tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44566627751926247872024-03-18T03:02:48.079+00:00Cape ReportCape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-22147124440302787152016-04-24T11:02:00.001+01:002016-04-27T08:27:13.205+01:00The Decline of South African Society<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Excerpts from:</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ronald
Dworkin, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><i>A Matter of Principle</i>, 1985.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>As
society becomes poorer, because production falls and wealth decays,
it loses a variety of features we cherish. It's culture fails, its
order declines, its system of criminal and civil justice becomes less
accurate and less fair; in these and other ways society steadily
recedes from our conception of a good society. </b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>The decline cannot be
arrested by further taxation to support these public goods, for that
will only shrink production further and accelerate the decline.
</b>According to this argument, those who lose by programs designed to
halt inflation and reinvigorate the economy are called upon to make a
sacrifice, not just in order to benefit others privately, but out of
a sense of loyalty to the public institutions of their own society.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>...suppose
that if we are zealous for equality now, we will so depress the
wealth of the community that future [generations] will be even less well
off than the very poor are now. </b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>People
must not be condemned...to lives in which
they are effectively denied any active part in the political,
economic and cultural life of the community.</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>If
our government can provide an attractive future only through present
injustice – only by</b> <b>forcing some citizens to sacrifice in the name
of a community from which they are in every sense excluded</b> –<b> then
the rest of us should disown that future</b>,<b> however attractive, becaus</b>e
<b>we should not regard it as our future either.</b></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;">Dworkin, D. (1985) 'A Matter of Principle'.</span></span></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-25379569830451652402016-04-12T16:39:00.003+01:002016-04-12T16:43:47.434+01:00Bloomberg: South Africa Can't Rise Under Zuma's Cloud<div class="_1aYLwgagu_KTy6L1T5rxky oSD1Gt7fG3I7i4Sp6lJIk" data-reactid=".161994k5on4.0.3.0.3.$O5GGOA6KLVRZ01.0.3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: darkgrey; font-family: SupriaSans, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 25px; text-transform: uppercase;">
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<span style="line-height: 1.6em;">Unlike the </span><a data-web-url="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/P02114thQuarter2015.pdf" href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/P02114thQuarter2015.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; line-height: 1.6em; text-decoration: none;">25 percent</a><span style="line-height: 1.6em;"> of his fellow citizens who are without one, South African President Jacob Zuma doesn’t have to worry about finding a new job -- </span><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-04/wounded-zuma-weathers-calls-to-quit-after-constitutional-breach" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; line-height: 1.6em; text-decoration: none;">for now</a><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">, at least. But South Africa will not prosper until it roots out the corruption and impunity that mark both his administration and the party that he represents.</span></div>
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The ruling African National Congress <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35966916" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">blocked</a> an effort last Tuesday to impeach Zuma after the country’s highest court found he had violated South Africa’s constitution. Zuma has presided over not only a series of political and legal scandals, but also a precipitous decline in South Africa’s economic fortunes.</div>
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The country’s economy will grow this year by less than 1 percent, which lags the rate of population growth. Inflation has hit a seven-year high. Government debt has <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-24/gordhan-taxes-wealthy-cuts-jobs-to-curb-south-african-budget" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">almost doubled</a> since Zuma took office in 2009, rising to more than 50 percent of gross domestic product for the first time in more than two decades. South Africa's credit rating hovers <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-06/s-p-says-pressure-on-south-africa-ratings-mainly-from-growth" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">near junk status</a>.</div>
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There is a difference between economic misfortune and mismanagement. Zuma can’t be blamed, for instance, for the fall in commodity prices that has staggered South Africa’s mining industry.</div>
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He is very much responsible, however, for formulating and carrying out a plan to put the economy on sounder footing. Instead, Zuma’s most prominent move has been last December’s <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-10/rand-plunges-in-longest-losing-streak-in-two-years-as-nene-fired" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">firing</a> of his well-regarded finance minister. And Zuma’s ability to govern has been seriously undermined by personal and political scandal.</div>
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Zuma billed taxpayers for construction of a swimming pool, amphitheater, and cattle and chicken enclosures at his private home. He has used his position to place <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-31/gupta-companies-share-directors-with-south-african-state-firms" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">friends</a> and <a data-web-url="http://mg.co.za/article/2010-03-19-keeping-it-in-the-family/" href="http://mg.co.za/article/2010-03-19-keeping-it-in-the-family/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">family</a> in corporate sinecures. He has <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-15/south-africa-court-says-state-broke-law-over-al-bashir-departure" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">flouted</a> high court rulings and used security forces to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-13/s-africa-anc-employs-strong-arm-tactics-to-maintain-grip" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">intimidate</a> his opposition.</div>
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Such behavior at the top has reinforced perceptions that the ANC has become a <a data-web-url="http://www.academia.edu/21279209/From_liberation_movement_to_party_machine_The_ANC_in_South_Africa" href="http://www.academia.edu/21279209/From_liberation_movement_to_party_machine_The_ANC_in_South_Africa" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">vehicle for personal enrichment</a> rather than national development. Over the last year, anger about the corruption and lackluster economy has stoked <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-27/south-africa-s-troubles-are-homegrown" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">attacks on immigrants</a>, violent strikes and the largest protests by South African students since the apartheid era.</div>
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If Zuma and his party want to win back the confidence of the citizenry and credibility among nations, they have no time to lose. They should move ahead with a <a data-web-url="http://allafrica.com/stories/201511303010.html" href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201511303010.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">bill</a> to promote financial transparency, especially on <a data-web-url="http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/panama-papers-offshore-tax-havens/" href="http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/panama-papers-offshore-tax-havens/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">corporate ownership</a>. A wholesale <a data-web-url="https://www.issafrica.org/uploads/Paper283V2.pdf" href="https://www.issafrica.org/uploads/Paper283V2.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">reorganization</a> of the country’s anti-corruption police units is in order, as is a strengthening of the government’s ability to curb <a data-web-url="http://www.agsa.co.za/Documents/Auditreports/PFMA20142015.aspx" href="http://www.agsa.co.za/Documents/Auditreports/PFMA20142015.aspx" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">wasteful spending</a> and punish official misconduct. One test will come this October, with the appointment of a <a data-web-url="http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/bua-mzansi-public-protector-campaign/#about" href="http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/bua-mzansi-public-protector-campaign/#about" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">new public protector</a> -- the official who called Zuma to account for his abuse of taxpayer money.</div>
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Many South African voters are rightly <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-06/churches-join-south-africa-rights-groups-in-plea-to-zuma-to-quit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">outraged</a> by Zuma’s transgressions and the ANC leadership’s <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-07/zuma-causing-anc-major-damage-say-descendants-of-party-grandees" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #00b9e7; text-decoration: none;">apparent tolerance</a> for them. Unless he acts quickly, they will surely express their disapproval in this August’s municipal elections.</div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-78860491709640364992015-09-04T09:28:00.002+01:002015-09-04T09:42:44.172+01:00The Ecomomist: ANC is "clueless and immoral" <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21663226-country-symbolises-human-rights-and-freedom-turning-its-back-both-clueless-and?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/cluelessandimmoral">The Economist</a></span></b><br />
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<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21663226-country-symbolises-human-rights-and-freedom-turning-its-back-both-clueless-and?frsc=dg|a"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Clueless and Immoral</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A country that symbolises human rights and freedom is turning its back on both</span></h2>
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<span style="color: #7b7b73; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><b>Sep 5th 2015</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TO UNDERSTAND how far South Africa has strayed from Nelson Mandela’s legacy, one need only peruse the latest foreign-policy paper drafted by grandees of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The fall of the Berlin Wall, it reads, marked not the freeing of captive nations in Europe but a regrettable triumph of Western imperialism. The pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in China were an American-backed counter-revolution. Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine is a conflict “directed from Washington”. America’s policies in Africa and the Middle East have “the sole intention” of toppling democratic governments. As “part of the international revolutionary movement to liberate humanity from the bondage of imperialism”, South Africa should seek to have American military bases thrown out of Africa.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If this were a spoof, it might be amusing. Yet the document is entirely serious: its contents are to be debated at the ANC’s policy conference in October. Its authors include several serving and retired cabinet ministers, including a former foreign minister. South Africa risks becoming a laughing-stock, not least in Africa itself.</span><br />
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<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.5rem; line-height: 2.3rem; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When Mandela became South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, he led the country out of isolation. He promised a foreign policy in which “human rights will be the light that guides”. Granted, he and his successor, Thabo Mbeki, applied the principle inconsistently. South Africa called for sanctions against Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s brutal dictator, and was a vocal advocate of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet it also coddled dictators such as Muammar Qaddafi, whom Mandela called “my brother leader”, propped up Robert Mugabe even as he led Zimbabwe to ruin, and sided with Russia and China in opposing sanctions on Myanmar.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="xhead" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.5rem; font-weight: bold; line-height: 2.3rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dalai Lama, no. Bloodstained despot, yes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.5rem; line-height: 2.3rem; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Under Jacob Zuma, the current president, the country’s foreign policy has drifted even further from its previous ideals. When the Dalai Lama was invited to attend a meeting of Nobel peace laureates in South Africa, the government refused him a visa. Yet it welcomed Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, despite his indictment by the ICC for orchestrating genocide and mass rape in Darfur. And rather than let a fellow African leader face such impertinent charges, Mr Zuma’s officials whisked him away just before a South African court ordered his arrest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.5rem; line-height: 2.3rem; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All countries struggle to balance principles and national interests. Yet South Africa’s revolutionary foreign policy serves neither. On principles: South Africans may be grateful for the Soviet Union’s opposition to apartheid, but they are also proud of their constitutionally guaranteed human rights. Few buy the ANC’s argument that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a victim and Barack Obama its cruel oppressor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.5rem; line-height: 2.3rem; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What about self-interest? The ANC wants to draw closer to the BRICS, a club that also includes Brazil, Russia, India and China and seeks to create an alternative world economic force. Fair enough; trade with China, especially, is important. Yet Europe is still South Africa’s biggest trading partner, and America, which gives South African textiles and manufactured goods preferential access to its markets, comes third. The ANC seems to think that commerce with China will flourish only if South Africa is hostile to the West. This is nonsense: many countries trade profitably with China while staying close to America.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.5rem; line-height: 2.3rem; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ANC thinks South Africa should stand up for Africa. But Europe and America are not Africa’s enemies. Quite the opposite. A single American aid programme, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, has saved millions of African lives. None of the BRICs can make similar claims. Nor did they step up—as Western countries did with soldiers, equipment and intelligence—when jihadist militias almost overran Mali or the north of Nigeria.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.5rem; line-height: 2.3rem; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">South Africa’s peaceful transition to democracy offered hope to a continent long tormented by despots and ideologues. If the ANC now rejects South Africa’s liberal friends and throws in its lot with some of the world’s nastier regimes, it will be doing Africans a grave disservice</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">.</span></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-46901249015144138092015-08-30T11:49:00.002+01:002015-08-31T18:45:01.380+01:00South African Rand - Trends and Forecasts<img alt="South African Rand" src="http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/charts/south-africa-currency-forecast.png?s=usdzar&v=201508282301h&forecast=2&d1=20050101&d2=20151231" height="180" width="400" /><br />
<br />
According to Rand forecasts on the <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/currency">Trading Economics</a> website, the Rand should strengthen to R10 to the dollar in 2020 and R8.51 in 2030.<br />
<br />
Conversely, economist Cees Bruggemans predicts R22.50 by 2018.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://businesstech.co.za/news/business/95309/r22-50-to-the-dollar-by-2018/">R22.50 to the dollar by 2018?</a><br />
<br />
The Trading Economics website forecasts are based on the following:<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18.375px; text-align: justify;"><i>South African Rand Forecasts are projected using an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model calibrated using our analysts expectations. We model the past behaviour of South African Rand using vast amounts of historical data and we adjust the coefficients of the econometric model by taking into account our analysts assessments and future expectations.</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18.375px; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></span>
<br />
However, looking at the 1 year, 5 year and 10 year history of the Rand shows a near 45 degree angle whereby the rand has gradually deteriorated.<br />
<br />
Since 2010; the Rand has lost almost 100% of its value against the US Dollar and UK Pound Sterling. This means that the Rand has lost approximately half its value in 5 years.<br />
<b><br /></b>
Furthermore, the accelerated devaluation of the Rand began during the prolonged trade-union strikes in the mining sector, and subsequent Lonmin Marikana Massacre. This has been exacerbated by an electricity shortage, continued uncertainty of industrial action and proposals for harsher regulations and bigger percentages to be allocated to BEE partners and share-holders.<br />
<br />
The above factors are also coinciding with a rising budget deficit. The main risks of a rising deficit is that it increases the chances of a lowering of SA's sovereign credit-rating.<br />
<br />
Standard & Poor's credit rating for SA is currently at BBB-.<br />
<br />
This is one notch above "junk status" and "non-investment grade".<br />
<br />
The budget deficit does not show any near-term probabilities of shrinking; due to rising unemployment, rising population, low tax base of less than 5 million, public sector pay increases, social grants increases and low GDP growth. Five million people are therefore supporting the entire population of approximately 55 million. In the long-term, this is not sustainable if one considers that with low GDP growth of under 2% and rising population and unemployment numbers; the tax base is not growing at a rate which can keep up.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, the potential of a $1 Trillion nuclear power-station deal with Russia is increasingly becoming a reality. Such a deal would considerably increase SA's deficit, which in turn could increase the likelihood of a credit downgrade.<br />
<br />
On the political side, the influence of the SACP within the ANC and its appointment of members to key positions has increased. The rise of the EFF has arguably also increased their perceived 'need' for anti-white rhetoric as well as the intensification of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and 'economic transformation' in order to prevent losing more black voters. Sentiments such as these do not inspire investor confidence and only fuel uncertainty in regards to the economic future of SA.<br />
<br />
The Rand is already one of the most volatile currencies in the world, ranging from top 5 to the most volatile. Furthermore, the currency is susceptible to "speculative attacks" via major banks as occurred in 2001; when the currency reached its previous record lows. Political uncertainty, increasingly anti-white and foreign business legislation, electricity shortages and trade-union threats do not help provide stability to an already volatile currency, nor do they contribute positively to overall economic growth.<br />
<br />
USD\ZAR Exchange Rate:<br />
<br />
1 Year:<br />
<br />
<img alt="South African Rand" src="http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/charts/south-africa-currency-forecast.png?s=usdzar&v=201508282301h&forecast=2&d1=20140101&d2=20151231" height="180" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<br />
5 Years:<br />
<br />
<img alt="South African Rand" src="http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/charts/south-africa-currency-forecast.png?s=usdzar&v=201508282301h&forecast=2&d1=20140101&d2=20151231" height="180" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<br />
10 Years:<br />
<br />
<img alt="South African Rand" src="http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/charts/south-africa-currency-forecast.png?s=usdzar&v=201508282301h&forecast=2&d1=20050101&d2=20151231" height="180" width="400" /><br />
<br />
<br />
40 Years:<br />
<br />
<img alt="South African Rand" src="http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/charts/south-africa-currency-forecast.png?s=usdzar&v=201508282301h&forecast=2&d1=19150101&d2=20151231" height="180" width="400" /><br />
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<br />Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-3547842518210160062013-05-01T12:51:00.001+01:002013-05-11T10:02:54.891+01:00ANC Funding Western Cape Farm Strikes<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
(Excerpts from<a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=372142&sn=Detail&pid=71616"> Politicsweb</a>)<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">ANC gives R4,1 million to Black Association of Wine and Spirits Industry (BAWSI) ahead of Western Cape Farm Strikes </span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Statement issued by Annette Steyn MP, DA Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries, April 24 2013</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In a parliamentary reply to
my question,<b> Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Tina
Joemat-Pettersson, has revealed that her department paid R4.1 million
to the Black Association of Wine and Spirits Industry (BAWSI)</b>.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>BAWSI -the farmworker union -had been
at the forefront of the <u>violent unrest</u> in the farming regions of the
Western Cape.</b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>In fact, Nosey Pieterse - the union's
secretary -had even thanked Minister Joemat-Pettersson for the
funding on his blog. </u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It is clear from the reply that this
funding was given to BAWSI on 8 October 2012, just before the farm
strikes began across the province.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This amount of money, coupled with the
timing of the transfer, brings into question whether the Department
of Agriculture helped fund the farm strikes in the Western Cape.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the interests of upholding the rule
of law and the Constitution, this must be investigated as soon as
possible.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-7178195751700663112013-05-01T12:35:00.000+01:002013-05-01T12:40:31.186+01:00UK Terminates Financial Aid to South Africa(Article from<a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201304251300.html"> allAfrica.com</a>)<br />
<br />
<i>Issued by: Department of International Relations and Cooperation</i><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The South African government has noted
with regret the unilateral announcement by the government of the
United Kingdom regarding the termination of the Official Development
Aid to South Africa as from the year 2015.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>This is such a major decision with far
reaching implications on the projects that are currently running and
it is tantamount to redefining our relationship.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Ordinarily, the UK government should
have informed the government of South Africa through official
diplomatic channels of their intentions and allowed for proper
consultations to take place, and the modalities of the announcement
agreed on.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We have a SA/UK Bilateral Forum which
is scheduled for some time this year and the review of the SA/UK
strategy which includes the ODA, would take place there and decisions
about how to move forward were expected to be discussed in that
forum.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This unilateral announcement no doubt
will affect how our bilateral relations going forward will be
conducted.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We are however looking forward to the
SA/UK bilateral forum later this year to clear up this matter among
others.</div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-87240895614179530642013-03-20T21:52:00.003+00:002013-03-20T22:00:54.419+00:00FW de Klerk warns against ANC plans for "second transition"<div>
(Article from <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=284669&sn=Detail&pid=71616">Politicsweb</a>)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Former President says ruling party
wrong to contemplate a break with 1994 consensus</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
THE ANC PLANS TO END SOUTH AFRICA'S
HISTORIC CONSTITUTIONAL CONSENSUS<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eighteen years ago we South Africans
reached agreement on the kind of country we wanted to become.
