"I will not stand back," was national Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka's message on Wednesday at the start of his testimony before the Hefer Commission. The chief prosecutor read a prepared statement to the commission, warning that he would not back off from investigating his accusers. "We are all equal before the law, no matter how wealthy or in which position," he added.
The commission is probing allegations that Ngcuka served as an agent for the apartheid government and consequently abused his current powers. He said on Wednesday that he expected some to be baying for his blood if he performed his duties (as head of the National Prosecuting Authority) without fear or favour. However, it never occurred to him that his former liberation struggle comrades and leaders would be among them. Ngcuka was apparently referring to former transport minister Mac Maharaj and former intelligence commander Mo Shaik, who are his main accusers.
Ngcuka said he would not retreat and run back to the "hole" from which he came, as Shaik's brother Schabir earlier told him to do. With this Schabir -- who is being prosecuted by the NPA -- meant Middeldrift in the Eastern Cape where he was born, Ngcuka explained. He said he did not intend to break the confidentiality agreement between him and a group of editors whom he gave an off-the-record briefing in July. Maharaj and former City Press editor Vusi Mona earlier accused Ngcuka of defaming people at this meeting whom his Scorpions unit investigated. Ngcuka denied all the allegations on Wednesday. "I broke no law, I defamed no-one and I made no racist remarks about my fellow South Africans of Indian descent," he said.
Ngcuka also denied any further abuse of power, saying he was deeply respectful of the office he held. He said he knew only too well what it was like to be at the receiving end of the abuse of state power. He was referring to his suffering at the hands of the apartheid government's security police. Ngcuka reiterated that he was not before the commission to clear his name or prove his innocence. "There is no need for that," he said. He denied that he ever informed on his former struggle comrades, saying none of them were ever arrested because of what he said or did.
Source: Polity
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Thursday, December 4, 2003
Red Notice Issued for Charles Taylor
The international law enforcement agency INTERPOL today issued a "Red Notice" to seek the arrest, with a view to transfer to the Special Court, of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was indicted by the Special Court in March 2003 for crimes committed during Sierra Leone's war. Mr Taylor faces a 17-count indictment on war crimes and crimes against humanity, which include terrorising the civilian population, unlawful killings, sexual violence, physical violence, use of child soldiers, abductions, forced labour, looting and burning, and attacks on peacekeeping personnel.
The issuance of the "Red Notice" is by an agreement that entered into force between the Special Court and INTERPOL on November 3, 2003 under which the Court may request that INTERPOL publish and circulate "Red Notices" for persons wanted by the Special Court. The Office of the Prosecutor said the INTERPOL "Red Notice" will serve as a reminder that Charles Taylor remains a fugitive from justice. The Office said there was no amnesty for war crimes or crimes against humanity. The Prosecutor added that Mr Taylor's indictment will not go away and that he remains wanted by the international community to face the very serious charges against him.
Source: Special Court for Sierra Leone
The issuance of the "Red Notice" is by an agreement that entered into force between the Special Court and INTERPOL on November 3, 2003 under which the Court may request that INTERPOL publish and circulate "Red Notices" for persons wanted by the Special Court. The Office of the Prosecutor said the INTERPOL "Red Notice" will serve as a reminder that Charles Taylor remains a fugitive from justice. The Office said there was no amnesty for war crimes or crimes against humanity. The Prosecutor added that Mr Taylor's indictment will not go away and that he remains wanted by the international community to face the very serious charges against him.
Source: Special Court for Sierra Leone
Interpol Puts Liberian Ex-Chief On World's Most-Wanted List
Interpol called Thursday for the arrest of the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, for his suspected role in atrocities committed during Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war. Interpol put Mr. Taylor on its most wanted list by posting a "red notice" on its Web site, alerting police forces around the world to an arrest warrant issued by Sierra Leone in June.
Interpol's notice does little to change Mr. Taylor's status: he has been living in Nigeria since resigning his presidency in August as part of an American-brokered accord to end fighting in Liberia. But the Interpol action does raise the international profile of the Sierra Leone warrant, which Nigeria has so far ignored. "It reminds the world that Charles Taylor remains a fugitive from justice," said Allison Cooper, a spokeswoman for the United Nations court in Sierra Leone, speaking by telephone from Freetown. "It also demonstrates that there's no such thing as amnesty for war crimes and crimes against humanity."
The court, set up in 2000, has argued that because Nigeria is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, the African Convention on Human Rights and the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court, it is obligated to turn Mr. Taylor over for prosecution as a war criminal or try him itself. But Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who granted Mr. Taylor asylum in hopes of neutralizing his influence in the region, has rejected Sierra Leone's extradition request. Mr. Obasanjo has said he might consider a similar request by Liberia, if that country seeks to prosecute its former president. Nigeria's asylum agreement with Mr. Taylor does not shield him from Liberian law.
Mr. Taylor, born to an American father and a Liberian mother, graduated from Bentley College in Massachusetts and worked in the Liberian civil service in the 1980's before he was accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars. He fled and returned in December 1989 to mount a rebellion from neighboring Ivory Coast. From the beginning, his forces were accused of appalling violence. He became Liberia's president in July 1997, though the fighting in the country continued.
Mr. Taylor is charged with training and arming Sierra Leone rebels, many of them children, for that country's long and bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the fighting, and thousands more were left maimed by the Liberian-trained rebels who punished civilians by hacking off limbs. Sierra Leone's war ended in 2001, and its court indicted Mr. Taylor in June. The court applied to become an Interpol member this April, and that process was completed last month, allowing the police organization to post its notice.
As with all Interpol red notices, a photograph of Mr. Taylor appeared on the organization's Web site, with the added warning: "Person May Be Dangerous."
Source: New York Times
Interpol's notice does little to change Mr. Taylor's status: he has been living in Nigeria since resigning his presidency in August as part of an American-brokered accord to end fighting in Liberia. But the Interpol action does raise the international profile of the Sierra Leone warrant, which Nigeria has so far ignored. "It reminds the world that Charles Taylor remains a fugitive from justice," said Allison Cooper, a spokeswoman for the United Nations court in Sierra Leone, speaking by telephone from Freetown. "It also demonstrates that there's no such thing as amnesty for war crimes and crimes against humanity."
The court, set up in 2000, has argued that because Nigeria is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, the African Convention on Human Rights and the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court, it is obligated to turn Mr. Taylor over for prosecution as a war criminal or try him itself. But Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who granted Mr. Taylor asylum in hopes of neutralizing his influence in the region, has rejected Sierra Leone's extradition request. Mr. Obasanjo has said he might consider a similar request by Liberia, if that country seeks to prosecute its former president. Nigeria's asylum agreement with Mr. Taylor does not shield him from Liberian law.
Mr. Taylor, born to an American father and a Liberian mother, graduated from Bentley College in Massachusetts and worked in the Liberian civil service in the 1980's before he was accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars. He fled and returned in December 1989 to mount a rebellion from neighboring Ivory Coast. From the beginning, his forces were accused of appalling violence. He became Liberia's president in July 1997, though the fighting in the country continued.
Mr. Taylor is charged with training and arming Sierra Leone rebels, many of them children, for that country's long and bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the fighting, and thousands more were left maimed by the Liberian-trained rebels who punished civilians by hacking off limbs. Sierra Leone's war ended in 2001, and its court indicted Mr. Taylor in June. The court applied to become an Interpol member this April, and that process was completed last month, allowing the police organization to post its notice.
As with all Interpol red notices, a photograph of Mr. Taylor appeared on the organization's Web site, with the added warning: "Person May Be Dangerous."
Source: New York Times
Monday, November 17, 2003
MILAN BABIC INDICTED BY THE ICTY FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND WAR CRIMES
On Monday 17 November 2003, Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti confirmed an Indictment against Milan Babic.
According to the Indictment, Milan Babic participated in a joint criminal enterprise that came into existence no later than 1 August 1991 and continued until at least June 1992. The purpose of this joint criminal enterprise was the permanent forcible removal of the majority of the Croat and other non-Serb population from approximately one-third of the territory of the Republic of Croatia ("Croatia"), in order to make them part of a new Serb-dominated state through the commission of crimes in violation of Articles 3 and 5 of the Statute of the Tribunal."
In addition the Indictment states "Individuals participating in this joint criminal enterprise included Slobodan Milosevic; Milan Martic; Goran Hadzic; Jovica Stanisic; Franko Simatovic, also known as "Frenki"; Vojislav Seselj; General Blagoje Adzic; General Ratko Mladic and other known and unknown members of the Yugoslav People’s Army ("JNA"); the Serb Territorial Defence ("TO") of Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro; local and Serbian police forces ("MUP forces"), including the State Security /Drzavna bezbednost ("DB") of the Republic of Serbia, and Serb police forces of the SAO Krajina and the RSK commonly referred to as "Martic’s Police," "Marticevci," "SAO Krajina Police" or "SAO Krajina Milicija" (hereinafter "Martic’s Police"). Milan Babic participated in this joint criminal enterprise until at least February 1992."
The Indictment further states that Milan Babic acting individually and/or in concert with other members of the joint criminal enterprise participated in the joint criminal enterprise in the following ways:
"In his capacity as the President of the SNC and subsequently as President/Prime Minister in the SAO Krajina and the RSK, he formulated, promoted, participated in, and/or encouraged the development and implementation of SDS and SAO Krajina/RSK governmental policies intended to advance the objective of the joint criminal enterprise. Throughout 1991, Milan Babic attended meetings with the Serbian, SFRY and Bosnian Serb leadership defining these policies of the joint criminal enterprise and presented its positions in international negotiations."
Source: International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
According to the Indictment, Milan Babic participated in a joint criminal enterprise that came into existence no later than 1 August 1991 and continued until at least June 1992. The purpose of this joint criminal enterprise was the permanent forcible removal of the majority of the Croat and other non-Serb population from approximately one-third of the territory of the Republic of Croatia ("Croatia"), in order to make them part of a new Serb-dominated state through the commission of crimes in violation of Articles 3 and 5 of the Statute of the Tribunal."
In addition the Indictment states "Individuals participating in this joint criminal enterprise included Slobodan Milosevic; Milan Martic; Goran Hadzic; Jovica Stanisic; Franko Simatovic, also known as "Frenki"; Vojislav Seselj; General Blagoje Adzic; General Ratko Mladic and other known and unknown members of the Yugoslav People’s Army ("JNA"); the Serb Territorial Defence ("TO") of Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro; local and Serbian police forces ("MUP forces"), including the State Security /Drzavna bezbednost ("DB") of the Republic of Serbia, and Serb police forces of the SAO Krajina and the RSK commonly referred to as "Martic’s Police," "Marticevci," "SAO Krajina Police" or "SAO Krajina Milicija" (hereinafter "Martic’s Police"). Milan Babic participated in this joint criminal enterprise until at least February 1992."
The Indictment further states that Milan Babic acting individually and/or in concert with other members of the joint criminal enterprise participated in the joint criminal enterprise in the following ways:
"In his capacity as the President of the SNC and subsequently as President/Prime Minister in the SAO Krajina and the RSK, he formulated, promoted, participated in, and/or encouraged the development and implementation of SDS and SAO Krajina/RSK governmental policies intended to advance the objective of the joint criminal enterprise. Throughout 1991, Milan Babic attended meetings with the Serbian, SFRY and Bosnian Serb leadership defining these policies of the joint criminal enterprise and presented its positions in international negotiations."
Source: International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
South Africa's Ruling Party Struggles Within
Less than six months before South Africa's third presidential election, the ruling African National Congress is embroiled in an internal bloodletting that it seems powerless to stop. Already the volley of charges and countercharges has hurt the reputations of the deputy president and the national prosecutor. With the opening of what appears likely to become a lengthy inquiry into some of the allegations, President Thabo Mbeki may be hurt politically as well. For the last week, the South African public has focused on the juiciest aspect of the affair: the revelation that a white human rights lawyer who seemed to be a comrade in arms in the African National Congress's struggle against apartheid during the 1980's was in fact a spy for the apartheid government.
The lawyer, Vanessa Brereton, went public a week ago on South African television with a tearful confession that she had betrayed black South Africans' struggle for freedom because she was in love with a senior officer in the apartheid government's security police. As intelligence agent RS542, she said, she gave her lover and handler information about three antiapartheid activists, one of whom was later arrested and imprisoned without trial. Now living in England, Ms. Brereton said that she had apologized to those she betrayed and that she did not expect forgiveness.
But Ms. Brereton's role as an apartheid spy is but a sidelight in a poisonous battle for power between Mr. Mbeki's deputy president, Jacob Zuma, and the national prosecutor, Bulelani Ngcuka. Both men are senior members of the African National Congress, which gained more than 65 percent of the vote in the presidential election in 1999.
Mr. Ngcuka said openly in August that he suspected, but could not prove, that Mr. Zuma had benefited illegally from under-the-table dealings in a multibillion-dollar arms contract. Mr. Zuma's supporters struck back in September by accusing Mr. Ngcuka of acting as a spy -- code-named RS542 -- for the apartheid government in the last days of white rule here. That charge led Ms. Brereton to come forward because, she said, she did not want Mr. Ngcuka to suffer for her misdeeds. But Mr. Zuma's supporters have refused to back down, saying they never claimed to know the right code name for Mr. Ngcuka. Nor has the rivalry halted. Mr. Zuma has demanded a new inquiry into Mr. Ngcuka's conduct of the investigation into his role in the arms deal. In response, Mr. Ngcuka said Saturday that evidence against the deputy president would come out at the trial of an associate of Mr. Zuma's who was charged with fraud in the arms deal.
The battle has consumed the party since at least August. Mr. Mbeki's inability so far to resolve it has emboldened his detractors, who say he pays too much attention to his image as a statesman and not enough to problems at home. Mr. Mbeki reacted to the accusations against Mr. Ngcuka in early September by ordering a national commission of inquiry headed by a retired judge, Joos Hefer, to sort out the truth of the matter. That inquiry has bogged down amid reluctance by South Africa's intelligence agencies to fish through their apartheid files. ''So far, the commission is getting nowhere,'' said Shadrack Gutto, director for the Center of African Renaissance Studies at the University of South Africa. Judge Hefer is faced with a near impossible task, he said, and ''would do the nation some honor by throwing in the towel.'' However, others see the affair as evidence that South Africa's government is strong enough to chase down both corruption and possible abuse of prosecutorial power. ''This kind of thing does not happen in many countries, even in the developed world,'' said Thabisi Hoeane, a doctor of political studies at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. ''The allegations will be put out in the public eye, and we will eventually know the truth.''
Mr. Mbeki has rebuffed suggestions that Mr. Zuma should resign, saying no public official should be judged on mere allegations. Still, he has twice used his party's newsletter to lecture about the futility of hunting down the apartheid government's spies, saying South Africans closed that chapter of their history in the interest of unity. While there is little doubt that Mr. Mbeki will win re-election next spring, the affair has also given succor to Mr. Mbeki's critics -- long consigned to the status of permanent also-rans.
The leader of the Pan Africanist Congress has suggested that the nation's intelligence agencies are balking at subpoenas because they are protecting former apartheid spies within the government. The leader of the United Democratic Movement has charged that the A.N.C. labels dissenters as apartheid spies to silence them.
Source: New York Times
The lawyer, Vanessa Brereton, went public a week ago on South African television with a tearful confession that she had betrayed black South Africans' struggle for freedom because she was in love with a senior officer in the apartheid government's security police. As intelligence agent RS542, she said, she gave her lover and handler information about three antiapartheid activists, one of whom was later arrested and imprisoned without trial. Now living in England, Ms. Brereton said that she had apologized to those she betrayed and that she did not expect forgiveness.
But Ms. Brereton's role as an apartheid spy is but a sidelight in a poisonous battle for power between Mr. Mbeki's deputy president, Jacob Zuma, and the national prosecutor, Bulelani Ngcuka. Both men are senior members of the African National Congress, which gained more than 65 percent of the vote in the presidential election in 1999.
Mr. Ngcuka said openly in August that he suspected, but could not prove, that Mr. Zuma had benefited illegally from under-the-table dealings in a multibillion-dollar arms contract. Mr. Zuma's supporters struck back in September by accusing Mr. Ngcuka of acting as a spy -- code-named RS542 -- for the apartheid government in the last days of white rule here. That charge led Ms. Brereton to come forward because, she said, she did not want Mr. Ngcuka to suffer for her misdeeds. But Mr. Zuma's supporters have refused to back down, saying they never claimed to know the right code name for Mr. Ngcuka. Nor has the rivalry halted. Mr. Zuma has demanded a new inquiry into Mr. Ngcuka's conduct of the investigation into his role in the arms deal. In response, Mr. Ngcuka said Saturday that evidence against the deputy president would come out at the trial of an associate of Mr. Zuma's who was charged with fraud in the arms deal.
The battle has consumed the party since at least August. Mr. Mbeki's inability so far to resolve it has emboldened his detractors, who say he pays too much attention to his image as a statesman and not enough to problems at home. Mr. Mbeki reacted to the accusations against Mr. Ngcuka in early September by ordering a national commission of inquiry headed by a retired judge, Joos Hefer, to sort out the truth of the matter. That inquiry has bogged down amid reluctance by South Africa's intelligence agencies to fish through their apartheid files. ''So far, the commission is getting nowhere,'' said Shadrack Gutto, director for the Center of African Renaissance Studies at the University of South Africa. Judge Hefer is faced with a near impossible task, he said, and ''would do the nation some honor by throwing in the towel.'' However, others see the affair as evidence that South Africa's government is strong enough to chase down both corruption and possible abuse of prosecutorial power. ''This kind of thing does not happen in many countries, even in the developed world,'' said Thabisi Hoeane, a doctor of political studies at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. ''The allegations will be put out in the public eye, and we will eventually know the truth.''
