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I rise to mourn Julian Lap, well
known architect and resident of my constituency who was brutally murdered in an
armed robbery at his home in Parktown North on Sunday night. The life of his
wife, prominent businesswoman Marilyn Visser, who was critically wounded in the
head in the incident, hangs by a thread. Their 16 year old son lies injured in
hospital. Mr. Lap was an active member of the Ward 90 Committee of Councillor
Ian Ollis - always involved, always willing to assist. He is the tenth
prominent murder victim in this hardest hit area of the ward since Councillor
Ollis was elected two years ago. Others include:
o Sandy Staats of Craighall Park, who was tied
up and boiled in hot water;
o Mike Thompson, father of two of Craighall who was stabbed, shot and thrown
into his swimming pool in front of his young son;
o Terry Smith, also of Craighall, highjacked and shot dead the very next day;
o Theresa Goldworthy of Craighall Park, shot and killed while sitting in her
car;
o Barbara Harrison of Beaufort Avenue, who was brutally attacked and died;
o Ian Giles of Giles Restaurant in Craighall Park - brutally murdered;
There are more I could and should list if I had
the time. Last November Councillor Ollis and I visited the Provincial
Commissioner Perumal Naidoo about this spate of murders and we were promised
more patrols, more roadblocks, more staff at Parkview Police Station but little
appears to have been done. MEC for Safety and Security in Gauteng Fivoz
Cachalia is claiming some success but the bottom line is that the police in
- statement
made by Sheila Camerer MP in the South African Parliament,
Basic
infrastructure and services across the country are crumbling. Water, sewerage and
local roads are all casualties of neglect and lack of forethought, and there is
a critical shortage of skilled professionals who could turn the situation
around. A survey conducted by the South African Institution of Civil Engineers
shows that municipalities in
- AfricanCrisis,
Affirmative Action (AA) , Black
Economic Empowerment (BEE) and now recently Black Apartheid (BA) is alive and
well. !! If you are White you are screwed. The monopoly of ANC in government
and the state departments is total, and nevermind what skills you may have or
what good you can offer the country, you are still screwed. If your skin is not
Black, you wil not be employed. Big private business are huge whoosy's and
basically spineless, as they sheepishly follow government instructions to
employ unskilled uneducated people with the correct skin colour. We all know
that our education system is the worst in the world and that our matric
certificate is not worth the paper it is written on. Our labour laws make it
all but impossible to get rid of under performing employees. Now dont get me
wrong, I am not anti black. There are great Black people in SA, well educated,
sensible people. However our one party state does not allow them to speak
freely. Even the poorest of the poor can see that the ANC is not delivering on
their promises and in their own mass action way they protest and destroy the
little bit they have. They the ANC, have even shut-up Bishop Tutu, a
man that acted as the moral voice of the people. Black Appatheid (BA) has now
blatantly raised it's head with ANC approval. Recently the Black Journalist
Forum invited Zuma to a meeting and openly excluded white journalists on the
basis of skin colour. It poses the question, what about the Black
journalists that did not attend? (or did not want to attend) and what was the
agenda of the meeting, what was the message that was given to the BJF?. How
much do they have to influence the Black vote in preperation for
next year’s elections? BEE has massively enriched the Black elite
with millions. Often you hear people say that the Nats stole 20% but at
least they delivered 80%. Now it is the other way round. Amazing how
history repeats itself, instead of a small group of Whites that manipulated the
country, we now have a small group of Blacks doing exactly the same. The
Auditor General report states that 12% of national, 4% of provincial and 0% of
municipal authorities were given a clean financial report. Well done, keep on
stealing! There is not a single government department (other than SARS) that is
not corrupt and inefficient. They inherited all the corrupt practises from the
NATS and perfected it. What will happen if the ANC wins the next election? The
current Mbeki clans will be cleansed out of government and the new clans will
start enriching themselves. What will happen if they loose or maybe land
up in a coalision government - the masses of ANC supporters (read
Xhosa) that sit in nice jobs will be booted and will go on the mass action
route. Shame the poor soccer guys - they even have to resort to calling
journalists "k@ffirs" on public TV, just to make a statement.
The message -
- “Born White in
An Afrikaans woman I know is busy
preparing to go to
-
report appearing in AfricanCrisis,
Yet another child will now grow up
without a Mother. She was murdered, during this week, in her home, in
front of her 14 month old baby son. Once again the gardener is a suspect. They
will probably not make too much of an effort to find him. The one who
murderd the mother in Sunningdale a few months ago has still not been found.
