God, Spies and Lies: Finding South Africa's future through its past 9780994670236

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Finding South Africa's future through its past

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'Well wr i t t en, im m a c ul;ttely rescarched must read. A focus

of debate for years to co tne' 'i'erry Hrll -

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GOD, SPIES ANIL LIES

'The past is never dead. It's not even past.' — WILLL

John Matisonn Franschhoek October Z015

20

Pain and Possibility 1800-1966

ONE

Mandela's Secret Friend VYeneed to seehistory in the round... The roast can't be undone,itcan only be t

ransform ed.

— NEtsow MvmaL~'

henever they could arrange it, Charles Bloomberg, the political reporter on the Sunday Times, the largest newspaper in the country, met Nelson Mandela. Mandela was on the run; South Africa's most wanted

man. the country's feared secret police could not find him. They began referring to him pejoratively as the 'black pimpernel', after the 'scarlet pimpernel' of the French Revolution. But the name was a badge of honour. The fact that he was at large gave his supporters heart.

To evade the police, Bloomberg and h&ndela would change their routes, travelling away from their destination, then doubhng back to the planned rendezvous. Mandela wore a white coat and cap, and a beard, pretending to be a typical black chauffeur. The men usually met in D o ornfontein or Yeoville, both p arts of the city c lose to the centre, dominated by first-

generation jews from eastern Europe. By 2015, it was the home of firstgeneration Nigerians, Sudanese, Congolese. Going under the name of David Motsamayi, Mandela would pull to the

curb in Wolfie Kodesh's car and pick up Charles, who would sit in the back seat. Kodesh was a journalist for a left-wing paper, and Mandela was hiding in his flat. Mandela talked as they drove. Bloomberg had exclusive time with the country's most sought after fugitive, but wrote nothing.

1 Cape Times, 10 December 2013, p 13. Quoted by Canon Chris Chivers, former Canon Precentor, St George's Cathedral, Cape Touw, and Canon Precentor, Westminster Abbey.

23

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

Mandela was 43, and Charles in his thirties. They were friends. There were other journalists talking to 54andela from time to time, and publishing their conversations. Not Bloomberg. Why not,' What was the nature of their relationship, and what was worth risking arrest, that was so important for them to discuss>

Charles Bloomberg is one of South Africa's most interesting and influential forgotten figures. Living most of his adult life in exile on the edge of poverty, he was nevertheless extraordinarily rich in experiences. Besides Mandela, to become a head of state many years into the future, the British Prime Minister, the Tory Scottish aristocrat and former Lord H o me, Sir

Alee Douglas-Home, in the late 1960s had Bloomberg to dinner at Number Ten Downing Street, and took hitn on a family holiday to Switzerland! Among Charles's many close friends i n B r i tain wa s Pr ofessor Eric Hobsbawm, perhaps the tnost famous left-wing historian of the twentieth

century. In the course of researching this book, Hobsbawm's daughter, Juha, wrote fondly of being entertained as a child by Charles. Another intimate among the British great and good, was Sir Jeremy Isaacs, former

"ead of Thames Television responsible for the World at VPar series, for which Charles wrote two key episodes. Isaacs later became head of Covent Garden Opera House. Charles and I became friends on his trips back to South Africa from 1976. Remaining afraid of the security police, he would call out of the blue on my office phone, never mention his or any other names, and launch into humorous descriptions of recent events, keep me laughing for about twenty minutes, then provide an obscure meeting place which relied on our previousencounters to make any sense.

~e n Charles first recounted these stories be was poor, wearing his characteristic three or four old jerseys for warmth, unwell, and carrying his signature plastic bags full of notes and press cuttings.

I Bed his stories in the back of my mind; his company was so stitnulating, so affecting, whether the stories were true or not. But all his stories were true.

Besides Julia Hobsbawm, Sir Jeremy, now retired, remembers Charles with great warmth. There was even a Tory grandee who recounted, with evident

bafflement, that he had been on holiday in Switzerland as a guest of then Prime Minister Sir Alee, who had introduced him to a member of his party who was a South African journalist named Bloomberg: 'Extraordinarily charming fellow'.

%1ANDELA'S SECRET FRIEND

Charles's father, %"illy Blootnberg, was a Jewish dental mechanic living on the %'est Rand, But at home he was 'a trueJewish intellectual: somewhat solitary, self-taught, immensely knowledgeable, free-thinking, radical', and possessed of a famous library. By contrast, Charles's mother was deeply religious. %'illy's close friend was Herman Charles Bosman, the greatest of South Africa's early chroniclers of Afrikaner idiosyncrasies. Bosman accepted Willy's request to be godfather to his son, whotn he named Charles after

him. Charles was old enough to know Bosman before the author died in 1951. At the time, Charles was entering anti-apartheid student polittcs at

the University of Witaratersrand, where he became editor of Wits Student. 'Charlie*s friends were entranced by a personality vvhich combined

friendliness and lack of aggression with enortnous talent and chartn, a perpetual fascination with new sights, new people and new experiences,' remembered another friend.-' But that London life in exile was in the future. In 1961, unknown to his

editor, Charles was secretly a member, though not an active one, of the Congress of Democrats (COD), the white branch of the Congress Alliance, led by the African National Congress. In this he differed from the other white mainstream journalists who met Mandela during this period, most of whom strongly disapproved of Mandela's association with comtnunists. At work, Charles was accustomed to being underestimated. In fact, he scented to invite it. His editor at the Sttrtduy Times,Joel Mervis, was one of those who misjudged him. Mervis appreciated Bloomberg's success in tracking down secrets, but appeared baffled as to how he did it. 'Bloomberg was a shrinking violet, always ill at ease and deferential to the extent of giving the iInpression he was backing out of a room in the tniddle of a sentence,' wrote Mervis. 'Hardly the equipment, one would say, for a reporter mixed up in the rough-and-tumble of politics,' he wrote with some bewilderment. 'Yer it paid off. For reasons unknown, politicians were eager to take him into their confidence... In 1963, he broke the Broederbond wide open, the first man to do so.'3

Charles's life's work, the dogged investigation of the Afrikaner Broederbond (Brotherhood) and Christian Yationalism, was then in its third year. Faith, Nicholas, Foreword. In Bloomberg, Charles,Cbnstiun ilationalisnt and tbe rise of tbe Afrikuner Broederbond irt South Africa, 1918-48, (ed. Saul Dubow), hlacmiiian: 1990, p vii. 3 Mervis, Joel, Tbe Foartb Estate, Jonathan Ball: 1989, pp368-9.

PA&I AhiD POSSIBILITY: 1800 —966 I

Before the big breakthrough in 1963, when he obtained a set of documents

sufficient to expose the dandestine organisation, he was publishing, week after week, what he could find out about it.

The role of this organisation is now well-known to most informed South Africans, thanks to Charles's reporting and those who followed hiin, though occasional writing still surfaces claiming the Broederbond's influence is exaggerated. Charles proved the Afrikaner Broederbond to be extremely significant. It was founded after a brawl outside theJohannesburg city hall in 1918 as an open orgamsation to advance Afrikaner interests, but became

clandestine in 1923. ihlembership was by invitation only to white Afrikaner males from one of

the three main Dutch Reformed churches. It was established in Johannesburg, and slowly expanded its reach, recruiting influential educationists,

theologians and academics, especially at the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. In the 1930s, it made a concerted effort to gain adherents in parliainent. It followed a strong Christian Nationalist ideology, strategically backing fervent nationalists against politicians who were more conciliatory towards white speakers or black South Africans. The victory of the National Party in the 1948 election was also a victory

English

for the Broederbond. It had worked hard to achieve it, and now its influence increased exponentiallyi soon, every cabinet member was also a Broeder (brotherj. It became so powerful that Bloomberg reported its move to oust 16 MPs in the ruling National Party who did not fit the narrow Broeder-

bond version of Afrikaner Nationalism. The organisation's influence did not end in government. It chose new members strategically. The organisation sought men with influence, or

potential influence, at all strategic levels of society: church boards, school boards, business, universities, from grassroots levels to the highest councils was profound. Many Afrikaner academics and in the land. Its teachers are alive today whose cheers were thwarted at a critical juncture-

impac t

that professorship, headmaster's position, judgeship, or important parish they were in line for but which surprisingly did not materialise — often mysteriously sidelined by a less qualified candidate. This organisation was at the peak of its power when Charles and Mandela had their meetings. The chairman of the Broederbond at the tiine was the extremist ideologue, Dr Piet Meyer. Meyer had rejected a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University to earn his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit

in Amsterdam. He had made several study tours to Germany which by then was ruled by Adolf Hitler, where he had befriended the Nazi hierarchy. He wrote afterwards about his exciteinent that Rudolf Hess, Reich Chancellor

htANDELA S SECRET FRlEND

Hitler's chief of staff at the time, taught him to ski, and that he had seen

Hitler up close.' In 1934, he had led the recently-established Afrikaner Nasionale Studentebond (Afrikaner Student Union) on a tour of Nazi Germany to forge hnks with the H i tler Youth, the N ational Socialist Students' Association, the

German Academic Exchange Service, and the Colonial Society, which worked for the return of South %'est Africa to Germany.-'

Meyer was not only head of the Broederbond, wielding influence over a swathe of critically influential institutions, he was also chairman of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the state-owned institution modelled

on the BBC, and which was being bent firmly to Meyer's ideological will. The SABC was the only legal broadcaster, and Meyer used its tnonopoly to impose his unwonted worldvievt on a reluctant nation.

Charles was convinced there was no story a diligent reporter could not get. And he svas going to get this one. It took five years, from 1958 to 1963, before he cracked it wide open, pioneering disclosures that would continue for more than a decade, though he left the country in the face of death-

threats and a tip-off that his freedom, and possibly his hfe, really were in danger. Charles and Joel Mervis, his editor, were of the same mind about the organisation's importance. But Charles's intellectual curiosity went much further. 'Apartheid isn't just segregated signs, it's not the same as racism in

the American south,' Bloomberg argued. 'It has a theology, a philosophy. It has European roots and South African embellishments.' If you wanted to defeat it, you first had to understand it.

It was 16 yeats after %'orld War II that Mandela and Bloomberg talked. The war deeply scarred South Africa, in ways different from the main theatres of that brutal conflict. Mandela's views changed rapidh in the post-war years. For Mandela, as for most opponents of apartheid, these had been 16 years

of raised hopes then bitterly dashed. The defeat of the dictators and the triumph of the democracies, as well as world revulsion at racial genocide 4 M eyer, PJ, Nog Nie Ver Genoeg Xie, Perskor: 1984, pp11-2. S Furlong, Patrick J, Between Crown and Su~astika, The impact of the radical right on the Afn'kaner Nationalist movement in the Fascist era, Winvatetstand University Press: 1991. Furlong drwvs this and other infortnation that would not have been available to Bloomberg in 1961 front USNAMS, the United States National Archives Mictofdm Series.

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

was followed by the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the birth of the United Nations, India's independence and rising African nationalism. Mandela followed these events closely. South Africa had the oldest African liberation movement, established on 8 January 1912. Surely South Africa would lead, not follow?

hiandela had been heartened by the Allied victory. He knew black and white South African soldiers who had fought against Hitler in north Africa and Italy. He welcomed the Atlantic Charter, signed by Churchill and Roosevelt in August '1941, committing themselves to 'respect the rights of

all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live'. While there seemed a possibility that Japan might seek African support against the Allies, even Jan Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa and a member of the British Imperial War cabinet, at first appeared sympathetic

to its African implications. The African National Congress (ANC) in the 1940s developed a document to interpret the Charter: the acid test of the

Charter, it said, would be its application to Africa. Roosevelt and Churchill did not see colonialism the same way. While Roosevelt had a genuine distaste for it, Churchill soon made it clear that he did not intend the Charter to apply to colonial Africa. Besides, by the time the war ended, Roosevelt was dead and growing Cold War fever consolidated%'estern support for anti-Communist white South Africa. Worse, after the war Smuts's priorities switched back to placating a restive white elec-

torate at the expense of black rights. Then he lost power to the Afrikaner Nationalist Dr DF Malan, who introduced apartheid as official policy. For black South Africans, the National Party victory in the 1948 white elections was a terrible blow. It also sowed confusion. What would it mean~

Many could not believe it would last. For veterans of the fight against Mussolini and Hitler, of campaigns in north Africa and Italy, and prisonerof-war camps in Germany, the fact that those who had openly prayed for a German victory were now in power in Pretoria, despite Hitler's defeat, was

a bitter pill to swallow Mandela and his friend and law partner Oliver Tambo, the two future ANC presidents, reacted differently to

t h e election result. Tambo and

Walter Sisulu thought it made the coming battle clearer. There was nothing ambiguous about Malan. Maian said blacks had no future in white South Africa, and he meant it. Mandela was more shocked. The answer to ANC letters to government

appealing for talks were more far-reaching segregation laws, and more repression. As he would to the end of his life, Mandela was conducting an intense intellectual search through the currents of the times, far the right

MANOEI.A'S SECRET ERIE'.4D

road to equal political rights. In this, he acted out John Maynard Keynes's famous quote: 'I change my mind in the face of new evidence. What do you do.'~ Whar. strategies to end apartheid would workr Where could allies be found, and how would change to majority rule come about!

Mandela's views changed considerably in the post-war decade and a half. In 1945 he was still an African nationalist, equally opposed to working with white Cotnmunists and Indians. He was also still hopeful that the Atlantic Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations

tvould open doors for Africans. But the West put that on hold for the cold war. South Africa was strategically important, supplying the West gold, uranium and other minerals, and sending its air force into the Korean War. It was the guardian of the Cape sea route.

By 1961, Mandela's views on Indians and Communists of all races had reversed. Both groups had proved their commitment and solidarity with blacks in the trenches, the jails — and the morgues. Only the Communist Party had white members reporting to black leaders. At Communist social events, Mandela first saw a multiracial reality more clearly than anyvvhere

else. The ANC now led a Congress Alliance including the rwo Indian congresses, from the provinces of Transvaal and Natal, the Communist Party and the white COD.

Mandela had already secretly decided on an armed struggle. As he had when he read Gandhi to prepare for civil disobedience," and Karl Marx in order to u n derstand Cornrnunism, Mandela again turned t o

b o oks,

including the great military strategist, Carl von Clausewitz. The following year, 1962, he would skip the country for military training in Morocco and Ethiopia, but in 1961 he divas training in explosives and shooting with COD and other veterans of World War II. One veteran explosive teacher, Harold Wolpe, had fought the British in Palestine in 1947.

Bloomberg's weapon was words, words and ideas. What would become

his life's work was his search for the true origins of apartheid, including its European antecedents. What made the apartheid establishment such an 6 Keynes's biographers find no evidence that he ever said it, but it so weil reflects hit approachthat it has taken on a life of its own. 7 M andela was never a pacifist as a principle, In the 1950s, he worked with Gandhi's son Maniiai. who stayed in South Africa — when his father returned to India in 1915~ith instructions to carry on the Mahatma's newspaper and cause. h Iandela disagreed with Gandhian pacihsm and spiritual quest, preferring Nehru's more earthly politics,

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

apparently insuperable monolith> Bloomberg saw two key elements: the ideology of Christian Nationalism provided the rationale, the Broederbond the glue holding it together organisationally. This was what Mandela wanted to understand. He was not religious.

But he had been schooled by Christian teachers and influenced by English Methodism and English literature. He was disturbed at how apartheid's architects with PhDs in theology from good Dutch universities did not just impose segregation and discrimination but justified it biblically from

the pulpit. Deeply affected by Nazism, he also knew those same Akikaner Nationalist leaders had backed Germany in the war. Mandela's own views were evident at the t ime: he described the Nationalist government as 'fascist'. Mass evictions, political persecution

and police terror could not last. 'It is the last desperate gamble ot a hated and doomed fascist autocracy,' Mandela wrote.' But as apartheid picked up steam instead of losing it, it became more important to understand this power. Calling it Nazi or Fascist might be emotionally satisfying, but it did

not explain much. Brian Bunting, of the Communist Party, would publish a book in 1964, The Rise of the South Af Reich, which chronicled the rise of apartheid

rican

in Nazi terms. 'The parallel with the German Third Reich grows every day more evident,' Bunting wrote.

Bloomberg found Bunting's book unsatisfactory. The PhDs running the country had developed a doctrine, which they called Christian Nationalism, and they had built institutions that could enforce it. It was influenced by contact with Nazi ideologues, but there were important differences. It was not the same.

Yet Afrikaner Nationalism appeared to have enveloped almost all Afrikaners, presenting a

m o n o lithic f r o n t a gainst all c o m ers, t hough

Afrikanerdom's history was anything but united. Understanding these threads was essential to find its weaknesses and combat them effectively. Ahmed Kathrada remembered the endgame was always negotiation.' Military action, international diplomacy and isolation, internal political ferment and sabotage were all tools to achieve negotiations. Mandela was

considering the question: negotiation with whom' Obviously, with the Afrikaner Nationalist government.

As it became clear that the government would respond mth greater repression and further statutory discrimination, and that the West would 8 Sarnpson, Anthony, Muedela, TheAuthorised Biography, Jonathan Ball: 1999. 9 I n terview with author.

30

KLANDELA'S SECRET FRIENi'D

not turn decisively on apartheid, its cold war 'ally', Mandela's strategic thinking had to move on, and it did. The military option developed, but so did the need to understand this newly empowered enemy.

Taking power in 1948 with a minority of white votes, Malan ruled because he won the rural seats, where %Ps needed fewer votes to win than in the

cities and towns. Malan reduced his vulnerability by granting South West Africa (now Namibia) the right to elect six hiPs, and his party won all six. The Nationalists increased their seats in 1953, though the party still had less than half the votes. Now they moved to end the Coloured vote for MPs, where it existed. In 1958, for the first time, a majority of the electorate voted Nationalist. Even more important than voting patterns, arguably, divas the growing

uniformity of white opinion around the primary political issues, increased racial segregation and repression of apartheid's opposition. From 1961, only Helen Suzman in parliament could be relied on to tackle the core and integration was the only answer, not proposition, that how much segregation and repression was enough. Despite honourable exceptions, whites allowed themselves to be corralled into the laager. Afrikaner nationalism appeared to become a monolith, led by a hubristic prime minister Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, who believed in his own divine destiny. If he were a rock, it was said, Verwoerd would be

desegreg ation

granite.

Charles disputed the monolith prenuse. Afrikaners had been divided during most of their history. There were Afrikaner leaders in all political parties, from the Communist Party to the odd Nazi, and everything in between. They dominated the main parhamentary opposition United Party, however ineffective that party was. Afrikaners had married black men and women and had children with them. Church leaders were not all of one view; nor were Afrikaner academics. Yet Afrikaner electoral unity was not an accident. There was powerful cement holding it together, and that cement was the Broederbond. What

was its ideological core? Codd its identification with Christianity provide a chink in its armour? From where did its leaders draw their inspiration, coherence and confidence? Could the ruling National Party be spht? Charles's interest went much deeper than just the Sroederbond. For him, the Broederbond was a piece of a much bigger puzzle; it was a pointer in his search to understand the roots of apartheid, more than its racist signs and

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: I800-I 966

its brutal police, to understand the minds of the PhDs who dreamt up its peculiar architecture and, most important, its justification.

Apartheid's designers were top level Broederbonders, now princes of the church, members of the cabinet. They had a single intellectual force in common: many of their PhDs had, like Meyer's, been based on the same Dutch theorist, sometimes known as the 'Calvinist pope'. He was a

theologian, educationist, newspaper editor and eventually prime minister of the Netherlands, Dr Abraham Kuyper. Verwoerd and his peers had another academic experience in common:

among these apartheid theorists, most had followed their Dutch PhDs with study tours to 1930s Germany. Was that relevant, or just a red herring.'

Apartheid was not Nazism: apartheid was apartheid. In common with Nazistn, it defined your political, economic and social life by your race. But

unlike Nazism, apartheid's founders regarded themselves as servants of a Christian church. Hitler used the German church when it suited him, but his disdain was obvious to the serious observer. Verwoerd manipulated his churches too, but he professed to be, and seemed to believe that he acted

as, a Christian. Verwoerd and his peers firmly believed they were implementing Kuyperism on African soil. South Africa's Potchefstroom University, alma mater of the last white president, FW de Klerk, was modelled on the Vrije

Universiteit, founded by Kuyper in Amsterdam. Breaking open the Broederbond did it enormous datnage and allowed the public to understand how it vvas structured, managed and how it enforced the ideology. It also weakened it, because its secrecy was its biggest asset.

It also led to the decisive break with both Broederbond and Party by one of Afrikanerdom's favourite sons, heir to a famous Broederbond founder's name, and revered clergyman, Rev Beyers Naude. Thirty years after Bloomberg and Mandela's meetings, Naut would be at Nelson Mandela's side, part of the ANC delegation, for his first full-on meeting with the cabinet of FW de Klerk at Groote Schuur, at which the Groote Schuur minute — setting the path for a negotiated settlement — was approved.

The Broederbond made it possible to change things in the dark, to achieve its appointments in church, national and local government, universities and

schools. Its views pervaded all these institutions. Dissenters were sidelined. But where, besides its secrecy, were the system's weaknesses) How could the Afrikaner nationalist soul be unlocked~

MANDELYS SECRET FRIEND

Mandela had access to members of the Afrikaner estabhshment like Bram Fischer, scion of a revered Afrikaner nationalist family, g randson of a president of a former Afrikaner republic, Abraham Fischer. But Bran was noiv a communist who had discarded church and volk. Afrikaner church leaders were not yet ready to cross sides as Christians. Rev Beyers Yaude would lead them there in the coming years, but not yet. In 1961, he was still

a member of the Broederbond, finding his way. Charles would devote his life to unlocking the secrets of the Afrikaner

Broederbond. After he was forced to leave South Africa, he would spend months in Amsterdam at the Vrije Universiteit poring over South Afric» and Dutch PhDs. But in 1961, he was still vvorking the South African end. And doing so seas dangerous, even life-threatening. The last journalist to get close to the Broederbond was George Heard, first on the Rand Daily i@ail, then as a columnist on the Sunday Times. He also attacked the Ossewabrandwag, a mihtant pro-German organisation during the war. George Heard was last seen in 1945, walking near Cape Town station in his Navy uniform, to catch a t r ain t o hi s mother-in-law's house for

dinner. He simply vanished. He had told a police officer he was high on an Ossewabrandwag hit-list, but no reliable evidence of how he died ever surfaced. His wife obtained a court ruling of presumptive death in 1952. His son Tony, wbo w ent o n t o b e c ome editor o f t h e C ape Times, sporadically attempted to find the truth about his father's murder. From

intelligence information gained after 1994, he believes his father's body was thrown down a disused mine-shaft somewhere in the Transvaal.

Charles did not believe his editor, Joel Mervis, wanted much reporting on 'black politics' in the way Charles believed it should be reported. Also, he wanted to protect Mandela's secrecy as well as his ovvn. The pap«'s political editor, Stanley Uys, had met Mandela once, and had not been impressed, a fact that the forgiving — but not forgetful — Mandela reminded Uys of when they met 30 years later. Still, Mandela and Bloomberg shared a strong intellectual and politi« interest in understanding the sources of the ideas behind apartheid, and the white Afrikaner nationahsts who invented it. Both wanted to understand its theology, for it vvas already clear that leaders like Verxvoerd and Meyer

and their colleagues placed God at the centre of their philosophy. Kathrada remembered Mandela continuing that quest rigorously in prison, obtaining

books on the subject where he could, and learning Afrikaans. And so, the lapsed Methodist, urbanised Xhosa aristocrat on the run

from the police, and the lapsed Jewish urbanised reporter, godson of the Afrikaans writer Herman Charles Bosman, drove around Johannesburg in 33

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-I966

a borrowed car, talking about Calvin, World War Il, and the philosophy behind apartheid.

The Madiba smile Aashed. It was seven in the morning in the winter of 1992 when I asked him about Bloomberg. Mandela was not in an especially good mood. We were sitting in the ANC's new headquarters, a 15-storey building in downtown johannesburg that had recently been the head office of the Shell oil company. Negotiations with the Nationalist government had hit a ditch, my television crew weren' t

ready for a scheduled TV interview for PBS FRONTLINE, and he hated unpunctuality.

But Bloomberg's name prompted the famous smile and Mandela's mind went back thirty years, to 1961, the last time he met Charles. Within a year, he would be incarcerated, isolated from the public for 27 years. And

Charles Bloomberg would flee for Europe to pursue a life of research, television, friend of Britain's great and good, impoverished but influential. 'Oh yes,* he answered Ine. 'He was in the movement, you know~' I told him I did, thou@ it had been kept secret all these years, and that we

had been good friends. Madiba was anxious to know what had happened to Charles, and I had to break the bad news, that yet another of his friends was dead. Bloomberg had numerous heart operations, the last, in London in 1985, a transplant that tailed. He took it sadly, but calmly. Mandela and

I talked a bit further, then moved on. I appeared to have established his trust and used the time off camera to ask another question about public comments about him. I asked, probably sceptically, about all the emphasis on him not being bitter. He looked at me. 'No, it's just that there isn't the time.'

He was going to finish the task he had set himself: a free, democratic South Africa. The cameras were ready, and the interview began.

TWO

Conceived in Sin Leave tbe breecbloader alone And turn to tbe pen. Take paper and ink, For tbat is your shield. Your rigbts are going! Sopick up your pen. Load it, load it uitb ink. Sit on a cbair. Repair not to Hobo.' But figbt tvitb your pen. — lsA~e WAceHorE, u'DER rHE psn!noNY~t I % W CrrasHF„ 1 June 1882, in fsigidimi Sama Xosu, first isiXhosa newspaper

ewspapers came late to the southern tip of Africa. When Cape Town

published its first paper in 1800, there were between 150 and 200 newspapers in the United States. Canada's first was in 1752. India's press was 20 years old, with at least five in print. Australia was two years behind

the Cape. South Africa's first paper was truly conceived in sin. Its publishers, operating from 3$ Plein Street in central Cape Town, were a pair of substantial Scottish slave traders in their early thirties, Alexander Walker

and John Robertson. The firm of Walker and Robertson was granted the monopoly in both printing and newspaper publishing at the Cape by a corrupt British governor, Sir George Yonge. The governor and the company 1 Hoho was where Mgolombane Sandile, chief of the Ciskei Xhosa, was killed in 1878 in the ninth and last Cape Frontier %'ar which brought his territory under British rule.

PAIV ANO POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

were in business together. So proud was the company of its high-level friendship that it honoured his wife by naming one of its slave ships the Lady Yonge. The newspaper was one of the early innovations of British colonial rule. The preceding 148 years of Dutch East India Company administration had

been newspaper- free. Britain had wanted the C ape fo r some time as a strategic asset, to secure its ships' passage to and from India and its other Asian interests. The opportunity arose when the Netherlands fell under the control of its enemy, France. Napoleon's control of the Cape after his invasion of the

Netherlands made it fair game and, in 1795, Britain invaded. The battle of Muizenberg, now a beach resort, was brief, and the Cape remained a British colony from 1800 until union in 1910, with a short interval of Dutch rule

from 1803 to 1806. The colony Britain occupied contained 30,000 slaves, most originating from Indonesia, India and Mozambique. This was a higher number than the white population of 26,000. Another 20,000 indigenous KhoiKhoi and mixed race people vvorked for the whites. Yonge was soon roundly detested by the colonists. Besides being corrupt,

he taxed them excessively. They complained bitterly to London, and a commission of inquiry came to the Cape to investigate. On the commission's recommendation, Yonge was fired. Now so out of favour that the colonial

authorities did not even provide him passage home, Sir George moved in with his friends Walker and Robertson until they could put him on theLady Yonge to sail north. He spent the next fevv years trying to get compensation from th e B r i tish government fo r h i s o ut-of-pocket expenses returning home, without success.

Needless to say, the pages of Walker and Robertson's The Cape To>un Gazette and African Advertiser, and its Dutch version, the Kaapsche Stads Courant en AfriIraansche Berigter did not challenge the government. And advertisementsfor the sale of slaves were a regular feature.

The next, much more important, effort to inform the citizenry at the Cape came two decades later with the arrivai of Thomas Pringle uI Cape Town

in 1824. Pringle had landed in the eastern Cape vvith his extended family as one of the 1820 settlers. By now, the governor was the more formidable Tory aristocrat, Lord Charles Somerset. Somerset designated the eastern Cape for the new settlers to form a barrier against the indigenous Xhosa.

Cob CEIVED 1N S1N

It was a callous and ill-considered decision for both settlers and the Xhosa. The settlers were too far from other colonists to have a market for their crops or to easily acquire supplies. Fighting the Xhosa was inevitable. B y I SA , P r ingle, who had a damaged leg that required him t o u se crutches throughout his adult life, yet had nevertheless established one of the few moderately successful farming communities in the area, moved to Cape Town to follow his real interests. Pringle was also a Scot, but he had been editor of a prestigious literary journal in Edinburgh and was a product of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Guided by science and reason, Enlightenment thinkers had a dramatic impact on the idea of government. They liberated the citizen, elevated from a powerless recipient of the King's interpretation of God's will. to a participant with a say in governance. The power of that idea can not be overestimated. If the government is

not divinely ordained, then ordinary people have the right to a say over how they are ruled. The King's view is no longer the ivord of God. It can be challenged. Newspapers acquire an important role as a forum to debate

political decisions. The ideas we take for granted- separation of church and state, checks and balances and the separation of powers benveen executive,

legislature and judiciary. and a free press — follow. Early nineteenth century Scotland was in advance even of England in many ways. Scotland had five universities to England *s tvvo; they were cheaper and more accessible institutions for the common man than Oxford or Cambridge, less hidebound by class snobberv. Scotland introduced free

universal primary school education decades before England, produced the

Encyclope dia

Britannica, and thinkers whose impact remains powertul

today. This was Pringle's xvorld, He invited his Scottish friend john Fairbairn to join him. The two men dreamed of starting a newspaper together, and of becoming 'the Franklins of the Cape', bringing to Africa the traditions of a free press and intellectual exploration celebrated by Benjamin Franklin in the US. Pringle approached Lord Somerset for the position of sub-librarian in

Cape Town. Though poorly paid, the job put him in charge of the library and gave him the foothold he needed. Soon the evo friends were also editing two publications, a newspaper called The Sorctb African Commercial Advertiser, and a magazine,the South African journat. Theyw e re enterprising and ambitious for themselves and for i ntellectual life at the Cape, starting a school and applying to the governor to start a literary association like those

fashionable in Britain. Somerset vetoed the hterary association, but the school f l o urished at

37

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY; 1800-1966

first. Somerset and the two Scots had fundamentally different world views. In British politics, Somerset was a Tory aristocrat who believed in his autocratic power, while Pringle and Fairbairn were Whigs or Liberals. As %'higs gained the ascendancy at home, these ditferences would bring muchneeded reforms in Britain in the next decade.

A clash was inevitable. Somerset found fault with both publications. The Advertiser's offence was to publish court proceedings in a libel case defaming Somerset. Even more infuriating t o

t h e governor, the paper

alleged that his son, Colonel Henry Somerset, had used excessive force on the easternfrontier. The governor svas determined to censor the journal as well. In its second issue, Pringle wrote a serious analysis of the causes of the 1820 settlers' plight. Many @ere destitute. Government policy in sending them so far east

of the existing settler population centres probably ensured failure, wrote Pringle. Settler economies that succeeded usually developed progressively from the main towns. The governmentallocated farms badly. Some were too small to be viable. The deposits they paid went to the government, leaving them bereft of start-up capital.

Somerset called Pringle to a meeting at which he berated him haughtily, as 'one of those who think proper to insult me and oppose my government'.' Somerset demanded a change in editorial policy and sight of copy before the paper was printed. The editors refused to accept dus, and made their next issue its last. Their farewell edition contained this note: 'All this seen

by government except this notice — we will cease publishing.' The two pressmen chose to fight Somerset as British subjects. Pringle resigned his library post and went to London. Fairbairn stayed to continue the school, but Somerset was vindictive, He put out the word that Fairbairn was no longer persona gratrt, and parents withdrew their children.

After considerable lobbying by Pringle in Britain, on 8 May 1829, a free press proclamation for the Cape was published. It also formally repealed Sir George Yonge's newspaper publishing monopoly of 1800. Pringle never returned. In London, most of th e anti-slavery agitation was around the West Indies. So Pringle wrote about the iniquities of Cape slavery. That writing brought him an offer to become secretary of the Anti-

Slavery Society, where he campaigned with %"Illiam Wilberforce and Rev john Philip for abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire, untd they succeeded with the Abolition Act of 1834. Vigne, Randolph, Thonras Pringle, Sontb African pioneer, poet and abolitionist, UCT Press: 2013, p127.

Two years earlier, Whigs had notched up another victory with the 1832 R eform Bill that ended at least the worst practices that elected M' s t o Westminster from r o t ten boroughs and other constituencies effectively

controlled by influential families or cliques. When slavery was abolished by the British in 1834, it was thirty years ahead ot its abolition in the United States (1865), and its former colonial masters in the Netherlands (1863). France had abolished slavery after the revolution, but had to do it a second time in 1848 under the second republic

The decades after the press freedom victory saw a boom in newspapers for

whites, even in small villages, though many titles did not last long, By the late 1830s,the firstXhosa papers ivere started by missionaries.

Fairbairn reopened the paper at the Cape. It was successful despite arousing the hatred of m any English and Afrikaans settlers. They were

especially furious when he and Rev John Philip went into rural areas to publicly shame white settlers tnistreating black workers.

As is so often the case, those who followed them ~vere less highminded. In the pre-telecommunication age, papers were the only form of communication besides word of mouth. Nineteenth-century South Africa enjoyed the nineteenth-century version of a d otcom boom. N ewspapers started all over the colony, even in very small towns. Between 1842 a« 1892, 17 papersthat were launched survived lessthan a year.

Many of those which did survive did not thank Pringle and Fairbairn for the gift of a free press. De Zw'd-Afrikaan, the Dutch paper that regularly quarrelled wit h F a i tbairn's editorials, came out d eclaring it s steadfast o pposition t o t h e 'four humbugs: Free press humbug, independent

newspaper humbug, missionary humbug and Philipish humbug.' De ZtadAfrikaart's correspondent on the Crimean War was the impecunious Karl Marx, who got the assignment through a family connection at the Cape. His sister Louisa was married to Jan Carel Juta, founder of the South African

publishing company. De ZMid-Afrikaart represented Dutch settlers, but it w a s n ot t he f i rst Dutch paper. That was the uncontroversial De Verzamelaar, established 'm 1826 bv Josephus Soussa de Lima, a Portuguese Jew brought up in t"e Netherlands with a love for the Dutch language. But it was soon superseded by De Zooid-Afrikaan and others.

39

PAP' AND POSSIBILITY: 1IIOtI — 1966

ln the ensuing decades, missionaries converted hundreds of thousands

of Africans to Christianity and taught them in church schools. From the 1830s missionaries began newspapers in Xhosa, followed by several other African languages. The first wasUrrtsbumayeli Ykndaba, (I'ubIisber of the Metes), established in Grahamstown in July '1837. Missionaries wrote in the vernacular, but soon local Africans educated and converted at the missions

began writing copy. ln 1&53 Britain granted Cape Africans a limited franchise, following several uprisings, Skeleww Wlbeki, Thabo Mbeki's grandfather, a successtul Christian businessman, becatne a v o ter f o r t h e w h i te, C ap e c o lonial parliament! ' The African vote was sufficient to swing several predominantly ~vhite constituencies. Africans began to use this power. The first black journalist to

tully exploit this influence was John TengoJab'. Jabavu, who had worked on a white eastern Cape newspaper and contributed articles to the Cape

Argus in Cape To1s~, took over the editorship of a mission paper ca!!edIsigidimi in '1881. His focus on African grievances soon became too much for

the white missionaries he worked for. He resigned in 1884 to launch his own paper, the first African-owned and -controlled, Imvo Zubantsundu PAative Opirr I'on),in Kin~vil! iamstoim. Jabavu became a popover broker, with African swing voters able to affect the outcome of 17 out of 74 Cape constituencies.

Imvo soon eclipsed the mission journals and Jabavu's influence became far-reaching, the dominant black voice. He actively supported liberal white politicians, particularly James Rose-lnnes, and several white liberals contributed to his paper's tunds. Jabavu made shrewd assessments of what he could expect, usualh backing English politicians, winning over potentially liberal whites and encouraging politicians in their direction, against the Afrikaner Bond, not to be confused with the later Afrikaner

Broederbond. The Afrikaner Bond had popular Afrikaans support. ln 1887 Jabavu's success was sufficient to scare whites into tightening

the black voters' qualiflcation by adding a land threshold, eliminating Z0,000 mostly African voters. Intuo tnobilised to flght it, registering more black voters than ever despite the new limitation. So in 189Z a literacy

qualification was added, and the financial requirement was raised. The number ot African voters declined. 3 His son Govan, Thabo's father, v;as born in 1910 when Skelexm was 81. Govan rejected his father's Christianity and capitalism, becotning the oldest oi the Rivonia trialists on Robben Island with Mande!a, often clashing with %1andela's ntilder views.See Gevisser, Mark. Tbabo Mbelti, The Dream Deferred,Jonathan Ball: 2007, pp 9-10,

40

CONCEIVED IN SIN

Imt'o marked the ascendance of independent black newspapers. In 1897 a second independent black newspaper opened in East London,Izu'i Laberrtu (The Voice of the People). Twomissionary newspapers, which faded in importance, had recently closed. %tthin a few years, newspapers popped up across the subcontinent — from Pietermaritzburg and Pietersburg to Cape Tovw, Inanda, Mafeking and Maseru.4

Black editors and organisations saw the future of their people in education, and set to creating businesses, and buying up land. Black cricket clubs began, with active and competitive sports leagues between towns.

Christianity spread. They wrote of the need to fight for political rights with their pens. I n 189 6

R h odes surreptitiously supported the Jameson Raid o n

Johannesburg, hoping to bring the South African Republic under British rule. Republican forces knew they were coming and the brief fiasco was halted, The Jameson Raid forced Rhodes to resign as Cape prime minister, and a realignment of white politics in the Cape ensued.

Black editors were forced to choose between support and opposition to British imperial ambition's. This created a dilemma for politically active black leaders. In the past, they had backed individual white candidates based on their record on black issues. Now, these NPs were divided, since

support for or opposition to Britain and support for or opposition to black rights did not necessarily go together. In 'l898, a congress in Queenstown marked the birth of South African nationalism. It was a year before the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War which

would bring about the unification of the rsvo British colonies and the two Boer republics. Izsvi's editor AK Soga gave the British his full support, his loyalty by serving as a trooper in Brabant's Horse for

demo nstrating

several months, seeing action at Stormberg and Dordrecht.

Concerned at increasingly reactionary policies of local white politicians, Izui relied on statements like the British High Commissioner Sir Alfred Milner's, that 'it is not race or colour but civilisation which is tbe test of man's capacity for political rights.' Izui wrote that, after the war, the native question would be settled and

'an era of peace and good government will be established for all time.' Jabavu was sceptical and he proved correct. Impo feared the war and 4 Odcndaal, Andre, The Founders,Jacana: 2012, p 147. Odendaai's work is essential reading on pre-African National Congress politics and newspapers, and proved invaluable to this chapter. 5 Odendaal, p 260.

distrusted the British commitment to assure black political rights. He also

used his position as a power-broker of black votes to respond to a change of policy by the Afrikaner Bond, novv wooing African votes against the English. After the Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899, Jabavu's anti-war stance and his limited reconciliation ~vith the Afrikaner Bond got his paper banned by the British authorities. Izui, sadly, applauded this act of censorship against its political rival.

With the rapid economic expansion that followed the discovery of diamonds and then gold in the second half of the nineteenth century, the flrst corporate

newspaper group, the Argus Printing and Publishing Company, emerged. In 188'I a journalist, Francis Joseph Dormer, bought the Cape Argus. Dormer would prove the most far-seeing newspaperman of his generation, succeeding in improving the paper's journalism and its finances, creating a base from which he built the biggest newspaper company in the country, the Argus group. He bought the Eastern Star, and moved it from Grahamstown to Johannesburg in 1889 to become editor of what is today known as Tbz Star, and started a paper in Southern Rhodesia, theRhodesia Herald. But the man ivho dominated mining as well as politics, Cape Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes, had secretly funded the Argus, Jabavu's Imago, as well as at least one Dutch newspaper, Het Dagblud. Historian Andri Odendaal believes Rhodes also came to the aid of Indi, though it was started with a 5500 subscription from its supporters.

While their journalism did not impinge on Rhodes's direct interests be would stay silent. But with the advent of a war he fervently wanted against

the Boer republics to advance his dream of a united southern Africa under the British flag, he would pull the rug from under newspaper proprietors who were more anxious for peace. Since his support was usually clandestine, it is not known how many others he backed secretly. When Imago andHet Dagblud clashed with his imperial ambitions, he cut off their funds. In the case of the Argus company, the lead-up to the AngloBoer War placed him in direct conflict with his partner, the man who had created the company, Francis Joseph Dormer. When Dormer opposed the increasing polarisation between Afrikaners and Englishmen, which he saw driving the country to war, Rhodes fired Dormer from the company Dormer had built. The company outlived Dormer's involvement, publishing the biggest daily papers in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Bloemfontein and Kimberley, as well as other 42

COYCEtVED IN SlN

important media properties. Dormer was fired for sticking to principle. He vvas that rare beast; a great editor who was also a skilled businessman. Imt;o reopened when hostilities ceased. in 1902. In 191Z, the Newspaper Press Union (NPL) decided to admit only whites as members. expelling jabam, who had been an early member. At the time of union, black farmers produced more of the country's staple diet, maize, than white farmers. But things were to change. White pohtical power would lead to black economic disenfranchisement. The Land Act of 1913 was only one measure in the steady replacement

of black profits by vvhite. Black miners' wages vvould be frozen, or reduced, for the next sixty years. Expelling a black newspaperman from the NPU was foursquare in line with a national trend that would stifle the black press for three quarters of a century. It ivould be 70 years before the %PIC reopened its doors to all races.

bnvo survives today, but as a shadow of its former self, long since bought out by awhite company.

THREE

'The %'hite Man and His Native Problem' A wbiternan welcomed I, unbeed, He stronger greu, and crushed me He hedgedme round with countless laws To snare mefor his prison jaws Wtb u bicb be means tosolve me. FROM APOEMIN ARAKI-BAYHO, 2, FEBRUARY1920

t

n the first decade of the twentieth century, a small mining camp founded in 1886 in the interior two thousand metres above sea level became the

world's Shangri-la and El Dorado. Within two decades, its ticker messages across the world made or broke fortunes in London and New York. Johannesburg was the coming city, the city of gold, Little wonder then that it built the writing careers of men to become as faInous as Mahatma

Gandhi and the novelist and screen-writer Edgar Wallace, both living in johannesburg as editors of newspapers from 1903. In the next decade, two men even more important to South Af rica's future vvould start papers too. Pixley ka Isaka Seme, the founder of South

Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC), began Ahantu-Batho in 1912, and DF Malan, founder of the National Party and prime minister from 1948 who introduced formal apartheid, became the first editor of Die Burger, official organ of his party, in Cape Town three years later. Only Malan's paper survives, the foundation of a global media conglomerate with interests in 130 countries, the eighth biggest media company in

the world, called Nasionale Pers (now Naspers). Imagine where South Africa could have been if Gandhi and Seme had been afforded equal opportunities.

'THE KVHITE 51AN AND HIS NATlVE PROBLEM'

The Anglo-Boer War from 1899 to 1902 changed the subcontinent, and its press, forever. It united the four separate territories, drawing for the first

time the borders South Africa hastud a. But the sacrifice of black political rights embodied in the peace agreement and the terms of union in 1910

set the scene for a century of black repression and resistance. And British scorched-earth policies in the north and deaths in their concentration camps laid the groundwork for a century of Afrikaner bitterness. In the immediate aftermath of peace, optimism was on the side of the

victors. The century began with great hope. Black politicians and editors preferred a British to a Boer victory. Several were professionals, doctors or

lawyers, and substantial farmers. Four early ANC presidents had studied abroad in Britain or America. The first few post-war years seemed to hold

at least some promise. Black editors bought printing presses and tormed joint-stock companies to run their papers.

African papers were opened in Pietersburg, Rustenburg, Mafeking, Pietermaritzburg, East London, Indian papers in Natal and a Coloured paper in Cape Town. The men behind them were exceptional. The most remarkable of these path-breakers was the prolific Sol T Plaatje. Plaatje was caught in the siege of Mafikeng (now known as Mahikeng), and used his restricted movement to write a siege diary. Pubhshed asThe Boer %'ar Diary of Sol T. Plaatje, he followed it with a second work of non-fiction, Native Life in South Africa: Before and Since the European VYar and the Boer Rebellion. Plaatje was multitalented. He edited and part-owned newspapers m

towns.Koranta ea Becoanu (Behuana Gazette)was basedin Ma6keng; Tsaia ea Becouna(Bechuana Friend)and Tsuloea Batho (The Friend of the People) in Kimberley. He authored the first black South African novel,Mln~di, and translated William Shakespeare's plays into Tsviana. At the same time that Edgar Wallace was editing in Johannesburg and Sol Plaatje to the west, the first independent Zulu-English paperItanga lase Natal (Sun of Natal) was started by John Dube in 1903 in Phoenix, ZO kilometres trom Durban.

Educated by the American Zulu church inNatal, Dube made several »ps to the L>nited States, studying at Oberlin College. Booker T Washington and the Tuskagee Institute shaped his ideas for an industrial college which he started in 1901, called the Ohlange Institute. Dube's property in Phoenix was next door to a settlement where another

important newspaper would be published, called Indiun Opinion. The demobilised head of an ambulance team of volunteers, the loyal British Indian lawyer Mohandas (later the Mahatma) Gandhi tnoved his Iaw practice to Johannesburg after the war, to service his growing contingent of

PAIN AND POSS[BILITY: 1800-1966

Indian clients. But the newspaper he started in 1903, Indian Opinion, would be published first from Durban, then from Phoenix. The press it used was established in Durban before the war, in 1898, at a widely reported opening ceremony at which Gandhi thanked 'Queen Victoria for the freedom which enabled them to obtain the privileges and blessings accruing from priming'.' Gandhi wrote the seminal policy pieces for Indian Opinion in Johannesburg, maihng them to Phoenix for printing by his editor and close friend, the Jewish theosophist, Henry Polak. Gandhi's wife and children remained in Phoenix, which he visited from time to time.

Gandhi and Dube were on cordial terms. andIndian Opinion and I/anga swopped articles for publication, but they remained on different political paths. Gandhi still saxv his cause as that of British Indians' rights in South Africa, not everybody else' s. His policy of allowing free re-use of artides in his paper encouraged the further spread of his fame and ideas across east Africa and India. By the second decade of the century, rapid urbanisation created the beginnings of a black working class, By 1919 there was a Johannesburgbased Communist Party and other socialist groups. In black-owned newspapers, politicians and journalists debated the role of Britain, the clergy, tribal leaders, trade unionism, the embryonic professional class, and argurnents for a more radical, socialist alternative. They had petitioned the British government not to jettison their rights

ahead of the establishment of the Union without success. They vvere among the key figures to form the South African Native National Congress, in 1912, later changed to the African National Congress.

In the first election after the peace white candidates vvith liberal reputations

did well. The defeated Boers still did not have the vote. By the second election they did, and the results were far more worrying. When appeals to Britain not to grant whites the power to exclude black advancement failed, it became more evident that blacks were on their orna. The state was not their friend.

When the time came for the four colonial parliaments to vote on Union, KVilliam P Schreiner, former Cape prime minister and younger brother of the author Olive, led a lonely battle to protect black voting rights. He was voted down in the Cape parliament by 96 votes to two. Most of the major

black political organisations asked him to act on their behalf in Britain to 1 Natal Mercury, 30 November 1898.

'THE O'HITE i1A'8 AND H15 NATIVE PROBLEM'

try to block passage of the South Africa Act through the British legislature. He spoke against it on platforms in London alongside Jabavu, Rubusana and Dube, but they failed. The Union of South Africa was established the following year. The 1913 Land Act embodied all they had feared would follow this flawed Union. A struggle over land loomed. Over the first three decades of the twentieth century, buying farmland to strengthen land claims

was a conscious strategy of African leaders. But as the absence of

a n y p o w erful allies became an unavoidable

conclusion, and Africans began to realise they were on their own, the path to equality was far from clear. It wasa time of lively and sometimes acrimonious debate. This new generation of early twentieth-century black intellectuals wanted to see black South Africans overcome tribal division,

and unite as black South Africans, But how to respond to this emerging white governments Should they confront whites, or appeal to 'more reasonable' ones to support them'. Rival newspapers took opposite sides in this debate. In October 1912., Pixley ka Isaka Seme, the convenor of the ANC, started

a newspaper, Abanttc-Batbo (The People), in Johannesburg with funding from the Queen Regent of Swaziland, Labotsibeni. It functioned as a party organ of both the ANC (still called the South African Native National Congress) and the Transvaal Native Congress.

This was not the first black-owned paper in the Transvaal. Small papers existed in Pietersburg and Johannesburg. What madeAbantu-Batbo stand out, besides its political link to the congress movement, was that it was the first paper vvith a national reach, using Sotho, Xhosa, Zulu, and Tswana as

well as English. The population of Johannesburg in 1912 was only 170,000 whites and 120,000 blacks, the town only 26 years old, but the paper represented and spoke to a growing urban population. Its subject matter was far-ranging,

'from the pass laws, Land Act and the world wars to strikes and socialism, the founding of Fort Hare, the rights of black women and Garveyism'.~ When the 1913 Land Act was passed, African leaders sent another delegation to London. 'They received no satisfaction, and in the midst of their endeavours the first Great War broke out,' activist historian Eddie Roux wrote. 'Whatever slight interest they may have aroused in South

African affairs rapidly evaporated. They returned, having accomplished nothing more than the futility of such attempts.'

2 Limb, Peter (ed.), The People's Paper,KVits University Press: 2012. Some who studied in America adopted the views of Marcus Garvey. 3 Roux, Edward, Time Longer than Rope, Penguin edition: 1978, p 110.

PAIN A.'VD POSSIBlllTY: 1800-I966

In 1919, Plaatje was the only one of the previous delegation to return to

Europe to try again. This delegation appealed to the Allies negotiating the Versailles Treaty not to ignore their political rights as the twentieth century

world was being shaped. The British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, met the delegation. A significant social reformer at home, this leader of the British Liberal Party government gave them no comfort. They were advised to return horne and petition the U n ion governtnent. The international

reputation of Jan Smuts appears to have eased George's conscience in ignoring their concerns. It was a lesson in the limits of British liberalism that would not be lost on black South African leaders, as they tested more and less confrontational strategies.

The unholy coincidence of political pressure with the interests of business in cheap, docile labour combined to cripple, for a long time, the cultural and political expression of a people. Queen Victoria was still in the minds and memories of African editors. They had been deeply affected by the Anglo-Boer War, and some went to Europe to fight in World War I, where 700 black South Africans drowned in the troop ship the SS Mendi, off the English Channel. Songs and oral histories kept these stories vivid in their leaders' minds. Some were loyal British subjects, as Gandhi had been in the Anglo-Boer War, but disillusionment was around the corner.

These leaders knew Gandhi, were aware of civil disobedience as a strategic tool, and exchanged articles with Indian Opinion. They also saw whites organise trade unions, and begin to use strikes to get what they want.

The potential of strikes as a political tool was noted. Abantm-Batbo published for 19 years, finally succumbing to competition and depression in 1931. It chronicled and tested the direction of the early ANC, long before it came to lead the country in 1994. Started, like the ANC, to unite black South Africans, it followed the test of British intentions and the disappointments, the rise of a white Labour Party, the Communist

Party, trade unions, strikes, and socialism, clerical support, and Gandhi's use of civil disobedience, which ended in a victory for Indians

soya~aha,

that enabled him to return to India in triumph, though his gains in South Africa were soon undermined.

One of the tragedies of South African history is that many issues of Abantu-Batbo are lost forever. The same is true of many other publications.

As is usual for subject people, Abantu-Batbo's columns display far greater 48

'THE %HITE h4AN AND HLS VAT)VE PROBLEM'

knovvledge of white society than whites knew of black South Africa. Reports followed each reading of Bills before the House of Assembly that affected black interests, including the 1913 Land Act and the various restrictive bills that followed it. Early editions show active loyalty to the British Crown, and a distinction made between the politicians and the monarch. There seems to

be something of a parallel between atfection for the British monarchy as its direct political power was waning into constitutional monarchy, and South

African kings and chiefs who retained varying degrees of respect after their political power had been broken by the British. Abantn-Batho is little known. Eddie Roux wrote briefly about it in his books, which were in any case banned. Now, thanks to new research, its story is being told, most notably in The People's Paper,a book published by %its University Press in 2012., the anniversary of its founding. It's the source of much of the information on that paper contained in the next

chapter, and well worth reading. Interestingly, the story of Abantu-Batho brings in the only woman, excluding novelists who wrote significant artides in male-run newspapers like Olive Schreiner and Sarah Gertrude Aiillin, to play a leading role in our press prior to the 1960s. Until Ruth First began her rise to importance as a journalist and eventually editor by the late 1950s, the most important

woman in South African j

ournalism provided, in 1912,, the considerable

sum of 53,000 to start Abanta-Batho.

Though illiterate and not formally schooled, Swazi Queen Labotsibeni shrewdly understood the political currents swirling around the region, their likely impact on the future of Africans, and the risks to neighbouring S waziland, at a t i m e w h e n m ost c o mmentators assumed it w o u l d b e incorporated into the South African union.

By the 1930s, political pressure, commercial takeovers by bigger white newspaper groups, and the economic suffering of the great depression after the stock exchange crash of 1929, left little of the political voices of blackowned newspapers.Abanttt-Batho finally closed its doors in Juh 1931. For an entire generation, newspapers for a black audience were either

taken over by white companies or put out of business. The Union of 1910 had the effect black leaders had predicted: growing black vibrancy and advancement was set back generations.

In the 1920s and 1930s two papers, urnsebenzi and Mayibuye, vvere started for the Conunumst Party by Edward Roux, a botanist. Ltmsebenzi remains

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800 — 1966

the journal of che Communist Party, though its impact beyond the party is limited. The ANC continuedMayibuye until 1998. Roux pioneered African night schools, his newspapers and much else. He was determined to find the best way to communicate with newh urbanised

Africans. After careful testing he rejected a system called Basic English. tvidely used in the British Commonwealth, to come up with his own, more

effective version, which he called Easy English. lt used only 1,000 English words, whether the subject was politics or anything else. He then wrote

several books in Easy English. Of course, once he was listed as a communist by the government, all his publications, along with his botanical research, papers and books popularising science were banned, just a few more items of the national treasure that were lost. Roux was forced out of the Communist Party for failing to buckle to a

particularly reactionary and unsuccessful Moscow dictat of the rime.' He returned to botany,' but the South African version of a McCarthyist scourge

of the 1950s and 1960s hounded him from his professorship at the Universicy of the %'icwatersrand. By this time he had long since rejected communism, joining the Liberal Parry. To h1eyer and Verwoerd's Broederbond, that made no difference. For them, hberalism and communism were barely differentiated. and other liberals like Peter Brown were banned for rheir work as Liberal Party leaders. Roux's history of South African black liberation movements,Time Longer Than Rope, was banned in South Africa, though it was a standard text in

classrooms abroad. By the time Roux was expeUed from the party, along with many other genuine idealists, he was disiUusioned with Moscow's control and it s attempt to p ush p olirical positions that reflected Soviet

rather than South African thinking. Roux did this work before the war, By the 1950s, Ruth First was editor of a lefcwing paper called the Guardian, running investigations of squalid conditions of semi-slavery on potato farms, the migrant labour system, and

highlighting the anti-pass campaigns. For a time after the Guardian was banned, it reinvented itself as the Nehru Age. 4 The reach of Stalin's brutality can scarcely be understood today. Moscow 'recalled* two South African communists who svere on the wrong side of a sinular Moscow decree, sending them to Siberia. They never returned. 5 Long after he left the Communist Party and became active in the Liberal Party, the govertunent kept him a listed person, so that his important contributions to botany and simple English systems for teaching to second- (or third or fourth-) language English students, could not be sold or used in South Africa. information on this page comes from Rebel Pity, his autobiography completed posthumously by his wife, Penguin: 1970.

50

'THE WHITE MAiN AND HIS NATIVE PROSLEh1'

Around the same time, in 1951, Jim Bailey, the wealthy son of mining magnate Sir Abe Bailey, sent his Oxford friend, Anthony Sampson, a telegram inviting him to Cape Town to join his magazine,Drum. Sampson, only 24 when he arrived by ship and without journalistic experience, stayed in South Africa only four years. Yet his impact on journalism for the rest of the century would be hard to exaggerate. Most of the pictures used today

of the young Nelson Mandela and the world of sport, parties, politics and crime in urban black Johannesburg come from his photographers atDrum. Peter Magubane, arguably the Nelson Mandela of South African antiapartheid photographers, began his photographic career atDrum. T he black journalism scene he encountered was mostly either n o n -

political or highlighted traditional African life. Sampson had the wisdom to recognise that he had too little experience to dictate anything, so he listened to blacks in the cities, and this is what they told birn about Drum: 'lt 's got the white hand on it. It's what vvhite men want Africans to be, not what they are...Drum must have jazz. We need more babes like that one on the cover.

More sport,' he was told. 'Henry Nxumalo was the soul of the magazine,' Sampson recalled. 'He had served in the war in north Africa and had seen how lite could have been otherwise; he had seen his hopes raised and dashed, and he covered his bitterness with laughter and brandy.' Nxumalo undertook Drum's first major exposure about workers imprisoned and flogged in the Bethal farming district, and his reports were confirmed in an official inquiry. Bylined thereafter as 'Mr Drum' there was Little he would not do, even getting himself arrested to cover prison conditions.' Drum wa s in t u n e w i t h i t s t i m es, at h o m e a nd o n t h e c o n t i nent,

chronicling the Defiance Campaign and treason trials in South Africa, the rise of Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia and political disturbances in Nigeria.

Mohandas Gandhi left behind his son IVIanilal, with instructions to continue

Indian Opinion in his image, vvhich Manilal did. The paper was closed in the mid 1960s. 6 Sampson, Anthony, The Anatoirtist, ]ouathau Batt: 2008. Sampsou wem on to be one of the most influential Sritish journalists of the twentieth century, pamcularly through his Anatomy of Britain series, but also for widely-read books on the arms industry, the oil industry, banking and others. His first book was Drum, aod one of his last was an authorised biography of htandela, with whom he remained friends till his osvn death in 2004.

PAIK AND POSSIBILITY: 1800 — 1966

A combination of commercial and political pressures had pushed the surviving black-owned newspapers into the hands of whites, particularly the Argus group, owner of some of the biggest papers in the country. Thus emasculated, they soon lost their edge. One effort to turn the tide was Bantu World, founded in 1932. Started by a

white ex-farmer, Bertram Paver, he ensured a 50 percent black shareholding. The paper was intended tor national distribution, predominantly in Enghsh. but also several indigenous languages. %'ithin a year in those depression times, the Argus, which already owned non-political black weeklies, took it over. Not until the 1970s under Percy Qoboza's editorship would The World start to become politically important.

Qoboza overcatne the authority of white editorial directors, challenging the authorities with increasing courage and flair. On 19 October 1977, he

was jailed and his paper, The %'orld, banned. Nevertheless, Qoboza's legacy is considerable. Paralleling the reemergence of protest in Soweto in 1976, black newspapers became more After his release. Qoboza edited City Press, a black Sunday paper. Even after it was bought by Nasionale Pers. it was a campaigning

challenging.

paper. Qoboza's journalists tnoved on to o t her papers and started their own. A start at recovering fifty lost years was made.

FOUR

Scottish Lord, Student Nazi Television on the market tigris year lb '

D u LvA4u., Jottvntsst ttc, 5 OcrosER 1928

r orty-eight years later,1 television was finally on the market. ~ South Africa was 16 years behind Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia)

and New Zealand, 17 years behind India, and 20 behind Australia. Europe a nd North A m e r ica had embryonic television before the w ar, but T V

exploded in those countries in the late 1940s and early 1950s. South Africa's limited, single channel service arrived, to a muted audience, in 1976. In 1928, that Rand Daily Mail headline was only a slight exaggeration, Within a year the first, successful television tests were conducted in Cape

Town and johannesburg.' The story of those intervening years is the story of how today's national culture was conscientiously moulded. The people that made those decisions and the institutions they created to en force them were our i n heritance when, in 1994, some of us were provided the opportuniry for a new start

under President Nelson Mandeia. The stock market crash in 1929, followed by the Great Depression and then World War II, delayed tnass television around the globe until the early post-war years. But we lost 30 extra years: when the rest of the world got it, 1 In August 1929 the first South African TV tests aired at the Old South Attican College campus in Gardens, Cape Town, Later that month the tests were repeated at the Milner Park, Johannesburg campus of the University of the Witwatersrand. Its greatest feature, according to the Sunday Times, was 'seeing through ualls'. By the end ofthe year, South Aft' lean newspaper readers were learning about advances including colour TV. SeeRosenthal, Eric, Yon Have Been Listening, A History of the Early Days of Radio Tntnsrnission in SA., Putnell: 1974. pp 136 — 7.

53

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

arti cipating

ive didn' t. During that time our ties with the world flipped from p in global debates to widespread alienation and isolation. Bevveen World %'ar II and TV's 1976 launch, the country would descend from punching above its weight in the world into deeper and deeper isolation. The effect of this communication cut-off on the collective psyche of South Africa's citizens was profound, The Western world entered World War II predominantly colonial, taking racism for granted. But, as those tighting it, and their relatives at home, learnt the true horrors of Nazi Germany, and its toxic combination of race-driven totalitarianisrn, more people associated that fight srith a battle for democracy and freedom.

Though TV is no panacea for a country's ills, in fact is at least a mixed blessing, nothing so well illustrates our exit from cutting-edge global discourse to the tringe as TV's absence. Of course, as we saw later, once you

have it, there is no guarantee how much of it will be worth having, The relent!ess derision of the no-television policy by the English press made no evident impact in the 1950s and 1960s, though the government clearh was aware of the embarrassment. The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) even created its own version of the British TV series, The At,engers, for radio! But in 1 969, as the world watched the historic

moon )anding, South Africans could not. The Sunday Timescalled it 'the t>nal straw'.

When TV finally came to South Africa, in 1976, it was set up by the chairman of the Broederbond, Dr Piet Meyer himself, under his rigid ideological control. The Broederbond had resisted television all these years. Its reasons were logical. It feared television's voracious appetite: making

televisio is expensive, takes time, and has a short shelf life. A small country like South Africa could never produce enough of its own, especially not in Afrikaans. It would have to buy programming from Europe or Hoi!ywood. The thin edge of the ivedge. For how long could it exclude shows with

liberal ideas, and where different races mixed? The problem was not long in coming. The launch of TV was not anticipated mth unmixed feelings. The public wanted it. of course. But the English press did not expect much of value. When it arrived, it did not take the country by storm. If radio was any judge. little effort would be made to appeal to tastes much wider than those of Piet Meyer himself. Programming was a limited number ot hours each evening, the news divas unreliable, and set sales were not explosive. The SABC survived on licence fees. %'hat could the SABC import that

was worthwhile, 'wholesome' and would elevate its itnage, bring sets into homes and fees into the SABC? One of the biggest TV phenomena of the

SCOTTlSH LORD, STUDENT VAZI

decade was Thames Television's TheWorld At War, a 26-part series on%'orld War II, narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier, considered the greatest actor of his day. It was educational, not salacious, and it was widely respected and admired. The SABC bought it, and that spurred TV purchases. News of this acquisition was all over the media. For the first time, South Africans stayed home one night a week for a riveting visual event.

But Meyer was not happy. As episode followed episode, and discussion was engendered. he looked ahead, and realised he had a problem mth episode 20. Episode 20 was about the Holocaust. That episode was written bi the South African. former Sunday Times journalist, Charles Bloomberg, Mandela's friend. Bloomberg had fied abroad in 1963 after his disclosures, and worked with leading historians. He had been recruited by Sir Jeremy Isaacs to write this episode and another, The other was episode 18, Occupation: Hollamt 1940-1944. By now Charles had spent years in Dutch archives, especially the Vrije Universiteit, so he was a logical choice. Meyer announced episode 20 would not be shown. Isaacs immediately got on a plane to Johannesburg with an ultimatum: no cuts or alterations whatsoever could be made. It was 26 episodes as produced or nothing. While this drama was playing out, Charles was in Johannesburg, having commenced one of several low-key trips he began tanang a decade after he left. I first knew he was in town when he called my Mail office number. Charles's role in the series was not mentioned in South African papers, though his success in a medium he had never seen in his home country should have been cause for pride. But, privateh; he entertained me with an extraordinary tale. Several of the concentration camps were in Communist

Europe, both East Germany and Poland. As the writer, Charles travellec with the crew. This was in 1973. By now, Charles's heart condition had already brought at least three heart operations. He wore layers of jerseys and was always shabby. Communist authorities allowed the shooting, presumably because they approved of an anti-Nazi film. Bur they still kept w atch, undetected by Charles. During

the shooting, Charles walked on his own, as usual. As he told the story, he encountered a ~voman who shared his remarkably quirky sense of humour. It seetned like a serendipitous, heavenly match of like-minded people. They landed in bed together. Suddenly the bedroom door of his hotel burst open, and in walked three or four black leather-jacketed men with large cameras, who immediately began photographing this 'compromising' scene. Charles's wits were about birn. Sitting up and showing a chest zigzagged with surgical scars, he said: 'Please, send these to Screut magazine

PA1N AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

in London. Otherwise my friends will never believe this.' It was, after all, not long after the sixties,

hleyer relented in the face of Isaacs's 6rmness and public support for the series. Episode 20, on the Holocaust, was showa to South Africans. Bloomberg wrote it with the focus on the people present at the time. He did not want

evidence of skeletal victims to dominate, rather of how people responded, SS officers, Jews who had been in the camps, and ordinary Germans. In Olivier's soothing, authoritative voice, three former SS officers were introduced to the viewer. One described witnessing a gassing first-hand;

a second testified that Adolf Eichmann had told him personally that six million Jews had been killed, and a third described an occasion when Heinrich H i m m ler wi t nessed shootings without emotion, t hen became

physically sick when blood accidentally spattered onto his shoes, The programme shovved how the regime tried to hide the truth, including the showpiece Theresienstadt camp, where photographs were taken of Jews especially dressed and well-treated for the cameras. One Jewish survivor told of a rabbi +ho was in a group of all ages, being led to their execution, He understood what was coming, and shouted out,

'God, show them your power. This is against you', and, when he knevv all v.as lost, his last words: 'There is no God!'

The episode concludes with Allied soldiers driving bulldozers into the camps, pushing dead bodies into a mass grave, an urgent measure to reduce the health risk to the living.

The battle over South African broadcasting in the twentieth centun w as

fought between two philosophies, embodied in two strong-willed men, both unrestrained by humihty or self-doubt. They were Lord John Reith and Dr Piet Meyer. Neither was a democrat; with the hindsight of twenty-first century South Africa, both personalities seem almost as much caricature as

reality. Reith was brought out from Britain in 1934 by the p

rime

minister, General Barry Hertzog, to recommend the terms for the establishment of the SABC.

The forbidding personahty of the legendary founder of the BBC was enhanced bv his unusual height, untamed eyebrows over piercing, deep-set eyes, and a five-inch gash on his left cheek from a %'orld War I wound. Reith was a brilliant, hard-working, tormented, God-fearing engineer, who had headed the BBC from its inception in 1923. His legend would outlive him: 'Reithian' is still many broadcasters' ideal of the traditional values of the

SCOTTISH LORD, STUDENT NAZI

BBC at its best. He was an apostle for broadcasting inoculated against both political and commercial interference. 'The royal road to enhghtenment', he called it, with 'disinterestedness and expertness' its guiding principles. A gifted administrator, at the time he came to South Africa Reith was involved in an intense Whitehall battle to expand British broadcasting services to the empire, tnotivated partly by interwar competition with Germany.

A British itnperialist, albeit with Scottish republican sympathies, he shared many white South African prejudices. He had n o c o mpunction

in encouraging Prime lv1inister Hertzog to 'cut the franchise' (of African voters). Hertzog 'most heartily agreed with m y u sual observations on democracy,' he told his diary. 'He said they would have to r educe the franchise if they ~vere going to get anywhere in South Africa.'-' Rentoving

Africans from the voters' role was achieved by Hertzog during this tenn of his premiership, the battle of the founding generation of the African National Congress (ANC) finally and completely lost. The ANC was a shadow of its former self, its influence on public political life minitnal. Reith's report to Hertzog addressed a very mde range of issues, solving technical problems, suggesting ways to get public feedback on progratnming, relaying overseas broadcasts, and providing programming for all races then unserved. There was wide public discussion about it, and most saw it in the

mould of the BBC, whose reputation evinced pride among Englishmen and women. Reith wrote tnost of the Bill w h ich was passed in the South African parhament in March '1936. The SABC would be state-owned. operating on

a government licence but with political independence. The 1936 legislation provided for broadcasting television as well as radio!

Experiments with wireless transmission began in Port Elizabeth as early as

1898 and Cape Town in 1899. Ships began using it prior to Union in 1910. Wtth World War 1 on the horizon, Kaiser Wilheltn 11 put a radio transmitter

in Windhoek, in Gertnan South West Africa (now Namibia), to match the world's most powerful, in Berlin. There were successful transmitting

experiments between Johannesburg and Cape Town. When the South African army marched into Windhoek in 1915, one of its first acts was to destroy the German transmitter. 2 Mc lntyre, lan,The Expertseof Glory, a life of Johrt Reith, HarperCollins: 1994. p211, His published diary, edited by Charles Stuart, does not contain this datnning quote.

57

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

South Africa began tnanufacturing some radio equipment by 1910, and hobbyist radio hams began building receivers. Most were Scottish or English immigrants, but Pretoria-born Hendrik Johannes van der Bijl, atter his doctorate in Dresden, made significant, ground-breaking discoveries in both Germany and later, working for American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT5"T) in advancing radio valves, the first scrambling device for telephone confidentiality, and evolved an early form of the cathode ray oscillograph, the essential element in a television set.' %ith a glowing career and celebrated German-language academic papers to his name, Yan der Bijl gave up research to return to South Africa as the government's Scientific and technical adviser. Prime Ivtinister Jan Smuts,

understandably detested by both black and Afrikaner nationalists, did believe in science. He recognised Van der Bijl's value, enabling him to found Escom, South Africa's monopoly electricity supplier, and Iscor, the iron and steel works sold in the 1990s to India's ArcellorMittal. Both proved key drivers of South African progress. Capetonians heard radio reception from London on receivers when ocean liners were in port early in the t wentieth century. Then in 1923 several

temporary stations broadcast in Kimberley and Pretoria, followed by a series of concerts in Johannesburg by the South African Railways, including an address by Smuts. More than 200 amateur wireless hobbyists heard that programme in Cape To~m. Though the music was clear, Smuts's ivords could not be deciphered and had to be printed in the next day's papers. In 1923 the government authorised vvhat it called 'official broadcasting by wireless in the Union ot South Africa', and invited applications for broadcasting licences. The first permanent radio station was developed in Johannesburg by the Associated Scientific and Technical Societies of South Africa. The Johannesburg city council opposed their application. It wanted the licence itself, 'in the hands of a public body'. It was scientific expertise versus the councillors running the city. The postmaster-general went with science. He was influenced by the fact that the city council move seemed

to be led by Labour Party councillors, including Morris Kentridge, father of later human rights lawler Sir Sydney Kentridge, and grandfather of the world-renowned twenty-first century South African artist %I11iam. Central government civil servants looked askance at the party *s socialism, even if it divas socialism for whites only.

The first South African radio station, JB Station, was launched at 8,30pm 3 Rosenthal, p 16.

SCOTTISH LORD, STUDENT NAZI

on 1 July 192,4 with 'God save the King' played by the station orchestra, from a studio in the Stuttafords department store building in Rissik Street,

conducted by the German-born station manager, Theo brendt. The Transvaal administrator, Jan Hofmeyr, opened the station trumpeting the idealistic promise in this new medium. 'Now, over the spreading veld

to lonely villages and isolated farmsteads, there Nill come the voice of this station with its mighty message of comradeship and unity,' he opined. HofIneyr, later to become known as the most liberal politician to come close to leading South Africa before the 1990s, meant unity of whites. Smuts's

ruthless suppression of the 192,2 Rand revolt of white miners was fresh in the public mind, and Hofmeyr appealed for understanding across the vast chasm be>veen Johannesburg andthe countryside.

'By many of those who hve in other parts of the Union, the Rand has been regarded as something un-South African, alien, incapable of assimilation, a disconcerting excrescence which has appeared on the smooth surface of South Africanism,' he told listeners. Yet he saw hope for understanding. 'Links have

been formed between the Rand and the platteland. Each has begun to realise its dependence on the other, its inability to live unto itself alone. This station

will surely help to break down what remains of those barriers.' Soothed by the songs 'Love and music, these I have lived for', and 'In the garden of your heart', the notables then adjourned to a Stuttafords dinner.

The next day's excited Johannesburg Star advised that the wonders of wireless had been heard from Cape Town to Bulawayo, and they 'had given to the subject of wireless the characteristics of a furore.'

The station saw itself as providing high art, as well as popular entertainment in the form of regular dance music, and educational talks on a wide range of subjects. Reflecting the white bits of the Johannesburg melting pot, it brought together Scottish engineers, German musicians, English actors and

broadcasters, local comics and singers.

Durban and Cape Town competed to be next. Durban won xvith a station controlled by the Durban city council. Sir David Graaff, the meat refrigeration tycoon and m i nister o f p o sts and telegraphs, donated the equipment for what he thought would be a station run by the Cape Town

city council. Then the council's broadcasting sub-committee decided that 'broadcasting is not an activity suited to municipal enterprise', and turned

it down. The municipal orchestra had stretched the council's tolerance for losses in the interests of culture far enough.

PA1Y, AND POSFIBIL1TY: 1800-1966

Graaff had given the equipment personally, but as minister of posts and telegraphs, he was the licensing authority; Jimmy Dunn of the Cape Peninsula Publicity Association asked him for the radio licence. Graaff and Dunn drove to the office of the postmaster-general, Colonel FA Sturman. The minister, his boss, asked: 'Mr Postmaster-General, do I h old the government licence for the Cape broadcasting station?' Sturman said yes. 'Then please hand it over to these gentlemen of the publicity association',

which he did. So much for independent regulation. Durban and Cape Toom were on the air before Christmas of 1924. All three stations lost money. The main source of revenue was licence fees.

to be collected by the post office from set holders. But the public were listening without paying, 'like guttersnipes endeavouring to watch a circus from under the tent wall', one paper wrote. Cape Town's radio set owners

were the most rehable payers, andJohannesburg the least. The guttersnipes won: JS closed in January 1927.

After JB went off the air, some listeners tuned in nightly to check if it had been revived. The obvious saviour for the stations was Isidore William (1%) Schlesinger, the Johannesburg-based American industrialist who owned a chain of movie theatres, tnostly basement cafe-bios. Born poor in the Bronx, New York,

Schlesinger made his fortune in a wide range of South African businesses. He re-opened the station on 4 April 1927, soon taking over the Durban

and Cape Town stations, incorporating them in his newly-formed African Broadcasting Company (ABC). Schlesinger absorbed the losses and invested heavily to build the national service he thought would produce a turnaround. adding more powerful transmitters and opening in Port Elizabeth, with new relay stations in Bloemfontein and Grahatnstown, then Pietermaritzburg in 1935, He built

Broadcasting House in Commissioner Street, Johannesburg, the headquarters of the SASC for several decades until the Auckland Park edifice was built.

