South Africa P.I.G.: POLITICS.

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Why Africa is Poor: the result of power-hungry dictators

Mills' hard-hitting book pulls no punches about Africa's condition. The first sentence of the introduction to his book, Why Africa is Poor: And What Africans Can Do About It, reads: “The main reason why Africa’s people are poor is because their leaders have made this choice.” This sentence is repeated in the middle of the book. It is repeated again at the end of Mills’s conclusions. Could this insistent message be plainer? Or will Africa just continue to ignore the lessons of international reform as it suits them? <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk7Atw3aj-Jn3TKQVo2cM5HVcoJ_haZs6FrS5i3MrKDXFToPjEFqjlKjNnvOmuKqwwyh5-HeAFXWMxl33L7Rtv8NAo0YHIxCEznf7lsP7DmYUQGZAjsSwtdbwLesg6qDI7eGuhgA2VpDUR/s1600/BOOK%20Why%20Africa%20is%20Poor(2).jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521362221422259666" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk7Atw3aj-Jn3TKQVo2cM5HVcoJ_haZs6FrS5i3MrKDXFToPjEFqjlKjNnvOmuKqwwyh5-HeAFXWMxl33L7Rtv8NAo0YHIxCEznf7lsP7DmYUQGZAjsSwtdbwLesg6qDI7eGuhgA2VpDUR/s400/BOOK%2520Why%2520Africa%2520is%2520Poor(2).jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 250px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 382px" /></a>It reminds me of another book titled Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent. (published in 1990), written by Blaine Harden of the Washington Post. In it he made the following observation: There are countless reasons to despair for Africa. At the end of the 1980s, per capita income was lower than it was thirty years earlier. Seventy percent of the world’s poorest nations are in Africa. The region is slipping out of the Third World into its own bleak category: the Nth World. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xrWeiHnfuLrqwwuMNSKzSjeqgPHdEE5kiaI_AZ_ZXjhe0m3VwMv5nXy2qouqvAem2OT0PIGWnFu8uylWzOfBCEzQeEMoEluWClSXY3PIOO2NdI6a1Cemf0ujfOAHPh80uc9N7NRKDJx0/s1600/Book+-+Africa+a+fragile+continent.jpg"></a>Africa is the most successful producer of babies in recorded history and the world’s least successful producer of food And, like Greg Mills, Harden blames Africa’s power-hungry dictators for the tragic state of affairs: As I travelled around Africa, it was the vulnerability of Africans to the depredations of their own leaders that — more than famines and wars and poverty — sickened me most. <blockquote>If you took a quarter-century worth of His Excellencies the African leader and tossed them in a blender, you would come up with a Big Man who looks like this: His face is on the money. His photograph hangs in every office in his realm. His ministers wear gold pins with tiny photographs of him on the lapels of their tailored pin-striped suits. He names streets, football stadiums, hospitals, and universities after himself. He carries a silver-inlaid ivory mace, or an ornately carved walking stick or a fly whisk or a chiefly stool. He insists on being called “Doctor” or “conqueror” or “teacher” or “the big elephant” or “the number-one peasant” or “the most popular leader in the world.” His every pronouncement is reported on the front page. He sleeps with the wives and daughters of powerful men in his government. He shuffles ministers without warning, paralyzing policy decisions as he undercuts pretenders to his throne. He scapegoats minorities to shore up popular support. He bans all political parties except the one he controls. He rigs elections. He emasculates the courts. He cows the press. He stifles academia. He goes to church.