Hendrik du Plessis
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'Die, the Beloved Country' — A Letter From South Africa by Jim Peron (September 1998)
Part 2 of a prophetic writing by a South African man from 1998
Police Story:
On the street where my bookstore is located, a grocery has been robbed a couple of times. So were the post office and bank.
In the last few months, four of my customers have been hijacked by armed gangs, one of them in my parking lot. One was shot through the leg, another was shot at but missed. Another was beaten and spent weeks in the hospital. Well over 3,000 hijackings are reported each year. A family driving to Durban for holiday pulled to the side of the road so the two little boys could get out and take care of business. Several hours later the police found the two children sitting against the bodies of their dead parents; murdered for a car.
The new president of the ANC, Terror Lekota, told the press that the hijackings are the fault of apartheid. He claims the "apartheid regime" gave immunity from prosecution to hijackers in exchange for "intelligence" gathering on the ANC. Last year, another top government official blamed the spate of hijackings on whites. He said there was no crime wave at all, and that whites were inventing crimes just to collect insurance.
The acting head of the Licensing Department for the Johannesburg area, Gerrie Gerneke, issued a report in July 1997 confirming that the department was in the control of criminal syndicates. He said that half of all cars stolen in the Johannesburg area are "legalized" with new official documents within 30 days of being stolen. He said that cooperation between criminal gangs and union members has made it impossible for senior staff members or security staff to take any action. After Gerneke's report to the government was made, two anonymous letters accused him of being a racist. As a result of these anonymous complaints, Gerneke was suspended for five months. A year later Gerneke says the government has not acted on any of his recommendations to deal with corruption. When a car theft ring was recently exposed, five of the 16 individuals arrested were policemen. The chief investigator said,
"We found that policemen were receiving stolen cars and then selling them to their clients."
In 1997 corruption reached such a level that Mandela appointed a Special Investigating Unit to look into the matter. According to Judge Willem Heath, head of the unit, there are currently more than 90,000 cases under investigation. If Heath and his crew manage to resolve one case of corruption per day, including weekends and holidays, it will take about 247 years to clear the current backlog. This doesn't include any new cases that will arise. Heath thinks the cases involve a sum of around 6 billion rand.
In 1997 approximately 2,300 police officers were charged with corruption —just about one every three hours. Almost 500 police officers have appeared in court on charges of working with criminal gangs. In the Johannesburg area alone 700 police officers are facing trials for committing crimes ranging from murder to burglary. And everyone assumes this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Over the last two years, there have been dozens of major highway robberies. In broad daylight gangs of a dozen men armed with AK-47s and other "military" weapons attack security trucks carrying large amounts of cash. These robberies have netted millions for the gangs. Government officials blame security companies, banks, and anyone else they can think of. But some arrests have finally been made, the ringleaders have turned out to be ANC activists. The leaders who were arrested were officials in the so-called "armed wing" of the ANC, Umkhonto weSizwe. One gang leader had been Youth League secretary for the Johannesburg area. A close associate of his, also a gang leader, was arrested but "escaped" from jail. Both were recent guests at the birthday party of Peter Mokaba, Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. There is evidence that Umkhonto weSizwe activists are not only behind some of the robberies, but that they are working with other armed cadres associated with so-called liberation movements from bordering countries.
In 1997 alone, there were 465 bank robberies. In all about $40 million was taken. Banks are raising their fees substantially to compensate for the losses.
Crime seems to be the only thing that works in South Africa—the risk of being arrested, tried and convicted is minuscule. In 1997, only 14.6 percent of murders led to arrest and conviction. Of 52,110 rapes there were only 2,532 convictions — about 6.7 percent. For the 330,093 burglaries there were 15,710 convictions, about 4.8 percent.
Experienced prosecutors have quit their jobs, replaced by novices who owe their positions to affirmative action.
During the 1997 Christmas season, the police and prisons "lost" almost 300 prisoners. In one instance a policeman took two prisoners to a bar for drinks. One of them borrowed his keys and returned to the jail to release 23 other prisoners. At another jail nine prisoners walked out, leaving behind a note:
"We are out for Christmas and will be back on January 3."
