Of Death Threats and Spying…

I would like to thank the many people who showed their support for me since the attacks by blacks started on my website.

There has been some debate as to who really is responsible for this. It could be some people with a chip on their shoulders, however, when I look at all the evidence and all the many strange events, I think there is much more to this. My personal suspicion is that I have run foul of the South African Government and that they want my website put out of business – through intimidation.

For those who do not know my history, and who think I am just making this up, I would like to remind them of my run-ins with Government Spies and provocateurs last year when I was writing that people should wage a war against Robert Mugabe. Let me describe some incidents that occurred to me:-

1) I wrote an article for Etherzone.com stating that a war should be waged against Robert Mugabe and that the blacks in Zimbabwe should be armed (hopefully by the USA). Some time later, I got a phone call from a young black gentleman who said he got my contact details through a journalist at the BBC whom I knew. He said he was in the MDC “Youth League” (no such thing exists) and he wanted to meet me to “discuss sensitive things”. He and a friend arrived at my place of work in Johannesburg one afternoon and we sat discussing things. Both were very well dressed (not quite the norm for the average black Zimbabwean MDC supporter). They told me how much they travelled to different parts of Africa and how they believed talking to Mugabe was a waste of time and war was the only way. They informed me “they wanted to join the war”.

I mentioned this to other Zimbabweans I knew, genuine opponents of Mugabe. These other black people then suggested we meet with these two. So, unknown to these two, I arranged another meeting, where they would suddenly meet the other Zimbabweans. The other Zimbabweans questioned them in depth and we discovered these were liars. The other Zimbabweans knew the inner details of the MDC so much better than I did, and thus pointed out that these guys were liars. Also, the other Zimbabweans had some knowledge of these guys, when they met them, and told me that they were Zimbabwean Militia assigned for work in Johannesburg, South Africa, to watch and spy on dissident Zimbabweans here.

2) Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace, arrived in Johannesburg last year. These same dissident Zimbabweans phoned me extremely excitedly, saying that a radio station in Johannesburg had discovered where Grace was and had told them. The Zimbabweans were beside themselves at this – and their leader asked me for advice. He was saying things – very wild things. He was highly emotional in the heat of the moment and not thinking straight. He was beside himself… My words to him were: “Don’t go doing silly things. Instead I suggest you tell other newspapers, journalists, etc and then go and protest outside the hotel and the journalists can record this”. So, he took my advice and did that. The hotel even sent in security guards and unleashed dogs on the protestors to chase them away. It gained a lot of positive publicity for him and his organisation and I was very pleased that my bit of advice had averted him from trying rash things and had instead resulted in positive things for his organisation.

Proud of my input, and that (for once) he listened to me, I wrote about this to about 25 friends – without telling him. The very next day, the Zimbabwean got a phone call from a Man who said he was in the “ANC Intelligence Department”. He called him in for questioning. He was questioned by a black man, who identified himself only as “Max”. Max showed him my email, complete with annotated ANC notes (with comments like “rubbish”, etc – next to certain sentences I wrote). Max said, among other things, to him: “Are you taking orders from a White man? We don’t like it when white people get involved in politics”. Max told him that this meeting was secret, and he was not to discuss it with me.

The black man came to me, and to my utter shock, showed me my email. But Max was careful – there was no indication of what his email address was, or who he got it from or how he got it. But it was 100% the email I had sent off to 25 people I thought I could trust.

Later in the week, other events occurred which made me fear for the life of this black man, and in a panic, I wrote another mail. I wondered if the ANC or someone had knocked him off. So I wrote an email urgently, but only to about 5 of my really closest, longest, most trustworthy friends.

THE VERY NEXT MORNING, Max was on the phone again saying “I thought I told you not to talk to that white man! Here I have an email where he mentions the meeting I had with you last week which I asked you not to talk about!!” Max then spent about the next 3 weeks meeting with the black man and phoning him several times talking to him. With time, I heard less and less about what exactly Max told him… (probably Max was succeeding)… anyway… I lost interest in the matter. Eventually Max left him with the words “If I contact you again, then you will be the cause of it…”

Now many people think, suspect, etc their emails are being read. Well, I *KNOW* beyond a shadow of a doubt that mine are. I do not even have to think or wonder about it. What I don’t know, is the level of interest they take in my mails, but I have reason to believe they read EVERYTHING…. Even my most personal, intimate emails. But more on that later.