(p217, Blaine Harden, Africa – Dispatches from a Fragile Continent, 1993) </blockquote> Mills’s book should be required reading for every South African cabinet minister, senior (and upcoming) government official, business leader — for everyone interested in the development of what the Economist some years ago called the “hopeless continent”. Mills also discusses South Africa’s resistance to globalisation and generally Africa’s eagerness to attend the myriad international events to which its leaders are invited, instead of submitting strategic and detailed execution plans at these events. “Africa has the biggest voting bloc in the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and other such organisations,” Mills notes. “But what does it ‘trade’ its vote for? Help for Cuba and the Palestinians, blocking UN managerial reform, and manoeuvring around tougher action on Burma and Iran. None of this does one bit for Africa or for Africans outside of the New York diplomats, who revel in such posturing, or those leaders overwrought by their own anti-colonial complexes. Africa is often the subject of these meetings, but its leaders generally miss the point. “As the collapse of the global trade talks in Geneva in 2008 showed, the WTO was perhaps the worst example. Led by South Africa, 40 African votes were locked together with China, India and Brazil, with the aim of resisting European and United States demands for the South American and South Asian giants to open their markets. “Fine for them, but those same countries had as high — or higher — tariffs on African goods as the EU and U.S. did. If African votes in support of their positions had been exchanged for commitment from those countries to provide duty- and quota-free status to Africa (a small price for them to pay given the limited share Africa would gain in their markets), this position would have made sense . Instead, Africa sold its votes for some form of ‘South-South’ solidarity, without any return to serve its own interests. India, China and Brazil must laugh all the way to Geneva for every WTO session.” For how much longer does Africa want to be known as the failed continent? Consider this comment in The Times (UK) by a former Conservative MP and influential columnist, Matthew Parris, responding to the constant squeals from African leaders that the West are trying to recolonise them: <blockquote>“Great powers aren’t interested in administering wild places any more, still less in settling them; just raping them. Black gangster governments sponsored by self-interested Asian or Western powers could become the central story in 21st-century African history. The continent is in many places run by outfits that resemble gangs rather than governments. You hardly need visit  … the gang’s territory … you simply give it support, munitions, bribes and protection to keep the roads and airports open and it pays you with access to resources. It is when China, then America, and perhaps even Russia or India follow, that the scramble for Africa will truly be resumed.” </blockquote><blockquote>Parris wrote that comment in April 2008.</blockquote> "Yet it is within the power of African governments to make more civilised arrangements. Why don’t they do it?" Surveying Africa’s record, Mills writes: “In a half-century of independence, Africa has not realised its potential. Instead, its greatest national assets have undermined its prosperity. Africa’s youth, far from being a huge source of talent and energy to be harnessed, are regarded as a destabilising force because they are largely unemployed and uneducated. The principal problem with African economics is politics, and the choices that leaders make in the interests of their short-term expediency of staying in power and ensuring control." Far from being the world's breadbasket, Africa's agriculture potential has similarly been squandered. Despite many African states possessing natural advantages, 35 of 48 sub-Saharan economies were net food importers at the end of the 2000s. Africa's share of world agricultural exports has halved since 1970, to under 4 percent. If Africa's dismal economic performance can be put down to bad choices by African leaders, then we have to ask: Why have they made them?" When African leaders read what further Mills has to say, they should squirm, because they know it applies to most of them: “Things are highly politicised in the small sense of the word — keeping matters in the party’s ambit, rather than true checks and balances on government.

