UK journo scared of SA

A soccer journalist for the Guardian in Britain has created waves in cyberspace following her criticism of South Africa as a host nation for the Soccer World Cup.

She believes Egypt would have been a better host nation, as “if Egyptians were able to build pyramids, they could surely host a World Cup.”

Louise Taylor wrote in a blog last Tuesday on the newspaper’s website why she was terrified of coming to South Africa in 2010. She discussed her fear of crime, HIV and the lack of public transport.

“Such fears are usually based more on perceptions than statistics, but unfortunately the statistics – not to mention anecdotal evidence – confirm that soccer fans like me have reason to be more than a little anxious,” she wrote.

By late on Sunday night, more than 470 people had commented on Taylor’s blog. Most people disagreed with her and teased her, but she was also heavily criticised.

One Surfermoon said South Africans were offended by the “poorly researched and inflammatory article”. “Doesn’t the successful hosting of the World Cup cricket and rugby World Cup, not to mention the Indian Premier League and Confederations Cup count?”

Slosh wrote: “I wouldn’t go to London either, I hear there are criminals everywhere and bombs on buses. This is sensational rubbish, which is supported by statistics that can be adjusted to make any country look bad.’

“I would think twice about whether I should go if I were you,” wrote Lichinga. “Anyone with such a clear lack of common sense and good judgement, should never leave the house. Let me do you the favour by taking those tickets off your hands.”

According to Greenstreetrebel, the World Cup should then also not be hosted in Australia, as it is “full of spiders and snakes (not to mention the Australians)…I think Ms Taylor talks imperialist nonsense.”

World Cup in South Africa terrifies me

Statistics, anecdotes and research suggest that touring the Rainbow nation as a fan next summer could be a dangerous option. In fact, the 2010 World Cup should have gone to Egypt.

"Awe-inspiring landscapes, cosmopolitan cities, beautiful vineyards and amazing wildlife – the Rainbow nation offers something for everyone, where the people and culture are as diverse as the landscape. Africa's southernmost country has long been the inspiration of travellers the world over ... "

So says the blurb introducing South Africa in a typical holiday brochure. Few readers could fail to be enticed – well, at least until they spotted the prices – but most will also ask themselves the questions: What about the crime? Is it safe? Happily, South Africa seems to do tourism, particularly high-end tourism, pretty well, and the answers in the overwhelming majority of cases are a resounding: It won't affect you and Yes.

I've never been but would love to take a typical Cape Town/Garden Route-type holiday. What I would definitely balk at, though, is touring as a fan at next year's World Cup – an event, with the final 12 months away, we are counting down to. Indeed, having done a bit of research on the subject, I know I'd be absolutely terrified.
Such fears are often as much about perception as statistics, but unfortunately the stats – not to mention much anecdotal evidence – confirm that football fans like me are right to be more than a little scared. After all, this is a country in which approximately 50 people are murdered every day.

Let's start where the UK government would like us to, with the official Foreign Office travel advice. As a fairly regular visitor to the Middle East, I know this can sometimes seem unnecessarily alarmist but, even so, the South African advisory is still capable of making the most well-travelled England fan think twice.

Here are some selected excerpts. "South Africa has a very high level of crime including rape and murder." "In all areas of South Africa you should be cautious when out after dark." "There have been a number of incidents involving foreigners being followed from Johannesburg airport to their destinations by car and then robbed, often at gunpoint." "The standard of driving is variable and there are many fatal accidents." Meanwhile, "vigilance" is demanded "at all times" in Durban.

So far so cheery. Then there was the recent news that G4S, the world's biggest security firm, has declined to work at next summer's World Cup. Nick Buckles, the organisation's chief executive, took that decision after revealing that G4S rated South Africa more dangerous than Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course, much violence occurs in the townships but, looking in from the outside, a major problem appears to be the lack of public transport. Where are the wonderful train services that helped Germany 2006 run so smoothly? After reporting on last month's Confederations Cup, the journalist Gabriele Marcotti wrote: "Public transport is generally poor and, besides, most foreign tourists are told not to take buses and trains."

Quite apart from recounting a late-night incident with a shadowy, gun-toting man – probably involved in security rather than crime – while driving in Johannesburg, Marcotti wrote of some long, unpleasant drives in the dark after covering matches. Commenting on the lack of dual carriageways and lit highways in certain areas, he described negotiating one road heading towards Jo'burg as "like snorkelling in a sewer filled with squid ink". Shortly afterwards came the sad news that a German journalist had been killed in a car crash while driving back to his hotel after attending a Confederations Cup match.

Talking of the Confederations Cup, remember that players from both the Egyptian and Brazilian teams returned to their hotel rooms after victories over, coincidentally, Italy to find they had been robbed. No matter, though; in March Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of the 2010 World Cup, issued a "100% guarantee" that there would not be "a single" security breach or attack on any team or official attending Africa's first such showpiece. "We'll have 41,000 extra police and 86,000 added [security] personnel," he said.

Those guests who attended a Fifa draw in Durban in November 2007 may take some convincing. They were shocked when Peter Burgstaller, an Austrian ex-professional footballer, was shot dead while on his hotel golf course. Meanwhile, another hotel guest was mugged en route to breakfast and journalists covering the event were advised to venture out only in groups.

Moving on, for the moment, from crime, there is also the HIV issue. Latest stats indicate that just over 18% of South Africa's adult population is infected. Considering that prostitutes always prosper during World Cups, you do not need to be a rocket scientist to detect the looming dangers.

There is a huge political investment in Africa's inaugural World Cup proving a resounding success, and you suspect those Fifa delegates who recently gave the country eight out of ten in terms of preparations could be in peril of believing their own spin.

Deep down, there must be some VIPs pacing Fifa's corridors of power who harbour nagging regrets that Egypt or Morocco did not pip South Africa and win the vote. Indeed, one or two might just regret that the event was not switched to Australia when, some time ago, football's international governing body arguably had the chance to do so.

Personally I'd have preferred the 2010 World Cup to have gone to Egypt. Yes, it would have been very hot (although it's a dry heat) and it would, in places, have been dirty and ultra-chaotic, but it would also have been friendly and welcoming. And, in terms of crime, Egypt is extremely safe. Eyebrows would doubtless have been raised at the potential for organisational mayhem, the nightmarish Cairo traffic and the downtown air pollution, but surely if the Egyptians could build the pyramids they could host a World Cup.

Moreover, staging football's biggest and best event in a key centre of the Arab world might just have helped ease tensions between the international Muslim community and the west while simultaneously weakening the Islamic fundamentalists growing hold over hearts and minds.

Instead, though, South Africa has a wonderful opportunity to change prejudices and perceptions. And, I sincerely hope, prove doom-mongers like me horribly wrong.

Louise Taylor writes for THE GUARDIAN ,

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Millions ‘wasted’ by traffic chief

Unhappy staff finger boss who splurged on Confederations Cup

The CEO of the Road Traffic Management Corporation accused of wasting millions of rands of taxpayers’ money on useless projects — including a R1.3-million jaunt for staff and guests to watch the Confederations Cup, at a cost of up to R31,763 per person, ostensibly to prepare for the 2010 World Cup.

Disgruntled staff at the RTMC — responsible for road traffic management across South Africa, including providing vehicle and roadworthiness testing and the testing and licensing of drivers — have also accused Ranthoko Rakgoale of operating like a “dictator”.

They want minister of transport Sibusiso Ndebele to investigate the running of the organisation, set up in September 2005, and Rakgoale’s leadership style.

Rakgoale has denied the allegations.

Last month unhappy staff sent a three-page letter to the Transport Ministry accusing Rakgoale of:

• Spending R4.5-million on workshops in the nine prov-inces last October and November, for which R1.5-million had been budgeted;
  
  
• Entering into a 10-year R658-million lease for nine office blocks in Pretoria , only two of which are being used ;
  
  
• Buying office furniture for R1.2-million without advertising it on open tender;
  
  
• Using an official vehicle worth R271000, although he receives a hefty car allowance; and
  
  
• Blowing R1.3-million on the hire of private suites at Ellis Park and Loftus Versfeld for eight matches during last month’s Confederations Cup.
  

Staff and guests were treated to pre-match lunches and dinners, after-match snacks and drinks.

The parastatal coughed up R31,763 per person for those attending matches at Ellis Park and R15,016 for those who went to Loftus.

In the letter requesting approval for the hiring of the suites, Celia Khoza, a senior supply-chain manager , said “by attending the tournament, the RTMC will be able to develop planning frameworks in preparation for the World Cup”.

The organisation has an annual budget of R182-million, a staff of 144 and is responsible for the implementation of the demerit system whereby drivers will be docked points for traffic violations. It is also expected to oversee the controversial Enatis Licence System.

Rakgoale — who earns more than R1.2-million a year, including benefits — this week defended his decision to pay for the suites, saying the matter was discussed at a management meeting and no concerns were raised.

Rakgoale, a former head of public works, roads and transport in the Free State, was unceremoniously redeployed to social development by then premier Beatrice Marshoff, which he unsuccessfully challenged in the Bloemfontein High Court.

Rakgoale also paid auditing firm Deloitte & Touche R1.5-million from February 6 to March 13 this year for seconding 18 staff members to provide financial and management accounting services to his finance staff.

The chairman of the RTMC board, John Sampson, confirmed that Rakgoale had faxed him a copy of the letter from staff, but Rakgoale denied any knowledge of it.

“My quote is, ‘I don’t know about the letter that went to the director-general. It’s the first time I am hearing of the allegations. But let them be investigated, because I have nothing to hide,’” he said.

He denied buying furniture or commandeering a car for his private use.

“It (the car) was allocated to the CEO’s office and is not for my personal use. It is used to deliver post, and in instances when, as a law enforcement officer, I have to attend roadblocks, I use it because it has blue lights.”
He said he was forced to call in Deloitte & Touche because some senior officials — who were paid as much as R921,000 a year each — were not doing their jobs.

Sampson said he was still deciding how to handle the complaints from staff.

Transport director-general Mpumi Mpofu failed to respond to written questions from the Sunday Times.

WC 2010 strike vultures gather AGAIN

JULY 2009

Some 70,000 construction workers in South Africa have gone on strike, halting work on stadiums being built for the 2010 World Cup.

South African construction workers demonstrate at the start of a nationwide strike demanding higher wages outside Soccer City Stadium in Soweto (top and left) and Green Point Stadium in Cape Town

Unions are threatening to wreck the tournament if their demands for a 13% wage increase are not met.

The BBC's Mpho Lakaje in Soweto says scores of workers are outside Soccer City stadium wearing blue overalls and brandishing sticks.

At present most of the workers are being paid 2,500 rand a month.

"The government must help us, otherwise we are going to delay 2010. We will strike until 2011," AFP news agency quoted NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka as saying.

Five entirely new stadiums are being built for the World Cup, while five are being modernised.

Four of the five upgrades and a new stadium in Port Elizabeth are already finished. The strikers are also working on a new airport for the port city of Durban, power stations and work at the Gautrain site also stopped.

If the strike continues projects such as the high-speed rail link between the airport and Johannesburg will be of greater concern than the stadiums.

The rail-link is scheduled to be operational just two weeks before the tournament starts.

