply put: your ability to see what can be, unburdened by what has been.”
“Zelensky's Congress Appearance Sparks Winston Churchill Comparisons” - https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-congress-appearance-sparks-winston-churchill-comparisons-1768924
Comparing Zelensky to Churchill? It reminds me more of Jan Smuts when he was speaking to the British parliament with Churchill in the background. Smuts had his military uniform on.
Zelensky’s US Congress appearance reminds me of “General [Jan] Smuts [South African Prime Minister] Addresses The Mother Of Parliaments In London (1942)”
https://youtu.be/8fcQ5gD_7UA
Field Marshal Smuts takes the microphone. He talks of the honour of being asked to address the house and the bravery and spirit of England. He refers to the war in China and the war in Russia. Then he says "We have now reached the fourth year of this war, and the defence phase has now ended. The stage is set for the last, the offensive phase". He talks of Hitler constituting the darkest page of modern history and calls for "a new fight to death for man's rights and liberties".
He asks what sort of world we envisage as our objective after the war and what sort of social and international order we are aiming at. He says certain points of great importance have already emerged, such as the acceptance of the name of 'The United Nations', a conception much in advance of the old 'League of Nations'. He finishes by says "and may Heaven's blessing rest on our work in war and in peace".
Cut-aways to members listening including shots of Clement Attlee and Anthony Eden. Churchill takes the microphone and tells of the labours to get this great statesman Field Marshal Smuts to this country. He then calls for appreciation for Smuts. The House rises and applauds and tries to sign 'For He's A Jolly Good Fellow', but the key is set a little high so sounds a bit out of tune. They then give Smuts three cheers. FILM ID:1340.23
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Jan-Smuts:-Metaphysics-and-the-League-of-Nations-Kochanek/44b56b1e6475d1a3dc990bff45dc238dad082269
Jan Smuts was one of the key figures in the creation of the League of Nations, the first international organisation with truly global pretensions. However, Holism and Evolution, the most philosophical of his works, and one that illuminates his views on international organisation, has remained in a state of relative academic neglect.
https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/jan-smuts-churchills-great-contemporary/
Smuts was a man whom Churchill regarded not only as an equal, but in many ways superior to himself.
The war began in 1899, and Churchill’s capture and escape from prison later that year are familiar. Less known is that Smuts, as State Attorney, interrogated the prisoner. Half a century later, at a dinner of The Other Club shortly after Smuts’s death, Churchill recalled: “I remember when we met. I was wet and draggle-tailed. He was examining me on the part I had played in the affair of the armoured train—a difficult moment.”
At one of their meetings during World War II, Smuts told Churchill something he did not previously know. Smuts at first opposed young Winston’s release. Later he considered Churchill (a presumed non-combatant) only technically guilty and favored his release. Meanwhile, the prisoner decided to release himself [Really? Did Jan Smuts not help him?].
Smuts also conceived the major portion of ideas subsequently incorporated into the constitution of the League of Nations.
Uganda:“Pornography committee warns schools on homosexuality” – “recruit, groom, initiate, teach, and later turn learners into agents of change in a wicked manner”
https://www.pulse.ug/news/pornography-committee-warns-schools-on-homosexuality/kxwrwkf
December 21, 2022 3:39 PM
The Anti-Pornographic Control Committee at the Directorate of Ethics and Integrity has warned that schools are now the prime target for LGBT communities and that urgent attention must be exercised from every stakeholder to deal with the vice.
According to the Committee chairperson, Annet Kezaabu, the LGBT community is now using schools to recruit, groom, initiate, teach, and later turn learners into agents of change in a wicked manner.
Kezaabu says these are being trapped with incentives majorly scholarships as she encourages parents to be more vigilant.
She calls for more awareness around children by guiding them to resist gifts and items from people they barely know.
Kezabu’s concerns come at the back drop of the Church of Uganda Archbishop Samuel Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu’s public confession that they had received reports of a group of underground individuals on a mission to recruit school-going children into homosexuality.
Kaziimba advised Government to set up a mechanism for learners to report individuals recruiting school-going children into homosexuality.
In 2017, a nine-member Anti-Pornographic Control Committee was put in place by former Minister for Ethics and Integrity, Fr. Simon Lokodo.
During the inauguration of the Committee at the Uganda Media Center, Lokodo said Government will spend sh2b each year to fund activities of the ad hoc team.
Chaired by Annette Kezaabu Kasimbazi, who represents the media fraternity, the team operates a fully-fledged secretariat with support of technical staff and have the latitude to incorporate any subject specialists of interest. The Committee has between 30 to 40 members of staff.
“SA students stuck in Russia due to unpaid bills” - https://youtu.be/UTcXJJFR1BY
“SA students in Russia spent Christmas with no food, as their fees, living costs haven’t been paid by Mpumalanga govt”
https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/mpumalanga/sa-students-in-russia-spent-christmas-with-no-food-as-their-fees-living-costs-havent-been-paid-by-mpumalanga-govt-d28d7394-495f-430e-b1f7-506d91d92119
DECEMBER 28, 2022
Pretoria –Over 200 South African students from Mpumalanga who are studying in Russia faced a black Christmas with no food after the provincial government failed to pay for their tuition fees and living costs.
The students are enrolled at different universities in Russia and are studying courses including Aviation, Engineering, Medicine and Information Technology.
According to activist and spokesperson for the group of students, Hayley Reichert, fees and other living costs haven’t been paid for at least six months.
Speaking to eNCA, Reichert said since students raised alarm on their situation, only 47 students had their fees paid.
“I’m getting desperate calls and pleas from these students, they are unable to eat. One of them said she had bread and water for Christmas and they are being told that they are going to be evicted as of 30 December and they are begging and pleading with landlords for extensions.”
Reichert said its not even easy for the students to come back home as most are from disadvantaged backgrounds and relied on government for everything.
“Some of their families don’t have income or have income which is enough to sustain them back here. They are bright young people, these are our future leaders, future doctors, they have been given this opportunity, but due to poor administration from Mpumalanga government, the only solution they have come up with is, send these kids back home,’’ she told the news channel.
In October, Independent Newspapers spoke to one of the students in Moscow, Victoria Maheso, who pleaded for help.
“Our livelihoods are in danger. What am I going to do? I cannot even ask my family for help. I support them with the stipend I receive. I worked hard to make it to my final year. The people who brought us here are not helping. We are coming to you for help,” she said at that time.
After the students pleaded for help, Mpumalanga department of education spokesperson Jasper Zwane said the department is working around the clock and in the best interest of students and will not rest until all issues aimed at advancing their studies are addressed within the stipulated time-lines.
Zwane committed that no student will be evicted from their homes or expelled from universities.
When IOL contacted Zwane to comment on the latest developments, he said he will release a statement on 28 December, when we enquired about the statement, he said there are no new developments and the statement will only be issued on Friday.
South Africa’s own Davos.
“Business people invited to fork out R1.2m to dine with the president at ANC gala dinner”
https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/business-people-invited-to-fork-out-r12m-to-dine-with-the-president-at-anc-gala-dinner-d2dba905-0b42-4f78-8775-2ddb0536aa18
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2022
Cape Town - The ANC has taken its gala dinner prices up a notch and will now charge business people R1.2m to rub shoulders with re-elected ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa during the party’s 111th anniversary celebrations.
The event (which will precede the party’s January 8 rally) will be held on January 7 in the Sand du Plessis Theatre marble foyer in Markgraaf Street, Bloemfontein.
The ANC’s cash source, the Progressive Business Forum (PBF), stands to rake in, at the very least, R3m from three tables, where senior party leaders will sit with business people, and seats for business people to mingle with Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) and National Executive Committee (NEC) members, MECs and mayors.
If business people wish to meet either ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile, or Deputy President in government David Mabuza, they will have have to shell out “R1m a table” on what the ANC refers to as the “platinum” package.
It’s not clear who business people will meet between Mashatile and Mabuza, or if they will meet both, as there are currently two centres of power in the deputy presidency.
Ramaphosa is expected to announce a new deputy president in a Cabinet reshuffle and, in line with ANC tradition, it’s likely to be Mashatile.
Although he sent the Cape Argus the correct link to the Presidential golf day flyer, PBF convener Sipho Mbele did not respond to queries which sought clarity on who business people would meet between Mashatile and Mabuza, and whether these meetings be fertile ground for state capture.
