Even dogs of war shouldn’t have rats the size of cats running over them as they sleep; or be shackled in leg-irons; or be woken up at night for interrogation sessions conducted past the end of a rifle; or be denied access to their lawyers; or have their trial conducted in Spanish sans translation.
That is the fate of eight South Africans and other nationals holed up in Black Beach prison, itself a suggestively named hell-hole in Equatorial Guinea. Confusion reigned as their trial began this week.
Although President Teodoro Obiang Nguema said he would not seek the death penalty, his chief prosecutor called for it on the opening day.
Also worrying is that the South African media has been banned from covering the trial, even though Nguema pledged open access during his visit to South Africa in July.
With a team of South African observers dispatched to the despotic republic to ensure a free and fair trial, we must ask: What have they been doing? Not a single aspect of the trial has been either free or fair. And even though President Thabo Mbeki’s adviser, Billy Masetlha, told the Mail & Guardian a fortnight ago that they would “scream” if the pledges by Nguema were not kept, the line now is that the government will not comment until sentencing.
Is this quiet diplomacy Mark II? As in Zimbabwe, South Africa too often lets the dictates of its Africa policy (that of a united brotherly front) and the shifting sands of regional alliances stand in the way of robust peer review.
Equatorial Guinea is not a modern African state — it is a coup-prone kleptocracy that cannot even spell “rule of law”.
The M&G holds no brief for mercenaries — a threat to post-colonial Africa’s progress, they have crawled out of the woodwork in droves since the start of oil rush in the Gulf of Guinea. This week’s arrest of British “businessman” Mark Thatcher will hopefully deter further oil-related adventurism.
We agree with Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs, who said at the extradition case brought by the families of the men held in Zimbabwe that those who walk into lions’ dens should not be surprised to find lions.
But, in a minority judgement, Judge Sandile Ngcobo insisted that a country’s duties to its citizens do not end at its borders, and that those outside them are entitled to the rights guaranteed under our Constitution. Another judge, Justice Kate O’Regan, reported Business Day this week, went further, arguing that “government would not be constitutionally permitted simply to ignore a citizen … threatened with … an egregious violation of human rights norms at the hands of another state”.
The treatment of the alleged mercenaries is egregious — and South Africa would do well to turn up the megaphone.
Where is the grand plan?
The post-apartheid ideal of education as a public good, accessible to all, was flushed down the national toilet this week. Tertiary institutions must reduce their student numbers within three years, the Department of Education told Parliament’s education portfolio committee, because the government just hasn’t got enough money.
To force this reduction, the education department’s system of subsidising institutions for each student will change in two ways. Subsidies will continue to decrease; and they will favour some areas over others — broadly, the sciences over the humanities.
Even the department admitted to qualms about “interfering” with tertiary autonomy (destroying it would be a better description). And slashing the humanities will have dire consequences for the health of our democracy, as many examples throughout history amply demonstrate.
But it is the blatant incoherence of the government’s higher education policies that must cause the greatest distress now. Concealed in the education department’s announcement this week are a number of miracles that universities and technikons are expected to achieve.
One is to increase graduates in fields such as engineering — while the school system still fails to produce enough matriculants with the right subjects and marks for admission to these fields. Another is to increase the number of women in higher education — another explicit government policy — while receiving even less funding for the humanities, where the majority of women students are still to be found.
The department failed to explain how such miracles might be achieved. But, most telling of all, it also failed to point out that tertiary institutions will likely have to use the bluntest of instruments to reduce overall student numbers: raise admission requirements. And because there is a direct correlation between well-resourced schools and good matric results, the poorest South Africans will be sliced out of higher education in even greater numbers than now.
It was partly on the promise of increased access to higher education that the government sold to justly sceptical educationists such dubious, cumbersome and hugely expensive exercises as institutional mergers. So where now is that grand plan?