Now for some years, there has been talk that National Intelligence might spy on our emails, and ISP’s would be forced, by law, to put spyware on all their email servers… And this debate occurred… in a sort of academic manner… as if it STILL HAD TO BE DONE… well… when in fact… my personal experiences proved that it was already 100% fact.

Nothing shocked me more than discovering that even emails to people I truly trust, who I’ve known for years, those 5, were intercepted. I take it as a given, that the mails were intercepted by spyware. However, I have wondered (and this truly scares me), whether, one of my 5 friends is the traitor!! It is something I cannot discount. But my general feeling is that the government monitors every single email Jan Lamprecht writes AND every single email Jan Lamprecht RECEIVES and makes a note of WHO speaks to him!!! (Let that shock the rest of you!!!). I’m not kidding.

I’m willing to bet, that somewhere in Intelligence is a network diagram of some kind, showing all anti-Govt activists and their links to each other…

So, the above experiences show me, unquestionably, that Government people, from African governments are 100% aware of things I write, and they take me seriously – even though, I’m largely, just a one man band. They watch me… and they tried… with those Militia guys, to entrap me. When faced with the question of “We want to join the war”, I had to admit to the guys: “Look, in my heart, I truly believe a war must be waged on Mugabe. But I as one person do not have the resources for this, nor do I actually have friends who can do such a thing”. I can’t remember my suggestions but it was probably something along the lines of make contact with the Americans or Botswana or any enemy of Mugabe – but NOT South Africa since they are Mugabe’s biggest friends.

The recent threats to my website, which now extend even to Germany, are a real worry. And in this regard, I’d like to mention some things. Luckily, so luckily, as a result of interviewing people for my book, I met interesting people with intelligence backgrounds and they told me certain things – some of which I passed on in my email about bypassing Govt keyword search engines. It has helped me to get a better understanding of the methods employed by these people.

Now, the STASI, I think it was, who were in East Germany, made a business of destroying the lives of the opponents of the Govt. They apparently went so far as to find out all the personal details of a person – all his intimate details – and would then destroy his life in very subtle ways – which could include causing people to lose their jobs OR breaking up their marriages. This is the level of detail these people worked at.

Now many people THINK email is safe, when, as I’m concluding, email is probably the most unsafe form of communication around. (Forget about encrypted email – unless you’re involved in intelligence/cryptography you really won’t know). Most encryption is a complete waste of time and can be broken in FRACTIONS of SECONDS! According to the ANC Manual on How to Master Secret Work, all electronic communications is unsafe, and it even advises against using telephones. But, I’m willing to bet, that of all electronic communications, it is the computer communications that are the least safe, and the cell phones the most safe (but still not to be trusted).

Intelligence people use tricks that are exceedingly clever – and which are tried and tested and finely honed. These people are actually very subtle because this is needed in their work. They have a way of saying things and not saying things, and giving you a little something to read between the lines. I’ve been told this.

In our recent round of intimidations, I noted the highly PERSONAL manner in which it was done in public. Its really quite brilliant, and this again confirms my views that I’m dealing with professionals. When my German forum moderator did not stop her activities as they had said we should… they obtained personal information on her in Germany and made their threatening call. Then she got the message – loud and clear.

What is particularly interesting is how they used “jokes” and “friendly” posts in my forums to issue warnings. I found that quite intimidating. They’d put up a “joke” which really wasn’t much of a joke – and some people even found some humour in it – but when I read it, it seemed to indicate a personal knowledge of me, and my home.

I noticed, for the weeks prior to the intimidations, that I was dealing with a very determined individual who had no interest at all, in stepping back. I noticed at first it was as if we were playing mind-games. I could see this person was testing all of us in many ways. This person was “playing” with us to examine our responses in 101 different ways.

Before going over his tactics, I’d like to mention a post which contained what I took as a death threat to me. It was one of the fake “friendly” posts. It was from someone who claimed to have been following my writings for quite some time. The IP address was in Australia (but intelligence people can fake IP’s in long round about ways I believe). Firstly, very few people in Australia have ever indicated to me that they know/support me. So I doubt its really from an Australian.

