The DA on Friday condemned the arrest of two Sowetan journalists and called for an investigation into possible corruption at the Hillbrow police station. "This is an appalling case of intimidation by police who should be upholding the law not subverting it," said Democratic Alliance MPL Jack Bloom. "There must be a thorough investigation of this incident as well as possible corruption at the Hillbrow police station," he said in a statement.
The journalists were arrested by Hillbrow police on Wednesday and detained for about an hour. Their equipment and cellphones were confiscated and only returned to them the next day after lawyers intervened.
The Sowetan newspaper reported on Friday that the journalists were covering a story involving the illegal eviction of nine families. It claimed that in spite of a ruling by a Johannesburg High Court judge, the Hillbrow police refused to help the families get back into their Regal Court flats in the city.
The court ordered that the building owner allow the families back into their flats. "Many Hillbrow residents suspect that effective action against building hijackings is hindered because local police are themselves implicated," said Bloom.
Neither the Hillbrow police nor provincial police spokesperson Colonel Noxolo Kweza were available for comment.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
amaMpondo
Divided into tribal groups, the Pondo speak Xhosa, a language spoken by some 18% of the population of South Africa. Although Xhosa is now their language, the Pondo are actually ‘refugees’ from the north – albeit refugees that arrived several hundred years ago.
Although Pondoland became part of the Cape Colony in 1894, it has always been an African territory, and the Pondos were never defeated in battle or greatly affected by the wars between the indigenous peoples and white settlers. Renowned for their tribal ties and their pride in their customs and traditions, in 1960 the Pongo people revolted against the Bantu Authorities Act (a piece of apartheid legislation).
The Pondo have incorporated modern innovations with their traditional methods, and much of their life is unchanged from that of four or five hundred years ago, with their round, thatched houses still built facing east towards the rising sun. They produce wonderful craftwork, including ‘Pondo baskets’ and vibrant beadwork.
Traditional colours are very important to the Pondo, with pale blue the predominant colour for celebratory clothes, and red/orange worn by children. Married women wear intricate, beaded head rings.
Source: Tribes.co.uk
VIP send off for Majali
Controversial businessman Sandile Majali, who died four days ago, is set to be given a high-profile send off. Majali, 48, who was found dead in a Sandton hotel the morning after Christmas Day, is to be buried in Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape on January 9. His body was removed from the government mortuary in Hillbrow yesterday and handed to a private undertaker to prepare him for burial. A memorial service was scheduled to be held at the Bryanston Methodist Church, Joburg, at 3pm this afternoon.
Family insiders have revealed that, while the speakers list has yet to be finalised, those under consideration are struggle and ANC stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the Deputy Minister of Correctional Services and former Limpopo premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi, legal eagle Dumisa Ntsebeza, SC, and the Queen of the amaMpondo. Majali was born in Port St Johns and was hugely popular in vast rural areas around the town.
It has been learnt from close relatives that Majali had a heart operation four weeks ago and that the respiratory problems thought to have led to his death were directly linked to his recuperation. Independent Newspapers has also established why Majali was staying at the Quatermain Hotel, a stone’s throw from his house, when he died. “He was estranged from his wife and was living with his girlfriend in the Morningside house,” a relative said. “His children, who live with their mother in the Eastern Cape, came to spend Christmas with their father. “Being a considerate father, he did not want the children and the girlfriend to be under the same roof, so he booked a suite at the hotel for himself and the woman. “He did this out of decency and nothing else.”
It emerged this week that Majali’s estate may be sequestrated if his creditors and business partners bring claims to recover financial losses. Johan Klopper, the managing director of Independent Corporate Recovery Advisors, which specialises in liquidation and curatorship cases, said: “If there are any legal claims regarding liquidation, then these may be claims against his estate.” Klopper was a joint trustee of the estate of slain mining magnate Brett Kebble.
At the time of his death, Majali was facing charges of fraud over the alleged hijacking of a resources company and was believed to be in financial difficulty. He had voluntarily liquidated his Imvume Resources business, which was sued by PetroSA for the recovery of R11-million that Majali diverted to the ANC before the 2004 elections instead of using it, as had been intended, to pay in advance for oil.
Majali was also involved in a court battle with the Financial Services Board over his business dealings.
Source: IoL
Family insiders have revealed that, while the speakers list has yet to be finalised, those under consideration are struggle and ANC stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the Deputy Minister of Correctional Services and former Limpopo premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi, legal eagle Dumisa Ntsebeza, SC, and the Queen of the amaMpondo. Majali was born in Port St Johns and was hugely popular in vast rural areas around the town.
It has been learnt from close relatives that Majali had a heart operation four weeks ago and that the respiratory problems thought to have led to his death were directly linked to his recuperation. Independent Newspapers has also established why Majali was staying at the Quatermain Hotel, a stone’s throw from his house, when he died. “He was estranged from his wife and was living with his girlfriend in the Morningside house,” a relative said. “His children, who live with their mother in the Eastern Cape, came to spend Christmas with their father. “Being a considerate father, he did not want the children and the girlfriend to be under the same roof, so he booked a suite at the hotel for himself and the woman. “He did this out of decency and nothing else.”
It emerged this week that Majali’s estate may be sequestrated if his creditors and business partners bring claims to recover financial losses. Johan Klopper, the managing director of Independent Corporate Recovery Advisors, which specialises in liquidation and curatorship cases, said: “If there are any legal claims regarding liquidation, then these may be claims against his estate.” Klopper was a joint trustee of the estate of slain mining magnate Brett Kebble.
At the time of his death, Majali was facing charges of fraud over the alleged hijacking of a resources company and was believed to be in financial difficulty. He had voluntarily liquidated his Imvume Resources business, which was sued by PetroSA for the recovery of R11-million that Majali diverted to the ANC before the 2004 elections instead of using it, as had been intended, to pay in advance for oil.
Majali was also involved in a court battle with the Financial Services Board over his business dealings.
Source: IoL
Côte d'Ivoire envoy warns of 'genocide' threat
The first recognised ambassador of Côte d'Ivoire's internationally-backed president Alassane Ouattara said on Tuesday that the United Nations had to act to prevent "genocide" in his country. The envoy, Youssoufou Bamba, made the plea after handing over his credentials as envoy to the United Nations to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Ban promised the "full cooperation" of the UN leadership for the government of Ouattara who is in a tense stand-off with Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to recognise the victory of his rival in Côte d'Ivoire's November 28 presidential election. The ambassador said Ouattara had "real concern" about attacks on his supporters. According to UN rights officials at least 173 people were killed in attacks between December 16 and 21.
The victims were only killed "because they wanted to demonstrate, they want to speak out, they want to defend the will of the people", Bamba told reporters. "We are on the brink of genocide, something should be done." Bamba said people's homes in some areas had been marked according to their tribe. "What will be next? So the situation is very serious and I have put that message across in all the meetings I have had, including with the secretary general. The protection of civilians is at the heart of peacekeeping and we expect the United Nations to fulfill its duties," he said.
There is a UN force of more than 9 500 troops in Côte d'Ivoire and 800 are deployed around the Abidjan hotel where Ouattara has his base. Ban made no comment on the Côte d'Ivoire crisis when he formally accepted Bamba's credentials in front of photographers at the UN headquarters. But he assured the envoy "of the full cooperation of the secretariat in meeting the challenges ahead". Ban was briefed again on Tuesday by the UN mission in Côte d'Ivoire on efforts to persuade Gbagbo to peacefully stand down, his spokesperson Martin Nesirky said.
The UN chief also held telephone talks with Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan, current chairperson of the West African regional bloc Ecowas, which has threatened to intervene militarily if Gbagbo does not quit. Bamba, who was previously ambassador for the Gbagbo government at the UN in Vienna, is the first ambassador named by the Ouattara administration to have started work. He hinted that he was not yet being paid, saying that as a career diplomat "I have savings."
Meanwhile, Gbagbo's most notorious street lieutenant has vowed that the country's youth will rise up from Saturday and seize Ouattara's headquarters. "From January 1, I, Charles Ble Goude and the youth of Ivory Coast are going to liberate the Golf Hotel with our bare hands," the leader of Gbagbo's radical Young Patriots told a cheering crowd in Abidjan on Wednesday. "It's the moment to liberate Ivory Coast," he declared.
Political showman and faction leader Ble Goude is now Gbagbo's minister for youth and employment, but he is best known for stoking bloody anti-French riots in 2004, a role which saw him placed under United Nations sanctions. "We are ready to die for this Ivory Coast," he declared, while insisting that his supporters were unarmed and hoped to triumph through strength of numbers and will against Ouattara's men. "We are mocked by rebels," he complained.
Tension is mounting in and around the Golf Hotel -- a waterfront resort on the outskirts of the port city which Ouattara and his supporters had turned into an election headquarters. The shadow government in the hotel is guarded by a small contingent of former northern rebel fighters dubbed the New Forces, and the grounds are shielded by armed UN peacekeepers backed by armoured cars.
Access to the area is blocked by Gbagbo's regulars, the Security and Defence Forces (FDS), working alongside what UN observers say are mysterious masked militia fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades. UN supply convoys are regularly blocked as they try to cross Abidjan -- one patrol was attacked on Tuesday a mob of pro-Gbagbo youths and a Bangladeshi soldier was hurt -- and the hotel is supplied by UN helicopter.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Ban promised the "full cooperation" of the UN leadership for the government of Ouattara who is in a tense stand-off with Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to recognise the victory of his rival in Côte d'Ivoire's November 28 presidential election. The ambassador said Ouattara had "real concern" about attacks on his supporters. According to UN rights officials at least 173 people were killed in attacks between December 16 and 21.
The victims were only killed "because they wanted to demonstrate, they want to speak out, they want to defend the will of the people", Bamba told reporters. "We are on the brink of genocide, something should be done." Bamba said people's homes in some areas had been marked according to their tribe. "What will be next? So the situation is very serious and I have put that message across in all the meetings I have had, including with the secretary general. The protection of civilians is at the heart of peacekeeping and we expect the United Nations to fulfill its duties," he said.
There is a UN force of more than 9 500 troops in Côte d'Ivoire and 800 are deployed around the Abidjan hotel where Ouattara has his base. Ban made no comment on the Côte d'Ivoire crisis when he formally accepted Bamba's credentials in front of photographers at the UN headquarters. But he assured the envoy "of the full cooperation of the secretariat in meeting the challenges ahead". Ban was briefed again on Tuesday by the UN mission in Côte d'Ivoire on efforts to persuade Gbagbo to peacefully stand down, his spokesperson Martin Nesirky said.
The UN chief also held telephone talks with Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan, current chairperson of the West African regional bloc Ecowas, which has threatened to intervene militarily if Gbagbo does not quit. Bamba, who was previously ambassador for the Gbagbo government at the UN in Vienna, is the first ambassador named by the Ouattara administration to have started work. He hinted that he was not yet being paid, saying that as a career diplomat "I have savings."
Meanwhile, Gbagbo's most notorious street lieutenant has vowed that the country's youth will rise up from Saturday and seize Ouattara's headquarters. "From January 1, I, Charles Ble Goude and the youth of Ivory Coast are going to liberate the Golf Hotel with our bare hands," the leader of Gbagbo's radical Young Patriots told a cheering crowd in Abidjan on Wednesday. "It's the moment to liberate Ivory Coast," he declared.
Political showman and faction leader Ble Goude is now Gbagbo's minister for youth and employment, but he is best known for stoking bloody anti-French riots in 2004, a role which saw him placed under United Nations sanctions. "We are ready to die for this Ivory Coast," he declared, while insisting that his supporters were unarmed and hoped to triumph through strength of numbers and will against Ouattara's men. "We are mocked by rebels," he complained.
Tension is mounting in and around the Golf Hotel -- a waterfront resort on the outskirts of the port city which Ouattara and his supporters had turned into an election headquarters. The shadow government in the hotel is guarded by a small contingent of former northern rebel fighters dubbed the New Forces, and the grounds are shielded by armed UN peacekeepers backed by armoured cars.
Access to the area is blocked by Gbagbo's regulars, the Security and Defence Forces (FDS), working alongside what UN observers say are mysterious masked militia fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades. UN supply convoys are regularly blocked as they try to cross Abidjan -- one patrol was attacked on Tuesday a mob of pro-Gbagbo youths and a Bangladeshi soldier was hurt -- and the hotel is supplied by UN helicopter.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
We are not all Africans. Black people are!
Henry Ford once said, “You can have any colour as long as it is Black”. Similarly, native inhabitants of Africa say, “you can an African in any colour as long as he is Black.” There has been a sudden demand for an African to come in a variety of colours. During days of slavery when an African was a commodity traded over the counter, there was never a demand for him in any colour but black. There is now an attempt in the 21st Century to redefine the colour scheme of an African. Whites want to be classified as African.
Whites have been relentless on their attempt at historical revisionism in respect of the definition of “African” since the 1994 democratic dispensation; and their efforts appeared to have intensified after the collective hoorah of reconciliation had dissipated. Historical revisionism is generally a legitimate re-evaluation of existing understanding and knowledge of particular historical aspects in order to correct any distortions; but there are also those with deliberate motives to revise history in order to mislead or that it reflects them in favourable light.
Historically, the term “African” never had any ambiguous meaning. To Africans today it still does not have any ambiguous meaning. Africans across the continent and in the Diaspora have long understood its meaning to refer to them as black people. African leaders from all walks of life, who waged a relentless struggle against the thuggery of colonialism in the continent, were of one mind with regard to who Africans were. The fight against colonialism was to liberate Africans from the thuggery visited upon them by Europeans who had arrogated to themselves the power to rule with brute force and dominate vast territories of the African continent.
When both Arabs and Europeans enslaved Africans and traded them as disposable commodities; there was never any misunderstanding with regard to who Africans were. These were native inhabitants of Africa who were regarded as sub-human, and even “savages and barbarians” as the British warlord, Winston Churchill perceived them. These are people who in historical texts have been described as “African slaves”. Neither Arabs nor European slave-masters ever imagined themselves as Africans. When an order for an African slave arrived, it was clear that it was a commoditised black person who needed to be captured and a price put on his head.
Nelson Mandela on occasion of his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of the Republic of South Africa said, “The South Africa we have struggled for, in which all our people, be they African, Coloured, Indian or White, regard themselves as citizens of one nation is at hand.” Mandela too understood the true meaning of the term “African”. He knew that the term “African” referred to black people of this continent; that black South Africans were the Africans.
When Thabo Mbeki stood before the National Assembly on adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and proclaimed himself an African during his seminal speech, he said, “I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me. In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East. Their proud dignity informs my bearing, their culture a part of my essence. The stripes they bore on their bodies from the lash of the slave master are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should not be done.”
Mbeki recognised and acknowledged that other cultures and the acquired knowledge of the history of various races had shaped his being and person as an African. The speech has been misinterpreted for social expediency by some to mean that all who live in the continent are Africans.
“The African is conditioned, by cultural and social institutions of centuries, to a freedom of which Europe has little conception, and it is not in his nature to accept serfdom for ever." These are the words of Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya, from the conclusion to his book Facing Mount Kenya, 1938. Kenyatta too does not appear to have suffered from the illusion that the term “African” referred to anybody else other than native inhabitants of Africa – the black people.
The rise of Pan-Africanism in the 1920s was a consequence of the need by African intellectuals to challenge white supremacy, to defeat the absurd notion that Africans were inferior to whites and to agitate the African Diaspora towards unity with the rest of Africans. The fifth Pan-African Congress that was held in Manchester in 1945 was meant to galvanize Africans against colonial rule and promote self-pride among Africans.
It was in all probability this Congress, which was attended by W.E.B Du Bois, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta among others, that set the wheels of decolonialisation of Africa and the British West Indies in motion. There was a determination of purpose and single-mindedness of who an African was within the context of Pan-Africanism. Progenitors of colonialisation and their descendants were never seen or imagained as African. They themselves did not imagine themselves as African.
Marcus Garvey famously agitated the conscience of the African Diaspora when he advocated for the return of Africans to Africa. Garvey was not inviting the mass exodus of Europeans to Africa. Each understood that by African, Garvey was making an impassioned plea to black people to return home to Africa and rebuild it into what it should be for themselves. Ironically, W.E.B Du Bois was one of those Africans in the Diaspora who opposed Garvey’s plan for the return of all Africans to Africa; but in his old-age he relocated to Ghana on invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, were he died.
Our historical revisionists who want to be reclassified as Africans and no longer as Europeans or White, tend to look North at Arab countries and claim, in their state of bewilderment, that Arabs are Africans, therefore, they too have the right to proclaim themselves African. Perhaps it is the lack of historical knowledge that leads some to conclude that Arabs are Africans. The term “Arab” denote the racial identity of people from the Arabian Peninsula who conquered Egypt (then part of the Byzantine Empire) and Libya in the A.D. 600s and ended up controlling much of the northern part of Africa, including Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. Therefore, Arabs are not Africans.
The historical revisionism by Whites becomes even more troubled given the recent archaeological evidence that appear to challenge long-held view that Africa is the cradle of mankind. Palaeontologists have recently unearthed the oldest human fossil in China, which is said to be 60,000 years older than the next oldest Homo Sapiens remains. According to these palaeontologists their discovery suggests that anatomically modern humans had arrived in China long before the species began acting human.