Schlesinger quickly began exploiting the synergies with his movie theatre business. His magazine,Stage 6' Cinemu, which had ignored radio entirely, changed its name to Sage, Cinema O' Listener-In, and published the station's programmes. Services to 'listeners-in', as they were called, received

an increasingly comprehensive service, and Schlesinger expanded Afrikaans broadcasting. 60

SCOTTISH LORD, STL'DENT NAZI

Though the station continued losing money into the depression, in 1931 an application was made for a new privately-owned station. The postmastergeneral rejected it on the grounds that citizens' radio 'requirements could probably be met' by the ABC station 'without creating complications' that would arise from a second station. 'In regard to advertising propaganda and publicity, it is considered that facilities in that direction could amply

be provided by the African Broadcasttng Company.' It would be the last time a commercial station would be considered until tw o st ations got

around the law by basing themselves in bantustans in the 1970s, followed by a wave of legal licensing launched under the democratic government after 1994.

Reith's report in 1934 ended the experiment with the American commercial

broadcasting model. By choosing Reith to vvrite it, Hertzog had signalled his o~n view. It was not shared by his son Albert who, as minister of posts,

telecommunications and broadcasting would do all he could to reverse his father's vvork.

Reith praised Schlesinger's efforts generously, calling on the government to buy him out at a good price, and to invite him to join the new board, to

consist of six or seven non-executive members, 'none to be highly paid'.' South Africa was notv on the public broadcasting path. Although Reith's own political views were less than egalitarian, he had an inclusive view of the role of broadcasting in society, placing a high value on 'intellectual and ethical standards'. Broadcasting could be an agent fo r

u n it y and education, drawing in

English and Dutch„country and town, blacks and whites. It could play a part in 'amelioration and development of the social life of the native races'. He put his finger on the problem of the Schlesinger output: greater understanding wo uld b e b r ought about no t b y ' s tatic abstention from controversial matter (as has been, by o r der, the practice in the Union),

but by the dynamic bringing of unrelated persons into relation',' In other words, robust, independent nevrs and current affairs programming. Reith vvas unequivocally against government interference with the news. 'Pushing 4 Schlesingerwas paid SAE150,000, in debentures forthe company. The SABC began with a positive bank balance of SAf 50,000 in collected licence fees, enough working capital as its newly national footprint extended revenue from licence fees around the country. At the time, there were 150,000 licensed radio sew. 5 Rosenthal, p 153.

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 180Q — 1966

one's wares or ideas' was the misbehaviour of irresponsible small proprietors or large propagandist organisations, 'governments included'. The British broadcast chief had at

l east one unsettling tneeting that

alerted him to the propagandist dreams for broadcasting of some prominent South African politicians. He was traveHing the country in a time of peace bettveen the two wo rld wars, but Adolf H i t ler was in his second year in

office in Germany, and Benito Mussohni in his second decade at the helm in Italy. Borh Hitler and Mussolini centralised their national stations to serve

their propaganda dreams. Support for H i t ler and M ussolini was common in rh e Afrikaner Nationahst camp. Reith encountered forces sympathetic not only to Hitler,

but to Hitler's view of broadcasting. The defence minister, Oswald Pirow, a Hertzog follower in the Hertzog — Smuts fusion government, told Reith

bluntly that 'he would like to see something approaching Nazi rule,' Reith confided to his diary, 'and would then hope to use broadcasting as an adjunct thereto'.' A g r aduate of Germany's Kiel University, Pirow had retttrned

several times in later years to engage sympathetically with European Fascism, meeting the full quartet of Fascist leaders: Mussolini, Spain's Francisco Franco, Portugal's Salazar, and Hitler himself at Berchtesgaden, his highland retreat.' Reith returned to Britain, refused any pay but was disgruntled that he

did not receive honours for his work in South Africa. He'd suggested a public broadcasting model despite his unsettling meeting with Pirow,. Pirow was in a minority in the government, and his views did not seem to Reith to constitute South Africa's likely future. But it was Pirow's broadcasting vision, not Reith's, that would come closer to the post-war reality. The

6 The Reith Diaries.Charles Stuart (ed.)., Collins: 19:5, p334. In the same meeting, Pirow voiced his long-felt view that South Africa's biggest military threat was France. He expected a war over their ditferent race policies, by which he meant that France nominally accorded Africans in its colonies citizenship equal to French. 7 Pirow's meetings with the tour were particularly controversial and shrouded in mystery because he tnet them on an official visit to Europe in late 1938, svhile banister ot Defence in a British Comnonvvealth government, Although it was not unique to meet Hitler„ the Contnonwealth ministers and. indeed, the British Prime Minister, Chamberlain, net him as part ot his appeasement policy, both British and South Atrican papers were suspicious of Pirow's motives and purpose. The common tear was that he was offering Hitler the return of South %'est Africa. Calpin, GH. TI ere are No South Africarts, Thomas Nelson: 1941, p266. Of the four, Pirovv came away with the highest regard for Salazar, whose intellect he thought superior. Including the democratic leaders, Pirow concluded: 'I have at one time or another met all the big men of Europe, but Salazar stands head and shoulders above then all.' (See Pirow. Oswald.James Barry A4unuiit Hertzog, Howard Timmins: 1958, p 230.

SCOTTISH LORD, STUDENT NAZI

man to do it knew the Nazis well, spent a great deal of rime in Germany, and had spearheaded ties between Afrikaner nationalist and iVazi German youth. His naIne was Dr Piet Meyer. It would take the Nationalists 11 years to appoint hun head of the SABC, but when he took over, the speed and

breadth of the changes he brought were dizzying. The damage he caused is srill being felt.

Tension between the factions in the South African government came to a head with the outbreak of war in Europe. IXI'hen Britain declared war

on Germany in 1939, Deputy Prime Minister Jan Smuts broke with his prime minister, Barry Hertzog, who wanted South Africa to stay neutral. Smuts won the parliamentary vote, the government fell and Stnuts formed a new one as prime minister. In 1940, with the country at war, the journalist

George Heard ot the Sunday Times exposed pro-Nazi broadcasters in the SABC. The government appointed a commission of i n quiry to examine

the problems caused by the divisions among the SABC staff between those supporting the war effort and supporters of Nazi Germany. Smuts won an overwhelming endorsement from the electorate in 1943,

but five years later, lost power, and died in 1950. The new, 1948, Nationalist government of D r D F M a l an did not, at first, see the SABC as a priority. In any event, they had no-one inside the Nationalist camp with the expertise to take over. So, while the head of

military intelligence was summarily dismissed, and two truckloads of his files spirited away, at the SABC they put an Afrikaner broadcaster with what they thought was an excellent pedigree in charge. Gideon Roos, trained as a lawyer, from a prominent Afrikaner family, seemed perfect. He'd shot t o f ame in N ationalist eyes by covering the 1938 commemoration of the Great Trek, a Broederbond-inspired publicity event intended to help unite Afrikaners under the Nationalists. The Afrikaner migration to th e i nterior, known as the Great Trek, was

now being mythologised. Roos's coverage of this symbolic trek as far as Bloemfontein so mesmerised listeners that he persuaded his bosses to let him stay with it to cover it to the end. No coverage of this trek touched listeners' heartstrings as Roos's broadcasts did. It had become an event that

changed white politics. He seemed like a safe choice to the Nationalists, but he wasn' t. Roos

loved broadcasting like nothing else, but he came out of the Reith tradition and insisted on covering different points of view equitably. He had to go.

PAlN AND POSSlSILITY: 1800-1966

Still, there was the problem of finding talent. A new chairman of the SABC was appointed to tame Roos. When he failed, they found the man with his finger in every sphere of Afrikaner society, a man who would stop at nothing to put his stamp on the country.

Meyer would expunge every vestige of the Reith model from the SABC, and replace it arith his own. He was cast squarely in the mould of Oswald Pirow but was actually more sinister. A former member of the high council of the pro-Nazi Ossewabrandwag and its Information Director, Meyer's brief was 'to control Gideon Roos'. If Reith's description reads in part like a caricature of the Jingoist Brit out to enlighten the natives, Piet Meyer, as the propagandist fresh from the pro-

Nazi underground with his Hitler moustache and his son named Nazi spelt backwards ('Izan') is more than his match in the caricature department. Meyer was appointed head of the country's broadcasting services in August 1959. Some rehabilitation was required to airbrush his war record. It's hard, now, to imagine a man proudly naming his son Nazi spelt backwards, so a little biography is necessary. Meyer was one of a cohort of young stars of the Afrikaner Nationalist movement who'd studied in the Netherlands, then travelled to explore Hitler's Germany, and returned

to make a rapid rise to the top of Nationalist ranks. All quickly became Broederbond insiders, rising quickh to its highest councils. WhiIe Nelson Mandela and his peers employed the ANC Youth League to change the 1940s ANC into a pro-active, aggressively non-racial challenge to a stodgy and timid ANC leadership, Meyer and his Young Turks were transforming Afrikaner N ationalism into something ever more racially

exclusive and authoritarian. %hile the lawyerly Mandela's vision included the rule of law and the separation of church and state, Meyer's included detention without trial and a narrow, nineteenth-century hybrid of State-

backed Calvinism. Among this group of young Afrikaner Nationalists were Vico Diederichs, Albert Hertzog, Hendrik Yerwoerd and Meyer. Their time in Gertnany had not turned them into carbon copies of Nazis in the German mould. No movement in one country is exactly the same as a movement in another. But to say they were uninterested in, or uninAuenced

by German authoritarianism would be to ignore considerable evidence. Dr Nico Diederichs would become minister of finance and, finally, state president, and Dr A lbert H ertzog minister of posts and telegraphs, holding out against allowing television because he felt unable to control its

voracious appetite for high-cost programming without buying product from the detested Anglophone democracies. Both were senior Broederbonders.

SCOTTISH LORD, STUDENT NAZI

But the partnership of even more importance to broadcasting and much else was between the other two, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd and Dr Piet Meyer. Though they'd had earlier differences they becatne so close that, after the first, unsuccessful assassination attempt on Verwoerd, Meyer was the first

non-fatnily member allowed to see him, weil before any member of the cabinet. Verwoerd and Meyer began climbing the Broederbond ladder together in the 1930s, and were of the same mind on the big changes they planned for South Africa. Meyer, with Diederichs the founder of the A&ikaner Studentebond, turned down a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. Instead, Meyer chose to do a PhD at Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. %"Ith side courses in German),

he was influenced by German nationalist philosophers who rated the nation and the volk as the highest ideals to strive for. By 1936, he was assistant secretary of the Broederbond. He had discovered his route to power: being secretary of a movement gave you the real power, he told friends. Each paying a separate fee, Meyer became secretary « the Christian National Education Institute, the Economic Institute, the

Trekmaats, and the FAK (Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Organisations). One of his first acts on becoming chairman of the SABC was to ban a report on the Prime Minister of the neighbouring Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Sir Roy Welensky. Welensky's crime: he w'anted to talk about television! 'All references to television are forbidden,' was the order. The federation went ahead, setting up TV in the course of the next year,

16 years ahead of vastly more economically advaticed South Africa. Looking back, it's hard to itnagine the zealotry or the confidence of a newly appointed, unelected official, who would ban a neighbouring prime minister from the airwaves. This was not a man to encourage the free flow

of ideas. Meyer had the ideas,and we were going to getthem. Proof that h e

r e p resented the N a t i o nalist establishment came soon

enough, when he was elected chairman of the Broederbond. He took office on 4 November 1960, remaining chairman until 6 April 1972 — the longestserving Broederbond chairman in its history. The Broederbond was not the sole driver of all policy of the Nationalist government, though it di d o f ten d r ive po licy. As itnportant was its role

as the glue: it kept all spheres of the Afrikaner establishment, religious, cultural, educational, business, in line. Lest there be any doubting its adhesive powers, it would also, if need arise, provide the sjambok (See next chapter). And the line to be kept was Verwoerd's and Meyer's. 8 South African-style hardened leather-sheathed whip.

PAIN Ah;0 POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

Meyer moved the Broederbond's headquarters to Auckland Park, around the corner from his SABC headquarters on a hill in a near-western suburb of Johannesburg. The interlocking of his activities in this time is breath-taking, though even now, only a small part of his actions are public knowledge. Meyer was a whirlwind of activity. His Broederbond work helped him in the SABC, It was a think-tank, confidential communication channel, and

enforcer. The Broederbond helped the SABC with market research: make 'tactful inquiries with headmasters', ran a Broederbond circular, to answer a questionnaire on a school radio service. Meyer was head of the SABC's Bantu Programme Control Board. A black announcer had played a banned 'political anthem'. An SABC request went to the Security Police: screen SABC staff, 'The backgrounds of all politically suspicious' personnel on the SABC were investigated by the security pohce between 1960 and 196Z, sources in the SABC and the Security Police told the Sunday Times. Meyer traversed the worlds of secret and public life, broadcasting and politics, culture and econotnics, academia and religion. He was watching the world stage, but he also kept a finger on the latest appointments in local

school and church committees. He was chairman of the Broederbond's Africa and world committee, and set up its comtnittee to investigate the Jewish problem'.~ It's not clear he felt he'd ever resolved this 'problem'. He waged major, public ideological campaigns. He organised a 'people's congress' on the dangers of liberalism, repeatedly equating it with communism. At a time when cabinet members were directors of Afrikaans daily newspapers, he took sides in a conflict be+veen their northern and southern

papers,Die Burger and Die Beeld,owned by the Cape group, Nasionale Pers, were promoting a split in Afrikanerdom, he railed. 'Afrikaans cultural leaders are thankful that our Christian churches still convey the %ord of God to our volk without trying to reconcile it with communist and hberal ideologies; are thankful that our State authority is under the Prime Ministership of a believing Christian so that that which is our own can be realised on the cultural level without any restrictions; are further thankful that the state authority, under a political party born out of the

Afrikaner's language and cultural struggle against imperialist domination and Anglicisation, and led by a culturally conscious Afrikaner, stands in 9 Serfontein, J H PBrotherhood of Pond un Expose of the Secret Afrikarter Broederhortd, Rex Collins: 1978, p 149.

66

SCOTTlSH LORD, STUDENT 'AAZl

sympathy with the flowering of Afrikaans cultural life..."o His sentences svere as tortuous as his ideas.

At the SABC, he took United Nations' broadcasts off the air, replacing them svith a talk by the minister of foreign af lairs, Eric Louw, 'because UN broadcasts include reports of speeches hostile to South Africa, particularly bv communist and Afro-Asian delegates."' An in-house world affairs weekly talk was dropped. When Chief Albert Luthuli, president of the ANC, became the first South African to win the

Nobel Peace Prize, the announcement was withheld, A Broeder was asked to 'handle' the matter. Eventually, there was a report, mentioning only facts

intended to discredit him. The blacklist wasn't just for bona fide apartheid opponents. An SABC series on economics removed economists from Enghsh-language universities. English-speaking academics no longer had a legitimate role in public life. Sport and pop music had to be politically sanitised. The SABC banned a golf broadcast because an Indian, Papwa Sewgolum, was playing; songs by the pop singer Jeremy Taylor had to go. It goes without saying that white politics were not immune. The new,

centrist, Progressive Party faced smears. But the SABC could influence even the English press in other indirect ways. The national news agency, South African Press Service (SAPA), always short of funds, could be weakened by SABC cancelling its contract for the supply of news. ' All South Africa's newspapers lost on that one decision.

Meyer was undeterred by the fact that the English press was on to him.

More likely it was a badge of honour. The Sunday Tintes's front page lead on 29 October 1961, under the headline 'SABC Independence Destroyed', wrote that Nationalist control of radio was now complete, the public paying

for a party propaganda machine. 'The independence of the SABC, under assault by the Kationalists for many months, has been finally destroyed. The revolution in Broadcast House carried out by Dr Albert Hertzog and Dr PJ Meyer is cotnplete. On the one hand, reliable party men have been placed in key posts. On the

10 Dagbreek en Sondagnnus, 16 July 196'7, Dr Meyer answers his critics (author' s translation), 11 Sunday Times, 2Z October 1961. 12 Snnday Tinies, Z9 January 1961.

PAIN AVD POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

other, the public have been conditioned to the change by months of subtle propaganda. Now the subtlety has vanished, and the SABC has openly become the tool of the government and of the National Party.'

When Charles Bloomberg broke stories about the Broederbond in the Sunday Times, Meyer started a witch-hunt to find the source of the leaks. Meyer's friend, Prime Minister Vertvoerd, launched an attack on the Times,

and Meyer'sSABC mdely covered it.T he newspaper's reply was ignored. Government claimed Bloomberg had broken into the Broederbond building, but he had not. Behind the scenes, their determination to stop the reports,

and their author, Charles Bloomberg, would end his newspaper career. Conndence that the truth could be bent grew by leaps and bounds. With Meyer in the SABC chair, and C W Prinsloo, of the ministry of information, on the SABC board, the influences were obvious, On 22 April 1962, the secretary of the Department of Information, took

the Sunday Times to the press board. His complaint: the Sunday Times 'does not accept his assurances that he is not dicraring the news policy of the SABC'. Which part of the octopus was suborning the SABC: the National Party, the Broederbond, the government department of information> That

it was suborned could hardly be doubted. Usually they acted in concert. The impact on staH was as devastating as on journalism. le programtne was itnmune. Robert del Kyrke, a former actor with a great radio voice who ran a non-political music-request show, read out a listener's greeting to her fellow members of the women's protest movement,

the Black Sash. Well done girls. Keep up the good work', said the presenter. Those eight words tertninated his broadcasting career. Fired the moment

the show ended, his life ended in some hardship." Senator Robert Kennedy, surviving brother of the assassinated President John Kennedy and one of the most famous leaders in the world, made a ground-breaking trip to South Africa. His words at the University of Cape Town are seen to this day by millions, carved in stone at the tomb of the Kennedy brothers at the Arhngton cemetery, outside Washington DC. To the SABC, the speech was not news. His entire visit was unreported.

Airbrushed out of the schedule, 'not a word about his presence in South Africa ever made it onto the airwaves. Like the black South African political prisoners, he had become a non-person."'

13 MacGregor, Sue, %~oman o(Today,London Headline, 2002, p 89.M acGregor,O BE, started het broadcasting career at the SABC. She had a distinguished career at the SBC as presenter of the popular Todayradio ptogramtne, and as broadcasting professor. 14 MacGregor, p 103.

68

SCOTTISH LORD, STUDENT NAZI

Meyer had won. Hardly a month passed without news of more internal blood-letting, In December 1961, three senior broadcasters resigned. In March 1962 the well-known personality Hugh Rouse was fired. A month later, the SABC's English-speaking staff in Durban threw in the towel and quit.

The name most associated with keeping TV out of South Africa was Dr Albert Hertzog, rightwing son of the former prime minister, hard-line ideologue and Broederbonder. In a May 1967 parliamentary debate he showed the limits of his horizon. TV supporters, he said, vvere motivated by making

a profit for their friends, importing programming to propagate racial mixing, and advertising, which would engender dissatisfaction among blacks." Hertzog was sacked in 1968, by Verwoerd's successor as Prime Minister, john Vorster, when he led a rightwing breakaway from the Nationalists, called the H erstigte Nasionale Party, the Reconstituted National Party.

Meyer's loyalty at first vacillated. Closer to Hertzog's pure racial vision, he spoke out against Vorster but, in a couple of tough sessions, Vorster outmanoeuvred him and pulled him back in line. With Hertzog out, South Africa was ten years behind Rhodesia in TV, and a generation behind both western and eastern Europe. The floodtide could not be restrained forever. The new minister of posts and telegraphs, MC van Rensburg, on 3 December 1969, announced a commission of inquiry into the desirability of television. What was concealed from the public was the fact that before the announcement, the matter was discussed

by the Broederbond executive, chaired by Meyer, and a decision taken to approve television before the commission started its work. Broederbond

chairman Meyer was to chair the public commission. It was a IIg-leaf. The proof was contained in documents theSunday Times later acquired." They showed that tivo days after the commission was announced, a special secret circular went out to Broeders. 'We are pleased to announce that this matter was discussed beforehand, at the request of our Prime Minister, at the previous Executive Council meeting,' the 5 December letter read. 'The Executive Council, after discussing the matter, decided to give its support to a distmctive South African television service.' 15 %'ilkins, Ivor and Hans Strydom, The Super-Afn&ners, inside the Afrikauer Broederbond, Jonathan Ball: 1978, p277, 16 %dkins and Strydosn, p2,80.

PAIXi AND POSSIBII ITY: I800-I966

The die was cast. The rest was empty ritual.

The circular asked Broeders for their private input, which it promised would be passed by the Broederbond secretary 'for personal presentation to the chairman of the commission'. A follow-up circular saying Meyer 'personally assured that the conunission of

i n q uiry gave th e n ecessary

attention to them'." ' ... The Executive Council chairman has undertaken to

i n f or m t h e

Executive Council fully about the effective methods that are recommended to control television in our country, if it is introduced, to the advantage of our nation and our country before the report is handed in.' Any doubt that the Broederbond's inside track and approval came first, before the public's or the official position, were put to rest.

In the early 1970s, Pat Rogers, an Enghsh-language TV presenter, was elected chairman of the SABC Staff Association. He faced re-election after

publicly complaining about a nev piece of censorship legislation. the Advocate-General Bill. Arriving at the annual general meeting, an Afrikaans staffer took him

aside, and said; make sure to have a secret ballot. Otherwise you' ll lose. When the first of Rogers's supporters was up for election, the ballot was by show of hands. The anti-censorship colleague lost. Rogers took his colleague's advice, insisting on a secret ballot. He won. Staff were scared to

show their true views inside the building, for fear of retribution. Rogers recalled four clashes that ended his television career at the SABC in 1981. First was an interview with Harry Oppenheimer, South Africa's richest

man and head of the giant De Seers diamond conglomerate and the multisector Anglo American. Rogers reminded Oppenheuner he was born Jewish, and askedwhy he'd converted. When Oppenheimer evaded him, he pushed harder, pointing out, 'You haven't answered the question.'

He was called up to face the music: his question was 'a disgrace', he was told. Oppenheimer, and Jews, had become more palatable by the time of the P W Botha years. Military ties with Israel had reached an advanced state. Now the common enemy was 'communisnI'. Israel had gone from quarry to collaborator, in a few short decades. The Israeli government made the

compromise; only a minority of South African Jews saw it as a betrayal. I7 Wilkins and Stfydom, p280.

SCOTTISH LORD, STUDENT NAZI

Rogers's next 'mistake' was an interview with Bishop Destnond Tutu. The complaint was the reverse: why was he not tougher on Tutus He remembered one infuriating interview, this time with Dr H e nry Kissinger, President Richard Nixon's secretary of state. His SABC producer,

Ina Joubert, had given him a list of questions, which he ignored. The interview was live and, all through, a barrage of complaints and the rejected questions were repeated in his earpiece. He was f'urious, and thought the

foreign minister, Pik Botha, was their source. In 1998, Joubert became Botha's second wife. But the last straw came back to communism. Rogers was in the Englishlanguage documentary unit. He was called in and told t here was a war against it. 'Communists were everywhere, and South Africans are wilfully

ignorant.' Rogers saxv it as clearly propaganda rather than an open-minded exploration of the subject and refused to do the documentary demanded." Others also refused, so the documentary unit was closed down. But the

programme had to go ahead. It was given to someone working on hght entertainment, with predictable results. And Rogers was out.

Meyer lasted until 1971 at the SABC. He'd completely transformed the

corporation. In his last chairman's speech to the Broederbond, on 6 April 1972, he sununarised his priorities: 'The primary task of the Broederbond is to get the National Party re-elected with a bigger majority.' But even that wasn't enough. He determined to make us in his image: 'Nothing less than the complete po l itical nationalisation and eventual

Afrikanerisation of our English compatriots... he will adopt Afrikaans history as his own.' This was the ivorldview of Christian nationalism. Without

Christian nationalism the Afrikaner nation would not survive, he argued. But Verwoerd, Meyer and their regime came from somewhere. With such a profound impact on our politics, society, culture, and humanity, Bloomberg and his successor, Hennie Serfontein devoted their lives to unravelling their

regime. Both are almost completely unknown in South Africa today. Bloomberg's most important writings were pubhshed anonymously. They included the original newspaper breakthrough on the Broederbond. His life's work, a six-volume, 750,000-word study of the Broederbond and the rise of Christian Nationalism, has never been published, though an excerpt

I 8 Interview mth author.

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

was published in a slim volume posthumously.'~ His friends knew him as brilliant and ahvays entertaining, somewhat paranoid, through the endless difficulties of his life frotn the time he fled South Africa in fear in 1963, till his death in 19SS. Serfontein was an Afrikaner who bad begun political life as a Yationaiist, prayed for German victory in the war, and became a student leader at Pretoria University, until his views began to change. He vt anted to understand all

sides. One day in 1958 be had invited Albert Luthuli to address a Pretoria discussion group. He landed up defending Luthuli against a physical attack from his fellow Afrikaners. His views were changing.

19 Edited by Prof Saul Dubois

Prying the Broederbond open he relationship between an investigative reporter and his target becomes

strangely intimate. Each goes to bed at night thinking of the other, and wakes up the same way. Their emotions are different, but the adrenalin runs as fast. As Bloomberg investigated the Broederbond, he studied its chairman, Dr Piet Meyer. As Meyer became more worried about Bloomberg, he had one of his members, a rising security police star detained during the war for pro-Nazi sympathies, Colonel (later General) Hendrik van den Bergh, investigate Bloomberg. At the same time, the reporter must manage upwards, to the editor. When the Washington Post investigated Watergate in 1972., the support of editor

Ben Bradlee and Katherine Graham as publisher made all the difference to reporters BobWoodward and Carl Bernstein. It was a time when American newspapers had great profits and great power, and an occasion when they knew how to use it. It's hard not to wonder about the difference in the

United States 30 years later, when George W Bush's excesses in Iraq did not face as stubborn a back-boned press. By 2003, major titles like thePost and the New York Timeswere suffering weak finances as well as, perhaps, blunted scrutinising instincts after the shock of 9/11.

Bloomberg and his editor, Joel Mervis, were not peas in a pod. Both happened to be Jews from the interior of South Africa, and both had graduated from the University of the%itxvatersrand. Of different generations

with major political differences, both were talented professionals.

Mervis became editor of the Sunday 7imes in 1959. He was the guiding force who built it from a Johannesburg-based regional Sunday paper into a national juggernaut. By the time he retired in 1975, it would top half a million in weekly sales, a figure that remained static for the next 35 years.

73

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: IIIOO — 1966

But from 1959 to 1975, Mervis made history. Mervis was a different kind of editor from his British-born predecessors. Born in the Orange Free State, he was a Boerejood, a jew brought up among small-town Afrikaners. His father fought the British in the Anglo-Boer War. An uncle, Aaron Pincus, w as mayor of Clocolan, a small town in th e Free State Republic in the

1890s, and also fought on the Boer side. Mervis was a graduate of Wits and the University of Cape Town, a lawyer whose friends were judges. His focus was white politics. And he understood Afrikaners. When I became Pretoria Bureau chief of the paper in 1975, I assumed Afrikaners would hate the Sunday Times, because its Broederbond disclosures were so extensive and damaging. I was wrong. People in Pretoria frequently told rue it was the 'boerekoerant'. It got inside the church, the party, the cultural organisations, the farming towns. They still voted for the National

Party, but they read theSunday Times, and even the Rand Daily Mail. These papers had the news which 'their' government-supporting papers would not tell them.

Growing up in a Free State family imbued with pre-apartheid Afrikaner republican politics, Mervis understood the ruling National Party, the range of views in the community, and to what lengths Verwoerd, Meyer and others in the Broederbond would go to stifle dissent. Mervis changed the paper cotnpletely. In the last issue before he took over, page one ran the following headlines: 'Hugs, kisses for 17 survivors'; 'Racecourse riot'; 'He' ll wed a Rand girl'; 'He ordered rival to shear woman's hair'; 'Ice 9,500 ft t hick'; and 'Bluebottles attack bathers'. The smallest item was the only one with more than parochial human interest:

tucked in a corner of page one, 'The franc devalues'. In the course of Mervis's 16-year editorship, he would take the paper froin local to national, building it into a political and commercial powerhouse. Mervis sent his reporters to find out what went on inside the Afrikaner

establishment. It was one of the three legs of his formula for success. He made the human interest more salacious, and went big on sport and sex to complete the troika of politics, sex and sport. Though Charles Bloomberg and, later, Hennie Serfontein were the two

journalists who unveiled the secrets of the Afrikaner establishment, especially the Broederbond, you cannot read Mervis'sSunday Times without realising Mervis sought them out. From the day he took over, politics was on the

front page, and many other pages too, and he assigned several reporters to find out what they could about the Broederbond's secrets.

World War II was still a fresh memory in the late 1950s. Many Afrikaners, including the famed Battle of Britain flying ace Captain Adolph 'Sailor'

PRYlNG THE BROEDERBOND OPEN

Malan, as mell as Smuts and his deputy Jan Hofmeyr, were considered heroes of that world struggle. %'orld %'ar I w as neutral fo r a S o u t h A f r i can. E uropean monarchies were on both sides, in varying stages of democratisation. and hatred for Britain's recent brutality in the Anno-Boer Var left little moral

morally

imperative to fight Germany and advance British trade interests. The Kaiser

was not Hitler. Some Afrikaners rebelled. Jet, amongthem my German-born, Yonvegian-raised grandfather, Jacob 54atisonn, who lived among Afrikaners in the %'estern Transvaal, were jailed for participating in the Afrikaner rebelhon against fighting Britain's 1914 war. Jacob never forgave Britain for the Anglo-Boer %'ar. But %'orld%ar 11 became the great moral crusade of the twentieth century,

about values deeper than trade, territory or empire. Those who followed international affairs closely knew that early. Jacob Matisonn, who had been a fairly prominent supporter of General Barry Hertzog's old National Party in his%'estern Transvaal region and a friend of Hertzog, switched decisively in 1932, as Hitler rose to power and Nationalist ties ~ith Nazism and anti-

semitism grew. He still thought Smuts had become too pro-British, and so never joined another party. F or returning soldiers in each of

t h e A l l ied countries, the war w a s

defining. They believed they'd fought for democracy against totalitarianism. That Adolf Hitler had slaughtered 12 million civilians„half of them Jewish, among them grandparents, men, women and children. made him an international pariah forever. Those ex-servicemen and their families were Sunday Ttmes readers. Among their erstwhile brothers-in-arms in other countries, collaborators

were reviled. Uniquely in South Africa, the collaborators were handed the keys to the family silver. Rev J D (Koot) Vorster was convicted of spying on naval tnovements for Nazi Germany and sentenced to three years' prison;

his brother John was interned as a general in the pro-Nazi paramilitary Osseivabrandwag. John became prime minister after Verwoerd, Koot the moderator of the church and influential Broederbonder for a generation. In the early 1950s, as Malan and then Strijdom determined to suborn the constitution to r emove the Coloureds from the electorate, the Torch

Commando was founded by ex-soldiers and nominally headed by Sailor Malan. They were infected by the spirit of the times, induding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At their height the Torch Commando drew 250.000 protesters on to the

streets in a single event. It became a national movement, dominated by %'orld War 11 veterans.

75

PAIN A'AD POSSIBILITY: 1800 — 1966

But it fell apart because, while they passionately opposed the Nationalists for undermining the constitution and the rule ot law by the way they were

removing the Coloured vote, they were fundamentally divided about what racial policies they supported. Some favoured integration but many, probably the majority, did not. This left them strategically impotent. They nominalh supported the United Party at election time, but had w i dely divergent views about its

direction. They never developed a political plan. Mervis became Sunday Times editor on 1 January 1959, shortly after Verwoerd became prime minister. Meyer became SABC chairman later the

same year, and Broederbond chairman in 1961. Verwoerd and Meyer's undisguised sympathy for the German side stuck in the craw of many whites, especially ex-soldiers. Paging through Mervis's Timesopens a door to a forgonen world, Verwoerd, who had led protests against Jewish immigration in the 1930s, continued the Nazi connection, though he was never a Nazi himself. This damaged Afrikaner Nationalists' standing in the Netherlands, where

Sunray

Nazi occupation was remembered with bitterness. Afrikaner Nationalists'

failure to see the moral lesson marked the death-knell for pro-apartheid sympathy among the Dutch intelligentsia. Afrikaner Nationalists were no

longer the romantic kith and kin they had once been. Verwoerd, born in the Netherlands, with a Dutch PhD, knew the Netherlands well; his decisions vvere informed choices. As prime minister, he invited the British Kiazi leader, Sir Oswald Moseley, to South Africa in February 1959, to a meeting in his office.' Moseley's Nazi publication, Aetio@, was given space at the railway book stores at the same time that the

pro-ANC Nese Age was removed. On 4 June 1961 Verwoerd appointed as roving ambassador in Germany Baron Helmut L u x t r i tch von L i c htenteld, an ex-Nazi and m e mber of

German occupation forces in Scandinavia. The prime minister chose him as South Africa's public face, to publicise South African government policy in Germany, 16 years after the end of the war! Verwoerd was not ashamed of the Nazi association.

South African and South West African supporters of H i tler were welcomed into Verwoerd's party. JS von Moltke, one of the former proNazi Greyshirts who became a National Party MP, did not feel his antisemitistn was unwelcome in his new political home. 1 l t later emerged that h4oseley stayed with Ivor Benson, an assistant editor on the Rand Daily Mail. VFhen his editor, Laurence Candar, found out, he fired Benson.

PRYING THE RROEDERBOND OPEN

Before the war, Von Moltke was successfully sued for publishing a report that the Protocols of the E/ders of Zion, a notorious antisemitic forgery, had been found in a local synagogue. Now in Venvoerd"s National Party, he said Helen Suzman and other Jewish i>IPs must 'expect retaliation both because they are members of theJevish faith' and 'because of the opposition political parties they support'. Verwoerd did not upbraid

clai ming

hitn, and the Broederbond retained its committee to deal with the 'Jewish

problem'. Su~ T i 'mes reporters delving into the Afrikaner psyche found not only a powerful Broederbond, spreading its tentacles through every aspect of Afrikaner and public life, but also great turmoil and Afrikaner resistance to Broederbond manipulation. Even many Nationahst-supporting Afrikaners objected to the pernicious practice of Broederbond promotions replacing merit.

How did this unusual political beast become so powerful, its influence ubiquitous! The Broederbond was launched in 1918 by ordinary workers as a public body. In 1923 it went underground, becoming secret. By the end of the decade, Potchefstroom University academics, many of them theologians,

became the dominant force. In the 1930s, ideologically appropriate church and education leaders were targeted. Next, a drive began to recruit suitable

members of parliament. The claim that it was a non-political cultural movetnent was its cover story. The MPs it sought were the hard-line Nationalists: they were boosting

DF Malan's National Party against old General Hertzog's Afrikaner MPs. Hertzog's denunciation of the Broederbond in 1936 would never be forgotten, 'Never forget' was a Broederbond mantra contained in the oath

of allegiance taken by all new Inembers.

Bloomberg was still a student when George Heard aggressively investigated the Broederbond and Ossewabrandwag. By 1960, the Broederbond felt. strong enough in the National Party to start replacing MPs. In June that year, Bloomberg exposed a Broederbond plan to axe 16 Nationalist MPs. It was an audacious coup, reflecting the strength, power and confidence of the secret society. It represented a full

ten percent of the whole National Assembly, or 20 percent of the ruling parry. A victory here sent a very powerful message. The 16 — all Afrikanerswere considered insufficiently comtnitted to the Verwoerdian dream: either

77

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

non-Broeders or lapsed tnembers, too conciliatory to English-speaking South Africans or, just as bad, 'moderate* in their p o l itics.' Blootnberg reported on Afrikaners furious at the way the Broederbond was being used to replace promotion by nterit.'

In September I962, the paper reported four National Party members were convicted of trespassing, for spying on a Broederbond meeting, The magistrate, CDN van der Westhuizen of Reddersburg, broke new legal ground when he protected a Broeder witness, ruling that he need not disclose any information in court that violated his oath to the Broederbond! ~

Another report disclosed the surprise of senior officers in the South African Defence Force, when they discovered how many of their officers were Broederbond members. A former Nationalist MP, Japie Basson, who had crossed the Aoor, said the Broederbond was 'turning the security police into the Gestapo'.

Not all resistance to the Broederbond and Verwoerd was about personnel or principle. Some just thought the policy didn't make sense. Bloomberg reported that Volkshandel, official organ of Afrikaner business, urged them to abandon apartheid: 'Apartheid is not immoral, but impractical under a democracy tsic].' But one Louis Erasmus of Pretoria, whose job included putting down pets too ill to be saved, read that Israel had no hangman trained to execute its

first capital punishment case, the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, for genocide. Erasmus wrote to the Times offering to execute Adolf Eichmann free of charge.

Sunda

It was no accident that the big crisis for the Broederbond came in the

church. The spark was lit by the Dutch churches, who asked their South African brethren for a biblical justification for apartheid. By the time it had played itself out, life would never be the same for those involved in either the church or the press. Clergymen who took a moral stand found it a career-l.imiting, even career-destroying, move. South Africa's reputation

suffered as Broeders in the church distorted theology, forfeiting what remained of the respect Dutch churches had for the white South African

2 3 4 5

Sunday Times, June 1960. Charles Bloomherg, SundayTimes, 21 May 1960, p 1, Sunday Times,16 September 1962. Sunday Times, 28 May 1961.

PRYING THE BROEDERBOND OPE'A

Dutch Reformed churches. In the battle between a universal church and apartheid, principled clergymen would be broken, while no heights were too great for the cowardly and compromised to ascend. Professor Albert Geyser, Bloomberg's most important source, was driven by theology, not politics, and his whole family was made to pay. Broederbond documents proved the Broederbond was intimately wrapped up with the church's decision to charge him with heresy. Geyser was an Afrikaner favourite son, his father a Broeder. What changed his life forever was his appointment to a church commission to find theological backing for apartheid. The committee was set up because of international church opinion. He thought it would be a cinch. But his exploration proved to him the reverse. He began to criticise both apartheid and the Broederbond. His vievvs became a problem in the church and he was tried for heresy. Of course, rhe Broederbond and apartheid weren't listed in the charge sheet. Instead, he was charged with the obscure theological deviation of writings that showed 'Arian' leanings. The punishment of his family was swift. Even before the trial, his father, Petrus, was thrown out of the Broederbond. He tried to limit the fallout

for his family by staying within the rules, fobbing off press inquiries. 'I am under oath to the Broederbond,' his father told reporters. 'Therefore I have nothing to say on the subject of the Broederbond.' Albert Geyser's university and his church suspended him from his positions. While the heresy trial dragged on, his wife Cecilia's car suddenly swerved and overturned. An inspection showed a tie-rod had been removed. Geyser checked his own car, and found nuts on the steering mechanism had been loosened. Neither was safe. Unemployed and under doctor's orders, the church commission found Geyser guilty of heresy, and defrocked him. The vote was 13 to two. All thirteen were Broeders, the evo in his favour were not.

Geyser was appointed professor at an English-language university; he never returned to his old church. His wife never recovered, spending the rest of her life in and out of institutions. Needless to say, nobody was charged for her attempted murder. The documents Geyser gave to Bloomberg had been handed to him by Rev Beyers Naude. Geyser was never a Broederbond member — he'd turned down two invitations in his younger days — but Naude, whose father was one of the four Broeder founders in 1918, was. Bloomberg had got to know Geyser over several years.Naude showed the Broederbond documents to Geyser, to get his theologicai advice. Bloomberg had covered the Geyser

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

witch-hunt, adding many pieces of the puzzle. His diligence paid off, beyond his dreatns, when Geyser handed him Naude's Broederbond documents early in 1963. The first articles vvere published on 21 April '1963. They showed how the Broederbond and the church worked together to undermine apartheid's opponents, regardless of their seniority in the church or their academic distinction. They showed plans to tighten Broederbond control of church affairs, oust church leaders who stood in their wav, and outlaw theological criticism of apartheid. Beyers '/aude's wings had to be clipped. At the time, he was southern Transvaal moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church. After years of increasing harassment he was eventually banned and placed under house arrest. But the wings of many lesser known critics were clipped too.

One Sunday Timesstory showed the northern Transvaal moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church, Dr F E O' Brien Geldenhuys had resigned from the Broederbond six months earlier, and opposed apartheid. The Broederbond had been trying to get him fired as moderator, without success.

Others were removed quickly. Professor van Selms was defrocked by the Nederduitsch HervornIde Kerk (Nederdutch Reformed Church) after testifying for Professor Geyser at his heresy trial. Dr j F

S t utterheim of

Benoni was charged with 'deviation' by the same church. These were some of the Su~day Times's disclosures. Blootnberg's first reports using the Geyser/Naude documents showed that Dr Piet Koornhof had been appointed executive secretary of the Broeder-

bond after his return from Oxford. The documents explained how he would do Broederbond work in secret, while he was also given, as a cover story, a publicly acknovvledged position in a front organisation. Worse than a true believer, Koornhof knew exactly what he was doing. He had an Oxford DPhil. One newspaper report claimed several key pages of his doctorate that were critical of apartheid were removed mysteriously

from the university's Bodleian Library copy. They were unhelpful as he climbed the Nationalists' greasy pole. The article caused mayhem: it disclosed his new title. 'Chief Officer and Travelling Secretary of the Executive Council of the Broederbond', Piet i%eyer's old job. His cover job, Bloomberg quoted from the documents, was Director of Cultural Information of the FAK — the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Organisations. A Broederbond executive circular explained helpfully that this was so Koornhof would be free 'to carry out his activities tactfully in the open'. Bloomberg published his secret ex-directory phone number, rendering it unusable, 80

PRYlNG THE BROEDERBOND OPE'8

The FAK had in fact been set up years earlier by the Broederbond, as a cover for many of its activities. But the FAK had 300 affiliate organisations, most of whose members had no idea how they were being used. The reaction to the Sunday Times reports was dramatic. Many Afrikaners

called the paper to add information and documents. Bloomberg's name was not on his pieces, for his own protection, so they had to simply call the news desk and find someone to take their story. At least one mistakenly landed in the Rued Daily Muit, a paper run frotn the same building.

Koornhof had a long career in high government positions, including a title he invented, 'Minister of Plural Relations' in place of Bantu Affairs. a replacement for Native Affairs, to be followed later by Cooperation and Development, Later he was ambassador in Washington DC.

How ironic that, 30 years later, Koornhof would feel compelled to break the bonds with white Afrikanerdom after a lifetime serving the Nationalist cause, leaving his rather severe Nationalist wife, Lulu, for a Coloured woman, Marceiie Adams, leading to an undignified paternity battle with hts

new lover over the children he trustingly assutned were his. The Broederbond documents exposed the fundamental hypocrisy at the heart of the lubricious Prime Minister, Hendrik Verwoerd, and his partnerin-crime, Broederbond chairman Meyer. Verwoerd told reporters that he

disliked the overtones of the word 'apartheid' because 'We prefer to call it good neighbourliness', but his actions did something else. Even when blacks did vote in government-sanctioned elections in the bantustans, Verwoerd's men banned opposing politicians to ensure his favoured candidates won.

In public, he called for unity of all whites in a democracy, and fairness and democracy for blacks 'in their own areas', but behind the scenes he and Meyer sought ruthless control of both white politics and black, using the police and justice system to do it.

Verwoerd was a believing Christian, but he bent the church and Christianity to his will. Dorninees who questioned the biblical basis for apartheid were stigmatised as liberal and communisr., both a 'dangerous attack on Afrikanerdom'. That decision, driven by Uenvoerd, Meyer and their henchmen, to b l u r t h e d i stinction b etween authoritarianism and

tolerance, would come back to haunt post-apartheid discourse. South Africa's self-enforced isolation from international thought fuelled the later fantasy of a 'total onslaught' of evil communist forces in the West

and the East. After 1994, South Africans unaware of actual international debates over liberalism, social democracy or European socialism would be ill-equipped to find a viable democratic alternative appropriate to a country with such vast income disparities.

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

In public Verwoerd called for unity between the 'evo white races'. Forget the quarrels of the past, Verwoerd told one gathering. The most important task is to bring all whites together, he pleaded.' But the Broederbond documents tell the real story of the rulers' mindset, warning against the dangerous influence of innocuous charitable organisations that happened to be English: Lions International, Rotarians, Round Table, Moral Rearmament. All had to be rejected because their spirit and atmospherewere 'un-Afrikaans'. lt wasn't enough not to be communist or liberal or Jewish: you had to conform to an entire worldview. The Sunduy Timesexposed a move led by Meyer to undermine one of South Africa's best academic institutions, the University of the %"itwaters-

rand, alma mater to numerous leaders of post-apartheid South Africa, including Nelson Mandela, as weil as Nobel Prize-winning scientists. The paper printed a letter Verwoerd wrote to a Capetonian, Sydney East,

in 1961. 'The fact that during the last election so many Jews have favoured the Progressive Party... did no t pass utmoticed,' ran this typical thinlyveiled warning to Jewish South Africans that they better watch out.' Not a statement a democrat would make.

Jerry

in SA', Verwoerd Israel's criticism of apartheid is 'a tragedy for continued. If local Jews didn't fall into line, he had ways to make Israel pay. 'Now tve begin to wonder if that support (for Israel) should not now be withdrawn if, according to their own conviction, that ideal of separate development is fundamentally wrong.' A few months later he made good on the threat, banning gifts to Israel. In the same issue of theStsnduyTimes that reported the ban, 15 April 1962, was a letter from Robey Leibbrandt, the wartime Nazi leader jailed till the incoming Nationalist government gave him a pardon in 1948. 'I am still a proud soldier of the idea of Adolf Hitler,' Leibbrandt's letter told the nation. In the history of investigative journalism, it would be hard to find a better

example of its importance, and Bloomberg's work would be taken many steps further by Serfontein. As for Gevser, he was a true Afrikaner hero, but his family and clerical life never recovered. TheSunday Timesran in full his reason for revealing the Broederbond's secrets. It's one of the most eloquent arguments for transparency ever penned. 'By their very nature', Geyser wrote, 'and without exception, secret organisations destroy the society they prey on, Democracy 6 5t tnduy7imes, 17 September 1961. 7 Sunduy Times,19 November 1961, p1.

PRYING THE BROEDERBOND OPEN

is founded on the mutual trust of its members. Secret societies are secret

because they distrust those who live alongside them, those whom they profess to serve. 'When Hitler came to power the Broederbond was a lusty 14-year-old,

eager to learn and quick to grasp. They concentrated on political and economic power, and started all out ro control the moulders of the mind,

the schools, the churches, the means of public communication, youth movements and cultural organisations.

'They roped in Dr balan, the principals of schools, heads of departments and ministers of religion. They aimed at the radio and took control of the press. They started the Reddingsdaadbond, to which we all contributed at least one shilling a month. They adorned their auns and every second

page of their secret circulars with the time-honoured adjective, "ChristianNational", the catchphrase with which they levered open every sphere of Afrikaner hfe, from the church to agricultural societies. 'Hitler's religious phalanx styled itself "Deutsche Christentum". It w a s not German, and Christian opponents died in their concentration camps by

their thousands. One of the leaders of the Broederbond — he is now deadwas a self-confessing agnosric, and others go fishing on Sunday, 'Once in control, secret organisations tend to t u r n society's scale of

values upside down with society's own money. People are not promoted, as society can reasonably expect, for their qualities to do the job, but for their allegiance to the secret organisation. '... Unknown and lesser men are promoted over the heads of staunch and well tried servants of public interests.

'Gideon Roos was superseded,' he wrote of the ousted head of the SABC. 'A host oF distinguished officers were dismissed and replaced. These removals and replacements are paid for with a gulbble s o~ n money.

society'

'By their very nature and secretive operation underground organisations

of whatever statnp belie every principle of democracy, and their very being destroys the concept of the Christian church completely. 'The church lives by revelation; the Broederbond thrives on concealment.

The church is open to everybody, the Broederbond is shut against the world. The church is universal; the Broederbond is so particularistic that it condemns and fights everything even remotely universal. theWorld Council of Churches, Rotary, Round Table and Lions International.

'Christ calls to the light; the Broederbond moves in the dark The church solemnly proclaims that husband and wife are one; the Broederbonder is bound by oath not to reveal his organisation's secrets to anyone, not even

his wife. 83

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

'Under Broederbond allegiance the pastoral work of the church becomes a farce. No mimeer can deal with his flock if he or anyone of them are restrained by a reservatio mentalis (mental reservation). 'I have noticed that the executive committee are referred to as the twelve apostles. Who is their Christ? The ultimate authority of C h ristianity is the word of God. I gain the impression that the directives of the Broeder-

bond apostles are final. Every major church publication is edited by a Broederbonder. They control the synodical commissions of the Afrikaans churches.

'Secret societies destroy the conscience of the individual, because they force on him a double morality and a dual loyalty. The church and society's only recourse against them is to expose them. They are composed of hghtsensitive material, and are harmless outside their element.' In response to these shattering events, the somnambulant Sir de Villiers

Graaff, heir to David's baronetcy, and then leader of the official opposition United Party, who sleepwalked through the swirling currents of South African and world awakening to racial injustice, roused himself sufficiently to call on Verwoerd to quit the Broederbond.

Verwoerd brushed hitn off like a bothersome fly. 'I' ve been a member of the Broederbond for 25 years', he said, 'and it hasn't tried to inAuence me or the government.' In a sense, that was perfectly true. He and his

close ally the Broederbond chairman had both obtained doctorates in the Netherlands, made study trips to Hi tler's Germany, and rose through the

Broederbond together from the 1930s: they were cut from similar cloth.

At his farewell dinner in 1975, Mervis, ever the raconteur, held his staff, me among them, in the palm of his hand, as he listed his successes and failures with his lawyerly humour. Under political influence, he listed his unwavering support for the Umted Party from 1959, alongside the continuing slide in its vote tally, election after election. The more devoted the Sunday Times's support, the fewer MPs they returned to parliament.

But he had influenced South African politics in a different way. Many who would not support 'one person, one vote' nevertheless read the Ssrrtday Times, and through it saw our emperors shed their clothes.

In 1989, Mervis and I had a serious public fallout. He published a book, The Fourth Estate, about the newspaper group that had employed us. It was after the Rand Daily Mail had been closed, and his book supported the theory that it did so because a newspaper that appealed to blacks could

PRYIMi THE BROEDERBOND OPEN

not survive commercially. I responded in a prominently-placed review of the book in the JohannesburgStar, arguing that the book wrongly blamed pro-black journalism, instead of a severely dysfunctional and unsupportive management, which opposed our anti-apartheid journalism and seemed to want us to fail. I went further, pointing to the fact that the book failed to

recognise properly the black journalists who'd worked with such courage in such hard time.

Mervis was clearly deeply hurt. Going through old clippings while researching this book, I realised he'd campaigned hard to keep me out of jail after I was sentenced for my coverage of Muldergate. Muldergate was the late '1970s scandal that brought down the government of Prime Minster John Vorster, as discussed in later chapters. I was out of the country and

hadn't known of Mervis's efforts. I don't regret criticising Mervis's book, or his arguments. But, if I had to write that review today, I would have added that he earned a place in our history, for his smart and dogged pursuit of those in power. I should have said so at the time.

HisSunday Timeswas very much a child of its era. Its flaws were gigantic. Its editorials on black aspirations were off key. It bought the spin of police that Nelson Mandela's arrest was the result of his own allies' betrayal — 'Reds are suspected'. Nowadays, American press reports point to the American

spy network, the CIA, though this has not been proven. But Mervis did call for a constitutional convention as early as May 1960, and ran Luthuli's calls for action before it was too late, Though very much

a child of his era, in a time of many cowards, he did more good than I gave him credit for.

SIX

God and Apartheid

C

harles Bloomberg's work at the Sunday Timeswas driven by a determination to expose the Broederbond before he left South Africa in 1963. He roped in a young Pretoria University graduate, Hennie Serfontein, to help him. Hennie, brought up a fervent Afrikaner Nationalist, had turned against the discrimination inherent in Afrikaner exclusiveness and was working for the opposition Progressive Party. After Charles left the country,

Hennie joined the Sunday Times and developed the Broederbond beat, He made disclosure after disclosure until 1975 when Tertius Myburgh replaced the retiring Mervis. Myburgh stopped Hennie in his tracks. After leaving the paper, Hennie never worked for a major paper again. Neither did Charles. Charles's last article headed 'How the Bond gets vengeance * opens with

the oath every new member swears: 'He who betrays the Bond will be destroyed by the Bond.The Bond never forgives, and never forgets. Its vengeance is swih and sure. Never has a traitor escaped just punishment.'

Charles may not have known he'd never be a full-time journalist again, but on landing in Britain he continued his life's work. He wanted to understand the European connections to apartheid. In the course of his research, he spent time in Amsterdam at the Vrije Universiteit, poring over

the theological underpinnings of Dutch Calvinism. It was here that Bloomberg learnt that most of the key thinkers behind apartheid based their ideas on Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper was the leader of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, and prime minister of the Netherlands at the turn of the century. The revolution he opposed was the French. Intellectually, the French Revolution was a product of the Enlightenment.

Though different Enlightenment thinkers had different priorities, there were common threads. The Enlightenment based its thinking on science and reason. Its political signi6cance was that if you base analysis on reason, you challenge the divine right of kings. This truly was revolutionary. 86

The French Revolution did not just retnove the king: it retnoved God' s

political power. Now the ruler's policies could be contested, assessed, opposed. Overthro~~ng the king opened the way to election by the people, and the entitlement to debate the correct course of action. 'The French Revolution dethroned God as well as king,' Bloomberg concluded, 'disestablished church as well as aristocracy.' After a period of French political influence on the Netherlands. Kuyper wanted to put God back where he thought he belonged. Kuyper insisted that all authority — including government — came from God. During the course of his career, Kuyper was a politician, theologian, newspaper editor, and acadenuc. His doctrine of 'sowereiniteit in eie bing', (sovereignty in own circle), was taken up in South Africa to justify apartheid. But Kuyper's actual legacy is more He was fascinated by the role of Afrikaners on the tip of Africa, and fervently supported them against Britain in the Anglo-Boer War. 'Sovereignty in your own circle' led him to develop a united economic, social, religious and political community. Around his religious community, he created a political

ambigouus.

party, trade unions, newspapers, schools and universities. He estabhshed the Vrije Universiteit in AInsterdam. In the Netherlands, other political parties or faiths did the same. It became part of Dutch societal organisation.

'He designated Jews as aliens, carriers of the liberal and socialist virus, and he attacked their financial influence,' Bloomberg wrote. 'Once converted, however, they became fully Dutch. His anti-Semitic phase was therefore religious rather than racial. Admission to the nation was by way of baptism,

not blood.' The Afrikaner Nationalists who followed Kuyper called themselves Christian Nationalists. They included the leaders of the Broederbond from the 1920s until at least the 1970s. Like Verwoerd, they believed South Africa's leaders were chosen by God. God chose all our prime ministers, Dr Koot Vorster said, except, of course, for the pro-British Jan Smuts.

The influence of Kuyper on the leadership was ove~vhelming. Several studied at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, but those that did not were

equally influenced. Dr Koot Vorster completed his PhD on Kuyper through Potche fstroom University, while serving a prison sentence after his conviction

for spying for Nazi Germany. Dr Andries Treurnicht, Broederbond chairman trom 1972 to 1974 who, as deputy minister of Bantu education, issued the

Afrikaans teaching decree that sparked the 1976 Soweto uprising, wrote his PhD at the University of Cape Town. Its guiding influence v as Kuyper. Christian Nationalism, drawing on Kuyper, rejected 1789's anti-God, anti-clerical, anti-Church challenge. Piet Meyer, for example, who had

PAIV AND POSS181 L1TY: 1800-1966

studied at the Nazi Anti-Comintern School in Berlin, went further, saying it was his duty to attack the false gods of liberalistn, communism, rationalism, materialism and internationalism.

In South Africa, Kuyper's followers amassed overwhelming state power, which helped them establish the dominant institutions. They argued it was their calling to foster Christian Nationalists in the other groups, including black South Africans. Christian Nationalism relied on several biblical texts which Kuyper highhghted. First and most obvious was the aftermath of Noah's flood, when each of Noah's sons — Shem, Ham and Japhet — became a progenitor of a new nation and language group. The next common t ext concerns the tower of Babel, presented as a

revolutionary anetnpt to replace God, who responds: 'Come let us godown and confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another' s

speech." 'All the key theoreticians... agreed that by suddenly breaking up people into language groups, God revealed his will that they should live in separate cultural-ethnic units,' Bloomberg wrote. A confusion of tongues would persist to the end of t ime, which meant that races, cultures and nations would persist as discrete entities. Dr Koot Vorster made the connection explicit: 'God intervened, confused

their language and thwarted their plan... God broke the threatening uniformity and allowed people to separate into races.' Bloomberg believed that in South Africa the relationship between the Broederbond and Christian Nationalism was crucial ro both. 'Neither can be fully understood without the other." Christian nationalism provided the ideology, the Broederbond the organisational traction. Four attributes made the Broederbond's impact distinctive: 'the wide range of its activities, the extent of it s influence, the high calibre of its

members and its religious-confessional basis'. The Broederbond held it all together, creating the image and, ro a degree, the reality of a monolith. To hght it was made difficult by the harsh consequences of its discipline. Bloomberg believed there was 'surprisingly little' study of the ChristianNationalist creed. 'One reason is the English-speaking world's blind spot on ideology; another is that Christianity has only very recently discovered the 1 Bloomberg, C, Christian Nationalism and the rise of the Afrikaner Broederbond in SouthAfrica, 191S-48, (ed. Saul Dubow), Macnullan: 1990. All quotes in this chapter are from the introduction and Chapter One.

GOD AND APARTHEtD

"blasphemy of racism, the stinging phrase coined by the World Council of Churches in 1968... 'One cannot fathom Afrikanerdom's highly motivated messianismor its ideological and cultural cohesion without examining its sustaining world view.

Church leaders defending racially segregated churches quoted extensively from Kuyper, treating him as the ultimate arbiter on questions of reformed theology. They quoted him far more frequently than all other theologians combined, induding Calvin hunself. In 196'I, Dr Koot Vorster wrote a seminal essay on the biblical foundations of apartheid, quoting Kuyper six times, but Calvin not at alL Kuyper's lasting influence was arguably greater in South Africa even than

in his home country. In the Netherlands, Bloomberg found a more ambivalent legacy. On the one hand, 'Kuyper's son, Professor HH Kuyper, for example, a noted rightwinger who supported Afrikaner Nationalist and colour racism, eventually became a wartime Nazi collaborator. Kuyper's grandson died fighting with the SS on the Russian front in the Second %'orld War. A onetime protege, Professor Hugo Visscher, became adviser to the Dutch Nazi Party in I937.

'Others, however, like Dr jj Buskes (one of the student pallbearers at Kuyper's funeral), became socialists and early critics of apartheid.' Kuyper welcomed intermarriage, as long as the non-Calvinist converted. Later in his career, Kuyper said that Calvinism 'favoured democracy and equality and would not rest until every person was respected as a creature in God's likeness, His theories can, therefore, sustain a democratic as weil as an anti-detnocratic interpretation,' Bloomberg concluded, Trying to guess in the late twentieth century what Kuyper would say

about the modern church struggle over apartheid was sterile conjecture, in Bloomberg'sview. 'During the late 1930s and the Second World %ar, the Dutch Nazi Party appropriated Kuyper, posing as the executor of his teachings,' Bloomberg explained. 'But the vast bulk of Gereformeerdes fought Nazism and denounced Hitler for falsely idolising race and state... 'Kuyper bequeathed a double heritage of both right- and left-wing; authoritarian and libertarian; racist and anti-racist; ehtist and democratic.

His teaching was an intricate balance of paradoxes. One set of his ideas made him vulnerable to Nazism: another set inspired the gereformeerde illegal resistance to Nazism. One set made him sympathetic to Afrikaner identity and hegemony; another turned his successors into anti-racist

PAIV AND POSSIBILITY: IIIOO-I 966

crusaders. %%at Afrikaners have done is not only to embrace his theological

orthodoxy, but also his right-wing legacy.' By the 1960s, the Dutch churches swung to an 'anti-racist position, bom-

barding the Afrikaans churches for practising apartheid and backing black Christians'. The Vrije Universiteit awarded an honorary doctorate to Martin

Luther King in 1965. In 1968 a top Vrije Universiteit theologian, J Verkuyl, told shocked Afrikaner theologians: 'You worship a different God.' In 1975, the Vrije Universiteit conferred an honorary doctorate on Rev Beyers Naude, and severed a long-standing teacher exchange agreement t he Potchefstroom University fo r with the university it had.

spavined,

Christian Higher Education. The break was complete. Black liberation theologians like the Rev Allan Boesak and Dr Russell B otman presented the 'positive' aspects of Kuyperisrn in support of t h e

struggle for racial justice. In August 1982, in Ottawa, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches declared apartheid 'a crime against humanity'. At home, the English-language press criticised the g overnment as it implemented its policy. But, in tr uth, there was much hypocrisy in many of its white critics. They criticised some — but not all — of the authoritarian

measures the government took. They ridiculed the lengths to which racial classification went, and sometimes the removals of black South Africans to create residential segregation where it did not exist. But that did not mean they accepted racial equahty. Most did not,

Journalists had tried to penetrate the Broederbond since at least 1936,

when the prime minister, General Barry Hertzog, publicly denounced the movement ot which his son Albert was a leading member. Hertzog quoted from a Broederbond document signed by its chairman, Professor J C van Rooy: 'Brothers, our solution for South Africa's ailments is not that

one party or another shall obtain the whip hand, but that the Afrikaner Broederbond shall govern South Africa.' %'ading through the library stacks in Ainsterdarn's Vrije Universiteit,

Charles Bloomberg pieced together who Kuyper was in the Netherlands, how he was interpreted in South Ah'ica, and finally how 'Kuyperism' was implemented by the Broederbond and its allies. As he wrote, and continued his itinerant life, Bloomberg deposited parts of his manuscript on at least nvo continents.

Isaacs, Hobsbaivm, Professor Francis%dson in Cape Town, Irene Menell in Johannesburg, Professor Shula Marks in London, were among the many 90

GOD AND APARTHEID

who held some of his papers at one time or another. Among exiles in London, innumerable friends had him stay for a few nights, leave papers behind, and collect them months or years later. By the time he had finished, there were 750,000 ivords, enough to fili

six chunky volumes. Only a slim volume was published by his friends and edited by Professor Saul Dubow in 1990, to little fanfare, five years after he died. Before his death on an operating table during a failed heart transplant

operation, Bloomberg had become increasingh paranoid. It seems clear now that, by the 1980s, the itinerant life had made him fearful even when there was less cause.

This vvas confirmed from another unlikely source. On Joe Slovo's first domesticflight after returning from exile, from Cape Toom to Johannesburg after the Groote Schuur minute was signed, I had, the seat next to his. I

asked if he remembered Bloomberg. He did, Then Slovo laughed as he told me of a visit from Charles to Slovo's London Aat while Slovo was head of the ANC military. Coming inside, Charles said he had been followed. Slovo went to the door, opened it wide and looked out. Nah, Slovo told Charles, there was nobody to fear out there.

SEVEN

'The Whole Hog' The Mail was really a sort of jingo rag — like most English-language newspapers in this country. Not all of them. It wasa promoter of colonialism, British jingoism. More so than the Argus papers, I thi nk. It didn't really even begin to be a great newspaper until I aurence Gandar became editor.' — HAtutvO'CoNNoa

r

he man who changed South African journalism forever would have passed unnoticed at an accountants' convention. Painfully shy, Laurie

Gandar dressed in grey suits and conservative ties, and seemed to look perpetually downwards. Working as a young political reporter on the paper he used to edit, 1 failed hopelessly to engage him in a political conversation. But the man who hired him had special insight. Henry Kuiper had known Gandar as a military intelligence officer in north Africa in World %'ar ll, as weil as a journalist. 'Laurie Gandar was quite easily the most courageous man I have ever met, in war and outside,"- he said years later.

Reading Gandar's columnVrewpoint today, and knowing it was written as the doom of liberal thought was being meticulously planned in government,

the Broederbond and the church, the power and clarity of his words is, for anyone who remembers those years, a revealing surprise. Before embarking on the largely unrecognised story of the Rand Daily

1 Harry O' Connor. Unpublished interview with Gavin Stewart, 9June 1988. O' Connor was one of Gandar's deputies and later editor of the Eastern Province Herald. 2 Gavin Stewart interview, unpublished. The Stewart interviews are now available iti the University of Witwatersrand history archive,

'THE %HOLE HOG'

ail , it is useful to understand the political currents affecting the South African newspaper world during %'orld %ar II. As generals tend to fight wars using the tactics of the last w~, so in the

white South African English and Afrikaans press, journalists and politicians were still refighting the battles of the Anglo-Boer War. On one side were Afrikaans newspapers, tied to the National Party many as official organs. Cabinet ministers, including prime ministers, se~ed on newspaper boards of directors. In Cape Town, the editor of Die Ilgrger

attended National Party parliamentary caucus meetings,bound by its rules of confidentiality'. You don t get much further from independence than that The English-language newspapers saw themselves as more open-minded, but most editors were born and educated in Britain and subordinated South Africa's interests to Britain' s.

Two contrasting stories of press censorship shortly before the war illustrate the interaction between editors and politicians.

The first comes from recently declassified %hitehall documents. A 6 December 1936 cable was sent by the CapeTimes London editor, Ned Forbes Grant to South Africa saymg King Edward would abdicate fhe British intelhgence agency MI6 confiscated the cable, and Home Secretary Sir John Simon summoned Grant. Simon assured him there was no truth in

the story and, if the cable had gone through, the reaction back in I ondon might have been of a 'most serious character'. 'I reminded him that in 4 SIS a false rumour that we had lost the Battle

of %'aterloo produced a financial crisis and ruined many people,' the Home Secretary wrote afterwards. 'I asked him if he did not realise that his responsibilities as a journalist and an Englishman made the sending of such a message without definite authority as to its truth very improper and

reckless.' Grant's source was 'very highly placed', but under this withering call to patriotism he replied that 'this had been a lesson to him and that he tvould

always have this experience in mind when discharging his responsibilities in future.' Four days later, King Edward abdicated.' Grant's suppressed cable had been right, and the Home Secretary wrong. Not for the first or last time did a politician deny the truth to kill an accurate story,

The second example occurred three years later at home. In ] 939, with General Barry Hertzog in power before war was declared, the German minister sought to

p e rsuade Hertzog to e stablish press

censorship to prevent unfriendly comments about Hitler's Germany and 3 'f/ye Grazrdiun, 23 May 20'l3, quoting recently declassified British intelbgence Qes.

PAIN AND POSSIIIILITY: I 800-1966

Mussolini's Italy. Unlike his extremist son Albert, General Hertzog, the man who had brought out Lord Reith to establish BBC-style broadcasting to South Africa, felt tom by the censorship issues raised. 'A remarkable conference took place between the hesitant Prime iWinister

and leading South African editors,' vvrote GAL Green in An Editor Looks Back.' 'Hertzog*s chief point was that the anti-Nazi tone of leading South

African newspapers, of which the German minister complained bitterly, was bad for trade, 'During the discussion, a leading editor asked the Prime Minister point blank whether he expected the newspapers to condone cold-blooded crimes such as the murder of General Schleicher. "Of course not," he replied, whereupon his interlocutor retorted, "But don't you realise, sir, that nothing

short of approval of such deeds would satisfy the German Minister~"' Shortly thereafter, the newsmen formed an Editors' Society, along the lines of the Medical Council. A red herring across the track, said Green, ostensibly to preserve the ethics of the profession, affording Hertzog an excuse to drop his threat of repressive legislation.

Laurence Gandar was the first editor of the Rand Daily Mail to be born in South Africa. It was not only his personal style that aroused erroneous expectations, After journalism in Durban and the war in north Africa, he

had taken a job in Oppenheimer's Anglo American head office, in order to escape the suffocating narrowness of Durban journalism and move to the more dynamic johannesburg. At Anglo American he'd struck up relationships with Oppenheimer and the coterie of Oxford PPE (politics, philosophy and economics) graduates with plummy accents with whom Oppenheimer liked to populate his boardrooms. Anglo American was trying to understand the cause of repeated strikes

at its copper mines in northern Rhodesia, novI Zambia, and sent Gandar to investigate. His report said the society was as badly segregated as South Africa, possibly even worse. He concluded that, since Africans were denied a political say in the running of their country, it was inevitable they'd focus their wrath where they had some organisation and clout; in the companies

they worked for, through their unions. This analysis seems

blin dingly

obvious today, but at the time Gandar's analysis was received in the corridors

of power at Anno American with respectful interest. 4 p 204, Juta: 1947

THE O'HOLE HOG

Henry Kuiper was brought in to head SAAN (South African Associated Newspapers). A lawyer who'd fought in the war, he was ignorant about business but bright enough to learn, and he had a political conscience. He was not proud of the Mail and wanted major improvement. The only

potential Mail editor he saw inside the company was Joel Mervis, but the board vetoed Mervis because he was a Jew. 'It tvas this fact that prevented

him from getting the job,' Henry Kuiper recalled. Kuiper next turned to Gandar. Kuiper knew Gandar from the war. He

knew him as an extremely hard worker of 'complete and utter integrity'. On the other hand, he knew him as 'one of the shyest men I ever met, which caused enormous problems with comtnunication and exposure'. After getting Gandar through the board, Kuiper stood firm that Harold

Fridjhon be mining editor. 'The board didn't approve of his appointment because he was a Jew,' but Kuiper insisted, and the board Iet it slide. At least the editor's chair was safe in the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant hands of a man from the English South African endave of Durban.

But Gandar turned a 'jingo rag' into a paper Kuiper, for the first time, becatne proud of. It began to build a bridge between the races, becoming loved by many across an increasingh vicious racial divide, Gandar's political o utlook had been f o r med o ver t i me, bu t several

incidents focused him. Never a jingoist, while on a scholarship in Britain he had observed India's independence, and then Ghana's. Both impressed him. He believed this was the future for the rest of Africa, and should be supportedand embraced by allSouth Africans. Gandar's political view from his earliest days in journalism was that there needed to be a new constitutional convention to bring in Africans. But when he started work in Natal„establishment politics were dominated by idle nineteenth-century debates about the British Crown and even Natal

provincial secession. In the reactionary climate then prevailing among whites, he opposed contemporary talk of a new convention because it mould be used to achieve the opposite of what he wanted: in that climate, instead of correcting the error of 1910 by including Africans, it would likely

compound the error at black South Africans' expense. He wrote in Durban's Daily Neurson 14 June 1952: 'Perhaps the greatest single objection to a National Convention at the moment is that European opinion in South Africa is not yet ready to write into a revised Constitution

provisions for the legitimate polirical representation of non-Europeans." 5 ' N ationalists show there is no "Convention spirit"' non", signed Student of Po)itics, written by Candar.

95

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: I II00- l966

There were a few other enhghtened voices in the wind, but in the mainstream press his was a voice of rare insight and clarity. Observing Mandela's Defiance Campaign in 1952 from Durban, Gandar answered the criticism and derision heaped upon a people struggling to find strategies in an unreceptive world. There is very much point to the campaign, Gandar argued.'The present seemingly ineffectual phase is being used by the non-European leaders for several calculated purposes — to test their organisational machinery, to gain experience in direction and liaison, to assess European reaction and, above all, to "politicise" the non-European peoples, to educate them in the use of that immensely potent political weapon, passive resistance.'

His columns along these lines got Gandar burned in effigy in Durban's Albert Park.

Before taking the editor's job, Gandar demanded and received something his predecessors did not enjoy: complete editorial independence from the board. That was a good start, but what he found was an unprepossessing operation. The Muil was 'a demoralised paper' when Candar joined. 'It was in really very bad shape,' recalled Raymond Louw, one of Gandar's early promotions. 'The number of times he used to walk in through the door wondering when someone was going to say to him, "H ave you seen the

latest bugger up today~"" Harry O' Connor, later editor of the Eastern Province Herald, described the pre-Gandar Mail as a 'rag... where members of staff ran all sorts of rackets for their own account.'

The first test of Gandar's loyalties came within 48 hours of arriving, when he was told a good friend of his from Anglo American was charged with drunken driving, and 1be Star agreed not to carry his name to spare him embarrassment. Gandar refused to intercede, and his friend's name was published in the Mail, a sign taken in the newsroom to mean he would not favour friends or Anglo American men. It was an important signal.

The transformation began immediately. Gandar fired at least six journalists in short order, most for drunkenness or failure to do their work, some for fighting. His hires and promotions were mostly inspired. O' Connor, Johnny Johnson, Benjamin Pogrund, Rex Gibson and the promotion of Louw to night news editor in 1958. Most of them became editors, helping

Raym ond

6 Raymond luuw interview with Gavin Stewart, pp 1-37.

rack up probably the highest success rate of any paper in the country in producing strongeditors. He did not hire only men whose politics he liked. But choosing on expertise alone led to one mistake he regretted. He hired Ivor Benson, remembering him as a good journalist.

While Gandar was out of toom, the British 'nazi leader Sir Oswald Moseley visited South Africa and met the prime minister, Dr Verwoerd. Acting editor Benson wrote an editorial sympathetic to M o seley. Gandar was furious. It was entirely against his and the paper's views. But there was

worse: h4oseley was staying with Benson, the acting editor of the Mail, during the trip! Benson had to go — yet another firing.

Gandar's reticent personality, and perhaps his notion of the rules of the time, led him to write for months under the name Owen Vine, Eventually

people found out these were his rniddle names. He soon dropped the ruse. Bringing m passionate anti-apartheid journalists had its risks. In December 1961 Lewis Sowden, the theatre critic, was in the public gallery at the United Nations in New York, listening to the South African foreign minister. Eric Louw, Reacting to a speech putting a polite gloss on apartheid, Sowden lost

his cool, and shouted, 'Don't listen to him. He's always telling half-truths.' This broke a cardinal rule for journalists, not to become part of the story. Gandar suspended Sowden. then reinstated him. The government took

Sowden's passport. Die Transvalerattacked Gandar for Sowden's outburst aud defamed him„so Gandar sued their editor, D D Scholtz. Harry O' Connor, who was Gandar's main witness, sat in court as Bram Fischer QC, Gandar's advocate

in the case, cross-examined Scholtz. Fischer won the case for Gandar. 'Fischer really enjoyed himself, and he made such a hash of Scholrz that very soon after he was moved sideways', and they brought in someone else to run the paper. He 'destroyed the editor of the Transvaler', O' Connor

remembered. Scholtz later became professor of journalism at Potchefstroom University.' Fischer was himself later jailed for life, when the security police discovered that he was head of the underground Coinmunist Party. Gandar kept exploring ways to shine a light on apartheid. On the other

hand, the biggest story never written was probably about the gold, diamond, coal and other mines themselves. The newspaper and the mines were owned by the same people. Like other papers, theA'Iaif did not seriously investigate mine workers' conditions or wages, which had been static in real terms

since 1911.

? Stewart papers, pp1-29.

PAIN AM3 POSSIBILITY: 1800-1966

A newspaper's editorial position is bigger than any one person. Any move has to consider more than the editor's personal view. The paper had backed the notninally opposition United Party and its predecessors at election time,

though Gandar increasingly lambasted its leaders for their racial policies. But vvhen the Progressive Party of Helen Suzman broke with the United Party, Gandar decided that, since they supported racial equality but continued to appeal for white votes, the Mti/ would back them.

His decision to switch allegiance was taken without any discussion with management or the board. He relied on his guarantee of editorial independence. He also felt that if he had approached managementin advance, it would Ipve them the opportunity to apply pressure to prevent it. 'To their

great credit, they respected the principle of editorial independence,' he said, though he thought he detected some heavy breathing in the background. After the uprising led by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) at Sharpeville in 1960 when police opened fire and killed 69 protestors, the turmoil in white and black politics, the state of emergency, mass arrest, and the Progressive Party breakaway, Vorster called a white election in late 1961, and the Mail immediately called on readers to vote Progressive. Clearly regarding the party as far from sufficiently enlightened, it was nevertheless 'the most advanced policy that our highly conservative white electorate is likely to accept at present.' It was the first time the Mail fought, not to back a party it thought had a chance to win, but 'to elect an opposition'.'

