November 7 to 13 2008

Beware the dead snake

I read with interest former president Thabo Mbeki’s letter to the ANC president (October 31). This was written by a leader I once revered as a hero, intellectual and principled, nothing short of a role model. But since he started an appeal against Judge Chris Nicholson’s ruling (which resulted in his recall by the ANC) on the basis that he was not afforded an opportunity to defend himself in court, despite the fact that he himself had done the same against comrade Jacob Zuma, who was not afforded opportunity in court, I read the letter with more caution.

I was surprised that a leader to whom we entrusted our revolution as ANC president and president of our country would be so indifferent to the actions of Mosiuoa Lekota and company in his letter. It appears our former president had in mind not the ANC president as addressee but the public, to whom he sought to exonerate himself without taking a stand against the Lekota-led ill-discipline. So he intended from the outset to have the letter published, to embarrass the ANC.

Why else would he allege that the ANC is disrespecting Lekota when it says he is abusing the former president’s name? He said in his letter that history will judge his actions. Even King Solomon had the wisdom to ensure that justice was done when a dispute over two babies was brought to him, but Mbeki’s actions merely fuel the contradictions between the dissidents’ party and the ANC, instead of taking a stand.

How can he be so indifferent when the ANC, a movement he led, which no doubt he loves, is under attack by people who clearly abuse his name? Is there something we do not know? — Phillip Musekwa, Germiston

Having read what is purported to be Mbeki’s letter, there are important observations to be made. The issue of firing comrades who do not agree with those who are in leadership at a particular time smacks of hypocrisy and a forked tongue.

His letter shows a bitter Mbeki who would have liked to stay in power to advance the same ‘comprador bourgeoisie” he is crying foul about. The issues that he raises did not arise after Polokwane; they were there long before, and probably started during his presidency of the ANC, from 1997. Indeed history will judge his actions. His left-leaning talk all of a sudden is the highest level of opportunism and should be shunned and condemned. Mbeki has betrayed the organisation he served for more than half his life. — Simphiwe Thobela, Kokstad

Mbeki should be ashamed. He knows all too well that the source of all this mayhem in the political landscape is the arms deal. He does not want closure of this chapter and to admit defeat as a casualty of his own making. Instead he encourages the distraction of the ANC, from ministers’ resignations in pseudo-solidarity with him, to the formation of a new party of the disgruntled.

Zimbabwe is a tragedy. The Zimbabwean state has virtually collapsed and has no relevance to the welfare of the people. Yet as Southern African Development Community mediator, former president Mbeki is silent. The dialogue he facilitated is effectively dead, just like his political career. It is now a question of ‘ego-tourism”, as Sipho Seepe put it. The solution is to remove him as mediator.

He should be brought before a disciplinary committee of the ANC for bringing the organisation into disrepute. — Nhlanhla Khumalo, Durban

Jacob Zuma’s use of the ‘snake” imagery a few months ago is coming back to haunt him and the ANC. He referred to Mbeki as a dead snake. He probably forgot that in the Nguni languages, of which isiZulu is one, there is the saying: ‘Ithambo lenyoka liluma inyoka sel’ifile [A snake’s bone is dangerous even after the snake is dead]” or ‘Lumkel’ithambo lenyoka! [Beware of the (dead) snake’s bone!]”. The damaging effect on the ANC of Mbeki’s letter and the emergence of a new party driven mainly by Mbeki supporters prove how dangerous the ‘dead snake” is — if it was ever dead to start with. — Vuyelwa, Pretoria

The facts about ivory

The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) would like to clarify certain issues raised in ‘Ivory stockpile confusion” (October 24).

The 51 tons of ivory approved for sale on November 6 2008 in South Africa have undergone a verification process by the secretariat of the Convention in Trade of Endangered Species (Cites). The Cites secretariat visited South Africa in April 2008 to verify the ivory for the sale. The verification was confirmed at the 57th Cites standing committee meeting in July 2008. The verification includes ensuring that the ivory is of legal origin, with documentary proof thereof, and that it has been marked according to Cites requirements. Allegations that the department does not have official information on ivory stockpiles are unfounded.

It is a Cites requirement that South Africa provide an annual report on such statistics. Only since February 2008, with the implementation of the regulations on threatened or protected species (Tops), has DEAT been required to develop a national database on keeping ivory. This includes the registration of ivory in private and state possession. Not all provinces are implementing Tops yet, but as soon as that happens DEAT will be able to provide up-to-date information on ivory stocks.