Most of our useless, lazy, corrupt police officers have better things to
do. Like sleep on duty, or go shopping in their police cars.
-
report sent by A.C. Durban,
What exactly is going on in
- Dan
Denning, Editor of “The Daily Reckoning”
South Africans today are deeply
demoralised people. The lights are going out in homes, mines, factories and
shopping malls as the national power authority, Eskom - suffering from mismanagement, lack of foresight, a failure
to maintain power stations and a flight of skilled engineers to other countries
- implements rolling power cuts that plunge towns and cities into daily chaos.
Major industrial projects are on hold. The only healthy enterprise now worth
being involved in is the sale of small diesel generators to powerless
households but even this business has run out of supplies and spare parts from
- Sunday
Herald (
Beeld newspaper
published this close-up picture of the strangulation marks on the throat of
Lydenburg rape victim Mariska Louw, 22 - ambushed in her flat in Lydenburg on
Friday evening, raped and assaulted by a Black man who only took her mobile
phone and keys, and then tied her up and locked her into her barricaded flat.
Neighbours, who had gone to fetch the police after hearing her screams, were
unable to reach her and police did nothing to rescue her.

Ms Louw already is a badly traumatised woman::
she had also found her fiancee Werner van Jaarsveldt murdered in September 2007
in Midrand. He had spotted her car -- hijacked ten days earlier -- had phoned
the police on his cellphone and then given chase. He was gunned down. They had
planned to be wed in November. Her latest ordeal started on Friday-night when
she returned to her flat at around
-
AfricanCrisis,
The violence-ravaged South African
Indian community of Chatsworth outside
-
AfricanCrisis,
Diamond, gold and platinum mines
were shut for the weekend owing to an electricity shortage that has crippled
the sector and left thousands of miners without work, officials said. The
country's major mining companies, such as the world's biggest diamond producer
De Beers, were in a crisis meeting on Saturday with public electricity company
Eskom. The electrical provider had obliged the mines to suspend their
operations the night before as it could not guarantee a steady supply. "At
the moment, things are as there were yesterday," De Beers spokesperson Tom
Tweedy told AFP. "There is no production. Our six mines are closed."
De Beers produces nearly 16 million carats per year and employs 5,100 workers
in the country. The situation is similar for gold mines in
Monday." No Eskom spokesperson was available on Saturday.
-
AFP report (forwarded by RHGE,

Graaff Reinet - Residents of this
historical town were shocked by the cruel murder of an Afrikaner police instructor.
Senior superintendent Erika Heunis, 36, was apparently also gang-raped before
she was beaten to death with stones. She was married and has two teenaged
daughters. There were supposedly three attackers, but by late on Tuesday police
still refused to reveal any facts. According to a source at the police academy
where she worked, she was running as usual with police students along
-
News24.com report,
About 900 people were stranded at
the top of Table Mountain on Monday night after yet another of the country's
many "rolling blackouts" by the country's parastatal
electricity-supplier ESKOM. The last passenger was finally brought down in the
early hours of Tuesday morning. The power supply had cut out at
-
AfricanCrisis,
The New South Africa - the crime
capital of the world !
· Former president – jail bird and
terrorist
· President to be – awaiting trial
· Commissioner of the Police and chief of
INTERPOL – awaiting trial
· Previous Whip of the ANC – paroled
· Minister of Defence – convicted
criminal
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!!
-
report sent by P.R., Transvaal, January 19, 2008
White unemployment has nearly doubled
since 1995, according to the Institute
for Security Studies. Today 430,000 Whites, of a total White population of
4.5 million [NB the total White population was approximately 6 million in 1990
- Ed.] , are “too poor to live in traditional White areas” and 90,000 “are in a
survival struggle”, says Lawrence Schlemmer, director of the Helen Suzman Foundation. Of these,
305,000 are Afrikaans-speaking and 215,000 speak English. Since 1998 these
figures have increased year-on-year by 15%. According to a survey by the South African Institute of Race Relations,
White unemployment increased by 74.4%, using the expanded definition, between
1998 and 2002, compared with the national average over the same period of
39.8%. It is important to note that the growth of White unemployment is off a
much lower population base than Black unemployment. A key goal of the National
Party in the heyday of apartheid was to uplift poor Whites by using the state
and semi-state sectors to provide them with jobs and housing, reserving certain
jobs for Whites, favouring their trade unions and shoring up the farming
sector. But for the first time in the mid-1970s, there were more white-collar
than blue-collar Afrikaners, and the policies of the NP shifted accordingly.
