Staff Reporter

David Beresford THE Guardian has obtained documents which throw doubt on the explanations offered by the Labour Party parliamentary candidate for Exeter, John Lloyd, as to why he betrayed a fellow anti-apartheid activist to the South African hangman in the mid-1960s. A letter by Lloyd the year after the execution of John Harris appears to […]

Justin Arenstein WHEN election authorities in Mpumalanga announced that they had lost the trucks transporting ballot papers to more than 50 polling stations in the former KwaNdebele, it sounded like one of the more amusing episodes of the local elections. But when the ballot papers had still not arrived 12 hours after polls were supposed […]

This was a good week for justice in South Africa. It saw the arrest of top former military leaders for their alleged role in one of the most brutal of the KwaZulu- Natal massacres of the last decade, and the demotion of that province’s safety and security MEC, Celani Mtetwa, accused of involvement in gun-running. […]

Collin Matjila, chairman of the executive committee of the Greater Johannesburg TMC, in The Mark Gevisser Profile Who? This is the man who, for the past year, has controlled a budget of R6-billion, bigger than that of four provinces and over half the size of Gauteng’s. This is the man who has had 35 000 […]

The SABC has successfully completed nationwide coverage of the local elections, writes Hazel Friedman ‘What the hell is going on in the Northern Cape and Mpumalanga?” asks a senior South African Broadcasting Corporation television staff member, his voice thick with tension and fatigue. It’s like watching the finals of nine ping-pong matches as the television […]

At the conclusion of last year’s freedom election, then-president-elect Nelson Mandela quoted the cry of American slaves from the last century: Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last. This week, at the conclusion of the next round of voting, we can paraphrase him: Normal at last, normal at […]

Jan Taljaard EVEN before the ballots were counted this week, South African right-wingers knew they had reached the crossroads. The Freedom Front saw the local government elections as an opportunity not only to emerge as king of the right- wing heap, but also to make significant inroads into a disenchanted voters’ base that once belonged […]

Including social and economic rights in the Constitution could lead to an inflated welfare state or place South African citizens in the 20th century, writes Dennis Davis THE case for the inclusion of social and economic rights in the final Constitution has been long and intensely debated ever since it became clear that South Africa […]

Local refiner Engen blamed external business conditions for its disappointing 1995 financial results announced this week. Net income plunged R300-million to R116- million compared to R416-million in 1994. Chief executive officer Rob Angel blamed the fall in profits on restructuring costs of R79-million, increased financing costs of R90-million, an eight-year low in refining margins and […]

Cinema: Derek Malcolm CHRIS MONGER, the writer-director of The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, once made an existential thriller called Voice-Over, which was shown at the Edinburgh Festival and was radical enough to suggest that the last thing he would do would be to escape Wales for Los Angeles […]

South African fast bowler Brett Schultz thrives on competing with his pace partner Allan Donald Cricket: John Perlman BRETT SCHULTZ, the story goes, was in the middle of a typically fiery spell against Sri Lanka when Kepler Wessels sent him a message, to be passed along with the ball. It was relayed in Afrikaans so […]

Fine Art: Hazel Friedman I first saw the work of Sandile Zulu (now showing at the Market) during a 1992 exhibition held by Wits University’s Fine Arts Department where Zulu was a student. At the time his burnt offerings struck me as extraordinarily beautiful, but anachronistic in the context of all those post-modern pastiches produced […]

Gold mining no longer glitters all that brightly for the South African economy. Reg Rumney reports Working seven days a week will help gold mines survive in the medium term — but gold mining is in decline, says Amgold chairman Clem Sunter. Gold mining, once the mainstay and still a central pillar of the South […]

Philippa Garson THE debacle around Wits University’s “great black hope”, deputy vice-chancellor William Makgoba, represents a crisis on several fronts for the institution, including a battle for the top job. Clearly, a concerted attempt to discredit the man tipped to be the university’s next vice-chancellor by a group of senior academics, who presented current vice- […]

It was a joyous occasion in Soweto when the English cricketers played there, but some of them were not happy with their form Cricket: Jon Swift THERE is an assurance from all concerned that Soweto’s Elkah Oval is to become an integral part of our cricket, a fixed seasonal venue and the future site for […]

Ann Eveleth While most South Africans were preparing for last year’s elections, an ambitious group of right-wingers was plotting to sieze control of KwaZulu-Natal, the Estcourt Regional Court heard this week. AWB member Freddie Steyn testified that he and five right-wingers on trial for illegal possession of weapons, explosives and poison had planned to seize […]