Popular theory among Whites has been that their ancient ancestors came from Africa. However, palaeontologists after an analysis of more than 5,000 ancient teeth, concluded that first Europeans were from Asia, not Africa. This discovery reconciles with the discovery of the oldest human fossil in China, that whites have no direct ancestral lineage to Africa. Even when we disregard the pattern of migration of hominids from Africa to Europe and Asia; we can conclude that there was no species of mankind that evolved in Africa from hominids into Whites, who then migrated and settled in Europe. The true origin of whites according to archaeology was elsewhere not in Africa. Given this history, it would make much more sense for Whites to want to be reclassified as Chinese.
While ancient and recent history confirms that Whites are not Africans; the notion that they are persists, primarily born from lack of distinction between racial and national identity. Europeans who migrated and settled Africa through naturalisation assumed the national identity of countries in which they adopted as their own. Their descendants in later generations through birth assumed the national identity of those countries, not the racial identity as Africans. They remained whites or Europeans, as oppressors of Africans saw themselves. No white person can either through birth or naturalisation assume an identity of African. African is not and has never been a national identity. Nowhere does a country called Africa exist.
Whites who had lived in South Africa for countless generations, now after many years of considering themselves Europeans during the apartheid years; proclaim themselves Africans. When white Afrikaner supremacists had signs saying “Europeans” and “Non-Europeans” to enforce segregation between Africans and Europeans, there was never any ambiguity around the term “European”. Almost all Whites understood themselves to be Europeans, other than the few who stood on the side of Africans to fight for the abolishment of segregation laws and emancipation of the oppressed people.
It is puzzling that Whites readily accept African languages to be exclusively those commonly known as black languages; yet they cannot accept that the description “African” exclusively refers to Black people. The notion that Afrikaans is an African language is as ridiculous as any claim to Africanism by the progeny of European settlers. Afrikaans by its origin is bastardised Dutch and as some say, “another form fanagalo”. It is not an African language in the same manner that Arabic-dialect in Egypt is not an African language.
If this historical revisionism if to continue, soon Whites would find the racial identity as African not enough, and proclaim themselves “Black” and accuse those who refuse to recognise them as such to be racist and intolerant. Hopefully sense will prevail with regard to the contested description of African and we would never reach such point of racial absurdity. I have generally understood Whites in South Africa to be opposed to name-changes. They have lambasted the ANC when it embarked on a name-changing adventure. It seems a bit hypocritical of them that they want to change their racial description and assume a new identity. This quest for blackness can be readily achieved through simple process of sun-tanning; though perfect results cannot be guaranteed. There is an increased risk of turning orange than black as Deborah Patta has learnt.
The need for belonging is well understood and appreciated. Africans embrace other races as their fellow countrymen, whether white, Indian or Chinese; in the hope for unity under one flag, for the betterment of the country we all live in and embrace as our own. Africa is for all who live in it, African, Indian, Chinese, Arab, etc. Perhaps Africans should embark on a countrywide hug-giving exercise to reassure their White compatriots that they too belong in Africa, in any colour but Black.
Source: Sentletse Diakanyo
Whites have been relentless on their attempt at historical revisionism in respect of the definition of “African” since the 1994 democratic dispensation; and their efforts appeared to have intensified after the collective hoorah of reconciliation had dissipated. Historical revisionism is generally a legitimate re-evaluation of existing understanding and knowledge of particular historical aspects in order to correct any distortions; but there are also those with deliberate motives to revise history in order to mislead or that it reflects them in favourable light.
Historically, the term “African” never had any ambiguous meaning. To Africans today it still does not have any ambiguous meaning. Africans across the continent and in the Diaspora have long understood its meaning to refer to them as black people. African leaders from all walks of life, who waged a relentless struggle against the thuggery of colonialism in the continent, were of one mind with regard to who Africans were. The fight against colonialism was to liberate Africans from the thuggery visited upon them by Europeans who had arrogated to themselves the power to rule with brute force and dominate vast territories of the African continent.
When both Arabs and Europeans enslaved Africans and traded them as disposable commodities; there was never any misunderstanding with regard to who Africans were. These were native inhabitants of Africa who were regarded as sub-human, and even “savages and barbarians” as the British warlord, Winston Churchill perceived them. These are people who in historical texts have been described as “African slaves”. Neither Arabs nor European slave-masters ever imagined themselves as Africans. When an order for an African slave arrived, it was clear that it was a commoditised black person who needed to be captured and a price put on his head.
Nelson Mandela on occasion of his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of the Republic of South Africa said, “The South Africa we have struggled for, in which all our people, be they African, Coloured, Indian or White, regard themselves as citizens of one nation is at hand.” Mandela too understood the true meaning of the term “African”. He knew that the term “African” referred to black people of this continent; that black South Africans were the Africans.
When Thabo Mbeki stood before the National Assembly on adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and proclaimed himself an African during his seminal speech, he said, “I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me. In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East. Their proud dignity informs my bearing, their culture a part of my essence. The stripes they bore on their bodies from the lash of the slave master are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should not be done.”
Mbeki recognised and acknowledged that other cultures and the acquired knowledge of the history of various races had shaped his being and person as an African. The speech has been misinterpreted for social expediency by some to mean that all who live in the continent are Africans.
“The African is conditioned, by cultural and social institutions of centuries, to a freedom of which Europe has little conception, and it is not in his nature to accept serfdom for ever." These are the words of Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya, from the conclusion to his book Facing Mount Kenya, 1938. Kenyatta too does not appear to have suffered from the illusion that the term “African” referred to anybody else other than native inhabitants of Africa – the black people.
The rise of Pan-Africanism in the 1920s was a consequence of the need by African intellectuals to challenge white supremacy, to defeat the absurd notion that Africans were inferior to whites and to agitate the African Diaspora towards unity with the rest of Africans. The fifth Pan-African Congress that was held in Manchester in 1945 was meant to galvanize Africans against colonial rule and promote self-pride among Africans.
It was in all probability this Congress, which was attended by W.E.B Du Bois, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta among others, that set the wheels of decolonialisation of Africa and the British West Indies in motion. There was a determination of purpose and single-mindedness of who an African was within the context of Pan-Africanism. Progenitors of colonialisation and their descendants were never seen or imagained as African. They themselves did not imagine themselves as African.
Marcus Garvey famously agitated the conscience of the African Diaspora when he advocated for the return of Africans to Africa. Garvey was not inviting the mass exodus of Europeans to Africa. Each understood that by African, Garvey was making an impassioned plea to black people to return home to Africa and rebuild it into what it should be for themselves. Ironically, W.E.B Du Bois was one of those Africans in the Diaspora who opposed Garvey’s plan for the return of all Africans to Africa; but in his old-age he relocated to Ghana on invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, were he died.
Our historical revisionists who want to be reclassified as Africans and no longer as Europeans or White, tend to look North at Arab countries and claim, in their state of bewilderment, that Arabs are Africans, therefore, they too have the right to proclaim themselves African. Perhaps it is the lack of historical knowledge that leads some to conclude that Arabs are Africans. The term “Arab” denote the racial identity of people from the Arabian Peninsula who conquered Egypt (then part of the Byzantine Empire) and Libya in the A.D. 600s and ended up controlling much of the northern part of Africa, including Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. Therefore, Arabs are not Africans.
The historical revisionism by Whites becomes even more troubled given the recent archaeological evidence that appear to challenge long-held view that Africa is the cradle of mankind. Palaeontologists have recently unearthed the oldest human fossil in China, which is said to be 60,000 years older than the next oldest Homo Sapiens remains. According to these palaeontologists their discovery suggests that anatomically modern humans had arrived in China long before the species began acting human.
Popular theory among Whites has been that their ancient ancestors came from Africa. However, palaeontologists after an analysis of more than 5,000 ancient teeth, concluded that first Europeans were from Asia, not Africa. This discovery reconciles with the discovery of the oldest human fossil in China, that whites have no direct ancestral lineage to Africa. Even when we disregard the pattern of migration of hominids from Africa to Europe and Asia; we can conclude that there was no species of mankind that evolved in Africa from hominids into Whites, who then migrated and settled in Europe. The true origin of whites according to archaeology was elsewhere not in Africa. Given this history, it would make much more sense for Whites to want to be reclassified as Chinese.
While ancient and recent history confirms that Whites are not Africans; the notion that they are persists, primarily born from lack of distinction between racial and national identity. Europeans who migrated and settled Africa through naturalisation assumed the national identity of countries in which they adopted as their own. Their descendants in later generations through birth assumed the national identity of those countries, not the racial identity as Africans. They remained whites or Europeans, as oppressors of Africans saw themselves. No white person can either through birth or naturalisation assume an identity of African. African is not and has never been a national identity. Nowhere does a country called Africa exist.
Whites who had lived in South Africa for countless generations, now after many years of considering themselves Europeans during the apartheid years; proclaim themselves Africans. When white Afrikaner supremacists had signs saying “Europeans” and “Non-Europeans” to enforce segregation between Africans and Europeans, there was never any ambiguity around the term “European”. Almost all Whites understood themselves to be Europeans, other than the few who stood on the side of Africans to fight for the abolishment of segregation laws and emancipation of the oppressed people.
It is puzzling that Whites readily accept African languages to be exclusively those commonly known as black languages; yet they cannot accept that the description “African” exclusively refers to Black people. The notion that Afrikaans is an African language is as ridiculous as any claim to Africanism by the progeny of European settlers. Afrikaans by its origin is bastardised Dutch and as some say, “another form fanagalo”. It is not an African language in the same manner that Arabic-dialect in Egypt is not an African language.
If this historical revisionism if to continue, soon Whites would find the racial identity as African not enough, and proclaim themselves “Black” and accuse those who refuse to recognise them as such to be racist and intolerant. Hopefully sense will prevail with regard to the contested description of African and we would never reach such point of racial absurdity. I have generally understood Whites in South Africa to be opposed to name-changes. They have lambasted the ANC when it embarked on a name-changing adventure. It seems a bit hypocritical of them that they want to change their racial description and assume a new identity. This quest for blackness can be readily achieved through simple process of sun-tanning; though perfect results cannot be guaranteed. There is an increased risk of turning orange than black as Deborah Patta has learnt.
The need for belonging is well understood and appreciated. Africans embrace other races as their fellow countrymen, whether white, Indian or Chinese; in the hope for unity under one flag, for the betterment of the country we all live in and embrace as our own. Africa is for all who live in it, African, Indian, Chinese, Arab, etc. Perhaps Africans should embark on a countrywide hug-giving exercise to reassure their White compatriots that they too belong in Africa, in any colour but Black.
Source: Sentletse Diakanyo
Monday, December 27, 2010
Majali found dead in hotel: report
Controversial businessman, Sandile Majali, was found dead in his room at the Sandton Quatermain Hotel in Johannesburg on Sunday, the general manager said. “He stayed with us last night, and I can confirm that he was found passed away this morning,” general manager, Rosy Chilewitz said. Chilewitz however, could not give details of when he checked into the hotel. “I cant give you anymore details on that, all I can say is that he was with us last night, police are dealing with the rest,” she told Sapa.
Gauteng police spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Lungelo Dlamini, said he could not confirm that the man found dead was in fact Majali, but could confirm that a man was found dead in his room, at the hotel at 9am. “We cannot confirm the man found dead was him, as family need to identify the body...We can say that paramedics were called to the room where they pronounced him dead after he was found by his girlfriend.” Dlamini could not say whether the man had any known injuries to his body, and what seemed to be the cause of death. “An inquest into this has been opened,” he added.
Moneyweb website reported that Majali's lawyer John Ncebetsha, said the family were preparing a statement “while coming to terms with their loss”. Majali, who was said to be in financial trouble, came into the public eye following his role in the so-called Oilgate saga that saw him “donate” R11-million of PetroSA's funds to the ANC ahead of the 2004 elections.
He was arrested in October by the SAPS Commercial Crimes Unit, appeared in court on fraud charges and was released on bail - after directorship of mining company Kalahari Resources was changed from Brian Amos Mashile and his sister Daphne Mashile-Nkosi to a group of eight individuals including Majali. The two siblings had to bring an urgent interdict before the High Court in Johannesburg to get themselves reinstated as directors of the company.
Kalahari Resources owns a 40 percent stake in Kalagadi Manganese, the mining company developing an R11 billion manganese mine and sinter plant in the Northern Cape, as well as a smelter at Coega. The Industrial Development Corporation owns 10 percent of Kalagadi Manganese, while steel producer ArcelorMittal owns the remaining 50 percent stake. Majali was due to appear in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court again on January 18.
His three co-accused Stephan Khoza - who was arrested with Majali -Haralambos Sferopoulous, and Elvis Bongani Ndala, recently appeared in court over their mental fitness to stand trial. Earlier this month, Kalahari Resources legal representative Heinrich Meiring, said it was found that Khoza's psychological assessment revealed that he suffered from schizophrenia and paranoid delusions amongst other mental health problems. Meiring said according to Khoza's psychiatrists, he did not have the mental capacity or ability to distinguish between right and wrong as a result of his mental illness.
Sferopoulos and Ndala were also be sent for psychological assessment and their results will be heard alongside Khoza's in the High Court in Johannesburg on January 11. They are all listed on the Internet as directors of the “South African Community Government Union” (SACGU). Its website, www.sacgu.org, carries bizarre graphs and pictures. According to the website, Khoza is the “Master” of the SACGU, Ndala the “deputy” and “doctor” Sferopoulous in charge of “economics”. An extract from website's home page says SACGU tasks include: “Overseeing the multinational people of the Republic of South Africa, united by the common fate of our land, establishing human rights and freedoms, civic peace and accord, preserving the historical established state unity, proceeding from the universally recognised state principles of equality and self-determination of peoples...”
Meanwhile, members of social networking site Twitter, late on Sunday evening expressed their views following the news of Majali's death, with new tweets at almost each minute. Some tweeted: “My gut feel is that Sandi Majali was eradicated by some powerful entities uncomfortable with what his trial might have revealed”, “More like 'who won't fall when he can't testify?' RT (at)bkonnek:
Who stands to benefit from the fall of Sandi Majali”, “What must not be confused for concern is the glib commentary on Majali death. So another person, albeit one with fraud issues, dies. Blah” and “Can't wait for a statement from Luthuli House! (at)r2kcampaign: Sandile Majali found dead -how did he die? And who benefits?”
Source: IoL
Gauteng police spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Lungelo Dlamini, said he could not confirm that the man found dead was in fact Majali, but could confirm that a man was found dead in his room, at the hotel at 9am. “We cannot confirm the man found dead was him, as family need to identify the body...We can say that paramedics were called to the room where they pronounced him dead after he was found by his girlfriend.” Dlamini could not say whether the man had any known injuries to his body, and what seemed to be the cause of death. “An inquest into this has been opened,” he added.
Moneyweb website reported that Majali's lawyer John Ncebetsha, said the family were preparing a statement “while coming to terms with their loss”. Majali, who was said to be in financial trouble, came into the public eye following his role in the so-called Oilgate saga that saw him “donate” R11-million of PetroSA's funds to the ANC ahead of the 2004 elections.
He was arrested in October by the SAPS Commercial Crimes Unit, appeared in court on fraud charges and was released on bail - after directorship of mining company Kalahari Resources was changed from Brian Amos Mashile and his sister Daphne Mashile-Nkosi to a group of eight individuals including Majali. The two siblings had to bring an urgent interdict before the High Court in Johannesburg to get themselves reinstated as directors of the company.
Kalahari Resources owns a 40 percent stake in Kalagadi Manganese, the mining company developing an R11 billion manganese mine and sinter plant in the Northern Cape, as well as a smelter at Coega. The Industrial Development Corporation owns 10 percent of Kalagadi Manganese, while steel producer ArcelorMittal owns the remaining 50 percent stake. Majali was due to appear in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court again on January 18.
His three co-accused Stephan Khoza - who was arrested with Majali -Haralambos Sferopoulous, and Elvis Bongani Ndala, recently appeared in court over their mental fitness to stand trial. Earlier this month, Kalahari Resources legal representative Heinrich Meiring, said it was found that Khoza's psychological assessment revealed that he suffered from schizophrenia and paranoid delusions amongst other mental health problems. Meiring said according to Khoza's psychiatrists, he did not have the mental capacity or ability to distinguish between right and wrong as a result of his mental illness.
Sferopoulos and Ndala were also be sent for psychological assessment and their results will be heard alongside Khoza's in the High Court in Johannesburg on January 11. They are all listed on the Internet as directors of the “South African Community Government Union” (SACGU). Its website, www.sacgu.org, carries bizarre graphs and pictures. According to the website, Khoza is the “Master” of the SACGU, Ndala the “deputy” and “doctor” Sferopoulous in charge of “economics”. An extract from website's home page says SACGU tasks include: “Overseeing the multinational people of the Republic of South Africa, united by the common fate of our land, establishing human rights and freedoms, civic peace and accord, preserving the historical established state unity, proceeding from the universally recognised state principles of equality and self-determination of peoples...”
Meanwhile, members of social networking site Twitter, late on Sunday evening expressed their views following the news of Majali's death, with new tweets at almost each minute. Some tweeted: “My gut feel is that Sandi Majali was eradicated by some powerful entities uncomfortable with what his trial might have revealed”, “More like 'who won't fall when he can't testify?' RT (at)bkonnek:
Who stands to benefit from the fall of Sandi Majali”, “What must not be confused for concern is the glib commentary on Majali death. So another person, albeit one with fraud issues, dies. Blah” and “Can't wait for a statement from Luthuli House! (at)r2kcampaign: Sandile Majali found dead -how did he die? And who benefits?”
Source: IoL
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Should Freedom Under Law appeal the Hlophe judgment?