Poor Whites were increasingly abandoned by the state. The 1994 election and the
advent of majority rule has accelerated the downward precipitation of Whites
without capital or marketable skills.
-
AfricanCrisis,
Hundreds of policemen are being
murdered in armed violence which are targetting them under the ANC's rule in
-
AfricanCrisis,
A British father of six has been
shot dead in front of his wife and children as he pleaded with armed robbers
not to harm them in his heavily fortified home in
-
Daily Telegraph,
Internationally-known
- AfricanCrisis,
- Sunday Telegraph,
Singer Sonja Herholdt was injured
after being robbed on Christmas Eve. Herholdt, who has entertained South Africans
for decades with her songs, suffered slight cuts to her chin and hands after a
thief smashed the passenger window of her almost brand new VW Golf 5. She was
on her way home to Randburg after visiting Carel F Cronje, her autobiographer
and his partner, Cornell Boshoff, in
-
Beeld report,
This
year's 21st
- Southern Cross Africa News,
In the Durban High Court, a self-confessed Black killer described how he
shared a meal with seven-year-old Vuyani Nqulunga, - before cutting the Black
child's head off and removing his genitals. The 17-year-old Black
killer, whose name may not be published because he is still a minor, said
a bricklayer who employed him told him in August or September that he needed a
boy's head, - and offered him R20,000 for one. Using children's body part as
'muti', medicine, is a common practice among Black witch-doctors, and has been
ostensibly given new impetus by the ruling regime's official granting of
recognition and respectability of witch-doctors as 'health practitioners'
- Southern Cross Africa News,
Only four lifts out of 21 are
operational at Johannesburg Hospital, the hospital's chief executive said on
Thursday. Extra staff had been employed to carry patients up and down the
stairs, said Sagie Pillay. "If we have to carry the patients, then that is
what we will do. We have signs posted that the lifts are not working and
apologise for any inconvenience caused. "The matter is receiving our
highest attention," he said. According to the Democratic Alliance's
provincial health spokesperson, Jack Bloom, the Department of Public Works was
to blame for the problem. "They (the Department) cancelled all contracts
with lift companies earlier this year. "Since then there has been constant
problems getting contractors mandated by the Public Works Department to service
and repair lifts," said Bloom. He said he had received reports from
hospital staff saying that they were experiencing difficulty in getting
patients from operating theatres to the intensive care unit. "With so many
lifts out of order, this has turned from an inconvenience to a crisis. Action
should be taken immediately," said Bloom.
- SAPA report forwarded by RHGE,
A 21-year-old man sustained
serious injuries in an attempted hijacking in Weltevreden Park on Sunday, Johannesburg
paramedics said. ER24 spokesperson Werner Vermaak said the attack took place at
a housing complex in Without Street around 02:00. "Paramedics that arrived
on the scene found the 21-year-old lying in the house at the time. He sustained
serious injuries to his face, head and possible fractures to his hands and
wrists," Vermaak said. It was understood that the man had been visiting a
friend in the complex and was about to leave when a group of men tried to
hijack his Toyota Corolla outside the complex. "The 21-year-old put up a
vicious fight," he said. It was believed that hijackers fled the scene.
The severely beaten man was found lying next to his car by his friend who
dragged him into the house.
- SAPA report forwarded by RHGE,
Robbers used pruning shears to
lop off four fingers of an elderly Limpopo [Far Northern Transvaal] woman and
her husband's life is hanging by a thread after he was repeatedly struck on the
head with a panga. The horrifying attack and plunder of the couple's home
lasted for about eight hours. When Theuns Janse van Rensburg, 72, lost
consciousness, his attackers undressed him and placed him on the couple's bed.
One of the attackers lay next to him, watching television for several hours.
Tienie Janse van Rensburg, the couple's shocked son, told Beeld : "They hacked my father and left him for dead, and my
stepmother is shattered." Tienie said his father's dentures were found on
the floor of the passage. One of Hettie's fingers was also lying in the house.
His father had heard a noise outside the 7th Street house about 20:00. "My
dad went to see what was happening and that's when the attackers must have
slipped in at the front door." One attacker slashed at Janse van Rensburg
repeatedly with his panga. Hettie tried to fight back, but four of the fingers
on her left hand were severed with a pair of garden shears. Her right arm was
also broken.Bleeding profusely, she ran to the main bedroom's en-suite
bathroom, where she locked herself in and used a towel to stem the flow of
blood from her hand. Her unconscious husband was dragged through to the main
bedroom, stripped naked and placed on the bed. Janse van Rensburg was moved to
Unitas Hospital in Centurion [Verwoerrdburg] by helicopter on Monday morning.