(They didn't come back.) Several prisoners left a police van when guards didn't bother locking it.
In 1995, Sylvester Mofokeng was taken out of his cell for a soccer game. When he was returning to prison, he simply jumped out of the truck and ran through gates that were left unlocked. He was rearrested three months later, but in August 1996 he escaped again. Somehow he obtained a gun from a visitor and used it to force guards to release him.
Josiah Rabotapi is believed to be the leader of an armed robbery syndicate involved in the theft of up to $14 million in 30 armed robberies. He is also wanted for 16 murders. So far he has been arrested three times and escaped every time. Jan van der Westhuizen, a convicted murderer, has escaped from prison or police custody seven times.
When the police aren't "losing" criminals, they are killing them. A recent government report showed that one person dies every twelve hours either while in police custody or as a result of police action. Two-thirds of these deaths take place during apprehension. According to one report, "an overview of 100 shooting incidents between police and civilians" showed a heavy "imbalance in casualties." David Bruce, a researcher for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation said,
"In only five of the cases was a policeman hurt, and in one case a policeman was killed."
In the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, citizens are fighting back. In some areas they have put security guards at the entrance to a subdivision. Entrances are closed off with gates to control who comes in and who goes out. Criminals can no longer simply load their cars with stolen goods and speed out when security guards stop them at the gate. These areas have seen dramatic reductions in crime. But the ANC has ordered the gates removed. It claims these efforts force crime away from white areas and are therefore racist.
This is life in South Africa today.
I've lived in South Africa for six years and I've seen a lot of changes. Even a few for the good. But the standard of living has declined. And people's attitudes have changed: hope is gone, replaced by fear, anxiety, even horror. There is a joke going around: Americans have Bill Clinton, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. South Africans have Nelson Mandela, no cash and no hope.
The Return of Apartheid:
Another popular joke is that Mickey Mouse has a watch with the picture of our Ministers of Finance. In the six years that I have lived here the South African rand has depreciated by 50 percent. In just the last year it has dropped 30 percent.
The government has conducted a massive "jobs" program. But since the ANC has taken power the number of jobs has declined, despite sanctions being lifted and increased trade with the rest of the world. The only job increases are in government departments.
South African workers are not particularly productive. But the government has been pushing new labor legislation that continues to drive up the cost of South African labor. No wonder that fewer and fewer South Africans are employed.
The ANC is pushing a new "Equity Employment" bill through Parliament. This bill will force all employers to reserve a number of jobs for blacks. Businesses that don't comply with the mandatory racial quotas face heavy fines. And so apartheid is back — the old laws in new packaging.
Recently, ANC members of Parliament have announced that they intend to introduce legislation applying racial quotas to sports. Specifically, the government wants to control rugby, a sport played traditionally by whites (unlike soccer, which is dominated by blacks). Mandela ordered a commission to investigate racism in the South African Rugby Football Union. SARFU took the issue to court and the court ruled against the commission. ANC officials then proclaimed the judge an unpatriotic racist for requiring Mandela to testify on why the commission was created.
ANC MPs, unable to get control of rugby legally, resorted to intimidation. They announced on the floor of Parliament that unless the leadership of SARFU resigns, ANC members will forcibly close airports to prevent other rugby teams from entering South Africa. Major corporations, all fearful of the ANC, threatened to remove financial support from SARFU unless the ANC got its way. Rugby head Louis Luyt, who had defeated an ANC partisan for the job, was forced out by the threats. After Luyt resigned, SARFU apologized to Mandela for making him go to court.