Strike violence erupted on Thursday in the coastal city of Cape Town, where striking workers outside a rail station under construction suddenly began stoning passers-by and cars, police Inspector November Filander said.

Police fired a stun grenade to disperse the workers, who then joined other strikers outside the half-built Green Point Stadium.

Work on the 68,000-seat stadium started late and progress has been slowed by two previous strikes.

About 200 protesters tried to get into the stadium, apparently to harass colleagues not respecting the strike. Police on horseback and on foot turned them away.

Related - World Cup: One year to go

JULY 2008

World Cup 2010 may be the financial answer to South Africa's prayers - but the workers earning R125 A DAY have other things on their minds.

They include coping with huge hikes in fuel, electricity and food prices whilst trying to live on a daily wage equivalent to a couple of cups of coffee in England.

There have been labour disputes at all the World Cup stadiums over the last 18 months.

And that has piled even more pressure on the organising committee as they try to convince FIFA they are on course for 2010.

Organising committee chief Danny Jordaan is coming under increasing pressure against a backdrop of crime, power cuts, security issues and transport concerns.

The official line is that all 10 stadiums are on target to be finished by the deadline of the end of 2009. But privately there are worries. Port Elizabeth's Nelson Mandela Stadium was supposed to be ready for the Confederation Cup but was been pulled.

And then there is the 45,000-capacity Mbombela.

Five miles west of Nelspruit, a pot-holed tarmac turn-off from the main road to Johannesburg is easy to miss. The road soon turns into a dirt track - and there, in the middle of rural settlements, is a concrete reminder that the footballing world is due to be heading this way in just 11 months.

Last July (2008) the cranes were silent as the National Union of Mineworkers, who represent the construction staff, thrashed out a new bonus deal and tried to sort out other grievances.

In angry clashes with police, strikers set fire to the security hut and also targeted cop cars.

Union spokesman Lesiba Seshoga is the first to condemn the violence. But as someone who has overseen negotiations at Cape Town's Green Point stadium, Durban's Moses Madhiba and the Nelson Mandela Stadium in PE, Seshoga is also determined to protect his members.

He will not allow workers to be forced into picking up their tools on the back of a vague threat that strike action could inflict terminal damage on the World Cup plans.

Seshoga said: "We welcome the World Cup but that doesn't mean we can be exploited. Why should workers be prepared to earn little?

"Workers should be getting something better - they should not be impoverished while millions are being spent on new stadiums.

"These workers are not going to benefit from the World Cup in that none of them will be able to afford to watch a game.

"We regret that there was violence but the workers were frustrated after months of broken promises.

"But why should we accept these conditions? We want FIFA to know our working conditions.

"We still believe that the stadiums will be completed in time."

The Mbombela Stadium is one of five new stadiums being built. But it is one of the more remote destinations, along with the Peter Mokaba Stadium at Polokwane.

Polokwane is a four-hour drive from Johannesburg, on the road to crisis-torn Zimbabwe. Refugees regularly gather there, increasing the chances of violence.

Again the ground is being built out of town, raising concerns as to how fans will actually get there.

Both Nelspruit and Polokwane have small airports, currently being upgraded. But accommodation is likely to be an issue, as well as the short journey to the grounds.

There is better news in the major cities. Green Point, in an upmarket area of Cape Town, has shot up in 2 years to suggest it will be completed in time.

Workers are operating flat-out at Durban's Moses Mabhida and the town has ambitious plans for a new railway station and airport.

In recent months South Africa has been hit by power cuts. But Jordaan has pledged to use generators to make sure that stadia and hotels do not suffer blackouts.

And he can at least deliver a stadium worthy of the World Cup final. Soccer City, on the south-western fringes of Johannesburg, is being totally revamped into a 94,000-capacity ground.

It will look like an African pot from the outside. Jordaan will be praying it turns out to be a pot of gold for the rainbow nation.

Source - http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article1442924.ece

Criminal justice shame

One in four prisoners - 40 000 people - should not be behind bars, according to South Africa's monitor of prisons.

This emerged in a searing indictment of the criminal justice system by Judge Deon van Zyl of the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services, who was briefing a parliamentary portfolio committee on Wednesday.

He painted an ugly picture of the state of awaiting-trial prisoners and a police inability to conclude cases, prolonging the detention period of inmates - some facing minor charges.

Given the high number of awaiting-trial suspects, it seemed police measured their success on the number of arrests, and not convictions, Van Zyl said.

Van Zyl told the multiparty committee he was certain that out of the 50 000 awaiting-trial prisoners, 40 000 would be released because of lack of evidence.

The judge said out of the prison population of 165 000 inmates, 50 000 were awaiting trial.

"There are too many people awaiting trial," the judge stated.

He accused police officers of not properly investigating cases, and postponing matters in the courts for months and even years, resulting in some inmates succumbing to illnesses.

"You don't postpone the matter until you know there is a bona fide investigation going on. Why are our magistrates allowing matters to be postponed?" asked Van Zyl.

The judge said he would like to see the number of unsentenced prisoners halved as soon as possible to reduce overcrowding in prisons. This could be done through releasing detainees who posed no threat to society.

He said he would for the next three years focus his energies in correcting this defect: "I don't want to be a watchdog. I want to play a role in the review of the criminal justice system," Van Zyl said.

Lukas Muntingh of the Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative said last night that research into three court districts had shown that about half of the cases against awaiting-trial detainees were later dropped.

"Why do the police arrest someone in the first case if there is no good case against him? That amounts to arbitrary detention," he said.

Muntingh added that people who had been arrested should be offered the option of a plea bargain in the first few hours after their arrest. This could help avoid unnecessary detention and keep prison numbers down.

"About half of the awaiting-trial detainees have been in detention for three or four months," he said.

He added that he recently heard of a detainee in Pretoria Central prison who had been waiting for nine years for his case to be concluded.

On deaths in prison, Van Zyl said 500 prisoners had died in the past six months.

Van Zyl told MPs that a number of inmates were raped and sexually assaulted, with some contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

There were instances where police arrested a healthy individual who died later of natural causes while awaiting trial.

"What is worrying us is that in the first six months (of this year) we have had 500 deaths. We are told those are natural deaths. I would like to see every single death followed by a post-mortem or inquiry.

"Why was that person subjected to rape (or) sexual assault on the first day of his arrival, as a result six months later he is dead?" asked Van Zyl.

In a previous report, the inspectorate's statistics showed that 37 percent of prisoners who died in custody did so within the first 12 months of custody, and 62 percent had occurred within the first three years.

Robbers 'shoot baby in the head'

A 16-month-old baby was shot dead during a robbery in Eersterust, Pretoria, police said on Wednesday.

Captain Johannes Maheshu said two gun-wielding men, aged between 20 and 26, broke a window to gain entry into the house in Eeinheid's Place in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The occupants included a man, his wife, their three daughters and the baby.

"They woke up the family, tied the husband up and ransacked the house.

"They only made off with a cellphone and an undisclosed amount of cash," Maheshu said.

He said they were investigating what prompted the men to shoot the baby.

According to Beeld newspaper, one of the men shot the baby in the head, after they could not find a cellphone on the wife.

The report said the men asked the woman why she did not have a cellphone, as she was too old not to have one.

The men reportedly fled after the husband, upon hearing the loud bang of the pistol, broke the bedroom window and threw himself out.

Maheshu said they were not investigating any leads yet. - Sapa

'Britain more violent than SA' stat vindicates burning of dockets

South African police authorities say recent claims that Britain is a more violent society than South Africa are evidence that the new official policy of burning dockets is working. "All the teens carry knives in the UK," said a spokesman. "Thank God our teens only carry assault rifles." He said that incidents of fatal stabbings with AK-47s were exceptionally rare.

"Some of the more conscientious officers at our stations have been expressing concern about burning the dockets," explained South African Police Service spokesman Whatmeworry Ndebele.

"We told them to shut up and keep pouring the paraffin or we'd send them to London to get knifed."

He added that it had also been easy to keep the SAPS's conscientious, competent and non-corrupt officers in line as there were only nine of them, and they could easily by monitored by colleagues.

"This report from the UK proves that we are winning the war on crime," said Ndebele. "Or at least the war on dockets."

Asked how it was possible that Britain was more violent than South Africa given the latter's staggering murder- and rape rates, Ndebele explained that murder and rape were not considered violent crimes in South Africa.

"Yes, the UK has 900 murders a year while we have about 19,000.

"And yes, the UK has 50,000 rapes a year while we have 600,000.

"But if you read our operating manual you will discover that so-called "murder" is in fact considered an interpersonal disturbance featuring a non-planned assisted cardiac arrest.

"It's really more a medical accident than a violent crime. Malpractice by laypeople, if you will.

"And rape, well, if you're asking us to classify rape as violent crime then you're also asking us to consider women to be people, and that's a bit of a stretch."

He said that every morning he thanked God that he lived in South Africa with its extremely low rates of assault-rifle stabbing-related crime, and that he was proud to be able to walk down any street in the country knowing that his Kevlar body armour would probably stop most of what was being fired at him, as long as they aimed at his chest and not his head.

Meanwhile British police have conceded that the new statistics have come as a shock and that they will have to start emulating their South African counterparts by burning dockets if they are to improve their country's reputation.

However, they asked the British public to remember that the numbers had been affected by the different definitions of "violent crime" in Britain and South Africa.

They pointed out that the Labour Party under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had reclassified flying the Union Jack as criminal assault, while anyone eating pork products in front of any religion at all, including Jedis, and using the word "patriotism" in any context other than sneering self-loathing, was liable to be charged with assault with intent to do grievous multicultural harm.

Robbery stats reveal shocking truth

CAPE TOWN – While the DA has taken Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa to task for his failure to release more regular crime statistics, research has revealed that up to 30% of burglars either have done so or are willing to commit murder.

“Covering up crime won‘t make it go away; no one asked you to protect us from the truth,” DA police spokesman Dianne Kohler-Barnard said in the National Assembly during a debate on the Safety and Security budget vote.

She criticised Mthethwa for his decision to “renege” on his predecessor‘s (Charles Nqakula‘s) assertion that crime statistics would be released twice a year.

“The minister (Mthethwa) in fact told me in a televised discussion that if he had his way we would only be informed of the status of crime once every second year.

“Now we have to wait until September before he releases the statistics, which will by then be 18 months out of date. Hardly a reflection on the cold, hard reality of crime we are experiencing today.”

The only recent crime statistics that are available have been extracted from research done on residential robberies and interviews with arrested/convicted robbers by Dr Rudolph Zinn, from Unisa‘s School of Criminal Justice.

The research reveals:

• House robberies have increased by 13,5% in the past year.
  
  
• Of the almost 15000 residential robberies committed last year, 50% took place in Gauteng.
  
  
• The average age of a house robber is 19 to 26 years.
  
  
• An average of 30% of all house robbers have committed murder or are willing to commit murder.
  
  
• 17% of house robbers are foreigners.
  
  
• 90% of arrested robbers had no matric or were unemployed.
  
  
• The 10% who were employed gave up their jobs when confirming how much they could make from a robbery.
  
  
• Most victims/targets are affluent people who openly display their wealth, i.e. expensive cars, jewellery, upmarket homes.
  
