New Leader Pledges Vote in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone's new leader, who took over in a bloodless coup on Tuesday, is committed to holding multi-party elections on Feb. 26, as planned, a Government spokesman said today. Addressing the nation a day after overthrowing Capt. Valentine Strasser, Brig. Julius Maada Bio called on rebels of the Revolutionary Unite Front, who have been fighting since 1991, to come to peace talks with his Government. "The democratization process, which started in June 1995 with the lifting of the ban on party political activities, continues unabated and is still on track toward the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections on Feb. 26 this year," Brigadier Bio said.

In neighboring Guinea, Captain Strasser said that he had agreed to hand over power and that his departure should not be called a coup. Freetown residents said the city was back to normal. Airports and land borders were open.

Source: New York Times

Military Ruler Ousted By Army in Sierra Leone

Army officers ousted Sierra Leone's military leader in a coup today, six weeks before elections to restore civilian rule. There were no reports of bloodshed, and the ousted leader, Capt. Valentine Strasser, was said to have been given safe passage to Guinea.

A statement by the officers said Captain Strasser, 30, had been replaced by Brig. Julius Maada Bio, 33, formerly his closest associate in the military junta. Foreign diplomats in the capital confirmed the coup. Captain Strasser had promised to hold elections for a civilian government on Feb. 26, despite an ongoing civil war.

Aides to Brigadier Bio, about whom little is known, said that he opposes holding the election until the war has ended, or at least abated, and that some officers in Captain Strasser's military junta had decided a coup was necessary to insure a safe transition to civilian rule.

Source: New York Times

Egyptians Vote Today, but Islamic Opposition Group Is Barred

Egyptians are to vote on Wednesday in parliamentary elections that have emerged less as a challenge to President Hosni Mubarak's Government than a window on a widening rift between the Government and its outlawed Islamic opponents.

With the country's most influential Islamic organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, barred from competing as a political party, Mr. Mubarak's governing National Democratic Party is widely expected to maintain its commanding majority in Parliament, where it now holds 348 of 444 elective seats.

While Mr. Mubarak and his supporters have said they are committed to fair elections, the severe measures taken against the popular Islamic organization in recent weeks have underscored deep tensions that will not be measured in the polls.

"This election is like a play in the theater," Nabil Abdel-Fattah, an independent analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said in an interview today. "It certainly does not reflect political reality."

In the last week, dozens of Muslim Brotherhood leaders have been sentenced to prison terms and hundreds of their supporters arrested as part of what human rights campaigners say is a deliberate effort by the Government to disfranchise the country's largest political opposition movement.

With tacit backing from the West, the Government has defended the crackdown as a necessary step in its quest to suppress a campaign of violence by Islamic militants, who it says have drawn support and inspiration from the organization, which itself has long been outlawed.

Yet the Muslim Brotherhood has used the repressive measures as ammunition of its own as it renews its appeal to ordinary Egyptians, many of whom regard the Islamic organization as an important counterweight to what they consider a corrupt secular regime.

Permitted to compete only as independent candidates, members of the organization are running for only one-fourth of the seats and are not expected to play a large role in the outcome.

This election is the first in Egypt since 1987 that has not been boycotted by the major opposition parties, and television advertisements appearing on the Government-owned stations urge citizens to give their vote "to whoever deserves it."

But even as more than 4,000 candidates spent a final day on the hustings, the Government came under verbal attack from a prominent human rights organization, which declared itself "deeply troubled" about the climate in which the elections were taking place.

In a letter addressed to Mr. Mubarak, the New York-based Human Rights Watch/Middle East cited the measures taken against the Muslim Brotherhood, including the sentencing last week of 54 prominent members to prison terms of up to five years after a mass trial in military court.

Some of those sentenced had intended to run for seats in Wednesday's elections, and the human rights organization criticized their prosecution for nonviolent offenses as intended to keep them from taking part in the elections.

Even to students of Egyptian politics, many of the candidates' platforms this year are virtually indistinguishable, leaving their supporters to emphasize the symbols paired with names on Egyptian ballots.

Source: New York Times

Police, but Few Voters, in Ivory Coast Turnout

With tensions running high after opposition calls for a boycott, few turned out to vote today in the first presidential election since the death of the country's long-governing founding father, Felix Houphouet-Boigny.

In the days before the election, the interim President, Henri Konan Bedie, who took over after Mr. Houphouet-Boigny died in December 1993, sternly pledged to provide security throughout the country. He urged voters to defy his opponents by turning out in large numbers.

From daybreak, the streets of this city and many other Ivoirian towns were filled with security personnel armed with tear-gas grenades and dressed in riot gear. Adding to the tension was an announcement Saturday of Mr. Bedie's removal of the commander of the armed forces, Gen. Robert Guei. The general was reported to have resisted the President's orders that the military be deployed alongside the police in putting down demonstrations and maintaining order. This morning two protesters were reported to have been shot dead by security forces near the northern town of Korhogo. At least eight other people were killed in politically related violence leading up to the election.

But opposition supporters heeded the call of their leaders for an "active boycott" of the vote, while others, apparently considering the uncompetitive vote a mere formality, simply stayed at home. In Abidjan and in the interior, disgruntled citizens burned ballot boxes, ripped up voter lists or cut down trees to block roads to their towns in order to delay or prevent voting.

Mr. Bedie's main opposition rivals have charged that the Government rigged the voter lists and refused to allow independent supervision of the election process. On Saturday Mr. Bedie sought a settlement to ward off the election-day crisis. Opposition leaders said, however, that the President's offer amounted to what they called an unacceptable deal in which they would call off their boycott in exchange for revisions of voter lists in time for parliamentary and local elections starting next month. "From the moment they say they are willing to correct the lists, they are admitting there is a problem," said Abou Dramane Sangare, a senior leader of the Ivorian Popular Front, one of two main opposition parties that are boycotting the vote.

With Mr. Bedie's main rivals abstaining from the election, the only competition the 62-year-old leader faced was from Francis Wodie, a 59-year-old lawyer who heads the tiny, center-left Ivorian Workers Party and was not expected to win.

Earlier this year, an electoral code written by Mr. Bedie's supporters eliminated the man who was widely given the best chance of unseating the President, Alassane D. Ouattara, who served as Prime Minister under Mr. Houphouet-Boigny and is now deputy director of the International Monetary Fund in Washington. The other main opposition leader, Laurent Gbagbo, pulled out of the race in protest over other elements of the electoral code.

Source: New York Times

SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE SERVICE ACT 68 OF 1995

The purpose of the South African Police Services Act is to provide for the establishment, organisation, regulation and control of the South African Police Service; and to provide for matters in connection therewith.

WHEREAS section 214 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993 (Act No. 200 of 1993), requires legislation to provide for the establishment and regulation of a South African Police Service which shall be structured at both national and provincial levels and shall function under the direction of the national government as well as the various provincial governments;

AND WHEREAS there is a need to provide a police service throughout the national territory to -
(a) ensure the safety and security of all persons and property in the national territory;
(b) uphold and safeguard the fundamental rights of every person as guaranteed by Chapter 3 of the Constitution;
(c) ensure co-operation between the Service and the communities it serves in the combating of crime;
(d) reflect respect for victims of crime and an understanding of their needs; and
(e) ensure effective civilian supervision over the Service:

Source: SABINET

HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ACT 54 OF 1994

The purpose to the Human Rights Commission Act is to regulate matters incidental to the establishment of the Human Rights Commission by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

WHEREAS sections 115 up to and including 118 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993 (Act No. 200 of 1993), provide for the establishment of a Human Rights Commission; the appointment of the members of the Commission; the conferring of certain powers on and assignment of certain duties and functions to the Commission, the appointment of a chief executive officer of the Commission; and the tabling by the President in the National Assembly and the Senate of reports by the Commission;

AND WHEREAS the Constitution provides that the Human Rights Commission shall, inter alia, be competent and obliged to promote the observance of, respect for and the protection of fundamental rights; to develop an awareness of fundamental rights among all people of the Republic; to make recommendations to organs of state at all levels of government where it considers such action advisable for the adoption of progressive measures for the promotion of fundamental rights within the framework of the law and the Constitution; to undertake such studies for report on or relating to fundamental rights as it considers advisable in the performance of its functions; to request any organ of state to supply it with information on any legislative or executive measures adopted by it relating to fundamental rights; and to investigate any alleged violation of fundamental rights and to assist any person adversely affected thereby to secure redress;

AND WHEREAS the Constitution envisages further powers, duties and functions to be conferred on or assigned to the Human Rights Commission by law, and that staff of the Commission be appointed on such terms and conditions of service as may be determined by or under an Act of Parliament;

Source: SABINET

Sierra Leone Civil War Is Causing Starvation

Hundreds of people are starving to death as thousands are fleeing a civil war in the south, officials and refugees said today. Many refugees come from Bo and Kenema, where ambushes by the Revolutionary United Front have cut off food supplies. "Life in Bo is very difficult," said Sam Morie, a refugee. "Three months ago there were eight of us in the family. Two of our daughters died of starvation a month ago and my brother died of cholera two weeks ago."

The rebels, who took up arms in 1991, brought their campaign near Freetown, the capital, in May. The army has taken the initiative in the fighting in the past two months and the rebels have responded by increasing ambushes. The war has devastated the economy as the rebels have closed diamond and bauxite mines. The military Government offered a truce and elections early next year but the rebels rejected the offer.