Why Africa is Poor: the result of power-hungry dictators

Mills' hard-hitting book pulls no punches about Africa's condition. The first sentence of the introduction to his book, Why Africa i...

1:44 PM

Imagine a New South Africa

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj99myY1LrKueAQMh4GDjesGkTue_FPF6-e8uI3OTwNNmRKKmCMJZc-D0a0x5vN6x1pGM4TpikewMSAPu8_Hnm9uIQ5Rm9mHOz_DNPfD8RgDaxf5KHuAb7muWS3QXJC36y-9ufHlL-REeI/s1600-h/clip_image002_0000.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5227847621412984546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj99myY1LrKueAQMh4GDjesGkTue_FPF6-e8uI3OTwNNmRKKmCMJZc-D0a0x5vN6x1pGM4TpikewMSAPu8_Hnm9uIQ5Rm9mHOz_DNPfD8RgDaxf5KHuAb7muWS3QXJC36y-9ufHlL-REeI/s400/clip_image002_0000.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>Helen Zille Imagine a society free of fear; in which all citizens know their rights, are respectful of the law and understand the consequences of violating it. Imagine waking up in the morning, secure and safe.Imagine walking freely in our streets late at night with confidence and peace of mind. Imagine a country where criminals are speedily apprehended and prosecuted; where victims of crime are treated with compassion and understanding; and where people are confident that those prosecuted will be brought to justice. Imagine laying a charge at a police station, where you are served quickly, your case is accurately documented and your passage through the criminal justice system is marked by efficiency, respect and compassion. Imagine seeing your child off to school, knowing that she will be safe from harm and will be properly cared for until you collect her. Imagine not knowing anyone who has been a victim of violent crime. These are difficult images for most South Africans to conjure up, for the simple reason that crime, and the fear of crime, is a constant presence in our lives. It is the greatest burden on our collective psyche. It is a symbol of the tragic failure of our government to take care of its people. People used to talk of a "crime wave". But I want to tell you today that there is no crime wave. A wave is temporary. It swells, breaks and then washes on the shore leaving calmer waters behind. What we face is a crime tsunami. It rises and rises until it devastates everything in its path, leaving only the debris of shattered lives in its wake. We live in fear of being murdered, raped, robbed or assaulted by a criminal army which grows larger and more brazen with every passing day. This is not a perception, as our President claims; it is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the statistics put out by the police themselves. These figures tell us that one out of every ten South Africans is physically assaulted, mugged, raped, hijacked or murdered every year. In the fourteen years since our democracy dawned, over ten million people have fallen victim to violent crime. Every day 50 people are murdered and more than 100 women and children are raped. But these statistics don't tell the real story. They cannot convey the tragedy of the brutal murder of 10 year-old Seloane Booysen from Bloemfontein who was murdered last week and left on the side of the road to be discovered by a passer-by. Seloane, the eldest child in her family, lived in the Pieter Swarts informal settlement. Yet, as a keen grade one pupil at Laerskool Bloemfontein-Oos, she could look to the future with hope for a better life. The statistics cannot describe the impact that this tragedy has on people's lives. Seloane Booysen's parents have lost their daughter; her family is traumatised; and a community reels from the shock of another violent and senseless crime. And yet somehow, in spite of these terrible reversals, we get involved where we can in the fight against crime. We join our Neighbourhood Watch Programmes and our Community Police Forums. We help the police whenever we are able. But we need to do more. We need to ask the hard questions. We need to ask why we live in fear at a time in our country's history when we should have such hope. We need to ask why the system fails us again and again and again. The simple answer is that criminals know that they can get away with it. They rely on the police's inability to find and arrest them; on police dockets that simply disappear; on evidence that goes missing or does not stand up in court; on cases that drag on and on until they are dismissed. They assume that at every step of the arrest and conviction process, there will be an official who can be bribed to make the case collapse. And this is why South Africans have lost confidence in the state to prevent crime, to apprehend suspects and to successfully convict the perpetrators. But we must never give up. We must never forget that in a democracy, underwritten by a Constitution, we have rights. We have the right to life; we have the right to live in peace; we have the right to demand protection from our government. And so today we say: enough is enough. Today is the day that we declare war on crime. And it is a war. South Africa is a country at war with itself. It is war that has left more people dead than the war in Iraq. It is a war between the drug-dealing gangsters and the communities that live in fear of them. It is a war between the rapists and the women and children they prey upon. It is a war between the hijackers, the thieves and the murderers, and those who are held up and robbed and killed. It is a war between good and evil. Today we salute the unsung heroes of this war. They are the brave men and women of our police force who stand on the front line. They are the police officers that have sacrificed their lives to fight crime. These are the troops, who have been deserted by those in government who should be leading the charge. They have been left ill-equipped and under-resourced for the battle they must wage.When DA MPs visit police stations, they find the same problems at every one. There are not enough personnel; staff members are inadequately trained; there are not enough weapons, there are not enough vehicles and -most shocking of all-there are not enough life-saving bullet-proof vests. Here at the Heidedal police station, the DA discovered a shortfall of twenty bullet-proof vests and six vehicles. We believe the shortage of bullet-proof vests to be in the