In a country ravaged by corruption, Mathews Phosa's recent comments about
the Scorpions and the National Prosecuting Authority are worrying (The Star's
Opinion and Analysis, January 16, 2008).
Corruption is the curse of our continent.
Corruption siphons money away from the people who need it most into the pockets
of the wealthy and well connected. Because of this, any action against an
organisation that has a high rate of success against corrupt officials is
dangerous, and the motives of those attacking it must be questioned.
Some would say that the only reason that the Scorpions and the NPA are being
targeted by Phosa and those of his ilk, is because they are the
only bodies that have shown a willingness to investigate
and prosecute high-profile members of the ruling party for fraud and
corruption.
Because of their efforts, the Scorpions and NPA are the only bodies that have
any credibility in the eyes of the tax-paying public. I think
it is obvious to most unbiased observers that there was
corruption in the arms deal and that the only
people who attempt to deny this are those who benefited from it.
For the guilty therefore, it is a matter of survival to ensure that the
Scorpions are disbanded before they get the opportunity to expose the senior
members of the ANC who have betrayed the trust of the electorate and enriched
themselves.
Without doubt, the Scorpions have made mistakes, but accusations that their
actions result from being biased against certain people is too simplistic and
highly suspicious when information from a number of widely differing sources
indicate that many of those making the accusations, are themselves implicated.
If the Scorpions are integrated into the comfortingly
corrupt and incompetent SAPS *1, who will expose corruption among the
most powerful in the land? The ANC government certainly will not.
President Thabo Mbeki and his cohorts have frustrated
every investigative effort, and with the so many of the recently-elected
members tainted by either charges or convictions for corruption or fraud, their
desperation to destroy the Scorpions suddenly makes sense. Is it not ironic that
the only thing that Mbeki's henchmen and Jacob Zuma's supporters have
in common is a desire to prevent further investigation
into the arms deal corruption. Strange bedfellows
indeed.
All of which makes a mockery of the government's war against corruption, but
will allow many in the ANC to sleep more easily for a while. But the truth will
come out, either due to the efforts of true South African
patriots *3 or when investigations in the UK and
Germany expose the guilty.
Once again blind loyalty has taken preference over good governance.
Mitch Leunspech
Noordheuwel, Mogate City
With acknowledgements to Mitch
Leunspech
and The Star.
*1Up to 60% of the members of SAPS
maybe corrupt (most on a less grand scale than the national commissioner - The
Chief Chimpanzee *2.
*2Actually chimpanzees are quite cute little monkeys -
let's make that The Chief Chacma Baboon.
*3Who it seems must be prepared to spill their blood in the
courtrooms of kwaZulu-Natal *4
*4It is all quite ironic.
In November 1975 I was writing matric exams in a classroom in Pietermaritzburg
while 2 500 km to the north Combat Group Alpha under Commandant Delville Linford
and Combat Group Bravo under Commandant Jan Breytenbach were busy with Operation
Savanah deep into Angola.
Just 60 days later I was in 3 South African Infantry Battalion (3SAI) in
Potchefstroom at the tender ago of 17½
being chased up and down the parade ground by a demented 19½
Corporal Roos and rolling between the firing mounds of the shooting range and
leopard crawling "half" the 17 km or so from the shooting range back to the base
with our shirt shirts rolled up.
All this was so that we could also spill our blood on behalf of our nation by
protecting our buffer country South West Africa from freedom fighters killing
the local farmers and policemen.
Anyway the "jolly" that was Operation Savanah ended in March 1976 and I spent
the last six months of the year in Mpacha and Rundu just a 60 mm mortar lob away
from the FAPLA and SWAPO troops across the Zambezi and Kavango Rivers. Always on
standby to donate that blood to the somewhat dubious cause of PW Botha and
Magnus Malan.
So after a few army camps in the 1980s they eventually stopped calling us up
after Cuito Carnavale in 1988 and the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and later
the Soviet Union and at last we thought that the risk to our blood was over and
we could look forward to PW and Niel Barnard and Rusty Evans and all and all
meeting Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma and all and all and we
could make peace and live happily for ever after in the rainbow nation.
But just 18 years later our country is collapsing around us, there is no law and
order, insufficient electrical power, the deputy president has been dismissed
and is facing charges of corruption, the national chaca baboon of police is
suspended and also facing charges of corruption, the president of the country is
a bare-faced liar and cheat and provincial leaders of political bodies in
national power sharing are calling for there to be blood in the courtroom and
blood in the streets for those who may be again called up to do their national
duty at the tender ago of 50.
It is all quite incredible.
Not even the most imaginative author of a political "thriller" could ever
conjure up as bizarre and unbelievable a story that has become the truth of the
lifetimes of that generation straddling the 20th and 21st centuries (2000 +/- 40
years) in the Republic of South Africa.