Then the guy wrote something like this: “I am much like you, I also left Zimbabwe in 1981….” – he drops off some indication of knowledge about me… (no doubt he is not like me, but he is just creating a bogus opportunity to show me what he knows about me)… Then he says: “I’ve been following you for quite some time and I was thinking, you’re a very very dead man.” By “following” he could be indicating he was SPYING on me for “quite some time”. Now exactly how long that “some time” was, comes from another interesting, and highly personal part of the post. He uses a single name in the post: “Bernie”. Well, that name would not have any meaning for most people, but to me, it has an extremely special meaning. Bernie is the nickname, of a woman I was head over heels in love with for a number of years. Her real name is Bernadette, but everyone calls her Bernie. We used to communicate almost exclusively by email. For much of this year our emails became less and less, and we parted company completely about 2 months ago, and have never communicated once, ever since. So, when this person says “I have been following you for quite some time”, and he uses a name like that which has a very special and personal meaning to only me, then it could mean that this person has been reading my emails for anything from 6 months-4 years – to a time when I communicated tremendously with her every day. But our communications were ALWAYS personal, and one on one. So who then would know… except someone who was monitoring and reading even my most private emails which neither of us shared with anyone else – containing our most private thoughts, emotions, etc?

I take the above post as a serious warning…

So now imagine this… there could be Intelligence people, who are my sworn enemies, who know EVERYTHING about me… maybe even much more about me than my own friends do. Isn’t that quite scary? … that my enemies would know me better than my best friends!

This brings me to something: I have discussed this with people like Jeff Nyquist for example. But it could happen, that one day, if they want to shut a person up – but maybe without using violence – they then dig into your extremely personal history and find something they can blackmail you with… that is one possibility. Or, they can find out your personal habits, personal weaknesses and then set a trap for you. A common trick with men which the communists liked, is to introduce an attractive woman into their lives who is working for the government. Checkmate. Game over.

Or, of course, they just use fear. Fear has many benefits for them… and fear may, many times be the best thing… short of physically getting a person knocked off… which can be done, if they determine that this is the best way of dealing with somebody who just never wants to listen.

But, as I say, there are many ways of destroying a person’s life, which does not require death. Most of us are not rich, and that opens up many options. Relatively small things can hurt us really badly, for very long periods of time. They can mess up a person’s personal relationships, or destroy their career – these things can hurt most people for a very long time. I’m as vulnerable as anyone.

Because I am a programmer, I had a chance to discover things many people don’t. I had a short opportunity to spy on my intimidators, and it was interesting. I was very suprised at how often they visited my site and how they browsed through it in places I did not expect. I noticed on the one day, the one person read my post on bypassing Govt Keyword search engines three times.

I was amazed to see how much they browsed, and how many times a day they visited my site. On the one day, I saw my intimidator visited my site about 3 times.

Last week, I put out a message saying that I would like to encourage people to make copies of my site just in case… I would feel so much better knowing that copies are out there, safely put away. To my stunned amazement, I could not believe it when my intimidators ALSO started making a copy of my entire site. I saw they were running a product called “Web Stripper” against my site. That actually made me sit back in amazement. If they wanted to put my site out of business – WHY WERE THEY DOWNLOADING MY ENTIRE SITE?

Well, I take it as a back-handed compliment. No doubt their real purpose is to use my writings/information against me or others like me in the future. But it must show that my site has real value and interest for them to actually go to all that trouble. Again, these do not sound like the activities of a couple of people just having a laugh. These people have a very VERY SERIOUS interest in AfricanCrisis.org and its contents.

The good news is, and I thank all of you who made copies. I really don’t mind. I put this info on the web because I wanted it to be seen, and saved because much of the info on my site is really quite rare and you’ll never see it. It comes from books, publications, people, etc – which just do not exist any more, and many of which are not easy to obtain if you are outside Africa. So I feel it is important that this stuff be stored away. It is factual and historical and should not be lost… It is valid and should be kept and studied.

My site probably contains (roughly), about 5,000 pages of data with many photos, etc – some from very rare publications. I noticed that in the last 4 days, about 250,000 pages have been downloaded/viewed!!!! So that makes me feel a lot better that maybe there are quite a few copies now of my website, sitting in different parts of the world. Please keep it as insurance in case my website is shut down completely – which could still happen.

I want to discuss the events leading to the intimidation, and I want to make a statement which I want everyone to hear. I want to say something about FREE SPEECH and about the TRUTH.

I like to think that maybe the coloured man posing as “Bob” was possibly the Team Leader of a group of Cyber Spies. Interestingly, they posed as White South African Liberals who are pro-ANC. But after a time we concluded, based on many things, that Bob in particular was a coloured man in Cape Town. This was proven true when he phoned me, and showed, through the things he said on the phone, that he was in fact the same “Bob” who was playing mindgames with me.