After three years of difficult negotiations we agreed that we wanted
a society in which the Constitution - and not the majority of the day
- would be sovereign. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We agreed that that Constitution should
make full provision for the protection of all our fundamental rights;
that we would have free and independent courts; and that we would
establish a truly democratic system of government subject to the rule
of law. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We all agreed on the need for
transformation - on the rapid development of our people toward
equality, human dignity and the full enjoyment of rights. We
also agreed on the need to protect our languages and cultures and to
ensure that no-one could be arbitrarily deprived of their property.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Parties representing some 90% of our
people - and substantial majorities of all our communities - endorsed
the constitutional accord. We reached agreement despite our
deeply divided and traumatic history. We succeeded despite all
the crises, the walk-outs, the violence and the reality that we all
had to make painful concessions. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Our achievement was rightly regarded by
the whole world as one of the crowning glories of the latter part of
the 20th century. It was seen everywhere as an example to all
divided societies of what could be achieved by rational debate,
compromise and goodwill. I believe that whatever party we
belonged to, it was our finest hour.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was on this basis that the National
Party under my leadership surrendered sovereign power - not to
another political party - but to the constitution.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Earlier this week, in discussion papers
for its upcoming policy conference, the ANC announced that it wants
to sweep all this away. It believes that the balance of power
nationally and globally has shifted sufficiently for it to dispense
with the compromises that it had made in 1993 and 1996.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
According to Jeff Radebe, the ANC's
Policy Chief, "our first transition embodied a framework and a
national consensus that may have been appropriate for political
emancipation, a political transition, but has proven inadequate and
inappropriate for our social and economic transformation phase."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Radebe also announced that the ANC
plans to dispense with some of the cornerstones on which our new
society has been established, including the present role and powers
of the provinces. In line with the controversial Green Paper on
Land Reform property rights would also be at risk. Other
cornerstones of the constitutional accord that are already under
threat include language rights, the right to education in the
language of one's choice; the freedom of expression and the right to
access information. Most seriously, the government is
maneuvering to limit the role of the courts.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
None of this should come as a surprise,
since the ANC is simply implementing the next steps in its
long-announced National Democratic Revolution.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The National Party did not agree to the
transition naively or with its eyes closed to the ideological nature
of the tripartite alliance. It realised full well that the ANC
might one day reconsider its solemn undertakings. However, it
believed that in addition to the guarantees that we had negotiated
into the constitution there were other powerful forces that would
help to ensure that all parties would honour our accord:</div>
<ul>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
the collapse of the Soviet Union
had swept the ideological ground from under the feet of communists
all over the world;</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
a new global consensus had
developed on the fundamentals of democratic governance and
responsible fiscal and economic policy. In our globalising
world, no government could afford to ignore these new international
norms;</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
we also hoped that as the ANC
became used to the complexities of government it would quietly
abandon its outmoded ideologies;</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
finally, we realised that just as
we could not govern the country against the will of the majority, a
majority government would not be able to rule effectively if it
violated the fundamental rights of our minorities. Our
symbiotic relationship dictated that whether we liked it or not we
would have to work together to achieve success.</div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We would have been foolish not to seize
this unique opportunity for a just and honorable settlement.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The subsequent eighteen years have
proved that this was the right decision. As the ANC points out, South
Africa has made substantial progress in so many areas. Our
country is respected in Africa and throughout the world as an
inspiring example of non-racial democracy. With all its faults
it is a far better and a far more just country than it was in the
past. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We have indeed not made nearly enough
progress in addressing unacceptable levels of inequality, poverty and
unemployment. However, these transformation failures cannot be
ascribed to our constitution. They are primarily the
consequence of inappropriate policies. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Evidently, the ANC now wants to
jeopardise all of this. It imagines that it can write off the
influence of free market democracies and align itself instead with
China, Russia and its friends in Cuba.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It thinks that it can invent a new
approach to economic development that will free it from the need for
the fiscal responsibility that it practised with such good effect for
the first seventeen years of its rule.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It thinks, most dangerously, that it
can treat minorities as it pleases and impose new forms of
discrimination against them in line with its ideology of the National
Democratic Revolution.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It is wrong.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Any move to abandon the solemn national
consensus that we reached during the constitutional negotiations
would destroy irreparably the brave foundations for national unity,
democracy and transformation that we have developed since 1994. It
would slash open once again the divisions of the past and divide the
country along racial lines. Once the powers of independent courts
have been sufficiently diluted - it would end the prospect of a
society based on democratic values and fundamental human rights.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There are many other matters in the
discussion papers that are problematic, but I have dealt here only
with some of the key issues. As Mr Radebe points out, the
discussion papers are intended to be the basis for a vigorous
national debate. He invites "all sectors of South African
Society and our people at large to engage with these discussion
documents" because they "will have a profound bearing on
the future development of this nation." </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In this spirit, I would like to renew
my request to the government to hold genuine discussions on these
issues with those elements of our society - from all our communities
- who continue to support the constitutional consensus that the ANC
now wishes to discard.<br />
<br />
FW de Klerk</div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-11159654376985177472013-02-13T18:44:00.001+00:002013-02-13T18:44:36.620+00:00What does a 25% probability for a failed state really mean?<br />
<h1 class="bold" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; margin: 0px 0px 6px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
What does a 25% probability for a failed state really mean?</h1>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
(Article from <a href="http://www.news24.com/Columnists/ClemSunter/What-does-a-25-probability-for-a-failed-state-really-mean-20121024">News24</a>)</div>
<div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Clem Sunter</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Since writing </span><a href="http://www.news24.com/Columnists/ClemSunter/Looking-over-the-edge-of-a-cliff-20121010" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #0e2e5e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.59375px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">the column</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;"> two weeks ago raising the probability of South Africa becoming a Failed State to 25%, many people have asked me what it means and what they should do about it.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Should I make sure my passport is up to date? Should I be going on an LSD (look, see, decide) trip to Australia? Should I be approaching a head hunter for job options in Europe? Should I legitimately be sending more money offshore to mitigate the declining rand? </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Should I be stocking food?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Connecting the dots</b><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">These are all valid questions which have been posed to me. Chantell Ilbury and I have always said that part of thinking like a fox is to connect the dots. You cannot just play scenarios – that’s daydreaming. You have to consider your options for each scenario and then decide what you are going to do about it depending on the probability and impact of the scenario. You can either do something now or prepare a contingency plan just in case. Either way, the whole point of the process is to improve the speed and quality of your response in chasing the opportunities and countering the threats offered by the scenarios.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">So, let’s get back to the significance of a 25% probability. Pictorially, it covers an “L” or 90 degrees of a circular disc. If you spin the disc, there is a 25% probability that the needle will end up on that 90 degree segment. What is more is that if you spin it again whatever the previous result, the probability is still 25%. Like spinning a coin where you get ten heads in a row, the chances are still 50:50 that the next one will be a head. The difference between these examples and real life is that real life only happens once and therefore probabilities are far more subjective.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Recently, I had a discussion with a group from MIT in the US who tried to convince me that you can mathematically link the raising of the flags on our scenarios to their probabilities. I am not so sure because of the one time aspect of life; and so much of what happens is due to the animal spirits or irrational nature of mankind.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">The bottom line is that the 25% probability on a Failed State is instinctive and should be treated as such. In other words, there is nothing scientific about it and if you have a different figure in mind, you are quite entitled to base your actions on your figure not ours. <b>Suffice it to say, in our mind, the Failed State scenario is no longer a wild card possibility lurking in the shadows: it is now a genuine threat, the consequences of which have to be thought through.</b></span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Impact of the scenario on you</b><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">This brings us to the second aspect that has to be considered which is the impact of the scenario on you as a business, you as a family or you as a person.<b> If I said to you that the plane you had booked a flight on had a 25% probability of crashing, you almost certainly would not take it unless you were in a war zone and wanted to escape. </b>The reason is a high likelihood of death in the event that the scenario materialises. Equally, if I gave you a 25% probability of being eaten by a shark when swimming off a particular beach, it would be very foolhardy of you to go in the water. One of the reasons you would not take the risk in either case is that the alternative options are usually easy to exercise: use another airline and go to another beach or swimming pool.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">The impact of a Failed State scenario is far more difficult to imagine since so many varieties of a failed state exist, ranging from oppressive dictatorships through perpetual anarchy to civil war and at the extreme end genocide. No expert in the field here has adequately described the different forms that a failed state in South Africa could take. We certainly can’t, particularly as regards timing and rate of descent. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;"><b>The only thing we can state with confidence is that the rest of the world will collectively turn its back on us, apart from a few outcasts who will welcome us to the club of pariah nations.</b></span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Two categories of options</b><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Hence, the evaluation of the overall risk of this worst case scenario i.e. probability times impact is a highly personal thing. And so too is the selection of options available which depends on individual circumstances such as age, level of wealth and education, business experience and skills, as well as the number of children and other family commitments you have in South Africa. In the case of a business, the opportunity to expand the geographical footprint outside South Africa will be linked to its range of products and services, health of its balance sheet and potential partners elsewhere.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">However, options can be divided broadly into two categories: adapting your own strategies and tactics as regards your own future in light of the changing odds of the scenario; or rolling up your sleeves and taking action – however big or small it may be – to reduce the odds of the scenario itself. In other words, you become an active citizen in ensuring that South Africa does not fail.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;">Far be it from Chantell and myself to give you specific advice on which option you should take. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.59375px;"><b>What our 25% probability means is that you should give the matter some serious thought if you have not done so already. Then decide on appropriate action or have a contingency plan. That is what a fox would do – logically not fearfully, with a sense of purpose not despair.</b></span>Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-68422754504589207182013-02-13T18:27:00.001+00:002013-02-13T18:27:08.241+00:00Russian Economist Fears 'Failed State' in SA<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxr_xNPnnS-xIz7N9PhssZsZuf0GrDsMT1xSVV5DfmpAg-YND1U5qHp56_Y6eC1iIP_4PQhQqKHYFk0xr9CSlN9WByGRP40PX7Yqx1MFVI-cI95Zi9UZ3aJMvNetHsNdlzE7CpB0_gI3U/s1600/Villiersdorp+farm+strike+Jan+14+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxr_xNPnnS-xIz7N9PhssZsZuf0GrDsMT1xSVV5DfmpAg-YND1U5qHp56_Y6eC1iIP_4PQhQqKHYFk0xr9CSlN9WByGRP40PX7Yqx1MFVI-cI95Zi9UZ3aJMvNetHsNdlzE7CpB0_gI3U/s320/Villiersdorp+farm+strike+Jan+14+2013.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(Article from<a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/economy/2013/01/17/russian-economist-fears-failed-state-in-sa"> </a><a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/economy/2013/01/17/russian-economist-fears-failed-state-in-sa">Business Day Live</a>)<br />
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<h2>
Russian economist fears ‘failed
state’ in SA</h2>
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<b>South Africa IS in danger of "tipping
over" and becoming a failed state, according to Yuri Maltsev, a
Soviet defector and economic adviser to former Russian president
Mikhail Gorbachev.</b></div>
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Dr Maltsev said on Wednesday that South
Africa was at a crossroads and there were dangerous signs of
instability, such as the farm protests in the Western Cape, which
some see as part of a political attempt to undermine the opposition
Democratic Alliance.</div>
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"The African National Congress
(ANC) is a monopoly, and power corrupts," Dr Maltsev said in an
interview with Business Day. He was speaking at a forum organised by
the Free Market Foundation.</div>
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<b>"What worries me is this can be
the point of no return … South Africa is at a crossroads and can
tip over."</b></div>
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Dr Maltsev was referring to spreading
social unrest, mounting corruption and plans by the governing ANC for
more intervention of the state in the economy to alleviate poverty
and create jobs.</div>
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<b>If South Africa could choose the
freedom of an open economy with less regulation, lower taxes and more
flexible labour laws, it could "explode with economic growth and
energy", Dr Maltsev said.</b></div>
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Nomura emerging markets analyst Peter
Attard Montalto said labelling South Africa a "failed state"
was to look at the issues of the economy in the wrong way.</div>
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"The whole point is that there
hasn’t been enough of a dramatic shock to the system yet to push
the government, ANC and associated interests into meaningfully doing
something about the economy’s problems and providing the leadership
required," he said.</div>
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"Hence we deal with ongoing
underperformance without any ‘blow-up’ situation. Even the
situation in the mining labour market does not seem to have been
enough."</div>
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There are concerns that plans by Anglo
American Platinum to cut as many as 14,000 jobs after mothballing
four mining shafts will lead to a repeat of the wildcat strikes that
hit the sector last year, leading to the loss of almost 50 lives.</div>
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Dr Maltsev said the election of
business tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC deputy president was probably
a good thing, although he did not approve of the way Mr Ramaphosa had
acquired his wealth. Turning to broader issues, he said he was not
worried by the growing Chinese presence in Africa as China seemed to
be avoiding political influence. Africans could not afford to "pick
and choose" who is investing in their economies, he said.</div>
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Dr Maltsev praised the formation of the
Brics bloc, which groups Brazil, Russia, India, China and South
Africa. "It’s a good idea because all the countries are on the
same level of economic development," he said.</div>
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Before defecting to the US in 1989, Dr
Maltsev was a member of a senior Soviet economics team that worked on
Mr Gorbachev’s reforms package of perestroika.</div>
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He is now a professor of economics at
Carthage College in the US state of Wisconsin.</div>
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Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-9010664447196803392013-02-03T13:10:00.003+00:002013-02-03T13:10:39.425+00:00Revolt, Torture, Tyranny face an Unreformed SA<br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;">(Article from <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/commentary/2013/02/01/the-big-read-revolt-torture-tyranny-face-an-unreformed-sa">TimesLive</a>)</span><br />
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Revolt, torture, tyranny face an unreformed SA</h2>
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<h4>
Inequality is dragging South Africa closer to its "tipping point" and becoming a failed state, says Clem Sunter.</h4>
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Sunter is probably best known for the high-road/low-road scenarios he posited for South Africa in the mid-1980s and for predicting a "major attack on a Western city" in Mind of a Fox, a book he wrote with Chantell Ilbury in 2001.</div>
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A year ago, the former chairman and CEO of Anglo American's gold and uranium division, and until recently chairman of the Anglo American Chairman's Fund, believed that there was a "0%" chance that this country would become a failed state. He has since increased the odds to 25%.</div>
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"Once people get seriously upset, it takes only one event to cause the country to erupt," said Sunter, and "Marikana could have been it".</div>
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"There is a level of anarchy creeping into protests - both labour and service delivery - that hasn't been seen before, and that we've now seen in Sasolburg and Parys."</div>
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Six people were killed during the violent protests by residents opposing their area's incorporation into the Ngwathe municipality.</div>
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Zamdela township residents razed property, stoned cars and looted shops.</div>
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Police reacted with tear-gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to disperse crowds.</div>
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Sunter believes that increasingly violent protests could become normal.</div>
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During the Arab Spring, Sunter talked to analysts researching the motives for the upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa.</div>
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"There were three factors that contributed hugely - very high youth unemployment, highly active social networks and growing alienation from the state," he said.</div>
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"We have all three."</div>
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He believes the consequences of this country not getting its act together economically, socially and politically could be dire.</div>
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"After Marikana and Sasolburg, we might be close to an Arab Spring."</div>
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Sunter has predicted three scenarios for the future of South Africa.</div>
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The first is that it stays in what he terms the "Premier League" and keeps its place as one of the world's top 53 economies. It is currently in 50th spot. Sunter believes we should be in 32nd place because we have the 32nd-biggest economy but the many problems that remain unresolved continue to create uncertainty.</div>
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Whereas a year ago Sunter gave the country a 70% chance of staying in this league, he now gives it only a 50% chance.</div>
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The second scenario is that South Africa slides peacefully into what he calls the "Second Division". These are countries that Sunter describes as poor but peaceful.</div>
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He gives South Africa a 25% chance of becoming one of these nations, with Nigeria taking over as the most influential country in Africa.</div>
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The third scenario is that South Africa becomes a failed state, a place of anarchy, warfare, hunger and disorder - like Syria or Afghanistan.</div>
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Such a state generally has high unemployment, gross income inequality and appalling human rights abuses, including routine use of torture by the police and security forces.</div>
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The country is governed either by a dictator - living in a palace among the ruins of a country in which revolt is kept in check by intimidation - or by a shifting alliance of warlords, each with a private army or militia.</div>
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Sunter said there is a 25% chance - a "real threat" - of South Africa becoming such a country.</div>
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There are two ingredients that Sunter said we need to stay in the Premier League.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The first is an inclusive leader, such as former president Nelson Mandela.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"I'm afraid [Mandela's] successors [Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma] have not been inclusive leaders, and I hope that Cyril Ramaphosa might be the someone who could bring the nation together.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"I see the move to bring Cyril back as very positive.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"It looks like our leaders are getting the message that something has to be done."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Sunter believes that, if Ramaphosa had followed Mandela into politics in the 1990s, the value of Ramaphosa's leadership might have been lost.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"We didn't know all our weaknesses then," he said.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The other way in which South Africa can improve its chances of being a functioning democracy, he said, is by "using our pockets of excellence such as the good schools".</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"We should try to replicate these pockets of excellence.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"The reason we have inequality is that we don't have jobs.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"For each worker in the formal sector there are three people who don't have a job ," he said.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"People don't have jobs because the education system hasn't delivered the skills to create jobs."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Sunter has been calling for an "economic Codesa" for this reason.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"We need a cooperative model [to deal with inequality].</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"There is no way the ANC can do it by itself, and business and the unions can't do it by themselves either," he said.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
"This is the tipping point."</div>
</div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-16162058670018123022013-01-26T18:49:00.001+00:002013-01-26T18:49:15.036+00:00'The Collapse of Governance in South Africa?'<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(Article from <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=352590&sn=Detail&pid=71616">Politicsweb</a>)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>From Mangaung to Nkandla - a Journey to
nowhere!</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a>In the third week
of December 2012 Jacob Zuma was re-elected as president of the ANC at
the 53rd National Elective Conference at Mangaung (Bloemfontein)
in the central Free State.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Nkandla is the personal country
homestead of Zuma in rural Kwazulu-Natal. It has also been
called the "presidential compound" or "tribal
village". It is an extensive complex housing his extended
family, with state of the art electronic surveillance systems,
helicopter landing pad, elaborate roads, underground bunkers and
security personnel. What brought Nkandla into the limelight are
widespread allegations that much of the country homestead has been
funded by taxpayers' money. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Zuma's redeployment by the ANC at
Mangaung in December 2012 may guarantee his continued presence at
Nkandla as president of the country which could put him in power up
to 2019.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This journey from Mangaung to Nkandla
explains the interaction between the ANC as liberation
movement and the ANC as government in power and the
current impact on the country. In particular, it provides a much
needed understanding of the complex interaction between party and
state in the present political dispensation and exposes the reasons
why the current political dispensation has been failing for the past
decade or more.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It has to be understood that the
country's functional decline is not solely the result of Zuma's
deployment in 2007 and neither will his recent redeployment in
December 2012 fix the problem. What has gone wrong by 2013 can be
traced right back to the political settlement of 1994.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It is part of a self-destructive
process that had been embedded very deep in the political system by
the political power brokers at the time. The mere appointment of a
new president with a new (old) team will not solve the problem; what
has been emerging now is broad system failure. It is something
entirely different!</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
At the start of 2013 the country is in
deep trouble, however, this concept will have to be explained.
Suffice to state as introductory comment is the observation that
Zuma's journey from Mangaung to Nkandla is expected to be a journey
to nowhere. Over the past year or two, the possibility of a "failed
state" has surreptitiously emerged in the media.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The concept of a "failed state"
was mentioned, but not really discussed, as if the people involved
were politically too scared - or ignorant - in dealing with the
implications. The slow emergence of a failed state, and then very
often unobserved under the radar scan of parliament, implies a
certain fatal decline of a constitutional democracy and the role of
political parties. Even mentioning the possibility of a failed state
situation is not only serious, but has extremely dangerous
implications for any state.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A document like this is not for broad
public consumption as it may endanger the established and comfortable
mindset of the voting public and threaten the perceived and
propagated logical framework of party policy. Politicians prefer a
happy voting public, not a disturbed one. This document may challenge
the existing, fixed mindset - and that is politically not always
welcome! It is a document for the decision maker, who does not have
the luxury of deferring difficult situations. It has been written for
a reader who thinks and plans for up to 2020 and beyond, for the
current political dispensation is unlikely to continue past Zuma's
second term in office.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The critical question by 2013 is
therefore: if there are convincing facts and arguments that the
current political dispensation may decay to the point of systemic
collapse - a failed state - in the next five to seven years, what has
to be done? This is a question that can be posed to every business
executive, every activist group in civil society, and each parent
with kids in school or on their way to school. It is also true for
expats with family in South Africa and families with children abroad.
Will there ever be an opportunity for them to return?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The unthinkable of 1994 will have to be
contemplated by 2013. The country may slide into a process of
governing collapse. This does not necessarily imply a civil war, but
an inevitable decay of governing functions to the point of
spontaneous implosion - the key functions of state just cease to
exist! Society just becomes governmentally empty - a stateless
society. This was never considered in 1994; however, by 2013 it has
to be argued as an alarming reality.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If spontaneous implosion of governing
capabilities materialises, what becomes of government? Equally
important, what happens to society and population? When society
arrives at this point, is there still any meaning in a free and fair
election? If the past has not been a success, what about the
future?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dr Jan du Plessis is editor and
publisher of Intersearch. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This is an edited extract from the
Intersearch Management Briefing for January 2013. Dr Du Plessis can
be contacted at mb@intersearch.co.za </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-35004888200327685782012-11-11T13:05:00.001+00:002012-11-11T15:35:00.788+00:00Shocking Documentary on Lawlessness in Johannesburg<span style="font-size: large;">Louis Theroux, Law and Disorder in Johannesburg</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The beginning to Part 4 of the documentary is especially shocking when a man who is a murderer, car hijacker and house robber is interviewed.<br />
<br />
He mentions that his last robbery was in Benoni the night before where he 'took' four cars.<br />
<br />
The interviewer asks how he got the cars.<br />
<br />
"We take it with a gun, what can we do?"<br />
<br />
And to hurt people?<br />
<br />
"Ja, the people, I will show you with your last born" and by this he means a child or baby.<br />
<br />
"Take him to shower or to hot shower" meaning that he puts the baby under boiling water.<br />
<br />
"Or to the oven, microwave oven. I put like this to the oven" and indicates forcefully pushing a baby inside.<br />
<br />
"Then you <i>see </i>I want money."<br />
<br />
"Take your child, I put in oven and make oven on" he indicates turning the knob.<br />
<br />
"Or I take your wife and I put a knife <i>here</i>" and puts a finger across his throat. Then pulls his finger across.<br />
<br />
"Like example, then you see the blood."<br />
<br />
"They feel f**** all, even to kill somebody" says one of the black security guards who is with the interviewer.<br />
<br />
The end of the documentary also provides some interesting answers to the questions of the interviewer.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/EWIOgm8yXyo?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/8CPYY5nXhss?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ep0MduhIX1Y?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/vDBLlD6yVEk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-83341365578017578232012-11-06T17:03:00.002+00:002012-11-10T18:32:47.381+00:00'Whites excluded from charities'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXuyHjAAcNh_kaEvYigjkhml3O5zhHWSjdjDtKRi7UuZ6QpCleFgSKzZ4tx3KW9F-MnycZ8jPSl1PLtCDfW0gCONCEx5DAuPRMnHuFTkhCWDMpGHiSimDJ3p74KC2xDqarWFTa7DMnvp8/s1600/f4h.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXuyHjAAcNh_kaEvYigjkhml3O5zhHWSjdjDtKRi7UuZ6QpCleFgSKzZ4tx3KW9F-MnycZ8jPSl1PLtCDfW0gCONCEx5DAuPRMnHuFTkhCWDMpGHiSimDJ3p74KC2xDqarWFTa7DMnvp8/s1600/f4h.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
(Article from <a href="http://friends4humanity.org/2012/11/04/the-final-countdown/">Friends4Humanity</a>)<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Nelson Mandela’s ANC government
announced earlier this year the implementation of the ‘second
transition’ policy. The ‘second transition’ is defined as a
radical call to finalize “economic freedom”. The ANC regime chose
to roll out this second transition with a death blow to the most
vulnerable in the European Minority community, the:</b></div>
<ul>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>impoverished;</b></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>displaced;</b></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>elderly;</b></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>traumatized; and</b></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>children.</b></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Ironically, they chose to use the same
strategies to marginalize the European Minority as Hitler used
against the Jews.</b> <b><u>Over the past 20 years they have implemented many
programs, some legislated and some not, that have as their aim the
destruction of the European minority.</u></b> These policies have been held
up as redistribution of wealth and transformation. However, they are
true to communistic guidelines with the aim to bring into line those
who do not align with their views.<br />
<br />
These include the exclusion
of the European minority from business ownership, trade and
employment. The European minority is also excluded from accessing
tertiary education as well as school education in their home
language. Their defense mechanisms have been removed through
disarmament, and the removal of the effective policing structures
that protected them, which places them in grave danger of being
tortured and attacked.<br />
<br />
<b>As a result of these strategic economic
policies, approximately a million of the European Minority members
are now displaced and living in abject poverty</b>, with a large
percentage of the remaining members barely surviving financially. The
second transition will push them over the edge into displacement.
However, the immediate crisis is but two weeks away, a countdown that
do not bode well for the most vulnerable members who have already
been marginalized and traumatized. They will loose the one meal a day
that is currently supplied by retail food chains.<br />
<br />
<b>The
government has systematically removed any assistance or aid they may
get. <u>They are excluded from receiving state welfare or other
benefits.</u></b> Furthermore, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and
charities are precluded from allocating more than 9% (the demographic
proportion of Europeans) of their resources to ease their plight.
Government enforces this through the interception of NGO and
International donor funding by the President’s Office. As a result,
the European minority ethnic group affected by policies of redress
has been left with no hope and absolutely no opportunities to work
their way out of the situation they find themselves in.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Now the final blow</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<b>Nelson Mandela’s
ANC gazetted new legislation, effective December 2, 2012 that
will reduce the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) status of companies
that donate to charities assisting minority members. </b><u><b>BEE status
effectively ensures that a company can obtain business in South
Africa.</b></u> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>This will affect orphanages, displaced people camps, old age
homes, Safe houses and NGO’s similar to Childline and Rape Crisis.
</b>Although many are already forced through current legislation to
refuse people assistance,<b><u> the new legislation will also force them to
abandon the current European Minority members.</u></b><br />
<br />
Charities need
funds to help others. Companies need funds to donate to charities.
