South Africa

Yesterday, South Africa lost a great man. The Ruperts and the Oppenheimers have always been considered the closest thing SA has to royalty and in this regard Anton Rupert was definitely lord of the manor. An inspirational story, Rupert rose from humble beginnings to become an massively successfuly international businessman of considerable influence. Not content with just making money Rupert was also involved in substantial contributions towards the arts, conservation and education. If a man can be measured by the impression he left behind when he departed for the next life, Rupert was a giant amoung men.  

A fuller obituary can be found here

Fellow South Africans the time has come to rise up! Our proud tradition of resistance is once again needed to right a wrong and bring justice to a wronged man! Turn your mind back two months to the drama when our anti-hero thoroughly fed-up with the criminally inefficient and uncaring Home Affairs took matters into his own hands and did what needed to be done to get his ID book :

Viva Kabelo Thibedi Viva!

Why I remember my last visit to that den of inefficiency, the local Home "Affairs" office. I was greeted by some beached whale who gazed down her nose at me, barely succeeding in hiding her oh-so-obvious contempt toward a member of the disgusting general public. "Can I help you Sir", she said in a way that suggested to me that helping me was on a par with her having to swallow her well worn HB pencil. After waiting in line for 3 hours she promptly declared it was lunch time (as if she needed any) and waddled of, leaving me to be restrained by fellow sufferers in this palace of insanity. It was then that I reached for my pistol. Returning from lunch about 20 minutes later she informed me that the person I needed to speak to was out for the day and I would need to return tomorrow. It was then that I emptied the magazine into the bulletproof partition glass. But that is another story.

Viva Kabelo Thibedi Viva!

When Kabelo strided into that office and decided enough was enough, he was no common criminal. He was a man of vision who decided to take a stand and take down the fools that had held his dreams captive. All power to ya brother! Now lets look at the so-called "victim" in this - the criminally incompetent organisation known as Home Affairs :

Home affairs official charged - A home affairs official accused of killing a man who applied for an ID book appeared briefly in the Nelspruit circuit of the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday.

 

25 caught in ID raid - Northern Cape police on Friday arrested 20 illegal immigrants and five Home Affairs officials in connection with a fake ID book and marriage scam.

 

Man's 3-year fight for ID book - Three years and three applications later, pensioner Claude Plaatjies is still waiting for his ID book. Now his pension and only source of income is about to be stopped because he has no identity document.

 

ID fraud: 60 officials fingered - During 2005 the home affairs department identified 60 officials alleged to be involved in identity document fraud, says Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula

 

Security breach at Jhb airport - The home affairs department admitted on Friday to a security breach at the Johannesburg International Airport after several passengers from Nigeria were able to enter the country without being cleared

 

So who exactly are the real criminals. If you keep slapping people in the face and they eventually after three years punch back what is it...?

Viva Kabelo Thibedi Viva!

So I call on you brothers and sisters because I have a dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all ID books are created equal." I have a dream that one day in South Africa the sons of former TBVC residents and the sons of former Rhodesians will be able to sit down together at their local Home Affairs and receive true service. I have a dream that one day even the Department of Home Affairs, a desert department, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that Kabelo Thibedi will one day live in a nation where he will not be judged by the amount of cash he slides under the table, but rather on the content of his character. I have a dream today.

And so it ends...

"You da man".

"No. You da man!"

"No. Jon Paul Bolus is THE Man!!"

"Who?"

A Cape Town student has raised a whopping R700 000 for Aids orphans in only 12 hours by persuading stockbrokers to donate their brokerage for one day.

 

Jon Paul Bolus, 21, a second-year surface design student at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, wanted to raise a substantial amount for Nkosi's Haven in Johannesburg, a home for orphaned children of Aids victims.

Nicely done boetie!

A South African mercenary in Iraq is causing waves in the news, for a bit of background :

A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.  The video, which first appeared on a website that has been linked unofficially to Aegis Defence Services, contained four separate clips, in which security guards open fire with automatic rifles at civilian cars. All of the shooting incidents apparently took place on "route Irish", a road that links the airport to Baghdad....read on  

 

CrooksandLiars is reporting that :

 

C&L has learned through sources close to the investigation that the man who is seen shooting vehhicles on this video in Iraq was a South African employee of Aegis Victory team named Danny Heydenreycher. He served in the British military for 6 years. After the incident the Regional Director for Victory ROC tried to fire Heydenreycher, but the team threatened to resign if he did. Aegis held an "inquiry" into it.

 

The actual video is HERE, the accent is definitely South African.