I was told that SA Intelligence has teams of Cyber Spies and Provocateurs who roam South African Forums looking for suspicious activity and kicking people into line. It appears to me that when they first arrived on my site, the purpose was to break up the discussions we were having and to create disinformation and in-fighting so that our discussions would lead to LESS UNITY LESS AGREEMENT. It also appears that he went out of his way to post information (disinformation actually), to fool people outside South Africa (but which did not fool those of us who live here and have local knowledge).

When I saw the disinformation, I countered it, as did others. Some people went to extreme lengths to prove “Bob” wrong, but Bob always just ignored them and minimised their logic and facts – regardless of how good it was. He had a JOB to do and that was to change the type of talk and to go against what I was saying. His team members – acting out various roles – went around doing other things – attacking people, etc.

Then they played the provocateur role and started luring people into war talk regarding Zimbabwe and South Africa. I let it go at first – even though I was uncomfortable with his question. I decided that I had nothing to hide and I’d always been open about my views. But when it got to the point of someone posing as a Zimbabwean saying: “I have a team of guys and we want to start military operations against Mugabe and how can you give us material support…” … hey… that’s where I drew the line, and also knew, this was entrapment.

Because most of us hate Mugabe with a passion we’d help anyone who is his enemy, and we made no bones about it. But I jumped in and immediately stopped this kind of talk. I banned it. Then it was BOB (of all people) who sounded quite miffed… saying “But Jan Lamprecht cannot be held legally responsible for the views others post on his site!” Bob was, if I may say so, quite annoyed that the entrapment could not continue.

I for my part, could see where these malicious people wanted this to go, and I’m not the sort of person who is too worried about legal fine print. I feel, as the website owner, I have a moral (though not legal) responsibility to the people who visit there. I encouraged them all to be open and honest and to say what they honestly thought and felt. I encouraged them to be themselves – and they were. But I could see Bob had another agenda – trying to lure people into saying/doing things that could ultimately get people put in jail.

There is a LAW recently passed in South Africa about “foreign military aid” – the very sort of views I’ve been talking about (waging war on Mugabe)… there is a firm law against that. There are 70 “alleged” mercenaries sitting in jail in Zimbabwe right now. And the kind of talk Bob and his team were starting could have resulted in people in South Africa going to jail. Even if it was not ME, I would still feel responsible for creating an environment where Govt Agents now use my website and my discussion forums as a place to entrap people who think they can engage in speaking their minds.

So #1, I have no intention of using my website’s discussion forums as a place where Agent Provocateurs can lay traps and get people into jail.

Now for my next point. Bob wanted to know why I deleted his posts. When Bob and his team could not entrap people… they then engaged in (a) viciously attacking people – most especially Jani Allan (b) spreading subtle lies – and also more blatant lies – about South Africa. It was real pro-Govt propaganda – the sort of “Sunshine Journalism” Mbeki is always encouraging and which CNN and the rest of the “establishment media” readily love to spread – but which does not reflect the realities.

I liberally started deleting Bob’s posts when I noticed they were lies. I got really tired of him ignoring our logic and our facts so I turned to censorship when I noticed he completely ignored logic. However, there was a poster, John Khumalo, who was rabidly anti-white, attacked Jani Allan unceasingly, and who said that we whites were finished and would be subjected to more attacks in the next 5-10 years to finish us off. I NEVER deleted any of John Khumalo’s posts!! (Nobody noticed that!). Why? Because I felt John was being honest. In fact, I even took one of John’s posts and used it as an article on my site. Guess what… John just then disappeared completely from my site!!! I guessed that a black man doesn’t like it when others read his own hate speech!! John was saying the most hideous things about other people, but even so, I told him, that I considered him to be a black racist pig, but even so, he must try to watch his manners a bit and not say that he wished we’d all been aborted instead of being born. Maybe he was trying to get us angry? Well, he did not succeed. Calling us names did not bother us that much. But he quietly slinked away by himself when I spread some of his posts around. So I figure, a black man can’t handle the truth, even when it comes out of his own mouth!!!

I could easily tolerate John’s hate, and I even asked him questions because I felt he was probably the most honest of those who were on the forum. Of course, maybe it was just another tactic by Bob’s team? But one which did not quite work out the way they expected.