Gandar explained his policy. 'We have a clear and unambiguous political policy which is liberal in content and contemporary in spirit. In the twilight of South African traditionalism... we are a paper of vigorous dissent and social protest... In a continent in the throes of change, we endeavour to be an instrument of change."'

John Vorster, minister of justice, ratcheted up the rhetoric, caihng liberalism the 'precursor of communism', an even greater enetny than communism. This view was consistent with the teachings of his brother Dr Koot Vorster, who was the moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church, and Broederbond

chief Dr Piet Meyer. Liberalism vvas the dangerous progeny of the French Revolution. Gandar took him on. TheMail, he vt rote, knew perfectly vvell 8 Ra»d Daily Mail, 17 August 1961. 9 Rand Daily Mail, 20September 1961. 10 174, the house journal of SA< L Also reportedin SA journalist Oct>Nov 1962, and potter,Elaine, Tl>e Pressin Opposition, The Politica/Role of Sout& African N Chatto and %indus: 1975, p 175.

ewsp apers,

THE % HOLE HOG'

the difference between liberalism and comjnunism. It was a liberal newspaper and did not propose to change." Vorster and his colleagues did as much as anyone to glamorise communism in the nunds of oppressed black South Africans who naturally hated what his policies were doing to them.

Gandar warned Vorster that he was playing a dangerous game linking liberalism with communism. Vorster replied, reiterating his belief that

liberalism was the slippery slope to communism." Gandar's writing reflected his rising fury at the absence of enlightened

white leaders. 'Except for a handful of liberal men and women who speak out with courage and realism (but who listens?) our leaders are a sorry lot,' he wrote, 'never venturing more than half a pace from the main quivering mass of public opinion and swiftly rejoining it at the first sign of restlessness.

Nor', he added, 'has the prem always played a distinguished part. Too often it has contented itself with conforming to prevaihng views, however banal and obsolete."' Harold Fridjhon invited Gandar to dinner with Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. 'I remember being very impressed with them and liking them,' he recalled in an interview in 1988. %'hiie on the run, Mandela called Gandar several times, when he thought the paper gave insufficient credit to the difficulties they faced.

The suppression of the African National Congress (A'4C), PAC and others, and the increasing repression of the population,did not phase the businem community, local or foreign. By 1964, with Mandela and his colleagues on trial in the Rivonia case that would send them to prison for life, the

economy was booming, Gone was the crisis of business confidence after Sharpeviiie and the State of Emergency. Still the world's largest supplier of gold and home of the De Beers diamond cartel, the economic growth rate soared to seven percent. Gandar

recalled Charles Dickens's description of late eighteenth-century England: 'It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.' The racial situation was

'outwardly calm', and the 'tensions of the Sharpeville to Rivonia period have largely diedaway.', 'These could easily be seen as the best of times,' Gandar wrote. 'And yet the opposite is also true. Preoccupation with economic progresstends to mask the facts, but the hard reality is that South Africa has moved to a position where it is losing the ability to control its own future. It has less 11 Rand Dat'fy MaiI, 12 October 1962. 12 Potter, p176. 13 Gandar, Laurence, TheNation that lost its uay, SA~: 1963, p3.

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY:1800-1966

and less tune to produce a lasting solution to its race problem and less and less ability to work one out. In this sense these are the worst of times.'

Gandar wrote of government racial policy: 'It is almost unthinkable that a tiny group of three million whites could shut itself off in a l i t tle race fortress at the toe of a huge continent of 250 million black people without

this being seen as the final insult, the intolerable symbol of the white man' s superiority complex.' Anticipating Mandela's later vvords from the dock before sentence, he concluded: 'I can see no peaceful coexistence in this situation, and I can think of much better things to die for."

To the fury of racists, the Mail began running a column called As I See it by Nat Nakasa whom he'd brought to the paper fromDna. 'Just being an African in itself is almost illegal,' Nakasa wrote. Lamenting the lack of

intellectual challenge from white youth, Nakasa blamed the ruling party, the churches and the Broederbond. 'In my view, my Afrikaner contemporaries are getting a raw deal. The grip of authority on the minds of non-white youth is not as tight as it is on theirs. "

Nakasa was awarded a Nieman Fellowship to spend a year at Harvard, but the goverrunent refused him a passport. He left on an exit visa and

enjoyed his year there. But, after it was over, he became increasingly homesick and depressed. In 1965 he fell to his death from a New York highrise, an apparent suicide. He was ZS. Fifty years later, in 2015, his remains were finally brought back to South Africa.

Between 1957 and 1964, most African countries gained independence from former colonisers. Attacks on white colonials in the Congo and Kenya were splashed over the front pages in the South African press, scaring white readers. Verwoerd turned South Africa into a white repubhc and took the country out of the British Commonwealth.

Everywhere Verwoerd was consolidating his hold, In this climate of fear Meyer, wearing the twin hats of Broederbond and SABC chief, launched a

new onslaught on critics of apartheid. It came in the form of a 'Volkskongres oor die komunisrne', a People's Congress about Communism, and support for it was massive and orchestrated. Meyer saw no reason why the head of the national broadcaster should not lead this highly controversial partisan

event. Tolerating or encouraging opposing viewpoints was another example 14 Laurence Candar, *Viewpoint', Rand Daily Alail, Zl March 1964.

15 Rand Dai ly klaii, 25 April 1964.

100

of dangerous liberalism. He entertained no doubts: the broadcaster was there to proniote his agenda,

Of the 2,427 delegates to the Volkskongres, 1,392 were supplied by South African church organisations. The Johannesburg Afrikaans press gave the congress daily, blanket, front-page coverage. Since thei~fail poured scorn on the congress,Die Vaderland, in an editorial on 1 April, accused theMail of acting as 'useful idiots'. Though the churches and universities of the land of Venvoerd's birth, the Netherlands, were turning against apartheid, Meyer could still draw on his remaining Dutch connections at the Vrije Universiteit. One of its academics,

Professor G Kuijpers, was invited to the congress totalk about 'red methods to promote world revolution to achieve world domination'.

Kuijpers accused Christian organisations of being used to propagate communist ideas: 'I teU you this because I hope you can succeed where the Netherlands failed.' Meyer followed this theme, ivarning against racial integration, and focusing on the anti-apartheid press. Among those promoting an 'anti-Christian war', he warned, were unchristian and anti-Christian journalists.

On 3 April Die Trattstuler published the outcome of the congress. It resolved to set up 'a representative and scientific national council to fight

communism in South Africa', and demanded 'iminediate and decisive action' against the liberal press. Faced with daily attacks froin his Afrikaans newspaper competitors and the head of the Broederbond, the government papers chaUenged the editor of the Mail to face up to the implications of his policy. Did he not realise that the logical rejection of segregation was full integration, that if you reject segregation, you have to go the whole hog'. The alternative to apartheid was full integration of black people into every aspect of society.

Gandar published his reply in an editorial on 4 April, a Saturday. %'riring for mostly white readers and advertisers of a white-owned paper, it is a document remarkable for its courage in confrontmg ~vhite readers with the truth. It is one of few aimed at whites ever to spell out that they

must make sacrifices. He didn't pull his punches, criticising liberal whites who claimed integration would not cost whites anything. Though not a

practising Christian, he'd g rove up in a Christian community, and he tackled Verwoerd and Meyer head-on, reminding them what Christ had actually taught. ' Gandar's statement was remarkable in h o w f a r i t w e n t, ' w r o t e an analyst. 'Only the Liberal Party (and arguably even its supporters had

101

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: 1SOO — 1966

not accepted these consequences) and the banned Communist Party and Congress movements had even implied such conclusions. As such the paper was providing a platform for views which by 1964 were largely outlawed.'" 'Yes,' the headline to Gandar's editorial said, 'It Does Mean the W hole Hog'. 'These years of tumultuous change have been too much for the comfortably ensconced White people at the foot of the continent. They have recoiled from what they have seen happening elsewhere on the continent and they want no part of it in their own country. They are even arming against it. 'What they do not realise is that the elements of change are already within their fortress. By placing together in the same country what a Nationalist

newspaper described this week as a small White aristocracy and a large Black proletariat, history has built into our situation the same social dynamics that

have wrought change in other parts of Africa. It is just a question of how the forces come into play and whether we manage to guide them intelligently. 'Our problem is that while multiracialism is the central fact of life in South Africa, as our population shows, the White "aristocracy" closes its

mind to its

impl ications-as if this will cause them to disappear. But we

cannot escape from our own essential character. We have to live with it.

'To be sure, the implications of multiracialism are far from pleasant for the privileged white group. I often think that the protagonists of multiracialism harm their cause by pretending othenvise. Yet the case for integration of the races does not rest on the unreal assumption that everyone will live happih ever after. It rests on the plain fact that there is no practical alternative — for not even the Nationalists are prepared to face the appalling costs and risks

of genuine partition on an India — Pakistan basis. 'The Nationalists enjoy pointing out t hat once we accept the fact of integration and start to accommodate it there is no stopping the process. One concession leads to another until all is conceded. The Nationalists are right. This is how change takes place in multiracial societies such as ours. But we must face it since we cannot do otherwise. And it is surely easier to guide the forces of change by working with them rather than against thetn. 'The Nationalists also point out that integration means mixed schools,

mixed hospitals, mixed cinemas, mixed social gatherings and even mixed marriages. Indeed it does. It means the dismantling of colour bars in every

sphere. It means the likelihood of having a Black family as one's neighbours, a Black man as one's boss. Unthinkable> Vo doubt. But then the history of 16 Potter, p 176.

102

'THE XVHOLE HOG'

multiracial communities is essentially the story of the reluctant accepting the unthinkable. 'It is no use imagining, as some armchair liberals do, that all we are required to do is extend the franchise to some of the non-Whites and then

go on living as before. You cannot confine integration to politics just as you cannot confine it, as the Nationalists prefer to imagine, to the economy.

'This is where multiracialism has so often run aground in other parts of Africa. Unless partnership is actively practised in all spheres it will fail in the political sphere which has then to bear an excessive load of tensions generated in the other spheres closer to everyday life. 'The Nationalists claim that since political integration means political power passing into the hands of Africans it will be followed by a decline of democratic standards, a rundown of administrative efficiency and, perhaps, economic reprisals against the relatively well-off White group. 'There is certainly a risk of these things happening. It depends on how well we handle the transition. We start with innumerable advantages that other parts of Africa have not had — a 300-year history of race contact,

a highly industrialised society, many educated Africans, a substantial urbanised middle class, a large African membership of Christian churches, and so on. 'Yet it is true that we might fail. It is also true that the process of adaption

will be extraordinarily difficult and painful, requiring of us the exercise of every ounce of patience, wisdom and tolerance we can muster.

'We should not shirk from this task because success is not assured. Does Christianity not teach us to be ready to suffer and, if necessary, to lose all for what we know to be right and just? Is it not preferable to serve our less fortunate fellow men than to hold ourselves apart from them, dutching our own privileges to our bosom? Apartheid is a contraction of the human spirit, an impoverishing act of self-concern, a retreat from life. Integration is meeting life and entering its stream.

'In the memorable words of Garfield Todd, "Let us cooperate courageously and generously with the inevitable.""' The reaction in the Afrikaans press was unanitnous. On Monday 6 April, under the headline, "We will not waver', Die Vuderlartd commented that

'With an English press as represented by the Rand Daily Mail, which openly calls for concessions that... will lead control of South Africa out of the 17 Rand Daily Mail, 4 April 1964. Sir Garfieid Todd was Prime Mnister of Southern Rhodesia before lan Smith, incurring Smith's wrath for pleading the cause of ZimbabN ean fiberation.

103

PA]N AND PO5SIBILlTY: 1800-1966

hands of the whites, ... a militant Prog party which prepares the way for black domination„and a directionless UP... prepare the way for our demise.' An editorial in Die Transvakr, headlined 'A Deadly Threat', continued the drumbeat next morning. 'To the challenge (dare) of Die Transvalerto the local mouthpiece of liberalism to declare if it was not just in favour of Afrikaans- and English-speaking schoolchildren attending the same schools, but also white and non-white children sitting on the same benches, an answer has come at last. %'hatever is thought of the answer, it cannot be

accused of being two-faced(dabbelsinnigheid), It means a black tnan as a neighbour and a black man as a boss.' Never before was there such a clear declaration 'that liberalism intends so to destroy the traditional lifestyles of whites, Afrikaans and English speaking. It is clear that liberalism's aims grow more radical... 'Today the paper of the liberalists announces completely openly that, if its principles prevail, there will be, not just mixed marriages but that all separation lines between white and non-white must disappear. %'hat the

present day liberal stands for comes down to the dechne and disappearance of the white race on the southern tip of Africa.

'After this openhearted declaration of the liberal newspaper it should be clear to anyone who is not blind what the end result of the liberals is. It is to

bring down the republic and put political authority in the hands of millions of uncivilised(onbeskaafd) non-whites. 'Just as clear should be that liberalism is a relentless enemy that will attack every principle that Afrikaners and speakers stand for. They wanted to destroy ever)ching built up over 300 years.

Enm esh-

'That is why one must see liberalism as a fatal threat to the existence of

the Afrikaner volk. If hberalism prevails, as surely as the sun rises in the east, it means the end of the Afrikaner volk. If imperialism was a serious threat to the Afrikaner in the past, the danger from liberalism is ten times more serious. 'It is more than time for every Afrikaner to take note of the danger of hberalism and gird himself to wage a that wiII not end until the

stree

enemy is totally destroyed(totaal verniei'ig).' These papers saw Gandar's editorial as a major blunder, which they welcomed as affording them a political coup, and ran it repeatedly. Never before had the Mail be en so extensively and accurately quoted on their pages. 'Nationalists are right, says Progressive Party organ', was D i e

Vaderlawd'sheadline on one news story on 7 April. The same day, Die Vaderlund ran its most succinct editorial, under the headline 'Thanks, but No Thanks'. 104

'As the mouthpiece of the Progressive Party,' which was not an accurate

description, 'the Rand Daily Mail deserves our thanks that it fearlessly talks straight... the Rand Daily Mail viewpoint therefore deserves muchwider attention on race policy...

'This is clear language. lt removes the masks from liberals' taces. 'We must be prepared to lose evemhing'I 'That is really the call of liberals in South Africa. 'Thank you, Mr Gandar, for your honesty. 'No thank you for your suicide demand!' ('Dankie vir a eerlikbeid. Wee dankie vir u selfvernietigingeis!')

Gandar did not back down. He continued to explore new ways to expose black conditions and force white South Africans to wake up, to end the quickening spiral of repression and to start meaningful chscussions with black South Africans. Given that there was no hope of the government

listening to hitn, the obvious question arises: why was Gandar not banned, or his paper closed down, or both? Besides extensive surveillance, and a shot fired at theMail's office, all that happened to him was that he was tried in court and his passport was confiscated. Other ~hite liberals were banned, including the chairman of Alan Paton's Liberal Party, Peter Brown. He was white, with a foot in the Natal establishment, but that did not save him. T o answer that q uestion on e m ust t h ro w o n e' s m ind b ack t o t h e

circumstances of the times. The Mail was the biggest morning paper in the country, with the highest circulation. The fact that it was ultimately

owned by Harry Oppenheimer's Anglo American, and that Oppenheimer was supporting the Progressive Party. were clearly factors. Oppenheimer was the richest man in the country, He controlled the lion's share of the

economy and its exports and was well connected around the world. When the N a tionalists came t o

p o wer i n 1 9 4 8 , O p p enheimer had

shrewdly facilitated the establishment of General Mining, an Afrikaans mining house. That meant Afrikaans friends of the government shared his mining interests. Oppenheimer was not without power. Gandar's last

job had been with Anglo American, so he was assumed to be representing their views more than he really did. Touching the Mail would cause an international outcry.

105

PAlN AND POSSlBILITY: 1800-1966

Gandar tapped Benjamin Pogrund to cover black politics. Pogrund was the other journalist, besides Charles Bloomberg, from the Main Street newspaper offices meeting Mandela while he was on the run. Bloomberg and Pogrund bumped into each other when seeing Mandela, but they were from different political traditions. Pogrund had worked for the Liberal Party. But he was emphaticaHy, perhaps even fanatically, anti-communist, which put birn in a different camp from Mandela. Mandela's views on working with communists, as tvith his view on working with whites, evolved during his time in Johannesburg. Resisting cooperation at first, Mandela came to see their willingness to sacrifice as he did, and friendships developed in his political life and at the University of the Witwatersrand. Mandela concluded they were on the same side. The Communist Party became a fully-fledged ally, formally, as did the Congress of Democrats, the left-leaning white component of the Congress Alliance." Pogrund was among those who took the other route, more common in

the West: Stalin's excesses, and its still considerable influence in the SA Communist Party, came first. That made Pogrund a natural ally of the PAC, the breakaway group from the ANC led by Robert Sobukwe. Despite the PAC's focus on Africanism, Sobulove and Pogrund became good friends. Sobukwe supported nonracialism, but the subtleties of his inclusive philosophy were often lost on his supporters. Mandela, almost always precise in his comments, ntade the distinction

between his own views and Pogrund's better than anyone. In the blurb for Pogrund's memoir, Nm of Words, Mandela explained his attitude. 'My friendship with Benji tended to override our differences on how best to galvanise the South African masses for the overthrow of apartheid. But his courage in supporting the general cause of liberation, and the use of his journalistic skills towards this end, enormously increased my respect for him."~ Mandela was recognising the historic contribution made by Pogrund, even as he tnade clear their different pohtical camps. As always, Mandela saw the big picture. Pogrund brought black politics into the white press in an informed way, covering the ANC and PAC. Pogrund's anti-communism led him into a trap: 18 Likewise Mandela's attitude towards homosexuality. Mandela was the 6rst head of state to explicitly and aggressively insist gender preference should be protected by the constitution: his driver on the night he svas arrested happened to be a famous theatre director svho was gay, Cecil Williams. 19 Pogrund, Benjamin, War of Words, Seven Sisters: 2000, back cover.

106

'THE%HOLE HOG'

the Africanists he preferred, other than his friend Sobukwe, were hostile to him because he was white. The ANC, whose relationship with Communists roused his opposition, welcomed him with open arms. Nobody caught this dilemma better than Pogrund himself, in his book: '... in their (the Africanists') ranks were some men nakedly hostile to me because I was white. When the PAC was formed, there was a marked difference between attending one of its conferences and going to an ANC event. Ordinary AYC members, whether or not they knew who I was, accepted tue without demur. In contrast I vvas often conscious of animosity when I went into a PAC conference. Often I was the only white person

present, and always made a point of sitting near an exit, whether a door or a window. Once, fearing an attack, I made a rapid exit through a window

so high that I would not have considered doing it normally.'-'" By 1965, the paper was a different beast from the one Gandar had inherited. Early that year Gandar decided to set up an investigative unit under Pogrund. Pogrund's prisons exposes led the government to become

more direct in its attacks on the paper. The long, dragged-out court case and concomitant disapproval of white advertisers hurt the paper's nuances, and was probably thefinal straw that saw Gandar pushed out. But there were other, perhaps even more important, investigations: forced

removals under the Group Areas Act, and an outbreak of typhoid at the Elitn Swedish mission, ivtuch government denied. Gandar ran a campaign mitten by Pogrund under the headhne 'Starvation — a national scandal', and Pogrund followed up with reports on babies at Baragwanath Hospital (now

Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital), two to a cor, suffering from the protein deficiency disease kwashiorkor. Readers poured money into the Kupugani fund, set up to combat the scourge.

Die Traesvater mocked the Mail, calling it the 'bongersnood Itoerant', the starvation paper, claiming the pictures were faked. 'It sent a reporter

to Baragwanath and he arrogantly told Dr (Sam) Wayburne, the chief paediatrician that his instructions were to walk in my footsteps and disprove

everything we had published,' Pogrund wrote in his memoir. 'Waybourne invited him to tour the kwashiorkor wards. After going through the first vvard the reporter looked iH and declined to visit the others. But that did not stop the Transvaler's attacks."' Let it not be said that pro-government journalists did not know. Many

knew more than enough. 20 Pogruod, p68. 21 Pogruud, p135.

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PAIN AND POSSIBILITY: I 800-I 966

Pogrund's stories on malnutrition were probably his most important. But

the stories, which were picked up by the most prominent newspapers amund the world, were about prisons. Perhaps most revealing about the pieces were the examples of routine,

gratuitous violence against black prisoners at Pretoria Local Prison witnessed by a white political prisoner, Harold Strachan. A black prisoner who came too close to a political prisoner, which was against the rules, was stunmarily kicked in the stomach. Orders were often accompanied by blows with sticks, leather straps or even keys used as whips, Black warders were as brutal as white counterparts. Pogrund's prison reports included electric shocks and corruption, as wellas filthy conditions. Even in hospital, prisoners faced health risks inflicted by warders. Ill patients were ordered to wait naked in f r eezing teInperatures for up to three hours for the doctor Io arrive. 'I have seen prisoners get a blow as they

were inoculated,' Strachan told Pogrund. 'Sometimes this happened in the presence of a doctor.' As the Mail came under attack from the government and faced several

police raids, Vorster promised that trials would soon follow. Englishlanguage newspapers tended to back the Mail, while Afrikaans papers and the SABC piled on the invective. An ex-warder, who had given the Mail evidence, Gysbert van Schalkwyk, was charged with perjury for his role in the prisons' disclosures. The government got at him and he pleaded guilty to the charge of making false statements. He appeared without a lawyer, and the Mail was kept away from him to prevent it from offering him one. %hen Pogrund managed to see him after the trial was over, he said he had been warned that a not-guilty plea would ensure three years in jail, but a retraction would reduce the sentence to a minimum. Van Schalkayk's father was also in the prison service, and the son was treated as an outcast

in the community. His fiance broke off their engagement. Pogrund and his ex-wife received death threats. On the day of the judgement against Van Schalkwyk, Gandar was raided by the police for the fourth time. Strachan was arrested and charged with perjury, Dr Percy Yutar, who had prosecuted Mandela and his colleagues during the Rivonia trial, cross-exanuned the Mait's witnesses, who included two Rivonia trialists, Govan Mbeki and Dennis Goldberg. Other witnesses were tampered with. Strachan was convicted. He began his sentence with six weeks in solitary

confinement. Histwo-and-a-half year sentence was ended after a year of petty humiliations, and he was banned and put under house arrest in 108

Durban. In the new South Africa, he writes a humorous column in the investigative magazine noseu eek.

The Mail was carving out a role as a bridge between the races. Dependent on white owners, directors, advertisers, and readers, it had nevertheless

become trusted by many black South Africans for championing black causes and supporting individuals under threat. Shining its light on torture, detention, racial definitions, and racist removals, it infuriated government. On occasion. the paper managed to get someone out of jail, or improved their treatment, even saved lives, or at least ensured they did not disappear

from public memory. It was one thing blacks and whites shared — they read this paper. Gandar and the Mail received awards from the British Institute ofJournalists, and the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, among other international institutions, and Gandar was profiled with admiration in

foreign papers, But the prisons saga had shaken the board's nerve. Many opposed Gandar's politics from the start, and now they acted. Gandar was hred on 11 Vovetnber 1965. His natural successor was assumed to be Harry O' Connor, but O' Connor was a political writer, and his views were known.

They ivere the same as Gandar's, so he was excluded as a possible successor. Gandar discovered that the next choice would be Johnny Johnson, a competent newsman but a pohtical conservative with a volatile temper.

Such was the odd managementof the company that Gandar, now fired, intervened successfully to stop Johnson. He had another proposal that the board could hve with. Raymond I ouxv had no obvious political profile. His forte was news. He had reorganised the nevvsroom as news editor, was vigorous in pursuing stories, and indefatigable, By now, the Afrikaans surname that had blocked his entry in the immediate post-war years may even have been an asset! But Gandar knew Louw and trusted him. More unportant, he chose

him because he knew he was tough. As Verwoerd gave way to Vorster, the pohtical terrain would shift from the theories about race to enforcement with the jackboot.

Vorster would add no significant bricks to the apartheid edifice, choosing rather to implement Verwoerd's bantustan dream xvith minor bows to practicality on such matters as sport segregation. Now the emphasis would be on reorganising his secret police, removing the last vestiges of habeas

109

PAIN AND POSSIBILITY; 1800-1966

co@us so his thugs could operate with greater freedom. That was what Louw would be up against: how to keep alive support for the rule of law, and ensure citizens deprived of rights had some sort of voice. Three years after Gandar handed over to Louw, Gandar and Pogrund went on trial for the prisons series.

110

Slugging It Out 1966-1990

EIGHT

Apartheid's Cordon Sanitaire: The Breach

E

lection results began coming in around 10pm. The Rand Daity Mail newsroom was pumping. Raymond Louw, the editor, ordered a seventh

edition for the morning, then an eighth, then a ninth. Tony Hohday, unknown to most working secretly for the Atrican National

Congress (ANC) even then, Bernardi Wessels, the political correspondent and I, the junior on the political staff, were pounding out copy on the small, surprise, liberal successes in the 1974 all-white election. In the early hours of the morning, a telex message was handed to Tony: there had been a coup d' etat in Lisbon — what would become known as the Carnation Revolution.

The Portuguese government was out. The wars in the so-called African 'provinces', actually the colonies of Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, had bankrupted thissmall, poor, European nation. The incoming rebels — army generals — wanted an unrnediate end to colonial wars. Apartheid's cordonsanitaire was breached: Mozambique and Angola would soon be independent, under the control of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). Our eastern border would be under a liberation government, and the northern border of South West Africa (now

Namibia) likewise. Southern African geopolitics was forever changed. The hard men of the military and the National Party government had new headaches.'This is a bigger story than any of this election news,' Tony said. But, in this preinternet, pre-mobile-phone era, there was no time to start reporting on a

coup six thousand miles away and make sense of its imphcations. The coup made a few paragraphs in one or two later election editions, We went back to putting the finishing touches on the election reports, the

big domestic news for whites. Were the liberal gains in the white parliament 113

SLUGGING IT OLK: 1966-1990

any sign of hope for blacks; For the black political class, probably not very much, except in a symbolic way, that there was an undercurrent in the country that would not go away, as more and nore of its intellectual

leaders, our best-known writers, such as Nadine Gordimer, and best-known professors, such as palaeontologist and anatomist Philip Tobias, were joined by a new class of Afrikaans v riters of varying degrees of enlightenment, including Professor Van Zyl Slabbert, the charismatic Steilenbosch graduate now to become a Progressive Party MP. They were definitely not part of the mainstream, but they were atnong the most impressive of their generation.

The MPs joining Suzman would support women's rights, removal of censorship, a return to the rule of law and other liberal values. Still, to keep perspective: in the same election, the ruling National Party increased its seat numbers to 123; the dechning, nominally-opposition, United Party reduced to 41; and the Progressives had only seven, of a total of 166. Arguably, the Progressives' handful was non-news, a point the prime minister, John Vorster, was quick to make. In parliamentary numbers, Vorster was stronger than ever. But the centre of political conflict

was already outside the white parliament. The political section of the Maif's open plan of6ce was on the fourth floor of the new building, across Main Road from the old one, where the hole Ieh by the bullet intended for the former editor, Laurence Gandar, had not been repaired. The 'new' building already looked shabby; its construction one of the many bad managetnent decisions that eventually would send the company into the red and ultimately end the life of the Mail. But that was management.

The Mail was the paper every anti-apartheid journalist wanted to work for. I was the most junior on the politics team, on a probation that was intended to lead me to a cadet course the next year, My editorship of the

student paper, %tts Student, had helped me get a foot in the door. The fact that three of roy 22 issues had been banned by the government' was not discussed, so I have no idea if it helped, hurt or was considered irrelevant. The white general election of April 1974 was a watershed of sorts. While under Graaff, the main opposition United Party, the party of Smuts, continued its steady dedine as a pale advocate of a softer form of apartheid, Helen Suzman had been the sole MP to take an anti-racist stand. For 13 years she'd been alone, insulted, even Jew-baited, usually eating alone in the parliamentary dining room, shunned. Now, in the early hours of 25 April 1974, for Suzman there was good news. First one, then two, till Consecutively for politics, sex and religion, See Chapter 1Z.

APARTHK|O'5 COROOiY SANlTAlRE: THE BREACH

eventually six new MPs from her Progressive Party were elected. The partv still supported a qualified franchise, ivhich would delay blacks acquiring a majority in parliament, a fatal flaw for many people of principle. Gandar had set the Mail's view for total integration in his 'who!e hog' column. But it was the only party in parliament arguing for an integrated future,

away»m a segregated past. It saw South Africa as one country, for blacks and whites together, and the Mail rooted for it. Suzman consistently identified w i t h t h e o p pressed, visiting obscure,

unknown political prisoners of all races and political persuasion as we!I as »gh-p«fiI« » k e M andela, promoting their interests wherever she could. To this day, most ex-prisoners retain a soft spot for her; it's the ones either in exile, too young, or themselves working inside that system when apartheid was at its ferocious worst, who are quickest to criticise her.

I was covering my first election on the NIail. Estranged from my father for my politics ('You care more about black people than your own family!' ), I was on the paper admired, and hated, for its stand against apartheid. I was where I most wanted to be.

There can be no doubt that Suxman received far more coverage in the Mail than her small, white, upper-class Johannesburg constituency warranted. But, in my first months on the paper. the reason became obvious: opponents

of apartheid were on the defensive. The ANC was banned, in disarray and deep underground. The Pan Africanist Congress was in tatters. And black consciousness was young and growing, two years before the 16 June student uprising. %'hen someone from any of those groups was arrested, tortured, or ki!!ed, it was Sussman who marched to the prison to see thetn, then to the ministers' doors and parliament to make their plight known to millions, affording some limited protection. Among other white groups, the National Union of South African Students and the Black Sash women *s protest movement

were rare exceptions in endorsing

demo cracy

without qualification. But Suzman was a thorough researcher, a master of her craft, of politics, and of the sound-bite, and she used parliamentary privilege to say what outside

parliament would be ii!egal, often over insults hurled across the mace.

The new 39-year-old editor on the Mail, Raymond Louw, grew up in Cape Town, but completed high school at Parktown Boys' in Johannesburg in 1944. His father was a railway official, so Ray sat the two raihvays' exams, coming in the top three. While waiting for the results, his brother, working

SLUCCfh,C IT OLri: 1966-1990

in the advertising department at the Ani l, suggested Ray get some work

there, as a copy holder. From that lowly role he put in application after application for a job as a reporter, but all were turned down. 'Then the night editor, Bully Joffe, said to me, "you know the problem with you getting a job here is your last name"'.' Louw is an Afrikaans name. Eventually, after

two years, he wore them down, and he was given a job as a junior reporter. 'It was the luckiest thing that has happened to me,' he remembered.-' It was almost iinpossible to get a local story on the front page of the Mail

in the pre-Gandar days, he recalled, He managed to get one front page lead when a tram went off the tracks in M ayfair. His only out-of-town trips were by train. One reporter took a train 13 kilometres to Germiston east

of Johannesburg for a story, sending back a telegram saying 'arrived safely'. The road to Germiston was not yet tarred, %ilma Byres, a Scottish immigrant working in the advertising department

and later a reporter, introduced Louw to her sister Jean. They married, and went to Britain immediately. The leading journalists in Johannesburg were

coming from England, so Louw thought he needed overseas experience if he was to get am~vhere. 14y remembers four formative learning periods. The first was in the Muil newsroom, the second was on a small Enghsh weekly called the VYortbing Herald. 'A pin didn't drop in that town without it knowing about it. 'lf you go to court you report every case. You go to every flower show.

There were 350 organisations in Worttung which had annual general meetings and we went to every one.' Parish council meetings, listening to a

wrangle about whether to switch off lights in the town square half an hour early to save costs, 'and then you would go off into the pub with some ot the town councillors afterwards and then that is where you would get some of the dirt, and then catch the bus back. You were really close to your com-

munity. %e'd go through the town council agenda — every item we'd do stories on... It was dreary slog work... but it was a learning process because you discovered what we would have lost on the surface... and discovered that if you looked deep enough... there could be a big story in it. You didn' t have to have a big story thrown at you. A big story could come from a line in a council minute, if you knevv how to interpret it correctly. That is what it really taught tne." In a pre-google era, he learnt t o search the public l ibrary, the town

2 I ntervievvs in this chapter with Louw and Leycester Walton ftotn the Cavin Stewart papers, now in the Wits University archive of historical papers. 3 I nterview with Cairn Stewart, p 1 31 to 1 — 34.

116

APARTHHD'S CORDOX SAKilTAIRE: THE BREACH

clerk's office, and that there were 'a whole range of people in the municipal administration that one can get information from'.

Ray ended his stay in England. working in the Fleet Streer. office of the %'esnninster Press, a chain of provincial papers. He covered radio and television, and he saw the havoc wrought on papers he worked for when commercial TV began. 'Westminster Press took a heiiuva knock. Tivo of i t s morning papers

closed down, and one of its Sunday papers; almost overnight, just like that. Knocked the stuffing out of the provincial papers.' His six years in Eng]and had been useful. He left a junior reporter, and returned to the Mail still broke, noiv with rwo children, but a pro. The pre-GandarMail he came back to was a shock. 'I came back as a reporter, into a demoralised paper. I remember being horrified, this was the day when the great Alexandra bus boycon was on, when people were walking those eight miles to town, and I remember an editor coming into

the newsroom one night and saying "Now we will put an end to this bloody strike" and he ran sotne sort of story.' Louw found both the politics and ethics of that mentality outrageous. Louw moved to the 5torday 1Imes under Mervis, 'the third great learning

experience of my life... Joel taught me how to take a story and really develop it. His great gift was that he never lost his small boy wonder of the world. His eyes would open wide, get this evinkle in them. 'He would start smiling, and he would say, "is that so~"... I always regarded hitn as the Barnum and Bailey of the newspaper industry, the circus master. He was a great showman. I think that is what he taught me, he taught me how to t urn news into showmanship. How t o ex tract the maximum dramatic quality out of a news story.'

Louw's fourth learning period was at the Mail under Gandar, TheMnl was in bad shape when Gandar took over in October 1957, and he promoted Louw to night news editor soon afterwards. 'He taught me a lot about the

significant side of getting into reporting in depth, going after social issues.' Prior to Louw taking over as editor in 1965, Leycester Walton, managing

director of South African Associated Newspapers (S~N), owners of the Mail, called to a meeting to tell Louw. in the presence of the circulation and

advertising managers, about the difficulties in selling the Anil on the streets and to advertisers. 'It was a direct attack on the policies of Gandar. It went on for something

like ovo and half hours in Walton's office,' Louw told Gavin Stewart. 'Walton said he wanted me to get an impression of how the other departments in

the company felt about the.Mail and their difficulties before I took over so

SLUGG1NG 1T OUT: 1966-1990

I couldn't be accused of being intluenced by them after becoming editor. So I sat and listened to (the circulation manager) pointing out how the Mail shat on its doorstep and various other things like that, and how difficult it was to sell advertising because of the political policies, and then I heard exactly the same from (the ad manager).' Finally, Louw had a chance to respond. 'I thanked them very much, but said I was sure they were both wrong, and I was going to prove it to them.' Over the next eight years, Louw proved he knew better than they did, not

just about journalism, but about their toom, Johannesburg, about the reader, about managing people and, at least as important as all of those things, about the advertising industry. In the process, he presided over a continued and substantial rise in circulation, creating healthy profits until I 974.

Management had stumbled unwittingly into an inspired editorial appointment. In all their incorrect assumptions about him, they were right about

only two. First, they probably realised he had a good track record as a hard news man, whose paper would break stories ahead of the competition. They also probably realised he was a good manager. VAat the board got wrong was rhe most important issue for the country: he would be more

than faithful to the direction Gandar had set. Louw's term as editor coincided with John Vorster's as prime minister, as

Gandar's had with Verwoerd's. Gandar had proved to be the right person to take on Verwoerd, who couched his racism in intellectualism. Gandar was more than his match, tackling apartheid at its root: the basic premise was

wrong. People have more in common than their differences. Any theory that starts with the premise that one group is better than another is immoral. That divas why you had to go 'the whole hog' and embrace equality. Now Voister was in power, implementing Verwoerd's policies, and Louw's Mail monitored them. Few facets of apartheid were untouched by the paper: race classification, forced removals, job discrimination, manipulation of bantustan elections and, above all, Vorster's ever greater

reliance on the jackboot. Louw pushed reporters relentlessly for the story. We had the home numbers of every cabinet member, both in Cape Town and Pretoria. %e would call and ask for a comment or explanation For the latest government action, struggle through what Afrikaans we could, and

sw itch to English if we had to. Ministers would react arit varying degrees of cooperation or outrage. Sometiines they were abusive. Ve thanked them, took down their comments and printed them, abuse and all.

APARTHEID'5 CORDON SANITAIRE: THE BREACH

A favourite response of ministers was to say they did not read the Enghsh papers, or they did not read papers on Sunday for religious reasons. But it was often clear they had. If the editor was not satisfied we had obtained all we could, we would often cali back late into the night, even after midnight, facing even shorter tempers. 'Arith Vorster, who had been Verwoerd's iron fist, any remnants of the

velvetJove of intellectual gloss disappeared. Vorster was the cowboy leader taking South Africa behind circled wagons into his laager. Ever a theatrical speaker who relished the applause he drew for each step away from the rule of law andhabeas corpus, Vorster was out for a brawl. %hen the prison gates come down, what's left is to keep a record. Louw's Mail kept a record. Louw was tough and resilient enough to get up every

morning and do it again. He was fighting on several fronts. The advertising department was white, and included racist expatriates from Britain, who

emigrated to apartheid South Africa, obvioush not put off by its racist reputation. They said the paper's anti-apartheid politics made it unsellable.

Clearly, the role of newspaper to expose apartheid was not an objective they were concerned with. Louw adopted various measures to combat white readers' hostility

without changing the paper's politics. He determined to keep engaged with the community. That meant attending, four or five nights a week, events of associations, clubs, religious comtnunities, Rotary, everywhere

he could show the flag and demonstrate that the Mail was part of their community, give them a high old time, drink them under the table, show that the editor did not have horns, then get home for his 11 pm phonecall ro run through every story on which questions were outstanding when he'd left the office. Facing criticism from government and big business, he invited members of cabinet to show them the Mail, even attend his daily news conference, to prove that stories were chosen on merit, not for a partisan purpose. They

could see which were the strongest stories, and he would invite his guest to say which story they would have put on the front page were they in his

shoes. Hostility did not end, but understanding probably increased. Louw encouraged journalists who could get the stories and supported them when it counted. As I write these words, the image returning to my

mind will probably surprise anyone under 50: it is of the inside of the company'scramped telephone exchange cubicle. In the 1970s, the company had a room where three or four receptionists sat v ith headphones in front of an exchange through which they connected calls to staff. All our long-distance calls were made through them. Louw had 119

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-1990

sent me down there to try to save a story I had written four days earlier, of

a meeting in the small Orange Free State town of Frankfort. It was a National Party report-back meeting to c onstituents, and the

keynote speaker was Jimmy Kruger, the notorious minister of justice, police and prisons, My report in the Mail had been reprinted in Time magazine; Pik Botha, then South Africa's United Nations ambassador, was embarrassed by it and he called Kruger in Pretoria to complain. So, several days after my report had made the front page and passed without comment from Kruger,

Kruger suddenly issued a denial, along with a bitter denunciation of the reporter and the newspaper.

The report quoted Kruger as saying, to rowdy applause, that 'the black man in South Africa knows his place, and if he doesn't know his place, I' ll show him his place'. It was one of several choice, racist bones he threw to an appreciative white audience. Since it was a long way from any major town, and there was no immediate reason for the 'liberal' press to be there, he must have thought he was safe. Even v, hen it was published, he took no action. But now, with Botha complaining from New York that this sort of carel essness cost him votes at th e U nited Nations, Kruger blamed me. H e demanded Louw retract the story, accompanied by the usual threats about

us abusing press freedom and needing to be acted against. Louw called me in, and I showed him my notes. I take notes in my own idiosyncratic style, but the notes were quite clear to me, and probably to an objective outsider. But we did not carry tape recorders. That was how Louw came to send tne down to the telephone exchange, where a rural Free State

phone book would provide me numbers of people in Frankfort. The editor wanted me to call every Afrikaans name in the book, starting at A. before they became aware of the controversy, to find someone who had attended

Kruger's meeting and could confirm the statements. I recall that I found two, enough for Louw to ru n a p r ominent, front-page report saying the Mail stood by the story and repeated it.

With the editor's backing, Kruger's bigotry was not forgotten. We got a few more t hreats, then the issue blew over. Louw was out t o c o ver

everything, everywhere, across the political spectrum, to be comprehensive even if a story only made a few paragraphs. His reporters still talk of his unflinching support. Not everything got to the editor. I was once interrogated on the tenth floor

of John Vorster Square, the Johannesburg police headquarters, apparenth in the same room that Ahmed Tunol was interrogated in, before he was heaved to his death from its window. The issue was a set of photographs of a black political detainee I'd obtained in Durban, taken after his death,

APARTHElD'SCORDON SANITAIRE: THE BREACH

showing severe bruises looking distinctly like torture. The pictures turned out to b e v a lueless as evidence; a sympathetic private pathologist, Dr Jonathan Gluckrnan, told me they were taken after the post mortem, so there was no way to prove any wounds were not a consequence of the postmortern process itselt.

Nevertheless, somehow the police found out I had them. They called Frank Smith, a well-liked, half-deaf assistant news editor who spoke holding the phone to the hearing aid speaker in his chest pocket. I was an inexperienced reporter. When I stalled my response, wanting to get a more mature take on hoiv to handle it, he physically pushed me to the phone to take the call. I had an unpleasant couple of hours with Captain Arthur Cronwright, who was threatening but not physical. Nothing came of it but a minor scare. No story, but not much fun.

When banned Slack Consciousness leader Steve Biko refused an offer from US President Jimmy Carter's administration of a four-week study tour of the US, I called to ask him why. He told me it was a protest against the continuing ambivalence of the Carter adminisnation. Since Biko was

banned, I then asked him who he trusted to speak on the record for him. He gave me the number of his friend Peter Jones, whom I duly called and quoted. It was a legal way around the banning order.

'Stop the car.' Peter Magubane ivould be out. By the time I parked and joined him, there was a spool of film slipped into my side pocket. He*d reloaded, with police all around, constantly moving, and carried on shooting. In his bland khaki shirt ar.d trousers, nobody was quite sure who he was. Codd he be a police photographer< When asked enough times, he'd say calmly, 'Rund Daily iL4uil', without pausing, moving around police, victims, till it was clearh too heated and we'd be away, To work with Peter divas to sit at the feet of an artist.

The doyen of South African news photographers, Peter has published 18 books, been awarded seven honorary doctorates, including one from Harvard. He's deahng with a bout of cancer, with monthly chemo treat-

ments, but nothing has ditnmed his focus or discipline. 'I w ish I ~vas out there now, covering Marikana,' the 81-yearold Magubane told me shortly after the 2012 police shooting of 30 miners. Sitting irt the

living room of his unassuming home in Meh ille, Johannesburg, a suburb built for the white rniddle class, then a place for white leftie communes, later students and artists, now a normal South African suburb, he acknowledged

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-1990

some things were no longer his terrain. 'But I wouldn't die for that story.

When we worked, we knew we were in a fight.' 'What I was doing was removing my shackles. We couldn't do that without unshackling other South Africans,' he reflected. 'All I' ve done is get itnages that go around the world to assist in unshackling myself and the people ot South Africa.' Peter had been a friend of Nelson and Winnie Mandela since the 1950s. and they clearly admired him. It would not be an exaggeration to call him the Mandela of the news photographic world. The only editor Peter worked for directly was Raymond Louw. 'TheMai1 had an editor who was not afraid. The ilfail was prepared to fight for its workers, black or white. If youwere a journalist they fought for vou. 'Not only black South Africans suffered under apartheid. Blacks and whites who were not Afrikaners, whites who befriended black people,were called names, Whites who worked at the Mail, the police had huge files on them.' His speech is a little slower now. 'It was a good newspaper. The world learnt about apartheid from the Rand Dmly Ahril.' Peter taught himself photography, asking questions, watching others. In 1966, when he left Dram magazine to join the Mail, the editor, Raymond Louw, was told a black person could not work in a darkroom without white supervision. Louw got round this by hiring a room on the roof of the building, and constructing a darkroom there. Everyone knew to deny Peter was there if a stranger asked. But the police sent a black officer, wearing a clerical collar, to pose as a church minister. It seemed legitimate, and he was let through.

'I was arrested for trading in a white area,' he said. He wasn't charged, but the days of the separate darkroom were over, Peter began using the

main darkroom, but one photographer was deeply racist, and challenged Peter while he was cutting negatives. 'I put him straight,' Peter recalled. 'I chased him with a scissors.' After that, Peter worked undisturbed.

Louw understood Johannesburg's soul. Johannesburg was a mining toom. That meant it got up early. Shops and offices opened earlier than elsewhere, and many returned home early enough for a leisurely read of an evening paper, before and after dinner. As a morning paper, theMai/ had less in it than the afternoon Star, and was taken less seriously.

Johannesburg's early roots continue to be reflected in its style, Not only did it start as late as 1886 and groe rapidly on the back of gold discoveries, but almost uniquely for a major town, it was unattached to a watenvay.

APARTHEtD'S CORDON SANJTAERE:THE BREACH

It followed other mining finds that had started sudden towns, including Sarberton near the eastern border with Swaziland. When Johannesburg began, its founders didn't expect it to last. Money might go as quickly as it came — better to grab what you could fast. Even the city blocks were shorter than other towns — a corner stand sold for more than one in the middle of a

block! It was gold rush time, a time for the quick buck. The gold could run out at any moment.

As a morning paper, the Muil had to be easy to read, before that early start to the work-day. It had to have all the news The Star had, but in more succinct form, and it had to be easier to find stories. As a first-rate former news editor, with news in his blood, for Louw that was the easy part. The

problem remained: how to build revenue? Second-biggest daily papers around the world, notoriously, get a fraction of the advertising income of the market leader. The Star had a substantial classified ads section, printed as a separate section. Some estimates were

that a third of its readers bought the paper for its classifieds: jobs ads, car sales, hatch, match and despatch ads (births, marriages and deaths). It was a vicious (or from their perspective, virtuous) circle: the biggest circulation created classifieds, classifieds created financial success while also creating circulation. To be second in circulation would prove terminal for more and more even great papers as the century progressed.

Louw's solution was ingenuous. In addition to redesigning and sharpening the news, he came up with a plan that saved the finances: instead of charging less for an ad than the higher circulation Star, as you ivould expect, Louw turned the argutnent around: charge exactly the same, on the grounds that the lower circulation was made

up for by the added prominence of an equivalent ad in the Mail, where ads were sparse! But Louw had an unstated, powerful reason to believe it would

work: the ad agencies got 16 and a half percent of every ad. So under the old rule, they had no incentive to choose the cheaper Mail, knowing their cut would be off a lower total price. Charge the same, and the incentive for the powerful ad agencies making the decision would change. Louw's idea was implemented, and 'worked like a charm', Walton told Stewart. In the ensuing years, circulation went up briskly, ad revenue likewise, and the paper's clout increased, along with its profits. Extra news pages were added, further to justify the new ad rate.

Half of Louw's ten-year editorship was under Cecil Payne, as SAAN chairman. 'He never interfered. Always helpful, always encouraging. He was attacked all over the place about the .&ul, but he gave me a hell of a lot of support.'

SLUGGING IT OUT; 1966-1990

Though Louw met him regularly, his only direct indication that Payne

was taking strain for his newspaper's views came at the end of a lunch at the Rand Club. What is the business community view of what we' re saying, Louw asked. 'Constant and bitter criticism,' Payne replied evenly.'

Then the damnedest thing happened, Payne was retiring. In the way of much of South Africa's insular and oligarchic business environment, where

a handful of mostly English-speaking companies controlled most of the economy, and cross-directorships tied the groups together, a new chairman

was sought. Ian McPherson had friends in the business community; some had been in the war with him. Understanding the ethos of newspapers, or the political tradition he would captain, were not, apparently, significant

qualities required in choosing such a key appointment. McPherson fundamentally disliked the polidcs of the hLtil„a nd he had friends in government whom he wished to please. Later, in the heat of the Muldergate revelations,' accusations would swirl around the investigative reporters that McPherson was in cahoots with the government's man, Information Secretary Dr Eschel Rhoodie. There was a report that McPherson had received a Mercedes Benz from government.

McPherson denied government was the source, but he very quickly sold his brand new car, leaving the suspicion to fester.

McPherson did not like Louw's politics, and he did not like Louw. Walton, in his waning days as managing director, took that into account as

he reviewed Louw's position. The new chairman did not hke him, and they were arguing over the politics of the paper. This is how, years later, Walton explained why he hatred Louw: 'I had a theory that in these high stress jobs one didn't want people really to stay too long." These are the reasons, in the Ivto's own words.

'Ray had been there long enough, even if he liked to go on staying there. I didn't think it was really good for him to stay. Secondly, there was beginning to be a bit of criticism which I was finding difficult to deal with from the chairman... Periodically the chairman or sotneone on the board would raise something and we would get the editor 'm. The board would agree that the chairman should talk to the editor, or perhaps the editor would come up

4 L ouw interview with author. 5 See chapters 11 and 12. 6 Stewart interview with L Walton, p9.

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APARTHEID'S CORDON SANITAIRE:THE BREACH

and talk to the board and there would be a discussion about the situation... about the tone of the paper, not actually the content so much as the tone, just felt to be overly harsh in its criticism...

'And I thought I might have a kind of confrontation type clash be@veen the opinions of the chairtnan and Ray. At the same time I thought he'd been there long enough. I mean there was sotnething in what the chairman was

saying, although I didn't agree with it really entirely. One had to concede that a lot of people felt the way he (McPherson) felt.' Louw remembers hlcPherson's political interference well. 'For something like evo years I was dragged to meet McPherson after every board meeting and queried about the content of the paper... I was feeling increasingly that I didn't have as much to fear frotn the government

in front of me as from the backstabbing that was going on from behind." Kate Lee, the paper's Women's Editor, wrote a light-hearted alphabet spoof, which got to Y, 'Y is for Vorster and venereal disease', she wrote. Another trip to the chairman's office. 'McPherson wanted me to fire her. I

refused.' T here was one more reason Walton gave for getting Louw out of t h e

editor's chair, one which further undermined the logic of any reason other than being too anti-apartheid. Ray Louw had led the team that put South

Africa way ahead of many other newspapers in the world, including Fleet Street, in introducing electronic digital editing. This technology would save enough in costs to keep afloat newspapers smart enough to use it.

Walton was fulsome in his praise. While editor of the Mail, in this job so challenging that ten years was sufficient, Louw had been especially successful as hands-on chairman of the committee driving South African newspapers into the digital age, years ahead of Fleet Street. At that time, aII newspapers used hot metal, That meant every letter in the newspaper was input by typesetters on a cumbersome typesetting machine

that used a brass slug for each letter, and when each line vt as typed, it would be imprinted on to a hot-metal slug. These lines were slapped on to the page by hand and, when the page was complete, a mould was made, which was affixed to the printing press to print the page. Digital printing would save millions. On Fleet Street, the printers' union had stalled its introduction because of the inevitable job losses. Any such compunction in humain Street was outweighed not only by its ability to keep the Avail alive, but also by the concern that it was the South African 7 Stewart, pp 10-1. 8 Stewart, pp 40-2.

5LUGGING IT OUT: 1966-I 990

white printers' union that was watching us inside our own building, ready to complain to authorities when the company tried so much as to racially integrate its toilets,

'Ray had been a key figure in this. He'd taken the ball and run with it,' Walton remembered admiringly. 'He'd been prepared to insist on getting it right and not to accept inferior solutions.'

In fact, Louw's efforts were so successful that SAAN established a new subsidiary, to sell the American system it had a dapted to o t her South

African newspaper companies. The first new order came from Naspers. At that time, SAAN was the bigger company. Over the next 40 years, SAAN, now Times Media Group P'MG), would shrink to four percent the size of Naspers, as Naspers inoved into digitisation to become the eighth biggest

global player, with a market capital of R800 billion — compared with TMG's R2.5 billion. In his interview with Gavin Stewart, a former Mail journalist,' Walton said that this was an additional reason to move Louw. Lavish in his praise,

Walton said Louw had done such a good job pioneering digitisation, it was yet another reason to move him into management. He could help them

manage! Now, McPherson needed a replaceinent for Walton as managing director. Without media expertise of his own, he turned to the nearest advice: the

company's direct competitor, also in the Anglo American stable, the Argus group. The Argus newspapers were his biggest competitor in all the major markets — johannesburg (with Pretoria), Cape Town and Durban. Oh, they had someone. Chve Kinsley had been passed over for promotion at Argus. Why not take him? McPherson failed to establish the reasons he was passed over by his own company. For the Argus, it was two for one: it got rid of Kinsley, and placed weakness at the core of the opposition, alongside the flawed chairman, McPherson. There was even a bonus: Kinsley never forgot the Argus's slight in overlooking him, and it clouded his judgement, SAAÃs ride from there was steadily downwards. One does not need to look far to f ind independent corroboration for

criticism of the company's poor management: Terry Moolman, the shrewd CEO, dominant shareholder and brains behind the spectacular rise of the small but fast-growing, commercially successful, Caxton newspaper group, was unambiguous: SAAN had better editors, Argus better management. 9 Stevvatt conducted these interviews while a professor of journalism at Rhodes University. He was later appointed editor of the East LondonDaily Dispatch.

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APARTHEID'S CORDON SANITAIRE: THE BREACH

'SAAN has better editors than Argus, but they are less managerially inchned. They need more managerial support.' He listed SAM's purchase of the wrong printing presses, bad property deals, wasted fortunes on unused architects' drawings, paying themselves undeserved fees. Finally, he said, they called in consultants, the death warrant for newspaper companies: 'They speak to the MD, then they speak to the staff, and then they tell the MD what he wants to hear.'

When I joined the Mail in 1 974, there divas little reason to hope that we would see a just society in our l i f etimes, and certainly not a r e latively

peaceful transition. Mandela's words and pictures were banned„as were the black political movements. Political debate was focused on each new act of repression; any constructive search for a meaningful solution was

dismissed. Gandar and Louw's influence lasted a generation. Most of those who worked for them attempted to continue their political tradition wherever

they found themselves. Sadly, little of that is easily accessible now. The main body of many a life's work isn't there. New conservative management at the company, after

the Mail was closed, decided not to keep any sign of the newspaper in the cotnpany hbrary. It was given to the then still pro-apartheid Rand Afrikaans Universitv; now the University of Johannesburg. My 2013 inquiry met with the official response that all copies had been incinerated, because the paper had been eaten into and diseased. It is available on micro-tiche, and there are some hard copies in the national library, which I have used in writing this book, but some back numbers are missing, We now know the security police had bugs in the editor's tlowerpot. Louw tlid not k now that Craig Wdliamson was a captain in the security

police when he pretended to be an anti-apartheid student, befriended his son Derek, and then posed with a half-jack in his back pocket for a picture in Louw's hving room, The picture was used for a cover of %'its Student, then edited by Derek Louw. The caption toWilliamson's oversized backside with the half-jack leaning over a side-cabinet was 'Vorster reshuHles his cabinet'. Someone in the security police must have enjoyed the irony: a policeman in the Afail editor's house posing for a lampoon of the prime minister, then fding a spy's report on the Louw family. In 2012, Rhodes University awarded an honoran

d o c t orate to then

SLUGGING tT OUT: 1966-1990

85-year-old Ray Louw, and he invited old Avail journalists to a party at the Johannesburg country club to celebrate. Journalists who hadn't seen each other for 20, 30 and 40 years were there. It's interesting to trace back that

loyalty. Ray still has the energy of a 40-year-old. In any of the last twenty years, he's travelled to countries in Africa, Europe and Asia. He's been in prisons in Cameroon seeing journahsts. then meeting their president to call for their release, drumming up support in every forum he can think of in the world. The Israeli paperHa'ariz saw similarities between their position and the MaiPs —they write for an Israeli audience, in Hebrew, yet cover their government's mistreatment of Palestinians critically. How, to keep

going? Ha'peretz invited Louw to Israel to advise them on the methods he had used to stay principled and survive while telling unpalatable truths to a home audience. When Mandela was released and looked to connect vvith every part of South African society, he took up Louvv's invitation to lunch at the Rand s club to the mining houses. Once in office, Club, traditional g Louv1 visited President Mandela in a delegation to plead the cause of Pius Njawe, editor of Le Mess@ger,a journalist jailed in Cameroon for six n1onths for a story on President Paul Biya, Louw had anended part of Njawe's trial, and handed Madiba copies of petitions for his release. In the presence of Louw and his colleagues, Mandela called President Biya. 'I'm sitting Nith my colleagues from the press,' Mandela told a startled

entlem en'

head of state on the other end of the phone. 'They are concerned about Pius

Njawe. I told them I knew I could assure thetn he would be released very soon.

With a twinkle in his eye Mandela turned back to the journalists in front of hun, as if to say, '%"ill that do?' That was classic, extraordinary, Mandela. It was also classic Louw.

'Don't censor papers — own them' Vorster tvasin a very jovial mood, and he listened tvith undisguised pleasure tvhenl told him that a state of near panic existed among the editors and senior j ournalists of the 5AAiV group. — Da EscHEL RHoonid

A

fter ten years of Laurie Gandar and nine of Raymond Louw, the government had had enough. No Pretoria dinner party would end without a complaint that theRand Daily Mail's disloyalty had to be stopped, wrote Dr Eschel Rhoodie, Secretary of Information.

Rhoodie was the rising star. Aber 14 years in the Department of Information, several in diplomatic postings abroad, he'd been home for nine months when his minister, Dr Connie Mulder, called him to a meeting in the VIP lounge of Jan Smuts Airport, Johannesburg, renamed Oliver Tambo Airport after 1994, to discuss Rhoodie's next career move.

This meeting throws ample hght on how the printe minister, the Afrikaans press, and the Bureau for State Security (BOSS) worked together in the apartheid years, Mulder was able to speak for them all. 'There is a vacancy for the editorship of Die Transvaler', Dr Mulder told Rhoodie. Die Transvaler was the Johannesburg Afrikaans morning paper, and Mulder was on the board of its publishing company, Perskor, as weH as leader of the powerful Transvaal National Party. 'But Mr Vorster believes that in the light of the new role which the Depart-

ment of Information is to play in future, and in which more unorthodox

I I n f ormation based on a bug inRand Daily Muil editor's office fIowerpot, August 1975.

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SLUGGING IT OUT: I966-1990

methods would be employed, that Gerald Barrie-' is simply not qualified to handle matters.' At the time, Rhoodie svas deputy editor of the first significant media front organisation of the department, the weekly magazine To The Point. 'I want you to consider taking the post as Secretary of Information.' Of course, if you rather want the post of editor of Die Transvaler, l will understand. That

can be arranged. Marius Jooste' has already accepted the idea." bnmediately after taking the information job, Rhoodie had a series of

meetings with General Van den Bergh, head of BOSS. The general, Yorster's ri@t-hand man for security, was weH entrenched in popover. Many in the ruling party held that Vorster owed his rise to the top to Van den Bergh. As head of the security police when Vorster was miruster of justice, Van

den Bergh had provided the mus;le as Vorster established his image as the

strongman svho could stop the liberation movements. Both were long-time members of the Broederbond, which osved Van den Bergh a special debt for blurring the lines between police and Broederbond when he investigated C harles Bloomberg's devastating exposes of th e secret organisation i n

the Snnday Tinnes.He was also the fixer who'd controlled the official commission of inquiry investigation of the Broederbond, so that nothing came out that the Broederbond did not want out.

Rhoodie xvasted little time. H e secretly commissioned surveys through the universities of Potchefstroorn and the %itwatersrand which showed that anti-apartheid and United Nations publications attacking investments in South Africa, illustrating cruelties in race relations and advocating disinvestment in South Africa, or the blocking of any further new investments,

were based for [sic] 80 percent on information which appeared in the Rand Daily Mail and theFinancia/ Mai/, followed by the Sstnday Timesand The Star," Rhoodie explained. 'The foreign press corps in South Africa lived on the Rand Daily i>hail.

2 T hen Secretary of lntormarion, the top civil service position in the depamnenr. Barrie would become auditor-general and a strong opponent of Rhoodie, and would play a key role in bringing him down. 3 The top civil servam posirion in rhe depamnenr, reporting ro the minister. 4 M anaging direcror of Perskor, owners of Die Transualer,the pro-government Johannesburg morning paper. 5 Rhoodie. Eschel,The Real lnforrnat on Scandal, Orbis: 1983, p75. 6 Rhoodie. p314.

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'DON'T CENSOR PAPERS — ODIN THE%I'

Some foreign journalists hardly bothered to change a word,' he claimed, perhaps a case of characteristic hyperbole, 'The opinion of millions of people in rwo dozen countries were being shaped, not by the independent observation of the foreign press in South Africa, but by the Rand Daily !Vlail. The uniformity of reports in German, French, English, Spanish and Dutch newspapers was striking.' The Mai/ was public enemy number one and subverting it became the foundation ot the secrets which were later exposed in what came to be

known as the Infogate scandal, It would eventually bring down Vorster himself in disgrace. By the time the plug was pulled, it had spread into dozens of secret projects, spanning at least three continents, attempts to buy or influence newspapers and broadcast media in the United States and

Europe, influencing foreign election campaigns, funding church rivals to then Bishop Desmond Tutu, and many other still unknown projects. But

readingRhoodie's897 page tome, The Realinformation Scanda/,published from his exile iu Atlanta, Georgia in 1983, there can be no doubt that the Mail was at its centre. The young hve-wire saxv an opportunity: shares in the company that

owned the Alai!, South African Associated Newspapers (SA.M), dropped loxv enough that control would cost only a few million rand. But the target was the Mail:'It was not SAA.4 as a group but the Rand Daily Afail that was

giving the government headaches,' Rhoodie wrote. One day in August 1975, Eschel Rhoodie hosted a lunch at his Pretoria home, serving as the only vvaiter for security reasons, for his mi n i s t e,

Mulder, Van den Bergh, a lawyer and government fixer, Van Zyl Alberts, and his deputy, Les de Vtliiers. The purpose divas to find a way to deal vvith the 'disloyal' English press. In his book, written after the scandal ended all their careers, Les de Villiers refers to which of the guests vvere tnembers

of the Broederbond. Not a member himself, it seemed to obsess him. 'The three Broederbonders, Van Zyl Alberts, Van den Bergh and Mulder, were as intent as Eschel and I to f ind an answer to the destructive role of the

Enghsh-language press abroad," De Villiers wrote. John Vorster was the man who had to be commenced, He'd replaced the assassinated Hendrik Verwoerd as Prime minister in 1966. To attend a Vorster rally was to understand the essential dramatist in the ruan. The brandydrinking, joke-telling, jovial face Rhoodie described divas strictly private.

I remember the first Vorster ralh I covered, in the Johannesburg city hall. The sense of the theatrical began at the street door. Through the lobby he 7

Dc Villiers. Les,Secret Information, Tafelberg: 1980.

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-1990

walked, dour-faced, care of the nation on his shoulders, between a guard of honour of uniformed Voortrekker-movement boy scouts, under a canopy of tilted flags. The organ music changed to strike up Die Lied vari Jong Said Afrika Pke Song of Young South Africa) signalled that the vootsteier had entered the hall. Whether it was the picture greeting the crowd, or the fervour of the young singers and the emotional content ot the song, the hair

on the back of my neck rose. His speech, after laudatory introductions, started quietly, audience sitting

forward to hear, deliberate. He had identified the handful hecklers from tbe liberal white National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), in the front right sector, and taken mental note, saved for later.

The build-up would accelerate slowly. We have a wonderful country. Christian, God-given, our tiny Afrikaner minor ity becoming ever stronger on the southern tip of Africa, defying the ivorld but with firm resolve. All was well. But sadly, there was a small problem, small but dangerous. Godless, of course. And in our midst. By now the voice was thunder. He was ready to strike. The God-less, who hated South Africa, were communists, and where were they, these communists~ His right hand shot out, pointing

down to a suddenly frightened group of students, sticking out like sore thumbs in their casual clothes, surrounded. The roar was immediate. Youngsters strained throats, spitting out'Skande'

(Scandalous), several large men moved in to frogmarch them out of the hall, roughed them up and left them on President Street. The prime minister did not mind a little violence. Vorster had recently tasked M u l der m t h m o v in g a n e w c ensorship

proposal in parliament. But the Afrikaans, pro-government, press had reacted as badly as the opposition media. It's not so easy to apply censorship rules to your foes without risk to your friends.

Mulder is quoted in both Rhoodie and De Villiers's accounts of the lunch as feeling wounded at being asked by Vorster to introduce the press censorship legislation, only to have Vorster take the credit for stepping in to restrain his impetuous minister! Mulder felt his reputation had been bruised to Vorster's benefit, when he was acting under Vorster's orders.

Opening the discussion, 'Mulder readily conceded that censorship was hardly an answer,' De Viiliers wrote. Instead, Rhoodie proposed to buy control of SAAN. Sir Abe Bailey's mining prohts had founded the Mail in 1903, but in 1975 Bailey's trustees were ready to reduce their holding. Mulder instructed Rhoodie to proceed. In the following days, Rhoodie determined that the front man should be Louis Luis, the fertiliser magnate,

and Vorster approved.

'DOV T CENSOR PAPERS — 0%N THEM'

De Villiers conveys Rhoodie's grandiosityperfectly with a vignette, in the Secretary's office juggling calls with Luyt in Johannesburg, and the offices of his two rightwing press-baron friends, Axel Springer in Germany and John McGoff in the United States, trying to get them in to add credibility to Luyt's bid '

Van den Bergh and Rhoodie both contributed from their budgets to front Luyt the money, and Vorster gave verbal approval to transfer the money to

Luyt, according to Rhoodie. A few days later, Vorster called Rhoodie back to his olfice urgently.

'During our talk, Vorster was in a very jovial mood, and he listened with undisguised pleasure when I told hi m t hat a state of near panic existed among the editors and senior journalists of the SA~ gr o u p , ' R h oodie

recaHed. This piece of intelligence, passed on to him by Van den Bergh, came from the Mail editor's flowerpot. Vorster was particularly enthusiastic when he learnt that Graaff, who' d retired as leader of the opposition, was willing to invest R1 milhon in the take-over.

'He urged me to be extremely careful, but to go ahead and see if we can still pull it off. It was at that occasion I told Mr Vorster that if the SAAN take-over failed, we xvished hiIn to approve for us to go ahead and establish

an independent, objective non-party daily newspaper to fight the Ra+~ Daily Mail's influence.'" On 23 October Louis Luyt announced his bid. SAAN shares were suspended on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The Argus group owned 32.7 percent of SAAN, and had first option on the sale of any Bailey shares. This would have kept control effectively in the same hands. The next day Prime i>Iinister Vorster played his public card: he announced that he would not allow A r gus to control SA.

Biko stayed friends with some of the leaders, and had a white girlfriend in NUSAS for a time, Paula Ensor, now a pr o fessor of education at the University of Cape Town. His advice to whites in NUSAS vvas: go and work in white communities, not ours; there is plenty to do t o c o nvert white racists from their cruel and suicidal course.

Many long nights of self-examination foflowed. Was this really the most fruitful path to take.' The majority of whites were becoming more insular,

not less. They saw their interests aligned increasingly with oppression, reinforced by state propaganda painting black opponents as communists and terrorists, beyond the pale of human discourse. For decades, NUSAS leaders had been influenced by two main strands of anti-apartheid thinking, liberalism and the democratic left of Western

Europe. The liberal argument implied that all would work together for a multiracial future. In the wake ot Biko's walkout, that door seemed to

be closed. But in a titne of severe repression and heightened propaganda, Biko's alternative, working to persuade the recalcitrant white majority, who were beneficiaries of apartheid, seemed to be no alternative at all.

Instead, what 'AUSAS leaders did was go back to the drawing board, read and argue until they came up with a direction that was undoubtedly

influenced by Karl Marx's class analysis. They would focus on a key potential force for change that was not receiving significant attention from

anyone — the growing urban black working class. just as the ANC in London and Lusaka reacted with suspicion to Biko's m ovement, they were sceptical about NUSAS's nevv direction too. Th e Communists, especially, distnissed them derisively as 'non-violent Marxists'. In fact, NUSAS's leaders were influenced by European Marxists who were democrats, who rejected the Soviet Union, especially for its repression at home and in the satellite countries of eastern Europe. These students were democrats, who saw the ANC leaders as representing the likely democratic

wiU of black South Africa. They for the release of Mandela and his colleagues. But

campa igned

3 Moss, Glenn, The New Radicals, A Generational Memoir of the 1970s,Jaeana: 2014, p41, and Mangeu, Xolela,Bikor A Bt'ograplry, Tafelberg: 2012, p 289.

19:6

increasingly, they chose to go out and help build a black trade union tnovement that would f o cus on w orkers' interests. These unions would not engage in direct political action because that would bring the state down on

them while they were still growing and vulnerable. '%e argued that one organisation should not engage in legal and illegal action at the same time,' recalled Halton Cheadle, a white student and early pioneer of unions in Durban, who was later banned and put under house

arrest. Cheadle had been lectured by the activist, academic and philosopher, Rick Turner, who was assassinated by apartheid agents in 1978.

Uncom promisingly

opposed to apartheid, Cheadle came into political activism seeing the ANC and other banned and imprisoned liberation forces as their political leaders, and critical of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia

to quell a democratic uprising. These were not challengers of rhe liberation movements. They were a p n ew front.

owerful

NUSAS had rejected Biko's advice to focus on converting white racists,

but nevertheless embarked on a powerful path. At the time, Cheadle, who was simultaneously acting general secretary of two growing trade unions

based in Durban, savv himself as scaffolding — to be removed once the pertnanent structure was stable. After leaving the unions, he became a Iax~ser, starting a firm representing unions and later rhe ANC. Other white student activists of that generation became lawyers because they noticed that the law could provide some protection against official abuse, or they moved into academia or journalism. Though white students >vere the primary founders of the black unions, older ANC members were active. Notable among these were metubers of

the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), the banned union atfiliate of the ANC-led Congress Alliance. Some had served sentences on Robben Island starting in the early 1960s, and were now back home, and savt it as a recruiting ground for the ANC m i htary wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Among the NUSAS members at factory gates at five in th e m o rning,

handing out flyers to black workers, were future journalists, including P rofessor Steven Friedman, who b ecame labour correspondent on t h e

MaiL The Ayers were worker newspapers encouraging unions, produced by the NUSAS %ages Commission, called Umsebenzi/Abasebettzi. They were translated into Zulu by a member of the%ages Comtnission, a young

guitar-playing %"tts anthropology student namedJohnny Clegg. Moss, Glenn. p259. %loss also describes the behind-themenes relationships between the key players, including Biko, ia the early years of the revived labour movement.

1SS

SLUGGIKG 1T OUT: 1966-1990

If the ANC was unprepared for the upheaval of '1976, the white Nationalist government under Vorster faced an unanticipated hurricane. The storm was not just domestic; it would tuel furies abroad. Publicity about the student

uprising added force to growing international opprobrium. As the year began, Vorster's biggest problems seemed to be external. In January, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 385, ordering South Africa to withdraw its illegal administration

and military forces from Namibia, and transfer power to the Namibian people through I;¹ u p e rvised elections. The United Nations Secretariat also set up the Centre against Apartheid. Vorster's search for allies would stretch from Ivory Coast to Paraguay,

but these countries were of marginal significance. Despite an official threeday visit by the Minister of Infortnation, Dr Connie Mulder, to the Ivory Coast, the cordon sanitaire was shrinking, as South Africa svithdrew its last

troops from Angola, although the 1976 — 7 budget allocated an astronomical 17.2 percent of its total to defence, More signs of a siege economy became evident. B esides the critical relationship with W ashington, Vorster found t w o

countries xvilling to give him what he wanted in 1976, France and Israel. Vorster„ the Ossesvabrandwag commandant imprisoned in World War II for his pro-Nazi activities, was warmly received in Israel on a five-day state

visit in April. He began by visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. 'Much of Vorster's time in Israel was spent shopping for weapons,' wrote Sasha Polakow-Suransky. The trip helped seal a deal for Israel to sell 5700 million in weapons to South Africa.-' France's oHerings were more immetIiate. Three weeks before the Soweto uprising, France sold South Africa two nudear power stations. Three weeks after the uprising, France sold two destroyers to the South African navy and, in October, tN o new combat submarines.'

Vorster sacrificed Rhodesia (noxv Zimbabwe) and undertook to sacrifice South West Africa (now Namibia) to buy time 1or white South Africa. At the same time, he amended the Internal Security Act to widen the scope for detention without trial, a provision that took effect, coincidentally, on

5 Polakow-Suransky, Sasha,The Unspo&n Alliance, fermi's Secret Relationship tcv'th Apartheid Sonth Africa, Jacana: 2010, p9$. 6 1 am indebted to The O'Maliey Archives for this sequence of events.

156

1 976

16]une. He granted the first bantustan 'independence' to Transkei, holding elections while keeping eight opposition party leaders in prison. The outside world unanimously refrained from recognising Transkei as a state. Vorster had set up the Theron Commission to seek a separate political

solution for Coloureds. The Commission handed in its report two days after 16 June. It recommended Coloureds be put back on the voters* roll from which they had been removed by the constitutional crisis of the 1950s, Coloured leaders were pretty unanimous in their rejection. Vorster rejected it too. Just one more from in the domestic political impasse.

As early as January of 1976, Soweto school boards told government inspectors conflict in the schools was escalating. By May, pupils at Orlando %est Junior School went on strike against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of school instruction. This language policy was the brainchild of Dr Andries Treurnicht, deputy minister of Bantu education. Other Soweto schools

followed. Signs of trouble vvere evident, and the government was dearly aware enough to continue beefing up its instruments of repression. On 8 June, security police went to Soweto's Naledi High School to arrest a student

leader. Students stoned them and burnt their car. They left empty-handed and earless. Tvvo days later, the Internal Security Bill, making inde6nite detention without trial more widely applicable, passed in parhament. The following day, 11 June, Treurnicht rejected an application from five Soweto schools asking that they not have to implement the new Afrikaans language rule. On 13 June, three days before the uprising began, representatives of all Soweto schools met in Naledi. The meeting was pivotal. A townshipwide Soweto Students' Representative Council was formed, with two representatives from each Soweto school, and itsfirst task was to organise a protest on 16 June against the use of Afrikaans in education. One person on the i%n'I knew what was coming. ]an (Gabu) Tugwana is

unusually resourceful, As a boy, he'd bought drinks and snacks to resell on station platforms. By his early teens, he'd taken to riding the trains all the way to Durban, selling refreshments in both directions. In 1976 he v as 22, hired as a sports writer vw'th basic pay plus a fee

per word, close in age to the students planning the march. He'd been transferred to cover the story in Soweto in May, when the tensions were

apparent, 'I knew what was going to happen,' he told an interviewer years later. The students svere sleeping for shorter and shorter periods at any one

SLUGGING IT OUT: I 966 — I 990

location. There'd be late night tneetings, and Gabu would get the statements afterwards, and turn them into stories for the Mail.

Gabu knew a big protest march was planned. He ordered a Mail car for early morning on 16 June, giving a ride to some of the students who would act as marshals for the protest march. Tens of thousands of students

answered the call. Police opened fire on the young marchers, killing hundreds that day. By the time the protest had spread around the country and run its course a few months later, more than a thousand would be dead. Women later to become prontinent were arrested in this period, including

Lindiwe Sisulu, Thandi Modise, Mamphela Ramphele and Winnie Mandela, by now well used to jail. Something else happened on 16 June. The Internal Security Act, with new indefinite detention provisions that did not require a state of emergency,

was promulgated. The next day, Colin Eglin, the leader of the opposition, requested an extraordinary session of parliament, at which he called for the resignation of Treurnicht and others. As expected, Eglin lost the vote to the overwhelming Nationalist majority.