Seems each week the Sunday Times manages to dig up new, interesting bits of info. to keep the conspiracy theorist happy. I dunno about you, but to me its starting to look like Conspiracy Theory is fast turning into Conspiracy Fact :

BRETT Kebble was viciously struck in the face with the muzzle of a gun at the time of his murder. And the gun used to shoot him was loaded with slower than usual bullets — used by professional bodyguards and anti-terrorist operatives...

 

Go checkout the rest of the article and let your mind wander.

From the M&G :

A South African student who attacked his sleeping roommate with a baseball bat told a judge on Wednesday that he was surprised to learn he was acting illegally in New Zealand. Artur Kalauov (19) was sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty to a charge of assault with intent to injure his roommate at an aviation college near the South Island town of Nelson.

"He didn't even realise what he had done was a criminal act," Kalauov's lawyer John Sandston told the court. "In his culture they deal with things in a much more robust fashion." But Judge Tony Zohrab said he found it hard to accept that even in South Africa, people would find it appropriate to resolve personal differences by hitting someone with a baseball bat. "You could have killed this guy," he said.

Love the "even", like we're all a bunch of savages or something. Why, I remember when I was back in University and my roommate was making a noise while I was studying, quick as a flash I grabbed my AK and emptied an entire magazine into him! Or the time some guy was talking loudly on his cellphone in a restaurant - ticked me off - so I went outside and blew up his car! Man I love South African 'culture'...

But then again all New Zealanders shag sheep cos its in their 'culture'... 

Billy Masetlha and Gibson Njenje plot their next move...crafty devils

After a woefully inadequate display at the Khampepe Commission and a lacklustre tenure as pointman at the NIA, Billy "Uranium from Congo and Stingers in Angola" Masetlha has been suspended by Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils.

About time! We've had to listen to his Spy vs. Spy antics for too long. The decision to suspend Masetlha came after :

"Kasrils suspended NIA deputy director general Gibson Njenje and the agency's general manager, Bob Mhlanga, for allegedly placing businessman Saki Macozoma under illegal surveillance.

Macozoma, a member of the African National Congress's decision-making national executive committee, has been punted as one of the heavyweights in President Thabo Mbeki's inner circle, a body that could have a say in who becomes South Africa's next leader in 2009."

 

Woah hold on a minute....let's rewind to Billy's submission at Khampepe. I distinctly remember someone saying how the Scorpions were "a law unto themselves" and "a threat to national security", that wasn't you Billy was it? Cos if it was you, you're sure gonna look like a friggin hypocrite.

Not that that's stopped you before... 

Back when I first read about this I was a bit dubious about the whole "they had South African accents" thing, now the truth is out and it seems the girls were fibbing all along. In fact the girls in question had apparently never even interracted with South African's before they made their allegations and were "basing their allegations on an assumption of what a South African accent might sound like. This fact was not reported by the British media"

But hey, never let the facts get in the way of a good story! Many TV stations and newspapers including the Guardian, the Telegraph, BBC online and Sky News chose to follow the South African angle of the story. One newspaper in particular had the following to say about these "incidents" -

"[the women] were abducted and raped in a tactic familiar in South Africa...[This marked] the arrival in Britain of a notorious South African violent crime known as 'jack rolling', where gangs of youths in cars blocked off streets and raped every woman caught in their net...[in South Africa] boys as young as 15 thought jack rolling was cool".

 

You're thinking a tabloid right? Nope, try The Times of London. This really is gutter journalism at its best with its use of such inflammatory language without getting the full facts. South Africa already has a problem with its image abroad without the UK Press sexing up tales of "tall black men in BMW's" and their SA rape connection.  I think the Northamptonshire police spokesperson put it best when he said, "It was a shame that it was given this kind of publicity...It was unfair that South Africans end up being maligned by this and it was never our intention when releasing the information. Unfortunately, that happens when one line of inquiry is taken out of context and pushed to the fore."

As a side note I wonder to what extent these two assaults were related to this whole debacle.

Finally managed to track down the text to the "Biko Lecture 2005". Read it if you've got the time - definitely worth it.

Well done to the team at the South African Pavilion at the World Expo in Japan who have been awarded a Silver Award. This award recognises -

"...the pavilions of official participants that do an outstanding job of bringing to life the expo theme 'Nature's Wisdom", organisers said. "South Africa was awarded for its recognition of poverty and war as a threat to the environment and for its efforts to create a sustainable economy through ecotourism," SA Pavilion said in a statement.

 

The criteria used to select winners was respect of the theme, the theme's development, innovation, clarity and intelligibility of messages and contribution to education.

 

The website of the Pavilion can be found HERE.