  
• Eight out of 10 residential robberies are committed with the help of information from maids, gardeners and former employees.
  
  
• Robbers will monitor the home for as long as two weeks.
  
  
• Gangs research armed response firms‘ response times.
  
  
• Most attacks occur between 7pm and midnight as people are relaxed, cooking or watching TV.
  
  
• The biggest deterrent confirmed by robbers themselves are small dogs kept inside the home.
  
  
• Alarm systems and armed reaction services are not a deterrent.
  
  
• Electric fences, CCTV and detection beams do deter robbers.
  
  
• Victims of house robberies are only seriously injured in 2% of all incidents.
  
  
• 35% of robbers robbed for basic needs (hunger, poverty), while 65% enjoyed the money and spent it on clothes, cars and houses.
  
  
• The average robber commits 103 robberies over seven years before being caught.
  
  
• 97% of robbers are armed.
  
  
• Women are more often tortured or hurt during robberies.
  
  
• On average an armed robbery gang has four members.
  
  
• The conviction rate for house robberies in South Africa is 7,67%; in the USA it is 53%.

Source - Minister wants to keep mum on crime – but robbery stats reveal shocking truth

Related:-
House robberies soar
Crime in SA a catch-22 situation
SA crime stats 2007 - 2008
Url: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20080717061647742C278268

How cops fiddle crime statistics

Police in South Africa’s three major provinces are implicated in a conspiracy to make it appear that they are winning the war on crime.

Evidence of manipulating crime statistics — including destroying dockets and failing to register cases — has been exposed in Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

At least five stations in the Western Cape, four in Gauteng and one in KwaZulu-Natal have been fingered in alleged fiddling and indications are that the fraud could be far more widespread.

In the past few weeks, police stations have been accused of:

• Stockpiling, hiding and burning dockets;
  
  
• Ditching dockets of crimes on the increase, including child rape;
  
  
• Failing to register crimes that have a low chance of prosecution; and
  
  
• Reducing serious crimes to lesser charges.
  

Four senior officers in Cape Town have been implicated in fiddling crime statistics, while Western Cape Community Safety MEC Lennit Max — embroiled in a war of words over the issue with his commissioner Mzwandile Petros — has claimed that the fudging of crime numbers is “common”.

The Sunday Times was also shown photocopies this week of about 200 unregistered dockets allegedly stashed in a KwaZulu-Natal police station.

Mulaudzi Hangwani, the spokesman for minister of police Nathi Mthethwa, said the stations under investigation made up “zero” percent of the country’s 1500 police stations.

The Independent Complaints Commission confirmed this week that six stations were under investigation.

This excludes Gauteng, where researcher Lisa Vetten from the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre also claims there is fiddling.

Vetten said Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS) officers handling rape at more than four police stations in Gauteng had reported in a recent study that statistics manipulation was “definitely” happening.

“It is making some police officers very uncomfortable, ” Vetten said.

Pietermaritzburg’s Mountain Rise police station is under investigation by the Independent Complaints Directorate for allegedly stockpiling and destroying dockets, after it jumped from 40th position to the province’s top-performing station in a year.

The 200 unregistered dockets seen by the Sunday Times are alleged to have been stockpiled in a room at this station since 2007.

Meanwhile, Max said this week that his calls for an audit of all 147 Western Cape police stations were being ignored. He claims that rape cases involving children as young as five were not registered or investigated.

Vetten said the decision in 2004 to reduce crimes like rape by 7% to 10% every year had most likely put pressure on police as it not in “the realm of possibility”.

Policeman Craig Josiah from Mountain Rise station, who was suspended after blowing the whistle on the manipulation of figures, has had his pay reinstated and disciplinary charges put on hold pending finalisation of a court application to have his suspension overturned.

SA's most loved rugby supporter

Cellphone company’s ‘Elton and Jan’ commercial proves a massive score with rugby supporters



Forget Merlin and Malcolm, meet Elton and Jan. The stars of Vodacom’s Player 23 rugby advert have become so well known that it has changed their lives.

Ironically, though, their nationwide celebrity kicked off pretty inauspiciously.

Cape Town comedian Malcolm Ferreira, who plays Jan, thought it was a prank when an advertising agency asked him to send a picture of himself “topless” to get a role in a Vodacom advert.

He eventually sent the picture and a few weeks later landed the role of South Africa’s most loved rugby supporter.

Ferreira said this week the agency approached him after seeing his rip-off music video — as rapper Koolerbox, the Afrikaner version of US rapper Eminem — on YouTube.

Actor Merlin Balie, on the other hand, was just following his agent’s orders when he auditioned for the part of Elton in May.

Balie said he had been told the first Vodacom ad had been popular, but had had no idea how successful it would be when he auditioned.

“For the audition, I had to act out three scenes ... I didn’t realise that the ad would be this big,” he said.

But from inauspicious beginnings have come big things.

Balie and Ferreira agree that their popularity has reached the point where they can’t walk down the street without being stopped by rugby-mad fans who refer to them by their character names.

Ferreira, who has been a stand-up comic for about eight years, has had some bizarre run-ins with rugby fans.

“After the Super 14 game between the Vodacom Bulls and the Stormers at Loftus Versfeld (in March), one supporter invited me to his braai and told me that if I went, then I could go out on a date with his sister,” Ferreira said.

He has also been asked to sign a woman’s breasts — “that was an experience I think will take me time to forget” — and a man’s chest.

“Signing his man boob was hysterical. That is when I realised that supporters really love Jan,” said Ferreira.

Balie has not experienced the weird side of his fame. He is still enjoying being asked to pose for photographs and give autographs.

“There was a time when people could only recognise me when I was wearing my Springbok jersey, but now they spot me regardless of what I’m wearing,” he said.

Balie also admitted that he liked it when fans called him Elton.

“There is one supporter who stopped me and said, ‘Hey, Elton, vat ’n foto met my laaitie,’ and that is when I realised that people are really starting to notice me.”

Both Ferreira and Balie said filming the ads had been interesting. The first one — where he appears without Balie — literally made a big impression, Ferreira quipped.

“In the scene I high fived all the players and left Bakkies (Botha) hanging. He then decided to give me a pat on my stomach. My stomach only stopped wobbling after about four days. His handprint lasted for about a week. Those rugby players are strong.”

Balie — a veteran of 15 ads — said he realised how big the Vodacom ad was going to be when he saw the screen shots.

“I didn’t think it was funny while we were shooting the scenes, but it was when the director called me to look at the screen shots that I laughed and realised how good it was.”

Ferreira said the hype has boosted his profile and he has been getting more calls to do stand-up comedy.

Balie, who played bad guy Werner in soapie 7de Laan in 2005, believes the ad will lead to more TV work for him.

And in a case of life imitating art, Elton and Jan have struck up a real-life friendship.

Balie said the two call each other to try to meet up at rugby games.

“I love rugby, and I’m from Cape Town. So the Stormers are my team,” said Balie.

ANC – VIP’s of Violence

A fully factual, well researched and presented documentary on the actions of the ANC that it was hoped would never surface in public – ANC – African National Congress, ruling party in South Africa. What was said in 1987 still applies today, most black people have not seen a dramatic change in their circumstances.

Nelson Mandela never did renounce the use of violence.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

WARNING - disturbing images of necklacing, brutality and violence

ANC VIP’s of Violence Part 1 of 3


ANC VIP’s of Violence Part 2 of 3


ANC VIP’s of Violence Part 3 of 3

Source - The New South Africa

Pearls of wisdom from the "Oracle" of Bok rugby

During the 1970s and 80s England placed a ban on Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. Every word escaping his lips was censored and now in South Africa, some Springbok fans have called for this type of gagging of their rugby union coach, Peter De Villiers, aka ''The Voice''.

When I think of wacky comments I first think of Henry Blofeld - an English cricket commentator who's celebrated for his idiosyncratic mentioning of superfluous detail during and after games - but my list of one-liner wonders has rapidly rocketed past Ali G, Borat and George W Bush to Springbok rugby coach//clown De Villiers.

I think he's watched one Matrix film too many and believes he's The Oracle. The man is the Don Quixote of rugby union and the wind he's churned up in his daft interviews is creating quite a stink in rugby circles.

Here are some pearls of wisdom from the ''Oracle'' of Bok rugby...

Div comments 'pathetic'

Div: I don't give a damn

Springbok coach Peter de Villiers on Monday described himself as "a God-given talent" in reply to a question on how he viewed the increasing media criticism.

Near-antagonism in recent weeks against De Villiers culminated in a mandate to SARU to meet with the coach about his attitude towards the media.

When told at Monday's media conference that many people regarded him as the weakest link in the Springbok team set-up, De Villiers answered :

"I'm not disappointed in them. I don't need to react to opinions, but if I am the weakest link then we are bloody strong.

"I'm a God-given talent. I know what I am and don't give a damn what other people think."

Early on in the interview, De Villiers defended Springbok flank Schalk Burger who has been suspended for eight weeks following an eye-gouging incident in the second Test at Loftus.

He said he knew Burger's nature and character and that the suspended flanker was more physical than any other rugby player but wouldn't go to those lengths (of eye-gouging).

"I don't think he did it," he said," and I don't want to say anything (outside what they had decided as a team).

"It is not something (the eye-gouging) that he did on purpose, when he saw it he was like 'ooh, aah'. He had never intended to go into the eye."

He said the Springboks will wait for the judicial report, and "dissect the whole thing, come to you with the facts", adding that he knew Burger and that what the footage showed was not worth a card.

Once the report is received, the Springboks will decide as a team what is best for them (regarding a possible appeal).

When asked whether he condoned eye-gouging, De Villiers said:

"You must understand clearly rugby is a contact sport. If you really know the game and dissect it you'll see all sorts of malicious and off the ball incidents. In this game, people sometimes get away with it.

"If you're not up to the contact why not go to a ballet shop and buy a tutu?

"In this game there will be collisions, and the guys who're the hardest will win the collisions and will be selected."

De Villiers said that no matter how much people now focus on the negatives of the match, South Africa have won the series and "no one can take it away from us."

Div must explain comments

Peter de Villiers will meet with South African Rugby Union (SARU) president Oregan Hoskins to discuss the Springbok coach's recent statements that were reported in the media.

The South African and travelling overseas media were taken a back by some of De Villiers's comments that followed the first Test in Durban.

A statement issued by SA Rugby on Saturday said the management committee of SARU was on Friday mandated by Hoskins to meet with De Villiers to discuss recent statements attributed to him.

"The management committee was unanimous in its concern over the racial connotations used by de Villiers in discussing the performance of scrumhalf Ricky Januarie," the statement concludes.

De Villiers' most recent remark that left journalists aghast was at the feedback press conference last Monday. Two days after the first Test, De Villiers was questioned about his decision to replace Fourie du Preez with the out-of-form Januarie.

"I'm not concerned about his form, he may have made a blunder but so did a few other players,"

he said in reply to a question why he had fielded Januarie.

"What I learned in South Africa is, if you take your car to a garage and the owner is black or a black man, and they mess it up, you never go back to that garage. If the owner is white, you say ag, sorry, they made a mistake and you go back again. This is how some people live their lives in this country."

How China's taking over Africa.

