Burundi’s political leaders failed to agree on a timetable for holding elections following four days of talks in Pretoria, setting the stage for a showdown on the thorny issue at a weekend summit, an official said on Tuesday. Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and leaders of former rebel groups have been meeting since Saturday.
Key political players in the Burundi peace process, including President Domitien Ndayizeye, entered a fourth day of talks in Pretoria on Tuesday to try to agree on an election timetable. South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who is the chief mediator in the negotiations, continued consultations that started on Saturday after the Burundi government announced that it had plans to delay elections by a year.
The state may be able to speed up a 19-year-old’s High Court trial for the murder of a baby girl, the rape and murder of her mother, the murder of her grandmother and the rape of a teenager, a state advocate said on Tuesday. On Monday, a belligerent William Kekana swore at cameramen and media before the trial began.
Regulations obliging doctors to acquire special licences to dispense medicine were likened in the Pretoria High Court on Monday to apartheid-era laws barring black people from certain areas and certain jobs. As those laws did to blacks, the regulations infringed on doctors’ right to dignity, freedom of movement and of practising their professions freely, Hans Fabricius, SC, argued on behalf of more than 11 000 medical practitioners.
South African President Thabo Mbeki pressed Burundian political leaders on Monday to agree on elections, seen as crucial for advancing peace in the Central African country, wracked by civil war since 1993. Talks between Burundi’s president and leaders of former rebel groups and political parties opened in acrimony in Pretoria on Saturday.
Missing South African diplomat Nicky Scholtz has been found, apparently unharmed, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday. Malaysia’s Sunday Mail newspaper reported that the police investigation centred on Scholtz’s personal life including a possible love tryst.
Girls under 18 can legally have abortions without parental consent, the Pretoria High Court ruled on Friday. The court dismissed the Christian Lawyers’ Association’s (CLA) challenge to the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act. This is the second time the CLA has lost an court challenge to the Act.
There is no legal duty on the South African government to take any steps to protect its citizens in distress abroad, the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday. Argument was being led on behalf of the government, which opposes an application for state intervention by 70 South African alleged mercenaries being held in Zimbabwe.
South African investigators had enough evidence to apply for the extradition for trial of 70 South African suspected mercenaries held in Zimbabwe, the Pretoria High Court heard on Wednesday. The 70 men were arrested in March on suspicion of plotting a coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea and are seeking a court order that they be tried in South Africa under the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.
Seventy South Africans being held in Zimbabwe on suspicion of plotting a coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea face real prospects of being executed if sent to that country for trial, the Pretoria High Court heard on Tuesday. In court papers, Samuel Kaunda and 69 others asked the court to direct the South African government to ensure they are not tried in Equatorial Guinea.
E Guinea ‘must deal’ with the matter
Inmates at Pretoria’s prison were detained under ”atrocious conditions”, according to a report by two advocates handed to the city’s High Court on Monday. Judge Essop Patel earlier this year requested the Pretoria Bar Council to appoint advocates to investigate complaints by five prisoners, who approached the court for help, saying that they were incarcerated under inhuman conditions that violated their human rights.
Environmental lobby group Biowatch sought a Pretoria High Court order on Monday compelling the government to divulge details of all genetically modified (GM) organisms brought into or manufactured in the country to date. The body wants the state to make available an extensive list of facts concerning each permit.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela will have to fight another day — her and her financial adviser Addy Moolman’s Pretoria High Court appeal against their criminal convictions was postponed on Monday. Moolman’s legal team had requested the postponement. Madikizela-Mandela’s team was ready to go ahead.
The Foreign Affairs department was trying to verify on Friday the citizenship of two men, said to be South Africans, in trouble with the law in Indonesia and Thailand. ”We are awaiting verification of the identities of the two men from our respective South African missions,” a departmental official said.
A 26-year-old former employee of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) shot a 42-year-old woman in the head on Thursday afternoon at his former place of work and afterwards shot himself, Pretoria police said. The man was on the second floor of the SABS building in Groenkloof with the woman who was handling his file.