A few months after the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) decided that it was not worth trying to find out whether it was Judge President John Hlophe, on the one hand, or some of the judges of the Constitutional Court, on the other, who had lied to it, I gave a talk via video-link to academics in New York about the whole saga.
I had previously taken quite a firm stance (to say the least) against the decision by the JSC not to continue with its investigation, so some of my American colleagues seemed taken aback when I told them that while the decision by the JSC was clearly wrong and bad for the integrity and independence of the judiciary, it was quite understandable that the JSC came to this conclusion and that I had some sympathy for the members of the JSC who in effect voted in favour of protecting Hlophe – despite the evidence and the logic demanding a full enquiry.
I explained that given the fact that only a small percentage of advocates in South Africa are black or female and even fewer of them are Senior Counsel, given further that advocates work for themselves and are likely to flounder unless they are absolutely brilliant or unless they can count on the informal support of colleagues and members of the attorney’s profession, and given the fact that there are still some white advocates — maybe good people, but part of the dominant group and therefore not always attuned to both the very practical and the more intangible problems faced by black and female advocates who join what they experience as a hostile environment — many black advocates feel angry and disillusioned.
Some people in the legal profession find this perplexing. Others complain that black advocates are not buckling up and that they are far too sensitive or spoilt. These complaints often emanate from men who do not seem to “get it” because they happen to be steeped in the culture and unspoken assumptions that reflect their own life experience but not that of black, female and gay and lesbian advocates.
Some heterosexual white men who have always operated in an institutional culture that reflects their world view, their life experience and their way of being in the world find it difficult to comprehend that this culture can be extremely alienating and exclusionary to those who do not share their cultural and professional experience. This institutional culture — which is changing, but perhaps faster in Johannesburg than in Cape Town – is constituted by both formal rules and informal rules that are so part of the dominant group’s life experience that they do not seem to them like rules at all, but just “the way things are”. I suspects large parts of the legal profession are only now beginning to grapple with the kind of changes needed to create a culture that respects or even celebrates the diversity of our country.
I cannot speak for black South Africans or for women, but as a gay man I am acutely aware of the ways in which an institutional culture that does not embrace diversity can disempower one and can make one feel inferior and excluded. This can often work in both harsh and more subtle ways.
One may not be invited to the drinks, the braai, a golf day or the team meeting where bonds are forged, informal alliances made, or informal decisions taken about who will be awarded juicy and interesting work. A feeling of being watched and judged, of always having to prove oneself because one is not “one of the boys”, can permeate one’s professional life. For people who are perhaps not as confident or outgoing as myself or are not as prepared as myself to stand up for themselves and to make “trouble” (yes, I have always had that problem), the professional consequences could be catastrophic.
In this context, it was perhaps inevitable and even understandable that the complaint against John Hlophe – the Judge President of the Division with the smallest number of black Advocates – would be perceived as an attack on black lawyers in general. This is not about taking a “reasoned and principled” stand, but about a highly emotional response that emanates from a highly irregular and unsatisfactory situation.
In fact, I would suspect that for many black lawyers the very “reasons and principles” that those of us who clamoured for a full inquiry in the Hlophe matter relied on, might well have appeared — rightly or wrongly — like nothing more than the “conventional wisdom” of white and privileged lawyers who wished to impose their way of doing things on a vulnerable and angry minority in the profession or to punish an “uppity” black man.
One is always wiser in hindsight, but given my view of the legal profession described above, I might well have employed a slightly different tone on the Hlophe matter. I might well have tempered the outrage of many of my posts of the time. (This outrage, I must confess, was animated by a fierce loyalty towards, and support for, the institution of the Constitutional Court, whose judgments I often strongly disagree with but whose members I respect unconditionally.)
Which brings me to the recent judgment of Mabusa J in the North Gauteng High Court in the case of Freedom Under Law v Acting Chairperson: Judicial Service Commission and Others.
What is not in dispute in this case is, first, that there are significant disputes of fact. Put more bluntly: either judge Hlophe lied or one or more of the Judges of the Constitutional Court lied to the JSC. Second, the JSC decided, before it was reconstituted after the 2009 election, that if the allegations against Judge President Hlophe were true (in other words, if the Constitutional Court judges were not lying) this would constitute gross misconduct that warrant impeachment. After the JSC was reconstituted it eventually decided not to proceed with an inquiry to try and establish whether it was Hlophe or one or more of the judges of the Constitutional Court who were lying because the evidence available to the JSC at that point did not provide conclusive proof either way.
What emerges from the judgment is that the JSC in effect decided that the evidence of the Constitutional Court judges (including Nkabinde and Jaftha JA) presented to the JSC was not of a sufficiently high calibre to support a prima facie case against Judge President Hlophe. At its most generous, one could argue that Mabusa J found that even if the evidence of Nkabinde and Jaftha were true (something disputed by Hlophe) there was not a clear enough case against the Judge President to prove gross misconduct.
In reviewing this decision, the High Court applied a rather old fashioned test familiar to lawyers who battled against apartheid state of emergency regulations, instead of a post-constitutional test in line with the requirements of the Rule of Law and constitutionally-enhanced rules of administrative justice. It asked whether the JSC had indeed “applied its mind” to the matter. The judgment states, correctly, that the court could not declare the JSC decision invalid merely because it disagreed with it or because it was unwise. But it seemed to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It failed to appreciate that in a constitutional state, a court should review a decision by a constitutional body like the JSC applying a slightly more stringent test than merely asking whether the decision-makers applied their minds to the issue at hand. The Rule of Law – a founding principle of our Constitution – now requires this.
When dealing with the question of whether two members of the JSC should have recused themselves because they made statements in support of Hlophe in the months before the JSC decision was taken, the Court similarly applied a pre-constitutional standard and assumed that as long as the impugned members had given plausible explanations of why they would not have been biased, despite having made statements in support of Judge President Hlophe previously, that was the end of the matter.
This is not the constitutional era test for bias requiring recusal. In a constitutional state the test is whether a reasonable person, imbued with all the facts, might have had a reasonable apprehension that the particular members of the JSC were biased or not. The High Court failed to annunciate or apply this test.
Ironically – given the fact that Judge President Hlophe is said to be a champion of legal transformation — the judgment seems to rely on an apartheid-era style of legal reasoning to find against FUL. Those who support the transformation of the legal system — whether they are supporters of Judge President Hlophe or not — should therefore be concerned about the untransformed and conservative nature of the principles and style of reasoning relied on by the High Court to come to the conclusion it did.
But does this mean the judgment should be appealed? Given the racialised nature of the case and the damage already caused by the Hlophe affair to the judiciary, and given the possibility that Parliament would not impeach Hlophe even if the JSC recommended it, should we not perhaps let sleeping dogs lie? I am less enthusiastic about such an appeal going froward than I would have been a year ago. But on balance I would argue that in the interest of the transformation of the legal system, the highly problematic apartheid-style reasoning of the High Court should not go unchallenged.
Maybe those judges in of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein – who in the past have not always embraced the transformative vision of the Constitution with the enthusiasm one would have wanted — may correct the legal misconceptions in this case so that the correct kind of legal reasoning could be applied the next time such a case comes before the High Courts.
It might well be that if the SCA sets aside the JSC decision, the JSC will revisit its decision and again decide not to proceed with an oral hearing. I would maintain that such a decision would be utterly irrational and damaging to the credibility of the judiciary but I would abide by such a decision if freshly made. But at least an appeal to the SCA would correct the deeply conservative and untransformed reasoning and application of outdated legal principles used by the High Court, which would be a good thing for the legal transformation of South Africa.
Surely both supporters of the JSC decision and those who — like FUL – would have liked to see the JSC actually making a finding on whether it was Hlophe JP or some judges of the Constitutional Court who were lying through their teeth, would agree that establishing a more progressive jurisprudence regarding the decision making standards employed by a constitutional body like the JSC is more important than the temporary setback for either Hlophe or some of the judges of the Constitutional Court that might result from this decision being overturned?
Source: Consitutionally Speaking
I had previously taken quite a firm stance (to say the least) against the decision by the JSC not to continue with its investigation, so some of my American colleagues seemed taken aback when I told them that while the decision by the JSC was clearly wrong and bad for the integrity and independence of the judiciary, it was quite understandable that the JSC came to this conclusion and that I had some sympathy for the members of the JSC who in effect voted in favour of protecting Hlophe – despite the evidence and the logic demanding a full enquiry.
I explained that given the fact that only a small percentage of advocates in South Africa are black or female and even fewer of them are Senior Counsel, given further that advocates work for themselves and are likely to flounder unless they are absolutely brilliant or unless they can count on the informal support of colleagues and members of the attorney’s profession, and given the fact that there are still some white advocates — maybe good people, but part of the dominant group and therefore not always attuned to both the very practical and the more intangible problems faced by black and female advocates who join what they experience as a hostile environment — many black advocates feel angry and disillusioned.
Some people in the legal profession find this perplexing. Others complain that black advocates are not buckling up and that they are far too sensitive or spoilt. These complaints often emanate from men who do not seem to “get it” because they happen to be steeped in the culture and unspoken assumptions that reflect their own life experience but not that of black, female and gay and lesbian advocates.
Some heterosexual white men who have always operated in an institutional culture that reflects their world view, their life experience and their way of being in the world find it difficult to comprehend that this culture can be extremely alienating and exclusionary to those who do not share their cultural and professional experience. This institutional culture — which is changing, but perhaps faster in Johannesburg than in Cape Town – is constituted by both formal rules and informal rules that are so part of the dominant group’s life experience that they do not seem to them like rules at all, but just “the way things are”. I suspects large parts of the legal profession are only now beginning to grapple with the kind of changes needed to create a culture that respects or even celebrates the diversity of our country.
I cannot speak for black South Africans or for women, but as a gay man I am acutely aware of the ways in which an institutional culture that does not embrace diversity can disempower one and can make one feel inferior and excluded. This can often work in both harsh and more subtle ways.
One may not be invited to the drinks, the braai, a golf day or the team meeting where bonds are forged, informal alliances made, or informal decisions taken about who will be awarded juicy and interesting work. A feeling of being watched and judged, of always having to prove oneself because one is not “one of the boys”, can permeate one’s professional life. For people who are perhaps not as confident or outgoing as myself or are not as prepared as myself to stand up for themselves and to make “trouble” (yes, I have always had that problem), the professional consequences could be catastrophic.
In this context, it was perhaps inevitable and even understandable that the complaint against John Hlophe – the Judge President of the Division with the smallest number of black Advocates – would be perceived as an attack on black lawyers in general. This is not about taking a “reasoned and principled” stand, but about a highly emotional response that emanates from a highly irregular and unsatisfactory situation.
In fact, I would suspect that for many black lawyers the very “reasons and principles” that those of us who clamoured for a full inquiry in the Hlophe matter relied on, might well have appeared — rightly or wrongly — like nothing more than the “conventional wisdom” of white and privileged lawyers who wished to impose their way of doing things on a vulnerable and angry minority in the profession or to punish an “uppity” black man.
One is always wiser in hindsight, but given my view of the legal profession described above, I might well have employed a slightly different tone on the Hlophe matter. I might well have tempered the outrage of many of my posts of the time. (This outrage, I must confess, was animated by a fierce loyalty towards, and support for, the institution of the Constitutional Court, whose judgments I often strongly disagree with but whose members I respect unconditionally.)
Which brings me to the recent judgment of Mabusa J in the North Gauteng High Court in the case of Freedom Under Law v Acting Chairperson: Judicial Service Commission and Others.
What is not in dispute in this case is, first, that there are significant disputes of fact. Put more bluntly: either judge Hlophe lied or one or more of the Judges of the Constitutional Court lied to the JSC. Second, the JSC decided, before it was reconstituted after the 2009 election, that if the allegations against Judge President Hlophe were true (in other words, if the Constitutional Court judges were not lying) this would constitute gross misconduct that warrant impeachment. After the JSC was reconstituted it eventually decided not to proceed with an inquiry to try and establish whether it was Hlophe or one or more of the judges of the Constitutional Court who were lying because the evidence available to the JSC at that point did not provide conclusive proof either way.
What emerges from the judgment is that the JSC in effect decided that the evidence of the Constitutional Court judges (including Nkabinde and Jaftha JA) presented to the JSC was not of a sufficiently high calibre to support a prima facie case against Judge President Hlophe. At its most generous, one could argue that Mabusa J found that even if the evidence of Nkabinde and Jaftha were true (something disputed by Hlophe) there was not a clear enough case against the Judge President to prove gross misconduct.
In reviewing this decision, the High Court applied a rather old fashioned test familiar to lawyers who battled against apartheid state of emergency regulations, instead of a post-constitutional test in line with the requirements of the Rule of Law and constitutionally-enhanced rules of administrative justice. It asked whether the JSC had indeed “applied its mind” to the matter. The judgment states, correctly, that the court could not declare the JSC decision invalid merely because it disagreed with it or because it was unwise. But it seemed to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It failed to appreciate that in a constitutional state, a court should review a decision by a constitutional body like the JSC applying a slightly more stringent test than merely asking whether the decision-makers applied their minds to the issue at hand. The Rule of Law – a founding principle of our Constitution – now requires this.
When dealing with the question of whether two members of the JSC should have recused themselves because they made statements in support of Hlophe in the months before the JSC decision was taken, the Court similarly applied a pre-constitutional standard and assumed that as long as the impugned members had given plausible explanations of why they would not have been biased, despite having made statements in support of Judge President Hlophe previously, that was the end of the matter.
This is not the constitutional era test for bias requiring recusal. In a constitutional state the test is whether a reasonable person, imbued with all the facts, might have had a reasonable apprehension that the particular members of the JSC were biased or not. The High Court failed to annunciate or apply this test.
Ironically – given the fact that Judge President Hlophe is said to be a champion of legal transformation — the judgment seems to rely on an apartheid-era style of legal reasoning to find against FUL. Those who support the transformation of the legal system — whether they are supporters of Judge President Hlophe or not — should therefore be concerned about the untransformed and conservative nature of the principles and style of reasoning relied on by the High Court to come to the conclusion it did.
But does this mean the judgment should be appealed? Given the racialised nature of the case and the damage already caused by the Hlophe affair to the judiciary, and given the possibility that Parliament would not impeach Hlophe even if the JSC recommended it, should we not perhaps let sleeping dogs lie? I am less enthusiastic about such an appeal going froward than I would have been a year ago. But on balance I would argue that in the interest of the transformation of the legal system, the highly problematic apartheid-style reasoning of the High Court should not go unchallenged.
Maybe those judges in of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein – who in the past have not always embraced the transformative vision of the Constitution with the enthusiasm one would have wanted — may correct the legal misconceptions in this case so that the correct kind of legal reasoning could be applied the next time such a case comes before the High Courts.
It might well be that if the SCA sets aside the JSC decision, the JSC will revisit its decision and again decide not to proceed with an oral hearing. I would maintain that such a decision would be utterly irrational and damaging to the credibility of the judiciary but I would abide by such a decision if freshly made. But at least an appeal to the SCA would correct the deeply conservative and untransformed reasoning and application of outdated legal principles used by the High Court, which would be a good thing for the legal transformation of South Africa.
Surely both supporters of the JSC decision and those who — like FUL – would have liked to see the JSC actually making a finding on whether it was Hlophe JP or some judges of the Constitutional Court who were lying through their teeth, would agree that establishing a more progressive jurisprudence regarding the decision making standards employed by a constitutional body like the JSC is more important than the temporary setback for either Hlophe or some of the judges of the Constitutional Court that might result from this decision being overturned?
Source: Consitutionally Speaking
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
South Africa reverses anti-gay stance at UN
Gay advocates win victory at UN — Anita Snow
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 21, 2010; 9:00 PM
Gay rights advocates scored a hard-fought victory at the U.N. on Tuesday when member states restored a reference to sexual orientation, dropped last month from a resolution opposing the unjustified killing of minority groups. The removal of the reference, at the urging of African and Arab countries last month, alarmed human rights advocates who said gay people are among minority groups that need special protection from extrajudicial and other unjustified slayings. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice at the time said she was “incensed” by the change and announced she would sponsor the measure to restore the language.
The battle underscores the divide between U.N. members with their diverse religious and cultural sensibilities on gay rights issues and sparked something of a culture war at the international body. Belgium, Finland and other Western nations spoke in favor of including sexual orientation. A coalition of African countries said it was “greatly alarmed” that the direct reference to sexual orientation was included, and called it an attempt “to create new rights, new standards or new groups.”
Boris Dittrich, director of the gay rights program at Human Rights Watch, said he was “relieved” by the vote, and credited Rice with introducing the new amendment. “The resolution does justice to gays, lesbians and transgender people in countries where they are targeted for assaults and killings,” Dittrich said. “Hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity must be countered just like hate crimes on the basis of race or religion.” Mark Bromley, of the Washington-based Council for Global Equality, called the vote “an important victory.”
Rights groups worked ahead of the vote to lobby countries that had abstained earlier in hopes of getting them to approve a U.S.-sponsored amendment to restore the words “sexual orientation.” Colombia and South Africa were among the countries they persuaded to approve the amendment. “The council applauds the principled leadership of the United States and other like-minded countries in restoring the language and staking out a clear claim for gay men and lesbians at the United nations,” said Bromley, whose council aims to advance gay rights in American foreign policy.
General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but rather reflect the views of the majority of the world’s nations. The assembly on Tuesday voted 93 in favor of the United States’ proposal to restore the previous language, with 55 countries against and 27 abstaining. The assembly then approved the amended resolution 122 in favor, with 0 votes against, and 59 abstentions.