This well-orchestrated assault will effectively break the cycle and
remove any recourse to destitute and vulnerable European Minority
members. T<b>his will force orphanages, safe houses and old age
facilities to now abandon Europeans and prohibit companies to supply
the only meal to many homeless and displaced people, including the
elderly and children.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Deliberately inflicting on the European
Minority conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part.</b> This in itself meets one of the five
criteria to proof genocide, notwithstanding that any of the criteria
should be met to meet the definition of genocide. There are detailed
examples of actions taken by the South African government that meet
all criteria below:</div>
<ol>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Killing members of the group; or</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Causing serious bodily or mental
harm to the group; or</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Deliberately inflicting on the
group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part; or</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Imposing measures intended to
prevent births within the group; or</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Forcibly transferring children of
the group to another group.</div>
</li>
</ol>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<b>Genocide Watch determined during an
intensive investigation during July this year that there is evidence
that meet the first criteria; murder, rape, mutilation and torture.</b>
<b>South African police fail to investigate or solve many of these
murders, which are <u>carried out by organized gangs, often armed with
weapons that police have previously confiscated</u>.</b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The racial character
of the killing is covered up by a SA government order prohibiting
police from reporting murders by race. </b>Instead the crisis is denied
and the murders are dismissed as ordinary crime, ignoring the
frequent mutilation of the victims’ bodies, a sure sign that these
are hate crimes.<br />
<br />
Police abuse and intimidation have proven to
cause serious physical and mental harm to the European Minority,
which meets the second crieteria, as set out in our article,
Police: Protector or Predator?<br />
<br />
The first three criteria
automatically bring about conditions to ensure the forth and fifth
criteria, compounded by deliberate actions and policies by the ANC
government to ensure effectiveness.<br />
<br />
<i>Operation Final
Countdown</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
Friends 4 Humanity is launching Operation Final
Countdown to attempt to prevent a human catastrophe of epic
proportions that will paralyze the most vulnerable members of the
European Minority.<br />
<br />
It is imperative that we create a safety
net to ensure the protection of the 96,000 orphans, undetermined
amount of elderly, children in safe houses and approximately a
million displaced people that will be affected by the new legislation
when companies implement measures to ensure their BEE
status.<br />
<br />
Companies will redirect their funding to charities
that comply, to comply; charities will have to immediately abandon
the European Minority Beneficiaries. <b>The ANC government ensured that
these abandoned and vulnerable persons are left without recourse by
limiting the timeframe between announcement and implementation to
three weeks.</b> It is anticipated that they will implement this
legislation in the same manner as they have done with similar human
rights abusive legislation, ignore opposition and force
compliance.<br />
<br />
We trust in the integrity of people’s
convictions to oppose these racist policies and we established a task
team in South Africa to immediately contact charities who refuse to
abandon their European beneficiaries to arrange for alternative
funding and determine which of these charities will be able to
accommodate people left destitute.<br />
<br />
<b>It is envisaged that the
majority of the abandoned orphans and children from places of safety
will end up in displaced camps or on the street. As previously
reported, <u>these children are favored by Nigerian and police
child prostitution syndicates who use the lack of human
trafficking legislation in South Africa to manage their despicable
operations.</u></b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>Once on the streets, we have 48 hours to find them before
they are kidnapped and subjected to the 21 day cycle of abuse, gang
raped and force-fed drugs. </u></b>After this, these children are scarred for
life and few are able to recover. We hope to arrange with charities
that choose to comply with the new legislation not to abandon the
children but transfer them to charities or facilities that will
accommodate them.<br />
<br />
It is expected that some families will
ensure the care of their elderly but it has to be realized that many
family members of the elderly are already marginalised homeless or
displaced, hence their stay in charity based old age homes, which
translates into many of the elderly also ending up in over extended
displaced camps with little or no hygienic facilities or food
sources. As with the case of the orphans, we will attempt find
alternative funding for charities and to relocate the elderly to
these facilities.<br />
<br />
<b>The estimated million displaced people face
the loss of the one meal a day or every second day, that is currently
provided to them by benefactors, which are mainly soup kitchens
sponsored by retail food chains.<u> The benefactor companies will have
no choice but to withdraw donations from these soup kitchens as it
will impact their operations if their BEE status is affected.</u></b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u><br /></u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>The ANC
government effectively reaches their genocidal goal by starving the
displaced Europeans and orchestrating conditions to ensure their
demise.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Ironically, this legislation was announced soon after
the visit by Hillary Clinton to South Africa to strengthen
economic ties.</b> A new initiative by USAid was also announced that will
make $150-million available to small and medium businesses in South
Africa, notwithstanding that this will exclude, through legislation
any members of the European Minority.<b> Mrs Clinton also hailed the ANC
for their contribution to human rights in South Africa, despite clear
evidence of the contrary.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Another irony is the honor bestowed on
President Zuma, who received honorary citizenship of Texas and
the freedom of the City of Houston in 2011. Whether this is done out
of ignorance or political manipulation, only Americans can enforce
adequate pressure on their government to not only stop enabling the
ANC but to intervene.<br />
<br />
<i>How can you help?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>It is envisaged
that the ANC government will strongly oppose any remedial assistance
to these destitute children, elderly and displaced. </b>The only way we
can ensure their safety and security and that of the volunteers and
charities that wish to participate in the intervention, will be an
extremely visible and public awareness campaign. This can only be
achieved with your help, please help us to help this vulnerable
section of the European minority. If you are unable to help, please
tell someone that can.<br />
<br />
Your donations will ensure the funding
for charities that refuse to comply and will be crucial to establish
immediate food relief as well as long term solutions for the
approximately million displaced people.<br />
<br />
<b>The Stanton Commission
of Inquiry, through Genocide Watch, will investigate and
determine who exactly is behind the Genocide of the European
Minority. Your public support and donations to the Commission and
Secretariat will ensure intervention, to not only end these
atrocities, but launch long term solutions and secure International
legal action against the perpetrators.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>We established the Genocide
Intervention Fund and trust you will support it
– <a href="mailto:thefriends4humanity@gmail.com">thefriends4humanity@gmail.com</a></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<br /></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-84467423771973238012012-11-04T16:03:00.004+00:002012-11-04T16:06:19.722+00:00Article from 1994 - "Silk Tie Revolutionaries"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3NlsHK5R7yS2qXTM3ROY1jRFKxT8s9pF5rDe81E2_nsldTMKM9_szJc0BdGqdyTLfxeT3dvtV75vWszz8jRDyJF9JxSxUBY0OFUuZDvWePzAS93peGeum3VbjxIdETPmqaYTbeIaSzMQ/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3NlsHK5R7yS2qXTM3ROY1jRFKxT8s9pF5rDe81E2_nsldTMKM9_szJc0BdGqdyTLfxeT3dvtV75vWszz8jRDyJF9JxSxUBY0OFUuZDvWePzAS93peGeum3VbjxIdETPmqaYTbeIaSzMQ/s320/index.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(Excerpts from <a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/">The New American</a>)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Monday, 30 May<b> 1994</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Silk Tie Revolutionaries</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Written by William F. Jasper</i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Conservatives have long railed at the
communist/liberal-left axis that has formed the most visible base of
the worldwide attack on South Africa: the Soviet Union, Cuba, Libya,
Mozambique, and Zimbabwe; the United Nations, the World Council of
Churches, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, Jesse Jackson,
Andrew Young, and the whole network of professional civil
rights/human rights radicals that grew out of the 1960s antiwar
movement; and, of course, the literati and glitterati of the national
press, academe, and Hollywood. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
These formidable
elements, marching under the camouflage of the anti-apartheid banner,
have comprised a force that has done much to bring South Africa to
its knees. But all of the AK-47s, mortars, bombs, Soviet advisors,
terrorist training camps, assassinations, demonstrations, and biased
broadcasts of these revolutionists combined could not, of themselves,
have brought about the transformation in South Africa of a vicious
terrorist group and its titular head from the status of political
outlaws to that of global cult heroes and de facto heads of state.
No, these subversive elements merely provided the "pressure from
below," an essential ingredient, but not sufficient of itself
without "pressure from above" to produce the revolutionary
transformation.<br />
<br />
<i>CFR Workings </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b>In the case of
South Africa, this "pressure from above" came from the same
cabal that has betrayed and overthrown so many of our anti-communist
allies since World War II</b> — China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and
Rhodesia, to name a few. <b><u>The leading cabalists in this ongoing
betrayal come from the highest echelons of the international banking
and corporate elite of Europe and America and their political front
groups. </u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Foremost among these fronts have been the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the United States</b>, and its
"sister bodies," the Royal Institute of International
Affairs (RIIA) in Great Britain, the Institute Francais des Relations
Internationales in France, the Forschungsinstitut der Deutschen
Gesellschaft fur Auswartige Politik in Germany, and the South Africa
Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA) in South Africa.<br />
<br />
In
the United States, the CFR elitists have virtually run the federal
executive branch since World War II, controlling the White House and
especially using the Departments of State, Treasury, and Defense to
advance their globalist "new world order"
designs.<br />
<br />
<i>International Pincer Attack</i><br />
<br />
<b>For
decades the CFR's agenda on South Africa has been outlined in its
journal, Foreign Affairs,</b> and has been put into effect by such
CFR operatives as Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Shultz, and
Warren Christopher. <b>These agents, along with their colleagues in the
media and their counterparts in Europe, were able to orchestrate an
incredible international pincer attack, c<u>ombining political
blackmail, economic extortion, and public opinion pressure to paint
South Africa as the most execrable nation on earth. </u></b><br />
<br />
Their high-level
pressure helped force the South African government to make one deadly
concession after another to the communist enemies of all Africans,
whether black, white, Indian, or colored. <b><u>At the same time,
communist, Marxist, and other "Third World" regimes were
(and still are) slaughtering their peoples by the hundreds of
thousands and oppressing millions in the most unspeakable manner,
with little international public outcry, diplomatic repercussions, or
economic sanctions whatsoever.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Examples of the CFR
conspiratorial duplicity against South Africa are too legion to
enumerate here at any length. Following are but a few:</b><br />
<br />
•<b>
In 1959, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a violent offshoot of the
ANC, was organized in the Johannesburg offices of the United States
Information Service (USIS) <u>under Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles (a CFR founder) </u></b>and his successor at State, Christian Herter
(CFR).<br />
<br />
• <b>In 1965, the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, under the direction of its president, Joseph E.
Johnson (CFR), brought forth a detailed<u> plan advocating a military
invasion of South Africa by the United Nations.</u></b> The Carnegie
Endowment, a vital adjunct of the CFR, has continued its anti-South
Africa attacks non-stop. In the Winter 1986-87 issue of the Carnegie
Endowment journal Foreign Policy, William Minter <b><u>militantly
charged that "there is no alternate way, short of Western
military action, to induce the apartheid regime to negotiate its
surrender."</u></b><br />
<br />
• <b><u>The giant Ford and
Rockefeller Foundations, always run by CFR members, have unstintingly
lavished enormous sums on left-wing South African groups for
decades.</u></b><br />
<br />
• Vice President Walter Mondale (CFR)
stated in May 1977 that President Carter (CFR) would give high
priority to "smashing" South Africa's apartheid. The Carter
regime soon validated that statement.<b> On October 27, 1977, President
Carter ordered an immediate arms embargo on South Africa because of
its "blatant deprivation of basic human rights." <u>At the
same time, Carter was pursuing normalization of relations with Red
China and expanded relations with the Soviet Union, both sterling
champions of "basic human Rights."</u></b><br />
<br />
•
In 1978 the South African Foreign Ministry released a report showing
that, in the previous three years, Western governments had provided
about 69 million rand (at that time about $79 million) to the SWAPO
(South West Africa People's Organization) terrorists alone. The U.S.
government's contribution had been around $3.9 million.<br />
<br />
•
<b>A 1984 article in Foreign Affairs by Thomas G. Karis (CFR)
signaled the Establishment's open support for South African
communists and terrorists.</b> Praising the thoroughly
communist-dominated ANC and United Democratic Front, Karis glowed at
the prospect of a South Africa governed "by individuals like ...
Desmond Tutu, Oliver Tambo, and Nelson Mandela."<br />
<br />
•
On September 8, 1985, President Reagan signed<b> Executive Order 12532</b>,
which declared: "<b>I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United
States, find that <u>the policies and actions of the Government of South
Africa constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign
policy and economy of the United States and hereby declare a national
emergency to deal with the threat." </u></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><u>Thus, South Africa was
officially deemed to be a greater "threat" than the Soviet
Union or China.</u></b><br />
<br />
• In 1986 a comprehensive study
by Rand Afrikaans University's Institute for American Studies
provided details concerning the funneling of <b>hundreds of millions of
U.S. tax dollars by the Reagan State Department into the coffers of
radical, pro-Soviet, pro-ANC groups in South Africa.</b> Some $200 to
$300 million were channeled through the U.S. Agency for International
Development, the U.S. Information Agency, the National Endowment for
Democracy, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and other
agencies.<br />
<br />
• Also in 1986, Assistant Secretary of
State Chester Crocker (CFR) described the ANC as "freedom
fighters," marking an official about-face from State's previous
designation of the ANC as a terrorist group. Crocker, author of the
Reagan Administration's disastrous South Africa policy of
"constructive engagement," first outlined the CFR game plan
in a 1980 article for Foreign Affairsentitled "South
Africa: Strategy for Change."<br />
<br />
• <b>Due to U.S.
bludgeoning, South Africa signed the Nkomati Accords, the Lusaka
Accords, and the Namibia Accords, all of which involved the
abandonment and betrayal of South Africa's most important military
allies: </b>Savimbi's UNITA guerillas in Angola, the RENAMO forces in
Mozambique, and the South West Africa Territorial Forces in
Namibia.<br />
<br />
• <b>On January 28, 1987, Secretary of
State George Shultz (CFR), in a high-profile event, met in
Washington, DC with the ANC's top terrorist, Oliver Tambo</b>. That
night, Tambo declared to Ted Koppel (CFR) on ABC's Nightline that
he and Shultz <b>had come to a "meeting of minds" and shared a
common goal for South Africa.</b><br />
<br />
• <b>On February 5,
1987, M. Peter McPherson (CFR), director of the U.S. Agency for
International Development, announced a Reagan Administration pledge
of $93 million in new aid to Botswana, Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania,
Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.</b><br />
<b><u>These Marxist "front line"
states were involved in deadly guerilla warfare against South Africa
and provided sites for Soviet-backed terrorist training camps.</u></b><br />
<br />
•
<b>The Clinton State Department admitted last August that it was
assigning U.S. personnel to train bodyguards for Mandela and other
ANC officials.<u> It had no comparable program for Zulu Chief Buthelezi
or other South African leaders who are far more vulnerable than ANC
leaders to assassination attempts.</u></b><br />
<br />
• <b><u>On
July 5, 1993, David Rockefeller hosted a dinner for top corporate
executives to honor Nelson Mandela and raise funds for the ANC
election drive.</u></b> ANC Foreign Secretary Thabo Mbeki praised Rockefeller
as a longtime friend who has <b><u>"backed the ANC financially for
more than a decade."</u></b><br />
<br />
• Barely two weeks
prior to the South African elections, an international coterie of
"mediators" led by Henry Kissinger (CFR) descended on
Johannesburg to undermine the demands of Zulu Chief Buthelezi and to
confer the Insiders' benediction on Mandela and the ANC.<br />
<br />
<i>Rhodes'
Legacy</i><br />
<br />
Certainly some of the most strategic "pressure
from above" has come from inside South Africa itself, which is
hardly surprising considering that many of the Insider groups we have
been discussing can trace their genesis to that South African Insider
of fabled wealth and power, Cecil John Rhodes. With Rothschild and
J.P. Morgan money, Rhodes became the worldwide king of diamonds and
gold in the latter half of the 19th century. But years earlier, while
a student at Oxford, he had become a disciple of Professor John
Ruskin, a revolutionary utopian socialist. (Ruskin wrote in his own
newsletter, "For, indeed, I am myself a communist of the old
school — reddest also of the red.") <b><u>According to Rhodes
biographer Sara G. Millin</u>, "The government of the world was
Rhodes' simple desire." Rhodes established a secret society
called the <u>Round Table</u> and used his vast fortune to promote his
Ruskinite plans for socialist world government. <u>His Round Table
progeny include the CFR and its corresponding sister bodies now
operating in most of the major powers of Europe and Asia.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Rhodes'
mantle was transferred in the early 1900s first to Ernest
Oppenheimer, and then to his son, <u>Harry F. Oppenheimer, who holds the
reins to one of the largest and most powerful financial and
industrial empires the world has ever seen</u>.</b> The Oppenheimer kingdom
includes the vast resources of the enormous Anglo American
Corporation, the de Beers diamond cartel, the Minorco conglomerate,
Highveld Steel, and hundreds of diversified companies encircling the
globe.<br />
<br />
Like fellow Insiders David Rockefeller and the
late Armand Hammer,<b> Oppenheimer has always been cozy with the
communists. For 40 years his Anglo American Corporation has held
strategic gold and diamond sales agreements with the Soviet Union.
<u>Oppenheimer has been a longtime supporter of the ANC and was an early
and powerful voice calling for the release of Nelson Mandela.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b><u>In
1985 Oppenheimer sent Anglo American chairman Gavin Reilly and other
business leaders to Zambia for a meeting with Oliver Tambo and other
senior ANC officials. </u></b>This provided an enormous boost to the ANC's
prestige and credibility.<b><u> Oppenheimer's controlling interest in Argus
Newspapers, South Africa's largest newspaper group, has enabled him
to shower the ANC/SACP with an incredible propaganda windfall.</u></b><br />
<br />
His
Oppenheimer Fund annually pours millions of dollars into radical
causes. <b><u>According to South African journalist Aida Parker,
Oppenheimer's conduits have poured 320 to 350 million rand into the
ANC since 1985 and have given the PAC more than 50,000 rand in the
weeks leading up to the election.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Naturally, Oppenheimer
is a key player in Rockefeller's global CFR network. </b>For many years
he has been a leading figure in the South African Institute for
International Affairs. Like his American and European counterparts,
he has used his position, power, and pelf to betray his country and
advance the diabolical designs of the new world order.<b> The
Oppenheimer influence, together with strategic pressure from the U.S.
Europe Rhodes network, explains many of the suicidal and otherwise
inexplicable policies and actions of the National Party (NP) under
F.W. de Klerk.</b><br />
<br />
<i>"Conservative" Sellout</i><br />
<br />
<b>Like
leaders of the Republican Party in the United States, the de Klerk
coterie in Pretoria knows how to strike a conservative posture while
actually selling out all South Africans to the ANC/SACP reds. </b>A few
examples serve to illustrate a long chain of perfidy:<br />
<br />
•
On September 26, 1992 de Klerk and Mandela agreed to outlawing
Inkatha members from carrying their traditional weapons — spears
and knobby sticks — but did not require ANC armed units to refrain
from carrying their traditional weapons — AK-47s, grenades, and
other high-powered weapons.<br />
<br />
• <b>In November 1993,
de Klerk's National Party and the ANC agreed to the merger of the
ANC's military arm, the terrorist Umkhontowe Sizwe (MK),
with the South African Defense Force (SADF) into a new National
Peacekeeping Force (NPKF). The results have been frightening. As Ray
Kennedy reported in The European for April 22-28, the ANC's
members at the NPKF training camp near Bloemfontein <u>"distinguished
themselves with nights of drunken rampaging when they hurled abuse
and threats at white instructors from the South African army and
broke out of the barracks. And in its attempt to quell a firefight
between ANC supporters and Zulu hostel-dwellers this week, wild
shooting ensued, in the course of which a press photographer was
killed."</u></b><br />
<br />
• <b>The NP/ANC Goldstone Commission
was a predictably one-sided affair. <u>Judge Goldstone was the only
judge acceptable to the ANC — because of his pro-ANC leanings.
</u>Goldstone demonstrated his ANC bias earlier this year when he issued
a report to the ANC before issuing it to the government. The
Commission's charges that the SADF was arming Inkatha death squads
was reported as 'fact' around the world.</b><br />
<br />
• <b><u>The
Independent Election Commission (IEC) set up by the NP/ANC
negotiators and headed by Judge Johann Kriegler was a farce</u></b>, as
expected. Kriegler, a founder of the left-wing Lawyers for Human
Rights, is pro-ANC and the<b><u> entire IEC became a full-employment
program for ANC cadres.</u></b><br />
<br />
• <b>The blatantly
pro-ANC/SACP constitution was constructed by the ANC's Secretary
General Cyril Ramaphosa and the NP's Constitutional Development
Minister Roelf Meyer — with the help of Harvard's Roger Fisher
(CFR)</b> and other Insider internationalists.<b> It amounted to an abject
surrender of the government by the NP to the ANC. <u>But it was
presented to South Africans by de Klerk and company as a great
negotiation "victory."</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>As always, it is
the revolutionaries in silk ties at the top who are the most
dangerous. </b></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-65454632128099868242012-11-03T14:56:00.001+00:002012-11-03T16:14:32.621+00:00Article from 1987 - "South Africa: The Questions that Need to be Asked..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYr3ZaxUhofR7nvTu7nwZp1T5icJAxRIhgncxiwcZpZIHHxKH9dLb-0F_Sv80TksTKx2Ap81T7lmIGcxxg5hLo-JuZH63dDVMI2b-fIIVE8Eb4A00KM835gTfSTNJ6ZmBg6sUBAwFX444/s1600/Alliance+of+four.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYr3ZaxUhofR7nvTu7nwZp1T5icJAxRIhgncxiwcZpZIHHxKH9dLb-0F_Sv80TksTKx2Ap81T7lmIGcxxg5hLo-JuZH63dDVMI2b-fIIVE8Eb4A00KM835gTfSTNJ6ZmBg6sUBAwFX444/s400/Alliance+of+four.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
(Excerpts from <a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/africa/item/13099-south-africa-the-questions-that-need-to-be-asked">The New American</a>)<br />
<br />
Monday, 02 March, <b>1987</b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">South Africa: The Questions That Need to Be Asked</span><br />
Written by Warren L. McFerran<br />
<br />
<br />
The issue of South Africa is of concern
to everyone, not just South Africans. Indeed, according to
former British Foreign Secretary David Owen, it is over this issue
"that the world faces its greatest challenge." Faced with
such a challenge, it is time for all concerned Americans to penetrate
the haze of myths and misconceptions that has been deliberately
created.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Unless we wish to see a repetition of
the recent tragedies of Iran, Nicaragua, and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) —
where U.S. foreign policy decisions resulted in the replacement of
friendly governments with anti-American, pro-Soviet regimes — we
must seek out the truth by raising pertinent questions and obtaining
factual answers.</b> In light of the Free World's hostility toward South
Africa, a good place to begin is by raising a very fundamental and
simple question.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>How economically advanced and
technologically sophisticated is South Africa?</i><br />
<br />
<b>In stark contrast
with all the other nations of the African continent, the Republic of
South Africa is an economic and technological success story.</b>
According to a study made by the United Nations, <b><u>South Africa is one
of the few "developed" nations in the world and the only
one on the continent of Africa. </u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b>Occupying only about 3.5 percent of
the surface of Africa, South Africa produces 66 percent of the
continent's steel, 54 percent of its wool, and 36 percent of its
maize. She also provides 40 percent of the continent's industrial
output and 45 percent of its mining output, has 29 percent of its
railway lines and 46 percent of its passenger and commercial
vehicles, and consumes 60 percent of its electricity.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Modern, interprovincial, four-lane
superhighways stretch across the country. Cars, televisions, radios,
and all the other conveniences of modern life are to be found in
South Africa. <u>Computers are made there, the world's first successful
human heart transplant was performed there, and a method of enriching
uranium was discovered there. </u></b><br />
<b>That country has overcome threatened
oil embargoes by developing a process of manufacturing oil from coal,
and she has also successfully overcome an arms embargo by developing
her own armaments industry.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Many of the other countries on the
continent as far north as Zaire are heavily dependent upon the South
African economy. Not only do more than one million foreign Black
Africans find employment in that country, but <b>most of the Black-ruled
nations in southern Africa are almost totally dependent on South
Africa for such basic needs as transportation and electricity</b>. In
fact, it has been said that, with a flip of a switch, South Africa
could plunge the rest of southern Africa into darkness.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>How important is South Africa to the
Free World?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
Two years later, the U.S. Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations issued a report on the U.S. mineral
dependence on South Africa:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Western industrial world depends
heavily on Southern Africa for chrome, manganese, vanadium and
platinum.<u> A major disruption in the supply of these minerals would
have a disastrous impact on oil refining and the production of a
variety of specialty steels needed in such industries as aerospace
and machine tools.... </u></b><br />
<b>The U.S. is almost completely dependent on
imports of chromium, manganese, and platinum.... It is <u>particularly
dependent on South Africa for imports of chrome and ferrochrome and
platinum.</u></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>South Africa contains the world's
largest known deposits of gold, platinum, chrome, manganese,
vanadium, and fluorspar. It also contains<u> substantial deposits of
antimony, asbestos, coal, copper, diamonds, iron ore, lead,
limestone, mica, nickel, phosphates, titanium, uranium, vermiculite,
zinc, and zirconium. </u></b>Nevertheless, even if we completely ignore the
fact that South Africa is a mineral treasure house, that country is
still strategically important to the West due to her geographic
position.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>What is apartheid and why was it
adopted?</i><br />
<br />
<b>South Africa is home to approximately 30 million people,
including about five million Whites, at least 20 million Blacks
(Bantu), and nearly 4 million Coloreds (mixed race) and Indians
(Asians).</b> <b><u>That country is not really one nation, but is in fact many
nations, each possessing its own language, cultural heritage, and
loyalties.</u></b><br />
Even among the Whites, two languages are spoken —
English and a unique language derived from Dutch known as Afrikaans.