The PBF’s other packages on offer for the January 8 Statement are:
• Nickel - R10 000 per seat with PEC Members/mayors
• Bronze - R15 000 per seat with PEC Officials/MECs
• Silver - R30 000 per seat with Deputy Ministers and NEC members
• Gold - R760 000 per table with ANC officials, Free State provincial convenor, Ministers and Premier.
Furthermore, the PBF will host a Presidential golf day with Ramaphosa on January 6 at the Bloemfontein Golf Club, where, as the golf saying goes, business people can “drive for show and putt for dough”.
Registration, or “green fees”, will set back each player by R2 500.
The forum’s annual packages - which range from silver (R5 000), gold (R10 000), platinum (R15 000), diamond (R33 000) and honorary (R65 000) offer “invitations to ministerial briefings and business matchmaking opportunities”, participation in international trade missions, round table discussions, invitations to meetings with Mbele and “exclusive dinners with ANC leaders”.
The PBF, on its website, carries a message “to broaden your reach”.
Those who subscribe to the packages are promised invites “to ministerial and political briefings aimed at promoting honest, frank and open dialogue between the business community and ANC leaders in government”.
“It is important for government to appreciate the impact of policy on business, and vice versa for business to have a sense of the objectives, direction and challenges that government faces,” the forum writes on its website.
“Through developing a better understanding of each other’s challenges and concerns, common ground can be developed to achieve a shared economic objective,” it reads.
The forum describes the gala dinners and its business summits as debates and discussions among business organisations, business leaders, politicians, economists, academics and others “on what needs to be done” to see to it that progress is made in “achieving the objective of stimulating economic growth in a manner that addresses poverty and inequality”.
>The ANC’s cash source, the Progressive Business Forum (PBF), stands to rake in, at the very least, R3m from three tables, where senior party leaders will sit with business people, and seats for business people to mingle with Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) and National Executive Committee (NEC) members, MECs and mayors.
“Progressive Business Forum Breakfast is underway” [Dec 18, 2022] - https://youtu.be/rINzRKaTIwg
7:49 – “If you look at the economic recovery and reconstruction strategy, we involved business. Actually business made some inputs into the strategy before it became a final document. When you read it, the ANC local government Manifesto, the last page – one of the paragraphs – it talks about social compact between business, labour and government. So we played that role from the point of Progressive Business Forum to create that platform for business to engage with government.”
“The Progressive Business Forum (PBF)”
https://www.pbf.org.za/
The Progressive Business Forum (PBF) is a programme of the ANC, mandated to promote and enhance liaison between Government, the ANC and Business. It functions under the auspices of the Office of the ANC Treasurer General.
In a fundamental sense, the PBF is the locus of the social compact with Business. It is rooted in the commitment of the ANC to uphold the covenant made by President Nelson Mandela, who, in his inaugural address on the 10th of May 1994, said "Today we enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity."
In the words of President Cyril Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation Address on 13 February 2020, "Let us frankly admit that the government cannot solve our economic challenges alone".
With these words, the President invites business to partner with the ANC government, united to confront the realities of the present day South Africa and to resolve them by "placing the economy on a path of inclusive growth".
It is with this common cause in mind, that I invite your attention to this website, to explore opportunities fundamental to business, from SMME's to corporates, as the engine of the economy and to engage at the highest level and have an impact for good.
I encourage all entrepreneurs, business representatives and people of South Africa to become part of the social compact with business, to resolve the challenges of our country together and to ensure that we harness our greatest strengths for the future we can achieve.
Paul Mashatile
ANC Treasurer General
>The Progressive Business Forum (PBF)
It also provides a link to;
PROGRESSIVE CITIZENS' FORUM (PCF)
https://pcf.org.za/
Launched in 2010, the ANC Progressive Citizens’ Forum (PCF) is a subscription-based platform earmarked for all members of society who wish to partner with the ANC in building stronger communities. The PCF provides numerous opportunities for its subscribers to interact with the ANC and its leaders at all levels of the organisation.
The PCF strives to promote social cohesion by creating a platform for the ANC leaders, leaders in government and business to contribute towards shaping the national policies, influence the national discourse and stimulating economic growth through regular robust dialogues.
https://pcf.org.za/_webmoduledata/documents/Prospectus Social Cohesion_Feb2022 reduced.pdf
Executive Subscriber Package
Unlock a world of networking opportunities and direct engagement access with ANC leaders Executive Subscriber Package
The PCF Executive subscriber programme is designed to provide opportunities for direct engagement with ANC leaders. PCF facilitates various opportunities for dialogue between the ANC leadership and Government where solutions toward socio economic growth can be deliberated upon.
The Executive subscriber is a catalyst for change. The aim is to unite South Africans in a non-racial, tolerant society with values of equality, human dignity and equal rights, through the promotion of a diverse socially cohesive society.
PCF will further seek to partner with businesses to harness and collaborate on transformative dialogue initiatives, that drive towards common and holistic vision of a better South Africa. The PCF remains a strong advocate for enabling a conducive environment for government and businesses to engage on strategic issues.
Dialogues and Think Tanks to deliberate on various matters such as transformation of SOE’s, Leadership and mentorship of professionals will be proactively tackled by subscribers in this segment.
KEY EXECUTIVE SUBSCRIBER BENEFITS INCLUDE:
• Invitations to ministerial briefings
• Invitations to purchase discounted tickets for key events
• Invitations to participate in international trade missions
• Invitations to contribute to round table discussions
• Invitations to attend key government events;
• Attend post NEC briefings sessions
• Exclusive helpdesk access and escalation to ANC leaders
• Dinner and one on one meetings with ANC leaders
• Network sessions
• Participate in the policy initiatives
• Attend training offered by PCF T
HE FOLLOWING STANDARD BENEFITS ARE ALSO APPLICABLE
• Welcome letter from the ANC Treasurer General
• Certificate of appreciation from the ANC Treasurer General
• Free training workshops
• Free webinars
• Newsletters and Digital resources
• Rewards Programme benefits and much more
>Gen. Jan Christiaan Smuts was the architect of the Union of South Africa, established in 1910 as a self-governing dominion of the United Kingdom, becoming a totally committed and loyal Anglophile, despite having fought against the British during the Anglo Boer War (1898-1901).
>If racism is measured by the amount of race laws that a government implements, the South African government – with more than 125 racial laws – surely constitutes the most racist government in the world.
>In a fundamental sense, the PBF is the locus of the social compact with Business. It is rooted in the commitment of the ANC to uphold the covenant made by President Nelson Mandela, who, in his inaugural address on the 10th of May 1994, said "Today we enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity."
>29:31 – “In those [Privy Council] meetings, one of the things they did is they cleared the way for the establishment of the British-South Africa company, De Beers, a privately run corporation that would manage the colony in South Africa.”
De Beers was established on 12 March 1888. https://www.debeersgroup.com/about-us/our-history
“De Beers Diamond Company & Black Labour (In "Diamond Road" documentary)” - https://youtu.be/XETdnQFT9VM
The company made use of South Africa's segregated compound system to staff its mines, and shaped many of the systems that were later used in the foundation of apartheid.
“Letter: There are more race based laws now than under apartheid”
https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/opinion-analysis/letter-there-are-more-race-based-laws-now-than-under-apartheid-dd7e9fa0-bf94-4262-a856-b61012e891ed
Published Aug 6, 2020
Much was made by Nelson Mandela after 1994 that non-racialism would characterise South Africa’s future and erase the cancer of race-based laws.
But 26 years on, race-based laws are actually more prolific than ever before. Let’s do the sums: between 1910 and 1948, 17 race-based acts of Parliament were passed. From 1949 to 1960, the foundation years of apartheid, 26 such acts were promulgated. From 1960 to 1980, a further 16 were passed. That totals 59 over a period of 70 years. From 1980, the National Party began relaxing and dismantling apartheid.
According to researcher James Myburgh, since 1995, the ANC has promulgated 90 race-based laws in 25 years. Whereas the cornerstone of apartheid was the Population Registration Act of race identity, the ANC has premised its racial identity agenda on demographic representivity.
Just as apartheid laws permeated all aspects of life, racial representivity requirements have become mandatory in every field of activity.
In the quest for “transformation”, even the Petroleum Pipelines Act has to fulfil racial quotas and have black management. Annually every institution is required to report to the ministry of Labour on progress towards transformation. Job creation has become ideological bean counting.
All of this is in keeping with the SACP’s 1962 plan which called for revolutionary national racialisation and is fundamental to the SACP’s National Democratic Revolution. Whereas South Africa survived the cancer of apartheid, the oppression and dystopia of communism is a terminal virus.
