ANC tightens grip on Media

The ANC are still planning to go ahead with implementing the 'Protection of Information Bill' despite condemnation from opposition parties and civil rights groups.

The purpose of the bill is to prevent 'classified information' or 'state secrets' being published by the media.

According to the ANC the bill would force “journalists to hand secret files to the police, then request the minister to declassify them if they felt the information belonged in the public domain.”

The penalty for breaking this law would be 10 years in jail.

Losing the case would also result in a 10 year prison sentence for the source or the 'whistleblower'.

The ANC has also rejected the insertion of a “public interest” defence clause into the bill calling the opposition's arguments 'lopsided' and stated the debate on the issue was over.

If South Africa were at war with another country one could maybe see the justification for a temporary use of such a law, but South Africa is not at war with another state.

The only 'classified' information which seems to get leaked to the media is about exposing ANC corruption, political squabbles or withheld information relating to crime statistics.

And who will oversea or limit the ANC in declaring what information or documents are 'classified' or 'state secrets'?

This law has been strongly opposed by all opposition parties but yet the ANC is still going ahead and having the bill passed.

This is the problem of a 'one-party dominant state' since it effectively functions the same as a one-party state.

The only difference is that the small opposition parties are allowed to exist, even though it won't make a difference to what the majority party do or which laws they pass.

It is not normal for a political party to be equated as one and the same as the state. The reason being that it is not the practice of a democratic state but rather a totalitarian one that controls all aspects of the state and society.

But yet this is what the ANC openly preaches.

The main problem with this bill despite being against freedom of speech and freedom of information is it would punish anyone who tries to expose the government or reveal incriminating documents with 10 years in prison.

This would effectively make any journalists too afraid to apply to have any information 'declassified' since if their application is denied, they or their revealed source could receive imprisonment!

Needless to say, sources would be reluctant to reveal themselves when providing information and the onus would fall on the journalists, thus making them responsible for the possession of the such 'classified' documents.

It is a law designed to heavily discourage bringing such information out into the open; as the risks taken to apply for publication are immense and outweigh the risks for a career journalist who has no interest ending up in the hell-hole and death sentence of a South African prison.

This law would of course still not be realistically enforceable on the internet, but if private internet journalists or writers publish such 'classified' information and could be traced by state agents then they would no doubt still be subject to imprisonment.

In the Mbeki/Zuma feud a few years back, the NIA (National Intelligence Agency) had been under Mbeki's control and like most of the public sector was led by an ANC cadre 'deployed' by Mbeki himself.

Information relating to Zuma's private life as well as evidence for his trial had been directly and deliberately leaked to the media by the NIA effectively giving him a 'trial by media' as he has stated.

The corruption allegations which included state evidence such as incriminating documents, details of the rape accusations before he was put on trial, as well as his visit to Libya and his receiving of $2 million from Gaddafi after Cosatu and the ANC Youth League delegation had visited, were all leaked by the NIA. Most of this information would have only been accessible to the NIA.

If Zuma is putting the blame on the media for his 'trial by media' and the damaging of his image, then this blame is misguided.

The media had merely done their job in publishing the information as it would in any other democratic society; exposing corruption, though this time at the behest of one of the ruling factions within the ANC, namely that of Mbeki.

If Zuma or the ANC wanted to address the issue, they should start with ensuring impartial non-politically aligned people getting leadership positions in the public sector.

But of course this is against the Marxist-Leninist leadership structure of the ANC and the National Democratic Revolution which espouses total control and political 'hegemony in all sectors of society'.

As a result 'cadres' are 'deployed' and report directly to the President. This applies to the NIA, Police, Army, SABC (state TV), Eskom (state electrity) as well as all public sectors in society.

But of course the media is still independent, and until the bill is promulgated the government can still not regulate and control what is printed about them.

Even though the local media still generally panders to the ANC and much of the English newspapers are owned by an ANC-aligned businessman, their job is still to sell newspapers.

Therefore they still expose corruption and political scandals and this is of course the main problem.

When one political party directly controls all parts of the state and wants to make it 'illegal' to write about certain information about the government and imprison people for violating this law, then it's certainly an ominous sign.

African Union refuses to recognise Libyan Rebels

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

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

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

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

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

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

The government has already fled and is in hiding.

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

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

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

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

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

For their leadership, this is an uncomfortable thought.

Friends of Gaddafi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

White Race Tax

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

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

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

He went on to also blame Apartheid for littering:

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

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

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

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

He gave an example of how it could be implemented:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone is guilty. 

And everyone must pay for the actions of their ancestors.

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

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

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

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

Prepare for Nationalisation.

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

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

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

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

No compensation would however be given for land.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unemployment a 'post-apartheid phenomenon' in SA.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

de Klerk states:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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