Source: New York Times

Mandela's push for women

President Nelson Mandela's office has intervened in the selection of Land Claims Court judges in a bid to include women on the shortlist of nominees. Presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana confirmed this week that the office would be asking the Judicial Services Commission to discuss new candidates, despite the fact that public hearings to select candidates are over, and the JSC has already sent a shortlist of five names -- all men -- to the President.

This move by the President's office was prompted by the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (Nadel) and supported by a number of NGOs involved with land issues. Nadel complained bitterly last week that there were no women on the JSC's short-list, and then compiled its own list of women candidates which it sent to the President's office.

The JSC defended its own all-male list, saying that only one woman had been nominated for the position of judge, despite extensive advertising in all national newspapers. She dropped out near the end of the selection process.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Commission of Inquiry Into Alleged Arms Transactions Between Armscor and One Eli Wazan and Other Related Matters

On Sunday 18 September 1994, the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper,Rapport, reported that `a massive arsenal' of South African weapons - tens of thousands of AK 47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition - had been shipped from Port Elizabeth to the `terror-contaminated' Middle East. The weapons emanated from the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). The supplier was the Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor), operating as the sales arm of the SANDF. The report quoted allegations that the weapons were destined for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), for use against Israel: the report's suggestion was that the new African National Congress-led government was seeking to bolster its old ally, the PLO. This was despite the official stand of Armscor that the arms shipment had occurred within government prescriptions, and that the export was in fact destined for the government of Lebanon.

Subsequent press reports revealed that the consignment had been headed for Yemen, but had been turned away at one of that country's ports. Armscor arranged for the return of the ship to South Africa, where its cargo was unloaded at Port Elizabeth and transferred to SANDF storage. (The ownership of the shipment, and related financial matters, are currently disputed in legal proceedings between various of the parties.)

Rapport's disclosure provoked a public storm in South Africa. World media attention focused on the activities of Armscor, and on South Africa's alleged role in supplying arms to dubious purchasers. The Minister of Defence, Mr J Modise, called on Armscor to furnish a report on the events. After receiving the report, and within twelve days of the original disclosure, he requested the Minister of Justice, Mr A M Omar, to appoint an independent commission to investigate the issue.

This Commission was the result.

Source: Polity

3 Charged in Killings Over Cocaine Dealing

For the third time in a year, the Manhattan District Attorney has dismantled a violent gang of young cocaine dealers who plied their murderous trade on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

This time, the gang of 22 men and women called itself Natural Born Killers, an apparent reference to last year's Warner Brothers movie about serial killers. Of the 22 people indicted yesterday, 17 were taken into custody in morning raids. Two indictments charged them with three homicides, conspiracy, drug dealing and gun running in what investigators said was a thriving $70,000-a-week crack-cocaine business near two schools in Manhattan Valley.

The indictment illustrated the resiliency of drug gang activity even after previous crackdowns. District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said the gang sprang up last July to fill the void left when the police broke up two other crack-selling gangs, Young City Boys and Young Talented Children. In the two months that followed, the leaders of Natural Born Killers consolidated their power by assassinating two members of rival gangs and one rival within their own ranks.

"You can never declare victory and walk away, but I think these three indictments of these three gangs has had a major impact on the drug activity in Manhattan Valley," Mr. Morgenthau said.

Mr. Morgenthau said homicides in the 24th Precinct, where the gangs operated, have been cut in half since his office began cracking down on street gangs in 1994. So far, 81 people in three gangs have been arrested. In 1993 there were 23 homicides, while in 1994 there were 12. So far this year, the neighborhood has seen only one homicide.

Officials said, however, that fed by a deep-rooted demand for drugs, the gangs continue to spring up like dandelions as soon as others are ripped out. "I don't think that while there is a demand, you can completely wipe these gangs out," said Chief Patrick Harnett, who heads the Narcotics Division. "It's a business."

The Natural Born Killers gang has roots in a previous drug organization known as the Red Top Crew, which began in 1990, prosecutors said. Selling crack cocaine in vials with red plastic tops, the gang turned the area around Public School 145 at 104th Street and Amsterdam Avenue into a drug market.

But three years later, the orginal founders of the Red Top Crew were killed, and the Young Talented Children usurped their territory, selling yellow-capped vials, prosecutors said. The third gang, the Young City Boys, coexisted with the yellow-top gang, controlling the market around 105th and Amsterdam. They used vials with purple tops.

In June 1994, when the police arrested the leaders of Young Talented Children, some remnants of the Red Top Crew revived their drug organization and took over the other gang's territory.

The indictment says the leaders of the gang were Guillermo Urena, 22; Jose Lora, 18, and Norberto Russell, 20. Mr. Urena and Mr. Lora are charged with murdering Aries Santana, a member of the Young City Boys, on July 11, 1994, in front of 672 St. Nicholas Avenue.

A week later, all three men are accused of taking part in the assassination of Luis Quinones on 107th Street. Prosecutors said the men thought that Mr. Quinones had murdered a friend of Mr. Lora's father. The third homicide came on Aug. 8, when Mr. Urena and Mr. Lora are thought to have taken a dissident member of their own gang, Wilson Sanchez, to East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. He was found shot several times in the head.

The three gang leaders face life in prison if convicted.

Soon afterward, the gang renamed itself Natural Born Killers, said Walter Arsenault, an assistant district attorney.

The police investigation began a year ago when a community patrol officer, A. J. Melino, began hearing talk on the street about the resurrected Red Top gang and alerted detectives. During the year, undercover officers and informers bought or recovered more than 2,100 vials of crack and 12 handguns.

Source: New York Times

Movie Violence Has Become Routine

In your June 4 news article on the general moviegoer's response to Senator Bob Dole's comments on the entertainment industry, I might submit that the 17-year-old high school junior who admits to seeing "Natural Born Killers" seven times graphically illustrates the magnitude of the cultural problem that Senator Dole and others decry.

For anyone at that impressionable age to repeatedly witness and "really like" such a wanton depiction of mindless, casual violence cannot but adversely affect the outlook of such a person, and, by extension, of society as a whole.

I am a surgeon of 30 years' experience, including a year's service in Vietnam in 1968-69 and, no, I have not seen this movie.

The reviews were enough to send me elsewhere.

This brings to mind the totally stunned silence with which the movie audience in Houston greeted the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" in the Majestic Theater, with every one of the 2,000 seats filled. Not one sound was heard as everyone sat there in stunned silence, because of the wanton violence in the shower scene.

Nowadays such violence is considered routine, and audiences are inured to violence 10 times as horrific. BOONE BRACKETT Oak Park, Ill., June 5, 1995

Source: New York Times

Right to Life: S v Makwanyane and Another

CHASKALSON P: The two accused in this matter were convicted in the Witwatersrand Local Division of the Supreme Court on four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and one count of robbery with aggravating circumstances. They were sentenced to death on each of the counts of murder and to long terms of imprisonment on the other counts. They appealed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against the convictions and sentences. The Appellate Division dismissed the appeals against the convictions and came to the conclusion that the circumstances of the murders were such that the accused should receive the heaviest sentence permissible according to law.

Section 277(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act No. 51 of 1977 prescribes that the death penalty is a competent sentence for murder. Counsel for the accused was invited by the Appellate Division to consider whether this provision was consistent with the Republic of South Africa Constitution, 1993, which had come into force subsequent to the conviction and sentence by the trial court. He argued that it was not, contending that it was in conflict with the provisions of sections 9 and 11(2) of the Constitution.

The Appellate Division dismissed the appeals against the sentences on the counts of attempted murder and robbery, but postponed the further hearing of the appeals against the death sentence until the constitutional issues are decided by this Court. See: S v Makwanyane en ‘n Ander [1994] ZASCA 76; 1994 (3) SA 868 (A). Two issues were raised: the constitutionality of section 277(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act, and the implications of section 241(8) of the Constitution. Although there was no formal reference of these issues to this Court in terms of section 102(6) of the Constitution, that was implicit in the judgment of the Appellate Division, and was treated as such by the parties.

The trial was concluded before the 1993 Constitution came into force, and so the question of the constitutionality of the death sentence did not arise at the trial. Because evidence which might possibly be relevant to that issue would not have been led, we asked counsel appearing before this Court to consider whether evidence, other than undisputed information placed before us in argument, would be relevant to the determination of the question referred to us by the Appellate Division. Apart from the issue of public opinion, with which I will deal later in this judgment, counsel were not able to point to specific material that had not already been placed before us which might be relevant to the decision on the constitutional issues raised in this case. I am satisfied that no good purpose would be served by referring the case back to the trial court for the hearing of further evidence and that we should deal with the matter on the basis of the information and arguments that have been presented to us.

It would no doubt have been better if the framers of the Constitution had stated specifically, either that the death sentence is not a competent penalty, or that it is permissible in circumstances sanctioned by law. This, however, was not done and it has been left to this Court to decide whether the penalty is consistent with the provisions of the Constitution. That is the extent and limit of the Court's power in this case.

Source: SAFLII

Now for Hire: South Africa's Out-of Work Commandos

To the old apartheid regime and supporters of its influence in this region, they were heroes, fighters who in units with names like Selous Scouts or Crowbar carried out devastating clandestine operations against neighboring countries or propped up clients of South Africa. To most of South Africa's neighbors, they were seen as brutal enforcers of this country's unchallenged dominance in the region.

