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: 2008-12-14 Time: 11:00:12 Posted By: Jan
By Angela Quintal
A renewed campaign by leading South Africans to force the government to cancel the arms deal and recover billions in public money has failed to persuade President Kgalema Motlanthe to break ranks with his comrades.
On Wednesday, he stuck to the view of his predecessor Thabo Mbeki and the ruling ANC that those with any information about alleged wrongdoing should hand it over to the police.
The Presidency confirmed that Motlanthe would write a letter to Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk, rejecting their call for a judicial commission of inquiry.
The renewed campaign has the support of several eminent citizens, including Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, Helen Suzman, Mamphela Ramphele, Rhoda Kadalie, Ingrid Uys, Hugh Corder, Jeremy Sarkin and Jeremy Routledge.
Presidential spokesperson Thabo Masebe said Motlanthe believed a judicial inquiry was unnecessary.
“If you appoint a commission to investigate the same things that other people in the criminal justice system are investigating, you may find that the commission targets the same witnesses, who may even refuse to testify for fear of incriminating themselves.”
It might even jeopardise current investigations by the police and other agencies, Masebe said.
In their joint letter, Tutu and De Klerk said that, in addition to widening the net so that more people involved in alleged corruption were brought to book, the inquiry was also necessary so that the deal could be cancelled if necessary and public money paid back.
Raenette Taljaard, of the Helen Suzman Foundation, who has backed the call for an inquiry, said: “The public deserve better than to see their institutions permanently affected by the unresolved questions about the arms deal.”
Retired banker Terry Crawford-Browne, one of the petition’s organisers, said: “The government has tried for 10 years to squelch the scandal, but it keeps coming back and will continue to do so until it is properly resolved.”
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille, who has led the charge against graft in the arms deal, said the ANC had failed to grasp that “our democracy is far bigger than the leaders and members in the ruling party who’ve diverted billions of rands from the massive challenges faced by the poor”.
Democratic Alliance MP Eddie Trent said Motlanthe had shown himself to be “a loyal cadre of the ANC first and a servant of the people of South Africa second”.