On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own right, outlined a daring new method to 'tame' and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent.

'My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,' wrote Galton.

'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.'

Despite an outcry in Parliament and heated debate in the august salons of the Royal Geographic Society,

Galton insisted that 'the history of the world tells the tale of the continual displacement of populations, each by a worthier successor, and humanity gains thereby'.

A controversial figure, Galton was also the pioneer of eugenics, the theory that was used by Hitler to try to fulfil his mad dreams of a German Master Race.

Eventually, Galton's grand resettlement plans fizzled out because there were much more exciting things going on in Africa.

But that was more than 100 years ago, and with legendary explorers such as Livingstone, Speke and Burton still battling to find the source of the Nile - and new discoveries of exotic species of birds and animals featuring regularly on newspaper front pages - vast swathes of the continent had not even been 'discovered'.

Yet Sir Francis Galton, it now appears, was ahead of his time. His vision is coming true - if not in the way he imagined.

An astonishing invasion of Africa is now under way.

In the greatest movement of people the world has ever seen, China is secretly working to turn the entire continent into a new colony.

Reminiscent of the West's imperial push in the 18th and 19th centuries - but on a much more dramatic, determined scale - China's rulers believe Africa can become a 'satellite' state, solving its own problems of over-population and shortage of natural resources at a stroke.

With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way.

The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve China's problems of over-population and pollution.

New horizons? Mugabe has said: 'We must turn from the West and face the East'

The plans appear on track. Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New embassies and air routes are opening up. The continent's new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools.

The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.

The trains are linked to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing after unloading cargoes of cheap toys made in China.

Confucius Institutes (state-funded Chinese 'cultural centres') have sprung up throughout Africa, as far afield as the tiny land-locked countries of Burundi and Rwanda, teaching baffled local people how to do business in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Massive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with 'slave' labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals.

Pristine forests are being destroyed, with China taking up to 70 per cent of all timber from Africa.

All over this great continent, the Chinese presence is swelling into a flood. Angola has its own 'Chinatown', as do great African cities such as Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.

Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent. 'African cloths' sold in markets on the continent are now almost always imported, bearing the legend: 'Made in China'.

From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower's long-term survival.

'The Chinese are all over the place,' says Trevor Ncube, a prominent African businessman with publishing interests around the continent. 'If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have taken their place.'

Likened to one race deciding to adopt a new home on another planet, Beijing has launched its so-called 'One China In Africa' policy because of crippling pressure on its own natural resources in a country where the population has almost trebled from 500 million to 1.3 billion in 50 years.

China is hungry - for land, food and energy. While accounting for a fifth of the world's population, its oil consumption has risen 35-fold in the past decade and Africa is now providing a third of it; imports of steel, copper and aluminium have also shot up, with Beijing devouring 80 per cent of world supplies.

Fuelling its own boom at home, China is also desperate for new markets to sell goods. And Africa, with non-existent health and safety rules to protect against shoddy and dangerous goods, is the perfect destination.

The result of China's demand for raw materials and its sales of products to Africa is that turnover in trade between Africa and China has risen from £5million annually a decade ago to £6billion today.

However, there is a lethal price to pay. There is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made assault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars, often over the materials the Chinese are desperate to buy.

Take, for example, Zimbabwe. Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe's regime.

After an international outcry, the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, was forced to return to China, despite Beijing's insistence that the arms consignment was a 'normal commercial deal'.

Indeed, the 77-ton arms shipment would have been small beer - a fraction of China's help to Mugabe. He already has high-tech, Chinese-built helicopter gunships and fighter jets to use against his people.

Ever since the U.S. and Britain imposed sanctions in 2003, Mugabe has courted the Chinese, offering mining concessions for arms and currency.

While flying regularly to Beijing as a high-ranking guest, the 84-year-old dictator rants at 'small dots' such as Britain and America.

He can afford to. Mugabe is orchestrating his campaign of terror from a 25-bedroom, pagoda-style mansion built by the Chinese. Much of his estimated £1billion fortune is believed to have been siphoned off from Chinese 'loans'.

The imposing grey building of ZANU-PF, his ruling party, was paid for and built by the Chinese. Mugabe received £200 million last year alone from China, enabling him to buy loyalty from the army. See also Zimbabwe gets $950m from China

In another disturbing illustration of the warm relations between China and the ageing dictator, a platoon of the China People's Liberation Army has been out on the streets of Mutare, a city near the border with Mozambique, which voted against the president in the recent, disputed election.

Almost 30 years ago, Britain pulled out of Zimbabwe - as it had done already out of the rest of Africa, in the wake of Harold Macmillan's 'wind of change' speech. Today, Mugabe says: 'We have turned East, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the West, where the sun sets.'

Despite Britain's commendable colonial legacy of a network of roads, railways and schools, the British are now being shunned.

According to one veteran diplomat: 'China is easier to do business with because it doesn't care about human rights in Africa - just as it doesn't care about them in its own country. All the Chinese care about is money.'

Nowhere is that more true than Sudan. Branded 'Africa's Killing Fields', the massive oil-rich East African state is in the throes of the genocide and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of black, non-Arab peasants in southern Sudan.

In effect, through its supplies of arms and support, China has been accused of underwriting a humanitarian scandal. The atrocities in Sudan have been described by the U.S. as 'the worst human rights crisis in the world today'.

The government in Khartoum has helped the feared Janjaweed militia to rape, murder and burn to death more than 350,000 people.

The Chinese - who now buy half of all Sudan's oil - have happily provided armoured vehicles, aircraft and millions of bullets and grenades in return for lucrative deals. Indeed, an estimated £1billion of Chinese cash has been spent on weapons.

According to Human Rights First, a leading human rights advocacy organisation, Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles, grenade launchers and ammunition for rifles and heavy machine guns are continuing to flow into Darfur, which is dotted with giant refugee camps, each containing hundreds of thousands of people.

Between 2003 and 2006, China sold Sudan $55 million worth of small arms, flouting a United Nations weapons embargo.

With new warnings that the cycle of killing is intensifying, an estimated two thirds of the non-Arab population has lost at least one member of their families in Darfur.

Although two million people have been uprooted from their homes in the conflict, China has repeatedly thwarted United Nations denunciations of the Sudanese regime.

While the Sudanese slaughter has attracted worldwide condemnation, prompting Hollywood film-maker Steven Spielberg to quit as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics, few parts of Africa are now untouched by China.

In Congo, more than £2billion has been 'loaned' to the government. In Angola, £3 billion has been paid in exchange for oil. In Nigeria, more than £5billion has been handed over.

In Equatorial Guinea, where the president publicly hung his predecessor from a cage suspended in a theatre before having him shot, Chinese firms are helping the dictator build an entirely new capital, full of gleaming skyscrapers and, of course, Chinese restaurants.

After battling for years against the white colonial powers of Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, post-independence African leaders are happy to do business with China for a straightforward reason: cash.

With western loans linked to an insistence on democratic reforms and the need for 'transparency' in using the money (diplomatic language for rules to ensure dictators do not pocket millions), the Chinese have proved much more relaxed about what their billions are used for.

Certainly, little of it reaches the continent's impoverished 800 million people. Much of it goes straight into the pockets of dictators. In Africa, corruption is a multi-billion pound industry and many experts believe that China is fuelling the cancer.

The Chinese are contemptuous of such criticism. To them, Africa is about pragmatism, not human rights. 'Business is business,' says Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong, adding that Beijing should not interfere in 'internal' affairs. 'We try to separate politics from business.' While the bounty has, not surprisingly, been welcomed by African dictators, the people of Africa are less impressed. At a market in Zimbabwe recently, where Chinese goods were on sale at nearly every stall, one woman told me she would not waste her money on 'Zing-Zong' products.

'They go Zing when they work, and then they quickly go Zong and break,' she said. 'They are a waste of money. But there's nothing else. China is the only country that will do business with us.'

There have also been riots in Zambia, Angola and Congo over the flood of Chinese immigrant workers. The Chinese do not use African labour where possible, saying black Africans are lazy and unskilled.

In Angola, the government has agreed that 70 per cent of tendered public works must go to Chinese firms, most of which do not employ Angolans.

As well as enticing hundreds of thousands to settle in Africa, they have even shipped Chinese prisoners to produce the goods cheaply.

In Kenya, for example, only ten textile factories are still producing, compared with 200 factories five years ago, as China undercuts locals in the production of 'African' souvenirs.

Where will it all end? As far as Beijing is concerned, it will stop only when Africa no longer has any minerals or oil to be extracted from the continent.

A century after Sir Francis Galton outlined his vision for Africa, the Chinese are here to stay. More will come.

The people of this bewitching, beautiful continent, where humankind first emerged from the Great Rift Valley, desperately need progress. The Chinese are not here for that.

They are here for plunder. After centuries of pain and war, Africa deserves better.

Here is a rundown of all the agreements signed so far:-

Ghana, China sign agreements to boost economic cooperation
Ghana confident China to finance $600 million dam
VOA: China, Ghana Boost Trade Agreement
China Egypt Sign Energy Accord
China Gives Egypt $50 Million Loan
A Bidding Frenzy for Angola's Oil.
Chinese PM wraps up Angola agreements
Guardian: China deal gives Zimbabwe ã700m boost
Zimbabwe: Govt, China in $1.3 Billion Power Deal
Huge potentials for China-Congo cooperation: communique
Premier Wen visits Republic of Congo to enhance economic ties
China to cap textile exports to S.Africa
14 bilateral agreements signed between SA,China
China Gives Angola Fresh $2bn credit

Ousted Haitian president costing SA taxpayer R5m a year

Ousted former Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide is continuing to receive special treatment from the state with state-funded accommodation, office staff, transport and security equivalent to that provided to a Cabinet minister. A conservative estimate puts Aristide's total annual cost to the South African taxpayer at upwards of R5-million.

TAXPAYERS are coughing up about R5-million a year to host ousted Haitian president Jean- Bertrand Aristide, the DA claimed yesterday.

Kenneth Mubu, the party’s spokesman on international relations and co-operation, used details obtained in Parliament to outline the costs of providing a safe haven for “a powerful man with a tainted reputation”.

The international relations department confirmed that Aristide has lived in Gauteng since taking refuge in South Africa in May 2004.

He was ousted from power in Haiti after months of political instability. Former president Thabo Mbeki’s government said at the time that Aristide’s stay in the country would be a “temporary arrangement until the Haitian situation stabilises”.

But, five years later, Aristide is still here and the DA now wants to know the cost of his continued presence in the country.

Mubu said that the department’s answers about Aristide have not been satisfactory and that the DA is now planning to investigate the matter further.

It is believed that Aristide, as a government guest, enjoys similar living arrangements to those of Cabinet ministers.

“The monthly costs related to his [Aristide’s] accommodation, transport, office staff and security are similar to the cost associated with a South African Cabinet minister,” the department confirmed in its reply to Mubu.

The department added that keeping the former Haitian president safe was “integrated into the operations of government”.

Mubu said a “conservative estimate” meant that taxpayers were parting with at least R5-million a year for Aristide’s stay.

He said ministerial houses were valued at R3-million to R4-million and the value of an annual car allowance stands at R1.2-million.