With the apartheid era now over and the cold war a memory, South Africa's special forces, as they were known, briefly found themselves without a role. But now, with civil wars still dotting this continent and outside powers less interested than ever in becoming involved, scores of retired officers have signed on with a new breed of military outfit that straddles the line between the role of classic foreign adviser and outright guns for hire.

Nowhere have these new outfits played a larger role than in Angola, which has been embroiled in civil war for most of the last two decades. There, a Pretoria-based company known as Executive Outcomes has been credited with quickly turning around the civil war in favor of the nominally socialist Government, and forcing a settlement on Jonas Savimbi, leader of the badly battered rebel movement known as Unita, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. In the proxy conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa during the cold war, many of the 500 or so South African recruits with Executive Outcomes fought alongside Mr. Savimbi, a longtime client of South Africa and the United States. Their enemies at the time, in addition to the Angolan Army, were the 50,000 Cubans sent by Havana to bolster the forces of a Communist ally.

In addition to training Angolan Government soldiers, military observers here say that in the last two years the recruits have moved into remote bases that were abandoned after the Cubans pulled out in 1991, upgrading communications and flying highly effective combat sorties in Soviet-made Hind helicopters and MIG-23 fighters. "We consider that they made a very considerable difference to the success that M.P.L.A. has been able to achieve," said William Sass, a retired brigadier of the South African Defense Force, referring to the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. "The line of what is a mercenary and what is not is a matter of interpretation, but they made an invaluable contribution to the operations of M.P.L.A. on the ground. If Unita had not signed the cease-fire, one could easily conceive of them having been wiped out."

South African officials describe Executive Outcomes as a dangerous outfit and concede that it could destabilize the region. So far, however, the officials say current laws leave the Government nearly powerless to crack down on such groups. With its Angolan successes high on its resume, Executive Outcomes has been aggressively marketing itself to other African countries with civil wars or other security problems. Just last week, the company announced that it had signed a deal with the Government of Sierra Leone to help its poorly organized army fight its civil war against a shadowy but increasingly effective rebel force known as the Revolutionary United Front.

Beyond Angola and Sierra Leone, Executive Outcomes has declined to specify the African countries in which it is involved. Experts in African military affairs say there are indications that the group has opened talks with the Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique and Malawi.

With the arrival of Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone, diplomats and other experts in African affairs say the chances for a peaceful resolution there may be receding. The country's leader, Capt. Valentine Strasser, has repeatedly offered to negotiate, but the rebels have said any talks must come after the withdrawal of foreign military personnel. Unlike the rebel movement in Angola, where an effective international embargo and the loss of his outside patrons prevented Mr. Savimbi from rearming, the insurgents in Sierra Leone have free rein over much of a mineral-rich countryside. With growing receipts from the sale of diamonds, timber, gold and other resources, there is little to stop them from beefing up their forces with outside help, thus turning a relatively low-intensity conflict into a much more devastating war.

Officials of Executive Outcomes have always declined to reveal the terms of their agreements with African countries, or even how many men they employ. Military experts and diplomats here say that the company typically pays $2,000 a month or more, and provides recruits with generous insurance coverage in case of injury or death. The company said that at least 10 recruits had been killed in Angola, including at least 2 executed by Mr. Savimbi's men. Officials of the company said that only Eeben Barlow, its general manager, who is a veteran of the Angolan conflict and a former officer in the South African intelligence service, was authorized to speak publicly about Executive Outcomes. But Mr. Barlow, who is 38, has neither returned calls nor responded to a detailed fax seeking comment. Assistants said he was out of the country this week and could not be reached.

In the past, Mr. Barlow has reacted angrily to suggestions that he is running a mercenary outfit. "Where the security in a country is a problem, we assist," he recently told the Reuters news agency. "We assist in water purification, construction and medical services. White South Africans are the only ones prepared to make a difference."

People familiar with the operations of the company scoff at the notion that civil construction is a large part of its activities. Instead, they describe a business that takes little interest in the moral implications of its work and is willing to sign on with whoever can pay them. If it is true that the company is primarily involved in training, experts say that its men also become closely involved in battlefield operations, if its record in Angola is any indication. "Our concern with Executive Outcomes is that something of a rogue in the region has been created," said Jackie Cilliers, director of the Institute for Defense Policy, a Johannesburg research organization. "While it may have actually contributed to a settlement in Angola, we may be witnessing the creation of something outside the control of government that could easily become a force for destabilization in Africa. It is guns for hire."

At the same time, people who have followed the company's involvement in Angola say it has expanded into numerous business ventures in areas like shipping, fishing and trucking. "These groups encourage a country not only to continue a war, but to escalate," said Aileen Marshall, an expert in conflict management at the Global Coalition for Africa, a Washington-based research organization of retired American diplomats, academics and former officials of several African countries. "Down the road there is the risk of a Cambodia-type situation where the Khmer Rouge are using gems and forests to fuel the war so that when the war ends the resources are either gone or are in illegal hands."

Source: New York Times

NATIONAL ECONOMIC, DEVELOPMENT AND LABOUR COUNCIL ACT 35 OF 1994

The purpose of the National Economic, Development and Labour Council Act is to provide for the establishment of a national economic, development and labour council; to repeal certain provisions of the Labour Relations Act, 1956; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

Establishment of National Economic, Development and Labour Council
(1) There is hereby established a council to be known as the National Economic, Development and Labour Council.

(2) The Council shall be governed by an executive council and shall in addition consist of four chambers, namely -
(a) a public finance and monetary policy chamber;
(b) a trade and industry chamber;
(c) a labour market chamber; and
(d) a development chamber.

(3) The Council shall be a juristic person.

Source: SABINET

S v Zuma and others

Section 217(1)(b)(ii) of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 provides that where a confession by an accused person has been made to a magistrate or has been confirmed and reduced to writing in the presence of a magistrate it shall be admissible in evidence against the accused. The subparagraph further provides that the confession shall be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, to have been freely and voluntarily made by the accused in his or her sound and sober senses and without having been unduly influenced to make the confession.

The accused were indicted on two counts of murder and one of robbery. At their trial before Hugo J in the Natal Provincial Division they pleaded not guilty. Two of the accused had made statements before a magistrate which were tendered by the prosecution as admissible confessions. The question arose whether s 217(1)(b)(ii) of the Criminal Procedure Act was inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution. Counsel for the defence and the prosecution consented in terms of s 101(6) of the Constitution to the trial judge deciding the issue. Notwithstanding the consent, Hugo J refrained from deciding on the validity of the section, referring the matter to the Constitutional Court for decision and adjourning the trial sine die. The Attorney-General of Natal sought direct access to the Constitutional Court in terms of s 100(2) of the Constitution on the grounds that it was in the interests of justice that a binding decision be given as soon as possible on the validity of s 217(1)(b)(ii).

The Court granted the application for direct access. The Court found s 217(1)(b)(ii) to be in violation of s 25(3) of the Constitution (right to a fair trial). It held it to be a longstanding principle of English and South African law of evidence that the prosecution should prove that any confession on which it wished to rely was freely and voluntarily made. Section 217(1)(b)(ii) of the Criminal Procedure Act places on the accused the burden of proving on a balance of probabilities that a confession recorded by a magistrate was not free and voluntary. It is not sufficient for the accused merely to raise a doubt. The section therefore creates a legal burden of rebuttal on the accused -- a so-called 'reverse onus'.

The Court considered the common law rule requiring the prosecution to prove that a confession has been freely and voluntarily made to be inherent in the rights specifically mentioned in s 25(2), s 25(3)(c) and (d) of the Constitution and forms part of the right to a fair trial. These rights are the necessary reinforcement of the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. Reversing the burden of proof seriously compromises and undermines these rights. It followed that s 217(1)(b)(ii) violates these provisions.

The Court held that the tests of reasonableness, justification and necessity for limitation of fundamental rights set out in s 33(1) of the Constitution are not identical, and in applying each of them individually one will not always get the same result. But in the present case, it was held, reasonableness, justification and necessity may be looked at and assessed together. The rights interfered with are fundamental to concepts of justice and forensic fairness and have existed in South Africa for over 150 years. A drastic consequence of the alteration to the law brought about by s 217(1)(b)(ii) is the possibility that an accused may be convicted over the reasonable doubt of the court. It was not shown by the state that it was impossible or unduly burdensome for the prosecution to discharge its onus under the common law rule. Nor was it shown that the common law rule caused substantial harm to the administration of justice. Even if it were assumed that the reverse onus may in some cases obviate or shorten a trial within a trial on the admissibility of a confession, and released the prosecution from the inconvenience of marshalling and calling their witnesses before the accused gave evidence, these advantages do not outweigh and justify the substantial infringement of fundamental rights that are the result of the application of the subparagraph. Accordingly s 217(1)(b)(ii) does not meet the criteria laid down in s 33(1) of the Constitution. It is declared inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid.