Ten tertiary education institutions offering Masters in Business Administration qualifications have had their MBA courses scrapped, the Council for Higher Education said on Thursday. Six existing business schools received full accreditation.
The South African government was gravely concerned at the ongoing house demolitions and military incursions by the Israeli defence force in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday. The department said what has been witnessed in the past week was clearly counterproductive to peace.
More than 80 cases of child abuse are reported in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, each month, said a member of the family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit, Captain Shiluvane Malunyane, on Tuesday. He also said there were more cases being reported every month.
The South African government is still waiting to hear when ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his entourage are to arrive in the country, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. Spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said the government was waiting for an official communiqué from the Caribbean Economic Community as to the exact date.
South Africa remains last in a survey of 22 countries able to conduct electronic government operations, but this should be seen in the correct context, said Accenture’s Charles Webster on Monday. ”South Africa is the only African country in the survey and was competing against First World countries. In this light it’s not bad at all,” said Webster.
Millionaire farmer and coup plotter Lourens du Plessis on Friday told the Boeremag treason trial in Pretoria he does not think blacks are the problem in the country ”because our fight is not against flesh and blood but against evil spirits in the air”. Du Plessis said he has undergone a religious change after being arrested for treason.
The government intends to create a ”lot of pressure” within the private banking sector by forcing it match the savings interest rates of the newly launched RSA Retail Bond launched on Friday in Pretoria, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said. The public has the option to purchase one of three bond types.
The Democratic Alliance on Thursday questioned the government’s wisdom in allowing ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide ”visitor status” in South Africa, saying the decision has not been adequately explained. The DA also objected to the costs involved in accommodating Aristide and his entourage.
The Electoral Court presided over a tug of war on Tuesday over 2 666 votes that could give the African Christian Democratic Party a seventh National Assembly seat but leave the Azanian People’s Organisation with one. The ACDP claims the votes, cast in Khayelitsha on April 14, were wrongly credited to Azapo.
Self-confessed Boeremag coup plotter Lourens du Plessis on Tuesday told the treason trial in Pretoria of plans to involve members of the police’s disbanded Civil Cooperation Bureau in the coup. According to Du Plessis, he had a meeting with an alleged former bureau member who said he could get a missile — but nothing came of the plan.
An appeal by former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni against a four-year prison sentence for fraud was postponed in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday to July. Yengeni sought the delay to enable him to obtain a full copy of the record of his trial on charges related to his acceptance of a discount on a luxury 4X4.
About 150 family members and friends of alleged mercenaries held in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea handed over a memorandum addressed to President Thabo Mbeki at the Union Buildings on Tuesday, calling for government intervention. ”I believe my brother is innocent and does not belong there,” said one of the family members.
Rightwingers plotting to overthrow the government had brief intentions of assassinating businessman and former politician Cyril Ramaphosa, the Boeremag treason trial was told on Monday. Coup plotter turned state witness Lourens du Plessis said he had dissuaded two accomplices who had ideas of killing President Thabo Mbeki.
Boeremag plotted to replace Parliament
A parliament had been identified to replace the existing one to have been ousted in a rightwing coup d’état, the Boeremag treason trial heard on Monday. State witness Lourens du Plessis told the Pretoria High Court he had been informed of the existence of such a body by accused number one Mike du Toit.
A consular visit by the South African High Commission in Harare to the 70 South Africans being detained on charges of planning to overthrow an African government will take place on Tuesday, said Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad on Monday.
The senior Department of Correctional Services employee who refused to appear before the Jali Commission of Inquiry on irregularities within the service said on Thursday he was being ”hounded by top management”. ”I am fed up with it. What am I meant to do, commit suicide?” Winston Naidoo asked.
Former state president PW Botha had advised a right-wing coup plotter to get out of politics and ”get a movement with an iron fist”, the Boeremag treason trial heard on Thursday. State witness Lourens du Plessis told the Pretoria High Court he had visited Botha at home in June 2001 to discuss the political situation in the country.