Communists in Government
The government of South Africa is actually a coalition of three groups. The ruling triple alliance is made up of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the African National Congress (ANC), which leads the coalition. The SACP has a lot of influence in COSATU and together they exercise a great deal of control over the ANC. Thabo Mbeki, who just replaced Mandela as leader of the ANC, and is pegged to be president of South Africa when Mandela steps down, was trained in Moscow. His father, Govan, is an old line Marxist and SACP activist. At a recent ANC conference the hard left solidified its control over the ANC by capturing nine of its eleven top positions. Of the ANC's 240 MPs in Parliament, 80 were appointed by the SACP. The ANC and COSATU also used some of their quotas to appoint SACP members to Parliament.
When Chris Hani was assassinated by Janus Waluz, a Polish immigrant, CNN called Hani, "a top ANC official" or "anti-apartheid activist." But CNN didn't mention that Hani was the head of the Communist Party and that Waluz was a refugee from communism. Instead, the impression was given that Hani was another Martin Luther King.
In the same way, many facts about Mandela and the ANC are never reported by the media. For example, Mandela awarded South Africa's equivalent of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom to Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi. Mandela has publicly said that Cuba is a model for a free, democratic society that is, in fact, more democratic than the United States. Castro has been here for friendly visits. When U.S. officials complained about Mandela's cozy relationship with dictators, Mandela said that no other nation has the right to interfere in South African affairs—this from the man who supported sanctions against the old government. Curiously, Mandela dropped recognition of Taiwan at the demand of Communist China.
The ANC's Bill of Wrongs
Gay rights are now enshrined in South Africa's Bill of Rights. Gay publications around the world have praised the ANC for this. But in fact gay sex remains illegal. The government has taken no practical steps to legalize homosexuality. When a gay rights group took the sodomy laws to the Constitutional Court, the government opposed its effort. After a world-wide outcry, the government backed down. It appears the ANC is hoping the courts throw out the law, thereby taking credit for being pro-gay while not being responsible for the change. Yet the South African government continues to deny foreign gay partners of South Africans the right to stay in the country legally. The issue is in court, but the government is opposed to changes in the policy.
The ruling ideology is that "there are no absolute rights," so the ANC put "weasel" clauses into the Bill of Rights. Any right guaranteed by the Constitution can be ignored. For instance, the right to engage in enterprise is absolute — unless infringed "by law." Thus the government can do what it wants since it passes the laws. Other constitutional clauses say rights can be limited by government consistent with the operation of an "open" and "democratic" society. And remember, Mandela considers Cuba democratic.
The bill of rights negotiated by various political parties guaranteed freedom of speech. Repressive censorship laws were relegated to the dustbin. But the ANC has been pulling them back out and wiping them off.
A bill to repeal censorship was introduced in Parliament. I even testified in favor of it. The bill was mediocre but livable. Later, the ANC rewrote it in secret and passed it without making a written version available. The new bill actually creates a censorship body. All videos and films must be approved by the censorship board before they can be distributed. So-called "x-rated" material can be sold only in licensed adult shops. Anything deemed "hate speech" is illegal. The new "obscenity" standard is that anything "degrading" is illegal. Another victory for clear, concise legal concepts.
Lindiwe Sisulu, deputy minister of home affairs, said the government "tries" to balance free speech with the rights of "society, in reality, however, there can never be an absolute balance." This means "not all speech can be equally protected." Sisulu interprets the new censorship legislation much more strictly than in the past. She claims that
"anyone who downloads pornography from the Internet will commit an offense."
Note that she has broadened this beyond the act which banned "degrading" pornography, bestiality, child porn, and hate speech. Now she says that any downloaded porn is illegal. Expanding the prior censorship of films and videos, Sisulu says all photos must be classified by the government before distribution.
"No person may screen a film or photograph, including on a computer screen, which has not been classified by the Publications Board. This means that anyone placing material on the Internet must have a classification certificate for that material."
In other words the government now claims the right to classify — and ban — all photographs before they are distributed to anyone.
Yet the ANC stills finds the bill of rights too restrictive of government. Peter Mokaba recently gave a speech in a black area demanding that all blacks vote for the ANC so it can get two-thirds control of Parliament. He said this would allow it to rewrite the constitution and end all restrictions on government power. ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe said that if the ANC won two-thirds control in the next election, it could govern "unfettered by constraints."
