Howard Barrell and Jaspreet Kindra
Jeff Radebe, minister of public enterprises, misled the Human Rights Commission (HRC) on Wednesday when he presented the submission of the African National Congress to the HRC’s public hearings on the media.
Radebe told the HRC panel that Phillip van Niekerk, editor of the Mail & Guardian, wrote an article highly critical of Thabo Mbeki in 1998 in order to buttress a racist stereotype and increase white fears of black rule, and then falsely passed the piece off in the pages of the newspaper as the work of a black journalist then in the paper’s employ.
The M&G’s lawyers say Radebe’s statement is defamatory. Van Niekerk is considering legal action against Radebe and the ANC. Repeated attempts by the M&G to contact Radebe on Wednesday and Thursday were fruitless.
The article in question, an opinion piece, was written by Lizeka Mda and published in the M&G edition of March 27 to April 2 1998. It dealt, among other things, with fears that Mbeki, then deputy president, might be tempted to exercise undue influence in the selection of the recipient of the free-to-air TV licence eventually issued to Midi.
The article said that: “A perception has been created of a Mbeki who ferrets behind closed doors and sticks his fingers in every pie”; “A picture emerges of Mbeki seeking to usurp all powers …”; and, “[I]f the country’s soon-to-be-first citizen undermines the watchdog structures that have been put in place to safeguard our democracy, that democracy cannot be safe”.
Radebe, speaking in his capacity as ANC head of policy, characterised the article as a racist attempt by the M&G to increase white anxieties about the future after Nelson Mandela’s retirement as president.
Radebe told the HRC hearing: “Of course, [Van Niekerk] did not say that the article was in fact not written by the black woman journalist under whose name it appeared, but by a white male journalist, and specifically the editor!
“It is obvious that so overriding was the need to confirm the racist stereotype that the editor was ready to throw all ethics out of the window. Accordingly, he abused a member of his staff to enable him to say that the alarm had been sounded by an African woman journalist.”
Mda confirmed on Wednesday that she was the author of the article. She was shocked at Radebe’s suggestion to the contrary. Mda was quoted in The Star as saying: “They [the ANC] are saying I am so stupid that I can allow my name to be attached to an article I did not write.
“If the ANC thinks a black woman can’t think for herself, then they should not have gone to the commission in the first place.”
Van Niekerk also confirmed Mda’s authorship.
Ivor Powell, an M&G staff representative, said on Wednesday: “A number of staff members were actually in meetings where Mda put forward her ideas on the piece. It was quite clearly her idea.” M&G staff were “outraged” by Radebe’s statement. Powell added: “It brought a rare moment of unanimity – despite an ongoing and often robust debate in the newsroom about how and where to position ourselves politically in the new South Africa and how to deal with the perception in some quarters that we may have a racial bias.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the editor, management and staff of the M&G issued a joint statement which called Radebe’s statement “in every respect, a gross, defamatory lie” directed not only against Van Niekerk but also against Mda because it carried the implication that she, as a black woman journalist, “was not capable of expressing her own opinions and was prepared to be crudely manipulated by her editor”.
The M&G said: “The ANC and Radebe must, forthwith, withdraw it and issue an unconditional retraction and full apology.
“It does not become a proud political party or, for that matter, a minister of state, to lie publicly and with defamatory intent and result.”
The staff of the M&G added that they stood “four-square with Phillip van Niekerk, an editor of rare integrity and courage”.
Meanwhile, the mostly white Agri South Africa this week complained to the HRC that the M&G had used hate speech against farmers in its reports of assaults on farm workers.
Joining white farmers in calling the M&G racist were the (white) Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach and KwaZulu- Natal’s (black) MEC for Social Welfare and Population, Gideon Zulu.
The farmers’ union cited two M&G reports on assaults on farm workers reportedly at the hands of farmers. It alleged the reports contributed to the high incidence of attacks on farms, farmers and farm workers. M&G lawyer Azhar Cachalia told the HRC that the allegations fell outside the terms of reference of the hearings and thus did not warrant a response.
Self-styled “Napoleon of Africa” Rautenbach has accused the M&G of dabbling in racism “in reverse” and threatened a defamation suit following an M&G report on a government decree in the Democratic Republic of Congo revoking his mining concessions there.
Zulu used the privilege of the KwaZulu- Natal legislature to accuse the M&G of racism for reporting that his daughter worked for Cash Paymaster Services – a company which won a contract to distribute pensions in the province. Zulu also claimed to have issued summons against the M&G for defamation. No legal papers have been received by the M&G.
Asked to explain this discrepancy, Zulu told the M&G’s Paul Kirk: “I will not talk to you. It is well known that your boss, your so-called editor, is a die-hard racist who was brought up in an apartheid camp. And it is well known that you are a fascist as well. Goodbye.”