He was still unconscious on Monday evening. Kate Cvitanic, a spokesperson for
the hospital, said he was in a serious, but stable, condition. Another son,
Pierre Janse van Rensburg, said his stepmother looked terrible and was
confused. "My father has a fracture of the skull, where he was hit on the
head with the panga." Dries Joubert, the president of TLU SA North, said the number of attacks on elderly people in
Limpopo in recent times had amounted to a low-intensity war. In another
incident on Monday, a woman was attacked in her farm stall in the Mokopane
district and had serious facial injuries.
- Beeld
report forwarded by RHGE,
A German-born White South African, Franz
Richter, owner of Aloe Ridge Lodge
and Heia Safari Ranch in Swartkops
near Krugersdorp, was gunned down in an armed robbery by Black killers on
Wednesday morning. The elderly Richter was an 'iconic character' of the South
African tourism industry, according to the Southern
African Tourism Services Association, which 'condemned' his murder. Until
his death, Richter was optimistic about the so-called ‘new’ South Africa, and
had been involved in developing tourism to the area for the last 35 years. He
believed in selling Africa as an ideal tourist destination to the world. The
murder of Richter followed soon after the recent murders of the owners of the Wartburger Hof Hotel early in November.
- Southern Cross Africa News,
An 85-year-old Afrikaner farmer,
Barend Jonker of the Geyser area near Usterberg, was attacked while milking
cows yesterday. This is the area's sixth farm attack since 26 October - and
during which two farmers were murdered and two seriously injured and still
fighting for their lives in local hospitals. The local Transvaal Agricultural Union (TLU) president Dries Joubert warns
South African farmers that based on this rapid increase and the high level of
ferocity shown in these latest farm attacks, this holiday season will be
'bloody, violent and extremely cruel' for South Africa's commercial
agricultural farmers once again. Mr Jonker survived the attack but is in
critical condition in Polokwane hospital. The old Afrikaner was milking his
cows at about 6am on his farm Rietvlei near Ysterberg when he was attacked from
behind by someone with an axe. It's not known whether anyone else was involved.
A Netcare paramedic said Jonker's
face and head sustained 'very serious injuries'. A small amount of cash
apparently may have been robbed but this is not yet certain.
- AfricanCrisis,
University of Pretoria
professor Margaret Slabbert was heartbroken and fighting back tears after she
saw her unarmed husband shot in the heart in front of her at their home in Nicolson
Street, Brooklyn, Pretoria, on Wednesday. Gerhard Slabbert, 53, a consulting
engineer, died shortly afterwards. On Saturday night, a 13-year-old girl had
also been shot in the leg in the same street in an attack by armed men.
Professor Margaret Slabbert, 51, of the university's visual arts department
spoke of her sorrow on Thursday as she recounted what had happened at about
22:00 on Wednesday. The Slabberts had returned after taking their sons's car to
him. She said: "When we turned into the drive of our property, a man was
climbing over the wall. I was driving. My husband got out of the car and asked
the man what he wanted. When my husband asked him a second time what he was
looking for, I saw the man take something out of his pocket. It was a firearm.
Unfortunately, my husband realised it too late. The moment he saw what was
happening, he tried to jump back into the car. The guy shot him in the
heart". With her husband on the seat next to her, Slabbert reversed up the
driveway and sped to a nearby hospital. Slabbert said: "There was no
reason for the man to shoot my husband. He could have just run off. Gerhard was
a wonderful person. Everyone was mad about him. All that I know is that my
children must get out of here (South Africa) as soon as they can," she
said.
- AfricanCrisis,
Only 10% of all the reported
28,828 countrywide livestock thefts ended up in a first-court appearance of the
farm attackers - 2% less than the previous year, and armed attackers against
South African farms have increased by 24.8% this year. Ryno King, Democratic
Alliance spokesman said “we are now paying for Mbeki's unilateral decision to
end the commando systems, which were specialised in chasing down
livestock-poachers and farm attackers.” The Democratic Alliance was supplied
these farm-attack statistics after raising the issue in Parliament this week.