The Coloreds speak either English or Afrikaans, or both. Among the
Asians, 65 percent are Hindus, 21 percent are Muslims, 7 percent are
Christians and Buddhists, and 7 percent are officially classified as
"other."<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Yet the greatest tribal and cultural
diversity is among the Bantu. Blacks are divided into ten major
tribes, each loyal to itself and jealous of the others. Within the
major tribes are sub-tribal groupings and clan divisions.</b> The Venda,
for instance, are South Africa's most homogenous Bantu tribal group;
yet they are really an amalgamation of 27 different tribes. Among the
Zulu, on the other hand, there are 200 distinct tribes. The Bantu
languages can be divided into four main groups, 23 sub-groups, and
numerous local dialects.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The philosopher John Stewart Mill
observed early in the 19th century: "Free institutions are next
to impossible in a country made of different nationalities. Among a
people without fellow feelings, especially if they read and write
different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the
working of representative government, cannot exist."<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Instead of trying to create a great
unitary state from the diverse elements within its borders, South
Africa adopted in 1948 the policy of apartheid — or more properly,
<u>Separate Development — whereby each major population group was
recognized as a nation entitled to develop its own political and
social institutions separate from the others.</u></b><u> </u><br />
<u><br /></u>
<b><u>According to this
policy, each of South Africa's ten major Bantu homelands would evolve
into a self-governing, independent, democratic sovereign state.</u></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>In October 1976, the Republic of
Transkei received its independence from South Africa, thereby
becoming the first Bantu homeland to achieve sovereign status.</u> The
second Bantu homeland to receive its independence was the Republic of
Bophuthatswana, which became autonomous in December 1977. The
Republic of Venda became sovereign in September 1979; and, in
December 1981, the Republic of Ciskei was born.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>Although the rest of the world refuses
to recognize these sovereign Bantu states</u>, as of January 1987 there
were six other Bantu homelands awaiting their turn for <u>complete
self-government</u>: the National State of Gazankulu, the National State
of Kangwane, the National State of Kwandebele, the National State of
Kwazulu, the National State of Lebowa, and the National State of
Qwaqwa.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Have Blacks enjoyed the fruits of South
Africa's prosperity?</i><br />
<br />
<b><u>Because South Africa is a "meeting
place" between the First World and the Third World economies, it
is not surprising that a gap exists between Black and White standards
of living.</u></b><br />
<u><b>What is surprising to many, however, is that the gap has
narrowed substantially: From 1971-1980, the real income of Blacks
increased by 40 percent while that of Whites actually decreased by
three percent.</b></u><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Even South Africa's most severe critics
will acknowledge that the country offers Blacks greater opportunities
than does any other nation on the continent.</b> As a consequence,
millions of alien Blacks seek to enter South Africa every year,
legally or illegally -- in sharp contrast with conditions in
Communist-held lands such as East Berlin, where a wall has been
erected to prevent people from escaping.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Statistics released on March 28, 1980
gave a good indication of the Bantu lifestyle in the South Western
Township (Soweto) near Johannesburg, where more than one million
Blacks reside. The report revealed that <b><u>Soweto had more than 1,600
Black-owned businesses, 300 churches, 314 schools, 115 soccer fields,
81 basketball courts, 39 children's playgrounds, 4 soccer stadiums, 6
public swimming pools, 5 bowling alleys, 11 post offices, 6
libraries, 63 day-care centers, and 2 golf courses.</u></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
According to statistics released in
February 1984, one out of every three South African Blacks owns a
refrigerator; 20.2 percent of the Bantu own automobiles, 11.8 percent
own color televisions; 5.4 percent own washing machines; and 2.7
percent own freezers. These percentages are not high compared to the
standard of living that we enjoy in the U.S., but they are high
compared to the primitive conditions that exist elsewhere on the
African continent.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One of the best yardsticks for
measuring the standard of living is the percentage of income that has
to be devoted to the most essential item of all, food. Generally, the
higher this percentage, the lower the standard of living. According
to the 1984 report, South African Blacks spend an average of 45.1
percent of their household budget on food, which is virtually the
same percentage that goes to food among the wage earners of Italy. In
fact, <b>South African Blacks spend a smaller percentage of their
household income on food than do the populations of any other African
country where comparisons were possible</b>. (In many African countries
comparisons were not possible because as little as six percent of the
populations were employed in wage-earning jobs.)<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>How does South Africa's human rights
record compare with the record for the rest of Africa?</i><br />
<br />
South
Africa's State President Pieter W. Botha recently issued this
challenge to the world: "It is the big lie that a Black
government in Africa is, of necessity, a majority government. I
challenge the world to contradict me. It is a sad fact that only a
minute percentage of Blacks in Africa have obtained democracy,
liberty and justice."<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Strife, famine, anarchy, and civil war
are the hallmarks of Black Africa, and racism against non-Blacks is
widely encouraged and institutionalized.</b> Article 27 of the Liberian
Constitution, for instance, declares that "only persons who are
Negro or of Negro descent shall qualify by birth or by naturalization
to be citizens of Liberia."<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Free elections in the countries north
of South Africa are non-existent, and the usual mode of changing
governments in Black-ruled Africa is through violent revolution.</b> In
some cases, the deposed ruler is actually cooked and eaten by
cannibals. A case in point is Major General Ironyi of Nigeria, who
was actually eaten by the victorious tribe following his overthrow.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Toward the end of 1985, the Catholic
daily Munno reported on conditions in Uganda: "The
soldiers are once again on the rampage, shooting and knifing
civilians, abducting women and young girls and taking turns to rape
them." According to Amnesty International, atrocities in Uganda
routinely involve raping women and "crushing or pulling
testicles of men."<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>The Republic of South Africa has by far
the best human rights record on the African continent. </u>Yet the "human
rights" zealots in the Free World have chosen to ignore glaring
abuses of real human rights in the rest of Africa and have
concentrated on South Africa. As a result of this persistent
criticism and pressure, the South African Government has resolved to
abolish apartheid.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Is the internal reform process
real?</i><br />
<br />
<b>The South African people have often reminded the world that
they are an independent, sovereign nation</b>, asserting that their sins,
whatever they may be, are not ours. <b>Yet they are also sensitive to
Free World criticism, and <u>they have accordingly dismantled the most
objectionable laws that have become associated with the concept of
Separate Development (apartheid), including pass laws, laws
forbidding interracial marriage, and restrictive housing laws. In
recent times, nearly every phase of South African life has been
integrated</u>, from the work place to the sports stadium.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The first major constitutional step
toward a form of <u>"power sharing"</u> was made in 1984 with the
adoption of a new Constitution. This "New Dispensation"
provided for a tricameral legislature</b>, with Whites, Coloreds, and
Asians each having their own house of parliament. Although not yet
finalized,<b><u> plans are currently being made to include Blacks in the
evolving federation structure.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The reform program in South Africa is
certainly genuine. But it has also made South Africa vulnerable to
attack. The philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville once observed:
"Experience shows that the most dangerous moment for a bad
government is usually that point at which it begins to reform
itself."</b> This is also true for good governments, when they
undergo reform in the face of charges and accusations that they are
"bad" governments. <b>Such a government undergoing reform in
response to pressure and coercion is vulnerable because its action is
widely perceived as a sign of weakness and as an admission of past
wrong-doing.</b><br />
<br />
<b><u>Not only has the Free World utilized South Africa's
reform process as the means to increase coercive tactics</u>, but
internal subversive groups have seized the opportunity to launch an
unprecedented and bloody wave of revolution within South Africa.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Does the Soviet Union have designs on
South Africa?</i><br />
<br />
<b>Leonid Brezhnev</b> stated in 1973: <b>"Our aim is to
gain control of the two great treasure houses on which the West
depends — the energy treasure house of the Persian Gulf and<u> the
minerals treasure house of central and southern Africa.</u>"</b>.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Not only are the Soviets moving rapidly
to surround the strategic Middle East, but they are also moving
rapidly to conquer all of southern Africa. <b>Angola, Mozambique, and
Zimbabwe are already in the hands of puppet dictators loyal to World
Communism.</b> There are also numerous Communist-bloc combat troops
stationed in southern Africa, including some <b>40,000 Cuban troops in
Angola alone</b>. As a consequence of these ominous developments,<b> South
Africa finds herself completely flanked by hostile Marxist states</b>,
and the final battle for the control of southern Africa has already
begun.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>What are the main anti-apartheid
revolutionary groups in South Africa, and who are their leaders?</i><br />
<br />
Of
the many revolutionary groups operating against the Republic of South
Africa, two predominate — the African National Congress (ANC) and
the United Democratic Front (UDF).<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Although the original purpose of the
<b>ANC</b>, which was founded in 1912, is rather obscure, ample
documentation exists proving that it is now<b> totally dominated and
controlled by the South African Communist Party (SACP)</b>, which in turn
is controlled by the Kremlin. In his official history of the South
African Communist Party, Michael Harmel, writing under the pseudonym
A. Lerumo, stated:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>Today the ANC has been so thoroughly
infiltrated and taken over by the SACP that the two are virtually
synonymous</u>.... Joint planning by the USSR, ANC and SACP of the
strategy to be used against South Africa is coordinated in Moscow
</b>where there has recently been increasing pressure on the ANC to
provide proof that it is capable of "intensifying the struggle."<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In November 1982, the U.S. Senate
Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism issued a report,
entitled Soviet, East German andCuban Involvement in Fomenting
Terrorism in Southern Africa. Among those who testified before the
Subcommittee was Bartholomew Hlapane, a former member of the Central
Committee of the SACP and of the National Executive Committee of the
ANC. Hlapane, it should be noted, paid with his life for daring to
tell the truth about the African National Congress.<br />
<br />
Shortly after
giving his testimony before the Subcommittee, he was gunned down by
an ANC assassin armed with a Soviet AK-47 assault rifle.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Hlapane testified:<b> "No major
decision could be taken by the ANC without the concurrence and
approval of the Central Committee of the SACP.</b> Most major
developments were in fact initiated by the Central Committee."
He added: <b>"The military wing of the ANC, also known as Umkhonto
we Sizwe, was the brainchild of the SACP,</b> and, after the decision to
create it had been taken, Joe Slovo and J. B. Marks were sent by the
Central Committee of the SACP to Moscow to organize arms and
ammunition and to raise funds forUmkhonto we Sizwe."<b> <u>Joe Slovo,
a White South African and a Colonel in the Soviet KGB, is a member of
the National Executive Committee of the ANC and of the Central
Committee of the SACP.</u></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The acting head of the ANC is Oliver
Tambo, who has<u> repeatedly promised death and violence for South
Africa</u>. </b>Tambo
has also attended official meetings of various Communist Parties
around the world, and has <b>even addressed some of those meetings to
praise the goals of the world Communist movement.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
At the 60th anniversary celebration of
the South African Communist Party, held on July 30, 1981, Tambo
stated<b>: <u>"Members of the ANC fully understand why both the ANC
and the SACP are two hands in the same body, why they are two pillars
of our revolution."</u> </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Of course, the symbolic leader and
"martyr" of the ANC is Nelson Mandela, who has been serving
a life sentence in prison since 1964 for <u>plotting the violent
overthrow of the South African Government.</u> </b>When brought to trial in
1964, Mandela confessed to writing books "on guerrilla warfare
and military training" and <u><b>admitted that he "planned
violence.</b></u>" Placed in evidence at the trial were documents in his
own handwriting bearing such titles as Dialectical
Materialism and <b>How To Be A Good Communist.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In one document,<b> Mandela wrote</b>: "As
in Cuba, the general uprising must be sparked off by organized and
well-prepared guerrilla operations...." In another, he wrote:<b>
<u>"We Communist Party members are the most advanced
revolutionaries in modern history...."</u></b> And in still another:
"<b>The people of South Africa<u>, led by the South African Communist
Party, will destroy capitalist society and build in its place
socialism...."</u></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>For the past few years, the South
African Government has offered to release Nelson Mandela if only he
would pledge to refrain from violence. Mandela has thus far refused
to take that pledge.</u></b> While he stays in prison, by his own choice, his
wife Winnie serves as his mouthpiece and carries on with his
revolutionary work.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>What are these anti-apartheid
revolutionary groups fighting for?</i><br />
<br />
What the anti-apartheid
revolutionary groups claim they are fighting against has
always been far better understood than what they are fighting for.
To clarify their position, the subversive groups formed the Congress
of the People, which convened at Klipton, near Johannesburg, to adopt
a so-called Freedom Charter on June 25 and 26, 1955.
This Freedom Charter is still officially endorsed by the
ANC and the UDF, and therefore offers further insight into the nature
of the internal South Africa revolution.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Freedom Charter promised
a utopia for South Africa:<u> "The People Shall Share the Country's
Wealth!"</u></b> "There Shall Be Work and Security!" "There
Shall Be Houses, Security and Comfort!" "There Shall Be
Peace and Friendship!" The method of bringing this worker's
paradise to South Africa was spelled out in detail.<br />
<b><u> "The
national wealth of our country, the heritage of all South Africans,
shall be restored to the people,"</u></b><u><b> by confiscation.</b></u><b><u> "The
mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industries
shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole,"</u></b>
as Karl Marx advocated.<br />
<b>"All other industry and trade shall be
controlled to assist the well-being of the people," </b>as the basic
tenets of scientific socialism dictate.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>This Freedom Charter sounds
as if it had been written by Communists because it was written
by Communists. </u></b>In testimony before the U.S. Subcommittee on Security
and Terrorism, former ANC and SACP executive member Bartholomew
Hlapane said: "It is a document I came to know about, just
having been <b>drafted by Joe Slovo at the request of the Central
Committee and finally <u>approved by the Central Committee of the
Communist Party.</u>"</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>By what methods are the anti-apartheid
groups "liberating" the South African people?</i><br />
<br />
<b>The
revolutionary forces of "national liberation" within South
Africa are trying to "liberate" the non-White peoples by
waging a systematic campaign of terrorism in the Black townships and
by murdering the very peoples they claim to be liberating.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Dominating
the scene in that country are assassinations and intimidation of
Black policemen and democratically-elected local Black officials,
firebombings of Black-owned businesses, boycotts and strikes enforced
by coercion, calls for nonpayment of rent, and the establishment of
revolutionary Marxist "People's Committees" and "People's
Courts." </b>The struggle is not Black versus White, but Black and
White versus Red.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>Black-on-Black civil war has gripped
virtually every Black community in South Africa.</u> </b>At Crossroads, near
Cape Town, decent <b><u>Blacks have organized "vigilante" groups
to defend themselves from crazed ANC-UDF mobs</u></b>, <u><b>and thousands of homes
have been burned in pitched battles, leaving some 200,000 Blacks
homeless. </b></u><br />
<br />
In Durban, Zulu Chief Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkatha members
are openly battling the ANC-UDF Marxist "comrades."<br />
And in
Soweto, one resident recently told a Newsweek reporter that
"Soweto is in a state of civil war. It's no longer news to wake
up in the morning and see bodies in the streets and the front yards."
<b>It was in response to the breakdown of law and order, in fact, that
the South African government imposed a state of national emergency.</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Especially significant is the growing
number of public executions of decent, moderate Blacks with the
technique of "necklacing."</b> This technique calls for ANC-UDF
radicals to place a rubber tire around a shackled victim's neck. The
tire is then filled with gasoline and set on fire. <b>As the victim is
engulfed in flames, the radicals gather around to taunt him with a
callousness that defies human understanding. </b>Necklacing is a savage form of torture
and murder. Yet, <b><u>Winnie Mandela has boldly proclaimed: "With our
boxes of matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country."</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Whose side is our government on?</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>There was indeed an "Orwellian
perversity" in the Anti-Apartheid Act, the official name of the
1986 sanctions bill. </u></b>Among other things, the law called for U.S.
funding of anti-apartheid South African groups; termination of U.S.
military cooperation with South Africa; pressure on Western allies to
apply similar punitive measures; the "unbanning" of
terrorist organizations such as the ANC; and the release of all
"political prisoners," with Nelson Mandela mentioned by
name.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In his remarks on the Senate floor in
opposition to the sanctions bill, Senator Jesse Helms noted that the
measure <b><u>"is not about segregation. It is not about the sharing
of power, it is about the transfer of power ... to a small minority
elite. That elite is the Communist Party of South Africa."</u></b> Helms
continued:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>The intent of the new legislation is to
recognize the Communist movement of South Africa as the legitimate
and preferred successor to the present government of South Africa.</u>
</b>The bill itself gives preference in almost every respect only to
those opponents of the government and those groups that are deeply
committed to the Communist Party of South Africa, an organization
funded and controlled by the Soviet Union. <b><u>The non-Communist leaders
of the Blacks and non-Whites are treated as though they do not exist.</u></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Senator from North Carolina asked:
"<b>Why is it that the only persons mentioned by name in the bill
are Communists? Why is it that the only parties referenced are
precisely those parties which are under the total control and support
of the international Communist movement?" Helms summarized the
matter by stating frankly that the measure "<u>is a bill for
Communist rule" in the Republic of South Africa.</u></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>How do the facts add up?</i><br />
<br />
South
Africa is a close friend and time-tested ally of the United States
and, because of her geographic position and valuable mineral
deposits, is strategically important to the survival of the Free
World.<b> </b><br />
<b><u>South Africa has by far the best human rights record on the
African continent. It is undergoing a genuine reform process, a
process that has rendered that country more vulnerable to internal
and external attack.</u></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>The Republic of South Africa is under
attack by subversive forces that are clearly under the total control
of Moscow. </u></b><br />
<b>Those revolutionary forces are torturing and murdering the
very peoples they claim to be liberating. <u>Most important of all is
the incontrovertible fact that our government is supporting those
revolutionary forces.</u></b></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-90694830875193944402012-11-01T15:48:00.000+00:002012-11-01T19:55:39.505+00:00Cosatu: "Guerrilla military skills of MK needed on ground"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR6i3GLqqAL4IPizN68Ozpj0fdhxw90F3QhjE1wmlFtvwP9aXJ5g8Ywlda5pbGM99FxEWVWvsiHY8iBdJCVxbQi3hZvalDdeRH_OknEXAJSt4yFLmEM1-dcF3uFirNG8achGNXcziIsok/s1600/865216_734408.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR6i3GLqqAL4IPizN68Ozpj0fdhxw90F3QhjE1wmlFtvwP9aXJ5g8Ywlda5pbGM99FxEWVWvsiHY8iBdJCVxbQi3hZvalDdeRH_OknEXAJSt4yFLmEM1-dcF3uFirNG8achGNXcziIsok/s400/865216_734408.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(Excerpts from<a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=332703&sn=Detail&pid=71616"> Politicsweb</a> article)<br />
<br />
<i>A speech by Cosatu's president to the MK Military Veterans Association....</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Input by Sidumo Dlamini, <b>COSATU
President, to the Conference of the MKMVA </b>held at Birchwood
Conference Centre, October 15 2012</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Comrades,</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>I think it is important that right from
the onset I clarify some of the basic things about COSATU, the
African National Congress and MK.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Firstly, we come to address this
congress not as friends of the ANC,<u> </u>but as <u>strategic revolutionary
allies who shared, and continue to share, the trenches of war against
colonialism of a Special Type with the ANC.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Secondly, we did not and continue not
to participate in this struggle simply as beneficiaries but as part
of the South African working class whose hard conditions of life
compelled them to be at the <b>forefront amongst the ranks of the
Congress Movement to attain the National Democratic Revolution
vision.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We know that we are the most organised
detachment of the working class and therefore we subject ourselves to
the <u><b>revolutionary discipline of the working class as a whole, which
is the conscious and uncompromising leading detachment of the motive
forces of our revolution as led by the ANC.</b></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>We know that the working class has the
responsibility of uniting the widest range of classes and social
strata in a common struggle for the<u> realisation of the strategic
objectives of the National Democratic Revolution.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The history of our revolution bears
testimony to the facts that you are our own.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was not a mistake that amongst the
members of the Luthuli Detachment who participated in the Wankie
Spolilo operation, which was the<b><u> first MK group...were amongst the first to
receive military training in the Soviet Union.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The<b> 1978 Politico-Military Commissions
Report</b> contained what was later to be popularly referred as the Green
Book said that "the armed struggle must be based on, and
grow out of, mass political support and it must eventually involve
all our people. All military activities must at every stage be guided
by and determined by the need to generate political mobilization,
organization and resistance, with the <b>aim of progressively weakening
the enemy's grip on his reins of political, economic, social and
military power, by a combination of political and military action."</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As COSATU, we later saw comrades
testifying in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC] on their
roles as commanders of the MK units.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Amongst those many units was the called
"Operation Butterfly Unit".</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Amongst those...who <u>testified that the limpet
mines which exploded on 27th September 1985 at OK Bazaars, and
Game in Durban West Street, were directed at the dispute between
unions and management which was refusing to accede to workers
demands. </u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sasol had become a symbol of South
African independence. It was South Africa's answer to the oil embargo
and through those struggles, the apartheid project was disrupted.
