LATEST NEWS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

 

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 Johannesburg are not coping with the rapidly rising rate of brutal murders and robberies at private homes - they lack the leadership, the capacity and the resources to cope, and for this the government must take the blame.

-  statement made by Sheila Camerer MP in the South African Parliament, March 5, 2008

 

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 South Africa had on average fewer than three qualified civil engineers per 100,000 households. The ideal, they say, would be 20 municipal engineers per 100,000 households. “Municipalities are not doing condition assessments and officials cannot say for sure what state the infrastructure is in," TT Innovations engineer Justin Spreckley said on Sunday. The repair of water and sewerage piping alone will likely cost billions but the biggest worry is the nation's overloaded roads. The department of water affairs and forestry's report for the 2006/2007 financial year cites the lack of technical expertise at municipal level as "a significant area of concern". Local authorities in Natal have already experienced serious sewerage spills and, according to a government study of municipal treatment works, these spills are the result of badly maintained and poorly-run treatment works, especially in small municipalities.

 

-  AfricanCrisis, March 3, 2008

 

 

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 - South Africa is no different to the rest of Africa. Don’t waste energy, get the hell out. If you can’t now, then focus on making enough money so that you can in the future.

 

- “Born White in Africa”, Benoni,  February 25, 2008

 

 

An Afrikaans woman I know is busy preparing to go to Australia. She and her husband sat in the English exam which foreign countries force South Africans to take before allowing them in. (I have no problem with this). She said her husband counted the rows and number of people present at the exam. It was an English exam (to prove that people are fluent in English) for people who are going to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. She said that the vast majority of people taking the test in the hall were WHITE. There were a handful of Asians and only one Black guy. Her husband estimated there were 400 people in the hall. Other friends of hers had mentioned that about a year ago, there were only 250 people attending this test. Now it is 400. So it would appear, from this anecdotal evidence that it is disproportionately WHITES who are leaving this country in droves. Of course the English exam is a clever concept by these other countries since it may help to reduce the number of non-Whites going. I will tell you, this Afrikaans lady and her husband were studying English thoroughly before doing the exam. So perhaps it will also have benefits as it will make Afrikaners who leave the country become more Anglicised and it will make it easier for them to fit into the wider world and to progress there. It can only be for their benefit.

 

-  report appearing in AfricanCrisis, February 18, 2008

 

 

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,  February 17, 2008

 

 