The largest number of livestock thefts occurred in Natal, with 7,256 animals
looted from the fields by organised, armed criminals. This includes wildlife, cattle, sheep and goats
Jan Vorster, the 79-year-old retired farmer of
Nelspruit whose body was so badly mutilated by a panga-attack on Friday that
his survival was doubtful, has died. The life-support machines were turned off.
He was attacked and badly mutilated by two armed attackers with pangas - who
only stole a radio, which was later found discarded. Beeld newspaper reported
his son-in-law Kobus Greyvenstein as saying that “Vorster fought to the end.”
His widow Hannatjie was slightly injured in the attack. He is survived by his
widow, daughter Ivy, 40, five grandchildren and two stepsons Cornelius, 50 and
Jan Viljoen, 54.
Six armed attackers stormed into an Asian family's
Erasmia home on Monday and gunned down all the male family members present there.
Two family members, Ali Janoo, 17 and his brother-in-law Mohammed Lambad, were
killed instantly. Family patriarch Moosa Janoo, 67 and his 24-year-old son
Akhter Janoo are in the intensive-care unit of Kalafond hospital at
Atteridgeville in unknown condition. A shocked Mr Rizwan Kahn, a member of the
sector policing forum who arrived shortly after the attack, said the large
group of armed attackers fled in two vehicles, a white Toyota Corolla and a
white minibus. The family's 13-year-old daughter and the matriarch also were in
the house during the murder spree.
- News24 reports,
Fears over security
overshadowed the draw for the 2010 World Cup yesterday after it emerged that a
former Austrian goalkeeper, a close friend of Franz Beckenbauer, had been shot
dead on a golf course near Durban. Although the FIFA president Sepp Blatter
dismissed any direct link to the draw for the tournament – the first big test
for South Africa in the countdown to 2010 – news that Pieter Burgstaller had
been murdered sparked fresh concerns over the country's deadly crime rate.
Austrian and German Football Federation officials confirmed that the
43-year-old events manager was on holiday in South Africa, but had been invited
to attend yesterday's draw by Beckenbauer, the former German international who
is now a vice-president of FIFA. Burgstaller was found shot dead with a single
bullet wound to the chest on Friday evening on the 12th tee of a golf course at
the exclusive Selborne Hotel, Spa and Golf Estate in Pennington, an hour's
drive from Durban. Police believe the motive was robbery. Blatter said:
"We deplore that a tourist from Austria was shot dead yesterday on a golf
course.” In a separate incident, Oliver Bierhoff, the German team manager, had
his briefcase stolen on Sunday on his way to breakfast at his hotel in Durban.
It contained his passport and two mobile phones as well as paperwork relating
to the draw.
- Daily Telegraph,
According to security experts, the
isolation and helplessness of Whites in Black-ruled South Africa have been
illustrated by a White couple having been attacked and shot and lying dead and
half-dead for three days before anybody even knew about it. Beaten up by Black
gunmen and semi-conscious, Martina Stocker lay next to her husband's bloody
corpse from Wednesday till Friday before being discovered when their company
raised the alarm. The Black gang had shot her
husband Jürgen, 66, in his upper body at their Bryanston home on Wednesday
night, and simply tied up and left his body in his own blood where he had
collapsed in the passage. Martina lay in the same passage from the time of the
attack until 9am on Friday, when Inspector Hein van Heerden, from Randburg police
station, found her. Detectives said at first they thought the viciously
attacked Martina was also dead, but, after confirming she was alive, they
called the paramedics.
-
Southern Cross Africa News,
Another White man has been shot and
killed by Blacks in his house in Northern Natal. Late on Friday night, Herman
Strydom of Vryheid, who was in his forties, returned home with his wife after
closing their shop in town. When he opened his security gate he was callously
shot dead. His wife activated the alarm and the attackers fled. A White
University of Cape Town commercial law professor, Mike Larkin, was stabbed to
death by Black robbers as he walked down Rosslyn Road in Rondebosch on Friday.
Residents claim that attacks and muggings by Blacks are an almost everyday
occurrence. An angry Johnny Johnson, who lives in Roslyn Road, said he and his
wife Nina had come home on Friday to find the road cordoned off. "There
was a body lying in the road outside our house, under a sheet soaked in
blood... [ANC] Safety and Security Minister Charles Ngcula called us whingers,
but who wants to come home to find a dead man in front of your door?" He
said muggers would seize bags and then flee into the Liesbeeck River and then
run to the station where they would jump on to a train. Larkin, believed to be
in his late 50s and divorced, joined UCT as head of the department of
commercial law in January last year. He had been associated with the leftist
University of Witwatersrand for 35 years, most recently as deputy dean of the
faculty. His area of specialisation is corporate law. Most English-speaking
formerly White universities were at the forefront of the campaign to topple the
White government and establish Black rule over the whole of South Africa. Since
then, many of them have turned around and criticised the ruling ANC. Larkin was
one of the signatories to a letter written by members of UCT law faculty to
question whether ANC stalwart John Hlophe, who was made judge president of the
Cape, should stay on in his position after having been found out taking a
R10,000 monthly 'retainer' from the Oasis
Group.
