African Union refuses to recognise Libyan Rebels

The African Union has still refused to recognise the rebel National Transitional Council as the legitimate government of Libya, despite the fact that Gaddafi's regime is no longer in control of the country or the capital.

President Zuma who is also the chairman for the AU committee on Libya has stated the reason for this is that Tripoli is still not under full rebel control, “fighting is still going on. That is the reality. We can't say this is a legitimate (government) now. The process is fluid.”

The AU has called for the formation of "an inclusive transitional government, the establishment of a constitutional and legislative framework for the democratic transformation of Libya as well as for support towards the organisation of elections and a national reconciliation process".

The stance of the AU is the same as the ANC, they both want an “inclusive” government also represented by Gaddafi's regime and will not solely recognise the rebels as the legitimate government while fighting carries on.

To expect the rebels to invite their enemy whose military were on the path to “fill the streets with blood” of the rebel held cities back into government, and who have now been militarily defeated would be illogical and would simply allow the regime they defeated to reassemble again.

Zuma and the AU's argument that they won't recognise the rebel government because the rebels don't have 'full' control of Tripoli lacks credibility.
They are equating a governments control of a country on account of it's possession of the capital, which is absurd, but even more so since all that is left of the 'government' are a few scattered enclaves of armed groups.

The government has already fled and is in hiding.

The remaining die-hards still fighting are those that now have nothing left to lose, and know that if they are captured their end would be worse than to die fighting.

If the AU and ANC really want to look at some sort of historical basis to base their views on that of 'those who control the capital control the country', then unfortunately for them: the walls have been breached, the enemy have stormed the city, and the King has fled.

Unfortunately none of the media are asking the glaring question, namely: 'What does such fervent support for Gaddafi and his regime say about the nature of the AU and ANC?'

And why does a 'liberation movement' and the AU so strongly support African dictators instead of those struggling for democracy? First in Zimbabwe and now in Libya.

The African Union and the ANC have shown that they would rather support a dictatorship than to see a 'liberation movement' deposed by a popular uprising backed by the West and thus setting a precedent.

For their leadership, this is an uncomfortable thought.

Friends of Gaddafi

South Africa has still refused to recognise the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) as the official government of Libya. 

They still recognise Gaddafi's regime as the legitimate government.

They have also blocked the releasing of £1 billion in frozen accounts from Gaddafi to the NTC.

Zuma has defended the ANC's actions by saying that the Nato backed Revolution has undermined the “African Union's efforts and initiatives to handle the situation in Libya”.

He also stated that the new government should be partly comprised of Gaddafi's regime:

“Our expectation as the South African government, consistent with the AU, is that this will be an all-inclusive process. So you will have elements of the NTC as well as elements of the regime or government of Colonel Gaddafi.”

He has also stated that several nations had used the UN resolutions “to further interests other than to protect civilians and assist the Libyan people”..

The stance from Zuma and the ANC comes as no surprise.

Gaddafi supported the ANC during Apartheid by providing financial support and weapons as well as specialised training in sabotage and terrorism.

Gaddafi has also donated generously to the ANC since they have come to power.

Likewise the African Union has also received generous donations and full support from Gaddafi.

He also personally gave Zuma $2 million to cover the costs of his rape trial.

This information had been leaked to the local press by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and stated that Zuma had personally flown to Tripoli to receive these funds.

His visit had been preceded by the leader of the SACP and representatives of Cosatu, his biggest backers in the ousting of Mbeki as president of the ANC and the country.

It is highly likely they were negotiating assistance for their presidential candidate.

This may be one of the biggest reasons for Zuma's support, since Gaddafi had personally helped him when he needed help the most.

The ANC had also till recently offered Gaddafi asylum in South Africa which would have allowed him to escape prosecution for his crimes and access to some of his funds. And with the rest of the AU they refused to recognise the UN arrest warrant against Gaddafi.

The hypocrisy and irony of the ANC choosing to support a dictatorship instead of a democracy supported by a popular uprising is hard not to notice.

Considering that the ANC relied heavily on international support and funds in achieving their objectives the hypocrisy is even more striking.

