Nick Cumming-Bruce President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie’s enthusiasm is infectious, but his head- spinning monologues have the power to wear anyone down – as Margaret Thatcher discovered while drumming up business in Indonesia. Purposeful as ever on a mid-1980s visit, she strode around the Bandung aviation plant with Habibie trotting beside her, talking furiously. Visibly flagging, […]
`Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” the inscription on the Statue of Liberty urges the world. In South Africa, which we pride as a “land of liberty”, we electrocute them, detain them, deport them and, on occasion, lynch them. Even when they are not poor and huddled we […]
Krisjan Lemmer Squabbling continues unabated between the one-time “star” witness in the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela scandal, Katiza Cebekhulu, and his former mentor, Emma Nicholson, now dignified as Baroness Nicholson Of Winterbum (or something like that). Writing to The Guardian newspaper in Britain, Katiza complains that the dame continues to cling to the copyright to his own […]
Craig Bishop The launch of the National Environment Management Bill this week is expected to give communities a “lot more political muscle in dealing with companies”, says Chris Albertyn, national co-ordinator of the Environmental Justice Networking Forum. “The new Bill recognises that the government has very little capacity to deal with companies breaking environmental laws. […]
Chris Gordon The in-your-face style of marketing practised in downtown Luanda, Angola, is a normal hazard of life on the dishevelled and risky streets of the capital. Young men and children, mainly refugees from the provinces, sell anything from chewing gum to clothes, pushing it through car windows, following potential customers down the street, disbelieving […]
Anna Borzello in Kampala The 42 Sudanese prisoners sat at the edge of Entebbe airport. Despite spending more than a year in military prison, they looked in reasonable health – with the exception of a man who was said to have gone mad in captivity. A Sudanese government delegation arrived by jet from Khartoum and […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Next time Spiwe Takura stands in front of police officers for her training session, she will have the perfect example of victimisation to present. A human rights trainer for the police in Gauteng, Takura claims her own human rights were shockingly abused in Yeoville. Her ordeal started at a supermarket last month when […]
Chris Gordon Luanda’s frantic daytime commercial activity belies tension in the peace process, but at night the city falls quiet, reflecting the fears that the low-level war will increase when the United Nations completes its pull- out at the end of June. The new impasse comes as Unita refused to hand over their political and […]
Charlene Smith On March 16 1984, former president PW Botha met his Mozambican counterpart, Samora Machel, at the Nkomati River to sign an accord that effectively blackmailed Mozambique. Next month, on June 6, President Nelson Mandela and Machel’s succesor, President Jaoquim Chissano, will open the Maputo development corridor, strengthening relations between the two countries and […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer When the World Cup draw was made in chilly Marseille last December, France and Denmark expressed happiness bordering on arrogance after being placed in the same group as minnows Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Recent events suggest it may not be quite so easy for the French and Danes with the Saudis […]