Eliminate all resistance

[Morticia]

If nothing else, at least Julius Malema has a solid legal background..........hehehe

[Dave A]

Now that really scares me

[Dave A]

Well, the threat to break up the efforts of the new party is becoming a reality.

The United Democratic Movement expressed concern on Saturday after Congress of the People leader, Terror Lekota's scheduled meeting was disrupted by ANC President supporters in Durban.

"The lack of tolerance by the ANC structures in KwaZulu-Natal against Lekota should be viewed as a culmination of the warrior talk and promotion of ethnic tendencies which have been spearheaded by Zuma and his tripartite KZN leaders," UDM President, Bantu Holomisa said.

On Thursday a meeting scheduled to be addressed by Lekota in Verulam, north of Durban was disrupted by 200 ANC supporters.

Most of the supporters who were wearing T-shirts with Zuma's picture and brandishing Zuma banners, burst into the hall and toyi-toyied, preventing the meeting from getting off the ground.
full story from IOL here

The campaign to eliminate all resistance also looks set to move onto a new target.

The SABC could have an interim board by early next month, with indications that it might include trade unionists Randall Howard and Cunningham Ngcukana.

The ANC, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party also want the chief executive of SABC news, Snuki Zikalala, replaced after the board has been dissolved.

The name of Phil Molefe, currently general manager of international affairs, has been mentioned as a possible replacement.

The ANC and its allies are pushing for an interim board to be in place by early December. They allegedly plan to use aspects of the SABC's annual report, which it will present to Parliament next Tuesday, to mount a no-confidence motion.

ANC parliamentary caucus spokesperson Khotso Khumalo told The Sunday Independent last week that Parliament "is going to get rid of the board". He told the Mail & Guardian that he "said that, and I stick to my views".

SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande also made it clear that his party wants the board to step down immediately. "We cannot allow [it] to continue even for a day," said Nzimande, addressing a public debate on the SABC at Wits University this week.

A reliable source predicted a "memorable" showdown between Parliament and the board next Tuesday when the board presents its annual report to the portfolio committee. "It'll be a rowdy meeting," the source said, as board members felt ANC MPs had intimidated them for too long.

The source also said the plan includes ensuring that the SABC is led by a new board sympathetic to the ANC when the election campaign heats up next year.
full story from M&G here

[I Robot]

N Mthethwa: Second reading of South African Police Service Amendment Bill

Second reading of South African Police Service Amendment Bill (B30b-2008) by Minister of Safety and Security N Mthethwa

19 November 2008

Madam Chairperson

The South African Police Service Amendment Bill and the National Prosecuting Authority Amendment Bill jointly effect the establishment of a new, integrated division in the South African Police Service to prevent, combat and investigate national priority crimes.

Firstly I wish to thank the Select Committee for Security and Constitutional Affairs for the role it played in the development of the Bill now being considered. Normally the committee would only become involved in the consideration of a section 75 Bill, after adoption thereof by the National Assembly.

In the case of this Bill, the committee was part of all deliberations, including the public hearings all over the country and the public hearings in the Joint Portfolio Committees on Justice and Safety and Security. Despite this, the committee, once it started deliberations on the Bill, interrogated all aspects thereof afresh intensively and critically. The committee also allowed further submissions on both Bills, by Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) and the Centre for Constitutional Rights and also allowed these institutions to make oral submissions, although the issues raised were also deliberated upon in the Joint Committees.

Madam Chairperson, I am confident that everything possible was done through the whole parliamentary process to ensure maximum public consultation as well as the best possible law to be developed. The Bill that was originally introduced underwent major amendments ranging from the level of the Head of the Directorate, which is now a Deputy National Commissioner, appointed by the Minister, in concurrence with Cabinet, to various co-ordination and oversight mechanisms.

More...

[Dave A]

And further down in the release:

A degree of operational independence is provided for by elevating the Head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), to a Deputy National Commissioner appointed by the Minister in concurrence with Cabinet.