The ANC has stated that their policy is to not interfere in the affairs of other African countries, their choice of dealing with the situation without a UN resolution would be via so-called 'quiet diplomacy' which entails no sanctions or military intervention but only dialogue.

This was used in Zimbabwe and proved to be a catastrophic disaster leading to the virtual collapse of the country with an imploded economy, massive unemployment, hunger and repression.

Their second method, now that Gaddafi and his regime have effectively been ousted, is to allow them back into government via a 'national unity' type government.

Once again these are exactly the same tactics used in Zimbabwe.

The ANC encouraged and helped facilitate a government of 'national unity' between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the opposition MDC.

This has led to the MDC being almost totally controlled and virtually absorbed by Zanu-PF who still have total control of the country and with no signs of any change in sight.

The ANC support Mugabe because he supported them in the past and because they did not want to see a fellow 'liberation party' removed from power by a so-called 'neo-colonialist' party even though they had lost the election.

Likewise the ANC support Gaddafi and his regime because they received support in the Apartheid-era and have since they've been in power have continued to receive donations to their party.

And more recently Zuma has personally been given funds by Gadaffi.

One would have thought that the ANC would have put the priorities of millions of people before those of a single dictator and his clique.

By supporting Gadaffi, they would have accepted misery and repression of the entire Libyan population if it guaranteed them the continued funds and anti 'neo-colonialist' stance of Gadaffi and his AU support.

The fact that the ANC openly supports Gaddafi and his regime says much about them.

White Race Tax

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has proposed that a “wealth tax” be imposed on all white South Africans.

And that he hopes whites would “agitate” to have it imposed upon themselves.

In the same speech he also blamed Apartheid for violent crime, murder and rape saying it stemmed from “self-hatred” caused by Apartheid.

He went on to also blame Apartheid for littering:

“Our parents were poor but our surroundings were scrupulously clean because apartheid had not yet done its pernicious work.”

Likewise, dangerous driving and road deaths were also blamed on Apartheid:

“We show it in how we drive recklessly, inconsiderately, aggressively because deep down we are angry, and so, the appalling carnage on our roads during the holidays, horrendous statistics, we just accept.”

He said he had originally proposed the racial tax on whites when he was presiding over the 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' (TRC)

He gave an example of how it could be implemented:

“It could be quite piffling, maybe 1 percent of their stock exchange holdings. It's nothing.” 

And now after 17 years of ANC rule and 20 years since Apartheid has ended, he calls on a racial “wealth tax” to once again be enforced against whites in perpetuity.

This is the same man who at the TRC hearings, repeatedly called on whites to accept “collective guilt” for Apartheid.

The same principle that medieval Christians used against the Jews for killing Jesus in order to justify their persecution of the Jews.

Likewise it was the same principle the Nazi's used in order to exterminate the Jews.

The concept of “collective guilt” has been responsible for every single mass genocide in human history.

The massacres in Rwanda, the mass-killings of the civil wars in the old Yugoslavian states and the murders of thousands of white farmers in South Africa all stem from so-called 'collective guilt'.

'Collective guilt' does not distinguish from individuals, their age, or whether they are individually innocent or if they even had any involvement.

Everyone is guilty. 

And everyone must pay for the actions of their ancestors.

Yet this 'man of God' readily and happily applies a concept that has led to genocide, civil-war and wide-scale massacres.

Tutu preaches collective guilt, yet he does not believe in accepting responsibility for one's own actions.

As a clergyman, maybe he'll recognise these words:

"How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Prepare for Nationalisation.

The general-secretary of Cosatu has said that nationalisation is going to happen. 
And the task team created by the ANC regarding nationalisation was not looking at it's feasibility but rather at what type of model to implement.

He said that all parties present at the last ANC national executive meeting supported nationalisation.

And that if the ANC had proposed a study merely looking at the feasibility of nationalisation it would have been immediately rejected by all parties at the meeting. As far as the tripartite alliance is concerned, nationalisation is a given fact.

Nationalisation would mean the state seizure of mines,banks, pensions, and all mineral wealth and farmland.

No compensation would however be given for land.

The general-secretary said it's a natural asset that should be owned by the state and used by farmers.

The mines and banks would be given compensation but “not in a way that will cripple the state”.