>33 years on, families of Helderberg crash victims search for answers
>SAA and Armscor have repeatedly denied these claims
“Helderberg crash mystery remains”
https://www.upi.com/Archives/2000/05/24/Helderberg-crash-mystery-remains/1379959140800/
MAY 24, 2000
The South African Airways flight was en route from Taiwan to Johannesburg on November 28, 1987, when it crashed into the sea 160km from the island of Mauritius, killing all 159 on board. Unlike the bombing of PanAm flight 103 in 1988 over the Scottish town, no culprit has yet been identified.
At the time, the state-appointed commission of inquiry, headed by retired judge Cecil Margo, a retired supreme court judge and a highly experienced civil aviation administrator, concluded the Boeing 747's crash was caused by a fire.
Margo's Helderberg inquiry failed to establish the fire's cause of a fire but rejected allegations that the aircraft had carried a secret cargo.
Then this week, there were fresh claims that weapons as well an agent for South Africa's sanctions-busting military equipment manufacturer Amscor were aboard the ill-fated Helderberg. Well-known businessman Thomas Osler, who apparently had close ties with Armscor and was allegedly an Armscor agent, was booked on the flight as chief executive of the Industrial Development Corporation, Afrikaans Beeld newspaper reported Wednesday.
Johannesburg daily The Star also reported that a South African Airways pilot told the 1998 Truth Commission hearing that the airline used passenger planes to transport military equipment.
Former truth commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza, who presided over the TRC hearing, confirmed that the pilot told the TRC of at least one incident in 1985 when rockets and rocket launchers were loaded into the cargo hold of his plane on a flight from Tel Aviv to Johannesburg. SAA refused to confirm or deny the TRC evidence, the paper said. This follows the publication of transcripts of an alleged conversation between Helderberg pilot Dawie Uys tells his co-pilot that "Boy George" an apparent reference to a nuclear bomb-was aboard the aircraft. "If there had beena nuclear explosion, we would all know about it. Nuclear bombs don't burn, they explode, yet we know from the forensic evidence that the Helderberg crashed because of a fire on board," Civil Aviation Authority chief Trevor Abrahams told The Star. He also dismissed these new transcripts, saying the master copy of the original tape revealed only "noise".
During the TRC hearing, Beeld reports, "pertinent questions" about Osler's relationship with Armscor and the possibility that he acted as an agent for Armscor were raised.
Beeld said it had information that Osler visited China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and Taiwan in the days before he returned to South Africa on board the Helderberg.
On the morning of the Helderberg's departure from Taiwan, Osler was in Singapore. He was transported back to Taiwan by a Taiwanese military aircraft that was sent to fetch him for "unknown reasons". Meanwhile, Ntsebeza said the TRC hearing had gathered enough evidence for a fresh investigation to be launched. "There are so many unanswered questions about the crash and the Margo commission that investigated it. In our final report we recommend that the government reopen the inquiry," said Ntsebeza.
>>18035433 - Notice the account holder is 'Bloom Diamonds', see image. Coincidence?
“Israel Diamond Museum video 2” - https://youtu.be/3iqtG6yPzWw
“The Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum” - Diamond Exchange District, Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel
https://www.israelandyou.com/harry-oppenheimer-diamond-museum-israelandyou/
The Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum is a museum located in the Diamond Exchange District, Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. The permanent collection consists of rough and finished diamonds and gemstones and provides information on the history and industry of diamonds. The museum was founded in 1986 in honor of Harry Oppenheimer. Moshe Schnitzer was responsible for establishing the museum and was its Chairman until July 2003. In 2008, the museum was reopened after major renovations.
The museum belongs to the Israel Diamond Institute. Long-time diamantaire Shmuel Schnitzer, son of Moshe Schnitzer, is the museum chairman.
The Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum, named after a past Chairman of De Beers, was founded during the International Diamond Congress held in Israel in 1986. The Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum is situated in the heart of the Israeli Diamond Complex in Ramat Gan, and it serves as the Israel Diamond Industry’s display window.
The diamond museum displays permanent exhibits of jewelry, diamonds and gemstones in addition to changing exhibits, and it houses extensive literature on the diamond for professionals. The diamond museum places special emphasis upon the historical link between the Jewish world and Israel on the one hand, and the diamond world, on the other.
Hundreds of international buyers are here at the trading event – from the US, India, UK, China, Italy and South Africa among other countries. They’re joining manufacturing and trading firms from Israel – with around three-thousand people expected to trade more than a billion US dollars of diamonds on the floor of the Israel Diamond Exchange (IDE).
https://en.israelidiamond.co.il/wikidiamond/diamond-industry-organizations/harry-oppenheimer-diamond-museum/
The Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum in Ramat Gan was closed in the beginning of 2018.
>The Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum, named after a past Chairman of De Beers, was founded during the International Diamond Congress held in Israel in 1986.
“Lev Leviev: the Jewish Indiana Jones”
https://moneyweek.com/31323/lev-leviev-the-jewish-indiana-jones
22 JAN 2008
We profile Israel's richest man, who owns everything from housing projects in the former Soviet Union to 7-Elevens - but will always be remembered for single-handedly smashing the De Beers diamond cartel.
It's said that a third of all diamonds sold are cut and polished by Leviev's firm, LLD. The stones in his stores on Bond Street and Madison Avenue "are held to be among the finest anywhere", says the Evening Standard.
In 1971, when he was 15, the family emigrated to Israel. Leviev became an apprentice diamond-cutter, bribing fellow workers to show him every secret of the trade. "I just wanted to make money… I never doubted I'd be rich." By his mid-20s he was running his own business.
De Beers, the Oppenheimer family-controlled syndicate that ruled the global diamond trade took him on as one of only 100 people permitted to buy quantities of unfinished diamonds. Leviev "bristled under the Syndicate's high-handed treatment of buyers", forming an "intense hatred" of De Beers, says Forbes. He determined to source his own rough diamonds and cultivated rising politicians in the unravelling Soviet Union. The result was a joint-venture with the Russian state to mine and supply diamonds to local factories, bypassing De Beers. When the factories were privatised, Leviev somehow emerged as the exclusive owner.
Yet Russia was only the curtain-raiser to Leviev's defining skirmish with the Syndicate, which took place in war-torn Angola, home to the notorious blood-diamond trade. He prepared the ground meticulously, befriending President Dos Santos's ambitious, Westminster-educated daughter, Isobel. "Few were privy to the long conversations between Leviev and Isobel in the Angolan capital, Luanda, in 1999," says the Evening Standard. "But by the end of them nothing was quite the same again in the diamond trade." In 2000, the Angolan government ended the De Beers' monopoly, inspiring others to follow suit. "When he succeeded in Russia, and then in Angola, others saw it and were suddenly emboldened," a fellow Tel Aviv trader told the New York Times. "That's how Leviev cracked the De Beers cartel: with the instincts of a tiger and the balls of a panther."
Leviev never has. A father of nine, he is one of the world's most prolific philanthropists, giving away $50m a year, much of it to Jewish schools and institutions in the former Soviet bloc. Still, he's hardly immune to criticism, says the Evening Standard. There are claims (all denied) that "his operations are creating misery" in Africa, and many see his move to London as a tax dodge.
"However much Leviev has, he is hungry for more," says The New York Times: his business role model is Bill Gates and his main ambition is to join the Forbes rich list's "starting ten". He may also be nursing political ambitions in Israel. "Would I like to be prime minister?" he muses. "I might. When I turn 60."
>“Lev Leviev: the Jewish Indiana Jones”
“Diamond smuggling scandal spotlights shadowy Israeli tycoon Lev Leviev”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/diamond-smuggling-scandal-spotlights-shadowy-israeli-tycoon-lev-leviev/
4 December 2018, 10:39 pm
AP — A shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in the insular world of diamonds has suddenly found his empire in jeopardy after close associates were busted in a massive smuggling ring and an employee mysteriously plummeted to her death from his high-rise Tel Aviv office building.
Lev Leviev, known in Israel as the “king of diamonds,” has enjoyed close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and has a reputation for generous philanthropy to Jewish causes. But now, Israeli police are demanding that he return from Moscow for questioning on allegations of smuggling, money laundering, and tax offenses.
It’s a stunning downturn for one of Israel’s most well-known tycoons. Born in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, the 62-year-old Leviev immigrated to Israel as a youth in 1971 and began working as an apprentice in a polishing plant in Israel’s then-booming diamond industry.
