Black-On-Black Intolerance, Persecution, Aggression, Violence

"I've been harassed. For us, it's not about whether you are legal or not, and that is why everyone is very careful right now."

"As long as you are a Nigerian, you are profiled and you are stereotyped immediately."

"We are all very careful."

"We are in the dark because we don't know how our government [in Nigeria] is going to react if any of us is to be affected or is to be killed."

"[Both Pretoria and Johannesburg have the] biggest [migrant communities]."

Chairman, Nigerian Union in South Africa, Olaniyi Abodedele

 

"It is not okay because we are blacks, we are brothers... everybody comes here just to survive."

"It's not what we expected as fellow African."

"It's just making us scared - imagine if we're scared in our own African continent - what if we go to Europe?"

Immigrant Security Guard

 

"[The president ordered the] evacuation of imperiled Nigerian citizens who consider their lives at risk by continued stay in South Africa."

"The price of  your peace, and the safety of your children is not worth any sacrifices you have to make, or any assets you have to leave behind when fleeing a conflict zone or hate-infested environment."

Nigerian Foreign Minister Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu 

 

"[Nigerians] living in South Africa legally [are being dreadfully mistreated]."

"If there were issues of illegality, that would be determined on a person-to-person basis. You can't just crown the entire Nigerians living in South Africa as living there illegally."

Nigerian Humanitarian Affairs Minister Bernard Doro  

Hundreds took to the streets of Pretoria to protest against immigration   BBC / Thuthuka Zondi

"I am very scared and traumatized."

"The people came to my house and told me: 'You must leave. We don't want you people to stay here any longer, so you have to go to your country.' There were 10 and they were carrying weapons [machetes and whips]."

"They cut my husband on his head and his neck. They were holding his neck like they wanted to kill him."

"Because of God he still survived, but he's in the hospital."

Esnat Joseph, 36, Malawian 

Esnat Joseph said a gang of men came to her home in Durban to threaten the family - forcing her to flee with her triplets   Thuthuka Zondi / BBC

"If you come into South Africa with a passport that allows you to stay for 30 days. When it's 50 days, when it's two years, when it's five years, you know you're breaking the law."

"We can't have South Africa being turned into a refugee site for all failed African states… every country prioritizes its citizens and we want the South African government to do the same."

March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma    

Ghana's diplomatic mission told Ghanaians in the country to "place the highest priority on personal safety... [and] take precautionary measures" during the protests. BBC / Thuthuka Zondi

 

Part of repatriation ordered by the government of Nigeria following violent anti-immigrant protests, the initial group of Nigerians returned home from South Africa this week. On board the flight to Lagos was a total of 262 passengers and three officials, according to the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs which earlier stated that over 1,000 Nigerians have registered with them for voluntary return.

 

According to authorities in South Africa, those returnees were found to be in the country illegally, effectively contradicting the Nigerian officials who had stated unequivocally that Nigerians were fleeing xenophobic attacks against them by hordes of South Africans who march in the streets, intimidating migrants as well as legal immigrants with the violent vehemence of their expressed hatred of the presence of 'foreigners'. Bearing sticks the marchers chant: "Mabahambe" - a Zulu phrase meaning "They must go".

 

Such flights have been organized from South Africa by other African nations whose nationals have been targeted by hate messages and threats of violence, including Zimbabwe, Malawi, Ghana, Mozambique and others which make up the 3 million non-South-Africans in the country, representing 5 percent of the population. Many of whom are there in South Africa, welcomed for their cheap labour. While South Africa is the wealthiest and most-developed of the regional African countries, it has a high unemployment rate.

 

Countries like Nigeria have taken note that since April, a series of new anti-immigration protests have resulted in attacks against some foreigners in South Africa; protests that highlight tensions between foreign workers and locals who claim their jobs are being taken by foreigners. Some South African officials speak of the protests and the threats inherent in them as acts of xenophobia; words lacking any action leading to a solution to the anger, resentment and fear. 

 

According to some returnees questioned by authorities in their home countries, they lacked proper documentation in South Africa, while others stated they had been unable to renew their residency papers for years, the result of immigration bottlenecks imposed on Nigerians by South African authorities. "I was in South Africa for 11 years, and I was treated badly/ They did not give us [Nigerians] resident permits because we were Nigerians", complained Eminaba Beatrice.  

 

Around 7,000 people have gathered in Durban asking to be repatriated to Malawi  AFP via Getty Images

  

"Political parties are scraping the bottom of the barrel in trying to lie to people that all our problems are the migrants, and if we get rid of the migrants, then we'll have no problems in South Africa."

"This has been an ongoing phenomenon in South Africa and more recently, it has been associated with elections."

Sharon Ekambaram, human rights lawyer, member, Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia movement 

Illegal Gold Mining in South Africa

"I felt like I have some bad luck because I had only been underground for two weeks when the operation started. That is when things started going bad, we stopped receiving food and we lost contact with the outside world, that could only mean that the police have arrived and probably arrested or scared off the people lowering the food."

"By September, things were really bad. People started getting hungry they started getting sick, some started dying. We started having dead bodies. There is nothing worse than seeing somebody die and there is nothing you can do about it."

(Name withheld) illegal miner

Rescuers lowered in a cage into the mine   AFP

Noxious odours permeated the area; whether from the corpses  wrapped in fabric and twine, laid out in rows, or emanating from the unwashed bodies of emaciated, starving miners, or stenches from the damp rock of the environment. Emaciated from lack of food since police had cracked down on illegal mining and had put a stop to the delivery of food supplies, water, fuel and other life-saving necessities. Their usual diet while underground was meat, bread and porridge cooked over propane-heated camp stoves. 

They had been reduced to eating rough salt to try to staunch hunger.

