WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-04-27 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[Zuma is somewhat different to what his original message and purpose was supposed to be. He is trying to get money… Let’s keep watching him. He was still brought in by the Socialists and Communists in SA. In fact, the socialists and communists have been really tying themselves in ideological knots of late with Zimbabwe. Our politics is becoming increasingly BIZARRE. And the future in southern Africa appears to be very weird. Jan]
Everyone in London this week wanted to meet the man widely expected to be the next South African president and meetings were heavily over-subscribed with businessmen and politicians almost standing in line.
A group of South African businessmen, representing wealth running into tens of billions, fought to be in the same room as Zuma. He dropped in on Gordon Brown, met newspaper editors, was interviewed by Jon Snow and did the statutory bad-tempered session with the Today programme.
Although he still has nearly a year to run, a trial to be endured and an election to be won, he was accompanied by an entourage as large as a full head of state – and London treated him as such.
A year from now he may well be just that, settling himself, after a grand inauguration, into the Herbert Baker-designed office in Pretoria once occupied by Jan Smuts, PW Botha, FW de Klerk and of course his hero, Nelson Mandela. Or he may be in jail. There are not many options in between.
| “I will not tolerate corruption.” |
He is already the president of the ANC, which mustered more than 70 percent of the national vote last time around and should win another landslide in the elections next year.
Until that time, he is not president of the country and Brown, who is intrigued by him, met him as party leader to party leader and not as two heads of government – the protocol didn’t allow that.
In the normal course of events, Zuma should automatically succeed to the throne which the reclusive and isolated Thabo Mbeki will reluctantly surrender in 2009, having served the maximum 10 years. But nothing in South African politics is ever simple, and in the case of the 65-year-old Zuma it is more complicated still.
Although he humiliated Mbeki in the party leadership election in December 2007, Zuma still has a huge hurdle to cross before he can assume power: a corruption trial which starts in August. If he is found guilty he might have to watch the election from behind bars.
None of this seemed to bother him last week and after several hours in his company, you feel that nothing very much shakes his good nature and imperturbability.
He is a gifted raconteur and, in the four months since he was elected party leader, Zuma has been on a mission to persuade the white population – and the outside world – that his purpose is “to build and sustain a future of hope for all South Africans”.
In some ways, his many critics in the build-up to the Polokwane conference in December can be forgiven for their fears and suspicions. Zuma has certainly led what can euphemistically only be called a “colourful life”. He has at least four wives and more than 20 children.
He has faced two trials in the past two years, one for corruption, the other for rape, and he faces yet another. He has some dubious friends, several of them already in jail for corruption.
The other side of the coin is his impeccable ANC credentials and qualifications for president. He has been successively a trade union activist, a struggle hero, served 10 years on Robben Island and did his combat training in Russia.
His record in the party’s hierarchy is impeccable: membership of the ANC’s policy-making executive council from 1977, service on the political and military council, 15 years in exile with frequent underground visits to South Africa and then a triumphant return in 1990 to meet Mandela and start the negotiations which led to the release of all political prisoners. And then every rung on the ANC party ladder, including the deputy presidency, before attaining the presidency.
He was hugely important in the months leading up to the 1994 election. Mandela has given him much of the credit for stopping the bloody fighting between ANC supporters and Chief Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in the run-up to the election.
He has also fought back against the allegations of misconduct and corruption. Amid widespread accusations that the charges against him were driven personally by Mbeki, seeking to destroy a rival, he was acquitted in the rape case.
He was also acquitted on the first corruption charge, the judge contemptuously throwing out an ill-prepared prosecution case which was also seen as politically inspired.
The same corruption investigation, pursued with what he calls a “suspicious” zeal by the authorities for the past eight years, has led to a second corruption trial for which he is now preparing.
Zuma’s charm campaign to counteract the poor image and truly awful publicity has been remarkably successful.
He has set out the toughest stance yet on crime, insisting the laws will be strengthened, the police force increased and police encouraged to be much tougher, even to shoot first and ask questions later. He has even hinted he would not discourage a move to bring back the death penalty.
He has also promised to continue the widely praised economic policies that have caused the economy to boom in recent years and to keep the same economic team in place if they agree to serve.
He has committed to a major new initiative on HIV/Aids, for which he was previously responsible before Mbeki sacked him as deputy president, and on tackling Robert Mugabe, where he has been much more forthright than Mbeki.
Despite the charges against him – and some of the mud has stuck – he insists he will stamp down hard on corruption, which he adds was “never raised as an issue during apartheid”, although it was rife.
“I will not tolerate corruption,” he says firmly.
He seems to have done the trick. The white population, fearful of him a year ago, now loves him.
Senior Afrikaners have hailed him as the great hope not just for South Africa but for the whole region and, in private, talk of him as even better than Mandela.
“I am more optimistic about South Africa now than I have ever been,” said one businessman after listening to Zuma on Tuesday.
It is a long way from the herd boy who grew up in rural Zululand with 12 brothers and sisters. Zuma’s Zulu roots go deep and he is very proud of the culture.
“As a herd boy, one of the things you do is prepare to become a warrior, and therefore learn to stick-fight, and you are taught how a man must behave, how a man must be brave, and I went through all the rituals. You learn the Zulu culture.”
In Durban, where his mother worked as a domestic worker after his father died, he soon became an active trade unionist and a member of the ANC shortly before it was banned in 1960. He was an early recruit to Umkhonto weSizwe, the armed wing of the ANC.
Inevitably he was arrested and sent to Robben Island for 10 years. He was just 21 years old.
“My sentence was a relatively short one. Others were doing 20 and even 30 years. So there was time and an opportunity to educate ourselves. It was the beginning of [our] political education on Robben Island. This was very important because if you came in there, you must come out much better educated politically.”
From the age of 21 to 48 he was either in prison or exile, so his return in 1990 was all the more welcome.
It is a remarkable story and an extraordinary preparation for what is probably the most important job in Africa. He is wholly philosophical about the trial and remarkably without bitterness.
“If the state says you must be charged, then no citizen is above the law. Courts are there to produce a verdict and you are not guilty until the court says you are guilty.”
Watching him last week, losing the trial and going to jail is the last thing he expects to happen. He is already setting out his vision for South Africa – and it is very sunny. – Foreign Service