Thus opening the door to direct political influence, it seems.

[Dave A]

Davis likens ANC to Nats

The political climate, where "influential members of the ruling party" have labelled senior judges "counter-revolutionary", resembles that of the nationalist government of 50 years ago, says senior Judge Dennis Davis.

In a new book, co-authored with advocate Michelle le Roux, Precedent and Possibility: the (ab)use of law in South Africa, Davis writes this should serve as a "salutary warning of a possible threat to the judicial institution".

ANC attacks on the judiciary, he writes, recall the Nationalist campaign to disenfranchise Cape coloureds in the Fifties, when the government reacted to initial failure by packing the Bench with executive-minded judges. Two other judges, including the then chief justice, Albert Centlivres, a strong believer in human rights in the common law, eventually retreated and gave a judgement favourable to the government in the notorious Collins case.

Davis asks whether Judge Chris Nicholson's controversial ruling in favour of ANC president Jacob Zuma should not be seen in the same light.

"The question that then arises is how history will judge the [Nicholson] judgment. Will it be recorded as a muscular assertion of judicial independence and protection of prosecutorial autonomy? Or will it go down in history in a similar fashion to the final judgment in the Coloured vote trilogy?

"Did the court retreat from compelling Mr Zuma to face trial in the face of incessant political pressure? More important, perhaps, is the question of whether those who shouted the loudest and threatened most menacingly will consider these to be acceptable tactics for compelling the judiciary to find in its favour in the future."

The authors also point to the resolution passed at the ANC's Polokwane conference, which sought to ensure the transformation of the "collective mindset of the judiciary".
full story from M&G here

Disturbing.

[wynn]

And then Malema and the ANCYL apologised for using "Kill for Zuma"

I still think the Pangas (and worse) are being distributed and sharpened.

[Dave A]

Oh this is sweet.

The Congress of the People (Cope) in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) wants the African National Congress (ANC) to reimburse it after disrupting a branch meeting, or it will take the matter to the Public Protector or the Small Claims Court.

On November 13, Cope held a branch meeting in Verulam, which was disrupted, allegedly by ANC members.

Cope provincial secretary Phillip Mhlongo said in a statement they wanted to be reimbursed for booking the hall, hiring electronic equipment and for the flight of their leader, Mosiuoa Lekota, to and from Durban.

Mhlongo said people wearing T-shirts bearing the image of ANC president Jacob Zuma arrived in a Durban metro vehicle, forced their way into the hall, sang and threw chairs around.

"People had to duck for cover because chairs were flying all over. This was more than just an act of barbarism ... They must give us back the money we used for that meeting," said Mhlongo.

He also accused the ANC of misusing eThekwini municipality resources for its "own political needs".

Mhlongo wrote a letter detailing his party's grievances to Durban city manager Mike Sutcliffe and mayor Obed Mlaba on November 27 and demanded a response within seven days.

In the letter, he said, Mhlongo provided the registration number of the Durban metro vehicle in question and even revealed who it belonged to.
full story from M&G here

[Dave A]

Just wondering...

The leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party Youth Brigade, Shadrack Dube, has been shot dead in KwaZulu-Natal, the party said on Monday.

"Dube was shot with eight bullets by unknown assailants as he came back from buying airtime not far from his house at Phumlani township, in Hluhluwe," said party chairperson in the Mkhanyakude district municipality Alfred Mpontshane in a statement. The murder happened on Sunday.

The party described the killing as a systematic campaign to eliminate its leaders, derail its campaign and intimidate its supporters before the general elections.
full story from M&G here

I see there has been a steady stream of disruptions to COPE meetings too. And the shooting of a whistle-blower on ANC corruption, although on balance if that was a hit there was some pretty shoddy marksmanship involved...

The toll seems to be climbing.

[Yvonne]

One issue that is of great concern to me is the deafening silence on the murder of the highest officer for Mbeki's personal safety at a crucial moment in our history!
Has anyone read anything further regarding his death or the investigation?