This essentially means that they won't pay market value for the mines and banks as even a fraction of this amount would cripple the state.

The ANC supported nationalisation in their national executive meeting, so there is obviously large support within the ANC.

Nationalisation is after all one of the main pillars on which the ANC's founding document the Freedom Charter is built.

The National Democratic Revolution (NDR) cannot be fully implemented without nationalisation as “worker hegemony in all sectors of the state and society” would otherwise not be able to be achieved.

The fact that the ANC has publicly been silent in condemning nationalisation comes as no surprise. The next phase after the NDR is the full socialisation and so-called“workerisation” of society.

Interestingly this is very similar to the North Korean term of “workingclassization” (which their regime has insisted is a proper English word!).

In effect they are the same thing, to have only one class in society, the working class.

A 'classless' or in this case a 'single-class' society is one of the main principles of a Communist state, alongside state ownership of all land, resources and industry.

And this is what the ANC, the tripartite alliance and the ANC Youth League are saying they support.

Mining provides the most foreign investment for the country and is almost solely responsible for allowing SA to be a middle-income country with a decent strength currency and exchange rate.

While the farming industry, even though farmers are half the amount since 1994, still provides food for the nation.

Yet the government still wants to seize control of these sectors no matter the damage it would do to the economy and food production.

Several African countries have publicly warned the ANC not to nationalise the mines and land since it has failed in their own countries.

These types of policies have proved to be disasters in all other African countries leading to collapsed economies, civil war and famine.

Let us hope the same does not happen to South Africa.

Unemployment a 'post-apartheid phenomenon' in SA.

This is an abridged version of an article from Business Live:

SA's unemployment rate rose from about 7% in the mid-1970s to 13% in the mid-1990s and 25% in the late 2000s.

 "To the South African government this is an inconvenient fact, since it implies that current high levels of unemployment are largely a post-apartheid phenomenon and not, as many officials and academics would prefer it, a legacy of apartheid," recruitment company Adcorp said on Monday as it released its employment index for June.  

Adcorp said the acceptance that unemployment had current rather than historical causes was the necessary first step in fixing the problem. 

"So long as we cite historical causes, we live in a fantasy world where unemployment can only be addressed when the legacy of apartheid itself is finally addressed.

Turning to the question of whether or not unemployment in SA could be fixed, the company said this would largely entail (a) unravelling the post-1994 changes that have caused the unemployment rate to nearly double over that period; and (b) bringing millions of informally employed people into the formal sector.

"This essentially requires revising two areas of the Labour Relations Act of 1995, namely collective bargaining procedures and protections against dismissal."

According to the World Economic Forum... SA's labour laws and regulations ranked 133rd (the seventh lowest) among 139 countries in the world, particularly in three areas: hiring and firing practices (135th), conflict in employer-employee relations (132nd) and flexibility of the wage-determination process (131st). 

All three areas were governed by the Labour Relations Act, Adcorp said.

Apartheid was regarded as a capitalist system designed to suppress wages and working conditions for black South Africans.

"As the Free Market Foundation argues, apartheid was neither capitalist nor market-oriented, nonetheless, labour market reform - more so than the Constitution itself (which was introduced only later, in 1996) - was an overriding objective of the new coalition government."

However, the industrial peace to which the Labour Relations Act aspired failed to materialise, Adcorp said.

"In 2010 there were more working days lost due to strikes and work stoppages than at the peak of 'rolling mass-action' under apartheid.

"....SA will lose 24.9 million days due to strikes and work stoppages in 2011 - an increase of 22% over 2010."

"As the World Economic Forum notes in its 2010 Global Competitiveness Report, SA has the eighth-highest level of industrial conflict in the world - despite having, in the South African government's view, some of the world's most progressive labour legislation."

Adcorp contended that the Labour Relations Act had moved SA backwards rather than forwards.

"Firstly, dismissal protections - which make it exceedingly difficult to fire workers who fail to perform or even to show up for work - have made falling labour productivity an endemic rather than occasional or isolated problem.

"...SA's hiring and firing practices rank the fifth-worst in the world."

Secondly, the collective bargaining process - which gave significant power to trade unions and bargaining councils - had allowed two-digit wage escalations to co-exist with falling labour productivity.