Mr. Mbeki has rebuffed suggestions that Mr. Zuma should resign, saying no public official should be judged on mere allegations. Still, he has twice used his party's newsletter to lecture about the futility of hunting down the apartheid government's spies, saying South Africans closed that chapter of their history in the interest of unity. While there is little doubt that Mr. Mbeki will win re-election next spring, the affair has also given succor to Mr. Mbeki's critics -- long consigned to the status of permanent also-rans.
The leader of the Pan Africanist Congress has suggested that the nation's intelligence agencies are balking at subpoenas because they are protecting former apartheid spies within the government. The leader of the United Democratic Movement has charged that the A.N.C. labels dissenters as apartheid spies to silence them.
Source: New York Times
Tuesday, November 4, 2003
Kebble still pursuing case against Maduna, Ngcuka
Advocate Willem Heath yesterday strongly denied rumours that his principals, Roger and Brett Kebble, had abandoned an investigation into the alleged abuse of power by Justice Minister Penuell Maduna and National Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka. "It is completely untrue that we have dropped any of the complaints. I have been instructed by the Kebbles to investigate such abuses of power both nationally and internationally as they intend to pursue these complaints to the fullest extent,” confirmed Heath. The Kebbles hired Heath earlier this year to probe Kebble Snr's November 11, 2002, arrest at Johannesburg International Airport.
At a media briefing in July, JCI chief executive Brett Kebble insisted that gold mining company Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD) had bribed police to frame Roger Kebble for fraud. Kebble and his father have a long-running dispute with DRD and its current chairperson and chief executive, Mark Wellesley-Wood, over a series of decisions made by DRD's board in 1999 and 2000. These include a series of share transactions related to the attempted acquisition of Randfontein Estates gold mine, as well as Kebble Snr's removal from the DRD board, where he had been chairperson.
Source: Polity
At a media briefing in July, JCI chief executive Brett Kebble insisted that gold mining company Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD) had bribed police to frame Roger Kebble for fraud. Kebble and his father have a long-running dispute with DRD and its current chairperson and chief executive, Mark Wellesley-Wood, over a series of decisions made by DRD's board in 1999 and 2000. These include a series of share transactions related to the attempted acquisition of Randfontein Estates gold mine, as well as Kebble Snr's removal from the DRD board, where he had been chairperson.
Source: Polity
Monday, October 20, 2003
'I keep Mamphela's vision'
Titus Makgela does not have legs, only two short stumps that protrude through his shorts. This has not stopped the 59-year-old Limpopo man from running his own vegetable garden on the grounds of a disused clinic and selling the produce in Lenyenye near Tzaneen. His inspiration was none other than managing director responsible for human development at the World Bank, Dr Mamphela Ramphele.
When Ramphele was banished to Lenyenye in 1977 by the apartheid government because of her involvement with the Black Consciousness movement, she built the first clinic in the area.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu officially opened it in 1981 and Titus was one of Ramphele's first employees. "She was a wonderful woman," he says. "Even though I was a disabled man, she had faith in me and gave me a job. She taught me about self-reliance and to believe in myself and my ability to change my living conditions."
Today "Mamphela's clinic", as it is known in the township, has been closed because of a lack of donor funds but Titus refuses to abandon it. He is determined to carry on the vision Ramphele had. Every day he crawls to the disused clinic to tend to his vegetable garden and to keep the yard clean. "I'll never abandon the clinic. Dr. Ramphele's dream will never die," says Makgela.
Source: News 24
When Ramphele was banished to Lenyenye in 1977 by the apartheid government because of her involvement with the Black Consciousness movement, she built the first clinic in the area.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu officially opened it in 1981 and Titus was one of Ramphele's first employees. "She was a wonderful woman," he says. "Even though I was a disabled man, she had faith in me and gave me a job. She taught me about self-reliance and to believe in myself and my ability to change my living conditions."
Today "Mamphela's clinic", as it is known in the township, has been closed because of a lack of donor funds but Titus refuses to abandon it. He is determined to carry on the vision Ramphele had. Every day he crawls to the disused clinic to tend to his vegetable garden and to keep the yard clean. "I'll never abandon the clinic. Dr. Ramphele's dream will never die," says Makgela.
Source: News 24
Sunday, October 12, 2003
Penuell Maduna throws in the towel
Penuell Maduna, the embattled minister of justice, says that he will not be available to serve as a minister in President Thabo Mbeki's cabinet after next year's elections. Maduna's statement, made during an exclusive interview, follows a series of allegations against him that range from spying for the apartheid regime to nepotism and corruption in his department.
Maduna acknowledged that the African National Congress had been torn apart by allegations that Bulelani Ngcuka, the national director of public prosecutions, had been an apartheid spy. "The ANC is hurting badly," he said. "But I don't care anymore what this [battle] is doing. It has already done a lot of damage. Families are suffering. They can't take it any longer. I will serve in the ANC in any other capacity, even as a floor sweeper." Asked whether he was set to quit his ministerial post now, Maduna said: "No, I am not quitting. I will serve my full term but I will not stand again."
Maduna's extraordinary pledge could make him the first victim of the escalating political row sparked by the Scorpions' investigation into whether Deputy President Jacob Zuma solicited a R500 000 bribe from a French arms company bidding in the multibillion-rand arms deal. The row reached new heights when ANC veteran Mac Maharaj supported claims that Ngcuka, the Scorpions' chief, was an apartheid spy.
This week a judicial commission, appointed by Mbeki and headed by Judge Joos Hefer, extended its mandate to include an investigation of Maduna as the minister with line responsibility for Ngcuka's national prosecuting authority. In an interview held at a Cape Town hotel, Maduna told of his anguish and frustration following accusations from mining magnate Brett Kebble that he had abused his office as the minister responsible for the national director of public prosecutions; claims by a senior official in his department that he was guilty of nepotism and corruption in the liquidation section; and continuing charges by Patricia de Lille, the leader of the Independent Democrats, that he was on a list of ANC apartheid spies.
Maduna, clearly at the end of his tether with the barrage of allegations made against him in recent weeks, said he had promised his family that he would quit his high-profile position. "I told the president my family is saying I should resign because they cannot take it any longer," Maduna said. "Just this morning one of my brothers-in-law, Sandile Mshengu, phoned me and said all my in-laws would be very happy if this noise stopped. I repeated the promise to him."
Maduna said he would serve his full term until the elections and would not leave the ANC, which he acknowledged was torn apart by the storm around Zuma and Ngcuka. Maduna admitted that the setting up of the Hefer commission two weeks ago was an attempt to stop the bleeding in the movement, "cauterising the wound" inflicted by the continuing backstabbing, smear campaigns and allegations of spying and misuse of office. Maduna also emphatically denied media reports that he recently threatened to resign after a fight with Zuma in a cabinet meeting.
The terms of reference of the Hefer commission were broadened this week to include a probe into whether Maduna and Ngcuka misused their offices "due to past obligations to apartheid". The commission was appointed originally to investigate allegations that Ngcuka was an apartheid informer, which surfaced in the wake of his comments that there was prima facie evidence of corruption against Zuma. As minister responsible for the investigation, Maduna has increasingly been drawn into the brawl. Furious, but in fight-back mode, Maduna spoke of a month-long campaign waged against him and Ngcuka in e-mails circulated to the media and the ANC, calling the two men "untouchables" who use their offices to target people selectively. "It's utter rubbish," Maduna said.
On September 15 he received a letter from Kebble in which allegations were made and responses demanded. "One of the allegations was that Bulelani and I were being controlled by the CIA," Maduna said. "Kebble copied the letter to the president, the minister of intelligence, the minister of safety and security, to Bulelani and the national commissioner of police, in a clear campaign against me. I ignored the letter, because I thought I should not stoop so low [as to respond]."
Maduna said on Monday he received another letter from Kebble, copied to others, that repeated the allegations while adding that the justice minister received a number of gifts, including a luxury motor vehicle for his personal use. "He said the car has since been sold," Maduna said. "My car at home smokes. It will not survive the election campaign. I have never had a luxury car for personal use."
Maduna said he told Mbeki this week that while both of them were concerned about the allegations, the smear campaign should be included in the brief of Judge Hefer. "I told the president: 'You are concerned, you want clean government. Expand the commission and ask the judge to subpoena them [the accusers]. Because I have never instructed prosecutors and members of the Scorpions to target any individual.' "
Kebble, who faces prosecution by the Scorpions for alleged fraud at Western Areas mine, had sent a complaint to the public protector, accusing Ngcuka of using his position to achieve his own ends. He said this week he was not attacking Maduna, but merely informing him of problems in his department that needed to be addressed. At a news conference this week, the mining magnate also lashed out at Ngcuka for a briefing recently to black editors on the Zuma affair, where he allegedly made comments about Kebble.
Maduna also wants the Hefer commission to probe allegations made in parliament in 1997 by De Lille that he was an apartheid spy, which she recently repeated to the media. He again said he was instructing his lawyers to pursue a defamation case against her. "I am going to fight her in a separate suit," Maduna said.
On the nepotism accusations levelled against him this week by Mike Tshishonga, the deputy-director general in the justice ministry, Maduna denied he was involved in the appointment of liquidators, an issue already rectified by Pravin Gordhan, the revenue services commissioner. Maduna alleged that Tshishonga was being used by "certain circles" to which the official could be connected and hinted that Tshishonga had an axe to grind after being rapped over the knuckles for poor work performance. "Mike is the most timid public servant," he said. "At worst he is the sort of person who would not be able to box himself out of a wet paper bag. You can print that."
Source: IoL
Maduna acknowledged that the African National Congress had been torn apart by allegations that Bulelani Ngcuka, the national director of public prosecutions, had been an apartheid spy. "The ANC is hurting badly," he said. "But I don't care anymore what this [battle] is doing. It has already done a lot of damage. Families are suffering. They can't take it any longer. I will serve in the ANC in any other capacity, even as a floor sweeper." Asked whether he was set to quit his ministerial post now, Maduna said: "No, I am not quitting. I will serve my full term but I will not stand again."
Maduna's extraordinary pledge could make him the first victim of the escalating political row sparked by the Scorpions' investigation into whether Deputy President Jacob Zuma solicited a R500 000 bribe from a French arms company bidding in the multibillion-rand arms deal. The row reached new heights when ANC veteran Mac Maharaj supported claims that Ngcuka, the Scorpions' chief, was an apartheid spy.
This week a judicial commission, appointed by Mbeki and headed by Judge Joos Hefer, extended its mandate to include an investigation of Maduna as the minister with line responsibility for Ngcuka's national prosecuting authority. In an interview held at a Cape Town hotel, Maduna told of his anguish and frustration following accusations from mining magnate Brett Kebble that he had abused his office as the minister responsible for the national director of public prosecutions; claims by a senior official in his department that he was guilty of nepotism and corruption in the liquidation section; and continuing charges by Patricia de Lille, the leader of the Independent Democrats, that he was on a list of ANC apartheid spies.
Maduna, clearly at the end of his tether with the barrage of allegations made against him in recent weeks, said he had promised his family that he would quit his high-profile position. "I told the president my family is saying I should resign because they cannot take it any longer," Maduna said. "Just this morning one of my brothers-in-law, Sandile Mshengu, phoned me and said all my in-laws would be very happy if this noise stopped. I repeated the promise to him."
Maduna said he would serve his full term until the elections and would not leave the ANC, which he acknowledged was torn apart by the storm around Zuma and Ngcuka. Maduna admitted that the setting up of the Hefer commission two weeks ago was an attempt to stop the bleeding in the movement, "cauterising the wound" inflicted by the continuing backstabbing, smear campaigns and allegations of spying and misuse of office. Maduna also emphatically denied media reports that he recently threatened to resign after a fight with Zuma in a cabinet meeting.
The terms of reference of the Hefer commission were broadened this week to include a probe into whether Maduna and Ngcuka misused their offices "due to past obligations to apartheid". The commission was appointed originally to investigate allegations that Ngcuka was an apartheid informer, which surfaced in the wake of his comments that there was prima facie evidence of corruption against Zuma. As minister responsible for the investigation, Maduna has increasingly been drawn into the brawl. Furious, but in fight-back mode, Maduna spoke of a month-long campaign waged against him and Ngcuka in e-mails circulated to the media and the ANC, calling the two men "untouchables" who use their offices to target people selectively. "It's utter rubbish," Maduna said.
On September 15 he received a letter from Kebble in which allegations were made and responses demanded. "One of the allegations was that Bulelani and I were being controlled by the CIA," Maduna said. "Kebble copied the letter to the president, the minister of intelligence, the minister of safety and security, to Bulelani and the national commissioner of police, in a clear campaign against me. I ignored the letter, because I thought I should not stoop so low [as to respond]."
Maduna said on Monday he received another letter from Kebble, copied to others, that repeated the allegations while adding that the justice minister received a number of gifts, including a luxury motor vehicle for his personal use. "He said the car has since been sold," Maduna said. "My car at home smokes. It will not survive the election campaign. I have never had a luxury car for personal use."
Maduna said he told Mbeki this week that while both of them were concerned about the allegations, the smear campaign should be included in the brief of Judge Hefer. "I told the president: 'You are concerned, you want clean government. Expand the commission and ask the judge to subpoena them [the accusers]. Because I have never instructed prosecutors and members of the Scorpions to target any individual.' "
Kebble, who faces prosecution by the Scorpions for alleged fraud at Western Areas mine, had sent a complaint to the public protector, accusing Ngcuka of using his position to achieve his own ends. He said this week he was not attacking Maduna, but merely informing him of problems in his department that needed to be addressed. At a news conference this week, the mining magnate also lashed out at Ngcuka for a briefing recently to black editors on the Zuma affair, where he allegedly made comments about Kebble.
Maduna also wants the Hefer commission to probe allegations made in parliament in 1997 by De Lille that he was an apartheid spy, which she recently repeated to the media. He again said he was instructing his lawyers to pursue a defamation case against her. "I am going to fight her in a separate suit," Maduna said.
On the nepotism accusations levelled against him this week by Mike Tshishonga, the deputy-director general in the justice ministry, Maduna denied he was involved in the appointment of liquidators, an issue already rectified by Pravin Gordhan, the revenue services commissioner. Maduna alleged that Tshishonga was being used by "certain circles" to which the official could be connected and hinted that Tshishonga had an axe to grind after being rapped over the knuckles for poor work performance. "Mike is the most timid public servant," he said. "At worst he is the sort of person who would not be able to box himself out of a wet paper bag. You can print that."
Source: IoL
Friday, October 10, 2003
ANC tense as Hefer commission gets ready
Tensions in the ANC mounted at the weekend as the ruling party braced itself for a public airing of allegations from senior members that the national director of public prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka, was an apartheid spy.
It could prove to be the most testing few weeks for President Thabo Mbeki and his party since it swept to power in the country's first democratic elections in 1994 when a commission of enquiry, headed by Judge Joos Hefer, starts work on Monday.
There are fears that the ANC, which is already divided into opposing political camps over the Scorpions' investigation into Deputy President Jacob Zuma, could take further strain if those who made the accusations against Ngcuka - ANC veteran Mac Maharaj and senior government official Mo Shaik - disclose more information at the commission. There are fears that far from putting the spy controversy to rest, as it is intended to do, the commission could provide a platform for Maharaj and Shaik which could feed the tit-for-tat spy-naming and even tear the ANC apart along populist and technocrat lines. The threat of a split within the cabinet was made worse in August
It was announced by Justice minister Penuell Maduna on Thursday that the commission would be expanded to include an investigation into his own office, as line minister responsible for the national prosecuting authority, to ensure that there had been no abuse of the office as a result of "past obligations", a euphemism for spying for the apartheid regime. Zuma, who has consistently claimed that the investigation into his accepting an alleged R500 000 bribe from a French arms company is politically motivated, is expected to be called by the commission to substantiate his claims.
The fact that Zuma was the head of ANC intelligence when the organisation returned to South Africa from exile in 1990 has exacerbated the tensions and perceptions that there are two rival camps forming within the ANC over the suspended investigation into Zuma's alleged bribe. The threat of a split within the cabinet was made worse in August when Zuma allegedly won the day against Maduna when he tried to get a ruling, allegedly in line with Mbeki's wishes, that ANC officials should refrain from commenting on the Zuma affair. Between them, Zuma, as the former intelligence master, and Maharaj, as the former head of the underground Operation Vula, command widespread support within the ANC as was illustrated by Zuma's hero's welcome at Cosatu's annual conference last month and slogans denouncing Ngcuka.
Others expected to be called by the commission include Ngcuka, who is expected to attend the hearings throughout, Maduna, Maharaj, Mo Shaik, mining magnate Brett Kebble, MP Patricia de Lille, former Sunday Times journalist Ranjeni Munusamy, Schabir Shaik, Zuma's self-styled financial adviser who is facing trial on fraud charges, and, possibly a former spy master such as Niel Barnard or Mike Louw, who headed the apartheid-era National Intelligence Services. It is considered unlikely that Mbeki, who finds himself at the centre of the ANC's most bitter internal battle since coming to power in 1994, will be called to testify at the commission.
Commission sources said yesterday that it was already making provisions to sit for two months or more despite its brief to complete its work as soon as possible. It was earlier expected that the commission would sit for no longer than a month. Maduna, who himself was named as an apartheid spy when Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille read from a list of alleged ANC spies in parliament in 1997, is also under pressure for allegations of nepotism and corruption in the liquidation section of the justice department by a senior justice ministry official. Maduna also received a letter this week from mining magnate Brett Kebble in which it is understood that he accused Maduna and Ngcuka of undermining the justice department and abusing their official positions.
Kebble was allegedly named by Ngcuka in a derogatory context in an off-the-record briefing to black editors several months ago. Mbeki's legal adviser, Mojanku Gumbi, said yesterday that the inclusion of Maduna did not relate to allegations that he was an apartheid spy but was as a result of his position as the minister with line responsibility for Ngcuka's department.
Ngcuka stands accused by the likes of Maharaj, Mo Shaik and Brett Kebble of abusing his office by using it to get at his political enemies among who are those who resent his alleged role as an apartheid spy. Ngcuka has vigorously denied the claims and Mbeki has backed him up insisting that the "masses of the people" would not forgive those who made spying allegations.