On 18 June, the LW Securin Council unanimously condemned Pretoria for the police violence in Soweto and elsewhere. Vorster, who had said little concrete in response to the upheavals around the country, now said he did not regard the pressures on the country as

critical. The uprising spread around the Western Cape, with marches by schoolchildren and University of Western Cape students in solidarity with Soweto; 150,000 to 200,000 workers in Soweto went on strike. Still determined to keep apartheid alive, Vorster sought to cool township tempers by tinkering with forms of representation on local councils. These

were announced to the world under the headline: Net deal for urban blacks'. The Financiaf Mail, which contained some astute journalists, took to pinning the front page of The Star on i ts notice board every time it

ran that headline, The tally of front page 'New Deal for Urban Blacks' headlines reached close to 30 in this period. None of these plans addressed the basic issue, that all South Africans were in one country, and urban black politicians who participated never attracted serious support.

Students in all provinces came out in support of Soweto's demands: black scholars, black universities, the Coloured and Indian universities, and the English-language white, so-called 'open', universities. The protests were segregated, but the demands were much the same. A black consciousness trial continued in Pretoria, where the banned Steve

Biko was brought as a defence ivitness. Biko was clearly the leading thinker of this era. Five white NUSAS leaders were on trial in Johannesburg, charged 158

with furthering the aims of the ANC and communism. On Robben island, Mandela and his colleagues were aware of both trials, and appreciated these indicators that this was a new generation highlighting their battles.

But some, especially in the ANC leadership in exile, were suspicious of both black consciousness and the white student movements. At my old university, Wits, a protest meeting was organised immediately in the Great Hall. The artist, William Kentridge, then a student, led a march

into Johannesburg, saying 'for every cop ive keep busy here, that is one less free to shoot children in Soweto'. A few students wrote a pamphlet titled

'Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind', and Glenn Moss, former president of the Students' Representative Council, now one of th e defendants in the

NUSAS trial and one of the authors of the pamphlet, used an old set of keys to get into the students' printing room and produce piles of them. The next day a message came from the Soweto Students' Action Committee. They

liked the pamphlet and asked for 100,000 to distribute in the townships. Moss was back in the print room overnight to produce what he could and get it to Soweto.'

On 6 July. government dropped the compulsory use of Afrikaans to teach black pupils. Four journalists were by noiv detained. By December, the government promised free and compulsory education for blacks, the fifth concession since 16 June.

Five days after the shock of 16 June, Vorster was in Grafenau — population 8,000 — in the Bavarian forest to meet Kissinger. The small town venue,

quite close to where Kissinger was born, was carefully chosen to reduce the risk of protests. There Vorster started the process of relinquishing white

rule in Rhodesia and South West Africa. With turmoil in South Africa and an increasingly hostile West, he was ready to y've them up to buy time for

apartheid South Africa. For his part, Kissinger divas ready to reverse his position on southern

Africa. The tvio pillars of the policy — criticising white rule while getting closer to its rulers — were recahbrated. Kissinger now wanted a rapid end to white rule in both territories. For the future Zimbabwe and Namibia, if not

South Africa, the 'tar baby option' was dead. Kissinger's focus was on how Rhodesia would become Zimbabwe and how South West Africa would become Namibia. What made Kissinger reverse

SLI;GGING IT OUT: 1966 — 1990

course and back African liberation'. His biographer, Walter Isaacson, noted that Kissinger believed in Talleyrand's maxim, that 'the art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence'.'

Kissinger began talking of how ending apartheid was inherent in America's values. In the third volume of his memoirs, written seven years after Isaacson's biography, Kissinger is more specific. George HW Bush, the future president, was director of the CIA, and he gave Kissinger and President Ford this assessment: 'It is the intelligence community's prediction

that Cuban troops will be involved in Rhodesia before the end of '1976." A recently declassified conversation with President Ford in the White House is more telling. Kissinger reversed the 'tar baby option' because he expected a military victory for the communist-backed liberation movements

in Rhodesia. The analysis of Bush, the CIA director, went further than Kissinger reported in his memoir. A transcript of the conversation in the

cabinet room at the White House is now available in the Gerald R Ford presidential library. It records the briefing of President Gerald Ford and senior senators and congressmen after two rounds of talks with Vorster and a meeting with Smith. Vorster pledged full support for and cooperation with the US for a swift transition to majority rule in Rhodesia. Rhodesian

Prime Minister Ian Smith was in the firing line. 'Assuming nothing was done it was our assessment that it woukl be 1978, at the very inaxitnum, when we would witness the end of white control of

Rhodesia by force.' Bush reported to President Ford and a congressional delegation. 'The black governments which would emerge from the conthct would be more attuned to communist influence than governments brought about through negotiation...

'The end result would be a bloody conflict resulting in black rule no later than 1978, and as the emergent black governinents are expected to have a communist tilt, this would be harmful to the interests of the United States.'" Kissinger then took over the White House briefing. 'Our assessment of the situation in southern Africa is confirmed by the other governments,

particularly South Africa and Rhodesia.' Repeating that there was no crisis, Vorster flew, to Zurich for a second

meeting with Kissinger. Alighting from his car in Zurich on 6 Septetnber,

Vorster was confronted by a sea of demonstrators hing on the ground 8 Moss, p686. 9 Isaacson, %alter,Kissinger, Hen~, years of Renewal,4'eidenfeld IIc Nicholson: 1999, p 921. 10 National Security Council Mernorandurn of Conversation, 29 September 1976. Gerald R Ford presidential library.

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covered in red paint, symbolising the dead in Soweto. The picture in the Mail divas powerful. On 7 September in an interview with the US TV network NBC, Smith

said, 'I will not accept any compromise solution for Rhodesia worked out in talks between Vorster and Kissinger.' Seven days later, Smith flew to Pretoria to meet Vorster. He left without a news conference, leaving only a joint statement that the talks were 'full and frank' — diplomatic speak for

very bad news for Smith.

Those most affected were in for a surprise. For some, very good news, for

others a deep, deep shock. Far from being prepared to face reality by a free media, Smith's repression of the media fuelled his dangerous and selfserving fictions. His own intelligence chief put it as well as anyone could. Just before his death in 1987, when the government he had served had long since fallen and he wanted his version of events recorded while he was still able, Rhodesia's intelligence chief, Ken Flower, completed his memoir, Serving Secretly, Rhodesia'sC10 Chief on Record. 'Government propaganda', Flower wrote of the year 1972, 'had long since prevailed over fact and no one in authority was prepared to encourage

disillusionment or mention the possibility of defeat... Most of the (white) electorate by this time were unable to discriminate between fact and fancy,

or were so confused as to have lost all powers of discrimination, and their leader (lan Smith) appeared as one who had assumed a cloak of infallibility." ' Over the next four years, the gap between public knowledge and internal government analysis grew ever wider. Flower had multiple contacts with Pretoria, especially his opposite number, General Van den Bergh, and knew that South Africa's loyalty was limited. 'Time and again... Van den Bergh asked me to convey a message from Vorster to Smith to the effect that South Africa was anxious to get the Rhodesian question settled before they were forced into a settlement

over South West Africa,' said Flower, 'and that Smith would be in a less favourable position if he continued to procrastinate while South West Africa became Namibia. 'I remember Van den Bergh saying there >vere only 40,000 whites of Afrikaner stock in Rhodesia compared with 75,000 in South West Africa, 11 Flower, Ken,Serving Secretly, Rhodesia's CIO Chief on Record,John Murray: 198"', p 120.

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which meant that Rhodesia's future was of less importance to South Africa than the future of South %Vest Africa,"-'

Vfith hindsight, Flower conceded that even he did not sufficiently appreciate that Pretoria was signalling that it would not support white Rhodesia it the cost became too high. Nevertheless, whatever they thought would happen, Vorster had dropped

the bombshell on Smith in Pretoria on 14 September. Vorster's biggest concern was that failure would bring United Nations sanctions down on

South Africa if he failed to pressure Smith successfully. Five days later, it was the American Secretary of State's turn.

Kissinger had access to both US and South African intelligence. He laid it on thick for Smith, though Flower's account indicates he regretted having to do it. Kissinger gave Smith a run-down of troop numbers of the various

forces. He also spoke of a raid by Rhodesia's notorious Selous Scouts the month before on Nyadzonia, an hour's drive into Mozambique, in which 1,000 people, including women and children, were killed. Kissinger's tnemoirs are remarkably silent on th e details here, despite

3,000 pages in three volumes, for reasons about which we can only speculate. According to memoir accounts other than Kissinger's, he was genuinely

pained at dropping support for white privilege. His wife, Nancy, saw Smith as a hero, and she etnbarrassed the career diplomats by running over to

embrace him after her husband had coerced Smith to end his political career. The dour Smith must have found this display of contradictory American emotionalism somewhat bemusing. Multiple sources confirm that Pretoria applied economic pressure to keep Smith from wavering. South African military support would be withdrawn. 'The vast majority of Rhodesia's businessmen are convinced that a recent

slowdown in traffic of imports and exports is a deliberate move by South Africa,"' ran an article in the YVasbirtgton Post. Smith went pubhc with his concession. But several titnes after that, he attempted to reverse his capitularion. Each time Pretoria ratcheted up the pressure. In early 1978, South Africa withdrew itnportant militan hardware from Rhodesia. In September, with his tnilitap s i t uation deteriorating, Smith asked Vorster to reconsider. Pik Botha conveyed Vorster's decision: not only xvould the military withdrawal stand but, from now on, loans would 1Z Flower, p 157. Flower gives a number of other reasons why Vorster was willing to drop Smith, including the fact Smith's racial policies did not included bantustans, that Pretoria had privately tvarned Smith against declaring independence umlaterally in 1965, and to buy time for South Africa to avoid sanctions. 13 Robin Wright. N'asbiugton Post.

1976

be approved on a monthly basis, 'depending on Rhodesia's performance'." Trains ts~th crucial cargo somehovv suffered major delays. Several times Smith appealed to South Africa for economic assistance, including loans. If he was m compliance, things went easy for him. But the

open chequebook was now closed," I n September 1979, th e L ancaster House talks were under way. I n London, Smith tnet Pik Botha to tell him he did not accept the proposals on the table. Smith said he preferred to continue the war, according, to Botha's

biographer. Asked if Rhodesia could continue, he replied that Rhodesia could not, 'but if South Africa would advance them one billion rand, they svould be able to keep on fighting'. On behalf of the South African government, Botha refused, and that decision was ratified by the full cabinet under the new prime minister, P% Botha, which included Smith's brother-in-law, Senator Owen Horwood, the minister of finance," There was major progress on Namibia, Kissinger reported to his president. 'South Africa has agreed to a constitutional conference to determine the future of South West Africa. %e are in the process of negotiating with South Africa, local forces and other governments to get a conference going in the United Nations.

'The United Nations is the agreed forum. One problem is that Angola is involved. Nevertheless, South Africa has agreed to transfer power."' At the end of the year, Vorster admitted that South Africa was alone. He meant white South Africa, his government.

Gabu Tugwana survived at large for three months before being arrested. He knew they were after him. Once travelling in a car with an Australian diplomat at a protest I saw him i n t r ouble. M ore than most diplomats, the Australians tested the limits of diplomatic rules, identifying where they could with the protesters. Gabu was at the demonstration, but he should

have been in hiding. %e pulled up the car. got him, and drove out. In the confusion, and with diplomatic number plates, we got him away safely. One call tipped him off to a green Chevrolet going around the township,

14 Papenfus,Theresa, Pik Botha and His Titnes, Litera: 2010. p279. 15 See Papenfus and others. 16 Papenfus, pp282-3, 17 Ford presidential papers, p21.

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firing shots at students. 'I followed that car for three successive days, and

I could count how many people were shot from it, from guns carried by people travelling in that car, security police. We even took a picture of that

vehicle. 'I think the consistency of each day knowing where this car was must have (cast) enough suspicion for these guys to put their attention on me.'

They finally got him on 20 Septentber. Gabu's arrest brought the number of journahsts in prison to 13, 11 of them black. In prison, the Naif gave him an employment contract to sign, transferring him to full-time staff. He

signed his employment papers in Modderbee prison, outside Johannesburg. That way the Alai/ could provide his legal support; it ran stories about how many days he'd been in prison without trial, to highlight his plight and keep up the pressure. Interrogated in John Vorster Square, he was harassed to turn s tate' s evidence against students. They wanted him to say 'that I divas ivriting the stories because I was worried that if I didn't do so the students would petrol bomb my home. So I rejected this, and said that was not my experience.'"

When he was released, the Afail put him on the sports desk, which he complained about. By now, he was also hiring cars for the student activists, and helping them out in other logistical ways, obviously not something he disclosed to the editors. Those three months' prison were the least of

it. Arrested again in May 1977, he was held in isolation for 13 months, then transferred to a cell with others, finally released in December 1978, It was in prison that Tugwana, tutored by older political leaders, became consciously pohrical. 'I realised there's much more I can do. I came our very upset v ith my poor past performance.'

Looking back, he resents being put on the sports desk but speaks well of the Mail's coverage. 'I think that really cannot be undernuned,' he said in an interview. 'I think they gave it all they could. I think they took the event very seriously. Certainly they saw the event as confirming some of the editorials where they had been warning the government that there was a

powder keg, which could blow up any time among the black communities. They gave it attention. I mean, they really prioritised it.' And they were out

to cover and criticise the police's brutality. 'They didn't spare any cover for that.' Gabu survived to work for an alternative paper, the Near, Nation, under Zwelakhe Sisulu, eventualh r i sing to the editor's chair. After 1994, he 18 Keogh, Sarnanrha, The Rand Daily M"il and rbe Sou:ero Riots, MA dissertation, University of the %irvvarersrand: 2005, pp 25 -9.

19:6

became chief spokesperson for the Johannesburg city council, There's no doubt he was unusually resilient. One story well illustrates rhat quahty. A student interviewed him years later for a vlaster's thesis on the role of the Mail, asking him his views on the theories of 'liberal journalism'

and whether the lvtail had sold out. The student asked him about working conditions during the time of apartheid. Gabu explained a clash he had with a white printer, when he had to check a proof in the second basement. among the machines where the paper was set and printed. The printers were members of a conservative white trade

union, recognised by the department of labour, and with good connections to the state, and aware of their rights under the Factories Acr.. Many hated the paper they ~ere compelled to print, and tensions sometimes flared. Toilets were separate, and many printers determined to keep it that ivay.

Gabu used the one ser aside for the other race. 'I divas reaHy pressed, and I didn't look.' While he was at the urinal, 'some middle-aged white guy comes in wearing shorts and grease,' Jan told the story.

Hey, what are you doing here? — Hey, ~vhat are you doing here? These toilets are not for blacks. — These toilets are not for whites. What do vou mean? — These toilets are for Europeans. You are not a European. You are in South Atrica.

You are so arrogant. Where do you work? — You are so arrogant. What do you want to discover?

%'hen Gabu left, the printer followed him to see where he worked, without using the toilet. Figuring out it was the kIail, he went straight to

the acting editor, Rex Gibson. Gabu was called to Gibson's office. 'Jan,' Rex said, using the name Gabu still chose to use, 'we have some trouble, We have someone teHing me that you went to his toilet?'

Gibson called the printer. and said he'd spoken to Jan, who said he hadn' t done him any harm. 'You screamed at him, he screamed back, but as far as using the toilet he didn't do anything wrong. Can you please end it like that.' Of course, not everyone was as tough-minded and resilient as Tugwana.

Apartheid caused hurt every day. X~'oteveryone could keep their cool. Tugwana is someone special.

SLUG( ING tT OUT: 1966-I990

Peter LIagubane was a role model for Tugwana. 'lf I knew how to avoid arrest, I'd do it. I spent 583 days in solitary confinement.' Peter was an old hand when the 1976 uprising began. He' d survived 500 days in solitary confinement six years earlier, and a five year banning order preventing him from working at the paper. Back in 1975, he covered the uprising from 16 June until August, when the police caught him in Dube, Soweto, threw him into 51odderbee Prison ~vith Tugwana and

others, for 126 days. 'They could have tortured me to hell and back, but they did not do that because they knew that the Rand Daily Mail was there watching,' Peter was telling the story to a young journalism student.

Just before his arrest, he told her, he drove past his house (in Diepkloof, Soweto) at 11.30pm one night, and found it on fire. 'There was nothing I could do — smoke and fire inside. I just turned around and went straight

to the office and told the night editor... We called the police, and they said there were too many things on their hands, and there's nothing they can

do... The only hotel that took black people was the Holiday Inn, so they got me a room at the Milpark Holiday Inn.' In 2005, long after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission finished its work, Samantha Keogh, a young white student from the University of the %"ttwatersrand, interviewed Peter for her MA thesis. She asked Peter what the

paper's policy was, and if he agreed with it. So he spoke about the early years. 'It was Raymond Louw's policy that I cover all kinds of news irrespective of whether it was verltrarnpte news or not. It was for the people to chase me away and for the readers to decide what to read.' But, she insisted, at the Truth Commission, another journalist said the AIail had 'perpetuated human rights violations by withholding information

from the public'. 'Yo, we did not. The Rand Daily Mail did not withhold. The Mail was the only vehicle that gave the news to South Africans and the outside world

by going out there, exposing. The Mail is the one that exposed prisons... 'Now I don't know why he says that... The Rail was the only newspaper. It was only in 1976 that there was another white paper that joined forces, It divasDie Beeld. Die Beeld reported the truth about 1976.' He remembered a white reporter living in Alexandria, for the story. 'Now whoever says that — they can go to hell.' I don't deny my imagination running away with me, trying to p icture

this scene, the earnest. post-apartheid student continuing, testing the new political language, trying to find the Avail's crimes, perhaps 'white ittfail' ct'I mes.

'At the Truth Commission, a lot of white journalists apologised for their

work during apartheid. Do you think that theRand Daily %lail journalists had anycause to apologisei' — Not the Mail. Ma ybe journalists belonging to other newspapers, but ,not the Rand Daily Mail. The woman and photographer who went into the township to cover the uprising, I don't think they have anything to apologise for. Nor do I think that Raymond Louw and Laurence Gandar. They don't have to apologise to anybody.

Sitting in the fading light in his Melville house,the beautiful lines of a silver, post-World W7ar II era Citroen in his garage, and a fraction of the

mementoes of his career on shiv, Peter reminisced, 'Those were good days.' Perhaps it was the strangest of remarks, after five years of banning, 583 days of solitary confinement, but I knew exactly what he meant. '%hen I

arrived annvhere, and said I was from the Anil. they trusted me,'he said simply.

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TVVELVE

The Conspirators eat their Own l felt my stomach muscles contract infear. DR ESCHEL RHOODIE> SECRETARY OF INFQ~IATIOX

S

tudents spread their protests across the country, the Rand Daily Mail

continued to lead the coverage, and the Bureau for State Security's (BOSS) continued to vet the credentials of journalists wanting posts on The

Citizen. Vorster was in Zurich when Rhoodie dropped off the first copies ofThe Citizen at the prime minister's of6ce on 7 September 1976. Thirteen days later, the police arrested Gabu Tugwana for the first time.

Rhoodie was receiving transcripts of journahsts' bugged telephone calls. A letter the Mail's managem ent sent to contacts overseas as they prepared for competition from The Citizen divas published in the pro-government

Johannesburg afternoon paper,Die Vaderland. Rhoodie boasted that the phones of all the political correspondents of the opposition press were tapped. He'd read all our conversations.'I have also read transcriptions of Martin Schneider andJohn Mattison [sic]. 1 have even read a transcript of a conversation Hennie Serfontein had with me.'-' But the mood of the conspirators swung between delight at their access to

the Mail's anxious private correspondence,' and fear as things went wrong, Rhoodie fell out with Luyc over what became of R12 million int axpayers' money. By March 1977,Rhoodie and Lug were no longer on speaking terms. And Vorster was ill. 1 Rhoodie, Eschel,The Rea( tnforrnation Scandal, Orbis: 1983, p330. Rhoodie, pp 678-9. 3 De Villiers, Les,Secrer tnfornration, Tafelberg: 1980, p128.

16S

THE CO'ASPIRATORS FAT THE1R OVEN

Though The Citizen and many other Info projects were up and running, the purpose of Muldergate, to improve domestic and international perceptions of the apartheid government, was in ruins.

Steve Biko had been in prison since 18 August. At the time he was preparing to leave the country, hoping he could broker the unification of the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress and black consciousness. It would be a tough assignment given the mistrust, but the government found out through its spies, and would not take the risk. Over a period of Z2 hours on 11 September, he was tortured and beaten into a coma. Then, naked and manacled, he was driven 1100 kilometres from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria in

the back of a Land Rover. He died shortly after arrival. I heard the news in my cottage in Melville, Johannesburg. Bruce Haigh, an Australian diplomat, arrived as I was leaving for the Mail. Bruce kneiv Steve better than I did and left immediately to And Mamphela Ramphele to help if he could. He would later help smuggle Donald Woods out of South Africa. I was the Mail's political sub-editor that day, and my eyes locked with my friend in the sub-editors' room, Vas Soni, appoimed head of the Special Investigation Unit 37 years later, in 2014, made a power fist as I ivalked in. It was a dark day. Within six weeks, Vorster undertook the biggest press crackdown ever. On 19 October, security police swept the country, jailing journalists and

banning newspapers. The World was closed for the first time since '1931, and its editor, Percy Qoboza, was jailed. Biko's friend, the editor of the Daily Dispatch, Donald Woods, was banned and put under house arrest, spelhng the end of his career in South Africa. But that crackdown ivould not save Rhoodie or his pohtical principals.

Gerald Barrie, the man Rhoodie had replaced as Secretary of Information, had become the auditor-general. In that capacity his task was to audit government books to prevent corruption, Barrie had investigated Information's books, and uncovered their secrets.

In April 1978, Van Zyl Alberts warned Rhoodie that state funding of The Citizen was going to be exposed. 'Alberts's words stunned me and I felt my stomach muscles contract in fear,' Rhoodie wrote.

'My trusted friend and security adviser, Charles More... (also) told me... that selected portions of Gerald Barrie's secret report would be leaked to

the press to discredit me. He said it would go from the prime minister's office to another cabinet minister and from there to an Afrikaans newspaper, probably Beeld. The newspaper will not publish the details because it would be seen as a clear effort on the part of the south to discredit Connie Mulder. Therefore the trusted reporter would make sure it ends up in the hands of

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someone who would, an English Sunday newspaper. I could not believe my ears, and I disbelieved More!" W'ith the death of journalists Kitt Katzin of the Sunday Expressand n Rees of the Mail, only nvo or three people still alive know ivhether

Merely.

that is true. One is Rex Gibson, at the time Katzin's editor and mine. When I tracked him down in Hermanus, a coastal resort outside Cape Town and

quoted the passage above for his response, Rex said he knew the passage well, but would not respond. It was a surreal moment. T hirty-six years after an fruitful

extrem ely

collaboration, we each had secrets we could not tell the other. I could not tell him the source of my Christian League story, and he could not tell me the source of the more significant Muldergate leaks. But the question is critical. How far could I go.' The right question came to me. It does not matter v ho the individual was who leaked the information. What matters is: would the Muldergate story, that put Botha into power, have been broken if there were not the north-south battle between P W Botha's Cape Nationalists and Mulder's Transvaal Nationalists.'

Gibson gave a firm 'no comment'. He could have steered me away from that conclusion it I was going in the wrong direction. In the context, I took that as a no, it w o uld not h ave been leaked if not fo r the north-south, Sotha — Mulder conAict. The leak tnust have come from the pro-Botha Cape Nationalist camp.

Rhoodie asked Van den Bergh to use BOSS's resources to find the leak, and Van den Bergh had several confrontations over it. Finally, Van den Bergh and Vorsrer, the imprisoned blood brothers from World War II, whose careers rose in lockstep from the 1950s, fell out. Vorster was concealing his own involvement, no matter what friends went down.

The conAict inside government was ugly. This was about the successionwho would replace Vorster.' Mulder and Botha were the most powerful rivals inside the ruling National Party. Mulder was leader of the party in its

biggest province, the Transvaal, and Botha his opposite number in the second largest, the Cape, representing the north and south of the ruling party.

Each had their own press group, Perskor in the north and Nasionale Pers in the south. Each was aligned with a faction of the security and intelligence services. Aligned under Sotha, the defence nunister, were the ministry of 4 Rhoodie, p330.

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THE CONSPIRATORS EAT THEIR 0%'N

defence and military intelligence, and Nasionale Pers. Arrayed against them in the security services were Van den Bergh's BOSS and the police, and they backed Mulder, also Rhoodie's boss as minister of information, and their press group, Perskor.

Until the Info scandal, Dr Connie lv1ulder, as leader of the largest province in the party, the Transvaal, seemed a shoo-in. The press called him the crown prince. He believed he was the next prime minister and began to

prepare, Behind the scenes he convened policy meetings and ordered policy

documents for rhe day he took over. In Nationalist politics, his position seemed unassailable. He'd positioned himself on the right of th e party, the natural place from which to come in and take bold actions to arrest the galloping racial crisis. Privately he admitted that was his strategy, to come in from the right, giving him a freer hand to make reforms.

The press called him verkramp. which is exactly what he wanted, but behind the scenes I did not find his policy solutions, though conservative, significantly less conservative than his main serious rival, PW Botha. His ideas of reform involved bringing the bantustans into a federation. Black South Africans would not have accepted it. Botha was no Mother Teresa either, He was slightly more sympathetic to Coloureds, a common position of Cape

Nationalists. But, on the big issues, both had variations of trying to make big apartheid, separate political silos for each race, the unworkable, work. The succession carne dovvn to the allegiance of Mulder's Transvaal party, linked to his ministerial department, Infortnation, and its intelligence ties to BOSS and the police. Ranged against them were Botha's Cape Nationalists,

with his stronghold in the military as Minister of Defence, which of course included mihtary intelligence. Nineteen seventy-eight would be the year of reckoning.

At the start of that year I had joined the Sunday Express as its political cor-

respondent. Louw had been fired as editor of theMail, and I made the move because I trusted its editor, Rex Gibson, out of the Gandar — Louw stable. An excellent writer wh o taught me a great deal, Gibson was far less interested in political intrigue than most editors, possessed of an equal-

opportunity disdain for most politicians. But he shared the Gandar-Louw moral compass. If you could show him a story had moral importance, he would go for it with gusto.

Those quahties, and guts, led his tiny, shoestring budget Sunday Express

SLUGGING IT OLrl: 1966-I 990

to break the M u ldergate story ahead of larger rivals, including Alhster

Sparks's Mail. Sparks was appointed editor of the Mail in 19??. My net job required me to live six months of the year in Cape Town covering parliament. While I was there, the paper would break Muldergate. I would get a jail sentence, but not for the key story that brought the govern-

ment doww. I would, however, have a ringside seat as the saga unfolded. The Sunday Express eas started by Arthur Barloiv, a former Mail political correspondent. Barlow had divided his career more or less equally between journalism and political o f f ice. An English-speaking Orange Free State

republican whose newspaper, The Friend, had supported the Boer republics during the Anglo-Boer War, Barlow had a claim to a footnote in our history: as a member of parliament in the 1920s he brought a successful private member's motion prohibiting South Africans from accepting British titles.

Without Barlow, which South Africans might now be knighted.' The immediate reason he found himself unemployed in the early 1930s was that he'd left the Mail to join forces ~vith Tielman Roos, a polirician turned appeal court judge vvho returned to politics to challenge the existing parties. Roos's action was the catalyst that forced South Africa to follow Britain off the gold standard, a necessary move after the tribulations of the

Great Crash of 1929. Roos and Barlow succeeded, but were marginahsed after the country

went off the gold standard, when the established parties of generals Barry Hertzog and Jan Smuts formed a coalition government, Barlow started the Sunday Express, travelling to Pretoria each Friday with his staff to put the

paper to bed on Die Vaderland's underused press, sleeping on the floor and returning on Sunday morning. Barlow appears to have had flair, and the paper grew beyond his ability to fund expansion. He brought in the American-born financier l%' Schlesinger as the dominant shareholder. Schlesinger owned South Africa's sole radio station at the time, before it were taken over by the government on the

advice of the BBC's founder, Lord John Reith. Schlesinger found he liked newspapers, and started the Daily Express,then Durban's Sunday Tribune and Daily Tribune. By the end of the decade, with the war coming in 1939, Schlesinger's other interests were under pressure, and he sold his papers. Barlow returned

to parliament, this time for the United Party.The Sunday Express proved an awkward fit for its new owners, the South African Associated Newspapers

(SAAN) group, but found a niche under several canny editors, surviving on local coverage and extensive property advertising.

In January 19?8 I drove to Cape Town xvith my worldly goods, and

THE CONSPIRATORS EAT THEIR 0%'N

visited my parliamentary otfice in Marks Building, across the road from the House of Assembly and Senate. Next door was Fleur de Villiers of the Sunday Times,tny far bigger, better resourced rival. It was the beginning of a minor, rather unevenly matched, contest.

Within a few weeks the speaker of the House of Assembly informed me I had been refused accreditation on tl e grounds that I was a security risk. I

was in obvious panic — I'd been with the paper less than two months, and I'd been hired on this small staff with only one purpose — to cover parliament and its spill-over stories. Gibson vvould have to fire me.

As it happened, Rex did the opposite. Far from firing me, he flew down to Cape Town to see the Speaker and the minister of justice, Jimmy Kruger. Rex and I had an avvkward moment. He took me for a beer, and said: 'I don't like doing this, but you better tell me everything you' ve done that they could have in their files, so I'm not subjected to any surprises.'

So I told him my secrets, such as they were. I had been jailed twice, briefly. As a student, for a few hours in an anti-apartheid demonstration calling for the release of 22 political prisoners, including Winnie Mandeia

and Peter Magubane, whom I would only meet years later. I was in John Yorster Square with 366 other student demonstrators who'd marched from the University of the Witwatersrand across the old Queen Elizabeth Bridge (the Nelson Mandela bridge would have made the walk quicker, but it was

still decades in the future), down Commissioner Street and into police headquarters, where the pohce promptly arrested us. I'd had the good fortune to exit along with a classmate, the ethereally beautiful Jane Gluckman, whom I'd offered a lift home, beginning a blissful student roinance, as well as my first-ever experience of a supportive anti-

apartheid family. While I was editor of %'its Student,the paper had been banned three times for different offences to apartheid decency. The three bannings were for sex, politics and religion. Sadly, my interests since then seem to have narrowed.

The political banning was for white spaces m a front page headline and article a campus speech by Helen Joseph, Treason trialist and friend of Mandela, who was banned and therefore could not be quoted. ', says We got round that — so we thought — with the headline, ' Helen Joseph, followed by a full report, mostly consisting of white space.

foll owing

The sex banning was quite inadvertent. The Arts editor and my girlfriend,

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-1990

Jane, far more cultured than I, had shown me the page for approval. It included a typically elegant Beardsley drawing. The subject wasLysistrata, the Greek comedy about woinen trying to stop the Peloponnesian War by

withholding sex froin their tnen. The censors were deeply offended because the draiving included an elegant, black inked penis, which I had failed to identify, or be concerned about, I forget which. Their sensibilities were more refined, apparently; The blasphemy banning was also odd. As the editor, I felt I controlled enough space that my critics needed to be able to respond uncensored. So I pubhshed an attack on me unaltered. Unfortunately it used Jesus Christ and

something

like 'Jesus Christ, who the fuck in the same sentence. As I recall, fuck does the editor think he is!' And I'd had a second jailing, this time overnight, when I was 21 for trying to stop two white men attacking a black man, as my police statement would attest. That wasn't an offence, exactly, except that when they turned on me,

tore my only suit and asked who the hell I was, I said I was a policeman. A very hght drinker, I'd just coine from my own farewell party, is my only excuse.

'Oh, well, so are we,' said the man holding the shoulder of my suit. 'Show me your ID.' — I don't have it with me. Show me yours. — I don't have mine either, %'hy don't we go to the police station and sort it out? I had to agree, and the rest was, of course, history. I was charged with

impersonating a policeman, a charge of which I was enrirely guilty. Fortunately, I had enough wit about me to refuse to plead in court the

next day, and when the trial resumed I had a good pro bono lawyer and a lot of press I'd rustled up. The prison statement I had dictated and signed incriminated the police even more than me, and the charge was withdrawn. The rest of my confession to Rex was mostly a history of student protest

and related stuff. He already knew every This sort of thing happened on every cricket tour without coverage, he complained, yet now the papers told everyone

about it. News to me, replied Gibson. 'If we had, we would have published those cases. We only knew about this one.' Hypocrisy, as the satirist Pieter-

Dirk Uys says, the Vaseline ot pohtical intercourse.

THE CONSPIRATORS EAT THEIR 0%"N

The Watergate stories in the Washington Post, which led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon, were not ivritten by the beat correspondents at the White House or Congress; BobWoodward and Carl Bernstein were hungry newsroom reporters, who investigated every lead and were not

deterred by official denials. It was the same ivith Infogate (Muldergate, whatever). The three most important reporters who b r ok e th e story w ere K atzin on t h e Sunday &>press, and Rees and Chris Day on the Mail. Infogate was a multipronged, international and domestic, covert effort to

change perceptions of apartheid, and its increasingly bizarre brand names, from 'apartheid' to 'separate development' to 'plural relations' and finally 'cooperation and development'. Blacks recognised the changes for what

they were, sticking plaster, and joked that they were being renamed 'plurals* and finally 'cooperatives' — anything but South Africans, you understand. But the stench did not smell sweeter. Eschel Rhoodie and his minister, M ulder, had t hought t hey c o uld change that. N e wspapers had t o

be

influenced or bought. Politicians likewise, and a new political party was started in Scandinavia; lobby groups with well-disguised names, every sphere ofinfluence was to be influenced. BOSS chief General Hendrik van den Bergh used his spy networks to aid the Broederbond when the press

first exposed it. Now Van den Bergh put them in the service of Rhoodie's operations. Van den Bergh, Rhoodie and Mulder, and eventually Vorster, would sink or smm together.

The Mail, the Sunday Times and Sunday Expresswere all owned by the same company, the South African Morning Newspaper Group (now Times

Media Group), but their journalism was kept strictly separate. The Await and the Express were running the strongest investigations into what became Muldergate, and they were extremely competitive. As xvith Watergate, it was painstaking work and the early stories were far

from conclusive. By September 1978 the steady drip of stories was Chinese torture for Vorster, and the country was being consumed by it.

By noxv, the average newspaper reader knew there was something badly wrong in the ministry of information, that it came about because officials were using dirty tricks to m anipulate audiences at home and abroad to

make apartheid appear less odious, that money was being siphoned off for personal use in extravagant lifestyles, and that g overnment commissions were investigating but they seemed to be part of the cover-up. They also

SLUCiGlÃG IT OUT: 1966-1990

thought the government probably used taxpayers' money to start

The

Citizen. But Vorster and Mulder still denied it, and no paper had yet been sure enough to avrite it.

The pressure increased daily and, on 20 September 1978, Vorster announced his retirement. The candidates to replace him were Mulder, Botha, and a third candidate, the showman Foreign Minister, Pik Botha.

My modest research told me Pik Botha, lacking a rightving base or top party position, had no chance. Based on an analysis of the Nationalist caucus numbers, including the Cape leader's successful wooing of the Orange Free State party to his side, I predicted P%' Botha would win. Rex

grudgingly gave this horse-race story space on page seven. My rival political correspondent on the Sunduy Times, Fleur de Villiers, let her enthusiasm for her primary source carry her away. Her front page in bold black typeface lead trumpeted that Pik Botha would be the next prime minister.

At Perskor'sjohannesburg headquarters, the champagne glasses were charged. Senior Broederbond member Marius ]ooste, managing director of the northern Nationalist group, Perskor, was ready. Transvaal National Party

leader and Information Minister Dr Connie Mulder was a key member of his board. Now the campaign was reaching its climax. Jooste stocked the tables with food. There to share his moment of triumph were invited business partners, Volkskas Bank, railway and other parastatal executives. The future looked rosy; jooste thought the count i n t h e N a tionalist parliamentary caucus that ~ ould choose the new prime minister was loaded

in Transvaal's favour. The Orange Free State province had a handful of MPs„and the Cape, base of Cape party leader and Defence Minister PW Botha was too small. Also, Botha had enemies. Mulder's personality was

more friendly. That had to be worth a few Cape defections. The radio was on. The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) voice announced that the throng of Nationalist MPs was streaming out of the Senate building towards the steps where the announcement would be

made. I was in the crowd on Parliament Street. It was clear who they wanted. The public chanted 'we want Pik', as the minutes ticked by. Finally, the cabinet merged from the old Senate chamber into the sunlight on the steps

of the old legislature. And the new prime minister was... PW Botha.

THE CO.4SPIRATORS EAT THEIR 0%h

Back at Perskor headquarters in Johannesburg, Jooste was devastated.

He plonked down his glass. 'Loop mense,' he grovvled. 'Go. people.' Food and drink untouched, they plodded out, and Jooste returned to his office to contemplate the unthinkable. Within days the bad news vvas in. Government printing contracts were removed from his company, switched to the Cape

newspaper group, Naspers. Perskor had nothing to fall back on. Its papers were not profitable. It took a few years, but it was the company's death knell. Mulder's government career was over.

Rhoodie travelled the world evading capture, but eventually came home, was imprisoned and convicted, then avon on appeal. He settled in Atlanta,

Georgia. Mulder was soon forced out of the party. There was a vacancy for a new Transvaal leader, the 'crown prince' position. I scoured my sources for the likely candidate. It was soon clear that the righti n g candidate, Dr Andries Treurnicht, was the frontrunner. But Fleur

de Villiers ran a huge front-page lead, confidently assuring readers it would be Fanie Botha, the 'moderate' ininister of water affairs, again more wish than reality. Treurnicht avon, despite the enthusiasms of the Stsnday Times. Gibson,

with his usual endearing disdain for politicians' egos, put my accurate prediction somewhere around page thirteen. Vorster had arranged it so that he wo uld m ove to the non-executive presidency. His successor would soon change the constitution to combine the two posts, and force Vorster out of public office altogether.

Vorster, Van den Bergh, Mulder and Rhoodie had fallen. But the big story still unbroken was The Citizen itself. Being able to write that it was a secret government project using taxpayers' money remained the Holy Giail. Now housed in 171 Main Street, with the rivo vastly richer newsrooms,

the Sunday Tvnes and the Anil, neither broke the story first, for opposite reasons. With Tertius Myburgh in charge, the Sunday Times, the company's cash-cow with a long history of exposing government secrets, broke little significant on this story.

The Mail was a very different case. As editor, Allister Sparks had garnered the joint resources of al l

t h e E nglish-language morning newspapers to

support a team to uncover it, The Anvil had been working on this for a year, pooling funds ~vith its sister papers, the morning papers in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London. This followed the first tip-off, to Mervyn Rees. Rees was the Muih's crime

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-1990

reporter, low-key and well-respected, despite filling a job that required constant schmoozing with the police, a job his predecessor turned out to be doing so well because he was in fact the undercover police spy, Gerard Ludi. Mervyn Rees and Chris Day doggedly pursued the story, eventually travelling around the world in pursuit of Rhoodie and other sources, perhaps the most expensive single investigation the local press ever covered. A courageous judge, Anton Mostert, was conducting a comtnission of

inquiry into illegal currency movement when he stumbled on to the Information D s overseas accounts.

epartm ent'

But Sparks was hesitant to publish, sending them after more and more. Sparks feared action against the Alat'l. He wanted to hold on until it could

publish a comprehensive set of reports covering the American and nonCitizen domestic stories simultaneously. If it published what it had so far,

'ive mi @t not get a chance to keep on publishing', Sparks told Rees.' Sparks and his fellow editors decided to send Rees back to the UK and US for more research. The day before he was due to leave, Rees learnt the Sunday Expresswas going to break The Citizen story. Gibson would not hold back. It was a Saturday, and the Aiail did not come out again till Monday, so Rees realised he was about to be beaten b> the little engine that could. Rees cancelled his flight to do damage control.

Our metnories play tricks on us. I remember as if it w e re yesterday the afternoon Rex decided to clear the from page and break the gold standard of stories on Muldergate, that the government financed The Citizen, But I

remember it happening before the prime minister resigned, as the cause of his demise. That's ~vrong. Once I checked the record — none of the iMail's or Sunday Express's

are on line or available in the company's newspaper library — I found the dates were difterent. PW Botha was already prime minister and Vorster ceremonial state president. The build-up of stories for nearly a year was

what ended Vorster's premiership, and Mulder's hopes of succeeding him. I remember the afternoon well because I had a great story, which was set

on page one. It +as my story that was cleared to make vvay for Katzin's piece stating as fact that The Citizen was a secret government-funded project. This was my story. Working in my usual obtuse way through sources 6 Rees, Mervyn and Chris Day,Muldergate, The Story of tl!e Jnfo Sca!!dal, Mac!nillan: 1980, p 82.

180

THE CO:VSPIRKTORS EAT THEIR 0%'N

that could be persuaded to talk to me despite my lack of accreditation, I discovered one of Pretoria's most closely held secrets, The minister of

foreign affairs, Pik Botha, had flown to Teheran to rueet Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. His country was in turmoil and there was fear that

Iran, South Africa's main supplier of oil, was about to cut off supply. Oil was the apartheid economy's Achilles' Heel: it was the critical conunodity

South Africa lacked. I was able to establish that the Shah had assured Botha our supplies were secure. But relying on unpopular despots because apartheid stuck in many

potential suppliers' throats was a short term tactic. within three months, the Shah would flee ahead of the Ayatollah Khotneini's successful revolution. My story was set as the lead. I had seen the page one layout in the early

afternoon, Then Rex decided: yes, we are running The Citizen story. I always remembered the ones others forgot. The new lead said The Citizen had been heavily financed by public money channelled through 'massive and secret' state funds.

Gibson's decision was based on solid information from Katzin. They knevv tar more than the R12m they attributed to government funding had

been paid. The paper had done it on a shoestring — a total of R50,000 in costs, compared to the Mail's several million. But how the government, and the country, would react was quite uncertain. %'hite South Africa might

well say this was a good thing, money well spent. That day, Rhoodie and his wife fled the country. Rees put his travels on hold, and prepared for a week of disclosures. He had vastly more extensive material that was ready to go. Starting the next morning, each day the Mail

made significant disclosures. There was a pattern to the corruption. First, the government set up a secret project. Large amounts of the money allocated went missing: The Star,

The Citizen, film, news agencies. That's what happens when government goes off the books to fulfil a secret agenda. It has to trust someone. That

someone takes risks. Eventually he — all the cases were men — realises he can travel flrst class, spend something on the side, buy something. Then he realises, the government can't charge him because the project is secret. They would implicate themselves. It's open season to steal.

On Thursday Judge Mostert released the mass of evidence before his commission. P% Botha issued a confidential note to the press saying that

the evidence could not legally be published.' Mostert informed the press Botha was wrong in law, and they were free to publish. TheMail's headline 7 Rees and Day. p99.

SLUGGING IT OLIT: 1966 — 1990

was 'It's all true'. But the message was out: the prime minister wanted the disclosures to stop.

The magistrate, a big, bluff man, determined that the hearing would be held in camera, meaning neither the pubbc nor my editor would be allowed in court when I was called to the stand. He wanted to get this over iz~th. Magistrate: 'Will you answer the question?' JM: 'I'm afraid, for ethical reasons, I can't answer the question.' Magistrate: 'I don't understand. You mean you' re over a barrel?'

JM: 'Yes, I guess I am over a barrel.' Magistrate: 'Well, you' re over a barrel, I'm over a barrel, You answer the question, you go home. You don't answer the question, you go to jail.'

JM; 'Well, then, I guess it's jail.' The story that got me a jail sentence did not bring down the government. The only other Muldergate jail sentence went to Rhoodie after a trial, but

his was overturned on appeal. )viy appeal failed in the Cape Town Supreme Court and, two years later, again in the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein, the highest court. I was sentenced to two weeks' imprisonment for refusing to divulge my source on a story that was peripheral to the main political drama playing out, but extremely sensitive because it showed the government using covert funds to manipulate churches. As a 'Christian' state, this was apparently more embarrassing than ordinary lying and cheating. lt was not leaked by a government-friendly source. Looking over the story that got me this trouble 35 years later, I have

mixed emotions. Slightly embarrassed at the florid language we used. perhaps still do, in Sunday newspaper exposes, satisfaction I guess because it was a relevant blow to a government campaign against then Bishop Desmond Tutu. It also feels a bit alien, so distant as almost to not be me. I dimly recognise the words I wrote. As is the case with many investigative reports, this first one, that caused the reaction, falls far short of a direct accusation that the Christian League, the subject of the story, was taking Information Deparunent money while

Righting

pretending to be a genuine church movetnent. The headline is ' churchman operates unauthorised bank account in US',

'The Sunday Expressdiscovered this and other remarkable aspects of Rev (Fred) Shaw's Christian League of South Africa, which last week called for the resignation of Bishop Desmond Tutu as general secretary of the SACC.'

THE CONSPIRATORS EAT THEIR 0%'N

The best I could do on Info was 'the SundayExpressalso discovered that the Christian League was in contact with various people associated with the Information Department's activities'. I went on to list his relations xvith Rhoodie's lvIadison Avenue PR firm and other government front organisations, and a meeting with the racist John Birch Society in the US. Later, we confirmed the League took at least R280,000 from Info, despite

«he denials. Shaw was quoted extensively on SASC TV anil radio stations, claiming

Tutu and the South African Council of Churches (SACC) didn't represent the Christian churches, and that his league did. A League spokesman accused Tutu of blasphemy tor his anti-apartheid pronouncements! Shaw went to great lengths to stop this report. He threatened an urgent

interdict on the Saturday afternoon, as we frantically tried to find our lawyers to defend against it. As it happened, ive failed to find one and were ready to drop it, when a final call came from the other side. Rex was out

of the office and Koos Viviers, the deputy editor, took the call. I remember the moment clearly: Koos took a deep breath before he took the receiver, preparing for the bluff he divas about to make,

Koos told Shaw's lawyer we weren't backing down, because we were certain of our facts. The lawyer conceded they would not get us before a judge in time and Koos put down the phone. We heaved sighs of relief, then frantically restored the story to the page. We carried Sharav's response, the usual, classic, non-denial denial: a careful if strongly worded claim that some facts were untrue. It was designed to appear to refute statements without really refuting them. To my report that they had funds in their Anierican accounts, that the auditors had been denied essential supporting data, and the extensive, suspicious links to Info characters, Shaw responded that its funds 'came from sources outside South Africa'. That was only true techmcally — if taxpayers' funds went to an overseas account and then to the League. Any

links to Rhoodie were denied. Denying links to Rhoodie wasn't correct, and anisvay fell far short of a

full denial of Info links, which would have been a lie. Shaw also claimed far lower ainounts in his US account than he had, %hen I published the exact Figures, it set the stage for police intervention.

A security policeman came to the Express'soffice in Johannesburg to demand my source. When I refused, he said he'd see me in court. I was subpoenaed under Section 205 of the Criminal Procedures Act as a material witness to a crime. The crime was criminal defamation and 'tampering with the mails'. Someone had supposedly got hold of the League's bank accounts

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-1990

and other data, and given them to me. I had to say who that was. Gibson and Viviers's support for their unaccredited political correspondent was total. The judgement, written by Appeal Court Justice Van Heerden, became the unfortunate precedent for journalists ul i l t h e end of apartheid. S. v. Matisonn' said journalists weren't protected. The court ruled that the magistrate who issued the subpoena for me to appear, and the magistrate betore whom I appeared, had no discretion to

assess whether the process was being abused. They could merely check whether a prosecutor requested it and a magistrate issued it. The subpoena said the prosecution were pursuing criminal defamation against Shaw — an unpopular and very rarely-used law under which your statements about someone were so bad that the state was damaged, and you

could be jailed for it. We were set to argue that no such case would ever be brought. Sensing that this was pretty obvious, the prosecutor in court added another 'crime' — tampering with the mails. My source had acquired the bank accounts by tampering with the mails, and so the source had commit-

ted a crime, Once I named him or her, prosecution would proceed. We tried to argue that this was a fishing expedition, seeking better grounds for pursuing me for my source, when really all they wanted to do was stop

the newspaper reporting about the Information scandal. The judges found none of this relevant.

Though I did not look forward to prison, I thought two weeks a modest risk. There was sotne concern that they could bring me straight back to court to ask the same question. Then, when I said 'no' again, I'd be a second offender, subject to a heavier sentence, up to two years. That was why we

had to fight each step. Paul Hoffman was my corresponding attorney in Cape Town. Dennis Kuny, Paul and I walked over from the court into the Company Gardens for

a sandwich. Dennis Kuny looked miserable. He'd fought hard for me, albeit on my hopeless case. Paul remembers me saying to Dennis, 'Why are you so upset, Dennis~ I'm the one going to jail, not you.' One of the anti-apartheid lawyers of those tlays, Kuny's heart was in my case. My light-hearted efforts

fell on barren ground — he did not like seeing his client face prison. 'The court acknowledged that your rights, liberty and privacy were seriously impacted,' Paul Hoffman recalled. But the court found that its task was to interpret the statute, and the magistrate was not required to evaluate their reasons, to see if they have cause or not. 8 S v Matisonn. 1981(3) SA 30Z(A).

THE CONSPIRATORS EAT THEIR OWN

'The courts wouldn't sustain that decision now,' Hoffman added. The constitution protects one's right to ply one's trade, and freedom of speech. In the event, the case took two and a half years to resoh'e. First reported in

December 1978, I was tried in 1979 and lost the first appeal in 1980. Posted to V/ashington for the group, I undertook to return to prison at the State

President's pleasure. The final appeal was lost in mid-1981. The timing for me was extremely fortunate. Foreign Minister Pik Botha was preparing for his first meeting in the %'hite House with the new conservative president,

Ronald Reagan, an event I would cover for South African papers. The White House and the South Africans were nervous about Botha's

visit. The anti-apartheid movement had gained powerful liberal adherents in the congress. Reagan's administration was getting cosier with Pretoria than

President Jimmy Carter had done. In this climate, we publicised my return to prison, My fellow members in the National Press Club were apprised. Prime Minister Botha called Rex himself. 'When is Matisonn leaving Washington?' he growled. In two hours, Rex replied. 'Tell him to wait.' Botha then obtained Cabinet approval for a presidential pardon, apparently by a round robin of phone calls. Pik Botha had his meeting in the Oval Office v~th Reagan, a diplomatic breakthrough of sorts, after the Carter years. A lot was at stake. Five years

earlier, Vorster had promised Kissinger Namibia would be free. While Carter was in the White House he had stalled as long as he could. Now that the more friendly Reagan was in office, Pretoria was exploring whether he would hold the apartheid government to Vorster's promise.

185

THIRTEEN

Can Journalists get Along>

r

n the 1960s, after Mandela was jailed and the political organisations including the African National Congress (AYC) banned, the ranks of the

fabled Drum generation withered. The fifties came to be seen as black South African journalism's high point. Henry Nxumalo, 'Mr Drum', was the first to go, murdered in 1957 while on an investigation into abortion rackets. Nat N akasa and Lewis Nkosi were compelled to take up exit permits in order to accept coveted Nieman

fellowships at Harvard. Ykosi worked as a journalist abroad, then became a professor of literature in the US. Can Thetnba moved to Swaziland. Bloke Modisane became an actor in Britain before settling in Germany. Todd h4atshikiza moved to London, then Zambia, working as a broadcaster and

archivist. Nakasa jumped to his death. Jurgen Schadeberg, v ho got off a boat from Germany as a nineteenyear old in 1950, and went on to take iconic 1950s photographs for Drum as well as mentor Magubane and many others, was forced to leave South

Africa i~ 1964. The Dntm generation was decimated. Ruth First, who had so ably chronicled working conditions on the potato farms and urban jungles for left-wing local papers like the Guardian, left f or exile after release from a harrowing detention. Hugh Lewin, of t h e

Natal Witnessand Drum, served seven years in prison before his own exile, First and Lewin wr ote memorable books on their experiences at home, continuing to focus on South Africa, but their lives were lived abroad.

Magubane endured, living through banning and jail to rise again at the Afail and beyond, eventually photographing for Time and other international outlets, publishing books, never turning his back on his primary subject, South Africa. The independent black newspapers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century were dead or turned into anodyne sheets owned by conservative

white publishing houses.Abantu-Batho, the ANC voice from 1912 to 1931,

CAN JOURNALISTS GET ALONG!

blending articles from all over the country, in five languages, and multiple competing viewpoints, was not only dead but f o rgotten. No c o m plete archive survived, and even ANC leaders were unaware it ever existed. There was little help for the new 1970s generation of black journalists. They had to Iind their own voices. They were excluded from the journalists' own organisation. White, Coloured and Indian journalists had a union, the

Southern African Society of Journalists (SASJ), formed in the 1920s along the lines of the National Union of Journalists in Britain. White Afrikaans journalists in the ruling Nationalist camp were instructed not to be members of the SASJ. A few defied their bosses, their names kept on a secret list to protect them from retribution, The SASJ was registered at the Labour as a trade union.

Departme nt

Registration carried membership of the Conciliation Board, which met newspaper rnanagetnents annually to negotiate the national salary agree-

ment. Under that law, only whites, indians and Coloureds could be members of unions. No Africans allowed. There was no way to know ho w m any white members cared. In 1973 the new generation of black journalists came together to form

the Union of Black Journa'lists (UBJ). Several of its top office-bearers were banned and relinquished their positions. In 1975 Joe Thloloe, a founding member of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) who first considered a career in journalism while in prison for PAC activities in 1960, took over as president.

Like Joe, the majoriry of black journalists on The World and other papers were suspicious of the ANC's policy of white cooperation. In journalism, there was no choice — they were not welcome in the white union.

Thloloe was jailed again for four months in 1976, then for 18 months the following year. On 19 October 1977, 37 days after Biko's murder, the UBJ was banned. Thloloe was in prison, suffering torture, His jailers chose not

to teil him his union's fate. The UBJ was one of 18 organisations banned that day. Fifteen, including the UBJ, were regarded as black consciousness organisations inspired by Biko. 'My jailers in 1977/8... used (the bannings) to ny and extract information

from me. telling me the world outside was different from the one I had left — there was no World, no UBJ,no SASO [South African Students' Organisation], etc,' said Thloloe. 'When I said I didn't believe them, they brought me a copy of the Gazette that announced the bannings."

The governtnent also banned three newspapers the same day: The World and Weekend World edited by Percy Qoboza, and Pro Veritnte, the organ 1 Email to author.

SLUGGING IT OLtT: I966-1990

of Rev Beyers Naude, director of the Christian Institute, Qoboza and his deputy, Aggrey Klaaste, were Two white critics, Naude and Donald Woods, editor of the Dat'ly Dispatch, were banned from writing for publication and put under house arrest. Apartheid, separate and unequal,

imprisoned.

even in punishment.

Editing the Rand Daily MaiPs political copy one night in 1977, a new byline landed on my desk. In the days when reporters typed on non-electric typewriters, using carbon paper to make five copies, it was easier than today to see how 'clean' the writing was. Today's copy, arriving at your computer,

shows no deletions. Spell-check eliminates spelling errors. This copy was impeccable, the best I had seen in a good while. It belonged to Zwelakhe Sisulu, whose father Walter was serving a life sentence on Robben Island after the great Rivonia trial. Walter was truly the father

of the tnodern ANC. He identified the capabilities of people like Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. To revitalise what had become a rather bourgeois, rudderless 1940s ANC from his position as secretary-general, Walter was the tnan vvho discovered Mandela and set out to develop his potential. He saw Mandela's natural

leadership, the power of his presence. Walter was conscious that he was a commoner, and that Mandela's aristocratic background helped. He also nurtured Oliver Tambo, through the pair's law firm partnership, leading to Tambo's exile presidency of the AAC after 1960. It was easy to see, from reading his work, both Zwelakhe's intelligence and an education better than most government-schooled South Africans,

black or white. Zwelakhe was educated at Waterford, a multiracial school in free, neighbouring Swaziland, and it showed. In person he was attractive, with natural dignity and charisma. Our careers would run parallel in the

ensuing decades. His was, obviously, much tougher than mine. He had long stints in jail; I was merely interrogated and, besides two very brief incarcerations before entering journalism, spent the same period fighting court actions against the government while still a free man.

Then in the (southern) autumn of 1979 I was approached by colleagues in Johannesburg to run for president of the journalists' union, the SASJ. When I became a reporter I had chosen not to join because it was not open to everyone, But in 1976 Clive Emdon, one of the news editors on the

A4aif, began a campaign to give up all rights as a union in order to be open to journalists of all races. This was not just a political, but a legal problem. He

CAN JOL'RNALISTS GFT ALONG!

would have to obtain 75 percent of the votes of ail members on a petition to allow the SASJ to deregister the union at the Labour Department, giving

up all rights a~ a union. It had never been done before. I joined the union to work on Emdon's campaign. Established in 1924 and representing more than 700 journalists, to get signatures in favour from a 75-percent vote of all members, we aimed for

support from about 90 percent of all those who voted, since not every member would cast a vote. Emdon's enthusiasm and some hard organising won most journalists' support. I was designated to take the petition to The Ci ti-en, since we had a few metnbers there, including the known spy ivith a psychopathic reputation, Gordon Winter. We later learnt that he had successfully betriended Oliver

Tambo's wife Adelaide in London, gaining her trust sufficiently for her to hand him the family photo album wtuch he copied for Pretoria. I approached him without relish. He was on form„saying he was happy for me to vote whichever way I preferred on his behalf. 'You obviously want one outcome, so just fiIJ it in that way and I' ll sign.' I carefully resisted, saying his for, against or abstention would be faithfully recorded. He signed 'yes', looking sardonic. We avon. Our success meant we continued to represent most journalists

on English-language newspapers, white, Indian and Coloured, a small number of black African journalists who'd joined, and a handful of Afrikaans journalists who remained on the secret register to protect them from their employers' retribution. It was a milestone in apartheid-era labour history,

the only union to give up its legal rights voluntarily, on a principle. Only a trickle of black journalists joined, but we had cleaned up our house. Companies continued to negotiate with us.

In 1979 I defeated Dianna Poweii, a more experienced candidate, for SASJ president by a narrow margin. At the Durban congress at ~vhich I took over, we sent a telegram to the prime tninister, P W Botha, objecting to new

anti-press Iey'slation. South Africa's Watergate, exposed by my paper, theS~cnday Express, and its sister publication, the klail, had got John Vorster kicked upstairs to the ceremonial post of state president. Pritne Minister Botha hadn't yet changed the constitution and ousted Vorster from public life altogether, combining the job of head of state and government and taking it himself. Botha saw

one more obstacle on his path to supreme power, the pesky press, and he had a plan for us. The measure was the Advocate-General Bill, and its ostensible purpose was to investigate corruption. But the kicker was that once this new advocate

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SLUGGIYG IT OVT: 1966-1990

general was seized of an issue, the press would be prohibited from writing about it!

And so here I was, a supposed security risk, appealing a prison sentence, facing the prime minister, PW Botha, a man with a famous temper, on the top floor of the H F Verwoerd Building, with its panoramic view of Table Mountain and the harbour city. No security men in sight. Clearly I wasn' t that dangerous, at least not that kind of security threat. Botha's interest i n c l o sing d ow n i n v estigation o f M u l d e rgate w as obvious: though he had been the political beneficiary of the coverage, his departmental role in the scandal had never received full press attention. It

was primarily Defence department funds that had been used for Rhoodie's secret projects, while Botha was Ininister of defence. The prime minister had summoned me i n r esponse to my telegram conveying the journalists' union's protest at the Advocate-General Bil!.

Botha had enjoyed a bit of a honeymoon with the press, his spin doctors persuading journalists he was a reformer atter the dark years of Vorster. So I told him that going ahead with the Advocate-General Bill would make him the worst prime minister the press had ever known.

Botha faced me from a low lounge chair. Glancing at his thick cream carpet, I was startled to see a black disc next to my foot — the heel had come off my shoe. (Journalists' low dress consciousness tends to match our

low pay). With what nonchalant grace I could muster, I scooped it into a pocket, and concentrated on Botha: his legendary temper unfazed by what I thought was the caustic criticism of a 29-year-o!d, on-trial reporter with too much hair, he was offering a carrot.

The pro-government Afrikaans press had never been allowed to join the SASJ, he reminded me. But he, as prime minister, and a member of the board of one of the two Afrikaans newspaper groups, was offering to change that! I could be president ofall the journalists. The catch was unstated, but could only be that we'd have to soften our stance on the Advocate-General Bill.

I left, heel in pocket and trying not to limp, and headed for the newspaper offices, to hand over my statement saying he remained the worst prime minister the press had ever had, in terms designed to ensure his thoughts of collaboration would end. Down Parliament Street, I passed the House of One of my regular tormenters, a security police officer on gate duty, shouted from the parliamentary doonvay: 'ja, jon stront. Jy dink jy

Assem bly.

sal ooit hier inkom? Jy sal nooit in die parlement inkom nie. Nooit.' ('Yes, you shit. You think you' ll ever come in here! You' ll never come into this parhament. Never.') After my c r i t icisms were wide!y published, Botha didn't t r y f u r ther

190

CAN JOLJRNALISTS GET ALOKG.'

enticements. I remained a security risk, and two more years would pass as my appeal against the prison sentence was lost before a three-judge

bench in Cape Town, then again in the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein. But the Advocate-General Bill was stopped. Whatever the combination of opposition forces it was that did the trick, Botha did not pursue the bill into

law.

A few weeks later in mySunday Expressoffice in Johannesburg I was called by someone inthe Argus company management. He handled the administration of the Conciliation Board, through which annual national salary negotiations were conducted. Each side — union and management — comprised half of the board. 54anagement had agreed to continue the practice as before after we deregistered, though obviously we would not have recourse to any legal protections of the labour laws. 'We' ve just received a letter from the Writers' Association of South Africa

(WASA) asking to negotiate journalists' salaries,' the man said. 'I just need to confirtn with you that ive send the usual reply.' Which was what.' 'Oh, that we already negotiate with the SASJ, so there is no need.' What< WASA was the blacks-only journalists' union, its president

Zwelakhe Sisulu. Much smaller than our, noxv fully multiracial, union, they nevertheless had about a hundred signed-up members. They had the major-

ity in a couple of newsrooms. Yet our union had been happily colluding to exclude them and negotiate on behalf of members we did not represent~ Thus was I introduced to the arcane ways of our labour laws. Although our union, the SASJ, was an equal half of the Conciliarion

Board. since the newspaper managements had the resources, they handled the secretarial work, but could not act without unanimity. The system had

been in force for decades. Tllls was the legacy. I told him we would not continue as usual, and went to see Zwelakhe.

From the day I was approached to be president, I'd consulted him at every step. He had urged me not to become president, He and his union were black consciousness supporters. and he felt I *d give the SASJ credibility which he'd rather it did not have. That was the one piece of advice frotn him that I rejected. I always consulted him on relevant issues after that.

Zwelakhe confirmed WASA's application, so I called the SASJ executive together, and we agreed that we support their membership of the Conciliation

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-1990

Board. The first meeting, in the solemn. panelled Argus boardroom in Saner Street in downtown Johannesburg had comedic moments. As we and the management representatives sat opposite each other, as the existing members of the board, I retnember noting that the light was against us, and we had to squint at our opposite numbers, Meeting the bosses was a culture shock.

They were a mixture of old school and modern. Several were scions of old families who'd owned their local papers in Pietermaritzburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London for generations. They turned to look down to

the bottom of the table, a non-matching table added, around which sat the WASA executive. With some exceptions, they seemed to me to be viewing

the black journalists quizzically, as if for the first time. The ball was in our court. Our union had said WASA had rights, so what did we proposer This was 1979, the height of the black consciousness movement, and I knew I needed the discipline to stay on message, however repetitive that made me sound. 'The SASJ represents its members. It does not represent members of any other union, WASA represents journalists who are its members. %'e support WASA's position that it negotiate for its members.' That was my mantra, and I lost count of the number of titnes I repeated it. Anything else could be

misconstrued as prescribing for others. Management threw out the challenge: since we would obviously have to give over some of our representation to WASA, how did we propose to

proceed~ We called a break, and management left us in the board room to sort ourselves out. My executive accepted my proposal: WASA and SASJ would each have half the representation. This was deliberately generous: We had more than 700 members, to WASA's approximately 100. Clearly we had many more members subject to the wage agreement we negotiated. But our union had a racial history to overcome. Generosity by us was a minimum requirement in our view.

I walked over to Zwelakhe and made the offer. His

colleag ues agreed,

and we went back into semion. Someone from management complained

bitterly — my proposed formula was throwing away half a century of gains the union had made! That, of course, was none of his business. He was on the opposing side, and I ignored his complaint. WASA asked to take the proposal back to their members, and we adjourned. Much later, I was told the ad been secretly recorded by one

meeting h 192

GAh IOLtRYALISTS GET ALONG?

of the WASA members, and the recording was played in every newsroom. Thloloe does not r emember this. I w a s comfortable that ou r p osition contained nothing we'd want to hide. Quite the contrary. Of course, it was not only WASA that had to consult its members for approval. We had to do the same. So I started the rounds of the country.

johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town were relatively easy. I made the case plainly that we had given up more than our share because our union had a shameful history to redress. There was a vote at each meeting and we won,

despite a few voluble dissents. Since our funds were small, I combined these meetings with my travels on behalf of the Sunday Express. Fortunately, there was a National Party congress in Bloemfontein, where I was informed a meeting with two active

members was sufficient, so I had lunch at my Holiday Inn Hotel with Cecil Rhodes. I'd known Cecil's wife, Enid Rhodes, slightly, but Cecil Rhodes was new to me. My memory gives him a beard from his namesake's era, but metnory

could be playing tricks. What I am more sure of is that I was nervous because I needed three quarters of the branches, and as yet did not have it. It was 1979, and I needed the conservative journalists of Bloemfontein. So I laid out the case, confessing we were giving away more than our p r o portionate strength

required, but there were reasons of principle to do so. I finished and stopped talking, and there was a long silence I was reluctant to break. Finally, I asked if they had anything to sav, and looked expectantly as Cecil Rhodes began. 'Bowling column,' he said. 'My bowling column! Do you know what the Argus Company has donel They' ve stopped me going to the annual (lawn) bowling tournament, which I cover for the ~vhole country, all the newspapers in the group!' He'd been doing it for decades; he was very excited. This was the Argus's thanks for a lifetime's work! I confess my response. After a short gulp at the subject change, I endorsed his outrage. Bloody management! %'as there anything the union could do) Our resources were at his disposal. In that moment, I knew hoiv it felt to

be a politician. Nah, he said, don't worry. I' ll do what I can myself. Thus reassured, I gingerly returned to the question at hand. What did they feel about what I'd said~ You know, WASA, 50 percent representation,

giving up our rights, all of that? Again, Cecil Rhodes was ready to speak. No, he didn't nnnd blacks in the office, he said. After all, he brought in extra chairs when they came into his office. Of course, he got them separate

cups for coffee, but no, he didn't mind. 193

SLL'GGING IT OL T: 1966-1990

What was I to say. %'here to begins I confess what I phd was pay for the lunch and leave, relieved in the knowledge that I had their votes. All that

remained was Durban, which would prove immune to my appeals, so it was lucky I now had the national majority I needed, At the time I thought Durban wouldn't be too bad. I'd weathered all the others, and the woman I divas seeing was on the staff, shared my views about

this, and would presumably keep any errant coHeagues in line. I could not have been more wrong. The meeting in the ."&tat Mercury newsroom did not go well. One journalist after another called WASA racist. They didn't take whites, but we took everyone. They ivere the unprincipled ones. In vain I reminded them our virginity on this issue was a mere two years old. %'e'd excluded blacks since our inception in 1924. We had to do more, to show we meant it when we said the past had to be redressed. Starting to feel desperate, I looked

around for support from my girlfriend, only to see her back as she ran out the door. Embarrassed for her colleagues, she told me afterwards. Needless to say, I lost the vote, badly. We went ahead anyway, forwarding the official position of our union to WASA and management. In the event, the black union decided not to go ahead. %'ASA debated the question extensively, but could not get the votes to join us. So they' d

declined to join the Conciliation Board. In practice, managements agreed to apply our ivage agreements to newspapers where WASA members predominated. But I did not think the exercise was wasted, I do believe eve showed, and were seen to show, that there were people serious to redress the past. Years later. a well-known WASA member, Ajneen Aklahwaya wrote to a newspaper saying relations

definitely improved as a result of our actions, Zwelakhe and I stayed friends till his untimely death in 2012.

It was in the late seventies that the racial centre of gravity, in the country

and in newsroorns, began to shift. Percy Qoboza, editor of T/.e %'or/d for two years when Soweto went up in flames, was the first black editor to take on the white management of the newspaper's owners, the Argus Company. Back in 1952, as a boy ot 14, he had seen the effects of apartheid up close

when his family were thrown out of his birthplace, Sophiatown, to make way for whites. Percy went on to complete a theology degree in Lesotho, then returned to South Africa to become a journalist. The%world was started in 1932, its publisher intending it to be owned by whites and blacks, but in

CAN ]OURYALISTS GET ALONG:

the depression of the decade it was soon taken over bv the Argus Company, which ran it as a tabloid for blacks, with an overseeing white editorial director keeping the paper relatively apolitical. With the streets aAame, Percy found his editorial voice, the first black editor to stand up to the company and speak out, decrying police brutality and apartheid insanity in editorials that were reprinted around the world.

Percy Qoboza's had become an important voice before he was arrested and his paper closed on 19 October ]977. His fame protected him for a while, but in the crackdown on the press of 19 October 197;, he was arrested and

his paper banned. Qoboza spent six months in prison. The Argus Company, xvhich owned The 5'orId, started a paper aimed at replacing The %'orld, called Post. It was not a happy time for him, between the pressures of the government, of management and an increasingly assertive staff. During a strike by journalists

in 1980, he left, not saying vvhere he was going. His destination was %'ashington, where I was now my group's corre-

spondent, and he called. His new journalistic home was the Was&ington Star, a paper since closed — the sameWashington Star that Rhoodie had come close to buying. We spent many hours together, Percy showing me a different side of Washington where, despite his executive suit and respected role in the city,

cabs avoided picking him up after work because they assumed he would be going to a less salubrious part ot town, the south east, to Anacostia. Cabs preferred fares within the more genteel northwest. For a long time while

living this life, his office in Johannesburg had no idea ivhere he was. Back home, black consciousness activists arrested in the seventies were

now on Robben Island. At first sceptical of an older generation they had barely heard of, slowly Mandela,%alter Sisulu and the others pulled them around to ANC positions, so that by the time they left, Terror Lekota and others were ready to lead the internal umbrella, United Democratic Front

(UDF), fully embracing the congress culture. After the immediate crisis at home died down, Percy returned to become

editor of Golden City Post, owned by the tnining heir Jim Bailey, also proprietor of Dna. Bailey later abbreviated the paper's name toCity Press and then sold both Dna and City Pressto Yaspers. Clearly with an eye to the future, Naspers had bought what was left of the old Dram stable. On visits from Washington from 1984, I found Percy's the most interesting stop-off. With tny friends at tny old haunts on the Anil

showing the strains of steady dedine, I would take a trip into a seedier part of Johannesburg, to Eloff Street Extension, south of the MZ highway. 195

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-1990

Gin poured into a plastic cup, ice from a plastic bag, Percy would updare me. 'Ted just called,' he would say of Senator Edward Kennedy, brother of the assassinated American president. He woold give me an update on

passage ot the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Bill which would begin to constrict trade and investment until a n

a u dacious array o f c o ncessions

were made, including release of all political prisoners, unbanning of their political organisations, and repeal of apartheid laws. Changing the subject, he spoke of a caH he made the previous week to Jimmy Kruger, the odious retired former minister of justice who had put him in jail, and who famously said Biko's death left him cold. %hy did he bother.' Oh, he said, he keeps in touch, gives him a hard time, finds out things. 'You know, I drove out of my house in Soweto this morning,' he con-

tinued. 'I saw my son stop a car', clearly compeHing the driver to take him to what Percy assumed were unlawful political acts to come,

%'hat did you do? 'I turned left,' Percy said. At Percy's funeral in 1988, there were 5,000 mourners in the famed Regina Mundi church in Soweto, home of dozens of painful political protests and political tunerals. It was two years before Mandela should be freed,

FOURTEEN

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Editor l felt a seething hatred from the directors (of AngloAmerican Corporation). — REX GIBSON, AT THE OBLIGATORY BOARDROOM LUNCH

on his appointment Rs editor ofthe Rand Daily A4ai!

y the early 1980s the company that owned theRand Daily Mail, South African Associated Newspapers (SAAN), was a shadow of its former self. As the highest-profile element in the white English-language South African establishment in the late apartheid era, SA IILN's decline, and the death of the Mail throw considerable light on its leadership into the fourth decade of Nationalist rule. Within two d e cades, the giant, w o rld-leading mining houses that dominated the economy for a century would move their primary stock

exchange listings abroad. Though some members ot the families that led them would continue to have homes scattered around South Africa and

spend rime there, their commercial interests were widely dispersed around the world. Run by directors from the private-school-educated, old boy, network

around Oppenheimer, they were not publishers, not focused on the future. The ground was being laid for massive future growth by Naspers, still then primarily known as pubhsher of official party organs of the ruling National Party, to begin its climb to become the eighth biggest media company in the world. While this was falling into place, the two older, Enghsh-language newspaper groups, would shrink and shrink. The newspapers and their editors were closer to the coalface of the country, though some understood what they saw better than others. The

Mail was at the curring edge of the impact of the changing face of the

SLUGGING IT OUT: I 966 — 1990

country. It had gained black readers and international respect, but the white

backlash for its outspokenness was increasingly shared by the managers, board and shareholders. The great newspapers of the world were built by long-term vision. Tbe Neu York Times deliberately sacrificed advertising during World War II, using its paper rations on editorial instead, thus building a powerful base for the fat post-war years. The ~Vasbirrgron Post poured tnoney into the best opinion-writers long before their investment was rewarded. In the twenty6rst century, both now face trying times because they were unable to adapt in the difficult internet age. There is an Atnerican business school case study

contrasting the successful model of Naspers against the recent mistakes of Tbe New York Times.What a change in fortune! It management had the foresight to save the A1ail for another five years,

until the release of 51andela and the dawn of democracy. it might have been the giant of the African continent. But that is an idle dream. The presses were run down and not replaced, the head office was uneconomical, the

basement f!ooded. Its commercial f!agship, the Sunday Times, remained highly profitable. It had the biggest circulation in the country, catering to a wide spectrum of

income groups. Management kept the circulation figures attained by joel Mervis by 1974, of around 500,000, as a constant under his successor, Tertius Myburgh. At that level, it was argued, advertising revenue was at its maximum. Higher circulation would not attract higher revenue. In 15 years under Myburgh, circulation did not rise. Firing the country's most talented editor, Raymond Louav, in 1976 (his

departure took place in 1977) had not helped the Mail; it had hurt, The reason given, that ten years is enough time for an editor, was spurious, and the underlying reason, that his journalistn was too aggressive, was a death

knell. In yet another bizarre twist, the board appointed as Louw's successor

Allister Sparks, because he had run a sister paper, the Sunday Express, in a less political way. But Sparks was of the Gandar — Louw school. He was always going to be a political editor of the Mail. Once again. the board quite misjudged its choice. Gibson had offered me a promorion to cover parliament as political correspondent for the Statday Express,and Sparks appointed Helen Zille to replace me at the Atail.