In the absence of a specific order by the Constitutional Court in the interests of justice and good government giving retrospective effect to a declaration that a law is invalid, s 98(6)(a) provides that a declaration of invalidity shall not invalidate anything done or permitted in terms of that law before the coming into effect of the declaration of invalidity. The Court held that the likely result of ordering the declaration of invalidity of s 217(1)(b)(ii) to have full retrospective effect, invalidating earlier rulings on admissibility, would be numerous appeals with the possibility of proceedings de novo. In proceedings de novo the necessary evidence of voluntariness may no longer be available. The Court considered s 98(6)(a) to be intended to ensure that the invalidation of a law existing at the commencement of the Constitution should not ordinarily have retrospective effect, so as to avoid the dislocation and inconvenience of undoing transactions, decisions or actions taken under that law. The Constitutional Court's power to order otherwise in the interests of justice and good government should be exercised circumspectly. In some cases the interests of individuals must be weighed against the interest of avoiding dislocation to the administration of justice and the desirability of a smooth transition from the old to the new. The application of the subparagraph may well have caused injustice to accused persons, but the court cannot repair all past injustice by a simple stroke of the pen. In the present case, it was held, a proper balance could be struck by invalidating the admission of any confession in reliance on s 217(1)(b)(ii) of the Criminal Procedure Act before the date of the declaration of invalidity of the section, but in respect only of trials begun on or after 27 April 1994 and in which the verdict had not been given at the date of the declaration.

The judgment of the Court was delivered by Kentridge AJ and was concurred in by all the other members of the Court.

Source: SAFLII

23 Killed in Sierra Leone

Government troops killed 23 rebels during a six-hour battle in Tihun, Government radio said today. It quoted an army commander, Lieut. Col. Tom Carew, as saying the battle began on Thursday in the southern town when the rebel Revolutionary United Front tried to recapture it. The military Government has taken the offensive against the rebel bases, despite the efforts of foreign envoys to end the civil war, which began in 1991.

On Friday, state radio said Government forces had killed 70 rebels this week and destroyed a rebel base in the Kangari Hills in the north.

Source: New York Times

Strife in Sierra Leone

More than 30,000 Sierra Leoneans have fled into Guinea after a rebel attack on the northern town of Kambia last week, overwhelming towns in the border area, local officials in Guinea said. Mohamed Mounir Camara, the prefect of the border town of Pamelap, said on Saturday that food and drugs were urgently needed.

Rebels struck Kambia last Wednesday, kidnapping seven foreign nuns and a number of local people. The refugees said several people were killed in the attack. At the Gbalamouya border crossing, refugees carrying their belongings on their heads were crossing into Guinea, while others were heading back to collect their belongings.

Source: New York Times

INTELLIGENCE SERVICES OVERSIGHT ACT 40 OF 1994

The purpose of the Intelligence Services Oversight Act is to provide for the establishment of a Committee of Members of Parliament on Intelligence and to define its functions; and for the appointment of Inspectors-General of Intelligence and to define their functions; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

Establishment of Committee on Intelligence

There is hereby established a Parliamentary Committee to be known as the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence, which shall, subject to the Constitution, perform the oversight functions set out in this Act-

(a) in relation to the intelligence and counter-intelligence functions of the Services, which include the administration, financial management and expenditure of the Services; and
(b) in respect of the administration, financial management and expenditure of the Intelligence Services Entities,

and report thereon to Parliament.

Source: SABINET

NATIONAL STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE ACT 39 OF 1994

The purpose of the National Strategic Intelligence Act is to define the functions of members of the National Intelligence Structures; to establish a national Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee and to define its functions in respect of intelligence relating to the security of the Republic; and to provide for the appointment of a Co-ordinator for Intelligence as chairperson of the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee, and to define his or her functions; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

Functions relating to intelligence

(1) The functions of the National Intelligence Agency shall be:
(a) to gather, correlate, evaluate and analyse domestic intelligence, in order to -
(i) identify any threat or potential threat to the security of the Republic or its people;
(ii) supply intelligence regarding any such threat to the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee;
(b) to fulfil the national counter-intelligence responsibilities and for this purpose to conduct and coordinate counter-intelligence and to gather, correlate, evaluate, analyse and interpret information regarding counter-intelligence in order to:
(i) identify any threat or potential threat to the security of the Republic or its people;
(ii) inform the President of any such threat;
(iii) supply (where necessary) intelligence relating to any such threat to the South African Police Service for the purposes of investigating any offence or alleged offence; and
(iv) supply intelligence relating to any such threat to the Department of Home Affairs for the purposes of fulfilment of any immigration function; and
(v) supply intelligence relating to national strategic intelligence to the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee;
(c) to gather departmental intelligence at the request of any interested department of State, and, without delay to evaluate and transmit such intelligence and any other intelligence at the disposal of the Agency and which constitutes departmental intelligence, to the department concerned and to National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee.
(2) It shall, subject to section 3, be the functions of the Service -
(a) to gather, correlate, evaluate and analyse foreign intelligence, excluding foreign military intelligence, in order to -
(i) identify any threat or potential threat to the security of the Republic or its people;
(ii) supply intelligence relating to any such threat to the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee;
(b) to institute -
(i) counter-intelligence measures within the Service; and
(ii) in consultation with the Agency, counter-intelligence measures outside the Republic; and
(c) to gather departmental intelligence at the request of any interested department of State, and, without delay to evaluate and transmit such intelligence and any other intelligence at the disposal of the Service and which constitutes departmental intelligence, to the department concerned and to the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee.
(3) It shall be the function of the South African Police Service:
(a) to gather, correlate, evaluate, co-ordinate and use crime intelligence in support of the objects of the South African Police Service as contemplated in section 205(3) of the Constitution;
(b) to institute counter-intelligence measures within the South African Police Service;
(c) to supply crime intelligence relating to national strategic intelligence to the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee.
(4) The National Defence Force shall, subject to section 3 -
(a) gather, correlate, evaluate and use foreign military intelligence, and supply foreign military intelligence relating to national strategic intelligence to the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee, but the National Defence Force shall not gather intelligence of a non-military nature in a covert manner;
(b) gather, correlate, evaluate and use domestic military intelligence excluding covert collection and supply such intelligence to the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee; and
(c) institute counter-intelligence measures within the National Defence Force.

Establishment of National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee ("Nicoc")

(1) There is hereby established a National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee, which shall consist of -
(b) the Co-ordinator for Intelligence appointed under section 5 (1), who shall be the chairperson;
(c) the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency;
(d) the Director-General of the South African Secret Service;
(e) the chief of the intelligence division of the National Defence Force; and
(f) the head of the intelligence division of the South African Police Service,
or the alternates of the persons mentioned in paragraphs (b) to (f), and such members of departments of State who are co-opted by Nicoc on a permanent or an ad hoc basis.
(2) The functions of Nicoc shall be -
(a) to co-ordinate the intelligence supplied by the members of the National Intelligence Structures to Nicoc and interpret such intelligence for use by the State and the Cabinet for the purposes of -
(i) the detection and identification of any threat or potential threat to the national security of the Republic;
(ii) the protection and promotion of the national interests of the Republic;
(b) for the purposes of the functions contemplated in paragraph (a) -
(i) to coordinate and prioritise intelligence activities within the National Intelligence Structures;
(ii) to prepare and interpret intelligence estimates;
(c) to produce and disseminate intelligence which may have an influence on any state policy with regard to matters referred to in paragraph (a) for consideration by the Cabinet;
(d) after consultation with the departments of the State entrusted with the maintenance of the security of the Republic, to coordinate the flow of national strategic intelligence between such departments;
(e) at the request of any Department of State, to coordinate the gathering of intelligence and without delay to evaluate and transmit such intelligence and any other intelligence at the disposal of the National Intelligence Structures and which constitutes departmental intelligence, to the department concerned; and
(f) to make recommendations to the Cabinet on intelligence priorities.
(3) The Agency shall provide logistical, technical and administrative support to Nicoc.

Source: SABINET

PUBLIC PROTECTOR ACT 23 OF 1994

The purpose of the Public Protector Act is to provide for matters incidental to the office of the Public Protector as contemplated in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

WHEREAS sections 181 to 183 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Act No 108 of 1996), provide for the establishment of the office of Public Protector and that the Public Protector has the power, as regulated by national legislation, to investigate any conduct in state affairs, or in the public administration in any sphere of government, that is alleged or suspected to be improper or to have resulted in any impropriety or prejudice, to report on that conduct and to take appropriate remedial action, in order to strengthen and support constitutional democracy in the Republic;

AND WHEREAS sections 193 and 194 of the Constitution provide for a mechanism for the appointment and removal of the Public Protector;

AND WHEREAS the Constitution envisages further legislation to provide for certain ancillary matters pertaining to the office of Public Protector:

Establishment and appointment

(1) There shall be a Public Protector for the Republic.
(2) The President shall, whenever it becomes necessary, appoint a Public Protector in accordance with the provisions of section 193 of the Constitution.
(3) The Public Protector shall be a South African citizen who is a fit and proper person to hold such office, and who-
(a) is a Judge of a High Court; or
(b) is admitted as an advocate or an attorney and has, for a cumulative period of at least 10 years after having been so admitted, practised as an advocate or an attorney; or
(c) is qualified to be admitted as an advocate or an attorney and has, for a cumulative period of at least 10 years after having so qualified, lectured in law at a university; or
(d) has specialised knowledge of or experience, for a cumulative period of at least 10 years, in the administration of justice, public administration or public finance; or
(e) has, for a cumulative period of at least 10 years, been a member of Parliament; or
(f) has acquired any combination of experience mentioned in paragraphs (b) to (e), for a cumulative period of at least 10 years.
(4) The Public Protector shall not perform remunerative work outside his or her official duties.