What exactly is going on in South Africa? We know the state power company, ESKOM, has called for a 10% reduction in industrial and commercial usage indefinitely. It says the rationing of electricity may not be far off, and that the crisis will last at least six months. Coal stockpiles to run South Africa's generating facilities are low. And in the mining industry, a 10% reduction in power means a 20% reduction in output owing to all the systems (ventilation, pumping) that must be in operation for a mine to operate. Platinum group metals, of which South Africa is a major producer, should continue to benefit. But what in the world will happen to South Africa as an economy and a country? "South Africa has been flung full tilt into a Premature Long Emergency," Jim Kunstler's correspondent writes. "In the up market suburbs, not least to say generally all over the urban landscape, there is not a 1km (5/8 mile) strip of tarred road that is not full of potholes (huge gapping holes, across which vehicles cannot drive), the roadside curbs are disintegrating, the road maintenance programmes over the last 10 years have failed to maintain the roads in a serviceable and passable state. “The nation is gripped in a crisis of rolling power outages caused by the incompetence of highly paid government ministers and their charges. The news of the weekend is that the nation is in dire straits with the supply of clean, drinkable water to households and business alike. We are faced with unusual weather patterns, floods at the moment, high rain fall for the summer, the expectation of an early, long cold winter. "The rolling power outages are resulting in about a 25% national power outage per month. The ramifications of this can be related directly to an income loss of the same amount, retail supplies are being interrupted and from a security point of view it is dangerous to shop in malls. The Electricity Supply Commission - ESKOM are indicating a forced reduction on power usage by 10%, further, the mines have been told not to work on Fridays. "There are revenue and cost implications here that extend beyond the obvious monthly figures. What of the power saving measures that may in turn lead to greater problems, the mines are unable to pump excess ground water from the shafts, the maintenance programmes are due to suffer. And what of the safety indications, miners are protesting the possibility of being caught under ground or in lift shafts as the random power cuts hit the service grids. "It is not only that ESKOM have not maintained or expanded their operations in the last 15 years, but the next big whammy is that there is no coal to keep the power stations running...at most times, there is a couple of months supply of coal on-site for electricity operations, today there is hardly a few days supply. Incidentally the reason given for this catastrophe is that the trucks delivering the coal have been unable to get to the power stations as the road infrastructure has deteriorated- potholes again. In the Afrikaans language: 'slaggate' - a direct translation to 'slaughter holes'. As this is written, we wait for the next couple of days to see the effect of the 'coal emergency'.  "At some point the effect of the power emergency on water and sanitation supply should be considered and this would be part of the roll out of unexpected events resultant of the collapse of the power supply, but the water board have usurped the power supply with homegrown problems of their own... "So here we have it, 43% of the dams have safety problems and are in danger of collapsing. Further to this, the ground water in “Gauteng”, the province of Johannesburg, has radioactive contamination from mining operations.  "Now, as a matter of interest, Johannesburg is one of the few cities in the world that is built on a hill and water has to be pumped up into the city! "And what of the people's reaction? Complacency does not even come close, the nation is either brain-dead or ignorant, or just plain 'frog in a pot' of water with the temperature rising. "The first reaction to the power emergency took the form of a rush for candles, refilling of gas bottles and the purchasing of generators (if you could get them). Then the complacency set it, business learnt to sit through power outages, retail shops were forced to close their doors for a few hours a day. There was and is a shortage of food supplies, food went bad in the fridges and had to been thrown away. It was kind of charming in a strange kind of way, to eat dinner by candle light and forgo the 'soapies' on TV. Traffic lights were out over a large number of suburbs and delays in getting to business meetings became the norm. "The schools are unable to teach a full day's lesson. The internet service providers and the mobile phone companies' frequently have service delays or are just plain 'off line'. The battery runs out on your laptop and that's the days productive work is over until the power is back on...Patients in ICU or undergoing operations, as the power grid went down, were at risk of and did, die.

-  Dan Denning, Editor of “The Daily Reckoning” Australia, February 13, 2008

 

 