It’s a stunning downturn for one of Israel’s most well-known tycoons. Born in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, the 62-year-old Leviev immigrated to Israel as a youth in 1971 and began working as an apprentice in a polishing plant in Israel’s then-booming diamond industry. His meteoric rise saw him later establishing a plant of his own, and striking deals in Angola and Russia that briefly undercut the DeBeers diamond giant. He later branched out to real estate, construction, and chemicals, with his Africa-Israel holding and investment company becoming a powerful player in the Israeli market and establishing Leviev as a precursor to a wave of Jewish oligarchs from the former Soviet Union who have become power brokers in Israel.
Though his net worth is estimated at more than $1 billion, Leviev suffered heavy losses in recent years because of his massive investment in Russia, where he is known to enjoy strong government support. Leviev, who moved to London a decade ago and recently relocated to Moscow, denies any allegations of impropriety and is currently negotiating terms of his return with Israeli police. But insiders say that even if he hasn’t been formally charged with a crime, his mere association with the suspects accused of smuggling some $80 million worth of diamonds hidden in briefcases over several years could be devastating to his brand.
“I can’t believe he would put himself in such a situation. He is still a strong oligarch, and this is not his style. A smuggling of this scale could topple businesses far larger than his,” said Alex Kogan, a journalist who has covered the oligarchs in Israel for the local Russian-language press. “Even if he is not involved, this whole affair will harm him greatly.”
Leviev’s son and brother were arrested in early November, along with four others, and are currently out on bail in what has been dubbed the “Black Diamond” affair.
The saga took a more tragic turn on November 11, when Mazal Hadadi, a bookkeeper for Leviev’s diamond firm LLD, fell to her death from a small, elevated bathroom window on the 10th floor of his office building next to Israel’s Diamond Exchange.
The death was initially reported as a suicide, the supposed result of a breakdown following tough police questioning about the smuggling affair. The family acknowledges Hadadi was rattled by the investigation but insists the mother of three would never take her own life and was on her way to meet her husband after work when a mysterious call to her cell phone made her abruptly return to the office.
Israel’s reeling diamond industry has been trying to distance itself from the affair. With tens of thousands of employees in the 1970s, Israel was once the world’s largest diamond trading center but fell on hard times in recent years because of the proliferation of synthetic diamonds and outsourcing of polishing plants to countries like India, where wages are far lower. Dubai has also cut away at Israel’s status as the regional gateway for trading because of tax benefits for companies.
But Israel is still a leader in the polishing of large diamonds and a hub for e-commerce and technological developments. Though officially still a member of the Israel Diamond Exchange, Leviev hasn’t been seen in Israeli diamond circles in years as his business interests focused elsewhere and his brother took over the leadership at LLD.
>About Lockerbie Bombing, Bernt Carlsson, Namibia, South Africa, US, CIA, De Beers/Anglo American, etc. – Connecting dots – Part 4
>“Allan Francovich: The Maltese Double-Cross - Lockerbie (1994)”- https://youtu.be/0B5hv6scbBo
>Notice Bill Barr [US Attorney General 1991] and Robert Mueller [US assistant Attorney General] handled the situation, see video clips concerning their statements; 1:42 – Bill Barr and 1:14:04 – Robert Mueller.
>De Beers, the Oppenheimer family-controlled syndicate that ruled the global diamond trade took him on as one of only 100 people permitted to buy quantities of unfinished diamonds. Leviev "bristled under the Syndicate's high-handed treatment of buyers", forming an "intense hatred" of De Beers, says Forbes.
Which makes this even more interesting…
“Jared Kushner sealed real estate deal with oligarch's [Lev Leviev] firm cited in money-laundering case” – Triggering the Robert Mueller report on Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/24/jared-kushner-new-york-russia-money-laundering
Mon 24 Jul 2017 12.29 BST
A Guardian investigation has established a series of overlapping ties and relationships involving alleged Russian money laundering, New York real estate deals and members of Trump’s inner circle. They include a 2015 sale of part of the old New York Times building in Manhattan involving Kushner and a billionaire real estate tycoon and diamond mogul, Lev Leviev.
The ties between Trump family real estate deals and Russian money interests are attracting growing interest from the justice department’s special counsel, Robert Mueller, as he seeks to determine whether the Trump campaign collaborated with Russia to distort the outcome of the 2016 race. Mueller has reportedly expanded his inquiry to look at real estate deals involving the Trump Organization, as well as Kushner’s financing.
Robert Mueller’s other notable Investigations
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December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
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September 11 terrorist attacks
“Andre de Ruyter 'survives' an attempt on his life” - https://youtu.be/v9pre-R80UQ
“Attempted murder of De Ruyter reported to the South African Police Service”
https://ee-business-intelligence.constantcontactsites.com/articles/post/2177030/attempted-murder-of-de-ruyter-reported-to-the-south-african-police-service
January 7, 2023
by Chris Yelland, managing director, EE Business Intelligence
Eskom CEO Andre De Ruyter has survived a murder attempt at his Megawatt Park office in Sunninghill, Johannesburg, where he drank a cup of coffee laced with cyanide.
De Ruyter has confirmed the attempt on his life, which took place on Tuesday 13 December 2022, a day after he submitted his resignation as CEO to the Eskom chairman, Mpho Makwana, but before this became publicly known on 14 December 2022.
“I have reported the matter to SAPS [the South African Police Service] on 5 January 2023, and the case can be assumed to be under investigation,” he told EE Business Intelligence.
A trusted source external to Eskom indicated to EE Business Intelligence that after drinking a cup of coffee in his office at Eskom Megawatt Park in Sunninghill, De Ruyter became weak, dizzy and confused, shaking uncontrollably and vomiting copiously. He subsequently collapsed, unable to walk.
He was rushed to his doctor’s rooms by his security detail, where his condition was diagnosed as cyanide poisoning, and treated accordingly. Tests taken subsequently confirmed massively elevated levels of cyanide in his body.
This has been further confirmed by a second high level source, as well as De Ruyter’s own words confirming his reporting of the matter to SAPS.
De Ruyter and his executive team have been clamping down and cutting off illicit revenue streams from procurement irregularities, fraud, theft, corruption and maladministration, both within Eskom and by certain of its suppliers and contractors.
High levels of criminality and corruption are particularly prevalent in Mpumalanga Province where there is a high concentration of aging and poorly performing Eskom coal-fired power stations.
The month of December 2022 was marred by extremely high levels of rolling power cuts throughout South Africa, which is unusual at a time when electricity demand is traditionally at its lowest as the country enters the summer holiday period and festive season.
De Ruyter has indicated that his position as CEO of Eskom became untenable after ANC chairman and Mineral Resources & Energy minister Gwede Mantashe publicly accused Eskom management of “agitating for the overthrow of the state”.
The attempted murder also occurred only days before the start of the ANC elective conference held at the NASREC Expo Centre, Johannesburg, from 16 to 20 December 2022.
The period in the lead up to and during the conference is a time of significantly heightened political tension as factions of the ruling party nominate and contest the positions for the party’s president, its “top 7” leadership, and its National Executive Committee (NEC).
It is becoming clearer that certain disaffected political and criminal elements have been engaging in deliberate acts of sabotage, theft and vandalism that worsens security of supply in South Africa, to the extent where state security is compromised.
The deployment of the South African Defence Force (SADF) to protect Eskom power station assets at a number of Eskom coal-fired power stations in Mpumalanga Province, announced during the ANC elective conference indicates the perceived severity of the threats.
>“Attempted murder of De Ruyter reported to the South African Police Service”
“LAST YEAR A ‘SOPHISTICATED BUG WAS FOUND IN DE RUYTER’S CAR”
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/eskom-ceo-andre-de-ruyter-poisoned-day-after-his-resignation-breaking-news-7-january-2023/
07-01-2023 22:38
This comes merely two months after De Ruyter revealed that he had to hire bodyguards as he receives constant death threats ‘I’m going to come and take out your whole family’.
In October last year, he discovered a suspicious device inside his car.
LAST YEAR A ‘SOPHISTICATED BUG WAS FOUND IN DE RUYTER’S CAR
“I was in the back of my Volvo when I saw something strange on the floor underneath the driver’s seat. The device – a motherboard filled with microchips, immediately looked out of place. I assume it was stuck to the bottom of the seat and must have come loose,”
he is quoted as having said.
After finding the device, Andre De Ruyter reportedly turned to retired commissioner George Fizaz, whose company then launched its investigation to help identify it.
Fizaz is said to have then told De Ruyter that the piece of equipment appeared to be quite sophisticated and so advanced that very few people are able to produce it.
According to Fizaz, the bug could have been used to track De Ruyter’s location and listen to conversations, along with other features.