Source: IoL
It could prove to be the most testing few weeks for President Thabo Mbeki and his party since it swept to power in the country's first democratic elections in 1994 when a commission of enquiry, headed by Judge Joos Hefer, starts work on Monday.
There are fears that the ANC, which is already divided into opposing political camps over the Scorpions' investigation into Deputy President Jacob Zuma, could take further strain if those who made the accusations against Ngcuka - ANC veteran Mac Maharaj and senior government official Mo Shaik - disclose more information at the commission. There are fears that far from putting the spy controversy to rest, as it is intended to do, the commission could provide a platform for Maharaj and Shaik which could feed the tit-for-tat spy-naming and even tear the ANC apart along populist and technocrat lines. The threat of a split within the cabinet was made worse in August
It was announced by Justice minister Penuell Maduna on Thursday that the commission would be expanded to include an investigation into his own office, as line minister responsible for the national prosecuting authority, to ensure that there had been no abuse of the office as a result of "past obligations", a euphemism for spying for the apartheid regime. Zuma, who has consistently claimed that the investigation into his accepting an alleged R500 000 bribe from a French arms company is politically motivated, is expected to be called by the commission to substantiate his claims.
The fact that Zuma was the head of ANC intelligence when the organisation returned to South Africa from exile in 1990 has exacerbated the tensions and perceptions that there are two rival camps forming within the ANC over the suspended investigation into Zuma's alleged bribe. The threat of a split within the cabinet was made worse in August when Zuma allegedly won the day against Maduna when he tried to get a ruling, allegedly in line with Mbeki's wishes, that ANC officials should refrain from commenting on the Zuma affair. Between them, Zuma, as the former intelligence master, and Maharaj, as the former head of the underground Operation Vula, command widespread support within the ANC as was illustrated by Zuma's hero's welcome at Cosatu's annual conference last month and slogans denouncing Ngcuka.
Others expected to be called by the commission include Ngcuka, who is expected to attend the hearings throughout, Maduna, Maharaj, Mo Shaik, mining magnate Brett Kebble, MP Patricia de Lille, former Sunday Times journalist Ranjeni Munusamy, Schabir Shaik, Zuma's self-styled financial adviser who is facing trial on fraud charges, and, possibly a former spy master such as Niel Barnard or Mike Louw, who headed the apartheid-era National Intelligence Services. It is considered unlikely that Mbeki, who finds himself at the centre of the ANC's most bitter internal battle since coming to power in 1994, will be called to testify at the commission.
Commission sources said yesterday that it was already making provisions to sit for two months or more despite its brief to complete its work as soon as possible. It was earlier expected that the commission would sit for no longer than a month. Maduna, who himself was named as an apartheid spy when Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille read from a list of alleged ANC spies in parliament in 1997, is also under pressure for allegations of nepotism and corruption in the liquidation section of the justice department by a senior justice ministry official. Maduna also received a letter this week from mining magnate Brett Kebble in which it is understood that he accused Maduna and Ngcuka of undermining the justice department and abusing their official positions.
Kebble was allegedly named by Ngcuka in a derogatory context in an off-the-record briefing to black editors several months ago. Mbeki's legal adviser, Mojanku Gumbi, said yesterday that the inclusion of Maduna did not relate to allegations that he was an apartheid spy but was as a result of his position as the minister with line responsibility for Ngcuka's department.
Ngcuka stands accused by the likes of Maharaj, Mo Shaik and Brett Kebble of abusing his office by using it to get at his political enemies among who are those who resent his alleged role as an apartheid spy. Ngcuka has vigorously denied the claims and Mbeki has backed him up insisting that the "masses of the people" would not forgive those who made spying allegations.
Source: IoL
Kebble: I may sue Ngcuka for defamation
Mining magnate Brett Kebble says he has reported National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka to the Public Protector and that he may yet sue him for defamation. "Far from being impartial, fair or upholding my constitutional rights (Ngcuka) has found me guilty without a trial and trampled on my rights," Kebble told a media conference on Thursday.
Ngcuka's statements had cost his company transactions that would have created thousands of jobs and enhanced South Africa's influence in Africa. He had filed a complaint with the Public Protector and would await the outcome of this investigation before deciding what other action to take. He had not ruled out the possibility of a defamation lawsuit, Kebble said. This follows a meeting Ngcuka had with selected newspaper editors on July 24 to brief them off the record on the progress of the investigation into allegations against Deputy President Jacob Zuma. Selected details of the briefing - including statements Ngcuka is alleged to have made about Kebble - were leaked to a weekly newspaper.
Kebble said he had not commented before as he had believed the state, especially the justice ministry, would deal with the problem. But "there has been a deafening silence from the authorities" about Ngcuka's "(abusing) his office when he addressed editors". Asked how he knew Ngcuka had made the statements reported by the weekly, Kebble said he had obtained "verification". He claimed a former associate, whom he was suing for more than R50-million he believed was owed to him, of being behind the campaign to "bring about my downfall".
Kebble faces trial on fraud charges, which he has said relate to alleged technical breaches of company regulations. Responding to Kebble's comments on Thursday, Ngcuka's office denied any wrongdoing in the criminal action against him or members of his family. "Mr Kebble will have ample opportunity to raise his concerns next week when he appears in the high court in Johannesburg to answer fraud charges relating to share price manipulation and other contraventions of the Companies Act," said the statement. It said Justice Minister Penuell Maduna had written to Kebble inviting him to put his allegations before Judge Joos Hefer's commission of inquiry, which would establish if there had been an abuse of power.
The retired judge is investigating an allegation, carried in a weekend newspaper, that Ngcuka had been an apartheid spy.
Source: IoL
Ngcuka's statements had cost his company transactions that would have created thousands of jobs and enhanced South Africa's influence in Africa. He had filed a complaint with the Public Protector and would await the outcome of this investigation before deciding what other action to take. He had not ruled out the possibility of a defamation lawsuit, Kebble said. This follows a meeting Ngcuka had with selected newspaper editors on July 24 to brief them off the record on the progress of the investigation into allegations against Deputy President Jacob Zuma. Selected details of the briefing - including statements Ngcuka is alleged to have made about Kebble - were leaked to a weekly newspaper.
Kebble said he had not commented before as he had believed the state, especially the justice ministry, would deal with the problem. But "there has been a deafening silence from the authorities" about Ngcuka's "(abusing) his office when he addressed editors". Asked how he knew Ngcuka had made the statements reported by the weekly, Kebble said he had obtained "verification". He claimed a former associate, whom he was suing for more than R50-million he believed was owed to him, of being behind the campaign to "bring about my downfall".
Kebble faces trial on fraud charges, which he has said relate to alleged technical breaches of company regulations. Responding to Kebble's comments on Thursday, Ngcuka's office denied any wrongdoing in the criminal action against him or members of his family. "Mr Kebble will have ample opportunity to raise his concerns next week when he appears in the high court in Johannesburg to answer fraud charges relating to share price manipulation and other contraventions of the Companies Act," said the statement. It said Justice Minister Penuell Maduna had written to Kebble inviting him to put his allegations before Judge Joos Hefer's commission of inquiry, which would establish if there had been an abuse of power.
The retired judge is investigating an allegation, carried in a weekend newspaper, that Ngcuka had been an apartheid spy.
Source: IoL
Friday, October 3, 2003
South Africa: report reveals dire conditions facing farm workers
A report, recently released by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), has highlighted the appalling conditions faced by South African farm workers.
The report was the result of an inquiry launched by the SAHRC in June 2001, in response to an increasing number of reports of brutality towards farm workers, execrable working and living conditions on farms, child labour practices and the ongoing murder of farmers.
The historical background to the deplorable conditions endured by South African farm workers lies generally in South Africa’s history of colonial conquest and dispossession of indigenous people, but more particularly in the 1913 Natives Land Act. This piece of legislation outlawed the ownership of land by blacks in areas designated for white ownership. Essentially, it solidified the distribution of land that emerged from the era of colonial wars against indigenous tribes and polities. It further sought to roll back black ownership of land in certain areas. The outcome was that 87 percent of land became white owned, whilst blacks were relegated to the remaining 13 percent.
According to the SAHRC report, an estimated 1.4 million people were evicted from farms in South Africa between 1950 and 1980. In 1997 the South African government promulgated the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA), aimed at protecting occupants of rural land from arbitrary evictions.
Source: World Socialist Web
The report was the result of an inquiry launched by the SAHRC in June 2001, in response to an increasing number of reports of brutality towards farm workers, execrable working and living conditions on farms, child labour practices and the ongoing murder of farmers.
The historical background to the deplorable conditions endured by South African farm workers lies generally in South Africa’s history of colonial conquest and dispossession of indigenous people, but more particularly in the 1913 Natives Land Act. This piece of legislation outlawed the ownership of land by blacks in areas designated for white ownership. Essentially, it solidified the distribution of land that emerged from the era of colonial wars against indigenous tribes and polities. It further sought to roll back black ownership of land in certain areas. The outcome was that 87 percent of land became white owned, whilst blacks were relegated to the remaining 13 percent.
According to the SAHRC report, an estimated 1.4 million people were evicted from farms in South Africa between 1950 and 1980. In 1997 the South African government promulgated the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA), aimed at protecting occupants of rural land from arbitrary evictions.
Source: World Socialist Web
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Awesome Africa
The fifth Standard Bank Awesome Africa Music Festival was held for the first time in Durban's Albert Park last weekend and has been applauded by organisers, the public and the community alike as being the best ever. The event was 100% incident free with the nearly 7 000 music lovers enjoying a feast of international and South African music in absolute safety in the most beautiful park setting, over the weekend.
"We are thrilled that the festival was such a phenomenal success," says Awesome Africa's Prof Pitika Ntuli. "We feel that we have a unique template and platform which we can develop which includes great international and local music, urban regeneration programs and job creation and tourist potential. We would like to publicly acknowledge our sponsors and partners - in particular Standard Bank, the City of Durban, KZN Tourism and iTrump - for their vision, support and commitment in making this wonderful festival happen,"
"Many people were sceptical about us moving into Albert Park, but we knew that Durban's spirit is unique. We are setting an example here for the rest of Africa" says co-ordinator Thalia Erwin.
"The festival saw some phenomenal music collaborations taking place as well as some profound and culturally astonishing music genres being showcased. Audiences had the rare opportunity of seeing the largest contingent of international and Pan African performers ever assembled together in South Africa," says Awesome Africa's Dan Chiorboli.
250 artists from 22 countries congregated in Durban for the two-day festival. Many of the artists ran workshops and master-classes prior to the Albert Park event to share their skills and experiences with locals. In particular Kwaito star Zola spent time with the children from the Thutakhani Harm Reduction Centre and was so moved by this experience, that he donated his Awesome Africa performance fee to the home.
"The festival has the potential to be one of the most significant events on the KZN calendar and it can go a long way to really putting Durban on the international musical map," said UniCity Manager, Dr Michael Sutcliffe. Albert Park is undoubtedly the most appropriate venue for this festival - welcoming the public into the spacious Albert Park goes a long way to reclaiming the park. The festival also gave the Tropicale a new lease on life - it was the perfect al-fresco jazz venue and it is hoped that it will be able to be used for similar events in the future.
Source: SA Rock Digest
"We are thrilled that the festival was such a phenomenal success," says Awesome Africa's Prof Pitika Ntuli. "We feel that we have a unique template and platform which we can develop which includes great international and local music, urban regeneration programs and job creation and tourist potential. We would like to publicly acknowledge our sponsors and partners - in particular Standard Bank, the City of Durban, KZN Tourism and iTrump - for their vision, support and commitment in making this wonderful festival happen,"
"Many people were sceptical about us moving into Albert Park, but we knew that Durban's spirit is unique. We are setting an example here for the rest of Africa" says co-ordinator Thalia Erwin.
"The festival saw some phenomenal music collaborations taking place as well as some profound and culturally astonishing music genres being showcased. Audiences had the rare opportunity of seeing the largest contingent of international and Pan African performers ever assembled together in South Africa," says Awesome Africa's Dan Chiorboli.
250 artists from 22 countries congregated in Durban for the two-day festival. Many of the artists ran workshops and master-classes prior to the Albert Park event to share their skills and experiences with locals. In particular Kwaito star Zola spent time with the children from the Thutakhani Harm Reduction Centre and was so moved by this experience, that he donated his Awesome Africa performance fee to the home.
"The festival has the potential to be one of the most significant events on the KZN calendar and it can go a long way to really putting Durban on the international musical map," said UniCity Manager, Dr Michael Sutcliffe. Albert Park is undoubtedly the most appropriate venue for this festival - welcoming the public into the spacious Albert Park goes a long way to reclaiming the park. The festival also gave the Tropicale a new lease on life - it was the perfect al-fresco jazz venue and it is hoped that it will be able to be used for similar events in the future.
Source: SA Rock Digest
Thursday, August 21, 2003
New arms-deal claim as Fakie defends report
As Auditor-General Shauket Fakie defended the final report of the arms deal investigation before Parliament on Wednesday, a new allegation emerged of irregularities in the awarding of sub-contracts.
Briefing the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), the AG maintained that media claims of omissions and "doctoring" in the final report were unfounded, and impugned the dignity of his office.
He, again, called on the watchdog committee to protect the integrity of his office.
Fakie said the draft and final reports on the probe into the multi-billion rand deal differed only in style and format, and that the executive did not, in any way, influence the content of the report.
"I want to state categorically that due process was followed and that no changes were made to the report based on pressure from the president or the executive," he said.
The deal was investigated by the AG, the Public Protector and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, who found no evidence of unlawful conduct by the state.
Scopa chairman Francois Beukman said the committee would evaluate the AG's responses, as well as a legal opinion received regarding the media allegations, before presenting a resolution to the House.
The legal opinion, commissioned by Beukman, found that claims that the final report was doctored were not unsubstantiated.
Source: Polity.org
Briefing the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), the AG maintained that media claims of omissions and "doctoring" in the final report were unfounded, and impugned the dignity of his office.
He, again, called on the watchdog committee to protect the integrity of his office.
Fakie said the draft and final reports on the probe into the multi-billion rand deal differed only in style and format, and that the executive did not, in any way, influence the content of the report.
"I want to state categorically that due process was followed and that no changes were made to the report based on pressure from the president or the executive," he said.
The deal was investigated by the AG, the Public Protector and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, who found no evidence of unlawful conduct by the state.
Scopa chairman Francois Beukman said the committee would evaluate the AG's responses, as well as a legal opinion received regarding the media allegations, before presenting a resolution to the House.
The legal opinion, commissioned by Beukman, found that claims that the final report was doctored were not unsubstantiated.
Source: Polity.org
Interim Liberian Government Head Named
Liberia's warring parties chose a mild-mannered and politically obscure businessman today to lead an interim government until 2005. Delegates from the government and two rebel factions, meeting in Accra, Ghana, chose Charles Gyude Bryant, 54, who is an Episcopal leader, a dealer in heavy equipment and the head of a minor political faction, the Liberian Action Party.
Under the accord, the chairman of the interim government -- the title will be chairman, not president -- had to be an outsider unaligned with the three warring parties. "I see myself as a healer," Mr. Bryant said in a telephone interview. "I see myself as neutral. I side with no group."
Liberia has been in almost constant conflict for 14 years, since the last president, Charles G. Taylor, a former warlord who left last week for exile in Nigeria, began fighting his way to power in 1989. Mr. Taylor's immediate successor, his vice president, Moses Blah, will resign in October.
The interim government led by Mr. Bryant is to try to help hold Liberia together until elections in October 2005. Mr. Bryant's selection came as a surprise to many diplomats and foreign officials, and to many Liberians. Many had expected the chairmanship to go to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 64, a former international banker and senior United Nations official who had led the candidates submitted by the government's negotiators to the rebel parties for their approval. But some diplomats cited last-minute maneuvering by Mr. Taylor's loyalists to block Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, who lost to Mr. Taylor in the last election Liberia held, in 1997. She said in an interview today that she would back Mr. Bryant.
Several of the Liberian delegates were injured this afternoon when the Ghana Air Force plane meant to carry them home failed to take off and its undercarriage collapsed, airport officials said. The mishap did not seriously injure any of the 44 passengers, the officials said, but it closed Accra's international airport.
In Monrovia, aid groups carefully began shipping some food into the countryside today. Fighting is continuing between government and rebel forces within 50 or 60 miles of Monrovia, despite a cease-fire. On Friday, more than 200 soldiers from Ghana are to join a West African peacekeeping force of nearly 1,000 troops, overwhelmingly from Nigeria. By October the force is to number 3,250, and the mission is to be turned over to the United Nations.
The United Nations envoy for Liberia, Jacques Klein, an American diplomat, said he would seek a mandate from the Security Council for up to 15,000 troops from all over the world to help secure the countryside so aid can reach a starving and war-weary population. There is also talk in Monrovia of a formal request to the United States to help train a Liberian army that was undermined and corrupted during Mr. Taylor's presidency.
Source: New York Times
Under the accord, the chairman of the interim government -- the title will be chairman, not president -- had to be an outsider unaligned with the three warring parties. "I see myself as a healer," Mr. Bryant said in a telephone interview. "I see myself as neutral. I side with no group."
Liberia has been in almost constant conflict for 14 years, since the last president, Charles G. Taylor, a former warlord who left last week for exile in Nigeria, began fighting his way to power in 1989. Mr. Taylor's immediate successor, his vice president, Moses Blah, will resign in October.
The interim government led by Mr. Bryant is to try to help hold Liberia together until elections in October 2005. Mr. Bryant's selection came as a surprise to many diplomats and foreign officials, and to many Liberians. Many had expected the chairmanship to go to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 64, a former international banker and senior United Nations official who had led the candidates submitted by the government's negotiators to the rebel parties for their approval. But some diplomats cited last-minute maneuvering by Mr. Taylor's loyalists to block Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, who lost to Mr. Taylor in the last election Liberia held, in 1997. She said in an interview today that she would back Mr. Bryant.