While they still had those supplies, they smoked cigarettes and marijuana, until they ran out. Cellphone videos and miners' testimonies shed light on the horror that hundreds of men suffered underground in an abandoned mine in South Africa following a police operation that cut off food and supplies in a strategy to "smoke them out", because authorities considered the 2,000 men working deep underground in one of South Africa's largest and deepest mines, to be criminals, illegally mining for gold.

Eventually police were forced by a court order to launch a rescue effort early in the week. When the mission was completed, they reported that no one had been left underground. Dozens of bodies had been pulled out, with a minimum of 87 confirmed dead. One miner speaking on condition of anonymity fearing reprisals, had surfaced Christmas Day, months after he entered the shaft in July. One among the two thousand who ventured there, he experienced extreme hunger and witnessed fellow diggers expiring from starvation and illness.

In August of last year when police targeted the mine near the town of Stilfontein as part of an operation aiming to tackle widespread illicit mining, the man, 40 years of age, father of six children, eventually exited the mine through a separate shaft clambering up and out laboriously on steep steel stairs extremely difficult to navigate, upon which he badly bruised his hands climbing out.

"As we were climbing out we saw dead bodies of other guys who had attempted to exit the same way. Others had fallen down, others were full corpses but there were also lots of bones, almost like skeletons."

"It's not easy to exit there, many people died trying to do that."

(Name withheld) illegal miner

Illegal mining represents one of the largest sources of income for poor families in townships located nearby an estimated 6,100 disused mines country-wide. And this is where illegal mining tends to be rife. Persuaded when he was told  he could earn about $5,300 for working a few weeks to a month in one of the country's deepest gold mines no longer officially operating, he took up the offer in a country with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. 

 

Many of the miners arrive searching for employment from neighbouring countries like Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Malawi and Congo as illegal arrivals in South Africa where their presence is  generally held in contempt. Also working in the mine were 13 children.

Mmastona Mbizna explained that two of her sons were engaged in illegal mining as a result of poverty and steep unemployment. Her 22-year-old son was arrested when he left the mine in December. Another son was arrested at the same mine working as a runner on the surface, lowering supplies down to the miners. He was convicted for involvement in illegal mining. "Out of the blue the police came, firing rubber bullets and tear gas. The tear gas blinded me and I fell, broke my leg and collapsed", he said.

The government maintains what though the deaths were tragic, illegal mining is a criminal activity detrimental to the country's economy. "The people who must take responsibility for the deaths that have happened here are those who are benefiting from illegal mining", said Mines Minister Gwede Mantashe, in Stilfontein.

The police have defended the operation at Stilfontein, saying it was about dealing with criminality  Getty Images

"I heard from somebody in the neighbourhood that he [her 22-year-old younger son] had gone underground."

"His father died last year and he was not even here for the funeral because he was underground for months."

Mmastona Mbizana, Khumo township community member

Russian Missiles Strike Civilian Infrastructure Posing as Troop Barracks

"My neighbours are gone. No one is left." 

"Only the kitchens were left standing."

"An elderly woman, her daughter and two grandchildren lived on the ninth floor. They are gone." 

"A man with his son lived on the eighth floor. They are gone."

"A woman with her daughter lived on the seventh floor. They are gone."

"A young family lived on the sixth floor, their son was lucky ... he is alive." 

Serhii Lubivskyi, 58, Central Ukraine town of Uman  

 

"I couldn't understand what was happening. I went to the balcony and saw glass everywhere. It was horrible." 

"Russia is a terrorist state. You can see, there's no military object here. And it happened at four o'clock in the morning, as people were sleeping."

Oleksandr, 35, Uman resident    

 

"[I heard an explosion and] everything shook". 

"We tried to find ways to leave the building. I heard a voice of a child who was screaming in the flat next to ours. We wanted to help other people. There was smoke and fire everywhere."  

"Peaceful people were just sleeping."

Another resident, 60-year-old Vanda, Uman, Ukraine

Rescuers in Uman pulled casualties from the rubble during Friday morning   Ukraine State Emergency Service

"Another night of Russian terror. Missiles and UAVs."

"Russian evil can be stopped by weapons -- our defenders are doing it."

"And it can be stopped by sanctions -- global sanctions must be enhanced."

"This Russian terror must face a fair response from Ukraine and the world."

"And it will."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

"Russia's Air Force carried out a collective missile strike using long-range high-precision weapons overnight targeting temporary deployment sites of Ukrainian army reserve units."

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov

 

"Together with [Slovak President] Zuzana Caputova, we see the value of freedom and justice."

"It is hard to see with your own eyes how Ukrainians are paying the highest price for it. With the blood and lives of their own citizens."

"In the fight against the aggressor, they defend what we have in common. That is why we will back them."

Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic

Friday Russia hurled missiles at cities in Ukraine while people slept, its first large-scale airstrikes in almost two months. The long winter Russian offensive had seen little ground gained by Moscow. Only in Bukhov, a small mining town, was the grinding battle ongoing through the winter months. Ukrainian servicemen have been opposing the Russian plans of taking Bukhov for a year, despite that hundreds of thousands of reservists were called up, along with convicts recruited as mercenaries from prisons in Russian.

Kyiv, for its part, is deep in preparations for its spring counteroffensive, newly provided by foreign supporters with hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles. The plan is to drive Russia out of the close to one-fifth of Ukraine occupied by Moscow which President Vladimir Putin claims to have annexed. "As soon as there is God's will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it", stated Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleskii Reznikov.

Ukraine is "to a high percentage ready", he said, in possession of new and modern weapons to provide an "iron fist". Meanwhile, thanks to Moscow targeting overnight strikes at Ukrainian reserve troops, successfully struck, preventing them from reaching the front, as it claimed, the campaign was a success, but of which there was no evidence, missiles having indiscriminately been sent into towns and cities across the country, far from front lines; civilians were targeted and killed. 

In Uman, central Ukraine, firefighters battled an apartment building blaze after an upper floor was struck by a Russian missile where at least 23 civilians were killed, four children among them. Rescue workers made their awkward progress through smouldering rubble, hoisting a body on a stretcher while a man wearing a face mask wept, watching, and a woman comforted him.