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 China. The currency, the Rand, has entered freefall. Crime, much of it gratuitously violent, is rampant, and the national police chief faces trial for corruption and defeating the ends of justice as a result of his alleged deals with a local mafia kingpin and dealer in hard drugs. Newly elected African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma, the state president-in-waiting, narrowly escaped being jailed for raping an HIV-positive woman last year, and faces trial later this year for soliciting and accepting bribes in connection with South Africa's shady multi-billion-pound arms deal with British, German and French weapons manufacturers. One local newspaper columnist suggests that Zuma has done for South Africa's international image what Borat has done for Kazakhstan. ANC leaders in 2008 still speak in the spiritually dead jargon they learned in exile in pre-1989 Moscow, East Berlin and Sofia while promiscuously embracing capitalist icons - Mercedes 4x4s, Hugo Boss suits, Bruno Magli shoes and Louis Vuitton bags which they swing, packed with money passed to them under countless tables - as they wing their way to their houses in the south of France. It all adds up to a hydra-headed crisis of huge proportions - a perfect storm as the “Rainbow Nation” slides off the end of the rainbow and descends in the direction of the massed ranks of failed African states. Eskom has warned foreign investors with millions to sink into big industrial and mining projects: we don't want you here until at least 2013, when new power stations will be built. In the first month of this year, the Rand fell 12% against the world's major currencies and foreign investors sold off more than £600 million worth of South African stocks, the biggest sell-off for more than seven years. "There will be further outflows this month, because there won't be any news that will convince investors the local growth picture is going to change for the better," said Rudi van der Merwe, a fund manager at South Africa's Standard Bank. Commenting on the massive power cuts, Trevor Gaunt, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Cape Town, who warned the government eight years ago of the impending crisis, said: "The damage is huge, and now South Africa looks just like the rest of Africa. Maybe it will take 20 years to recover." The power cuts have hit the country's platinum, gold, manganese and high-quality export coal mines particularly hard, with no production on some days and only 40% to 60% on others. "The shutdown of the mining industry is an extraordinary, unprecedented event," said Anton Eberhard, a leadin g energy expert and professor of business studies at UCT. "That's a powerful message, massively damaging to South Africa's reputation for new investment. Our country was built on the mines. "To examine how the country, widely hailed as Africa's last best chance, arrived at this parlous state, the particular troubles engulfing the Scorpions (the popular name of the National Prosecuting Authority) offers a useful starting point. The elite unit, modelled on America's FBI and operating in close co-operation with Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO), is one of the big successes of post-apartheid South Africa. An independent institution, separate from the slipshod South African Police Service, the Scorpions enjoy massive public support. The unit's edict is to focus on people "who commit and profit from organised crime", and it has been hugely successful in carrying out its mandate. It has pursued and pinned down thousands of high-profile and complex networks of national and international corporate and public fraudsters. Drug kingpins, smugglers and racketeers have felt the Scorpions' sting. A major gang that smuggle platinum, South Africa's biggest foreign exchange earner, to a corrupt English smelting plant has been bust as the result of a huge joint operation between the SFO and the Scorpions. But the Scorpions, whose top men were trained by Scotland Yard, have been too successful for their own good. The ANC government never anticipated the crack crimebusters would take their constitutional independence seriously and investigate the top ranks of the former “liberation” movement itself. The Scorpions have probed into, and successfully prosecuted, ANC MPs who falsified their parliamentary expenses. They secured a jail sentence for the ANC's chief whip, who took bribes from the German weapons manufacturer that sold frigates and submarines to the South African Defence Force. They sent to j ail for 15 years a businessman who paid hundreds of bribes to then state vice-president Jacob Zuma in connection with the arms deal. Zuma was found by the judge to have a corrupt relationship with the businessman, and now the Scorpions have charged Zuma himself with fraud, corruption, tax evasion, racketeering and defeating the ends of justice. His trial will begin in August. The Scorpions last month charged Jackie Selebi, the national police chief, a close friend of state president Thabo Mbeki, with corruption and defeating the ends of justice. Commissioner Selebi, who infamously called a White police sergeant a "f***ing chimpanzee" when she failed to recognise him during an unannounced visit to her Pretoria station, has stepped down pending his trial. But now both wings of the venomously divided ANC - ANC-Mbeki and ANC-Zuma - want the Scorpions crushed, ideally by June this year. The message this will send to the outside world is that South Africa's rulers want only certain categories of crime investigated, while leaving government ministers and other politicians free to stuff their already heavily lined pockets. No good reason for emasculating the Scorpions has been put forward. "That's because there isn't one," said Peter Bruce, editor of the influential Business Day, South Africa's equivalent of, and part-owned by, The Financial Times, in his weekly column. "The Scorpions are being killed off because they investigate too much corruption that involves ANC leaders. It is as simple and ugly as that," he added. The demise of the Scorpions can only exacerbate South Africa's out-of-control crime situation, ranked for its scale and violence only behind Colombia. Everyone has friends and acquaintances who have had guns held to their heads by gangsters, who also blow up ATM machines and hijack security trucks, sawing off their roofs to get at the cash. Last week 18-year-old Razelle Botha, who passed all her A-levels with marks of more than 90% and was about to train as a doctor, returned home with her father, Professor Willem Botha, founder of the geophysics department at the University of Pretoria, from buying pizzas for the family. Inside the house, armed gunmen confronted them. They shot Professor Botha in the leg and pumped bullets into Razelle. One severed her spine. Now she is fighting for her life and will never walk again, and may never become a doctor. The gunmen stole a laptop computer and a camera. Feeding the perfect storm are the two centres of ANC power in the country at the moment. On the one hand, there is the ANC in parliament, led by President Mbeki, who last Friday gave a state-of-the-nation address and apologised to the country for the power crisis. Mbeki made only the briefest of mentions of the national AIDS crisis, with more than six million people HIV-positive. He did not address the Scorpions crisis. The collapsing public hospital system, under his eccentric health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, an alcoholic who recen tly jumped the public queue for a liver transplant, received no attention. And the name Jacob Zuma did not pass his lips. Last December Mbeki and Zuma stood against each other for the leadership of the ANC at the party's five-yearly electoral congress. Mbeki, who cannot stand again as state president beyond next year's parliamentary and presidential elections, hoped to remain the power behind the throne of a new state president of his choosing. Zuma, a Zulu populist with some 20 children by various wives and mistresses, hoped to prove that last year's rape case, and the trial he faces this year for corruption and other charges, were part of a plot by Mbeki to use state institutions to discredit him. Mbeki assumed that the notion of Zuma assuming the state presidency would be so appalling to delegates that his own re-election as ANC leader was a shoo-in. But Mbeki completely miscalculated his own unpopularity - his perceived arrogance, failure to solve health and crime problems, his failure to deliver to the poor - and he lost. Now Zuma insists that he is the leader of the country and ANC MPs in parliament must take its orders from him, while Mbeki soldiers on until next year as state president, ordering MPs to toe his line. Greatly understated, it is a mess. Its scale will be dramatically illustrated if South Africa's hosting of the 2010 World Cup is withdrawn by FIFA, the world football body. Already South African premier league football evening games are being played after midnight because power for floodlights cannot be guaranteed before that time. Justice Malala, one of the country's top newspaper columnists, has called on FIFA to end the agony quickly. "I don't want South Africa to host the football World Cup because there is no culture of responsibility in this country," he wrote in Johannesburg's best-selling Sunday Times. "The most outrageous behaviour and incompetence is glossed over. No-one is fired. I have had enough of this nonsense, of keeping quiet and ignoring the fact that the train is about to run us over. "It is increasingly clear that our leaders are incapable of making a success of it. Scrap the thing and give it to Australia, Germany or whoever will spare us the ignominy of watching things fall apart here - football tourists being held up and shot, the lights going out, while our politicians tell us everything is all right."

