Come down, Peter Mokaba!
Forgive me, commander Peter Mokaba, for not speaking to you before. We have been preoccupied with managing hypocrisy and mediocrity in the organisation you died for.
Commander, the youth league of Anton Lembede is burning — particularly in the province of your birth, Limpopo — and we need fire extinguishers.
The ANCYL is no longer a league of young revolutionaries, but of hooligans. Your heart will bleed to learn that the big region you belonged to, Capricorn, has only five branches in good standing. One official of the Waterberg region signs recruiter packs on the pretext of “managing contradictions”. All the packs are channelled to his cronies and any membership form without his signature is nullified.
It is more difficult nowadays to be an active member than in the days of illegality. The league of Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela has been reduced to a faction fighting with the ANC. They no longer engage in serious challenges and ideological debates.
Provincial executive committee (PEC) meetings are held by SMS, and if they think you differ with them, they exclude you.
Commander, I yearn for your spirit of debate to infuse the PEC, so that the succession impasse can be resolved. — Matome Moremi, former chairperson of the ANCYL’s Khotso branch
In your editorial on the ANCYL, you fail to mention APS Mda, without whom the league might never have lived to see the light of day, let alone play a pivotal role in the ANC’s evolution into a militant liberation movement.
Mda, a devoted Catholic and staunch anti-communist, was a founder member and key thinker who gave the league ideological clarity and strategic purpose. — Thabile Mda
Blot on SABC’s integrity
John Perlman kept my ear glued to SAfm AM Live, the best radio in South Africa. I thank him for his commitment to excellence, sense of humour and conscientious efforts to provide accurate information. He remained impartial and utterly professional.
I also enjoyed his obvious loyalty to South Africa, Bafana Bafana and the Proteas. His positive and dynamic attitude towards our young democracy was inspiring.
His resignation is a blot on the integrity and trustworthiness of SABC management. The egos of certain employees were allowed to come before the best interests of the public, who own the broadcaster and pay the salaries of its staffers. — Rose Morrow, Durban
After the backlist debacle, Perlman’s days were clearly numbered. Freedom of speech is dead at the SABC.
I call on all thinking people to boycott SABC news programmes. Listen to the BBC on short-wave radio; invest in satellite radio; watch news on e.tv.
Perhaps a drop in audience numbers will affect advertising income and jeopardise the jobs of the fascist management clique. — Dr Stephen Carpenter, Hillcrest
Perlman displayed moral and professional courage in challenging the insidious manipulation of the SABC to serve ANC interests, which conflicts with the principles of our Constitution.
Other resignations may follow and this, according to news reports, raises suspicions of a purge.
South Africans, having achieved a democratic system of government at great cost, need to deepen it and extend its benefits to all.
The basic constitutional values, such as freedom of expression, need to be defended against the predations of those in the new body politic and in the SABC.
Power-hungry and politically unscrupulous, they seek to suppress views they find unpalatable. — Professor George Devenish, Durban
Myanmar no threat
Xolisa Mabhongo sets out persuasively the reasons for the South African vote on Myanmar in the United Nations Security Council (“Myanmar ‘falls outside council’s mandate'”, February 2).
Mabhongo might have added that no country within a radius of 4 000 miles of Myanmar has ever made a public complaint to the UN about any alleged threat to their security and stability because of Myanmar’s policies and actions, while the countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations recently made it clear that the Security Council was not the right place for a discussion of Myanmar’s problems.
In these circumstances, it was unconvincing that the United States and Britain sought to argue at the council meeting that there was a risk to regional stability.
Under apartheid, there was a stream of complaints to the UN from South Africa’s neighbours because of continuing armed aggression. That is why the Security Council in Resolution 418 of 1977 acted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to impose an arms embargo because of a clearly defined threat to regional peace.
The South African view expressed at the council last month was shared not only by China and Russia but also by Congo, Indonesia, Qatar and even Panama, despite the fact that they voted for the resolution. Ghana was equally uncomfortable, and Peru wisely said nothing, even though they too voted for the resolution.
In short, the South African position was more widely shared among council members than has been reported and was based on clear principles about the competence of the council under the UN Charter. — Derek Tonkin, minister at the British embassy in South Africa 1983-86 and British ambassador to Thailand 1986-89
Unworthy
In last week’s edition, you compared President Thabo Mbeki’s conduct to the supposed behaviour of Queen Elizabeth. As the screenplay-writer of The Queen, Peter Morgan, would admit, the film is a construct. It’s partly based on fact, but the rest is hearsay and (clever and creative) speculation.
In fact, one of its main messages is the manipulation of opinion and sentiment by the media, and newspapers in particular.
I hold no brief for Mbeki, but for you to use an essentially fictional movie to criticise him seems unworthy of a paper I used to like and respect. — H Mendes, Randburg
ID double-crossed voters
The Independent Democrats have betrayed those who voted for them by forming a coalition government in Cape Town with the DA against the ANC. Most ID members and councillors are against the decision.