Also has there been any further reports regarding the investigation of the EThekweni vehicle used in the post above?

I am presently in the U.S.A. so may have missed media reports!

Yvonne

Yvonne

[Dave A]

Haven't heard a thing, Yvonne. These incidents seem to make news at the time they occur and not much is heard after. Even the official ANC releases criticising the disruption of COPE meetings are more questioning whether these are indeed ANC cadres causing the problem than meaningful instruction to their adherents not to do it.

[Dave A]

Some eager beavers are keen to get tearing into their quarry.

ANC chief whip Nyamezeli Booi is pressing ahead with plans to meet President Kgalema Motlanthe to clarify why he has yet to sign the so-called SABC bill into law.

Booi told Sapa on Thursday afternoon that he still planned to meet with Motlanthe to ask the president why the bill and the two Scorpions bills had not been signed.

"I will be meeting him," he said, but declined to elaborate on his concerns, because "I have already said enough".

Earlier, the Argus newspaper quoted Booi as saying: "Why hasn't he signed it? We have no insight into what is happening.

"Parliament has done its job. As a chief whip of the party I am concerned about that."

The ANC's alliance partners, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the SA Communist Party also complained on Thursday that Motlanthe had not yet signed the SABC bill.

"The SACP regards this delay as unfortunate and a major stumbling block for us to move swiftly to transform the public broadcaster into a truly public broadcaster consistent with the resolutions of Polokwane," the party said.

The bill gives Parliament the power to axe the board of the public broadcaster.

Cosatu urged Motlanthe "to sign the bill and the government to implement it, without any further delay, so that the SABC can become a genuine public broadcaster."
full story at IOL here

I'm pretty curious about the cause of the delay.

Not that I want them signed, mind you. I'm not quite as convinced as the above that this really needs to happen any time soon, if ever.

[duncan drennan]

Looking through the articles today there seems to be a subtle shift in the rhetoric.

The Mail & Guardian has established that the ANC intends to show the NPA that Zuma is small fry in the arms deal saga and that it is in possession of much more damaging evidence, including documentation that allegedly implicates former president Thabo Mbeki and Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota in wrongdoing.

High-profile legal teams hired by Zuma and the ANC also plan to:

* “Prove” to the NPA that Zuma had no criminal intent when he accepted gifts and money from fraud convict Schabir Shaik and can therefore not be convicted of corruption; and
* Argue that persisting with Zuma’s prosecution is not in the public interest.
Full story on M&G

Still the absolutely best quote of yesterday goes to Julius Malema. I can't find a written reference to it, but saw him saying this on the news last night, "There is no way to prove political conspiracy."

I just absolutely love it.

[Dave A]

Quite a hard hitting piece here called Don Zuma and the untouchables.

Methinks the cadres are confusing public interest with the "family's" interest.

It certainly would be refreshing for the ANC to come clean on the arms deal - but I don't see it happening.

[garthu]

Real dissapointment!

I must say the launch of a new party like Cope gives hope to democracy for a country, but what i picked up yesterday really concerned me as i'm a bit of a stickler for copyright etc.

An 8 page full colour brochure waas handed to us at the robots for COPE. I had a quick scan through it as politics is really neither my forte nor do i really have much interest in it.
Inside if it was 4 or 5 full page pics of various South african people. A taxi with several people in it, 2 ladies in a rugby crown painted to the full in SA colours, a business lady on a cell phone. All the pics had the same quality's, REALLY BAD photo shop changes.

Then it i read the small print, DISCALIMER, IF YOU ARE THE PERSON IN THIS PHOTO, PLEASE CONTACT US!

Instant loss in any support they may or may not have ever gained from me! Imagine you are the person represented in the brochure, who may not want any affiliation with COPE or not, may not want involvement i politics, may be a die hard DA or ANC supporter. Imagine the potential lawsuite!! They certainly seem to believe the word "DISCLAIMER" maybe protects them... don't know.

So many rights being infringed on there by a new party... makes you wonder??