“The reply does not say how many staff are employed to manage Aristide’s affairs, but if he employs three people, this could easily be costing the state R500000 a year,” said Mubu.

He said VIP state security for President Jacob Zuma costs R1-million a month but, for Aristide, it could cost R600000 a year — if it’s “even a 20th of this [Zuma’s security]”.

“South Africa has to cope with a flood of refugees fleeing persecution and corrupt government. If we are to spend money on refugees, we should rather spend it on processing the applications of those who are really in need, not on maintaining at enormous expense a powerful man with a tainted reputation,” said Mubu.

The Times contacted Nomfanelo Kota, spokeswoman at the department of international relations and co-operation, but she said the department would only be able to comment today.

Black people 'less intelligent'

Black people 'less intelligent' scientist claims

I Agree With Dr Watson

by - idang alibi

Nobel Laureate, Dr James Watson, told The Sunday Times of London in an interview that black people are less intelligent than White people.

Since then, some of us cannot hear anything else but the outrage of black people who feel demeaned by what Watson has said. So many people have called the man names. Some have said he is a racist. Some even wonder how a "foolish" man like Watson could have won the Nobel Prize.

Why are we blacks becoming so reactive, so sensitive to any remarks, no matter how well-meaning, about our failure as a race? I do not know what constitutes intelligence. I leave that to our so-called scholars. But I do know that in terms of organising society for the benefit of the people living in it, we blacks have not shown any intelligence in that direction at all. I am so ashamed of this and sometimes feel that I ought to have belonged to another race.

Nigeria my dear country is a prime example of the inferiority of the black race when compared to other races. Let somebody please tell me whether it is a manifestation of intelligence if a people cannot organise a free, fair and credible election to choose who will lead them. Is it intelligence that we cannot provide simple pipe-borne water for the people? Our public school system has virtually collapsed. Is that a sign of intelligence? Our roads are impassable. In spite of the numerous sources that nature has made available to us to tap for energy to run our industries and homes, we have no steady supply of electricity. Yet electricity is the bedrock of industrialisation. When you agree with the school of Watson, some say you are incorrect because all these failures are a result of poor leadership. Why must it be us blacks who must always suffer poor leadership? Is that not a manifestation of unintelligence?

In the name of international trade, bilateral co-operation, globalisation and other subterfuges, the norm in the world today is for smart people to appropriate the wealth of other people for themselves and their countries. But more among the blacks than any other race, the practice is to steal from their own country and salt away to other people's country. Is it intelligence that our leaders steal billions of naira and hide in other people's country?

Anywhere in the world today where you have a concentration of black people among other races, the poorest, the least educated, the least achieving, and the most violent group among those races will be the blacks. When indices of underdevelopment are given, black people and countries are sure to occupy the bottom of the ladder. If we are intelligent, why do we not carry first when statistics of development are given?

Look at the African continent. South Africa is the most developed country because of the presence of whites there. This may be an uncomfortable truth for many of us but it exists nevertheless. If the whites had been driven away after independence, we would have seen a steady decline of that country.

In terms of natural endowment, Africa ought to be the richest of the continents but see the mess we have made of the potential for greatness which God in his infinite wisdom has bestowed upon us. We have proved totally incapable of harnessing the abundant natural resources to become great. Today, there is a renewed scramble for the wealth of Africa. China, our new "friend", does not bother about the genocide against fellow blacks in the Sudan by the Arabs who control the affairs of that country. They say they do not want to interfere in the internal affairs of any country. All they want is the oil in Sudan to run their industries. Yet, we blacks have not seen the Chinese action as an affront to our sensitivities. Every race takes us for granted because we are so weak and so foolish, if you permit me to say it.

I am really pained by our gross underachievement as a race. Instead of regarding bitter truths expressed by the likes of Watson as a wake-up call for us to engage in sober reflection, we take to the expression of woolly sentiment. For me, this type of reaction is a further evidence of our unintelligence. A man of intelligence recognises genuine criticism against him and takes steps to improve himself in order to prove his critics wrong. But for us blacks, our reaction is to abuse the man who expresses worries about our backwardness.

Other races are deeply worried about us because we are a problem to the world. We suffer from the five Ds: disorderliness, debts, diseases, deaths and disasters. Our disorderliness affects others or else they won't be too bothered about us. Many are afraid because our diseases could infect them. Polio has been eradicated all over the world yet it is still found in Nigeria here. When they give us money to help us eradicate it, our thieving officials will embezzle the money; the virus will spread and endanger the health of not only our people but other people as well.

Out of a shared sense of humanity, some cannot bear to see how we die in thousands almost every day from clearly preventable diseases and causes. For years now, our people die extremely painful but perfectly preventable deaths from buildings which collapse because they were poorly constructed. How can you tell me we are as intelligent as others when we set traps for ourselves in the name of houses and others do not do so? Some people are extremely frustrated about us. If they have a way of avoiding us, they will be too glad to do so because we are a problem.

As I write this, I do so with great pains in my heart because I know that God has given intelligence in equal measure to all his children irrespective of the colour of their skin. The problem with us black people is that we have refused to use our intelligence to organise ourselves socially and politically.

It should worry us that we do not invent things. We do not go to the moon. Our societies are not well-organised. We have the shortest lifespan of all the races. Something must be wrong with us. Why are we not like others? Our scholars will be quick to say that these are not the only ways of measuring intelligence. They will quote other scholars to adumbrate their point, but the fact remains that we are not showing intelligence. Others are showing it more than we're doing. If they are not more intelligent than we are, let someone tell me how to put it. God himself must be frustrated with his black children. They must be an embarrassment to him. He has given us everything he has given to other of his children; why are his black children not manifesting their own gift?

A few years ago, the whites used to contemptuously call the Japanese "little Japs". Today, the Japanese and other Asians have pulled themselves up by the bootstrap and have arrived. No one speaks of the Japanese or Asians with contempt anymore. When people like Watson speak about us in unedifying terms, we should take it as a challenge to prove them wrong by sitting down to plan how we can become world-beaters.

If our political leaders are the reason for our backwardness, we should resolve to get the kind of leaders who will be instrument for our rapid progress. I may not know how intelligence is measured but my limited knowledge of intelligence is that it can also be measured by the kind of leaders a people decide to have. If, for instance, our professors preside over the massive rigging of elections, it means that we do not have very intelligent professors. Such rigged elections will no doubt produce unintelligent leaders. Such unintelligent leaders will do stupid things which will prove that we are not as intelligent as other races.

Without even dying, a black man suffers hell or has a foretaste of it while still here on this planet. Too many things are wrong with the black man. Any black man who does not take steps to make heaven has automatically decreed for himself double hell because right now he is in hell.

We live in hell-holes called houses and have a hell lot of time with all manner of hellish predators. We must suspend a sense of righteous indignation and really focus on the fate of the black man. We are not pathfinders of any route to anywhere. We are not pacesetters in anything. We are not discoverers of any hidden truths. We are not inventors of any useful tools. We hardly make insightful statements. Our leaders cannot lead. They cannot follow. They do not learn from recent or past history. They do not listen to anybody. They do not lean on anyone for support and wise counsel. They are just like that. We the followers are no better. We do not initiate anything for the world to copy from us.

We cannot even copy any worthwhile thing from anybody. If we copy democracy, we will debase and give it an idiotic name called "home-grown democracy". What is that? It is a kind of democracy in which a goat stands for an election, his name is substituted with that of a sheep and after the vote is cast, a dog is declared the winner. It is also the kind in which a candidate who emerged number 14 in his party's governorship primary is manoeuvred to be number one, the number one is manipulated out of the race, confusion ensues and to get out of the quagmire, a candidate is conjured from nowhere and manipulated to become governor to superintend the affairs of millions of people!

Home-grown democracy is pure crap. Democracy is democracy anywhere in the world if you are honest, my friend. It may not be the same as the brand practised in the UK, America or Arabia, but any reasonable man will recognise the spirit and principle of democracy when he sees it. Our home-grown variant of democracy is pure euphemism for thuggery, rigging, violence, manipulation, falsehood, injustice, unfairness and our apparent inability to govern ourselves. Anytime an African country approaches a transition, citizens and foreigners who have business in that country are filled with trepidation. Some citizens living in volatile areas begin to run back to the relative safety of their tribal enclaves.

I am ready for some of our 'patriotic' intellectuals who will write and abuse me for the 'outrage' I have expressed here but I stick to my guns: we lack intelligence and as stated in the Bible, anyone who lacks intelligence should cry unto God who is the custodian of wisdom to bestow some upon him. We should go on our knees today and ask God why we do not appear as intelligent as our other brothers. I am confident God will reveal to us what we must do, and urgently too, to change our terribly unflattering circumstances.

High profile child and baby rapes in South Africa

A bizarre belief among African black men that sex with a virgin -- even a child or baby -- can cure HIV/AIDS is fueling what is already one of the highest child sexual exploitation rates in the world.

58 Children and babies raped in South Africa per day

Rape of children and even babies has now reached alarming proportions in South Africa. Children are the victims of 45 percent of all rapes reported in the country. More than 20,000 child rapes are reported every year… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Women's groups estimate that a child is raped every 15 minutes.

The number of child rapes in South Africa is so embarrassing that the government has placed a moratorium on government crime statistics.

Child protection officers in Gauteng have a caseload at any one time of about 80 cases, and about 85 per cent of those cases are chronic, which means the abuse has been going on for a long time.

The incidents of baby rape in South Africa are truly horrifying. Babies as young as only a few months old are being raped almost daily.

In Soweto, 70 percent of the cases dealt with by the region's new sexual offenses court are of children. The youngest case of rape here was of a 3-month-old; in other parts of the country there have been reports of sexual attacks on newborn infants.

Reports by the South African Press Association of high profile baby rapes since 2001 (including the fact that they required extensive reconstructive surgery to rebuild urinary, genital, abdominal, or tracheal systems) contain items such as these:

A nine-month-old baby girl from Kimberley in the Northern Cape who survived a gang rape by six men, aged between 22 and 66, underwent a full hysterectomy and will require further surgery to repair intestinal damage, a hospital spokesperson said. The baby from Louisville was left unattended by her 16-year-old mother when six Upington men allegedly raped her. The infant required extensive reconstructive surgery, had undergone a full hysterectomy and she suffered extensive damage to her colon and anus as well.

Three days before the 9-month-old baby was raped, a 3-year-old was raped by her grandfather. In the same week, a 14-month-old toddler was raped by her two uncles.

A 4-year-old girl died after being raped by her father.

An 8-month-old infant was reportedly gang raped by four men. One has been charged. Her injuries were so extensive, increased attention on prosecution has occurred.

A month-old baby girl was raped, allegedly by her uncles, in Tweeling in the Eastern Free State after the mother of the child had left the baby in the care of the men when she went to visit her mother-in-law. Upon her return, she found the baby crying and as she lifted her, she saw blood on her bottom. She then took the baby to a clinic where she was told the girl had been raped and sustained vaginal damage.

In other reported cases, rapists have gone beyond penile penetration, using objects including broken bottle tops, sticks or harmful liquids that are pushed or inserted into the victim's vagina.

Two held for rape of minors
June 24 2009

Two men were arrested for allegedly raping young girls in Katlehong, south of Johannesburg on Wednesday, police said.