region of 20,000 country-wide. But we cannot know for sure because government denies that there are shortages and refuses to release official figures on police resources. In fact, government denies that crime is a problem - full-stop. Last year President Mbeki declared: "Nobody can prove that the majority of the country's 40 to 50 million citizens think that crime is spinning out of control." Perhaps if Mbeki ever left the safety of his VIP security, he would not feel quite so confident. Perhaps if he had taken the time to see for himself what it is like in a community where people live in fear of armed gangsters, he would think differently. We are losing the war against crime because our government is out of touch with reality. We are losing the war because, instead of targeting criminals, our government targets those who voice their fears. Who can forget the day that Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula told Parliament that South Africans concerned about crime have two choices - they could either "whinge until they are blue in the face" or "simply leave this country". The tragedy is that more and more people are taking the Minister's advice and are leaving our shores. Over half of South Africans who emigrate say that violence, crime and corruption are their main reasons for going. When they leave, they take their skills and capital with them. This is a loss to our country that we cannot afford. If we cannot retain highly skilled South Africans, we cannot create jobs. If we cannot create jobs, people are more likely to turn to crime. This is a vicious cycle that we must break if we are to succeed as a nation. And what of those South Africans who do not have the means, the skills or the inclination to emigrate? Minister Nqakula never explained what would happen to them. Concern about crime is not the preserve of any one group. It is an issue that unites all South Africans in fear. It is the ever-present reality for every person in this country - from Sea Point to Soweto, from Durban to De Aar, from Hoedspruit to Heidedal. Nowhere are the effects of crime more harshly felt than in our poorest communities. People who cannot afford private security, electric fences and high walls are the soft targets. Our government has left them to the mercy of the gangsters and criminals who operate in these communities with total impunity. Some people have expressed hope that things will be different should Jacob Zuma become our President next year. They see him as a man in touch with the people, a leader who will take a firm stand against crime. What they don't understand is that Jacob Zuma is, in his own words, merely a loyal cadre of his party. He has no policies of his own and he has no vision for a crime-free South Africa. In fact, the party that Zuma belongs to has become a haven for convicted and suspected criminals. Some in his party have declared that they are even willing to "shoot and kill" if Zuma is found guilty of corruption. This is the same party that has dismantled every specialised unit in the police force, with disastrous consequences: <ul><li>Since the government disbanded the South African Narcotics Bureau in 2004, drug-related crimes have increased by a staggering 30%. </li><li>Since the Child Protection Units were closed down, crimes against children have increased. Last year saw the number of children murdered rise by 22% from the previous year. </li><li>Since the closure of the Commando Units, violence in rural areas has skyrocketed. Last year, farm attacks across the country increased by 25%.</li></ul>The party that Zuma leads wants to disband the Scorpions, in order to protect the criminals in its own ranks. It is obvious to all that the real reason for shutting down the Scorpions is that they were too successful in exposing corruption in high places. The Scorpions are to go the same way as the Anti-Corruption Unit, whose mandate was to root out corruption in the SAPS. In 2002, National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi took a decision to close this unit down. This decision was made behind closed doors and no explanation was given. Selebi's motive only recently became clear, when it emerged that the he had allegedly taken bribes from drug king-pin Glen Agliotti. Without the Scorpions, neither Selebi nor Agliotti would have been investigated and Agliotti would still be free to peddle his drugs on the streets. Without the Scorpions, there will be no unit outside the police to investigate the policemen who collude with drug dealers and international drug syndicates. Without the Scorpions, it is unlikely that Jacob Zuma would ever have been charged with corruption. When government takes decisions based on the interests of the ruling party's leaders, rather than the people they are supposed to serve, we know we are in trouble. It is no wonder that public confidence in the criminal justice system is at an all-time low.With the right policies, the right attitude and the right leadership we can win this war and restore people's faith. Every law-abiding South African wants the war to be won and the criminals defeated. It is time to stand up and be counted. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEnwamKZHF_UyzveRO32zB6d6ys8vfUcthb-fRQgby5H115qutRl85YUCb8g7usWRscRMw_C1Cy4Rd3po3oBSy5xAzizpD7q1NZthPqVdhJE0KLgKjyB5tiNXUKgSNE61cbOxiuCHEZn8/s1600-h/quoteBox_sig.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5227853185955784882" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEnwamKZHF_UyzveRO32zB6d6ys8vfUcthb-fRQgby5H115qutRl85YUCb8g7usWRscRMw_C1Cy4Rd3po3oBSy5xAzizpD7q1NZthPqVdhJE0KLgKjyB5tiNXUKgSNE61cbOxiuCHEZn8/s400/quoteBox_sig.gif" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>The Scorpions are to go the same way as the Anti-Corruption Unit, whose mandate was to root out corruption in the SAPS. In 2002, National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi took a decision to close this unit down. This decision was made behind closed doors and no explanation was given. Selebi's motive only recently became clear, when it emerged that the he had allegedly taken bribes from drug king-pin Glen Agliotti."Helen Zille, July 25 2008<a href="http://www.da.org.za/" mce_href="http://www.da.org.za/">Democratic Alliance</a> <blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>