-  Sunday Herald (Glasgow), February 9, 2008
 

 

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 2am. A man ambushed her inside her own bathroom. "The security downstairs front door was locked when I arrived at the building and I locked it again behind me and went up to my flat. When I opened the bathroom door a (black) man stood there, naked. He attacked me", she said. He said "Shut up or I will kill you", tore my clothes into strips and gagged me, and tied my hands and legs. She put up a fierce fight while he was doing this, and Beeld describes her body as being covered in numerous scratches, bite-marks and bruises.She hit him at once point with an ash-tray, she said. However she had to undergo the ordeal of rape and afterwards he tied her to the drainpipe of the bathtub."I heard him close the door to my room. I couldn't get my breath,' she said. Her dad Pieter Louw said what bothers him the most is that the police failed to turn up after neighbours - who had heard her screaming and fighting off her assailant - had called them on Friday-night. They had heard her screaming - but the door was locked. The neighbours finally went to the police station themselves and went and fetched the police. However the cops just walked around the building lighting around themselves with torches and left again. The rapist at that point was still inside her flat.

 

-  AfricanCrisis, January 30, 2008

 

 

The violence-ravaged South African Indian community of Chatsworth outside Durban has declared a “state of emergency” and has called for the urgent intervention of the South African army to restore law and order in their town. Angry residents, businessmen and religious organisations this week asked for the deployment of troops in the area after 15 extremely violent armed robberies targetted their community within just three weeks. They held a meeting on Wednesday to map out an action plan against criminals.Dr Paul Lutchman, chairman of Community Against Crime, said the meeting resolved to declare a state of emergency and to ask for SANDF reinforcements to flush out criminals.

 

-  AfricanCrisis, January 28, 2008

 

 

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 South Africa - which produces the most gold in the world. "Our mines are still closed. We are in ongoing discussions with Eskom," said Steve Lenahan, spokesperson for AngloGold Ashanti, which employs 35,000 people in seven mines. Harmony Gold spokesperson Amelia Soares said "we are all in the same boat. All of our 20 gold mines are closed". "We didn't take the night shift underground," she said. "There was a meeting with Eskom this morning to try to see how to take the operations forward on
Monday." No Eskom spokesperson was available on Saturday.