-
Southern Cross Africa News,
Murders and rapes are forcing women
to abandon their homes in five villages outside Mthatha in the Eastern Cape
Province, the SABC reported on Friday. The residents of Skhobeni, Xhongora,
Sigubudwini, Bozwana and Tabase villages claim that this violence against women
has been going on since 2003. Nine people have been killed and eleven women
raped since last September, the SABC said. The situation has forced some
families to abandon their homes and seek refuge with neighbours or to live in
the bush. Nobangile Mtirara - a female traditional leader in the area - told
the SABC: "Government must take care of us and get policemen to look after
us. People are not safe as they say they are sleeping outside their
homes."
-
AfricanCrisis,
Helene Kerkhof, 21 - who had just
returned to South Africa after two years in Taiwan - was tied to her dying
father Rian by four armed attackers in Pretoria and terrorised. Her father was
shot in his Moreleta Park cottage on Thursday - the day of her return to South
Africa. "I begged them to take everything and go so that I could take my
father to hospital, but they shook him, laughed and said he was okay." A
dazed Ms Kerkhof said the four armed men had stormed into her unarmed dad's
cottage on Thursday and gunned him down at once. They then terrorised her and
her seriously injured dad for more than an hour for no particular reason.
Helene was asleep when the armed men gunned down Kerkhof inside his home in De
Villebois-Mareuil Street. "I woke up hearing voices and a shot. I knew we
were being robbed and called my father. Four men stormed into my room, picked
me up, hit me and threw me down next to my father. He was seriously wounded.
"They tied us to each other and kicked me several times. One of them tried
to pull up my shirt, but I laid curled up and asked him not to," she
said. "I told them to take
everything and go. My father was shot through the right side and was bleeding
to death. He was in a lot of pain, but kept asking if I was okay." Helene
and her father had to watch for more than an hour how the robbers searched the
house and ate from the fridge before they eventually left with two laptop
computers, a digital camera, DVD-player, iPod and two mobile phones at about
00:30 Kerkhof was taken to Pretoria East Hospital by ambulance, where he underwent
emergency surgery. He died on Friday morning shortly before his wife and
children arrived at the hospital.
"I looked forward to returning to South Africa, but I cannot live
in a place where such pigs are terrorising the community. "Nobody is safe.
It's not enough to rob. They want to kill," said Helene. "I am angry.
Is nobody going to do something about the senseless gruesome acts?" she
wanted to know. Police inspector Paul Ramaloko merely commented that 'nobody
has been arrested in connection with the incident.'
-
AfricanCrisis,
More policemen were murdered in the
eleven years after 1994 than in the eleven years preceding South Africa's
political transition, the South African
Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) said on Monday. "The research
found that between 1983 and 1993, about 1,152 policemen were murdered. Between
1995 and 2005, a staggering 1,894 were murdered," the Institute said. This
indicates an increase of 64%," said Kerwin Lebone, the Institute's researcher
who compiled the statistics. Lebone said that if there were any South Africans
that had to date failed to grasp the seriousness of criminal attacks on South
Africa "these figures should shock them out of their complacency". He
said the murder of many policemen before 1994 was allegedly politically
motivated, because ‘liberation’ (i.e. terrorist) movements regarded the
previous government as ‘illegitimate’, and encouraged attacks on that
administration's personnel and institutions. "There seemed to be no political
motivation for the continued attacks on policemen after the political
settlement of 1994," said Lebone. He said the increase in the number of
murdered police and the huge leap in aggravated robberies were of serious
concern. Criminals seemed to be showing more disdain for the security forces of
the present government than they did for the previous one.