Several of the Liberian delegates were injured this afternoon when the Ghana Air Force plane meant to carry them home failed to take off and its undercarriage collapsed, airport officials said. The mishap did not seriously injure any of the 44 passengers, the officials said, but it closed Accra's international airport.
In Monrovia, aid groups carefully began shipping some food into the countryside today. Fighting is continuing between government and rebel forces within 50 or 60 miles of Monrovia, despite a cease-fire. On Friday, more than 200 soldiers from Ghana are to join a West African peacekeeping force of nearly 1,000 troops, overwhelmingly from Nigeria. By October the force is to number 3,250, and the mission is to be turned over to the United Nations.
The United Nations envoy for Liberia, Jacques Klein, an American diplomat, said he would seek a mandate from the Security Council for up to 15,000 troops from all over the world to help secure the countryside so aid can reach a starving and war-weary population. There is also talk in Monrovia of a formal request to the United States to help train a Liberian army that was undermined and corrupted during Mr. Taylor's presidency.
Source: New York Times
Monday, August 11, 2003
What the U.S. Owes Liberia
This is an article by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
When Liberians got their first chance to vote in multiparty elections, old women walked from their villages in the scorching heat to stand in long lines at the polling places. My party's symbol at the time was the rooster, and I remember the crowds lining the road to cluck and flap their elbows as a sign of support. Anyone who saw their enthusiasm, like me, could have no doubt that Liberians yearn for democracy.
That was 1985. Sadly, the military stuffed ballot boxes and burned ballots, and Samuel Doe, a sergeant who had seized power in a 1980 coup, declared himself the winner. Liberians' hopes were dashed by American recognition of the results. It is hard to imagine that Chester Crocker, the Reagan administration's assistant secretary of state for African affairs, was not being deeply ironic when he praised Doe at the time for claiming only 51 percent of the vote. It was, he said, "unheard of in the rest of Africa, where incumbent rulers normally claim victories of 95 to 100 percent."
I have been pondering that betrayal recently as I attend peace talks for my troubled country here in Accra. Founded by emancipated American slaves in 1847 as a beacon of democracy for Africa, Liberia has degenerated into a violent free-for-all. As the battle rages for our capital, Monrovia, politics has been reduced to an extended street fight among gun-toting boys. Had the United States respected the will of Liberia's voters in 1985, we would not be in the desperate straits we are today. The failure to challenge Doe's electoral fraud discredited the democratic process and paved the way for an increasingly brutal competition for power.
But we can still dare to hope. President Charles Taylor, who displays an almost psychopathic will to power and has been indicted by a United Nations-backed tribunal for war crimes in Sierra Leone, says he will step down from office today. West African states have sent peacekeepers and the United States is considering a military role. The peace talks include not just the government and the two rebel factions, but also 18 political parties and five civil society organizations.
After six frustrating weeks in Accra, I can say that the peace talks are flawed and unstructured. The process is under the direction of a mediation team from the Economic Community of West African States, and meetings take place haphazardly in ad hoc groups, with only the occasional plenary. Yet I remain optimistic that an agreement will emerge on a future transitional government. I have to, because the talks are our only way out.
Unfortunately, the United States has steadily downgraded its diplomatic presence at the Accra discussions and is now represented by a relatively junior official. This is a mistake. As the Bush administration should already have learned in Iraq, military intervention is often the easy part. The political process that follows -- call it ''nation building'' if you will -- can be much tougher.
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, recently appointed Jacques Klein as his special representative for Liberia. Because he is a former United States Foreign Service officer and a retired major general in the United States Air Force, he is seen among the Liberian parties as a virtual American envoy. Senior State Department officials are also paying increasingly frequent visits. But that is not good enough. The Bush administration should immediately dispatch a full-scale mediation team to Accra to see the process through.
If the administration does not get the politics right, any military intervention will be doomed to failure. Up to now, Washington's policy has been largely reactive. Liberia has fundamental problems to tackle if it is ever to live up to its founders' dreams of freedom and political participation. First, we need to restore hope and confidence to people subjected to despair, particularly to the thousands of young boys and girls who have been press-ganged into combat. Then we need to rebuild our institutions to ensure accountability and transparency; restructure the economic system so that it is no longer dominated by a small elite; conduct a national dialogue; and then hold elections that bring to an end our tragic tradition of rule by strongmen.
We need Washington's help to construct a credible transitional government that is interested in more than its own greed. After the betrayal of 1985, the United States owes us that much.
Source: New York Times
When Liberians got their first chance to vote in multiparty elections, old women walked from their villages in the scorching heat to stand in long lines at the polling places. My party's symbol at the time was the rooster, and I remember the crowds lining the road to cluck and flap their elbows as a sign of support. Anyone who saw their enthusiasm, like me, could have no doubt that Liberians yearn for democracy.
That was 1985. Sadly, the military stuffed ballot boxes and burned ballots, and Samuel Doe, a sergeant who had seized power in a 1980 coup, declared himself the winner. Liberians' hopes were dashed by American recognition of the results. It is hard to imagine that Chester Crocker, the Reagan administration's assistant secretary of state for African affairs, was not being deeply ironic when he praised Doe at the time for claiming only 51 percent of the vote. It was, he said, "unheard of in the rest of Africa, where incumbent rulers normally claim victories of 95 to 100 percent."
I have been pondering that betrayal recently as I attend peace talks for my troubled country here in Accra. Founded by emancipated American slaves in 1847 as a beacon of democracy for Africa, Liberia has degenerated into a violent free-for-all. As the battle rages for our capital, Monrovia, politics has been reduced to an extended street fight among gun-toting boys. Had the United States respected the will of Liberia's voters in 1985, we would not be in the desperate straits we are today. The failure to challenge Doe's electoral fraud discredited the democratic process and paved the way for an increasingly brutal competition for power.
But we can still dare to hope. President Charles Taylor, who displays an almost psychopathic will to power and has been indicted by a United Nations-backed tribunal for war crimes in Sierra Leone, says he will step down from office today. West African states have sent peacekeepers and the United States is considering a military role. The peace talks include not just the government and the two rebel factions, but also 18 political parties and five civil society organizations.
After six frustrating weeks in Accra, I can say that the peace talks are flawed and unstructured. The process is under the direction of a mediation team from the Economic Community of West African States, and meetings take place haphazardly in ad hoc groups, with only the occasional plenary. Yet I remain optimistic that an agreement will emerge on a future transitional government. I have to, because the talks are our only way out.
Unfortunately, the United States has steadily downgraded its diplomatic presence at the Accra discussions and is now represented by a relatively junior official. This is a mistake. As the Bush administration should already have learned in Iraq, military intervention is often the easy part. The political process that follows -- call it ''nation building'' if you will -- can be much tougher.
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, recently appointed Jacques Klein as his special representative for Liberia. Because he is a former United States Foreign Service officer and a retired major general in the United States Air Force, he is seen among the Liberian parties as a virtual American envoy. Senior State Department officials are also paying increasingly frequent visits. But that is not good enough. The Bush administration should immediately dispatch a full-scale mediation team to Accra to see the process through.
If the administration does not get the politics right, any military intervention will be doomed to failure. Up to now, Washington's policy has been largely reactive. Liberia has fundamental problems to tackle if it is ever to live up to its founders' dreams of freedom and political participation. First, we need to restore hope and confidence to people subjected to despair, particularly to the thousands of young boys and girls who have been press-ganged into combat. Then we need to rebuild our institutions to ensure accountability and transparency; restructure the economic system so that it is no longer dominated by a small elite; conduct a national dialogue; and then hold elections that bring to an end our tragic tradition of rule by strongmen.
We need Washington's help to construct a credible transitional government that is interested in more than its own greed. After the betrayal of 1985, the United States owes us that much.
Source: New York Times
LEADER OF LIBERIA SURRENDERS POWER AND ENTERS EXILE
Charles G. Taylor, a star player in this country's 14 years of sporadic civil war, resigned from the presidency today and left his country for exile in Nigeria. "History will be kind to me," Mr. Taylor said, addressing the crowd in a sweltering second-floor room inside the Executive Mansion that had been packed for the ceremony with Liberian politicians, three African heads of state and foreign journalists. "I have accepted this role as the sacrificial lamb."
Sounding alternately bombastic, chipper and defiant, Mr. Taylor, 55, as usual likened himself to Jesus, blamed international forces for his downfall and challenged the United States in particular to step in, now that he had done his part. President Bush called on Mr. Taylor to leave Liberia more than two months ago and made his exit a condition for any American involvement in peacekeeping here.
Dressed in white, Mr. Taylor handed over the presidency to his longtime ally and vice president, Moses Z. Blah. Mr. Blah will steer the country until a new transitional government takes over in mid-October, President John Kufuor of Ghana announced today.
Mr. Taylor, accused of spreading conflict across the region, has been under a United Nations arms embargo and has been charged with playing a role in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. "I want to thank Mr. Bush, even though we have had some disagreements," Mr. Taylor said, adding that he was confident that as a Christian, Mr. Bush would soon see the truth. "He's been misled," he offered. "God will reveal the truth to him."
The White House, under competing pressure for and against intervention to restore security to this crushed nation founded by Americans 150 years ago, has yet to decide to what extent it will engage in Liberia. Three American warships appeared on the horizon here today, apparently more for show than anything else at the moment. Two helicopters hovered from a warship to ferry supplies to the American Embassy this afternoon. "Today's departure of Charles Taylor from Liberia is an important step toward a better future for the Liberian people," Mr. Bush said in remarks this afternoon in Aurora, Colo. "The United States will work with the Liberian people and with the international community to achieve a lasting peace after more than a decade of turmoil and suffering."
It was not clear when the Americans, or the West African peacekeepers who are already on the ground here, would secure the vital Free Port of Monrovia to open the lifeline for food and fuel to the rest of the city. The port is in the hands of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, a rebel group. In Washington this afternoon, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the commander of the Marine Expeditionary Unit off Liberia's coast would come ashore, probably on Tuesday, to discuss how to assist in getting aid supplies into the port. "They have agreed to leave upon a turnover," Mr. Powell said of the rebels, adding that the West African mission in Liberia "will be in the lead." "The United States is there to see how we can assist them," he said.
Monrovians rushed to the beach at the first sight of the American ships late this afternoon. They stared out at the sea, anxious and hopeful. "We eat something now," said an optimistic Koko Wreh, 40, a resident of the rebel-held side of the city who was seeking shelter in an overflowing building on the government side. "I'm tired of fighting," said Johnson B. Sulonteh, 20, a government soldier sitting on sandbags near the beach. "I'm ready to go back to school."
Peace talks between government and two rebel factions have been under way in Ghana's capital, Accra, for more than two months. "The war in Liberia has ended," said Mr. Kufuor, the Ghanian president. Mr. Kufuor, who currently leads the regional bloc known as the Economic Community of West African States, escorted Mr. Taylor and his family to Nigeria this afternoon. Waving a white handkerchief to a crowd that rushed onto the tarmac to wave and weep, Mr. Taylor boarded a Nigerian government jet. West African officials said he was bound for the capital, Abuja. The Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had offered Mr. Taylor a safe haven.
The first of 3,250 West African troops have begun arriving in Monrovia, but so far have done little more than erect checkpoints near the Executive Mansion. A United Nations peacekeeping force is expected to take over this fall. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, at the handover ceremony today, pledged to contribute troops. "It has indeed been a shameful thing that as Africans, we have killed ourselves for such a long time"' he said. "It is indeed time this war should come to an end."
Mr. Taylor's exit, while it closes one page in Liberia's sad history, also paves the way for new challenges. The warring parties must agree on an interim government before elections can be held. The port must be opened and desperately needed aid delivered. Soldiers on both sides must be offered reasons not to pick up their guns again. Before anything, the fighters who still control their patches of the city, on opposite sides of a set of strategic bridges, must be told what to do. Confusion reigned today after Mr. Taylor's resignation, as rebels in Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, known as L.U.R.D., pranced on their part of what is called the New Bridge, and began taunting the government side's chief. Shots were fired in the air. Then, throngs of civilians from both sides tried to press through, meeting again midway, only to driven back by the gun-toting youths who rule each side. Neither side had agreed to open up the bridges.
A commander on the government side, Gus Menwon, said he was awaiting orders. His men were asking him who would take care of them now. Asked if reconciliation was possible, he first waxed optimistic, saying many fighters on the other side were his friends. But then, he added, "It's hard to trust human beings." Shots were fired in the air jubilantly this afternoon, after news came of Mr. Taylor's exit. Around sundown, chaos erupted for a little while, as rebel fighters started shooting in the air to blow off steam, witnesses said. Apparently, two of their men had been executed for killing civilians. "For us in L.U.R.D., the war is over," said the rebels' secretary general for civilian administration, Sekou Fofana.
The rebels had been rankled by the choice of Mr. Blah as president, preferring someone they considered more neutral. Today, Mr. Blah, 56, reiterated his invitation to the rebels to join the interim government. "Let the nation begin to heal," Mr. Blah said. "Let all of us unite as one people and work to peace."
Source: New York Times
Sounding alternately bombastic, chipper and defiant, Mr. Taylor, 55, as usual likened himself to Jesus, blamed international forces for his downfall and challenged the United States in particular to step in, now that he had done his part. President Bush called on Mr. Taylor to leave Liberia more than two months ago and made his exit a condition for any American involvement in peacekeeping here.
Dressed in white, Mr. Taylor handed over the presidency to his longtime ally and vice president, Moses Z. Blah. Mr. Blah will steer the country until a new transitional government takes over in mid-October, President John Kufuor of Ghana announced today.
Mr. Taylor, accused of spreading conflict across the region, has been under a United Nations arms embargo and has been charged with playing a role in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. "I want to thank Mr. Bush, even though we have had some disagreements," Mr. Taylor said, adding that he was confident that as a Christian, Mr. Bush would soon see the truth. "He's been misled," he offered. "God will reveal the truth to him."
The White House, under competing pressure for and against intervention to restore security to this crushed nation founded by Americans 150 years ago, has yet to decide to what extent it will engage in Liberia. Three American warships appeared on the horizon here today, apparently more for show than anything else at the moment. Two helicopters hovered from a warship to ferry supplies to the American Embassy this afternoon. "Today's departure of Charles Taylor from Liberia is an important step toward a better future for the Liberian people," Mr. Bush said in remarks this afternoon in Aurora, Colo. "The United States will work with the Liberian people and with the international community to achieve a lasting peace after more than a decade of turmoil and suffering."
It was not clear when the Americans, or the West African peacekeepers who are already on the ground here, would secure the vital Free Port of Monrovia to open the lifeline for food and fuel to the rest of the city. The port is in the hands of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, a rebel group. In Washington this afternoon, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the commander of the Marine Expeditionary Unit off Liberia's coast would come ashore, probably on Tuesday, to discuss how to assist in getting aid supplies into the port. "They have agreed to leave upon a turnover," Mr. Powell said of the rebels, adding that the West African mission in Liberia "will be in the lead." "The United States is there to see how we can assist them," he said.
Monrovians rushed to the beach at the first sight of the American ships late this afternoon. They stared out at the sea, anxious and hopeful. "We eat something now," said an optimistic Koko Wreh, 40, a resident of the rebel-held side of the city who was seeking shelter in an overflowing building on the government side. "I'm tired of fighting," said Johnson B. Sulonteh, 20, a government soldier sitting on sandbags near the beach. "I'm ready to go back to school."
Peace talks between government and two rebel factions have been under way in Ghana's capital, Accra, for more than two months. "The war in Liberia has ended," said Mr. Kufuor, the Ghanian president. Mr. Kufuor, who currently leads the regional bloc known as the Economic Community of West African States, escorted Mr. Taylor and his family to Nigeria this afternoon. Waving a white handkerchief to a crowd that rushed onto the tarmac to wave and weep, Mr. Taylor boarded a Nigerian government jet. West African officials said he was bound for the capital, Abuja. The Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had offered Mr. Taylor a safe haven.
The first of 3,250 West African troops have begun arriving in Monrovia, but so far have done little more than erect checkpoints near the Executive Mansion. A United Nations peacekeeping force is expected to take over this fall. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, at the handover ceremony today, pledged to contribute troops. "It has indeed been a shameful thing that as Africans, we have killed ourselves for such a long time"' he said. "It is indeed time this war should come to an end."
Mr. Taylor's exit, while it closes one page in Liberia's sad history, also paves the way for new challenges. The warring parties must agree on an interim government before elections can be held. The port must be opened and desperately needed aid delivered. Soldiers on both sides must be offered reasons not to pick up their guns again. Before anything, the fighters who still control their patches of the city, on opposite sides of a set of strategic bridges, must be told what to do. Confusion reigned today after Mr. Taylor's resignation, as rebels in Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, known as L.U.R.D., pranced on their part of what is called the New Bridge, and began taunting the government side's chief. Shots were fired in the air. Then, throngs of civilians from both sides tried to press through, meeting again midway, only to driven back by the gun-toting youths who rule each side. Neither side had agreed to open up the bridges.
A commander on the government side, Gus Menwon, said he was awaiting orders. His men were asking him who would take care of them now. Asked if reconciliation was possible, he first waxed optimistic, saying many fighters on the other side were his friends. But then, he added, "It's hard to trust human beings." Shots were fired in the air jubilantly this afternoon, after news came of Mr. Taylor's exit. Around sundown, chaos erupted for a little while, as rebel fighters started shooting in the air to blow off steam, witnesses said. Apparently, two of their men had been executed for killing civilians. "For us in L.U.R.D., the war is over," said the rebels' secretary general for civilian administration, Sekou Fofana.
The rebels had been rankled by the choice of Mr. Blah as president, preferring someone they considered more neutral. Today, Mr. Blah, 56, reiterated his invitation to the rebels to join the interim government. "Let the nation begin to heal," Mr. Blah said. "Let all of us unite as one people and work to peace."
