Arms Deal critic Terry Crawford-Browne returns to court today for the
seventh time in as many years this time to defend
himself against Finance Minister Trevor Manuel's bid to gag him.
Crawford-Browne, referred to by Manuel as "the gorilla on
my back", has made the minister one of his main targets.
This is because of Manuel's role in signing foreign loan agreements that funded
the 1998 arms deal, and because he sat on an ad hoc committee tasked with
overseeing arms procurement.
On more than one occasion Manuel implied that Crawford-Browne was
fronting for losing defence bidders *1*2, who were
funding his chapter in SA of the international Economists Allied for Arms
Reduction (Ecaar).
While Manuel has complained publicly over Crawford-Browne's allegations that he
is guilty of "criminal conduct" and "selling the country" to Barclays Bank and
Commerzbank, the minister did not take action against Crawford-Browne for
defamation until, according to his court papers, Crawford-Browne called for
Manuel to be charged with corruption alongside African National Congress (ANC)
president Jacob Zuma.
These comments, Manuel said, could do irreparable harm to his reputation which,
given his position as SA's finance minister, is required to be above reproach.
Crawford-Browne has made a number of enemies in the ANC, some of whom have
branded him a "racist *3". Yet the retired banker
dedicated much of his life to fighting apartheid before taking up the cudgels
against the arms deal.
During the apartheid years he used his position as a Nedbank banker to encourage
banks around the world to tighten the economic screws on SA.
Then in 1996, as a member of Ecaar, he was asked by the Archbishop of Cape Town,
Njongonkulu Ndungane, to represent the Anglican church during the parliamentary
defence review, to discuss SA's new defence policy.
Twelve years and R5m in legal fees later,
Crawford-Browne is still fighting using his own money
to cancel a deal that he believes cost a developing
country more than it benefited it, and which he argues
exposed government officials to corruption by competing
bidders *4.
The majority of his court bids, with the exception of a 2003 ruling forcing
Manuel to hand over the financial working papers of the arms deal, have been
unsuccessful. Then a few months ago, Crawford-Browne got
corroboration from an unexpected source *5 in the form of a book by
former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein.
In After the Party, Feinstein talks of efforts by senior ANC officials,
from President Thabo Mbeki downwards, to
squash probes into the arms deal.
Crawford-Browne, who also recently released a book, Eye on the Money One Man's
Crusade Against Corruption, talks of his increasing disappointment with the ANC
government for which he fought. He calls it a "betrayal of the struggle against
apartheid".
He has argued in the numerous letters to the media and in his book that the
offset programme has not come close to delivering on the $13,6bn in sales and
investment it was supposed to deliver by 2012.
He says it is impossible to determine how successful it has been, because
requests for information have been rejected on the grounds that the deals are
"commercially sensitive" *6.
With acknowledgements to Chantelle Benjamin and Business
Day.
*1Enemy's enemy is friend, but I
ain't pay Terry nor ECAAR nothing.
*2ECAAR "fronting for losing defence bidders" - the cheese
is very good indeed.
*3I don't think Terry has one racist gene in his entire
body.
*4While Terry is often right, this is where is (mainly)
wrong.
It is the ANC who conjured up the Arms Deal as an investment vehicle and foreign
bidders were more than happy to go along for the ride.
*5Not unexpected, just rather late.
*6Rubbish, such deals might have been commercially
sensitive before they were formally initiated, but not 9 years down the track.
Remember, all of the NIP was meant to have been contractually stipulated in the
NIP Terms all of the DIP was meant to have been contractually
stipulated in the DIP Terms, of the Umbrella Agreements.
It is only sensitive because the suppliers and DTI want to change it to their
liking and so that it remains unauditable *7.
*7Because if it were properly audited, all those cabinet
promises in 1998 and 1998 would turn out to be simplistic poppycock and plain
lies.