Imagine a New South Africa

Helen Zille Imagine a society free of fear; in which all citizens know their rights, are respectful of the law and understand the consequen...

4:38 PM

Mandela "yesterday's hero"

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOIAb_KsjnsNx141uPabJA-CBFPyQ1uA7tp6VsE7Ob3KC2sWg0f2NBy4AUvYK8TD29fvlbpUHJLIBijygWIOnuwGgq0WIswDDj5ZVDNb6VGZCmZRcfqWgRmjrJ1HixkOznx-zma_KzpqU/s1600-h/mbeki_tar2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5224515046031849074" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOIAb_KsjnsNx141uPabJA-CBFPyQ1uA7tp6VsE7Ob3KC2sWg0f2NBy4AUvYK8TD29fvlbpUHJLIBijygWIOnuwGgq0WIswDDj5ZVDNb6VGZCmZRcfqWgRmjrJ1HixkOznx-zma_KzpqU/s400/mbeki_tar2.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>We are in trouble when someone as sober and steeped in the traditions of the ANC as Raymond Suttner can say of the party's Polokwane election battle: "It was a battle for loot, between those who sought to benefit from continued Mbeki rule and those who had been ditched by Mbeki or sought to benefit from a Zuma presidency." However, we have more worries than the development of a class of vampire politicians, characterised by bee-ems, bling and blue lights. The problem with the ANC under Thabo Mbeki was that it granted him too much power. Mbeki became the embodiment of the ANC, and the ANC self-anointed landlord of the state. So, when Mandela criticised policy on HIV/Aids, Peter Mokaba, the Julius Malema of his day, was wheeled out to denigrate him -- and the party faithful were silent. And when Jeremy Cronin bemoaned the Zanufication of the ANC, he was forced to apologise -- and the party faithful were silent. But, in truth, the Zanufication of the ANC has accelerated, rather than slowed, since Mbeki's defeat at Polokwane. The insistence by Luthuli House that all organs of state must bow to party discipline is a continuation of Mbeki's own programme of hegemony, under a new leadership. The conflation of party, state and leader -- the genesis of totalitarianism -- continues ever more harshly in the mantra that an attempt to put Jacob Zuma on trial is an attack on the ANC, and that an attack on the ANC must be resisted at all costs, with force if necessary, including by tearing down the carefully built state institutions that are intended to limit the exercise of power. At the apex of those institutions is the Constitutional Court. To claim that comments by its secretary general were not an attack on the independence of the judiciary is simply disingenuous. Gwede Mantashe accused the court of being part of a "siege" being laid to the movement. This because the court had dared to respond publicly to what it perceived as an unprecedented attack on the integrity of its own decision-making process in the Zuma matter. As one commentator has pointed out, the legitimacy of the courts has long been fragile and a substantial constituency within the ANC has never accommodated itself to constitutional democracy. The difference now is that that constituency is in the ascendant. How else are we to understand the threat to "kill for Zuma" to "eliminate" the counter-revolutionaries; how else are we to understand the sustained and coordinated attack on the Constitutional Court? It speaks of a leadership straining to escape the institutional restraints of democracy. Again, that process began under Mbeki, who specialised in producing the veneer of institutional independence, but getting what he wanted through back-room manoeuvres and bullying. The ANC under Zuma does not have the time or the clout (yet) for such methods. Zuma has a few more legal stratagems left before he has to face his corruption charges, but they are growing more desperate and less convincing. What the ANC has failed to explain is why Zuma is so important that he must be protected at all costs? We are seeing a concerted attempt to bully the courts into producing the desired outcome. Perhaps the answer is that those who seek to break through the limitations on the ANC's power are using Zuma to batter them down in the same way they used him to oust Mbeki. So, is Mandela also "yesterday's hero" for those, like Zwelinzima Vavi, for whom the Constitution and its institutions seem just a stepping stone to some mythical revolution? Where Mandela united, Mbeki has divided. His willingness to forgive and be reconciled with his former persecutors in the interests of South Africa is in sharp contrast with the "politics of total take-over" that has gripped the ruling party. The skills, commitment and track record of officials and politicians no longer seems to count for anything. The new ANC appears to have adopted the same approach of power politics rather than moral authority.

Mandela "yesterday's hero"

We are in trouble when someone as sober and steeped in the traditions of the ANC as Raymond Suttner can say of the party's Polokwane ele...

4:59 PM

South Africa P.I.G.

Why Africa is Poor: the result of power-hungry dictators

Imagine a New South Africa

Mandela "yesterday's hero"

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