Source: SABINET

Police Seize Suspect Obsessed by a Movie

Police officers in Nebraska have captured a Utah teen-ager accused of murdering his stepmother and half-sister after becoming obsessed with the movie "Natural Born Killers."

The 17-year-old suspect, Nathan K. Martinez, was found on Wednesday at a motel in the town of O'Neill, in northeastern Nebraska.

Mr. Martinez is charged in Utah with two counts of aggravated murder in the slaying of his 42-year-old stepmother, Lauren Martinez, and his half-sister, Alexis Martinez, 10, both of whom were shot in their sleep early Sunday at the family's home in Bluffdale, a suburb of Salt Lake City. Mr. Martinez's father and a brother were away on a hunting trip at the time.

Source: New York Times

'Natural Born Killers' Is Banned in Ireland

Ireland has banned the Oliver Stone film "Natural Born Killers" and the British authorities have delayed release of the movie, which is about a couple on a murderous rampage.

Mr. Stone has defended the film, which stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, as a satire on how the news media can turn serial killers into celebrities.

The film censor in Ireland, Sheamus Smith, announced the ban on Wednesday without giving a reason. The film was to be released in Ireland on Nov. 18.

The British Board of Film Classification is debating whether to give it a certificate, and its release has now been delayed until next year.

"At the moment, it has not got a classification and the board will not make a comment on a film that has not been classified," a spokesman for the board said today.

Source: New York Times

FILM VIEW; What We Don't Know About TV Could Kill Us

LATE IN THE MEDIA-CRAZED murder spree that is "Natural Born Killers," Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) point their guns at Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.), the unctuous Australian star of a tabloid television show. That series, "American Maniacs," has helped make Mickey and Mallory pop-star murderers. Now Mickey turns on the reporter and speaks the truest lines in Oliver Stone's film. He says: "Killing you and what you represent is a statement. I'm not exactly 100 percent sure of what it's saying." But it's a statement, all right.

It wouldn't be fair to reveal whether Mickey pulls the trigger on Wayne, but his confusion about what the trash-TV reporter represents is a perfect reflection of the film's own problems. "Natural Born Killers" seems to say something about the insidious influence of the media -- tabloids and celebrity journalism in print as well as on television. Yet under its entertaining flash-and-dazzle surface, the film's statement is "TV can be a bad influence." No kidding.

"Natural Born Killers" is the first and the least thought-provoking of several films this season that grapple with the love/hate relationship of audiences to the media. Mr. Stone's sensory assault of a movie was followed by Robert Redford's elegant, profound "Quiz Show," which opened on Wednesday. And coming to the New York Film Festival on Oct. 6 is "The Troubles We've Seen," Marcel Ophuls's playfully serious documentary about reporting from Bosnia. When works as different and ambitious as these share a common subject -- that television can turn mass murder, the American dream or even war into entertainment -- the attention to television comes to resemble an obsession.

It's too easy to suggest, though, as "Natural Born Killers" does, that television is the Devil. (A kindhearted American Indian, about to be murdered, sees the words "demon" and "too much TV" superimposed on Mickey.) A sophisticated depiction of television must portray the attraction as well as the repulsion it evokes. Television wouldn't be an overwhelming influence, after all, if people didn't love to watch it.

"Quiz Show" understands television's allure and more; the film's grip on the audience echoes the intense connection between Americans and their favorite shows. The story of how the patrician Charles Van Doren disillusioned the nation when it learned that his game-show victories were rigged goes beyond a simple attack on television. In "Quiz Show" the telegenic Charles Van Doren takes the even grander shape of the movie-star-handsome Ralph Fiennes. This subtle actor's golden-boy manner suggests much about the heroic images -- deeply rooted in American history and dreams of upward mobility -- that television captured and enhanced in the 1950's.

When Herb Stempel (John Turturro), the belligerent loser from Queens, tries to blow the whistle on the deception he has also taken part in, no one -- especially the Harvard-educated Government investigator Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow) -- wants to believe that this pathetic creature could be morally superior to the glittering, born-for-stardom Van Doren. The film chooses not to believe it, either. Think of how much less palatable, less mainstream the picture would have been if the central character were Stempel, that hard-to-love, charmless man.

"I have deceived my friends, and I have millions of them," Van Doren tells a Congressional committee in the film. No one stops to question the dizzying truth of that remark. In a way that is both real and absurd, television created bonds of friendship and loyalty between the star and his viewers. Struggling with his conscience, Van Doren goes from hero to fallen hero and remains the All-American no one wants to think badly of.

The strength of Paul Attanasio's script is that it depicts the way immense social issues were played out on the television screen in the days when television was still young. "Quiz Show" is the story of social problems that hadn't yet shattered the calm surface of the Eisenhower years: Protestants vs. Jews, money vs. intelligence, entertainment vs. learning, upper class vs. working class. The brilliance of Mr. Redford's direction is that he captures all this just the way television itself did -- smoothly, the calm surface belying epic battles beneath.

The opening and closing scenes suggest a perilous mass-media journey through history. At the start, crowds rush home to watch the quiz show "Twenty-One," and the NBC network proudly announces that the show is carried "coast to coast." Mr. Redford doesn't lean on the fact that we're witnessing the birth of the global village. He simply places us there.

As the final credits appear, faces of audience members laugh in eerie slow motion, magnified and horrendous. We are looking at ourselves as a hapless audience, appalled at our former naivete. "Quiz Show" stays with you, resonating long after you've left the theater, while the kinetic dazzle of "Natural Born Killers" is gone in a flash.

Yet Mr. Stone, too, has made the movie his subject demanded. "Quiz Show" depicts Van Doren on the cover of Time; "Natural Born Killers" depicts Mickey and Mallory on Newsweek. Not much else has stayed the same. Historically, Mr. Stone's story picks up long after "Quiz Show" ends. Television has turned into a forum for instant, disgusting celebrity, in which Charles Manson is a ratings king.

What the film misses is a sense of why television is alluring, of how a mass-murderer can become a star. The more Mr. Stone strains to say something important, the more the intended satire and substance elude him. He seems to have confused a big idea with a broad, simplistic one.

Critics who have been wringing their hands about the film's violence and shallowness dismiss it too easily, though. "Natural Born Killers" is a hit, its box-office appeal creepily echoing the popularity of shows like "American Maniacs." Surely Mr. Stone intended this mirroring effect, but reflecting the appeal doesn't come close to explaining it.

The perverse appeal of "Natural Born Killers" seems to be that it creates the illusion of making a provocative statement. Yet it never challenges the audience's conventional assumptions about television. The film plays into viewers' fascination with tabloid TV as well as their sneaking suspicion that it's bad for them; "Natural Born Killers" presents itself as a guilty pleasure that audiences don't have to feel guilty about.

And the seductive style provides an edge the film doesn't earn. Mr. Downey is so smarmy, funny and convincing that he makes us forget what a cheap, easy target his character is. The ultra-quick cuts, the cartoonlike inserts, the backdrops of newsreels that connect Mickey and Mallory to World War II are portentous, yet anyone who analyzes the film's lame satire won't be surprised by any of it.

THE BANALITY OF THE film's influence is creepier than anything in the movie. Five days after the film opened and became the No. 1 movie in the country, The New York Daily News ran a front-page story about an accused murderer, under the headline "Natural Born Killer." Two days later, after a man who was convinced that television was poisoning his mind killed an NBC stagehand, the New York Post's page 1 headline read "TV Networks Zapped My Brain" and New York Newsday's front-page headline was "TV Drove Me Crazy." No one can blame Oliver Stone for the way his film is used, but the movie's shallowness encourages a simple-minded view that TV is bad.

The subject of television's influence demands a more complex treatment. Marcel Ophuls, whose previous films have been authoritative historical documents about World War II ("The Sorrow and the Pity" and "Hotel Terminus"), has thrown himself into the subject, too.

"The Troubles We've Seen" is more than a series of interviews with television and newspaper reporters covering Bosnia. Mr. Ophuls interweaves these scenes with newsreels and clips of mainstream movies: Bing Crosby sings "White Christmas" in "Holiday Inn," and the Marx Brothers romp through "Duck Soup." "The Troubles We've Seen" creates the sense of trying to grab history as it swirls around us. Demonstrating that history is created through a mix of movies and reportage, Mr. Ophuls uses the documentary form to consider the difficulty of establishing anything like documentary truth.

If the sense that history is fluid seems obvious, consider the remark of a star anchor on French television. He justifies reality-based programs by telling Mr. Ophuls, "Show me a reality show that reconstructs a reality that didn't exist." The producers of "Twenty-One" and Wayne Gale himself couldn't have said it better.

Source: New York Times

2 Ohioans Arrested in Series of Slayings

It was a cross-country crime rampage that began in rural Ohio one week ago with a stolen car, a missing woman and two male suspects. One was an ex-convict fresh out of prison, a man found guilty both of theft and of once biting his own baby so hard that he drew blood. The other was a gangly, troubled 16-year-old described as "a follower," not a violent criminal, by his hometown police chief.

The rampage turned murderous three times over in Missouri and Oklahoma, where the victims' cars were stolen after automobiles taken in previous crimes were abandoned. And it ended this morning, after a nationwide manhunt, with arrests in a dusty culvert at the edge of the mountains around Santa Fe.