President Obama said the vote “marks an important moment in the struggle for civil and human rights.” “The time has come for all nations to redouble our efforts to end discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people,” he said. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. reintroduced the language to send an unequivocal message that “No one should be killed for who they are. Sadly, many people around the world continue to be targeted and killed because of their sexual orientation,” she said. “These heinous crimes must be condemned and investigated wherever they occur.”
The call came after the UN General Assembly today endorsed a resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, the third since 2007.
Source: Constitutionally Speaking
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 21, 2010; 9:00 PM
Gay rights advocates scored a hard-fought victory at the U.N. on Tuesday when member states restored a reference to sexual orientation, dropped last month from a resolution opposing the unjustified killing of minority groups. The removal of the reference, at the urging of African and Arab countries last month, alarmed human rights advocates who said gay people are among minority groups that need special protection from extrajudicial and other unjustified slayings. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice at the time said she was “incensed” by the change and announced she would sponsor the measure to restore the language.
The battle underscores the divide between U.N. members with their diverse religious and cultural sensibilities on gay rights issues and sparked something of a culture war at the international body. Belgium, Finland and other Western nations spoke in favor of including sexual orientation. A coalition of African countries said it was “greatly alarmed” that the direct reference to sexual orientation was included, and called it an attempt “to create new rights, new standards or new groups.”
Boris Dittrich, director of the gay rights program at Human Rights Watch, said he was “relieved” by the vote, and credited Rice with introducing the new amendment. “The resolution does justice to gays, lesbians and transgender people in countries where they are targeted for assaults and killings,” Dittrich said. “Hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity must be countered just like hate crimes on the basis of race or religion.” Mark Bromley, of the Washington-based Council for Global Equality, called the vote “an important victory.”
Rights groups worked ahead of the vote to lobby countries that had abstained earlier in hopes of getting them to approve a U.S.-sponsored amendment to restore the words “sexual orientation.” Colombia and South Africa were among the countries they persuaded to approve the amendment. “The council applauds the principled leadership of the United States and other like-minded countries in restoring the language and staking out a clear claim for gay men and lesbians at the United nations,” said Bromley, whose council aims to advance gay rights in American foreign policy.
General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but rather reflect the views of the majority of the world’s nations. The assembly on Tuesday voted 93 in favor of the United States’ proposal to restore the previous language, with 55 countries against and 27 abstaining. The assembly then approved the amended resolution 122 in favor, with 0 votes against, and 59 abstentions.
President Obama said the vote “marks an important moment in the struggle for civil and human rights.” “The time has come for all nations to redouble our efforts to end discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people,” he said. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. reintroduced the language to send an unequivocal message that “No one should be killed for who they are. Sadly, many people around the world continue to be targeted and killed because of their sexual orientation,” she said. “These heinous crimes must be condemned and investigated wherever they occur.”
The call came after the UN General Assembly today endorsed a resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, the third since 2007.
Source: Constitutionally Speaking
Ivory Coast: Summary
The strife-torn West African nation of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) was once a beacon of prosperity for the region. But since a 2002 civil war, the country has been divided between north and south and wracked by years of political confrontation, coups and countercoups, and street violence.
It was hoped that an oft-postponed presidential election in November 2010, the first in 10 years, would be a force for peace and unity. Instead, competing declarations of victory and clashes between supporters of rival presidential candidates have destabilized the country further.
Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister, banker and leader of the opposition, has been recognized as the winner of November’s election by the United Nations, the African Union, the United States and the European Union. The incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, 65, a leftist university professor-turned-populist strongman whose term ended in 2005, has resisted repeated calls for him to cede the office, clinging to power amid rebellion in the north and disputes among the country’s top political leaders
The country’s top elections officer proclaimed Mr. Ouattara the winner on Dec. 2, by a nearly nine-point margin. Only a day later, the head of the Constitutional Council, who is a close ally of the president, threw out vote totals from parts of the north — the stronghold of Mr. Ouattara — because of what he called “flagrant irregularities,” leading both men to claim the presidency.
The deadly standoff between the rival presidents appears to be broadening. Armed forces associated with the Ouattara camp have clashed with Mr. Gbagbo’s forces on the streets of the nation’s economic capital, Abidjan, as well as in a town in the center of the country. Security forces loyal to President Gbagbo have opened fire on demonstrators. After men in military uniforms fired on a United Nations patrol on Dec. 18, President Gbagbo ordered United Nations and French peacekeepers to leave the country immediately. Analysts fear the departure of some 10,000 United Nations peacekeepers would increase the risk of a return of the civil war
Once-gleaming downtown Abidjan, a magnet for immigrants from all over West Africa in the days when people spoke of the Ivorian “miracle,” has become a forest of darkened high-rise windows. Investors have pulled out; jobs have vanished. More than four million young men are unemployed in a nation of some 21 million people, according to the World Bank.
Rebels continue to control the partly Muslim north, feeding off smuggling and illicit taxation, while the west remains a substantially lawless domain of robbery and rape, a recent Human Rights Watch report said.
Source: New York Times
It was hoped that an oft-postponed presidential election in November 2010, the first in 10 years, would be a force for peace and unity. Instead, competing declarations of victory and clashes between supporters of rival presidential candidates have destabilized the country further.
Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister, banker and leader of the opposition, has been recognized as the winner of November’s election by the United Nations, the African Union, the United States and the European Union. The incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, 65, a leftist university professor-turned-populist strongman whose term ended in 2005, has resisted repeated calls for him to cede the office, clinging to power amid rebellion in the north and disputes among the country’s top political leaders
The country’s top elections officer proclaimed Mr. Ouattara the winner on Dec. 2, by a nearly nine-point margin. Only a day later, the head of the Constitutional Council, who is a close ally of the president, threw out vote totals from parts of the north — the stronghold of Mr. Ouattara — because of what he called “flagrant irregularities,” leading both men to claim the presidency.
The deadly standoff between the rival presidents appears to be broadening. Armed forces associated with the Ouattara camp have clashed with Mr. Gbagbo’s forces on the streets of the nation’s economic capital, Abidjan, as well as in a town in the center of the country. Security forces loyal to President Gbagbo have opened fire on demonstrators. After men in military uniforms fired on a United Nations patrol on Dec. 18, President Gbagbo ordered United Nations and French peacekeepers to leave the country immediately. Analysts fear the departure of some 10,000 United Nations peacekeepers would increase the risk of a return of the civil war
Once-gleaming downtown Abidjan, a magnet for immigrants from all over West Africa in the days when people spoke of the Ivorian “miracle,” has become a forest of darkened high-rise windows. Investors have pulled out; jobs have vanished. More than four million young men are unemployed in a nation of some 21 million people, according to the World Bank.
Rebels continue to control the partly Muslim north, feeding off smuggling and illicit taxation, while the west remains a substantially lawless domain of robbery and rape, a recent Human Rights Watch report said.
Source: New York Times
Ivory Coast: Embattled Leader’s Offer
The Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo said Tuesday night that he would accept a “commission of investigation” from overseas to examine the results of the presidential election last month, which the United Nations and foreign powers say he lost to Alassane Ouattara. Speaking on state television, Mr. Gbagbo said he did not “want any more bloodshed.” Meanwhile, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, expressed concern over the safety of the peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast; Nigeria evacuated its diplomats; the United States announced a travel ban on Mr. Gbagbo and his associates; and Mr. Ouattara’s government called for a campaign of “disobedience.”
Source: New York Times
Source: New York Times
Zimbabwe Attorney General slapped with US sanctions
The United States (US) on Tuesday imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe's Attorney General -- a top Robert Mugabe ally -- for his alleged role in undermining the crisis-ridden African nation's democracy. The Treasury Department said Johannes Tomana's "targeting of selected political opponents threatens the rule of law", and a fragile power-sharing deal between the country's rival powers.
The sanctions mean American citizens are prohibited from doing business with him and his US assets are frozen. But they also point to further tensions between long-time President Robert Mugabe and his political foe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. In 2008, the two leaders entered into an uneasy power-sharing deal, following months of political turmoil over the outcome of a violence-marred presidential run-off. The often testy relationship between the pair has been strained recently by tussles over government appointments, with Mugabe accused of routinely bypassing Tsvangirai when tapping officials for high office.
Last week, Mugabe stirred fresh conflict when he appointed ambassadors to the United Nations, the European Union and South Africa without consulting Tsvangirai, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Tsvangirai has asked the United Nations and the European Union not to recognise the ambassadors named solely by Mugabe. The United States stepped into the fray on Tuesday, questioning Tomana's appointment, in a clear shot at Mugabe. "Tomana's appointment was made without consultation with MDC leaders and against the spirit of Zimbabwe's Global Political Agreement signed on September 15, 2008," the Treasury Department said.
Tomana has been in the post since December 2008, shortly after the power-sharing deal was reached, but before the unity government was sworn in. The US government, along with European allies, have often criticised Mugabe for rights violations. According to leaked US diplomatic cables, the United Nations had even offered Mugabe a retirement package and safe haven overseas in 2000 if he agreed to stand down.
But 10 years on, Mugabe's exit looks as unlikely as ever. This month the 86-year-old was selected as his party's candidate for presidential elections expected next year, pitting him once more against long-time foe Tsvangirai. Mugabe, Africa's oldest leader, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, was officially endorsed by Zanu-PF followers as their presidential candidate at the ruling party's annual conference this week. That could see Mugabe stay in office until well into his nineties if he wins a new ballot that for months he has insisted must take place next year because the deal with Tsvangirai -- current prime minister -- is not working.
But both men on Monday appeared to urge their supporters to shun violence ahead of the elections. "What we would want to get to our people is our voice and our command that there should be no violence, but that does not mean that everybody will listen to us," Mugabe said at a joint end-of-year news conference with Tsvangirai. "Yes, there are incidences of violence and we have witnessed it and we are committed as leaders to ensure that the next election is certainly not characterised by a culture of violence," said Tsvangirai. "That demon must be ostracised, it is a demon that no-one wants," he added.
Source: Mail & Guardian
The sanctions mean American citizens are prohibited from doing business with him and his US assets are frozen. But they also point to further tensions between long-time President Robert Mugabe and his political foe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. In 2008, the two leaders entered into an uneasy power-sharing deal, following months of political turmoil over the outcome of a violence-marred presidential run-off. The often testy relationship between the pair has been strained recently by tussles over government appointments, with Mugabe accused of routinely bypassing Tsvangirai when tapping officials for high office.
Last week, Mugabe stirred fresh conflict when he appointed ambassadors to the United Nations, the European Union and South Africa without consulting Tsvangirai, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Tsvangirai has asked the United Nations and the European Union not to recognise the ambassadors named solely by Mugabe. The United States stepped into the fray on Tuesday, questioning Tomana's appointment, in a clear shot at Mugabe. "Tomana's appointment was made without consultation with MDC leaders and against the spirit of Zimbabwe's Global Political Agreement signed on September 15, 2008," the Treasury Department said.
Tomana has been in the post since December 2008, shortly after the power-sharing deal was reached, but before the unity government was sworn in. The US government, along with European allies, have often criticised Mugabe for rights violations. According to leaked US diplomatic cables, the United Nations had even offered Mugabe a retirement package and safe haven overseas in 2000 if he agreed to stand down.
But 10 years on, Mugabe's exit looks as unlikely as ever. This month the 86-year-old was selected as his party's candidate for presidential elections expected next year, pitting him once more against long-time foe Tsvangirai. Mugabe, Africa's oldest leader, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, was officially endorsed by Zanu-PF followers as their presidential candidate at the ruling party's annual conference this week. That could see Mugabe stay in office until well into his nineties if he wins a new ballot that for months he has insisted must take place next year because the deal with Tsvangirai -- current prime minister -- is not working.
But both men on Monday appeared to urge their supporters to shun violence ahead of the elections. "What we would want to get to our people is our voice and our command that there should be no violence, but that does not mean that everybody will listen to us," Mugabe said at a joint end-of-year news conference with Tsvangirai. "Yes, there are incidences of violence and we have witnessed it and we are committed as leaders to ensure that the next election is certainly not characterised by a culture of violence," said Tsvangirai. "That demon must be ostracised, it is a demon that no-one wants," he added.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Sunday, December 19, 2010
50+ organisations and 47 individuals emergency call: President Zuma reverse vote on LGBTI people at the UN on 20/21 December 2010
United Nations General Assembly GA/SHC/3997 16 November 2010 refers:
On Friday 17 December 2010, the Mail and Guardian published the Open Letter condemning South Africa’s shameful vote at the UN to remove “sexual orientation” protection against summary executions. It was signed by more than 1000 people and organisations. (The full list will be available on Writing Rights next week). Then, it became clear that the United States would offer an amendment next week during the final vote at the UN General Assembly and an emergency letter was prepared signed by a wide range of people and organisations in South Africa including Wits, Rhodes and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Universities and their chancellors.
The emergency letter is reproduced below. A special thanks to all those who signed, collected signatures, drafted AND letters, typed up signatures, made phone-calls, organised meetings, designed and placed adverts.
A full announcement will be made next week.
Zackie Achmat
EMERGENCY LETTER TO PRESIDENT JACOB ZUMA AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT
Dear President Zuma, Minister Nkoane-Mashabane, Minister Jeff Radebe and Deputy-Ministers
REVERSE SOUTH AFRICA’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL COMMITTEE VOTE AND CO-SPONSOR AN AMENDMENT ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND EXTRAJUDICIAL, SUMMARY AND ARBITRARY EXECUTIONS AT THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON MONDAY 20 DECEMBER 2010
As a range of civil society, faith-based, community organisations and individuals we write to you with a sense of extreme urgency. Some of our organisations are united in the Coalition to End Discrimination (a coalition against all forms of discrimination including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity) and we collaborate with the Joint Working Group an organisation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex organisations.
In November the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee on Extrajudicial, Summary, and Arbitrary Executions voted by 79 votes to 70 in favour of an amendment removing “sexual orientation” from a resolution condemning the extrajudicial killing of vulnerable people around the world. The resolution urges States to protect the right to life of all people, including by calling on states to investigate killings based on discriminatory grounds. For the past 10 years, the resolution has included sexual orientation in the list of discriminatory grounds on which killings are often based.
South Africa voted in favour of the amendment. We can now reverse that vote because we have learnt that the United States with the support of Brazil and other countries will be offering an amendment to the resolution to ask for the explicit inclusion of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender and intersex individuals.
The November amendment in committee aggravates an already difficult environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and intersex (LGBTi) people and their defenders, who live in continual fear of violent attack and experience discrimination throughout Africa and many other parts of the world. It strips one of the world’s most vulnerable minorities of an important part of their protection under international law, and ignores the overwhelming evidence that people are routinely killed around the world because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.
The Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions has highlighted documented cases of extrajudicial killings on the grounds of sexual orientation including individuals facing the death penalty for consensual sex with persons of the same sex, individuals tortured to death by State actors because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation; paramilitary groups killing individuals because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation as part of “social cleansing” campaigns; individuals murdered by police officers with impunity because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation; and States failing to investigate hate crimes and killings of persons because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.[1]
There is no plausible justification for South Africa’s vote.
Our representatives at the UN argued that a formal process to define sexual orientation and its parameters under human rights law was needed to prevent future division on the issue.[2] They argued that the concept of ‘sexual orientation’ was vague and had no legal foundation in international human rights instruments.
This argument has no basis in fact or in law. Our Constitutional Court relied on a range of jurisdictions in developing the concept sexual orientation. In the first case before that Court on sexual orientation on the decrimnalisation of consensual sex between partners of the same sex in different jurisdictions and regional courts such as the then Justice Ackermann quoted the Irish case Norris[3] and argued:
The European Court of Human Rights [ECHR] has correctly, in my view, recognised the often serious psychological harm for gays which results from such discriminatory provisions:
“[o]ne of the effects of criminal sanctions against homosexual acts is to reinforce the misapprehension and general prejudice of the public and increase the anxiety and guilt feelings of homosexuals leading, on occasions, to depression and the serious consequences which can follow . . .” [4]
The Constitutional Court further argued:
[40] In 1967 in England and Wales, and in 1980 in Scotland, sodomy between consenting adult males in private was decriminalised. However, in Northern Ireland the criminal law relating to sodomy remained unchanged. In 1981, in Dudgeon v United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights held that the sodomy laws of Northern Ireland was in breach of the article 852 privacy provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the European Convention”) to the extent that they criminalised sodomy between adult consenting males in private. In 1982 Northern Ireland amended its laws accordingly. The same conclusion was reached in 1988 in Norris v Ireland. It took Ireland nearly five years to comply with Norris but it eventually did so in 1993.[5]
In India, the Delhi High Court considered the fact that, the Indian Constitution adopted more than fifty years ago, did not contain an explicit provision on sexual orientation equality. Delhi Chief Justice, Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar held:
In the present case, the two constitutional rights relied upon i.e. ‘right to personal liberty’ and ‘right to equality’ are fundamental human rights which belong to individuals simply by virtue of their humanity, independent of any utilitarian consideration. A Bill of Rights does not ‘confer’ fundamental human rights. It confirms their existence and accords them protection. (Paragraph 123)
The criminalisation of homosexuality condemns in perpetuity a sizable section of society and forces them to live their lives in the shadow of harassment, exploitation, humiliation, cruel and degrading treatment at the hands of the law enforcement machinery. (Paragraph 52)
The Constitution of India recognizes, protects and celebrates diversity. To stigmatise or to criminalise homosexuals only on account of their sexual orientation would be against the constitutional morality. (paragraph 80) [6]
The argument that there is no internationally recognised definition is therefore untenable and unsustainable in law and in fact.