It was Bob’s lies which I had to curb. He posted rubbish such as “survey shows White males are the happiest group in South Africa”. I can’t think of anything that is a bigger load of rubbish. All the White males I know speak about how difficult it is for a White Male to get a job, and how we must hang on to what we have for dear life… among the many other complaints… “Bob”, who actually is located in Cape Town, wanted to tell us how great the centre of Johannesburg was…. when I was sitting in an office in the centre of Johannesburg and could easily observe the filth, etc outside. And so it went on.

So then I censored Bob more and more. And it was then… when I messed up his second game – the disinformation game – that he phoned me and said “You deleted my posts… I’ll shut your website down…”

The other part of the game is to sow disinformation, to sow doubt on the information (from normal news sources – largely) which I am putting out, etc – and to brow-beat the forum members into falling in line with their ideology, ideas, etc. When I started instituting CENSORSHIP OF THEM… that messed up their game. I could have let them brow-beat me with this talk of “Freedom of Speech” – which Bob and his team would then abuse, using their tried-and-tested strategies – and they would then hammer away until they’d either chased people away from the forums, and then controlled it themselves… If I had left the forums open… Bob and his team would have dominated. Its their job, I believe, and judging by their multiple visits per day… they have all the time in the world to drive us nuts and hammer away with us, ignoring logic, etc – until they won through sheer stamina, numbers and determination alone.

So point #2. I refuse to let my website forums follow in the path of all other South African forums which then become conduits for Govt Disinformation. I would rather shut my forums down completely…. than let my site become ANOTHER link in the chain which disseminates half-truths and lies.

This brings me to my final point. If I, Jan Lamprecht, am to be intimidated and threatened for telling the truth, I completely REFUSE to be co-opted into telling half-truths or watered-down truths, etc. If I cannot express my own viewpoints, the way I see things. If I cannot call it as I see it, then I would rather SHUT MY FORUMS DOWN. If I am prevented from expressing my honest viewpoints in my emails, I would rather RELINQUISH MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. I will rather “voice” my disagreement through SILENCE. IF I AM NOT ALLOWED TO TELL IT LIKE I SEE IT I WOULD RATHER BE SILENT.

I regard the Freedom of Speech in South Africa not to be free at all. You can have “Freedom of Speech” but you can’t use it for this, or for that, or there is this “unspoken rule” which stands in the way… If Freedom of Speech in South Africa has 1001 strings attached… then it can’t be FREE SPEECH can it??

And I have experienced Free Speech in the USA on WEBSITES, on RADIO SHOWS where I could write/say what I wanted. THERE IS NOT ONE RADIO SHOW IN SOUTH AFRICA WHICH WILL LET ME SAY ANYTHING LIKE I HAVE SAID ON AMERICAN RADIO SHOWS. THERE IS NOT ONE WEBSITE IN SOUTH AFRICA WHERE I CAN EXPRESS THE VIEWS WHICH I HAVE EXPRESSED ON SAY: RENSE.COM OR ETHERZONE.COM. So that alone should tell you that “Free Speech” in South Africa is a complete FAKE and not in any way, shape of form comparable to that in the USA.

The only way I could say what I wanted “in South Africa” was to set up my own website with my own forums where I could then – until now – say what I wanted – until a Govt Intelligence Squad was ASSIGNED to my website and my forums to take over/spy/provocate/spread disinformation.

FREE SPEECH in America is far far superior to anything that exists in South Africa. Though many here want to believe that we are in the same league. As someone who has experienced it – with my book, with radio talk shows, etc – I can tell you there is just no comparison.

My site is hosted in the USA and I moved it there so that (hopefully) it would be out of reach of the SA Govt. But, sadly, I am not out of reach of them… and I’m still sitting here. Maybe I should start thinking about finding other opportunities and getting out of here. I have personal reasons why I’m not keen on moving, but I’m feeling more and more that maybe in the next year, I must seriously start seeking opportunities elsewhere and see if I can’t find something I can do, where I can contribute and be part of something significant where my talents will be applicable?