Kyiv too was rocked by explosions during the night, along with central cities of Kremenchuk and Poltava, and to the south Mykolaiv and Ukrayinka; far, far from the front lines...nowhere near where Ukrainian reserve troops were stationed, as Moscow claimed. Out of 23 cruise missiles fired by Russia, the Ukrainian military said it had shot down 21. 

 

And Moscow reiterated yet again that it does not deliberately target civilians, to Kyiv's statement that strikes on cities far from the front lines have no military purpose, other than intimidating and harming civilians.

Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree addressing the pathway to Russian citizenship for those people living in parts of Ukraine under Moscow's control. Those who choose to decline, or who have no wish to legalize their status as 'Russian citizens' could be deported. 

 

In the lead-up to a visit expected later this year to South Africa, the opposition premier of Western Cape Province said he plans to order local police to seize Putin and presumably hand him over to the ICC to stand trial on charges of war crimes. Premier Alan Winde condemned the ruling African National Congress government for welcoming the Russian Leader despite his arrest ordered by the International Criminal Court for the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.

Still from video

Land Reform in South Africa : Proceed With Caution

We are making history and celebrating the return of your land today. We are righting the historic injustice and returning the land to its rightful owners; [the country’s constitution will be changed to explicitly allow for the expropriation of land without compensation for return of around 4,500 hectares, the first of a number of land claims] that we aim to unlock over the next few months."

"Any failure on our part to reverse the injustices of our past... will result in social instability and economic decline in our country. This we cannot afford."
"As the government, we concede that much more could have been done since 1994 to accelerate land reform. This government is resolute in our commitment to returning the land in an orderly and lawful manner. We shall not allow illegal land occupations."
"The intention of the proposed amendment is to promote redress, advance economic development, increase agricultural production and food security."
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa

 
"We are currently in a consultation process where South Africans are participating in a process of review — we have actually taken the time to participate in this process — and this announcement by the governing party serves only to undermine the process under way."
 "SA needs more black farmers and black farms. Constitutional amendments — and even worst-case expropriation without compensation — may make for good electioneering but it doesn’t make more black farmers."
"[President Ramaphosa’s announcement was] irresponsible electioneering and the leaders of our country should be more vigilant and responsible when it comes to the future of the economy and job creation for all South Africans … We are a full and active participant in the upcoming ANC jobs summit — this position will not encourage us to invest in the sector to create more jobs."
AgriSA president Dan Kriek

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (L) hands over the title land deeds to Inkosi (Chief ) Mand

"[Expropriation without compensation and economic growth] are diametrically contrasted — and nowhere in the world has this worked in any shape or form. Agrarian reform can only happen successfully working hand-in-hand, in partnership, with the private sector."
"We have seen this movie play out all over world — Venezuela, Russia — the promise for emerging farmers of tools, fertiliser, seeds and extension services are superficial; many have promised this as election ploys — and yet the outcome is always catastrophic for agriculture and food security."
Omri van Zyl, executive director, AgriSA.

"[Ramaphosa’s announcement shows that the ANC has been] forced to listen to ordinary South Africans across the country who have attended public hearings and who have said: 'We want land and we feel the government has not listened to us'."
"People have blamed the Constitution for the government’s inaction over the land issue. I think we are going to head into a new phase now where government is going to be forced to take the land issue much more seriously."
Professor Ruth Hall, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape

Picture: JOHN FEDELE

The situation is never as simple as taking the straight-cut initiative without considering ramifications that will ensue as a result of hasty action irrespective of consequences. Who should own the land in any country but its original inhabitants? In South Africa as in other once-colonized African countries up to 70% of the geography is held by whites in a black nation. Colonization has never quite departed the scene; as civilized societies a declaration of independence and self-rule did not include nationalization of properties confiscated by blacks for white ownership.

But there is yet another truth, that as stewards of the land that white colonialists wrested by force of occupation from the indigenous population, the land has been put to good use. When Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe turned his country around from white ownership of the majority of agrarian land, authorizing Zimbabweans who had fought alongside him in its war of independence from white Europeans who named it Rhodesia, violent occupations took place and people were killed. But the upshot of forcibly removing generations of white farmers from their productive farms that fell into the hands of blacks who had no knowledge of farming, no interest in growing crops was disastrous.

The once-thriving economy of an African agricultural-producing giant able to export what its internal use found excessive to their needs resulted, under occupation, in arable fields lying fallow, leading to the need to import food, and inflation soared, the economy sank, unemployment exploded and its currency became worthless. A more recent example of social engineering carried out by ignoramuses is Venezuela where neglect of its infrastructure and celebration of a socialist 'Bolivarian revolution' led to the collapse of the economy, malnutrition, food and medical shortages, massive unemployment and millions migrating out of the country.

South Africans stand now prepared to continue the burial of apartheid by reclaiming South Africa for its indigenous black population. Since the end of apartheid and the departure of Nelson Mandela from its leadership, his successors have, one after the other, mismanaged the economy, failed to support the needs of the greater population living in poverty and neglect, failed to build housing, to increase opportunities for greater economic equality and employment and now faces the demand of its population to reclaim its geographical heritage.

Homeless squatters are now being organized by groups opposing the ANC and its failures, to enter restricted areas owned by white farmers, to put up huts and claim their right to live there, infuriating the farmers and raising the spectre of violent encounters. Where white farmers don't own the land their farms sit on outright, they rent on public land, locked into 50-year leases signed for white farmers by local authorities in the early 1990s at the tail end of apartheid. "We see that land, we must take that land", said activist Zola Ndlasi, 44, leader of a takeover.

The failure of the African National Congress to provide access to black South Africans to land for the black majority has left a taste of betrayal. An ANC program to buy out land from willing white farmers saw politicians ending up with more land than was required by those citizens who were meant to benefit from the exchange. The Economic Freedom Fighters, a spinoff of the ANC, tapped into this frustration to call on black South Africans to proceed with taking land themselves rather than wait for the government to act.

ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa, mindful of voting trends, plans to alter the Constitution for expropriation of land without compensation to proceed. Yet commented in January: "We are not going to allow land grabs in South Africa", with an eye to avoiding international condemnation. A judge ordered squatters on one wine-producing vineyard to vacate the farm, despite which the shacks remain and the decision is under appeal with the municipality negotiating with the farmer to buy the plot on which the shacks sit.

In Stellenbosch, the wine region of South Africa, a black township called Kayamandi is bursting with a swiftly accumulating population abutting several wineries. New residents arrive daily from impoverished Eastern Cape Province, a steady migration of desperation that has made black South Africans the largest racial group in Stellenbosch, outnumbering whites and mixed race groups. Their dire need for housing in this crowded corner of South Africa has led them to face off with white farmers by erecting huts on farm property.

According to a local law, squatters cannot be evicted without a court order once they have lived in those shacks for two days or longer. "If I build a house, then I will leave this for my children", said 20-year-old Lubabalo Mpiliso as his shack was being ripped apart and he resisted, unwilling to return to the two-bedroom government house he had shared with ten relatives. The arrival of black newcomers to Kayamandi who may not vote for the incumbents at City Hall has local politicians loathe to support them, pointing out the squatters are leaping ahead of people waiting for housing.

In one plot on one farm close to a thousand shacks were spread out, leading the municipality to install two water taps. An earlier such occupation in a steep valley established in 2005, has become a dangerously overcrowded shantytown with few toilets and no electrical connections nearby. "We need land, we took land" reads signage some of the protesters carry. The landowner began receiving messages: "They said they'll burn me alive", he said.

Catching attention: Protesters who oppose farm murders march to the US and Australian embassies in Pretoria on October 29. Picture: REUTERS

South Africa: Spiting Itself

"The Western Cape is about to reach Day Zero, when the taps will run dry. The Israeli government approached the ruling ANC party to offer solutions years ago, but the ANC turned them down and adopted a pro-Palestinian stance."
"This petition demands that the ANC cease importing the politics of the Middle East and taking an anti-Israel unilateral stance. We demand that the South African government commence immediate talks with Israel to ask for help with solving our water crisis."
Cape Town petition of desperation

"The rug has been pulled from the Israeli ambassador, who will not be able to exploit our very serious water crises for his own cheap publicity and whitewashing of his regime."
"Israeli water technology is not unique or special; such technology is widely available through other more friendly countries."
South African wing, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)

Sorek Desalination Plant, Israel is located about 15km south of Tel Aviv, Israel and opened in October 2013 with a seawater treatment capacity of 624 000m³/day, making it world's biggest seawater desalination plant.
Image credit: Wordpress

"The Western Cape is the only province in the country run by the official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance ... this means that the relationship between national government and the Western Cape is complicated, as the water crisis shows."
"Two tiers of governance – the Western Cape province and the City of Cape Town – went above and beyond what was required to prepare for drought. The system failed, however, at the level of national government."
"Wasteful expenditure in the national department of water and sanitation, erroneous water allocations to agriculture and a failure to acknowledge or respond to provincial and municipal help obstructed timely interventions."
"National government’s numerous spanners jammed up the works of a system that could have managed the crisis quite effectively."
David W Olivier, ‘Cape Town’s water crisis: driven by politics more than drought’

"There is nothing Israel can do to save Cape Town right now ... it takes two to three years to build a desalination plant and there is no quicker solution than that. The only thing Capetonians can do is to reduce consumption and save water, in order to get us to winter."
"Israel has never offered South Africa a free desalination plant, but its companies have been invited to tender and its assistance has never been formally turned down."
"There is no doubt that corruption has led to the collapse of infrastructure."
DA [Democratic Alliance] councillor Errol Anstey, Capetown

Cape Town has started down the road of desalination. Shutterstock

It is certainly not for lack of trying that Israel's efforts to convince South Africa it could be effective in stemming the inevitable tide of water shortage in Cape Town, much less in all of South Africa has ultimately failed. For years the previous Israeli Ambassador to South Africa appealed to President Jacob Zuma and his cabinet to allow Israeli technology, the best in the world in desalinization, to build badly needed plants for South Africa. The result has been a total spurning of Israel's offers.

Now Cape Town, the second-largest city in South Africa, a tourism draw and a major developed city, is on the cusp of being without water. Its three-year-old drought in Western Cape province where Cape Town is the provincial capital and economic powerhouse has brought the dams which the city is reliant on for its water to a perilously low supply level. No rain is forecast for the near future. But this is not an emergency that has recently emerged with no warning. An escalating water shortage has been a reality for decades.

The alarm was sounded about the city's looming crisis over two years ago; ample time to plan, develop and implement an effectively responsive plan of action to meet the challenge. The time is now fast approaching when the dams reflect a 13.5 percent capacity and the water authority will be mandated to turn off all taps across the city. That date is expected to arrive early in June. It was slated for arrival two months earlier, but stringent conservation methods reduced daily water use below 550 million litres from over a billion litres, resulting in a two-month reprieve.

Moody's ratings agency has warned of a likely credit downgrade on the basis that in recognition of the city's income inequality the water crisis may trigger a threat to social order. As the only South African province not controlled by the African National Congress, the Western Cape is governed by the opposition Democratic Alliance, a liberal party reflecting the membership of liberal whites, "Cape Coloured", ethnic groups and urban, educated blacks fed up with the ANC's corruption and mismanagement.

The national government, hoping that Cape Town's threat on the water issue would reflect badly on the opposition party and lead to its failure linking it to the water failure, disregarding the simple fact that water-supply infrastructure is an obligation of the national government, not a provincial government blithely ignored the coming crisis. The ANC government did little to plan effectively for badly needed new water infrastructure, as a result. That, along with the ANC's ideological identity caused the avoidance of its responsibilities.