"...SA's wage determination process is the ninth-most inflexible in the world. The inability to get workers to perform, and the inability to pay them for their performance, are the single biggest drivers of low employment, which in turn is the primary cause of high unemployment."

As a result, big and small employers alike were considering how to mechanise, automate and generally do away with labour: the labour intensity of production for SA as a whole had fallen by 16% since 1994.

Employment had dropped sharply at an annual rate of 8.3% during June, the second consecutive monthly decline.

This represented a loss of 127,100 permanent positions and 5,712 temporary positions.

F.W de Klerk explains ANC ideology and comments on current SA politics.

de Klerk states:

It is unacceptable to sing songs calling for the shooting of anyone. It is unacceptable for Julius Malema to call whites criminals - and to add that their land should be seized without compensation. It is even more unacceptable for President Zuma to sit on the same platform, smiling, while Malema, as a key office bearer in the ANC, makes such racist comments.

It is unacceptable for Gugile Nkwinti, our Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, to declare that all "colonial struggles are about two things: repossession of the land and the centrality of the indigenous population." He is actually saying that the colonial struggle is not yet over; whites are colonialists whose property must be seized; and only ‘indigenous' South Africans are central to our society. People from minority communities must presumably be content with a peripheral or second-class status.

It is unacceptable for the Judicial Services Commission to ignore unambiguous constitutional requirements regarding the manner in which it should be constituted - and then to refuse to fill vacancies on the Cape bench, despite the availability of eminently fit and proper candidates, simply because they happen to be white.

It is unacceptable for COSATU and the SACP to set as their mid-term vision the utterly unconstitutional goal of “worker hegemony in all sectors of the state and society.”

Can one imagine the outcry that would rightly ensue if a member of the United States government were to call for the re-establishment of the centrality of the white majority?
…
According to the ANC's Strategy and Tactics analysis, the establishment of our non-racial constitutional democracy in 1994 was not the end of the liberation struggle - but only a beach-head on the way to the ultimate goals of the revolution. The struggle has continued relentlessly since then - and it has been directed primarily against our constitutional accord.

The ANC's first priority after 1994 was to shift the balance of forces in its favour by seizing what it calls the levers of state power. These include "the legislatures, the executives, the public service, the security forces, the judiciary, parastatals, the public broadcaster, and so on." This was not just empty rhetoric. Using cadre deployment, the ANC has taken vigorous steps to take over - or to try to take over - all these institutions. In the process it is obliterating the constitutional borders between the party and the state; it is undermining the independence of key constitutional institutions and it is opening the way to large-scale corruption and government impunity.

The ultimate goal of the NDR is a ‘non-racial democracy' - in which all aspects of control, ownership, management and employment in the state, private and non-governmental sectors will broadly mirror the demographic composition of South Africa's population.

Like the communist ideal of the ‘classless society', the non-racial democracy has a superficial appeal - but is equally unattainable. In practice, demographic representivity would simply result in racial domination - what the ANC calls "African hegemony" - in every facet of the government, society and the economy.

To achieve its goal of eliminating what the ANC regards as "apartheid property relations" the NDR would require massive and forced redistribution of property and wealth from the white minority to the black majority. It would also require the disemployment of large numbers of people from minority communities.

Whites, Coloureds and Asians would be corralled into demographic pens in all aspects of their economic and professional lives according to the percentage of the population they represent. The prospects of South African citizens would once again be determined by the colour of their skins - and not by their skills, their contribution to the economy or by what Martin Luther King called the content of their character.

Malema's inflammatory rhetoric, Gugile Nkwinti's land reform proposals, cadre deployment, the failure of municipalities and government departments - can be traced back, directly or indirectly, to the NDR's corrosive and unconstitutional ideology.

The 1992 Referendum.

In 1992 white people in South Africa took part in a referendum.

The question was whether they were happy with the negotiations President F.W de Klerk and his government had entered into with the ANC, in order to negotiate a peaceful transition of power and a new constitution.

The overwhelming majority of whites voted 'YES', almost 70%.

If there was a 'NO' vote, F.W de Klerk stated he would resign as President and negotiations would end.
Even though Apartheid ended in 1991, this would mean that white-majority rule would continue.
The majority of whites voluntarily voted against this option.