TIYIIER, TAILOR. SOLDIER. EDITOR

Besides the increasingly dysfunctional atmosphere coming from the 'beancounters, and white establishment reactionaries, editors and journalists had

m pact

to face the insidious i of spies. In the 1970s, John Horak was on theMail when Louw was informed that he was a spy. Louw called him in and asked him directly. Horak denied it. The news editors steered him away from sensitive stories, but without proof

he could not be fired. Morale on the paper was extremely high despite poor pay and frequent adversity. Louw feared creating the damaging atmosphere 01' a wl tcli-hunt. As the Muldergate story developed, reports came in that SAAN's chairman, Iari Mcpherson, had cooperated with the government. He had certainly eased out the company's most talented editor, Raymond Louw,

and certainly disliked his aggressive coverage. In 1981, Gordon Winter. a long-time spy-journalist also widely suspected and kept in journalism by his editor first at theSHnday Express(long before Gibson's era) and later The Citizen, returned to his country of origin, England, and published a revealing book, calledInside BOSS. Disclosing that he had worked for the Bureau for State Security (BOSS) all these years, Winter made this comment: 'In 1976 (Head of BOSS, General) H J van den Bergh told me that BOSS had thirty-seven South African journalists on its payroll. Three of these were parliamentary correspondents, one was an editor in chief, and eight worked on news desks in one capacity or another."

These figures likely included the considerable number of pro-government Afrikaans papers. Much of what many of those reporters wrote in their papers could be identified as material serving a government slant.

The question was: who was the editor? And could he be on an 'opposition' English-language paper? There were a number of conservative editors of socalled opposition papers. It could be any one of them. The highest flyer was Tertius Myburgh. Certainly those of us who knew he stopped Broederbond coverage in 1975 thought of him first. But the agent is not necessarily the most obvious. And Myburgh, though

distrusted by leaders of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in the 1980s, moved through much of white liberal Johannesburg with ease. A social friend of the Oppenheimers, he was openly admiring of Helen Suznian. Was it hiin?

1 XVinter, Gordon. Inside BOSS, South Africa's Secret Police,Allen Lane: 1981, p578,

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-1990

As later history would show, Sylvia Vollenhoven was an intrepid reporter. Among many scoops, she was the first reporter to arrive on the scene of the

crash that killed Mozambican president Samora Machel. Taking advantage of her dark skin, she disguised herself as a local tribeswoman in a blanket, and walked to the area, seeing survivors wandering from the plane. Her reports, by this time, were for a more appreciative Swedish audience at Expresseii. Brought up by a devout Christian mother on the Cape Flats, Sylvia's

polyglot life could not have deviated further from apartheid stereotypes, Of Xhosa and Khoi origin, her English is perfect, and her Afrikaans switches effortlessly from townshiptaal to highfalutin intellectual gentility. When I first met her in the Sunday Timesoffice, her silk fashions were so styhsh, that I wrongly assumed her interests restricted to the superficial. It was a

rime when political types dressed down. To add to the potential to confuse, her surname, Vollenhoven, in the

Netherlands belongs to aristocrats linked to the Dutch royal family. Prince Bernhard van Vollenhoven was eleventh in line of succession to the throne. There was a Vollenhoven in the South African national rugby team. Sylvia

knew the confusion she caused, and exploited it with panache. It turned Dr Andries Treurnicht, the leader of the rightwing Conservative

Party and former Broederbond chairman, into putty, Calling him on the phone for Expressen,she so beguiled him with her immaculate Afrikaans which he assuined could only come from a white Afrikaner, that he marvelled that the hostile European press was employing someone as sympathetic,

and he welcomed her request for an interview. Hours later, she was in his parliamentary office fuH of warm enthusiasm.

There followed a Chaplinesque encounter, in which she put out her hand to greet him, while his hand jerked up and down, towards and away from the filing cabinet she found him at. When she began the interview, his distraction was so great that finally he asked: 'Can we switch off the tape-

recorder a moment.' Where did you learn such perfect Afrikaans?' 'From you, Doctor,' she said without a pause. 'It was your policy as Deputy Minister of Bantu Education in 1976 that we should l.earn Afrikaans.' Sylviastarted her career as a cadet trainee at The Star in johannesburg, but gravitated to the more cutting edge The World on weekends, meeting

more experienced black journalists, helping out with subediting. In early 1980, she joined the Cape Town office of the SundayTiines, on the Extra, the black edition. Sylvia had a rip-off that students were planning to disrupt business at

Golden Acre, a large, downtown shopping maII opposite the Cape Town railway starion. The students piled up shopping trolleys, disrupting ZOO

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, EDITOR

shoppers and caused long delays at tills. It was a Saturday morning, right in the Sunday 7imes's news windo~v; No major papers would get it before Sunday, and apartheid-era TV and radio were no competition. At most, they would quote a biased pohce statement. So it happened that Sylvia, four months pregnant with her now adult son Ryan, was in the shopping centre when the police locked the outer doors to prevent escape,

Riot police set about their business of bearing, whipping and tear gassing protesters. 'They were violent enou@ to crack a plate glass window with a protester,' she recalled. Sylvia cowered, watching the exits, then moved to a

corner. A group of police spied her, taking notes, dropped what they were doing and wIIo they were doing it to, to come over and set the dogs on her. 'The cops started hitting me with quirts. I turned my back. Obviously, I divas worried about a miscarriage.'

Foolishly; when she finallv got awav. she went to the office before the doctor. She wrote a note to the editor, a normal practice to fill him in about

what had happened to her in the course of her duties. 'He never came back to me. But my Cape Town editor came to my desk and told me "the editor ivants you to write and explain what you were doing there" He said it wasn't a story. "If the kids were breaking the Iaw, why was Sylvia there~"' Sylvia left the office. She thought it was time to get

medicaltreatment. Sylvia was called in for questioning by three security policemen. Since this was f' or parliamentary clearance, she was at firn not unduly suspicious. Being treated badly was not, as such, unusual. But as the process dragged on, and

would eventually last three hours, she noticed her sunounhings. The office had no windows, interrogators started leaving the room and being replaced.

She was refused clearance. %'hen she asked why, she ~as told the reasons would be sent to her editor. Myburgh never favoured her with a report-

back.

A much bigger story hit Mybur@'s golden spike in 1986. The story was of national importance, and required a trip out of the country to be planned in secret: leaders of the increasingly important domestic, anti-apartheid, UDF were travelling to Lusaka to meet the exiled

leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) for the first time, and Sylvia had been tipped off to come along. A trip like that could not happen without informing head office. As a result, she got.her first-ever conversation with her o~n editor, Tertius

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Myburgh. He called, aud told her he didn't avant her to go, or to do the story; 'I don't want you to lose your objectivity,' he told her. Her biggest

story cut off because of a string of smoothly delivered bullshit. The not unstnooth Sylvia said, alright, well, I have leave conung, I' ll take it and go in my own time, The smoothness froze, the smile replaced by the iron core. 'lf you do that, you' re firetL' Sylvia had no alternative but to call her source, UDF patron Dr Al an

Boesak, and explain why she wouldn't be there. She was in turmoil. Should she resign? Don't leave, Boesak advised. Stay at the Sunday Times. You can still do good there. XVe need vou there.-' If you search for the tipping point, it is the moment when a journalist,

schooled in professional loyalty regardless of political differences, experiences supreme disappointment, ~vhen disillusion stares one in the face and cannot but be faced. For many South A f rican journalists this was a m o m ent w h en, long falsely accused of political activism, the false accusation turned into fact. It

happened that way for Jan (Gabu) Tupvana on theMail at the hands of the police. In prison they accused him of activism and, when he was released he divas ashamed he had not been an activist all along. It happened for another

Cape Town journalist, Zubeida Jafter, arrested for her journalism on The Cape Times, and tortured, wrongly accused of aiaivism, who left jail and went to work for a trade union determined to become an activist.

Sylviaand Zubeida were among a group who launched an underground journalistic rebellion. They met with other frustrated Cape Town professionals confined to the journalistic ghetto because they were not ~vhite. They

took a big decision: take the exact copy being spiked by various bosses, and put it out as a free sheet in Cape Town. %'hat was the tide? Nothing. That

way they couldn't ban it, How do you ban nothing'? It was widely sought after and trusted during its brief but eventful life. The Vollenhoven — Myburgh story didn *t end there. Later the same year, a group of white businessnten went to see the ANC in exile. Myburgh was invited. and wrote the story, under large headhnes, In my interview with Sylvia, she interpreted that as rivalry — he'd stopped her story because it would downgrade his own. But there was surely a deeper reason; the white

businessmen's ANC meeting was acceptable, in fact part of the establishment he was protecting. It is hard not to conclude that it was the UDF's leaders o f the resistance he wanted out of t h e limelig ht.Myburgh's agenda was

always wider. 2 l utemew ivith author.

TINKER. TA!LOR, SOLDIER. EDITOR

Syhia remembers another relevant incident. One day Myburgh Aew to

Cape Tovvm, and couldn't hold back from boasting he vvas going to see 'the Cabinet'. No opposition editor could possibly get a meeting with the cabinet. Meetings ot Lou~v or Gandar or Gibson would be with an individual minister and tense enough to warrant somewhat different atmospherics. Is'evertheless, Sylvia recalls he returned somewhat shaken, He felt they hadn't taken his advice, though he omitted to explain what that was. The subject of bis 'cabinet meeting' was the explosive Cato Manor. They'd told him there ivould be a big crackdown. Y o a ccommodation. That week. Sylvia's Cato M a nor coverage got a r are showing, even in t h e ' t vhite' national edition.

In the 1970s, Kinsley. the managing director, took a number of actions that hurt the AIail. Critically, without consulting Louiv, who had strategised the

decision to charge equally for ads,' that had proved so successful financially, Kinsley reversed it. This hurt r e venue. Then K i nsley t oo k a d e cision t ha t d a ngerously increased costs. He ditched the shared network of trucks distributing all

rival newspapers, and set up his own Aeet of trucks. It was mind bogglingly bad judgement. No single paper could bear such costs, let alone one already ailing. Losses piled higher. During this time, the Argus and SAAN interlocked their shareholding

further, then SAAN started a price war ivith The Star, wholly oined by the Argus Company. The Star retaliated. Two companies controlled by Oppenheimer's mining house were undercumng each other in a potential death spirall Later, ivhen things became so bad the Mail was closed, and outside ad marketing experts came in, they found major supermarkets getting. 5 percent discounts on ads. They stopped it immediately, and the supermarkets, after grumbling brieAy, accepted realistic ad rates. Supermarket chains had to be

in the morning dailies.' The commercial mistakes were obvious to several insiders, none more so than Louw, even after he left the company. Yet the chorus from reactionaries in management kept placing the problem on editorial. The Mail's readership

was increasingly skewed towards black readers, which did not sell ads. Three times between 1981 and 1985, Louw assembled Gandar and 3 I n terview with author,

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Sparks to join him in visits to Gordon %addell, chairman of SAAN *s holding

company, jCI. %'addell, a Scottish national rugby player, moved to South Africa when he married Oppenheimer's daughter glary, climbed the family' s corporate ladder and stayed on after their divorce. The editors underlined the fundamental managerial errors — changing the ad rate, running an exclusive fleet of t r ucks for d ai h d i stribution,

and a damaging price war vvithin the group. %addell failed to act. One of the reasons became apparent. A source in the industry told me %addell considered Kinsley a friend — he trusted him, and liked working with his

friends. The editors were not the only ones to recognise an avoidable disaster. Terry Moolman, the entrepreneur who built the small Caxton publishers from a bankrupt press to a highly successful company with a nation-wide

chain of suburban papers and ultra-modern presses, asked for a meeting with XVaddell. Moolman is a legendarily secret media man constantly on the prowl for industry intelligence. He had calculated that the company was in trouble, and that the weakest part of the company was management, conclusions

which he gave XVaddelI ivhen they met. kloolman had studied SA.M, and was convinced he knew the figuresit vvas in trouble. %addell dismissed Moolrnan's figures. Kinsley had told %'addeII the figures were fine and Waddell trusted him. Only later did it become clear that Kinsley's figures were wrong, and Moolman's right. The

company ended up hiring Moolman's people to help right its adnunistration. All this time Louw argued that South Africa's future is with the black

majoriry, that if the Mail could hold out. not only would it be on the right side as a matter of principle, but it would be best placed in the country as change

came, Their counsel fell on deaf ears. The drumbeat of reactionaries inside and outside the company was louder: black readers don't spend, business is being alienated by editorial, the paper must be nicer to government.

Kinsley listened to the drumbeat. How could he n ot ? I f th e drumbeat vvas vvrong, the finger of blame pointed at him. Since no solution seemed

forthcoming from editorial (how could it, since the problem was primarily managerial~) i Kinsley looked elsewhere for guidance. A r. first, the marketing department came up with the concept of 'T he Hew Consumer' — a consumer not defined by race. This was in tact a way to benefit from the unusual tact that this was one previously 'white' paper

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TW K ER. TAILOR, SOLDIER, EDITOR

that was attracting black readers. From 1970 to 1975, black South Africans' (excluding Coloureds and Asians) share of footwear and clothing sales had increased from 20.6 to 30.' percent, frotn 17.4 to 26.3 percent in washing and cleaning materials, and from 7.3 to 15.3 percent for reading material and stationery. The company presented these figures to business people and ad executives in 1979, but they 'had a one-eyed view of the nutttbers', ivrote

Pogrund, who divas deputy editor of the Avail under Sparks. 'They were generally behind i n

t h eir p o l i tical views. and i t w a sn' t

surprising that they were the same way in b usiness.' T hey wanted to advertise to white people. By 1981, ivhen that initiative, only half-heartedly supported by the marketing teams, failed to bear fruit, the advertising departtnent gave a new

report, 'The Rartd Dai]y ilail Alternative'. lt proposed a slashing of circulation, starting with its black edition, called Extra, and ending aII circulation 450km from Johannesburg. 'It would be a newspaper aimed at whites,'

Pogrund explained.' Sparks reacted to that plan with a metno to the board in XIay 1981,

asking for a year to make changes. Pogrund's account strongly implies the memo was ill-conceived and alienated even well-disposed members. Four days later Kinsley fired Sparks. To whom did he turni The wizard of the Sunday Times, Tertius Myburgh, who brought in a deputy, Ken Owen, to run the day-to-day operations while he considered strategy.

Already Myburgh's power, as editor of the country's biggest paper, its only national paper, read by whites in governtnent and opposition, and a growing

black audience, made his misdemeanours the more telling. In the eyes of its readers, it had a reputation for being fearless on the issues it cared about.

The exact role h1yburgh played xvhile editor ot the Sunday Timesremains disputed. To this day, he has his supporters as well as detractors, Some never liked his politics and assumed the worst. But others, including some who

worked under him, swear they never saw, him do anything suspicious. %here did his real loyalties lie.' His spiking stories on the Broederbond, a call t o r elease Nelson %4andela, unrest among black South A.fricans, and meetings beuveen the

internal and external oppositton build a damning case against Myburgh 4 Pogrund, Benjatnin,%ar of Words, Seven Sisters: 2000, p300, 5 Pogrund. p 302.

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SLUGGI'AG IT OLT: 1966-1990

as a conservative, and a protector of the white establishment. They do not

prove in themselves that he was an agent of the state. Other editors vrere conservative, and failed to publish their reporters' stories, for good reasons

and bad. But now Myburgh's impact would go much further — to the citadel of media opposition, the Rand Daily Mail. Many journalists and editors tried to get to the bottom of it. A man that talented, seductive and self-assured was hard to nail down. %as he Broeder-

bond! Was he an Afrikaner Nationalist? %as he part of South African intelligence — a sleeper in the English press, who'd spent his life savouring the relative freedom and hedonism he liked, outside of the more restrictive Nationalist press environment, while positioning himself to be an agent of inAuence where it counted, in the halls of the Sunday Times and Mail, at 171 Main Street, where the media challenge to the apartheid establishment resided — at least the one black South A f r icans and the i n t ernational community took most note of.' The answer divas important, The major exposes by the company's papers involved one of these apartheid institutions. Muldergate involved the spies (the department of in formation and the Bureau of State Security worked

hand in glove). Exposing apartheid, a Broederbond-supported policy, were all driven from the building he carne to dominate. Myburgh had stopped 1$ years of incessant Broederbond exposure in its tracks. He'd spiked my tnodest amcle promoting the freeing of Nelson

Mandela and his colleagues, ivhich associated the call with the name of our tnost powerful businessman,

Then something apparently confusing to this picture of M yburgh happened. Eighteen months after Hennie Serfontein left the Sunday Times in despair, Myburgh's paper began anew Broederbond expose. The exposes did not last long, about six weeks. But the reports were based on the most comprehensive trove of Broederbond documents ever found.

Had Myburgh undergone a change of heart? It turned out that for the reporters involved it was dumb luck. The source was a member whose conscience had troubled hitn for years. He wanted it out. Against all the rules, even his oath, he had kept aII the documents he received from the Broederbond that he was supposed to read and destroy.

Naturally, he remembered the Sunday Times as the paper courageous and infornted enough to do it. He was not to know that this was a long-forgotten holdover from the heady forgotten days of Bloomberg and Serfontein. A letter arrived at the office in 1978 offering what turned out to be a huge

trove of Broederbond documents. A young reporter, Ivor Wilkins, would be the beneficiary of the reputational trust built up over twenty years by

2,06

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, EDITOR

Bloomberg, Serfontein and Mervis. He followed up, and Myburgh allowed a series of pieces. Wilkins, with Hans Strydom, his news editor, found they had a great deal more information than Myburgh was willing to publish, They turned their

material into a book,The Super + rikeIners, Inside II e Afrikaner Broederbond, still available in bookshops today, T hree important questions arise from t his series of events: why d i d Myburgh run it if th e Broederbond wasn't important? %hy did he stop

coverage apparently before the material had been fully explored? And finally, mysteriously, wh o b r ok e i nt o t h e n e wspaper's new c o m puter system, evaded all its security protections, and deleted four separate files of Broederbond members' names without detection. Who could have done it,' The company's computer system was the first in South Africa, piloted

by Raymond Louw and still a novelty in many newspaper offices. Britain' s Fleet Street newspapers wouldn't see this technology for another five years.

This is how %"ilkins and Strydom tell the story: 'Close security was emphasised in the new system. Each operator was given a confidential code enabling him to store exclusive information in the system. Access to that information was confined to the operator alone and, in exceptional cases, to four highly senior management members.' L ists of names of members were 'painstakingly put together from t h e documents in the journalists' possession. As these lists grew, they fed into the computer store under Strydom's code. For security reasons, the lists were split into four groupings under different code names. The reporters h ad managed to i d enti h a b ou t 3 , 000 o f t h e 1 2 , 000 members of t h e organisation. In the system the names were safe. Its designers had given the assurance that the security was to all intents foolproof.'

Coding himself into the system aher the weekend, Strydom found all the names, in all four lists, wiped out. 'The four Broederbond groupings were selectively removed, leaving behind innocuous items... The system engineers were summoned to i nvestigate, but had to confess they were baffled." This was a quarter of a century belore the hacking era we take for granted. The system was hardly known i n South Africa. It could be

accessed by only four senior members of the company. The mystery was never resolved. But the finger of suspicion points to Myburgh, In the preface to their book, the two authors said they wrote it because 'it is in the nature of newspaper reporting that much of the detail in the documents 6 Willdns, Ivor and Hans Srrydom, The Super-Afrikaners, Inside the Afrikuner Broederbond, jonathan Sall: 1978. preface.

207

SLUGGING IT OUT: 1966-199td Daily ktail editor ILtymond Lousv, posing as Prime Minister Vorster (Fogstar) for this student newspaper spoof. His spy bosses must have been amused.

I:OCSTAR IKSNllf I:LES =-. HIS CAIINH

CREDITS: Editors: Rex G bson collection; W'its Student cover: University Archive

Councillors ot the independent Broadcasting Authority, 1997 — Lyndall ShopeMofole {second left, back), Peter de Klerk and Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane {seated, front) resigned under pressure and were soon returned to higher positions in government. Lutando Mkumatela. %'illiam Lane, Felleng Sekha, Pietie Lotriet and author {back rovv l to r), who voted to stop abuses, fared less well.

I

I

!j

/+, ~

k;k

j LEFT:Cyril Ramaphosa and Harry Oppenheimer debate. 1985. RIGHT: Intrepid reporter Sylvia Vollenhoven, one of the first reporters on the scene ofMozambique President Samora Machel's plane crash, CREDITS: ISA counallors: Author's collection; Rarnaphosa~'Oppenheimer: Ciille de VIiey' South PhotographstAfrim Media Online); Volleuhoven (Sylvia Vollenhoven collecdon)

LEFT: iMoeletsi Mbeki's difterences with his brother, ex-President Thabo Mbeki, are central to understanding South Africa's choices. RIGHT: Zwelakhe Sisulu, President of the %'riters' Association ot South Africa and CEO ot the SABC after the transition.

e.tv isn'I making budget and its ownersare at war. Will the ISAgive CEOhharcel Golding a break? r~4s

LEFT: More 'guanxi' in China than the ANC~ SA's third richest man, Koos Bekker, vvhose success in China built Naspers into the xvorld's eighth biggest media group. RIGHT: Fincrrrcia( Mail Oct I, 1999: e.tv complained that it could not afford to

provide news, but the IBA had done its homework; e.tv became highly profitable. CREDITS: hlbeki: Gallo Images'City Press/Lucky Kxumatoh Sisulu: David Goldblatt!South Photographs,'Africa MediaOnline; Bekker: Halden ktogBIoomberg via Geny Images

SIXTEEN

In fxom the Cold ohtics and economics are strange bedfellows. In the Carter era that

Preroria detested and feared, South Africa's economy boomed, because of the two great oil crises of the 1970s. The Reagan years, the 1980s, saw South Africa's economy crash. This had nothing to do with Reagan or Crocker. The 1970s oil crises caused inflation and global economic fears, so investors fled into gold for safety. The gold price soared, In the 1980s, the oil crisis over, the gold price fell. South Africa's economy and jobs are tied to the global commodity cycle. Young South Africans mill find it hard to believe how strong South Africa's currency was in 1980. One South African rand was worth around USS1.40. By March 1982 it reached parity — one dollar equalled one rand. The country's growth rate fell to around one percent. That was less than population growth, which meant that South Africans on average were

getting poorer each year. With the gold price in decline, and increasing domestic upheaval which led to a loss of investor confidence at the satne time as the disinvestment and sanctions movement, the rand continued to fall. A foreign bureau like nunc became unvtable.

The company could no longer afford a full-time Washington office. As I prepared to return, I was told there was no role for me vtviting politics on any of the papers. I could have a slot as an econotnics writer, an offer

I found myself able to resist. With options closed off at home, I chose to stay in Washington and trust

my luck to the uncertain vvorld of freelance, for Percy Qoboza'sCity Press, Africa magazines antI whoever would take my copy. In rime I obtained 1 Sy mid-2015 one dollar mould cost SA R12.50, a fall frotn 0.80 SA cents to R11.70 in 35 yeats. The trend shows no signs of reversing.

THE ANCIEN REGtME FACES THE PEOPLE'5 TRIBL'tNES: 1994-1996

a smaII regular income as editor of an African newsletter, Washington Report on Africa, and began to build a reputation as a television and radio commentator in north America. It was a key time: most Americans were just discovering South African apartheid, so this was basic education. After a three-year run being inter-

viewed and speaking about apartheid on TV, radio and in print in the US, in 19861 was offered the chance to return home as a foreign correspondent

for National Public Radio (NPR), a network of 400 radio stations that constituted America's domestic quality public broadcaster.

NPR has a special place in the American media — by and large listened to by the more serious and enlightened. It would be my second great period working for a much-loved media house. In American campus coffee shops people sometimes recognised my voice and came to introduce themselves. NPR was that well loved.

ln the six years I had been away from johannesburg the Gandar kindergarten had been driven out of the company and the Mail was closed. But its legacy lived on. A feiv of its young staff pooled their payouts, raised additional money and started The Weekly Mail as a tabloid. Its co-founders, Anton Harber and Ir win M anoim, had cut their teeth on university student papers as I had, but they had gone on to trade union papers, so they were steeped in the traditions of the labour movement that would prove such a critical anti-apartheid force. Unions were the most

organised and disciplined opposition in the country. They made up what became the Congress of South African Trade Unions (GOSATU) and went into alliance with the African National Congress (ANC) after its legalisation. They had established an admirable political culture of vigorous policy debate, democratic decision-making and ethical leadership. Paying dues deducted each month by employers, they were a major legacy of the years of struggle, with more members and better organisation than the ANC itself vvould have for a long time to come.

Zweiakhe Sisulu had moved from the Rand Daily Mai! to the black mass audience Sunday paper City Press, then on to be editor of the Catholicfunded Net Natiorr. Max du Preez, a refugee from first Afrikaans and then English newspaper houses, started the Vrye Reek&lad. Other 'alternative'

papers started in other centres, including Sylvia Vollenhoven's Gape Town paper called nothing. There was a great deal of courage in those newsrooms. Their work stood the test of time and was vindicated by the Truth Commission. They were on the streets for all to read.

Each of these marked a cultural revolution in their own way. The%eekly Mail directly challenged the states of emergency, winning in court. It was 242

IN FROXI THE COLD

more aggressive than any mainstream paper. Nesv Nation was likewise more

clear!y on the side ot revolutionary change than evenCity Press. And Vrye %'eekblad, the first Afrikaans newspaper to back this sort of change, had a maverick quality that had it promoting Soviet-made motor vehicles on page

one of its first issue! It broke stories on official death squads. Lawyers like David Dyson spent endless hours in the newsrooms, keeping stories intact while navigating treacherous legal minefields. You could not win overall victories against a sovereign apartheid parliament, but you could win tactical skirmishes that amounted to more than the sum of their

parts. Skill, intelligence and a good cause went a long way. Some foreign correspondents broke new ground, and The Sou etan and The Star had some aggressive journalists. South Africans had access to key information. If they did not know what was happening, it was their own choice.

Ivly recollections of the years from 1986 to 1994 are a blur, of protests,

violence,funerals, court cases, courage and sufferi ng. selfl essness and integrity, later interspersed by infusions of hopeful tneetings with people who would make history. It was the privilege of watching history unfold, not an arm's length away. Rushing from protest to tragedy, tragedy to funeral which may turn into another tragedy, then starting the cycle again; tneeting people on the run

and underground. seeing people die next to you in a township one day, then meeting ANC leaders in exile, then back to Tuynhuis for improbable encounters with first PXV Botha and then his successor F W de Klerk, whom I remembered as the right-winger who introduced reactionary university policies as minister of education. Power was shifting into a v acuum, a

vacuum the most audacious would fill. The story became big internationally. The three American nevvorks each

had ere~vs competing mth each other, with the kind of budgets that could hire planes and limousines at will. I became adept at travelling with a device that could encrypt sound for transmission, at half speed for higher quality, connected with aHigator clips to a pay phone. All those days are past. In the years after 1994 the American networks closed their offices, while at home they became shadows of their former selves in the wake of 24-hour news and later audiences dispersed across the global internet. Technology advanced to end the need for cumbersome equipment in favour of tiny digital marvels linked to laptops for superb sound quality across the ether via email.

THE ANCIEN REGIME FACES THE PEOPLE S TRIBU'RES: 1994-1996

I had been in Washington for six years, from rnid-1980 to April 1986. A great deal had changed in South Africa during that time. The United Democratic Front (UDF) had been formed, encouraged by the ANC from exile. The UDF had 600-odd local affiliate organisations of varying size and influence. 51osiuoa 'Terror' Lekota, the name Terror derived from his soccer exploits„was back from Robben Island, providing press liaison for the UDF. Entering Robben I sland

f r o m t h e S o w eto '76 black consciousness

generation, Lekota had come under the influence of Mandela and his prison colleagues, who had done their job well. Terror Lekota welcomed me vvarmly, exploiting our common South Africanness and similar age to create a bond. He was ready f' or prime time. The network of social organisations, protest groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) opposing apartheid continued to mushroom. Most had ties to the UDF. Run tnostly by idealists on shoestring salaries if not unpaid, they were creative in finding ways to impact. For reporters they

were invaluable. After so many Christian funerals, when a Jewish relative died and I went to the funeral in a black tie and suit, I was the only one. I thought Jews wore

black too, only to find mourners in jeans and open-necked shirts! Producing lengthy radio documentaries, a radio broadcaster can spend as much as six hours a day listening to headphones, cutting and splicing tape, ever)ching from songs to screatns, speeches to teargas, the so-called theatre

of the mind. Two struggle songs in particular are with me still. Senzenina the most haunting, 'What have we done."Senzemna, what have we done, that you are doing this to us? It still moves me.

In Port Elizabeth, spending the night in a township called Red Location. Officials had painted numbers on the houses, indicating a planned nighttime forced removal, listening silently as the locally made, sanctions-busting, frightening troop carriers called Hippos, rolled down the streets. Walking along eerily quiet streets, painted right across a road, Avtomat Khalashnikov, the Russian name for the AK-47 assault rifle. Whoever wrote that had been in the Soviet Union or knew someone who had. Back in the

Holiday Inn, I re-listened to the song I had taped in Red Location: 'See, Oliver Tambo, See the Hippos... Send the soldiers, Send the soldiers...' I had met Tambo, they hadn' t, but Tambo was as close to them as a next-door neighbour. In the hotel lobby, I was surprised by a receptionist who said I had ro take a phone call. I had not informed anyone I was in Port Elizabeth. It was the

switchboard operator, talking to me behind a screen. 'Don't look now, but on your right is a security policeman demanding to know where your friend the photographer, Walter Dladla. is. You need to get him away from here.' Walter insisted on processing his film in a spare room the hotel staff found for him, and transmitting it to AFP headquarters in Paris before he let us

'disappear' him.

I went to Zambia to see the ANC. Travelling alone, before these visits became

fashionable, a vvhite South African using only a South African passport was either a VIP or in a Zambian prison. I had a system. I read a thick book while waiting for that decision. My favourite novel, Leo Tolstoy's 12.00-

pageWar and Peace, flew by in the Lusaka airport. The ANC's Tom Sebina vvas six hours late and full of apologies. %'e drove to the ANC farm outside Lusaka, whose manager Sahdhan Aaidoo had spent a year learning Hungarian, then six years studying agriculture, before returning to run it. The farm supplied food for soldiers and, occasionally, even emergency supplies to Angola, Shovving me around the farm, he introduced me to a large brute of a pig they called P W Botha. Naidoo's compatriot, frotn the Eastern Cape, had spent years studying

vehicle mechanics in East Germany, and novv managed the fleet ot john Deere equipment, on occasion borrowing a massive harvester from Anglo

American, owners of a neighbouring farm. Both were killed by an apartheid assassin on 1$ April 1989. What possible purpose did that serve? However, PW Botha the pig could roam free in the Zambian hills until he became bacon. Next day we went to the radio station, Freedom Radio, in an anonymous suburban Lusaka house to meet Golden from the northern Transvaal.

Dutch-trained, he manned the mixer desk, presenting the programme; he started a long-playing record, then played the tape of a Tambo speech. As fellow radio buffs, we got on weil and, in 1994, running the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) election coverage, I vvould track him down and hire hijn, in a stony meeting with the SABC old guard, vvho

couldn't fault his skills, either in English or Venda, a language they said boasted no radio journalists.

In Lusaka I took my radio responsibilities too literally and got arrested. NPR's ethical obsession with embedding authentic sound under the narrator's voice had me on a Lusaka street corner, flimsy earpieces in ears, long unidirectional microphone pointing into the street, for about two minutes

THE ANCIEN RECiIME FACES THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNES: I990 — 1996

before I v as picked up. Only a couple of blocks from ANC headquarters, recording devices, which they assumed must be filming, were illegal, I was taken to the station to explain how a ~vhite South African breaking the law a stone's throw from ANC headquarters was not an agent of Pretoria.

Entering a bare room surrounded by Zambian police, in the centre ot the room, directly below a naked light-bulb that was the room's sole light-source, was a chair out of central casting, stuffing oozing out of old upholstery. I looked to a captain at a small desk: do you want me to sit there! 'Well, that chair's for criminals. You' re not a criminal, are you>' JM: 'I guess that's what we' re here to hnd out.' So, who was I? Well, my passport divas South African, and contained no

visa. South Africans weren't allowed into Zambia, which was hosting the ANC leadership and suffered South African attacks. Although I had a letter from my foreign editor in Washjngton, saying I worked for NPR, it is a

domestic US broadcaster, unknown in Africa. So I commenced to play them the tape on xvhich I had been recording traffic sounds, so I could package a feature that said, 'I'm standing in downtown Lusaka,' and be able to teII my editor truthfully that the cars

they were hearing were not in Johannesburg. The trouble was, it was a Sony 'walkman Professional, which doesn't have speakers. So I had to hand the Walkman to one of the policeman, then the earpieces, so he codd listen for himself. 'lt'scars,'he said.Yes! Cars! He handed his AK-47 to his neighbour, more AK-47s were exchanged, some dropped, as several police each in turn checked ivhat I'd been recording. It ended amiably. I got a ride home, with a warning not to change hotels for at least one night. Obviously they wou!d use the time to check my story that the ANC were hosting me in Zambia. On re-entry at Johannesburg airport, I carried tapes of my interviews

with Alfred Nzo, Thabo Mbeki, Pal!o Jordan, the ANC farm managers and the Radio Freedom interviews and a recording of their show. I'd put fake names on the tapes as the only disguise. The customs man reached into the bag, and held the cassettes in his hand. What are these?

'Just music and conversation.' Oh, ok.

In 1985 Terror Lekota was arrested and put on t r ial. Murphy M o r obe, another 1976 Soweto veteran, replaced Terror as UDF spokesman.

A new crackdown was under way. Valli Moosa, Morobe, Jay Naidoo, 246

1N FROM THE COLD

Frank Chikane were aII vulnerable, afraid to sleep at home and on the run. Murphy took my spare room for a few months. I worried about the ethics, and what my office would say about their correspondent housing an important figure on one side of the political divide, but I worried about my humanity more. Jay Naidoo came to see me for an on-the-run interview. Murphy's wife and child visited from time to time. The UDF national executive met in my living room and I brought them tea. Valli Ivloosa, now a multi-millionaire

former cabinet member, wore his beard long, looking like no-one so much as a young Osama bin Laden. In 1988 apartheid South Africa, that was a great disguise. Pohce would never assume today's 'Muslim terrorist' looked suspicious! I first saw him clean-shaven after Mandela's release. I

did not recognise him. Rev Frank Chikane, later Director-General in Thabo Mbeki's presidency, was always the courteous, kind clergyman. despite his lucky escape from clothes that had been poisoned by the police. Both the South African Council of Churches and COSATU's Johannesburg headquarters were bombed. They were among the only substantial buildings belonging to predotninantly black groups. Ivluch sweat and high hopes went into their purchase. They were dedared unsafe for re-occupation. The government was blaming anti-apartheid groups, claiming this was a result of intighting. I went into town to see the damage.

'The guys did a good job,' I remarked to a lone policeman on duty. He broke into a broad conspiratorial grin, Beware of assumed racial solidarity. 'Oh yes.' Little doubt in his mind this was a police success. He was satistsed

mth his side's accomplishment. Around this time I r e ceived a government invitation to attend the president's annual foreign correspondents' cocktail party in the first week of the parliamentary session, It was held at Tuyrihuis, the historic Dutch governors' mansion next door to parliament, which PW Botha used as a part-time office. Though my security-risk status had not been lifted, as a foreign correspondent a different government department was responsible for the invitation. It was a memorable evening. I was talking to Pietie du Plessis, minister of labour later to serve a nineyear jail sentence for fraud, when the president strode purposefully towards us. Botha gave no indication of remembering me from the shoe heel event six years earlier, or arranging my presidential pardon. The atmosphere, relatively informal until then, suddenly became fawning. Du Plessis and the other ministers bem at the arrival of the man known as

the 'Groot Krokodil', Great Crocodile,whom they called'Staatspresident', State President. Botha responded with'kollega', colleague. 241

THE ANCIEN REGIME FACES THE PEOPLE'5 TRlBUNES: 1994 — 1996

One of the correspondents asked if he would talk to Mandela. Botha was at his tongue-licking best. 'I' ll go and get Tambo in Lusaka and bring

him back here to stand trial for what he has done,' he bellowed. Given that several of us listening to him knew the exiled and underground leaders, whom he did not, his crudely inaccurate assessments of the other side were

received with predictable disdain. Two years later, he was gone, and his successor had released Mandela to begin talks.

FW de Klerk's temperament could hardly have been a greater contrast. Where Botha could not enter a circle without demanding to dominate it, De

Klerk was happy to listen to others, provided you allowed him his cigarette habit. He was comfortable in his skin. Where Botha was the university dropout who clawed his way up the party ladder from the days his opponents accused him of wielding a bicycle chain on political opponents, De Klerk carne from Afrikanet Nationalist aristocracy. His father a senator and cabinet member, and uncle the 6rst

Transvaal Nationalist prime minister, JG Strijdom, De Klerk had been an insider from his school days in the Voortrekkers, Afrikaner scouts, and later the junior Broederbond. At Potchefstroom University, he qualified as a lawyer, practised and then taught in the Iaw faculty. He was born to lead. He had what a National Party

required in the apartheid days —tactical skill. His lack of strategic expertise would become apparent as he began the negotiations of his lifetime, with Mandela's team. De Klerk's strategist, intelligence chief Dr Niel Barnard, would pull his hair out in frustration. Weeks before De Klerk's historic speech, I was on the plane carrying Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada and Andrew Mlangeni to Lusaka for their first meeting with the exiled ANC leadership, after 30 years apart. On the tarmac, I exchanged speculation with Joe Slovo and Ronnie Kasrils about ivhat to expect from De Klerk.

Slovo's view on De Klerk was conventional — he was a lifetime Nat who would remain a lifetime Nat. h,ly view was different. Though I would not predict what he ivould do — that was still a mystery to me — I was clear about a few things: one, he divas difterent.

Two, he had the self-confidence Botha lacked. Three, the game had changed; it would be necessary to evaluate him afresh. The exiled ANC leaders hned up to receive the ex-prisoners. As they

LV FROM THE COLD

descended the aeroplane's stairs and began the walk across the tarmac to the waiting line, nvo encounters stand out, dwarfing the rest of this extraordinary, historic drama.

Zwelakhe Sisulu's brother Max broke from the line and ran to hug his father Walter, a scene of deep, raw emotional power impossible to describe.

And, standing disciplined in line, the other son of a famous father coming to meet him, Thabo Mbeki. Thabo was a chip off his old man's emotionally stunted block. As Govan reached his son's place in the line, they greeted

with the handshake both considered appropriate between disciplined servants of the struggle.

That night Thabo Mbeki sat in a bedroom with us journalists talking till the early hours. 4 4 'k l&»

Back in Cape Town for De Klerk's speech, the press were closeted behind a locked door reading the pages that would make history. Once it was clear Mandela was to be released, the key question was whether all parties would be unbanned. The litmus test would be the Commumst Party,bete noire to De Klerk; ivithout its unbanning De Klerk would be exposed as continuing to try to divide aud rule, something the ANC leaders could not abide. I flipped a few pages forward to find the Communist Party also was unharmed. That was the key. I shouted it out, and one reporter got annoyed,

thinking I was having them on. De Klerk had met the KNC's bottom line. He mould not use unbannings selectively to try to divide the movement.

A few days after the speech I had a meeting I had been trying to have for twenty years, one that made me confident enough to broadcast a prediction about how things would turn out for South Africa, a prediction that I stuck to over the next four tumultuous years, through the height of negotiation

euphoria and the depths of so-called 'black-on-black' violence. The meeting lasted seven hours, and it was with the spy I had followed for decades, as he had folio@ ed me, Craig Williamson. Since the 1970s, activists had sent messages to the ANC warning them not to trust Williamson. When messages came back, they said: not true, trust

him. One of those messages came to John Daniel in Swaziland, who was stalling giving money to Williamson because ot serious doubts. His message to 'trust Craig' came on 16 June 1976, that fateful day, in Mbabane, in neighbouring Swaziland. Daniel had no choice but to hand over money to Williamson — the ANC in effect funding the apartheid state! I was one of several who had told ANC friends to get the message over

THE ANCIEN REGIME FACES THE PEOPLE'S TRIBL'YES: 1994 — 1996

to London and Lusaka. Geoff Budlender did so more formally. We tvere ignored. There were many reasons for suspicion, though none constituted sufficient evidence for me to publish. It was known that Williamson had spent two years in the police. This was extremely unusual for a w h ite, English-speaking student frotn a wealthy background and a private school

education who claimed to be opposed to racism. The police culture was extremely racist. He explained it as an alternative to compulsory military service. Other student leaders I interviewed described suspicious behaviour on trips made

for the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). He would need to make a phone call at odd times. Once he had a meeting at what he said was his house, but it turned out to be a borrowed house. Unusually for an idealistic student, he always gravitated to the treasury position, looking after the money on local and national student executive comtnittees, Most of his colleagues wanted more activist tasks.

I had exposed spies on the Rand Daily Mail, and Wtilliamson always steered clear of me. I took every opportunity to engage him, but he would make an excuse and shp away.When his cover was blown and he came to

parliament in the mid-eighties, I tried to engage him again, but he declined. He said absolutely nothing, knowing well that any words, however offhand, would probably get into my paper, Finally, atter De Klerk's speech, I approached him outside parliament. Williamson agreed to t alk t o m e a t t n y h o tel ar ound th e corner, the Townhouse Hotel. We spent seven hours talking in my room, one hour on tape, which I used for a two-part radio documentary that ran on NPR.-'

Williamson's career rise had taken him to head police intelligence, then a position as president's councillor, a rough equivalent to a member of the old senate. With his expertise as an ANC insider abroad, he was an important adviser with access to President de Klerk. It tvas soon clear why he was seeing me after all these years. 'One of the mme wonderful feelings over the weekend,' he told me, 'after the president spoke, was a feeling of, that it's almost over. That one can stop at one's gate, get out, and open it without worrying about the yn w ith the AK behind the tree.' He wanted to get a message, a personal one, to the people who he knew on the other side. It was obvious he knew I knew them too, and he hoped

2 Excerpt published in Listening to America, Twenty-five years in the life of a nation, as heard on Nationa/ Public Radio, edited by Linda%~ertheimer, Houghton 34IRlin: 1995, pp 326-9.

18 FROM THE COLD

through me to convey it. He mentioned Ronnie Kasrils. His message to Kasrils was that 'we, the hard men on both sides', have to agree to stop

fighting, so a continuous cycle of violence could be ended. When he left, I met some colleagues in the hotel for a drink. The question being discussed was whether this was the real thing, the real end of apartheid, or just a step on the way, the 'Kerensky' moment, when soine

new compromise was brought in. Kerensky had been the half-way stage in Russia; or when Smith pushed Muzorewa into the premiership in Rhodesia; or what Vorster had done in Namibia with the Turnhalle talks? Several thoughtful colleagues were certain it was the Kerensky moment.

The Kerensky or Muzorewa figure this time would be Buthelezi, they said. This was just a weigh station in a continuing, long hvar.

I disagreed, but I did not explain why. What had persuaded me was my conversation with the odious Williamson — not because he thought it,

but because of what I picked up as his unintended revelation. De Klerk's Vationalists would try for various constitutional protections for whites as a

group. The ANC could never accept such a thing. That would inevitably lead to an impasse, but time would be on Mandela's

side. De Klerk's power had begun to ebb the moment he made the speech. He could not hold another white election, and one was constitutionally required in four years. Too many variables, the most important the likely

inAaming of rightwing support, rendered the risk toohigh. He had to settle before then, to get a new constitution in place. I was confident enough to go on to NPR and say I expected truly democratic elections within four years. I was very specific. I said that the one person

one vote election by 1994 would lead to Mandela becoming president, 'provided nothing (physical) happens to him' and that De Klerk would be something equivalent to his vice-president, with the same health proviso. I broadcast my predictions. There would be tough negotiations, there

would be continuing violence, but apartheid would end by 1994 in a democratic election. I was frequently asked, on and oft the air, why it would take so long.

Qn Mandela's release froin prison the following week, then President George Bush senior called Mandela and offered American constitutional experts to come in and help write a constitution, an offer a diplomatic

Mandela politely declined. I experienced the West's 24-hour, news-fuelled, instant deinocracy culture

25 years later, during 19 gruelling months in Afghanistan on the United Nations staff running elections. Much of the international community, commentariat and policy-makers, have lost perspective about what it

THE ANCIEN. REGI'.lIE FACES THE PEOPLE'S TRIIILtKES: 1994-1996

takes to build a democracy out of an authoritarian state. They failed to appreciate that when a government is overthrown, they take on enormous

responsibility to understand a great deal more than they did. The mentality seems to be: bring down the statue, drive the tanks into town, haul out the United Rations to give them an election, then leave. That mentality, turned to caricature under George % Bush in both Afghanistan

and iraq, would lead to more trouble for the world than vve could possibly imagine in 1990. But for now, people basked in nervous hope after a very long winter.

Regime Change and the Courage of Carpetbaggers elson Mandela was late for his prison release. After 27 years in jail, he had rejected President De Klerk's release date because he said he needed more time to prepare. Now, on Sunday, 11 February, the day he had

agreed on, he had also refused government transport. He would walk out of Victor Verster Prison in Paarl, 60km outside of Cape Town, under his own steam.

We waited for him on «he Grand Parade below the Cape Town city hall. He was due to address the thousands gathered, but as the hours passed people grew restless, A couple of metres from me, people smashed shop windows, making off with T-shirts.Among the crowd of ordinary South Africans who had come out to see Nelson Mandela tor the first time in 27

years were the usual petty thieves and criminal opportunists hoping for an easy break. My American sound engineer panicked and I lost track of him. Carrying my expensive-looking equipment I was a juicy target. I looked down. There was a knife pointed at my bellybutton, It belonged to a boy

halt my height. I stared at him. He stared back. 'Oh, fuck it,' he said, and melted into the crowd.

The American civil rights leader, Rev Jesse Jackson, fared ivorse. He arrived in a car, underneath the city hall balcony where Cyril Ramaphosa

divas waiting for Mandela. The crowd pounced. He was puIIed up to the balcony, but his car was ransacked for goods, including his car radio, the roof bent inwards! Eventually Madiba arrived to make his first speech, a stilted, written one that had been hastily adjusted by a committee and came out a camel.

Jesse Jackson had tried to lead Mandela out into the public. Tutu decided to stop h im . I t w a s a t h o ughtless signal, for a f o r eigner to appear to 'introduce' h1andeia to his o ivn people.

THE KNClEN REGllv1E FACES THE PEOPLE'S TRIBVNES: 1994-1996

'(Tutu) stood in front of (Jackson) and held him back. Jackson was livid,' Tutu told a journalist afterwards.' It was dark by the time we got back to the Cape Sun, where I had reserved rooms with a vievv of the crowds below. It was impossible to find out exactly

what Mandela's plans were. Next morning hundreds of journalists, the elite of the world, many in the Cape Sun Hotel, had no clear steer on his movements. Most had been told he

was flying to Soweto. We queued to check out, flight bookings tnade. In the lines v.ere several famous network anchors. Some — but not all of us — heard

LIandela would speak to the press at Archbishop Desmond Tutu's official residence in the upmarket suburb of Bishopscourt, Cape Town. We drove

off immediately, but some correspondents took the flight to Johannesburg and missed the story of the century, or at least a key bit of it.

Murphy Morobe was running the press conference. I guess he saw a friendly face he knew, and I got to ask the first question. I asked what I thought the most critical question: did Mandela see his role as an ANC

(African National Congress) leader, or something broader, a liaison between the ANC and the other relevant groups> The clarity of Mandela's mind would become evident later — this time it was the lucidity to know he had no interest in answering that question. How would it help him or the

process) I got something vague, not usable. It was the first of many lessons from Mandela. As we would learn, he ahnost never spoke mthout thought. An exception was when. in retirement

and consumed with anger when President George W Bush would not take his call to counsel against the Iraq war in 2003, he told the press accurately if impoliticly, Bush 'does not know how to think'.

Atter three decades, the ANC was on the way back, and the annosphere was

heady. It was also chaotic, anarchic, a power vacuum waiting to be filled. Rushing to airporn, bumping into familiar faces fresh out of prison, among them Terror Lekota and Marion Sparg, an ex-Rand Daily Mail reporter imprisoned for ANC activity and now with no money for airfare to the

event of her life, I helped out where I could. Who rementbersP I have long since lost a bill I had for Jacob Zuma's phone-calls when he stayed at my house in Norwood, Johannesburg that 1 Sunday Times, 8 February 2015, Chris Barton, 'Free at last, but ~vhere the HeH was he)', p16,

REGIME CHANGE AND THE COURAGE OF CARPETBAGGERS

year. My fault. I-forgot to give it to him, The cleaning lady remarked that Zuma was very polite, always insisted on making his own bed. In May 1990, three months after Mandela's release, the senior exiles

including Thabo Mbeki, Reg September and Slovo, landed in the country, ending their long exile. At Cape Town airport, Cape Town leaders could see their oem families behind rhe press, brimming neth feelings, held barely in check as their relatives took it in: they were leaders. Their sacrifice had meaning. This was a milestone on the path to victory, what it was all for!

A sight we never dreamed we'd see: exiled ANC leaders at Cape Town Airport — not just there, but in the VIP lounge! I got the first question again. I had learnt my lesson from the Mandela opportunity. Don't expect the substantive answer this early in the game, I placed my microphone in front

of Joe Slovo, and asked them the irritating but time-honoured broadcaster's question: how did they feel, their first rime on South African soil in 30 years) Slovo soared. His reply was used around the world. He understood the moment and seized it, a media natural. He talked about the flight, looking down on Soweto on one side, Johannesburg on the other, over the Karoo,

reflecring on other milestones. Every TV and radio outlet in the world wanted that chp. The ANC delegation were staying at the Lord Charles Hotel outside Somerset West, so we all headed there to be near the action. Stopped by a

policeman, how were we to get through.' Then we heard him taking his cue from 'Mr Lekota'! I'd just hugged him at Jo'burg airport, only hours out of prison! Oh, tell him it's me. Oh, that's different, Mr Lekota says please go In.

Inside, we heard later, Slovo had the memorable lines. Arriving at the Lord Charles, the exiles were met by the generals and colonels of the security police, whose job until very recently had been to kill them, and vice versa, Introductions were made, with all ranks hiINighted, generals and colonels and brigadiers, assurances made that they were to be protected. 'Well, I'm Colonel Joe Slovo of the KGB,' Slovo began, a title in serious

moments he denied, claiming it was bestowed only by the South African security police for propaganda purposes. This is General Modise of Umkhonto we Sizwe, etc. How much was this like the first meeting between Western spies and the

real KGB when the Cold War ended> 'We must have looked like something out of the zoo to them. and they did to us,' Dame Stella Rimington, former head of Britain's MI5, remembered.

'Like xrild animals looking at prey they could no longer eat. They were in

THE ANCIEN REGIME FACES THE PEOI'LE'S TRIBUYES: 1994-1996

this highly disturbed state where everything they had taken for granted about the future no longer applied. t

Rimington remembers a dinner with thinly disguised KGB spies as waiters: 'Suddenly we didn't care at all. There was a hysteria around the table, so we all started saying various things that caused the waiters to twitch and raise

their eyebrows. It was quite the weirdest day of my life.' Vext day we were at Groote Schuur, the house Cecil Rhodes built and gave the nation as an ofticial residence. The contrast between the white,

male Afrikaner government delegation, and the ANC's rainbow of colour, religion, gender, language and socio-economic background was visceral. We were so proud! This was a day you could die happy...

Media tvould be the first on-the-ground sector to change control. The reason was that media coverage would affect the first election itself. The AVC did not want a white Nationalist perspective dominating the broadcaster; the government belatedly thought it tine to lock in something fairer that might outlast the first election. And the mining companies did not really value

their newspapers. The changes began vvell before April 1994, the date of the first democratic election. Exiles back home wanted to discuss how the apartheid-era media needed to change. A f i rst nteeting was organised tvith local, especially

'progressive', journalists. Axiz Pahad, the good-natured of the two Pahad brothers (the other was Essop) who went on to fortn a critical duo in President Thabo Mbeki's kitchen cabinet, spoke for our returning leaders. The meeting was in the Methodist Church basement in tlowntotvn Johannesburg. Journalists were

packed like sardines, some standing on ledges, clinging to rafters. There were two main issues: how to end the state-run broadcasting monopoly of

the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC); and how to open the English-language newspapers controlled by Anglo American, the country' s dominant mining house. Many of these papers had been less than courageous in the dark apartheid days when it counted. Most were very tvhite.

Thea tmos pherewas full of hope. bur, the striking takeaway tvas Pahad's

lack of ideas, or apparent lack of ideas. We arrived expecting to hear at least

the outlines of a plan, or some principles; but he said he came expecring the same from us. Still, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Caution in 2 The Ob:-en~et, 15 June 2013, Stella Ritningmn, 'The day I ntet the KGB'.

REGlME CHAh;GE AND THE COURAGE OF CARPETBAGGERS

making new policy, especially media policy, is ivise. As I was to learn, media policyrnaking is an delicate balance. You need to avoid interference with content, while ensuring as level a playing field as possible

extreme ly

for those who produce it, In a society as unequal as South Africa *s, to open to the free market after 300 years of legally protected exclusively white capital accumulation would simply perpetuate white media bias. It was not

on. But how to do it without imposing government views? There would be successesas well asfailures. There were already various civil society anti-censorship campaigns, led by journalists, and alliances with the trade unions and others in the broad anti-apartheid front. They d been formed out, of anti-censorship bodies that had begun to look at the positive, at what ~ve wanted in our post-apartheid

media. Thought was being given. Essop was staying at a lamily member's house in Mayfair. Johannesburg. He asked to meet me. It's a meeting that I remember little of, except my protound disappointment. Unlike Aziz, Essop had a definite agenda. It wasn' t a free press. It was a press he could use. It was clear I could never work with him, and that his influence would be an ever-present concern. Without much

idea what would happen to my career, I resigned from 4PR to take up a oneyearWilliatn F Benton broadcasting fellowship at the University of Chicago, intending to return to the South African media afterwards.

While in wintery Chicago, xvith the xvind chiLL factor bringing the temperature down to m i nus 40' Fahrenheit. I was in m y w arm campus

office, the thick snow outside, when a call came from David Niddrie, a friend from the Ratrd Daiiy Afaif, inviting me to Cape Town for three days to chair a conference in the old Coloured Representatives' Council legislature on the future of media. Media and p oLiticians, old and n ew, came to th e c o nference,'Free, Fair and Open', at which some principles were thrashed out at the end of January 1992. Wielding a gavel at the Speaker's podium, I looked out at representatives of the ANC, the ruling National Party (NP), the SABC, the

independent producers and all the other players. There were three key decisions taken: that the SABC board and its CEO

be replaced; that the uew board be independent and independently chosen, unlike the outgoing one; and that an Independent Broadcasting Authority to

license and regulate broadcasting in the public interest be set up, to replace the secretive and obstructionist Postmaster-General's office. The regulator's

mandate would be to open the airwaves so long closed. The resolutions were forwarded to th e Convention for a D emocratic

South Africa (Codesa), the constitution-making body at the World Trade

THE A'ACIEN REGIME FACES THE PEOPLE'5 TRIBUYES: 1994-1996

C entre next t o Johannesburg's airport, where the country's founding fathers and mothers were sitting. Since the major Codesa political parties were weII represented at the conference, most of its decisions would be implemented — up to a point.

Codesa set up a panel of jurists to choose the new SABC board. Those hearings would make the most dramatic television South Africa had ever seen. It was a rare occasion ivhen new revelations unfolded live before your eyes, and outcomes were unpredictable.

The jurists' panel was chaired by Isrnail Mohamed, South Africa's first black judge, with a long record of human rights law and a stellar academic background, only elevated to the bench during the transition. Among those to be

interviewed was Professor Christo Viljoen, outgoing chairman of the SABC. Viljoen. a professor of engineering at Stellenbosch University, divas the key broadcasting figure during apartheid's last decade, and chairman of the Viljoen commission xvhich had tried to restructure broadcasting ahead of the changeover in ways activists thought highly suspec t . He was asked the

question never asked of an apartheid apparatchik in a public forum before: divas he a member of the Broederbond, and how did the Broederbond influence the SABC's progranuning? Viljoen admitted membership, said he had recently resigned, glossed over its role, and squirmed. Nevertheless, the impact was high. It was the main subject of water-cooler discussions next day. This giant figure of authoritarian South Africa shrank to human size before our eyes in a public accountability process entirely new to viewers.

Under the Codesa agreement, President FW7 de Klerk was expected to appoint the board as recommended, but De Klerk baulked. At the eleventh hour, he refused to appoint their choice of chairman, Professor Njabulo Ndebele, a distinguished scholar and author, because he was 'not bilingual'. That meant he spoke a handful of African and European languages, but Afrikaans was not among them. It would prove a huge mistake. for Ndebele

had exactly the sensibility needed for the job. Strongly anti-apartheid but not by nature partisan, Ndebele divas sympathetic to the ANC but an independent thinker committed to democracy first. It was a loss for the

country. His appointment would very likely have avoided much of the SABC's disastrous next 20 years.

De Klerk arbitrarily replaced Ndebele with Dr Fretierik van Zyl Slabbert. %Ithin Afrikaner poliocs this seemed like a balanced move since Slabbert 258

REGth1E CHA'AGE AYD THE COURAGE OF CARPETSAGGERS

had always been in the white opposition. But his arbitrary action in violation of an agreement at Codesa vvould prove a disaster. It put De Klerk's word in doubt. More important, it put trust in a process of agreed steps in question. Instead of Ndebele, De Klerk also named as vice chairperson a returned exile, the sociologist Dr hm Matsepe-Casaburri, born in the Afrikaans town of Kroonstad in the Orange Free State and therefore 'bilingual'. Matsepe-

Casaburri. despite a Rutgers University PhD in sociology, had not had a distinguished post-university career, spending time i n L u saka pursuing ANC appointments that were slow in coming. In the early 1990s, when

the prospects of a return to South Africa suddenly brightened, she joined a group of exiles plotting their mutually supportive rise into plum jobs back home. Slabbert's acceptance of this role despite its violation of the agreed Codesa principles him, while Matsepe-Casaburri began a long and meteoric career, her numerous failures not preventing her rise to premier of

damag ed

the Free State, then minister of comtnunications.

This ill-conceived hybrid lasted two unsatisfactory months, before Slabbert was pressured to resign by his board colleagues, giving MatsepeCasabum her big break. Slabbert's resignation was prompted by an attack by the Durban sociologist Dr Fatima Meer, friend and early biographer ot

Maudela. Meer told the board that a white Afrikaner male appointed by an Afrikaner Nationalist leader had sat in that chair for 40 years. and now was

doing so again. Slabbert, who had fought for an egalitarian society for many years, was deeply offended, and resigned immediately. It was an accurate remark, but it divas also unfair to a man vvho had resigned a plum position

as leader of the opposition to help pave the way to the end of apartheid. His two months in the job hurt his reputation and, almost certainly, his future. Other reasons are given for the breakdown of his relationship with

President Thabo Ivlbeki, but his two months at the SABC did not help. Unwittingly, De Klerk had ki ck-started the rise to p r ominence in the ANC establishment of an unoriginal and selt-serving would-be apparatchik,

who would fill job after job with minimal visible progress. But it would be President Mbeki who w o uld pr otect and promote M atsepe-Casaburri to guide South Africa's information economy; while the country's internet world ranking sagged. In each annual State of the Nation address Mbeki

highlighted the priority of the information economy, but action did not rnatch the words.

Matsepe-Casaburri is remembered for a bristling personality that balked both at any wrong spelling of her name and at any natural curiosity about

THE ANCIE'X REGIME FACES THE PEOPLE'5 TRlBUNES: 1994-1996

the Italian former husband who gave it to her. During her ministerial term she set back South Africa's potential for lang-term job creation and economic growth, Averse to taking tough but essential decisions, and overshadowed by both

a strong-willed president above her and an equalb strong-willed directorgeneral, Andile Vgcaba, who ostensibly reported to her, she vvas the ham in the sandwich, and out of her depth. Billing herself as a flag-bearer for women's empowerment, she held conferences on job creation for women in the sector, but real women's empowerment needed her to do her job first. For many informed women in the sector, her championing of women in this way was an embarrassment.

Mines or newspapers? That was the question before the Anglo American board which, with its interlocking De Beers shares, controlled the world

diamond market and remained a giant world player in gold, platinum and much besides. Harry Oppenheimer was 82 years old and officially retired when Mandela came out of p rison. Thirty years earlier, Oppenheimer treated Mandela with gieat politeness in their one formal meeting before he went to prison, but refused his request for funding. 'How do I knoiv that after giving you

assistance you will not be eliminated by the PAC [Pan Africanist Congress]?' Oppenheimer asked.-' That question was now answered, and Oppenheitner treated him much

more seriously. His company had big decisions to make. Which of its interests did the company care about, and which would it jettison to this coming new black government? To ask the question divas to answer it. Anglo American

is a mining company. The newspapers were a cheap, troublesome add-on, a wart on the miner's face. So too was its control of the South African Ford motor plant. No|v the Afrikaner Nationalist g overnment had given way, beyond Oppenheimer's expectations. There was no white government to

hide behind. What would it do? In his speech on his release frotn prison, Nelson Mandela himself had reaffirmed a policy of nationalisation. Behind the scenes in the ANC, a battle was going on for its econotnic policy. Businessmen and WFestern diplomats

had lobbied Mandela and his exiled colleagues hard against it before he left prison. 3 Sarnpson, Anthony, Murtdelat The Authorised Biography, Jonathan Ball: 1999, p141.

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For many like Mbeki, though, who had lived in impoverished Zatnbia through its years of nationalised Anglo American copper mines, experience must have been another teacher. Zambia's nationalisation had been disas-

trous, exacerbated by a falling world copper price. Respected allies among African presidents warned the AKC against repeating their mistakes.

Still, Anglo American wasthe elephant in the room. What vvould happen to Anglo.' It was a conglomerate of international significance. The ANC's Freedom Charter demanded the nationalisation of th e ' commanding

heights' of the economy. %'hat heights were more commanding than Anglo American's? %'hat would the ANC demand of this company, so easilv painted as the main beneficiary of the apartheid economy? The men at Anglo vvere worried. They courted Thabo Mbeki and others

assiduously. In johannesburg, invitations rained on the returning exiles like confetti. They vvere wined and dined, their tive-star hotel bills paid, efforts made to extract their intentions, proffer ideas and incentives. Where would

the ANC's focus be.'The Anglo American empire had so many parts. In the apartheid years, currency restrictions and sanctions had led it further and further from its core businesses, as mining profits >vere sunk into investments in sectors further and further from its expertise. It was povverful in property, banking, insurance, food, motor cars. A book about

Anglo American was called Soretb Africa Inc.' Its newspapers were small monetarily, but high-profile and controversial. In London financial circles, the word was out. Anyone want to buy the

Argus newspaper company? (Future Lord) Conrad Black, Canadian owner of the then highly profitable conservativeLondon Daily Telegraph, wanted it. Remarkably, according to business sources in London and Johannesburg„ Oppenheimer supported Black's bid, To let Black have it would show a remarkably tin political ear. To the ANC, selling South Africa's biggest

English-language newspaper group to the conservativeTelegraphpublisher would have been a red rag. Several in the ANC intervened.' Another suitor etnerged, the Irish entrepreneur Anthony O'Reilly, who owned the Independent nevvspaper group with major newspaper assets in

Ireland, England and Australia. He was knighted in 2001. Ivan Fallon, his 4 Pallister, David, Sarah Stevvart and lan Lepper,South Africa inc., The Oppertheirrter Empire, h4edia House, 1987. 5 Coincidentally; in 1982 Black was investigated for fraud over his involvement with s Canadian newspaper company coincidentally called the Argus Company, but exonerated. He was elevated to the peerage in 1999, only to lose it after imprisonment for fraud over his activities in the Telegraph'sholding company. Perhaps he would have been an even vvorse choice than O'Reilly proved to be,

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THF ANCIEN REGIME FACES THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNES: 1994-1996

etnployee and biographer, would call his South African purchase by far the most lucrative deal in the cotnpany's history, and indeed it was.

Robin McGregor, South Atrica's most assiduous and thorough chronic!er of Anglo American's oligopolistic tentacles. pointed out the risks of O *Reilly,

but came down on the side of optimism: 'We are in for a dynamic press revival after years of the mediocre. I look forward immensely to unfettered cut-and-thrust journalism, reminiscent of the best first world journalism."

O'Reilly did have one thing on his side, a major investment in neighbouring Zimbabwe, svhere other foreign investors stayed away. in his role as CEO of

the Pittsburgh-based conglomerate, Heinz. Heinz baked beans were made from the navy bean, grown predominantly in Michigan. Heinz, discovered they grew well in Zimbabwe. poured the largest American investment into

the newly independent country, and O'Reilly befriended Mugabe. It it hadn't been for the navy bean 0"Reilly may not have come to South Africa. McGregor could not have been more wrong. O'Reilly's tenure was closer to Lord Kitchener scorching the South African earth during the Anglo-Boer War than the VYasbington Post building the Watergate team. Or the Rand

Daily Mail, Drum, the Sunday Times, The 5'eekly Mail, Mail t G u ardian, City Press, Netu Nation, Vrye Weekblad or others. Developing the country' s great tradition of journalistic investigations did not motivate the new owner. By. the time the company withdrew in Z013, its total purchase cost of

around R725 million' had returned around R4.5 billion to Ireland. This includes taking around RZII0 million from the so-called pension fund surplus. Then it sold the company for another R2 billion! By then O'Reilly had been forced out of his own company and was on the edge of bankruptcy. So how, did the Irishman tnanage such a kil!ing? When O'Reilly first took over the company he expanded, launching the Sunday Independent and a separate national version of the existing business pages called Business Report, The company also started the Zulu language Isolezmein Durban. However, O'Reilly took over a company with 5,223 employees and svhittled it down by over 70 percent to around 1,500. The prinring presses that came svith the purchase price were worked till they were scrapped and

not replaced. Buildings hke its Cape Town headquarters. on a prestigious spot a stone's throw f ro m p arhament, home of it s papers since 1857, 6 Re@fete, July 1994, 'Aunty Argus marries an Irish cousin', p IZ-3, 7 h1%'ASA submission to National Treasury dis ~mon document, 'A Review Framework I'or Cross-Border Direct Investment in SA'. 2011. The investment vvas tnade in several

tranches and has not been fully disclosed. Most reports estimate between R560 and R. 25 million for 100% of the company.

REGIME CHANGE AND THE COURAGE OF CARPETBAGGERS

were sold. The circulation of some of its papers feII by almost half. The circulation loss vvas also due to the decline of the industry with the growth of the internet, but a bland political profile and the failure to maintain its assets did not help. Its news website, svhich should have been a leading site, was one of the weakest in the country, running mostly ivire service copy in

a dull format. O'Reilly pulled off the sale using the sante technique Eschel Rhoodie learnt from his tnysterious CL4 connection known as Brownie. It is not unusual. Multiple bus~ness people anticipated the rise to power in South

Africa of Mandela, then Mbeki and Zuma. Get to know the man before he becomes presidem, ivttile he is still exploring his role and still has time to make friends. It he is like Zuma, the root is money. If he is an honest man like Mandela,' offer to advance his political values, Mandela wanted an unfettered press, but complained about the lack of both racial and political transformation of newspapers.

Lyford Cay, a gated billionaire community on the western tip of New Providence Island in the Bahamas whose residents include Sean Connery,

was the place vvhere O'Reilly forged his bond with 51andela, Connery first discovered its beauty playing James Bond in Tburtderball in 1965. The Irishman set ou: to woo Mandela by asking President iXIugabe for an introduction in the days before Mandela and Mugabe's relationship soured. lt was a natural thing to do.

O'Reilly is an exceptional businessman, the first in history to hold all three of th e t o p p os:tions at th e US-based multinational conglomerate Heinz simultaneously. Separately, he was building two important companies

in Ireland. One was a media house. An Irishman by birth who built his spectacular career in Atnerica, Ireland svas where O'Reilly's heart was. O'Reilly invited Mandela to g ive the Heinz Fellowship lecture at the University o f

P i t tsburgh. Previous speakers included French President

Vaiery Giscard D'Estaing, German Chancellor Heltnut Schmidt and the 8 Careful students of Mandela will immediately point out that Mandela did accept money for the purchase of his johannesburg house, and solicit funds from dubious sources for the ANC. An examination of all his financial dealing is unlikely to leave his reputation untainted. But there is no evidence that you could buy him. His policies were principled and deeply thought. He was, also, a product of the 19a0s world, when relations between business and politics the world over were not scrutinised in the wav they are today.

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THE ANCIEN REGB:IE FACES THE I'EOPlE'S TRIBUTES: 1994- I 996

Japanese Prime ihhnister Nakasone. For the South African leader, released from prison and yet to hold any official position, it divas the perfect venue to

solidify his growing vvorld stature. The next invitation was to O'ReilIy's home in Lyford Cay, a short drive

from Nassau airport. Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, is a fifty-ovo minute flight east from Miami, Florida, or an hour and a quarter flight from Havana, Cuba. %bile staying there at the end of I993, Mandela raised some billionaire eyebrows ivhen he 'gave a talk to pupils at a nearby black school which appalled his white neighboursby its militancy'.' But personal time with Mandela proved invaluable. Six vveeks later O'Reilly divas in Johannesburg. JCI, the company in the Anglo American group that controlled the Argus, 'was anxious to get the deal signed and

sealed before the election', according to Ivan Fallon, in his hagiographic biography TheP/eyer. Fallon vtould become O'Reilly's South African CEO, There vvere other ANC players concerned about the deaI. The Mbeki brothers both took an interest, though on opposite sides. Moeletsi Mbeki, ivho later became a confident critic of his brother's presidency, divas pushing

for black shareholder involvement, but his more powerful brother, Thabo, was vvorking the phones insisting it go through.

O'Reilly met nervous JCI board members. 'In effect, what the JCI directors wanted was a defirute signal that O'Reilly's investment would be

welcomed,' wrote Fallon. O'Reilly asked the JCI directors if Mandela was in town, phoned him and went straight over to see him. He returned vvith

a positive response and the deal was signed that afternoon, giving O'Reilly 31oio. Later he would increase his holding to 100%, and could delist the company from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Once in control, O'Reilly's confidence grevv. Mandela did of black editors that 'as long as the newspapers are owned by a white,

comp lain

conservative majority, those promotions are simply tokens without power'.'

But O'Reilly chose not to share his I00 percent ownership with blacks. His editors were among the country's more timid.

From the beginning O'Reilly einbarked on i n tensive cost-cutting. Then

there was bad luck. As the Irish parent company lost money, South African 9 Sampson, A. Maudelu: The Authorised Biograpl!y, Harper Collins: updated edition, 2011, p501. 10 Sarnpson, p526.

REGlbtE CHANGE AND THE COURAGE OF CARPETBAGGERS

profits were a prime source of relief. Fuelled by losses from its prestigious London btdependeut newspaper, then by the financial crisis of 2007 which shattered the Irish economy, Dublin bean-counters made visit after visit to the johannesburg headquartersin Sauer Street, hoovering South African profits as they were made. The funds repatriated to Ireland were many multiples of the original investment. As in classic anti-colonial theory, the profits from th e p eriphery, the colonies, went to maintain lifestyles of obscene extravagance in the metropole. Entertainment was offered at hi s castle in I r eland, the Bahamas retreat and on his private jet. Meanwhile rival South African publishers

Naspers and Caxton replaced presses several times each during the time the Independent's were run into the ground. At least once a year O'Reilly loaded up his jet with the West's great and

good on his international board for a wonderful week in the Cape Town sun, seeing whoever was president. His choice of passengers was clever: former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, revered for pioneering Canada's anti-apartheid stand; Ben Bradlee. famed Post editor during Watergate; and Anthony Sampson, former Drum editor, Mandela's

washington

friend and biographer, as well as one of Britain's great journalistic talents. Who could question such a glittering array of advisers?

Talking to both Bradlee and Sampson at the time, I had the impression they occasionally tried a gentle suggestion that the papers could be more

robust. But there was a balance of popovert hat kept them in check. At one of the annual dinners O'Reilly threw for his friends, Essop Pahad launched

one of his tirades against the papers' lack of ANC enthusiasm. When the suave O'Reilly rose to reply, he elaborately thanked Pahad tor his rendition of 'Aesop's fables'. The advisers saw the tightrope O'Reilly was on. And undoubtedly they enjoyed the annual romp, a semi-retireinent

reward for a life's hard work. lf ever there was a message that South Africans would have to learn to rely on themselves, this saga sent it. Conrad Black, no longer a lord, has been released from prison and his newspaper business. O'Reilly was bested

by his Irish nemesis, Denis O' Brien, a rival who had promised to oust O'Reilly from his perch and got his chance because the companies were too indebted when the 2007 — financial 8 crisis struck. O'Reilly sold his Irish castle, Castlemartin and fought bankruptcy. h's hard to see that Sampson or Bradlee, both of whom have my journalistic adtniration, helped much at all.

Before his ignominious fall, O'Reilly had another reason to visit South Africa several times a year. President Mbeki put him on his international investment advisory council, intended as a high-powered aid to the South

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THE ANCIEN REGIME FACES THE PEOPLE'S TR BUNES: 1994-1996

African economy. From time to time, reports emerged that O'Reilly and

the others urged Mbeki to speed up internet reforms, but IT policy did not improve.

On the other hand, advisers close to Mbeki tell me they did not focus on O'Reilly's own counter-productive investment record in South Africa. They were not aivare of it, just grateful that his regime was politicaiiy more sympathetic than his predecessors. It's hard not to conclude that the unstated bargain was: XIbeki would pretend to listen to O'Reilly's business advice, and O'Reilly ivould pretend to have South Africa's interests at heart. But there was scant benefit to South Africa. Away from the presidency, there was one little-remarked-on part of the

governmentthatworked. The Independent

News papers group applied for

an important radio licence in Cape Town, KFIv1. for the obvious reason that

it would bundle advertising vith its existing English-language newspaper monopoly in the city. This is something an independent regulator ~vould be inclined to oppose. A monopoly in the town's nevvspapers (it published both the morning Cape Tisnesand the afternoon Cape Argus) discourages competition and diversity. Adding to it by locking up radio assets would worsen a bad position. The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) turned the application down. That system worked, but government divas not paying attention. The IBA had been set up at Codesa on the lines recommended at the Free, Fair ynd Open conference I had chaired in 1992. Its decision was consistent with the constitution which provides for such restrictions under laws of

'general application'. The IBA Act also restricted foreign ownership of TV and radio stations to 20 percent. Since news and comment are the lifeblood

of a democracy, the same sort of rule should have existed for newspapers. %"Ithout it, Rupert Murdoch could have dominated South African television with a 'news' station like Fox TV.

Sophisticated international players like O'ReiIly and Fallon know why monopolies are bad for society. They knew why the IBA said no. I guess it' s their job to try, to test the rules or they won't be applied to all equally. It' s South Africa's job to set the playing field level and put it at arm's length

from politicians. That's how democracy should work, comrades.

What lessons can be drawn from the Irish investment debacle?