<b><u>History will show that MK targeted and bombed SASOL twice.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>We want to challenge the MKMVA to make
their project to detail the historical facts which must demonstrate
the organic relationship between MK activities and trade union
struggles.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>Actually, you must consider having a
joint political education project with COSATU on this matter.</u> <u>The
history of our revolution must be written by those with first- hand
experience and MKMVA must lead that process.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What we have seen and continue to see
happening in the mining sector is not without its own historical,
political and economic basis.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>And any genuine revolutionary, who is
genuine about freedom, will not use those platforms to attack the
movement but use them to deepen class war against the class enemy
which are the employers.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The fact of the matter is that workers
of this country are paid less as compared to the wealth they produce
and also incomes of their bosses.<br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>We want to warn those who continue to
kill our people, and those who continue to insult the leadership of
our movement and setting up units to destabilize and weaken the
NUM: <u>Our patience is not endless!</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>We will soon be calling on our people
to defend themselves.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b>Comrade, Chris Hani taught us that it
is those, who knows how to fight, who will be the first to call for
peace.</b></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b>We call on members of the MKMVA to work
with our structures on the ground as we explain facts to people</b>...</u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>We've got to have MKMVA members using
their guerrilla military skills to work with us on the ground to
defend this movement and our revolution </u>as a whole which is being
threatened by demagogues, who are seeking political survival by all
means and at all costs, even at the cost of the very revolution they
claim to advance.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>We are coming from our 11th National
Congress drawing inspiration from the recommendations of the ANC
policy conference which called for radical second phase of our
transition. </u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We are now preparing for the ANC
53rd Conference to be held in Mangaung and we are going there to
argue that<u> <b>the radical phase of the second phase of our
transition will require the programme of the movement must be clearly
biased towards the working class.</b></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>And also that it must be based on an
agreed platform which is implemented by government; <u>that we
deliberately build an activist interventionist state and that the
ANC-led Alliance should constitutes the strategic centre of power
which directs the National Democratic Revolution [NDR]. </u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And the ANC shall always reflect this
dominant character without underplaying the other class interests.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>In our view comrades, there can be no
radical second phase of transition if the ANC does not prepare to
generate a programmes that are driven and supported by the masses.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>It is actually the ANC's adherence to
the mass line which took us to the 1994 breakthrough, </b><u style="font-weight: bold;">albeit with the
emergence of alien tendencies</u> <b>which began to emerge during the
negotiations in which the masses began to be treated as secondary.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>The period we are going through and the
period of the radical second phase of our transition will require the
political commissars and real commanders must practically occupy the
front ranks of our revolution.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>We want practical answers from the
MKMVA!</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Issued by COSATU, October 14 2012</div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-26894200141146189812012-10-31T19:47:00.004+00:002012-11-01T19:57:57.296+00:00The New American: "Genocide and Communism threaten South Africa"<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/africa/item/13280-genocide-communism-threaten-south-africa">Genocide and Communism Threaten South Africa</a></span></div>
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Written by Alex Newman - 24 October 2012</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Along a highway on a grassy hill,
thousands of white crosses — each one representing an individual
victim of brutal farm murders</b>, or plaasmoorde in Afrikaans
— are a stark reminder of the reality facing European-descent
farmers in the new South Africa. One of the iron crosses was planted
last year in memory of two-year-old Willemien Potgieter, who was
executed on a farm and left in a pool of her own blood. Her parents
were murdered, too — the father hacked to death with a machete.
Before leaving, the half-dozen killers tied a note to the gate: <b>“We
killed them. We’re coming back.”</b><br />
<br />
<b>The Potgieter family
massacre is just one of the tens of thousands of farm attacks to have
plagued South Africa since 1994. Like little Willemien’s cross,
<u>many of those now-iconic emblems represent innocent children, even
babies, who have been savagely murdered, oftentimes after being
tortured in ways so gruesome, horrifying, and barbaric, that mere
words could never adequately describe it. The death toll is still
rising.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Like countless South Africans, Andre Vandenberg has
lost multiple relatives to violence in the so-called “Rainbow
Nation.”</b> In separate incidents, according to Vandenberg, a
motorcycle exporter and former military man who now lives in the
United States, <u><b>two of his female cousins were brutally and repeatedly
raped in front of their husbands</b>.<b> One of the women was pregnant with
the couple’s first child. All five victims were murdered. After
sodomizing and killing the husbands, in both cases, the ruthless
attackers raped Vandenberg’s cousins again.</b></u><br />
<br />
<b><u>Enduring the
horror for hours, one of the women was eventually shot. The other had
a tire filled with gasoline put around her neck and set ablaze</u></b> —
the agonizing punishment known as “necklacing,” which was once
commonly meted out to black opponents of the predominantly black
African National Congress (ANC) now ruling South Africa in an unholy
alliance with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and an
umbrella group for labor unions. Nelson Mandela’s wife, Winnie, was
known for publicly supporting the barbaric act. Nobody was ever
arrested in connection with those two farm attacks.<br />
<br />
Before
Vandenberg lost his cousins, his father was killed by a truck driver
in a suspicious accident. The drunken suspect, apparently a respected
figure within the ANC, was arrested at the scene. However, under
pressure from the ANC, the killer was released on $100 bail. Again
with help from the ANC, Vandenberg said, the driver fled and was
never prosecuted for the killing. No explanation was ever given by
authorities, despite repeated appeals for answers.<br />
<br />
After being
deported back to South Africa from the United States over an alleged
failure to report a change of address, Vandenberg’s brother was
killed, too. Within a year of his arrival, he was brutally murdered.
Witnesses watched the murder unfold and told police, but as has
become typical, nobody was ever prosecuted. <b>A male cousin of
Vandenberg’s, meanwhile, was shot in the chest while being robbed.
And as is often the case, the murder was labeled an “accident” by
authorities.</b><br />
<br />
<b>“It’s racial crime,”</b> insisted Vandenberg,
an Afrikaner descendant of Dutch settlers, in an interview with The
New American.<b> “The ANC people are using genocide — they’re
pro-genocide. Long term, they want all the property that belongs to
the whites.”</b> The black-led ANC-communist regime is “twice as
racist” as the former white-led apartheid government ever was, he
added. And along with its supporters, the South African government is
willing to do “anything” to accomplish its goals.<br />
<br />
When
top ANC government leaders, including South African President Jacob
Zuma, chant about exterminating whites, “some people think they’re
just singing songs,” Vandenberg said, becoming visibly
uncomfortable at the thought of it. “But I think they’re very
serious about that. That’s why we have all the farm murders....
What they do, their followers will follow.”<br />
<br />
In its defense,
the ANC regime points out that crime affects all South Africans; and
it is true, <b>the country has one of the highest murder rates in the
world — blacks, whites, people of Asian origin, and others are all
terrorized by it.</b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>But respected independent experts who have
investigated allegations of anti-white genocide in the Rainbow Nation
have concluded that the government is not being honest about the wave
of genocidal murders. <u>The ANC’s national spokesman declined
repeated requests for comment.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Genocide</b><br />
<br />
<b>Following a
fact-finding mission to South Africa in July, Dr. Gregory Stanton,
head of the non-profit group <u>Genocide Watch</u>, announced his
conclusions: <u>There is an orchestrated genocidal campaign targeting
whites, and white farmers in particular</u>.</b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The respected organization
released a report about its investigation shortly
afterward. On a scale the group developed to identify the phases of
genocide,<b><u> South Africa has been moved to stage six: the preparation
and planning phase. Step seven is extermination</u>.</b> The eighth and final
stage: denial after the fact.<br />
<br />
<b>Among the startling discoveries,
long known to South Africans and analysts monitoring the powder keg,
was evidence pointing to the ANC regime itself. <u>“There is thus
strong circumstantial evidence of government support for the campaign
of forced displacement and atrocities against White farmers and their
families,”</u></b> Genocide Watch leaders said in their report,
entitled Why Are Afrikaner Farmers Being Murdered in South
Africa?<b> <u>“There is direct evidence of SA [South African]
government incitement to genocide.”</u></b><br />
<b>According to experts and
estimates compiled by citizens who track the killing spree, at least
3,000 white farmers in South Africa</b>, known as Boers (from the Dutch
word for “farmer”), <b>have been brutally massacred over the last
decade.</b> Some estimates put the figures even higher, but it is hard to
know because the ANC government has purposely made it impossible to
determine the true extent. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>With the total number of commercial
farmers in South Africa estimated at between 30,000 and 40,000,
analysts say as many as 10 percent have already been exterminated.
Even more have come under attack.</b><br />
<br />
I<b><u>t is worse than murder,
though. Many of the victims, including children and even infants, are
raped or savagely tortured or both before being executed or left for
dead. Sometimes boiling water is poured down their throats. Other
attacks involve burning victims with hot irons or slicing them up
with machetes. </u>In more than a few cases, the targets have been tied
to their own cars and dragged along dirt roads for miles.</b><br />
<br />
<b>The
South African government, dominated by the communist-backed ANC, has
responded to the surging wave of racist murders by denying the
phenomenon, implausibly claiming that many of the attacks are simply
“regular” crimes.</b> Despite fierce criticism, authorities also
stopped tracking statistics that would provide a more accurate
picture of what is truly going on.<br />
<br />
<b>In many cases, the murders
are simply classified as “burglaries” or even “accidents” and
ignored</b>, so the true murder figures are certainly much higher than
officials admit. <b><u>The police, meanwhile, are often involved in the
murders or at least the coverups, multiple sources report.</u></b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A white
South African exile living in the United States told The New
American that <b><u>when victims are able to defend themselves or
apprehend the would-be perpetrators, many of the attackers are found
to be affiliated with the ruling ANC or its youth wing.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Experts
are not buying the government’s coverup.</b> <b><u>“The farm murders, we
have become convinced, are not accidental,” said Dr. Stanton
of Genocide </u></b><b><u>Watch</u></b> during his fact-finding mission to South
Africa. <b><u>It was very clear that the massacres were not common crimes,
he added — especially because of the absolute barbarity used
against the victims.</u></b> “We don’t know exactly who is planning them
yet, but what we are calling for is an international
investigation.”<br />
<br />
<b><u>Indeed, most unbiased analysts concede that
the thousands of brutal killings and tens of thousands of attacks are
part of a broader pattern. </u></b>And according to Dr. Stanton, who was also
involved in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and has
decades of experience examining genocide and communist terror,<b><u> the
trend points toward a troubled future for the nation.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b><u>“Things
of this sort are what I have seen before in other genocides,”</u></b> he
said of the murdered white farmers,<b><u> pointing to several examples,
including a victim’s body that was left with an open Bible on top
and other murder victims who were tortured, disemboweled, raped, or
worse. </u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>“This is what has happened in Burundi; it’s what happened
in Rwanda. It has happened in many other places in the
world.”</u></b><br />
<br />
Speaking in Pretoria at an event organized by
the anti-communist Transvaal Agricultural Union, <b><u>Dr. Stanton also
lashed out at the effort to dehumanize whites in South Africa by
portraying them as “settlers.” </u></b>The label is meant to paint
Afrikaner white farmers — descendants of Northern Europeans who
arrived centuries ago, some as far back as the 1600s — as people
who do not belong there.<br />
<br />
<b>“High-ranking ANC government
officials who continuously refer to Whites as ‘settlers’ and
‘colonialists of a special type’ are using racial epithets in a
<u>campaign of state-sponsored dehumanization of the White population </u>as
a whole,”</b> Genocide Watch said in its latest report. “They
sanction gang-organized hate crimes against Whites, with the goal of
terrorizing Whites through fear of genocidal annihilation.”<br />
<br />
It
is the same process that happened prior to the infamous genocide
against Christian Armenians in Turkey, Stanton explained. The
dehumanization phenomenon also occurred against the Jewish people in
Germany under the National Socialist (Nazi) regime of mass-murderer
Adolf Hitler, well before the Nazi tyrant began implementing his
monstrous “final solution.”<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, South Africa
might be next in line. <b>“Whenever you have that kind of
dehumanization … you have the beginning of that downward spiral
into genocide,”</b> Stanton noted, adding that the situation in South
Africa had already moved well beyond that stage. The next phase
before extermination, which began years ago in South Africa, is
organizing to actually carry it out.<br />
<br />
<b>“We are worried that
there are organized groups that are in fact doing that planning,”</b>
Stanton continued during his speech. <b>“It became clear to us that
the [ANC] Youth League was this kind of organization — it was
planning this kind of genocidal massacre and also the forced
displacement of whites from South Africa.”</b><br />
<br />
Genocide Watch
first raised its alert level for South Africa from stage five to
stage six when then-ANC Youth League boss Julius Malema began openly
singing a racist song aimed at inciting murder against white South
African farmers: <b>“Shoot the Boer” and “Kill the Boer”</b> were
some of the lyrics. Described by the anti-genocide group as a “racist
Marxist-Leninist,” Malema has also been quoted as saying that “all
whites are criminals” and threatening to steal white farmers’
land by force. He said the farm murders would stop when Africans of
European descent surrendered their land.<br />
<br />
After the calls to
genocide made international headlines, the South African judiciary
ruled that the song advocating murder of whites was unlawful hate
speech. Genocide Watch moved South Africa back down to stage five.<b>
Incredibly, however, the president of South Africa, ANC’s Jacob
Zuma, began singing the song early this year, too.</b><br />
<br />
<b><u>“We are
going to shoot them with the machine gun; they are going to run; you
are a Boer [white farmer]; shoot the Boer,”</u> the South African
president sang at an ANC rally in Bloemfontein in January, an
incident that was caught on film and posted online.</b> Since then,
the number of murdered white South African farmers has been growing
each month, according to reports. <b>Other senior government officials,
meanwhile, have openly called for “war.”</b> <b>South Africa is now back
at stage six.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<b>“This is the kind of talk that of course is
not only pre-genocidal, it also comes before crimes against
humanity,”</b> Dr. Stanton said, urging everyone to remember that they
are all members of the human race. <b><u>“Those who would be deniers, and
who would try to ignore the warning signs in this country, I think
are ignoring the facts.”</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>There is also increasing
“polarization,” where the target population — white farmers in
this case, and even moderates of all races — are portrayed as an
“enemy,” </b>Stanton explained about the march to genocide. And that
phenomenon is ever-more apparent in South Africa today, with the
situation starting to spiral out of control.<br />
<br />
<b>Meanwhile, the
South African government is stepping up efforts to disarm the
struggling white farmers</b> — stripping them of their final line of
defense against genocidal attacks. <b><u>As has consistently been the case
throughout history, of course, disarmament is always a necessary
precursor to totalitarianism and the eventual mass slaughter of
target groups. In fact, arms in the hands of citizens are often the
final barrier to complete enslavement and even extermination.</u></b><br />
<br />
“The
government has disbanded the commando units of white farmers that
once protected their farms, and has passed laws to confiscate the
farmers’ weapons,” Genocide Watch noted on its website in an
update about South Africa posted in July. “<b>Disarmament of a
targeted group is one of the surest early warning signs of future
genocidal killings.”</b><br />
<b>Even mere possession of an
“unregistered” or “unlicensed” weapon — licenses have
become extraordinarily difficult to obtain, if not impossible — can
result in jail time.<u> And in South Africa, especially for whites,
prison is a virtual death sentence, with widespread rape and HIV
infections being the norm.</u></b><br />
<br />
Those who do surrender their guns
may find themselves defenseless in the face genocidal terror —
again, a potential death sentence.<b> South African exiles who spoke
with TNA said that many of the guns confiscated from whites by
officials have later been found at the gruesome murder scenes of
white farmers.</b><br />
<br />
<b>The United Nations defines genocide as “the
deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an
ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.” </b>The term also
includes actions other than simply wholesale slaughter, though.
According to the UN, among the crimes that can constitute genocide
are causing serious harm to members of a specific minority group;
deliberately inflicting conditions on the minority aimed at bringing
about its destruction in whole or in part; seeking to prevent births
among the targeted population; and forcibly transferring minority
children to others.<br />
<br />
South African Sonia Hruska, a former
Mandela administration consultant who served as a coordinator in
policy implementation from 1994 to 2001 before moving to the United
States, told The New American that many or even most of
those conditions have already been met — and any single one can
technically constitute genocide if it is part of a systematic attempt
to destroy a particular group. <b>“Acknowledge it. Don’t deny it,”
she said. Other activists and exiles agree. </b>Meanwhile, Hruska and
other experts say that the government is encouraging the problem,
actively discriminating against whites, and in many cases even
facilitating the ongoing atrocities.<br />
<br />
<b>“Forced displacement
from their farms has inflicted on the Afrikaner ethnic group
conditions of life calculated to bring about its complete or partial
physical destruction, an act of genocide also prohibited by the
Genocide Convention,” Genocide Watch said in its most recent
report. <u>“In our analysis, the current ANC leadership also publicly
uses incitement to genocide with the long-term goal of forcibly
driving out or annihilating the White population from South
Africa.”</u></b><br />
<br />
Of course, not all South Africans — especially
city dwellers — are convinced that there is an ongoing genocide in
their country, or even that one may be coming. The vast majority of
blacks and whites would simply like to live in peace with each
other.<br />
<br />
<b>However, virtually everyone who is paying attention
agrees that without solutions, the precarious situation in the
Rainbow Nation will continue to deteriorate, going from bad to worse,
sooner rather than later.</b><br />
<b>Communist Threat: Land,
Mines</b><br />
<br />
Behind the genocide lurks another issue that is
inseparable from it — the ongoing communist effort to completely
enslave South Africa under totalitarian rule. In fact, aside from
white supremacists, who have seized on the problems in the Rainbow
Nation to spread hate against blacks, most activists believe the
stirring up of racial tensions is not an end in itself. Instead, it
is a means to the ultimate end of foisting socialism on the nation
while eliminating all potential resistance.<br />
<br />
The issue of land
distribution, which has become one of the key drivers of the downward
spiral, is among the greatest concerns. The white minority in South
Africa still owns much of the land despite ANC promises to
redistribute it to blacks. But the redistribution that has occurred —
as in neighboring Zimbabwe — has largely resulted in failure, with
redistributed farms often failing quickly while producing little to
no food.<br />
<br />
<b>Despite the atrocious track record so far,
extremists, including elements of the ANC-dominated government, are
now hoping to expropriate land from white farmers more quickly</b>, <b>with
some factions even arguing that it should be done with no
compensation at all.</b> And the communist agenda here, as in virtually
everywhere else where forcible land redistribution has been adopted,
has even broader goals than just enriching cronies.<br />
<br />
<b><u>“Whatever
system of land tenure is adopted in South Africa, the communists —
in the long run — have in mind to take away all private property.
That should never be forgotten,” Stanton warned</u></b>, <b><u>noting that he has
lived in communist-run countries before.</u></b> <b><u>“Every place you go where
communists have taken over, they take away private ownership because
private ownership gives people the power — the economic power —
to oppose their government. Once you have taken that away, there is
no basis on which you can have the economic power to oppose the
government.”</u></b><br />
<br />
Of course, this would not be the first time a
similar tragedy has happened in southern Africa. When Marxist
dictator Robert Mugabe seized power in Zimbabwe (formerly known as
Rhodesia, once one of the richest countries on the continent — “the
breadbasket of Africa”), he began a ruthless war against the white
population and his political opponents of all colors.<br />
<br />
The
country promptly spiraled into chaos and mass starvation under the
Mugabe regime when the tyrant “redistributed” the farms and
wealth to his cronies, who of course knew nothing about farming. The
regime butchered tens of thousands of victims, and estimates suggest
that millions have died as a direct result of Mugabe’s Marxist
policies. Many fled to South Africa.<br />
<br />
Whites who refused to
leave their property during the “redistribution” were often
tortured and killed by the regime or its death squads. With Mugabe
still in charge, the tragic plight of Zimbabwe continues to worsen
today. But the mass-murdering despot is still held in high regard by
many senior officials in the ANC.<br />
<br />
<b>“As a group, Afrikaner
farmers stand in the way of the South African Communist Party’s
goal to implement their Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist New Democratic
Revolution and specifically the confiscation of all rural land
belonging to White Afrikaner farmers,” Genocide Watch officials
noted in their most recent report.</b><br />
<b>Beyond land, there is also
the mining sector, which is crucial to keeping the rapidly
deteriorating South African economy afloat.</b> With the recent labor
unrest and miner strikes focusing international attention on the
“Rainbow Nation,” there are still more questions than answers.