Source: New York Times
Friday, August 8, 2003
R100m disappears from courts
A probe has been set up into about R100m suspected to have been stolen or mismanaged in a number of magistrates courts allegedly by justice department officials, the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) said on Friday. SIU head Willie Hofmeyr said the investigation would cover at least 40 courts and a bulk of these were in the rural parts of Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. "Magistrates, prosecutors and court clerks are among officials that we will be investigating," he told Sapa.
The R100m was part of a R1.5bn held in trust by the State for people to receive child maintenance through the courts and those who pay bail and traffic fines. Hofmeyr said the unit did not suspecting corruption at present because the money could have been maladministered, or in some instances just unaccounted for because of poor financial records. He said the funds could have been spent legitimately, but the SIU wanted records to this effect. He said the SIU instituted the investigation recently after the Department of Justice approached it six months ago about allegations of gross financial irregularities at courts. "We have been communicating with the department in this regard since then and we believe these allegations warrant an investigation. "So far preliminary investigations point to syndicates operating in the major cities, while bad auditing and lack of internal controls in rural areas make it easy for graft and unscrupulous officials to operate."
Hofmeyr said he was assembling a team of 25 specialist investigators, lawyers and forensic auditors. The team is scheduled to start work on September 1. "We want to get under way as soon as possible. The department has also offered us about R6m for the operation," he said. "We will be recruiting from the elite Scorpions detective unit, police and auditing firms. These people will have to resign from their current positions to concentrate fully on this probe." The investigation was expected to take about two years.
Departmental spokesperson Paul Setsetse said the probe followed a proclamation signed by President Thabo Mbeki three weeks ago. The upcoming SIU probe was preceeded by the department's internal investigation into the matter, which took place two year ago. "It took us a year to conclude our investigation because these irregularities started prior 1994 when the State used to allocate budgets to courts without monitoring them." Setsetse said currently, the department was in the process of appointing court managers to looks after funds given to courts. "We are taking responsibility away from our officials like magistrates and court clerks so that people with appropriate skills can take over the managing of these funds," he said.
Source: News 24
The R100m was part of a R1.5bn held in trust by the State for people to receive child maintenance through the courts and those who pay bail and traffic fines. Hofmeyr said the unit did not suspecting corruption at present because the money could have been maladministered, or in some instances just unaccounted for because of poor financial records. He said the funds could have been spent legitimately, but the SIU wanted records to this effect. He said the SIU instituted the investigation recently after the Department of Justice approached it six months ago about allegations of gross financial irregularities at courts. "We have been communicating with the department in this regard since then and we believe these allegations warrant an investigation. "So far preliminary investigations point to syndicates operating in the major cities, while bad auditing and lack of internal controls in rural areas make it easy for graft and unscrupulous officials to operate."
Hofmeyr said he was assembling a team of 25 specialist investigators, lawyers and forensic auditors. The team is scheduled to start work on September 1. "We want to get under way as soon as possible. The department has also offered us about R6m for the operation," he said. "We will be recruiting from the elite Scorpions detective unit, police and auditing firms. These people will have to resign from their current positions to concentrate fully on this probe." The investigation was expected to take about two years.
Departmental spokesperson Paul Setsetse said the probe followed a proclamation signed by President Thabo Mbeki three weeks ago. The upcoming SIU probe was preceeded by the department's internal investigation into the matter, which took place two year ago. "It took us a year to conclude our investigation because these irregularities started prior 1994 when the State used to allocate budgets to courts without monitoring them." Setsetse said currently, the department was in the process of appointing court managers to looks after funds given to courts. "We are taking responsibility away from our officials like magistrates and court clerks so that people with appropriate skills can take over the managing of these funds," he said.
Source: News 24
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Sierra Leone rebel leader dies
Foday Sankoh, the leader of a 10-year terror campaign in Sierra Leone, has died while waiting to be tried for war crimes. The spokesperson for the United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone told BBC News Online that he had died at 2240 GMT on Tuesday. Sources say he died from complications resulting from a stroke he suffered last year.
Sankoh founded the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) which became notorious for mass rape and hacking off the hands, feet, ears and noses of thousands of civilians during a 10-year civil war, which ended last year. He was detained in 2000 and is believed to have died in Choithrams hospital in western Freetown where he has been since April after suffering a partial stroke.
According to a statement from the Special Court for Sierra Leone's chief prosecutor, David Crane, Sankoh's death from natural causes granted him "a peaceful end that he denied to so many others".
The court last week rejected a request to drop murder charges against him on health grounds. In June court registrar Robin Vincent said the tribunal had hoped to send him abroad for medical treatment. However, the court had then reported that it could not find a country that was willing to accept the rebel leader even for short-term treatment. At one court hearing last year, he said he was "surprised that I am being tried because I am the leader of the world". Earlier this month doctors treating Sankoh said he was in a "catatonic state" - incapable of walking, talking or even of feeding himself and he could not recognise his immediate surroundings.
Sankoh, like President Charles Taylor of neighbouring Liberia, trained in the guerrilla camps of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He was captured after his fighters shot more than a dozen protesters outside his Freetown home in 2000. The war in Sierra Leone was formally declared over in 2002 following military intervention by the UK and the UN.
Source: BBC
Sankoh founded the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) which became notorious for mass rape and hacking off the hands, feet, ears and noses of thousands of civilians during a 10-year civil war, which ended last year. He was detained in 2000 and is believed to have died in Choithrams hospital in western Freetown where he has been since April after suffering a partial stroke.
According to a statement from the Special Court for Sierra Leone's chief prosecutor, David Crane, Sankoh's death from natural causes granted him "a peaceful end that he denied to so many others".
The court last week rejected a request to drop murder charges against him on health grounds. In June court registrar Robin Vincent said the tribunal had hoped to send him abroad for medical treatment. However, the court had then reported that it could not find a country that was willing to accept the rebel leader even for short-term treatment. At one court hearing last year, he said he was "surprised that I am being tried because I am the leader of the world". Earlier this month doctors treating Sankoh said he was in a "catatonic state" - incapable of walking, talking or even of feeding himself and he could not recognise his immediate surroundings.
Sankoh, like President Charles Taylor of neighbouring Liberia, trained in the guerrilla camps of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He was captured after his fighters shot more than a dozen protesters outside his Freetown home in 2000. The war in Sierra Leone was formally declared over in 2002 following military intervention by the UK and the UN.
Source: BBC
Friday, July 18, 2003
HRC says 'kill boer' slogan is hate speech
It's official. The slogan "kill the farmer, kill the boer" is hate speech, according to a finding of an appeal tribunal of the South African Human Rights Commission. Thursday's finding came after a complaint from the Freedom Front (FF) about the use of the slogan - and an appeal against an earlier commission finding that the phrase was not hate speech. "Even though we had to struggle for three years, we welcome the finding. Finally they came to the right conclusion," said FF leader Pieter Mulder.
Declaring the slogan to be hate speech was a first step in the right direction to stop farm killings, Mulder said. "The first finding had double standards because it meant racism was only wrong when it was by whites to blacks, but now we know that it is also wrong for blacks to be racist against whites," said Mulder.
The party lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission in Johannesburg after African National Congress members used the slogan during two public meetings in June last year. One was at the funeral of ANC MP Peter Mokaba in Polokwane, and the other at an ANC youth rally in Kimberley. Earlier this year, the commission said the slogan did not constitute hate speech, but was an instance, although an undesirable one, of the right to freedom of expression. The Freedom Front appealed against the finding. "The slogan 'kill the farmer, kill the boer' as chanted at an ANC youth rally in Kimberley and at Mokaba's funeral is hate speech as defined in Section 16(2)(c) of the Constitution," said commissioner Karthy Govender.
He said freedom of expression was a fundamental right in democracy but by the same token South African courts were clear that the freedom of expression was not a supreme right as in the United States constitution. "We have concluded that the calling for the killing of a group of people is an advocacy of hatred, which must amount to harm," he said.
Simon Kimane, of the Freedom of Expression Institute, expressed disappointment with the finding. "There is no causal connection between the slogan and any actual killings of Afrikaners in this country," he said. He said the institution's submission had pleaded for the right of freedom of expression for the young South African democracy, and that the institution feared that the finding might set a bad precedent.
ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said "kill the farmer, kill the boer" was never an adopted slogan of his party. "The ANC will discourage people from using the slogan," he said.
Source: IoL
Declaring the slogan to be hate speech was a first step in the right direction to stop farm killings, Mulder said. "The first finding had double standards because it meant racism was only wrong when it was by whites to blacks, but now we know that it is also wrong for blacks to be racist against whites," said Mulder.
The party lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission in Johannesburg after African National Congress members used the slogan during two public meetings in June last year. One was at the funeral of ANC MP Peter Mokaba in Polokwane, and the other at an ANC youth rally in Kimberley. Earlier this year, the commission said the slogan did not constitute hate speech, but was an instance, although an undesirable one, of the right to freedom of expression. The Freedom Front appealed against the finding. "The slogan 'kill the farmer, kill the boer' as chanted at an ANC youth rally in Kimberley and at Mokaba's funeral is hate speech as defined in Section 16(2)(c) of the Constitution," said commissioner Karthy Govender.
He said freedom of expression was a fundamental right in democracy but by the same token South African courts were clear that the freedom of expression was not a supreme right as in the United States constitution. "We have concluded that the calling for the killing of a group of people is an advocacy of hatred, which must amount to harm," he said.
Simon Kimane, of the Freedom of Expression Institute, expressed disappointment with the finding. "There is no causal connection between the slogan and any actual killings of Afrikaners in this country," he said. He said the institution's submission had pleaded for the right of freedom of expression for the young South African democracy, and that the institution feared that the finding might set a bad precedent.
ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said "kill the farmer, kill the boer" was never an adopted slogan of his party. "The ANC will discourage people from using the slogan," he said.
Source: IoL
Monday, July 7, 2003
Ethnically Targeted Violence in Northern DRC
The war in Congo has been misdescribed as a local ethnic rivalry when in fact it represents an ongoing struggle for power at the national and international levels, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The 57-page report, ‘Covered in Blood’: Ethnically Targeted Violence in Northern DR Congo, provides evidence that combatants in the Ituri region of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have slaughtered some five thousand civilians in the last year because of their ethnic affiliation. But the combatants are armed and often directed by the governments of the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda. A number of treaties and ceasefires, the most recent signed in Burundi on June 19, have supposedly ended the conflict between the governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC, as well as Congolese rebel movements set to share power with the Kinshasa government. But the minor players—often the proxies for the principals—continue the war.
Source: Human Rights watch
Source: Human Rights watch
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Cgao Coma - bridging ancient and modern
MODERNITY meets iron age in Tsumkwe this weekend as the San community in this isolated part of eastern Namibia and international film-makers lay to rest one of the Kalahari desert's greatest sons. In death, as in life, Cgao Coma, Namibia's most famous actor, will be a bridge between the thousands of years old hunter-gatherer culture of the Bushmen and western civilisation.
He will be buried on Saturday in a semi-traditional ceremony at Tsumkwe, alongside his second wife. While in years past the Bushmen buried their dead and moved on to find new dwellings, Coma's family is expected to stay close to his resting place. The actor of the world famous 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' movies died while hunting in the desert last week Tuesday.
Official records say he was 59 years old, but he did not know his exact age. Many people believe he was older. By the time he died Coma had all but given up the modern way of life, having sold his brick house at Tsumkwe to live with his family in traditional huts in a village outside the capital of former Bushmanland.
According to Government records, Coma was born at Tsumkwe on December 16 1944. His mother tongue was Ju/'hoansi. He spoke Otjiherero and Tswana fluently, but his Afrikaans was not so good. He could not read or write, as is the case with most of the San.
The San are an indigenous hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa. Most live in the Kalahari. They number about 100 000. In the early 1980s, film director Jamie Uys of Mimosa Films in South Africa found the perfect natural actor in Coma to symbolise how the outside world has affected the San. "Uncle Jamie (Uys) told me the richness of Cgao," Dutch Reformed Church minister Peet Poggenpoel said. "He had a natural feeling for acting. What we must remember is that Cgao is a real actor".
Uys told Poggenpoel that Coma would often politely disregard the directors' instructions, and act "naturally", giving the movie authenticity. Reports say Uys was only the fourth white person Coma had met and he had never seen a settlement larger than the village of huts of his San people before he was cast in the film.
By the mid-1980s, Coma was world famous. 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' propelled him to international stardom and started his voyage of discovery in western culture.
Through the movies he became known as N!xau or N!Gau, as outsiders attempted to spell a name known only in the phonetic clicking sounds of his Ju/'hoansi language Some reports say the film grossed US$66 million (N$508 million at today's exchange rate) at the box office. Unappreciative of the immense value of money in a material world, Coma let his first wages waste away. Legend has it that he even left huge wads of cash to be blown away by the wind or eaten by hyenas.
Future earnings were better taken care of, between himself and the film company, said Geoffrey Gomme, a relative. Poggenpoel, who lived at Tsumkwe for nine years, said Coma received the money through his church. "The change that came with being cast was great but he did not have the skills to manage his income. He did not know how much he got from the films," said Gomme.
With some of his first income, Coma bought cattle that lions devoured. He bought a Chevrolet F250 and hired a driver at R150 a month, but sold it later to buy more livestock. In the 1990s, with the help of Mimosa, Coma built his first brick house. It was a three-bedroom house, fully furnished. Gomme said the actor's relatives descended on the house - as many as 30 at once - to share in the wealth. Over the years, they began to sell chairs, fridges, beds and cupboards. "After his wife passed away relatives were selling the furniture for alcohol," said Gomme.
Coma sold the house at the beginning of this year because he felt his relatives were abusing it. A local businessman paid him 20 herd of cattle, five calves, and N$20 000 in a mixture of banknotes and groceries. The family say the house was valued at N$80 000, but did not say when the valuation was made.
Coma then moved to Djokhoe, a village 27 km east of Tsumkwe. His wealth consisted of 21 cattle, 11 sheep, two horses, two bicycles, two spades, two rakes and five axes, including three traditional ones that he made himself. It is not clear how much cash is left in his estate.
A few years ago, Coma said he was getting N$2 000 a month from an investment Mimosa managed for him. Despite the money, Coma did not want to drift from his roots. "Mimosa stored his clothes at the church. When he went to big cities we would get the clothes so he can go there looking neat," said Poggenpoel.
Gomme described the actor's life as "between ordinary person and a poor man. He did not show he had lots of money". Coma himself had told NBC-TV that he preferred to behave as if he were poor, because he feared people might use witchcraft to obtain his wealth. His community saw him as a humble person. Poggenpoel remembers him as a jolly man, who always laughed - "not smile, but laugh".
In the mid-1990s, tuberculosis befell the diminutive actor. He was in and out of hospital as a State patient. His death certificate said he died of "multi-drug resistant" TB.
On Monday last week, he woke up at 06h00 as usual, collected firewood and made tea that he sipped with his father-in-law. He took his bird traps, bow and arrow and a hunting pouch and set off to hunt, his main target being guinea fowl. He did not come back that day. Coma's father-in-law tracked his spoor the next morning and found him on a path back home, bow and arrow still strapped to his shoulder.
Coma had nine children and one step-child from three marriages. Two children died, as did two of his wives. A volunteer in the community, Anthony Tsanigab, said Coma's burial will be huge by San standards. Tsanigab said Coma will be buried differently from tradition because "he was a modern man to them".
Poggenpoel recalled that Coma was extremely popular in Japan. "They had to organise the police to protect him. In Namibia we did not know what a what a big actor we had in Cgao".
Source: The Namibian
Monday, June 16, 2003
Investigating the foundations of equality
Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke and Equality, Cambridge University Press, 2002
Professor Jeremy Waldron’s latest book is an examination of the theory of equality put forward by the seventeenth century English philosopher John Locke. This is a subject that is highly relevant today as the widening social gulf between the super rich and the rest of the population increasingly undermines the political institutions that have been based on the maintenance of at least a measure of social and economic equality. Under these conditions a study of equality as a theoretical principle is to be welcomed.
Locke has some claim to be one of the key sources of modern theories of equality and any discussion of the political implications of social inequality needs to be well grounded in his work. In his Two Treatises of Government Locke maintained that all men were naturally in a state of perfect liberty and equality. He envisaged that by common consent they had agreed to join together into a political or civil society, which ought to be governed by majority decisions. On entering civil society they granted their right to enforce justice to some form of government but they retained the right to resist this government and, if necessary, to overthrow it by force of arms.
The fact that almost a century after his death American revolutionaries could regard it as self-evident that all men were equal was in large part due to Locke’s influence. Whole phrases from the Second Treatise appear in the Declaration of Independence, as though Thomas Jefferson either had the book open on his desk as he drafted the document or had so thoroughly internalised its ethos that its language came most naturally to him. Even when he changes Locke’s words, as when he substitutes “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” for Locke’s “Life, Liberty and Property”, Jefferson shows a profound understanding of Locke’s thought and the way in which it needed to be modified to make it most relevant for his own times. In this form the ideas that Locke defended became part of the subsequent development of democratic theory.
This history makes Locke the inescapable starting point for any consideration of equality as a modern political concept, but at the same time he himself is not a modern thinker. He was born in 1632 and grew up during the English Civil War (1642-48), was at school in Westminster when Charles I was executed a few hundred yards away and went to Christ Church College, Oxford just after the victorious parliamentary forces had purged the academic staff. His youth and early adulthood experiences were shaped by a political struggle that was expressed in a religious form and in which the Bible was regarded as a political handbook. Often this historical background to Locke’s thought is elided in the works of modern political theorists, but it certainly influences his thinking since for Locke human beings are equal because they are made in the image of God and are all sent into the world to do his business. Waldron’s book attempts to reinstate the religious foundations of Locke’s political theory in what he aims to make an historically sensitive account.
