Too Much Nonsense

At 13h30 on 21 January 2008, Faan Coetzee, lawyer for Ferdi Barnard (see picture), the killer of David Webster among others, was telling the media that his client was going to apply for a presidential pardon (see the first linked document).

Nine minutes later, Tlali Tlali of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had just finished holding a press conference to announce, in effect, that the trial of Barnard and others for the assassination of Anton Lubowski nearly 20 years ago would be postponed yet again. (See the second linked item).

We have no way of knowing whether these two press conferences were deliberately synchronised or not. The coincidence is either an embarrassment, or it is a message. The NPA should tell us which.

The same NPA had released a statement on Friday, 19 January 2008 about the past of Gerrie Nel, who was recently arrested and charged, only to have the charges withdrawn again by the NPA. The NPA also let it be known that Nel helped prosecute Janus Waluz and Clive Derby-Lewis for the murder of Chris Hani. This is a very interesting and even provocative announcement (see the linked Politicsweb article).

The YCL in particular has called for the re-opening of the investigation of the assassination of the SACP General Secretary, as Chris Hani was when he was shot. The investigators, presumably including Gerrie Nel, did not pursue the matter further than Waluz and Derby-Lewis, but we are sure there are others involved. The trail is not cold. On the contrary, the forces that were behind the Hani assassination are still making aggressive moves right up to today. For examples, click the following web-site links:

March 2007: BNP activist took part in terror campaign (Guardian, London)

July 2007: South African intelligence officer makes failed attempt to entrap Searchlight

September 2007: Anger rises in South Africa as killers walk free (Searchlight)

October 2007: Arthur Kemp profile on British anti-fascist site (Kirklees), with picture

Late 2007: Arthur Kemp Shores Up US Neo-Nazi Group (Southern Poverty Law Center, USA)

Mike Muller’s Business Day article (see next link) calls, quite correctly, for the resignation of national Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka for her role in the power failure debacle. Muller’s main message, however, is a pernicious advocacy for a utilitarian technocracy. It is precisely such technocracy that was a) responsible for our present electricity supply shortfall and b) decisively rejected by the 52nd National Conference of the ANC at Polokwane in December.

Muller is trying to smuggle a rescue for the technocrats by condemning the ostensible politician, Mlambo-Ngcuka. This is dishonest. Mlambo-Ngcuka’s crime was not that she was too political, but that she was not political at all. She never took the power problems to the democracy. Most of the detail that we are getting now is news to us, and much more of it still lies hidden. Technocrats like Muller hide their crimes and duck responsibility. In themselves they display the reason why they must always, like the military, be utterly subordinate to the democracy.

The SACP’s media release on the power cuts is the next link, followed by the extraordinary announcement that the entire management of the Tshwane Metrorail is to be suspended following the simultaneous burning of six trains at different locations after an Eskom power blackout.

Please check the Coming Events. There are new events posted there today, and nearly every day.

Click on these links:

Convicted apartheid assassin Ferdi Barnard applies for pardon, SABC (225 words)

Media gets it wrong on Lubowski says NPA, IOL (298 words)

Dubious and dubiouser, James Myburgh, Politicsweb (999 words)

Switching our focus to the third centre of power, Mike Muller, B Day (941 words)

Recent power cuts by Eskom, SACP Media Release (612 words)

Tshwane Metrorail management team suspended, IOL (192 words)

Coming Events