The first man was arrested for allegedly raping his four-year-old niece after offering to bathe her, Sergeant Obakeng Tsomane said.

"The girl's mother suspected there was something wrong when her daughter behaved strangely after bathing on Tuesday night."

The girl's mother reported the matter to police on Wednesday morning and the 42-year-old man was arrested.

In a separate incident in the same township, a 48-year-old man was arrested for allegedly raping his neighbour's three-year-old daughter on Wednesday morning. The girl had been left in the care of her elder siblings when the alleged rape took place.

"The older siblings were playing outside and didn't realise she was missing. When they saw her again, she told them the uncle from next door did something to her."

The girl's sisters called police and reported the matter.

A doctor confirmed penetration and the man, from Moleleki section in Katlehong, was arrested.

The two men were expected to appear in the Alberton Magistrate's Court on Thursday. - Sapa

Gaddafi Circus Comes to Italy

Rome has had its fair share of triumphant parades by bizarre tyrants in its long history.

And the ageing Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's arrival on Monday ranked alongside any grotesque ceremony staged by Caligula or Nero.

It is easy to see why Italy's Left-wing opposition denounced the dictator's reception by Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi as a 'rock star welcome'.

When Muammar Gaddafi arrived in Italy on Wednesday with 300 delegates and 40 female bodyguards aboard three planes, he was accorded a royal welcome befitting the "king of kings of Africa."

Gaddafi's arrived in Rome with a 300-strong retinue on three Airbuses. As ever, he brought with him a giant Bedouin tent, which was erected in a park in the centre of the city and where he was to stay and conduct business.

There was no immediate sign of the camel he took on a visit to Paris in 2007 when he pitched his tent in the grounds of a five-star hotel.

With gelled and carefully dyed hair, the Colonel was made up to look like a cross between Michael Jackson and the deranged music mogul murderer Phil Spector.

Pinned to his chest was a large photograph of a Libyan resistance leader being hanged by Italian colonialists in 1931.

Although with his peaked cap, red flashes, gold braid epaulettes and an array of military decorations that resembled a Dulux colour chart, he turned out in a uniform that Italy's last tyrant, fascist leader Benito Mussolini, would have killed for.

Bizarre: Gaddafi set the tone from the word go when he flew in adorned wearing a black and white picture depicting Libyan anti-colonial hero Omar Al-Mukhtar, whom the Italians executed in 1931. If Gaddafi wanted to remind his hosts of their repressive colonial past - Italy ruled Libya from 1911 to 1943 - then the picture of Omar al-Mukhtar in chains alongside his Italian captors was a particularly provocative way of doing it.

He did not help matters in an overwhelmingly Catholic country when he remarked: "For us, that image [of Al-Mukhtar] is like the cross some of you wear," likening it to the Christian crucifix

And just for good measure, Gaddafi brought along Al-Mukhtar's son, now an elderly man, who had to be helped off the plane by aides and who later sat in a wheelchair on the tarmac while national anthems were played.

The Italians even went further to allow the broadcasting on Italian TV, for the first time ever, of a documentary on Al-Mukhtar titled Lion of the Desert.

But it was the gun-toting female bodyguards in their khaki uniforms and red berets in the 67-year old dictator's entourage, girls who wear Kalashnikovs like Gucci fashion accessories, who stole the show.

Gaddafi is one of the maddest dictators on Earth and he doesn't like being upstaged - unless it's by this 40-strong troupe of well-equipped, allvirgin minders.

He may have conducted his 1969 military coup against Lybia's last monarch, King Idris, under an Islamic revolutionary banner. He may have proclaimed himself a pioneer of 'Islamic socialism'. But Gaddafi's female security detail don't hide their charms under a burqa.

Bizarrely, he claims them to be a symbol of his belief in female emancipation. 'Women should be trained for combat, so that they do not become easy prey for their enemies,' he says.

All of his girls are said to swear an oath that they will give their lives for him and it is claimed they never leave his side, night or day, and he insists they remain virgins. There is no shortage of volunteers for what is seen as a prestigious job.

A special training college puts recruits through a tough physical programme and girls who don't drop out emerge as trained killers, experts in firearms and martial arts.

Gaddafi makes the final selection and, despite his insistence that his guards are chaste, rumours abound that he demands their sexual favours.

The girls wear lipstick, jewellery, polished nails, even high heels - but their armed combat training has been tested more than once.

Prestigious job: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's 'all-female, all-virgin' bodyguards who must wear lipstick, nail varnish and be masters of combat and who some say he demands their sexual favours

In 1998 one of them was killed and seven others wounded when Islamic fundamentalists in Libya ambushed the Colonel's motorcade. The dead girl, Aisha, rumoured to be his favourite, threw herself across Gaddafi's body to stop the bullets.

But how is it that Gaddafi, once regarded by the West as the father of terrorism and the man behind the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, is now welcomed in Rome with open arms by Berlusconi - a leader famously equally bewitched by female charms?

The truth is that, despite his often ludicrous appearance and behaviour, Gaddafi is one of the great survivors, a despot who has led his country for 40 years despite worldwide vilification - brutal in crushing domestic dissent and who changes his tune on the world stage as it suits him.

Like other monstrous leaders, he has written works of literature to enlighten mankind - his Green Book which, over three rambling volumes, sets out his views on political and social theories.

But another offering - Escape To Hell And Other Stories - predicts a German Fourth Reich lording it over Britain and America, and which tells you of his loathing for cities, Margaret Thatcher and humidity. (He loves the countryside and artichokes.)

When he seized power in 1969 under a Marxist banner, few thought his regime would last. But he had a ruthless cunning and an instinct for when to strike his rivals.

In the 1970s, Gaddafi personally ordered public executions. In 1977, he was present at hangings of students who had protested against his regime.

He spat defiance against the West, proclaiming his belief in Arab nationalism - yet he loathed Islamic fundamentalism. So while he happily tortured fundamentalists at home, he became the No 1 state sponsor of terrorism against the West.

In 1980, a Libyan journalist from the BBC's Arabic Service, Mohammed Ramadan, was shot outside the Regent's Park mosque.

It was four years later that Britain and the world was stunned with horror by the cold-blooded murder of unarmed WPC Yvonne Fletcher in London, gunned down outside Libya's Embassy by a member of its staff.

Gaddafi's oil wealth funded the IRA as well as Palestinian guerillas. This was one reason why Margaret Thatcher's government gave permission for U.S. bombers to use British airfields in April, 1986, to launch a surprise attack on his home in Tripoli.

They missed Gaddafi but killed his infant daughter, Hannah. Gaddafi has always been able to parade this loss as proof that he is a victim of 'U.S. terrorism' .

But despite sounding defiant, that U.S. raid marked a shift in Gaddafi's behaviour. Although he remained vocally as radical as ever, he began to drop support for foreign terrorists - although, as the downing of Pan-Am flight 303 over Lockerbie with the loss of 270 lives in showed, Gaddafi's secret service could still be deadly.

Now Gaddafi has put up billions of dollars in compensation for the relatives of his victims.

But it is his loathing of Muslim fundamentalists that has brought him into alliance with the West.

After all, back in the 1970s, Gadaffi was hanging members of the fundamentalist Hizb-ut Tahrir organisation, since banned in many European countries. So he had no difficulty backing the Bush-Blair war against Al Qaeda types threatening his regime.

Ever since, relations have thawed. In 2004, Tony Blair lifted lifted the West's fatwa on him for sponsoring outrages.

Then, as oil prices soared after the George W Bush's invasion of Iraq, Gaddafi's untold billions of energy reserves in the Libyan desert gave his regime an ace card.

Years of UN sanctions for his regime's sponsorship of terrorism mean that Gaddafi's oil and gas had not been exploited nearly as much as other Mid-East states.

Libya's old colonial master, Italy, sits across the Mediterranean without any energy resources of its own. Which is why Silvio Berlusconi has been more than happy to deal with Gaddafi.

Anyone thinking that Colonel Gaddafi is becoming a cosy ally should think again. Only a few weeks ago, Gaddafi stormed out of an Arab League conference, calling the King of Saudi Arabia a 'liar' and a 'British product and American ally'. Gaddafi remains mercurial, menacing and murderous.

Getting wobbly on his pins and wearing almost more makeup and hair dye than his 40 virgin bodyguards put together, Colonel Gaddafi looks set to carry on wrong-footing friend and foe alike. Mellow with age he won't.

South African ruling party is dying of AIDS

AIDS is killing so many politicians in southern Africa that their deaths are threatening the ability of governments and local authorities to function properly, a Cape Town researcher warns. South Africa alone is losing 28,000 young voters a month to AIDS.

A full 2.6-million registered South African voters aged 30 to 49 years have already died since 1999. And it's due to AIDS, says Kondwani Chirambo, lead author of a new study on deaths among local city councillors in South Africa. The vast majority of South Africa's wall-to-wall municipalities are run by councillors from the ruling African National Congress party.

That's the party of Nelson Mandela - and of former president Thabo Mbeki - the latter leader who denied that AIDS was caused by the HIV-virus. Instead, Mbeki claimed, AIDS was 'caused by poverty, and malnutrition caused by poverty.'

His health minister, Mrs Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, seen here on this video explaining what she and her president believed were the causes of AIDS, became infamous worldwide for her concocting an 'AIDS-cure' of beetroot, garlic and African potatoes, which was widely distributed in South African public health facilities during the Mbeki-rule to people dying of AIDS-related diseases.

Security forces, prisons:
The problem also emerges in the South African security forces, where the large number of young, infected soldiers and police officers are posing a growing security threat due to the physical side-effects of the deadly syndrome, according to a warning issued late last year by one of the country's top psychiatrists. see A secret report about the massive AIDS-death toll in the South African Prison system also was highlighted in another, seperate report last month. In the secret prison study, it was found that both the guards and the inmates were dying of AIDS in nearly equal numbers. see

Ruling African National Congress councillors dying of AIDS
This study thus also indicates that the local-level leadership of the ruling party of South Africa -- the African National Congress - now are dying by the tens of thousands each month of AIDS. see

The AIDS-epidemic is of course not limited only to the ANC-membership - other political party members are also suffering in a similar way.

However because the ANC is the ruling party which holds the most parliamentary and local-authority seats, the effect of the AIDS-epidemic could have a devastating impact on this political party 's ability to provide municipal services countrywide - with their members and town councillors dying so fast and often also being too ill too work while they are still officially employed.

Chirambo, the lead author of this new study on deaths among local city councillors in South Africa, told Agence France Press news agency that he had studied six other southern African countries where unnatural numbers of deaths of lawmakers could also be attributed to AIDS.

The study said there was a general fear among the 112 ward councillors interviewed by researchers that disclosure of HIV status could ruin political careers.

"On the one hand, councillors express a fear of rejection by the electorate, who may deem them unfit for office if they are known to be HIV-positive.

"On the other, they see a danger of political opposition presenting them as incapable of ruling. The emerging data creates the impression that HIV/Aids denialism permeates politics."

The study said 233 local councillors in the 22 to 49 year age group died in office between February 2001 and December 2007, and it could be assumed that 70% of those, or 161 individuals, died of Aids.

The deaths were equivalent to two-thirds of the strength of the National Assembly.