<b><u>What has become clear, though, is that at least certain factions
within South Africa’s ruling elite are seeking to exploit the
crisis to advance the cause of nationalization.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>Politicians
and aspiring powerbrokers seized on the escalating crisis —
multiple gold and platinum mines were idled because of the ongoing
strikes — to whip up hysteria for political purposes, analysts
said. <u>In mid-September, over a thousand soldiers were deployed to
support an embattled police force, as the ruling ANC regime and its
communist partners sought to blame business for the tensions.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b><u>The
ruling alliance consisting of the ANC, the South African Communist
Party (SACP), and the Conference of South African Trade Unions
(COSATU) implausibly claimed after an inquiry that mining companies
were to blame for the chaos</u>: “It is therefore our considered view
that employers have an interest in fanning this conflict to reverse
the gains achieved by workers over a long period of
time.”</b><br />
<br />
<b>According to the ruling alliance, the mining
businesses were deliberately stirring up union rivalries to suppress
wages and benefits.</b> <b>However, credible analysts largely rejected the
allegations as preposterous;</b> <b>the firms in question have already lost
huge amounts of money as many of their mines remained shut down
because of the strikes. Stock prices plunged, too.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Meanwhile,
multiple communist agitators within and outside the ANC renewed their
calls to nationalize the mines.</b> The move, however, was hardly a
surprise. Consider that even before seizing power, state ownership of
the sector was established ANC policy.<b><u> “The nationalization of the
mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC and a
change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable,”
Nelson Mandela said in a 1990 statement from prison.</u></b><br />
<br />
<u><b>They are
still at it today</b></u>. Marxist agitator and former <b>ANC Youth League boss
Malema</b>, famous for corruption, inciting genocide against white South
Africans, and demanding that the regime nationalize virtually the
entire economy, inserted himself at the center of the growing labor
unrest.<b> He called for, among other schemes, nationwide strikes and
the nationalization of the whole mining industry.</b><br />
<br />
After Malema
was expelled from the ANC earlier this year, the suspiciously wealthy
communist racist — he lives far beyond his means and was recently
charged with corruption — has started to attack South African ANC
President Zuma, a polygamist and fellow open communist who also
regularly sings the infamous hate song calling for the extermination
of whites. After strikers were killed by police last month, Malema,
apparently upset that Zuma had not sunk South Africa into total
communist tyranny quickly enough, said, “How can he call on people
to mourn those he has killed? He must step down.”<br />
<br />
<b><u>Observers,
even those within South Africa’s ruling alliance, however,
suggested the unrest was actually being carefully orchestrated by
power-hungry elements within the communist-backed ANC itself. </u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Even
top officials within the alliance are suspicious about what is going
on. According to COSATU President Sdumo Dlamini, for example, Malema
supporters within the ANC were hoping to plunge South Africa into
deeper chaos to solidify their power. </b>“We also understand that
there have been certain individuals behind him who are funding this
for their own political ambitions,” Dlamini said. “Julius Malema
may be the point person running at the front, but we know that there
are big guns behind him.” And big money, too.<br />
<br />
Dlamini said
COSATU was “very angry” that unsuspecting mine workers were being
used as pawns by opportunists, sometimes even being killed in the
process. “This is a systematic, orchestrated, long-time plan that
is unfolding now,” he added. “The ANC as the ruling party
shouldn’t be afraid to be bold, condemn and expose.... The ANC must
continue to identify and deal with those who fund this
chaos.”<br />
<br />
<b><u>Communists, of course, have historically been known
to create the superficial impression of internal division to further
their agenda while collaborating together behind the scenes </u></b>— <b><u>the
use of strategic disinformation, as defectors have called it.</u></b>
Obviously, there are occasions when would-be communist despots fight
among themselves as well. It remains unclear what, if anything, may
be going on outside of the limelight between the ANC, the SACP, and
other totalitarian forces working to crush individual liberty and all
resistance within South Africa.<br />
<br />
Other analysts attributed the
expanding labor unrest to widely different causes, ranging from anger
over the ANC regime’s lawless corruption to genuine grievances
about dangerous working conditions and low pay at the mines. Tribal
tensions have also been cited as playing a role, though just how
significant is difficult to determine.<br />
<br />
Numerous observers have
attributed the violent tensions to rivalries between the ANC-linked
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which is the largest member of
COSATU, and its increasingly influential rival known as the
Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU). Some
experts said the crackdown on protests was an effort to quash the
AMCU before it further splintered workers’ support for the ruling
ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance.<br />
<br />
Critics have accused the AMCU, which
touts itself as anti-communist and has long criticized the
established powerbrokers for corruption, of fomenting the unrest. The
South African Communist Party even called for AMCU leaders to be
arrested after the incident, and among the ruling communist
establishment, fears about the renegade union are reportedly
growing.<br />
<br />
The chaos has been ongoing since early this year, but
it exploded and entered into the international headlines in August
after dozens of striking miners were killed in what has since been
dubbed the <b>“Marikana massacre.”</b> <b>Police, who were reportedly fired
upon by armed demonstrators, returned fire, killing more than 30
people.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Top government officials — many of whom have
personal stakes in the situation including shares in the mining firms
— have vowed to crack down on the strikes.</b> Proud communist
revolutionary Jeff Radebe, the “Justice Minister” in the ANC
regime, said at a September 14 press conference that authorities were
intervening because the mining industry is crucial to South Africa’s
crumbling economy. “The South African government has noted and is
deeply concerned by the amount of violence, threats and intimidation
that is currently taking place in our country,” he told reporters,
warning that anyone taking part in “illegal gatherings” would be
“dealt with” very swiftly. “Our government will not tolerate
these acts any further.”<br />
<br />
<b>Critics of the harsh response
warned that raids and use of force against miners would likely
contribute to further unrest.</b> <b><u>Perhaps that is the desired outcome,
with anarchy helping to pave the way for police-state measures. </u></b>While
the crisis was growing, however, Marxist genocidal forces seized the
opportunity to unleash an even larger bloodbath.<br />
<br />
A newly
formed U.S.-based group of human rights activists and South African
exiles known as Friends 4 Humanity, founded to raise awareness
about the genocide of the South African minority, told The New
American at the time that <u style="font-weight: bold;">the number of racist attacks and
murders against Afrikaner farmers had surged dramatically amid the
labor unrest. There were at least 30 documented attacks in the first
two weeks of September — many resulting in multiple
murders.</u><u><br /></u><br />
“<b><u>Since the beginning of 2012 we have noticed that
murders increased to approximately one every second day, with some
victims as young as six months,” </u></b>said Sonia Hruska, the former
Mandela consultant who is also a founding member of the new
organization. <u><b>“However, since the start of the mining unrest it has
now escalated to as much as at least one attack a day with multiple
fatal victims.”</b></u><br />
<br />
<b>Impeding the Plan</b><br />
<br />
The New
American magazine warned readers almost two decades ago
that the ANC leaders of the anti-apartheid movement and their foreign
backers, despite the establishment media’s bogus claims, were
deliberately plotting to condemn that nation to communism. The signs
were all over the place — literally. For example, Nelson Mandela
made a public appearance in front of a giant hammer and sickle with
SACP chief Joe Slovo. Now, after almost 20 years of patient waiting,
that conquest appears to be nearing its final phases as
anti-communist whites are slaughtered to make way for a collectivist
“utopia” ruled by the ANC and the SACP. Troublesome blacks were
exterminated by the ANC and its allies before 1994.<br />
<br />
Among
South Africans and foreigners concerned about the ongoing problems
and a looming calamity, however, there is a wide range of thoughts
about what should happen.<br />
<br />
<b>Dr. Stanton of Genocide
Watch promised the Afrikaners that he would visit the U.S. Embassy
and bring the issue to the attention of world leaders. </b>However, he
also urged them not to give up their guns and to continue resisting
the communist “ideology” espoused by so many of the political and
party leaders that now dominate the nation’s coercive government
apparatus.<br />
<br />
<u><b>So far, efforts to garner the attention of the
“international community” appear to have been largely
unproductive.</b> </u>The Dutch Parliament, though, narrowly defeated a
recent bill calling for the government of the Netherlands to
investigate and help combat racist violence directed at Afrikaners in
South Africa by offering expertise and judiciary support while
helping to preserve threatened basic rights, such as freedom of the
press. Despite failing to pass, the effort was taken as a sign that
world opinion may be changing, albeit slowly.<br />
<br />
Activists are
also calling on European governments and the United States to
immediately begin accepting especially vulnerable white refugees from
South Africa as a high priority. There are less than five million
whites left in the country, about 10 percent of South Africans, down
from almost a quarter of the population decades ago.<br />
<br />
<b>Analysts
say that giving them asylum may prove tough politically — partly
because it could expose the myths of Nelson Mandela and his communist
ANC being “heroic” so-called freedom fighters.</b><br />
<br />
Even if it
were possible, millions of white South Africans would refuse to leave
the land of their forefathers anyway, at least at this point, knowing
that if they left, the Afrikaner culture and language may disappear
forever. “<b>Up to a million people have already emigrated, almost as
many as left Lebanon during the civil war</b>. However, mass emigration
would mean the demise of our nation, together with our unique
language, history, literature and culture,” Pro-Afrikaans
Action Group (PRAAG) chief Dan Roodt told The New American. “You
must also remember that to most of the Western countries, we
represent unwanted immigrants, despite being educated, law-abiding
and Christian. Despite being persecuted, very few actually get
political asylum as<b> the mass media still portray South Africa as a
model democracy</b>.”<br />
<br />
Like a significant subset of the Afrikaner
minority, Roodt wants his people to have their own autonomous
homeland in Southern Africa, a proposal that the ANC regime rejects
out of hand. “Many of us want to stay and fight and turn the tables
on this anachronistic left-wing, racist regime,” explained the
controversial Afrikaner advocate.<br />
<br />
<b>Other South Africans
hope the international community will intervene to protect persecuted
minority groups — either militarily if the downward spiral
continues, or at least through sanctions and diplomatic pressure. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
More than a few sources who spoke to The New American said foreign
action is a necessity: They view South Africa as a sort of “canary
in the coal mine.” The Rainbow Nation might be the first to go, but
Western civilization, they say, will not be far
behind.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Unsurprisingly, the establishment press has barely
reported a word about the looming potential catastrophe in South
Africa. </u>However, there is hope: Activists say that if Americans get
involved, even just helping to raise awareness, a bloodbath of
apocalyptic proportions may well be averted.</b><br />
<br />
<b>It will certainly
not be easy to roll back the blood-red tide of communism and genocide
in South Africa. <u>The roots have been firmly planted, nurtured by
Western governments and communist tyrants for decades. </u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But for South
Africans of all colors, and for humanity itself, activists insist
that the battle must go on. It will. </div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-78663509692476269282012-10-31T12:52:00.002+00:002012-11-01T19:59:43.939+00:00'War is upon us' - South African Civil Society Information Service<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQdnJhjKRSa6AwPCmJXlu1tOMfOFRchok7sGU3aZYbI-QJRxqMQffH_Q40DW0VcFvW89W8Edok4wIAcnShyphenhyphenVS65pRO-bF8BqsVBM50HIP5x76bSr2oCgjfMnZxvynxS0eojQ5wEIb10VU/s1600/162017_175189055829577_4179522_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQdnJhjKRSa6AwPCmJXlu1tOMfOFRchok7sGU3aZYbI-QJRxqMQffH_Q40DW0VcFvW89W8Edok4wIAcnShyphenhyphenVS65pRO-bF8BqsVBM50HIP5x76bSr2oCgjfMnZxvynxS0eojQ5wEIb10VU/s1600/162017_175189055829577_4179522_n.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(Article from <a href="http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/1474">South African Civil Society Information Service</a>)</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">War is Upon Us</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
by Richard Pithouse - 30 Oct 2012</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>to the fragrance of lemon blossoms<br />and
then to the ultimatums of war</i><br />
- Pablo Neruda, Right Comrade, Its
the Hour of the Garden, Isla Negra, Chile, September 1973<br />
<br />
<b>When
COSATU and the Communist Party have to rely on the police and their
stun grenades, rubber bullets and, by some accounts, live ammunition
to force their way into a stadium against the opposition of striking
workers it is clear that their assumption of a permanent right to
leadership is facing a serious challenge from below. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It's equally
clear that the ruling party and its allies intend to force obedience
rather than to seek to renegotiate support or enable democratic
engagement, that the police aren't even making a pretence of being
loyal to the law rather than the ruling party and that this is the
way that Blade Nzimande likes it.<br />
<br />
The misuse of the police to
defend the authority of the ruling party in Rustenburg is no
exception to a broadly democratic consensus. In fact it has become a
routine feature of political life. At the same time as the drama was
unfolding in Rustenburg on Saturday a meeting with technical experts
to discuss a plan to upgrade the Harry Gwala shack settlement on the
East Rand was summarily banned by the police on the grounds that it
was a 'security threat'. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The settlement is in urgent need of services
as basic as water and refuse removal but millions have been spent on
a pavilion in memory of Oliver Tambo adjacent to the settlement. As
the ANC's role in the struggles against apartheid is memorialised
that memory is simultaneously desecrated as it is mobilised to
legitimate the increasingly violent containment of popular
dissent.<br />
<br />
The collapse of the ruling party's hegemony on the
mines in Rustenburg is not the first time that the ANC has lost
control of a territory where it once took its right to rule for
granted. In early 2006 the ANC was, despite a large police presence
and a large contingent of supporters bussed in from elsewhere, unable
to go ahead with a rally to be addressed by S'bu Ndebele, the then
Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, in the Kennedy Road shack settlement in
Durban. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Some years later the ANC eventually took that space back with
the open use of violence organised through party structures with the
support of the police. But despite the announcement, made by a senior
SACP member, that the state had decided to 'disband' the movement
that had won popular support in Kennedy Road, and despite tremendous
intimidation and the gross misuse of the police and the criminal
justice system to try and effect this ban, that movement, Abahlali
baseMjondolo endures. The rupture in Rustenburg may also cohere into
an enduring force. And there will be more ruptures to come.<br />
<br />
There
are important respects in which the politics developed in and around
Marikana is very different from that developed in and around Kennedy
Road seven years earlier. But one of the things that these two points
of rupture do have in common is a firm insistence on the right of
people in struggle, people who have decided to take their future into
their own hands, to speak for themselves. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This shared suspicion of
authorised forms of local representation, and the consequent desire
of people to represent themselves where they live and work, could,
along with other points of connection, ranging from familial links to
a shared experience of repression, provide common ground for linking
struggles in urban shack settlements and on the mines. It has, in
itself, no predetermined political character but, amongst other
potentials, some of which could well be marked by a dangerous
counter-brutality, the rejection of the ruling party's local
mechanisms for sustaining political control does carry the
possibility for a renewal of democratic possibility.<br />
<br />
The path
that winds from Polokwane to Kennedy Road and on to Marikana and
Nkandla and then up, past the reach of our gaze and over the horizon,
is not taking us towards anything like the kinds of societies
imagined in the Freedom Charter or the Constitution.<br />
<b>The only visible
transition on offer is one in which liberal democracy is increasingly
replaced with a system in which the political class is treated as if
it is above the law, the state is openly used as an instrument for
the political class to accumulate rather than to redistribute wealth
and power and people engaged in certain kinds of popular dissent are
treated as if they are beneath the law. <u>Police violence, including
torture and murder, as well as state sanction for political violence
by ANC supporters and political assassination have all become
familiar features of our political life.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b><u>And powerful figures
and forces in the ruling alliance from Jacob Zuma to Sidumo Dlamini,
the Communist Party, MK veterans, SADTU and others are openly
speaking the language of war. </u>They may say that the war is on the
enemy within, enemy agents, neo-liberals, imperialists, criminals,
enemies of the national-democratic revolution and
counter-revolutionaries but<u> what they really mean is that they do not
intend to accept popular dissent as legitimate or to engage it
through democratic institutions.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>Instead it is proposed that dissent
be dealt with by the police and on occasion the army, as well as
counter-mobilisation that aims to destroy rather than to engage and
which is already often armed, and, in Sidumo Dlamini's view, MK</u></b>.<br />
War,
generally not the war of open manoeuvre that we saw in Marikana and
which we've seen, although with nothing like the same degree of
murderous intent, in shack settlements across the country in recent
years but rather the scattered, often <b><u>secretive and frequently highly
territorialised violence of low intensity war, of counter-insurgency,
is upon us. </u></b>The Kennedy Road, eTwatwa, Makause and Zakheleni shack
settlements have all experienced this since Polokwane.<br />
<br />
The
figures in the ANC that talk of a return to principled leadership
have no material base from which they could make a serious
attempt to challenge the capture of the party and, thereby, the state
by factions that are both predatory and authoritarian. For this
reason their discourse functions, irrespective of their intentions,
to legitimate the party rather than to organise or represent a last
ditch attempt to save it.<br />
<b>And, with the exception of the metal
worker's union, Marikana has marked the end of COSATU's claim to
democratic credibility and moral authority. If there is to be a
renewal of democratic possibilities it will have to be undertaken
against the ruling party and its allies.</b><br />
<br />
Popular struggle
against a post-colonial state is a very different thing to a national
liberation struggle against an internationally discredited form of
domination. But the time has come when we have to, like the
generations that confronted the end of the illusions in postcolonial
states elsewhere, face a future in which defeat of democratic and
progressive aspirations is the most likely outcome of the ruthless
intersection between elite nationalism and capitalism. And while
there are some examples of popular struggles in the postcolony that
have attained some critical mass in recent years they have also, as
in Haiti and Bolivia, had to confront serious limitations. There is
no easy route out of this crisis.<br />
<br />
<b>Nonetheless it is clear that
the only viable resolution is one that includes the majority of us.
This could take the form of an authoritarian and even quasi-fascist
response to the crisis. But it could also take the form of a
democratic project that seeks to move beyond the liberal consensus
that reduced democracy to voting, court action and NGO campaigns and
to build the political power of the dispossessed from the ground up.</b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But if an insurgent project of this nature is to have any enduring
success it will have to understand that the line dividing the
political from the economic has been drawn to sustain both privilege
and exclusion and that wealth, power and the structures that sustain
them need to be subject to serious critique. This would put such a
project at odds with most of the media and civil society as well as
the ruling party making it, to say the least, a risky endeavour. But
if political empowerment doesn't translate into material empowerment
– into land, housing, decent incomes and decent education – it
will be little more than a detour on the road that has already taken
us from Polokwane to Nkandla with our journey marked out in a
steadily accumulating record of intimidation and blood.<br />
<br />
<b>The
challenges that confront us are tremendous. But when war is announced
there are only two real choices – to resist or to submit. The
urgent questions that we have to confront are these: What will
be the nature of our resistance and how will we carry it forward? </b></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-47906744463239989452012-10-26T18:26:00.000+01:002012-10-26T18:33:35.310+01:00Institute for Security Studies: "SA in economic and political decline"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>(Excerpts from<a href="http://www.issafrica.org/pgcontent.php?UID=31857"> Institute for Security Studies</a> article)</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<strong style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"> South Africa: </span></strong><br />
<strong style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"> The economic and political decline of the country</span></strong><br />
<div>
<strong style="text-align: left;"><br /></strong></div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="center">
<strong>Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis (CPRA) - Pretoria</strong></div>
<div align="center">
<strong>CPRA Daily Briefings</strong></div>
<div align="center">
<strong>Week 41</strong></div>
<div align="center">
<strong>Thursday, 25 October 2012</strong></div>
<br />
<div align="center">
</div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b>On 20 October 2012 the influential international magazine <em>The Economist</em> led with an article titled ‘Sad South Africa: cry, the beloved country’. In the article the author asserts that South Africa is on the decline both politically and economically and is at its worst point since the birth of democracy in 1994.</b></div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
The article points out that the deterioration in the quality of education over the years has had devastating consequences. <b>According to the World Economic Forum, South Africa ranks 132<sup>nd</sup> out of 144 countries for primary education and 143<sup>rd</sup> in science and maths.</b> </div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b>It is estimated that only 15% of children can read and write at the minimally prescribed levels by the age of 12. </b><br />
<b>The South African education system is ranked as being among the worst performing in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. </b><br />
<b><u>As a result, inequality and unemployment have worsened. </u></b><br />
<br />
<b>The South African Gini Coefficient, which measures income inequality, was 0,59 in 1993 and increased to 0,63 in 2011.</b> Poor education has limited the ability of the country to create jobs and the official unemployment rate has increased from 20% in 1994 to 25% in 2012. <br />
<b><u>The real unemployment rate, which also includes those who have given up looking for work, is closer to 40%.</u></b></div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b>The consequence of this is that in the last decade the country’s economy has only been able to secure an annual GDP growth of 2%, while countries north of the Limpopo River record an annual average of 6%. </b><br />
According to current projections Nigeria should surpass South Africa as the largest economy in Africa within the next decade. The article further points out that the <b>‘[e]conomic malaise and the chronic failure of government services are an indictment of South Africa’s politicians.</b> Under apartheid, a role in the ANC was about sacrifice and risk. Today it is a ticket for the gravy train. Jobs in national and local politics provide access to public funds and cash from firms eager to buy political influence.’ </div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b>With the ANC dominating in the polls and the lack of a constituency-based parliamentary system, South Africa is de facto a one-party state. </b><br />
<br />
The primary source of accountability comes from the judiciary, the media and civil society. For example, civil society organisations acting on behalf of the poor frequently have to turn to the courts to get the government to deliver services such as the delivery of textbooks, or to prevent the government from acting illegally, for example when it evicts poor people from their homes without court orders. It is for this reason that the ruling elite is hostile to these important democratic institutions and attempts to weaken and undermine them where possible.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b>As with many cases of open criticism of the political leadership of South Africa, the messengers were attacked. </b>As it is not possible to argue with the facts in the article, which are well known, President Jacob Zuma first attacked the media for negative reporting. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
Later, on 21 October, the Presidency issued a statement in which he outlined the positive achievements of the past 18 years. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
Despite these successes, the article does point out that leadership is a key factor in the performance of the country during this turbulent economic climate. </div>
<div align="justify">
<b><u>Under the leadership of President Zuma, corruption and the subsequent looting of state resources have become more blatant. </u></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b>The projected stagnation of economic growth coupled with high levels of corruption could have a deteriorating effect on the country’s economic situation.</b> </div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
Although the ANC’s national conference at Mangaung may signify hope for a change of leadership, it is still unclear who will run against President Zuma for the position of ANC president. The current political culture within the ANC does not encourage competition and as a result there is no debate on what each candidate will bring to the party in terms of leadership. </div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
The perception that if a person runs against the President it means he/she undermines the ANC, only encourages division within the party. Although Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe has been nominated as a presidential candidate, he has to date not accepted the nomination and no one is sure of his intentions. COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini has said that he could lose everything if he dared to run against President Zuma at the elective conference, emphasising the lack of appreciation for democratic practices among the ruling elite. Therefore, it is expected that President Zuma will be elected to another term as ANC president.</div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
Many are hoping that President Zuma’s second term will be similar to that of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Sliva, in which he focused on ensuring a positive legacy. In such a scenario President Zuma would be hard on corruption and crime and actively work to improve the situation in the country, rather than ensure the protection of politically connected cadres. </div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
However, unlike Lula,<b> President Zuma faces pending corruption charges and his immediate family have become dramatically richer during his presidency.</b> </div>
<div align="justify">
<b>In addition, </b><u style="font-weight: bold;">he used R238 million of taxpayers’ money to fund extravagant upgrades to his private homestead in Nkandla. </u></div>
<div align="justify">
This amount could have provided 3 600 families with low-cost housing, or paid the salaries of thousands of teachers, doctors and social workers. </div>
<div align="justify">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div align="justify">
<b><u>His complete lack of shame over such blatant extravagance suggests he is unlikely to act in the interest of the country any time soon.</u></b></div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b><u>It is undeniable that the country is currently in an economic and political decline. </u></b> </div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b>South Africans across the board are increasingly aware of this</b> and there are moves afoot to start new political formations. Hopefully, this will lead to healthy political competition in the future when South Africans band together to hold their leaders directly accountable through the ballot box. </div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b>The 2014 elections may present the first signs of this. It will, however, be important to carefully monitor the appointments made to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). </b></div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify">
<b><u>There will be those in the ruling elite who will not want to risk being voted out of power and will be more than willing to rig the elections to maintain their undeserved opulent lifestyles. </u></b></div>
<div align="justify">
<br /></div>
<div align="center">
<strong>The End</strong></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-22435440888596411742012-10-21T13:23:00.001+01:002012-10-21T13:29:07.087+01:00"ANC becomes the disease, not the cure"<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZLvUqcV0aKJuTC66QeFdhGyOlqs-Jj-WpBCxQVW7VCnPuRfUP1NMwpBXV7GjTri7djwYdq0J6NyckxGML4IBYrTK7vkfOuuMaeZFn07ld7Dd7A1_qrL6jCQK7Ua_VrKhtSnBZuXg_8I/s1600/7399168.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZLvUqcV0aKJuTC66QeFdhGyOlqs-Jj-WpBCxQVW7VCnPuRfUP1NMwpBXV7GjTri7djwYdq0J6NyckxGML4IBYrTK7vkfOuuMaeZFn07ld7Dd7A1_qrL6jCQK7Ua_VrKhtSnBZuXg_8I/s400/7399168.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(Article from <a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Jonathan+Manthorpe+Nelson+Mandela+African+National+Congress+becomes+disease+cure/7399167/story.html">Vancouver Sun</a>)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Nelson Mandela’s African National
Congress becomes the disease, not the cure</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun
columnist October 16, 2012</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><b>South Africa seems no longer able to
contain the contradictions and frustrated expectations that have been
swept under the carpet since the country’s first freely elected
government came to power in 1994.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="LTR" id="1">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With new elections due in 2014, there
is increasingly evident public anger at the governing African
National Congress (ANC) — the party of liberation from apartheid
and white minority rule — over its failure to meet its pledge to
provide a better life for all.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>I</u><b><u>nstead, the ANC has become a deeply
corrupt party of cronyism and patronage. Indeed, holding ANC
positions in governments at all levels has become such a sure route
to wealth that aspirants will murder to get them.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last week, Reuters news agency
reported that an internal ANC report states that in KwaZulu Natal —
the largest of South Africa’s nine provinces and the home base of
President Jacob Zuma — <b>38 party members have been murdered since
February last year in fights for lucrative positions.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>There are similar murderous contests
among ANC members all over the country.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The spoils are enormous.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>A potent image of the benefits of
power now enraging many South Africans is that the equivalent of $27
million of government money is being spent on renovations to
President Zuma’s private KwaZulu Natal home.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>An auditor’s report from another
major province, the Eastern Cape, in 2009 found three quarters of