But even after serving Federal warrants to 22-year-old Lewis E. Gilbert 2d and Eric A. Elliott, 16, the authorities in Ohio and F.B.I. officials remained puzzled over one peculiar psychological element, uncertain whether the teen-ager had been a willing accomplice, a terrified hostage or something in between.

These authorities said their first priority today was to try to find the missing Ohio woman, 79-year-old Ruth Lucille Loader, who, if still alive, might be able to shed some light on Eric Elliott's motivations. Asleep in a Ditch

The two men were apprehended as they lay in a ditch outside Santa Fe about 9:40 A.M., said Chief John Denko of the New Mexico state police.

Although they had two rifles, a shotgun and a handgun with them, "nothing bad happened" at the arrest scene, said Chief Denko, apparently because the two were taken by surprise as they slept. The police had received two telephone tips about suspicious people in the area.

The suspects were taken to Albuquerque and late this afternoon were charged before a United States magistrate, Lorenzo Garcia, with flight from prosecution. The authorities indicated that the two suspects would soon be extradited to Ohio.

Mr. Gilbert was released from state prison in Ohio on Aug. 15 after serving 11 months of an 18-month sentence for stealing a boat and breaking and entering. Although he had also been convicted of child endangering for a November 1992 incident in which he shook and bit his 3 1/2-month-old son, he was not assigned additional time and received "good time" credit for his behavior in prison, reducing his sentence for the other crimes, said Joe Andrews, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

When he left prison, the 6-foot-4-inch Mr. Gilbert returned almost immediately to Newcomerstown, Ohio, the home of his estranged wife and a place where he was well known to the local authorities.

"With the dealings we've had with him in the past, I consider him a violent person," said the Newcomerstown Police Chief, James Friel. But that was not true of Mr. Elliott, the teen-ager with whom Mr. Gilbert apparently crossed paths shortly after his release.

"Eric seemed like a clean-cut kid," recalled Chief Friel, who said the teen-ager had been working recently as a clerk in the local grocery. "But Eric is the type of individual I would classify as a follower." 'A Typical Teen'

That tendency apparently led Mr. Elliott to be involved in a break-in at the Cy Young Lanes, a local bowling alley, in late July. That brush with the law was his first. About $30 in change from vending machines and some liquor were taken, the owner, Leman Clark, said today in a telephone interview.

"I thought he was a typical teen," Mr. Clark said, recalling his impressions of Mr. Elliott before the break-in. "I didn't think he was a bad kid."

Chief Friel said Eric had been frightened almost to tears by his arrest and pending trial. "He was worried about it constantly, calling the officer to find out what was going on," Chief Friel said. "I don't know if meeting Gilbert pushed him over the edge or what."

Last week Mr. Elliott was spotted with Mr. Gilbert in a 1989 Buick Skylark belonging to the 79-year-old Mrs. Loader, who had been at her farmhouse in Port Washington, Ohio, a few miles from Newcomerstown, recovering from cancer surgery. She is still missing, and the authorities say they fear she was killed for her car.

The Skylark automobile turned up last Thursday more than 600 miles away in Fulton, Mo., stuck in the mud. A few miles from where it was abandoned, the authorities found the bodies of 86-year-old William Brewer and his wife, Flossie, 76, in their home. They had been robbed, and each had been shot three times in the head. Searching for Motive

And their car, a 1981 Oldsmobile Cutlass, was missing. On Sunday, it turned up, also abandoned, on the shore of Lake Stanley Draper, near Oklahoma City. A few hundred feet away, the police found the body of Roxie Ruddel, 37, a security guard at the lake marina. She had been shot to death, and her 1991 Dodge pickup truck was missing. In New Mexico this morning, the state police said, they found an abandoned Dodge truck with Oklahoma license plates a few miles from the culvert where Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Elliott were apprehended, although the authorities have not positively identified it as the one belonging to Ms. Ruddel.

Now the authorities are trying to piece together the crimes, search for a motive. In no case, the authorities said, did the assailants make off with more than $40 in cash.

Officials are also trying to figure out just how willing and active a role Mr. Elliott may have played. His father, Robert, of Cleveland, insisted in recent days that Mr. Elliott was not prone to violence and must have been coerced somehow by Mr. Gilbert.

"Maybe he is in fear to where he thinks he has to go along with what is happening," the father told The Daily Oklahoman over the weekend. "The more I hear reports on this fellow he's supposed to be with, the more concerned I get."

An F.B.I. special agent in Cleveland, Robert Hawk, said, "I'm unaware of any hostage situation, but that's something that will be looked at by us and local authorities."

The intrigue over the case was also compounded by the fact that it appeared to offer eerie overtones of life imitating the movies. As the pair and made their way west, they became the object of widespread news reports, and their violent, seemingly pointless mission was compared to the one depicted in "Natural Born Killers," the recently released Oliver Stone film about the murderous escapades of two deranged lovers.

Still, despite the similarities, the police cautioned today that no evidence had turned up that either suspect had been motivated by the movie or had even seen it.

In Newcomerstown, a rural community of about 12,000 people in south central Ohio, homicide has simply not been a fact of life. "I can't remember when they had a murder down there," said the Tuscarawas County Sheriff, Harold McKimmie. "I've been in office 12 years, and we've never had a murder there in that section of the county."

Source: New York Times

FILM REVIEW: NATURAL BORN KILLERS; Young Lovers With a Flaw That Proves Fatal

MEET Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis), two renegades living out the oldest story in the teen-age wasteland. They're young, they're in love and they kill people, in thrill-crazy, rock-video style. "If I don't kill you," Mickey says to one soon-to-be victim, "what is there to talk about?" For Mickey, it's more than just a rhetorical question.

With more sophistry than poetry, Oliver Stone apotheosizes these trash archetypes in "Natural Born Killers," his supposed satire about an America despoiled by violence and exploitation. Satire? In his skill as a manipulator of thoughts and images, in his short-circuiting ordinary narrative, and in his intuitive visual brilliance, Mr. Stone could well turn out to be the most influential American film maker of his generation. But as a satirist, he's an elephant ballerina.

Scratch the frenzied, hyperkinetic surface of "Natural Born Killers" and you find remarkably banal notions about Mickey, Mallory and the demon media. ("Media's like weather, only it's man-made weather," says Mickey, delivering one of the rare memorable lines in the screenplay.) To wit: Born bad. Blame society. The sins of the fathers. Lost innocence. True love. Wild horses, deadly rattlers, fireworks, freight trains. Elements like these would appear more honestly threadbare if Mr. Stone were not a match for Mickey and Mallory in the area of overkill.

But he has exploded the slender premise of "Natural Born Killers" (from a story by Quentin Tarantino, whose distinctive voice is not heard here) into a firestorm of quick cuts, hot colors, gyroscopic camera movements and emblematic visions. Such techniques, intensified so furiously (thanks to superb editing by Hank Corwin and Brian Berdan) that they become pharmacologically seductive, have a way of obscuring this film's more mundane troubles. Not least of them is the fact that "Natural Born Killers" is dense and unmodulated enough to be exhausting. Despite isolated moments of bleak, disturbing beauty, it is finally less an epiphany than an ordeal. Not for the first time, Mr. Stone assembles an arsenal of visual ideas and then fires away point-blank in his audience's direction. If viewers flinch during this tireless two-hour barrage, are they simply no match for the film maker's tough, unrelenting style? Or has he by now perfected his own form of exploitative fallacy? While "Natural Born Killers" affects occasional disgust at the lurid world of Mickey and Mallory, it more often seems enamored of their exhilarating freedom. If there is a juncture at which these caricatures start looking like nihilist heroes, then the film passes that point many times.

Meanwhile, how can anything Mr. Stone says about his characters be dismissed as tasteless or unfunny, since they themselves are meant to be embodiments of a tasteless world? "I Love Mallory," a grotesque sitcom version of Mallory's childhood, with Rodney Dangerfield in stained underwear as her lecherous father, is fairly typical of the film's light touch. Arriving on the scene as the Prince Charming who will rescue Mallory by helping to murder her parents, Mickey shows up carrying a dripping 50-pound bag of raw meat.

Equally representative is an opening sequence at a roadside restaurant, where Mallory taunts the locals by writhing seductively to the jukebox, then savagely attacks a man who tries to flirt with her. At first, while this goes on, Mickey simply sits at the counter, reading a newspaper whose headline says he and Mallory have just killed six teen-agers at a slumber party.

Then he joins in, as Mr. Stone pumps up the music, switches film stock, lets the camera sway vertiginously, shows a bullet circling playfully toward the scared face of someone about to die, and so on. Grand flourish: when the spree is over, Mickey and Mallory dance together to "La Vie en Rose," with fireworks exploding romantically behind them. Mini-witticism: Mickey may have killed almost everyone in sight, but when he spoke to the waitress, he ordered nonfat milk.

Unfolding in only semi-linear fashion, "Natural Born Killers" devotes its first hour to Mickey and Mallory's rampage, interspersing lurid bloodshed with moments of eerie tenderness. (After the opening slaughter, these two find themselves in the moonlight, with a holy glow enveloping Mallory as she squats in the dirt and speaks about angels.) The couple's blood wedding, with an exchange of rattlesnake rings and Mallory's white veil drifting off into the abyss of a deep canyon, offers one of the film's most genuinely haunting visions, if only because it eludes easy understanding.