Losing this number of people at leadership level was "not a phenomenon to be ignored".

The fact that most of the deaths occurred among councillors younger than 51, should raise the alarm over institutional memory and effective local governance.

"How can we possibly expect to build capacity in politics if the people who should lead will die before the age of 50?" the study asked.

"If you look at the statistics, MPs have been dying young and dying in large numbers. These trends are similar to the trend seen in the general population," said Chirambo, of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa.

Life expectancy in South Africa down to 51
Life expectancy in South Africa has been dramatically reduced by the epidemic: from 64 years during the apartheid years which ended in 1994, to 51 years in 2008 -- and only as a result of the AIDS epidemic.

The 2004 South African Department of Health report "The Democraphic Impact of HIV/AIDS in South Africa: National and Provincial Indicators" concluded for instance that 70 percent of all deaths in that year in the age group 15 – 49 years were due to AIDS and often also of co-infection with Extremely-drug-resistant Tuberculosis.

Municipalities can't function properly
Municipalities depend on appropriate knowledge and skills in order to deliver quality service to local communities. The study warns that loss of skills as a result of AIDS, job migration to other sectors of the economy and increasing demands for service delivery may all ‘conspire to undermine service delivery’.

“Apart from local government losing skills to other sectors it is also suffering a depletion caused by an unexplained illnesses which could largely be associated with HIV and AIDS. And that might introduce institutional weakness because most of these are the most trained and most experienced councillors”, says Chirambo.

Death of young voters
And, Chirambo says, they have determined that South Africa is losing 28,000 registered voters a month -- this alone should be a concern to those charged with providing municipal services to residents.

It's a death-blow to the future of South Africa’s young democracy. see

2.6-million young voters died in 2001-2006
“Pressure on cemetery space grows. Pressure on clinical services also grow as younger people are showing up ill. Between 2001 and 2006 we noted that there were 2,6 million voters who had died, and the majority of them were between the ages of 30 and 49 years. And that has to be quite worrying”.

Over the last eight years, almost half of the 589 municipal by-elections in South Africa between February 2001 and December 2007 were caused by death of councillors at a young age. see

Chirambo said this "does not bode well" for South Africa, where the poor government services are a major public complaint. Countrywide protest actions are held regularly to demand better 'service delivery' in municipalities. At least 226 municipalities were in fact functioning so poorly that local ratepayers created Trust Funds in which they deposited their taxes, so that they could start running their own municipal services.

Councillors are not the poorest people in the world...
Yet in the whole of southern Africa, the study found only one elected official who had openly disclosed her HIV status, and Chirambo attributes the failure of all these officials to seek help to a fear of stigma.

"It is not a very healthy profile. Councillors are not the poorest people in the world," he said.

"It is clear a great deal of them feel to disclose your status is a form of political suicide."

South Africa undoubtedly has the world's highest new AIDS infection statistics. Depending on the source, these statistics range from 5.4 million people infected (SA Government); to 6.1-million (by the international medical agency MSF). At least 18% of the AIDS-victims in South Africa are working-age people, still active in the work-force.

Senegal
In Senegal, with a national AIDS prevalence of only one percent, there were only three vacancies in parliament caused by deaths of politicians. He did not say why the recorded AIDS-prevalence in Senegal was so low.

Zambia
However in Zambia, which recorded the first AIDS-death in 1995, AIDS is cited as the most common cause of deaths which are leading to parliamentary vacancies. see

Published Mar 17, 2009 by ■ Adriana Stuijt

A genocide in South Africa

To attain a goal through ideology you need two things: a vision for a better future but also a vision of terrible evil if the alternative to the vision is followed. An ideology always benefits some elite groups, and the one-world ideology benefits multi-national corporations that get the mineral rights. The process is very corrupt: Western governments appropriate tax money paid by their citizens and transfer it to elites in the Third World for the mineral rights to go to multi-national corporations; this also frees populations to be brought to the west as cheap labour and our work to be relocated where people live on subsistence wages.

Having encouraged wage-slaves from the Third World they publicly apologise for historical slavery!

There is racial genocide of the South African Boers taking place as I write and the Western media know all about it because they have agents and reporters there, but keep it from the outside world, presumably to allow it to go on.



It follows on from what was done to French Algerians, the Belgians of Congo, and the Portuguese of Angola and Mozambique, and what is happening in Zimbabwe. All these peoples were violently forced off lands which their ancestors had occupied for centuries. It was done with the encouragement of the US and British governments and made possible by finance taken from their own taxpayers for the purpose. What is behind this? It is what is now called Globalisation, which is a euphemism for the attempt to create a New World Order.

African-ruled countries are a variation on a theme of total corruption, and it is a matter of time before South Africa collapses. The 3.5 million Whites remaining might slow that process but the end result is inevitable and Western elites and journalists must take responsibility. The chaos on the railways is an indicator. Locos are not turning up at coal mines to collect fully-loaded trains, and the power stations are out of coal. The electricity generating plants are fast deteriorating and break down regularly, and the country has been plagued with power cuts for the last few years. The ANC is still dominated by members of the South African Communist Party, they are anti-white racists, and they have a vigorous land confiscation programme on the statute books. Farmers and their families are regularly murdered.

These things are little reported in the west because the liberal-left media fully support the ANC as they fully supported Mugabe in 1980 and thereafter, and for the realities to be broadcast by our media would demonstrate the real facts of African rule and destroy the unrealistic ideology of racial equality that they desperately need to believe in else their whole lie falls and their lives have been wasted.

The dream was Mandela accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for all who have opposed racism. It was awarded to him, the ANC and all South Africa’s people. The reward was to be freedom and democracy in an open society which respected the rights of all individuals. This is the fantasy. What is the reality? Mass genocide of Boer farmers.

The genocide is happening on the farms where Boers are being murdered, but not just Boers, Indian farmers are also targeted; the targets are usually defenseless, especially old people.

The government does nothing to prevent attacks, so the farmers have begun to co-operate in mutual defence. That the Black government wants Boers harmed and driven from their land as indicated by their programmes to force Boers to sell their property to blacks. These programmes are to remove a huge percentage of white farmers and give these farms to blacks.

At the beginning of the decade there were 40,000 White farmers in South Africa and there have been is 3,037 murdered in racial genocide and more than 20,000 armed attacks perpetrated by groups of militant, young Black racists on commercial farmers, since the ANC came to power in 1994. This is certainly higher as the South African government and police, with the world’s press keep it covered up. Boers are often tortured or raped first, by boiling water forced down their throats, tendons cut, burnings, personal humiliations - most perpetrators are protected by Blacks within government and the police and not tried. Now ask yourselves, when did you see this on television news or read about it in your quality newspaper?

The idealism that accompanied the birth of new South Africa has been destroyed by black rule yet the rainbow nation is still a fantasy to Western elites. They need to believe in it or face the reality that racial equality does not exist. The dream of truth and reconciliation and the deification of Nelson Mandela make it hard to accept that after whites gave way to Blacks the Boer minority would be subjected to racial genocide. Boers, you see, have not been sentimentalised, are not figures of sympathy but dehumanised as racists so their murder is not seen as important.

The SA government forbids the publishing of South African police crime statistics without their permission. Media crime reports are vetted by the police. The world’s media want to pretend the new government is responsible or face the fact that races are not equal on one hand; on the other, to keep the overseas aid for mineral rights deals quiet.

Interpol’s global murder figures for South Africa are about double the number of “recorded murders,” the farm murder rate is four times the official South African murder average. The world’s leading authority on genocide, Dr Gregory Stanton of “Genocide Watch”, stated how serious the Boer genocide is in his 2002 report.

SA Blacks, especially ANC youth, still sing the old ANC resistance song “Kill The Boer”. This shows their purpose. The Boer is just a farmer but the grudge goes on. Boers are honest, taciturn people who work hard with their hands. Their children consider leaving but have no country to return to. The “Kill The Boer” slogan has been ruled hate speech by the SA Human Rights Commission because it incites people to kill Afrikaners. But the ANC sing “shaya ma buru” at public meetings all over South Africa. The UN Genocide Convention declared that ruling regimes killing ethnic minorities is legally genocide and could be pursued in the International Criminal Court.

The new rulers have imposed racial quotas that deny work to most young Afrikaners, whether or not they have the right qualifications. Mbeki’s programme of Black Economic Empowerment is called “rectifying action” - Affirmative Action. Thousands of ANC civil servants give preferential treatment to blacks over whites and even browns. “Progress” plans are implemented, fines and other sanctions imposed. In most cases it’s an unqualified or illiterate black who gets the job. Whites are left with begging or emigration.

If the farmers are wiped-out the rest of South Africa and parts of southern Africa will be plunged into famine: as in Zimbabwe the Boer genocide may lead to the death of millions by starvation and outbreaks of Cholera.

Does anyone protest?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu criticised Black Economic Empowerment, only because it enriches a small minority of already powerful blacks NOT because it impoverishes the white minority. His world-famous moral indignation does not stretch that far. People put themselves first when community spirit breaks down and Afrikaner intellectuals want to keep their own jobs so conform to the black apartheid system like the Judenräte under the Nazis. Those who criticise Black Economic Empowerment are de-humanised as racists. Yet, the government replacing 35,000 white commercial South African farmers with blacks is more than imposing job quotas in industry and commerce. The farmers are landowners and have a special bond with their territory. The authorities are undermining that and the SAHRC has endorsed the withdrawal of commandos from rural areas to leave the Boers open to murder and banned the term “ farm attacks” from the SA Rural Protection Plan as it links the Boers to their land and makes clear what people are being targeted, but these are now the more abstract “murders” which is vague and gives the impression that it could happen to anybody.

The Government has made an inventory of South Africa’s farmers by race to …

… monitor the patterns of land ownership as it implements land reform, the deeds registration system would be improved to reflect nationality, race and gender of land owners

.
There has been legislation to make it possible for the government to expropriate assets summarily without having to apply in advance to a court. The ANC is rewriting the South African Constitution but not stating what its being replaced with.

In 1991 the White population of South Africa was 5.1 million however, as of 2007 the official White population of South Africa was its lowest of 4.2 million, even though millions of White refugees from other parts of Africa added to South Africa’s White population in recent years. Whites are persecuted and dispossessed for being White leaving them unable to afford council tax so they end up living in shanty huts in Black neighbourhoods which hate them because of their race. An example is the ‘Affirmative Action’ policy of the national school netball championships committee - teams which do not have enough Black children have points given to the opposing side before the game has started!

This could develop into full scale racial genocide and ethnic cleansing like in Zimbabwe and the Belgian Congo before it which was another of the richest Nations in Africa but is now war torn. The elites know the history but keep doing it to African countries.





The killings show savagery and brutality as most are tortured and die slowly and in agony yet in many of the murders, no property is stolen. This shows a savage, uncivilised hatred for fellow humans that we can not comprehend but the authorities and international media pass it off as “crime related” when it is racial genocide.

It will continue to deteriorate for Whites, especially poor ones as Jacob Zuma the President is openly racist, he has convictions for rape and embezzlement and he believes a shower can cure AIDS!