“Syndicates stole 65 truckloads of Eskom coal in a day — Report” – Part 1
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/456485-syndicates-stole-65-truckloads-of-eskom-coal-in-a-day-report.html
14 August 2022
Criminal syndicates are hijacking thousands of tonnes of Eskom coal and selling it at a hefty premium to international buyers, the Sunday Times reports, https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2022-08-14-big-bribes-illegal-guns-inside-the-world-of-the-coal-mafia/.
The publication said it made contact with a former operative who worked at a “black site” around Middelburg in Mpumalanga, which stole coal on the way from mines to power stations.
Coal would be offloaded and replaced with lower-grade product or discarded coal by-products that the thieves then sent to power stations.
These are either highly inefficient at generating the heat required to produce electricity or could damage generating units, resulting in costly breakdowns that increase the likelihood of load-shedding.
The former operative explained their tasks would be to drive in a bakkie in front of a designated truck and active a signal jammer blocking the truck’s tracker while it diverted to the black site.
He would deactivate the signal jammer once the truck was back on the road with the replaced load.
The former operative told Sunday Times that the scale of the theft was massive.
“[In] one night almost 2,000 tonnes of RB1 [high-grade] coal was dropped off. To give you an idea, 2,000 tonnes fills 65 trucks,” they stated.
The coal meant for Eskom would then be transported to the harbour and exported.
Experts estimate that Eskom pays between R400 and R750 per tonne of coal, while the export price was about $344 (R5,562) per tonne.
The former operative said several people working along the coal supply chain were complicit in the criminal activity.
These included security, the weighbridge, ground force labour personnel, and sometimes even mine supervisors.
“There was usually a middleman who came with the truck. You pay him, and he pays everyone in the chain. A driver can get up to R30,000 per load. The minimum cut for a driver is R9,500. It all depends on the quality of the coal,” they stated.
Police in the area were also supposedly taking bribes to look the other way.
Minerals Council SA spokesperson Allan Seccombe told the publication people subcontracted to Eskom to take samples of coal deliveries were bribed as much as R100,000 per month to tamper with the results and make the combustible appear suitable for use.
The Sunday Times said it spoke to more than 15 other people working in the industry who corroborated the operative’s claims but were too scared to go on record.
The source now claims to operate a legitimate business but fears that speaking out could endanger his and his family’s lives.
“Syndicates stole 65 truckloads of Eskom coal in a day — Report” – Part 2
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/456485-syndicates-stole-65-truckloads-of-eskom-coal-in-a-day-report.html
14 August 2022
Coal mafia clampdown
Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan previously said law enforcement agencies had identified, https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/452564-police-fighting-mafia-selling-coal-filled-with-metal-and-rubble-to-eskom.html, “mafia” groups operating in Mpumalanga that have infiltrated the structures of legitimate companies to set up parallel operations in illegal mining and coal supplies.
That has resulted in Eskom getting sub-standard coal that includes pieces of metal and rubble.
This damages its generating units, many of which are already performing well below maximum capacity after decades of operation.
Investigations are also ongoing into Eskom being billed for thousands of litres of fuel oil that never gets delivered to its power plants.
In addition, Eskom is battling rogue elements within its ranks that sabotage its power plant operations, a claim it first made in November 2021, https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/423582-pictures-of-eskom-sabotage-that-nearly-caused-stage-6-load-shedding.html.
That came after the stays of a power pylon had been deliberately cut, collapsing onto a secondary distribution line.
That resulted in power to the coal conveyor belt at Letabo Power Station tripping and nearly dumping South Africa into Stage 6 load-shedding.
In May 2022, the power utility reported the fifth incident, https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/445206-eskom-power-station-sabotaged-fifth-time-in-a-year.html, of suspected sabotage at just one of its power plants — Tutuka.
In that case, a saboteur with knowledge of the power station’s layout and security camera positions had severed a warming valve cable with a grinder and cut a control air pipe, resulting in the delay of the return to service of Tutuka Unit 5.
A day after that, Gordhan revealed, https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/445398-more-sabotage-uncovered-at-eskoms-hendrina-power-station.html, that flexible copper bars needed to synchronise a unit at the Hendrina Power Station were stolen by people working within the power station.
Is this all related?
“David v Goliath court battle on the cards between coal mines” – Part 1
https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/news/david-v-goliath-court-battle-on-the-cards-between-coal-mines-2cac2bf7-4f3d-4277-a957-295de5099584
SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 2023
Johannesburg - A court battle is on the horizon between the politically connected big coal miners in charge of Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) and Optimum Coal Mine (OCM) over export rights.
In court, Templar Capital will present a case explaining how it acquired the equity stake in OCM from the state-capture accused Gupta brothers, who defaulted on their debt to the company. OCM has brought in contractors to operate on mini-pits as part of the business rescue strategy to revive the once lucrative mine, but RBCT is suspicious of the OCM’s “job-saving” arrangement.
On the other side, RBCT would have to explain why it is comfortable to allow corruption-infested Glencore to use the international export terminal but is blocking OCM on the grounds that it is carrying reputational risk.
In a letter at the end of last month, Optimum Coal Terminal – the business in which the OCM export allocation is held – placed the ball squarely in RBCT’s court. OCT tabled a proposal that unless both parties reach an agreement, it would be prudent for RBCT to permit OCT to continue usage of the lucrative export terminal until the end of February, pending the outcome of any litigation.
The price of coal has shot up globally following the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and big mining companies in SA are salivating at the opportunity to drive profit margins in the international export markets.
The OCT proposal was in response to an earlier letter from RBCT on December 20, which dealt with the additional information that OCT had submitted to assist RBCT to reverse its decision to block the company from using the export terminal as of February 1.
RBCT, whose board includes executives from Glencore, Seriti Resources and Thungela Resources, had decided to cancel the valuable export allocation held by OCT on claims that the company carried reputational risk due to previous association with the infamous Gupta brothers who stand accused of capturing the South African state to enrich themselves.
However, Glencore, in which President Cyril Ramaphosa previously served as chairperson, has recently pleaded guilty to findings in US investigations regarding bribery and market manipulation and agreed to pay fines.
Ramaphosa was in partnership with Glencore while a director of Shanduka Group, a diversified industrial company with significant coal mining interests including a stake in OCM – later sold to Gupta-owned Tegeta Resources in 2016. The CEO of Seriti, Mike Teke, donated R600 000 to Ramaphosa’s ANC presidential campaign in 2017, dubbed #CR17. Bernard Dalton, the executive head of marketing at Thungela, previously Anglo Coal, is also on the board of RBCT.
The National Prosecuting Authority pulled the first trigger on OCM in March last year and secured a preservation order under the pretext that the mine was acquired through proceeds of crime – even though Templar acquired ownership of the mine by converting the Guptas’ debt to equity.
“David v Goliath court battle on the cards between coal mines” – Part 2
https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/news/david-v-goliath-court-battle-on-the-cards-between-coal-mines-2cac2bf7-4f3d-4277-a957-295de5099584
SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 2023
RBCT CEO Allan Waller stated in the December 20 letter that given the additional information that OCT had provided, the RBCT board would consider it and provide feedback by January 20 on whether the earlier deadline to block OCT from using the facility still stands. On November 30 last year, RBCT had given OCT until January 31 to cease exporting coal through the terminal.
“In the circumstances, RBCT is not currently in a position to consider agreeing to any further extensions to OCT beyond 31 January 2023, which (was the) extended date you had proposed in October 2022 and confirms that its position set out in its letter to you of, November 30, 2022, stands. We understand that OCT must consider taking whatever lawful steps it deems appropriate and are open to it in the circumstances,” Waller said.
The withdrawal of OCT’s access to the coal terminal would place at risk the jobs of up to 2 000 workers employed by the group of contractors currently conducting limited operations on “mini-pits” as part of the business rescue plan.
The OCT business rescue practitioners, Kurt Knoop and Kgashane Monyela, said in a response to RBCT, dated December 26, that “in the event that RBCT’s position remains unchanged from the one set out in your letter of November 30, 2022, notwithstanding its consideration of the information and submissions made by us subsequent thereto, it will leave the parties with a mere seven working days to finalise an urgent court application that will by necessity have to deal with substantial and possibly complex issues of fact and law”.
“This includes having to finalise the drafting of the application after considering RBCT’s communication of January 20, 2023, serving the application, providing RBCT time to answer thereto, replying to the answering affidavit, dealing with intervention applications that will no doubt be brought, preparing for an argument, allowing the court time to hear the application, consider it and write a judgment on it, all within the space of less than two weeks.”