 

-  AFP report (forwarded by RHGE, Johannesburg), January 27, 2008

 

 

 

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 Mountain Avenue, a well-known hiking trail outside the town. Local residents say other women have also been attacked along that trail. She was attacked and murdered about 3km from the turn-off to the road. It's not known why the students did not protect her. Apparently they had returned to the academy without her. Her attackers apparently laid in wait for her. "When she failed to return to the academy after a while, two police officers investigated," said the source, who wanted to remain anonymous. These officers found her semi-naked body under a bush along the dirt road. Forensic specialists arrived at the crime scene from Port Elizabeth on Tuesday afternoon to investigate the murder. Police inspector Wena Theron also was unable to explain why the police specialists at Graaff Reinet did not investigate the crime scene. "A full report will be issued on Wednesday morning," was all she said. Heunis's family was too shocked to comment on the incident.

 

-  News24.com report, January 24, 2008

 

 

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 19:49 Monday - and the last passengers were finally brought down only by 01:30 the next morning.

 

-  AfricanCrisis, January 22, 2008

 

 

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, January 18, 2008

 

 

Hundreds of policemen are being murdered in armed violence which are targetting them under the ANC's rule in South Africa from 1994 than ever died before. The death-toll among South African police indeed is 64% higher than it was in the eleven years preceeding South Africa's political transition. This finding was made by the South African Institute of Race Relations. "Between 1983 and 1993 about 1,152 policemen were murdered. Between 1995 and 2005 a staggering 1,894 policemen were murdered" the Institute said. The death-rates among South African police during 2006 and 2007 have gone up even higher. This is an increase of 64 %" said Kerwin Lebone, the Institute's researcher who compiled the statistics. "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".

 

-  AfricanCrisis, January 10, 2008

 

 

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 Pretoria. Fred Picton-Turbervill, 46, originally from Bridgend in South Wales, was shot in the head at close range before two robbers escaped with a laptop, four mobile phones and £80. He was taken to hospital but died soon after admission. His widow, Ursula, 41, said last night that her husband had been shot in the eye by one raider despite complying with their demands. She said: "It's just so pointless. Fred was doing what they said and was no threat to them. “It makes no sense at all to me. They are not even animals for what they have done to me and my children. Was it really worth a few mobile phones and some cash?" Mr Picton-Turbervill, the director of a South African furniture manufacturing business, was watching television with his wife in their home on Pretoria's upmarket Water­kloof Ridge area when the robbers struck on Saturday night. The couple's four children, Samantha, 10, Bryony, nine, Natasha, six, and Gregory, three, were with them at the time. His eldest son, Jamie, was celebrating his 21st birthday in Britain. Mrs Picton-Turbervill said the robbers, who spoke poor English, held pistols and shouted "Sleep, Sleep!" and "Money, Money!" at the family. She said: "Fred asked them not to harm the children but they didn't respond. Then one of them shot my husband in the eye. I didn't see it because he was behind me but my two older girls saw it and were traumatised. He collapsed against me. Samantha closed little Gregory's eyes because she did not want to him to see his father bleeding to death. The other two just lay dead still. They took me through the house into our room where I gave them my jewellery box and my husband's wallet. After the robbers left, I put the children in the car and drove to my friend's house for help. Gregory was saying 'the doctors are going to fix my daddy up, he's going to be okay' but I'm not sure he realises what's happened yet." Hugo Minnaar, a paramedic rescue worker, said Mr Picton-Turbervill was found lying on the floor. "We immediately put him on a life-support system and rushed him to hospital where he died," he said. Waterkloof Ridge is the favoured residence of many foreign diplomats and senior South African officials. The Picton-Turbervill house has 8ft walls topped with electric fencing. Neighbours said it was hard to see how the robbers could have gained access. The Pretoria police said they men were investigating "promising leads" but had as yet made no arrests. "We are investigating a case of murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances," he said.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, January 8, 2008