all government contracts went to companies owned by government
officials or their relatives.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A report by the national Auditor
General last year found <u style="font-weight: bold;">95 per cent of all municipal governments
could not account for their spending.</u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet while <b>South Africa has acquired
this hugely wealthy and arrogant black aristocracy</b> — and one of
the widest disparities between rich and poor anywhere in the world —
most of the country’s 50 million people live in the conditions of
extreme poverty that marked the era of apartheid.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite a lot of talk and some
accomplishments involving improved housing and social services, most
South Africans continue to live in tin shacks without running water
or electricity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>The health care system is a nightmare,
and the school system is incapable of producing talent. The
unemployment rate among young people is over 50 per cent.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By some estimates, about 65 per cent
of South Africans live at what the United Nations calls levels of
extreme poverty, even though this is the largest and most
sophisticated economy in Africa.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And as has been seen in the last two
months, even those with jobs often cannot make ends meet.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The strike at Lonmin’s platinum mine
at Marikana in August by miners demanding a living wage has spurred
a wave of wildcat strikes involving at least 100,000 miners across
South Africa’s essential ore extraction industry.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The grimly compelling images from the
Marikana strike were straight out of the worst years of apartheid,
with police lobbing volleys of rifle fire on the strikers, killing
34.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The violence has continued, and the
strikes have spread to the trucking industry and among municipal
workers.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Predictions that South Africa belongs
with Brazil, Russia, India and China as a future economic power are
being re-thought fast.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The lack of response to the Marikana
massacre by President Zuma and his government has reinforced his
image as an ineffectual leader of an administration concerned only
with its own bank accounts and assets.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Zuma, who came to the ANC leadership
and the presidency in 2009, has been under attack from within the
party for some time.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most evident has been his very public
fight with the radical former leader of the ANC Youth, Julius
Malema.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since his expulsion from the party,
Malema has set up his own youth league, and his brand of direct
activism — such as the forced expropriation of the remaining
white-owned farms — assures him a strong following among young ANC
members.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>But Malema — who at 31 has acquired
a substantial real estate empire, wears lots of gold, drives opulent
cars and likes to drink expensive Scotch — is hardly a poster boy
for reform of the ANC.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Neither are the other challengers to
Zuma’s leadership who are quietly but purposefully lining up ahead
of the ANC’s national meeting early in December, when its
presidential candidate for the 2014 national election will be
chosen.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chief among them is the current Deputy
President, Kgalema Motlanthe, 63.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He has good credentials for an ANC
leader. He spent 10 years in Robben Island prison with Nelson
Mandela after being convicted of membership in the ANC’s armed
wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But while <b>Motlanthe</b> is behaving like a
man who is a candidate, he has not come out and said so.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, he <b>is just as much a member of
the ANC’s corrupt ruling class as is Zuma</b>.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Already some of the ANC branches in
the smaller provinces have chosen to back Motlanthe at the December
conference to be held at Mangaung near Bloemfontein.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it will be the brigades of
delegates from the big provinces that decide the issue, and for the
moment it is likely that Zuma will get a second term as president.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>What seems unlikely is that South
Africa will get a second crack at the promise of renewal made 20
years ago.</b></span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-47981695163091384982012-10-20T15:41:00.006+01:002012-10-20T20:08:16.803+01:00The Economist: "SA sliding downhill"<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbqMJasR-CDrey5eUVGL3-yEuPRVC8Z9N4eYinTI-GydFXM5t000A-HTlIOVKhbuRQ9ASsfCm3hJRZLr34j75EJoEU8jy4W7cZn9SA2EOsAgbhsDPNgzY_CkezCFRqGFfMsURJdnMjZXA/s1600/TTP14PROTEST12-11-09-2012-14-09-10-109-.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbqMJasR-CDrey5eUVGL3-yEuPRVC8Z9N4eYinTI-GydFXM5t000A-HTlIOVKhbuRQ9ASsfCm3hJRZLr34j75EJoEU8jy4W7cZn9SA2EOsAgbhsDPNgzY_CkezCFRqGFfMsURJdnMjZXA/s400/TTP14PROTEST12-11-09-2012-14-09-10-109-.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><br /></b>
(Article from<a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2012/10/20/the-economist-right-on-south-africa-sliding-downhill-sairr"> Times Live</a>)<br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Articles in The Economist expressing
the view that South Africa is sliding downhill might benefit the
country, the SA Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) said.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The magazine's latest issue includes an
editorial on South Africa entitled <b>"Cry the beloved country"</b>,
and a report entitled<b> "Over the rainbow"</b>.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>They both suggest a failure of
leadership in South Africa had resulted in the country sliding
backwards since democracy was introduced in 1994.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
According to the editorial: "Since
Mr Mandela retired in 1999, the <b>country has been woefully led</b>,"
referring to former president Nelson Mandela.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The <b>SAIRR</b> said it was in broad
agreement with both articles.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
"<b>The institute has read both
reports and can say that the data cited by The Economist is broadly
accurate</b>."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The institute's deputy CEO, Frans
Cronje, said: "<b>The Economist reports will obviously have an
impact on investor sentiment. In the short term the impact will be
negative and will cause damage to the economy."</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
However, he predicted the criticism
could help South Africa in the long term.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>"In the long term, however, it
will alert people, in government, the business world, and outside, to
the need for urgent policy reform.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>"What has happened in the weeks
since the Marikana shooting, both in terms of ratings agency
downgrades and the latest report from The Economist, is a much-needed
correction in opinion about South Africa."</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Some 46 people were killed in
strike-related violence at Lonmin's platinum mine in Marikana, near
Rustenburg, in August and September.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A more realistic understanding of South
Africa would lead to a more accurate assessment of its problems,
Cronje said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>"Without dramatic shifts in policy
it is no longer possible for the current government to meet the
demands of actors within South African society,"</b> he said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>According to The Economist South Africa
was <u>"on the slide both economically and politically"</u>.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The editorial points out that the
mining sector had been "battered by wildcat strikes, causing the
biggest companies to shed thousands of jobs in the face of wage
demands and spreading violence".</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>It said foreign investment was drying
up, service delivery protests were "becoming angrier",
education was "a disgrace", and inequality had grown.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It admitted the country had made some
progress, such as in providing housing and welfare services.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>"But the party's [African National
Congress's] incompetence and outright corruption are the main causes
of South Africa's sad decline."</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>According to The Economist it was
problematic that: <u>"Nearly two decades after apartheid ended,
South Africa is becoming a de facto one-party state."</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-90689192615241188802012-10-19T15:20:00.000+01:002012-10-19T16:11:34.969+01:00SA: Collapsing into a Failed State<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxRdaUYw6n-0faLoAEy0MGHHVDyuUkXT6_h3Gu9psWPr9D_FkLyB6GqXDRQjQ6JJMD7aFz5OtSQlNc43xDEip5uaXmWdxG_-hvqbydXG879j8saZzMgCJZIwBAOVz4B5ln6MbpQLIJlY/s1600/_48792954_jex_784133_de24-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxRdaUYw6n-0faLoAEy0MGHHVDyuUkXT6_h3Gu9psWPr9D_FkLyB6GqXDRQjQ6JJMD7aFz5OtSQlNc43xDEip5uaXmWdxG_-hvqbydXG879j8saZzMgCJZIwBAOVz4B5ln6MbpQLIJlY/s320/_48792954_jex_784133_de24-1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
(excerpts from an <a href="http://www.intersearch.co.za/">Intersearch</a> article)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>
South Africa: Collapsing into a failed State</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Contributing factors:</i></b></span><br />
<br />
<ul style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 15px 30px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The number of people who are poor, is just too high </b>(25.7 million people from a population of 49.3 million);</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 15px 30px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The number of people who depend on a state grant for their daily survival is not sustainable</b> (13 million with the possibility of an additional 7 million);·</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 15px 30px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The number of people who are illiterate has become unmanageable</b> (24% of adults over 15 years);</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is no solution for the number of jobless people. <u>The most recent statistics indicate an official jobless rate of 25,3%. The real rate, according to the Bureau for Market Research at Unisa, has reached 41%. The figure used in the advertising industry for marketing stands on 63%.</u></span></strong></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The number of people with HIV/AIDS is terrifying</b>, as it sucks the human capital from the middle sector of society (5.7 million people);</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The large number of people who are going to die from HIV/AIDS may destabilize society</b> eventually as it impacts on the productive middle sector of society (estimated deaths: 1 000 per day is the most recent figure available);</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The number of Aids orphans is beyond the reach of Government and society</b> (by 2015 some 5.7 million or 32% of all children will have lost one or both parents) and this fact in itself has the potential to disrupt the educational process;</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The terrifying reality is that the number of people with the necessary human capital – the expertise and skills to support society and capability to pay taxes – is too few to carry the burden of the numbers in need. </strong><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><u>5.3 million tax payers, with 1.2 million of them paying 75% of all personal and company tax</u>.</strong></span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In January 2010 the disclosed in a statement that <b>only 32 of the 970 sewage plants in the country are still functioning properly.</b></span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a report to Parliament in February 2010 it was revealed that<b> “when it comes to fresh water”, only 30 municipalities out of 283 have the capability to supply clean water to the inhabitants.</b></span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parliament’s water affairs portfolio committee was told in July 2010 that <b>“millions of litres of highly acidic mine water is rising up under Johannesburg</b> and, if left unchecked, could spill out into its streets some 18 months from now. The acid water is currently about 600m below the city’s surface, but is rising at a rate of between 0.6 and 0,9m a day.”</span></li>
</ul>
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><u><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reality that 5 million taxpayers are already supporting a nation of close to 50 million, plus an additional 9 million from neighbouring countries, does not go down well.</span></i></u></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>...it is clear that the ANC government has landed itself in a severe crisis.</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">However, as a statement it is not enough to carry any weight. Some very important contextual information is necessary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">How has this come about?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span style="line-height: 1.5;">Dysfunctional trends can be identified in society at large on three various levels with:</span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past decade, the essence of good governance – the relationship between Government and the governed – has been eroded. </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Four election victories have provided the ANC government with a solid majority in parliament.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>ANC cadres were widely introduced into the public service and serving whites were scattered abroad, to retirement villages and into silence.</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.5;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The whites who left the</span><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">public service took expertise and skills with them, which was never replaced. </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b><u>With cadre deployment came a new governing culture where stealing from the state (the taxpayer) has become an accepted way of conducting government business. </u></b>Relocating tax money for the personal enrichment of government officials by tampering with contracts, tenders and pay-offs have become an all pervasive source of additional income.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>The ANC won political control of the country, but it lost out on the governing capability.</b> By 2010 the ANC just does not have the governing capital to attend to all the needs of society. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>As a result, large areas of society have become void of any governing capabilities – in technical terms society has become governmentally empty.</b> T</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">he ANC commands a sound political majority, but signifies no governing presence within the key functions of Government.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With this, the broad outlines of the failed state have also come to South Africa as the structures for good governance have become destabilised. When Government is in crisis, the whole of society will reflect the nature of the crisis.</span></div>
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<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Context of the crisis</span></i></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>South Africa has a problem with a variety of issues such as law and order, potholes, sewage, bad education – the list is almost endless.</b> </span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The real problem is not the pothole or the burglar, but the internal functional collapse of Government and society.</span></u></b></div>
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<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What kind of Future?</span></strong></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In terms of planning and decision making it is easy to fill a pothole, but how do deal with functional decay is a completely different challenge. </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reader has to accept that there is no proven remedy or fixed solutions – the way ahead will be one of trial and error. Existing political perceptions and beliefs will have to be shattered and altered and mindsets will have to change. There is, indeed, not a very easy road ahead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">The ANC’s political victory in 1994 enabled it to introduce a new democracy in South Africa, as embedded in the constitution of 1996. That provided the ideological and political base for the introduction of the process of transformation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b><u>What emerged was a numbers driven society where race percentages became the norm for appointment and position.</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b><u>The immediate result was the corruption of society, as the whites with expertise moved out and “cadre deployment” took over. </u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>Political control became the dominating factor in society and capabilities were very often excluded.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b><u>What followed was a swift and dramatic decline of governing capabilities. </u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><u><b>Service delivery as envisaged in the constitution deteriorated rapidly, but it happened out of sight and was not immediately recognised</b></u>. There was a sewage problem, but it was not linked to a decline of governing capabilities. For the sake of democracy, people looked the other way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>By 2010 the key functions of Government are all under severe pressure.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>Then the electricity crisis of 2008 triggered a reaction. Every household was affected and the mismanagement and cover up of dwindling coal stock piles became common knowledge.</b> </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.5;"><b>This was followed by a flood of information about the status of dams and rivers that impacted on the supply of fresh water. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>Next to this, the sewage problem that had been building up for years suddenly showed its ugly head.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">What paralysed the government of President Jacob Zuma was that it all happened at the same time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">What made this different? People were compelled to live with the situation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>Being without electricity, using contaminated drinking water and physically living with sewage changed minds and attitudes.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b></b>As problems increased, government officials and services became more absent. The constitution promised a better quality of life, but Government left the people out in the sewage. A contradiction emerged in the political profile of Government: a clash between the political capital and the governing capital – a process of internal erosion. </span><br />
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<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">For decades people</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">have been told that apartheid was to blame for everything and suddenly they discover the real culprit behind</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">the council building – <u>Government.</u></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">The country was still a major democracy, but Government’s inability to deliver was slowly penetrating society. A very large section of the population came to exist outside the confines and guarantees of the constitution. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>A small town where the sewage flows down Main Street is basically beyond or outside the protection of the constitution.</b></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.5;"><b>Similarly, the urban community that provides its own security and pays for it, is also beyond the protection of the constitution.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.5;"><b>The result was the creation of alternative functioning structures.</b> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">This was not motivated by a resistance against Parliament or an effort to push Government aside. The real reason was that a very specific need had to be addressed; <b>otherwise a specific section of society could not survive.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">As strange as it may seem, people started moving</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">beyond the constitution for self-protection.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Farmers started repairing the national roads in their vicinity; otherwise goods to the market could not be transported. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Parents invested in additional teachers in order to secure a future for their kids. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b>In this process, a whole range of new functional structures in society have been created – with or without the consent or cooperation of Government. </b></span><br />
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<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><u>The eventual effect is that a large section of society is in the process of breaking away from government structures – and eventually from Government control. </u></strong></span><br />
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<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This is perhaps not so much anti-democratic as a-democratic, i.e. outside the democratic process, as it bypasses the formal structures and creates new ones when the need arises. </strong></span><br />
<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The driving force at this stage is not the will of the people, but the need of the specific sector of society. In this process, the nature of democracy will eventually change.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b><u>Bypassing formal government will not occur if some disillusionment has not emerged in society</u></b>.<b> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>It is basically twenty years since formal discussions began to dismantle apartheid. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>Some form of resistance against the functional decay is inevitable.</b> However, it is not expected in the form of a rebel movement or attempt to unseat Government by force.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.5;"><b>Within the black community the present demonstrations and burning of council buildings may continue. Within the white community, resistance may take another form.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b><u>Amongst whites there is a complaint that they pay twice for everything. They pay tax for “security of person” (chapter 2 constitution), but they also pay for their own security.</u></b> <b>They pay for education and then directly pay for additional teachers; they pay for road maintenance and do the work themselves.</b></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.5;"><b><u>The bottom line is that this government is very expensive to keep around, with no benefits coming from it.</u></b></span></span></div>
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<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In reaction the next step may be a formal note to the minister of Finance and the Receiver of Revenue, demanding a tax discount for services promised but not delivered – and then delivered and paid for by the taxpayer himself. What could emanate from this is ground level emotion and indignation. </span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">The figures do not add up. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is one direction Government does<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </strong>not want to go. By 2010 the population has ended up in a total imbalance which the next election will not be able to<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </strong>rectify.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b><u>It is in the nature of governments, when things go badly for them, to start withholding information from the public.</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>The country must speak with “one voice”, with one government spokesperson and one official broadcaster. All this is supposedly, “good for nation building”.</u></b> </span><br />
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<b style="line-height: 1.5;">Any information that may threaten the position of Government may be questioned as “anti-democratic”. </b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.5;"><u>V</u></span><span style="line-height: 1.5;"><u>ery often, this is all lumped together under the nice, formal concept of “national security”. </u>To the common citizen this may sound extremely dangerous and therefore needs his support.</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">Then the question emerges: what is secret and what not? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><u><b>There is much information that is freely available, not secret at all, that can directly threaten the position of Government, officials and ministers. </b></u></span><br />
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<u><i><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Government is known to</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">be sensitive to any photos of farm murders, statistics about crime and web pages that explain too much of</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">what happens in the country.</strong></i></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">Can Government prevent this flow of “dangerous” information, as the latest proposals of legislation from parliament attempted to do? The answer is short: No! It was possible during the Cold War. The Russians built a wall across central Europe to keep people and a free flow of information out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>In a technologically driven world every person with a cell phone (and camera), and computer on the desk has the immediate capability to send information all over the world. Every person with a cell phone has the capability to photograph potholes, schools without toilets, policemen asleep on the job and text messages about politicians who buy luxury cars and officials who are corrupt.</b></span></div>
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<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This implies that every citizen has the potential to send information, “dangerous” to the Government, abroad.</span></u></strong></div>
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<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>In this process, if this legislation is pushed for reasons that existed in the previous century, every citizen has the potential to become the enemy of Government.</u> </span></strong><br />
<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An effective withholding of information can only be done when all cell phones are confiscated and all computers smashed.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>With its enormous political capital behind it, the ANC commands the voting power in parliament, but it does not have the doing power.</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>The lack of governing capabilities may eventually result in the domino effect. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.5;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.5;"><b><u>Individual “problems” like sewage, clean water and education start interacting. The one affects the other and begin a self-driven process that leads to accelerated collapse. </u></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></strong>
<strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The most unthinkable result of the domino effect will</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">appear when local government becomes so dysfunctional that citizens are compelled to take over services on a</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">large scale and in this process government authority is pushed back to a few urban areas. This will signal the</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span><strong style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">start of a new political system.</strong></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">How will the decision maker finds his way through this complicated situation?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">From 2010 and beyond the quality of expertise and skills of any company or organisation will determine its economic and social survival. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">What should be assessed here is the level of human capital.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">Human capital in combination with other assets such as infrastructure provides the all important intellectual capital – the competitive advantage. Without intellectual capital very little value can be added to any business or society. A clear definition of intellectual capital is also imperative.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"><b>Without a clear assessment of human and intellectual capital, society will be unable to regenerate itself.</b></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<em style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dr. J.A. Du Plessis at Intersearch</span></em></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Source Url: </em><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.intersearch.co.za/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #004477; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">http://www.intersearch.co.za</a></em></span></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-84793910767709019002012-09-29T14:15:00.001+01:002012-09-30T10:10:50.851+01:00SA Institute of Race Relations: "ANC is dying and will lose majority by 2024"<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgG8HkCdxecNVGojHd0hc5h79g7G4yiAM9OEeBm_zJl10KtiucLPRT_YrhvcxaRq7iuMwBK00neqI5GJHcn52ymtQ9z4B-uGbMZrRnLMK2TiPTS63vUmBIxJY_J_FzQWTyd59PHXMkxeY/s1600/SIRR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgG8HkCdxecNVGojHd0hc5h79g7G4yiAM9OEeBm_zJl10KtiucLPRT_YrhvcxaRq7iuMwBK00neqI5GJHcn52ymtQ9z4B-uGbMZrRnLMK2TiPTS63vUmBIxJY_J_FzQWTyd59PHXMkxeY/s200/SIRR.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(excerpts from</span><a href="http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today-1/research-and-policy-brief-south-africa-after-the-anc-2nd-july-2012" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> SA Institute of Race Relations</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> article)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today-1/research-and-policy-brief-south-africa-after-the-anc-2nd-july-2012">South Africa after the ANC</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4456662775192624787" name="parent-fieldname-title2"></a>Research
and Policy Brief: South Africa after the ANC - 2nd July 2012.</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>- Frans Cronje</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4456662775192624787" name="parent-fieldname-description2"></a>
Few analysts are prepared to
make bold forecasts about South Africa’s future political
landscape. This paper breaks from that pattern and argues that the
ANC is dying and will lose its parliamentary majority at or before
the 2024 national election. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>We do not make this forecast recklessly
but rather because the evidence points overwhelmingly in this
direction.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4456662775192624787" name="parent-fieldname-text1"></a><b>The
first point is that ANC support among South Africans is falling very
quickly.</b> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is true that the ANC won 63% of the national vote in 1994
and increased that to 65.9% in 2009. However, this figure is
misleading as it ignores the growing number of people who are
choosing not to vote at all. For example in 1994 54% of South
Africans who could have voted, voted for the ANC. By 2009 that
percentage had fallen to just 39%. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This means that while more than 5
out of 10 South Africans turned out to vote for the ANC in 1994 that
figure had fallen to less than 4 out of 10 in the 2009 election. In a
sense the ANC, for all its pretention as the ‘will of the people’,
is now a minority government.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
decline in ANC support generally did not result from another
opposition party drawing its supporters. The DA did very well in its
own right, increasing its support from just 2 out of every 100 South
Africans in 1994 to 1 out of every 10 in 2009. However, it achieved
this growth more by cannibalising other opposition parties, and
possibly by attracting new young voters, than by eating into the ANC
support base.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The
decline in ANC support rather occurred as a result of a growing
number of people losing confidence in the ANC.</b> <b>The evidence for this
lies in the fact that the same period saw the number of protests
against the government take off. <u>The research company Municipal IQ
reports that the number of major service delivery protests in South
Africa increased from 10 in 2004 to over 100 by 2010. Data from the
police suggests that they are now responding to three protests every
day.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The
decline in ANC support has its origins in two other spheres. The
first is the overall failure of the public school system.</b> Only 1 out
