11/25/2005
Whatsup in SA today~
"News Swing", is a new section on Someamongus that I hope to update (almost) daily. It will feature stories in the news that I've read and thought you all may find interesting and thought-provoking. I won't be commenting much here, it'll be more of an open forum, so feel free to leave your own comments and observations.
Let's get the ball rolling...
- An important decision for the Judge-President of KZN on just who will be passing judgment in the Zuma trial. A number of names are put forward along with some interesting biographies about each potential candidate.
- Two articles about the SWAPO mass graves that were discovered in northern Namibia. The first is in the Editorial section of the M&G provides a nice summary of the story, as well as some good historical background. The second article on News24 provides the latest updates to the story.
- Finally a bit of foreign affairs news, with the SA government pushing for patience in the Iranian nuclear controversy.
07:40 Posted in News Swing | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this | Tags: South Africa
Comments
Excellent site..excellent comments. But maybe "Too little..too late"..?? I am not normally a pesimist, quite the opposite but I think its time to leave Africa to the AFRICANS, go back in a few years and clean up whats left. ;-)
I am (ex) South African, now living in South America...shitload full of problems..but at least a fair chance at making a living.
Posted by: Vince | 11/26/2005
Thanks for the kind words Vince! South Africa definitely is an interesting place to live at the moment. Personally, it feels good to live in a place that is making history on a daily basis -- for sure its not for everyone but it definitely makes for great blogging material!
Hope to see you on Someamoungus again soon.
Posted by: someamoungus | 11/26/2005
This story about the graves in Namibia is following a predictable pattern. The Namibian government is desperately trying to play it up as evidence of atrocities for both political and financial reasons (they don't seem to be getting much joy, or cash, from the Germans for the Herero massacres of a hundred years ago after all). The New SA press is following what could be a great, gory story that bashes the old regime. But has anyone considered a rather more mundane explaination?
As a recent immigrant I didn't have to do National Service but most of my SA freinds did and a lot served on the border. From what I've read and conversations with my freinds it seems that aside from the big battles of the late 80's most contacts between the SADF and SWAPO were small affairs which the more heavily armed SA forces usually won. Since there are few other ways measuring "progress" in guerrilla warfare it's pretty standard practice globally to use body counts as the mark of success.
The normal SA practice seems to have been to collect any dead SWAPO's, strap them to the front fender of the Casspir and carry them back to base for identification and evidence purposes. But what to do with a bunch of corpses once the formalities are over? Northern Namibia is hardly the environment to keep messily dead bodies lying around for long after all. Ever pragmatic the troops probably just dug a hole and dumped the bodies. They hardly respected the enemy after all so I doubt there were ever any grave markers or memorials.
Anonymous burial might also have served another purpose. One thing I have learnt in the last sixteen years in SA is that conducting the proper funeral rites is very important in African culture (far more so than in the west). Maybe some bright spark in Headquarters thought that by denying the enemy the chance to bury his dead in accordance with custom would demoralise him in some way.
Anyway, that's just a couple of thoughts from someone who wasn't there. Then again neither the leaders of SWAPO nor the SA press were there either. Any former national servicemen care to comment further?
The Remittance Man
Posted by: The Remittance Man | 11/29/2005
Dear Remittance Man
You invited a comment, thus I shall oblige. I think you should stop smoking that stuff and get back to the mothership before they leave you behind...
Firstly, what is the "predictable pattern" that you refer to? Predictable by whom ?
Secondly, your "munsane explanation" (thats a new word meaning mundane and insane ) shows that you have great talent as a fiction writer, but hardly any as historian. please do yourself the favor of reading a bit more about the issue here http://allafrica.com/stories/200511210946.html and here http://za.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-14T063018Z_01_ALL423387_RTRIDST_0_OZATP-NAMIBIA-GRAVES-20051114.XML and here http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=10767,1,22 etc. .... ad nausium.
Thirdly, to "demoralize him (the enemy) in some way" wouldnt it have worked better if somebody actually KNEW about these graves. I hardly see the point you are trying to make. How can the graves be demoralizing if none of the enemy knows about them ?..Duh
Have fun on this lovely green planet, and don´t forget to visit this site before you wizz back home...Yeah...we know all about you green guys....http://www.bright.net/~phobia/
Ok, maybe I wash a bit harsh on you... you can take some of that stuff you smoke back with you...
Kind Regards
Posted by: Vince | 11/29/2005
The comments are closed.