OPINION

Ramaphosa: Chief Accomplice of WMC

Musa Xulu says the President, the Constitution and the Judiciary are all failing the Black people of SA

It was on the 14th March 2010, when I wrote an article asserting that the late Winnie Mandela was right about her late and estranged husband, having sold us out and what I omitted was who was the chief accomplice. I cited enough and a myriad of reasons on why former President Mandela had sold out the struggle for Black people’s economic emancipation and these are the very applicable reasons levelled to his accomplice which lead me to surmise that he too sold us out at CODESA.

This is by no means an ad hominem attack on the person of the President nor a defamation of his character either. It is now history that all the ANC ever achieved was a half-hearted political freedom which in itself was conditional because it excluded economic freedom.

More and more the person who made Mandela vulnerable is exposing himself as the brains behind that sell-out position in the CODESA negotiations. He, for instance, was richly rewarded for it, the first of which was Johnnic in 1996 and other Board directorships in the JSE listed companies. We have previously heard both former Presidents Mbeki and Zuma before saying that, when for instance the said accomplice was the Secretary General in 1991, he systematically sidelined them and positioned himself. 

They say that they were sent to attend a conference in England, UK on constitutionalism. When they were away, the NWC was convened in their absence and they were replaced as Chief Negotiator and Head of Intelligence respectively. The irony but which is not a coincidence is that the replacements of the two former Presidents were Cyril Ramaphosa and Patrick “Terror” Lekota.

Of course, it is an age old trick in the ANC for a cadre to be sent on a mission abroad if those who want them out of the way want to make drastic decisions so that it is in done their absence especially without their input nor argument against it. It is also history now that on 10 April 1993, Thembisile “Chris” Hani was assassinated and the NIS (i.e. National Intelligence Services) knew about the plot and alerted the ANC.

Incidentally exactly 14 days later, Oliver R. Tambo having first been poisoned in 1989 which was meant to incapacitate him - and it did - died (i.e. 24 April 1993). Guess what is the significance of all this in that same year? The negotiations were at fever pitch at the World Trade Centre, with the AWB having stormed it and bulldozed their way in there and it was almost a deadlock on elections which were going to be held the following year in 1994.

It is no coincidence then that the Special Branch was eager to get rid of Hani in particular because he was vehemently opposed to the negotiated settlement and OR Tambo for his part who had to be finished off. The apartheid regime was then put in a position of being firmly in charge through its surrogates, the kind of cadres who spoke left wing and acted right wing, to influence the decisions of the ANC as a ruling party in government thus the liberator became a sell-out party to their own.

Fast forward to modern day politics, it is clear for us all to see now that under the current President who is the chief accomplice, apartheid has been brought back and its generals along with their funders, in charge through the back door without a democratic vote.

We have seen a sharp surge in apartheid era tactics of poisoning, the usage of treason laws with the accompanying Group Areas Act type of discrimination against in suburban areas. We recently saw a period when, just like it was the case with the pass laws, Black people/ residents suddenly had to produce proof of residence in order to be allowed to go to their homes or places of work. 

The judiciary too, just like it was captured under apartheid, is paralyzed and fully captured. This is such a compromised institution now that it is no longer worth having faith in, and judicial overreach is the order of the day. It always intrigues me how those who are incompetent, who sold out and are not the best amongst the crop within the ANC cadres get promoted to senior ranks.

Cry my beloved country and our glorious movement called the ANC which is being destroyed right before our eyes, thus finally putting a death knell to whatever credibility it still had in the eyes of the Black electorate, as their liberator, from which they hoped that it would realise the dream of a better life for all as promised in its manifesto in 1994.

We are now seeing freedom of speech being tolerated selectively and only those brown envelope journalists or paid Twitter commentators can speak freely whilst those who speak truth to power get muzzled, embargoed and intimidated with disciplinary action.

If these are not the typical apartheid era tactics of which the repressive government of pre 1994 used and tried albeit unsuccessfully to strike fear into the hearts of the Black majority and a time when they sidelined the majority in every sphere of economic life, then I don’t know what is. 

But what I do know is that under the chief accomplice, the gains that had been made to advance the cause of Black people are being reversed. What with the B-BBEE laws being dealt a blow and soon, the radar will be put on AA which will be the next target to be challenged and rendered unconstitutional. Of course our constitution, as a country is the most useless piece of legislation that just like the pass books needs to be torn and burnt.

This is one document which only protects every other of our country’s citizens’ rights except for the rights of Black people who are in majority and neither their land. When the people ask for a revision of the Constitution especially the removal of Section 25 thereof which requires a just and equitable compensation to be paid in the event of expropriation, this is done in an effort to restore parity and ensure that land gets returned to those who were dispossessed.

You would think that, the leader in question (i.e. the chief accomplice) and others would rally behind such a call but No, they choose to use emotional blackmail and tell people about the so called investor jitters, capital flight and/or how that will discourage FDIs if we expropriate without compensation. 

I once wrote an article in the year 2010 wherein I argued that, “whilst I support Julius Malema on expropriation of land but that I didn’t agree with his methodology of doing it without compensation”. I said furthermore that, “it must still be compensated” and I however argued further, “that the state would have to ditch the willing seller-willing buyer method and not use the market values either because those had proved to be impediments towards that cause of expropriation”.

I thereafter did an exercise of researching whereby I perused the Deeds Offices and I was disgusted by the grand theft of farms, club houses, prime properties and estates which were transferred into the hands of the former political oppressors who are still very much our current economic oppressors.

These transfers were done predominantly between 1985 and 1999 but especially during the Transitional Local Council because the proper municipal elections were delayed until the year 2000. The common thread is that it was more or less the same period when our National Treasury was looted of billions. I consequently no longer hold the view nor do I believe that there must be any compensation whatsoever. 

I instead now firmly believe that the land must be returned via expropriation without so much as cent changing hands to compensate those looters. The reason hereof is obviously because those who looted those properties also didn’t pay for the land either and therefore why should they benefit from those ill gotten gains at the expense of the general populace. 

The Black people are not blind nor are they oblivious to what is really happening in the country and the racist murders and massacre of innocent people in Phoenix has surely opened their eyes. The level of youth unemployment is sitting at an unprecedented and astronomical 63%, the level of food insecurity is above 50%, the people who live below the poverty line has correspondingly increased beyond 50% and the gini coefficient has worsened since he took office.

For these reasons, the tide will soon turn against the chief accomplice such that he will get outvoted in December 2022. If that happens as I prophecy that it will, he will not finish his term of office as the President of SA. It may look, on the face of it, like that he is firmly in charge of the NEC and that the judiciary is finding in his favour for now but all will start dissipating next year.

I have previously written two spot on articles about other two former Presidents in June 2005 (i.e. in an article that was published on the Business Day newspaper) and in 2014 (i.e. in an article which was published on Politicsweb and elsewhere) saying that both Mbeki and Zuma respectively would not finish their terms of office.

I believe that the current incumbent has caused enough damage to the image of the ANC as a liberator that no principled cadre nor logically thinking person who loves economic freedom, especially one who has not been bought through the CR17 funds would support his Presidency in the ANC beyond 2022.

Musa Xulu

Commentator, Analyst and Activist