The linkage is clear in that Israel's ambassador to South Africa two years earlier was slated to address an international conference on South Africa's water  crisis to be held in Johannesburg. As the global leader in water conservation, recycling and irrigation and its offer of cutting-edge desalinization technology, this would have been the time to make important decisions. Instead, the conference was cancelled, reflecting political pressure from the BDS South African wing.

Despite the constant snubs, the former and the current Israeli ambassadors continued to offer aid in Cape Town's water crisis only to be rebuffed each time. Since the South African government has signed on to boycotting Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, the issue remained in limbo. Hamas took part in the ANCs National Conference in December and it was at that conference that the ANC made their decision to downgrade the status of South Africa's embassy in Israel to a "liaison office" and an announcement of intent was made triumphantly public.

The citizens of South Africa and those living in Cape Town will pay the price. Israel's expertise reflecting 70 years of research, benefits not only Israel itself, but the Palestinians and Jordan both of which in the midst of an arid desert environment, are provided with water security provided to them through Israeli auspices. And they are not the only countries of the Middle East which have turned to Israel for the technology to benefit themselves in water security.

Cape Town is now in the throes of building desalinization plants, but they will not be on stream for years, while the city will be facing the dilemma of its extreme shortage in the very immediate future, swiftly approaching. And even when those plants are built, there and elsewhere in South Africa, some experts believe they will be unable to provide all of the water that the country requires.

Solidarity forever.

Cities like Cape Town may now have to rely on desalination to help them survive drought.

Morgana Wingard/Getty Images

The Rule of Law in South Africa

"It's not the sort of decision that's going to be easy to overturn on appeal, because it seems to me, it is so well-reasoned."
"It's a very powerful judgement because it's a unanimous decision by three judges saying that abuse of process is not something that the prosecution service may rely on."
James Grant, lawyer, South African High Court

"The ANC's woes continue in the rump to the local government elections and they will have an even harder time managing their image after having decided not recall him."
Cherrel Africa, head, political studies, University of the Western Cape

President Jacob Zuma. Picture: Reinart Toerien/EWN

The sainted, dearly departed leader of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela, gave the world reason to believe that an African leader could after all, represent the dark continent's turn toward a humane, uncorrupted administration. Mr. Mandela's name and reputation as a man of peace and integrity limned the African National Congress with the brightness of a sun shining upon a new generation of equality, respect and rule of law.

South Africa is still roiled by corruption, by endemic poverty, by unemployment and tribalism, by rampant crime and by institutionalized misogyny. Before Jacob Zuma was elected head of the AFC and ultimately president of South Africa he had raped a young woman who trusted him as an old family friend. That woman had been infected with HIV. After Zuma raped her he took all the necessary precautions he deemed required, by taking a shower to immunize himself.

That, as much of anything is the measure of the man. A man who also took advantage of his elevated state position to feather his nest, not discreetly, but ostentatiously, by using tax funds to rebuild his personal home compound at great cost to the beleaguered taxpayer. Now, a South African court has ruled that dropping a corruption case against him seven years ago had been irrational, and that decision is to be set aside.

No fewer than 783 charges against the President of South Africa are to be reinstated. Judge Aubrey Ledwaba ruled at the North Gautent High Court in Pretoria that President Zuma must face all charges in the original indictment dating from April 2009. Churches, civil-rights organizations and opposition parties have been calling for President Zuma to be dismissed.

Despite being a member of BRICS, all of whose economies are doing fairly well (Brazil/Russia/India/China/South Africa), The South African economy is creaking along, risking downgrade to junk credit status.

The top court ruled that President Zuma "failed to uphold, defend and respect the constitution" in his treatment of an ombudsman report on graft in security upgrades at  his private rural residence; the finding being that his family had benefited unduly from the improvements. In addition, eight years were spent by prosecutors investigating charges that $360,000 in bribes were taken by Mr. Zuma from arms dealers. Charges of fraud, corruption and racketeering were brought against him.

It's The South African Way

The man is an unrepentant war criminal, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of black Sudanese from Darfur. People who were dispossessed of their villages, their farms, who fled in their hundreds of thousands from the rampaging murderous intentions of the janjaweed, Arab horsemen who raped countless women and girls from Darfur, and killed countless men, women and children. The Sudanese military sent army helicopters to strafe fleeing villagers as they fled their bombed-out homes in a panic of self-preservation.

The conflict in Darfur has forced more than a million people from their homes

"It is on this basis, among others, that the ANC calls upon government to challenge the order now being brought to compel the South African government to detain President al-Bashir. [African and Eastern European countries] continue to unjustifiably bear the brunt of the decisions of the ICC."
"[The ANC stated South Africa granted immunity] for all (summit) participants as part of the international norms for countries hosting such gathering of the AU [African Union] or even the United Nations."
African National Congress statement

Situation in Darfur

The seal of the International Criminal Court
File no.	02/05
Referred by	UN Security Council
Date referred	31 March 2005
Date opened	6 June 2005
Incident(s)	War in Darfur (Haskanita raids)
Crimes	Genocide: · Causing serious harm · Destructive conditions · Killings Crimes against humanity: · Extermination · Forcible transfer · Inhumane acts · Imprisonment · Murder · Persecution · Rape · Torture War crimes: · Attacks against civilians · Destruction of property · Murder · Outrage upon dignity · Pillaging · Rape
Status of suspects
Ahmed Haroun	Fugitive
Ali Kushayb	Fugitive
Omar al-Bashir	Fugitive
Bahar Abu Garda	Charges not confirmed
Abdallah Banda	Case in pre-trial stage
Saleh Jerbo	Case in pre-trial stage
Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein

How surprising can it be, after all, that South Africa has not deigned to honour its international obligations to recognize rulings of the International Criminal Court. It was the United Nations Security council itself which referred the case of the Darfur region of Sudan to the International Criminal Court, to evaluate and to assess the situation and make their determination of the guilt of those involved in the horrendous assault on basic human rights by the Government of Sudan.