"This is the true birthday of a new South Africa…today we have closed the book on Apartheid," FW de Klerk, 18 March 1992.

But strangely enough this little detail seems to be omitted when mentioning the ending of Apartheid.
Since this was the pivotal moment which ended it.

F.W de Klerk has stated in his autobiography that Apartheid still had every means of continuing.
According to him, the township riots and ANC terrorism had not been a factor in his decision, nor had international sanctions.

His reasoning for deciding to hand over power was that the Soviet Union had collapsed and as a result the ANC and Communist Party would no longer have the financial and military support to create a Socialist or Communist regime.

He has since said in an interview that if he had not made the initiative to negotiate, then the system would probably still be in place today.

The reason the 1992 referendum is somehow never mentioned is because it doesn't fit into the story and myth the international community and the ANC supporters had quite hoped for.
A voluntarily handing-over of power gives little credit to local resistance and is not as dramatic a story to cover in popular media and repeat in history lessons.

Instead, the chosen tale is one where an army of liberation fighters waged a war against the government, bringing it to it's knees and forcing it to 'surrender'.

For the international media, the story of having South African whites being responsible for ending Apartheid is simply not acceptable and wasn't supposed to be part of the script.

But today, the ANC cannot even admit to having waged a 'war' against the government, instead they have to settle with the word 'struggle'.

The myth of how Apartheid ended goes perfectly with the Myth of the Rainbow nation.
Today, it does not exist, but it keeps the conscience of the international media and the world at peace.

South Africa is now a violent country divided by race and racial paranoia and where hate speech is openly preached by the government against whites.
For them to admit that they have supported a transition to a lawless and corrupt racist society, which now stands as the murder and rape capital of the world would be to admit they were wrong.

White people are now rated by Genocide Watch as being listed a 6 out of 8 on the Genocide scale.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.

The world got what they wanted.
The brief images of Mandela wearing the green Springbok jersey in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, surrounded by a stadium of all races genuinely cheering him on and optimistic about a new future.

A future that could have been.

Racial Laws could be enforced by fines.

The ANC government is threatening to impose fines for businesses that don't comply with so-called 'employment equity tests'.

This is apparently to ensure that whites and Indians don't receive "undue benefit from positions and promotions in the work place".

The 'Employment Equity Act' regulates Affirmative Action, which specifies the racial quota's that businesses employing over 50 people should comply with. The quotas are according to the percentage of racial groups making up the population.

The 'Employment Equity Commission' (EEC) chairman has said the current racial percentages of top-level management was evidence of “deep-seated racism in the business community” and resistance to appointing black people.

In response to these accusations, the Cape Chamber of Commerce president stated that businesses were desperately trying to get appropriately skilled black people for these positions but the skills were simply not available.

The EEC chairman agreed that scarcity of skills was true in many cases but then claimed that it was “a blanket excuse” used by employers. 

And argued that fines should be increased for not complying with the racial quotas and would be determined in accordance with the businesses turnover.

The government is also considering making it more difficult to do business with the state if the percentages are not satisfactory.

I really wonder if the people who are making these laws have actually studied economics?

Or at least outside of the old Eastern Bloc or Soviet Union.

All that happens with these types of racial laws is that medium-sized businesses are no longer encouraged to get any bigger.

Why would they want to employ over 50 people if the government is going to tell them who to employ and have the worry of fulfilling racial quota's with the threat of a damaging fine and the negative publicity of government criticism?

Many businesses have also merely divided themselves into smaller companies to avoid having to be assessed by the racial percentage of people they employ.

It is after all their own business, having the government tell them who they can and cannot employ when they are creating jobs, developing the economy and paying tax and VAT is not what a free-market economy is about.

Affirmative Action is a form of artificial social engineering by the state, to have all people employed according to the percentage of their race.

But who's to say these would have been the percentages anyway if there wasn't Apartheid?

Take Brazil as an example, they never had Apartheid but yet the poorest people are non-whites. The same applies to most South American countries.

Affirmative Action, is of course just one part of the problem driving away foreign investment.