Part 2 of a prophetic writing by a South African man from 1998
Police Story:
On the street where my bookstore is located, a grocery has been robbed a couple of times. So were the post office and bank.
In the last few months, four of my customers have been hijacked by armed gangs, one of them in my parking lot. One was shot through the leg, another was shot at but missed. Another was beaten and spent weeks in the hospital. Well over 3,000 hijackings are reported each year. A family driving to Durban for holiday pulled to the side of the road so the two little boys could get out and take care of business. Several hours later the police found the two children sitting against the bodies of their dead parents; murdered for a car.
The new president of the ANC, Terror Lekota, told the press that the hijackings are the fault of apartheid. He claims the "apartheid regime" gave immunity from prosecution to hijackers in exchange for "intelligence" gathering on the ANC. Last year, another top government official blamed the spate of hijackings on whites. He said there was no crime wave at all, and that whites were inventing crimes just to collect insurance.
The acting head of the Licensing Department for the Johannesburg area, Gerrie Gerneke, issued a report in July 1997 confirming that the department was in the control of criminal syndicates. He said that half of all cars stolen in the Johannesburg area are "legalized" with new official documents within 30 days of being stolen. He said that cooperation between criminal gangs and union members has made it impossible for senior staff members or security staff to take any action. After Gerneke's report to the government was made, two anonymous letters accused him of being a racist. As a result of these anonymous complaints, Gerneke was suspended for five months. A year later Gerneke says the government has not acted on any of his recommendations to deal with corruption. When a car theft ring was recently exposed, five of the 16 individuals arrested were policemen. The chief investigator said,
"We found that policemen were receiving stolen cars and then selling them to their clients."
In 1997 corruption reached such a level that Mandela appointed a Special Investigating Unit to look into the matter. According to Judge Willem Heath, head of the unit, there are currently more than 90,000 cases under investigation. If Heath and his crew manage to resolve one case of corruption per day, including weekends and holidays, it will take about 247 years to clear the current backlog. This doesn't include any new cases that will arise. Heath thinks the cases involve a sum of around 6 billion rand.
In 1997 approximately 2,300 police officers were charged with corruption —just about one every three hours. Almost 500 police officers have appeared in court on charges of working with criminal gangs. In the Johannesburg area alone 700 police officers are facing trials for committing crimes ranging from murder to burglary. And everyone assumes this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Over the last two years, there have been dozens of major highway robberies. In broad daylight gangs of a dozen men armed with AK-47s and other "military" weapons attack security trucks carrying large amounts of cash. These robberies have netted millions for the gangs. Government officials blame security companies, banks, and anyone else they can think of. But some arrests have finally been made, the ringleaders have turned out to be ANC activists. The leaders who were arrested were officials in the so-called "armed wing" of the ANC, Umkhonto weSizwe. One gang leader had been Youth League secretary for the Johannesburg area. A close associate of his, also a gang leader, was arrested but "escaped" from jail. Both were recent guests at the birthday party of Peter Mokaba, Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. There is evidence that Umkhonto weSizwe activists are not only behind some of the robberies, but that they are working with other armed cadres associated with so-called liberation movements from bordering countries.
In 1997 alone, there were 465 bank robberies. In all about $40 million was taken. Banks are raising their fees substantially to compensate for the losses.
Crime seems to be the only thing that works in South Africa—the risk of being arrested, tried and convicted is minuscule. In 1997, only 14.6 percent of murders led to arrest and conviction. Of 52,110 rapes there were only 2,532 convictions — about 6.7 percent. For the 330,093 burglaries there were 15,710 convictions, about 4.8 percent.
Experienced prosecutors have quit their jobs, replaced by novices who owe their positions to affirmative action.
During the 1997 Christmas season, the police and prisons "lost" almost 300 prisoners. In one instance a policeman took two prisoners to a bar for drinks. One of them borrowed his keys and returned to the jail to release 23 other prisoners. At another jail nine prisoners walked out, leaving behind a note:
"We are out for Christmas and will be back on January 3."
