‘Ma’am,” said John Edas with a dramatic pause, “motor racing is lily white. At Motor Sport South Africa there is only one person of colour – and that’s me.” The members of the parliamentary committee on sport and recreation looked on grimly as they pondered the difficulties of making motor racing a sport befitting the […]

Alet van Rensburg The new civilian caretakers of Vlakplaas – former base of the notorious police C-10 hit squad – are interested in buying the farm from the government and turning it into a rehabilitation centre for “lost souls”. The old farmhouse on Vlakplaas is now filled with Louis and Lucia Smit’s furniture. They’ve turned […]

Wally Mbhele The arrest of Robert McBride on charges of gun-running in Mozambique seems to have been a well-co-ordinated police trap, planned with the man he was captured with, Vusi Mbatha, Mozambican gun-runner Alex Mamba, and the South African security forces. There is concern that old-guard elements of the South African military and police assisted […]

Shaun de Waal: International tour What does it all mean? Besides the obvious live band footage (treated or untreated), the series of images flashing past on the giant video screen that is arguably the most essential part of U2’s PopMart concert is an almost bewildering cornucopia of pop/ art iconicity. Perhaps it is unfair to […]

Robert Kirby: LOOSE CANNON I see The Great Professor Jay Naidoo is up to his Indian rope tricks again. Should racist-bashers bulge to the previous sentence, let rest. I use the term, Indian rope trick, in its flattering sense. As a part-time magician, I have only praise for illusi ons that both delight and confuse. […]

with the times People who got themselves classified coloured in the old days are switching back – to black, writes Angella Johnson Once upon a time in the old South Africa it was considered infinitely preferable to be coloured rather than black. At least that was what Frank Makoba’s family thought when they opted to […]

Marion Edmunds One of the world’s most respected human rights watchdogs has accused the South African government of committing serious human rights abuses against illegal immigrants, in a damning report that draws parallels with the apartheid regime’s treatment of blac ks. The Human Rights Watch report is the first significant attack from an international agency […]

GANDHI’S LEGACY: THE NATAL INDIAN CONGRESS, 1894-1994 by Surendra Bhana (University of Natal Press, R64,95) Though not the only Indian political organisation in Natal during the last century or so, the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) was by far the most important in terms of commitment to liberation not just for Indians but for the disenfranchised […]

Alan HenryMotor racing Ferrari are poised to offer Michael Schumacher a virtual blank cheque to prevent him defecting to the McLaren-Mercedes team in 1999, a year before the end of his contract. Fiat’s president Gianni Agnelli is said to have sanctioned a o52-million package to ensure Schumacher stays at Ferrari to the end of the […]

Who is . . . ‘Suiker’ Britz? Stefaans Brummer Assistant Commissioner Karel “Suiker” Britz wears grey shoes. Or if he doesn’t he should, for he fits snugly into that category of old-guard cops with nicknames like “Snor” and “Balletjies”. But while Britz does sport an impressive moustache, and presumably has the other attribute as well, […]