Not surprising, given South Africa's record on finding it unnecessary to confront Zimbabwe's ruinous condition thanks to President Mugabe's misrule of the country and the human rights violations that are somehow acceptable, because they take place in Africa.

And we can cast our minds back to when Nelson Mandala was President of South Africa and welcomed Charles Taylor to his presidential home as an honoured guest, when international celebrities were also being entertained, one of whom was given a gift of blood diamonds by Charles Taylor. This was, needless to say, a man convicted of war crimes in using diamonds to pay for the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone where more than 50,000 people lost their lives.

Charles Taylor was sentenced to a 50-year prison term; striking similarities to Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.

A South African judge had ordered authorities to ensure that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, present in South Africa for an African Union summit, did not leave the country in consideration of an international order for his arrest. Wanted by the International Criminal Court, "President Omar al-Bashir is prohibited from leaving the Republic of South Africa until a final order is made in this application", stated Judge Hans Fabricius, who ordered that all border posts enforce his decision.

Needless to say, other countries, such as those in the Middle East where President al-Bashir presented himself in attendance at Arab League meetings, also ignored the ICC's order for the arrest of the man. South Africa, however, likes to present itself as a democratic equal to any Western country, with an eye to human rights. Which is why, presumably, it condemns Israel, as is also done by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, referring to the 'plight' of the Palestinians who continue attacking Israel, and which Israel defends itself against.

The hypocritical contortions engaged in by South Africa do it full credit as a pseudo-democratic state with a focus on human rights. As long as vast episodes of unspeakable human rights violations occur within African nations they cannot be taken seriously. But South Africa will be quick to join in condemning countries whose human rights record is sparkling in contrast to its own experience and that of its allies, to prove it is a proud member of the international community.

The 300,000 Darfurians who were slaughtered, and the two million displaced in a deliberate government campaign happen, unfortunately, to be a figment of a malign imagination attempting to attribute nasty behaviour to a solidly respected African country. Omar al-Bashir, along with visiting the Middle East, with no consequences to follow, travelled to Malawi, Kenya, Chad and Congo, all of them member states of the International Criminal Court, all choosing to ignore the warrant.

But all is well, irregardless, for through a series of machinations, it was arranged that President al-Bashir hurriedly leave the summit and he was well on his way home to Sudan before he was in any real danger of being detained to be held accountable for his dreadful misdeeds. It's the African Union Way. It's the South African version of justice.

Cheering supporters greeted Mr Bashir at Khartoum airport

Seeking Asylum

"[The IRB] never explained why it felt the singing of this ['Shoot the Boer'] song by political leaders at political forums or the updated Genocide Watch opinion could not have legitimately inspired a further subjective fear of political persecution."
"While it could have had good reasons for doing so, the absence of any explanation by the [IRB] makes it hard to understand."
"[In its ruling the IRB had said], Criminals kill, steal and rape for their own advantage at all times. Women and young girls are therefore no more likely to be victims of abuse than members of other population groups. ... 
"Rape does not become a gender-neutral crime merely because all people in the country face some risk of other types of violence."
Justice John O'Keefe of the Federal Court of Canada

AFP/Getty Images   A white South African family told a Canadian refugee board hearing that they were increasingly afraid of living in that country because since they left, leaders of the ruling African National Congress, including President Jacob Zuma (above), had sung the anti-apartheid song Kill the Farmer, Shoot the Boer, even after a South African court ruled it was hate speech.

 

Justice O'Keefe found the ruling by the Immigration & Refugee Board of Canada "puzzling", revealing "serious misunderstanding of the law", and that the IRB member who made his ruling placed undue reliance on "trivial detail" in his assumption that the claimants, Charl and Naira Nel and their daughter were lying when they expressed a fear of remaining as white South Africans in the country they were anxious to depart. The Nels had made application for refugee protection in Canada.

Their claim of fear of rape and violence committed against the white South African population by the black majority was rejected by the IRB adjudicator, but upheld by the Federal Court which gave its support to continue their asylum claim. That claim is now set to be returned for a new determination, after the Federal Court had argued the family's claims of gender-based fear of violence against women and their race-based fear of black threats against whites had been mishandled.

The Nel family of three had left South Africa in 2010, applying for refugee protection in Canada, informing the IRB of their fears of becoming victims of crime and violence. Their descriptions of South Africa as a place of endemic violence and horrendously frequent rape is more than borne out by the facts where South Africa is generally identified as a country where social unrest, poverty, high crime rates and soaring incidents of rape distinguish it within the international community.

The Nels testified their fears had increased given their awareness of leaders of the ruling African National Congress, South African President Jacob Zuma included,  had sung the anti-apartheid-era song Kill the Farmer, Shoot the Boer (Boer is taken to include all white South Africans now, not merely the Dutch Colonialists of history), irrespective that a South African court had ruled the song to represent 'hate speech'.

Furthermore, pointed out the family, Genocide Watch, an organization monitoring genocide around the world, had upgraded the risk of genocide against the white population in South Africa since 2010, the time of the family's arrival in Canada. The Nels had appealed the decision of the Immigration &
Refugee Board to turn down their request for haven as refugees from South Africa, to the Federal Court.

Because it has good relations with South Africa, Canada accepts few refugee claims by citizens of South Africa; none has been accepted this year, nor the year before. Three had been accepted in 2012, but in 2009 when the IRB had granted a white South African asylum in Canada, the South African government protested the decision as "racist", while politicians, newspaper editorials and talk radio in South Africa rejected the decision as an insult to the country.

None of which alters the reality of South Africa as a still-dysfunctional, poverty-stricken, low-employment, high violence and rape-rampant country whose government may yet decide to follow the steps of Robert Mugabe by disenfranchising its white population through expropriating farms owned and operated by white South Africans, as has been bandied about in the near past.