That's hardly the case with "American Maniacs," the tabloid television show starring Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.), who appreciates Mickey and Mallory for their entertainment value. At one of its funnier moments, the film dwells on the show's re-enactment of their exploits, with a title that says "A Dramatization" as two actors, playing Mickey and Mallory, shoot a bicyclist identified as an American bronze medalist. Finally persuading Mickey to sit for an interview after 50 killings in three weeks, Wayne asks the inevitable question: "Any regrets?"

As played by Mr. Downey with a thick Australian accent and perfect lip-smacking unctuousness, Wayne is one of the film's more deft inventions. But he, like everything else about "Natural Born Killers," is allowed to go overboard. After their operatic arrest in a ghastly, green-lit drugstore (another of Mr. Stone's genuinely disturbing images), Mickey and Mallory go to prison and are manipulated by a leering detective (Tom Sizemore) and a publicity-happy warden (Tommy Lee Jones). Even before it culminates in an actual riot, this section of the film becomes hysterical, to the point where it even features the rare out-of-control performance from Mr. Jones.

Mr. Harrelson and Ms. Lewis deal as captivatingly as they can with the film's wavering attitudes toward their characters. Both hit the requisite raw nerves, and both also make sense of the material's occasional romantic reveries. Used in a labored effort to give this story a spiritual dimension is Russell Means, as the only character in the film whose life means anything to Mickey and Mallory. Balthazar Getty is seen briefly as a young man who gets killed at a gas station, which probably qualifies as some kind of black joke.

Mr. Harrelson looks wild-eyed and deadly during parts of "Natural Born Killers," but he is at his scariest when serenely telling Wayne that he feels possessed of a certain purity. "I don't think I'm any scarier than you are," he says. "That's your shadow on the wall. You can't get rid of your shadow, can you, Wayne?" The point is made even more chillingly over the closing credits, as Leonard Cohen, a true poet of doom, sings succinctly: "Get ready for the future, it is murder."

Just before those credits roll, Mr. Stone shoots himself in the foot with a quick montage of tabloid television's latest, greatest hits: the Bobbitt and Menendez trials, Tonya Harding, O. J. Simpson. For better or worse, those are spectacles that cast a long shadow. And for all its surface passions, "Natural Born Killers" never digs deep enough to touch the madness of such events, or even to send them up in any surprising way. Mr. Stone's vision is impassioned, alarming, visually inventive, characteristically overpowering. But it's no match for the awful truth.

"Natural Born Killers" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes strong language, sexual situations and extreme, frequent violence, of the sort that could well have warranted a tougher rating. NATURAL BORN KILLERS Directed by Oliver Stone; written by David Veloz, Richard Rutowski and Mr. Stone, based on a story by Quentin Tarantino; director of photography, Robert Richardson; edited by Hank Corwin and Brian Berdan; production designer, Victor Kempster; produced by Jane Hamsher, Don Murphy and Clayton Townsend; released by Warner Brothers. Running time: 120 minutes. This film is rated R. WITH: Woody Harrelson (Mickey), Juliette Lewis (Mallory), Robert Downey Jr. (Wayne Gale), Tommy Lee Jones (Dwight McClusky), Tom Sizemore (Jack Scagnetti), Rodney Dangerfield (Mallory's father), Edie McClurg (Mallory's mother) and Russell Means (Old Indian).

Source: new York Times

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JUDICIAL SERVICE COMMISSION ACT 9 OF 1994

The purpose of the Judicial Services Commission Act is to regulate matters incidental to the establishment of the Judicial Service Commission by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

Source: SABINET

Egypt Begins Crackdown on Strongest Opposition Group

After a series of raids and arrests that have weakened Islamic groups trying to topple the Government by force, Egyptian security forces have begun a crackdown against the country's most powerful opposition organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, which rejects violence.

The campaign, which includes the detention and interrogation of scores of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, signals a drive by the Government to curtail not only those movements that have carried out violent attacks, but also one that has come to dominate many municipalities, professional and labor associations and university faculties.

The confrontation pits the Government of President Hosni Mubarak for the first time against the intellectual authors of Islamic fundamentalism, who the President contends are merely terrorists. 'This Is the First Time'

"This is the first time this Government has linked us to terrorism," said Issam al-Irian, a senior Brotherhood leader, as he sat in a spartan office in central Cairo. "It is part of a wide move by the Government to curtail all forms of democratic participation. It is an expression of the Government's weakness. But by narrowing the opportunities for democratic participation, the Government is creating more problems that it is solving."

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, is the prototype for modern Islamic fundamentalist political parties throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Although it has been officially banned since 1954, with a membership estimated in the hundreds of thousands it is the largest Egyptian opposition movement -- legal or illegal -- and dominates many of the 14,000 private philanthropies that provide services from health clinics to primary schools.

Its assets, with backing from supporters here and in Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Brotherhood, which has its headquarters in central Cairo, calls for the establishment of an Islamic state by peaceful means. It rejects the violence used by outlawed organizations like the Islamic Group in their efforts to topple the Government. Control of Civic Institutions

But at the same time, the Brotherhood has mounted an aggressive campaign to take control of a variety of civil and charitable institutions. It now dominates the largest of Egypt's 22 professional associations, including the medical, engineering and legal groups. And, aside from the rejection of the use of force, the goals of the Brotherhood dovetail with those of the underground groups.

The wide reach of the Brotherhood is based on its charitable work, including scores of clinics, hospitals and schools. But it also appeals to many Egyptians, especially those in the professional classes, as the only credible opposition movement.

"The Brotherhood, among the professional class, owes its support to the fact that it is an effective protest movement," said Said al-Naggar, the head of New Civic Forum, a liberal think tank. "It is the only outlet many people have to express dissatisfaction with the current system. Many of the professionals do not necessarily support the Islamic ideology, although there is a feeling that Western-style opposition parties, whether socialist or democratic, have failed."

But there is a price for effective organization. Women, for example, must wear the hejab, or head scarf, if they want to enter the Physicians' Union, a former leftist stronghold with a membership of 80,000 that is now controlled by the Brotherhood. Low-Cost Appliances

"The Brotherhood provides loans, cars, furniture and even electrical appliances to union members, at low cost," said Mohammed al-Farhat, who is not a member of the Brotherhood. "The union gives the physicians and their families the best quality health care at a minimal price. They have a reputation for being honest and careful with union funds." That reputation has wide appeal in a country whose Government is seen as thoroughly corrupt.

Until now, the Government concentrated its efforts on battling the Islamic Group, which has waged a two-year campaign of violence in which nearly 400 people, mainly police officers and militants, have been killed. But security forces have killed one militant commander and captured several others, putting the underground groups on the defensive.

"The security situation over all is much better now than a few months ago," a Western diplomat said. "This has made it easier to do this. The Government has the energy and the manpower available to go after what it sees as a second-tier organization."

But Brotherhood leaders say the Government wants to silence the only effective opposition in a country that nominally has a multiparty system, but where the same ruling group has been in power since 1952.

While refusing to lift the ban on the Brotherhood, President Mubarak has, until now, allowed it to operate. Brotherhood members were even permitted to run in parliamentary elections in 1988, although the candidates ran as members of the tiny Liberal and once-moribund Socialist Labor Party, both of which the Brotherhood now controls. Election Fraud Alleged

The main opposition parties, including the Socialist Labor Party, have boycotted subsequent parliamentary elections because of what they say is fraud. But the tolerance of the Brotherhood appears to have ended. For the first time, President Mubarak has begun referring to the group as a "terrorist" organization in public statements.

Government officials say documents discovered in February at the office of a company that had links to the Brotherhood directly tied the organization to violent groups.

They also say a defector from the underground armed movement detailed payments by Brotherhood supporters to armed factions.

And they have angrily criticized Brotherhood leaders for organizing a demonstration by hundreds of lawyers last month that turned violent. The demonstration was called to protest the death in police custody of a lawyer who defended jailed militants. Government critics and human rights groups say the lawyer, Abdel Harith Medani, was tortured to death. The Government denies the charge.

"The Brotherhood is a ring trying to agitate disturbances on the street," said Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi. "And this is also what the terrorists and the murderers are doing with their explosions and assassinations." Spiritual Leader Questioned

The Government has taken a number of steps in its new campaign against the group. Hamed Aboul-Nasr, 81, the ailing spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, was called in for police questioning for two days this week, accused of writing anti-Government leaflets and inciting the lawyers' protest last month. Parliament has canceled the right of professors to elect the deans of university faculties, many of which are now dominated by the Brotherhood.

Mayors and village council members, many of whom belong to the Brotherhood, will be appointed by the Government rather than elected.

Brotherhood members, including most of the senior leaders around the country, have been arrested. A prominent clergyman was recently prevented from delivering a sermon to thousands of worshipers. And editors and reporters from Al Shaab, the paper of the Socialist Labor Party and a strong fundamentalist voice, have been hauled into court and imprisoned in recent weeks for articles critical of the Government.

The crackdown worries many who fear that if the Brotherhood leaders are driven underground or imprisoned, they could call on their followers to join the armed movements. Comparison to Algeria

"I never believed that the Brotherhood represented the moderate branch of the Islamic movement," said Hussein Ahmed Amin, Egypt's former Ambassador to Algeria and a prominent writer. "It was a matter of the distribution of roles. The Brotherhood preached a moderate line to get into Parliament and the Labor Party, which it came to dominate, as well as to appeal to those who wanted change, but deplored violence.