-
AfricanCrisis,
The images
of Thabo Mbeki being hoisted by ANC state-appointed officials with the William
Webb Ellis Cup in his hands was a contravention of the very essence of the
game. What part had he played in the Springboks victory? What was he even doing
on the podium? If England had won would the English squad have lifted Gordon
Brown into the air in triumph? Not bloody likely. Nobody seems to consider this
inappropriate . . . well I bloody do . . . political hi-jacking of sporting
occasions an anathema to most peoples' notions of sport. Why it was done with
the tacit approval of the IRB is not beyond me though. They realised South
Africa and South African rugby is going down the toilet and this pathetic
gesture might do some good to assuage forces and opinion back there that this
victory was for everyone in South Africa. Jake White deserves immense credit
for his single-minded bravery in attaining his objective. It was difficult
enough to beat what was in front of his team (actually not really) but the team
had to stay focused. What was even more difficult was to stay on course as he
was put under huge political pressure to include a significantly higher
proportion of Black players than he had been up to and including the
Tri-Nations. To howls of protest, White only picked six non-White players in
his squad, the same as in 2003; they might have been the unwritten rules. White
kept his head and won in the end without having to carry players who were not
up to the grade. Butana Komphela, a senior and powerful ANC member suggested
that the Springboks should have their passports revoked by the government.
White, after winning the World Cup, will not get a second term. Komphela has
declared that the ANC will never support Jake White if he bids for a second
term . . . the point being that he would rather see a losing multi-racial side
based purely on political quotas, not merit, represent South Africa than see a
predominately White team based on merit. From the new season onwards the
Springboks will by law have to have 10 Black players in a squad of 22
irrespective of whether the 10 are of international quality or not. How come a
political party can dictate this? Surely it is an act which circumvents the
fundamental principles of sport . . . pick your best team and compete to win.
It is amongst other things an act of overt racism and an act where the ruling
Black ANC party would take huge satisfaction if not glee from diluting and
destroying one of the last bastions and passions of the former White ruling
class. The ANC recently passed another resolution that the Springbok title and
emblem be scrapped. I recently read Martin Meredith's “The State of Africa”,
and it is a stunning read. It charts the history of every state in Africa since
accession or independence. It is also depressing as it charts literally the
same dismal cycle of misgovernance, corruption, greed, death, tyrannical
leadership etc. But there is a recurring theme of racial hatred. Sometimes we
lose the real sense of what racism is about in our politically correct and
appropriately sanitised society. Calling someone a sambo as they walk down
O'Connell Street [Sackville Street] might now be considered a heinous crime
here, but everything is a question of scale. Witness the Hutus and the Tutsis
in Rwanda . . . genocide on a grand scale . . . two million dead inside a year.
The Biafran War, 1-2 million dead, Darfur . . . the list is endless. Black
people hating Black people and willing to kill wantonly . . . you talk of scale
then this is point blank. But no matter how deep seated the indigenous people's
hate for each other is; it pales into insignificance for the dislike of the
White man. Already it has manifested itself in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe's
government decides this course of action on a daily basis, overtly racist. So
remind me why, when Ireland played Zimbabwe in the recent Cricket World Cup,
that nobody said a word? As in the '60s and '70s in the sporting
protests/boycotts against South Africa, why weren't there people flour-bombing
the cricket crease from crop-dusters or rushing barbed wire fences or holding
all day sit-ins outside the Zimbabwean hotel? If I wanted to register my
disgust at Ireland playing sport against such a racist regime how would I do
so? I tried to ring the Irish anti-apartheid movement but no such organisation
exists anymore. Now that Kader Asmal is happily ensconced in power in South
Africa, I haven't heard him come back to Ireland and condemn Mugabe and his
oppressive regime. Thabo Mbeki and the ANC give encouragement, economic help
and friendship to Mugabe and his regime . . . I find that objectionable. Mbeki
has serious issues to deal with in his country. An Interpol report stated that
the annual murder rate in South Africa is in fact twice the reported rate of
23,500 (actual 47,000); 95% of that is Black killing Black. Hunger,
inertia, political unrest and poverty are powerful catalysts for further change.
The White man's prosperity and capital are what are required and slowly but
surely it will be acquired. Quite possibly the first step is to take the White
man's rugby team away from him . . . that will really hurt! It is my experience
of South Africa that the Black man plays soccer almost exclusively and the
White man plays rugby. On one weekend in Johannesburg years ago I went to watch
the Blue Bulls play in Ellis Park on a Saturday, the following Sunday the
Kaiser Chiefs played a game of football. On Saturday there were no Black faces
in the audience, on Sunday my slightly pink visage and that of my companion
were the only White people in attendance. Out of a population of 48 million, 38
million are Black and 4.3 million are White [N.B. In 1990 there were 6 million Whites
in South Africa - therefore a net 1.7 million have either emigrated or have
died (a disproportionate number having been murdered) in 17 years - ed.]. The minority play a minority sport within that country . . .