There's still 'Black Economic Empowerment' (BEE) where the government stipulates what percentage of various business sectors have to be in the hands of black ownership.

So a company would know that by a certain year they would have to have sold off a certain percentage to a black person or a black owned group. Often this is combined with shares given to black workers.

As a result, companies are selling off their shares at a discount to BEE groups and moving as much of their assets abroad as possible.

The largest one's tend to move their headquarters overseas so they will be exempt from any further racial laws.

While many that do invest try to keep the bulk of their assets and their headquarters overseas as well in order to not have to sell a percentage of their business. But as a result they bring less funds into the country.

Every year foreign investment has been decreasing.

Publicly these companies will agree with these policies so as not to get public government criticism and media attention, while at the same time are taking their money and potential future investments out of the country.

Foreign companies have also cited BEE as an “investment risk”.

The hardest hit has been mining, the biggest contributor to the strength of South Africa's economy and especially it's currency.

Without the investment and money from the mining sector, the Rand would be about 30-40 to the dollar instead of the approximately R7 it now is.

In effect, South Africa's global relevance and relative economic strength as a middle-income country is due to mining.

And the yet the government keeps implementing investor-unfriendly laws which have literally led to BILLIONS of Rand in disinvestment and cancelling of future projects, often selecting other African countries instead to invest in.

Unfortunately, when they have chosen other countries instead, the amount of minerals or potential yield are usually lower than in South Africa.

I think that says a lot.

Foreign investment has decreased by 70 PERCENT this year, due mostly to a combination of these investor-unfriendly policies and the constant government debate of nationalisation.

If someone invests their time and money and all the risks involved into creating a business, it is theirs. They own it.

And they should be able to decide whom to employ, and how they wish to run it. This is the basis of a modern free-market economy.

The corruption in BEE is immense with the vast majority of beneficiary's being a small group of politically well-connected black elites. And often those who have held positions in the ANC and government such as Ministers, or their relatives in order not to be too glaringly obvious.

A lot of wealthy whites have however also benefited from these laws.

If they're in the type of business that relies on government contracts, creating a BEE deal or getting a black partner is like hitting a gold mine.

The black partner is often only symbolic and doesn't even need to know anything about the business.

The percentage they have to give him/her far outweighs the benefits of what they'll be earning with their virtually guaranteed government contracts, and usually they'll be getting bigger contracts than they would have before.

Plus the available pool of BEE approved businesses are smaller, so there is less competition, and if the black partner is politically well-connected it really is like winning a lottery.

And often the corruption in these contracts is simply mind-boggling, quotes have been known to be given at 10 times the value and the government have still approved it

So this system has also created a new class of white elites who have benefited massively from BEE, using the racial laws against their fellow whites to their advantage.

But if the nature of the business is such that it doesn't operate using government tenders, then there are no advantages to having a BEE deal or for complying to the Equity Act.

The result is simply losing a percentage of your business and not being free to employ who you want.

With regards to all these racial laws, I wonder if the ANC and their allies even see the irony?

They claimed to have fought against Apartheid but have merely replaced the old racial laws with a new set and with the added benefit of international support and immunity from sanctions.

While at the same time unemployment has doubled, crime is out of control and the gap between the rich and poor gets even greater.

The government should instead focus on providing funds and support for black people to create their own businesses instead of taking from what there already is.

And to create more businesses and thus more jobs.

How long will they be able to take from that single pie of 'white-owned' businesses? With foreign investment declining, whites leaving the country and preferring smaller businesses, it will not last forever.

Instead of taking from that single pie and carving it up, they should be trying to make it bigger for everyone so that there will be more money going around.

But politics is ultimately about political power and control, as long as the rulers and their elite are profiting and can ensure a constant stream of votes to stay in power, it doesn't matter to them what state the economy is in.

If all these laws had cut-off dates, most could probably accept it. 

But when they say the racial laws will last “forever”, this makes the idea behind it seem like just a get-rich-quick scheme to ensure permanent benefits to a specific racial group.

The really sad thing is, South Africa has so much potential.

To see it get squandered by people motivated by only wanting to keep hold of power and lining their own pockets is not easy to take.

ANC Youth League Military Training

The ANC Youth League and Young Communist League have since last year been receiving full-time training at several SANDF military bases across the country.