South Africa’s vote and the stated justification for it are inconsistent with the South African Constitution, South African legislation and numerous judgments of South African Courts. We hope that the government will recognise that the vote is inconsistent with our Constitution and will be prepared to reconsider its position.
The vote is inconsistent with the Constitution
The South African Constitution is supreme, and all law and conduct inconsistent with it is invalid.[7] The government’s exercise of its discretion to conduct foreign policy is subject to the Constitution and susceptible to judicial review.[8] Even the exercise of Executive powers, the Constitutional Court has held, must comply with the requirements of rationality and legality. Where the exercise of such powers is irrational or unlawful, courts will be prepared to declare it invalid and set it aside as they have done in the past.[9] Moreover, the Bill of Rights imposes a positive obligation on the state to “protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights”.[10]
It is clear that South Africa’s vote was inconsistent with the provisions of our Constitution. The South African Bill of Rights explicitly and proudly prohibits unfair discrimination, both by the state and by private persons, on the ground of sexual orientation.[11] South Africa is founded on the values of “[h]uman dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.”[12]
The South African Constitution also enshrines the right to life[13] and the right not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way.[14] In the Mohamed case, the Constitutional Court has held that measures by the state which fail to respect the rights to life and dignity will be declared invalid and set aside.[15] It found that there is a “commitment implicit in the Constitution that South Africa will not be party to the imposition of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.”[16] The Court declared that the handing over of Mohamed to the United States in the absence of an undertaking that he would not face the death penalty, infringed his rights to life, dignity and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment and was invalid. Our vote to remove sexual orientation from the UN resolution implicates and infringes the very same rights.
The vote to remove protection from arbitrary execution from LGBTI people in international law is an affront to the dignity and equality of LGBTI South Africans, and is deeply at odds with the values of the South African constitutional order.
The Government’s explanation is irrational and unsustainable
The argument that the concept of “sexual orientation” is too vague to do service in international law is demonstrably irrational and unsustainable.
This is demonstrated by the fact that sexual orientation appears in our own Constitution as one of the grounds on which discrimination is prohibited. Similarly, the concept of “sexual orientation” has been included by Parliament in 16 pieces of legislation.[17] These include recently enacted pieces of legislation such as the Films and Publications Amendment Act 3 of 2009, which was signed into law by the President earlier this year.
The concept has also formed the basis of numerous judgments of the Constitutional Court, and has presented no interpretive difficulties for our progressive and humane constitutional jurisprudence. In fact South Africa has built an internationally admired anti-discrimination jurisprudence drawing directly upon the concept of sexual orientation.[18]
We also wish to bring to your attention that on 26th July 2010 the Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Directorate met with the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (LGEP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Human Rights Commission, the Commission for Gender Equality, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the Triangle Project, Section 27, and the LGBTI Joint Working Group. The meeting was requested by these organisations following several positions taken by the South African government at UN fora on the issue of sexual orientation. At this meeting, the DIRCO committed government to the following:
1. The South African government will endeavour to explain to civil society and the international community at large, the rationale behind its voting patterns on contentious human rights resolutions;
2. The approach of the South African government is not to trade off human rights in preference for other interests as South African foreign policy seeks to uphold international human rights law;
3. Civil society organisations should formally request the President to adopt a policy framework on the implications of sexual orientation, human rights and equality for South African foreign policy;
4. DIRCO agreed to consult with its Branch on Diplomatic Training, Research and Development to consider the feasibility of inviting representatives of Chapter Nine Institutions to participate in training programmes, consistent with their Constitutional mandates, and in this process to interface with the Department’s Diplomats including Heads of Missions prior to their deployment abroad; and
5. DIRCO will undertake special efforts to liase and cooperate with South African and international civil society in order to advance principles of equality, human rights and the right to development.
The 16th November 2010 vote goes against the spirit and letter of this July 2010 meeting.
An opportunity to make amends
South Africa now has the opportunity to correct its vote. The United States has announced that it will re-introduce an amendment in the General Assembly to prohibit the violent targeting of people based on their sexual orientation.[19] We call on South Africa to vote in favour of this amendment, and to bring its powers of persuasion to bear on other SADC and African countries to do the same.
We call on South Africa to co-sponsor the US amendment, in this way sending a clear message that South Africa stands for the protection of the most vulnerable.
We call on the South African government to vote in accordance with the spirit, purport and objects of our Bill of Rights. We call on our government to honour former President Mandela’s pledge that “human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs”.[20]
In the event that South Africa votes against or abstains or is absent during the vote on inclusion of “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people or sexual “orientation” in the resolution on Extrajudicial, Summary, and Arbitrary Executions, we request that the Government of the Republic of South Africa provides us with formal reasons for such conduct.
We are calling on people who support freedom, equality, dignity and privacy for all in Africa, Asia, the Carribean, Europe, Latin America and North America to support our requests to you.
South Africa has the opportunity to restore its reputation as a defender of human rights and equality in the international sphere, to make amends to LGBTI South Africans for its initial vote, and to re-assert its moral claim to being a regional leader on human rights issues. We must not let it pass us by.
Yours faithfully
53. Women’s Legal Centre
[1] http://www.awid.org/eng/Women-in-Action/Announcements2/Governments-Remove-Sexual-Orientation-from-UN-Resolution-Condemning-Extrajudicial-Summary-or-Arbitrary-Executions
[2] http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/gashc3997.doc.htm: “South Africa voted based on its belief in the principle of non-discrimination on any grounds, including sexual orientation. South Africa was conscious of the fact that there was no international agreement regarding the definition of sexual orientation, and believed that there needed to be a formal process on the issue. South Africa believed that they should define sexual orientation and establish parameters under human rights law. Until there was such a discussion, there would be division, which had characterized the issue over past years.”
[3] Norris v Republic of Ireland (1991) 13 EHRR 186 at 192 para 21 quoting with approval the finding of an Irish judge.
[4] National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others 1999 (1) SA 6 (CC)
[5] NCGLE & Another v Minister of Justice & Others at paragraph 40 footnotes omitted.
[6]
See The Naz Foundation v. Government of NCT of Delhi and Others Judgment of the Delhi High Court – 2nd July 2009
[7] Section 2 of the Constitution.
[8] There is no absolute rule of non-justiciability in respect of the conduct of foreign relations. In Kolbatshenko v King 2001 (4) SA 336 (C), the Western Cape High Court found that courts will be unlikely to adopt a hands-off approach where a discretion has been exercised which directly affects the rights or interests of an individual applicant.
[9] See Albutt v Centre For The Study Of Violence And Reconciliation, And Others 2010 (3) SA 293 (CC) at para 49; Affordable Medicines Trust and Others v Minister of Health and Others 2006 (3) SA 247 (CC) (2005 (6) BCLR 529 at para 49; Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of SA and Another: In re Ex parte President of the Republic of South Africa and Others 2000 (2) SA 674 (CC) at para 20; President of the Republic of South Africa and Others v South African Rugby Football Union and Others (SARFU) 2000 (1) SA 1 (CC); at para 38; and Fedsure Life Assurance Ltd and Others v Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council and Others 1999 (1) SA 374 (CC) at para 32.
[10] Section 7(2) of the Bill of Rights.
[11] Section 9(3)-(4) of the Bill of Rights.
[12] Section 1(a) of the Constitution.
[13] Section 11 of the Bill of Rights.
[14] Section 12(1)(d) of the Bill of Rights.
[15] Mohamed and Another v President of the Republic of South Africa and Others (Society for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in South Africa and Another Intervening) 2001 (3) SA 893 (CC) at para 52.
[16] Mohamed at para 58.
[17] For example: Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000; Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000; Electoral Commission Act 51 of 1996; Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act 34 of 1995; Employment of Educators Act 76 of 1998; Medical Schemes Act 131 of 1998; Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995; Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998; Refugees Act 130 of 1998; Civil Union Act 17 of 2006; Home Loan and Mortgage Disclosure Act 63 of 2000; Communal Property Associations Act 28 of 1996; Rental Housing Act 50 of 1999; and Defence Act 42 of 2002.
[18] See Geldenhuys v National Director of Public Prosecution and Others 2009 (2) SA 310 (CC); Minister of Home Affairs v Fourie (Doctors For Life International And Others, Amici Curiae); Lesbian and Gay Equality Project and Others v Minister of Home Affairs 2006 (1) SA 524 (CC); Du Toit and Another v Minister of Welfare and Population Development and Others (Lesbian and Gay Equality Project as Amicus Curiae) 2003 (2) SA 198 (CC); Satchwell v President of the Republic of South Africa and Another 2003 (4) SA 266 (CC); J and Another v Director General, Department Of Home Affairs, and Others 2003 (5) SA 621 (CC); Hoffmann v South African Airways 2001 (1) SA 1 (CC); National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Others v Minister of Home Affairs and Others 2000 (2) SA 1 (CC); and National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others 1999 (1) SA 6 (CC).
[19] http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2010/152649.htm
[20] http://www.economist.com/node/17259138
Source: Writing Rights
On Friday 17 December 2010, the Mail and Guardian published the Open Letter condemning South Africa’s shameful vote at the UN to remove “sexual orientation” protection against summary executions. It was signed by more than 1000 people and organisations. (The full list will be available on Writing Rights next week). Then, it became clear that the United States would offer an amendment next week during the final vote at the UN General Assembly and an emergency letter was prepared signed by a wide range of people and organisations in South Africa including Wits, Rhodes and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Universities and their chancellors.
The emergency letter is reproduced below. A special thanks to all those who signed, collected signatures, drafted AND letters, typed up signatures, made phone-calls, organised meetings, designed and placed adverts.
A full announcement will be made next week.
Zackie Achmat
EMERGENCY LETTER TO PRESIDENT JACOB ZUMA AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT
Dear President Zuma, Minister Nkoane-Mashabane, Minister Jeff Radebe and Deputy-Ministers
REVERSE SOUTH AFRICA’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL COMMITTEE VOTE AND CO-SPONSOR AN AMENDMENT ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND EXTRAJUDICIAL, SUMMARY AND ARBITRARY EXECUTIONS AT THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON MONDAY 20 DECEMBER 2010
As a range of civil society, faith-based, community organisations and individuals we write to you with a sense of extreme urgency. Some of our organisations are united in the Coalition to End Discrimination (a coalition against all forms of discrimination including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity) and we collaborate with the Joint Working Group an organisation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex organisations.
In November the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee on Extrajudicial, Summary, and Arbitrary Executions voted by 79 votes to 70 in favour of an amendment removing “sexual orientation” from a resolution condemning the extrajudicial killing of vulnerable people around the world. The resolution urges States to protect the right to life of all people, including by calling on states to investigate killings based on discriminatory grounds. For the past 10 years, the resolution has included sexual orientation in the list of discriminatory grounds on which killings are often based.
South Africa voted in favour of the amendment. We can now reverse that vote because we have learnt that the United States with the support of Brazil and other countries will be offering an amendment to the resolution to ask for the explicit inclusion of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender and intersex individuals.
The November amendment in committee aggravates an already difficult environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and intersex (LGBTi) people and their defenders, who live in continual fear of violent attack and experience discrimination throughout Africa and many other parts of the world. It strips one of the world’s most vulnerable minorities of an important part of their protection under international law, and ignores the overwhelming evidence that people are routinely killed around the world because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.
The Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions has highlighted documented cases of extrajudicial killings on the grounds of sexual orientation including individuals facing the death penalty for consensual sex with persons of the same sex, individuals tortured to death by State actors because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation; paramilitary groups killing individuals because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation as part of “social cleansing” campaigns; individuals murdered by police officers with impunity because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation; and States failing to investigate hate crimes and killings of persons because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.[1]
There is no plausible justification for South Africa’s vote.
Our representatives at the UN argued that a formal process to define sexual orientation and its parameters under human rights law was needed to prevent future division on the issue.[2] They argued that the concept of ‘sexual orientation’ was vague and had no legal foundation in international human rights instruments.
This argument has no basis in fact or in law. Our Constitutional Court relied on a range of jurisdictions in developing the concept sexual orientation. In the first case before that Court on sexual orientation on the decrimnalisation of consensual sex between partners of the same sex in different jurisdictions and regional courts such as the then Justice Ackermann quoted the Irish case Norris[3] and argued:
The European Court of Human Rights [ECHR] has correctly, in my view, recognised the often serious psychological harm for gays which results from such discriminatory provisions:
“[o]ne of the effects of criminal sanctions against homosexual acts is to reinforce the misapprehension and general prejudice of the public and increase the anxiety and guilt feelings of homosexuals leading, on occasions, to depression and the serious consequences which can follow . . .” [4]
The Constitutional Court further argued:
[40] In 1967 in England and Wales, and in 1980 in Scotland, sodomy between consenting adult males in private was decriminalised. However, in Northern Ireland the criminal law relating to sodomy remained unchanged. In 1981, in Dudgeon v United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights held that the sodomy laws of Northern Ireland was in breach of the article 852 privacy provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the European Convention”) to the extent that they criminalised sodomy between adult consenting males in private. In 1982 Northern Ireland amended its laws accordingly. The same conclusion was reached in 1988 in Norris v Ireland. It took Ireland nearly five years to comply with Norris but it eventually did so in 1993.[5]
In India, the Delhi High Court considered the fact that, the Indian Constitution adopted more than fifty years ago, did not contain an explicit provision on sexual orientation equality. Delhi Chief Justice, Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar held:
In the present case, the two constitutional rights relied upon i.e. ‘right to personal liberty’ and ‘right to equality’ are fundamental human rights which belong to individuals simply by virtue of their humanity, independent of any utilitarian consideration. A Bill of Rights does not ‘confer’ fundamental human rights. It confirms their existence and accords them protection. (Paragraph 123)
The criminalisation of homosexuality condemns in perpetuity a sizable section of society and forces them to live their lives in the shadow of harassment, exploitation, humiliation, cruel and degrading treatment at the hands of the law enforcement machinery. (Paragraph 52)
The Constitution of India recognizes, protects and celebrates diversity. To stigmatise or to criminalise homosexuals only on account of their sexual orientation would be against the constitutional morality. (paragraph 80) [6]
The argument that there is no internationally recognised definition is therefore untenable and unsustainable in law and in fact.
South Africa’s vote and the stated justification for it are inconsistent with the South African Constitution, South African legislation and numerous judgments of South African Courts. We hope that the government will recognise that the vote is inconsistent with our Constitution and will be prepared to reconsider its position.
The vote is inconsistent with the Constitution
The South African Constitution is supreme, and all law and conduct inconsistent with it is invalid.[7] The government’s exercise of its discretion to conduct foreign policy is subject to the Constitution and susceptible to judicial review.[8] Even the exercise of Executive powers, the Constitutional Court has held, must comply with the requirements of rationality and legality. Where the exercise of such powers is irrational or unlawful, courts will be prepared to declare it invalid and set it aside as they have done in the past.[9] Moreover, the Bill of Rights imposes a positive obligation on the state to “protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights”.[10]
It is clear that South Africa’s vote was inconsistent with the provisions of our Constitution. The South African Bill of Rights explicitly and proudly prohibits unfair discrimination, both by the state and by private persons, on the ground of sexual orientation.[11] South Africa is founded on the values of “[h]uman dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.”[12]
The South African Constitution also enshrines the right to life[13] and the right not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way.[14] In the Mohamed case, the Constitutional Court has held that measures by the state which fail to respect the rights to life and dignity will be declared invalid and set aside.[15] It found that there is a “commitment implicit in the Constitution that South Africa will not be party to the imposition of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.”[16] The Court declared that the handing over of Mohamed to the United States in the absence of an undertaking that he would not face the death penalty, infringed his rights to life, dignity and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment and was invalid. Our vote to remove sexual orientation from the UN resolution implicates and infringes the very same rights.
The vote to remove protection from arbitrary execution from LGBTI people in international law is an affront to the dignity and equality of LGBTI South Africans, and is deeply at odds with the values of the South African constitutional order.
The Government’s explanation is irrational and unsustainable
The argument that the concept of “sexual orientation” is too vague to do service in international law is demonstrably irrational and unsustainable.
This is demonstrated by the fact that sexual orientation appears in our own Constitution as one of the grounds on which discrimination is prohibited. Similarly, the concept of “sexual orientation” has been included by Parliament in 16 pieces of legislation.[17] These include recently enacted pieces of legislation such as the Films and Publications Amendment Act 3 of 2009, which was signed into law by the President earlier this year.
The concept has also formed the basis of numerous judgments of the Constitutional Court, and has presented no interpretive difficulties for our progressive and humane constitutional jurisprudence. In fact South Africa has built an internationally admired anti-discrimination jurisprudence drawing directly upon the concept of sexual orientation.[18]
We also wish to bring to your attention that on 26th July 2010 the Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Directorate met with the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (LGEP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Human Rights Commission, the Commission for Gender Equality, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the Triangle Project, Section 27, and the LGBTI Joint Working Group. The meeting was requested by these organisations following several positions taken by the South African government at UN fora on the issue of sexual orientation. At this meeting, the DIRCO committed government to the following:
1. The South African government will endeavour to explain to civil society and the international community at large, the rationale behind its voting patterns on contentious human rights resolutions;
2. The approach of the South African government is not to trade off human rights in preference for other interests as South African foreign policy seeks to uphold international human rights law;
3. Civil society organisations should formally request the President to adopt a policy framework on the implications of sexual orientation, human rights and equality for South African foreign policy;
4. DIRCO agreed to consult with its Branch on Diplomatic Training, Research and Development to consider the feasibility of inviting representatives of Chapter Nine Institutions to participate in training programmes, consistent with their Constitutional mandates, and in this process to interface with the Department’s Diplomats including Heads of Missions prior to their deployment abroad; and
5. DIRCO will undertake special efforts to liase and cooperate with South African and international civil society in order to advance principles of equality, human rights and the right to development.