(They didn't come back.) Several prisoners left a police van when guards didn't bother locking it.
In 1995, Sylvester Mofokeng was taken out of his cell for a soccer game. When he was returning to prison, he simply jumped out of the truck and ran through gates that were left unlocked. He was rearrested three months later, but in August 1996 he escaped again. Somehow he obtained a gun from a visitor and used it to force guards to release him.
Josiah Rabotapi is believed to be the leader of an armed robbery syndicate involved in the theft of up to $14 million in 30 armed robberies. He is also wanted for 16 murders. So far he has been arrested three times and escaped every time. Jan van der Westhuizen, a convicted murderer, has escaped from prison or police custody seven times.
When the police aren't "losing" criminals, they are killing them. A recent government report showed that one person dies every twelve hours either while in police custody or as a result of police action. Two-thirds of these deaths take place during apprehension. According to one report, "an overview of 100 shooting incidents between police and civilians" showed a heavy "imbalance in casualties." David Bruce, a researcher for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation said,
"In only five of the cases was a policeman hurt, and in one case a policeman was killed."
In the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, citizens are fighting back. In some areas they have put security guards at the entrance to a subdivision. Entrances are closed off with gates to control who comes in and who goes out. Criminals can no longer simply load their cars with stolen goods and speed out when security guards stop them at the gate. These areas have seen dramatic reductions in crime. But the ANC has ordered the gates removed. It claims these efforts force crime away from white areas and are therefore racist.
This is life in South Africa today.
I've lived in South Africa for six years and I've seen a lot of changes. Even a few for the good. But the standard of living has declined. And people's attitudes have changed: hope is gone, replaced by fear, anxiety, even horror. There is a joke going around: Americans have Bill Clinton, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. South Africans have Nelson Mandela, no cash and no hope.
The Return of Apartheid:
Another popular joke is that Mickey Mouse has a watch with the picture of our Ministers of Finance. In the six years that I have lived here the South African rand has depreciated by 50 percent. In just the last year it has dropped 30 percent.
The government has conducted a massive "jobs" program. But since the ANC has taken power the number of jobs has declined, despite sanctions being lifted and increased trade with the rest of the world. The only job increases are in government departments.
South African workers are not particularly productive. But the government has been pushing new labor legislation that continues to drive up the cost of South African labor. No wonder that fewer and fewer South Africans are employed.
The ANC is pushing a new "Equity Employment" bill through Parliament. This bill will force all employers to reserve a number of jobs for blacks. Businesses that don't comply with the mandatory racial quotas face heavy fines. And so apartheid is back — the old laws in new packaging.
Recently, ANC members of Parliament have announced that they intend to introduce legislation applying racial quotas to sports. Specifically, the government wants to control rugby, a sport played traditionally by whites (unlike soccer, which is dominated by blacks). Mandela ordered a commission to investigate racism in the South African Rugby Football Union. SARFU took the issue to court and the court ruled against the commission. ANC officials then proclaimed the judge an unpatriotic racist for requiring Mandela to testify on why the commission was created.
ANC MPs, unable to get control of rugby legally, resorted to intimidation. They announced on the floor of Parliament that unless the leadership of SARFU resigns, ANC members will forcibly close airports to prevent other rugby teams from entering South Africa. Major corporations, all fearful of the ANC, threatened to remove financial support from SARFU unless the ANC got its way. Rugby head Louis Luyt, who had defeated an ANC partisan for the job, was forced out by the threats. After Luyt resigned, SARFU apologized to Mandela for making him go to court.
Communists in Government
The government of South Africa is actually a coalition of three groups. The ruling triple alliance is made up of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the African National Congress (ANC), which leads the coalition. The SACP has a lot of influence in COSATU and together they exercise a great deal of control over the ANC. Thabo Mbeki, who just replaced Mandela as leader of the ANC, and is pegged to be president of South Africa when Mandela steps down, was trained in Moscow. His father, Govan, is an old line Marxist and SACP activist. At a recent ANC conference the hard left solidified its control over the ANC by capturing nine of its eleven top positions. Of the ANC's 240 MPs in Parliament, 80 were appointed by the SACP. The ANC and COSATU also used some of their quotas to appoint SACP members to Parliament.