In recognising that the roots of Locke’s thought lie to a great extent in the revolutionary struggles of the English Civil War, Waldron is able to give more emphasis than is often the case to the radical aspects of his writings that are easily obscured when he is seen in a later context. Waldron recognises Locke’s debt to the most plebeian elements of the English revolution and thinks that he is closer to the Levellers than is often supposed. He rejects the argument put forward by C. B. Macpherson who suggested that Locke thought, “members of the laboring class do not and cannot live a fully rational life.” [1]
Locke has a very distinctive view of labour that relates both to his political and economic theories. Labour, for Locke, is the source of value and the basis of property rights since people could, in his view, only own that which they had appropriated through their labour. Waldron traces Locke’s conception of labour to his religious outlook, specifically to his attitude to the Fall of Man. Waldron quotes Locke’s comment that when Adam was expelled from Paradise, “God sets him to work for his living, and seems rather to give him a Spade into his hands, to subdue the Earth, than a Scepter to Rule over its Inhabitants.”
Rather than being doomed to a state of original sin, humanity is obliged to work for a living in Locke’s version of the Fall from Paradise.
The picture of Locke that emerges from Waldron’s pages is not of a defender of the seventeenth century status quo, but of someone who was prepared to challenge orthodox ideas and the existing property relations. Ever since the Putney debates of 1647 the way in which economic inequality inevitably undermines political equality had remained an insoluble problem that the Levellers had never managed to resolve. Waldron sets Locke’s discussion of equality in the context of this seventeenth century debate about the relationship between political and economic equality. He concludes that Locke seems to have regarded an unequal distribution of property as inevitable in an economy based on money, but that he was critical of the English inheritance customs that tended to produce large landed estates. He favoured the division of property among heirs, a practice that, it was thought, would result in a more equitable division of land.
So fundamental are Locke’s religious conceptions to his political and economic ideas, Waldron argues, that “bracketing off the God stuff from the equality stuff” is simply not going to work. This is true to the extent that for Locke the idea of equality is logically derived from God since all human beings are equal because they have been divinely created. But does this mean that we cannot separate the principle of equality from the theological character it has in Locke’s thought? It is significant that even before Locke’s death in 1704 editions of his Two Treatises appeared in France without the First Treatise, which was the most explicitly religious of the two. It was this French version of the work that was eventually translated and published in America. Locke is in this sense very much a transitional figure who stands between the religiously based conceptions of the English Civil War and the increasingly secular arguments for equality that emerge in the American and French revolutions. “Bracketing off the God stuff from the equality stuff “ is exactly what did happen to Locke’s theory in practice.
Waldron’s determination not to separate Locke’s theory of equality from its theological foundations casts an interesting light on the direction of liberal thought at the turn of the twentieth century. John Rawls, the political theorist who died earlier this year, drew on the work of Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Mill to develop a political theory that was highly influential throughout the post-war period. He always argued that it must be possible to defend the principle of equality in terms that all members of society, whether religious or secular, could accept and find compelling because there existed an overlapping consensus of ideas. For Rawls all individuals are equal because they have a sense of justice and a conception of the good and because they have the ability to reason.[2]
Waldron used to accept this argument 20 years ago, he writes, but now finds that he cannot and doubts that a non-religious foundation for the principle of equality is viable.
This shift reflects the fact that 20 years ago it was possible for Rawls or Waldron to take for granted a certain consensus on fundamental political principles. There might be sharp differences in their practical application, but principles such as equality were accepted by the right and left in mainstream political life. This is no longer the case today and it has become impossible to base a liberal political philosophy on the assumption that the principle of equality can be taken for granted.
The theological basis that Locke found for equality is certainly not adequate for the beginning of the twenty-first century, a fact that the traditional liberal theory of equality always recognised and so tried to find a generally acceptable secular theory. To attempt to return to a theological conception of equality at this point would be entirely retrogressive.
Waldron does not examine the foundations of equality in the present day or elaborate a theory of his own that goes beyond a rather tentative critique of Rawls and gives the impression of floundering when he suggests that the justification of the principle of equality must exist at some “deeper level”. It is to his credit that he insists that individuals were inherently worthy of respect in late seventeenth century and they are inherently worthy of respect in the twenty-first century too, but having rejected Rawls’ mid-twentieth century liberalism he seems to have cut himself adrift from any theoretical anchor points for this conviction.
While Waldron’s close focus has some definite advantages because it sets Locke’s thought in an appropriate historical context, it is not sufficient in studying such an influential figure or in exploring such a complex concept as equality, which has a profound resonance over a long historical period. One of the features that Waldron himself emphasises about Locke’s thought is that he wrote in a pre-Linnaean, pre-Darwinian world in which evolutionary or historical arguments had no explanatory force. This is extremely important for understanding Locke because our thought has been so thoroughly infused with historical and evolutionary concepts in the course of the last 300 years that it is often difficult to put ourselves into Locke’s mental world.
We think of species as evolving, societies as evolving and ideas as evolving in a way that Locke did not.
There is, however, no reason why we should artificially confine ourselves to Locke’s mental world and deprive ourselves of a whole range of more modern intellectual equipment in reaching an understanding of his thought. Writing in a world before Vico and Herder, before Hegel and certainly before Darwin and Marx, an historical understanding of the principle of equality was not open to Locke but it is to us. We have to step outside Locke’s essentially a-historical worldview, in which equality existed as a timeless principle based on divine dispensation and an unchanging human nature, and adopt a more historical approach than the one either Locke or Waldron offers us.
The problem is not just that Locke’s theological theory is inadequate today, but that it was philosophically inadequate in the seventeenth century too. God’s opinions are so notoriously varied that they have never made a sound basis for philosophy. In John Locke’s mind God may have created all men equal but many of his contemporaries were just as sincerely convinced that God had ordained inequality since he had given kings a divine right to rule over their subjects. Why then did the theory of equality become so powerful?
Equality could only have become a self-evident idea because it made sense in terms of the experience of a great many people. This may seem anomalous in a world that was dominated by absolute monarchies, in which there were immense socio-economic divisions and when most people’s daily experience was of inequality not equality. Landlord and tenant, master and servant, king and subject—these were the relationships that governed the majority of people’s lives in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even Locke himself accepted a system in which political rights were proportionate to landholding and slavery was legally recognised when he helped to draft the constitution of colonial Carolina.
Despite this social reality the concept of equality had deep roots and a complex history. It had always led a double life as both part of the official Christian ideology of natural rights theology that was developed by Thomas Aquinas and part of the ideology of plebeian heresy and rebellion.
The Reformation (1516) and the German Peasant War (1524-6) lent it a powerful impetus, as did the French Wars of Religion (1562-98). One of the conclusions drawn from the Thirty Years War (1618-48) was that the only way to maintain social peace was to treat everyone as though they were equal. Under the impact of these political experiences and the economic developments connected with European colonial expansion, the old scholastic theory of natural law and natural rights was dusted off and revived in a modern form that placed greater emphasis on the political implications of equality and the active right of resistance.
The political ideas expressed in Locke’s Two Treatises represent a codification of the principles of equality and resistance, which had emerged in a practical and unsystematic way in the course of the struggle against King Charles I. They retained a continuing relevance after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 when it became clear that the king was moving in an absolutist direction as, fortified with subsidies from Louis XIV, Charles II found that he could afford to ignore Parliament and insist on the succession of his brother James II, who was a Roman Catholic. This directly threatened the lives, liberties and properties of Protestant Englishmen who feared that the religious orders would claim back their estates, that they would be excluded from office and that a programme of persecution would be instituted as it had been under Mary Tudor.
Under these circumstances the alliance of wealthy merchants and landlords with more radical urban artisans that had played an important role in the Civil War re-emerged. Locke was very much part of this loose movement that came to be identified as the Whigs.
One of Locke’s practical political actions was organising the legal defence of Stephen College, “the Whig joiner”, when he was on trial for his life in Oxford on charges of sedition. The Two Treatises was part of a whole body of Whig literature that included Algernon Sydney’s Discourse Concerning Government—which also had an impact on the American Revolution. Sydney was convicted of treason and executed for his involvement on the strength of the views he expressed in the Discourses. Locke was more fortunate but he expressed similar ideas in the Two Treatises.
Locke has been thought of as exclusively the spokesman for the wealthy merchants and landlords, but his conception that the poor have the right to take what they need from the surplus of the rich is incompatible with any accepted notions of capitalist economics. Locke certainly is a spokesman of these privileged groups, but at the same time he speaks for their supporters among the labourers and artisans. Waldron is right to identify Locke with the Levellers. Indeed Locke is not so far from the more radical Diggers in advocating that the poor should be allowed to dig up common land and that the rich should not be allowed to engross more land than they can use.
Locke’s political ideas reflect the alliance of classes that jointly opposed the drive to absolutism in mid and late seventeenth century England. We may recognise these classes as having inherently incompatible interests, but Locke did not. He expressed a compromise between class interests, but one that rapidly became untenable.
Within a comparatively short space of time the Whigs became the party of the establishment, maintaining power through a system of corruption, and their revolutionary past was transformed into an assertion of the ancient rights of Englishmen—propertied ones in particular. Locke is often identified with this later Whig tradition, but he never attempts to justify revolution on the grounds that Englishmen could claim certain rights under an ancient constitution. His arguments in The Two Treatises are always universalist in nature and point toward the Enlightenment tradition of natural rights rather than to the constitutional tradition of ancient prerogative and privilege. Locke’s arguments are far more theological in character than later theories of natural rights were to be because he effectively bridges the transition between the religious ideology of the English Civil War and the later American and French Revolutions, where if God appears at all it is in the guise of the “God of Nature”.
God, Locke and Equality is a valuable contribution to the debate about the origins of the modern conception of equality because it recognises the radical aspect of Locke’s thought and his connection with a revolutionary tradition, but it demands to be taken further.
Locke’s conception of God, a conception that was far from satisfactory to the orthodox thinkers of his day, was a philosophical portmanteau—which, if unpacked, we would find contained some highly material historical content. In it we could trace the influence of the history of European wars, religious conflicts and revolutions on his thought and in addition identify the new scientific developments of the age that encouraged him to adopt an anthropological approach to political and religious questions. Professor Waldron has left the bag packed.
Notes:
[1] C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism pp.232.
[2] John Rawls, Political Liberalism, p19
Source: World Socialist Web Site
Professor Jeremy Waldron’s latest book is an examination of the theory of equality put forward by the seventeenth century English philosopher John Locke. This is a subject that is highly relevant today as the widening social gulf between the super rich and the rest of the population increasingly undermines the political institutions that have been based on the maintenance of at least a measure of social and economic equality. Under these conditions a study of equality as a theoretical principle is to be welcomed.
Locke has some claim to be one of the key sources of modern theories of equality and any discussion of the political implications of social inequality needs to be well grounded in his work. In his Two Treatises of Government Locke maintained that all men were naturally in a state of perfect liberty and equality. He envisaged that by common consent they had agreed to join together into a political or civil society, which ought to be governed by majority decisions. On entering civil society they granted their right to enforce justice to some form of government but they retained the right to resist this government and, if necessary, to overthrow it by force of arms.
The fact that almost a century after his death American revolutionaries could regard it as self-evident that all men were equal was in large part due to Locke’s influence. Whole phrases from the Second Treatise appear in the Declaration of Independence, as though Thomas Jefferson either had the book open on his desk as he drafted the document or had so thoroughly internalised its ethos that its language came most naturally to him. Even when he changes Locke’s words, as when he substitutes “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” for Locke’s “Life, Liberty and Property”, Jefferson shows a profound understanding of Locke’s thought and the way in which it needed to be modified to make it most relevant for his own times. In this form the ideas that Locke defended became part of the subsequent development of democratic theory.
This history makes Locke the inescapable starting point for any consideration of equality as a modern political concept, but at the same time he himself is not a modern thinker. He was born in 1632 and grew up during the English Civil War (1642-48), was at school in Westminster when Charles I was executed a few hundred yards away and went to Christ Church College, Oxford just after the victorious parliamentary forces had purged the academic staff. His youth and early adulthood experiences were shaped by a political struggle that was expressed in a religious form and in which the Bible was regarded as a political handbook. Often this historical background to Locke’s thought is elided in the works of modern political theorists, but it certainly influences his thinking since for Locke human beings are equal because they are made in the image of God and are all sent into the world to do his business. Waldron’s book attempts to reinstate the religious foundations of Locke’s political theory in what he aims to make an historically sensitive account.
In recognising that the roots of Locke’s thought lie to a great extent in the revolutionary struggles of the English Civil War, Waldron is able to give more emphasis than is often the case to the radical aspects of his writings that are easily obscured when he is seen in a later context. Waldron recognises Locke’s debt to the most plebeian elements of the English revolution and thinks that he is closer to the Levellers than is often supposed. He rejects the argument put forward by C. B. Macpherson who suggested that Locke thought, “members of the laboring class do not and cannot live a fully rational life.” [1]
Locke has a very distinctive view of labour that relates both to his political and economic theories. Labour, for Locke, is the source of value and the basis of property rights since people could, in his view, only own that which they had appropriated through their labour. Waldron traces Locke’s conception of labour to his religious outlook, specifically to his attitude to the Fall of Man. Waldron quotes Locke’s comment that when Adam was expelled from Paradise, “God sets him to work for his living, and seems rather to give him a Spade into his hands, to subdue the Earth, than a Scepter to Rule over its Inhabitants.”
Rather than being doomed to a state of original sin, humanity is obliged to work for a living in Locke’s version of the Fall from Paradise.
The picture of Locke that emerges from Waldron’s pages is not of a defender of the seventeenth century status quo, but of someone who was prepared to challenge orthodox ideas and the existing property relations. Ever since the Putney debates of 1647 the way in which economic inequality inevitably undermines political equality had remained an insoluble problem that the Levellers had never managed to resolve. Waldron sets Locke’s discussion of equality in the context of this seventeenth century debate about the relationship between political and economic equality. He concludes that Locke seems to have regarded an unequal distribution of property as inevitable in an economy based on money, but that he was critical of the English inheritance customs that tended to produce large landed estates. He favoured the division of property among heirs, a practice that, it was thought, would result in a more equitable division of land.
So fundamental are Locke’s religious conceptions to his political and economic ideas, Waldron argues, that “bracketing off the God stuff from the equality stuff” is simply not going to work. This is true to the extent that for Locke the idea of equality is logically derived from God since all human beings are equal because they have been divinely created. But does this mean that we cannot separate the principle of equality from the theological character it has in Locke’s thought? It is significant that even before Locke’s death in 1704 editions of his Two Treatises appeared in France without the First Treatise, which was the most explicitly religious of the two. It was this French version of the work that was eventually translated and published in America. Locke is in this sense very much a transitional figure who stands between the religiously based conceptions of the English Civil War and the increasingly secular arguments for equality that emerge in the American and French revolutions. “Bracketing off the God stuff from the equality stuff “ is exactly what did happen to Locke’s theory in practice.
Waldron’s determination not to separate Locke’s theory of equality from its theological foundations casts an interesting light on the direction of liberal thought at the turn of the twentieth century. John Rawls, the political theorist who died earlier this year, drew on the work of Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Mill to develop a political theory that was highly influential throughout the post-war period. He always argued that it must be possible to defend the principle of equality in terms that all members of society, whether religious or secular, could accept and find compelling because there existed an overlapping consensus of ideas. For Rawls all individuals are equal because they have a sense of justice and a conception of the good and because they have the ability to reason.[2]
Waldron used to accept this argument 20 years ago, he writes, but now finds that he cannot and doubts that a non-religious foundation for the principle of equality is viable.
This shift reflects the fact that 20 years ago it was possible for Rawls or Waldron to take for granted a certain consensus on fundamental political principles. There might be sharp differences in their practical application, but principles such as equality were accepted by the right and left in mainstream political life. This is no longer the case today and it has become impossible to base a liberal political philosophy on the assumption that the principle of equality can be taken for granted.
The theological basis that Locke found for equality is certainly not adequate for the beginning of the twenty-first century, a fact that the traditional liberal theory of equality always recognised and so tried to find a generally acceptable secular theory. To attempt to return to a theological conception of equality at this point would be entirely retrogressive.
Waldron does not examine the foundations of equality in the present day or elaborate a theory of his own that goes beyond a rather tentative critique of Rawls and gives the impression of floundering when he suggests that the justification of the principle of equality must exist at some “deeper level”. It is to his credit that he insists that individuals were inherently worthy of respect in late seventeenth century and they are inherently worthy of respect in the twenty-first century too, but having rejected Rawls’ mid-twentieth century liberalism he seems to have cut himself adrift from any theoretical anchor points for this conviction.
While Waldron’s close focus has some definite advantages because it sets Locke’s thought in an appropriate historical context, it is not sufficient in studying such an influential figure or in exploring such a complex concept as equality, which has a profound resonance over a long historical period. One of the features that Waldron himself emphasises about Locke’s thought is that he wrote in a pre-Linnaean, pre-Darwinian world in which evolutionary or historical arguments had no explanatory force. This is extremely important for understanding Locke because our thought has been so thoroughly infused with historical and evolutionary concepts in the course of the last 300 years that it is often difficult to put ourselves into Locke’s mental world.
We think of species as evolving, societies as evolving and ideas as evolving in a way that Locke did not.
There is, however, no reason why we should artificially confine ourselves to Locke’s mental world and deprive ourselves of a whole range of more modern intellectual equipment in reaching an understanding of his thought. Writing in a world before Vico and Herder, before Hegel and certainly before Darwin and Marx, an historical understanding of the principle of equality was not open to Locke but it is to us. We have to step outside Locke’s essentially a-historical worldview, in which equality existed as a timeless principle based on divine dispensation and an unchanging human nature, and adopt a more historical approach than the one either Locke or Waldron offers us.
The problem is not just that Locke’s theological theory is inadequate today, but that it was philosophically inadequate in the seventeenth century too. God’s opinions are so notoriously varied that they have never made a sound basis for philosophy. In John Locke’s mind God may have created all men equal but many of his contemporaries were just as sincerely convinced that God had ordained inequality since he had given kings a divine right to rule over their subjects. Why then did the theory of equality become so powerful?