Knoop and Monyela said that “it will not only be impractical to attempt the above in the time frame imposed by RBCT but may also cause severe prejudice to all parties involved, as well as the court, to attempt to do so”.
“Conversely, should the parties agree to truncated but practical time frames within which to achieve the finalisation of an urgent application, it will not cause any prejudice to any of the parties,” they continued.
OCT intended to launch its urgent application by January 25, then receive answering affidavits from RBCT by February 3 and provide replies five days later. It was expected that the court application would be heard on February 13.
“We submit that the above proposal not only provides for a practical way to deal with the possible urgent legal proceedings that may follow the January 20, 2023 communication but will also curtail the substantial prejudice that will be suffered by the parties and the court if the very unpractical alternative set out above is imposed,” OCT said.
OCT had given RBCT a deadline of Friday to confirm the proposed schedule, however there was no response at the time of going to print.
>Dr Pali Lehohla
“Pali Lehohla says West hoodwinked Cyril Ramaphosa into abandoning coal to end greenhouse emissions”
https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/pali-lehohla-says-west-hoodwinked-cyril-ramaphosa-into-abandoning-coal-to-end-greenhouse-emissions-80ee79dc-6416-4869-ad05-3eed314c095f
TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2023
Pretoria - Economic Modelling Academy director, Pali Lehohla has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to demand an apology and answers from the International Partner Group nations that “misled” South Africa into abandoning coal in order to bring an end to greenhouse emissions.
This follows the public outrage that ensued when the National Energy Regulator of South Africa gave the nod for Eskom to increase electricity tariffs by 18.65%, while the nation continues to experience the dark due to indefinite blackouts.
Ramaphosa has earned the ire of academics and activists who fail to understand how he could possibly justify signing the so-called Just Energy Transition deals with developed countries that continued to rely on coal.
During the COP27 summit, held at Sharm El-Sheikh International Convention Centre in Egypt last November, Ramaphosa committed South Africans to a multimillion-dollar debt scheme that would see the country abandon coal in pursuit of renewable energy.
South Africa’s “green partners” include France, the US, the UK, Germany and the EU.
According to former statistician-general Lehohla, it appears Ramaphosa was misled.
“Germany has shown the world what has to be done. The president should ask his counterparts why they misled him… ‘You said that I should dump coal, but when you started using it again you should have told me’.
“If the president doesn’t ask those questions, load shedding will remain a problem. He should get those answers and come back to the nation and say ‘I have been badly misled. I thought I have been dealing with honourable people, a just process for just transition negotiation’,” said Lehohla.
Meanwhile, DA leader John Steenhuisen has expressed frustration after he failed to attend a virtual meeting with Ramaphosa due to load shedding.
“Unlike ministers, we don’t have generators and free electricity. I’m still waiting to see if he is going to agree to a one-on-one meeting that I asked for in a letter I sent last week,” said Steenhuisen.
>“Eskom loses billions on coal contracts”
“AfriForum heads to court over Eskom supplier contracts”
https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/afriforum-heads-to-court-over-eskom-supplier-contracts-3468b379-a3e7-41d0-834c-395898e16257
TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2023
Pretoria - The civil rights organisation AfriForum has taken legal action against Eskom to obtain information regarding the power supplier’s controversial contracts.
On July 12, 2022, the lobby group served an application to the power utility in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA).
In the application, AfriForum demanded information on active contracts that Eskom had with various service providers, including coal suppliers and transport companies.
The organisation said Eskom responded to the application. However, key information was redacted and withheld.
AfriForum was not happy with this and filed an internal appeal on September 28, 2022, pointing out Eskom did not provide an adequate explanation of why the information was withheld.
According to the organisation, Eskom did not respond to the internal appeal. Hence, they were forced to take legal action to obtain a court order obliging Eskom to release said information.
“Eskom’s failure is causing incalculable damage to the country. That is why AfriForum is fighting in court for transparency and so that the information about Eskom’s contracts is made public.
“If AfriForum succeeds with the application and any irregularities are found, action will be taken against Eskom in the strictest possible way,” said AfriForum’s campaign officer for strategy and content, Reiner Duvenage.
“Eskom Crippling South Africans | with Special Guest MG (Ret) Bantu Holomisa, UDM | 17 Jan 23” - https://youtu.be/WI3-xhewgKw
“Energy crisis - protests and court action planned to hold government accountable”
https://www.iol.co.za/mercury/news/energy-crisis-protests-and-court-action-planned-to-hold-government-accountable-158f89d0-18ee-4f36-a98b-fd9acad915e4
TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2023
President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government should expect a wave of protests and court action as the country grapples with indefinite stage 6 load shedding while an 18.65% electricity tariff hike has been granted to power utility Eskom.
This is the view of political parties who yesterday said the government needed to account for the crisis. Last week there was outrage when the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) announced it had approved an 18.65% tariff increase.
Ramaphosa cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos to deal with the electricity crisis, but delegates who will go to the meeting will be hard pressed to convince others to invest as the country experiences a precarious period of energy insecurity.
Eskom offered a slight reprieve for consumers yesterday when it announced that load shedding would move to stage 4 from 5am this morning with stage 5 kicking in from 4pm tonight. However, it said the move to lower stages depended on units returning to service as planned.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa, Build One South Africa movement leader Mmusi Maimane and policy analyst Lukhona Mnguni have asked advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC and Eric Mabuza to take the government, Eskom and Nersa to court over the load-shedding crisis.
Holomisa said there was little information on what was being done to reverse the high levels of load shedding and they had no option but to go to court and find out if government had a back-up plan should the grid collapse and the entire country be plunged into a blackout.
Protests have already started in some parts of the country and yesterday residents in Boksburg, Gauteng, barricaded roads with burning tyres and rocks.
Yesterday Azapo and the PAC embarked on a picket outside the Nersa offices in Pretoria to protest against the tariff increase.
The PAC’s Dr Pitso Mphasha said they were calling on Nersa to review the decision to give Eskom such an exorbitant increase.
“Today was just a picket but it will be followed by a mass protest by opposition parties. There is an engagement taking place between all opposition parties in Parliament. We want to stage a massive protest together and we are encouraging citizens, whether apolitical or not, and civil society organisations to join,” said Mphasha, adding that a date for the nationwide protest had not yet been agreed on.
Labour federations Cosatu and Saftu as well as political parties have jointly condemned Nersa’s decision to grant Eskom the tariff increase, describing the move as a ploy “to plunge ordinary South Africans into further poverty”.
Ramaphosa met with opposition political parties on Sunday and held meetings with the National Energy Crisis Committee and the Eskom board.
The DA is planning a major protest to take place at the ANC’s Luthuli House headquarters on January 25 to address the ongoing load shedding.
Ghaleb Cachalia, the party’s spokesperson on public enterprises, said the march would focus on load shedding and the tariff increase received by Eskom.
“Load shedding has been ongoing for more than a decade and the frog has been proverbially boiled slowly over time.
“There was an acceptance over time of the need for load shedding but the proviso was that the problem would be fixed at some stage. Clearly this is not the case and we could be heading for a national blackout.”
Cachalia said load shedding was exacerbating unemployment and leading to the closure of small and large businesses.
>Cachalia said load shedding was exacerbating unemployment and leading to the closure of small and large businesses.
Yet the SA rand strengthens…
“<strong>Rand Report: Rand strengthens on optimistic global outlook</strong>”
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/business-news-and-finance/rand-report-rand-strengthens-on-optimistic-global-outlook/
17-01-2023
The South African rand was able to benefit from recent risk-on sentiment. Coupled with greenback weakness, this allowed the USD/ZAR pair to move 2.04% lower during the week. After opening at R17.15 on Monday, breaching the R17.00 support level and touching R16.70, the pair closed at R16.79 on Friday.
“Kenny Kunene to appeal Malema hate speech case ruling” - https://youtu.be/jThFOjqPkAs
1:30 – [EFF Spokesperson] “These comments are not only hateful but were not considered of the historical impact of derogatory terms used to refer human beings inciting violence and genocide. Genocide and hate crimes against human beings begin at the point of dehumanization when Hitler rationalized the genocide against the Jewish community, he referred to them as rats. When colonizers wanted to enslave and exploit African people, the rational behind it was that Africans were people without history. They were barbarians whose conquest was justified in order to invite them into humanity. During the Rwandan genocide, when the Hutus massacred the Tutsis, Tutsis were referred to as cockroaches on national radios and places of public discourse. The EFF hopes that this judgment will serve the rehabilitating purpose that the prison system has clearly failed to achieve with Kunene as an individual.”