The deal occurred when the ANC had maxitnum leverage. Anglo American was unsure of its future, searching for a deal. But the AKC -

REGl'ME CHANGE AND THE COURAGE OE CARPETBAGGERS

not just Mandela — was woefully unprepared to manage the economy it inherited. Its lack of practical preparation was to be expected, but this was

compounded by a lack of ideological tools for the job. Practical because all the ANC's energies had gone into the big push for popover; ideological because after decades steeped in M arxist analysis, the ANC would no w manage a capitalist economy. For a generation, debates in the ANC had r evolved around the big, macro-economic picture, strongly influenced by Marx. What is the role of the state? Should there be massive nationalisation? Marx's economics are based on something called the theory ot surplus value. In simple terms, this regards profits as surplus value, which capitalists use.to enrich themselves, but socialists apply to the public good through the state. Written in th e n ineteenth century, when economic development was slow, this theory is ill-equipped for a rapid-moving, twenty-first century,

globalised, information-driven economy. Immutable five-year state plans were one of the reasons the Soviet economy failed. But the ANC did not nationalise. As a result, the problems it faced in government were largely micro-economic. How do you grow a new sector? How do you regulate a capitalist economy without damaging the market? %hen should you intervene decisively, and to what end? These questions were not meaningfully

explored, or understood. Mandela's ambitious RDP (Reconstruction and Development Plan) had been launched but was abandoned two years later. The implementation of the RDP was flawed — it was Jay Naidoo's separate ministry, so every

line minister felt he was interfering. Under Thabo Mbeki, government focused on cutting apattheid-era debt in a new programme GEAR (Growth,

Employment and Redistribution). In a market economy, a strong state should prevent monopoly, foster competition, nip corruption i n t h e bud, provide a social safety net that

is effective in protecting the poor, and keep the economy focused on real growth as opposed to non-productive activities. These would be the problems of South Africa as they were for every independent African nation. A NC leaders in g o vernment h ave n o h e sitation i n s aying that ' a l l capitalism is corrupt'. If that is what you believe, how can you think about

honest business you will be proud for your country to have? In any event, later actions of President Thabo Mbeki suggest his highest priority for the press at the time was close to that of his top aide, Dr Essop

Pahad, minister in the Presidency — a pliable, not a courageous, press.

EIGHTEEN

Our Eyes could see the Glory This instrument (television) can teach, it can illuminate;

and yes, it can ez:en inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those

ends. Otherwise it's nothing but >vires and lights in — ED%'ARD R MBRROW a box. lS Broadcasters Convention, Chicago, 1958

L

ike a drowning man's first gasp of air, the country gulped its first taste of free speech. A beginning of the nation in public conversation was offered on radio before the government changed. It was possible because of a loophole in the byzantine apartheid bantustan laws, combined with comtnercial self-interest. Radio 702, an AX1 radio station nominally licensed in the bantustan

of Bophuthatswana, recognised as an independent country only by South Africa, was broadcasting to what is today Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria, the economic heartland of the country. It was a non-controversial music station that beat its South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) competitors in audience and revenue because it was run with more flair and independence. When the SABC announced that Radio 702's main competitor, 5FM, was about to switch from A*'v1 to FM in the '1980s, Stan Katz, the manager of Radio .02. realised 702's music format could not compete. FM's sound quahty was far superior. 702 would have to find a new format. 'We were strategising over a bottle of J5 B (Scotch whisky) and asked ourselves the question, what can't the SABC do? And what won't the SABC do?' Katz recalled. 'And the answer was, the SABC can't tell the t r uth. And the reason they can't tell the truth is they are the mouthpiece of the

OUR EYES COULD SEE THE GLORY

apartheid government. All we have to do is tell it like it is. 702 was licensed to Bophuthatswana, recognised only by South Africa as an independent state. So the South African government couldn't interfere. So we said let' s not change the rules, let's change the game. Let's go talk. So we introduced it gradually at first, to change the market.' In the 1980s, most media houses targeted the white 16-to-34-year-old demographic. Radio 702 decided to target white baby-boomers — then between 46 and 64. They ran a cheeky billboard canipaign: 'Prevent truth

decay', 'Daih relief from the dry Highveld' (an SABC station), and 'For people over 5' (5 was the rival SABC station}. The then government tried to interfere. 'The National Parry government hated it, We ~vere called into meetings

and they told us we would have to submit all our news casts prior to broadcast. We said fine. We sent them reams of faxes, which a roomful of

people would not be able to read. So whatever they did we discounted." The legendary control was fraying. Radio 702's medium wave's inferior sound quality was less relevant to talk than to music, and it had one technical advantage. At night its medium

w ave signal could be heard as far away asCape Town on a good radio set. After 1990, as progress in the talks be@veen Mandela and De Klerk

ebbed and flowed, Radio 702 used its talk format to bring together former enemy combatants on the air. Former African National Congress (ANC)

soldiers and former South African Defence Force (SADF) soldiers engaged each other. Returning ANC exiles explained why they left, what it was like abroad, studying in the east and west, undergoing military training in the Soviet Union or Africa. Whites fighting the 'border war' told their stories. Everyone tested their prejudices. It was electrifying radio. Hosted by the talented Tim M o d ise and a more attractive Irish export than O'Reilly's crowd, a veteran of his country's national rugby team, john

Robbie, listeners responded. They were engaging, even-handed and fair, %'hite conservatives love a rugby hero, and anti-apartheid blacks had no beef with him. H e showed no pr ejudice. It was the perfect pedigree for soineone to introduce South Africans to themselves! Radio, until now the monopoly of the state broadcasting machine, is a

people's medium. Radio broadcasting is cheap. And, once you are transmitting, there is zero cost to the broadcaster for each extra audience member.

The radio bug spread. On the Cape flats, a pioneering community station called Bush Radio, guided by Zane Ibrahim, began building a station, 1 i nterview, The Garerb Cliff Show, CliffCeniral. 16 May 2014.

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, THE ANC1EN REGIME fACES THE PEOPLE'S TRISUNES: 1994 — 1996

illegally, to transmit and to train community broadcasters. In Crossroads, nurses began transmitting pre-natal and p o st-natal advice once a d a y,

then returning the equipment to its hiding place under their beds. They called it Radio Zibonele. The right was active too. Radio Pretoria started broadcasting. Its message was white supremacist. It had fellow travellers in other towns across the interior.

The SABC still dominated the airwaves, with its powerful transmitters, 23 radio stations, each with very wide coverage areas, and its three TV services. Radio 702 only reached a small percentage of listeners. But its impact, along vvith the changes to the nation and their reAection in the press, could no

longer be ignored. As so often happens, the governmenttried to keep the initiative, with a 'major reform' which was really a reaction to its impending loss of power, It set up a task team, under SABC chairman and Broederbond member, Prof Christo Viljoen, to find a new formula. The new buzzword was 'corporatise', meaning make the SABC more

business-like, efficient, run like a private company. The activists feared it was attempting to set up a way to privatise parts of the SABC just before the

Nationalists lost power. Under the firm control of Viljoen and his old-guard task force, how could it be trusted not to continue an old agenda!

Popular forces were not going to take this. Broadcasting became subject for debate. Journalists' groups, independent producers, media lawyers,

trade unions in the industry, and then all major Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and non-governmental organisations protested. Some were loosely allied to the ANC, at least informally, and the ANC was looking to the tirst election, and how it would be covered,

Foreign diplomats and foundations became active behind the scenes. The Dutch. after decades of providing support and training to AYC's Radio Freedom, had long put any sympathy for apartheid behind them. Scandinavian countries also helped. A German foundation, the FriedrichEbert-Stiftung, played a s e minal r o le, w i t h f u n d ing and strategy. An American diplomat energetically pressed to establish a National Association of Broadcasters, to s t r engthen commercial b r oadcasting, its p r eferred model, over other forms. To prepare for elections, a group of us set up a think-tank and training centre, called the Public Broadcasting Initiative. Funded by Western foundations and governments, the think-tank developed policies, while the

Z70

OUR EYES COL'LD SEE THE GLORY

training was for the future, 'democratic' SABC. The policy we sought was simple. There is plenty of literature around on the subject. Where the state broadcaster delivers the state message to a passive audience, by contrast an

independent public broadcaster delivers information, education and entertainment to the public. Reith's old theories still held: vigorous debate of controversial matters without political or commercial interference. To make that work, the new ethos would have to be injected into the newsrooms. How to do that? Clearly, a massive culture change was required.

Meanwhile, neglect of my own career was taking a toll. Until the end of l993, I had piggybacked my South African work, my 'national service', on my travels paid for by my journalism. Working in the London offices of the BBC editing a British-American TV co-production, I had side meetings with funders and broadcast trainers in my spare time. I had done the same in North America, with a side trip to Canada to set up support from their

government and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In December 1993 I flew to Hong Kong to work with a video-journalism company setting up a foreign correspondents' network based on then-new technology: for the 6rst time, cheap, hand-held cameras could provide broadcast-quality images, so a one-person crew could produce high quality work at a fraction of the cost. I took advantage of the ticket to stop in Australia to stay with friends, and see AUSAID and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, who were keen

to help. I returned in January, without an obvious future. My name had gone forward for various jobs, but nothing had come up. I did not relish an uncertain future in video-journalism, but it seemed my days helping shape our country's future were over.

Then, a few days home from Hong Kong, I received a call. Could I take over the SABC election coverage for the 23 radio stations, starting in four days, on a three-tnonth contract?

In an established broadcasting company, such a time frame would be ludicrous. Public broadcasters planned elections 18 months ahead. The logistics alone are daunting. Of course, I took it. It was an honour. I was

badly paid, given a broken car mth a driver's seat back that fell over the first morning I drove it but, as it would be for millions of South Africans, it was the most heartening three months of my life.

THE ANClEN REGIME FACES THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNES: 1994 — 1996

Thanks to the money ave raised and the television and radio training we offered through the Public Broadcasting Initiative, the SABC v as no longer unknovvn territory to me, Meeting SABC executives to offer them world-

class training in 1992 and 1993 was a surreal experience. I was still on their blacklist, barred from ever being put on air, even for an interview.

The headquarters of apartheid propaganda, the SABC building in Auckland Park, 'A~v&vard Park' to its critics, vvas for decades the headquarters of and monument to Dr Piet Meyer, simultaneously Broederbond leader and SABC chairman. %'tth security against 'terrorists' top of mind, its design reAected the expectations of its broadcasters. It was built to keep the rest of South Africa out. From the pavement, the visitor immediately walks into an above-ground tunnel, up a flight of stairs, further along the tunnel, to enter a concourse, Another 20 metres gets you to the security checks, where SABC staffers step to the right, enter a room, and stow their pistols in one of the two gun

closets. In all my travels, I' ve never known a media house where paranoia is so catered to — except, perhaps one in Moscow, where reporters entered past lines of monarchist and communist hecklers, during my visit in 1992. For forty years, the SABC blocked out the South African reality and any fresh currents of thought. But perhaps nothing about its architecture

symbolised South Africa's racial madness as well as the Faraday cage, a device in the beHry at the top of the Hertzog tower. Dr Albert Hertmg, with Meyer, set back South African television 20 years by vowing, as minister of posts and telegraphs, never to allovv TV in South Africa. T he Faraday cage is a piece of curved metal mesh, the invention i n

1836 of the brilliant son of a Surrey village blacksmith, Michael Faraday. He became one of the most distinguished chemists and physicists of the nineteenth century, Atnong his hundreds of pioneering inventions in the fields of electricity, chemistry and electromagnetic waves, his cage blocks

electric fields, so that someone inside the cage, for example, would be protected from the electric 6eld outside it. In the hands of apartheid's social architects, the Faraday cage had a d ifferent, more holy, p u r pose: to control r a dio w aves, to narrow t h e television signal of Bop TV so it only reached the black tovvnship of Soweto southeast of the tower, and not potential viewers of other races for whom

this TV channel, originated in Bophuthatswana, was forbidden. While offering, as an outsider in 1 993, t o t r ai n SABC journalists to become independent broadcasters in a future I had interviewed television journalists. Some could see nothing wrong with the way they had operated. But others were as frustrated as I was. They wanted to do things

demo cracy,

OUR EYES COULD SEE THE GLORY

differently, and were keen for pointers to help them do it. They hoped the corning democracy represented something better. Our country's founding fathers and tnothers were at work on a constiriition. They were historic days, and I was anxious to hear the ideas of the SABC reporters covering it. Watching the evening news, it felt as though the drama of this unique moment in the life of the country was not

being captured. There was a formula, which noiv included long slabs of interviews or speeches from both the ANC and the Yational Party. Adding the ANC divas better than the old one-sided coverage. But it did not tnake the coverage any more potent. I asked a journalist covering Codesa (Convention for a Democratic South Africa) what could be done differently. No, this was it, she said. Were there not high points and lovv points, anger, conflict, dispute? No, it vras all covered, What about humour, I asked. Surely there must be light moments that are funny, when the two sides make connections that are human,

despite sharp differences on policy? Yes, she said. Every day there were funny moments, Well, why could they not be in the bulletins? Not possible, she scoffed. If we covered rhe hutnour, Joe Slovo would be on the news every single night! She thought it obvious that she needed to

keep him off the air. Aah. Television editors were younger and trying to figure out how to adapt

and survive the changes. Radio managers were generally older. The head of radio news, Malan Otto, had come froni the department of foreign affairs in the 1950s, in the Verwoerd era. He had written the notorious morning

propaganda segment called 'Current Affairs', in which the poor listener was told what to think for the day.

Nevertheless, with regular hiccups, there was progress in getting journaIists out of newsrooms to be trained by Canadian, British, Australian and American broadcasters. One sticking point was our insistence that black

people and women should predominate in each training course. This led to yet another confrontation with one of Malan's executives. After months of work, tor once I let my frustration show. 'All I know', I said. slamming

my fist on his table, 'is that for forty years this building has systematically undermined th e c reativity o f i t s b l ack staff.' To m y a s t onishment, he completely agreed! 'Yes, the creatirity o t staff has been undermined for forty years,' he said, adding lamely, 'but that wasn't my fault.'

I brought myself under control, and we resolved the issue. Our ratio of Africans and women stayed as we had detnanded. The day in February 1994 that I reported for work running the SABC radio election coverage, I bumped into Zwelakhe Sisulu. It was his first 273

THE ANCIEN REGIME FACES THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNES: 1994 — 1996

day too, as deputy CEO. The election campaign had begun for the 27 April election.

It required a tough managerial decision. As deputy CEO, Zwelakhe could afford to be patient, to watch and learn. For me in the frontline, I had to change coverage immediately. There was no transition time. For most black South Africans, radio was their main nevvs source. For all voters, their first

democratic election had to be a liberating and empowering experience. The issues had to be explained, the personalities and views of all relevant actors

explored. Zwelakhe was a change agent at a higher level. He was not yet in charge. That would only come later. I felt it was a sacred duty to make the changes in time to matter. That meant accepting I would alienate vested interests. I

knew there would be a price. I made two decisions. First, we had t o b u ild a new ethos of r obust,

vigorous, independent public broadcasting, and to keep explaining what that meant, Obviously cynics thought it just meant putting ANC apparatchiks in

apartheid apparatchiks" seats. We had to keep making it clear that would not do. We had to make people understand that we would question the ANC as hard as the Nationalists. Many SABC journalists did not i m mediately

believe us. But once they saw it applied consistently, many liked it, They saw themselves as professionals novv, in ways they had felt second-class compared to other journalists in the past.

This ethos caught on. Thinking in democracies still adhered to Lord Reith's old values. What was gone was some of the stutfiness of the Reith

era, when men in black ties sat alone and unseen in radio studios speaking in Oxbridge accents. A public broadcaster must be the nation speaking to itself, all the nation. All accents. colours, genders, walks of life, must be

represented. Any South African must be able to see and hear people like themselves, whom they can identify vvith. But what stayed from Reith's legacy was the responsibility to i n f o rm , educate and entertain, free of

political or commercial influence. The second decision was that, with only three months in the job and the campaign already under way, I was not interested in looking at anyone' s past. All that ~ as required was that they be on board, We did not have time to fire anyone. If they were not on board, we just had to keep going without them. Interestingly, it was often the most dogmatic pro-apartheid managers who became the most cooperative. I found a divide sometimes more important than racist or non-racist views: conformity or rebelIiousness. The innate

OUR EYES COULD SEE THE GLORY

conformism of the authoritarian personality often made it a surprisingly seamless shift of loyalty from one master to another. For these, tell them to

do something terrible and some will. Tell them to do something good, and that too is possible. For others the changes were too much. For the first time, blacks and women sat around my boardroom table making decisions at the highest level. That seems absurd now, could it really have been the first time~ But it

was. There vvas some sighing at the ceiling and floor. Old-time journalists from the SABC carried on broadcasting, but people from the SABC blacklist were welcomed in, Black and white journalists who had been on TV or radio around the world, like Sylvia Vollenhoven, Zubeida Jaffer and Max du Preez, could, for the first time, be heard in their own country, a great moment. SABC managers were as surprised as many other whites to discover the quality and eloquence of black journalists and

politicians suddenly unbanned, debating their corner. An early priority was to try to ensure balance, I was told 'there are no

Venda-speaking radio journalists'. I remembered interviewing Golden in Lusaka, when he was presenting programmes on the ANC's clandestine

Radio Freedotn. I tracked him down to Durban, and brought him for an interview. The whole old-guard SABC hierarchy were here to quiz this alien force. Could he be objective> He had been trained in the Netherlands by balanced journalists, so it was a no-brainer. He was so broke I had to lend him money to get to his first pay-check. I was worried someone would see, and think there was some nefarious deal going on for the measly R3,009. He turned out one of our best journalists, in English as vvell as Venda! His Dutch training was first rate. As we ratcheted up coverage of th e election, Otto co mplained. '%1y friends constantly tell me we are giving too much attention to this election,

They believe we should do much less,' I cheerfully agreed ia~th his premise. I was sure his friends told him exactly that. We carried on, and positive feedback more than ba!anced his. Malan's friends were no longer in charge.

South Africa is a difficult country to r un, and the SABC showed that in mlcfocosln.

Corralling 23 stations, eleven languages, offices in every part of the country, at times felt like herding cats. Take the radio newsroom, You are covering a national election with a

275

THE AVClEN REGLME FACES THE PEOPLE'S TRIBL'NES: 1994-1996

limited number of competent political journalists. You have eleven official languages and 23 stations to feed.

A party leader needs to be covered. %'ho do you send~ Because South Africa has a number of cognate languages — languages from the same family, speakers of which can more or less understand each other — some combinations are easier than others. A Zulu speaker can probably understand

Xhosa, Ndebele and Seswati or Swazi, and can often speak several. The same is true of the northern language group — Sotho, Pedi or North Sotho and Tswana are cognates. But then Venda and Tsonga or Shangaan are on

their own, Then there is English and Afrikaans. The SABC had several journalists who could handle the southern or northern cognates plus English, for example. One could even handle all eleven! But more common vvere those who spoke only one or two well enou@ to report in. There was pressure to do as much in the original as possible. But the politicians themselves were often not comfortable in their original home languages. Dealing with constitutional matters, even Cyril

I4maphosa chose English over his native Venda. We wanted to

i n ject information w herever possible. We ran several

streams — profiles of political leaders in all parties, profiles of parties themselves, profiles of the net p r ovinces and what made each tick, the key

issues and party policies, and election debates. For a broadcaster that had avoided incisive treatment of controversial issues, the most sensitive was the 'third force', This dealt with the ongoing

violence described by government as 'black on black' violence, and often wrongly as tribaL' conflict between Zulu and Xhosa speakers. The four years between the release of htandela and the April 1994 election saw a rise in violence. A key reason for the success of the negotiations was that the negotiators did not use the rise in violence as a reason to end the talks, That would have left the country's future hostage to the most

irresponsible players. People entered trains and shot people at random. Houses were burnt

do~m. As local and foreign journalists rushed to cover this, encouraged by government spokesmen, they described the violence as 'tribal', between Zulus and Xhosas. Some international papers reterred to centuries ot ZuluXhosa tribal conflict. The truth is, there is no such history. Professor jeff Peires, the foremost historian on the period in this area, has found nothing more than an isolated cattle raid or two. Of all the real conflicts of southern African history, this one is manufactured. But the violence itself was very real. In KwaZulu-Natal, where most of it

OUR EYES COLLD SEE THE GLORY

flared up, the conflict was political and between members of. Mangosuthu

Buthelezi's Inkatha, aided and abetted by a 'third force', and the ANC. The random violence had no obvious purpose. How could it be explained.' On the ground, journalists began to notice patterns. In Alexantlra township, the pohce travelled with their armoured personnel carriers and other military vehicles alongside armed Inkatha members as they wrought mayhem. The

police had taken sides. The Weekly %lail and other alternative papers found evidence that Inkatha warriors were trained by the white government's security forces. The use of black South Africans supported by the ivhite authorities became known as the 'third force', In March 1994, this was srili an important factor. It became the subject for an extended election segment for SABC radio stations, to be translated and used on all eleven language services. In any election, news cannot be measured out by parties. Unavoidably,

the governing party can make news more easily because they have decisions to announce. Parties that develop clever messages and know how to use the media get more coverage. But, for interviews or current affairs programmes,

we were strict in providing balance. The week betore the election I was called by a politician from the then Democratic Party, President De Klerk had been offered the final spot on a national, Friday-night progratnme run out of Cape Town on the Enghshlanguage station. Few other leaders had ever been on this programme. It

was a clear case of prejudice. I told the presenter he had to balance De Klerk with the complaining party. The presenter divas outraged.

'If you think I am going to call and tell Freddy I'm withdrawing his invitation or putting someone else on with hi m yo u have another thing

coming.' I had never heard the president called Freddy before. In the end, he called Freddy and put a second candidate on the programme. The monopoly ofvie~vs was being broken.

The three months went by i n a b lur of a ctivity. Every day brought net encounters that would never be repeated. I knew I was living through an unrepeatable period of history, but I divas too tired to keep a diary.

After a career kept off the air by an SABC blacklist, I indulged myself only once, broadcasting a documentary on apartheid, to run only after the polls

had closed. There would be plenty of air to fill while waiting for the results, and we needed a bank of material. Researching in the SABC archive was another revelation.

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THE ANCIENT' REGIME FACES THF. PEOPLE'S TRIBU'.4ES: I994-1996

In March of 1994, my producer, Gary Covino, discovered an archive in a time warp. Bizarrely for a fanatically anti-communist organisation like the SABC, it contained Vladimir llyich Lenin *s voice, his first speech on his return from exile to Russia in 1917. Lenin's voice survived 46 years of

apartheid censorship. There must have been a diligent librarian following her own lights. The censor's focus was elsewhere, Nelson Mandela's speech from the dock at the 1964 Rivonia trial, arguably South Africa's most important historical audio file, was missing. A note explained why. It had been stored in the SABC archive, But someone had ordered it cut out with a razor blade and removed. There were more surprises. To illustrate the Sharpeville protests and the Soweto uprising, we found white voices on tape, but not a single black

South African speaking on either of these historical events. In 1986, I had interviewed Murphy Morobe and others as a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio for a ten-year-af'ter commemorative programme on Soweto 1976. For this and other audio, my old network in

%'ashington sent us copies. They did the same on Sharpeville, So we had the other side, to juxtapose against white government leaders, starting with Dr

D F Malan announcing the policy of apartheid in 1948. A white secretary ran in. A woman listener was on the phone. She was incensed. She wanted the documentary off the air. This was the past. There

was absolutely no reason to dredge it up now apartheid was over. She seemed most offended by having to hear Malan speaking at the moment he announced apartheid was govermnent policy. She was not the only one. I thanked the secretary. 'Put her through to the studio so she can say that on the air.' 'But she wants you to take it off.' 'I understand. Tell her t o say t hat o n th e air. She must have a full opportunity to air her views.' The listener rang off. Unused to the sunshine of democratic discourse,

she expected the back door of secrecy. It was hard not to see a comical side — a detnocratic election complete, the

past — i.e three days ago — must be banished, concealed? For SABC television, Canada's CBC was helpful beyond our expectations. The CBC sent us their election team to consult and help i mplement a technically and journalistically competent effort. It ivould not have been the same without them, or the Australians, British and Americans.

The climax of the campaign was undoubtedly Nelson Mandela's debate with De Klerk. It was a show stopper. Or, more like a country stopper. It seemed that everyone watched it on SABC TV. Madiba was a media maestro.

OUR EYES COLLD SEE TME GLORY

%'e now know from memoirs that he rejected advice of professionals to go

soft. He took De Klerk on forcefully. De Klerk was an experienced debater, and managed satisfactorily. Both were trained lawyers. Then, at the end, Madiba did something else his advisers had not recominended: he leaned across and put out his hand out to De Klerk, saying they would go forward in one country They were personally sympathetic, but they had no useful advice. Back in council, the first two-year rotation occurred. and there was net

blood. The term of Broederbond SABC chief Prof Christo Viljoen and two others expired. The three new councillors were very different froin each

other, but they would swing the tide: Felleng Sekha, Lutando Mkumatela and Pietie Lotriet. Felleng was new generation AYC. Not yet 30, she had a UCT LLB, a post-graduate diploma in ICT (information communications

technology) from Melbourne University, and divas a former chair of the industry's National Telecommunications Forum. Lutando had a masters' degree in space law from Moscow, and Pietie's career was in SABC's commercial radio stations, That they could not have come from more disparate traditions would, in time, show the potential strength of our constitution: as they came to grips with the work, all three came to see the value of our independence in order io

make professional decisions despite the white noise from the political world. Despite intensive pressure in private, all three voted with %dliam Lane and me on the next corruption-related issue. For Feiieng and Lutando, in particular, it took considerable courage to stand up to the political pressure. The crunch came ivithin a year. I would soon learn how the government

would function when abuses came to light.

The office of the auditor-general does the audit. It is a spot audit, not a thorough one. If they do not find documentation for expenditure, they ask for it. There may or may not be a legitimate explanation. Its first letter simply asks for explanations for any potential anoinalies.

%'e find no documents accounting for this expenditure, please provide it. The auditor-general works through the CEO. In our case, this was Harris Gxaweni, whose appointment I alone had opposed. My judgement proved

correct, and the council would remove him, but at this stage he was not a man to forget a slight. Later, he would be forced to quit after a labour

hearing. But now he still had power, and he opened a file on each councillor he regarded as an opponent. I brought this to the attention of the co-chairs; they chose to ignore it.

Any such failure by the co-chairs weakened our later labour case — if you have not put a stop to practices you knew about, you cannot later cite them

as grounds for dismissal. In my case, the auditor-general had a short hst of i t ems which I had documented, but that the auditor-general had not been shown. I called for my file from the accounts department. My f ile was missing! It has never been found. Someone was trying to turn the accuser into the accused! It was a tactic that would become commonplace in government. One's honesty is a danger to others. I hired a private accountant at a high hourly rate on my personal account. He put together a complete list of expenditure for which I had to recreate documentation. I traipsed around Rosebank to every service provider I had ever used to acquire copies of invoices. There was one large amount. %e had an Australian signal distribution expert consulting. The office had put him up in the Courtyard Hotel in Rosebank, %hen no transport to the airport was arranged for his Sunday morning flight, I drove over to give him a lift. At reception, he told me the

promise by our office to pay his bill had not been kept. I paid the full bill tor several weeks* acconunodation, and handed in it M o nday morning, That documentation ilvas gone with my file! I went to th e hotel and coflected a copy, and kept my ow n f i l ing in triplicate — one copy to carry home each night, one to hand to the auditorgeneral, and one to keep as a spare, It was like the old days, when we had

to have hiding places. I gave the CEO a copy, as is the required route, but the auditor-general did not receive it. So I walked in on a closed-door meeting between the auditor-general, CEO, and several officials, file number two in hand, and announced that this was an exact copy of the one the CEO had not handed to the auditor-general, which I now handed to him in front of wi tnesses. That was what exonerated me. But who would want to go through thatr In another early test of the ne t c o n stitution, the staff complained to the public protector, Selby Baqwa, a more timid version of his courageous successor, Thuli Madonsela. The public protector was another Chapter Nine appointment mandated to investigate wrongdoing beyond the numbers dealt with in the auditor-general's in the audit.

BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Baqwa completed his investigation and privately spoke warmly to me of

my actions, but I would have preferred a more public and definitive report than we got. The office would await M adonsela before its true purpose

would be properly demonstrated. The stress of this period turned my sleep pattern upside down. I evoke at four, unable to get back to sleep, then three, then two in the morning. If I

went to bed before 11, I would be up as early as one or even midnight. I felt worse than any time on trial by the apartheid government or in prison. In

those days, one's friends, the people whose values we cared about, knew I was being pursued for doing the right thing. Now I divas targeted by those I

considered allies and friends. The auditor-general's next round r eport accepted my documentation.

After I paid my accounting and legal bills, my bank called to tell me I was living beyond my. means,

Finally, ave were to have our day in parliament. In an odd twist of history, the showdown happened in the old, ivhite. parliamentary chamber, from which I had been barred as a security risk in the apartheid era. It still looked

exactly as it had when Dr Hendrik Verwoerd was stabbed to death by a messenger, Dimitri Tsefendas, in his green leather bench there thirty years

before. The auditor-general's reports go to the Standing Committee on Public

Accounts (SCOPA), which has the unenviable task of holding accountable ministers, government departments. and other bodies using public money

like ours. By tradition, in most democratic parliaments, its chairperson is from an opposition party, the better to ensure vigorous pursuit of waste. The committee was chaired by Ken Andrew, an MP from the opposition Democratic Party. In older parliaments, the members from government benches are usually beyond promotion, thus less likely to allow ambition to stay their instincts to ensure full disclosure. Since this divas the ANC's first parliament, that was not possible. How would they react> It was a difficult day for everyone, the first time the new guard was questioned about corruption in the new parliament, exactly as it is supposed to work. It was one of the most dramatic days in a work life not short of them. I arrived weighed down with lever-arch files. It was a tricky situation,

The implicated councillors had excellent ANC connections in parliament, and they marshalled them, 333

Fortunately, our predominantly black staff had sent the chairman of the staff association down to witness the session, and he sat near me and gave

consistent support. I also had the support of Felleng and Lutando. I am eternally grateful. I will never forget their courage. It could have been the end of their careers in government. In the long run, it probably was.

As each issue arose, I brought out a document. Council minutes showed each attempted or actual misuse of funds, and recorded the votes. I explained

the background. What presents were sentr By whornr What was their value.' I read the letter I had written for my secretary to routinely send. 'As you know, Councillor Matisonn does not accept gifts from broadcasters...' etc. Two ANC iMPs I remember being indignant about the three councillors'

handling of public money were Barbara Hogan and Andrew Feinstein. They were extremely upset that ANC supporters had thought this acceptable. One ANC member played the race card, claiming this was a racist attack by whites, but Felleng stepped in. 'It would be remiss of me to leave this hearing with the conclusion this was a race issue,' she told the committee. 'This has nothing to do with race. It is a question of an abuse of state funds.'

Sebiletso, Lyndall and Peter de Klerk squirmed. Honesty has no race any more than corruption does. After the SCOPA hearing, as I was trying to digest the implications of what

had happened, an 18-year Robben Island veteran with unshakeable idealism, Laloo Chiba, approached me in the parliamentary lobby. An unassuming man who was arrested and badly tortured for his role as a member of the Umkhonto we Sizzle High Command, Chiba said, 'I just want to shake your hand and thank you. Not just for what you did in parliament today, but for what you did throughout this period at the IBA.' Why did I feel so

over whelminglygrateful ~

It was a very draining day, but at the end I felt vindicated. The press were all there, and they looked shocked at what they had seen, They did not need any new information frotn me, so when they crowded around me

afterwards for comment, all I said was 'I have done what I am supposed toI have reported to parliament.' That night, my colleagues were on television saying they saw no reason to resign. They were in for a surprise. But then, so, in a different way, was I.

The next day all three — Sebiletso, Lyndall and Peter — resigned. What had happened? It was soon clear as I read down the front-page lead in the Johannesburg Star: the minister of communications, Jay Naidoo, said curtly that he expected to find out why John %1atisonn and Pietie Lotriet, a new

councillor who joined long after the relevant period, were not resigning too, Worse, the extensive front-page newspaper report made no mention of

334

BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

the substance of the hearing, in which ail my interactions were explained.

So it appeared that several councillors hail resigned, and when I was asked, I simply said, 'I have done what I was supposed to — I reported to p After a life in journalism, it was a moment I could have happily throttled a couple of former colleagues. It soonbecame dear what had happened. The three had been told by

arli ament.'

the ANC to resign, all behind the scenes, of course. Obviously they were conFident they would be taken care of. %hich they were. All three were given even higher positions in government.

I, on the other hand, had made a cardinal mistake. I had not been directly approached, presumably because I had made it clear in p what

arlia ment

my position was. I was independent. Of course, this is exactly what I was supposed, under the constitution, to be. I acted fast. I contacted Naidoo for an urgent meeting. I will never forget it. Naidoo told me I could see him at the luxurious Three Ships Bar in the

five-star Carlton Hotel in downtown Johannesburg at 2pm. The bar had plush lounge chairs in which I saw Andile Ngcaba, the director-general, and the minister, sitting and eating. Neither was a close friend, but I had long and warm relations with both.

Both were anything but pleased to see me. Effectively, I had been the whistle-blower, and I now understood how uncomfortable a whistle-blower is to those in power, no matter the public rhetoric and legislation protecting this essential practice, Ngcaba gestured to me mth his fork to wait while the minister was eating. I remember both as scowling. This was not going to be very sympathetic.

Finalis; Naidoo put down his utensils. He was ready. I was summoned to sit on a stool opposite him, and his expression was anything but kind. By now I knew his, and the government's, position. They wanted all councillors to resign, the innocent along with the guilty. The only possible explanation was that this would somehow inuddy the water about the actions of the ANC members, so it could be billed as an organisation that was dysfunctional, then replaced with new councillors who might be more pliable. Over time it became clear the government wanted broadcast licensing policies to change. No distinction would be made between the good work w e had done

in building a diverse, independent broadcasting sector, and the misuse of funds by some. The continued and improved effectiveness of the IBA, as it was designed, clearly was not their concern.

I looked at Jay, the man we had admired for more than a decade as a courageous trade union leader in the anti-apartheid era, and knew I was on my own. I took the initiative.

335

DE%1OCRACY: 1994-2015

'I believe that when you have done something wrong,' I said looking directly at him, 'you resign. And when you have been honest and done nothing wrong, in fact a lot right, you stay exactly where you are and continue doing it.' His expression was fearsome. Clearly, this was something he might find difficult to argue with, In any case, I had the constitution on my side. I let the moment linger. 'But I don't think it makes sense for you and I to be pissing on each other

in the media, do you!' I kept my gaze steady. 1 o, he said quickly. I had what I wanted. He would have to call off his dogs. Then he added that he would still need to be able to state his position preferring resignations. I r e p lied t hat I

w o u l d c o n t inue to state mi ne

opposing them. We had an understancing. There would be no personal attacks, and the issue would be downplayed tiH it was forgotten. I could get back to work. But as I have thought about the incident writing this book, the magnitude of what happened has increased. At the time, I felt alone, isolated and vulnerable. I felt more stressed in that process than I had in the bad old days, interrogated on the tenth floor of John Vorster Square, or during short sojourns in prison. This time, it was the people I trusted doing this. I was aivare I had constitutional protection and I used it to prevent further interference. But, as I reflect on the period now, it was a first confirmation that those now in charge of the ANC di d no t accept the independence guarantee of Chapter Nine of the Const:tution in good faith. Nothing is a worse violation of constitutional protection than applying political pressure to force the resignation of a C h apter Nine appointee. I do not believe that Naidoo did this on his own. Nor do I t hink Nelson Mande)a, with his lawyerly appreciation for constitutional sovereignty, was

behind it. Thabo Mbeki was running most of the day-to-day business of government and in control of the ANC. I am satisfied that Jay was acting under strict instructions. Naidoo had in fact been against the arms deal, the next big case of corruption. In later years, having mad a small fortune in business, he would turn from that life and devote himself to arguing for the restoration of the ~ C ' s lost struggle values. I prefer to think he acted so poorly under duress,and thatperhaps he even regretswhat the party him to do. Disrespect for Chapter Nine institutions would manifest in cruder and

com peled

cruder «vays, and most egregiously when the exposure of corruption in the

arms deal put powerful people at risk. After my term had ended the following year, my career in any future

BL|T SOME ARE htORK EQUAL THAR, OTHERS

post for which I was well qualified was over. More painful, perhaps, was that from our detnocratic government leaders, the issue of public morality

received only lip service. In government, people quickly read the tea-leaves. Honest public servants were not protected. Since I knew many in cabinet or sub-cabinet level, and encountered them from time to time, it was remarkable how even some in positions defending

public ethics could not find a word of support. It was a harbinger of the response to corruption that would come with much bigger events in the future, Again, broadcasting had notched up a first.

I arrived back in my office in Parktown, Johannesburg, to see my secretary. Emmanuelita Ratseili-Webb's possessions were still there. She was working late, but was not in her office. I found her in the kitchen, painting I-B-A in

red nail polish on the bottom of the china. Nail polish, she informed me, never comes off.

She had seen orders placed for Japanese Noritake china of the highest quality. That was bad enough. It appeared that it +as being chosen because it was what someone wanted for themselves. Emmanuelita faced a vendetta,

but thankfully survived long after I left.

Sebiletso, Lyndall and Peter were not rehired at the IBA: they did much better. They were close to Naidoo's successor as minister, Dr Ivy Matsepe-

Casaburri, and as she rose, they rose too. Sebiletso becatne CEO of Sentech, the national signal distributor housing

the accumulatedinfrastructure going back to 1928, There she faced staff and press criticism over her lifestyle, and resigned her position in 2010 in the face of a damning report about Sentech's leadership struggles. L yndall became South A f rica's representative in G e neva, a t t h e International Telecommunications Union. where her reputation grew. She returned as director-general of communications. After the successful putsch

against Mbeki deprived him of the presidency, she left the ANC to join the breakaway group, the Congress of the People (COPE), where she serves as leader of the party in the provincial Gauteng legislature. On their coat-tails, Peter de Klerk's fortunes soared too. After an advertising career where he divas known for the ability to win contracts from the white apartheid government. he went on to a long career under

the ANC's Matsepe-Casaburri. By his own admission a broadcasting neophyte, De Klerk became the ANC minister's broadcasting adviser. He ended his career as CEO of Nemisa, a broadcasting school established by 337

the department in mysterious circumstances without input frotn most of the broadcasting industry. In 2014, at the end of his report to the parliamentary communications committee, he said he had a q uestion: what was his institution's mandate? An odd question, you might think after years in the job. Odder still, he did not get an answer.

But it was Andile Ngcaba who really hit the jackpot. He left government for a business career that included a significant personal sbareholding in Telkom. As director-general of communicarions, his attitude to me had changed

overnight. He seemed determined to show us he was boss, down to sending advance warning that he would stop by to see the council chairs and wanted

lunch to be ready when he arrived. Meeting the council, Igcaba gave unimplementable directions. %'hy are we not using India as an example of broadcasting? Ko specifics were offered, %'hy did we not realise privatisation must be done in terms of government privatisation policies? But that meant violating our parhamentapproved report. It meant handing over the proceeds of SAEC privatisations to the state, even though parliament had approved our privatisation report which set out that the funds must go to the SABC to compensate for the

revenue they would lose, and to implement new, more democratic public broadcasting requirements. I was an early casualty of growing pobtical intervention, but many were

to follow. Principled internals from the non-racial front were either coopted to do as they were told or excised frotn the system. Former apartheid officials were promoted. %ithout the moral high ground, they were the

most pliable.

Damage ro the broadcasting sector affects the intangibles: the nature of public debate, how the national culture is expressed and stretched, the

quality of a democracy. It also, of course, has an impact on jobs. But for jobs and the economy, telecommunications is the key ro building an information economy. Get that right, according to one respected study. and you create

500,000 jobs in five years — good, above ground, jobs that add considerably to the size of the total economy. The information economy was in its infancy, but the issues were well

known to all of us involved in government and regulatory bodies from the early 1990s. Information was becoming the oil of the modern economy. This was created by the convergence of three technologies — broadcasting,

RUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

telecommunications and IT. %hereas, in the past, your radio and TV came

from the air, your telephone came from fixed lines in the ground, and your computer was an isolated machine, novv they ivere integrated. Your TV

could come from a landline (cable TV), your phone from the air (mobile phones) and all could be put through acomputer. President Mbeki, himself an inveterate internet traivler, kne~ that as ~veil as anyone.

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Democracy's Citadel

t

n 1994, African National Congress (ANC) MPs were sworn in o n t h e

floor of the National Assetnbly in groups of four. Zulu traditional leader alongside Muslim imam, jewish communist and Christian intellectual. It was a proud moment. Were our hopes just grossly unrealistic> Perhaps the smoothness, the apparent normality blinded us to the magnitude of the task.' Parliament was the heart of it all... I always expected t o r e turn t o p o l i t ical j o urnalism. To g o b ack t o

parliament, legally, ZO years after I had been expelled as a security risk, vvould complete the circle. In 1999, I was hired by the Independent group

to head its weekend papers' parliamentary team, and filled in parliament's accreditation forms. Have you ever been denied accreditation on security grounds! I ticked YES, and was approved in forty-eight hours. This was the new South Africa!

Nelson Mandela's presidency had left a warm afterglow. Mandela had a profound effect on the parliamentary press corps, his deft touch legendary. Reporters could doorstop him between parliament and the presidential office in the historic Tuynhuis, former colonial governor's house next door,

and he would give citizens a sense of government's thinking. Of course, the legacy was complicated. The press did give the government an easy ride. How do you criticise someone who is almost a saint! Already

he belonged to the ages. Now Thabo Mbeki was in his shoes. or at least his offices. And the press gallery was adjusting to a very different tone. There is ahvays a problem of how close parliamentary journalists get to

politicians. That is why big scandals are usually not broken by the gallery staff. That was true of Watergate — Woodward and Bernstein were not

White House or congressional correspondents. Muldergate was broken by Kitt Katzin, Mervyn Rees and ' not parliamentary correspondents. Investigative journalists like Mzilikazi wa Afrika at the Sunday Times,

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and Sam Sole at the Afuil O' Guardian have been breaking big stories for decades. The record of investigative reporters holds up weII. They had to be willing to be unpopular. But now the atmosphere seemed particularly partisan. Black journalists tended to socialise with ANC MPs, white journalists with the opposition. A

press gallery restaurant and bar in the building was used mainly by white reporters. Few blacks joined the Cape Town press club. It was unhealthy. Efforts were made to change it, but they were not successful. B ecause of my history both among strugglistas and around, if not i n , parliament, I had a foot in both camps. %bile some ANC MPs and ministers appreciated journalists' need to write what they found regardless of their preferences, tolerance of others was ahnost non-existent. I once watched

an ANC MP dressing down a black reporter with an impeccable struggle history — she had been jailed and tortured, for God's sake! — whose copy was extremely pro-ANC for writing 'just to sell papers. Thar's what makes you do it'. In other words betray us tor money. It was brutal.

In meetings, journalists ribbed ANC MP Andries Nel for stalling on holding a single meeting to investigate Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Penuel Maduna, accused of unconstitutionaUy attacking the auditor-general. nel, a party whip, was chairing the investigation. when will you call your committee to a meeting~ was the triendly taunt. His smirk said it all.

Being a whip would preclude a proper investigation. The role of a whip is to control party discipline and tactics. The whip tells MPs to go in and vote the party line! Astonishingly, Nel eventually completed a report that found in Maduna's favour. %'ho would have expected that~ Maduna's attack was

based on his failure to read the auditor-general's report properly. The total investigation, including Maduna's attentpts to pr ove his untenable case, cost R30 million on a fruitless investigation. It was treated as an inside joke. Ivladuna was promoted to minister of justice. Nel went on to become 6rst deputy constitutional development minister and noiv deputy cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister. At 50, he is young enough to expect a bright future in the party.

I had a memorable dinner at the fashionable Cape Town waterfront with Parks Mankah4na, the president's spokesman. Mbeki inherited him from Mandela, yet he divas scathing about Mandeia. It was obvious he was

reflecting President Mbeki's views. Mandela had called on the Nigerian government not to execute the human rights activist Ken Saro-%rtwa in November 1995, and rebuked them after the execution.

Parks was excoriating about Mandela. This had lost African support. South Africa was isolated from the continent. At the time, Robert Mugabe's

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mistreannent of opposition politicians, white fariners and black farm workers was in the news. Parks tnade it clear criticising Mugabe in public was outrageously inappropriate. For a time President Mbeki refused to take calls from the retired Mandela, niy sources told me. Ai1andela was deeply insulted, There was a poignant moment at the d i nner ivhen I co mmented on the tragedy that just as black South Africa ended 300 years of racisin, our

citizens were being feUed by this new crisis, AIDS. Parks publicly endorsed Mbeki's AIDS denialism, but when I made my comments he looked at me pained. He died not long after the dinner, reportedly of AIDS. I was working for the company now owned by the Irishntan Sir Anthony O'Reilly. It made me realise how lucky I had been at theRand Daily Afait, and ~4ational Public Radio (NPR), where editors were heavily engaged in helping to develop stories. Staff cuts and reticence about pushing the envelope were evident.

I had more dismaying experiences. Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) work had been completed, and around R6 billion was recomtnended 1or apartheid abuse victims, but there was no clarity about its delivery.

The amount was reasonable for the budget, if paltry for the beneficiaries. I asked Trevor Manuel, the finance minister, why it was not being paid. He referred me to the justice minister, Penuel Maduna. I asked Maduna, and he referred ine to Manuel! %'hat was going on here.' Hailed as an important i nnovation in r etributive jurisprudence, the seeds were being sewn fo r people to turn on the TRC's work. In December 1999, as we waited for the year's matric results. the grade

for completion of high school, after five years of democratic government, I did a little research. The South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) had produced a table of results from 1976 to 1998. The results shattered all my presumptions. It showed that the 1976 student uprising had given the government a

severe shock. From 1976, when the number of black students completing high school was callously low, there was a steady rise in numbers each year. By 1994, the last year of white rule,' 85,000 South Africans passed matric with results that wou!d allow them to go to university. From '1994, in all

but one of the next five years, that figure fell. By 1999, it was at 53,000, a shattering underinining of the inspiring promise of the Freedom Charter,

'The doors of learning and culture shall be opened'. 1 The 14;landela government took over in May 1994.

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Matric results are the flawed but best available evidence of learning measurement. Democratic ANC governmen~ was not improving education, it was getting worse. Funds were provided, but the results did not match the spending. The most important component of good education is teachers.

Slowly, it became apparent how the political dynamic had changed. Before 1990, those working for the bantustan governments were viewed as being on the white government's side. Now these teachers were voters, and members of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU),

fiercely protecting its members, who were often unqualified. Parents began to see SADTU as an obstacle to improved education.

The government would not challenge them so education languished. A s a reporter, you are compelled go where the facts take you. In t h e

dimate of the time, such a story would undoubtedly be received badly. Kader Asmal, much admired as dean of the Trinity College Law School in Ireland, one of the authors of the constitution, was the new education minister, fresh from five years as much-lauded minister of water affairs,

for adding four million water taps to the unserved. %e had a minor, but positive, working relationship from Codesa (Convention for a Democratic South Africa) days. His press adviser was Tony Heard who, as editor of the Cape Times, was

widely praised for printing an interview with ANC president Oliver Tambo in 1986, four years before it was legal. I approached Tony for Asmal's comment on the findings. It was a Tuesday, and we would only print o n Sunday. I needed to understand, assuming there was an explanation in the change of standards since the end of the

apartheid system of separate schooling. Several times I quizzed Tony about his progress. He had taken the request to Asmal, who had said that he would not respond. The report would have to say Asmal declined to comment.

I spoke to educationists, including lhron Rensburg, deputy director g eneral of

e d ucation an d a w e l l -known a n t i-apartheid activist. H e i s

currently vice-chancellor of the University of johannesburg. No, Rensburg said, there was no apartheid explanation. The figures were comparable.

The results had deteriorated as the figures showed. With trepidation, I sent m y p i ece, the front-page lead in the Sttnday

Independent. The following week AsInal found his voice: a skewering personal attack, calling my adherence to figures 'Matisonn's obsession ~ith statistics'. Criticism of j o u rnalists usually focuses on their lack of f acts. Complaining that a reporter had too many facts was novel. But it was a

sad moment. Policy must be strictly based on evidence. How will the public know where the problem is if the facts are derided>

DEMOCIHCY: 1994 — 2015 + + >i' + 4

%'hile absorbing these disorienting contradictions, «he story that set the tone,

the arms deal, landed at our feet. As deputy president. Mbeki had presided over the procurement of R29 billion's worth of arms for the air force and navy, from British, Swedish, French, German and Italian companies, The questions, first made public by Patricia de Lille„a Pan Africanist Congress IHIP who is now the Democratic Alliance mayor of Cape Town-

and who had obtained a 'dossier' from the enigmatic and peripatetic Bheki Jacobs, a Soviet-trained intelligence operative — soon came to dominate our parliamentary work. Th e deal came before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA}, the committee before ivhich I had blown the whistle on the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) three years earlier. But this time the committee's moral centre would not hold.

The job of SCOPA is to interrogate whether government funds have been spent as parliament allocated thetn. Any abuse, corruption or waste is to be exposed. Being an honest member of a public accounts committee is not a short cut to making friends. At first, the work on t he a rms deal proceeded well, and across party

lines. The ANC's Andrew Feinstein, a highly qualified young economist, and the Inkatha Freedom Party chairman, Dr Gavin Woods, established a relationship of mutual respect, and they worked well together. Feinstein had taken the precaution of checking with Jacob Zuma, then the ANC's leader of government business, who had encouraged him to pursue the investigation where the evidence took it. This did not last.

Over time, the underlying cause of the problem emerged. Funds siphoned off from the deal had been used to run ANC election campaigning. There may not have been an initial intention to enrich individuals. But, as is the way of corruption, once you siphon off public money, you have to entrust it to people. They know that if thev keep some of the money, you cannot act

because you are cornplicit. Andrew Feinstein found this out the hard way. An unnamed senior ANC member of the National Executive Committee, the party's highest body, invited Feinstein to his house to explain that Feinstein would never be aHowed to get to the bottom of the deal. 'Why not!' Feinstein asked. 'Because we received money from some of the winning companies. How

do you think we funded the 1999 eiection1'-' 2 Feinstein, Andrew; After the Party, Ionathan Ball: 200!, p I;7.

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Trevor Manuel, the minister of finance, at lunch with Feinstein, told him

he was on a fool's errand. 'We all know J M (Joe Modise, the minister of defence during the negotiations). lt's possible that there divas some shit in the deal. But if there was, no one will ever uncover it. They' re not that stupid. Just let it lie. Focus on the technical stuff, which was sound." But the 'technical stuff' was not sound. For example, the government

bought British Aerospace jets at higher prices than jets the air force preferred on technical capabilities. Feinstein argued that the p roblem should be addressed irrunediately, otherwise 'it will come back to haunt us'.

The deal involved the purchase of five sets of military hardware: jet fighters, jet trainers, helicopters, submarines and medium-sized naval ships. Restocking the army was left for a later round. The naval vessels would not

be fully functional, because marine helicopters were too expensive for the first round. Nearly half of the length of the ships is taken up by a hehcopter pad. Time has shown that much of this weaponry did not fulfil South Africa *s

primary defence force needs. A big part of the justification for the naval supplies was to protect our waters from illegal fishing, but their running costs, which would be allocated to the department of Fisheries, were prohibitive, so Fisheries bought cheap, fast coastguard cutters at a fraction of the price instead. The jets. bought at p r ices well above competitors'

offerings, were less urgent. %rtthin a decade, South Africa was playing a significant military role in Africa. But it was largely as peacekeepers, for which jets, submarines

and frigates have little application. Troop carriers, helicopters and ground support would have been more appropriate. Discussing the purpose of a procurement is not SCOPA's primary role. Its job is to ensure that money is spent as parliament intended, and not on

anything else. We now know that a great deal of money, more than a billion rand, was spent on 'commissions' to middlemen, usually the same thing as bribes. The obvious question arises: why a middleman' When South Africa was a pariah state, it used go-betweens to mask its evasion of sanctions. For a legitimate state that is respected in the world, buying arms from companies like British

Aerospace is perfectly legitimate. Why not just publish a tender, and pick up the phone? The deals took place while the global arms industry was in a slump because the end of the Cold War brought a peace dividend. South Africa's 3 Feinstein, p 177.

DEMOCRACY: l994-20 l5

purchases were the largest in the world at the time. Arms companies were desperate to keep their factories open in the lean times between wars. It was

a buyer's market. South Africa could have squeezed its suppliers till the pips squeaked. It didn' t. Instead, it bought equipment at above market prices. As explanations

for all these decisions wore thin, ministers shifted their ground to the jobs argument: the contracts all tied the sellers to build businesses in South Africa

that would create jobs and economic growth. They were called 'offsets'. As soon as the arms deal came to parliament, Terry Crawford-Browne,

a close ally of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the Anglican Church, visited parliament, telling journalists what was vvrong with the deal.

Crawford-Brownie has an interesting history. Born in Ireland, he spent his teenage years in Libya, got his education in the US, briefly joined the US military, then in 1967 came to South Africa vvhere he rose through

the ranks as a banker. His wife Lavinia was Tutu's assistant for decades. Crawford-Browne is widely credited vvith providing the banking expertise most activists lacked, to build the international campaign for sanctions.

He argues persuasively that it was the withdrawal of bank loans in 1986 that tipped the scales, forcing the .4 t i onalist government to recognise its economy vvas doomed to Io~ o r n egative growth as long as it clung to

apartheid. He was the first to expose many of the flaws in the purchases themselves.

For example, the jets we already had vvere still good for many years' flying, yet many vvere not in service because the air force lacked pilots. Time has proved that argument correct. Many of the new planes, now delivered,

are mothballed for the same reason. %'e still have a shortage of pilots, The air force trains them, but once trained, air force pay is so low they flee to commercial airlines. The air force also lacks the budget to maintain the new

fighters properly. A major argument for the corvettes and submarines was pirate fishing off South Africa's vast coast. But Crawford-Browne claimed that these were the wrong tools. At a fraction of the cost, you could buy numerous, faster coastguard cutters, which would give you the ability to police a much wider area at a fraction of the cost.

Crawford-Browne also rejected the argument for offsets. As he is quick to remind me, I was not immediately convinced. My view was that a strong market requires a strong state. %ell-considered and targeted state interventions through regulation and other means are essential to an effective

economy that delivers to excluded communities. I believe in industrial policy. lt was industrial policy that established our successful motor manufacturing

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industry. My experience in the IBA Avas extremely encouraging. The new businesses we facilitated are thriving. Several are listed on the stock exchange,

like HCI and Kagiso Media — and the start the broadcasting licensing programme gave them was a launch pad into a multitude of new businesses. The government's argument for offsets had to be considered seriously. Arms companies that won contracts were supposed to ensure that part of what they provided was built in South Africa, which in practice meant by arms companies nurtured by the apartheid ut now part of the economy the ANC had inherited. To ignore them would mean significant

regime,b

job losses. The cotnpanies saw the writing on the wall, and seamlessly switched allegiance to the new regime, providing directorships and shares to influential ANC figures. Arms dealers rarely meet a government they do

not like, unless, of course, there is a well-funded rebel force endeavouring to oust one. I was on board this leap of faith, until I read the numbers put to it: Trade

and Industry Minister Alee Erwin claimed that the (at this time) RZ9 billion deal would create R105 billion in offsets, and 65,000 jobs! This was patently absurd: if this could work, then obviously the arms deal was too small. Why not buy R290 billion in weapons,then you could create more than one trillion rands in extra business for South Africa and 650,000 jobs.' Age-old dilenunas in economics would have been solved at a stroke, To develop an economy, simply buy weapons. %hat was Erwin smoking? %hen I asked other ministers how they could have accepted such absurdities, they say they trusted Alee. He was persuasive, and Mbeki and Erwin were the economists in cabinet. Emin entered government with a good reputation among anti-apartheid activists. He had earned a BEcon Hons in Economics at the University of Natal, and lectured in the economics department for seven years, plus a year lecturing in York University. Erwin was one of the white students associated with the radical National

Union of South African Students (MJSAS), ~vho helped revive the black trade union movement in the 1970s. Erwin, who had held office in NUSAS, became active in the unions from 1973, holding various positions in several trade unions as well as in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and its predecessor, the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU). It was a time when activists, black and white, had to take decisions about

their political allegiances in a dangerous time. A number secretly joined the ANC, the Communist Party, or both. Erin was a voluble member of a faction called 'Workerists', which advocated that unions stay out of politics.

DEMOCRACY: 1994-Z015

After the parties were unbanned in 1990, Erwin's COSATU connections

brought him into the Congress Alliance leadership. He joined the Communist Party in 1989. By this time, membership was advantageous, As a trusted COSATV executive member whose education gave him rare authority on economic matters in the ANC, he rose fast and became a deputy minister in the first democratic government in 1994. But his main contribution came as minister of trade and industries, from 1996 to 2004, when the arms negotiations were conducted. L ike other unionists who went into M b ek i's cabinet, his move to t h e right would soon lose him the constituencies that had put him there: the unions, and those elements in the Communist Party who retained egalitarian convictions. It is unhkely that Mbeki did not anticipate this outcome.

Like others who came horn the left in the struggle days, and landed up espousing Mbeki's econotnic conservatism which stripped them of t h eir constituencies, Eri n ' s p o l i t ical career was now e n tirely dependent on

Mbeki's goodwill. Envin became the president's firmest loyalist. It is one of the flaws of our proportional representation system. Voters vote for a party, not an individual, and the party submits its list of names for parliamentary seats. In theory, the parties run a democratic process to choose their candidates but, in practice, the party leader, especially in a

governing party with lots of jobs in hand, holds enormous sway, Being in or out of government, and gaining employment, often comes down to the

approval of one person. When Crawford-Browne took on the arms deal, he was not an opponent

of the government. Mbeki knew him, his political commitment and his financial acumen. Mbeki had invited him to Lusaka, where they had sat on his bed in the Pamodzi Hotel discussing economic sanctions strategy. But Crawford-Browne was not the only one who knew the disastrous history of offsets. Feinstein reached the same depressing conclusion. The

stakes are so high for arms dealers, especially when the world is enjoying a peace dividend and their businesses are in danger, that they will promise anything. %%at was more, the penalties for non-achievement were trivial. That guaranteed they would pay the penalties when the offsets failed to

deliver. In 2012, long after Erwin left government, his old trade and industries department conducted an audit of the offsets. Reviewing promises of 56,53 1

new jobs, the DTI found 3,815, or 6.7 percent of what was promised. Even that may be generous. The report said the audit team 'could not verify from the supporting documents if the total number of jobs reported were created and whether they were sustained or not sustained'.

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It was just as a reasonabk layman would expect. You cannot spend R29 and create R110 of economic benefit. It's common sense, common sense backed by extensiveresearch into previous arms deal offset programmes in other parts, of the world. At the time this came to parliament, Erwin was angrily dismissive of journalists and!vIPs who tried to make this point. Appearing before the Seriti

Commission of Inquiry into the arms deal in 2014 (appointed by President Zuma in 2011 and which was bedevilled with resignations, allegations of political interterence and suicides) Erwin was still in denial. Conceding 'the policy was not a total success', Envin told the conunission, 'but it was a success in our view and that success was better than nothing that would h ave resulted from doing nothing for fear of the risks',~ He went on t o

argue he would do some things differently with tundsight, but the changes he proposed were comparatively small. The fact is, without the offsets the

purchases would have been far cheaper, and the military brass would have been happier. F rom trade and i ndustries, Erwin was appointed minister of p u b l ic enterprises, under whose watch government decided that building tnore electricity capacity should be postponed. 'We waned them when I divas still in parliament about the dangers of offsets,' Feinstein recalled. 'But the imperative of getting the bribe was so

profound they would not heed any advice." Later figures showed the deal cost around R65 billion. But finance costs were not included in most estimates. so the final price is likely to be substan-

tially higher. One DTI report gave the offset value as R6 billion. City Press did its own on-the-ground investigation. It fo und four companies in the oHset programme that failed to pr oduce a single job. Another six companies in the programme either refused to provide numbers or failed to respond to inquiries altogether. Among those failing to respond was the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), a government entity which reports to the DTI itself. It was paid ISO million by an arms company to create a credit

tacility for small- and medium-sized enterprises, creating 3,510 jobs. The IDC did not respond when City Press asked what it actually delivered.s

4 E rnest Mabuza, City Press, ln hindsight, arms deal was uot total success — Ervvin, 18 February 2014. 5 C harl du Plessis, City Press, E~viu's arms deal offset flop, 16 February 2014. 6 Ci ty Press, 30 March 2014.

DEMOCRACY: 1994-201 S

When parliamentary oversight of the arms deal began, the oversight institutions were ready to play their parts as the constitution required. The speaker, Dr Frene Ginivala, vowed to protect parliament's investigation, as she must, and to resign if she couldn' t."' The committee charged with

the process, SCOPA, was well-stocked vvith quality MPs who knevv their responsibilities. The auditor-general, Shauket Fakie, and the p ublic protector, Selby Baqwa, protected from political interference by Chapter Nine of the constitution, were ready.

When the process finished, none of these things was true. Each of these institutions was comprotnised.

In the ruling party chief vvhip's wood-panelled office, the new decree was handed down. 'The ANC, from the President downwards, xaill now exercise political control over SCOPA,' the ANC chief whip, Tony Yengeni, told the ANC members of SCOPA, known as the ANC study group.' The same day, Ginwala wrote to Zuma to say SCOPA's allegations 'are not substantiated'.'

This piece of Speaker doublespeak was not only untrue but a wholly inappropriate intervention. Bantu Holomisa, whose record of integrity has been proven over and over in adverse circumstances, said the speaker was in dereliction of her duty to prioritise the integrity of parliament. But the problem remained: Chapter Nine bodies in the Joint Investigating

Team (JIT) conducting the probe had agreed to a method of investigation, which SCOPA had endorsed. So had the director of public prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka. The ruling party was novv deternuned to walk some decisions back, starting with the inclusion in the investigative team of a

judge, Willem Heath. After meeting the president, Baqwa and Ngcuka changed their minds. Selby Baqwa, the public protector, who had privately commended me for my role in trying to keep things clean in the IBA, had been accused in the tnedia of sexual harassment, 'Remarkably, once he had recanted

on (Judge) Heath the (sexual harassment) allegations were dropped. His accused spoke to the media and said she had been compensated for withdrawing charges."" As for the auditor-general, he was due to appear before SCOPA, but this 7 Feinstein, p174. A few weeks after this promise, Feinstein left another meeting with her 'appalled that someone who a few vveeks earlier had fervently supported parliament's independence and threatened to resign if 1 was intimidated or stopped from pursuing the truth was now a key player in neutering the investigation'. p 183, 8 Feinstein, p 194. 9 Feinstein, p 195. 10 Feinstein. p 182.

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never happened. Staff in his office were instructed to cease contact mth

Feinstein or SCOPA chairman Gavin Woods, Fakie, who had exonerated me after I forced my way past the ISA CEO to h and hi m m y r e constructed accounts which had mysteriously disappeared, was charged with contempt of court and forced to hand over

documents proving he changed his report after inappropriately meeting with Mbeki. Feinstein was told the auditor-general had been summoned to see the President @vice. 'In the first, Mbeki supposedly attacked Fakie and admonished him for writing the report, He also made it clear in no uncertain terms which aspects of the deal the AG's office could and could not investigate." ' At the next meeting of the AN C members of SCOPA, ministers were now present instructing MPs what questions to ask. 'Oversight, indeed,' exclaimed a disheartened Feinstein.' t In the formal public accounts committee hearing, 'the ANC members

asked their scripted questions and agreed with every answer supplied by the minister'. In answer to Feinstein's substantive questions, the tninisters were

'belligerent and arrogant'." We reporters recognised the description. Nel, who exonerated iWIaduna, was now on SCOPA with other hacks as

Feinstein was shown the door. Geoff Doidge, an affable ANC MP, also got his chance to show enough loyalty for later promotion to minister of public works. The ANC then demanded parliament vote its support and appreciation for the speaker. Feinstein's decision to abstain was the final stratv that forced

his resignation from parliament in the face of likely disciplinary procedures. All this happened under Mbeki. Newspaper editorials warned that the arms deal would not go away until it was properly investigated. 'What is at stake is the integrity of parliament (and) the Presidency,' academic and

author, Xolela Mangcu wrote,'" but the ANC under Mbeki had long since ceased taking seriously the views of journalists, academics or public thinkers.

In the judgement convicting Schabir Shaik, a beneficiary of the arms deal and close collaborator of Jacob Zuma, the court accepted that Shaik had

11 Feinstein. p197. 12 Feinstein, p198. 13 Feinstein. p199. 14 Sunday btdependent,21 January 2001.

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agreed on a deal with the winning French bidder Thomson-CSF that Zuma would get R500,000 a year to assist their efforts and protect them from any investigation into the transaction. Thar, was in March 2000.

Shaik had asked Thomson for the payment, but by the end of the year Zuma was still waiting. And Zuma, it seemed, had a pamcular need for the money. At the time, Feinstein was still f i nding Zuma supportive. In

December 2000 Shaik followed up with Thomson with a signed agreement, which they subsequently counter-signed and returned on 1 January 2001. Around this time, Z u ma's attitude to Feinstein and the investigation

changed. On 19 January, a 13-page letter to SCOPA signed by Zuma excoriated the investigation. Thabo Mbeki later admitted he had written it, but Zuma chose to alloiv it to go out under his name. Feinstein tound

Zuma returned none of his calls, On 9 February, Zuma got his first payment from Thomson, %'hat was Zuma's pressing financial need in these weeks' It turned out that between 31 October and 4 December, one creditor in particular had

pressed with increased urgency for payment for services being rendered, Vfho divas the creditor and why divas his case so important' The answer is that the creditor was a builder." He was frustrated in his need for payment for the construction he had been working on — a new home for Zuma, in a

bucolic corner of KwaZulu-Natal called Nkandla.

15 Feinsrein, pZ18.

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Spies, Lies, Bush and Blair... Tony Blair is 'no longer prime minister of Britain', but 'the foreign minister of the United States'. — NEtsow MmDELA,JawuARv 2003

habo hibeki was astride the world stage, As president, his relationship with Britain began on a high note. %'hile the arms deal was being finalised, Queen Elizabeth made a state visit to South Africa from 9 to

15 November 1999. Unusually early for a new president, Ivibeki was offered a state visit in return, in June 2001. So Ivlbeki, sporting tails, and the red

sash and heraldic badge of an honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, GCB, a recent award from his hostess, Queen Elizabeth,' found himself supping on guinea fowl and raspberry souffle in St George's Hall in %rindsor Castle with 162 members of the British estabhshment.

Earlier that day, he was treated to the full pomp of a guard of honour from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards and a royal procession by carriage

to the castle, an informal royal family lunch which included the Princess Royal, the Duke of York and the Earl and Countess of Wessex, Then it was off to the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park for tea with Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. For a man often uncomfortable in crowds, friends watching Mbeki on that visit to Britain said he had never looked so happy, so comfortable in his own skin.' It was not one event, it vvas everything. He remembered his years at Sussex University as the best of times. It was in England that he 1 By the end of the decade he would be Thabo Mbeki, GCB. GCMG, OE (Jamaica), KStJ. 2 Confidential English and South African sources.

353

adopted the very English habit of pipe-smoking. Sussex friends, soine from semi-aristocracy, were with him now. They had been with him when he was a poor student at the low po ints of the anti-apartheid struggle, and they

were with him in his hour of triumph. Too sophisticated a political man to b e swayed tnerely by ceremony,

Mbeki felt comfortable with his political hosts, now that power had come to the I.abour Party, where he and the African 'AationaI Congress

(ANC) had inany friends, He had marched in anti-apartheid rallies with young Labour members now in the leadership of the party in power. Antiapartheid stalwarts, like Peter Hain and Glynnis Kinnock, ivere now close to the seat of British political power. He was home, or as much at home as

half a lifetime in exile will allow. This state visit was intended to underline the fact that Britain's relationship was with Mbeki too, not just the saintly President Mandela. Both sides had reason to believe it would only get better. %"ith Mbeki as chairman of the Cabinet conunittee steering South Africa's biggest-ever arms deal, it was no surprise that the Americans were entirely excluded. Now the arms deal was

in the bag, and British Aerospace received the biggest conrract. That deal mattered to th e British government. It o wns a one pound

golden share in British Aerospace, giving it veto power in the event of a takeover bid. The British Foreign Office has only one economic sector with its own substaiitial marketing section — for military hardware. It was hoped t his contract from South Africa would be a signal to the many that

chinning

future arms shoppers still taking their strategic lead from South Africa, at a

time when the major powers were not buying. The developing world was xvhere new markets had to be tound. Arms companies have a small number

of large customers; they risk closing down before their home governments next need their wares.

Travelling from South Africa to the country's biggest singe trading partner, Mbeki had no less than 120 South African business people in tow. He addressed British MPs, the Scottish Parliament, a banquet hosted by the Lord Mayor of London, and ineetings with business leaders.

The relationship was reciprocated by the British. Mbeki was more than a match for his hosts. He was better read than many of his British counterparts. His tastes ran to English poets and German composers; he

quoted Shakespeare effortlessly. He wore his growing influence in Africa ~veil. his views were sought after and valued. Within two years. the trust between the two governments would be in

ruins. To the end of his presidency and in retirement, Mbeki would berate Britain in p o litical circles at home, arguing that its colonial mentality

SP1ES, LIES. BUSH AND BL41R

infused Labour as much as the Tories. It was one reason why China would

look increasingly attractive to his ANC colleagues and successors. China was not trymg to replace African or Middle Eastern governments, and the ANC's party-to-party relations with the Chinese Communist Party were

producing growing practical benefits, including party funds and foreign policy collaboration. Unlikely as it may seem, though Zimbabwe became the chiet casualty of the fallout, the cause was not South Africa's neighbour, but an enormous event with worldwide repercussions: the West's invasion of Iraq. At the heart of the faH-out with Britain would be a clash over information: what the press said, what intelhgence services said, v hat expertsadvised, and

what Blair and Mbeki believed when confronted with half-baked intelligence. When the fallout on Iraq came, Mbeki was spectacularly, history-jarringly, . correct. In the subsequent events, of more direct

importanceto southern

Africa, he would prove just as ill-served by unsatisfactory intelligence and uncritical when confronted with one-sided assessments that he wanted to hear, as Blair was in Iraq. Iraq was a toxic mix o f bad A m erican and British intelligence, weak

American journalism (with honourable exceptions), uncannily and unexpectedly good South African intelligence, and power politics driven by the myopic judgement of both the American president and British prime

minister. Mbeki had face-to-face contact with both George W Bush and Tony Blair, alongside their senior cabinet members, on this issue. And Mbeki was right. The reason was that he had his own ace in the hole: he brought back the apartheid-era weapons of mass destruction team, Project Coast, and sent them to Iraq to investigate the weapons of mass destruction

(WMD) claims Bush and Blair gave as the cause of the war. They already knew the terrain, because they had travelled there as welcome guests of Saddam when both countries were building WMD,

This story is too strange to be fiction. When I first heard about lvtbeki's e motional r eaction t o h i s c l ashes wit h B l air an d B u s h o ver I r aq, i t sounded quixotic. Mbeki had a reputation for venturing into arguments on the wrong side, most notably on AIDS. He relished his reputation for

'punching above his weight', but my six years covering US foreign pohcy in Washington DC told me that no small country would have much purchase in a big power conflict so far from home. Decisions in Washington are based on very different considerations: domestic US politics, geostrategic

DE%1OCRACY: 1994 — '015

issues in the Middle East including oil, the position of its ally Israel, and its views on terrorism, which under Bush were behind-the-curve, misguided and simplistic. Investigating this story, senior British foreign policy experts knowledgeable about the Iraq talks said Mbeki had a lot to offer this time. His rela-

tionship with Blair, a Labour Party prime minister emh whom he had built strong ties, led him to believe Blair would take him seriously. Tony Blair had not been among those protesting apartheid in his student days. But Mbeki

and Blair were on good terms, a friendship established when 5:Ibeki was deputy president. Party-to-party relations, ANC to L abour, were warm. M b eki had used

his political capital on the arms deal with Britain. %i'hen Mbeki saw an unprecedented two m i llion-strong march in Br itain against the war, he thought that chnched it, Surely a Labour prime minister would not buck the

tide of his own enlightened public opinion to go to war> As Mbeki, along avith the rest of the world would slowly find out, Blair was not that kind of Labour prime minister.

At the time, sources in Whitehall explained his decision this way. Blair's oddly close relationship v ith Bush was based on a deeply held belief that America was predominantly a force for good in the world. Britain should therefore be there when %'ashington needed support. The flip side of that coin, of course, is opportunistic — that he saw Britain's material economic and diplomatic interests as best served by being on the side of the world' s

sole superpower, As a 'New Labour' leader he looked back with pain to his predecessor Harold %dson's squabbles with the US over Vietnam. He associated that clash with a period of British economic and political

failure over which he would not want to preside. Finally, as his memoirs and subsequent hawkish statements about Syria and other Jvtiddle Eastern conAicts illustrate, he has a view about M uslim fundamentalism unlike

many in his party leadership — that it must be fought chiefIy mihtarily. It is a vieiv that seems to be fuelled by religious conviction and his late conversion to Catholicism as he was leaving office. Mbeki had excellent relations with Saddam Hussein. In the strange ways of diplomacy, the apartheid government's relations were likewise excellent: Saddam's people taught Dr %outer Basson to make chemical weapons in the

apartheid years. Mbeki asked Saddam's permission to send South African %MD experts to examine the Americans' claims, Saddam agreed, and gave the South African team the freedom to roam unfettered throughout Iraq.

They had access to LN intelligence on possible WMD sites. The US, UK and UN were kept informed of the mission and its progress. 356

SPIES, LIES, BUSH AVD BLAIR

Dr Wouter Basson, the cardiologist known as 'Dr Dearh' while head of the apartheid-era chemical and biological warfare programme, Project Coast, learnt his skills in %'MD from Saddam's teams. He said he had been visiting Iraq since 1986. His last contact with Iraq divas in 1995, four years after the first Iraq war. They had lost their capabiliry in the war and subsequent inspections. 'They tried to regain it, but it didn't work out,' he said. 'I have no reason to believe they have had success in the meantime," Basson was not one of the South Africans sent to Iraq when members of his old Project Coast team returned to the region and traversed the length

and breadth of the country. They used their own prior knowledge of the facilities, and followed VN data leads. On their return, they reported that there were no%'MDs in Iraq. By contrast, they described sites they had seen in Israel on other trips, where they were able to identify Israeli WMD sites.

They knew where the sites in Iraq had been, and what they needed to look like. But there were now none in Iraq. In January 2003 Mbeki sent a team to %'ashington ahead of a tneeting between Bush and Blair to explain the findings to the Bush Administration

and appeal for peace. South Africa's delegation in Washington did not make headway. That Friday, Blair was in the XVhite House meeting Bush, and he pledged his support. Blair flew straight home and met II 1beki himself on Saturday, 1 February 2003, at Chequers, the country estate of British prime ministers.

It began with three hours face-to-face, with Blair and Mbeki alone. Then Mbeki, director-general in the presidency, Rev Frank Chikane, and others met the British side for another hour. 'Besides the issue of %'MD, which we submitted did not exist, we discussed tacocal issues that also suggested that the war would not in our view produce the desired outcome,' Chikane wrote afterwards.

Mbeki offered three things that could have been valuable. First was intelligence. Some South Africans were already working for the UN> on the team of Hans Blix> the chief weapons inspector who ultimately concluded correctly that there were none.

Chikane, who himself had been a victim of a chetnical attack by Project Coast in the apartheid era, managed the team: the same people who had

poisoned him by dousing his shirts and underwear with the chemical poison Paraoxon. He was lucky to survive. One of his poisoners told him, after 1994, that the dose was intended to k il l h i m . Chikane took their work

seriously. 3 Rapport,23 February 2003.

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DEMOCRACY: 1994-2015

Mbeki's second ofter concerned the management of Iraq if Saddam was ousted. He advised that e~thout Saddam, it would be necessary to reach

out to Baath Party members because, in Iraq. doctors, school teachers and other professionals who wanted to work felt compelled to be members, The country could not run ~mthout them and many were perfectly innocent.