Equality could only have become a self-evident idea because it made sense in terms of the experience of a great many people. This may seem anomalous in a world that was dominated by absolute monarchies, in which there were immense socio-economic divisions and when most people’s daily experience was of inequality not equality. Landlord and tenant, master and servant, king and subject—these were the relationships that governed the majority of people’s lives in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even Locke himself accepted a system in which political rights were proportionate to landholding and slavery was legally recognised when he helped to draft the constitution of colonial Carolina.
Despite this social reality the concept of equality had deep roots and a complex history. It had always led a double life as both part of the official Christian ideology of natural rights theology that was developed by Thomas Aquinas and part of the ideology of plebeian heresy and rebellion.
The Reformation (1516) and the German Peasant War (1524-6) lent it a powerful impetus, as did the French Wars of Religion (1562-98). One of the conclusions drawn from the Thirty Years War (1618-48) was that the only way to maintain social peace was to treat everyone as though they were equal. Under the impact of these political experiences and the economic developments connected with European colonial expansion, the old scholastic theory of natural law and natural rights was dusted off and revived in a modern form that placed greater emphasis on the political implications of equality and the active right of resistance.
The political ideas expressed in Locke’s Two Treatises represent a codification of the principles of equality and resistance, which had emerged in a practical and unsystematic way in the course of the struggle against King Charles I. They retained a continuing relevance after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 when it became clear that the king was moving in an absolutist direction as, fortified with subsidies from Louis XIV, Charles II found that he could afford to ignore Parliament and insist on the succession of his brother James II, who was a Roman Catholic. This directly threatened the lives, liberties and properties of Protestant Englishmen who feared that the religious orders would claim back their estates, that they would be excluded from office and that a programme of persecution would be instituted as it had been under Mary Tudor.
Under these circumstances the alliance of wealthy merchants and landlords with more radical urban artisans that had played an important role in the Civil War re-emerged. Locke was very much part of this loose movement that came to be identified as the Whigs.
One of Locke’s practical political actions was organising the legal defence of Stephen College, “the Whig joiner”, when he was on trial for his life in Oxford on charges of sedition. The Two Treatises was part of a whole body of Whig literature that included Algernon Sydney’s Discourse Concerning Government—which also had an impact on the American Revolution. Sydney was convicted of treason and executed for his involvement on the strength of the views he expressed in the Discourses. Locke was more fortunate but he expressed similar ideas in the Two Treatises.
Locke has been thought of as exclusively the spokesman for the wealthy merchants and landlords, but his conception that the poor have the right to take what they need from the surplus of the rich is incompatible with any accepted notions of capitalist economics. Locke certainly is a spokesman of these privileged groups, but at the same time he speaks for their supporters among the labourers and artisans. Waldron is right to identify Locke with the Levellers. Indeed Locke is not so far from the more radical Diggers in advocating that the poor should be allowed to dig up common land and that the rich should not be allowed to engross more land than they can use.
Locke’s political ideas reflect the alliance of classes that jointly opposed the drive to absolutism in mid and late seventeenth century England. We may recognise these classes as having inherently incompatible interests, but Locke did not. He expressed a compromise between class interests, but one that rapidly became untenable.
Within a comparatively short space of time the Whigs became the party of the establishment, maintaining power through a system of corruption, and their revolutionary past was transformed into an assertion of the ancient rights of Englishmen—propertied ones in particular. Locke is often identified with this later Whig tradition, but he never attempts to justify revolution on the grounds that Englishmen could claim certain rights under an ancient constitution. His arguments in The Two Treatises are always universalist in nature and point toward the Enlightenment tradition of natural rights rather than to the constitutional tradition of ancient prerogative and privilege. Locke’s arguments are far more theological in character than later theories of natural rights were to be because he effectively bridges the transition between the religious ideology of the English Civil War and the later American and French Revolutions, where if God appears at all it is in the guise of the “God of Nature”.
God, Locke and Equality is a valuable contribution to the debate about the origins of the modern conception of equality because it recognises the radical aspect of Locke’s thought and his connection with a revolutionary tradition, but it demands to be taken further.
Locke’s conception of God, a conception that was far from satisfactory to the orthodox thinkers of his day, was a philosophical portmanteau—which, if unpacked, we would find contained some highly material historical content. In it we could trace the influence of the history of European wars, religious conflicts and revolutions on his thought and in addition identify the new scientific developments of the age that encouraged him to adopt an anthropological approach to political and religious questions. Professor Waldron has left the bag packed.
Notes:
[1] C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism pp.232.
[2] John Rawls, Political Liberalism, p19
Source: World Socialist Web Site
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Ngcuka calls for stricter asset forfeiture laws
National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka yesterday appealed to MPs to beef up legislation governing asset forfeitures. This followed a high court order won by controversial Businessperson Billy Rautenbach last year for the release of more than R40-million worth of assets seized by the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU).
The ruling, by Johannesburg High Court Judge Pierre Rabie, had allowed Rautenbach to take the assets out of the country, to Zimbabwe, despite the government appealing against the decision, Ngcuka told Parliament's justice portfolio committee. "We would like the legislature to give consideration to this. "How can people use the legal system to protect their rights, but then don't want to submit to the jurisdiction of our courts," he said.
The AFU, three years ago, seized Rautenbach's assets, including a luxury home in Sandhurst, Johannesburg, a farm in Paarl, aircrafts, a yacht, as well as various bank accounts. The former Hyundai boss in South Africa had been charged with large-scale fraud, theft, money laundering and evasion of import duties. Ngcuka said he hoped the committee would look into the case and strengthen the law to ensure those accused could not flee with their assets, even though cases were still subject to appeal.
Johnny de Lange, the committee's chairman, said this should not be allowed to happen again. "It is absolutely flabbergasting that a judge can allow that to happen," he said. Ngcuka also said his office was putting in place a system to dramatically cut down on the number of criminal cases withdrawn before the courts. The frequency of suspects being arrested and the cases never coming to court, despite being placed on the court roll, was a source of serious concern. This was particularly the case when arrests were made over a weekend and cases put onto the roll on Monday morning, despite there being no chance of conviction.
Prosecutors were now visiting police stations on Sundays to screen dockets before they were placed on the roll, and only in exceptional instances would a suspect be taken to court before a final decision was taken to prosecute. The new policy would also help ensure against innocent persons being arrested, and detained, he said.
Source: Polity
The ruling, by Johannesburg High Court Judge Pierre Rabie, had allowed Rautenbach to take the assets out of the country, to Zimbabwe, despite the government appealing against the decision, Ngcuka told Parliament's justice portfolio committee. "We would like the legislature to give consideration to this. "How can people use the legal system to protect their rights, but then don't want to submit to the jurisdiction of our courts," he said.
The AFU, three years ago, seized Rautenbach's assets, including a luxury home in Sandhurst, Johannesburg, a farm in Paarl, aircrafts, a yacht, as well as various bank accounts. The former Hyundai boss in South Africa had been charged with large-scale fraud, theft, money laundering and evasion of import duties. Ngcuka said he hoped the committee would look into the case and strengthen the law to ensure those accused could not flee with their assets, even though cases were still subject to appeal.
Johnny de Lange, the committee's chairman, said this should not be allowed to happen again. "It is absolutely flabbergasting that a judge can allow that to happen," he said. Ngcuka also said his office was putting in place a system to dramatically cut down on the number of criminal cases withdrawn before the courts. The frequency of suspects being arrested and the cases never coming to court, despite being placed on the court roll, was a source of serious concern. This was particularly the case when arrests were made over a weekend and cases put onto the roll on Monday morning, despite there being no chance of conviction.
Prosecutors were now visiting police stations on Sundays to screen dockets before they were placed on the roll, and only in exceptional instances would a suspect be taken to court before a final decision was taken to prosecute. The new policy would also help ensure against innocent persons being arrested, and detained, he said.
Source: Polity
Thursday, June 5, 2003
War Crimes Indictment of Liberian President Is Disclosed
President Charles Taylor of Liberia, widely viewed as a wellspring of the violence that has ravaged West Africa, has been indicted on war crimes charges by a special court in Sierra Leone that accused him of ''bearing the greatest responsibility'' for a decade's worth of murders, mutilations and rapes in the neighboring country. He is the second serving national leader to be indicted on war crimes charges in the last decade. The first was Slobodan Milosevic, who was indicted by the tribunal in The Hague while he was president.
The indictment by the court, run jointly by the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government, was originally issued on March 7. It was made public today shortly after Mr. Taylor, bowing to pressure from the leaders of Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, announced that he would step down by the end of the year. Diplomatic officials and news reports from the region described a surreal diplomatic drama in which Mr.
Taylor was transformed from statesman to fugitive in a matter of minutes. The announcement came at the opening of a peace conference convened in Accra, Ghana, and designed to end Liberia's current civil war. Just after being applauded for his retirement announcement, Mr. Taylor left the peace conference abruptly and caught a plane home rather than risk arrest by his Ghanaian hosts. In the brief time that elapsed between the announcement of the indictment and Mr. Taylor's departure, various Ghanaian officials and West African diplomats said they did not know whether they would attempt an arrest, since Mr. Taylor's status as a head of state grants him automatic immunity from such actions, under various international treaties.
The train of events left deep frustration in at least two quarters, diplomatic officials said today. One senior United States official said today that Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and John Kufuor of Ghana felt sandbagged by the release of the indictment on the heels of their successful effort to get Mr. Taylor to resign. But both the Ghanaian government's delays and indecision about arresting Mr. Taylor, and his subsequent return home, left both the war crimes prosecutor's office and some Republican members of the international affairs committee of the United States House of Representatives confused or angry.
In a telephone interview, Luc Copè, the chief of prosecution for the court in Sierra Leone, said: ''We don't have any power of arrest. We depend on a state to execute our orders.'' He added, ''We can serve the warrant of arrest on Liberia. But that would be asking him to arrest himself.''
The indictment itself provided, in stilted legal language, a capsule history of the allegations of crossborder alliances between Mr. Taylor and insurgents in Sierra Leone, and his reported support for a war on civilians that left upwards of 200,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands more maimed or raped or homeless in the late 1990's.
Mr. Taylor originally was a rebel warlord in his own country, and on coming to power, his accusers have charged, he helped rebel groups in neighboring countries, effectively franchising out his own civil war first to Sierra Leone and later to the Ivory Coast. In the case of Sierra Leone, one of the prizes in the conflict was access to Sierra Leone's wealth of diamond mines. ''Victims were routinely shot, hacked to death and burned to death,'' in Sierra Leone, one count of the new indictment said. Another said ''widespread sexual violence committed against civilian women and girls included brutal rapes, often by multiple rapists.''
A third count, involving the mutilations of civilians whose limbs were hacked off, charged that ''these mutilations included cutting off limbs and carving'' the initials of rebel groups on the bodies of the victims. The war crimes court in Sierra Leone, created jointly by the United Nations and Sierra Leone's government 18 months ago, has already indicted several militia leaders from the Revolutionary United Front and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, who made common cause with Mr. Taylor's government.
The indictment unsealed today charged that Mr. Taylor had ''to obtain access to the mineral wealth of the Republic of Sierra Leone, in particular the diamond wealth of Sierra Leone, and to destabilize the state'' provided ''financial support, military training, personnel, arms, ammunition'' and other support to the R.U.F., which in turn allied itself with the A.F.R.C.
In a statement released in Freetown today, the chief prosecutor of the special court, David M. Crane, said that he had unsealed the indictment when he learned Mr. Taylor would be in Ghana for the peace talks, and thus would be susceptible to arrest. He added, ''To ensure the legitimacy of these negotiations, it is imperative that the attendees know they are dealing with an indicted war criminal.''
A member of Mr. Crane's staff, contacted by telephone in Freeport on Tuesday night, said that the news of the indictment prompted ''cheering in the streets'' of Sierra Leone's capital. In Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, The Associated Press reported that thousands of panicked civilians were running home from work to find their children, apparently fearful of renewed civil strife if Mr. Taylor's government fell.
Mr. Taylor's announcement today that he would resign was made, in the third person, to warm applause, The Associated Press reported. ''It has become apparent that some people believe that Taylor is the problem,'' he said. ''President Taylor wants to say that he intends to remove himself from the process.''
Sourc: New York Times
The indictment by the court, run jointly by the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government, was originally issued on March 7. It was made public today shortly after Mr. Taylor, bowing to pressure from the leaders of Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, announced that he would step down by the end of the year. Diplomatic officials and news reports from the region described a surreal diplomatic drama in which Mr.
Taylor was transformed from statesman to fugitive in a matter of minutes. The announcement came at the opening of a peace conference convened in Accra, Ghana, and designed to end Liberia's current civil war. Just after being applauded for his retirement announcement, Mr. Taylor left the peace conference abruptly and caught a plane home rather than risk arrest by his Ghanaian hosts. In the brief time that elapsed between the announcement of the indictment and Mr. Taylor's departure, various Ghanaian officials and West African diplomats said they did not know whether they would attempt an arrest, since Mr. Taylor's status as a head of state grants him automatic immunity from such actions, under various international treaties.
The train of events left deep frustration in at least two quarters, diplomatic officials said today. One senior United States official said today that Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and John Kufuor of Ghana felt sandbagged by the release of the indictment on the heels of their successful effort to get Mr. Taylor to resign. But both the Ghanaian government's delays and indecision about arresting Mr. Taylor, and his subsequent return home, left both the war crimes prosecutor's office and some Republican members of the international affairs committee of the United States House of Representatives confused or angry.
In a telephone interview, Luc Copè, the chief of prosecution for the court in Sierra Leone, said: ''We don't have any power of arrest. We depend on a state to execute our orders.'' He added, ''We can serve the warrant of arrest on Liberia. But that would be asking him to arrest himself.''
The indictment itself provided, in stilted legal language, a capsule history of the allegations of crossborder alliances between Mr. Taylor and insurgents in Sierra Leone, and his reported support for a war on civilians that left upwards of 200,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands more maimed or raped or homeless in the late 1990's.
Mr. Taylor originally was a rebel warlord in his own country, and on coming to power, his accusers have charged, he helped rebel groups in neighboring countries, effectively franchising out his own civil war first to Sierra Leone and later to the Ivory Coast. In the case of Sierra Leone, one of the prizes in the conflict was access to Sierra Leone's wealth of diamond mines. ''Victims were routinely shot, hacked to death and burned to death,'' in Sierra Leone, one count of the new indictment said. Another said ''widespread sexual violence committed against civilian women and girls included brutal rapes, often by multiple rapists.''
A third count, involving the mutilations of civilians whose limbs were hacked off, charged that ''these mutilations included cutting off limbs and carving'' the initials of rebel groups on the bodies of the victims. The war crimes court in Sierra Leone, created jointly by the United Nations and Sierra Leone's government 18 months ago, has already indicted several militia leaders from the Revolutionary United Front and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, who made common cause with Mr. Taylor's government.
The indictment unsealed today charged that Mr. Taylor had ''to obtain access to the mineral wealth of the Republic of Sierra Leone, in particular the diamond wealth of Sierra Leone, and to destabilize the state'' provided ''financial support, military training, personnel, arms, ammunition'' and other support to the R.U.F., which in turn allied itself with the A.F.R.C.
In a statement released in Freetown today, the chief prosecutor of the special court, David M. Crane, said that he had unsealed the indictment when he learned Mr. Taylor would be in Ghana for the peace talks, and thus would be susceptible to arrest. He added, ''To ensure the legitimacy of these negotiations, it is imperative that the attendees know they are dealing with an indicted war criminal.''
A member of Mr. Crane's staff, contacted by telephone in Freeport on Tuesday night, said that the news of the indictment prompted ''cheering in the streets'' of Sierra Leone's capital. In Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, The Associated Press reported that thousands of panicked civilians were running home from work to find their children, apparently fearful of renewed civil strife if Mr. Taylor's government fell.
Mr. Taylor's announcement today that he would resign was made, in the third person, to warm applause, The Associated Press reported. ''It has become apparent that some people believe that Taylor is the problem,'' he said. ''President Taylor wants to say that he intends to remove himself from the process.''
Sourc: New York Times
Our country needs facts, not groundless allegations
A letter from Thabo Mbeki
In the Biblical Gospel according to St Matthew, it is said that Jesus Christ saw Simon Peter and his brother Andrew fishing in the Sea of Galilee. And He said to them: "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."
Perhaps taking a cue from this, some in our country have appointed themselves as "fishers of corrupt men". Our governance system is the sea in which they have chosen to exercise their craft. From everything they say, it is clear that they know it as a matter of fact that they are bound to return from their fishing expeditions with huge catches of corrupt men (and women).
In March 1999, our country's Human Rights Commission (HRC) conducted hearings on the matter of "racism in the media". Not unexpectedly, instead of dealing with this serious matter, some in our country and others abroad, made a big song and dance about it, seeking to ensure that the HRC should not proceed with the hearings.
To frighten the HRC into silence, these made the absurd and self-serving allegation that these hearings constituted a threat to the freedom of the press. Fortunately, the campaign, whose central objective was to cover up racism in our country, failed.
The hearings took place. The HRC made its recommendations. Despite the scare-mongering, the press is no less free now than it was before the hearings. Others will answer the question whether it has done anything to implement at least some of the recommendations of the HRC.
The ANC made its own submission to the hearings. One of the critical issues it raised was the role of the intensely negative, highly offensive and deeply entrenched stereotype of Africans among some in our country, which makes it inevitable that much reporting in our country would be racist. The ANC made the point that this stereotype necessarily dictated that some in our country would proceed from the position that our government was corrupt as alleged, unless it proved itself to be innocent.
Among other things, it cited the instance of an article in a weekly journal, in which the journalist concerned gratuitously accused the writer of this Letter of dictatorial tendencies. The ANC explained the circumstances surrounding the writing and publication of this article, which were relevant to the subject of the hearings.