When Chris Hani was assassinated by Janus Waluz, a Polish immigrant, CNN called Hani, "a top ANC official" or "anti-apartheid activist." But CNN didn't mention that Hani was the head of the Communist Party and that Waluz was a refugee from communism. Instead, the impression was given that Hani was another Martin Luther King.
In the same way, many facts about Mandela and the ANC are never reported by the media. For example, Mandela awarded South Africa's equivalent of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom to Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi. Mandela has publicly said that Cuba is a model for a free, democratic society that is, in fact, more democratic than the United States. Castro has been here for friendly visits. When U.S. officials complained about Mandela's cozy relationship with dictators, Mandela said that no other nation has the right to interfere in South African affairs—this from the man who supported sanctions against the old government. Curiously, Mandela dropped recognition of Taiwan at the demand of Communist China.
The ANC's Bill of Wrongs
Gay rights are now enshrined in South Africa's Bill of Rights. Gay publications around the world have praised the ANC for this. But in fact gay sex remains illegal. The government has taken no practical steps to legalize homosexuality. When a gay rights group took the sodomy laws to the Constitutional Court, the government opposed its effort. After a world-wide outcry, the government backed down. It appears the ANC is hoping the courts throw out the law, thereby taking credit for being pro-gay while not being responsible for the change. Yet the South African government continues to deny foreign gay partners of South Africans the right to stay in the country legally. The issue is in court, but the government is opposed to changes in the policy.
The ruling ideology is that "there are no absolute rights," so the ANC put "weasel" clauses into the Bill of Rights. Any right guaranteed by the Constitution can be ignored. For instance, the right to engage in enterprise is absolute — unless infringed "by law." Thus the government can do what it wants since it passes the laws. Other constitutional clauses say rights can be limited by government consistent with the operation of an "open" and "democratic" society. And remember, Mandela considers Cuba democratic.
The bill of rights negotiated by various political parties guaranteed freedom of speech. Repressive censorship laws were relegated to the dustbin. But the ANC has been pulling them back out and wiping them off.
A bill to repeal censorship was introduced in Parliament. I even testified in favor of it. The bill was mediocre but livable. Later, the ANC rewrote it in secret and passed it without making a written version available. The new bill actually creates a censorship body. All videos and films must be approved by the censorship board before they can be distributed. So-called "x-rated" material can be sold only in licensed adult shops. Anything deemed "hate speech" is illegal. The new "obscenity" standard is that anything "degrading" is illegal. Another victory for clear, concise legal concepts.
Lindiwe Sisulu, deputy minister of home affairs, said the government "tries" to balance free speech with the rights of "society, in reality, however, there can never be an absolute balance." This means "not all speech can be equally protected." Sisulu interprets the new censorship legislation much more strictly than in the past. She claims that
"anyone who downloads pornography from the Internet will commit an offense."
Note that she has broadened this beyond the act which banned "degrading" pornography, bestiality, child porn, and hate speech. Now she says that any downloaded porn is illegal. Expanding the prior censorship of films and videos, Sisulu says all photos must be classified by the government before distribution.
"No person may screen a film or photograph, including on a computer screen, which has not been classified by the Publications Board. This means that anyone placing material on the Internet must have a classification certificate for that material."
In other words the government now claims the right to classify — and ban — all photographs before they are distributed to anyone.
Yet the ANC stills finds the bill of rights too restrictive of government. Peter Mokaba recently gave a speech in a black area demanding that all blacks vote for the ANC so it can get two-thirds control of Parliament. He said this would allow it to rewrite the constitution and end all restrictions on government power. ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe said that if the ANC won two-thirds control in the next election, it could govern "unfettered by constraints."
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