Mbeki could help. South Africa had ivorked with its enemies and knew how to tnanage them. 'If the US and the L'K used their superior weaponry to attack Iraq, the

Iraqi army could decide to take off its uniforms and join a national resistance to the invasion, forcing the US and UK to bomb the cities and residential

areas,' Chikane recalled the South Africans teHing Blair. Here too he was proved correct. It is now ~videly accepted in Western

capitals that Bush's wholesale removal of Baath Party members from government was a fatal error, facilitating the rise of extremism and the establishment, for the first titne, of al Qaeda in Iraq. Under Saddam, a brutal but

relatively secular leader, al Qaeda found no sympathy. Twelve years later, al Qaeda looks mild compared to its terrorist successor, Islamic State (IS). The third area where he offered help was inside the United Nations. He strongly advocated getting agreement through the UN before any action, and South Africa could influence votes there too.

The Chequers meeting did not go 1veH. Blair's decision was made. With massive deployments to the Mediterranean already under way, Bush and Blair would not stop now W hen Chikane realised these argutnents would

be ignored, it was 'one of the greatest shocks of my life'.' A few months later, Basson told the Johannesburg Press Club that Bush

and Blair were deceived by Iraqi defectors, who sensed that the inteHigence services wanted to hear that there were WMDs, and gave a w o rst case

scenario', knowing their claims could not be verified. 'Much of the intelligence they relied on >vere perceptions that had been turned into facts.' %'e may not like the messenger, but this is now the accepted view in

most world capitals. Key figures in the press fell for the same sources, most notoriously Puhtzer Prize-winning journalist Judith MiHer, whose many front page 'exclusives' averred that Saddam had WMD. These turned out

to have come from Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi defector who hoped to replace 4 Chikane, Frank, Tbe Things that cotdd not be said, From A(ids) to Z(imbakve), Picador Africa: 2013, p62.

SPIES. LIES, BUSH AND BLAIR

Saddam as head of the Iraqi government after the war. He had skin in the game, a reason to mislead.

Six weeks later, on 19 March, airstrikes on Baghdad began, and Saddam's regime divas history.

The year 2003 was a busy period for Mbeki's diplomacy. In July, Bush arrived in Pretoria, flanked by Secretary of State Colin Poiveii and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, They met M b e ki a nd h is t e am i n the presidential guest house near the Pretoria ministerial compound in Bryntirion. The true believers were Bush and Rice. '... We don't want the smoking gun

to be a mushroom cloud,' Rice had told CNY's Wolf Blitzer on 8 September the previous year. Bush and Rice were itnpervious to argument. General Powell, the only one of the three with combat experience, and the leader of the last Gulf War,

stayed relatively quiet. He had long been sidelinetl on the Iraq decision. His memoirs ~vritten after he left office raise the possibility that he had some

sympathy for Mbeki's view. He regretted his role in the PR campaign to claim Iraq had WMDs. On the Pretoria lawn afterwards, Bush was asked about Iraq by an American reporter. Back home, the news had just broken that at least one

of the president's most public daims was false. In his State of the Union address in January he had said that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger. Three days before his meeting with Mbeki, on 6 July, Ambassador Joe Wilson wrote a scathing op-ed in the New York Times, 'What I didn' t find in Africa,' confirming that he had been sent by the administration to check the claitn and returned to confirm it was false. A reporter asked about this: 'Ivtr President, do you regret that your State of the Union accusation that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in

Africa is now fuelling charges that you and Prime htinister Blair misled the public?' Bush replied that there divas no doubt that 'the facts will show the truth.

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind. And so there's going to be a lot of attempts to try to rewrite history, and I can understand that, but I am

absolutely confident in the decision I made'. That did not answer the question, and the reporter persisted. 'Do you

believe they were trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa>' Bush evaded again: 'Right now>' 'No, were they! The statement you made.' Bush: 'One thing is for certain, he's not trying to buy anything right now. If he' s alive, he's on the run. And that's to the benefit of the Iraqi people. But look, -

I am confident that Saddam Hussein had a weapons of mass destruction

DEMOCRACY: 1994-201$

programme. In 1991 I ~nil remind you, we under-estimated how close he was to having a nuclear weapon. Imagine a world in which this tyrant had a nuclear weapon. In 199S my predecessor raided Iraq based upon the very same intelligence." He had muddied the waters by mixing up 1991 with 1998 and 2003, and the press conference ended. He never answered the question.

Mandela, now retired, had tried as well. On Iraq, if not other issues, Mandela and Mbeki were on the satne page. Mandela phoned the White House and asked for Bush. Bush fobbed him off to Rice. Undeterred, Mandela called former President Bush senior, and Bush Sr called his son the president to advise him to take Mandela's call. Mandela had no impact. He was so incensed he gave an uncomlortable comment to the cameras:

'President Bush doesn't know how to think,' he said with visible anger. Perhaps as a result of that dispute, there was no Bush-Mandela meeting on that visit. Mbeki's expectations of th e conservative, unworldly, Republican US

president were not high, but his brush-off from Blair over Iraq left a festering wound. Chikane roundh blamed the media, presumably the American and some British media, and in this too he had a point. Certainly, The Neu York Times's]udith Miller's key source, which turned out to be Chalabi, was the same source US intelligence was using.

'... The media was fed blatant falsehoods about the WMDs — and they accepted them — over a protracted period until everyone believed that there were indeed WMD in Iraq, which were a threat to the world and to

Hussein's own people,' Chikane complained.' On Iraq, the world now accepts Mbeki's position: there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003. The justification for the war was a mirage. After the inevitable quick military victory, there was never a viable plan to govern the countrv for which Bush was now responsible. The chief customers of the CIA and Britain's WI16, with their vast, multi-

billion dollar budgets, access to computerised metadata and networks of agents across the world, were Bush and Blair respectively. It is not necessary to debate here 1vhether or how much President George % Bush and Tony Blair distorted or exaggerated the intelhgence. It is enough for our purposes to know that the two leaders believed from all the intelligence that they received, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. And they were wrong. 5 % hite House transcript, 9July 2003. 6 Chikane.

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SPIES, LIES, BL'SH AND BLAIR

Thabo h:tbeki was right. But, in politics being right too early can be much more damaging than being wrong along vtnth everyone else. What Mbeki read into t hese experiences led him further towards his own Iraq moment. When the most important foreign policy crisis of his

presidency came along in Zimbabwe, he felt he had a basis to believe Western governments could not be trusted, and were reckless about going to war to change governments. He believed they used the press as their witting or u n w i tting t o ols, and used intelligence services even against

friendly governments. Mbeki looked at Zimbabwe's crisis ready to believe he would get only double-dealing trom Washington and London. He was not always wrong.

361

L

ong before they printed the trillion dollar banknote, hyperinflation changed everybody's lives in Zimbabwe, How did ordinary people

there survive inflation that peaked at 79 billion percent~

The poor became evermore desperate.Then, in 2005, Mugabe implemented Operation 5 1urambatsvina (Operation Drive Out Rubbish), forcibly removing hundreds of

t h o usands of p eople i n t h e o p position strong-

hold of Harare from their hotnes or livelihood, affecting already poor Zimbabweans.' Hyperinflation wiped out the savings and pensions of the middJe class. After that, every wage packet svent to the food shops the same day, not the next. If you received a lump-sum payment, you bought a used car. Not

because you needed a car, but because today's battered ten billion dollar 1980 Mercedes Benz, when sold later for fifty billion, would buy the same basket of goods ten billion could have bought today.

In the first half of Thabo Mbeki's nine-year presidency, this was life in South Africa's most powerful neighbour, swept up in a political and economic tsunami. Inevitably, it would spill over into South Africa, bringing at least 1.5 million refugees' across the border. That figure is higher than

emplo yment

the rotaf number of Zimbabweans in formal in Zimbabwe in 1998 before the crisis began — 1.4 million! Thirty percent of those jobs were lost between 1998 and 2004 in the formal sector.-' While very different in size and power„Zimbabwe, South Africa's biggest

African trading partner, is most like it in racial composition, languages 1 UN report on Zim... government, 17 June ZOOS. This report's figures, 700,000 removed affecting 2.4 million people, is almost certainly exaggerated.~~vw. crisisgroup.org'-/media/Files'a'rica.'southern-africa,'zimbabwe!'Zimbabwesoo20 Operationqt20%1urambatsvinaqoZOTheqoZOTipping9620point.pdf 2 H ighest estimates are 5 million, bat 1.5 to 2 million is the conservative figure. 3 Gl obal Finance MontIzly,22 April 2013, quoting economist John Robertson.

„. AND ROBERT %1UGABE

spoken, British colonial history, liberation struggle and level of economic advancement. Whites have ethnic 'kith-and-kin' political connections, but

so do blacks. Zimbabwe's currency collapse is comparable to the 1920's Weimar Republic in Germany, where hyperinflation created the conditions in which Adolf Hitler rose to power. Zimbabwe's ranking in the United Nations Human Development Index, which measures quality of life, tell in world ranking from 106 in 1990 to the 173 worst out ot 187 by 2011.' How South Africans reacted to these events in the years trom 1999 to

2005 depended on the prism through which they viewed them. Was it a land question> Was it about human rights? British perfidy? The rule of law, corruption, local white racism, or an imposed constitution that prevented the redress of a century ot racial injustice.' What was its political meaning? Some thought it signalled the start of the

real revolution, when black Zimbabweans would finally gain 100 percent control of their destiny from a still-too-white economy. Mbeki's government claimed Mugabe's opponents were tools of the 'counter-revolution', in which the gains of democracy are at last undone by racist white farmers and

business people in bed with hegemonic Britain and America. South Africa's views were split in two. They seemed to have very few facts in common. How had Zimbabwe changed since that day in July 1980, when I watched Mozambique's revolutionary President Samora Machel drive down former Jameson Avenue, newly renamed after him, in the old British governor' s Rolls Royce, past the site ~vhere Cecil Rhodes's statue was being disinterred, and awkwardly embrace the man he and Mugabe had tought for years, and finally beaten, lan Smith's military head, General Peter 'Walls?

African National Congress (AYC) president Oliver Tambo was loyal to Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU>,the historic liberation

movement. Indeed, %corno was head of the Bulawayo branch of the South African ANC until he started ZAPU. His model was the multi-ethnic principles of the ANC, Mugabe was ZMU's information secretary when he broke away to form the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANY in 1963. Now ZANU was in power and Mbeki went to Harare to pay court. The

ANC needed to establish a working relationship. But Mugabe never forgot his exclusion by the other liberation movements. He spoke of

scathing ly

4 World Bank.

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DE%1OCRACY: 1994-2015

the 'authentic six' liberation movements anointed by the Organisation of

African Unity {OAU), and from which he was excluded. The approved liberation movements, the ANC, FRELIMO (Front for the Liberation of

Mozambique), SWAPO (South West African Peoples' Organisation), MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), and ZAPU xvere aH older, and Moscow-aligned. Mugabe's late-corner, ZANU, linked to China, was not part of this exclusive club. 'In the beginning Mugabe was very hostile,' ANC president Oliver Tambo told the ANC's Kabwe National Consultative Conference in June of 1985.

Stanley Manong was a delegate, and remembered Tarnbo's speech well, 'Whenever Tambo arranged appointments to see Mugabe, after initialh

agreeing to meet with Tambo, Mugabe would sometimestsic] inexplicably cancel the appointments,' Tambo told the conference. Tambo divas only informed after making the trip to Harare!

Manong, an Umkhonto we Sieve (MK) veteran, said that Tambo attributed IIIugabe's thawing of r e lations w it h Tambo t o t h e g r o w ing strength of the mass democratic movement inside South Africa, led by the United Democratic Front (UDF). 'Mugabe did not watrt to be seen as openly hostile against the ANC as the UDF was its ally. Mugabe theretore did not

avant to be unpopular with the oppressed people of South Africa."

%hen Mugabe took office in 1980 the constitution was still racialised, providing for 20 white MPs out of 100, something SWAPO in Namibia and the ANC in South Africa would make impossible when their turn came. Lnder the British governor-general, Lord Soames, an amnesty ordinance

was passed prohibiting prosecution of security forces or guerrillas for ministers, Mugabe acts prior to independence. Of all possible first p

rime

was the least welcome to white South Africans and Western governments.

Generously, he announced he would 'draw a line through the past' in his independence speech. It was a hand of reconciliation; whites sighed in relief. But the hand of reconciliation was not for everyone. For the rival black liberation movement. ZAPU, there would be violent repression that included military and civilian murder, torture, electric shock, rape anti a growing

number of 'disappeared' whose fate was never confirmed. The bloodiest year was 1983, when an estimated 20,000 of his ZAPU 5 M anong. Stanley,l f We Ms~st Die,Nkululeko Publishers: 2015. p235.

364

... AND ROSERT %1UGASK

supporters and their fatnilies died, and the revered founder of Zitnbabwean

nationalism, Joshua Nkomo, fled his 'liberated' country in fear for his life. ZAPU was finished. Nkomo could do nothing more for his people. Nkomo succumbed to the inevitable in 1987, once he realised that the only way to save his supporters from more violence and murder was to give up everything — disband his own party and participate in a 'merger' that was

really a takeover. It would spell the end of his career and his once-proud ZAPU. Zimbabwe was now a one-party state, albeit one that had elections.

ANC military leaders like Chris Hani mourned his ZAPU friends. Hani had participated in combined military operations in the liberation war alongside ZIPRA (Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army). For Mugabe and his government. it was a successful end to the catnpaign

known as Gukurahundi — 'the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring'. Its victims were black Zimbabweans.

In I9SO, there were reports of Z.atPU dissidents ivilling to fight the ZANU governtnent. Subsequent research puts the maximum number at around 400. But how w o uld this new, government know th at~ Mugabe needed intelligence, but ZatNU had little capacity.

ZIPRA had a well-established intelligence unit, but Emmerson h4nangagwa, the new minister in charge of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), wanted nothing to do with it, so the unit divas dismantled.' Instead, Mnangagwa retained lan Smith's old CIO agents, arguing that

the 'old CIO guard' had key information areas, The exclusion of ZIPRA's spies and the inclusion of lan Smith's spies had far-reaching consequences. South African President P%' Botha was accelerating his destabilisation

of Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe. South African and Rhodesian intelligence had close ties. To whom were Smith's former agents loyal, the white south, or their paymastersr The answer is some to one, some to the other. South Africa carried out attacks in Zimbabwe, then provided a false

trail of evidence leading to Z.&U, which some former Smith spies were happy to forward to Mnangagiva. As a result, when ZAPU dissidents did exist, Mugabe may have believed them far stronger than they were. Mugabe

6 Cu kurahundi in Zimbabwe,A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980-1988, ]acana: N07, p45. First published in l99: by the Catholic Commission for justice and Peace in Zimbabwe and the Legal Resources Foundation as'Breaking the Silencer Building true peace in Zimbabwe'.

acted. He brought in the North Korean military to train a new Fifth Brigade, which moved in with force in January 1983. The most authoritative report on Gukurahundi was commissioned by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, established in 1972 to expose human rights violations by the Smith government and

support its victims, and the Legal Resources Foundation of Zimbabwe set up in 1984 to provide legal ach ice to indigents. The 400-page report concluded that there were never more than 400 dissidents, and that they never had widespread support even in the strongest

ZAPU areas in the heart of Matabeleland. It also found that the Fifth Brigade ran rtvo quite distinct campaigns — one against possible armed dissidents, and another quite separately against civilians in pro-ZAPU areas.

Peter Wellman, a Communistex-Rand Daily Mail journalist, working as a sub-editor on theBulau'ayo Chronicle, came home and told his journalist wife, Peta Thornycroft, there was going to be a massacre. Wellman heard it from soldiers in pubs he drank in. There was no doubt that excessive force was coming. He took a fevv days

off and travelled to Molepolole, Botswana, to tip off the ANC's Marius Schoon, an ex-political prisoner, but rhe ANC had no influence on ZA'VU.

In 27 January 1983, ZAPU 54Ps told parliament atrocities were being committed. The government denied it, but asserted its right to military

action. By 12 February, the Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Henry Karlen, sent Prime Minister Ivlugabe, a fellow Catholic, statements of victims. This

early in the campaign, there were already mass graves. The government was offered a xisit to see them, but declined to respond. Instead, Justin Nyoka, the director of information (and a popular former Mail correspondent there), took journalists on a smokescreen trip to Kezi,

more than a hundred kilometres from the atrocities, and challenged them to show him proof. In parliament, the mnister of home affairs, Herbert Ushewokunze„ told Nkomo he would 'win a Nobel prize for fiction'. Instead Vkomo was placed under house arrest. There was an armed raid on his house in which two people died, but kokomo escaped and fled to England. Mass detentions began, and M i nister of State Security

Sydney Sekeramayi announced that 'a good number of dissidents and their coLLaborators have died'.'

... AND ROBERT h~lUGABE

Recent researchers have claimed new evidence proves Mugabe gave the orders frotn the start. This is likely but, even if untrue, frotn January he was

fully informed about the atrocities. Frotn then his complicity was beyond question. M u r ders, torture

u sing electric shock, 'submarining', r ape,

detentions and disappearances continued. The government set up pungwes — village meetings — in Matabeleland North in March, April and May, and forced the local population to attend. Emmer son Mnangagwa boasted that Fifth Brigade was the 'DDT' to eradicate the dissident 'cockroaches', that the government was considering burmng

down 'all the villages infested with dissidents', and that success required that 'the i nfrastructure that nurtures them is destroyed'.' Destroying a village to save it was the rationale ridiculed in Vietnam.

In April, Mnangagwa doubled down on the rhetoric: 'Blessed are they who vill follow the path of the Government laws, for their days on earth shall be increased. But woe unto those who wiII choose the path of collaboration mth dissidents for we vill certainly shorten their stay on earth.' He did not mean by trial in an open court.

As new atrocities were disclosed, the clamour from press, church and political leaders escalated. By September, Mugabe felt compelled to set up an official commission of inquiry. It began work in January 1984, but 30 years later its report has not been made public. Gukurahundihad wound down by 1987, and when Mugabe accompanied his first wife, Sally, to London for dialysis treatment, he asked for a private meeting with Margaret Thatcher. After that, he looked in on Thatcher in Downing Street from time to time.

Queen Elizabeth knighted Mugabe in 1994, conferring the Knight Grand Cross, the Order of the Bath, GCB, for 'services to British-Zimbabwean relations'." I t was probably an attempt to soothe his pride at the loss of

pole position as southern Africa's leading liberator to his nevr regional rival, Nelson Mandela. Gukurahundi was blotted out of the picture. The chaff had been washed away before the spring. Britain revoked h4ugabe's gong in 2008, mne years after the start of a new wave of terror.

8 The Chronicle in Bulawayo, by now what Tutu might call a government 'lickspittle', reported this on 5 March 1983. The governmem wanted the public to be clear about its brutal resolve. 9 The Chronicle, 5 April 1983. 10 The honour bestowed on President lvlbeki in 2000,

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DEMOCRACY: 1994 — 2015

ZANU placed special emphasis on land restitution during the liberation

war. In Zimbabwe, land was still part of people's lives, though urbanisation continued, and agriculture was a substantial part of the econotny. Yet once in office, lvlugabe did not p r i oritise land reform, even after transitional rules protecting white farmers from expropriation expired. In 1981, the

end of isolation and war fuelled double-digit economic growth, and largescale agriculture was central, Even the minimal 'land reform' on his watch was tainted because ZANU politicians were quick to 'eat'.': By 1990, only eight percent of commercial

land was owned by black farmers, most of them politically vvell-connected. In 1992 parliament passed a Iaw allowing government to seize land without compensation, but even then progress was slow. By the end of the decade,

not much had changed. The Br:tish Labour government, tvith its ties to the anti-apartheid movement that included Pretoria-educated Peter Hain, was reluctant to provide

funds or support for a process it considered politically corrupted. Richard Dowden, the London lndependertt's Africa editor and later The Ecortomist's Africa editor, described Mugabe's options.

'When hebecame president he could have ripped up theLancaster House agreement and seized rhe land there and then,' Dowden wrote, or seven years later when the titne clauses ran out.

'Or, if he svanted to do it peacefully, he could have drawn up a plan to transfer the land gradually, wooed the fartners to give up parts of their farms, train black farmers, and sought international support for a coherent agricultural policy that w o u ld h ave bought subsistence farmers out o f

poverty and made them successful smaIIholders. He did none of these things. Instead he let the land issue, driver of the economy and political time bomb, fester, 'That is, until 11 August 1997.'

On Zimbabwe's Heroes' Day, while regaling his audience at the national cemetery, Heroes' Acre, a rowdy crowd shouted him down. Led by Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi, war veterans were demanding pensions for injuries received on active service in the struggle.

'Hunzvi, a doctor and rabble-rouser, had taken over the leadership of the veterans, though his wife claimed he had never held a gun in his hfe. had looted the >var pension funds, The party leaders, it had just leaving the poor, who had fought the war, ragged beggars...

emerg ed,

11 The tern for corruption is growing in popularity after the book It's our turn ro Eur by hlichela %rong about corruption in Kenya.

... AND ROBERT MUGABE

'... He panicked and ordered the finance minister to pay the demonstrators pensions. That bust the budget, the final straw for the IMF and the Western

donors. But for Hunzvi and his gang of thugs it was only the beginning. They had learnt that they could make Mugabe blink. 'Mugabe had defeated the white regime, he could defy the British and the South Africans, he had massacred the Ndebele and terrified Nkotno. But he could not cope with an attack from the left within his own movement. It threatened his party, it threatened his power. It threatened his soul."-' Mugabe's cotnmitment to democracy would be tested, ) t)sa a 4

ZANU did not have the tradition of policy debate that the South African

AKC had. Civilian and military, ZMU and ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army), were almost indistinguishable from the start. There were no civihan party forces that could stand up to the military. The ANC's culture was quite different. It embraced Communists, liberals, the churches and capitalists in its 'big tent'. It was built by lawyers, trade unionists and intellectuals, products of cities and towns. When the ANC set up its military, it was only one of four of its strategic pillars. The other three were political tnobilisation at home, international diplomacy aimed at isolation, and strikes and other forms of non-violent insurrection,

It was further enriched by leaders from the black consciousness movement, from democratic-minded trade unions, and from the complex of civil society bodies and human rights activists that tnade up the UDF. The AKC provided its own authors for South Africa's constitution. It was better

equipped with them than the white government on the other side ol the table. Its democratic values were not imposed from outside, they were

largely its own. Mugabe's test came from the emergence of a nevt party from within the ZatNU supporting trade union movement. Economic decline inevitably fuelled political opposition. It came in 1999 in the fortn of the Movement

for Detnocratic Change (MDC), led by trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai. White Zimbabweans helped fund it. The MDC was about to become a political threat.

12 Dowden, R, Africa, Altered States, Ordinary MiracIes,Portobello Books: 2008, pp 146-7.Ihave characterised Gukutabundi differently from Dowden, as a massacre of ZAPU the party, rather thanthe Ndebele ethnicity. It's a point worthy of a larger debate.

DEMOCRACY: 1994-2015

In February 2000 Mugabe held a referendum on a new constitution. The MDC campaigned against it, and Mugabe lost. In his world, losing was not an option. He now presented himself as the champion of the 'war veterans'

(the war ended in 1980, so anyone under 35 or so had ro be a fake veteran), using the CIO, the army, ZANU party formations and ZANU youth militias.

Announcing a 'third Chimurenga', following the liberation wars of 1896 and the 1970s, he diverted the war veterans from their original target, the government. by encouraging them to attack white farmers and the «%1DC.

The Zimbabwean economy went into free fall. The loss of the rule of Iaw came next, as judges were interfered with or forced out. Deeds of ownership could not be enforced. The land invaders were stoked for their task with the

revived language of Gukurahundi, when again Zimbabwean citizens were described as 'vermin', and filled themseh'es with drink to do what they were about to do. The vicious economic cycle got more vicious, Tens of thousands of black farm workers lost their jobs, and eight white farmers died. Meanwhile, Mugabe's eHicient CIO, operating as ZAMXs political intortner and enforcer, kept South African intelligence supplied with its narrative. The MDC was the bastard child ot Britain, Atnerica and racist white farmers. In short, it is the counter-revolution. Harare knew exactly

the language conspiracy-theorists in South Africa were disposed to receive. T o make that argutnent plausible, tsvo factual frameworks had to b e constructed: one, that the violence was sparked by the >IDC; rsvo, that the MDC were puppets of these sinister reactionary forces."

This is exactly what the CIO advised South African intelligence."

Intelligence failure is surprisingly frequent. %'hen I took up my post as Washington correspondent for the Mai( in 1980, the CIA was being derided for its massive intelhgence failure to anncipate the tall of the Shah of Iran, put in power by a CIA coup, and his replacement by the Ayatollah Khomeini. It was taken by surprise! The embarrassment was so public that a new private company, with Kissinger and McKamara on the board, vvas set up to provide private intelligence. It did not last. But perhaps that explains

the success of companies like Henry Kissinger Associates. In the 1980s, US intelligence was publishing its analysis of what it said 13 Chikane, Frank, The Tbiug< that could not be said, From Afidst to Z(ierbebtve), Picador Atrica: 2013 p86 14 Confidential sources.

3:0

... AND ROBERT MUGABE

owerful,

was an increasingly p Soviet military machine bolstered by a strong Soviet economy, even as it declined and decayed, Intelligence agencies are bureaucracies: if you could be held responsible for any surprise bad news from a known threat, the safe ground is to err on the side of exaggeration.

ln June 20'l4, an al Qaeda affiliate, which had morphed into the even more dangerous and brutal Islamic State, stormed through a third of Iraq, the Western-trained Iraqi army casting off their uniforms inflight. It has since grown into the biggest threat in the Middle East, after the US spent

$20 billion and lost 4,500 soldiers in a war in Iraq. Yet US intelhgence did not see it coming." It also failed to predict the 9il1 attacks on the World Trade Center in

New York.

Reports from Zimbabwe began with so-called war veterans raiding white-

owned farms, intimidating their families tiH they fled, and the invaders took over. This was not a planned agricultural programme, with extension officers, training and inputs.

farming

Many people were assaulted and displaced. If you believe human rights matter, you have a duty to expose state-sponsored violence so close to home. Peta Thornycroft, ivho had gone against popular opinion to correctly predict

Mugabe would xvin in 1980, began vomiting about it. At 62 she was thrown in jail. Asked to speak out, President Mbeki's government condemned calls

for what it caHed 'megaphone diplomacy'. At my dinner with Parks Mankahlana, President Mbeki's spokesman, he was adamant that Mbeki had it right. Mbeki would not do a Mandela on Zimbabwe. He would work ivith African countries, build support, not stand

alongside Western countries against a feHow African. It was Mandela, of course, who, on taking office in 1994 said his foreign policy would identify human rights as central. My questions to Parks on the human rights crisis

failed to move him. Articles appeared prominently in the SttttduyIndependent and elsewhere, but there was Zimbabwe fatigue. At foreign policy briefings, ministers tried 15 If this critiqae of US intelligence sounds unduly harsh or radical, read theNett York Times'sTim Weiner's seminal book, Legacyof Ashes, The History of the CIA, %einer, a Pulitzer Prize winner, coveredUS intelligence agencies for 20 years. It should be maodatory reading for any intelligence consumer and voter. It chronicles a frightening history of failure that seems not to have influenced expectations from intelligence very much at all.

to move away from Zimbabwe, or mock reporters' unhealthy obsession with Zimbabwe and opposition to 'constructive engagement'. For me this was a particularly strange moment. Before I returned to South

Africa in March 1986, I had become known in%ashington for my opposition to the Reagan administration's policy of 'constructive engagemem' with apartheid Pretoria. In 1955, this led to an unusual invitation. After American policy failure in the Vietnam War, the State Department had several new systems to ensure that dissenting views and experts could be heard if they thought Washington was on the wrong course. One of these was an annual lecture called the Secretary of State's Open Forum. A tierce critic of official policy ivas invited to speak before the assembled foreign service officers of the Department of State in the Foggy Bottom auditorium a few blocks from the Vhite House, to make the case against official policy. I was asked to make the case against constructive engagement.

impl emented

With a strangely tamiliar nervousness, I addressed an assembled hall in the building that had shut me out for nearly a year after I wrote, accurately, about its decision to allow dual military-civilian use equipment to go to the apartheid government. I said Pretoria divas using%'ashington's constructive engagement as a tactic to delay a settlement in Namibia and ultimately South Africa, that it would

use back-door contacts to exploit the ambivalence in the policy, I did not know how right I was. After retirement, Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker, constructive engagement's architect, wrote a memoir excoriating CIA head Bill Casey for doing exactly that at the time of my talk!

I also said that human rights matter. Black South Africans were being jailed without trial and tortured. There is a difference between negotiating

peace with an enemy, which is necessary, and giving comfort and public s ympathy to violators of human rights. I r emember the audient noticeably inattentive. I am confident my lecture changed nothing.

as

Why did the South African government not speak out? %'hy did it not do more? At one briefing around 2007 for the parliamentary press in the government media centre at 120 Plein Street, opposite parliament, the

deputy foreign minister, Aziz Pahad, and acting director-general, Dr Abdul Minty, were frustrated at these questions. IVhen gently mocking the press

did not put us off, Pahad asked: '%'hat do you expect us to do? %'hat is there that we could do?' He could see no other course.

372

It was an odd sight. Minty was the architect of the successful sports boycotts against white South Africa. Pahad had been an important ABC strategist in exile, as the liberation movement wove the net tighter and tighter around Pretoria.

Are you telling me, I asked, that you two famed leaders, Aziz Pahad and Abdul Minty, ivith your weII-known diplomatic inventiveness, noiv with all the additional public and private levers of government at your disposal for the first rime, cannot think of a single lever you might pull> Their ansvver was that they could not. I met with a h i g h-level government contact, and asked hi m w hat I divas missing. Why did the government close its eyes to the human rights violations, especially around the 200 e l ections, which were clearly not fair

in the face of considerable ZAMJ-Ied election violence? I «d not appreciate, he said, that the MDC, which journalists like me looked upon as tribunes of the people, were in fact in cahoots with the apartheid-era National Party (NP), %hat evidence vvas there of this, I asked. Once a year, he told me, there was a meeting in Nelspruit of South Africa's

N» i t h the MDC and other parnes formerly funded by Pretoria like the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) of Mozambique.

I made a avo-week trip to Zimbabwe, ~vithout admitting I eas a journalist. There I met three members of parliament from the opposition MDC who

were on the run, in fear for their lives. They changed beds nightly, even slept in their cars, One MP's 16-year old daughter had been raped as punishment for her father's politics, by a gang shouting ~ U s l ogans, I met MDG leaders who had been ZAPU guerillas, had been imprisoned under Smith, and were now in the sights of Mugabe's henclunen. Paul Themba Nvathi, the party's spokesman, was a fortner ZIPRA fighter with

decades of close ANC contact and a spell in Smith's prisons. Every one of 57 MDC MPs had come under some form of physical threat, That fact alone spoke volumes. Surely every true African democrat would be outraged? I met teenagers in violent battles with ZANU youth that turned deadly.

The MDC was overwhelmingly popular in Harare, ivhich was ethnicalh mosth Shonalike Mugabe. and obvioush alsoin Bulawayo. The MDC had the towns, and it had most if not all of Wlatabeleiand. Little ivonder it had

defeated Mugabe in the referendum, and probably would have won the 2000 parliamentary election if it had been free and fair. 373

Importantly, I looked into the Nelspruit story. It turned out there had been one meeting in N elspruit, but no t a single MDC person attended.

The NP was present, and one Zimbabwean MP Margaret Dongo, a former Z~

M P, w h o n ovv sat as an independent. She had absolutely no ties to

the MDC. Three years later, the NP disbanded and joined the ANC. I returned to Cape Town and met my high-level government contact. I told him I t h ought the MDC represented former ZANU trade unionists, and former ZAPU leaders. Of course the white farmers gravitated to them.

They were desperate to save not only their farms but perhaps their skins. I reported that of the 57 opposition MPs, I was not aware of a single one who had not either been jailed, assaulted, threatened, or was on the run in fear

for their safety. Finally, I was able to confirm that not a single MDC member was at the Nelspruit meeting.

He listened carefully. Did this change his attitude at al)? No, he said, there were other things. Could I have a list, to foHow up each one » No. I wrote my stories, which were satisfactorily used in the weekend papers.

After Bush's Pretoria meeting with Mbeki, the two presidents were asked

about their differences on Zimbabwe. Bush used a fairly standard reporter put-down: '%e w ere stniling because we were certain a clever reporter would try to use the Zimbabwe issue as a way to maybe create tensions which don't exist.' It was a technique Mbeki's staff also used to put reporters off their stride and distract them from the elephant in the room, In a last try on Zimbabwe, a reporter pointed out that Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was in town, unable to get a meeting with the Bush team, and complaining

that 'he did not think Mr Mbeki could be an honest broker in the process'. Bush did not respond, resting on his early comment that Mbeki was 'the point man on this important subject'.

Mugabe called a presidential election for 9 to 11 March 2002. Since his party had almost lost the parliamentary elections, despite intimidation, this

would be the first close presidential election since independence. There was global distrust of the process, and Zimbabwe refused to allow European observers. Mbeki appointed a multi-party South African Observer Mission (SAON) consisting of 50 people headed by former Ambassador Sam

... AND ROBERT XtUGASE

Motsuenyane, and Judges Dikgang Moseneke and Sisi Khampepe as a Judicial Observer Mission. In this highly charged atmosphere, civil society organisations and opposition MPs cited numerous incidents interfering with free elections.

While the observers were in country, the opposition presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, was arrested and told he would be charged with treason. All the official African observer missions found the election satisfactory. The official M o tsuenyane report said based o n

i t s o bservations 'the

outcome should be considered legitimate'. That was short of a 'free and fair' endorsement, but it was intended as a yes. There were reports ot dissent on the South African team, and even walk-outs by some members.

The SADC

Parl iamentary

Forum Observer Mission concluded that 'in the climate of insecurity since the 2000 elections the electoral process could not be said to comply with the norms and standards of elections in the SADC

[Southern Africa Development Community] region'. The report of the judges went to Mbeki, who said he ~vould not make it

available to the public. The Mail 6 Guardian fought a lengthy legal battle for its release, leading to final release on a court order 12 years later, in November 2012. As expected, it was highly critical, citing a litany of legal gymnastics, failure to comply w ith court o rders, sudden changes in the

law and unavailability of voters' rolls. Large numbers of voters had been disenfranchised by new residential qualifications, and more by a new dual passport prohibition. Postal votes were restricted to the army and diplomats. Mugabe had access to state resources hke the presidential helicopter„

security and state-owned media, There was official failure to comply with a court order to publish nomination of candidates, 79 MDC rallies were disrupted or cancelled by the police, rnilitias forced MDC supporters to flee their homes, and 107 deaths, most of whom were MDC supporters, The report cited Tsvangirai's arrest and treason charge. Other members of the MDC executive were also arrested.

Mbeki did not accept the judges' assessment. 'Given its composition and mandate,' Mbeki wrote, 'we came to the firm conclusion that it was not

credibly possible for the judges' mission to come to a conclusion about all major elements ot the elections based on its own direct observations."

The judges' report had 'exceeded both its capacity and its mandate'. It had not kept within its terms of reference.

The mission's terms of reference were to observe and report 'whether in the period before, during and shortly after the elections the Constitution, 1 6 Mbeki letter, hill m~"' Guardian, 28 November 2014.

DEMOCRACY: 1994-2015

electoral laws and any other laws or Zimbabwe relevant to the elections can ensure credible or substantially free and fair elections, and the elections have

been conducted in substantial compliance with the legislative framework.' Mbeki pointed to opposite conclusions by the OAU, the SADC ministerial task force (different from the SADC parliamentary forum consisting of MPs), and several African govermnent missions. On the basis of these observer reports his government accepted that the

outcome of the elections represented the will of the people of Zimbabwe. In his usual acerbic reaction to critics, Mbeki continued: 'The South African government had no strong basis to insult all these African observer missions

by claiming that they had told lies intended to betray democracy when they made their determinations.'

The newspaper's comment that he had 'connived in the subversion of democracy in a neighbouring state' hit a nerve. 'The self-righteous, mis-

guided and insulting opinion of the Mail tp' Guardian (M66) is based on the disturbing failure by the newspaperto convey the truth about the basis of the decisions of the then South African government...

'... %'e ov e and will make no apology to anvbody whatsoever both about resisting the publication of th e K hampepe report and respecting the determination made by the SAPOM and SAOM and the other African

observer missions about the 2002 Zimbabwe presidential elections. 'The vacuous pontifications of the MEW in this regard are nothing more than that.'

Former President Mbeki's response showed he was stiH angry at the criticism of his Zimbabwe policy. Yet it is clear from multiple sources and his entire record, that he was more sympathetic to Mugabe than Tsvangirai.

His response to his own judges — they 'exceeded both (their) capacity and their mandate' — bordered on hostIIe. %hat was animating this policy?

Chikane, undoubtedly speaking for Mbeki's policy, throws some light. 'The rumbhngs and conflicts between various parties, including interested international parties, were threatening to reverse the enormous gains

Zimbabwe had made since its independence,' according to Chikane, member of the triumvirate preparing the ground for Mbeki's negotiations.

'After independence Zimbabwe had become the bright light of t he southern African region and a reversal of its gains would impact negatively on the development of the rest of the region. In fact, it would be like turning off the light that gave hope to the region and the rest of the continent."' Mugabe, or at least ~ U, w a s that light. 17 Chikane. p91.

...AND ROBERT MLtGABE

Chikane wrote this in the context of his disillusionment about Britain and America's fervour for regime change. The only interpretation of these paragraphs is that 'regime change' would turn of the light that gave hope to the continent. The only regime change on the table was an election in which the opposition MDC under Morgan Tsvangirai might be elected to replace

Mugabe, They believed a victory for Tsvangirai and his MDC would turn off the light that gave hope to the continent. %hy~ The Bush and Blair governments were sick of M u gabe and wanted to

be rid of him. Given the hubris of these two political cowboys in Iraq and, from my ow n experience, Afghanistan, there was grounds for irr itation.

The problem was that they were right in thinking Mugabe had become lawless, posing a danger to law and order and his own citizens.

Mbeki's reluctance to use what he distnissed as 'megaphone diplomacy' was based on several foreign policy tenets: 'a desire to shed South Africa's "Big Brother" image; a preference for multilateral, not umlateral approaches to conflict resolution; a behef in A f rican solutions by Africans; a quest to cement South Africa's African identity; a sensitivity to domestic black opinion; a refusal to interfere in the internal affairs of another sovereign

state; and constraints imposed by the challenge to South Africa's leadership by other regional states.'"

Critics might argue that analysing Zimbabwe without analysing what the government was doing to its own people would be like calling for a resolution between the ANC and the apartheid government in the 1990s w ithout adtnitting there was apartheid. Chikane and M beki t h ought it fundamentally different because it was a democracy. But was it< Chikane explained how he saw it. 'A massive international communications

strategy was unleashed to force Mbeki to deviare from or abandon the SADC mandate and jointhe regime change campaign to remove Mugabe,' he wrote.

'... The campaign was also carried out on South African soil and included the mobilisation of the AN C's alliance partners to attack Mbeki and the (South A f r ican) facilitation t e am. Such m easures included expressing

solidarity with the MDC. Some church groups were also mobilised in the same manner."-'

The Tripartite Alliance includes only two members besides the ANCCongress of South Atrican Trade Unions (COSATU) and the Communist

18 Socsrb Africa-Zimbabue Relations, Volume1, Southern African Liaison Otfice: 2013. p 23. 19 Chikane, pp86-7.

377

DEhIOCRACY: 1994-201S

Party. In both, strong criticism of Mugabe's mistreatment of the opposition

were made. Chikane can only be suggesting they were at best victims of a massive international communications campaign. Although the reference to

church groups is harder to pin down, the leading cleric speaking out against

Mugabe wasArchbishop Desmond Tutu. It is for South African citizens to evaluate these arguments and decide if it

is likely that those leaders of COSATU and the Communist Party who spoke out were duped by an international campaign led by the US and Britain, or

whether they were animated by fellow unionists and ordinary Zimbabweans whose homes and bodies were violated by Mugabe's men. Mbeki could have heard quite a different story very close to home. Ivtax Sisulu, whose father Walter and Mbeki's father Govan spent decades on

Robben Island together, is married to Elinor, a well-informed Zimbabwean who has written extensively about the effect of Mugabe's excesses on former

ZAPU supporters, the long-time allies of the ANC. It was Gukurahundi"' that made Elinor conclude that she must speak out. 'I felt a deep sense of shame about my own silence,' she wrote later. Now a South African citizen, s he had written and spoken out about conditions in the count y o f h e r

birth. 'Hopefully, one day the leaders of this region who have not cried out as loudly as they should have against the enormous and heinous crimes against the people of Zimbabwe that were committed in the past 23 years,

wiII see fit to apologise to the people of Zimbabwe,' she wrote in 2006. Chikane and the rest of the Mbeki administration condemned the South African media for bias as it had the Western press over Iraq. But this time the press ivere right, and Pretoria's information was shallow and manipulated

It is a sad thing to lock horns with Chikane, one of the undoubtedly nicest human beings in South African politics, whom I remember fondly visiting my house while on the run for underground UDF executive meetings in the I980s, But perhaps it is not too farletched to consider whether he himself was misled by claims that the violence was coming from the MDC, when the statistics invariably show them to have constituted most of the victims. W'hen a presidency has isolated itself that much from its citizens, and even its allies, it is losing touch. COSATU and Communist Party disagreement

with Mbeki over Zimbabwe was one reason, one of a number, why he was removed from office in 2007.

20 Gtrkrrrabundi irr Zirrrbabu'e, Introduction by Elinor Sisulu, ppxiv-xvii.

378

TWENTY-SIX

Why South Africa missed the Information Revolution Tbe lackof broadband connecti vity is 'not due to market forces not tvorking but to due to tbe fact tbat tve bave not

bad a tvorkt'ng market. If tbere is one tnarket that responds to market incentives, it s tbe telecoms market.' — DAYID LE%is>CHAjaPERsoN> CowtPETlTIQY TIUBUNAL, 2007

Lessbas been achieved througb stateintervention and tbe docttmented reticence to reform the sector in tbe name of affordable access and nettvork development, tban tbrougb tbe cotnmercial initiatives... State intervention bas, in

fact, resulted in a litany of unintended and sub-optimal outcomes.

— Poor AUsoP'G>LL+A>.n,PHD THFsrs, 2008

J

ay I> aidoo, newly appointed minister of telecommunications, broadcasting

and postal affairs, leaned back in his chair. He had a question. We were on the fifth floor of a Rosebank, johannesburg, office block for our first meeting with the new minister. We had many mutual friends. He had come

to my house only a few blocks from this Rosebank office in the 1980s when he was on the run frotn apartheid police during the state of emergency, and I was a foreign correspondent. I taped an interview with him, then after he

VVX'eb, article by Paul Vecchiarto, 1$ June 2007, Lewis, a torrner trade unionist> is now executive director of Corruption %'arch. 2 Gillwald, Alison, % pp301-2,

379

DEMOCRACY: t 994-201S

was safely away, broadcast the reports in the US, and wrote print versions

for Europe, Africa and Australia. I vvas sorry to see his predecessor go. Pallo Jordan was still assumed to be 'Dr Jordan'. Only later would the country learn that he did not have the

history PhD everyone thought he had. Nevertheless, none who know him doubt his intellect. Some considered Jordan lazy, but his temperament was well suited to his portfolio: he believed in the constitution's independent institutions, took pains to get the policies right and had the self-confidence to listen to experts, then avoided interfering politically. I knew this from the start. During the 1994 election campaign, when I butnped into him entering one of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio studios for an interview, he sternly reminded me that as soon as the election was over, my ties with the SABC must be cut because tny

appointment to a Chapter Nine body had just been announced. He was dismissed from cabinet soon after speaking out for the SABC's independence. Sad to see Pallo go, I was optimistic about Jay Naidoo as his replacemem. 'How big is the broadcasting sector'. * Jay asked. Around four billion rand, I answered. 'Four) Telecoms are more than R40 billion!' Telecommunications were where the real money was, and vvould take tnost of his time.

Everything I have heard since leaving office in 1998 suggests that Jay was not being allowed to be his own man in this job. He was under pressure from both above and below — above, from Deputy President Thabo Mbeki who was handling these domestic portfolios, and below, from his director-

general, Andile Ngcaba, an energetic former Lusaka Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) officer who retained a private line direct to Mbeki. The minister was not always in the loop. Naidoo's appointment was forced on hi m t o end the Reconstruction

and Development Programme (RDP), whose porttolio he had headed.' The priority of government at this time was macro-economic — to cut the

apartheid-era debt. Telkom, the national telephone operator, was a valuable asset and the government wanted money for a share of it. It also wanted to expand access to both the underserved poor and the information economy. Unfortunately, poor state management of the process led to failure on all three fronts — government got less money than it was worth, and expansion o f access to both the poor and the information economy did not w or k as planned. While the government focused on getting Telkom lines to the 3 Several sources close to Naidoo have confirmed this, providing a graphic account of how it was done.

380

XVHY SOOTH AFRICA MISSED THE INFORMATION REVOLLrFION

poor, the poor chose mobile phones, from companies set up before the new government. There were several occasions after that when the Independent Broadcasting

Authority (IBA) needed jay's support to resolve broadcasting problems with the executive. Perhaps the most important was the privatisation of SABC

radio stations. Government chose not to itnplement parliament's agreement that the proceeds of the sale of six SABC radio stations be paid to the SABC,

It was intrinsic to the SABC's funding model. SABC CEO Zwelakhe Sisulu had agreed to the sale in good faith. based on a parliamentary vote that induded the SABC getting the proceeds. %'e spoke to and wrote to Kaitloo,

infomringh

im of the crisis this created for the financial health of the SAIC, for th e credibility of the state and

the regulator. %'e got nowhere. The decision was apparenth above his pay grade, and his attention was taken up by telecommunications. How to

bridge the digital divide. provide telephones ro the poor, and bring us into the information age.

President Mbeki made his commitment to the information economy clear in

his State of the Nation speech in the National Assembly on 9 February 2001, 'Because of the critical importance of this sector', Mbeki told parliament and the nation, there would be IIew measures 'to ensure that we do not fall

further behind the rest of the world as a result of the digital divide.' Key among his new Ineasures was a Presidential Task Force on Information Society and Development, a blue ribbon panel that read like a who's who of world leaders in the field. It included Larry Ellison, Silicon Valley founder of Oracle; Carly Fiorini, CEO of Hewlett-Packard; Craig McCaiv of Teledesic; South African-born Psion founder David Porter of Psion; Ivlark Shuttle~vorth, South African founder of multibillion rand Thwarte Consulting; an academic guru irI the field, Professor Manuel Castells of the University of California; and several other international luminaries.

South Africa was punching above its weight. Mbeki's words brought hope to budding geeks alive to the unrivalled possibilities of this new world. It should have been a golden era. Telkom, the national telephone operator, was the sole supplier of internet

access. In the same speech, Mbeki boasted that 412,000 new telephone lines had been installed in the financial year 1999 to 2000. This was a considerable figure, amounting to about an eight percent increase in a single year; 381

But it was all a mirage. These figures were 'churn'; new lines opened as a previous round of new lines died. 2000 turned out to be the last year Mbeki could boast of growth for Telkom. The new lines Mbeki trumpeted in his State of the Nation speech brought the total for the country to 5,493,000

lines, an increase of two million since 1994. But the programme had not been properly thought through. It collapsed within a year of that speech. The new lines added were unaffordable. New subscribers cancelled. Then Telkom laid more lines. That showed short-term gtowth, but previous lines

were no longer in use. The following year Telkom lost 531,000. That was more than 100,000 more lines lost than the previous year's gains. Every year, from 2001 to 2015, there was a further net loss of hnes. The numbers were terrible. Over the next fourteen years, the net loss

was a staggering 2,054,000 lines. By 2015, Telkom had fewer bnes than even 1993, when there were 3,458,000. During that time the dotcom boom

created millions of jobs around the globe, and changed the way the world worked, played, lived and did business. South Atrican internet remained slower and more expensive than its peers.

For the poor, fixed hnes should have been the cheap option to communicate, but they weren't cheap. The two mobile phone operators, MTX and

Vodacom, set up before the African National Congress (ANC) government came to power, filled the gap with spectacular success. They weren't cheap either by international standards, but they facilitated short pre-paid calls, travelled with you, and soon oHered text messaging. In time they would start to replace Telkom even for internet and email communication. Naidoo left government to make his fortune in the private sector in a

company called J and J, with his fellow unionist, the former government arms deal negotiator Jayendra Naidoo. Dr hg Matsepe-Casaburri was the new minister, Matsepe-Casaburri stayed ten years, presiding over the loss of one million Telkom lines, and South Africa's further decline in internet rankings. To the despair of the sector, the Zuma era saw a million more lines lost in the nextseven years, an even worse yearly average than the ten under

Mbeki and Matsepe-Casaburri. No single year showed an improvement. Why was this record even worse than the disastrous figures under Mbeki~ Zuma appointed five successive ministers in five years, causing a degree ot instability that only accelerated the abysmal decline. South Africa's incubating software companies could not survive the high prices, ineHiciency and slow internet service. South African owners and employees emigrated to countries mth i n t ernet fast, efficient and cheap

enough to support their dreams. I knew several personally. They return

O'HY SOUTH AFRICA X11SSED THE 1VFOR%1ATIOh REVOLLrflON

now and then with their newfound wealth to run the Comrades marathon

or watch the soccer World Cup, leaving behind their British statfed offices for South African vacations at favourable exchange rates.

How did this spectacular failure for the economy, for jobs, for enriching culture and the lives of the poor happen under the extreinely smart and

worldly President Mbeki, fully alert to the importance of the internet as a catalyst to economic growth and job creation, who had made it his business to meet and recruit the giants of Silicon Valley to the country's cause? ln the ten years to 2002, South Africa fell 30 places to 77 in the Inter-

national Telecommunications Development Index. By 2010, South Africa had fallen to 91st. The significance for jobs is made obvious by a study showing that a ten percent improvement in broadband penetration adds

1.38 percent to economic growth in developing economies. A 2012 e-readiness report showed South Africa fell from 34th in 2004 to 138th. First to overtake South Africa in A f rica were north A f rican countries

like Tunisia and Morocco. They were followed by island states including Mauritius and Seychelles. 'Several other major African markets — Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria — are demonstrating far greater dynamism as a result of more enabling policy and effective regulation.'4 To explain how things went wrong we have to cast our minds back to the early 1990s, before the government changed hands. I had only once seen a mobile phone in use, in Washington, ivhen a woman walking on the sidewalk conducted a conversation inro a brick-) ike object. Under the white government, South African telecommunications were

at least a generation behind the world. Telkom remained a state monopol>, providing sheltered employment for white Afrikaners. Slow, inefficient, it was anvthing but ready for prime time. By contrast, the American monopoly, ATILT, divas broken up into seven companies in 1984, the culmination of htigation begun by the government to eliminate anti-competitive behaviour ten years earlier. The American telecommunications sector was positioned competitively for the revolution to coine. In the US, long before the internet, other competed tor long

comp anies

distance calls against the local provider, and new services were on the way. The phone systemhad been considered a 'natural monopoly', because one 4 Castells, Mand P Himanen, Reconceptualising Developmentin tbe Cio&alinformation Age, Oxford University Press: 2014.

DEMOCRACY: 1994-2015

historic company owned all the copper wire going into homes. This was no longer true.

In 19 93 , a s

p o l i ticians and l a w yers w rangled o ver t h e c o nstitution,

suspicions were high about what De Klerk's government, which had licensed no broadcasters besides the SABC and no telephone company but Telkom, would do to lock in white interests before it lost the levers of power. In this climate, the government moved to license MTN and Vodacom

before the democratic election. Naspers's Koos Bekker was a prime mover, a nd would come in with a c h unky share. On the ANC side, one of t h e

founders of the union movement, Dr Bernie Fanaroff, who gave up a career as an astrophysicist to devote his life to the National Union of Metahvorkers

(NUMSA), saw the opportunity, 'I approached Jay +a i doo) and said we can't allow them to give away the people's spectrum; it's like giving away our mineral resources,' Fanaroff recalled. 'Jay didn't have a clue what spectrum was, but said if you want to fight it, do so." When Fanaroff joined Naidoo in government in 1994, NUMSA dropped

the ball. 'But others stepped into the gap, notably Johnny Copelyn and Marcel Golding, then new members of parliament and former unionists in the textile and mineworkers' unions respectively.' T hey had initiated

investment trusts lor their unions to benefit from new opportunities. The tivo companies, Vodacom and MTN, grew into South African giants,

their profits helping several black and white shareholders to enter new fields. They helped establish the Copelyn and Golding's fortunes ~vhich would encoinpass gambling, hotels, a bus service, liquor, broadcasting and

many other industries. It also began their business partnership with Johan Rupert, whose father Anton b uilt the f irst and b iggest white Afrikaner family fortune in the Nationalist era.

When the ANC took power in May 1994, the information economy was in its infancy, but it was already apparent: information would be the oil of the modern economy, 5 Cargill, Jenny,Trick or Treat, Rethinking Bktck Empott:erment, Jacana: 2010, p 12. 6 Cargill, p 12.

384

XVHY SOUTH AFRICA MISSED THE IVFOR51ATIOV REVOLUTIOV

As minister, Paiio Jordan brought in international experts familiar with what was considered best practice at the International Telecommumcations

Union (ITU), as well as South Africans in the sector in a public process that brought consensus, The first objective was, naturally, to get phones to

those unserved under apartheid. To do this Jordan agreed to the principle that Telkom would be allowed to keep its monopoly for a specified period, while new investment was sought from a private player to extend lines to the unserved black majority. At the same time, to put t he' industry on a sound modern footing, a regulator would be set u p t o p r o v ide institutional expertise, licensing

and oversight independent of the ministry. The ministry had a conflict of interest — it v as the sole shareholder of Telkom, and the regulator of its

future competition. This apartheid-era hangover had to end. The regulator had to be taken out of his department and operated independently by experts. It ivould have to make the decisions for the whole sector in the public interest- to get phones and internet into the most hands at the cheapest price. By its nature, the regulator is closer to the industry

than the d epartment, able to assess needs, see through self-interested 'advice', at!'d act faster than a government department mll. It m ust also

build a specialist capacity which the depamnent did not have. So the result was competition to the Telkotn monopoly would be limited at first, leading to a p artial privatisation; and an independent regulator would be set Up to regulate and open up the sector.

Jordan published a white paper on these lines. %'orking with the industry and the unions, a reasonable consensus had been established behind the plan. Self-interested companies were part of the discussion. but not in charge. The broadcasting regulator was getting radio stations opened, and it was anticipated the new telecommunications regulator would play a similarly dynamic role. Industry players who tried to appeal to the minister using political influence got a p o lite brushoff: these matters ivere handled by the regulator. Jordan's constitutionally correct restraint was of inestimable value.

Jordan was fired by Mandela, apparently tor being too independentlyrninded. h4beki, xvho had never liked Jordan, a rival Xhosa intellectual with an equally famous Xhosa intellectual father, Professor AC Jordan, divas in charge of day-to-day governance. Giving the job to Jay Naidoo achieved two objectives. It removed Naidoo from the RDP ministry, ivtuch was to be shut down, and he t ook o v er

Jordan's portfolio. Naidoo was apparently given no choice and no time to consider the move. 385

DEMOCRACY: 1994-2015

After Jordan was repl.aced by Naidoo, an increasingly confident directorgeneral, Andile Ngcaba, seemed more and more in charge. According to every source consuhed for this book, including key officials in the presidency, the ministry and the regulators, Ngcaba's direct line to Mbeki, as deputy president and then president, bypassed all others, including his own minister.

As the dotcom boom was revving up, telecommunications investments were the hot ticket, and international companies arrived with billions of dollars to

invest. The dotcom boom plus Mandela magic were the perfect launch pad. Naidoo focused on turning the white paper into the Telecommunications Act, and finding an investor to sell part of Telkom to, but investors found

the process unsettling because hard-won consensus of the Jordan era was being summarily overridden. 'Dropping Jordan from cabinet, together with changes in the law, which suggested for the first time in the process the possibility of political interference, created nervousness among potential investors,' according to the

most definite analysis of the process. Alison Giliwald, who had been first head of broadcasting policy at the ISA, then a South African Telecommunications Regulator (SATRA) councillor during this period, moved to the University of Witwatersrand w here she ran the LINK academic research and training centre for t h e

ICT sector. While there she wrote her Pho thesis, 'Wire Less: A decade of Telecommunications Reform in South Africa'. Now a University of Cape Town professor and adviser to a number of governments, Giliwald set out to make sense of this failure, based on her own experience and extensive interviews, including with the minister's policy adviser and later Independent Communications Authority of South

Africa (IC.atSA) councillor, %"dbe Currie. Currie had been adviser to both Jordan and Naidoo.' 'Currie's role of aligning the objectives of the industry with the vision of the new government under the previous minister had turned', Gillwald wrote, 'to trying to keep the new Minister committed to

the consensus that had been carefully engineered.' Changes were being made to the agreed plan, and 'mvestors lost trust in the process. First-tier coinpanies were the first to w i thdraw, then the smaHer companies. By the time the process was completed, only one foreign

applicant was left. GiIIwaid. The assessment of this process is drawn frotn pp138&4.

O'HY SOLITH Al'RICA 51ISSED THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION

After British Telecotn, others to leave were Dutch KPN, and finally, vveeks before the bids closed, Deutsche Telecom. Only one consortium was left, known as Thintana, whose dominant partner was the American

Southwestern Bell Company (SBC) with Telecom Malaysia. Obviously with only one player interested, the government had lost its leverage. The reputedly litigious SBC moved into the driver's seat just as the carefully constructed seller's market turned into a buyer's market.

The results were inevitable. SBC's Jim Myers was remarkably frank. 'The

company tempo rarily transferred its entire San Antonio corporate office legislative team to South Africa to help draft the Telecommunications Act', he told interviewers, ' to make sure the legislation comported w ith t h e

company's requirements.' SBC leaned on government to accept its drafts of much of the final legislation. Then it wrote major terms of its own licence!

Finally, Naidoo negotiated what Gillwald called 'the notorious shareholder agreement' between the government as the Telkom shareholder, and the

SBC-dominated new shareholder. This document was kept secret from the regulator, SATRA. !t created an untenable situation. The regulator was

supposed to monitor SBC's performance and hold it accountable. But the regulator was refused sight of the clauses in the agreement. 'Perhaps the greatest testimony to (Naidoo being outmanoeuvred) was the notorious shareholder agreement, a secret document the regulator was never made prii~ to, but w hich was held up by the new SBC-dominated management of Telkom as the source of their rights to any of their actions that the regulator questioned or sought to curb,' wrote Gilhvald, a SATRA councillor at the time.

Gillwald interviewed Naidoo for her thesis, and points out Naidoo disagreed with her assessment, remaining proud of his negotiation. 'It was a trade off.' Naidoo told Gillwald. '%e wanted three tnillion new lines; we want internet in schools; this is the trade off.' There were also requirements to train new people. 'So that was the intention. For the first five years, six

years say, the focus was to deliver universal access... delivery to outlying areas, villages, clinics, schools.' As we know from the figures published by Telkom in 2.015, Telkom was increasing its coverage significantly from 1994, before Naidoo entered the picture. After Yaidoo's agreement with SBC, the highest total delivered

8 Business Report, 23 August 2007. This article is drazm from a 40-page academic article by former ICASA counciIIor %i!lie Corrie and American acadetnic Robert Hots-iu.

9 Gillwald, p 141.

DEMOCRACY: 1994 — 20l$

was from 1998 to 2000, about 12 million lines, but that was misleading. In 2001 alone, the net loss was 531,000 lines. After that, they fell every year, From 3.6 million in 1994 the number rose to peak at 5.5 million in 2000, followed by a steep decline steadily to 2015 ivhen it fe11 below 1994's

number of 3.6 million lines, In the secret management agreement was an SBC management fee of

R260 million, about 16 percent of the mega-company's net profit, and perks for the SBC managers and their families, including security guards and

family air tickets between South Africa and Dallas, according to a source. 'The intention of the exclusivity agreement was to provide the incumbent t he revenues to almost double the network f ro m a round 3

m i l l ion t o

5.8 million hnes,' Gillwald vvrote, This included installing '1.68 million lines in disadvantaged areas and 120,000 pay phones. The three miHion lines did not materialise. There is precious little legacy from this effort. Thintana invested R5.4 billion for its 30 percent, and sold it seven years later for RI 2.7 billion. But this excludes the hefty management and other fees, which the Strnday Tt'rrtesestimated brought the total pay-back to R20

billion."

Telkom's phone bills remained expensive by international standards. What was needed was competition, urgently. Competition would b r ing prices down and services up. The potential was enormous, but the country could not stand still. The country had to either go forward or backward, The cake

was not fixed — it would grow or it would shrink. The Iv'tbeki era saw two new licences for telephone operators: one for

fixed line, Neotel, the other for a mobile-phone operator, Cell C. The most important thing was to get these new operators going as soon as possible to increase competition. Together they could have helped bring down costs to the consumer, and grown multiple new businesses. They could facilitate stnall business, where potential job growth is often the greatest. It was a crucial test: could the new democratic government build new institutions that outlast the individuals making the decisions> But rime was r unning out, and u n der M atsepe-Casaburri the Ivtbeki 10 Currie, %' and Robert Horvvitz, 'Another instance where privatisation trutnped liberalisation: the polircs of telecommunications reform in South Africa — a ten year perspective.' See also Burire-.sReport, 23 August 2007.

388

III'HY SOUTH AFRICA MISSED THE IKFORMATIOY. REVOLUTION.

adtninistration operated as if time did not matter. By 2015, both Cell C and Neotel are still strugghng. In both cases, the cause is easy to find.

In 1997 the equivalent of the IBA for telecommunications, SATRA, was

established. The new chairman, Nape Maepa, came Neth a BSc in electrical engineering from Purdue University and an MSc in electrical engineering

from the University of lvtissouri, just the sort of person to bring expertise, build a strong regulator and train young South Africans to fill the gap left by Bantu education. He set out t o b u il d it , A f ter several bruising disagreements with the department, SATRA set out to award its first major licence, for a new mobile phone operator to compete with the existing ones. Research suggests that

while a duopoly is usually not enough to bring down prices, a third player usually is. In April I999, the applications were finalised. After some delay initiated at the ministry, Matsepe-Casaburri finally gave the go-ahead to complete

the process. So SATRA geared up to examine the bids at Aloe Ridge, a retreat outside Johannesburg.%hile there, President Mbeki's legal adviser, Mojanku Gumbi, called to say the process must stop, The chairman had a conflict of interest. She claimed he was a 13 percent shareholder in one of the companies.

This proved untrue, but it played havoc. The chairman felt understandably gutted, and withdrew from the process. In time, it would turn out the claim

was bogus, presumably planted by a rival bidder. Then the minister arrived at Aloe Ridge hersell to discuss the matter, and

left her legal adviser to advise the council, which had a legal adviser who had worked on IBA and SATRA matters successfully for some time. Cell C was chosen. But the Gumbi intervention and the minister's arrival

leaked to the press, and fuelled several court cases by defeated bidders. The winner, Cell C, was hobbled by a cloud of negative publicity, and timeconsuming court actions. Inside the r egulator, th e g overnment i n t erterence played havoc, as councillors turned on each other, over whether to accept departmental interference or not. ' There is not more than one foreign investor who vil l be happy to recommend South Africa as an investment destination,"' one

losing bidder told a journalist. Maepa left the regulator disillusioned and 11 De %'et, Philip, Brainstorm, 13 July 2000.

389

has since stayed out of public service, a loss to a country that can ill afford to waste expert talent. He was a good man.

With the merger ot IBA and SATRA into ICASA, the chairman appointed was Mandla Langa. Better credentials would be hard to find. Langa, a BA graduate from the University of Fort H are, went into exile in 1976 after

101 days in prison. He served in numerous ANC posts in exile, and was on good personal terms with the president. His brother Pius was chiet justice, and another brother an ambassador.

He had already worked at the SABC and was chairman of the IBA at the time of the merger. No less than others before him, Langa found working with the department hard going. The most important task was to license,

finally, a competitor to Teikom that would provide reduced prices and better internet. This time, the department determined that ICASA would be allowed to choose the investor of 51 percent in the new venture, but the winning bid would have to take on three partners chosen by the department. The department ignored warnings that good cotnpanies would not accept

imposed partners chosen by the department. The State insisted that Eskom and Transtel, two state-owned enterprises that owned extensive telecommunications infrastructure and cabling, would each receive 15 percent. A third p artner chosen by the deparonent, the

black empowerment partner, would receive '19 percent. The regulator resisted this ' f orced marriage' that w o uld c o nfront a

proposed investor with afait accompli. In the broadcasting licence process, investors chose their own black partners. They had begun relationships they believed could last. Not so for the new phone company. The new player, providing most of the investment and expertise, would have three partners not of its choosing. 'The regulator was either ignored

or cursorily briefed on decisions already taken,' Gillwald wrote, based on her interviews with Langa and the regulator's CEO, Snakes Nyoka, and her own experience.

The regulator called it a 'forced marriage', and it was. With the regulator excluded trom the picture, the story onh got bleaker. At the eleventh hour, as contracts were being signed, one of the state companies mthdrew. By then, another chairman had left.

390

%'HY SOLrl'H AFRICA %11SSED THE INFORhlATION REVOLUTION

Langa, who continues to write significant award-winning fiction and non-

fiction, let it be known to the presidency and the ANC that he was wiHing to stay on to see through the licence of the competitor to Telkom. 'With his overtures — unfortunately considering the f r agility of t h e l i censing processes — not responded to, Langa did no t s t and for r enomination,

creating a considerable leadership vacuum in the regulator,' wrote GiHwald, 'Although the tension between the ministry and ICASA, represented by

Langa as chairperson, were common knowledge, the failure of the presidency or the party to seize his offer can be interpreted as a lack of understanding or, perhaps worse, care. There appeared to be no acknowledgement of the importance ol good leadership and continuity and stability For a sector wracked by institutional and administrative failure.

'Perhaps it was their viexv that Langa had not been sufficiently maHeable or even responsible for the state of the sector. But a cursory examination ot

some of the main areas of the crisis... could have revealed his endeavour to regulate effectively and the esteem in which he was held by the sector, even when they did not agree ~vith him. Regardless of whether this was their

view, there appeared to be no recognition by government of the linkages between effective regulation and the much lamented poor access and high prices in the sector.'"-

And so the quality of people in the institutions declined. For aH the talk of an African intellectual renaissance, %1beki's relationship with actual, independently-minded African inteHectuals was not encouraging. If Langa could not get government support to do his job, who could?

Instead of strong, independently-minded, leaders, a pattern developed. There was a revolving door of jobs between ICASA councillors, SASC board members, department of communications staff and other stare-controlled entities. Once one's career is determined by these political connections it

becomes very difficult to exercise independent judgement. The constitution protects the independence of the broadcasting sector, but is silent on telecommunications. Once the two were merged, ICASA

became an ambiguous beast, which might one day be chaHenged in the constitutional court: i n dependent on some things, dependent on others. Certainly the revolving door violates the intention of the authors of the constitution as it relates to broadcasting.

Sadly, Mandela's warning to Mbeki on his succession proved tragically, characteristically prescient: 'One of the temptations of a leader who has been elected unopposed is that he may use his powerful position to settle 12 Gillwald, p244.

39'I

scores with his detractors, marginalise them, and in certain cases get rid of

them and surround himself with yes-men and yes-women. 'A leader tnust keep his forces together, but you can't do that unless you

allow dissent... people should even be able to criticise the leader without fear or favour... Fortunately, I know that our president understands these issues... He is not the man who is going to side-line anyone." The institutional consequences ot this failing have not been reversed. The ability to establish lasting institurions and build capacity is the sole long-term security for a narion. Visitors, of the well-meaning or carpetbagger variety, must be welcomed. They must be regulated in the country's interests by nurturing strong institutional expertise.

Politicians are not going to blame themselves for the failure, especially if there is a ready-made ideological narrative such as 'market failure'. As David Lewis. a left-ming trade unionist who became an effective regulator heading the competition commission and later director of Corruption Watch put it, the market in telecotnmunications did not fail. We never tried it.

Still, a nagging question remains: did Mbeki and the people around him know ; D i d they monitor outcomes! Did they evaluate and react to outcomes r Interviewed at the University of Cape Town on 22 June 2015, Professor

Alan Hirsch, chief economist in the Mbeki presidency, said he regularly briefed Mbeki on the numbers, so the decline was known. He confessed the steady decline in South Africa's information economy ratings divas a mystery to birn. While not denying extensive political interference, he professed himself unaware that this was any different from other countries.

He agreed that both directors-general, Agcaba and his successor, Lyndall Shope-Mafole, bypassed their ministers to maintain a special relationship ivith the president. Asked if this was not the president's fault, he replied that it was not clear what the president could have done. %'hile agreeing M atsepe-Casaburri was not a success as minister, he disputed that t h e p resident had much control over cabinet appointments, poinring to t h e

numerous loci of power, including the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). And the blue ribbon international advisory panel? 'People stopped coming,' he recalled. 'They got frustrated, probably.' 13 Gevisser, Mark, Tbabo Mbeki, the Dry>n Deferred, Jonathan Sall: 200? p 698.

392

%HY SOUTH AFRICA %1ISSED THE INFORMATIO'3 REVOLL'TIOY.

Gillwald interviewed one player who had witnessed both the TV licence that w ent to e.tv, and the telecom licences. Michael Markowitz was a losing bidder for the TV licence, and later adviser to the chairman of ICASA during the telecommunications licence process, You xvould expect him to be critical of the TV licence and happy ivith the telecom process. The opposite is true.

'I was part of one of the losing (TV) consortia and we complained bitterly about the tune it took and we also examined the possibility of litigating against the decision. But it was fairly bullet-proof, mainly because there weren't as many procedural pitfalls as there are svhen you have co-jurisdiction (xvith the minister), where the pittalls for litigation is just higher.'"

When the processes were done, Ngcaba resigned as director-general. He became chairman of Didata, the biggest data company in the country, Soon

he led a successful bid for the biggest single share in Telkom as well. Cosatu, the trade union federation, was not amused. 'Is this not a typical example of a government policy maker throwing a javelin into the private sector and

then picking it up before it has landed, as a businessman?' Ngcaba was unfazed: 'It is a deal, pure and simple. It is our risk and our

tnoney and it was based on a xviliing seller/willing buyer principle. That is how the free market works.'" 'Fiva the National Democratic Revolution. Losing Maepa and then Langa was disastrous in its implications. Insiders got the message, that nobody with initiative would progress. Even being

black and ANC, from a famous struggle family, respected and smart, none of these things seemed to be valued. Independent and dedicated experts are ignored, cronies are secure, and javelin throwing an insider joke. When Zuma took over, these pathologies were all in place. He simply turned them to a more purely personal agenda.

14 Gillwald, p222. 15 Gillwald, p240.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Jacob Zuma and the 'Born Frees' resident Zuma was at the podium in the People's House, squirming, silent, unable to speak for the heckling, a Silvio 8erlusconi before the legislature he had suborned to stay unaccountable. It was the third time in

a year that he had been shouted down in parliament. Julius 5 Ialema's small but vocal Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), who had secured 25 seats in the 400-member house, were not makmg it easy.

As the 73-year-old leader watched helplessly, Juhus Malema orchestrated turmoil. demanding Zuma pay back his 'undue benefits' in state spending on his private residence at Nkandla. Earlier in the president's torture session, he had struggled with other

questions.With the economy in trouble, one of his ministers had nevertheless closed a mine owned by the mining giant Glencore over a labour dispute. With his trademark Iau@, Zuma said he could not be expected to comment on a matter about which he was ignorant since he had not been briefed, Zuma gave the same answer when asked to comment on another minister's public claim that judges attended meetings where they were told w h at

judgements to give. To a third question about illicit financial flows involving I onmin, the company which owns the Marikana mine where the shooting of 40 miners occurred, Zuma cheerfully countered that he could not be expected to

answer since he was not briefed. All three matters were prominent news in the daily press. Apparently the

president does not see thenewspapers, or a clipping service while he travels on his luxury presidential jet~ Malema's strategy for the afternoon humiliation of the president had

already hit all its marks for the televised session. Now the president had handed him this bonus. 'It is so embarrassing', said the increasingly confident EFF leader, more in sorrow than in anger, 'that your minister closes a mine, and you are

JACOB ZUMA AND THE 'BORN FREES

meeting

uninformed. Your minister says judges are i n backrooms to take orders on their judgements, you are uninformed,' and the same with illicit cash flows. 'How can a sitting president know so little about so much»' None was a trivial or common occurrence. Few can remember a minister

closing a mine, let alone in the midst of a collapse in global commodity prices when thousands of miners are being retrenched. Nor can one recall a minister's unvarnished claim of such extreme judicial impropriety. Even the company with questions about its financial movements was especially

signihcant, since the deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was, until his

recent po lit icalelevation, a director and major shareholder in the company. Back on point, Malema concluded his afternoon's contribution, it was clear he could get no satisfaction from the president over the corruption in the construction work at his house. 'So we vviil see you in court.' Game, set and match. It was not an idle threat. Through lawyers, Malema had thoughtfully served notice to the constitutional court that morning.

Malema would be on the side of the Chapter Nine body, the popular corruption-busting public protector, Thuli Madonsela. Malema had won the news cycle. On social media platforms President Zuma began to be called 'President Angazi' (President Don't Know). For the rest of the week an initiative of a party with six percent of the vote led by 30-somethings would dominate the airwaves, print and social

media. Meanwhile, Zuma focused on backroom political manoeuvring and won the parliamentary vote on an inquiry into the spending on his private

home, saying he owed nothing. But the public was well past that, looking to the EFF's next move,

That night I had dinner vvith a well-connected friend from Berlin, who told me German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been dodging Zuma's request for a state visit to Germany for a year. As a BRICS member, South

Africa had to be accorded respect, but mell-briefed officials in the German government kept putting of f spending time with a n

u n i n formed South

African president. The exchange between M a lema and

Z u m a r e Aects the changes in

21 years. Dozens of young black presentets, reporters and members of the press confidently discuss US Reserve Bank chair janet Yeliin's dovish interest rate bias and China's progress in converting an ex port-driven economy to domestic consumption. Young South Africans are no longer

isolated. The internet, social media, broadcasting, uncensored newspapers and freedom have brought South Africa into the vvorld. To the Born Frees, whose vvorldliness the pre-1994 white presenters could not have tnatched, the first citizen is a sitting duck.

DEh1OCRACY: 1994 — 2015

A last memory of the debate was a plaintive Zuma saying the impression was given the country was in trouble. This was not true. 'The country is fine.' The country was developing. But the country was moving past him, looking to a post-Zuma South Africa.

By the time Zuma became president in 2009, the institutions set up to enable the information economy were substantially dysfunctional. Zuma made it worse, In five years of cabinet shufAes, the department ot communications had five ministers, each appointment disrupting the work with personnel changes and different priorities. South Africa does not have a strong, stable and expert civil service. Each new high-level appointment causes disruption for months, even years. M ost o f t h e c o m m u nications and b r o adcasting experts w h o h a d

been equally passionate about ending apartheid and about bringing the information economy to a free South Africa had lost hope in the Mbeki era. It was hard to believe the decline would accelerate, but it did. One appointment seemed to have potential. The lifelong Comtnunist

Yunus Carrim, appointed minister inJuly 2013, was proot that trying to split African National Congress (MC) leaders into good guy non-communists and bad guy communists is inaccurate. Carrim w anted results, sought good advice and set up, among other initiatives, a Broadband Council to

implement a broadband plan to speed up delivery. He lasted nine months, the shortest term of all.