A local entrepreneur is confident he will be able to break the CNA’s stranglehold over foreign magazine distribution. Neil Bierbaum reports South Africa could soon see a plethora of imported titles in corner cafes and petrol station shops if plans by former Intermag operations director Butch Courtney pay off. Imported titles have hitherto been available […]

Black fishermen are outraged by the ‘unfair’ allocation of perlemoen and crayfish quotas, writes Rehana Rossouw CHARGES of corruption, nepotism and racism have been levelled at the Directorate of Sea Fisheries quota board by irate black fishermen who say they were promised a moratorium on quota allocations until racial imbalances had been addressed. Representatives of […]

Old attitudes die hard in Ventersdorp, as Justin Pearce discovered VENTERSDORP looked as if it were hosting a foreign correspondents’ convention on Wednesday. The town of the AWB had a date with the new South Africa. It was surely a story to make soundbites throughout the world, and the media were there to tell it. […]

There is only one route open to General Magnus Malan if he wants to avoid the trial which is ahead of him. He and his co-accused can ask the court in Durban for a stay of proceedings because they wish to take their case to the Amnesty Committee within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission when […]

Ernest Thusini used to be a religious leader. But it was the brutal murder of five of his children at KwaMakhutha on January 21 1987 that brought him into politics. “I think the attack motivated me to go into politics because I believed I had to do something to help enable these changes to take […]

Former defence minister Magnus Malan said the arrests yesterday of himself and 10 former military officials were the “biggest crisis for democracy in South Africa”. Speaking to journalists after the 11 men appeared in court in connection with the 1987 KwaMakhutha massacre, Malan shouted over dozens of black protesters outside the Durban Regional Court, who […]

Neil Bierbaum A COMMUNITY radio station in Pretoria is challenging a decision by the Independent Broadcasting Authority to grant it a shared frequency. Its court hearing against the IBA was delayed this week for the third time. Radio Visarend has been allocated a frequency to be shared with two other Afrikaans community radio stations, Radio […]

Neil Bierbaum An on-line radio news service is being provided by the South African Press Association under the banner of its new division Network Radio Services (NRS), which will also act as an advertising brokerage for community and commercial radio stations. The news product, dubbed Network Radio News, is presently being supplied in text form […]

Mamphela Ramphele tells how Steve Biko’s death in detention coincided with a threat to her unborn baby, in the third extract from her autobiography IT is difficult to explain the series of coincidences which began to happen after my return to Lenyenye (a small Northern Transvaal village to which Ramphele had been banished), other than […]

Bridging the gap between black and white co-ops will define the role they will play in the future of the economy, reports Meshack Mabogoane The co-operative movement, long viewed as an ideal vehicle for blending elements of the market economy, democratic participation and collective ownership, may become a major factor in the drive for broadening […]

The Weekly Mail (now the Mail & Guardian) first exposed the existence of the Caprivi 200 hit-squad in 1990, when it reported the group was trained at a secret training base called Hippo on the banks of the Cuando River in the Caprivi Strip. The base was not far from the Angolan border and was […]

Northern Province ‘witches’, banished from their communities, huddle together in a tiny village where they eke out a meagre and lonely existence, writes Fumane Diseko A dust road near Pietersburg leads to Helena, an arid and lonely village hidden behind thorn trees. Shacks made in a rush when people first settled have never been improved […]

A war of words has been declared between Absa and Millenium magazine over an article defending former Tollgate chairman Julian Askin, reports Reg Rumney A number of puzzling questions are thrown up in the squabble between Absa Bank and Cape-based Millenium magazine over a series of articles it has been running on fugitive Julian Askin […]

Judith Matloff South African company Mechem can now start clearing 7 000km of landmines in Angola under a lucrative United Nations contract — after negotiations cleared the way for equipment to be offloaded in Luanda harbour. Political or bureaucratic delays have cost Mechem, a subsidiary of state-owned weapons manufacturer Denel, thousands of rands weekly, if […]

Karen Harverson South Africa exports more to the French island Reunion than it does to other developing markets such as Chile, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Ghana. “We have a logistical advantage over European countries in the supply of goods to Reunion which is only 2 820km away from South Africa,” says South African Foreign […]

Hundreds of IT contractors are leaving South Africa to pursue opportunities and larger salaries abroad. Leon Perlman reports A mini brain drain of information technology (IT) professionals in South Africa is being fuelled by a worldwide shortage of skilled contractors. Lured by comparatively large salaries, hundreds are thought to have left in the past year. […]