The 16th November 2010 vote goes against the spirit and letter of this July 2010 meeting.
An opportunity to make amends
South Africa now has the opportunity to correct its vote. The United States has announced that it will re-introduce an amendment in the General Assembly to prohibit the violent targeting of people based on their sexual orientation.[19] We call on South Africa to vote in favour of this amendment, and to bring its powers of persuasion to bear on other SADC and African countries to do the same.
We call on South Africa to co-sponsor the US amendment, in this way sending a clear message that South Africa stands for the protection of the most vulnerable.
We call on the South African government to vote in accordance with the spirit, purport and objects of our Bill of Rights. We call on our government to honour former President Mandela’s pledge that “human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs”.[20]
In the event that South Africa votes against or abstains or is absent during the vote on inclusion of “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people or sexual “orientation” in the resolution on Extrajudicial, Summary, and Arbitrary Executions, we request that the Government of the Republic of South Africa provides us with formal reasons for such conduct.
We are calling on people who support freedom, equality, dignity and privacy for all in Africa, Asia, the Carribean, Europe, Latin America and North America to support our requests to you.
South Africa has the opportunity to restore its reputation as a defender of human rights and equality in the international sphere, to make amends to LGBTI South Africans for its initial vote, and to re-assert its moral claim to being a regional leader on human rights issues. We must not let it pass us by.
Yours faithfully
53. Women’s Legal Centre
[1] http://www.awid.org/eng/Women-in-Action/Announcements2/Governments-Remove-Sexual-Orientation-from-UN-Resolution-Condemning-Extrajudicial-Summary-or-Arbitrary-Executions
[2] http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/gashc3997.doc.htm: “South Africa voted based on its belief in the principle of non-discrimination on any grounds, including sexual orientation. South Africa was conscious of the fact that there was no international agreement regarding the definition of sexual orientation, and believed that there needed to be a formal process on the issue. South Africa believed that they should define sexual orientation and establish parameters under human rights law. Until there was such a discussion, there would be division, which had characterized the issue over past years.”
[3] Norris v Republic of Ireland (1991) 13 EHRR 186 at 192 para 21 quoting with approval the finding of an Irish judge.
[4] National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others 1999 (1) SA 6 (CC)
[5] NCGLE & Another v Minister of Justice & Others at paragraph 40 footnotes omitted.
[6]
See The Naz Foundation v. Government of NCT of Delhi and Others Judgment of the Delhi High Court – 2nd July 2009
[7] Section 2 of the Constitution.
[8] There is no absolute rule of non-justiciability in respect of the conduct of foreign relations. In Kolbatshenko v King 2001 (4) SA 336 (C), the Western Cape High Court found that courts will be unlikely to adopt a hands-off approach where a discretion has been exercised which directly affects the rights or interests of an individual applicant.
[9] See Albutt v Centre For The Study Of Violence And Reconciliation, And Others 2010 (3) SA 293 (CC) at para 49; Affordable Medicines Trust and Others v Minister of Health and Others 2006 (3) SA 247 (CC) (2005 (6) BCLR 529 at para 49; Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of SA and Another: In re Ex parte President of the Republic of South Africa and Others 2000 (2) SA 674 (CC) at para 20; President of the Republic of South Africa and Others v South African Rugby Football Union and Others (SARFU) 2000 (1) SA 1 (CC); at para 38; and Fedsure Life Assurance Ltd and Others v Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council and Others 1999 (1) SA 374 (CC) at para 32.
[10] Section 7(2) of the Bill of Rights.
[11] Section 9(3)-(4) of the Bill of Rights.
[12] Section 1(a) of the Constitution.
[13] Section 11 of the Bill of Rights.
[14] Section 12(1)(d) of the Bill of Rights.
[15] Mohamed and Another v President of the Republic of South Africa and Others (Society for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in South Africa and Another Intervening) 2001 (3) SA 893 (CC) at para 52.
[16] Mohamed at para 58.
[17] For example: Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000; Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000; Electoral Commission Act 51 of 1996; Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act 34 of 1995; Employment of Educators Act 76 of 1998; Medical Schemes Act 131 of 1998; Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995; Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998; Refugees Act 130 of 1998; Civil Union Act 17 of 2006; Home Loan and Mortgage Disclosure Act 63 of 2000; Communal Property Associations Act 28 of 1996; Rental Housing Act 50 of 1999; and Defence Act 42 of 2002.
[18] See Geldenhuys v National Director of Public Prosecution and Others 2009 (2) SA 310 (CC); Minister of Home Affairs v Fourie (Doctors For Life International And Others, Amici Curiae); Lesbian and Gay Equality Project and Others v Minister of Home Affairs 2006 (1) SA 524 (CC); Du Toit and Another v Minister of Welfare and Population Development and Others (Lesbian and Gay Equality Project as Amicus Curiae) 2003 (2) SA 198 (CC); Satchwell v President of the Republic of South Africa and Another 2003 (4) SA 266 (CC); J and Another v Director General, Department Of Home Affairs, and Others 2003 (5) SA 621 (CC); Hoffmann v South African Airways 2001 (1) SA 1 (CC); National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Others v Minister of Home Affairs and Others 2000 (2) SA 1 (CC); and National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others 1999 (1) SA 6 (CC).
[19] http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2010/152649.htm
[20] http://www.economist.com/node/17259138
Source: Writing Rights
Côte d’Ivoire's Gbagbo tells UN to leave, Ban refuses
Côte d’Ivoire incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo on Saturday ordered United Nations and French troops to leave the country, but UN chief Ban Ki-moon rejected the demand, saying his blue helmets would not budge. Both the UN and the former colonial power, France, have urged Gbagbo to concede defeat in a November 28 poll, which was meant to heal the wounds of the West African state's 2002-03 civil war but has instead reopened them.
Spokesperson Jacqueline Oble read a statement on state television saying the government wanted the UNOCI and LICORNE missions forces to leave Côte d’Ivoire, "and is opposed to any renewal of their mandate." "UNOCI has interfered seriously in the internal affairs of Côte d’Ivoire," she said.
Ban responded with his own statement issued by UN spokesperson Farhan Haq, who made clear that the UNOCI peacekeeping force had no intention of pulling out of Côte d’Ivoire, the world's top cocoa producer. "The Secretary-General [Ban Ki-moon] is aware of statements by Mr. Gbagbo's spokesperson calling for the withdrawal of the UN Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI)," Haq said. "UNOCI will fulfil its mandate and will continue to monitor and document any human rights violations, incitement to hatred and violence, or attacks on UN peacekeepers," Haq said in a statement.
Ban has said that Gbagbo must step down and hand power to opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, who the UN says won the run-off election. The country has been in turmoil since Gbagbo claimed victory in the election with backing from the pro-Gbagbo Constitutional Council, the nation's highest legal body, rejecting as fraudulent results showing that he had lost by nearly 8% to Ouattara.
Almost all world leaders have also recognised Ouattara's victory and demanded that Gbagbo step down. The UN mission includes some 10 000 soldiers and police, and is supported by the French LICORNE force. Hundreds of peacekeepers have been deployed to defend Ouattara's makeshift headquarters in Abidjan's lagoon-side Golf Hotel. At least 20 people were killed on Thursday in clashes between pro-Ouattara marchers and security forces. Former rebels supporting Ouattara also briefly exchanged fire with government soldiers.
Several Western diplomats in New York told Reuters that Gbago had no legal authority to order UN and French peacekeepers out of the country since he lost the election. They said only Ouattara had that authority now. Ban has warned of the potential for a resumption of civil war and called on all sides to avoid triggering further violence. Haq said Ban was "deeply concerned" about attacks on UN troops by forces who appeared to be loyal to Gbagbo. The leader of Gbagbo's feared Young Patriots militia group, Ble Goude, told Reuters they may march on the hotel where Ouattara is staying to force him out. And at a rally of several thousand in the poor neighbourhood of Yopougon, he called on his militia to "liberate" Côte d’Ivoire. "We will defend the sovereignty of our country," Goude, also Gbagbo's youth minister, said. "We ask them [the UN] to leave our country. Get ready, because from next Friday I will need you for the total liberation of Côte d’Ivoire."
The United States, France and the European Union have heaped pressure on Gbagbo to step down, threatening sanctions if he does not do so within days. A top US State Department official told Reuters on Friday that Gbagbo had also been offered a "soft landing" in exile in an African country if he steps down. But a Gbagbo spokesperson said Gbagbo had no intention of leaving.
Gbagbo came to power in 2000 after a disputed election against coup leader Robert Guei, and two years later survived a rebellion that split the country into a rebel-held north and his government-controlled south. The turmoil in the world's top grower of cocoa raised cocoa futures to four-month highs in recent weeks, though futures prices have since eased, with second-month cocoa in New York settling down nearly 2% on Friday.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Spokesperson Jacqueline Oble read a statement on state television saying the government wanted the UNOCI and LICORNE missions forces to leave Côte d’Ivoire, "and is opposed to any renewal of their mandate." "UNOCI has interfered seriously in the internal affairs of Côte d’Ivoire," she said.
Ban responded with his own statement issued by UN spokesperson Farhan Haq, who made clear that the UNOCI peacekeeping force had no intention of pulling out of Côte d’Ivoire, the world's top cocoa producer. "The Secretary-General [Ban Ki-moon] is aware of statements by Mr. Gbagbo's spokesperson calling for the withdrawal of the UN Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI)," Haq said. "UNOCI will fulfil its mandate and will continue to monitor and document any human rights violations, incitement to hatred and violence, or attacks on UN peacekeepers," Haq said in a statement.
Ban has said that Gbagbo must step down and hand power to opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, who the UN says won the run-off election. The country has been in turmoil since Gbagbo claimed victory in the election with backing from the pro-Gbagbo Constitutional Council, the nation's highest legal body, rejecting as fraudulent results showing that he had lost by nearly 8% to Ouattara.
Almost all world leaders have also recognised Ouattara's victory and demanded that Gbagbo step down. The UN mission includes some 10 000 soldiers and police, and is supported by the French LICORNE force. Hundreds of peacekeepers have been deployed to defend Ouattara's makeshift headquarters in Abidjan's lagoon-side Golf Hotel. At least 20 people were killed on Thursday in clashes between pro-Ouattara marchers and security forces. Former rebels supporting Ouattara also briefly exchanged fire with government soldiers.
Several Western diplomats in New York told Reuters that Gbago had no legal authority to order UN and French peacekeepers out of the country since he lost the election. They said only Ouattara had that authority now. Ban has warned of the potential for a resumption of civil war and called on all sides to avoid triggering further violence. Haq said Ban was "deeply concerned" about attacks on UN troops by forces who appeared to be loyal to Gbagbo. The leader of Gbagbo's feared Young Patriots militia group, Ble Goude, told Reuters they may march on the hotel where Ouattara is staying to force him out. And at a rally of several thousand in the poor neighbourhood of Yopougon, he called on his militia to "liberate" Côte d’Ivoire. "We will defend the sovereignty of our country," Goude, also Gbagbo's youth minister, said. "We ask them [the UN] to leave our country. Get ready, because from next Friday I will need you for the total liberation of Côte d’Ivoire."
The United States, France and the European Union have heaped pressure on Gbagbo to step down, threatening sanctions if he does not do so within days. A top US State Department official told Reuters on Friday that Gbagbo had also been offered a "soft landing" in exile in an African country if he steps down. But a Gbagbo spokesperson said Gbagbo had no intention of leaving.
Gbagbo came to power in 2000 after a disputed election against coup leader Robert Guei, and two years later survived a rebellion that split the country into a rebel-held north and his government-controlled south. The turmoil in the world's top grower of cocoa raised cocoa futures to four-month highs in recent weeks, though futures prices have since eased, with second-month cocoa in New York settling down nearly 2% on Friday.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Journalist placed under police investigation
The Sunday Independent newspaper this week will request the Inspector General of Intelligence to investigate claims that police officers from the Crime Intelligence unit harassed one if its journalists, it said on Sunday. The officers allegedly bugged Gcwalisile Khanyile's phone and tried to coerce another journalist -- who was not named -- from the Star newspaper into revealing "internal confidential" information. This came after the newspaper did an expose in October which detailed allegations of nepotism, corruption, fraud and mismanagement at the division.
Police had obtained a court order from the high court in Johannesburg halting further revelations. However, the Sunday Independent was appealing the judgement, it said. The newspaper's lawyer said: "Shortly after the high court granted the interdict, Khanyile became aware that she had been placed under surveillance by the SAPS Crime Intelligence. She discovered that agents had been assigned to follow her and that her cellphone had been tapped."
The Sunday Independent's editor Makhudu Sefara said the newspaper had information showing that Khanyile "was, and probably still is, being followed". "We have information showing that operatives have been instructed to befriend our reporters with a view to infiltrating our -- and other --newsrooms across the country," he said.
Police spokesperson Colonel Tummi Shai said the police would not comment on the matter.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Police had obtained a court order from the high court in Johannesburg halting further revelations. However, the Sunday Independent was appealing the judgement, it said. The newspaper's lawyer said: "Shortly after the high court granted the interdict, Khanyile became aware that she had been placed under surveillance by the SAPS Crime Intelligence. She discovered that agents had been assigned to follow her and that her cellphone had been tapped."
The Sunday Independent's editor Makhudu Sefara said the newspaper had information showing that Khanyile "was, and probably still is, being followed". "We have information showing that operatives have been instructed to befriend our reporters with a view to infiltrating our -- and other --newsrooms across the country," he said.
Police spokesperson Colonel Tummi Shai said the police would not comment on the matter.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Ivory Coast: Call for the protection of civilians and respect of the population’s fundamental rights
Very concerned about the current political and security situation in Ivory Coast, our organizations firmly condemn acts of violence against civilians and constraints to their fundamental rights and liberties. We fear an escalation of violence during the marches scheduled for Thursday 16 and Friday 17 December 2010 and urge Ivorian political leaders to call on their supporters to remain calm and refrain from acts of violence.
On 3 December 2010, the Ivorian Constitutional Council announced the victory of Laurent Gbagbo, thereby invalidating a previous announcement from the independent electoral commission naming Alassane Dramane Ouattara as the winner of the election. Since then, Ivory Coast has found itself in an unprecedented political and institutional gridlock, leading to many illegal acts of violence against civilian populations and constraints to their fundamental rights and liberties.
It is estimated that acts of violence in the whole country so far may have already caused the death of dozens of people, with several hundreds more being injured. Approximately 3700 people have fled Ivory Coast to take refuge to neighboring countries, in particular in Liberia. Intimidation and threats against groups perceived as supporting one party or the other as well as information about the presence of militias, including some coming from outside the country, and the flow of illegal weapons are also matters of serious concern.
Public liberties are seriously threatened. On 2 December 2010, under the pretext of ‘maintaining social peace', the national council of audiovisual communications decided to censor international medias, thereby depriving the Ivorian population of their right to information. Some journalists have been subjected to intimidation, thereby constraining their freedom of expression. A curfew was put in place on the eve of the presidential election and has just been extended by a week, constraining freedom of movement of civilians. The economic situation, marked by a sharp increase in food prices, might deteriorate further, first hurting civilian populations once again.
Guillaume Soro (Alassane Ouattara's Prime Minister) has announced that he will march onto the headquarters of State television on Thursday 16 December and that he will chair a council of ministers in government buildings the following day. Marches around these events may lead to acts of violence. Indeed, on 13 December, Ouattara's army (‘Forces nouvelles') as well as UN forces had to fire warning shots to disperse Gbagbo forces who had barricaded the hotel where Ouattara's government is currently taking refuge.
Our organizations therefore urge:
* Political leaders of both parties to manage the current political and institutional crisis responsibly, taking all necessary measures to prevent an increase in violence and guarantee the security and physical integrity of the civilian population in Ivory Coast. More specifically, our organizations urge political leaders to call on their supporters to remain calm and avoid any acts of violence.
* Military leaders, in particular leaders of the Garde Républicaine, Marine Nationale (national navy) and the Command Centre for security operations, as well as armed troops of the Forces nouvelles, to take all necessary measures to prevent any illegal acts of violence by security and defense forces, as they could be held accountable for these acts.
* Political and military leaders to guarantee basic rights and liberties of the Ivoirian population, including by ending censorship of international medias.
* Media outlets able to operate in the whole country to act responsibly by avoiding any appeals to hate or violence.
* ONUCI to implement its mandate "to protect [...] civilians under imminent threat of physical violence" and to "collect [...] arms and any related materiel" circulating illegally in the whole country.
Our organizations further remind that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has urged supporters of both opponents and security forces to refrain from violence and has indicated that "All reported acts of violence will be closely scrutinized by the Office."