In May 20I4 he was replaced by Faith Muthambi, a lifelong party official with a law degree from the University of Venda. Her first substantive public appearance made it obvious she divas ill-equipped to implement her new mandate. Zuma had also appointed her cabinet spokesperson, but h er demeanour at her first media briefing showed her unprepared, without presence and a well-below average communicator. Zuma replaced her as spokesperson the next day. How much thought and understanding had he applied to the appointment~ %'hat were the criteria> Her appointment coincided with another decision that made the sector groan. Despite the centrality o f c o nvergence in making the information economy possible, he split the department into two ministries, communications and telecommunications, under two ministers, placing the government communication and information service (GCIS) and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) under one minister for the first time since 1994,

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It was a move that the AIail ~~ Guardian described as amounting to the

setting up of a Zimbabwe, Chinese or Russian-styled ministry of propaganda. Experts went to press begging this to be undone, but experts carried no weight. As they predicted, splining the department in two was a disaster. It took one year for the parliamentary oversight committees to complete the adjustment of their duties. At the time of writing this, Carrim's Broadband Council had not met for a year. Carrim seemed to have all the requirements for Zuma's backing; Zuma

puts key people from his home province in office. Though he is often thought to favour his Zulu compatriots, in fact he is as likely to favour other ethnicities if they are from KwaZulu-Natal. Carrim ticked that box. Looking at Zuma's other appointments, being a Communist is also a plus.

As usual, no real explanations are provided for the splitting of the department, or for the appointment or removal of Carrim.

Not content with the damage to the ICT sector, Zuma's term played havoc with the TV industry. South African television has only three substantial players: the SABC. the

e.tv channel the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) licensed on my last day in office in 1998, and the five hundred pound gorilla, Naspers, with its various subsidiaries — M-Net, DStv and MultiChoice — which together oxvn a large number of TV channels and the dominant satellite system used in South Africa, the rest of Africa, and many other parts of the world. It was this company that plied us with compromising gifts as we began our work at the IBA in 1994.

SABC television now offers decades old Kojak and Da/las, apparently because of early shopping sprees to Hollywood buying old junk, or signing contracts that bound them to use prograrnmes as long as they were made, hence current Dallas episodes in prime time. Look at the programme lineup and it is clear it is an institution some people run without pride.

The SABC had run every year at a stable, small profit. Suddenly within one year its loss went into 13 figures — more than a billion rand! A state bailout was sought. Rampant corruption went side-by-side with increased political interference.

In 1994, we assumed reporters were being bugged by intelligence and, in one case, a senior editorial executive was found to be able to observe a correspondent's decisions in the editing room from the comfort of his office. In the 2014 election, the SABC chairvvoman, Ellen Zandile Tshabalaia, told

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her journalists they were being monitored by the National Intelligence

Service. 'Basically she was saying that we must toe the line', one journalist who asked not to be named was quoted as saying, 'and that we must respect

the ruling party.' She then invoked old apartheid legislation allowing the executive to declare any location a 'national key point' and therefore off

limits to the media! 'She said your phones are being listened to... because the SAIC is a national key point." The man calling the shots at the SABC during the election was Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the controversial acting chief operating officer, who became

notorious for falsely claiming to have completed high school to get into the SABG. Julius Malema, theenfant terrible who was expelled as president of the ANC Youth League, only to form the new EFF, gave an insight into how far the SABC had deviated from its public mandate ro be independent.

'The CEO of the SABC is appointed by Luthuli House,' (the headquarters of the ANC), Malema told the Redi Thlabi show on Radio 702. 'We used to manipulate the SABC. We used to change bulletins. If something was not on at 7pm, we would call and complain and it would be on at 7:30.'

Malema and his EFF deputy, Floyd Shivambu, knew how it was done because before they started their party, they were leaders of the ANC Youth League, with access to the meeting rooms of Luthuli House. While in the ANC, Shivambu said, he called an SABC board member about content.

Officials at ICASA, the supposedly independent broadcast regulator, sat on ANC communications committees and wrote resolutions for party

congresses, Shivambu said.-' They freely admitted their early complicity in political interference,

but were offended at the inAuence of Zuma's friends, the Gupta fami]y of business people, had onhigh-level government appointments.

Government publications were stopped during the 1994 campaign for the obvious reason; in 2014 they were back, providing free promotion for the ruling party, Full page advertisements started appearing in most neivspapers, paid for by different government departments, celebrating twenty

years of science and technology, or improving education, and so on. The department of public enterprises, alongside a logo celebrating 20 years of freedom, wrote about the achievements of its parastatal companies. 1 Alai!O' Guardian, 11 to 16 April 2014, pp1 and 3. 2 Redi Thlabi Show, Radio 702, 1 May 2014.

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fACOB ZL'MA AND THE 'BORN FREES'

The State Information Technology Agency chimed in 'celebrating 15 years of enabling ICT in Government'. The ANC slogan was 'a good

campa ign

story to tell', and the taxpayers were paying to tell it.

The campaign had some funny consequences. Not to be left out, the department of defence found a way to trumpet its 20 years while showing a picture of the ANC candidate, President Zuma, under a headline pointing to its commanders-in-chiet. Of course, this meant it could add its previous

commanders-in-chief, induding Nelson Mandela, thus linking Zuma to his more esteemed predecessor. One of these ads was earmarked for the front page of City Press, Unfortunately for the government's purpose, the rest of the front page was taken up mth extensive reports on the failure of the

arms deal's offset programme and news of the scandal around Zuma's use of taxpayers' money on his private home.

In November 2014, one of those secret boardroom battles that rarely make it into the public domain did. It was a tussle for control of e .tv, and it

emerged into the open dramatically. The media rightly latched on to it for both its implications for media freedom, and its human drama — it marked the end of a successful partnership between two former strugglistas, Marcel

Goldingand Johnny Copelyn. Like the country's other media moguls, the pony-tailed Golding and Copelyn work hard at keeping out of the media spotlight. But as the highest officers of several significant listed companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, they could not avoid it this time. Their friendship unravelled in a public dispute as Golding accused the government of leaning on its political coverage, and Copelyn of letting them. Press commentators were convinced there had been pohtical interference,

and that this had been a concern to Golding, but they remained sceptical that Golding was entirely uninvolved in the process. But the underlying issue that brought this to the head was a move by the ministry of communications that threatened to change the TV landscape dramatically. And it could wipe out e.tv's profits.

The issue easily becomes technical. In simple terms, the government was pledged to convert the national frequency system from analogue to digital

by July 2015. This is a requirement of the UN of the sector, the Genevabased International Teleconununications Union (ITU). More itnportant, it will free up South African spectrum for telecomtnunicationsi'internet usage,

and allow for dozens of new TV channels free to the horne, Little wonder

DEMOCRACY: 1994-2015

then that . aspers, whose South African profits come overwhelmingly from its expensive MultiChoice/DStv satellite TV range, took an active interest. Government knew of this before I left the regulator in 1998. MatsepeCasaburri set up a process in 2001 but. characteristically, did not see it through. Under successive ministers the deadline came and went with little

progress. Now it was coming to a head, The key to the commercial future of the

sector lay in whether the set top box (STB) would be encrypted. Naspers,' MultiChoice knew exactly ivhat they ivanted. It suited their encrypted service, a virtual monopoly, to stay the only encrypted service. If all the other services were unencrypted, they would have difficulty

getting good programming. Hollmvood fears the easy piracy of unencryption, and the difficulty of tracking where its programming is watched. The options sound counter-intuitive: for it to be available to the most,

you want an encrypted STB. The service can still be free to the pubhc. The only way for Naspers/MultiChoice to win was by finding allies. The most important ally is, of course, the SABC. As the public broadcaster, it has extra clout, After all, i t i s a state-owned institution whose mandate i s to serve the broad public, is it not? Naspers went to work. At a t i m e when allegations of corruption were swirling around the SABC, it signed

an agreement with Naspers/MultiChoice by which Naspers would pay the SABC R500 million. What it got in return was the family silver.

The family silver was in two piles. First, the SABC would hand over its archive to Naspers's subsidiary company. The SABC would still have access, though how freely is disputed. It goes without saying that e.tv and any other net pl aver would be squeezed. The second part of the familv silver was the SABC's undertaking, as part of the agreement, to go for the unencrypted STB. In case anyone doubted that, in the age of ANC government, the SABC and Naspers, the original apartheid press group, were best friends torever, SABC chairman Professor Obert Maguvhe spelt out the level of intimacy on

11 May 20l5. 'MultiChoice, thank you for this wonderful partnership... Actually for me, I wouldn't have preferred it to just be a partnership. Actually it should be a marriage. You can be our bride and we will be the bridegroom. We love you so much MultiChoice. We want to enter into a marriage." The loser in this deal was the South African consumer. It would

encourage monopoly, and discourage a plurahty of voices. 3 C ompetition Tribunal applicants' at6davit, Case no. 020727, Caxton Publishers, Media Monitoring Project and Save Our SABC Public Broadcasting Coalition vs. MultiChoice. the SABC and the Competition Commission.

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JACOB ZLMA AVD THE 'BORV FREES

This was the deal that brought the GoidingiCopelyn parmership to an end. Their TV station, e.tv, was being locked out, and the only way to fight it was political, at a time when government was looking to increase political interference in e.tv's content.

It was an emotional moment, Copelyn and Golding had been in the trenches together since the 1970s in the dangerous anti-apartheid union days, gone to parliament together, started in business together, a friendship ripened into middle age.

Of the evo, Copelyn was regarded as the tougher. Industry colleagues spoke of his never losing a court case. 'If Johnny ever sues you, give up,' a colleague told me. 'He never goes in unless he is going to win.' Yet here was

Johnny Copelyn losing control, shedding tears, head down on a desk as he sat nexc to Marcel Golding in front of the media to seal their split.

Why? Was he crying at the end of a friendship? Or at a deal gone bad, so uncharacteristically for him? Surely all those. But to try to save his company

he had been exposed doing in public what is normally speculated about because it's private. He had hired Yunis Shaik, of the arms deal family. In a court affidavit, Golding claimed that Shaik had tried to get the station to run as a lead story footage supplied by the government on the opening of a dam. Shaik also linked government coverage to the company's difficulty winning the STB battle. 'The undertaking to give more attention to the news was also to the president and other ministers as part of our

lobbying for support on the STB programme,' Shaik wrote in an email. 'These ministers do complain and bitterly so, that we do not cover the vvork

of government with any degree of sufficiency." Were they tears of sheer frustration that the TV station, now a 17-year-

old, highly successful business that has put union members' children through university, is being put at risk by editorial interference?

The e.tv licence was a result of planning by the IBA's policy department under my direction. At the time, when both analogue frequency and finance were finite, and TV b r oadcasting so expensive, this first new, national, privately-owned. free-to-air licence had to be designed to take account of its

impact on the rest of the TV ecology, especially the public broadcaster, the SABC. It was designed to ensure e.tv would provide competitive news and current affairs to the SABC, and it has largely succeeded, v hile the owners have made money. It has been a constructive addition to the landscape, though of course it could have been better.

4 a m aBttrtgarte, 30 October 2014,

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DEMOCRACY: t 994-2015

Many people who worked for f ree and diverse expression and an independent public broadcaster before and after 1994 do not recognise it in the SABC today. In 1992, I made a presentation to Mandela and his future cabinet explaining the partisan tactics the SABC were using against him and

which should be avoided in a free South Africa. The techniques were easy to spot. The SABC showed Nationalist leaders speaking at rallies, cutting to their audiences with a wide angle lens that

emphasised the size of the crowd, to create a feeling of overwhelming adoration. For the ANC, only a tight-cropped shot of an interview with a

leader was permitted. IVhen theSABC showed theANC logo,they had manufactured theirown version, with three spears with sharp points at the top, when the real logo had one! For the 1994 elections, we worked without rest to give balance.

By now the reader knows what is coming. In the 2014 election, SABC reporters received the f o l lowing instructions: do no t

s ho w c r o wds at

opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) rallies. Do not show opposition leaders speaking hve, do interviews with them after their rallies. I observed DA leader Helen Zille was on screen, but blocked out by the sign language interpreter superimposed on the right of the screen.

National intelligence bugging journalists' phones for an election? That was just what detnocracy had stopped. Crafting SABC rules to hive off worrying opponents~ Stopping opposition party election advertisements

that use language already cleared by a court~ All these happened in 2014.

The parastatals whose successes were touted in pre-election ads have not

been well maintained. Unprecedented electricity outages, 'load-shedding', are only one cause of an investment strike. Corruption, lack of policy certainty and poor forward planning have put at risk infrastructure which is managed by government. Roads, rail links, passenger trains, the national

airline and the broadcaster are in trouble. These negative influences are driving into a perfect economic storm. The

first worry is in mining. Global resource prices have entered a bear cycle. Oil, gold, platinum, iron, copper and other minerals have fallen to nearly ( half their prices at the start of 2014. Mining's importance is a fraction of its pre-democracy levels, but it remains significant because it has disproportionate impact on at least three

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JACOB ZUh4A AND THE BORN FREES'

things: employment numbers, exports, and manufacturing. To understand

its impact on jobs, one example will suffice: on the one hand, the entire market capitalisation of South Africa's cavo most high-value minerals, gold and platinum, is smaller than the country's second biggest mobile-phone

company,Vodacom. Yet on theother hand, Vodacom employs about 15,000 people, compared to gold and platinum's several hundred thousand! Mining affects the country's trade balance because platinum tops the list of

exports, followed by gold. The decline of mining disproportionately affects manufacturing because South African manufacturing is built predominantly on supplying equipment to the mines. At the start of 2015, manufacturing

represented half the proportion of the economy compared to 1994. This de-industrialisation vvas exacerbated by over-enthusiasm for rapid removal of trade protection. De-industrialisation is set to accelerate in Z016. The state's response to mining's decline is to set up a state mining house.

This is a tragic example of a decision taken without proper focus on the evidence. Any dispassionate expert would raise two questions: what is it about these tough market conditions that will make it possible for a state mining company to survive where the private mining sector cannot~ And, what is there in the record of South Africa's state-owned companies that indicates a state mining house will be better run than the growing list

of failing state enterprises? If the state does get its mining house, which the cabinet is determined to do, it may well match Zambia's catastrophic

nationalisation of copper early in the last copper bear market cycle. This is policy set in darkness, away from the disinfecting sunhght of public debate with experts based on evidence. The most prominent current argument for new state companies is that companies' investment strike is racist. To this there is a simple answer. If there are South African companies run by bigoted CEOs who hate black

people, one thing that you can rely on from such selfish bigots: they love money more than they hate black people! If investments are likely to be profitable, they will invest. If investment is declimng, real evidence to explain the decline must be sought.

As he prepared to move to the presidency, Zuma felt the need for God. His chosen cleric was not one of the dozens of respected anti-apartheid dergy. He chose the Reverend Ray McCauley as president of a new National Interfaith Leaders Council. The mandate of the Council was to deal with corruption and service delivery issues. 403

DEMOCRACY: 1994-20 t 5

As late as February 1988, Rev Ray McCauley of the Rhema mega-church in Randburg. Johannesburg, hosted a righting Republican presidential candidate and one of the most high-profile opponents ot the American antiapartheid movement. The media mogul was the Rev Pat Robertson, head of the C h r istian Broadcasting Network, who was running for president of the United States as a Republican candidate to the right of th e i ncumbent vice president, George H% Bush, The Randburg church staff protected him from l ocal

and foreign correspondents, who were not aHowed either interviews or a press conference. Instead, after a red-carpet welcome from President P%' Botha, the mediasavvy Robertson granted an exclusive interview to the SABC to give vent to

his worst fears for his host country: 'It vvould be tragic if South Africa was plunged into a bloodbath, if the Marxist-led metnbers of the %4C could gain control.' Supporting the ANC was supporting 'aHies of one-party Marxist government', Robertson opined. By the t ime Z uma wa s chosen as president,

McCauley was picking different friends. 'The ANC has a strong Christian tradition,' M cCauley said at the time. Zuma 'does believe his presidency is ordained by God. I believe this in the

same way I believe I am ordained to be a pastor,' By now he was extremely optimistic about Zuma. 'He wiH go down in

history as the president who has made a difference; he will produce results with his different. new leadership style.'-' Put it down„shaH we, not to malice, but to poor predictive powers.

This is the point in a presidency like Zuma"s when, lacking the repartee or the answers to reassert his authority, he might consider resorting to force. That was what Mugabe did. But mth South Africa's constitution, as weH as the democratic instincts of perhaps the great majority, the mechanisms are not there. So how to proceed? He has taken some steps. One is both most visible and revealing. Max

Sisulu, brother of Zwelakhe and son of XValter, was a fair and trusted Speaker in parliament, v here the arrival of M a lerna's 25 MPs could be expected to cause most trouble. Again competence and even exile political

credentials counted for nought, and he was dropped. 5 I OL, 8 November 2009.

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JACOB ZL'hfA AND THE BORV FREES'

In cameanew speaker,BalekaMbete, who had been Speaker before.XV hile Mbete'sgrasp of parliamentary rules had been lessthan comprehensive, her

first speakership had been uneventful, besides an old allegation she had gained a driver's licence improperly. But this was different. In the intervening period, she had become chairperson of the ruling ANC, a position she would continue to hold while Speaker. iso constitutionalist could approve this. As ANC chairperson, she is bound to a dvance the partv's interests against all rivals. As Speaker, she is pledged to be fair to all parties regardless of party affiliation. How can these conflicting mandates be reconciled in one person.' Sadh; this appointment taints all who supported it, The decline in respect for parliament would folio>v this appointment as night follows day. One man who had seen it all before was Robert Mugabe. At 91, and prone to

sleep in cabinet meetings, Mugabe marshals his energy carefully, so his mind is mostly alert in public. Mugabe understood exactly what was at stake, that the enemy was not Malema or the new DA leader, Musi Maimane, but the sovereignty of the constitution over the president. He has made that plain at home and, as he saw Zuma's weakness, cunningly took the opportunity in South Africa. In 2,013, after a decade and half of turmoil and collapse in Zimbabwe, a constitution was produced by an all-party team of parliamentarians. It was endorsed in a referendum, the largest turnout in the country's history, by

3.079,000 to 179,489, a landslide.

figures

The hopes of the country were in that document. As soon as those were announced, M u gabe took t o t h e m i c r ophone to d i sabuse them.

'Sometimes parliament thinks that it is so sovereign that it should control the acts of the principals,' he said, meaning the president and those around him 'It is not.' Turning to the falling faces of its authors, he said, 'You have

been showing off,' which had the crowd laughing. 'Sometimes people fail to know where power has derived from.'" The constitution was signed, but key democraticla~vs it mandated were never passed. Mngabe had made it dear: the constitution was not a constitution, but

his plaything. The president will be sovereign. as long as he is around. By 2015, Zuma*s falling stature gave Mugabe the confidence to step into South Africa's domestic politics on South African soil. As African Union chairperson Mugabe invited Sudanese President Omar

al-Bashir, knowing South Africa had several times warned the Sudanese president not to e n ter the country because, under South African law, he 6 Democrats,film by Camilb Nielsson, 2014.

405

could be arrested. South Africa not only signed but legislated adherence to the International Crirtunal Court, which has a warrant out for his arrest.

%bile the Zuma administration claimed it had not arrested him despite a court order because it could not find him, Mugabe cut the ground from under Zuma by revealing that Zuma had promised to protect al-Bashir from

arrest. Shrewdly undermining and suborning the South African president, he said, 'They said no you (al-Bashit) will be arrested. You (Zuma) won' t allow the police force here to arrest you,' The words conveyed the 91-year-old's increasingly frail syntax, but he made his meaning dear. Tying Zurna to his belittlement of the South African

judiciary, Mugabe told the media Zuma had said to hitn, 'It is not all the judges v ho think as we do. You may get a judge who hates freedom-fighters.' This was a reference to al-Bashir, who most Sudanese would not recognise as a freedom fighter. '... President Zuma was telling me that it's one of the NGOs that was used, by outsiders l *tn sure, and to go to court and present

the case of Bashir.'" Mugabe felt con6dent he could say this, undermining South Africa's judicial system, on South African soil without a reprimand, and he was right. Zuma let the Zimbabwean tail wag the South African dog.

Since this book is in large part about South Africa's rich history of ideas, a chapteron Jacob Zuma's ideas need not detain the reader for long. V/hen the president requires input, it is not to the universities that he turns. % hen first he was known to be the next president he could have called on almost anyone of importance in the world to assist him, Goodwill towards

post-apartheid South Africa is inordinately widespread. The world was the South African president's oyster. On his first trip to the US as putative next president, he was still the ex-spy boss. He chose contacts from intelligence days to make his arrangements.

His style of governing is to balance forces, a good instinct. But, aside from personal benefit, that is aII governing seems to be for him: balance left and right, leaving them to issue contradictory statements. Nobody is in

charge. Balance between crooks and honest people. The president is sworn to guard the constitution against crooks, uot to balance their interests.

In his seventh year as president, the old spy boss's actions are well-known as a result of dogged investigative reporting. The disgraceful arrest in the ! e N C A 6ptn news bulletin, 16 Nne 2015, speaking at the African Union Stttnntjt, Sandton, South Africa.

JACOB ZUMA AND THE 'BORN FREES'

SNnday Times ne~vsroom and subsequent interrogation of one of the best,

i%4zilikazi wa Africa, is just one badge of honour, South African media has excellent investigative journalists and columnists, though its news is suffering from budget cuts. The ruling party continues to threaten new press restrictions, including a Media Tribunal. This can continue a ~vhile. Like the Italian electorate. ivhich had the capacity to elect a Silvio Berlusconi as its national leader, South Africa re-

elected Zuma. Like Berlusconi, Zuma's private life was so chaotic it had lost all privacy. And, like Berlusconi, Zuma was willing to use the parliamentary system to keep himself out of court, and prison.

Also like Berlusconi, his country's economy did not fare well under his rule. One minister who sat in cabinet with Zuma explained to me the president's

approach to economic policy. Because he learnt to read properly only as an adult in prison on Robben Island, he has an understandable preference for briefings from people rather than heavy tomes. But he did have a very definite idea about what worked. Zuma was impatient, said the former minister, with complex economic

analysis, and quite often he may have been right. Many sophisticated presentations in the Mbeki era did not bring results. One need only think of the arms offsets programme. But it was Zuma's alternative that was revealing. Long before the country

had ever heard of his homestead in Nkandla, Jacob Zuma said, 'Give me Nkandla economics'. What he meant, apparently, was build something you could see and feel. You build something, and thar. is a start. Then you add services, until yo u have something substantial. Zumanomics is

Nkandlanomics, Perhaps that is why he asked plaintively in parliament, 'What have I done wrong)'

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TWENTY-EIGHT

Lessons from Mandela and the Mbeki Brothers

O

n e thoughtful journalist anticipated the rising tide of anger in t h e

waning years of Zuma's presidency. He studied the history of the African National Congress (ANC) and post-colonial African governments in the British Museum in London in the 1960s, a century after Karl Marx worked there and sent dispatches on the Crimean War to Cape Town's De

Z~id-APikaan. Like Charles Bloomberg, Moeletsi Mbeki was close to the ANC leadership, and like Bloomberg. he tried to prepare himself to withstand the risks inherent in his controversial research. Moeletsi has written for newspapers

all his adult life, but he is also a businessman and a sometime uneasy employee of the ANC. And he was, after all, for several decades the closest relative to the deputy president, then president, of South Africa. Like his brother the ex-president, and both their parents, Moeletsi is fiercely intelligent — and complicated — and attracts a great deal of support, but also confusion. I was once in Addis Ababa at the same time he was there trying to sell Ethiopia a railway system when my host told me, 'Your president's brother is in town.'

I explained Moeletsi and Thabo's violently different politics. Sure, my host rephed patronisingly, but he is the president's brother! No amount of political disagreement would persuade many Africans that Moeletsi is not in their country eith the connivance of the president, adding weahh to the

family firm. I have no doubt that is not the case. But, as Moeletsi himself must know, no amount of words changes that perception, and it cannot be unhelpful in

opening doors. Would you rather make a cold phone caII in Africa giving your name as Smith or h:Ibeki> The paradoxes go further. Among black business people, he is often a 408

LESSONS FROW hiANDELA AND THE %1BEK! BROTHERS

lonely critic of his brother's black business empowerment programme, BEE, yet it is assumed he must be a major beneficiary; his ideological support for trade unions makes him unusual among business people; he attacks ANC policies, yet he has vtorked for it and retains ANC contacts. He holds another controversial view that invites resistance: he associates himself with the argument that there was a second negotiation in the early

1990s, 'Codesa II', at which the black poor were betrayed by an alliance of ANC politicians and white big business.

That sounds like a conspiracy. It conjures an image of Mandela and M oeletsi's brother T h abo s i t ting i n a s m o k e-filled r oom w i t h w h i t e businessmen, rubbing their hands as they carved up the sub-continent. That did not happen.

Today's South Africa etnerged, rather, as a consequence of politica! and business people pursuing different priorities, that brought unintended outcomes. This is not u n usual when political and commercial interests negotiate. Not for nothing is econotnics called the 'dismal science'.'

This idea of a second, secretly negotiated, betrayal is dangerous because it encourages criticism of th e constitution that i s no t based on fact. I t fuels populist calls for the constitution to be changed in order to restore stolen land to blacks, for example. But the constitution provides for the

expropriation of land, and for the price paid to be determined, taking account of the specific historic circumstances. If this does not happen, it is the government that has failed. The constitution does not require that land can only be restored on the 'willing buyer, willing seller' principle, or that it

be done only at market prices, as populist critics have claimed. Moeletsi studied the African middle class to which his communist parents belonged, and the early ANC leaders and their successors of his father' s generation. He analysed the pattern of f a i lure o f p o st-colonial African revolutionary governments and anticipated the deeper question with which this book began: when did things start to go wrong in democratic South

Africa, and why~ The case he developed in the British Museum and back in Africa is strong.

To let his analysis take him fearlessly where the facts led him, Moeletsi decided that in Britain he would become financially independent. 'When others went off to study history, English and economics, I decided to study building and building management,' he explained, 'I learnt to 1 The term vras first used by Thomas Carlyle in a tract on slavery in 1$49, but its use has continued in ditferent contexts, to describe both pessimistic and ~vrong economic predictions.

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DEMOCRACY; 1994-2015

become economically independent very early on in my life because my livelihood came from normal commercial operations. There was no one who could cut off my livelihood for political or any other reasons." In 1982, he completed an MA in sociology at the University of Warwick. When he worked for the ANC, it was usually at night. His income came from work as a builder or reporter; politicians could not withdraw it. Unlike many of his exiled peers, Moeletsi was free to be an independent thinker.

Govan and Epainette Mbeki, eastern Cape cotnmunist intellectuals, took a

number of family decisions that shaped their sons' lives. They set up a shop to be financially independent, and sold the communist newspaperNew Age there. In order for Moeletsi and his younger brother]arna to escape the new system of Bantu education, they went to school in Lesotho.

Arriving in England, Moeletsi threw himself into political debates. While the ANC was aligned with Moscow, Moeletsi was affected by its invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and flirted with Maoism. 'We spent a lot of time in the British Museum studying our own nationalist movements in order to

understand ivho they were and where they were leading us,' he recalled. He came to understand the strength of pre-colonial South African technology, including leather, ceramics and iron, whose content tested centuries later,

was as good as the steel produced in Sheffield. This was destroyed by colonial invasion. He spent the 1980s in Zimbabwe writing for the HarareHerald. He concentrated his journalism on South Africa and steered clear of Zimbabwean stories, but he left without illusions about Mugabe's ruthlessness towards

black Zimbabweans. After his return to South Africa in 1990 Moeletsi observed Zimbabwe's moral and economic decay under Mugabe with alarm. His reading told him that elsewhere in Africa after independence, leaders kept power as long as they kept urban political elites fed. The elite tried to live at levels comparable with those of the middle and upper classes in the West, at the expense of infrastructure investment. Paying lip service to development, thev undertook 'half-hearted, less-making industrialisation projects that were not supported by the necessary technical and managerial educational developtnent.'

2 Co nversationsin Transition, Hrrman Rights and Social Commentary,p 283. Moeletsi's life in Britain is drawn from this undated document. 3 M beki, Moeletsi, Architects o j Poverty, Picador Africa: 2009, p 9.

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LESSOiNS FROM MAXDELA A'ND THE MBEKI BROTHERS

At the same time, when foreign businesses enmeshed in the local economies lost the protection of colonial governments they became vulnerable — and incentivised to bribe. The ingredients were in place for a non-productive middle class, for which Mao and others used the term comprador bourgeoisie.

As Mugabe turned Zimbabwe into a failed state, Moeletsi analysed the dynamic between pohtics and economics at the heart of t hat country' s

decline. The backbone of the Zimbabwean economy after ZO years of Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) rule, he concluded, remained commercial agriculture. Mugabe had not changed that. Manufacturing and small industry were dependent on commercial agriculture. Destroy that and you destroy industry. Destroy industry and you destroy the unions whose members work there. By the end of the twentieth century, where was the threat to Mugabe's

power. From an opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), that grew out of the union movement. Its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, built his career in pro-ZANU trade unions. So when gangs of ZPAU militias

got rid of cotnmercial agriculture by kicking out large-scale white farmers, Mugabe's political opposition +as crippled! The same is true of O p e ration M u rambatsvina. It cleared out small informal traders, poor urbanites in the opposition strongholds of Harare

and Bulawayo, who lost the home addresses they required to vote, and resettled elsewhere. ZANU *s grip on the electorate was slowly restored. By 2015, fifteen years since the start of ZANU militia activity, the onions and the party they spawned are a shadow of t h ei r f o r mer selves. The

national cupboard is bare, but Mugabe's ZAN faces less organised political opposition. Mugabe's training in Marx's class analysis served him well.

South Africa's economy is diHerent, more sophisticated and diversified. Yet, by 2008, as his brother's presidency ended abruptly, Moeletsi noticed both mining and manufacturing were shrinking and losing jobs. Mining plays a similar role in supporting manufacturing in South Africa to the one commercial agriculture played north of the border. Moeletsi's verdict was blunt. In Zimbabwe, commercial agriculture provided the fuel to sustain the political elite's lifestyle, but declining infrastructure investment would lead to a comeuppance eventually. The search

for dubious lenders would become desperate, In South Africa, he concluded, the 'resource curse' provided the ANC government with a short-term benefit: income from mining and

DEMOCRACY: 1994-201S

manufacturing sustained a political elite consuming the services of existing infrastructure. But de-industrialisation has accelerated since the global crash

of 2008, which coincides with the start of the Zuma presidency. Moeletsi explained the process in South Africa differently from Zimbabwe. He and Professor Sampie Terreblanche, whose book one of Moeletsi's companies published, makes the link to the way his brother' s government built the net black middle class, through its policy of BEE,

blackeconomic empowerment. BEE, Moeletsi argued, does not ad d t o e conomic activity, it m erely transfers its benefits to a new middle and upper class. As a rule, BEE shareholders do not provide the entrepreneurship. Instead they act as the conduit to the state's largesse, the go-between. They are dependent on existing big business as much as they are dependent on the state.

That is how the resource curse plays out in South Africa. Ir allowed government to take the easy route, not f orced to build new t h ings that

carry new risk. If you inherit an economy and transfer wealth from existing businesses, you stunt its growth. The philosophy of my 1990s fellow IBA (Independent Broadcasting Authority) councillor, Lyndall Shope-Mafole. when she arrived from Cuba, that the cake was fixed, by 2015 became self-fulfilling; under these policies the cake is indeed fixed — that is, until historic infTastructure runs down and, then, in a wave of instability, it starts to shrink. Not all BEE deals are the same. Some are extremely productive and

successful, especially in new industries like broadcasting and tnobile phones, w here new businesseswere created. But the deals done for new electricity

plants exposed the problem. Shortly before electricity outages 1 irst became commonplace, Valli Moosa, former underground activist then cabinet minister, was chairperson of the electricity utility, Eskom, and a member of the ANC's finance committee. The ANC's investment arm, Chancellor House, won an Eskom contract for

Hitachi boilers and power plants. %hat was Chancellor House contributing? It was not expertise or funds. Its investment of R1.5 million yielded an

estimated R100 million, according to the Mail w~ Guardian, while Eskom has so far deducted R499 million in 'delay damages' from the IthtsubishiHitachi company for the contract from which Chancellor House benefited.' Infrastructure directly linked to Iob creation has suffered while the ruling party was handsomely rewarded, The ANC state is responding to short4 Sole, Sam and Stefaans Brummer,Mail k' Guardian, ANC's Chancellor House iu Bid for new Power Station, 11 to 1~ September 2015.

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LESSONS FROM %1ANDELA AND THE MBEK1 BROTHERS

term incentives to stay in office. The public-service wage bill is fattened to

sustain a black middle class which will keep the ruling party in funds and votes. It will get the rulers through the next election. The harder work

of building an African economy is put off. Feeding political interests for short-term profits and crony enrichment explain why government failed to stop the rot in the broadcasting and telecommunications regulator or the communications ministry,

How the government handled the ICT sector, which it took a great deal of interest in boosting, is emblematic of how i t managed the country. In the ICT sector it completed three major initiatives — licensing Cell C, the

compe titor

partial sale of Telkom and what became Neotel, the to Telkom. Together they were supposed to provide the oil of the information economy. At a time of spectacular global growth for the sector, none has achieved the poli+ objectives. The po4cy goals were laudable, the results were not. Political interference in all three all but evaporated investor interest. The government monitored outcomes well enough to know the figures were bad, yet took no decisive action to meet with experts from all sides and bring the changes necessary before it was too late. The reason. Pohtical interference was the one thing it would not give up. The door between jobs in the 'independent' regulator, the department of communications, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board and other state-dominated bodies revolved, entrenched political interference instead of a culture of independence, Conflict in institutions w'as fanned by loyalties to party structures instead of the institutions that

paid their salaries. To the degree that Mbeki sought the advice of experts, they soon felt

ignored and drifted away. Criticism was dismissed peremptorily. Zuma has been equally immune to public opinion. These failures constitute administrative breakdown. How does political interference work~ Sometimes the president himself, or the AN C s ecretary-general, decides to b l ock soineone o r p r o m ote someone. But they are advised by ANC policy committees meeting behind closed doors with more influence than MPs meeting in public. Participants

in the closed-door meetings are often beneficiaries of revo/ving-door appoinnnents, giving them a vested interest.

These practices have had three specific consequences.

DEMOCRACY: l994-2015

First, institutions were degraded. The ones discussed above include the independent communications regulator, ICASA, and the broadcaster, the SABC. Their degrading is a lesson that can be seen in too many state institutions and state-owned enterprises to be a coincidence.

Mbeki appointed as commissioner of police Jackie Selebi, a political crony without police experience, vvho landed up the first head of Interpol to go to prison for fraud. At times like that, well-wishers of the ANC expected the domestic and international shame this brought to South Africa to cause

the ANC to launch a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it didn' t. The lvlandela dividend was squandered. Other countries would think twice about giving South Africa a second chance. The National Prosecuting Authority and the Chapter Nine bodies were next to suffer the noxious fumes of political interference and debilitation. Zuma watched and learned. When he took office, he quickly found his way to the levers of power. Mbeki *s mistakes may be put down to personality

failings, or honest errors of judgement, but his overall intentions were lofty. He wanted South Africa to control its sovereignty, and Africa to succeed.

His tactics may have been flawed, but personal profit was never his goal. His successor accelerated these trends, without d iscernible vision or ideals. Degradation of institutions became acute. Next it was the Revenue

Service, the passenger rail service, the state airline-. The national broadcaster got into serious debt, becoming ever more unstable. The second consequence was to inappropriately incenti~ise investors. Interaction with Naspers!'MultiChoice is an example. Its leaders are world

experts on the information economy, yet their advice about building an efficient, cheap, national system was not heeded. On the other hand, they could do adeal to buy the national archive when money changed hands. It is not in the public interest for a private company to have a hold over a national asset that goes back nearly a hundred years. The fine print in that deal is anti-competitive. It will hurt the public in the long run. But govern-

ment was looking to the short-term, so Naspers/MultiChoice proposed the deal they could get away with. Government needs to know that if you want new investment, incentivise investing. If you incentivise political connections, you get corporate 'friends'

who trade questionable favours instead. Zuma's homestead at Kkandla revealed how private companies could operate on a public works department security upgrade contract. When

a parliamentary delegation conducted an tn loco inspection in 2015, television foorage revealed to the country how remiss he had been with public money.

LESSORS FROM MANDf LA AND THE MMKl BROTHERS

The unthinkable amount of R246 million, at the time around US$24 million, spent on 'security' had produced little more than a shoddy messand security was s6ll not adequate. This was the place where the president spent his weekends. He could not have been unaware of how his homestead looked. Any responsible official would have seen the rot yean earlier, even

if the press had not done their job of exposing misspending as early as December 2009, when the losses were a 'mere' R65 million. The Mail c~ Gmrrdiun had done just that. Yet the president never took action to stop the spending spree on his property. Worse, he seemed unable to recognise the

scope of the problem. There was a third consequence of this approach to governance. Mbeki had shown you could call the creation of a black middle class the 'National Democratic Revolution', and get t rade umonists to demonstrate for

it. Zuma found a way to turn the ideological sleight of hand to his own purposes. He set out to build a relationship with China and Russia and call it an ideological blow to imperialistn. Russia is not a socialist economy, and corruption is rife. President Vladimir Putin's cronies have exploited

the vulnerability of old media like newspaper companies to buy out the independent press and turn it into lapdogs. Where is the principle in that»

The disagreement between Mbeki and Mandela outlined to me by Parks Mankahlana, who was spokesmen to both, was over how to treat African

presidents like Mugabe who violate human rights. Mandela would go public with his criticism and make it clear there would be a price to pay. Mbeki chose constructive engagement in private. With the benefit of hindsight,

whose approach to Zimbabwe was right? Any answer is based on the counter-factual: what different outcome

would have resulted if Mandela had taken a second term as president» The facts after a decade of Mbeki's 'constructive engagement' are known. The Zimbabwe dollar has disappeared, along with most of the urban formal business sector. Ninety percent of t h e g overnment budget goes

to recurring expenditure, especially salaries, leaving abnost nothing for maintenance and infrastructure. Somewhere between one and a half and

three million Zimbabweans crossed the border as retugees and now keep their families alive by sending remittances from South Africa.

China is an increasingly important player now actively involving itself in the Zimbabwean presidential succession, according to the University of Cape Town's Professor MiUs Soko and others studying the China relationship.

So Zimbabwe has lost its monetary sovereignty to

t h e U n ited States

dollar, and its commercial activity is increasingly South African, Chinese and Nigerian. China is asserting itself into the political vacuum left by Zuma. South Africa's reluctance to look like the regional potver has simply allowed China to do so. In short, for all Mugabe's insistence on Zimbabwe's right to make its own decisions, on his watch his country's sovereignty withered. He is dependent

on foreigners for money he desperately needs. Public investment has ground to a halt. Roads, elecrricity and water supplies grow increasingly dodgy. Inside South Africa, Mbeki's refusal to present his country as a bastion of human rights eroded its own human rights culture. His brother Moe]etsi

was put on an SABC blacklist which barred him fTom being interviewed, especially on Zimbabwe„where his concerns have proved wiser than the government's. Would it have been better if!vlandela or another South African president had been tough in the beginning, vvhen it had most leverage»

Several thinp are clear. President Mugabe would not have dared to insult the South African judiciary on South African soil. Mandela was a stickler for defending it. The human rights culture inside South Africa itself vvould almost certainly have been more robust. It is most unlikely Mandela

would have kept from the press a judicial report outlining violations of a free election there, nor publicly glossed over the mass removal of Harare's informal small traders and their families. What could the president have done. The Mbeki administration suggested the only alternative to its approach was military invasion, but there were better diplomatic options. In the anti-

apartheid struggle, and to end white Rhodesian rule, blocking loans was a decisive tool. So was blocking rail and road supplies in restraining lan Smith. Mbeki continued to lend Mugabe's government money, and the trains and trucks continued to run. These levers remained unpulled. Pretoria's ar~ m ent against this was that the Zimbabwe Defence Force

would notserve an elected government under Tsvangirai.They mould have staged a coup. But is a government any more 'democratic' if it rigs elections

than if the same clique is in charge through a coup dhtatr How long could a pariah military government in Harare have sustained itself) It is for South Africa to decide what level of anti-democratic practices

and human rights violations to associate itself with. Instead Mbeki bailed out Mugabe with loans, transportation links and diplomatic support when

he was most vulnerable. Much later, President Mbeki negotiated a Global Political Agreement which brought the opposition into a government of national unity in 2009.

416

EESSONS FROXil KIAYDELA AND THE MBEKI BROTHERS

From then until 2012 the economy rebounded, with growth rates averaging around 8.7 percent, according to the %'orld Bank. It did not last. Under

trying conditions serving under the man who had imprisoned them, the MDC lost the next election. With them out of g o vernment, growth has

almost disappeared. Zuma tried to take on Mugabe more robustly, but svhen Mugabe publicly called his special envoy, Ambassador Lindiwe Zulu, a 'street woman' Zuma

seemed to back off. Mugabe later apologised. As usual, Mugabe judged his moment shrewdly. Over time he became more confident. Since then, the Zuma administration's attitude to the rule of law has become more like Mugabe's. AIId Zuma began to imitate Mugabe's Beijing bromance.

As early as 2012, President Zuma instructed his cabinet ministers to travel

to Beijing for political training.' The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which had ever stronger party-to-party relations with the ANC, was tunding the South African Communist Party (SACP). Since the CCP and the Chinese state are more or less synonymous, rhe second most powerful government in the world was now influencing South Africa"s domestic politics.

The ABC is proud of its new friendship. An AVC official policy discussion document in August 2015 said China's 'economic development trajectory

remains a leading example of the triumph of humanity over adversity. The exemplary role of the collective leadership of the Communist Party of China

in this regard should be a guiding lodestar of our'own struggle.' Such unadulterated adulation is unwarranted. It turns a blind eye to illtreatment of dissent in China, just as the SACP did for the Soviet Union. Chinese constitutional lawyers could protit from examining South Africa's more advanced constitution. Chinese leaders admit their long-term task is ro adopt more democratic and open institutions. South Africa"s Chapter Nine

bodies and independent judicial system work, despite the mixed signals from the Zuma adnunistration. They are models China could usefully explore. Twenty-one years of South African democracy have exposed their share of foreign rogues, in governments and the private sector, capitalising on the new government's na1vety, but the solution is not to seek new, dependencies. It requires strong state institutions to manage foreign players, whether governments or investors, in South Africa's national interest. Sovereignty requires a country to take responsibility, domestically and internationally. 5 Confidemialsources.

DEiltOCRACY: 1994 — Z015

Here are two under-appreciated facts about South Africa. First, South Africa has never been well governed. Don't hark back to the Nationalist g overnment, nor to Smuts and the British colonists. In 1948 the Nationalist government began an affirmative action programme in the

civil service and elsewhere for white Afrikaners only. Prior to that, going back to 165Z government served the colonial metropolis and a small, white

population. There were moments of bold mining and industrial leadership that grew the economy lopsidedly at great human cost.

The second fact is that South Africa is extremely difficult to govern well politically. This great experiment, bringing together disparate cultures with

social justice and harmony, is still a work in progress. Aher 1994, the ANC got many things right but after 21 years it is clear. even to many in the ANC, that the ruling party has lost its way. Yet it is reluctant to stop digging the hole it is in, Its analysis of the problem is

crippled by the vested interests that dug the hole in the first place. Political interference burnt the careers of many of its smartest peers, in

effect putting policy in the hands of the least expert — people on internal ANC committees, and new ministers without prior experience in the sector who were rotated for the wrong reasons. Former ICASA chairs Nape Maepa

and Mandla Langa are two early examples of talented Africans discarded for insufficient subservience. As a result, objectives became narrow. Corruption became common, j avelin-throwing o p portunities were created, th e n eeds of

t h e b r o ad

economy were lost as rewarding loyalists superseded service delivery. Policy consistency is out of the window. Original policy goals, like serving the poor and better internet, move down from top priority, Results are shoddih monitored, and new distractions prevent the laser focus required to deliver to the majority as opposed to the elite..

Why did the governments of both Mbeki and Zuma believe that a country as difficult to govern as South Africa, with so many unmet needs, could be governed by amateurs in political backrooms instead of experts chosen in

publicI This has to change if a future government is to find the ladder and climb out, Is there in South Africa's past anything to serve as a guider Quite a lot, actually.

LESSO'AS FRO51 %1ANDELX A'XD Tl-IE MIIEKI BROTHERS

Where did South Africa's transformational leaders come from? After colonial conquest, the fight for democracy in South Africa carne in waves. The 6rst wave included Seme, jabavu, Dube, Plaatje, Gandhi and the other extraordinary nineteenth-century intellectual activists and editors. Their intellectual training was in British and American universities, their

ideas tested in conflicts with South African and British officialdom. They argued their case in the press.

This vvave developed their ideas by challenging the fundamentals. Leaders educated in mission schools began to debate which ot their British clergy vvere true to the faith they taught. Starting with loyalty to Britain and the notion they had ot Queen Victoria. they concluded British interests were not their own.

Sloughing off old ideology, the early twentieth-century ANC newspaper Abantu-Batho abounded with debates about alternative strategies: democracy, trade unionism, strikes, capitalism, socialism and communism. South Africa is an ideological country, and they tested ideas vvith verve.

They created an enduring organisation in the ANC and laid down a marker, but the correctness of their conclusion that Union in 1910 would inflict epochal damage did not spare their organisation from being its victim. In the next transformational wave, Mandela, Ismail Ivleer and Tambo tested ideas debated in South African universities on South African streets.

The seminal leaders around Mandela began with Western ideas and support for the United Nations and the Atlantic Charter.

The Cold War pulled the post-Franklin D Roosevelt America towards Pretoria just as Pretoria codified apartheid. The ANC forlned its ties with

the Soviet Union, though the Christian Oliver Tambo keenly maintained ties with social democratic Scandinavia. Their shift from the West must have been a wrench, but they kept the

best of the Enlightenment ideals of democracy and the rule of law. and eventually put them into the democratic constitution. The next successful waves, black consciousness and the trade union movement, also came out of the universities — South African students analysing

South African conditions and publishing their ideas wherever they could, then testing them on South African streets. These exceptional leaders developed out o f

s acrifice and intellectual

quest. This suggests that the attempt by Mbeki and Zuma to build the 'net

cadre' or 'net man' through political schools and party discipline may not be where courageous nev leaders will be found, They vill also, likely, be from the black middle class. ANC doctrine says these should become a 'patriotic bourgeoisie', meaning loyal to the ANC,

but it is more likely they ~ill emerge as a cha]lenge to the ABC's current practices, whether from inside the party or from an alternative. Zuma, like

Mugabe, is losing the cities including, it appears, the black middle class. Student ferment in the universities accelerated under Zuma, but its value will only become evident atter they move from protesting campus issues like building names and student conditions to the core national problem,

the epidemic of unemployment. In late 2015, student protests erupted around the country. This phenorn-

enon might develop into the next wave of leadership so lacking inside official channels. Public opinion, which had been mixed after earlier protesters threw faeces and racism, swung around towards the students once

spewed

they were interviewed describing their difficulties, and once poor parents began to join in. This cause was legitimate. Many students risked leaving

university simply because they could not afford the fees. Demonstration marches seem the on)y vvay to get government attention, aside from violent protest, because government has not been responsive to real complaints that reached parliament. My experience both as an ISA

councillor, when the executive seized control of a Chapter Nine body from parliament, and as a journalist when the Standing Committee on

Public Accounts (SCOPA) was pulled into line by sidelining governtnent and opposition MPs doing their jobs, made that clear. If constitutiona]ly-

protected bodies are blocked from doing their jobs, the steam will be let out on the streets.

Moeletsi Mbeki eloquently explained the dangerous consequences ot a party system devoted to short-term election targets at the expense of real

development. A force such as Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) became inevitable, and the appointment of such a blatantly conflicted Speaker only legitimised the EFF's appeal. Lnfortunately, there is nothing to indicate Malema's party will not be j ust a younger and smarter version of th e same. The problem is in t he breakdown of structures essential to the constitutional order. Leadership from outside political parties is more urgent than ever: to set standards and demand the constitutional track be followed again. A s economic decline continues, as a r esult o f b ot h t h e en d o f t h e

commo dity super-cycle and failed presidential leadership, the loss of jobs will fuel more protest. It remains to be seen whether this nascent student movement will see the link between rising student fees and the economic mismanagement that leaves government with increasingly hard choices. The onh' way to pa y for u n iversities at the same time as other state

responsibilities over the long term is through economic growth bringing 420

LESSONS FROM htANDELA AND THE MBEKI BROTHERS

in higher tax revenue, then spending it more judiciously that at present. As the chapter on the failed information revolution illustrates, the failure of growth is directly linked to the politicisation of the regulator and other state bodies, in conflict with the intention of the drafters of the constitution. Will students take the next step, and see that after university, they will want real jobs, not the kind Yunis Shaik has. Government needs to come under pressure to change its priorities and set the conditions for grooving sectors that create these jobs.

Former US President BiH Clinton gave one of the most thoughtful valedictions when Mandela died in December 2013. 'Ivfadiba', he told a TV interviewer wistfully, 'made me want to be a better person.' I have often imagined how the conversations wenr. that produced that recollection. Clinton is probably unlikely to tell those stories as long as his wite has another election to f i ght, but their c loseness showed in th e days when

Clinton faced impeachment. Mandela gave him pubhc and private support, and Clinton made it known that it came when it mattered. It was Clinton who persuaded Mandela he had been wrong not to see

the scale of the AIDS problem at home, He changed Mandela's mind. %'hat were the stories in the other direction? There are some obvious thoughts.

Madiba had a gay friend, Cecil Williams, the man driving him when he was captured outside Howick en route from Durban to Johannesburg in 1962, so it's no surprise that from the time he became president in 1994 he routinely called for an end to all discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Clinton had recently embraced the limited reform of ' don' t ask, don't tell' for gay soldiers, while gay marriage was legal on Mandela s watch, about 20 years ahead of the US. Is it not likely that Madiba said: 'Bill, my country is conservative on these things too. Push harder. Oppose all discrimination. That's our responsibility.' Or, 'For God's sake, Bill, Al Q a eda must love your gun l aws. IvIore

Americans die from guns fired by Americans than by Al Qaeda. Every shooting makes your country looks foolish, %e may be lousy at enforcing our gun control laws, but at least we have them, and they help.' The American president's answers are easy to imagine. You know I have

rats.

to move slowly on gay First people have to get used to don't ask don't tell. Gay marriage is too much right now. And on guns, look, Madiba, I ivould like nothing better, but any more pressure and my party will lose the Midwest. This is the most I can get right now.

DEMOCRACY: 1994 — 2015

Hoiv different Mandela was from so many early expectations. In 1991, on a broadcasting fellowship at the University of Chicago ivhile the opening skirmishes of the Mandela — De Klerk negotiations were traded, I was invited to address mostly African students at a small liberal ares college in Ohio about what to expect back home now Mandela was out of prison. Several in th e audience xvere children of senior Af rican government

officials. I ~vondered how they would receive a white South African. I soon found out. '%"hat makes you think South Africa will be any different from any ot our countries?' they asked. I predicted a modern constitution, deniocratic elections, an ANC victory, and a productive first five years. They received me well, but they were blunt: the new rulers ~vill serve themselves.

They did not know 5:Iadiba, Most accolades for Madiba focus on his heart. on that generosity of spirit and love of people of all ages, races and circumstances. It was a great heart. But without that other great force, his mind, the world would never have known his name. Perhaps Madiba's greatest attribute was his capacity to

change and to grow. He could move from royalty to democrat, a simple country life to the great halls of international power, absorb western democracy yet align with Moscow for military might. Now, in the ignominious, declining Zuma years, a new cast of mind is needed from leaders, to rethink certainties and to change, perhaps fundamentally, to rescue a shaky edifice. The ivorid has entered a period of low commodity prices. The last commodity bear market devastated Africa, made worse by nationalisation

of failing businesses. The Zuma administration is flirting with similar errors, The public, the media, unions, business, the professions, the constitutional institutions and yes, the middle class, will have to pull it back. As presidents of the AXC, both Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandeia avoided joining factions. Tambo could support the quasi-military Operation Vula at the same time as he backed the negotiations, pressure and talks

being two sides of the same coin. He was ideally suited to lead in the hard choices of exile, as lvIandela was for the first democratic administration. To put the country on a firm development path will take leaders who test

their ideas against the facts in public debate, in parliament and the media. In the darkest times of the first 21 years, the media was sometimes right and the intelligence services wrong. Government needs a free media, especially in a country with as many different constituencies as this one. It inoculates government against bad intelligence as much as corrupt politicians, if only government is willing to see lt.

EPILOGUE

Pride and Progress

J

oblessness is one of many priorities. Many others must be tackled at the

same time, but the president should direct a laser focus on this onea jobless rate of 36 p ercent not only indicates tremendous poverty and hardship. It means grooving into adulthood without the pride that comes

from earning a living, having a productive place in the world and supporting a family. Any foreigner told our jobless rate is 36 percent — we have the highest

Gini coefficient, or inequality ratio, in the vvor)d — assumes there will be another revolution, Yet creating jobs is not the national project it should be. Press statements from government generate acres of press coverage on the subjects of sport, of new passport rules, of attacking other parties and its

own wayward supporters, and a myriad of foreign policy issues, as if each are of equal importance. The hardest part of this problem is finding the political will, not the solutions. Talk-show hosts talk about job creation constantly; but often start with the premise that creating jobs is hard, there is no silver bullet, etc. But the reality is quite different. If you shift from i mmediate, short-term pseudofixes to the issues that create jobs, and give it sharp tocus, creating jobs is not in itself hard. In another context, Helen Suzman once described parliament

as a place where only occasionally did one hear the shimmer of a spine in search of a backbone. If chat sounds too trite to be true, consider the

foll owing.

Say the president did focus on jobs and told every cabinet minister he wanted a progress report at every weekly meeting, ivhat could that produce!

Well, here is a first fix that is part symbolic, but also creates jobs: imagine the relevant minister says that, from t oday's cabinet meeting, all motor

vehicles purchased by government must be made in South Africa by South African workers. This instruction starts with members here at the top.

GOD, SPIES Ah;D LIES

'I have informed every member of cabinet that, in case they xvere nor

already aware, Mercedes Benz has several times declared after a vvorldwide quality assessment that South A f r ican-made Mercedes Benz sedans rate number one in quality of all. their models made in the vvorld. If anyone is unhappy that it i s ' o nly' a C c lass, they are assured it is a

anywhere

beautiful and spacious car made beautifully. by South African members of South African trade unions.

'lf it has rivals, one is the BM%' 3 series, also made by South African ivorkers in South African factories, Both these cars are exported to several continents, and South African factories are the only place inany of these models are made for world markets. Ministers, if you can't find a South

African-made car you like, walk.' Those who were at the presidential residence in Ouagadougou as part of the Dakar talks in 1986 when the revolutionary Burkina Faso President

Thomas Sankara told us his ministers all drove little French Renaults will appreciate they are getting off lightly. After th e A f r ica n

ati o n a l C o n gress (ANC) an d C o m m unist Party

leadership (except Dr Rob Davies, the minister of trade and industry, who drives a South African-made car himself but has not demanded the same from his colleagues) start to f eel embarrassed and ditch their imported luxury Mercedes and BMWs, the extra sales xviII start to see jobs stabilise, then creep up in one sector, as every government departtnent, national,

provincial and local, and every small-town ANC mayor driving a Mercedes E class made in Germany. falls into line. Higher sales — and a new pride in South African products — will develop, helping stabilise jobs and encourage car companies to avvard South Africa !nore models to make.

I would be surprised if union militancy does not decline, as union members are enlisted in a national project that values them. Where that is not sufficient, a president would have to help mould the new social contract. President Zuma cannot do that because he has R246 million of ~vorkers' and other taxpayers' money buried in his property. It is not that he is now rich, but that he let so much taxpayers' money into his house, chat renders him unable to lead.

Government cars are small potatoes. The ICT sector is just one example, albeit a crucial one. of the really

significant gains possible with political will. The minister of communications (w hich w o ul d h av e t o b e r e - u nited vvith i t s o r p han spin-off telecommunications since the overlap is untenable) needs to Ineet and listen to the industry, ivhich noiv consists of many black and ivhite South African players, and world-class South African experts, to find out ivhat is wrong

with the regulator and where the best people are to fix it. No secret political party committees can be involved in behind-the-scenes second-guessing.

Oh, and goand beg Mandla Langa and Nape Maepa, both nudged out of the chair at the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa

(ICASA), to come back, or at least join the meeting to help find the people to undo the injustice of messing their professional lives around and put things right, for the sake oF the national economy, first and foremost. Once ICASA councillors are chosen from among experts with alternative, professional jobs to return to afterwards. the pride of the regulator will start to return. The minister should have framed on her wall what might be caHed the 'PaHo Jordan letter'. Every time a poiiticaHy-connected person complains about ICASA, they will receive a replica of his letter, saying 'Thank you for your communication. As you knovt; ICASA is the regulator, Please direct aH correspondence regarding regulation to that body.' Do the same if any counciHor tries to use you against other councillors, except in a formal process on grounds. The job creation From that move would b e c onsiderable over t ime.

Lang-delayed decisions could be taken at a quicker pace once they are not overridden at party headquarters, and disheartened industry players wiH be re-motivated. But this is just a template. There are jobs to be created throughout the economy.

Take a look at construction. Government has committed to spending R4 triHion on infrastructure in 15 years, but to understand the reality, simply look at the share prices of the country's major construction companies on

the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Between April 2014 and 2015, they plummeted between 42 and 72 percent. That is despite moving into Africa and other markets to make up for government's failure to follow through on its infrastructure plans. Murray R Roberts, one of the biggest and oldest, made 93 percent of its

profits outside South Africa in the last year. New South African public sector projects in 2014 dropped to R10.5 biHion, from R42.4 biHion in 2013. As the public secror wage biH and other costs rose, long-tern infrastructure investment fell. A glance at these figures shows the R4 trillion is a mirage.

The solution is obvious, if pohticaHy difficult. A government that is credible has to rein in its day-to-day costs to invest in the future. While it is doing so, it should take opportunities in sectors of the future,

such as green energy, more seriously. Some work has been done in this area, but it should be a first-order priority. There are spin-offs to green energy which have been explored, but these have not become a national project.

GOD, SPIESAND LIES

Putting a solar geyser on every residence, and retrofitting buildings to be fuel efficient can achieve tnuch more than it has. Incentivising this kind of investment creates jobs, reduces dependence on Eskom and dirty coal, and develops industries with a future. A minister who champions these causes

with knowledge, integrity and passion will inspire people again.

Government has a n u mber o f p l ans t o d e v elop the country, some in conAict with each other. The most discussed is the National Development

Plan (NDP), which is approved by most opposition parties, but it is more controversial inside the ruling party that constructed it.

It has some sound ideas. It calls for efficient professional regulation and quality teaching. And there it rests. Until government finds that elusive

spine, the NDP and the other lengthy policy tomes produced by government are just denuding forests.

In tnany areas what is needed is simply policy consistency. Nowhere is this more important than mining, where decisions are based on up to 30year time horizons, for returns on massive investments. Nobody will invest in a hole in the ground when each new minister re-opens old policy debates. Education is at t h e c e ntre of j o b c r e ation. Under apartheid, t h ere

was anomalously both huge unemployment and a skills shortage. That structural problem has not been resolved, either in the schools or in the creation of artisans, engineers, auditors and other skills needed to groiv

the economy. Tackling school quality has been described as 'toxic' and offering no easy fixes by some writers, but the solution start with teachers. The most important component of the country's weak schools is teachers, who are even more important than classrooms. A good teacher will get better results

under a tree than a bad teacher in a beautiful building. Considering the inspiring line in the ANC's Freedom Charter of 19$5, that 'the doors of learning and culture shall be opened', the government's

htany of failures in this area has been one of the most disheartening. The best teachers left because of an ill-conceived voluntary retrenchment offer,

and technical education was combined with universities instead of expanded to provide needed techmcal skills. This is one of the most difficult problems politically, because it challenges the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU), a loyal voting bloc for the ANC inside the Congress ot South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the polling booth. Yet the nation demands better education. Change

EPILOGUE

management experts offer many avenues to achieve this, none entirely without pam. %'here would a courageous minister start> If the most fundamental of the many problems is teachers, a programme has to begin by taking under-

quahfied teachers out of the system and replacing these with those more highly qualified. Finding qualified teachers is not the hard part. I once asked a visiting educationist if she could immediately find a hundred good teachers in her country and relocate them to South Africa. Her reply was an

instant yes. There are qualified local teachers who would join if recruited by the vision of a well-executed national project.

The political problem is managing the under-qualified educators. If this

is a national project, other arms of government that are hiring could recruit existing teachers to fill other jobs, but this will not solve the entire problem.

It will take a long-term programme to build a weII-qualified teacher corps. But clear goals have to be set to replace a minimum number of teachers each year. Even if some are removed from classrooms and paid not to work, retrained or sent job-hunting, a significant quota of these must be filled each year.

This may sound cruel, but a choice has to be made: is it more important to keep under-qualified teachers in jobs, or to educate our children properly to contribute to a successful nation>

Imple menting

only a few of these suggestions well will spark a turnaround. People wiB see the vision, and that it works. The importance of pride and enthusiasm cannot be overestimated. From my ow n e x perience, even at my most despondent, switching on a radio station I licensed continues to

bring me immodest satisfaction. Jobs will be created, and students w~ll be motivated to prepare for them. However, one category of job may be lost and i t i s one we need to

eradicate:the go-between who earns his or her crust suborning businesses to do the government's bidding in return for commercially valuable government favours. It is the type of task performed by Yunis Shaik when he attempted to persuade the e.tv newsroom to run pro-government news

to smooth the path for a favourable decision on set-top boxes. 'I work for a living sucking dick,' Shaik wrote in an email to then CEO of the company, hiarcel Golding.' When you learn of the torture Shaik endured in the 1980s working for the ANC, this decline in dignity carries all the pathos of a tragedy. HCI, the company that owns e.tv, was one of the real, productive, companies I Ma it r.' Guardian, 30 October 2014.

GOD, SPIES AND LIES

to emerge after 1994, kick-started by the IBA's broadcasting licences and

a pre-1994 mobile-phone licence. It has created hundreds of university graduates from union members' children, and it is a sustainable business. It should not be hiring go-betweens to leverage government do the right thing, nor should government try to influence media coverage with hints of

the quid pro quo of commercial advantage. The system has to change so that fewer jobs like these exist. Productive,

value-driven jobs are what the country should strive for. Civil society will need to tell politicians this, loudly and clearly.

Media is the open forum where these ideas will have to be debated and crystallised. Yet, after the complex history documented in these pages, at

times proud, at times shameful, radical change to the media landscape leaves several media companies facing an existential crisis.

The revolution in technology changes consumer habits daily. from old media newspapers and free-to-air television to th e i n t ernet and mobile

phone delivery. There will be casualties. Under Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian media facing decline were bought out by Putin cronies, curtailing vibrant opposition media debate. That strategy is recognisable in the

changing media landscape under Zuma. It followed the same recognition as in the apartheid era: if you are afraid of independent ideas, don't censor newspapers, own them. Big, national media are an important forum for n a tional events. The

better papers, like the Rand Daily Mail, treated the Sharpeville massacre correctly, as an avoidable, massive national tragedy. %'hen the mass shooting

at Marikana happened under a democratic government, the public needed a more searching exploration than that offered by the public broadcaster,

for example. But the information world of the Z'1st century is different. Even the South

African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has a fraction of the reach it once had, There is no monopoly ot the airwaves and. all over the country, people receive news elsewhere, including via mobile phones. Government efforts to control media can damage the quality of debate and the efficiency of the transmission of ideas, but debate will continue, even accelerate. South Africa's democracy was built by courageous writers of the DubeSerne era, the Mandela-First era, and the Biko era. All were determined to find solutions that avoided dependency on an outside power. The next chapter of it s h istory will be w r i t ten by South Africans whose courage

EPlLOGUE

dissects the mistakes as well as successes of the first Z1 years, determined to protect the sovereignty of the country and the supremacy of its groundbreaking constitution.

For a brief, shimng moment, we thought we had harnessed history, and perhaps we had. But history is an unruly mount, No sooner had we turned to take in the vievv than it b r oke free, galloping in directions we knew not xvhere. A new generation must embrace its challenge. They inherited a constitution that makes it possible. It's up to them to find the vvill.

A CKNO W L E D G E M E N T S

ln a book addressing so many controversial areas, extra emphasis is required

that those acknowledged below share no responsibility for the views it contains. Those named are only an abbreviated list of the numerous people who contributed to my knowledge and understanding of this history over more than 40 years. One of th e l ast o f S outh A f r ica's great generation, A hmed ' K athy'

Kathrada, was kind enough to read the first chapter and share recollections of the Mandela of 1961 and their first years in prison together on Robben Island, when Mandela was reading about Afrikaner nationalism while his colleagues read Karl Marx. Others who r ead speci6c chapters for accuracy and c o mment were

Raymond Louw, Rex Gibson, Joe Thloloe,Felleng Sekha, Hennie Serfontein, Peta Thornycroft and Ann Crotty. Assistance with information

was provided by Jan-Jan Joubert. Joe Thloloe, Peter Magubane and Sylvia Vollenhoven endured revisiting painful years when they paid such a high price for covering apartheid. Peta Thornycroft put herself through the harrowing experience of reviving still recent memories of severe human trauma in Zimbabwe.

The book was read in full by Emeritus Professor Christopher Saunders of the University of Cape Town history deparnnent. His advice and corrections were invaluable though he too cannot be burdened with the responsibility

of my conclusions. Former Rand Duily Mail journalist Terry Bell read the book with his usual enthusiasm and acute sub-editor's eye. Professor Leonard Suransky and Delia Robertson were kind enough to check several chapters.

I am deeply indebted to Sue Stewart and her husband, the late Professor G avin Stewart, formerly of Rhodes University and former editor of t h e

East London Daily Dispatch. About a year before he fell ill he gave me his research for what he had hoped would be a PhD on the Anil. Most of the interviews related to the Mail come from those pages. A generous and

self-effacing colleague on the Mail, I learnt only by accident that Gavin had spent several months in prison for his part in helping people skip the country in the bad old days. This research was remarkable in uncovering

431

GOD. SPIES AND LIES

how many other colleagues were former jailbirds, unbeknown to their neivsroom peers. For early chapters my debt is to m an y scholars, most notably Andre

Odendaal's The Founders and Peter Limb, who edited The People's Paper. Both uncovered a wealth of early ANC history that cries out for a wider audience. To understand South Africa's current trajectory, Moeletsi Mbeki's

Architects of Poverty is invaluable. Thanks to Paul Hoffman, SC, director of the Institute for Accountability,

for providing the usual libel read, Mike and Tali Lanesman for producing a number of images, and Ruth Muller for finding the majority. Two institutions supported me on the journey when it was most useful. ANFASA, the Academic and Non-Fiction Authors' Association of South

Africa, provided a grant supported by the Nonvegian Embassy, to kickstart the research and encourage when encouragement was most needed. And

the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (STIAS), provided several months in ivhich to contemplate, research and write in the inost conducive circumstances, and the warm company of the plasm~tight Athol Fugard and scholars from many countries and fields of interest.

Librarians were endlessly helpful at the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand. Images came from the %its Historical Papers. The National

Library in Cape Town and the Times Media Group Library in Johannesburg provided access to back copies of newspapers. The presidential library of Gerald R Ford is sufticiently well organised and helpful online that I did not need to travel there to find recently declassified transcripts of %'hite House and Oval Of f ice conversations that cast new light on the decision to reverse support for Ian Sniith's Rhodesia. My thanks

are due to Ambassador Don McHenry for the hours in his %'ashington DC home filling me in on information not public at the time he drafted the demarche that kickstarted the process towards Namibian independence. My special thanks to Marianne Thamm and Brent Meersman. Marianne

edited the manuscript with her usual diligence and flair, and Brent's supporr was invaluable in the years of struggling with unruly material, counselling patience and thoroughness. Though not the ordinary kind of publisher, Brent, the founder of the imprint of the authors' collective Missing Ink, gave the kind of support writers dream of. Marianne and Brent share a passion for hard work and enthusiasm to understand South Africa as it is

the landscape of the new media. They were a rock in this while embracing project, as they are in many others.

Finally, thanks to Kaylene, Joanne, Tali and Daniel for putting up with my obsessive focus on this project these past years.

432

APPENDIX

Whistle-blowing and Collective Responsibility at the ISA Council/or John Matisonn explains his role in the great IBA saga. BcsrAEssDAv, 19 Mwv 1997

ithin days the Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA)

will be meeting to judge the financial actions of the Independent Broadcasting Authority over the past three years. If the outcry over the past months spawns a public debate about the future of the IBA and of

independent regulation of the broadcast media, then some good may have come from this saga. But now there are some arguing for the resignation of every councillor, regardless of whether their role was positive or negative, on the grounds of

collective responsibility. This must be examined. First, our legal responsibility. Section 3(3) of the IBA Act says we must be 'wholly independent and separate from the state, the government and its administration or any political party, or from any other functionary or body directly or indirectly representing the interests of the state, the government

or any political party.' The purpose is to ensure the independence of the media through ensuring the independence of the broadcast regulator. In the

light of that, can any political or parliamentary body ask us to resign if they are not arguing that we did something wrong>

One councillor says she has resigned, not because she did anything wrong, but because there was 'disunity' in the council. Leaving aside the orchestrated nature of the attempt to get all councillors to resign. which may be an attempt to ease the blame on the councillors that parliamentarians are most annoyed with (is it because they still have

political influence?), this argument contains a contradiction. The auditor-general's special report on the IBA covers three areas: specific 433

financial acts or omissions, financial management policies and financial controls, and human resources. First, financial acts or omissions. After it was agreed that we should have public unity, a majority of councillors wanted to go to Sun City to M i ss World, Miss South Africa, Pavarotti and Kiri Te Kanawa because these were 'broadcasting events'. I said no. I declined to attend any of these events I did not regard as g enuine broadcasting events, and c o n stantly spoke against t h em. I n particular, I argued that the role of the regulator is dependent on its being

respected and not only above reproach but seen to be above reproach. The greatest power of an independent media regulator is through moral suasion, which requires that the council have moral and professional stature.

When someone was proposed for CEO with a shaky track record, I voted no. I twice proposed a salary cut for councillors. I proposed a resolution to reject expensive offices for councillors in Rosebank's President Place in favour of something cheaper. When I found we had bought Noritake china I proposed it be returned. When we heard two counciHors were staying in a hotel near our head office, we asked them to leave. In council, questions were asked about the use of credit cards and whether there was prompt payment after personal use. We were assured there was. Privately, I went to a counciHor and offered to help get a private credit card,

because I warned that using ISA credit cards for personal use would cause problems. The offer was not taken up. In the area of financial controls, when I first heard sometime last year that there had been a critical auditor-general's interim report, I verbaHy

and in writing asked for a copy from management. No reply. I went to the auditor-general and got a copy, and sent it on to management. From that report it was apparent that controls were getting worse, not better. Since I was asked to join the council because of my experience in

journalism and broadcasting policy, I had been assigned to handle those matters. The role in overseeing financial matters had faHen to others. But once I became aware there was a problem, I took steps to educate myself about auditing controls, from the King report, the SA Institute of Auditors, etc. T he result was t h e p r o duction o f a p a p e r l ast year o u t lining t h e r equirements for a n i n d ependent audit c o mmittee of council, and t h e appointment of an internal auditor accountable to this committee, not to managetnent. I met our internal auditor, who was more than keen to see

this happen, and we kept in contact. The resolution was passed and handed over to the co-chairpersons to implement. It never happened. Prior to that, a colleague, WiHiam Lane, a seasoned company director,

APPENDIX

had regularly asked for monthly trial balances and balance sheets, and been subjected to personal attacks instead of answers.

I prepared a code of ethics which was handed to all councillors. Same fate, I also pursued the fraud involving the RS00,000 transfer which has

been widely reported. In the areas of human resources, the problems had become apparent long ago. Staff complained to me (in secret, because management had instituted a policy that they were not allowed to talk to councillors, or indeed others outside their line management role) about the lack of human resources and

industrial relations policies. I wrote a resolution that everyone should be 'encouraged to enjoy a free flow of i n f ormation throughout the IBA', with the obvious proviso that projects or activities must continue to go through the normal hne management process.

This resolution was agreed to three times by councillors in «he presence of the CEO. Yet I discovered that it was not being implemented. I went to the co-chairpersons informally, asking them to pursue the matter, since the

council's authority becomes a mockery if resolutions were not

impl emented.

I said I was deiiberateh not doing this in writing, because I did uot want to start a divisive disciplinary process, I just wanted the resolution properly

implemented. A meeting was held, but I never got a proper response. Within six months staff, frustrated at the inability to c ommunicate internally, were leaking their complaints to the press.

So there is the cause of 'disunity' in the council. The question is: how do we link that to the notion of collective responsibility? It seems to me

that public policy requires that a counciHor seeing these problems must act torcefully in the public interest even, or perhaps especially, in the face of

differences wvith one's colleagues. Is it not 'collective responsibility', the argument that we should be seen as a unit, that led us to this point~ At the time, it seemed to me that I should not speak out in public except

as a last resort because I would then be accused of fomenting 'disuniry'. Of course I also approached various politicians with the problem, but the difficulty was that the IBA is seen as independent, and there was nobody who could direct me to a source of responsibihty when an independent

media regulator is going off the rails. There was also the concern among broadcasters and those who strive for free expression, who had supported my appointment to the IBA, that g overnment w o uld i n tervene and u ndermine the i n dependence of t h e

GOD, SI'IES A'AD LIES

body so crucial to creating a diversified broadcasting industry. In these circumstances, how can you blow the whistle as a public servant should, ~ithout causing 'disunity'? And if you are the whistle-blower, are you 'collectively responsible' ? The ISA Act requires a diverse range of skills on the council. Is this not even more reason why you must have scope, and an effective channel, to

speak out when you perceive a problem.' And shouldn't you be encouraged to speak out mthout feehng you will automatically lose your job? In my own case, I had notified the appropriate parliamentary committee that I do not intend to stand again when my term of o f fice expires next

year. That makes it simpler, but raises the question whether I should resign now, go through a three-month nomination and hearings process, and, if

reappointed, resign again in the new year.' In my case, I did consider departing long ago. But everyone I asked over the past eighteen months, virtually without exception, said I could not go and leave the broadcasting regulator without an internal critic. Perhaps they

were all wrong. The tragedy, of course, is larger. An independent broadcasting regulator is a subtle idea. %'hile old in mature democracies, SA has still to go a long way to get used to it. It can — and ours has — facilitate the dissemination of a broad array of

political, religious and social viewpoints and cultural tastes. The collapse o f the council comes ironically just as its m ost o bvious triumph, t h e establishment of new classical music, jazz, English and Afrikaans news and talk and other radio stations, are about to go on the air. The saddest thing is that, despite repeated internal warnings, there were some prepared to risk

it all for such spurious reasons.

INDEX

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Mugabe fooled Nfhcki's intelligence servicesg Why South Africa»»issed thc I nformation Econon>y H n w Jacb Zun>a came under the spell of the Chinese Communist Party What the 2015.student protests >nean What it would take to get the country back on track h >s 1»d > 1>ird's cyc view of'Snuth Afri«;>'s progress through apartheid;>»d democracy. As a poli>ir;>I and foreign correspondent, a»d nnc nf

'the I>innccrs'of'de>nocr»tic South Africa's free broadcasting environment, he has known every ANC leader since Oliver Tamhn and every government leader from John Vorster to Jacnh Zuma. Nnw„ for the first tin>c, this seasoned and.erudite insider reveals tl>e secrets nf a 40-year «;>reer nhsc>ics and the Inurn >lists whn wrote about them. As a pat, hc„argues that the way to a hetter future can be fbund througl> an unva! nishcd examination ol the l l»st.

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