This matter having been contested and subsequently taken to court by the journal concerned, the judge found in favour of the ANC. Needless to say, the determination made by the courts did not get the public exposure that the resort to these courts by this journal had evoked.
The false allegation of wrong doing by the ANC was what was vigorously implanted in the public mind. To the contrary, the rejection of this allegation by the courts, and therefore the independent judicial assertion of the truth about this matter, was assiduously hidden from the public.
Had this truth been communicated as openly as it should have been, it would have undermined the racist stereotype of Africans, and demonstrated the correctness of the decision of the HRC to hold its hearings. It was therefore not in the interests of some in our country, who believe in the stereotype, that this truth should be widely known.
The same stereotypical conviction about our government being corrupt, unless it proves itself innocent, has re-surfaced with regard to the defence procurement decided by our government in 2000. The fishermen (and women?) have recast their fishing nets, convinced that they will bring in a rich haul of corrupt government luminaries.
So convinced are they of the outcome of their fishing expedition that they regularly describe the defence procurement as "the arms deal scandal" or "debacle". They say "a deepening shadow of allegations is threatening to engulf the highest reaches of government".
Triumphantly, they proclaim that "the publication of details of an earlier (investigative) draft confirmed long-held suspicions by opponents of the arms procurement exercise that changes were made before publication, possibly at the instance of senior members of government".
They say "there was a crucial 'nondisclosure of facts' to a body tasked with evaluating products", and that "draft reports released in court show evidence that passages detailing possible corruption were edited from the report before it was presented to parliament".
The fishers of corrupt men happily construct doom scenarios that serve their purposes. They speculate about the possibility of a senior official being shown to be corrupt, and how this might lead to the conclusion that the whole procurement process was corrupted, resulting in the "the whole edifice of the arms procurement exercise" crumbling. The reality is that the wish is father to the thought.
But it all sounds terribly dramatic and pregnant with the potential to expose horrifying facts about massive corruption by our government, involving billions of rands To prepare the public mind, words such as "scandal" and "debacle" must be, and are used!
To add to the sense of impeding horror, "senior members of government" must be implicated, including "the highest reaches of government", which means the President. Further to whet the appetite for the expected catch that will be brought in by the fishers, the threat is made that a "shadow of allegations might engulf" these "highest reaches".
Quite how shadows rather than substance, and allegations rather than facts might engulf the President, or anybody else for that matter, is somewhat difficult to fathom. The point however is that neither substance nor facts are important to the fishers of corrupt men in terms of their project to substantiate the stereotype of which the ANC spoke, when it made its presentation at the HRC hearings on racism in the media.
What is central is that the stereotype must be sustained and entrenched. For this purpose, precisely because of this entrenched stereotype, shadows and allegations will serve as well as anything else. Carefully chosen words with no factual information to substantiate them, such as "scandal" and "debacle", also come in as useful devices, to give the shadows and allegations the appearance of substance.
In this no-holds-barred campaign, anything and anybody who stands in the way of the fishers, including and especially the truth, must give way. In the current fishing expedition, the Auditor General (AG) has been targeted as one of the possible big fish that the fishers hope to catch.
Accordingly, they accuse the AG of doctoring the report he presented to Parliament, by omitting some details contained in an earlier draft. The AG has taken strong exception to this charge of fraud. In barely disguised language, the fishers have said that they are convinced that the AG is lying. Naturally, they will not bother to supply facts to disprove what the AG said.
As part of this campaign against the AG, they charge him with having "sanitised" and "heavily edited" the final report, "possibly at the instance of senior members of government". They say nothing of the fact that the AG is required by the law to show his draft reports to any institution he may be auditing, for any comments it may wish to make. The AG is free to accept or reject any comments made by those he has audited.
This happens regularly, is required by law, and carries no imputation whatsoever of corrupt behaviour on the part of the AG. Precisely because he had absolutely nothing to hide by following this procedure, the AG attached an official letter to the draft report he gave the Cabinet sub-committee that approved the primary contracts, citing the provisions in the law requiring him to abide by this procedure.
The fishers have focused especially on the Thomson (Thales) element of the prime contract entered into by the government with the suppliers of the corvettes, the German Frigate Consortium (GFC). The government has explained this very clearly before, that it entered into a contract with the GFC to supply the required number of corvettes, meeting all the stipulated specifications.
The government has no contracts with the companies retained by the GFC to supply the various component parts of the corvettes. Similarly, it never had occasion or need to determine who the partners of the GFC should or should not be, including Thomson (Thales).
The proposition that the government influenced the choice of Thomson by the GFC as one of its sub-contractors is both a blatant falsity concocted by the fishers, and a logical absurdity. In its statement of 15 September 2000, the government announced those with whom it had entered into contracts. These are British Aerospace/SAAB, the German Frigate Consortium and Augusta. It had no primary contract with Thomson (Thales), as the supplier of the electronic combat suite of the corvettes, which matter, of the supplier of this suite, remained in the exclusive domain of the GFC.
In the Background Notes issued on 12 January, 2001, the government said: "It should be pointed out that the Procurement does not deal with subcontractors. This has to be the contractual obligation of the prime contractor as it is they who must deliver reliable equipment and undertake the performance and delivery obligations. This is standard practice in major contracts. To insist that the Government must be held to account for minor subcontracts is to misunderstand procurement. The prime contractors are major international corporations and we are confident that they would ensure the quality of the subcontractors and this is their responsibility."
But of course this does not matter to the fishers, who are intent to prove or otherwise entrench the stereotype of a corrupt African government. This is why their fond scenario visualises a determination that an official acted corruptly, leading, according to them, to the collapse of the "arms procurement exercise", even as they exclude the fact that the final recommendations to the deciding authority, the Cabinet, had to be, and were made by a Cabinet sub-committee, and not officials.
An aggrieved potential and unsuccessful sub-contractor has taken his grievance to our courts. For this reason, we will not comment on the matters he raises, which the fishers nevertheless use triumphantly and wilfully to justify their campaign. But this gentleman decided to raise, in the media, the matter of an earlier process to acquire corvettes for our Navy.
The gentleman concerned makes the false allegation that during the life of the Government of National Unity, formed in 1994, a contract for four corvettes to be built by Bazan of Spain "was cancelled after being awarded". This is not true. The preceding apartheid Cabinet had not approved this contract. The GNU Cabinet decided not to enter into this contract.
Bazan entered the later competition to supply the four corvettes, and lost to the GFC. This issue is of relevance and interest only because of the controversy that some have brought into the current defence procurement. It is an interesting coincidence that this controversy has focused so intensely on the corvettes.
In time the details of the truth will come out about how the controversy concerning the 2000 defence procurement emerged and persisted. The gentleman litigant, who has raised the matter of Bazan of Spain, may be proved to have been justified in raising this issue, even if he made false claims about a Bazan contract that never was.
This detailed truthful account would tell our country interesting things about such matters as defence procurement during the apartheid years, and the promotion of political careers and fortunes in contemporary South Africa. It would tell a story about the political uses of the racist stereotypes that are part of our daily menu of information and perception, and the formation of popular consciousness.
It would inform us about the impact or otherwise of the domestic and international apartheid networks on our democratic order, and the moral integrity of those who correctly claim that they fought for the victory of this order, and therefore seek to position themselves as its true representatives.
The sooner this fascinating story is told the better, so that we can improve our performance with regard to the achievement of the critical objective of building a truly people-centred society.
As an important part of the struggle to realise this objective, we should not, and will not abandon the offensive to defeat the insulting campaigns further to entrench a stereotype that has, for centuries, sought to portray Africans as a people that is corrupt, given to telling lies, prone to theft and self-enrichment by immoral means, a people that is otherwise contemptible in the eyes of the "civilised". We must expect that, as usual, our opponents will accuse us of "playing the race card", to stop us confronting the challenge of racism.
The fishers of corrupt men are determined to prove everything in the anti-African stereotype. They rely on their capacity to produce long shadows and innumerable allegations around the effort of our government to supply the South African National Defence Force with the means to discharge its constitutional and continental obligations. They are confident that these long shadows and allegations without number will engulf and suffocate the forces that fought for and lead our process of democratisation, reconstruction and development.
However, what our country needs is substance and not shadows, facts instead of allegations, and the eradication of racism. The struggle continues.
Source: ANC Today
In the Biblical Gospel according to St Matthew, it is said that Jesus Christ saw Simon Peter and his brother Andrew fishing in the Sea of Galilee. And He said to them: "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."
Perhaps taking a cue from this, some in our country have appointed themselves as "fishers of corrupt men". Our governance system is the sea in which they have chosen to exercise their craft. From everything they say, it is clear that they know it as a matter of fact that they are bound to return from their fishing expeditions with huge catches of corrupt men (and women).
In March 1999, our country's Human Rights Commission (HRC) conducted hearings on the matter of "racism in the media". Not unexpectedly, instead of dealing with this serious matter, some in our country and others abroad, made a big song and dance about it, seeking to ensure that the HRC should not proceed with the hearings.
To frighten the HRC into silence, these made the absurd and self-serving allegation that these hearings constituted a threat to the freedom of the press. Fortunately, the campaign, whose central objective was to cover up racism in our country, failed.
The hearings took place. The HRC made its recommendations. Despite the scare-mongering, the press is no less free now than it was before the hearings. Others will answer the question whether it has done anything to implement at least some of the recommendations of the HRC.
The ANC made its own submission to the hearings. One of the critical issues it raised was the role of the intensely negative, highly offensive and deeply entrenched stereotype of Africans among some in our country, which makes it inevitable that much reporting in our country would be racist. The ANC made the point that this stereotype necessarily dictated that some in our country would proceed from the position that our government was corrupt as alleged, unless it proved itself to be innocent.
Among other things, it cited the instance of an article in a weekly journal, in which the journalist concerned gratuitously accused the writer of this Letter of dictatorial tendencies. The ANC explained the circumstances surrounding the writing and publication of this article, which were relevant to the subject of the hearings.
This matter having been contested and subsequently taken to court by the journal concerned, the judge found in favour of the ANC. Needless to say, the determination made by the courts did not get the public exposure that the resort to these courts by this journal had evoked.
The false allegation of wrong doing by the ANC was what was vigorously implanted in the public mind. To the contrary, the rejection of this allegation by the courts, and therefore the independent judicial assertion of the truth about this matter, was assiduously hidden from the public.
Had this truth been communicated as openly as it should have been, it would have undermined the racist stereotype of Africans, and demonstrated the correctness of the decision of the HRC to hold its hearings. It was therefore not in the interests of some in our country, who believe in the stereotype, that this truth should be widely known.
The same stereotypical conviction about our government being corrupt, unless it proves itself innocent, has re-surfaced with regard to the defence procurement decided by our government in 2000. The fishermen (and women?) have recast their fishing nets, convinced that they will bring in a rich haul of corrupt government luminaries.
So convinced are they of the outcome of their fishing expedition that they regularly describe the defence procurement as "the arms deal scandal" or "debacle". They say "a deepening shadow of allegations is threatening to engulf the highest reaches of government".
Triumphantly, they proclaim that "the publication of details of an earlier (investigative) draft confirmed long-held suspicions by opponents of the arms procurement exercise that changes were made before publication, possibly at the instance of senior members of government".
They say "there was a crucial 'nondisclosure of facts' to a body tasked with evaluating products", and that "draft reports released in court show evidence that passages detailing possible corruption were edited from the report before it was presented to parliament".
The fishers of corrupt men happily construct doom scenarios that serve their purposes. They speculate about the possibility of a senior official being shown to be corrupt, and how this might lead to the conclusion that the whole procurement process was corrupted, resulting in the "the whole edifice of the arms procurement exercise" crumbling. The reality is that the wish is father to the thought.
But it all sounds terribly dramatic and pregnant with the potential to expose horrifying facts about massive corruption by our government, involving billions of rands To prepare the public mind, words such as "scandal" and "debacle" must be, and are used!
To add to the sense of impeding horror, "senior members of government" must be implicated, including "the highest reaches of government", which means the President. Further to whet the appetite for the expected catch that will be brought in by the fishers, the threat is made that a "shadow of allegations might engulf" these "highest reaches".
Quite how shadows rather than substance, and allegations rather than facts might engulf the President, or anybody else for that matter, is somewhat difficult to fathom. The point however is that neither substance nor facts are important to the fishers of corrupt men in terms of their project to substantiate the stereotype of which the ANC spoke, when it made its presentation at the HRC hearings on racism in the media.
What is central is that the stereotype must be sustained and entrenched. For this purpose, precisely because of this entrenched stereotype, shadows and allegations will serve as well as anything else. Carefully chosen words with no factual information to substantiate them, such as "scandal" and "debacle", also come in as useful devices, to give the shadows and allegations the appearance of substance.
In this no-holds-barred campaign, anything and anybody who stands in the way of the fishers, including and especially the truth, must give way. In the current fishing expedition, the Auditor General (AG) has been targeted as one of the possible big fish that the fishers hope to catch.
Accordingly, they accuse the AG of doctoring the report he presented to Parliament, by omitting some details contained in an earlier draft. The AG has taken strong exception to this charge of fraud. In barely disguised language, the fishers have said that they are convinced that the AG is lying. Naturally, they will not bother to supply facts to disprove what the AG said.
As part of this campaign against the AG, they charge him with having "sanitised" and "heavily edited" the final report, "possibly at the instance of senior members of government". They say nothing of the fact that the AG is required by the law to show his draft reports to any institution he may be auditing, for any comments it may wish to make. The AG is free to accept or reject any comments made by those he has audited.
This happens regularly, is required by law, and carries no imputation whatsoever of corrupt behaviour on the part of the AG. Precisely because he had absolutely nothing to hide by following this procedure, the AG attached an official letter to the draft report he gave the Cabinet sub-committee that approved the primary contracts, citing the provisions in the law requiring him to abide by this procedure.
The fishers have focused especially on the Thomson (Thales) element of the prime contract entered into by the government with the suppliers of the corvettes, the German Frigate Consortium (GFC). The government has explained this very clearly before, that it entered into a contract with the GFC to supply the required number of corvettes, meeting all the stipulated specifications.
The government has no contracts with the companies retained by the GFC to supply the various component parts of the corvettes. Similarly, it never had occasion or need to determine who the partners of the GFC should or should not be, including Thomson (Thales).
The proposition that the government influenced the choice of Thomson by the GFC as one of its sub-contractors is both a blatant falsity concocted by the fishers, and a logical absurdity. In its statement of 15 September 2000, the government announced those with whom it had entered into contracts. These are British Aerospace/SAAB, the German Frigate Consortium and Augusta. It had no primary contract with Thomson (Thales), as the supplier of the electronic combat suite of the corvettes, which matter, of the supplier of this suite, remained in the exclusive domain of the GFC.
In the Background Notes issued on 12 January, 2001, the government said: "It should be pointed out that the Procurement does not deal with subcontractors. This has to be the contractual obligation of the prime contractor as it is they who must deliver reliable equipment and undertake the performance and delivery obligations. This is standard practice in major contracts. To insist that the Government must be held to account for minor subcontracts is to misunderstand procurement. The prime contractors are major international corporations and we are confident that they would ensure the quality of the subcontractors and this is their responsibility."
But of course this does not matter to the fishers, who are intent to prove or otherwise entrench the stereotype of a corrupt African government. This is why their fond scenario visualises a determination that an official acted corruptly, leading, according to them, to the collapse of the "arms procurement exercise", even as they exclude the fact that the final recommendations to the deciding authority, the Cabinet, had to be, and were made by a Cabinet sub-committee, and not officials.
An aggrieved potential and unsuccessful sub-contractor has taken his grievance to our courts. For this reason, we will not comment on the matters he raises, which the fishers nevertheless use triumphantly and wilfully to justify their campaign. But this gentleman decided to raise, in the media, the matter of an earlier process to acquire corvettes for our Navy.
The gentleman concerned makes the false allegation that during the life of the Government of National Unity, formed in 1994, a contract for four corvettes to be built by Bazan of Spain "was cancelled after being awarded". This is not true. The preceding apartheid Cabinet had not approved this contract. The GNU Cabinet decided not to enter into this contract.
Bazan entered the later competition to supply the four corvettes, and lost to the GFC. This issue is of relevance and interest only because of the controversy that some have brought into the current defence procurement. It is an interesting coincidence that this controversy has focused so intensely on the corvettes.
In time the details of the truth will come out about how the controversy concerning the 2000 defence procurement emerged and persisted. The gentleman litigant, who has raised the matter of Bazan of Spain, may be proved to have been justified in raising this issue, even if he made false claims about a Bazan contract that never was.
This detailed truthful account would tell our country interesting things about such matters as defence procurement during the apartheid years, and the promotion of political careers and fortunes in contemporary South Africa. It would tell a story about the political uses of the racist stereotypes that are part of our daily menu of information and perception, and the formation of popular consciousness.
It would inform us about the impact or otherwise of the domestic and international apartheid networks on our democratic order, and the moral integrity of those who correctly claim that they fought for the victory of this order, and therefore seek to position themselves as its true representatives.
The sooner this fascinating story is told the better, so that we can improve our performance with regard to the achievement of the critical objective of building a truly people-centred society.
As an important part of the struggle to realise this objective, we should not, and will not abandon the offensive to defeat the insulting campaigns further to entrench a stereotype that has, for centuries, sought to portray Africans as a people that is corrupt, given to telling lies, prone to theft and self-enrichment by immoral means, a people that is otherwise contemptible in the eyes of the "civilised". We must expect that, as usual, our opponents will accuse us of "playing the race card", to stop us confronting the challenge of racism.
The fishers of corrupt men are determined to prove everything in the anti-African stereotype. They rely on their capacity to produce long shadows and innumerable allegations around the effort of our government to supply the South African National Defence Force with the means to discharge its constitutional and continental obligations. They are confident that these long shadows and allegations without number will engulf and suffocate the forces that fought for and lead our process of democratisation, reconstruction and development.
However, what our country needs is substance and not shadows, facts instead of allegations, and the eradication of racism. The struggle continues.
Source: ANC Today
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