David Beresford
The government appears to be hastily back- pedalling on an extraordinary plan to build a gigantic monument — at a cost of some R50- million — modelled on President Nelson Mandela’s hand as a “beacon of freedom” for South Africa.
The disembodied hand, standing 23 metres in height and “breaking out of jail bars”, would be the largest cast bronze sculpture in the world.
Even more startling than the concept are the men behind it. The commission to build the monument was given to Danie de Jager, responsible for such works as the Strijdom head in Pretoria and the statue of Hendrick Verwoerd which stands over the grave of the “architect of apartheid”.
The project leaders, appointed by President Mandela, are the multi-millionaire Krok brothers, Sol and Abe. The twins made their fortunes with cosmetics sold to the black population, including skin lighteners and products such as “Dingaan’s Blood Purifier” and “Skelm Worm Syrup”. They were also convicted of illegal forex dealings in 1993.
Mandela’s office was insisting this week that the project was “on hold”. The Kroks were also stressing that the scheme had only reached the stage of “feasibility studies”, as well as insisting that no government funds were involved.
But the minutes of a meeting of an “interim committee”, held on September 10, records that Mandela had asked the Kroks “to provide bridging finance” and had “indicated that the government was backing the project financially”.
And the sculptor, who has already sunk a small fortune into the project, says the models have already been completed and he expects the formal announcement to be made by the president soon, at a gala evening.
The meeting of the interim committee responsible for the “beacon of freedom” was held at Summer Place, the fabulous Johannesburg home built by one of South Africa’s most celebrated crooks, Marino Chiavelli, and now owned by the Kroks. The minutes record that the meeting was chaired by Sol Krok and attended by, among others, Ahmed Kathrada; Bart Dorrestein, chief executive of the construction company Stocks & Stocks; Mandela’s legal adviser, Professor Fink Haysom; and Professor Michael Katz, head of the Katz Commission on tax reform.
The minutes say that Sol Krok tabled a letter signed by President Mandela dated November 25 1994, appointing the twins as “project leaders responsible for the execution of the project and fund-raising”.
A second letter of the same date appointed De Jager “as the official sculptor” and authorised him to “commence work on the project with immediate effect”. The minutes later note that De Jager had already spent “approximately R1,1-million on the project”.
According to the minutes, the “salient features” of the “Beacon of Freedom” are the statue itself — half the size of the Statue of Liberty, which is made of welded copper plates, rather than cast bronze; 40 plaques “depicting the history of the Freedom Struggle of South Africa”; an “eternal flame housed in an amphitheatre”; a statue of Mandela himself; a wall “with the word freedom written on it in 100 different languages”; a viewing balcony and a “museum of apartheid” covering 1 400 square metres. It is believed that the museum would constitute the second phase of the project and has been provisionally costed at another R50-million.
Models of the complex were shown to Mandela and Gauteng Premier Tokyo Sexwale separately in August and they respectively gave their “approval” and “blessing”, the minutes note.
The siting for the monument is not mentioned, but it was to be somewhere in Gauteng. De Jager wants it on a kopje. Pretoria’s city fathers are believed to be keen to have it situated in their city, as part of the new Parliament which they hope to see transferred from Cape Town.
The only qualification recorded in the minutes came from Haysom, who stressed the need for “transparency” and “consensus”. Haysom told the Mail & Guardian this week that the project was “on hold at the moment” while they decided on an “appropriate way of dealing with the national monument”.
A representative of the Kroks said they were anxious that the project be “transparent and consultative”. She confirmed they had a model of the “current concept”, but refused to allow it to be seen on the grounds that it was “not finalised”, adding: “Because we want to make the process transparent and consultative, we don’t want to put the cart before the horse.”
The spokeswoman said “there is no intention to use government funding; there has never been any intention to use government funding. It is a private-sector initiative initiated by the Krok brothers.” She added that no funds had been raised, although pledges had been made “loosely”.
The sculptor, De Jager, said that he had been scheduled to hold discussions with the president on Tuesday last week, but the meeting had been postponed when the Mandela divorce ran into a second day of hearings. “We have made all the models for the project and we are waiting now for the president to do a press release,” he said.