South Africa Needs Him

"I don't come as a know-all who is going to pontificate and tell you Canadians what you must do."
"I think I can almost say, without fear of contradiction, that you do know what you should do."
"The Bible says God said to Adam, 'Till it and keep it'. Not 'Till it and destroy it.'"
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"He has a little bit more credibility than the actors and the players. Desmond Tutu has a lot of political experience and the public's ear. I hope he uses it well."
Melvin Campbell, Syncrude employee, Alberta

Archbishop Desmond Tutu gives the keynote address during the conference, As Long as the Rivers Flow: Coming Back to the Treaty Relationship in Our Time, in Fort McMurray, Alta. on Saturday May 31, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson ORG XMIT: EDM104
 
Canada has been given a special gift, a visit by now-retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu whose work alongside that of former South African President Nelson Mandela drew world attention in their fight against the racism of white-dominated South Africa's apartheid regime. Their political party gained power. The ruling African National Congress never managed to live up to its mandate nor its promise.

South Africa's dismal poverty level is as critical as ever, housing for the underprivileged is abysmal, unemployment is high, government corruption is endemic, and criminality is out of control. It is considered one of the murder capitals of the world. According to the Africa-based Institute for Security Studies, between 28 and 37% of all men in South Africa admit to having committed rape.

The police are impotent and are themselves corrupt and brutal. Their president, Jacob Zuma, is a rapist, so ignorant about HIV/AIDS, an epidemic in his country -- where men believe that raping a virgin child will protect them from contracting AIDS --  that he felt showering after raping an HIV-positive woman who regarded him as an avuncular family friend, would protect him against AIDS.

He is accused, with good reason, of siphoning off public funds for his private advantage.

Furthermore the incidence of child and baby rape in Bishop Tutu's country is one of the highest in the world. Now that's quite the social, cultural, political background for any country. South Africa has failed, time and again, to speak out against travesties of justice when someone like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe brought his country into ruination.

But he has most generously given of himself to help prevent the economic and trade exploitation of the Alberta oilsands, equating the efforts by those such as himself to bring development to a screeching halt to aid the environment, to the equally global effort to bring down the apartheid South African regime.

He has pledged himself to taking emphatically energetic stands on climate change and to refute the Keystone XL pipeline, signing a petition against the project, considering it appalling that Canada proposes to move oilsands bitumen from Albert to the United States; or anywhere else, for that matter.

Appalling?

Not the human rights violations, slavery, mass rapes, forced mass migrations leading to refugee homelessness, child abductions and violent tribal conflict renting asunder much of Africa?

South Africa's Hour

The late Nelson Mandela has been fairly universally recognized as a model for his times, possessed of a forgiving mentality, an attitude that his was only one side to the story, opening himself to the reality that there are attitudes, opinions and circumstances requiring careful consideration, to understand the dynamics that produce separation between people. With that understanding he dedicated himself to overcoming solitudes.

That knowledge did not descend upon him from birth. He cannily intuited that to settle differences one must understand the differences, interpret them, exhibit a degree of empathy even while sturdily in defence of one's own reality. He is described as the consummate politician, possessed of an intelligent acumen and a diplomat's thoughtfulness. That was his public side. And this is where he succeeded at becoming what much of the world now heralds as an extraordinary and just peacemaker.

And then there was the private Mandela, a man who was unfaithful to his first wife, and found it within himself to abandon her and their four children for another woman whom he favoured. Mandela found it necessary in his estimation to abandon his initial stance of peaceful resistance to the situation of racial apartheid in his country, and return violence for violence. He was responsible for promoting a youth wing of the ANC and a military wing as well.

And this last, and the active acts of violence which took many lives in the majority black response to minority white rule and the dreadful restrictions on black aspiration is what earned him a death sentence, commuted to life imprisonment and 27 years' incarceration before countries like Canada persuaded their counterparts to relentlessly lobby for his release and the end of apartheid.

Winnie Mandela never gave up the violence while her man was in prison. The horrible practise of necklacing as punishment for those willing to buckle under white rule, and her personal involvement in the murder of a young man, Stompie Moeketsi, by her Mandela United Football Club represented the violent phase and face of the African National Congress which had obeyed Nelson Mandela's search for peace through accommodation.

Despite Nelson Mandela's embrace of peaceful means to achieve the end of apartheid and white rule in South Africa, he made personal decisions to ally himself with leaders and heads of state whose human rights records and whose dedication to violence to achieve their goals did not reflect well on this man of peace. His friendliness with dictators and terrorists, recognizing them not for what they were but as resistors against tyranny with whom he felt a common accord belied his reputation.

His legacy as an influence on the world stage for justice and goodness is deserved in large part. But there is the dark side to the man and that too is deserved in reflection of the choices that he made. When American President Barack Obama, as the first black American to ascend to the U.S. presidency, echoing Nelson Mandela's achievement as the first black South African to take his country to black rule, spoke at the Mandela memorial South Africans feted him, loving what he represents.

Yet South Africa is no model of racial and social, economic and religious equality. Its society is fraught with crime, social inequity, lack of opportunity, poverty and misery. The freedom and prosperity that black South Africans anticipated with the ascent of the ANC and Nelson Mandela to overcome the wretchedness of the past has done nothing to cope with tribal antipathies, social inequality, labour inequities and quality of life for millions of poverty-stricken, crime-afflicted South Africans.

Israel and the Hijacking of Apartheid

December 10, 2013 7:22 pm

Author:

Richard D. Heideman

Tags:

Israel apartheid Israel apartheid Palestinians Israel Apartheid State Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela Israel Palestinians apartheid Richard Heideman Richard Heideman Israel South Africa Israel apartheid

Nelson Mandela in 2008. Photo: South Africa The Good News.

In remembering Nelson Mandela, we most recall his determined leadership in bringing down “apartheid” – the separation of races – in South Africa. His passing after a lifetime of suffering extreme prejudice and hatred causes us all to pause in honor of his deeds and in respect for his commitment to justice and equality.