Such coalitions are happening throughout the Western Cape. The ID is now openly agreeing with a party that represents the wealthy white business class against blacks, who continue to suffer discrimination in service delivery.
The ID’s deputy mayor has promised the people of the Cape pie in the sky — but this will not be fulfilled because it contradicts backward DA policies that will never change.
If the ID is fighting to keep the ANC out of power, it is anti-transformation, anti-nation-building and anti-poverty reduction. The ANC is fighting to eliminate the vast inequalities created by apartheid, especially in Cape Town. — Jabu Mfusi, Khayelitsha
Claims against me absurd
In “Magistrate squashes Scorpion” (January 19), Pearlie Joubert alleges that the Mpumalanga Economic Empowerment Commission (MEEC) has made losses of R452-million, that between R5,7-million and R8-million was laundered from Savannah Forestry Equipment into my accounts and that I was fired by Rodney Genricks and Phillip Dexter, apparently Joubert’s sources.
The R452-million was first referred to as the value of loans granted to my family. Now that the lie has been exposed, it is modified to losses incurred by the MEEC!
Where is Genricks and Dexter’s evidence for the money-laundering claim? They must explain how a company that received a loan of less than R2,5-million could launder up to R8-million into my accounts.
Genricks, who had bitter battles with his Savannah colleagues over money, cannot claim to have forgotten the value of the loan. Investigations have analysed the money trail and he has access to these documents. He knows his claims are ridiculous.
As to my “firing”, Dexter came to the MEEC long after I had left. How a successor fires a predecessor defies all logic.
My questions are: why did Joubert not bother to seek documentary evidence? Why did Genricks and Dexter disregard information at their disposal and feed the media with figures they will not be able to defend?
Whistle-blowers are an important part of any justice system, but they have no licence to lie. Even war has rules.
The allegations against me will soon be heard in court. If the gentlemen are confident that their “discoveries” will stick, they can add value in the witness box.
Many sacrifices and resources were put into getting the MEEC to where it is. The pursuit of the truth on allegations against me, its only CEO, should be objective and fair. — Ernest Khosa
More questions than answers
We were pleased to read in Duma Malaza’s “Universities aim for both access and success” (January 26) that students are to be given a “second chance” at university entrance, given the high stakes accorded to the matric exam and the different quality of schools.
However, there is no clear commitment that the national benchmark test will be used as a way of placing students for developmental purposes and not as a way of denying them access to the institution again.
Also, it is unclear in which language the test will be written. If it is English, thousands of second-language English speakers will be disadvantaged. All recommendations point to the need to view potential students’ first language as the primary means through which cognitive and literacy skills are developed.
And English-medium tests would contradict moves at many institutions on multilingual teaching and learning policies. The same edition of the M&G reports that the University of KwaZulu-Natal has taken steps to realise the use of isiZulu.
Finally, it is questionable that “high-quality national benchmark tests” can be achieved by 2008 when the development only started in 2006. International literature indicates that at least seven years are necessary to develop a reliable and valid test for use in a heteroeneous society like ours.
These issues need to be explored honestly and inclusively before making claims of “access for success”.– Elize Koch and Jacqui Dornbrack, Port Elizabeth
Finger-pointing
Imagine the local and international media condemnation if Thabo Mbeki or any other African president ordered the suspension of investigations into alleged corruption because it would put the country’s security at risk and cause unemployment!
I watched CNN, the darling of international news, e.tv and almost all major local newspapers for front-page headlines on this issue. Unsurprisingly, I found nothing.
Governments across the globe, led by the United States, should be calling for investigations into arms industry corruption to continue, so that the truth comes to light.
They point one finger at Africa while three are pointing at themselves. — Luther Lebelo, Midrand
In brief
Tessa Christelis (Letters, January 26) claims South Africa’s UN Security Council vote, “which essentially leaves Myanmar to its own devices”, means Edcon can legitimately source products from a country with an appalling human rights records. Such brazen corporate insensitivity! While hundreds of thousands of Myanmarese suffer forced labour and other atrocities, Edcon’s only concern seems to be whether its buying practices “deviate from government policy”. — Paula Akugizibwe, Gaborone
Reading of the Zulu choir that arrived on the Rattray family lawn and sang “songs of tribute” to the murdered man (February 2) moved me to tears, and reconfirmed my belief that South Africa can still teach the world how to surmount racial and cultural differences and live in peace. — WL Mason, Johannesburg
For a man who renounced his colonial name and the English language that made him famous (February 2), Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s decision to live in the United States is at odds with his lifelong campaign to decolonise the African mind. — Professor Harry Sewlall, University of Fort Hare
For months there has been public outrage over Tony Yengeni and Schabir Shaik, who did not murder anybody, but hardly a murmur about the cowardly Waterkloof killers. Their victim may have been poor and down and out, but he was a human being. Shame on us all. — Frank Hartry, Kingsburgh