of every 2 black South Africans who enter grade one will ever reach
matric and only 1 out of 10 will pass maths. <b>Hence black South
Africans are generally too badly educated to prosper in the formal
economy.</b> As a result, they have limited means to increase their own
living standards outside of what the State, and by extension, the ANC
can give them. It is quite logical therefore that when they are
frustrated by their living standards they protest against the same
State and ANC.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Related
to the failure of education is the failure of the labour market to
generate sufficient jobs. </b>Today only 1 out of every 2 black South
Africans entering the labour market will ever find a stable job.<b> </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Part
of the reason is their poor level of education. Another is government
hostility to the private business sector, which has stunted South
Africa’s economic growth.</b> South Africa averages half the growth
levels of its BRIC partners.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Take
just two current examples. First the government has announced that it
intends to place ownership restrictions on the private security
industry.</u></b> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>The message is that private foreign investment is not
welcome, and must be strictly regulated. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Secondly it has been
announced that the government is considering further taxation on the
mining industry.</b> As Michael Spicer pointed out in a letter to
Business Day it is simply foolish to think that you can add further
burdens to a declining industry at a time of great international
economic uncertainty.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>These
two examples are instructive because they are typical of the approach
the ANC has taken to private business and investment since 1994. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
the heady days after the 1994 transition such an approach could
perhaps be understood from a communist-inspired liberation movement
not well versed in the management of a modern economy. That this
approach continues today, long after the ANC has identified the
threat to itself in high levels of unemployment and low growth, is to
suggest that it is not serious about addressing these threats.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>How
else must it be understood that ANC delegates apparently devoted much
time at their recent policy conference debating whether to call their
policy the ‘second transition’ or the ‘second phase’ while
around them their Rome was literally burning in a number of townships
around the country.</b> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Likewise the reform of agricultural land, which
contributes just 3% of GDP and 5% of employment, apparently enjoyed
extensive attention as a means to reduce national poverty and
unemployment rates!</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Rather
than actually addressing South Africa’s problems, the ANC has tried
to place the blame for its failures elsewhere. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jacob Zuma told
delegates at the policy conference that the problem was that the
structure of the South African economy had not changed sufficiently
since 1994 and was largely in white hands. He is of course correct
that whites are far more likely than blacks to hold professional
positions or start and run successful businesses. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, that he
even raises white ownership of the economy as a key problem suggests
that at some level he believes that, despite failures in both growth
and education, black South Africans could nonetheless have attained
white standards of living and expertise in business. There is no
content or logic to such arguments. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>That the ANC president makes them
suggests that his party has run out of ideas.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The
same is true when it comes to corruption. This is without doubt an
issue that is important in any diagnosis of the ANC’s flagging
support. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is much evidence that what the media likes to call
‘service delivery protests’ is often the angry response of
communities to corruption perpetrated by their ANC representatives. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A
senior police general, who happens to be black, has communicated to
us that he is sick and tired of deploying his members to stamp out
protests that result from ANC councillors, often repeatedly in the
same municipality, stealing money that is meant for community
projects. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Despite Jacob Zuma’s exhortations to the party to root
out corruption in its ranks, the DA’s research head, Gareth van
Onselen, points out that the party has in fact, under Zuma, placed a
number of candidates convicted of fraud and corruption on its
election lists.</u></b> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even the head of its political school, who is
responsible for guiding the ANC’s emerging leaders, is a convicted
criminal. This is not a party that takes corruption seriously or
believes it to be a problem.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What
the above shows is that the ANC is not serious about addressing the
failed education, low growth, unemployment, and corruption that
underpins its flagging support.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>If it is not addressing the reasons
for its decline, it follows that the party must be in terminal
decline. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>All that remains to be done is to speculate which election
will see the party’s national support levels dip below 50%, opening
the door to a coalition of opposition parties to govern South Africa. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>On current trends we think that 2014 is too early, 2019 is plausible
but uncertain, and 2024 is probable. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>To argue against this conclusion
is to suggest that despite flat economic growth and failed education,
ANC support will not just be sustained, but that the established
trend of declining support will be reversed. <u>This is not possible.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As
in all things, once we have excluded the impossible, whatever
remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The truth for
South Africa is that it is time to consider what the future may look
like without the ANC. Who will lead the country and what will their
policies be?</b> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That these questions are not being asked shows how
unprepared many businesses and other organisations are for the
changes that may grip South Africa over the next decade. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Of course
the party may fight a desperate rear-guard battle to try and save
itself. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>There is already evidence that some in its ranks are
considering radical policy changes including seizing land, property,
investments, and assets without paying compensation. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>However, without
a two-thirds or three-quarters parliamentary majority, the ANC cannot
bring about the constitutional changes that would permit this. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Even
if it could, such polices would simply kill off any growth and
investment and so hasten its now inevitable political demise.</u></b></span></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-42693422590186448542012-09-24T13:56:00.000+01:002012-09-24T14:14:59.541+01:00SA Institute of Race Relations comments on the ANC National Democratic Revolution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnB2JRgFEHtQeWP0xtuiKtHY9OylktgPo0JqBguGFyWlpkRlDuinHrrWMP06LeV20QAqVbXpFmKPx9xlTePtQY04X6kOkCvsP52PwszLTMdlDQWwqY4c0bouOoUOs4ph-VrLrcuXjw9Y/s1600/SIRR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnB2JRgFEHtQeWP0xtuiKtHY9OylktgPo0JqBguGFyWlpkRlDuinHrrWMP06LeV20QAqVbXpFmKPx9xlTePtQY04X6kOkCvsP52PwszLTMdlDQWwqY4c0bouOoUOs4ph-VrLrcuXjw9Y/s200/SIRR.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Excerpts from <a href="http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today-1/research-and-policy-brief-the-national-democratic-revolution-ndr-its-origins-and-implications-31st-may-2012">South African Institute of Race Relations</a> article)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Address by the Institute's Head of Special Research, Dr Anthea Jeffery, to the conference on ‘the national democratic revolution, land ownership, and the Green Paper on land reform’ in Pretoria on 31st May 2012.</i>
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4456662775192624787" name="parent-fieldname-title3"></a><span style="font-size: small;">Research
and Policy Brief: The National Democratic Revolution (NDR): Its
Origins and Implications - 31st May 2012.</span></i></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>In the post-apartheid
period, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has persisted in
its determination to implement a National Democratic Revolution
(NDR). </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>The ANC makes no secret of this, regularly re-affirming this
objective at its five-yearly national conferences<u>. Its commitment to
continuing revolution has enormous ramifications for the country and
has already cost South Africa dearly. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>Yet neither the goals of the
NDR nor the thinking which underpins it has ever been given much
attention by the Media. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>The topic seems to be off-limits to the
Press</u>, which earlier generally ignored the first stage of the
revolution</b> – <b>the people’s war strategy which gave the ANC its
domination over the new South Africa – and now largely overlooks
the NDR and its ramifications.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">[The NDR theory] was endorsed by the South African Communist Party (SACP) in its 1962
programme, Road to South African Freedom. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Here, the SACP urged a
‘national democratic revolution to destroy white domination’. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>The
ANC, it said, must overthrow the ‘colonial state of white
supremacy’, ‘democratise’ the new state by ‘making it fully
representative of the population of South Africa’, <u>use the new
state to suppress the former ruling classes and transform society</u>,
and then <u>defend the gains of the revolution through a ‘vigorous and
vigilant dictatorship…by the people against the former dominating
and exploiting classes’ and any attempt to ‘restore white
colonialism’;</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">At the Morogoro Conference
in 1969,<b> <u>the ANC endorsed this perspective and committed itself to a
national democratic revolution (NDR)</u> to correct ‘historical
injustices’ by destroying existing economic and social
relationships. This would give rise to a new society based on the
core provisions of the Freedom Charter: a document adopted in 1955
with significant communist input.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>At its national
conferences at Mafikeng (in 1997), Stellenbosch (in 2002), and
Polokwane (in 2007), the <u>ANC repeatedly recommitted itself to the NDR
via the Strategy and Tactics document it has adopted at
each of these gatherings.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>The Mafikeng document
identified the key goal of the NDR as being ‘to liberate Africans
in particular and black people in general from political and economic
bondage’ by <u>transforming the machinery of state, using a cadre
policy to give the ANC control over ‘all centres of power’,
‘redistributing wealth and income’, and ‘de-racialising South
African society’ through ‘a consistent programme of affirmative
action’.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Stellenbosch document
mainly reaffirmed the 1997 one but included a short Preface which
stressed the <b>need to ‘eliminate apartheid property relations’
through ‘the deracialisation of…wealth, including land’ and the
‘redistribution of wealth and income’. <u>This would involve a
‘continuing struggle’ which would intensify over time. </u></b>‘Because
property relations are at the core of all social systems’, the
tensions arising from redistribution would have to be managed via
‘dexterity in tact and firmness in principle’.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Polokwane document
(the current one) reaffirmed the need for affirmative action until
such time ‘as all centres of power and influence become broadly
representative of the country’s demographics’. It called for the
‘de-racialisation’ of wealth (including land), along with
management and the professions.<b><u> It also urged a strong state able to
‘direct national development’ and stressed the importance of
cadre deployment to all centres of power.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A discussion
document, prepared for the national general council of the ANC in
September 2010 said the global financial crisis had demonstrated ‘the
bankruptcy of neo-liberalism’ and opened up space for ‘progressive
alternatives’. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The discussion document identified the Freedom
Charter as the ANC’s ‘lodestar’, and said the <b>major current
task of the NDR was to ‘build a national democratic society’
which would address the historical injustice via the redistribution
of land and other resources, affirmative action, and ‘the
eradication of apartheid production relations’.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>In 2012 the ANC has
released a new discussion document on ‘The Second Transition:
Building a National Democratic Society and the Balance of Forces in
2012’. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>This, it says, requires ‘a second transition’ that moves beyond
democratisation (the focus of the first transition) to<u> ‘the social
and economic transformation of South Africa over the next 30 to 50
years’.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>The implication is that this framework will thus have to be changed.
In addition, the document suggests that the <u>ANC is no longer willing
to stick to an earlier ‘implicit bargain’, in which the
organisation ‘committed to macroeconomic stability and
international openness’,</u> while ‘white business agreed to
participate in capital reform to modify the racial structures of
asset ownership and invest in national priorities’</b>. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Strategy and
Tactics documents, along with the 2010 and 2012 discussion
documents outlined above, are public documents which are carefully
phrased and often express worthy aims (to heighten state efficiency,
increase economic growth, expand infrastructure, and improve
education). <b><u>However, they also make it clear that the ANC’s key
objective is not to reduce inequality by growing the economic pie but
rather by taking existing wealth from whites and transferring it to
blacks.</u></b> Though progress in the redistribution of wealth has thus far
been slow, the ANC expects its pace to quicken as the balance of
forces shifts further in favour of this.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>According to the SACP and
the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the NDR provides
the foundation for a shift to a socialist and then communist society.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><br />...from 1984 to 1994, the people’s war strategy was
used to give the ANC the degree of domination needed to drive the NDR
forward in the post-apartheid era. This required, in particular, the
<u>weakening or elimination of black opposition – and the people’s
war was singularly successful in achieving this.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>...<u>the ANC sees
itself not as an ordinary political party bound by the ordinary rules
of the political game</u> but as a national liberation movement
responsible for implementing the NDR and thus as uniquely entitled to
rule. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>This makes it contemptuous of Parliament, opposition parties, a
free press, an autonomous SABC, independent civil society, and
adverse electoral outcomes, as in the Western Cape. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>Hence, contrary
to what many journalists have said, there is nothing ‘baffling’
about its recent initiatives to clamp down on the Press or weaken the
Democratic Alliance in a variety of ways.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>...<u>the ANC does not
regard itself as bound by the Constitution.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>It sees this not as a
solemn pact but simply as a tactical compromise which can readily be
changed as the balance of power shifts in the ANC’s favour. </u>This
stance has long been hinted at by ANC leaders, but is now being more
openly expressed. </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>The NDR also means, of
course, that the ANC has no principled commitment to key
constitutional safeguards, including press freedom, property rights,
and an independent Judiciary.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>Fourth, cadre deployment
has been used to give the ANC control over all the ‘levers of state
power’, including parastatals and the public broadcaster. The aim
is to use cadre deployment to extend ANC control to the Judiciary,
the Press, business, universities, and influential organisations in
civil society.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><i>In the economic
sphere:</i></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>...the goal of
demographic representivity in all spheres means that targets for
redistribution that fall short of this are likely to be increased in
due course</b>.<b><u> </u>Thus, for example, in revising the Mining Charter in
2010, the minister – along with many journalists <u>– implied it was
a big ‘concession’ that the ownership target was being kept at
26% by 2014; and this target may well be raised in time.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...<b><u>implementation of
the NDR requires a strong ‘developmental’ state and provides a
continual impetus towards ever more state intervention.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the social
sphere:</span></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><br /><u>First, the NDR promotes an increasing dependence on the
Government. The aim is seemingly not to encourage self-reliance and
economic independence but rather to ensure that people rely on the
State for money, goods, and services given to them via social grants,
free housing, free basic electricity and water, free education, free
health care for many, and subsidised transport.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Second, key additional
aims (at least for Cosatu and the SACP) are to ‘roll back’ market
provision in areas such as health and education.</b> In the context of
National Health Insurance proposals, for instance, Cosatu would like
to<u> <b>‘get rid’ of private health care and bring all health care
services under state control, which will further reinforce dependency
on the Government.</b></u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Third, similar thinking
seems to underpin current proposals on land reform and rural
development. As the Land Tenure Security Bill of 2010 shows – and
the green paper on land reform of 2011 demonstrates even further –
<u>the aim is no longer to build up a new generation of independent
black farmers owning their own land.</u></b><u> </u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>Instead, land reform
beneficiaries are to be confined to leasehold ownership, while
communal land tenure in former homeland areas will be retained.</u></b> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>In
addition, those who move to the proposed new agri-villages will have
nothing but temporary permits to live and farm in these settlements
and will be subject to eviction by state officials if they don’t
farm well enough. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Far from extending land ownership to many more
black South Africans, the 2010 bill and the green paper will <u>bring
about incremental land nationalisation.</u></b> <b>There will be no big-bang
approach, but the<u> Government will gradually assume ownership of ever
more land while more and more South Africans find themselves without
individual ownership and dependent on the State’s permission for
their occupation of the land on which they live or work.</u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><i>Important countervailing
factors</i></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><i>From within the
ANC:</i></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>First, the ANC recognises that the ‘balance of forces’
must be correct before progress can be made with the NDR.</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">As with
other revolutionary movements, it accepts that it may be necessary to
take one step back – though its ultimate aim is then to take two
steps forward.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Second, the ANC
understands that the collapse of the Soviet Union brought about a
fundamental shift in the global environment. <u>This has inhibited the
rapid post-apartheid implementation of the NDR which it had earlier
anticipated. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>...the ANC
recognised at Polokwane, affirmative action and BEE have ‘opened up
enticing opportunities’ for its cadres, including ‘unprecedented
opportunities for individual material gain’.</u></b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>The ANC’s discussion
documents in 2010 and 2012 also recognise that its cadres are
increasingly involved in factional strife, that state resources are
being used to fight internal battles within the organisation, <u>and
that the votes of ANC members are being ‘bought’ to influence
electoral outcomes.</u></b> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This is all part of the ‘challenge of
incumbency’, it says. It is thus (once again) seeking to develop
‘new’ cadres with strong self-discipline and revolutionary
morality, but these attempts are no more likely to succeed than
earlier efforts have done.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Conclusion:</span></i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>The ANC’s commitment to
the NDR means that the emphasis since 1994 has not been on
stimulating growth but rather on bringing about the redistribution of
existing wealth from whites to blacks. </u></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>This is particularly evident
in BEE rules, in mining and water laws, in land reform policies, and
in recurrent calls for nationalisation (which could be used to
prepare the way for confiscatory taxes or other interventions, as in
the mining sector). </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><u><b>Full implementation of the NDR will deter
investment, stall economic growth, worsen poverty, and increase
dependency on the State. It will undermine the Constitution, give the
ANC totalitarian control, and betray the bright hopes of the 1994
transition.</b></u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Fortunately, there are many countervailing factors that
militate against the success of the NDR. However, there is also no
room for complacency. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u>Instead, it is vital to alert South Africans to
the threats implicit in the NDR and to do very much more to expose
its false premises and damaging outcomes.</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Full article can be found<a href="http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today-1/research-and-policy-brief-the-national-democratic-revolution-ndr-its-origins-and-implications-31st-may-2012"> here</a> )</span></div>
Cape Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04724820503728002674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4456662775192624787.post-7694480252707055682012-09-21T11:32:00.000+01:002012-09-21T11:32:04.461+01:00SA: "Only a matter of time before the bomb explodes"<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h3>
<a href="http://www.leader.co.za/article.aspx?s=23&f=1&a=2571">South Africa: Only a matter of time before the bomb explodes</a></h3>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
by Moeletsi Mbeki</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>I can predict when SA’s "Tunisia
Day" will arrive. Tunisia Day is when the masses rise
against the powers that be, as happened recently in Tunisia. <u>The
year will be 2020, give or take a couple of years. </u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The year 2020
is when China estimates that its current minerals-intensive
industrialisation phase will be concluded. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<b>For SA, this will mean the African
National Congress (ANC) government will have to cut back on social
grants, which it uses to placate the black poor and to get their
votes.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>China’s current industrialisation
phase has forced up the prices of SA’s minerals, which has enabled
the government to finance social welfare programmes.</u></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The ANC inherited a flawed, complex
society it barely understood; its tinkerings with it are turning it
into an explosive cocktail.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The ANC leaders are like a group of
children playing with a hand grenade.</b> One day one of them will figure
out how to pull out the pin and everyone will be killed.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A famous African liberation movement,
the National Liberation Front of Algeria, after tinkering for 30
years, pulled the grenade pin by cancelling an election in 1991 that
was won by the opposition Islamic Salvation Front. In the civil war
that ensued, 200 000 people were killed.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The former British prime minister,
Margaret Thatcher, once commented that whoever thought that the ANC
could rule SA was living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. Why was Thatcher
right? <u>In the 16 years of ANC rule, all the symptoms of a
government out of its depth have grown worse.</u></b></div>
<ul>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Life expectancy has declined</b> from
65 years to 53 years since the ANC came to power;</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>In 2007, <u>SA became a net food
importer for the first time in its history</u></b>;</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The elimination of agricultural
subsidies by the government led to the<u> loss of 600 000
farm workers’ jobs and the eviction from the commercial farming
sector of about 2,4-million people between 1997 and 2007</u></b>; and</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>The ANC stopped controlling the
borders, leading to a flood of poor people into SA</u></b>, which has led to
conflicts between SA’s poor and foreign African migrants.</div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What should the ANC have done, or be
doing?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The answer is quite straightforward.
When they took control of the government in 1994, ANC leaders should
have: identified what SA’s strengths were; identified what SA’s
weaknesses were; and decided how to use the strengths to minimise
and/or rectify the weaknesses.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A wise government would have persuaded
the skilled white and Indian population to devote some of their time
— even an hour a week — to train the black and coloured
population to raise their skill levels.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>What the ANC did instead when
it came to power was to identify what its leaders and supporters
wanted. It then used SA’s strengths to satisfy the short-term
consumption demands of its supporters. In essence, this is what is
called black economic empowerment (BEE).</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>BEE promotes a number of extremely
negative socioeconomic trends in our country.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It promotes a class of politicians
dependent on big business and therefore promotes big business’s
interests in the upper echelons of government. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Second, BEE promotes an
anti-entrepreneurial culture among the black middle class by
legitimising an environment of entitlement. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Third, affirmative action, a subset of
BEE, promotes incompetence and corruption</b> in the public
sector by using ruling party allegiance and connections as the
criteria for entry and promotion in the public service, instead of
having tough public service entry examinations. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Let’s see where BEE, as we know it
today, actually comes from. I first came across the concept of
BEE from a company, which no longer exists, called Sankor. Sankor was
the industrial division of Sanlam and it invented the concept of BEE.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><u>The first purpose of BEE was to create
a buffer group among the black political class that would become an
ally of big business in SA.</u> This buffer group would use its
newfound power as controllers of the government to protect the assets
of big business.</b><br />
<br />
<b>The buffer group would also protect the modus
operandi of big business and thereby maintain the status quo in which
South African business operates. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That was the design of the big
conglomerates. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sanlam was soon followed by Anglo
American. Sanlam established BEE vehicle Nail; Anglo established Real
Africa, Johnnic and so forth. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The conglomerates took their marginal
assets, and gave them to politically influential black people</b>, with
the purpose, in my view,<b> <u>not to transform the economy but to
create a black political class that is in alliance with the
conglomerates</u> </b>and therefore wants to maintain the status quo of
our economy and the way in which it operates. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But what is wrong with protecting SA’s
conglomerates?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Well, there are many things wrong with
how conglomerates operate and how they have structured our economy.</div>
<ul>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The economy has a strong built-in
dependence on cheap labour;</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It has a strong built-in
dependence on the exploitation of primary resources;</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It is strongly unfavourable to the
development of skills in our general population;</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It has a strong bias towards
importing technology and economic solutions; and</div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It promotes inequality between
citizens by creating a large, marginalised underclass.</div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Conglomerates are a vehicle, not for
creating development in SA but for exploiting natural resources
without creating in-depth, inclusive social and economic development,
which is what SA needs. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That is what is wrong with protecting
conglomerates.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The second problem with the formula of
BEE is that it does not create entrepreneurs.</b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>You are taking
political leaders and politically connected people and giving them
assets which, in the first instance, they don’t know how to
manage. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So you are not adding value. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
You are
faced with the threat of undermining value by taking assets from
people who were managing them and giving them to people who cannot
manage them. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>BEE thus creates a class of idle rich
ANC politicos. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>My quarrel with BEE is that what the
conglomerates are doing is developing a new culture in SA — not a
culture of entrepreneurship, but an entitlement culture</b>, whereby
black people who want to go into business think that they should
acquire assets free, and that somebody is there to make them
rich, rather than that they should build enterprises from the
ground. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>But we cannot build black companies if
what black entrepreneurs look forward to is the distribution of
already existing assets from the conglomerates in return for becoming
lobbyists for the conglomerates.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The third worrying trend is that the
ANC-controlled state has now internalised the BEE model.</b> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We are
now seeing the state trying to implement the same model that the
conglomerates developed.<br />
<br />
<b>What is the state distributing?</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b> It is
distributing jobs to party faithful and social welfare to the poor. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>This is a recipe for incompetence and
corruption, both of which are endemic in SA. </b>This is what
explains the service delivery upheavals that are becoming a normal
part of our environment. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So what is the correct road SA should
be travelling?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>We all accept that a socialist model,
along the lines of the Soviet Union, is not workable for SA today. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The creation of a state-owned economy
is not a formula that is an option for SA or for many parts of the
world. </b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Therefore, if we want to develop SA
instead of shuffling pre-existing wealth, we have to create new
entrepreneurs, and we need to support existing entrepreneurs to
diversify into new economic sectors.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Mbeki is the author of Architects of
Poverty: Why African Capitalism Needs Changing. This article forms
part of a series on transformation supplied by the Centre for
Development and Enterprise.</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<br /></div>
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