The same is true for Jani Allan. Her life was DESTROYED because she as a journalist dared to express her honest views about Mugabe and the SA Govt and she was run out of this country like a dog for it. She was once considered to be in the 100 most influential people in South Africa. Now she has been SHUT UP. When I tried to use my website as a place for her to express her views… That was the moment the Government attack started – the minute after Jani Allan had been interviewed by Jeff Rense… within days… the heat struck. I had been hoping that with her excellent CV, with her experience as a newspaper journalist, and radio show presenter, that this could give her opportunities in the USA. But now… she too has been silenced for the 2nd time in 4 years as I have to shut my forums down. I really would like to see if Jani Allan can get an opportunity in the USA… can anyone help? She lives near New York. I was wondering if WorldNetDaily or some other organisation would be interested in her. She is struggling very much since her career in journalism was ended DUE TO HER TELLING THE TRUTH!!!! NOT MANY JOURNALISTS CAN SAY THEY WALKED THAT ROAD – BUT SHE DID – AND SHE DESERVES BETTER.

I am not prepared to let others use my website for their propaganda purposes. They already have a monopoly of propaganda outlets including the major establishment media. But clearly, my one little dissenting website was becoming too effective and was starting to show the cracks in their big propaganda lies so now it has to also go. But I would rather shut things down, than spread half-truths or outright lies. I am NOT prepared to be part of their disinformation program. They can do that via EVERYBODY ELSE!! If I can’t tell the truth, then I’d rather lapse into silence. But I refuse to help them spread their lies.

So, as a result of all these attacks, etc – I am shutting down my forums and guest book. This will:-
(a) Stop their lies
(b) Stop their provocateur activities
(c) Give my website readers a degree of anonymity which is good

I will continue to spread the news via my site. It will now once more return to becoming a 1-man media outlet (with all the limitations/work that entails). I will post the news articles as they exist on other sites. I may also change the manner in which I do commentaries. I will see and experiment with the exact format. Part of it may incude a very open statement that I PARTIALLY RELINQUISH my right to freedom of speech because OTHERS can’t handle my views. I will experiment with how I will implement it. I may hold back on commentaries and then later write up my views separately. I will play around with that.

But I will start making it clear on my site and in my posts/articles, that true Freedom of Speech does not exist. I was practising it – not because it really exists in South Africa but because I was the only person brave enough to DARE TO SPEAK MY MIND HONESTLY. Most others never even try to go there because its unwritten knowledge that “this is just not the done thing”. I have gone completely against the grain.

I was thinking of raising this with a certain institute that deals with this in South Africa, but chances are, like everything else in this country, there are these “unwritten rules” and “invisible boundaries” which everyone knows not to cross. So it may be worthless.

I am leaving the posts there for historical purposes. I am merely removing the means to post/reply to items. People can go and read the threads and posts which are on there. My forums existed for less than 2 months!!! Amazing huh? I reckon if my forums had run for another year or two you would have seen some really powerful stuff coming out of there.

I am taking this in my stride. Holding the views I hold, disappointment is nothing new to me. It goes with the territory. Depression is an old friend of mine, and to my amazement I find as I get older, I get less depressed than I did when I was younger. Things which used to make me almost suicidal now hardly bother me at all. I can let things run like water off my back.

I’m one of the few fighting small actions against enormous forces. I feel however, that if a man believes in something, he must struggle for it. That you will be overwhelmed, is NO EXCUSE. If you believe in something truly, then fight for it, to your last breath. Fear of defeat is NO EXCUSE. At least if you are defeated, then you can say: At least *I* was not the cause of the loss – and you can walk away from the defeat with a clear conscience. I at least did what I could – with the very little I have. I don’t stand a snowball’s hope in hell against them, but I hope they saw that while I did not have the means, I did have the spirit with which to try.

When that black man was called in for questioning by Max in the ANC Intelligence Department, he told me, that the ANC already had copies of my book, Government by Deception. His words to me were “They want to throttle you” for writing that book. And now, they probably have more cause for wanting to throttle me than they did back then.

But, my book did not go far, because only one radio station in all of South Africa dared to interview me about it, and no newspaper was even willing to review it. As far as the “establishment” is concerned, I and my book and my website do not exist because I am completely out of step with everyone else.

However, even so, I do think I managed to sow enough seeds in people’s minds on the Internet, and maybe even via bookstores, some radio adverts and other things I did… that nowadays people are much readier to accept the proposition that South Africa (and Namibia) will in the end, end up on the rubbish heap of history, just like Zimbabwe. I think I have sowed enough seeds inside and outside South Africa. I can take things at a more leisurely pace from now on because President Mbeki will water my seeds and make them grow into big strong trees in the next 10 years.

Jan.