 

 

Internationally-known Natal birder/geologist Robin Guy, 75, was shot and killed during an attack by two armed Black men at a Bryanston home last night. Nothing was robbed - but police refer to it as a 'failed robbery'. He and his wife Bella from rural Underberg, Natal, had been in Bryanston on a festive season visit when two attackers disturbed a dinner on the verandah of his brother-in-law's home. A shot went off and he died instantly. Guy was the father of South African Press Association journalist Duncan Guy, creator of the children's newspaper "The Times I Am Living In"; and the award-winning environmental film maker Donald Guy. Robin Guy leaves his wife Bella; daughter Jane; sons Robert, Duncan and Robin; six grandchildren.

 

-  AfricanCrisis, January 4, 2008

 

 

Tanzania’s ambassador to South Africa was beaten and his wife stabbed in a robbery during his farewell dinner in the capital Pretoria. Seven people were admitted to hospital after the attack, which left ambassador Emmanuel Mwambulukutu unconscious and his wife with a knife wound to the head.

 

-  Sunday Telegraph, December 30, 2007

 

 

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 Pretoria. According to Mike Wannenburg, Herholdt's partner, she stopped at the Malibongwe exit on the N1 highway at about 22:00 when the attacker hit. Three to four cars were waiting at the same traffic light when the man suddenly appeared on the passenger side and smashed the window. He took her handbag, containing her identity document and driver's licence, which was lying on the front seat. "She is angry because she should have known better (than to leave her handbag on the seat)," said Wannenburg. Her purse and mobile phone were not stolen, as these were hidden elsewhere in the car. According to Wannenburg, Herholdt suffered slight cuts to her chin and hands due to glass shards caused by the window being smashed. Wannenburg was shocked because the windows were supposed to have been covered by a protecting layer to prevent such attacks. "One pays a lot for these things, which don't work. It was especially included in the package when she bought the car," he said.

 

-  Beeld report, December 27, 2007

 

 

This year's 21st Natal farmer has been shot dead by Black killers on his farm in the Estcourt area. Chief executive officer Sandy La Marque said David Greene's murder on Thursday evening meant that 21 Natal commercial farmers had been murdered in 2007. The Natal Witness newspaper quoted 70-year-old David Greene's son as saying: "He was shot once, point blank in the forehead. Police recovered one expended 9mm cartridge on the scene. My mum was in the garden and she rushed to help him, but it was too late." Another elderly couple have been beaten to death in Kagiso, west of Johannesburg. The couple were attacked in Rietvallei near Krugersdorp early in the morning, and it is believed that a blunt object was used by the Black killers to beat the couple - both aged 70 - because of the open wounds found on their heads. "The person who killed them might have known that they were alone and knew the daily routine," police said. Many of the White victims in ANC-ruled South Africa are killed by former workers who afterwards claim one or the other grievance against their former employers as reason for the slaughter. The White manager of a Pretoria filling station was shot dead by unidentified Black killers after he parked his car inside the 'secure' parking area of a bank in Pretoria West on Tuesday morning, and after he had phoned and notified the bank that he was coming. The 45-year-old man was shot and robbed and his killers got away in a black Toyota Police are allegedly 'investigating', but neither the bank nor the security firm exlained how the gunmen got into the so-called secure parking area without the guard on duty raising the alarm and warning the victim.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, December 22, 2007

 

 

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',  'sangomas' and 'traditional healers'.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, December 15, 2007

 

 

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, December 13, 2007

 

 

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, December 9, 2007

 

 

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, December 3, 2007

 


 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, December 2, 2007

 

 

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, December 1, 2007

 

 

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, November 29, 2007

 

 

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, November 28, 2007

 

 

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, November 26, 2007

 

 

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, November 25, 2007

 

 

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, November 19, 2007

 

 

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, November 16, 2007

 

 

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, November 12, 2007

 

 

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, November 7, 2007

 

 

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), November 4, 2007

 

 

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), October 31, 2007

 

 

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, October 26, 2007

 

 

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, October 15, 2007

 

 

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