On culling statistics, note that not all involved have developed culling plans yet. Not all provinces are implementing Tops, so not all individuals and government departments which keep elephants have applied for Tops permits yet. They are still working on elephant-management plans, which they must provide with their applications to keep elephants. Culling may only be undertaken as part of the management plan. To date, DEAT has received no management or culling plans from government departments or SANParks. — Fundisile Mketeni, deputy director general: biodiversity and conservation, DEAT

Death of a hero

Just more than a month ago a United Democratic Front struggle hero died.

Sometime in the hazy 1980s I was lying on the pavement overcome by tear gas and a sjambok whack. Six or seven comrades had been locked up in the back of a police van. Jo-Jo Shapiro smashed his arm through the back window of the van to try to release his comrades. He broke his arm and was arrested.

Check out the 1980s Zapiro UDF calendar — he is the scruffy oke at the top of the spire. During the witdoek-comrades faction fighting he was a brave warrior in life-threatening, necklace-burning situations.

I remember marshalling an unruly march with him. In our black jeans and heavy boots (standard white-lefty dress code) we ran together from the city hall to Gugulethu warning businesses to close their doors to avoid the rampant looting that had become part of the march.

Jo-Jo wrote his own rule book. He was loved and respected in his second home, the Transkei, and was committed to economic upliftment projects. He died in Madagascar while battling to recover from health problems. Viva, Jo-Jo, viva! — Ian Mackenzie, Kommetjie

So much for the football …

The Mail & Guardian (October 24) implies that Green Point Stadium has been built despite the protests of local ‘nimby” (not in my back yard — implying ‘racist”?) residents, and that now the stadium is under way, we Cape Townies are all secretly happy with it. How misinformed. The majority who opposed the stadium did so on purely rational grounds.

There is already a stadium in Newlands that could have been upgraded for a ‘mere” half a billion, instead of the R5-billion the new stadium has predictably escalated to. The local press trumpeted the new stadium but has been ashamedly quiet on the fact that mayor Helen Zille publicly promised it wouldn’t cost more than R2,5-billion, yet the price has doubled.

We now have a stadium that is in some respects smaller than the previous Green Point Stadium. It can seat many more people, but we have lost the cycle and athletics tracks. The nearest running track is now in Stellenbosch. Football clubs who used the Green Point fields have also lost ground, and will have to share with rugby. In fact, the only people who seem to have scored out of this and expanded their facilities are those poor suffering folk who make up the Green Point Golf Club.

The new stadium is also without railway access and is far from the majority of football clubs, which are based in the Cape Flats. The stadium should have been built there, where it would have been accessible to the majority of the football community. But no: Zille et al probably wanted the stadium in Green Point so rich tourists didn’t have to slum it all the way out to the Flats.

Western Province Rugby Club is South Africa’s most cash-flow-bankrupt club, yet ironically worth hundreds of millions because it owns Newlands Stadium. It is its avowed intention to relocate to Green Point and sell Newlands. (Funnily enough, where Zille lives.) After all, it is part of the winning consortium to run the new stadium. So much for the football …

Zille has suckered all you journalists. — M Jackson, Cape Town

Breach of trust

‘The vice in VC” (October 31) shows clearly that some of the salaries paid to vice-chancellors of universities are excessive by any yardstick, but the salaries paid to the VCs at Wits and UCT, for example, are reasonable and perhaps a little on the low side. Don’t forget that these two universities are the only two in South Africa that rank in the top 400 in the world.

The delinquents are those members of the compensation committees of university councils who approved these exorbitant salaries. These councillors are, with respect, guilty of a breach of trust, and should be asked to step down. — Professor David Rosenberg, department of accounting, Rhodes University

You give a good insight into current salaries, but fail to acknowledge VCs who have cut their own salaries. I refer specifically to Rhodes’s Dr Saleem Badat, who cut his salary by R200 000 a year to provide bursaries for five Eastern Cape scholars. I emphasise this because his predecessor, Dr David Woods, received a R1,6-million retirement gratuity, an additional R525 000 bonus payment (not reflected in Rhodes’s financial statements for 2005/06) and all eight members of senior management under Woods in both 2001 and 2005 got a year-end bonus of up to R80 000. Badat has done well to rectify Woods’s mistakes. — Ines Schumacher, Grahamstown

Spineless SADC endorses chicanery

”South Africa will take a hard stance.” So we were told in the days leading to the full extraordinary Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in South Africa.

This was somehow encouraging, considering the softly-softly approach that had prevailed in the past, most recently at the dismal Troika summit in Harare.

Shockingly, the regional grouping connived behind closed doors, with Mugabe defiantly in attendance, to disregard the wishes and dash the hopes of peace-loving Zimbabweans whose patience is now wearing thin, understandably so.