The training is government funded and currently at least 8000 black youths 18-35 years of age will receive 2 years training at a military base. No whites are included in this programme, nor any youths from any other political Youth groups.

According to the Defence and Military Veteran Minister, they aim to train about 20 000 youths a year. The first batch to receive training were 500 youths recommended by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, altogether the Department recruited 2500 to take part in the programme and has urged them “to emulate the young revolutionaries of the 1976 generation”.

“Skills development will include discipline, patriotism, life skills, rights awareness and specific skills areas empowering youth to change rural areas”

The official name for the group is the National Rural Youth Service Corps (Narysec).

In May last year 600 Narysec recruits had already received training at a military base in Bloemfontein. Their commander ordered them to paint the words 'UHURU' on white stones overlooking a busy road.
The incident needs to be viewed in context, since it occurred just days after the murder of the AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche, making the message seem even more relevant and threatening to the Afrikaners and farmers living nearby.

'Uhuru' means 'freedom' in Swahili but in South Africa the word has generally taken a different term, meaning the 'killing of all whites'. The word is associated with large-scale violence and massacres against former white colonists in African countries gaining independence in the 60's and 70's.

If you ask anyone in SA they'll know what you're referring to if you mention 'uhuru'.

The Afrikaner civil rights group Afriforum tried to give a petition to the Minister and ask for more details in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act. Their request for information on the subject was rejected and called 'unnecessary' and they were told the Minister did 'not have time to answer questions' from them.

The Minister has however been quoted in the past as saying that the programme was started in order “to train the youths as rural census-takers”.

This has led Afriforum to officially launch a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to force the Minister to give public details about the nature of these civilian military training schemes.

The reply so far from the Ministry of Defence has been that even though training takes place at military bases no military training takes place “but we teach them how to salute and parade and we show them the guns”.

They claim they do not teach the recruits to use the guns though.

The Minister also claims they are taught “a lot of skills such as electrical engineering, business management and other skills.”

Though why these skills need to be taught at a military base instead of the many specialised colleges and training campuses across the country is still a mystery.

It sounds more like a loop-hole for the ANC to use the law and public funds to militarise their followers, particularly the Youth League. 

The fact that political youth groups affiliated with the government will be receiving training at military bases is an ominous one with too many horrific parallels in modern history.

One of the most recent and most relevant would be Zimbabwe.
Their National Youth Services militia also started out with the same claims and were later used as a tool for invading white owned farms and property. But their main acts of terror were against the population in general, using murder, rape and violence to intimidate voters and punish areas which had dared support the MDC opposition party.  

The youth are always the easiest to mold ideologically and due to conditioning at such a young age have often been some of the cruelest torturers.
For example, the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia used mainly teenagers as their torturers and interrogators in the notorious Tuol Sleng torture facility.

Likewise, the Red Guards, who were mobilised by Mao Zedong in China, were mostly students and teenagers.There are many cases of these youths publicly denouncing and even torturing and killing their own parents.

Another more obvious example would be the Hitler Youth. 
They never received weapons training before the war, most of the focus was on political indoctrination and mentally preparing them for conflict and war. As well as familiarising  them with military life and procedures such as basic training, marching, unit cohesion etc.

Besides military training the most dangerous aspect is the propaganda and indoctrination, since all members will be associated with the ruling party and will have their ideology and principles drummed into their heads on a daily basis. And at the age where propaganda would have the maximum effect in shaping their minds.

The ANC claim they won't be using any weapons, only 'shown' them. Personally, I don't believe this. Why are they training at a military base in the first place for so-called 'life-skills' and 'management' training? This could be done in any school or college. 
They'll also use military style uniforms, have ranks and use military salutes.

The government must think the public are either very naive or very stupid. 
Or maybe they just don't care what anyone thinks since they have the majority in parliament, and like with all other laws they can just steam-roll whatever policies they want in place, no-matter the public reaction, especially from the opposition parties.

Either way, having civilian members from the ruling party in a one-party dominant state receive military training is never a good idea. 
At least in a so-called democracy. 

A newer Narysec article can be found here:
Narysec, the NDR and the GDR Constitution