“Kunene to appeal guilty judgement for calling Malema a cockroach”
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/kenny-kunene-to-appeal-hate-speech-verdict-julius-malema-cockroach-2-february-2023/
02-02-2023
Kenny Kunene said it was rich of Julius Malema to head to court over the cockroach comments yet he sings ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer’.
Kenny Kunene says he will appeal the judgement that found him guilty of hate speech for calling Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema an irritating cockroach and a frog.
The court ordered Kunene to issue an unconditional public apology to Malema, including retracting his statement.
KENNY KUNENE VS JULIUS MALEMA
Judge Motsamai Makume said the statement uttered by Kunene when he referred to Malema as a cockroach, little frog, and criminal declared to constitute hate speech as defined by the Equality Act.
In response to the ruling, Kunene said he respects the South African courts but has substantial grounds to feel the judgement handed down by Judge Makume was wrong in law and will be overturned on appeal.
Kunene said his lawyers firmly believe that another court will come to a different decision, and therefore, the appeal will be launched as a matter of urgency.
“Now is not the time to nitpick the judgement, but I’m sure that few people could ever have imagined that what I said about Julius Malema was so criminally horrendous as to be termed “hate speech.”
“It was truly rich of Julius Malema to take me to the Equality Court when he proudly sings ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer,’ which isn’t hate speech. For me, as a layman, that is incitement to violence against a minority ethnic group,” Kunene said.
The Sushi King accused Malema of spewing violence out of his mouth over and over.
“It was shameless of Julius Malema to take me to court after calling Pravin Gordhan a ‘dog’ that must be kicked so the master can come out. Julius Malema is a man with thin skin. He’s emotionally fragile, like a child. He wants to insult and doesn’t want to be insulted. He wants to demean others but doesn’t want to be demeaned,” Kunene added.
The EFF believed that the words were not only hateful but were also not considerate of the historical impact of derogatory terms used to refer to human beings in inciting violence and genocide.
The party said it hopes that the judgement will serve the rehabilitating purpose that the prison system failed to achieve with Kunene as an individual.
>Khumalo said that security forces had intervened when authorities “had been made aware of a grand plan to sow a trail of destruction” in Eswatini. Without offering evidence, he alleged the plan involved the Economic Freedom Fighters, a radical leftwing political party in neighbouring South Africa.
“EFF branch in eSwatini takes credit for ‘leading Swazi revolution’”
https://twitter.com/NombuleloMotsa/status/1409767335242633221/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1409767335242633221%7Ctwgr%5E634952fb85860989db04a490b29cef8fdbf642ff%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesouthafrican.com%2Fnews%2Fafrica%2Flatest-news-updates-eswatini-protests-revolution-eff-branch-swazi-revolution%2F
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/africa/latest-news-updates-eswatini-protests-revolution-eff-branch-swazi-revolution/
29-06-2021 10:18
As the people of eSwatini take to the streets in their fight for democracy, the Swazi branch of the EFF says it is responsible for a ‘major turning point’.
A set of violent protests across eSwatini has, reportedly, forced King Mswati into hiding. The ruling monarch, in power since 1986, is allegedly riding it out in Johannesburg after a nationwide revolt was unleased. A coordinated effort from a gatvol Swazi public is ushering in the winds of revolution across the border – and the EFF is taking credit for it.
ESWATINI LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES: EFF HAIL ‘TURNING POINT’
The Red Berets, who initially set up their political party in South Africa eight years ago, also have chapters all across Africa. Liberia and Zimbabwe have some of the more prominent international operations, and in Namibia, the domestic EFF hold seats in the National Parliament. However, their influence is being keenly felt in eSwatini too…
EFFSWA is now calling on their people to ‘maintain this energy’ as we head into Tuesday. The branch says they are responsible for galvanising the youth into action, and asked for protesters to ‘prepare for combat’ if needs be.
“It took the arrival of the EFF Swaziland for the struggle of 40 years to reach a turning point, where we are now yielding the results people have been waiting for. We call upon everyone in eSwatini to not give up, victory is coming and fighters must be combat-ready. Freedom is coming, and we request solidarity from the international community.”
WHY ARE THE SWAZI PEOPLE PROTESTING?
In the past few days, police fired tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, and water cannons at the protesters. Since the weekend, the army has been called in to quell the rising tide of public anger. The demonstrators, who are demanding multi-party democracy and an elected prime minister, have pelted police with stones in response.
Political parties have been banned in the tiny southern African country since 1973. King Mswati III names government ministers and controls the parliament, while a constitution introduced in 2005 forbids parties from running in national elections. Protests are usually rare in Eswatini, which was renamed from Swaziland by Mswati in 2018.
But last week, around 500 youths protested in the Manzini district, around 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the capital, demanding democracy. The government had on Thursday banned protests, with National Police Commissioner William Dlamini warning that officers would be “zero-tolerant” of breaches of the ban. However, the measure has been ignored.
The attached document, “EFFSWA Statement on the Ongoing Revolution in Swaziland”, states;
At the midst of poice brutality, a sad incident took place where police murdered aspiring lawyer and student Thabani Nkomonye. The EFF Swaziland successfully organised its members to participate in a biggest march in the country to Matsapha police station and Manzini Regional Headquarters to demand justice for Thabani under the hashtag #JusticeForThabani.
The EFF Swaziland condemns deployment of the army to unleash violence towards innocent citizens who are peacefully lobbying for their concerns to be heard by the government. [Like in KwaZulu Natal
We call upon all Swazis not to give up now… The fighters and ground forces must be combat ready.
>At the midst of poice brutality, a sad incident took place where police murdered aspiring lawyer and student Thabani Nkomonye.
[Eswatini]
Finishing what they started? Notice that Swaziland/Eswatinit borders KwaZulu-Natal and Malema did state that “The July 2021 of Zuma… The unrest of Zuma is going to look like a Mickey Mouse” compared to the coming national shutdown on the 20th March 2023. >>18259474
Eswatini protests: Starting as a peaceful protest on 20 June [2021], they escalated after 25 June into violence and looting over the weekend, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932023_Eswatini_protests
KwaZulu Natal protests: Looting and violence blew up around KZN on July 9 2021 and the situation became even more explosive at the weekend., https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-07-12-gunshots-and-explosions-ring-out-in-kzn-as-violent-protests-continue/
>>18254097 - Now IFP and EFF are now divorced.
And now a murder of a politician.
“High tension in Estawini after the killing of Thulani Maseko”
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/tension-high-in-eswatini-after-the-killing-of-thulani-maseko-2-february-2023/
02-02-2023 11:27
Talks of tensions after murder of Maseko were attended by Eswatini Prime Minister Cleopas Dlamini and president Cyril Ramaphosa.
On Tuesday, Southern Africa’s regional bloc Southern African Development Community (SADC) acknowledged that political tensions were rising in the kingdom of Eswatini after the murder of Thulani Maseko.
NO ARRESTS HAVE BEEN MADE YET
Maseko was shot dead on 21 January 2023, which caused alarm over political violence in Africa’s last absolute monarchy. He was shot through the window of his home in Luhleko, around 50 kilometres from the capital Mbabane.
His murder happened right after King Mswati III had warned activists who defied him not to “shed tears” about “mercenaries killing them”. There have been no arrests over the killing so far.
The SADC called on authorities in Eswatini “to conduct a swift, transparent, and comprehensive investigation” into Maseko’s killing.
ACTS OF VIOLENCE CAUSES ESCALATION IN TENSIONS
Namibian President Hage Geingob, who chairs the SADC’s politics, defence, and security committee and hosted the talks Tuesday. He said that the acts of violence in Eswatini pointed to “an escalation of the tensions”.
He also called for “calm” in the kingdom between South Africa and Mozambique after the killing of Maseko.
The talks were attended by Eswatini Prime Minister Cleopas Dlamini, and the presidents of South Africa and Zambia, Cyril Ramaphosa and Hakainde Hichilema.
They also discussed conflicts in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
MASEKO FOUGHT AGAINST REPRESSION
Maseko fought against state repression in Eswatini, previously known as Swaziland, where political parties have been banned since 1973.
At least 37 people were killed during weeks of anti-monarchy protests in June 2021.
He led a coalition of political and civil rights advocates and religious groups, that was created in November 2021. This was to ‘open conversation’ with King Mswati to seek a way out of the crisis.