"But the origin of the trouble in Egypt is the same as in Algeria. The rise in militancy is caused by the failure to create a democratic system, by social and economic grievances, Government corruption, a lack of housing, unemployment, immigration from the rural areas to the cities and a lack of competing ideologies. The Islamic movement will not disappear with repression. And if the Government presses the Brotherhood too hard it could become more overtly radical and put all its energy into acts of terror."

Brotherhood leaders are not shy about echoing such a threat.

"If our supporters believe we cannot achieve our goals peacefully," said Mohammed Maamoun al-Hodaiby, the spokesman for the Brotherhood, "then they may turn to more radical means to achieve them.

"What do you expect?"

Source: New York Times

PUBLIC SERVICE ACT (PROCLOMATION 103 OF 1994)

The purpose of the Public Service Act is to provide for the organisation and administration of the public service of the Republic, the regulation of the conditions of employment, terms of office, discipline, retirement and discharge of members of the public service, and matters connected therewith.

Source: SABINET

Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Amendment Act, No. 2 of 1994

To introduce a new Constitution for the Republic of South Africa and to provide for matters incidental thereto.

A copy of the interim constitution can be found here.

Source: Constitutional Court of South Africa

The Freedom Charter

The Freedom Charter is a statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress and its allies the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress. Here is the text of the Freedom Charter adopted at the Congress of the People, Kliptown, on 26 June 1955.

The charter calls for democracy and human rights, land reform, labour rights, and nationalization. The South African government denounced the congress as treason and banned the ANC. However, the charter continued to circulate in the revolutionary underground and inspired a new generation of young militants in the 1980s.

1. We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:

1.1. that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;
1.2. that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;
1.3. that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;
1.4. that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;

And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter; And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.

2. The People Shall Govern!

Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws;

2.1. All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the country;
2.2. The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex;
2.3. All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self-government .

3. All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!

3.1. There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and in the schools for all national groups and races;
3.2. All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk culture and customs;
3.3. All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride;
3.4. The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime;
3.5. All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside.

4. The People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth!

4.1. The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people;
4.2. The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;
4.3. All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people;
4.4. All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.

5. The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!

5.1. Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger;
5.2. The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;
5.3. Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
5.4. All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
5.5. People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished.

6. All Shall be Equal Before the Law!

6.1. No-one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair trial; No-one shall be condemned by the order of any Government official;
6.2. The courts shall be representative of all the people;
6.3. Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance;
6.4. The police force and army shall be open to all on an equal basis and shall be the helpers and protectors of the people;
6.5. All laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour or belief shall be repealed.

7. All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!

7.1. The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children;
7.2. The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected by law;
7.3. All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad;
7.4. Pass Laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be abolished.

8. There Shall be Work and Security!

8.1. All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make wage agreements with their employers;
8.2. The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits;
8.3. Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;
8.4. There shall be a forty-hour working week, a national minimum wage, paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers;
8.5. Miners, domestic workers, farm workers and civil servants shall have the same rights as all others who work;
8.6. Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.

9. The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!

9.1. The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life;
9.2. All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands;
9.3. The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace;
9.4. Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit;
9.5. Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan;
9.6. Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens;
9.7. The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in education shall be abolished.

10. There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!

10.1. All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security;
10.2. Unused housing space to be made available to the people;
10.3. Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go hungry;
10.4. A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state;
10.5. Free medical care and hospitalisation shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers and young children;
10.6. Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, creches and social centres;
10.7. The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by the state;
10.8. Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the right of all:
10.9. Fenced locations and ghettoes shall be abolished, and laws which break up families shall be repealed.

11. There Shall be Peace and Friendship!

11.1. South Africa shall be a fully independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations;
11.2. South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation - not war;
11.3. Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all;
11.4. The people of the protectorates Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland shall be free to decide for themselves their own future;
11.5. The right of all peoples of Africa to independence and self-government shall be recognised, and shall be the basis of close co-operation.

12. Let all people who love their people and their country now say, as we say here:

THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR, SIDE BY SIDE, THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES, UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY

Source: ANC

Mobutu meets with President George Bush at the White House

By most accounts, the United States was involved in both the death of Lumumba and the coup of 1965, which brought Mobutu to power, although the extent of this involvement is not certain. In any case, because of his longstanding relations with the American intelligence community, Mobutu was very aware of United States backing both as a resource and as a handicap.

Zaire generally received firm American support in the late 1960s and found American influence helpful in various economic and political disputes. The promulgation of a generous investment code in 1969 and a moderate political stance lured extensive foreign, including American, investment, and a substantial program of United States aid was continued. Mobutu returned from a visit to the United States in 1970 with pledges of substantial new investment. Relations continued to be warm until the Zairianization decree of November 30, 1973, which led to the transfer of a large number of foreign-owned enterprises, including facilities owned by international oil companies, into Zairian hands. Thereafter, relations were chilly.

But in 1975, the United States and Zaire found themselves supporting the same faction in the Angolan civil war (see Regional Relations , this ch.). The United States, apparently deciding that it needed a stable Zaire for political and economic reasons and sensing the potential for Zaire to support United States strategic interests in sub-Saharan Africa, promoted the relationship with Zaire. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's first official trip to Africa in April 1976 included a long visit to Kinshasa.

The Carter administration, which had declared its number-one foreign policy objective to be the promotion of human rights, posed a problem for the Mobutu regime, with its poor human rights record. For the first time, criticism of Mobutu by members of Congress and by voluntary agencies was met with some sympathy by the United States president. However, the skeptical attitude toward the Zairian government was partially reversed by Shaba I and Shaba II. On the occasion of the second invasion in 1978, President Jimmy Carter supported Mobutu's accusations of Cuban and Soviet involvement, even though no hard evidence was presented. But the United States refused to become involved militarily and sent only nonlethal military supplies, such as medical and transportation equipment. In 1980 the House of Representatives (concerned over human rights violations and the misuse of United States aid) voted to end all military assistance to Zaire; but the Senate reinstated the funds, reacting to pressure from Carter and American business interests in Zaire.

The election of the more conservative Ronald Reagan as United States president was well received in Zaire, and in fact United States concerns about Mobutu's human rights record became muted. Moreover, Mobutu again was seen as providing useful services to the United States in its struggle against the Soviet Union and Soviet allies such as Libya and Angola. The domestic context in the United States had changed, however, in that an increasing number of American groups had become opposed to administration policy toward Zaire.

As United States-Zaire relations became more visible in Washington, Mobutu countered by becoming more active in promoting a positive image of himself and his country. Two Washington lobbying firms with ties to the Reagan administration received hefty contracts from Mobutu.

Nevertheless, in November 1990, Congress cut military and economic aid (except for some humanitarian aid) to Zaire, crystallizing the longstanding division between Congress and the executive branch and between liberals and conservatives on Zaire policy. As it adjourned, Congress denied the Bush administration's request for US$4 million in military aid and stipulated that US$40 million in economic aid be funneled through humanitarian agencies not affiliated with the Zairian government. Its decision was based on human rights violations--the September 1990 Lubumbashi massacre in particular--and accusations that Mobutu's vast wealth was largely stolen from the Zairian people.

By 1992 the United States-Zaire relationship had reached a turning point. The end of the Cold War had diminished the strategic significance of Zaire to the United States, and events in Zaire since 1990 had made it clear that Mobutu's days in power were numbered. In 1991-92, the United States, together with Belgium and France, attempted to promote peaceful political change in Zaire, by pressuring Mobutu to oversee the transition to democratic government and to depart voluntarily. The Zairian opposition, however, still perceived this approach as a continued "propping up" of the Mobutu regime and called for an unequivocal United States rejection of Mobutu, which was not forthcoming.

In October 1992, the United States joined Belgium and France in extending official support to the Tshisekedi government. The United States also reiterated its support for the national conference and its hope that the conference would lead ultimately to fair and free elections.

Since that time, the United States has continued to support the legitimacy of the Tshisekedi government and to insist that the Mobutu government live up to its promise to turn over real power to that government. It has consistently denounced Mobutu's obstruction of the transition process and has refused to recognize the rival Birindwa government. Moreover, the Clinton administration has taken several concrete steps to show its displeasure with the Mobutu regime. The United States has not replaced its ambassador to Zaire, who was reassigned in March 1993. The United States also refused to allow Zaire's central bank governor into the United States to attend a World Bank-IMF meeting and has made it clear that Mobutu is not welcome in the United States. Nevertheless, the United States has stopped short of taking or even advocating harsher measures against the regime, such as the imposition of economic sanctions or the confiscation of Mobutu's assets abroad. As such, in the view of some observers the United States has put only very limited pressure on Mobutu to step down. Many see this policy as an indication that the United States still regards Mobutu as a stabilizing factor, a viewpoint that would explain United States acceptance of Mobutu as part of the transition process in Zaire. The United States-brokered political accord that accompanied the Transitional Act permitted President Mobutu to remain as titular head of state and thus a legitimate institution of government, albeit with limited powers. One unintended effect of this arrangement has been to confer some legitimacy on Mobutu and thus allow him to obstruct the transition process and the functioning of the legitimate government under Tshisekedi.

Throughout 1993 the United States has continued to urge the various political forces in Zaire to continue negotiating, apparently believing that ongoing negotiations will eventually lead to a power-sharing compromise. It appears increasingly likely that the United States would accept a so-called "neutral administration" replacing both the Mobutu-appointed government and the Tshisekedi government.

Source: US Congress Library