By endorsing the Zanu-PF chicanery at the summit, SADC has relegated itself to a club that no Zimbabwean should ever take seriously. Anybody who believes that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) cannot have Home Affairs because ”they are training militias” should ask which party has been openly training militias since 2000, some of whom actively created the dilemma we now find ourselves in as they violently forced MDC leader Tsvangirai to pull out of the run-off?

It had been our expectation that Patrick Chinamsa’s fraudulent alteration of the September 15 agreement would receive SADC’s attention. Elsewhere in the democratic world, for such serious forgery, one would have been prosecuted and most likely sent to prison. SADC did not see anything wrong with that, indeed, a pathetic and shameless club driven by ”see no evil, hear no evil”.

Why the summit dwelt on the Home Affairs Ministry only when there are myriad contentious issues remains a mystery. The issue of governors, ambassadors and permanent secretaries, in addition to the proposed National Security Council, should have been seriously debated during the wasted 12 hours of deliberations. One wonders what SADC really debated during those 12 long hours, as their communiqué says very little about what was achieved; a good platform for tea, coffee, smoke and whisky, maybe!

The ”hard stance” Zimbabweans had expected from both South Africa and SADC was nothing short of asking Robert Mugabe to share power equitably with the winner of Zimbabwe’s last credible election on March 29, Morgan Tsvangirai, or else there will be fresh elections.

Does SADC remember that Tsvangirai once suggested co-chairing of the Cabinet, a proposal that Zanu-PF, with the tacit approval of Zimbabwe’s most-hated South African, Mr Quiet Diplomacy, threw out of the window? Why does SADC think that co-sharing or rotating Home Affairs is going to be workable if the same cannot apply to defence? Must Zimbabwe expand its over-bloated Cabinet just to satisfy the egos of one party?

Suppose Tsvangirai had accepted that ridiculous proposal, were we going to have another 30 summits to work through the rest of the ministries, one at a time? Wasn’t SADC supposed to have looked at the wholesome government matrix and come up with an equitable global proposal or position that affected the entire government rather than just one ministry?

As the drama continues, Zimbabweans continue to starve to death, the economy collapses further. We know that Zanu-PF don’t care as they have long ceased to give a toss to the formal economy and people’s well-being.

MDC should start searching for a solution beyond SADC. This grouping has failed and will continue to fail as long as it is controlled by those who think they owe Mugabe a life. As Zimbabweans that have endured this suffering for far too long, our warning to the SADC leaders is that we shall fight for our democratic space with the same resolve and determination that conquered white oppression. Black-on-black oppression will one day suffer the same fate.

Unfortunately, it is the SADC economy that will take most of the deadly punches as donors withdraw the much-needed aid and foreign investment gets diverted elsewhere. Our plea to the democratic community of nations is to maintain or expand the existing targeted sanctions until Zimbabweans get an acceptable government reflecting the hope and wish lucidly expressed on March 29. — Moses Chamboko

Name game

I’ve been following the controversy about the naming of the new ANC ‘breakaway” party. There is concern that there could be confusion in the minds of voters if the parties have similar names. I propose the new party be named the ‘Xhosa ANC” and the existing ANC renamed the ‘Zulu ANC”. This will remove any doubt and generate handy acronyms: XANC and ZANC. — Dylan Macdonald, Port Elizabeth

There is an obvious name for the new political party: SPCANC — Society for the Prevention of Corruption by the African National Congress. — Evita Bezuidenhout, Evita’s People’s Party (www.epp.org.za)

In brief

How rich that Stephen Gray (September 26) accuses Zakes Mda of ‘lift[ing] his whole underpinning, holus-bolus, from one single source” when he does the same by piggybacking on Andrew Offenburger’s article in Research in African Literatures. Unfortunately for Gray, Offenburger’s article has nothing of value in it beyond a lesson for young academics in the pitfalls of naked careerism. — Christopher Warnes, faculty of English, Cambridge University

Yunus Carrim bravely argues that the ruling party shut down the Scorpions because they were a ‘source of division” (October 31). Rubbish! What’s divisive is the ANC’s decision to shut them down. The Zuma cult is divisive. Julius Malema’s mouthing off is divisive. The ANC’s policy vacuum is divisive. Why not get Parliament to shut them all down? — Miles Seward, Cape Town

Poor Leonie Joubert! (October 31). I too spent nine years at boarding school — a boys’ one — and Sundays presented us with opportunities for hiving off in pairs for our mutual enjoyment. Surely, with a little initiative, Leonie and her peers could have used their Sundays for exploring the gentle art of soixante-neuf on one another? Imagine the happy memories the cooing of pigeons would bring back to her now! — Sandor Sappho