Signatory organizations :
* Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT) - Ivory Coast
* Association mauritanienne des droits de l'Homme (AMDH) - Mauritania
* Association nigérienne pour la défense des droits de l'Homme (ANDDH) - Niger
* Convention de la société civile ivoirienne (CSCI)
* Groupe Lotus - Democratic Republic of Congo
* Human Rights Watch
* International Federation for Human Rigths (FIDH)
* International Federation of the Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (FIACAT)
* International Refugees Rights Initiative (IRRI)
* La Voix des Sans Voix pour les droits de l'Homme - Democratic Republic of Congo
* Ligue des électeurs (LE) - Democratic Republic of Congo
* Ligue burundaise des droits de l'Homme (ITEKA) - Burundi
* Ligue ivoirienne des droits de l'Homme (LIDHO) - Ivory Coast
* Ligue sénégalaise des droits humains - Senegal
* Ligue tchadienne des droits de l'Homme (LTDH) - Chad
* Ligue togolaise des droits de l'Homme (LTDH) - Togo
* Maison des droits de l'Homme du Cameroun - Cameroun
* Mouvement burkinabé des droits de l'Homme et des peuples (MBDHP) - Burkina Faso
* Mouvement ivoirien des droits humains (MIDH) - Ivory Coast
* Organisation guinéenne pour la défense des droits de l'Homme (OGDH) - Guinea-Conakry
* Observatoire congolais des droits de l'Homme (OCDH) - Republic of Congo
* Rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l'Homme (RADDHO) - Senegal
* Union interafricaine des droits de l'Homme (UIDH)
Source: Human Rights Watch
On 3 December 2010, the Ivorian Constitutional Council announced the victory of Laurent Gbagbo, thereby invalidating a previous announcement from the independent electoral commission naming Alassane Dramane Ouattara as the winner of the election. Since then, Ivory Coast has found itself in an unprecedented political and institutional gridlock, leading to many illegal acts of violence against civilian populations and constraints to their fundamental rights and liberties.
It is estimated that acts of violence in the whole country so far may have already caused the death of dozens of people, with several hundreds more being injured. Approximately 3700 people have fled Ivory Coast to take refuge to neighboring countries, in particular in Liberia. Intimidation and threats against groups perceived as supporting one party or the other as well as information about the presence of militias, including some coming from outside the country, and the flow of illegal weapons are also matters of serious concern.
Public liberties are seriously threatened. On 2 December 2010, under the pretext of ‘maintaining social peace', the national council of audiovisual communications decided to censor international medias, thereby depriving the Ivorian population of their right to information. Some journalists have been subjected to intimidation, thereby constraining their freedom of expression. A curfew was put in place on the eve of the presidential election and has just been extended by a week, constraining freedom of movement of civilians. The economic situation, marked by a sharp increase in food prices, might deteriorate further, first hurting civilian populations once again.
Guillaume Soro (Alassane Ouattara's Prime Minister) has announced that he will march onto the headquarters of State television on Thursday 16 December and that he will chair a council of ministers in government buildings the following day. Marches around these events may lead to acts of violence. Indeed, on 13 December, Ouattara's army (‘Forces nouvelles') as well as UN forces had to fire warning shots to disperse Gbagbo forces who had barricaded the hotel where Ouattara's government is currently taking refuge.
Our organizations therefore urge:
* Political leaders of both parties to manage the current political and institutional crisis responsibly, taking all necessary measures to prevent an increase in violence and guarantee the security and physical integrity of the civilian population in Ivory Coast. More specifically, our organizations urge political leaders to call on their supporters to remain calm and avoid any acts of violence.
* Military leaders, in particular leaders of the Garde Républicaine, Marine Nationale (national navy) and the Command Centre for security operations, as well as armed troops of the Forces nouvelles, to take all necessary measures to prevent any illegal acts of violence by security and defense forces, as they could be held accountable for these acts.
* Political and military leaders to guarantee basic rights and liberties of the Ivoirian population, including by ending censorship of international medias.
* Media outlets able to operate in the whole country to act responsibly by avoiding any appeals to hate or violence.
* ONUCI to implement its mandate "to protect [...] civilians under imminent threat of physical violence" and to "collect [...] arms and any related materiel" circulating illegally in the whole country.
Our organizations further remind that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has urged supporters of both opponents and security forces to refrain from violence and has indicated that "All reported acts of violence will be closely scrutinized by the Office."
Signatory organizations :
* Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT) - Ivory Coast
* Association mauritanienne des droits de l'Homme (AMDH) - Mauritania
* Association nigérienne pour la défense des droits de l'Homme (ANDDH) - Niger
* Convention de la société civile ivoirienne (CSCI)
* Groupe Lotus - Democratic Republic of Congo
* Human Rights Watch
* International Federation for Human Rigths (FIDH)
* International Federation of the Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (FIACAT)
* International Refugees Rights Initiative (IRRI)
* La Voix des Sans Voix pour les droits de l'Homme - Democratic Republic of Congo
* Ligue des électeurs (LE) - Democratic Republic of Congo
* Ligue burundaise des droits de l'Homme (ITEKA) - Burundi
* Ligue ivoirienne des droits de l'Homme (LIDHO) - Ivory Coast
* Ligue sénégalaise des droits humains - Senegal
* Ligue tchadienne des droits de l'Homme (LTDH) - Chad
* Ligue togolaise des droits de l'Homme (LTDH) - Togo
* Maison des droits de l'Homme du Cameroun - Cameroun
* Mouvement burkinabé des droits de l'Homme et des peuples (MBDHP) - Burkina Faso
* Mouvement ivoirien des droits humains (MIDH) - Ivory Coast
* Organisation guinéenne pour la défense des droits de l'Homme (OGDH) - Guinea-Conakry
* Observatoire congolais des droits de l'Homme (OCDH) - Republic of Congo
* Rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l'Homme (RADDHO) - Senegal
* Union interafricaine des droits de l'Homme (UIDH)
Source: Human Rights Watch
Analysis: Zuma vs Zapiro is possibly much more than just another court case
What does the SA prez possibly stand to gain from what seems like a case he is bound to lose? But looked at through the eyes of his supporters maybe – just maybe – it’s not about this specific case at all, but about the little media legislation they are so desperate to push through.
Even by our standards, in the third quarter of 2008 South Africa was another country. Thabo Mbeki was running things, technically, and merrily ignoring requests to attend ANC national executive committee meetings because he was meeting minor Chinese dignitaries. Julius Malema was too busy living to suggest killing for anyone, and Jacob Zuma was addressed as just plain mister. The main political action of the day had been a Mail & Guardian headline in which Gwede Mantashe had labelled some Constitutional Court judges as “counter-revolutionaries”. The political slogan was about “political solutions” to legal problems. Turns out those slogans were right in the end.
The reason we bring this up, is that this was all before the Nicolson Judgment. No legal person put their neck out and predicted Zuma would win that case, but the ANC was on a roll. They were going all out for Zuma. Heck, even Zwelinzima Vavi loved him at the time. In this context Zapiro published that cartoon. At the time, it seemed the ANC was literally ganging up against the judiciary. The wagons were being circled.
It was a pretty normal Sunday though when I first saw the cartoon. It literally took my breath away. It was so good, so funny, hit the nail on the head, and yes, it was offensive. In a way, that was probably the point. At the time, it seemed as if something offensive was imminent and Zapiro had found a way to capture that. But I couldn’t resist calling the ANC and asking what they felt. Jessie Duarte was their spokeswoman at the time. I remember the conversation clearly - she had seen it, she was a little angry about it, and hell yes, she’d say something about it, on tape. As always, she gave a good soundbite, and I filed it for the next morning’s Eyewitness News bulletins. It seemed a minor story.
The next morning, it ran on the 6am bulletin, and suddenly the world went into overdrive. Callers, outrage, laughter, anger, frustration, the usual stuff of talk radio, just at a much higher level. The fact is the cartoon had summed up the emotion of the time. It wouldn’t have been so powerful otherwise. It called a spade a spade and perhaps that’s why so many people were so angry.
Now it looks as if we’re going to have a nice big national argument about this cartoon again. And there are times when I wonder if I did the right thing in phoning Duarte. I’m not saying this cartoon wouldn’t have been a big thing otherwise. I just wonder if this is really an argument for which we as a country are ready.
You may think I’m being slightly alarmist. After all, the law is clearly on Zapiro’s side. We would be very surprised if any judge in the country saw things Zuma’s way. The Human Rights Commission (which has a few people on it who know their way around the ANC’s deployment committee) have already ruled in favour of Zapiro. There’s the defence of opinion, of satire and of course, freedom of speech. There’s even the old defence of “jest”, which makes us wonder if you’re allowed to be hugely insulting to a politician, so long as it’s funny. Which would mean to call Julius Malema ugly might be illegal, but to suggest he laughed like a stuffed hyena may not.
But all of this could be missing the point. The fact is this national argument about the limits of freedom of speech is not going to be won on the iPads of the chatterati. It’s not even about what they think. It’s a battle that will be fought in Esselen Park, at Luthuli House, and crucially, at ANC branch meetings. Those meetings are not occupied by people who worry too much about the legal definition of offense. They are more likely to be angered afresh by the cartoon.
We’ve argued for some time now that the media has not presented its case well on this score. That for many people in this country it could appear that newspapers and websites and radio stations simply offend because they can, that they really are controlled by people who want to offend the democratically elected leaders of this country. Imagine how you might feel if someone drew Nelson Mandela with something as rude as that showerhead. Now imagine being a Zuma supporter and seeing that piece of brass literally four times a week.
Now your leader is suing. He’s doing what he thinks he should. But then he loses. And, in your view, that means there’s a problem with the law. And possibly with the judges as well. How can it be that someone can be so rude, so deliberately offensive to the president? Surely you should respect the president of your country? So then it’s obvious that the way to fix this is to bring in the media appeals tribunal.
You may think we’re being a little paranoid. But this case has the potential to be far more damaging than a simple little legal skirmish. It’s easy to see it being used to whip up popular sentiment against the commercial media. We should all watch it very carefully indeed. Happy 2011.
Source: Daily Maverick
Even by our standards, in the third quarter of 2008 South Africa was another country. Thabo Mbeki was running things, technically, and merrily ignoring requests to attend ANC national executive committee meetings because he was meeting minor Chinese dignitaries. Julius Malema was too busy living to suggest killing for anyone, and Jacob Zuma was addressed as just plain mister. The main political action of the day had been a Mail & Guardian headline in which Gwede Mantashe had labelled some Constitutional Court judges as “counter-revolutionaries”. The political slogan was about “political solutions” to legal problems. Turns out those slogans were right in the end.
The reason we bring this up, is that this was all before the Nicolson Judgment. No legal person put their neck out and predicted Zuma would win that case, but the ANC was on a roll. They were going all out for Zuma. Heck, even Zwelinzima Vavi loved him at the time. In this context Zapiro published that cartoon. At the time, it seemed the ANC was literally ganging up against the judiciary. The wagons were being circled.
It was a pretty normal Sunday though when I first saw the cartoon. It literally took my breath away. It was so good, so funny, hit the nail on the head, and yes, it was offensive. In a way, that was probably the point. At the time, it seemed as if something offensive was imminent and Zapiro had found a way to capture that. But I couldn’t resist calling the ANC and asking what they felt. Jessie Duarte was their spokeswoman at the time. I remember the conversation clearly - she had seen it, she was a little angry about it, and hell yes, she’d say something about it, on tape. As always, she gave a good soundbite, and I filed it for the next morning’s Eyewitness News bulletins. It seemed a minor story.
The next morning, it ran on the 6am bulletin, and suddenly the world went into overdrive. Callers, outrage, laughter, anger, frustration, the usual stuff of talk radio, just at a much higher level. The fact is the cartoon had summed up the emotion of the time. It wouldn’t have been so powerful otherwise. It called a spade a spade and perhaps that’s why so many people were so angry.
Now it looks as if we’re going to have a nice big national argument about this cartoon again. And there are times when I wonder if I did the right thing in phoning Duarte. I’m not saying this cartoon wouldn’t have been a big thing otherwise. I just wonder if this is really an argument for which we as a country are ready.
You may think I’m being slightly alarmist. After all, the law is clearly on Zapiro’s side. We would be very surprised if any judge in the country saw things Zuma’s way. The Human Rights Commission (which has a few people on it who know their way around the ANC’s deployment committee) have already ruled in favour of Zapiro. There’s the defence of opinion, of satire and of course, freedom of speech. There’s even the old defence of “jest”, which makes us wonder if you’re allowed to be hugely insulting to a politician, so long as it’s funny. Which would mean to call Julius Malema ugly might be illegal, but to suggest he laughed like a stuffed hyena may not.
But all of this could be missing the point. The fact is this national argument about the limits of freedom of speech is not going to be won on the iPads of the chatterati. It’s not even about what they think. It’s a battle that will be fought in Esselen Park, at Luthuli House, and crucially, at ANC branch meetings. Those meetings are not occupied by people who worry too much about the legal definition of offense. They are more likely to be angered afresh by the cartoon.
We’ve argued for some time now that the media has not presented its case well on this score. That for many people in this country it could appear that newspapers and websites and radio stations simply offend because they can, that they really are controlled by people who want to offend the democratically elected leaders of this country. Imagine how you might feel if someone drew Nelson Mandela with something as rude as that showerhead. Now imagine being a Zuma supporter and seeing that piece of brass literally four times a week.
Now your leader is suing. He’s doing what he thinks he should. But then he loses. And, in your view, that means there’s a problem with the law. And possibly with the judges as well. How can it be that someone can be so rude, so deliberately offensive to the president? Surely you should respect the president of your country? So then it’s obvious that the way to fix this is to bring in the media appeals tribunal.
You may think we’re being a little paranoid. But this case has the potential to be far more damaging than a simple little legal skirmish. It’s easy to see it being used to whip up popular sentiment against the commercial media. We should all watch it very carefully indeed. Happy 2011.
Source: Daily Maverick
Counting the Victims in a Honeymoon Killing
The Honeymoon Murder, as the crime is often called, has proved to be more than a riveting whodunit. South Africa’s honor seems on the line, as is the dignity of Guguletu, this crime-bedeviled township near Cape Town where the abduction happened.
Last month, Shrien Dewani, a wealthy young businessman from Britain, brought his new wife, Anni, to this country. They first stayed at a luxury game resort, escorted by guides through the bush and pampered with comforts by private butlers. They moved on to Cape Town, staying at a boutique hotel and spa with glorious views of the waterfront. Then, on Nov. 13, their chauffeur rather curiously took them for a precarious nighttime drive through Guguletu, where two men forced their way into the vehicle. Shrien and the driver were eventually pushed from the car. Anni was later found dead in the back seat, shot once in the neck.
Newspapers, here and in Britain, were insatiable in their coverage. Photos from the couple’s wedding magnified the horror of their ruined love. They had been married among family and friends in India, Shrien wearing a jeweled turban, Anni with a streak of vermilion in her lustrous brown hair. Their gaze was a joyous beam, handsome as any lovers in a Bollywood poster. Once back home in England, the grieving Shrien said in an interview with The Daily Mail that the honeymooners had ventured into the troubled township because Anni had grown up in Sweden, “so clean and safe, and maybe a bit sterile” and wanted to see “the real Africa.” The British tabloids emphasized South Africa’s problems with violent crime. In a much-quoted overstatement, The Daily Mail said the townships “are generally considered no-go areas for tourists.”
But last week, the sorrowful story took a vile twist. The driver, Zola Robert Tongo, bartered for an 18-year prison sentence in exchange for confessing his part in the crime. He pointed to the bridegroom himself as the instigator, saying Mr. Dewani had given him $150 to set up the murder. Two other men were alleged to have done the actual killing, receiving the $2,200 that was eagerly offered for the job. Suddenly, the crime seemed an entirely different kind of homicide, no longer the tale of a calamitous honeymoon in a crime-ridden country but rather a matter of a devious British moneybags who bumped off his bride, using South Africa’s reputation for violence to prop up the plausibility of his story.
Bheki Cele, the national commissioner of police, had found some reports in the foreign news media to be offensive, and he reciprocated with a racial slur against Mr. Dewani, adding that the bridegroom had “lied to himself” in thinking that “we South Africans were stupid.”
For his part, Mr. Dewani, 31, has been arrested in Britain on suspicion of murder and is now fighting extradition to South Africa while free on $350,000 bail. He denies any part in the murder. His lawyer, Clare Montgomery, insists that Mr. Tongo’s confession was cooked up by a government out to protect its tourism industry. Max Clifford, his famous publicist, said the driver “changes his story so often that nothing is certain except he’s a liar.” The lawyers for two other suspects claim their clients were tortured by the police. But here in Guguletu, the murder case against Mr. Dewani is already welcomed as a sweeping vindication. “Thanks God, this crime now seems something planned outside and nothing you can blame on Guguletu,” said Tobias Poswa, a community worker.
From the start, people here were upset at the attention given their township, especially because Mrs. Dewani’s body was discovered elsewhere and none of the four South Africans so far arrested for the crime live here. Nevertheless, they too have been captivated by the case and can recount virtually every detail publicly known about the murder. They say they always found something fishy in Mr. Dewani’s version of events. “He said he was thrown out of the window of a moving car, but he didn’t have a scratch on him,” Mavis Guwa, an elderly woman, said suspiciously. Her neighbor, Nozipho Jali, added: “Why did they take the wife and let the husband go? And why wasn’t she raped? If criminals take your woman, they rape her. That’s how it’s done.” Ntziki Ntshinga, who works for a trade union, said even the taxi driver’s confession did not fully lay out the extent of connivance: “He said Dewani picked him out at random at the airport and then asked him if he could help with a murder. Come on, this doesn’t happen. These two men must have had a connection from before.”
If Guguletu was actually selected to reflect the “real Africa,” it was not a bad choice, given its complexity. About 300,000 people live here, many of them in squalor. Residents fortunate enough to own a government-built house collect rent from tenants, who erect shanties in the backyard. Squatters occupy vast areas, their homes a patchwork of scrap metal and discarded lumber. And yet many who were born here in this half-century-old township have stayed and prospered. Guguletu has an upscale mall, a sports complex and a branch of the College of Cape Town. The streets are crowded and vibrant. Wealthier people live in manicured neighborhoods like Station Park.