The term “apartheid” evokes not only images of the struggle of his people in South Africa, but is a concept that is often taken, and sometimes mistaken, by advocates determined to achieve their own goals for their own purposes.

Such is the misuse of the term “apartheid” as it is thrown around in an accusatory framework against the State of Israel, which suffers regularly in the United Nations and in the press from the untrue and unfounded accusation that Israel, in building the terrorism prevention security fence, has built an “apartheid wall.”

For decades at the United Nations and in the press, the Palestinians and their supporters have blindly but broadly attempted to brand Israel as a racist criminal state, adopting resolutions equating Zionism with racism and continuing the war of words against Israel in repeated UN conferences and resolutions. The theme is simple and has been quite effective:  brand Israel as Zionist … brand Zionism as racism. With racism and apartheid being criminal … brand Israelis as part of a Zionist racist criminal conspiracy to commit apartheid. This ugly effort lives on without regard to the truth.

During the raging Second Intifada, when Palestinian terrorists were infiltrating Israel for the purpose of murder, maiming, and heinous acts of terror through suicide-homicide bombings, Israel took the necessary and rightful decision to defend and protect her people. This decision took various forms, including steps to provide security on the edges of the land located between Israel and the Palestinian territories, particularly between Israel and Gaza and between Israel and the Judea and Samaria areas of ancient Israel situated on the West Bank of the Jordan River. Construction of the terrorism security fence began in 2001 in an attempt to fence out the terrorists, and it has proven to be most effective in saving lives, limbs, and the fiber and fabric of families and communities.

Exactly ten years ago, on December 9, 2003, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution referring the question of the legal consequences of Israel’s construction of the security fence, calling it a wall, to the International Court of Justice. Israel’s opponents continually refer to it as a “separation barrier” for the specific purpose of evoking the image of separation between Israel and the Palestinians in a hijacking of “apartheid.”

The use of the ugly term apartheid in conjunction with wrongful accusations that Israel is a criminal racist state evidenced by the building of the security fence as a wall of separation, are unfair, untrue, and are maligning to the good name of Israel and the Jewish people.

Nelson Mandela fought apartheid for decades, was long imprisoned and then led the movement in South Africa to bring down apartheid. A review of the history of Israel’s relationship with South Africa goes back to the very beginning, with Israel’s establishment as a state in 1948 and admission into the United Nations.

South Africa was one of just 33 states that voted in favor of the 1947 UN partition resolution. Once Israel declared independence, South Africa was one of just a handful of nations to almost immediately grant de facto recognition to Israel, and ambassadors were exchanged. Yet, Israel was quite critical of the apartheid government which came to power in South Africa. This was evidenced clearly by Israel’s condemnation of a pro-apartheid speech given by South Africa at the UN on October 11, 1961. In 1963, Israel moved to recall its ambassador to the UN in protest of South African apartheid.

After the Six-Day War of 1967 and Yom Kippur War in 1973, relations between Israel and most African nations deteriorated. Surrounded by hostile neighbors armed by the USSR and bereft of friends in close-by Africa, relations with Israel, out of a perceived necessity, improved with South Africa. Despite Israel’s moral opposition to apartheid, both shared a common Cold War enemy, the USSR, which sponsored communist revolutionary movements in Africa including South Africa and armed Israel’s Arab neighbors.

After the fall of the apartheid regime, relations between South Africa and Israel were strained. Mandela was elected as President of South Africa and served for five years, from May 10, 1994 through June 16, 1999. Mandela visited Israel and the PA in 1999. Although Mandela was verbally supportive of Arafat and opposed the security fence, trade with Israel blossomed to more than $500 million by 2003. In 2004, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited South Africa. This was the first post-apartheid visit to South Africa by an Israeli leader.

Some leaders in South Africa today, unfortunately, presently refer to Israel in the context of apartheid, but the country’s leaders who lived through the apartheid period in South Africa did not. South Africa’s Ambassador to Israel, Major General Fumanekile Gqiba, certainly resisted the apartheid analogy, and once explained his rationale: “Before I came here, I regarded Jews as whites. Purely whites. But when I came here I discovered that, no, these guys are not purely whites… You’ve got Indian Jews, you’ve got African Jews, and you’ve got even Chinese Jews, right? I began to say to our comrades, no, Israel is not a white country… It’s difficult to say Israel is racist, in a classic sense.”
By the very definition of the term, how could Israel be racist if Israeli society is made up of all races, including its citizens and elected officials?

Recent remarks by South Africa’s Interior Minister, Maite Nkaona-Mashabane, who, as reported by The Algemeiner, turned heads with comments critical of Israel, saying, “The struggle of the people of Palestine is [the South African’s] struggle” seem to miss the greater lessons of South African history. The Minister also reportedly has stated that Ministers of South Africa do not visit Israel currently, further evidence of the anti-Israel bias displayed by the South African regime in a post-Mandela period, although the South African government has made statements this week to deny that fact, stating that there are no rules barring South African leaders from visiting Israel.

In memory of President Mandela, rightly viewed as a champion for equality, it is both timely and fitting to issue a call for the world to cease the inappropriate, unfair and untrue use of the term apartheid when referring to Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people. In that spirit, it should be remembered, acknowledged and appreciated that the Jewish people have historically stood against racism; have always stood for civil and individual rights; have always stood for the dignity and human rights of men, women and children from all religions, all races, all sexes, all national origins; and with a commitment to freedom, liberty and justice for all.

Richard D. Heideman serves as Senior Counsel of the Washington, D.C., law firm Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, PC, representing victims of terrorism and international human rights violations. He is the author of The Hague Odyssey:  Israel’s Struggle for Security on the Front Lines of Terrorism and Her Battle for Justice at the United Nations (Bartleby Press, 2013; see thehagueodyssey.com). Contact info@thehagueodyssey.com for more information.