In its final statement the SADC “condemned the upsurge of conflicts and activities of armed groups.” in the eastern region of DR Congo, where Pope Francis began a visit in Kinshasa on Tuesday.
To achieve the WEF’s agenda.
“prepare and empower their [SADC] people for the journey to the Fourth Industrial Revolution”
http://www.times.co.sz/news/138706-%E2%80%98eswatini-violence-points-to-escalation-of-tensions%E2%80%99.html
01/02/2023 15:30:00
MBABANE – Namibia President Dr Hage Geingob says it is regrettable that there have been ongoing and sporadic acts of violence in Eswatini that point to an escalation of the tensions.
Dr Geingob was speaking during the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Extraordinary Organ Troika Summit in his capacity as the Chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation. The summit was held in Windhoek, Namibia yesterday where Eswatini was represented by Prime Minister Cleopas Sipho Dlamini.
The chairperson said for that reason, it was incumbent upon them, the leaders of SADC, and in particular of the Organ on Politics, Defence, and Security Cooperation, to take decisive action in addressing issues of insecurity in the region.
He also mentioned that the time had come for them to dare to reinvent innovative strategies and pursue novel ways and means, to find lasting solutions to their political and security challenges. He said in the same vein, they were also called upon to prepare and empower their people for the journey to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Dr Geingob said thus, the steps for revitalisation and innovation in the political, economic and scientific and many other spheres in all the SADC countries, should be undertaken.
Development
He said by so doing, they would shape the future of the region as a cutting-edge region of peace, stability, development and progress, as per the goals of the Vision 2050 and the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan 2020-2030. “Therefore, we will become the makers and masters of our destiny in SADC,” he said. Dr Geingob told the SADC leaders that they shall achieve the high goals of becoming a peaceful, inclusive and middle to high income industrialised region where all citizens enjoy economic prosperity, justice and liberty. He urged them then to be mindful of their cultural, linguistic and geographic differences, continue to hold hands as brothers and sisters of the SADC region and through deliberate and resolute strategies and actions, bring about extraordinary renaissance of the region.
Meanwhile, SADC Executive Secretary Elias Magosi said peace, security and political stability were the foundation for socio-economic development. He said it was for this reason that the region continued to pay particular focus on strengthening political cooperation and enhancing democracy, good governance, the rule of law, human rights and human security in line with the SADC Vision 2050. Magosi said to this effect, the region continued to register successes in consolidating democracy and good governance. He applauded the Organ chairperson (Dr Geingob) for his exemplary leadership in guiding the work of the Organ, including the deployment of the SADC Election Observation Missions in the Republic of Angola in August 2022, and the Kingdom of Lesotho in October 2022, leading to successful elections and peaceful transfer of power in both countries.
>I just want to add my voice in congratulating the ANC in being able to enlist a new partner in their looting spree in the EFF… As for the IFP being branded an Apartheid collaborator, clearly Mr Malema was still enjoying breastfeeding when this country actually burned as a result of this reckless talk. You know more than 20 000 people actually died as a result of this because this was ANC propaganda peddled against the IFP and one can actually forgive Mr Malema because he was still a toddler then but he is being reckless and nobody wants to go back to that unfortunate past.
It was different about a decade ago. Is Malema now serving a purpose? He is now working with the ANC again.
“Judge bans anit-apartheid song” Reported by CNN Sep 14, 2011 – Julius Malema and the ANC
https://youtu.be/0MKoO26gWRc
“It’s an Apartheid era song that has divided South Africa… Loosely translated, the song calls for the killing of white farmers. A possible incitement to genocide says one high court judge who has ordered the youth leader of the ruling African National Congress, Julius Malema, and his party to stop singing it… Malema and the ANC say the song is a historical expression against Apartheid and not a literal threat to whites but the judge rejected the argument calling it hate speech. Known for his racially charged comments to some, Malema is a divisive politician that the country can do without but there are those who see him as a hero of a new struggle against poverty and inequality. Julius Malema is a contravercial figure. He is currently facing a disciplinary hearing by his own party for among other things, calling white South Africans criminals for stealing land from blacks but he’s gained some support from those who see the court’s ruling as a threat to freedom of expression. The ANC has called the judgment an attempt to rewrite South Africa’s history and plans to appeal.”
As one interviewee stated, “If you look at today, Apartheid is not yet done.”
Malema clip, “The songs of the revolution are burned in the democratic South Africa. A country we fought for.”
“Breaking: SA Tourism board members resign with immediate effect” - scrutiny over R1 billion BritishTottenham Hotspur deal
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/sa-tourism-board-members-resign-3-february-2023-breaking/
03-02-2023 21:36
Three SA Tourism board members have reportedly resigned with immediate effect. This as the entity face scrutiny over R1 billion Spurs deal
Three SA Tourism board members have reportedly resigned with immediate effect today, Friday, 3 February.
SA TOURISM BOARD MEMBERS CALL IT QUITS
ENCA reports that the three board members Enver Duminy, Ravi Nadasen and Rosemary Anderson resigned with immediate effect and their resignations were received by tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu.
Minister Sisulu is yet to confirm these resignations.
The trio departs as SA Tourism has come under heavy scrutiny over its R1 billion sponsorship deal with English side Tottenham Hotspur.
WHY TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR FC IS NATIONAL NEWS
The Daily Maverick spoiled the deal for Spurs after the publication exposed the yet-to-be-finalised deal this week.
South Africans and political parties did not take kindly to this news as South Africa is crippled by load shedding, unemployment and crime.
Reacting to the sponsorship deal, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said that the R1-billion deal by SA Tourism to Tottenham Hotspur is an insult to every South African.
HOW THE DA WANTS THE R1 BILLION TO BE SPENT
Initially, the DA demanded that the R1 billion be reallocated to buying diesel for Eskom to lower load shedding.
However, with many public sectors in dire straits, the party decided to dissect the sponsorship fund to benefit those sectors.
DA listed three sectors that would require urgent funding and appreciate it:
• Over 33 million litres of fuel to power Eskom
• Over 10 000 more NSFAS bursaries
• Close to 5 000 new police officers
With the party taking no prisoners on this matter, the DA announced that the Parliament has confirmed a meeting for next week over the matter.
“An urgent meeting by Parliament to discuss this controversial deal has been confirmed to take place on Tuesday 7 February, following DA pressure. The DA will not allow this deal to go ahead!”
DA
“WATCH | Beaten with knobkerries, tied with rope and dragged:How Ekurhuleni mob killed 4 electricians” - https://youtu.be/Vq9Wo8x8qFQ
“Four electricians killed by Ekurhuleni residents while trying to restore power to their suburb”
https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/contract-electricians-dispatched-to-restore-power-killed-by-residents-20230310
10 March 2023
Four contract electricians were murdered in Cruywagen Park on Monday after they were attacked by some members of the very community they were coming to help.
As such, the City of Ekurhuleni says fixing the electricity issues in the area will take much longer "because workers and contractors now fear for their lives".
Members of the Cruywagen Park community complained on Thursday that there had been no electricity since Sunday.
According to the City, at around 17:35 on Monday, a municipality electrician called for assistance from contractors in Sarel Hattingh Street in Klippoortjie, Germiston.
Contractors of BMLL, a cable repairs subcontractor in Germiston, were dispatched to assist with the fault.
A group of community members had gathered near the area.
When the contract electricians arrived, they were attacked by the group.
According to the City, the contractors' vehicle was picked up, thrown over the bridge, and then set alight.
The contractors were then assaulted with various objects. Four contractors were killed in the process.
The City said it was unclear why the contractors were attacked.
Police are investigating the matter.
Spokesperson for the City of Ekurhuleni, Zweli Dlamini, said:
The barbaric murder of these innocent people is strongly condemned by the municipality.
"What makes the situation worse is that these victims of brutal murder were trying to assist with the stabilisation of electricity in the very same area where they were senselessly attacked.
"How on earth do we allow our employees and contractors to move into communities after such a brutal attack? Unfortunately, this will affect our turnaround time to service delivery interruptions because our workers and contractors now fear for their lives.
"We cannot expose them to such risky situations until their safety is guaranteed."
“Analyst: prepare for a possible complete grid collapse”
https://youtu.be/tl3-il1IPCo
Apr 24, 2023
Electricity minister Kgosientso Ramokgopa has warned that South Africans should brace themselves for a dark winter with loadshedding likely to reach higher stages. But Professor of physics at the University of Johannesburg Hartmut Winkler says South Africans should prepare themselves for the possibility of a complete grid collapse. He explains why.