In 2006 there were 55,000 reported rapes in South Africa but official estimates are that another 450,000 rapes were not reported. Therefore, about 1,300 women can be expected to be raped every day. A study by Interpol, the international police agency, revealed that South Africa has the most rapes in the world - a women being raped every 17 seconds and this does not include the number of child rape victims.

Interpol estimated that one in every two women in South Africa would be raped. Raping children as a cure for AIDS is a vile practice. The Telegraph reported on 11 Nov 2001 that on an alleged rape of a nine-month-old baby girl by six men in a remote part of rural South Africa was part of an 80 per cent rise in child sexual abuse over a year, much of it connected with the Aids pandemic.

More than 67,000 cases of rape and sexual assaults against children were reported last year, compared with 37,500 in 1998. Some of the victims were only six- months-old. Many die from their injuries, others contract HIV. The largest increase in attacks has been against children under seven. There is a prevalent superstition that having sex with children cures Aids. Police said at least one of the men who raped the nine-month-old girl is HIV-positive. The baby has also been tested for the virus and given anti-retroviral drugs as a precaution.

What can we do? People can contact their democratic representatives and pressure them. They can write to the media. They can post on internet blogs and circulate the information round the net. They can point out that western elites are ignoring a genocide which they themselves brought about by forcing the change in governing class. They could demand motions be introduced in their respective parliaments urging the SA government not to abolish the SA rural Commando System and leave the Boers open to racial genocide for ideological reasons. They could demand that it be clear to the South African government that this genocide is now being publicised around the world, and call on them to condemn white ethnic cleansing and racial genocide of whites.

Posted by By David Hamilton on March 13, 2009 in World Affairs

ANC amends the constitution to eliminate the opposition

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ANC to SCRAP SA's nine Provinces

South Africa’s ruling ANC party is looking into changing the country’s provincial and local government structures and may scrap its province system all together, a move some say is being done to eliminate political opposition.

Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka says the scrapping of South Africa’s nine provinces would be in an effort to structure local government more efficiently.

However, some provinces have become strongholds for opposition parties. This is most notably seen in the Western Cape, where the Democratic Alliance has removed ANC rule from the province. DA leader Helen Zille has shown up ANC incompetence by curtailing violent crime, lowering unemployment, and improving government services in the Western Cape.

Shiceka has been seen by some as fascist, who also came out strongly in support in the Constitution 17th Amendment Bill (which can be downloaded here), which will give the government increased powers of intervention in both provincial and local government. He adopted a strongly unitary position, saying that South Africa was one country with one President and “nobody is expected to be out of tune.”

The intentions of the 17th Amendment have been strongly questioned and opposed, particularly in Cape Town and the Western Cape. The amendment has been characterized as a means for the ANC to maintain control in areas it has lost at the ballot box.

Shiceka says a decision would be made by March next year. Legal challenges are almost certain to follow.

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Elderly couple attacked on dairy farm

An elderly couple were attacked and robbed at their daughter's dairy farm in Chissismeer on Tuesday, Mpumalanga police said.

Sonette Selzer, on her farm near Chissismeer Mpumalanga. She always carries a rifle over a shoulder and a pistol on her belt.

Captain Leonard Hlathi said three men entered the farm belonging to Tracy Pemberton, 41, at 9:30am.

"The suspects accosted her father, Donald Gubb, 65, while he was outside and forced him inside the house.

"They tied him up before doing the same to his 65-year-old wife, Yvonne, their daughter, and their employee, Samuel Lukhele, 57."

He said the men demanded money from the victims.

"When they were told that there was no money, they stabbed Mr Gubb in the head, took a piece of metal and hit him on the head, and then stabbed him in the chest. They also hit Mrs Gubb with a piece of metal on the head."

The men then took three cellphones belonging to the victims and a R50 note before fleeing the scene.

The couple were taken to the hospital and were in a stable condition.

Police were investigating, Hlathi said.

SADC Makes Fools Out Of The MDC-T

This was the last straw desperate MDC-T and Tsvangirai apologists were clinging to, that Jacob Zuma would read Mugabe the riot act, unlike the hated Mbeki. On Saturday, Mugabe was pallying around with Zuma at the SADc Heads of State meeting in Johannesburg as can be seen here. Then King Mswati emerged to tell reporters that no one had written to them to complain about Zimbabwe and they will, therefore, not be discussing it. The MDC-T leadership meets today in Harare in a panic response to this development. They will only issue more meaningless deadlines and resolutions that are not very resolute at all.

It is now official.

King Mswati, who was living it up with Mugabe and Gideon Gono at Gono's Farm a couple of weeks back, has said that "no official" complaint has been lodged with SADC about Zimbabwe's new government and that he was in Zimbabwe, where he saw for himself that everything is just fine.

Tsvangirai, through his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, wrote last week to President Jacob Zuma , who is the Sadc chairman, urging him to intervene in the stalemate, and to get Sadc to intervene in the deadlock over the appointment of Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono and attorney-general Johannes Tomana, who are Mugabe loyalists.

Now SADC say they never received such a letter. No "official" communication.

There is nothing to investigate, SADC says.

King Mswati, the despot of Swaziland, is the Chairman of the SADC Organ on Defence and Politics. This is the Organ that deals officially with the Zimbabwe issue.

The MDC-T has been rattled enough by the jeering in London and this latest rebuff from SADC to call for a special meeting of its Executive today.

They will meet today, yes.

But nothing will come of it.

SADC was meeting at the weekend to discuss Mauritius, whose exiled leader is cooling his heels in South Africa and there had been talk that Zimbabwe would be discussed, especially since the MDC-T claimed they had sent a letter to the regional body.

Tsvangirai sabotaged his own party on this one. He bought Mugabe's argument (flawed) that only if there is agreement amongst ALL the Principals in the Unity Government that there was an impasse could the matter be referred to SADC.

Unfortunately for the MDC-T, their principal agrees with Mugabe that not swearing in Roy Bennett, not swearing in ambassadors, Governors etc can not be considered an impasse.

As Tsvangirai drags them towards the cliff, there to fall off into oblivion and irrelevance, all the MDC-T can do at the moment is consult and discuss.

Tourists mugged and robbed in Durban after Test

Durban hospitals and paramedics treated several British and Irish Lion's supporters who were injured at Durban nightclubs after their team lost the first Test against the Springboks on Saturday night.

Many tourists were apparently also mugged and robbed that night.

ER24 spokesperson Derrick Banks said that paramedics had had their hands full dealing with intoxicated rugby fans on Saturday night.

"Shortly after 10pm, medics were called to 80's nightclub to tend to a man who had fallen and hit his head on the bar in side the club. He sustained severe cuts and was heavily intoxicated.

He was stabilised at the club before being taken to hospital."

Banks said paramedics had also treated two British nationals who had been injured at Joe Cool's nightclub on the beachfront.

"One man had been walking down the stairs and fell nearly two metres over the side, landing on the brick paved promenade below. The man sustained cuts to the head and possible neck and spinal injuries. While paramedics were treating the man, another rugby fan stumbled inside the club, falling and hitting his head on the bar surface. His lacerations were also dressed and both were taken to St Augustine's hospital for further medical care."

Life Entabeni Hospital spokesperson Leanne Miltun said their trauma unit had attended to two rugby supporters injured in assault cases.

The men had sustained cuts and bruises and were discharged after being treated.

Tessa Douglas, of Seeff Properties in Umhlanga, said she had helped several British nationals who had been mugged or robbed in Durban on Saturday night.

"I was helping these chaps with photocopying police affidavits so that they could fly home. Many had their passports stolen and are having problems getting back to England. The garden cottage on my property was broken into last night and a German national's valuables were stolen. The police were telling me that bed and breakfasts all over Umhlanga had been hit."

An Umhlanga guest house reported that their British guests had been robbed when their rooms were broken into that night.

Police Superintendent Vincent Mdunge said they had not received many reports of muggings in the city centre or house breakings.

"It is not beyond reason to say that tourists were accosted and robbed, but we just don't have any real record of them."

Fire at Durban hotel hosting Lions fans

More than a dozen employees suffered smoke inhalation when Durban's grand lady of hotels, The Royal Hotel, caught fire this morning.

The hotel - at which hundreds of British and Irish Lions supporters were staying - was evacuated after a generator blew up in the basement causing a fire which spread to the first floor.

Emergency services personnel said that 13 staff members suffered smoke inhalation and 11 were taken to hospital.

A paramedic said one person hurt his arm, while another person refused to go to hospital.

Metro Police senior superintendent Joyce Khuzwayo, confirmed that an electrical spark from the burst generator is believed to have caused the fire at the hotel, forcing hotel staff to evacuate hundreds of guests, including the Lions supporters.

Metro police spokesman Captain Siphiwe Ndlovu said that a number of guests had been treated for smoke inhalation and that Anton Lembede Street (formerly Smith Street) was cordoned off while emergency services staff attempted to control the fire.

The rugby fans who were due to check out from the hotel today, left the hotel at about 10am with their luggage and were transported to another nearby hotel.

...because humor is mandatory

Piano Player - Sing us... uh play us... a song you're the piano man...

That's talent! Playing the piano without using the fingers.

Sex, lies and 'small penis syndrome'

A distorted teaching in some initiation schools is leading to increased incidents of rape and the spread of HIV, say activist groups working with traditional leaders to stop what they fear is encouraging ritual sexual violence.

"This is not part of our tradition; this is crime," said Mbulelo Dyasi of Masimanyane, a women's support centre in East London.

The widespread myth holds that when the young men emerge from the initiation schools, they should first have sex with women who are not their partners.

This is done to clean the penis and test if it is working, according to Dyasi.

Men are being taught that this practice is part of traditional culture. But Dyasi said an investigation found that the myth only began circulating in the 1980s. There are reports of the teaching in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Mpumalanga.

"We do not know where it's coming from, but it's becoming a common trend as finalising the initiation," said Nono Eland of the Treatment Action Campaign.

The young initiates would have sex with new partners seen to be of "lesser value" in the community, said Eland. This included women who had previously had many sexual partners, increasing the young initiate's risk of exposure to HIV. The use of condoms was not encouraged.

The myth came to the attention of Masimanyane when it emerged that some young initiates were raping women, said Dyasi.

They joined gangs, whose members encouraged them to rape as a form of good luck after the circumcision. Dyasi cited one incident during which a pregnant mother was raped by nine men.

"This is crime, and not part of our tradition," he said.

The distorted teaching has been brought to the attention of the Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders, which is now revising the guidelines for initiation schools.

The new curriculum guidelines will be released by December.

Dyasi said the schools needed to teach leadership skills and life skills, as well as about human rights and HIV.

"These young men are our future leaders," he said.

Simphiwe Sesanti, a journalism lecturer at Stellenbosch University, said that initiation was about teaching responsibility. This was no longer being done.

Sesanti said he and his fellow initiates were encouraged to sleep with a new partner at their initiation school near Uitenhage in the 1990s. He condemned the teaching as "a distortion of African culture" and "disrespectful to the young man and the young woman".

In his Youth Day address, ANC Youth League President Julius Malema called on the youth of South Africa to practise monogamy. But a league spokeswoman refused to confirm that this applied to rituals at initiation schools.

"What happens in initiation schools remains the business of the initiation school. It is a cultural practice," said Magdalene Moonsamy.