there is no bar at school, university, club, provincial or international except
that you be good enough. The South African international soccer side has only
one White man in its squad. There is no bar on participation. The
composition of the team is overwhelmingly Black yet there is no need for state
mandated quotas. Why? If the Black political class are serious about
multi-racial rugby it should not start from the top down but from the bottom
up. The reason I was opposed to Thabo Mbeki appearing on the pitch in Paris is
that he is the president of a party which has imposed sanctions on a sporting
body, ones which I think are overtly racist. The spine of the Springbok side
realise it and well before their time they are leaving and going to Europe.
It's hard to gauge how weak South Africa will be in 4 years. It is a worrying
trend for rugby and things in general in that country. Have we lost sight of
the real meaning of racism or are we afraid to say it. South Africa steps up in
2010 to host the soccer World Cup. If they win, will the White minority rejoice
even though they have practically no representation? In the meantime will our
moral guardians be as swift to act as they were in the 60's and 70's if there
are further discriminatory shifts in sport policy. Should we call for a boycott
in 2010 if things deteriorate more? Racism cuts both ways, don't be afraid
to sound your voice.
- Sunday Tribune (Dublin),
Shoppers fled in panic at the
Kolonnade Shopping Centre north of the city [Pretoria] on Tuesday afternoon,
when robbers went on a shooting spree and robbed two jewellery stores. Netcare
911 spokesperson Nick Dollman said a security guard had been shot in the
buttock and a woman had to be treated in hospital for shock. Three shots were
fired through the display windows of the Truworths clothing store on the top
floor of the centre.
-
report sent by RHGE (Johannesburg),
Power failures hit parts of the
country on Friday morning after "unplanned outages" at Eskom.
"Eskom started implementing load shedding this morning after losing
electricity imports from the Cahora Bassa [hydroelectric project in
Mozambique]," said the company. Eskom said the problem was being
investigated. South Africa relied on about 1,400 megawatts of power from the
station. Power had also been lost when several generation units went on
"unplanned outages". Load shedding would be rotated, with areas being
without power for about two hours at a time. Eskom said they were using all
their emergency energy resources at hand, including gas turbines and buying
back power from large industrial customers. "However, this was not
sufficient to address the shortfall," said the company. Residential
customers are asked to switch off geysers during peak hours from 07:00 to 10:00
and from 18:00 to 21:00. Business are asked to turn off all non-essential
lighting and equipment.
-
SAPA report,
Crime has again come knocking -
literally - at swimming ace Ryk Neethling's door in Lynnwood, Pretoria. Someone
really has it in for the Neethling family: this was the third time he himself
was robbed in the past 12 months - and his family members have also recently
been targetted by attackers. On June 6 2007, his mum San-Marié was punched in
the face and threatened with a knife during a smash-and-grab robbery in
Johannesburg - but the only thing looted in the end was a cheap mobile phone.
This happened when the Neethling family were in town to support their journalist-daughter
Elsje Neethling in her battle with cancer. The family - his father Ryk
Neethling snr, his wife and their daughter the swimmer Jean-Marié - were
attacked at a traffic light in Beyers Naudé Drive. And a year earlier, also in June 2006, the
Olympic champion's house was burgled and many of his cherished medals stolen,
including Commonwealth and World golds. Yesterday, only a spur-of-the-moment
decision to travel to Bloemfontein to watch the Currie Cup semi-final, probably
saved him from coming face-to-face with the burglars at his home in Lynnwood,
Pretoria. Police spokesman Lucas Sithole said the burglars had kicked down a
door to gain access to the house at about 13:00 on Sunday. Beeld was told that Neethling hadn't had any plans to go to
Bloemfontein for the match between the Bulls and the Cheetahs. But on Saturday
morning, he and his housemate, Neil Cloete, had decided on the spur of the
moment to drive there after all. A person close to the family said it was a
"blessing" that they were not there when the burglars struck, because
their lives could have been in danger. Apparently a TV set, a DVD player and a
laptop were taken. Sithole said the police were still waiting for Neethling to
confirm what had been stolen this time. No-one had been arrested yet, he added.
-
AfricanCrisis,
There was bedlam when five armed
robbers struck at a church in Witbank on Friday. An elderly woman was stabbed
and several shots fired at about 30 children
and adults who were at the church at the time. Some of the children were also
beaten with firearms and a stick and shoved around. The 29