Around Cape Town, Guguletu is less considered a no-go area than a place to pig out. Mzoli’s Meat is an enormously popular restaurant, where diners first line up at a display case to select indulgently from mounds of beef, lamb and chicken, their choices then collected in a metal tub, rolled in seasoning and finally grilled over an open fire. Diners often spend hours gnawing away. “This is a safe community, though of course it depends on where you are walking and what time of day you are doing it,” said Mzoli Ngcawuzele, the restaurant’s owner.
Actually, 713 murders have been committed in Guguletu in the past five years — about one every 2 ½ days, according to the police. Nationwide, an average of 46 murders occurred each day last year, a drop of 8.6 percent from the year before but still among the world’s highest rates.
In the avalanche of publicity surrounding the Honeymoon Murder, one enterprising newspaper, The Cape Argus, sent reporters into the field to see if they could hire their own hit men. Three willing killers were lined up within hours. If the chauffeur’s confession is to be believed, then Shrien Dewani overpaid by offering $2,200. A third of that would have been enough, the reporters found.
Source: New York Times
Last month, Shrien Dewani, a wealthy young businessman from Britain, brought his new wife, Anni, to this country. They first stayed at a luxury game resort, escorted by guides through the bush and pampered with comforts by private butlers. They moved on to Cape Town, staying at a boutique hotel and spa with glorious views of the waterfront. Then, on Nov. 13, their chauffeur rather curiously took them for a precarious nighttime drive through Guguletu, where two men forced their way into the vehicle. Shrien and the driver were eventually pushed from the car. Anni was later found dead in the back seat, shot once in the neck.
Newspapers, here and in Britain, were insatiable in their coverage. Photos from the couple’s wedding magnified the horror of their ruined love. They had been married among family and friends in India, Shrien wearing a jeweled turban, Anni with a streak of vermilion in her lustrous brown hair. Their gaze was a joyous beam, handsome as any lovers in a Bollywood poster. Once back home in England, the grieving Shrien said in an interview with The Daily Mail that the honeymooners had ventured into the troubled township because Anni had grown up in Sweden, “so clean and safe, and maybe a bit sterile” and wanted to see “the real Africa.” The British tabloids emphasized South Africa’s problems with violent crime. In a much-quoted overstatement, The Daily Mail said the townships “are generally considered no-go areas for tourists.”
But last week, the sorrowful story took a vile twist. The driver, Zola Robert Tongo, bartered for an 18-year prison sentence in exchange for confessing his part in the crime. He pointed to the bridegroom himself as the instigator, saying Mr. Dewani had given him $150 to set up the murder. Two other men were alleged to have done the actual killing, receiving the $2,200 that was eagerly offered for the job. Suddenly, the crime seemed an entirely different kind of homicide, no longer the tale of a calamitous honeymoon in a crime-ridden country but rather a matter of a devious British moneybags who bumped off his bride, using South Africa’s reputation for violence to prop up the plausibility of his story.
Bheki Cele, the national commissioner of police, had found some reports in the foreign news media to be offensive, and he reciprocated with a racial slur against Mr. Dewani, adding that the bridegroom had “lied to himself” in thinking that “we South Africans were stupid.”
For his part, Mr. Dewani, 31, has been arrested in Britain on suspicion of murder and is now fighting extradition to South Africa while free on $350,000 bail. He denies any part in the murder. His lawyer, Clare Montgomery, insists that Mr. Tongo’s confession was cooked up by a government out to protect its tourism industry. Max Clifford, his famous publicist, said the driver “changes his story so often that nothing is certain except he’s a liar.” The lawyers for two other suspects claim their clients were tortured by the police. But here in Guguletu, the murder case against Mr. Dewani is already welcomed as a sweeping vindication. “Thanks God, this crime now seems something planned outside and nothing you can blame on Guguletu,” said Tobias Poswa, a community worker.
From the start, people here were upset at the attention given their township, especially because Mrs. Dewani’s body was discovered elsewhere and none of the four South Africans so far arrested for the crime live here. Nevertheless, they too have been captivated by the case and can recount virtually every detail publicly known about the murder. They say they always found something fishy in Mr. Dewani’s version of events. “He said he was thrown out of the window of a moving car, but he didn’t have a scratch on him,” Mavis Guwa, an elderly woman, said suspiciously. Her neighbor, Nozipho Jali, added: “Why did they take the wife and let the husband go? And why wasn’t she raped? If criminals take your woman, they rape her. That’s how it’s done.” Ntziki Ntshinga, who works for a trade union, said even the taxi driver’s confession did not fully lay out the extent of connivance: “He said Dewani picked him out at random at the airport and then asked him if he could help with a murder. Come on, this doesn’t happen. These two men must have had a connection from before.”
If Guguletu was actually selected to reflect the “real Africa,” it was not a bad choice, given its complexity. About 300,000 people live here, many of them in squalor. Residents fortunate enough to own a government-built house collect rent from tenants, who erect shanties in the backyard. Squatters occupy vast areas, their homes a patchwork of scrap metal and discarded lumber. And yet many who were born here in this half-century-old township have stayed and prospered. Guguletu has an upscale mall, a sports complex and a branch of the College of Cape Town. The streets are crowded and vibrant. Wealthier people live in manicured neighborhoods like Station Park.
Around Cape Town, Guguletu is less considered a no-go area than a place to pig out. Mzoli’s Meat is an enormously popular restaurant, where diners first line up at a display case to select indulgently from mounds of beef, lamb and chicken, their choices then collected in a metal tub, rolled in seasoning and finally grilled over an open fire. Diners often spend hours gnawing away. “This is a safe community, though of course it depends on where you are walking and what time of day you are doing it,” said Mzoli Ngcawuzele, the restaurant’s owner.
Actually, 713 murders have been committed in Guguletu in the past five years — about one every 2 ½ days, according to the police. Nationwide, an average of 46 murders occurred each day last year, a drop of 8.6 percent from the year before but still among the world’s highest rates.
In the avalanche of publicity surrounding the Honeymoon Murder, one enterprising newspaper, The Cape Argus, sent reporters into the field to see if they could hire their own hit men. Three willing killers were lined up within hours. If the chauffeur’s confession is to be believed, then Shrien Dewani overpaid by offering $2,200. A third of that would have been enough, the reporters found.
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Kosovo militia may have stolen prisoners' organs, report alleges
The authorities who control Kosovo may have stolen organs from prisoners of war and political rivals when the Kosovo Liberation Army was fighting Serbian forces for control of the territory, European authorities allege in a new report. "Numerous indications seem to confirm that ... organs were removed from some prisoners ... to be taken abroad for transplantation," according to a draft report from the Council of Europe.
Investigators have "made progress" toward "proving the existence of secret KLA places of detention in northern Albania where inhuman treatment and even murders are said to have been committed," draft author Dick Marty says. Illegal organ trafficking continued after the war ended, the draft suggests. Nearly 1,900 people who disappeared during the conflict still have not been found, and another 500 disappeared after NATO troops arrived in June 1999, Marty says. And links between "criminal activity" and "certain KLA militia leaders ... has continued, albeit in other forms, until today," he report charges.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci of Kosovo is one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The report names him as the "boss" of a prominent faction in the militia that "apparently wrested control" of "illicit criminal enterprises" from rivals across the border in Albania. His office refused to comment on the allegations.
Kosovo's government called the report "defamatory" and "mendacious," saying the allegations "have been constructed to damage the image of Kosovo and the Kosovo Liberation Army." Kosovo's acting President Jakup Krasniqi -- a Thaci ally -- expressed deep indignation about the report, saying it was "nothing but fabricated and irresponsible statements."
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said it was "based on no facts, evidence or reality. Thus it proves political line of the author, who flagrantly abuses the authority of the Council of Europe."
European Union officials in Kosovo said that anyone with concrete evidence of war crimes or organized crime should come forward."The mission is already investigating and prosecuting a number of cases related to war crimes and organized crimes," spokesman Blerim Krasniqi said.On Thursday, the report will be debated by a committee of the Council of Europe, an organization with 47 member countries that seeks to promote democracy and human rights. The council's parliament plans to debate it in January.
The report is based partially on investigations by European Union officials and was written by Dick Marty for the Council of Europe's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. Investigators are not getting enough cooperation from either Albania or Kosovo, the report adds. Kosovo's majority population is ethnic Albanian. Serbs are the minority. The KLA was backed by NATO bombing when it fought for independence from Serbia in the late 1990s. Kosovo has made it "complicated" to dig for missing bodies, and Albania has refused to allow it, Marty says, adding: "Serbia ultimately cooperated."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday, "We are very seriously concerned about the published information." He was appearing in a joint news conference in Moscow with Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic. The report from the Council of Europe -- which is separate from the European Union -- was prompted partly by allegations made in a book in 2008.
Carla Del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia, leveled the accusation in her memoir "Madame Prosecutor." The court opened an investigation into the allegations but dropped it, the Council of Europe said, without explaining why. Evidence has since been destroyed, Marty's draft says. He acknowledges the chaotic situation in Kosovo after the war but also criticizes the international community for tending to see Serbs as aggressors and Kosovars as victims. "The reality is less clear-cut and more complex," Marty writes. But the international authorities who took control after the 1999 war felt that they "needed to promote short-term stability at any price, thereby sacrificing some important principles of justice."
Kosovo was a province of Serbia but declared independence in 2008. About 70 countries have recognized the declaration, but Serbia does not, and international organizations including the United Nations and European Union continue to have administrators in Kosovo. Journalist Vlora Rustemi in Pristina, Kosovo, and CNN's Maxim Tkachenko in Moscow contributed to this report.
Source: CNN
Investigators have "made progress" toward "proving the existence of secret KLA places of detention in northern Albania where inhuman treatment and even murders are said to have been committed," draft author Dick Marty says. Illegal organ trafficking continued after the war ended, the draft suggests. Nearly 1,900 people who disappeared during the conflict still have not been found, and another 500 disappeared after NATO troops arrived in June 1999, Marty says. And links between "criminal activity" and "certain KLA militia leaders ... has continued, albeit in other forms, until today," he report charges.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci of Kosovo is one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The report names him as the "boss" of a prominent faction in the militia that "apparently wrested control" of "illicit criminal enterprises" from rivals across the border in Albania. His office refused to comment on the allegations.
Kosovo's government called the report "defamatory" and "mendacious," saying the allegations "have been constructed to damage the image of Kosovo and the Kosovo Liberation Army." Kosovo's acting President Jakup Krasniqi -- a Thaci ally -- expressed deep indignation about the report, saying it was "nothing but fabricated and irresponsible statements."
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said it was "based on no facts, evidence or reality. Thus it proves political line of the author, who flagrantly abuses the authority of the Council of Europe."
European Union officials in Kosovo said that anyone with concrete evidence of war crimes or organized crime should come forward."The mission is already investigating and prosecuting a number of cases related to war crimes and organized crimes," spokesman Blerim Krasniqi said.On Thursday, the report will be debated by a committee of the Council of Europe, an organization with 47 member countries that seeks to promote democracy and human rights. The council's parliament plans to debate it in January.
The report is based partially on investigations by European Union officials and was written by Dick Marty for the Council of Europe's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. Investigators are not getting enough cooperation from either Albania or Kosovo, the report adds. Kosovo's majority population is ethnic Albanian. Serbs are the minority. The KLA was backed by NATO bombing when it fought for independence from Serbia in the late 1990s. Kosovo has made it "complicated" to dig for missing bodies, and Albania has refused to allow it, Marty says, adding: "Serbia ultimately cooperated."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday, "We are very seriously concerned about the published information." He was appearing in a joint news conference in Moscow with Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic. The report from the Council of Europe -- which is separate from the European Union -- was prompted partly by allegations made in a book in 2008.
Carla Del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia, leveled the accusation in her memoir "Madame Prosecutor." The court opened an investigation into the allegations but dropped it, the Council of Europe said, without explaining why. Evidence has since been destroyed, Marty's draft says. He acknowledges the chaotic situation in Kosovo after the war but also criticizes the international community for tending to see Serbs as aggressors and Kosovars as victims. "The reality is less clear-cut and more complex," Marty writes. But the international authorities who took control after the 1999 war felt that they "needed to promote short-term stability at any price, thereby sacrificing some important principles of justice."
Kosovo was a province of Serbia but declared independence in 2008. About 70 countries have recognized the declaration, but Serbia does not, and international organizations including the United Nations and European Union continue to have administrators in Kosovo. Journalist Vlora Rustemi in Pristina, Kosovo, and CNN's Maxim Tkachenko in Moscow contributed to this report.
Source: CNN
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
'If govt gets us to censor ourselves, then they've won'
There are 145 journalists in jail in 28 countries worldwide -- the highest number reported in the past 14 years, according to an annual prison census released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Friday. This year, 42 journalists were killed -- and eight of those deaths occurred in Africa.
CPJ is a non-profit organisation which promotes worldwide press freedom by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. Robert Mahoney, CPJ deputy director, spoke at a Critical Thinking Forum presented by the Mail & Guardian, The Freedom of Expression Institute and the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism in Parktown, Johannesburg, on Monday evening at which he discussed "the protection of journalism in Africa". "Don't think for a second," said Mahoney, "that these deaths [the 42] occurred in crossfire". One in three of the deceased journalists were deliberately murdered, he said.
Mahoney said governments used imprisonment as the primary way to crack down on those who question their authority. In Eritrea, 18 journalists are in jail, many of whom have been put there under "vague" anti-state or security laws. He said the effects of this sort of media control manifested itself in particular ways: journalists begin to censor themselves and learned to ignore things which could "cost them their liberty or even their life". Journalistic talent also tended to haemorrhage out of the country. Mahoney told the audience to look no further than Zimbabwe as an example, where 48 journalists have been forced into exile. "No voice remains in the country except that of the government."
Mahoney brought the discussion back home in mentioning the Protection of Information Bill and the highly contentious media appeals tribunal proposed by the South African government. "If the government gets us to censor ourselves, then they have won," he said. And if a state is repressive, "there will be a price to pay". He said however there were ways to fight authoritarian regimes. "The best people to push back are the local journalists themselves." Even more effective was to work with outside organisations such as the CPJ, which would amplify the journalist's work and raise their profile as many governments would be reluctant to arrest or harm a high-profile journalist. Journalists, he said, are far more successful when united by their cause: "When a press corps comes together and adheres, it can be very effective."
M&G editor Nic Dawes raised the question of WikiLeaks and how actions the United States may take could be in stark contrast with its First Amendment, or the the right to freedom of speech.
Mahoney said he would be "surprised' to see any moves by the US government against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and noted there was a lot of rhetoric surrounding the issue in the US. He said the CPJ were monitoring developments very closely. Speaking generally, he insisted that if information relating to national security was somehow disseminated, it was the state's fault. The real issue he said, was the "bad faith of governments which use [the excuse of] state security as a form of censorship". "Government has very little business telling us what is a story and what isn't," he said. "The worst thing is to be silent because then we become complicit. The moment you don't care, it becomes a slippery slope because governments realise they can get away with it."
Source: Mail & Guardian
CPJ is a non-profit organisation which promotes worldwide press freedom by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. Robert Mahoney, CPJ deputy director, spoke at a Critical Thinking Forum presented by the Mail & Guardian, The Freedom of Expression Institute and the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism in Parktown, Johannesburg, on Monday evening at which he discussed "the protection of journalism in Africa". "Don't think for a second," said Mahoney, "that these deaths [the 42] occurred in crossfire". One in three of the deceased journalists were deliberately murdered, he said.
Mahoney said governments used imprisonment as the primary way to crack down on those who question their authority. In Eritrea, 18 journalists are in jail, many of whom have been put there under "vague" anti-state or security laws. He said the effects of this sort of media control manifested itself in particular ways: journalists begin to censor themselves and learned to ignore things which could "cost them their liberty or even their life". Journalistic talent also tended to haemorrhage out of the country. Mahoney told the audience to look no further than Zimbabwe as an example, where 48 journalists have been forced into exile. "No voice remains in the country except that of the government."
Mahoney brought the discussion back home in mentioning the Protection of Information Bill and the highly contentious media appeals tribunal proposed by the South African government. "If the government gets us to censor ourselves, then they have won," he said. And if a state is repressive, "there will be a price to pay". He said however there were ways to fight authoritarian regimes. "The best people to push back are the local journalists themselves." Even more effective was to work with outside organisations such as the CPJ, which would amplify the journalist's work and raise their profile as many governments would be reluctant to arrest or harm a high-profile journalist. Journalists, he said, are far more successful when united by their cause: "When a press corps comes together and adheres, it can be very effective."
M&G editor Nic Dawes raised the question of WikiLeaks and how actions the United States may take could be in stark contrast with its First Amendment, or the the right to freedom of speech.
Mahoney said he would be "surprised' to see any moves by the US government against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and noted there was a lot of rhetoric surrounding the issue in the US. He said the CPJ were monitoring developments very closely. Speaking generally, he insisted that if information relating to national security was somehow disseminated, it was the state's fault. The real issue he said, was the "bad faith of governments which use [the excuse of] state security as a form of censorship". "Government has very little business telling us what is a story and what isn't," he said. "The worst thing is to be silent because then we become complicit. The moment you don't care, it becomes a slippery slope because governments realise they can get away with it."
Source: Mail & Guardian
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